some people adopt a “no pain no gain” attitude towards meditation that makes it about forcing themselves to do uncomfortable things. when you do that you enshrine a worldview in which force is king, where the parts of you that can best dominate the others decide what to do
Conversation
it does not have to be like that. with a sufficiently broad conception of meditation you can aim to apply almost no force in your practice. meditation is not homework and it is not like training a muscle. as mark says, “meditation is concrete problem-solving”
1
2
19
some people meditate out of self-hatred, because on some level it can become a socially acceptable form of suicide. it doesn’t have to be like that either. you can meditate your way towards becoming more alive than ever, not less
2
2
26
“The goal of the practice is to have a good life, in the most broad and ordinary sense, on your terms, in your words, in your frame, or in no frame.”
1
5
26
meditation is allowed to be fun and you are allowed to have fun meditating
2
2
32
yesss I think it’s utterly crucial
it’s like when you sit down on a cushion and rock back and forth a bit to find a comfortable posture
that but for finding an inner posture of fun, curiosity, forgiveness, etc, probably needs to be a primary establishing move
2
3
there’s always weird meta-motivational issues with “habits that you know are good for you”
key words for me are: centers, leisure, celebration, worship, forgiveness, patience, liturgy, desire, faith
note how this is a very different register compared to “good habits” talk
2
4
this post has a lot of how I think about it now
it’s almost like: look at drug addicts, they’re great at stabilizing habitual patterns, so we can learn from them!
1
5
a meditation practice is a liturgy; it’s not harmful like injecting heroin, but it’s a parallel kind of embellished centering motivational mandala
unfortunately it’s much less addictive, probably because it tends to feel frustrating instead of blissful
1
4
I think meditation often gets secularized into something utterly gray and alienating that simply cannot function as an integrated part of life because it doesn’t have enough salience and beauty to survive a bad day
2
6