If you don't have access to meditation center book "Mindfulness in plain english" seems like not newagey introduction to the subject.
It describes Vipassana. It's almost like Zazen, but slightly different. In my understanding Zazen is Mahayana buddhism version of Vipassana, which comes from Theravada buddhism, but I am just a begginer so I can be horribly wrong.<p>I started meditating recently after reading MIPE. I'll try to find a teacher as soon as I can.
What got hooked me up was some research that it improves cognitive performance: <a href="http://www.gwern.net/docs/dnb/2010-zeidan.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.gwern.net/docs/dnb/2010-zeidan.pdf</a> .
There's some evidence that long term meditation changes structure of the brain and improves mood and attention outside of meditation practice: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_activity_and_meditation#Changes_in_brain_due_to_prolonged_practice_of_meditation" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_activity_and_meditation#C...</a> .
This post seems like good encouragement as well: <a href="http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/38947/is-practicing-meditation-a-good-or-bad-thing-for-programmers" rel="nofollow">http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/38947/is-prac...</a> .<p>One thing which I notice the most is increased ability to deal with distractions and staying focused on boring subjects . It is essentially what one practices during meditation. Dealing with distractions is very important skill for programmer: <a href="http://blog.ninlabs.com/2013/01/programmer-interrupted/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.ninlabs.com/2013/01/programmer-interrupted/</a> . What's more it's kind of skill, that is hard to develop without active practice. I can't think of better way of developing it than meditation.
Good stuff. Sitting still for 60-90 minutes has the purpose of eliminating the distractions from paying attention to your body. This practice also has the benefit of hopefully allowing the ego to settle some, and perhaps even allowing the baseline level that the ego is engaged to be less - or start towards that path anyhow. As you said, stress still maintains the same - it actually will feel potentially even more vivid, though that is likely counter-acted with the ability to process things easier. Learning other things, and doing deeper guided meditations and breath work, like yoga nidra - is a good way to lessen that. Physical movement, asanas - or yoga as a whole, meditation being a part of yoga - is a good way to help physically-caused stress and baseline stress reduce; There's a biofeedback mechanism: tight muscles tells your mind you're stressed, you being stressed tells your muscles to be tight. "Nice" little loop there.
For those interested in the science/medical side of things:<p>* "Zen and the Brain" (written by a meditation practising neurologist)<p>* "The Buddha Brain" (about the neurological/physiological background of a couple of buddhist principles)
In keeping with others who are mentioning / linking to books about non-new-age meditation, try the book by the Psychologists in the mindfulness movement:<p><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindfulness-practical-guide-finding-frantic/dp/074995308X" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindfulness-practical-guide-finding-...</a> (Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world, Prof Mark Williams and Dr Danny Penman)<p>It's a great book that leads you through the first 8 weeks of meditating, and contains meditation aid audio clips for various scenarios. The most useful I've found is the 3 minute "breathing space" meditation, particularly for that noisy bus - you need good noise excluding ear buds though.<p>If you don't like the speaking audio, and/or you've practiced enough not to need the prompts, you should check out Simply Noise:<p><a href="http://simplynoise.com/" rel="nofollow">http://simplynoise.com/</a> << they also have apps for phones.<p>I've found it equally helpful for rendering words unintelligible, which makes mindful awareness much easier.
It certainly seems like you got a lot out of meditation. My own practice is similar (20 mins most days for a few years and 130 days consecutively now), but I think in a different Zen tradition.<p>I've found in practice that I have most success when I treated emotional highs and lows as irrelevant. The books I've read all suggest that the point is to focus on ordinary life, not search for ever deeper trance states, and my experience has been that trance states are transient while ordinary life goes on always. Taking my meditation in that direction has tended to make it gentler, lower-impact, but longer-lasting. At least it feels that way.<p>If you ever meditate differently, it would be interesting to see you contrast any new effects with the ones you've already experienced.<p>I found your essay fascinating, by the way, particularly your precision in analysis. It's what I might call first-person science :)
Thank you for putting this together and sharing it. I've been flirting with the idea of meditating more seriously for the last few years, and I always find myself making excuses not to continue with it. A 50 or 100 day challenge seems like a manageable experiment, and a better way of deciding if it's worthwhile to continue.<p>I have a question. Could you explain "The Deep" in a little bit more detail? What happens to your body and your mind? What is going through your head?
when i see the words 'challenge' and 'meditation' being used in the same sentence, an alarm goes of in my head.
i'm too tired to go into details right now, but if you're interested in where i'm coming from, or in meditation in general, i highly recommend giving this book a read:<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Meditation-Without-Gurus-Clark-Strand/dp/1893361934" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Meditation-Without-Gurus-Clark-Strand/...</a><p>the first review sums things up nicely:<p><i>Clark Strand cuts right to the heart of meditation, without dogma, gurus, religion, beliefs, or any of the other gunk that gets in the way of sincere and honest practice. In a beautiful style reminiscent of Thich Nhat Hanh, Strand has created the ideal meditation companion and guide. While Strand is probably among the few teachers who would never invite a following, he most certainly deserves one. If you read no other book on meditation, read this one. If you have other books on meditation, put them on the back shelf and read this one. If you have never meditated before and want a book to teach you how, read this one. This is the only meditation guide you will ever need. It is superb!</i>
I was in SE-Asia and went to a few temples to meditate. One time I reached that deep state very quickly. I suppose it had to do with the sound of falling water nearby.. If you ever go to a Buddhist country I suggest you visit a course. It's quite cool. There was one teacher that has shown us how to meditate while walking. It was surprisingly good and I didn't walk into any walls or pillars while doing it.. ;)
Also, for anyone who's interested, we'll be doing a second "100-day challenge" over in /r/meditation beginning January 1:
<a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/Meditation/comments/1swxn2/the_second_annual_rmeditation_100day_meditation/" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/Meditation/comments/1swxn2/the_secon...</a>
Very interesting read. I practiced meditation for a couple of months, but only for 15-30 minutes a day. I haven't researched too much, but the idea of "The Deep" as you describe makes the challenge seem worthy. Side question: how did your wife feel about you taking on a lengthy challenge that forced celibacy?
Interesting read. Based on the author's findings, I'm not sure if I could justify it. I feel like there's probably something better I could do, especially if the effects of meditation aren't as noticeable outside of your meditation period as the author suggests. Still worth a shot at some point I guess.
Meditation is best learned with a good teacher. I highly recommend Bhante Vimalaramsi at <a href="http://www.dhammasukha.net/" rel="nofollow">http://www.dhammasukha.net/</a>
I recently did a 5 day retreat and it was life changing. He makes meditation practical, fun and rewarding.
Interesting read, thanks. I'm curious about meditation not helping with everyday stress, outside of your "force field" time. Do you have any thoughts on why there wasn't a halo effect?