Anyone do any meditation?

[doughishere]

I do Crossfit regularly but never any yoga or meditation. Does anyone here do either?

 

Reason I ask is this came in my inbox last week:

 

Billionaire Ray Dalio, the founder of $160 billion hedge-fund behemoth Bridgewater Associates, says that Transcendental Meditation has been “the single biggest influence” on his life.

 

Dalio,  66, is considered the most successful hedge fund manager of all time. He’s been practicing Transcendental Meditation for more than 40 years.

 

“When I look back at my life, I am happy to have had what most people would consider a successful life, not only in terms of business, but in my relationships and in lots of ways.  More than anything else, I attribute it to meditation—partially because of the creativity, partly because of the centeredness.  TM has given me an ability to put things in perspective, which has helped a lot.  I think meditation has been the single biggest influence on my life.”

 

Dalio is featured in a new book called “Super Mind: How to Boost Performance and Live a Richer and Happier Life.”

 

Written by noted clinical psychiatrist and best-selling author Dr. Norman E. Rosenthal, M.D., “Super Mind” explores how the practice of Transcendental Meditation has helped business leaders achieve a super mind state of consciousness.

[Jurgis]

Let me meditate on your question...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here you go:

 

http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/off-topic-meditation/

[JBird]

I practice mindfulness meditation regularly.

 

There are four things I've gotten out of it:

 

1) Mindfulness meditation by its nature is an exercise in concentration. The practice frequently gives rise to states of mind that are intrinsically pleasurable to me. I have no causal explanation as to why this is.

 

2) I am significantly more cognizant of thoughts and emotions as they arise, and no longer mistake my identity for a thought or emotion that I'm experiencing. To give a brief example, I had a client on the phone last year yelling at me for something out of my control. As he yelled I looked down and held my palm against my chest. As I felt my heart pounding I became aware of the agitated emotional response I was feeling and the urge to yell back. I thought to myself, I don't need to feel this. The emotion was gone in just a few moments. That was a formative experience for me.

 

3) I found that happiness comes not from having everything, but from wanting nothing.

 

4) An insight into the nature of consciousness itself. I'll explain more if you ask.

 

I have not practiced TM. I know little about about it, but given the extremely high costs associated with it, remain very skeptical. To illustrate the contrast, the TM course on tm.org is about $1,000. I did a 2-day mindfulness meditation (vipassana) retreat in Flagstaff a few months ago. The cost was $0.

 

Here are three links that influenced my interest in meditation:

 

Happiness experiment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C3JcAYXF8E

 

Effects of meditation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2tEQPNG198&feature=youtu.be&t=2m26s

 

Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, and author:

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/how-to-meditate

 

 

[Cevian]

I also practice mindfulness meditation and would recommend the following wonderful books as starting points:

 

Mindfulness in Plain English: 20th Anniversary Edition - Henepola Gunaratana

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind - Shunryu Suzuki

 

A quote from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few"

[Guest cherzeca]

i do TM and mindfulness at same time, that is i tweak TM, which is very rigid.  TM will cost you >$1000 to learn from a TM center. instead at first watch mindfulness video by kabat-zinn (search youtube mindfulness jon kabat zinn) and/or read his books, then maybe take TM course if you want the full monty

 

 

[netnet]

Let me meditate on your question...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here you go:

 

http://www.cornerofberkshireandfairfax.ca/forum/general-discussion/off-topic-meditation/

 

I practice mindfulness meditation regularly.

 

There are four things I've gotten out of it:

 

1) Mindfulness meditation by its nature is an exercise in concentration. The practice frequently gives rise to states of mind that are intrinsically pleasurable to me. I have no causal explanation as to why this is.

 

2) I am significantly more cognizant of thoughts and emotions as they arise, and no longer mistake my identity for a thought or emotion that I'm experiencing. To give a brief example, I had a client on the phone last year yelling at me for something out of my control. As he yelled I looked down and held my palm against my chest. As I felt my heart pounding I became aware of the agitated emotional response I was feeling and the urge to yell back. I thought to myself, I don't need to feel this. The emotion was gone in just a few moments. That was a formative experience for me.

 

3) I found that happiness comes not from having everything, but from what wanting nothing.

 

4) An insight into the nature of consciousness itself. I'll explain more if you ask.

 

I have not practiced TM. I know little about about it, but given the extremely high costs associated with it, remain very skeptical. To illustrate the contrast, the TM course on tm.org is about $1,000. I did a 2-day mindfulness meditation (vipassana) retreat in Flagstaff a few months ago. The cost was $0.

 

Here are three links that influenced my interest in meditation:

 

Happiness experiment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C3JcAYXF8E

 

Effects of meditation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2tEQPNG198&feature=youtu.be&t=2m26s

 

Sam Harris is a neuroscientist, philosopher, and author:

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/how-to-meditate

 

 

 

This is why I love this forum! Funny, helpful, and useful on many topics.

 

Also check out UCLA Medical School's meditation resource center. http://marc.ucla.edu/

 

If you need the help the Headspace app is 1/10 the cost of TM, about 100 per year.  It is good for "newbies".

 

The branding and rigidity of TM are really unnecessary, IF you don't need it.  If you do, then pay up.  Some meditation is worth 10x your $1,000 dollars than no meditation.  There is also some secondary evidence that it may lengthen your life--meditation seems to affect telomeres' length, which are longevity markers.

[Palantir]

I only do it behind closed doors.

[cogitator8]

 

I mediate regularly, mostly during my Iyengar Yoga class. As Jbird pointed above, I encountered the same benefits. I am a physician by profession and we are human, so we also get emotional. Meditation has helped me stay calm, focused and look more clearly. I am becoming a better person as a result.

 

As far as investing goes, I just run a thought experiment about any company I want to invest. During these thought experiment I ask some of the critical questions like competitive advantages, strategy and ask myself this question.. Do I clearly understand how this company makes money. So I develop these mental models and then write down my basic thinking in few paragraphs. Once I am done with it then I use an app called as Grafio to let that information flow.

 

I don't try to get lost in accounting numbers but try to understand and find great businesses, as all of you know there are not many. I find quarterly numbers meaningless and misguiding. I don't invest in companies where management is focused on quarterly numbers, I want to understand their strategy for maintenaning their competitive advantage.

 

I am still learning....

[rukawa]

I used to meditate regularly and i am trying to get back into it. You can learn meditation in about 5 minutes...you don't need classes or even books and most instructions are way too long and prescriptive. Its extremely simple.

 

The main advantage was that you get a kind of mental flexibility. You gain the ability to notice yourself entering into a certain mental pattern and then you can choose to break out of that pattern. At some point it becomes almost effortless.

 

As far as mood goes...meditation helps. But physical exercise is hugely more powerful.

[Guest cherzeca]

i have never found meditation to give me more than a time out, much appreciated, but not a lot of carryover to normal activity. you do learn to appreciate calm, and so maybe there is that carryover.