I find this an excellent book by the late ex-neuroscientist and meditation adept, that illustrates how the mind works and distils the core of Buddhist meditation into easy to follow steps - the medtiation practice, as always, is the challenge to progress.
I have some The Mind Illuminated guided meditation audio files created by a meditation teacher if anyone is interested.
Has anyone used the book?
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I have that book. I have read until stage 3 or so. I am honestly not very keen on it…
I was expecting something else. Somewhere in the book (front or back, i can’t remember), it says that it is a “science based” or makes reference to “brain science” or something. As far as I have seen, there is no science in that book. If there is, it is very little and very old. The book will certainly not appeal to those coming from a scientific background. Not for its science at least.
Having said that, it is a good meditation guide and it should be refered as such. A guide. No need to pull the “science” theme.
I would love to have access to your audio files… Can you share?
I have read the whole book and have meditated accordingly for a year or so. I agree that it’s not that science based. But I still found it super cool that it is a very analytical or ‘scientific’ approach in that it is very algorithmic and clear what you do when. There are some parts that are a bit unclear, but all in all I really enjoyed the “if you are there, do that” kind of approach.
Do you have any other book recommendations that are more science based?
No, I do not, and honestly, I don’t think there is such a book just yet…
I remember looking at some of the studies a few years ago and I was left very unhappy with the state of the field. Low quality studies overall. That is not to say that meditation is not useful… We should not wait for science to validate our feelings. Meditation brings happiness and clarity and tranquility to many people. That is enough to me. Just don’t write a book and claim it’s science based when it is not.
Well put. i guess you’re right. I know that Shinzen Young is trying to do some of that kind of research. But in general the only thing I’ve heard of are studies in the direction of mindfulness. And afaik there’s a bunch of studies showing positive benefits to that. And in a way most meditation techniques, while not focusing on mindfulness, do require it to work. At least in one way or another. But you’re right. For me at least I know it is a good thing and that’s enough for me.
B. Alan Wallace has some interesting talks that incorporate more modern neuroscience, if I remember ill link one of his talks that I liked a lot.
Ah, that’s interesting! I’m in the medical field and thought it gave a theory of mind that rang true and was well explained, though I guess that you’re right, it doesn’t quote research papers/MRI studies etc Though if you listen to Sam Harris (another neuroscientist) explaining meditation, his explanations are similar, and a “purely science based” person would be perplexed by many of his statesments, which are very much in line with Zen and Buddhist thought. IMHO Science is not advanced enough to elucidate this, let alone consciousness.
Here are the guided meditations:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/sfupl3273fsjp59jvko0z/h?dl=0&rlkey=af8ixnxpqfkuko1nmjdg7tpdk
I have the book and have read most of it. It’s the best meditation guide I’ve ever read.
That said the end of Culadassas life and the struggles he went through jaded me a bit. IT showed me that someone can be the “best” At mediation and still kinda a crappy person. Stated another way - mediation doesn’t make you a good person and even someone who’s “enlightened” can do really bad stuff and hurt others.
Yes it seems a lot of spiritual teachers go off the path a bit later on.
Idk why you’re being down voted, Culadasa seems to be a prime example of someone going off the path and harming others…
It’s annoying that you can make a comment, get downvoted but the downvoters are too cowardly to discuss their reasoning.
I’m happy to change my mind if my reasoning is incorrect and someone elucidates me.
Same.
When I look at the total scores for your comments and posts in general, it’s very overwhelmingly negative but the content of your posts and comments don’t seem toxic or controversial enough to warrant the negative attention they’re getting.
I’m guessing that you could be the target of harassment, possibly by just one person who is using multiple accounts to downvote you.
You could ask an admin could look into it (maybe the person downvoting you is doing it from something easily traceable, like from a single IP address or private lemmy instance). Or you could create a different account and start again.
Anyhow, don’t take the downvotes personally. I really doubt it’s because lots of people dislike your posts and comments.
I commented on post weeks ago regarding a user who was creating many Lemmy spam communities. Perhaps this user did this.
Shame that Lemmy can’t protect against this sort of behaviour (yet)
Found the accounts and banned them. I also contacted the instance admin from where most accounts originated and the instance admin of the main account.
Thanks a lot.
