Space4This

Science is about studying the illusion. Non-duality does not negate that.

Death is the end of thoughts.

Recognize the impulse, but then see how the person is fundamentally you.

Yes. I bet they would teach you how to meditate too.

Yes, I'm familiar with the conception of spirituality as pointing to the mystical dimension of life; of the direct knowing of the Absolute, of knowing yourself beyond any limited identity or concept, etc. But would it not be good if we could practice our mysticism in a real-life community that understands us, that is not on the fringes of society, and where we can seek guidance from not just one or a few eccentric people, but from a deep wisdom tradition that provides a comprehensive "ecology of practices" and that addresses various common traps in this kind of work? I would've appreciated that when I started meditating a few years ago. I didn't know how serious this stuff actually is.

There aren't many good reasons outside appealing to popular language to make strong distinctions between spirituality and religion. "Spirituality", or the modern Western conception of it, is a highly individualistic type of spirituality that doesn't have a strong rooting in tradition, community or collective wisdom. It takes the bare essentials of spirituality (the search for something higher) and leaves the seekers adrift without a firm orienting framework or social support network, having to assemble their own peculiar set of beliefs and practices while their friends and family have no idea what they're doing and are questioning their sanity. I think this modern Western spirituality needs to evolve to be more alike the organized religions so that the followers are not left out in the cold having to simultaneously re-invent the wheel and indeed risk their sanity. Because this clandestine spirituality isn't just lonely; it's outright dangerous, for the same reason that you don't give a knife to a child before you know they can handle it.

All of the above. All of the above. Some of the Abrahamic scholars started hiding God outside of experience, and so it became that way: worship of some invisible entity. Eastern scholars couldn't stop making more gods, so it became that way: worship of a million gods. Of course, the New Age scholars knew better and picked the right version of God from right underneath both of them, but they forgot the other good stuff, so it became that way: teenagers having spiritual emergencies left and right without knowing who to go to for help. Quite a world 🙂

That one is probably more on the level of thought and symbols, but it's not just one thought. It's a story, and it also has to be embedded in a context of linguistic communication, of sharing stories, or else you wouldn't be able to know that it's indeed a mis-understanding. A misunderstanding is a misrepresentation of somebody's story — an error in reproducing the sequence of thoughts that creates the story — and somebody has to tell you that it was a misunderstanding (or you would have to tell yourself, your meta-cognitive self), or else you wouldn't know that it was indeed a misunderstanding. You would think you had the real thing, because that was your actual understanding at that moment. Ideally, you shouldn't just be told that your current understanding is a misunderstanding, but you need to change your understanding in a way that maps on to an explanation (communicated from another person or from yourself) in order to understand what the misunderstanding really was 😂 The pre-symbolic experiential equivalent of misunderstanding would be a misperception or an illusion, i.e. misrepresenting some perception (like seeing an object on the ground from a distance and not seeing what it was before coming close to it). Of course, as a meta-cognitive human, you would represent that experience to yourself by talking to yourself (telling yourself a story): "ah, it was a broken bag of potato chips. I didn't understand what it was before I walked closer to it", and hence you would invoke the concept of understanding in that process, but of course, the shiny amorphous piece of aluminium on the ground didn't change its shape just because you told yourself a story about it. It changed because of a subtler level of mental processing kicking in (top-down processes of object perception).

The questionnaires were chosen based on their popularity in the scientific community and their relative simplicity to similar measures. You can read about them here if you'd like: The Mindful Attention Awarenesss Scale (MAAS): https://positivepsychology.com/mindful-attention-awareness-scale-maas/ Godin's Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire (LTEQ): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25799030/ Behavioral Regulation in exercise Questionnaire-2 (BREQ-2): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235913863_A_Modification_to_the_Behavioural_Regulation_in_Exercise_Questionnaire_to_Include_an_Assessment_of_Amotivation This survey focused on the intrinsic regulation sub-scale in the BREQ-2, and it includes two other questions for aesthetic reasons, as having the four questions alone would've looked even more awkward than it looks now. I choose to do it this way because I'm going to use the results to compare with Ruffault et al. (2016) who looked at that particular part of the BREQ-2, and I don't need the other data from the other sub-scales, and it would've made the survey much longer. In hindsight, that wouldn'tve been a problem, as I'm already up to nearly 300 participants in just 2 days 🙂

Does a rock have understanding? Probably not. Understanding seems to have something to do with life (at least as far as we can reasonably conclude based on our sensory experiences and rationality in our current sober state). Does a cat have understanding? It certainly knows how to catch mice, and it probably experiences how it's like to catch mice. Does it therefore understand how to catch mice? Is understanding just the experience of having a limited first-person perspective on the world, or is it a conceptual understanding of thoughts and symbols? Maybe it can be both.

Hello 🙂 So I was coming up on a bachelor thesis in psychology, and I figured this was a viable option for a thesis: what is the relationship between mindfulness and physical activity? I looked up the relevant scientific research and was surprised to find a substantial amount of studies on the topic, but the research is still very new, a little more than a decade old. More research is needed, and my thesis will be an original (but small) contribution to that. I've now come to the point of having to collect data, and this community, among others, is a very good candidate for this type of study (everybody here is, if not directly interested in mindfulness, at least acquainted with the concept, and even if that is not true, you do share similar beliefs, values and interests). That is why I'm very thankful for the opportunity to share this with you guys, and I hope that you also appreciate the opportunity of contributing to my little contribution to scientific research on a topic that we all value very much and has changed our lives for the better. The survey is short and simple and only takes about 5 minutes to complete. It's completely anonymous and completely voluntary (nothing bad will happen to you if you choose to not participate), but again, I would highly appreciate your contribution. I would also appreciate if you could share the survey with other people you know who are also interested in mindfulness and self-improvement. The more the better 🙂 Here is the link to the survey: https://nettskjema.no/a/311732 Thank you for participating! 🙂

If that is because you have exhausted every option possible (relationships, experiences, status, etc.), then you could try to go for enlightenment. However, if it's instead that you haven't succeeded in these things, it might not be what you need. Enlightenment doesn't "fix" your desire for safety, belonging, esteem, etc. It's the stepping outside of all of that, and if that is not what you need, it might be just as unpleasant, if not more, than the alternative.

@Blessed2 Do you feel like life is going your way?

If for some reason you were to die today, what would you think about that?

You're being harsh on yourself.