If you’re going to double-down on the idea of “deep” meditation, would it be unreasonable to ask for some disambiguation? What are the key differences between “deep meditation vs. plain old meditation” in your “model”? Or are there more than two types? Are there 20 types? 200 types?
Well, in my experience, many people (myself included) who get into meditation eventually find it worthwhile to spend significant amounts of time on the practice, on the order of hours a day as well as doing multi-day retreats. There are also teachers who recommend this, as well as research on meditation which suggests that people who have practiced significantly larger amounts get significantly larger effects. My own experience is that 10 minutes per day certainly does something, but much much less than say an hour per day over an extended period, and that an hour per day does less than a multi-day retreat.
I didn’t have any particularly detailed or rigorous distinction between “deep” and “ordinary” meditation in mind, just that what you get out of it depends on what you put in, and for most people deeper insights seem to require significant investments. I agree that this is a continuum rather than a binary distinction, and didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
I certainly agree that there’s a lot to be said for just forgetting about the result-oriented mindset when doing practice, and some of my later posts will be talking about the reasons why that is.
But… well, I didn’t really intend to get into a discussion about measuring outcomes in the first place? The whole section that you reacted to was just there to briefly note that I wanted to set the whole topic to the side and not get into it. You make it sound like I was taking some strong position on what kind of practice is worthwhile, when you are responding to what was one sentence in a 3500-word post, in the context of a paragraph saying that this is a separate topic that I’m not going to get into. As well as my comment which was similarly brief, but acknowledged that it was misleading for me to suggest that a small amount of meditation would be useless.
Now if you want to discuss this in more detail, then I’m certainly willing to do that… but before I go into depth on covering my model, may I respectfully and in good faith suggest that you might to some extent be reacting to what you are projecting on my text, as opposed to what I actually said? :)
(I’ll respond to some of your other points in a separate comment.)
Well, in my experience, many people (myself included) who get into meditation eventually find it worthwhile to spend significant amounts of time on the practice, on the order of hours a day as well as doing multi-day retreats. There are also teachers who recommend this, as well as research on meditation which suggests that people who have practiced significantly larger amounts get significantly larger effects. My own experience is that 10 minutes per day certainly does something, but much much less than say an hour per day over an extended period, and that an hour per day does less than a multi-day retreat.
I didn’t have any particularly detailed or rigorous distinction between “deep” and “ordinary” meditation in mind, just that what you get out of it depends on what you put in, and for most people deeper insights seem to require significant investments. I agree that this is a continuum rather than a binary distinction, and didn’t mean to imply otherwise.
I certainly agree that there’s a lot to be said for just forgetting about the result-oriented mindset when doing practice, and some of my later posts will be talking about the reasons why that is.
But… well, I didn’t really intend to get into a discussion about measuring outcomes in the first place? The whole section that you reacted to was just there to briefly note that I wanted to set the whole topic to the side and not get into it. You make it sound like I was taking some strong position on what kind of practice is worthwhile, when you are responding to what was one sentence in a 3500-word post, in the context of a paragraph saying that this is a separate topic that I’m not going to get into. As well as my comment which was similarly brief, but acknowledged that it was misleading for me to suggest that a small amount of meditation would be useless.
Now if you want to discuss this in more detail, then I’m certainly willing to do that… but before I go into depth on covering my model, may I respectfully and in good faith suggest that you might to some extent be reacting to what you are projecting on my text, as opposed to what I actually said? :)
(I’ll respond to some of your other points in a separate comment.)