I think that this nonspecific discomfort could be fractal: You believe that it’s not always there, but there’s a version of it that’s always in the background, and you have learned to tune it out in everyday life (like e.g. a tinnitus that you tune out 99% of the time, but which you hear when lying in bed at night). Once you start investigating deeper and deeper, it becomes apparent in a wider range of states of mind.
I would also wager that especially strong nonspecific discomforts are the ones first identified once people start a little bit of meditation (those then are often resolved or at least made specific/their cause is identified) and the whole process is started on a more subtle & refined level.
I’m probably biased towards seeing meditation as a panacea, but if I was restricted to naming the three largest advantages of moderate practice, it would probably be “identifying nonspecific discomforts and showing their causal structure/source”.
I don’t know, meditation is very inward and mental, the opposite of the stuff I’d recommend. And people who meditate a lot tend to change their affect in a way that’s kinda off-putting to me; while people who live “outward” in the way I describe tend to have pretty attractive (to me) manner.
I think that this nonspecific discomfort could be fractal: You believe that it’s not always there, but there’s a version of it that’s always in the background, and you have learned to tune it out in everyday life (like e.g. a tinnitus that you tune out 99% of the time, but which you hear when lying in bed at night). Once you start investigating deeper and deeper, it becomes apparent in a wider range of states of mind.
I would also wager that especially strong nonspecific discomforts are the ones first identified once people start a little bit of meditation (those then are often resolved or at least made specific/their cause is identified) and the whole process is started on a more subtle & refined level.
I’m probably biased towards seeing meditation as a panacea, but if I was restricted to naming the three largest advantages of moderate practice, it would probably be “identifying nonspecific discomforts and showing their causal structure/source”.
I don’t know, meditation is very inward and mental, the opposite of the stuff I’d recommend. And people who meditate a lot tend to change their affect in a way that’s kinda off-putting to me; while people who live “outward” in the way I describe tend to have pretty attractive (to me) manner.