# Can someone give me a "meditation-for-dummies" explanation of what meditation is? (I am trying it) **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [December 12, 2022, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388 "2022-12-12T12:03:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2022, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388/21 "2022-12-12T20:42:04Z")
I practice Tai Chi, which is a martial art but includes meditation. It’s nice because you can’t really do tai chi properly unless you’re thinking about what you’re doing. You have to move your hands, feet and torso properly while also being connected to your breathing, balance and being connected to the ground. You really can’t think about what you’re going to eat for dinner if you’re putting all of that stuff together. I’ve finally gotten to the point where if I’m doing it in a room full of people I don’t even notice the other people. For me, Tai Chi is a nice form of meditation because it gives me specific things to think about - like the other exercises mentioned here where you think about your toes or your breath. But also I get a good workout. > **[The Moving Meditation: A Tai Chi Journey Begins with One Step – UCI](https://ssihi.uci.edu/tip/the-moving-meditation-a-tai-chi-journey-begins-with-one-step/)** ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2022, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388/22 "2022-12-12T20:51:17Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > YES YES YES! > > You’re the only other person I know of who has come up with this. It’s definitely, “I am, therefore I think” not the other way around. If i may add to this, Eckhard Tolle says the same thing in his book “You are not your mind”. Edward DeBono (the master of creative thinking) talks the same about Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle As a person from the east, I’d like to say it differently. What Descartes says is a valid path for many - per Indian Philosophy, however, its not the only valid path. There are many Easterners who happily follow the path of Descartes, many don’t. The very concept of the existence of “One Valid Path” is misleading per Eastern Philosophy. It dismisses Objective Reality. To illustrate the above, there is Vyadha Gita, which is teachings given by a Butcher to a monk. The Butcher’s devotion to doing his job well, is as good and valid path to self realization like meditation. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2022, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388/23 "2022-12-12T21:20:31Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > My (admittedly very limited) understanding is that there are different varieties or styles or traditions of meditation; Oh, very much. The “mind without mind” schools are definitely _a_ set of traditions. ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2022, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388/24 "2022-12-12T21:38:04Z")
> [@scudsucker](#): > > Basically the point of meditation is to clear the mind and not think. I call that “sleeping”. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388/25 "2022-12-13T02:08:31Z")
Karen Armstrong’s biography of the Buddha contains, not a step-by-step guide explaining in detail how you would get started practicing it, but a for-dummies sketch of the type of meditation studied by Gautama early on. An excerpt: > [@](#): > > Once he had entered his trance (_jhana_), the yogin progressed through a series of increasingly deep mental states, which bear little relation to ordinary experience. In the first stage of _jhana_, he would become entirely oblivious to the immediate environment, and feel a sensation of great joy and delight, which, a yogin could only assume, was the beginning of his final liberation. He still had occasional ideas, and isolated thoughts would flicker across his mind, but he found that for the duration of this trance he was beyond the reach of desire, pleasure or pain, and could gaze in rapt concentration on the object, symbol or doctrine that he was contemplating. In the second and third _jhanas_, the yogin had become so absorbed in these truths that he had entirely stopped thinking and was no longer even conscious of the pure happiness he had enjoyed a short while before. In the fourth and final _jhana_, he had become so fused with the symbols of his dhamma that he felt he had become one with them, and was conscious of nothing else. There was nothing supernatural about these states. The yogin knew that he had created them for himself, but, not surprisingly, he did imagine that he was indeed leaving the world behind and drawing near to his goal. If he was really skilled, he could go beyond the _jhanas_, and enter a series of four _ayatanas_ (meditative states) that were so intense that the early yogins felt that they had entered the realms inhabited by the gods. The yogin experienced progressively four mental states that seemed to introduce him to new modes of being: a sense of infinity; a pure consciousness that is aware only of itself; and a perception of absence, which is, paradoxically, a plenitude. Only very gifted yogins reached this third _ayatana_, which was called “Nothingness” because it bore no relation to any form of existence in profane experience. It was not another being. There were no words or concepts adequate to describe it. It was, therefore, more accurate to call it “Nothing” than “Something.” Some have described it as similar to walking into a room and finding nothing there: there was a sense of emptiness, space and freedom… ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388/26 "2022-12-13T03:51:34Z")
I’ve never really seriously tried it. The closest I can get is the emptiness of mind on a long hard hike, or dancing on drugs (MDMA and its variations) to music I love. Both of which clear the mind, the hiking, I guess focusing on which step to take. The dancing, completely in the moment, eyes closed, no thought. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388/27 "2022-12-13T06:29:11Z")
> [@scudsucker](#): > > the hiking, I guess focusing on which step to take. See, I’d still call that thinking. In fact, there’s a specific kind of Buddhist meditation, [kinhin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walking_meditation), centered on just that kind of practice. > [@scudsucker](#): > > The dancing, completely in the moment, eyes closed, no thought. That’s more like the _[mushin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushin_(mental_state))_ (“no mind”) praxis. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388/28 "2022-12-13T16:44:24Z")
That’s interesting… one description of how to enter dhyana (I’m no yogi but I have done that, at least) is to “sit down cross-legged and establish mindfulness”. What is the relationship between “no mind” and mindfulness/sati/smrti? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388/29 "2022-12-13T17:18:11Z")
I can’t really say, “no mind” is not part of my own training and practice, so all I know about it is what I’ve read. It does seem to come up a lot more in martial arts contexts, and I have a sneaking suspicion a lot of it is just another way of saying “muscle memory” ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2022, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388/30 "2022-12-13T18:17:05Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > ….one description of how to enter **dhyana** (I’m no yogi but I have done that, at least) is to “sit down… (Bolding mine) Dhyana is derived from Sanskrit dhyanam meaning mindfulness. The root of the word is Indo-European dhya (to see) which becomes Sama in Greek and gives us the word Semantic. Dhyana became Chan in Chinese Mandarin Buddhism and Chan in turn became Zen in Japanese. Sati/Smriti are Sanskrit words (and have Indo-European roots) but have specific meaning in Buddhism that I am only peripherally familiar. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2022, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388/31 "2022-12-24T08:38:57Z")
> [@Cardigan](#): > > Meditation is the development or cultivation of intentional self-awareness. This awareness may either be directed to parts of one’s body (e.g. breathing), or the awareness may be directed to controlling one’s thoughts; either by suppressing thoughts ie. ‘clearing one’s mind’, or consciously directing one’s thoughts to a very specific thought pattern. This is my favorite explanation. Although I would also add “or observing your thoughts without judgment.” There are so many ways to meditate, you can’t really do it wrong. I also have ADHD and I think it’s people like us who might benefit the most from carving out some quiet time for self-awareness. Of course your mind will wander. When you notice it wandering, that’s progress. The way I do it is I just sit down on a cushion and focus on my body. Breathing is a great place to start because no matter where you are, you always have your breath. I might pay attention to what I see, for example a flickering candle, or I might close my eyes. If I have pain, I might even focus on that, to see if I can learn more about it. Then when I catch my mind wandering, which it will do, I label the thoughts very broadly (worry, political rage, planning, to name the most frequent patterns) and go back to focusing on the present. One thing I’ve started to do with intense emotions is not try to label them at all but just feel them in my body. I truly never thought of meditation as an exercise in self-insight (however loosely you may define the self) until I read the book _Why Buddhism is True_ by Robert Wright. It’s a look at Buddhist philosophy through the lens of evolutionary psychology and I learned a lot from it. It got me meditating again and has even informed my meditation practice. I’ll say, “Oh, that’s the brain’s status module trying to protect me” or whatever. Seriously, it’s a super cool book that doesn’t exactly walk you through how to meditate but explains the whole point of meditation rather well. But you don’t have to read any books to do it. Just sit down and pay attention to what’s happening. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2022, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388/32 "2022-12-24T08:49:15Z")
> [@scudsucker](#): > > Both of which clear the mind, the hiking, I guess focusing on which step to take. The dancing, completely in the moment, eyes closed, no thought. This sounds like flow state which is common for people who are really good at/experienced with something. I get it with writing sometimes for hours on end. I’m not sure if it is the same thing neurologically speaking, but it does appear that both serious mediators and experienced mountain climbers are both adept at shutting off their default mode network - the wandering mind most people experience when bored. Is this good? I’m convinced the best creative ideas come from boredom. But flow is peak creativity for me. I’d love to know if there is any research comparing meditation states to flow. ---
**Author:** ![scudsucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scudsucker/32/14101_2.png) [@scudsucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scudsucker)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2022, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388/33 "2022-12-24T09:24:16Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > This sounds like flow state To be fair, I was using MDMA when dancing, which kind of simplifies the effort of clearing the mind. Have not done it in years, though. Hard hikes are a different thing. When your “hike” is what we call in South Africa “kloofing” - essentially hiking down a river with a big pack with food for 5 days, not so much walking as jumping from rock to rock and occasional big cliff jumps (10m or more) and lots of swimming, it often requires consiously stopping to admire the beauty all around you. Even remembering to drink, even though you are in a river! That is flow, I suppose. Kind of the opposite of the MDMA thing, which is empty mindedness. Kloofing is full concentration on a single thing. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2022, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388/34 "2022-12-24T16:50:38Z")
> [@scudsucker](#): > > Hard hikes are a different thing. When your “hike” is what we call in South Africa “kloofing” - essentially hiking down a river with a big pack with food for 5 days, not so much walking as jumping from rock to rock and occasional big cliff jumps (10m or more) and lots of swimming, it often requires consiously stopping to admire the beauty all around you. Even remembering to drink, even though you are in a river! That sounds amazing, honestly. I do feel a meditation like state when running as well. I suspect it’s common when you’re doing something with your whole body. ---
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2022, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388/35 "2022-12-25T04:00:22Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > Although I would also add “or observing your thoughts without judgment.” I would agree with this as well. Judgment, after all, is simply another form of thinking. I’m not altogether happy with my choice of the words “_suppress_ thinking” as it implies something more active than I intend. Thoughts happen; successful meditation is learning how to allow them to pass and get on with the business of being aware and in the moment. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-give-me-a-meditation-for-dummies-explanation-of-what-meditation-is-i-am-trying-it/976388.md?page=1)