Thoughts about meditation apps?

[jadeluna]

Hi! I'm currently working on having a daily meditation practice, but my OCD (diagnosed by a psychiatrist), in conjunction with monkey brain, makes it really hard.

I know monkey brain is part of meditation, but I hyperfixate on it... and I spiral. So I started using a meditation app to help me focus, but I don't know if it'd be helpful when trying to reach alpha to work on rituals and stuff. Any thoughts on that?

It's my first thread ever, so hopefully I'm in the correct place

 

[solxyz]

Training wheels can be helpful for getting started, but it is easy to lean on them too much and thus inhibit your progress.

 

[jadeluna]

Training wheels can be helpful for getting started, but it is easy to lean on them too much and thus inhibit your progress.

Make sense. That's exactly what worries me. I feel like listening to someone else helps me focus, but hinders me from connecting to myself. Thank you!

 

[Morell]

No shame starting with time that you can actually work with. In my opinion it is fine to start the smallest - with single breath time. And then slowly extending it further.

And I agree with @solxyz that it can become a problem later, however not one that cannot be dealt with, hopefully.

 

[Anomander Rake]

I think they are silly.

 

[akenu]

Hi! I'm currently working on having a daily meditation practice, but my OCD (diagnosed by a psychiatrist), in conjunction with monkey brain, makes it really hard.

I know monkey brain is part of meditation, but I hyperfixate on it... and I spiral. So I started using a meditation app to help me focus, but I don't know if it'd be helpful when trying to reach alpha to work on rituals and stuff. Any thoughts on that?

It's my first thread ever, so hopefully I'm in the correct place

Would you try to grab your tongue with your index finger and thumb, pull it a bit out, and then check what your mental chatter does?

 

[HoldAll]

Until quite recently I used to be an empty-mind meditation fundie who would have curtly replied to this thread: "All you need is a timer, meditation apps are for daydreaming junkies and sissies!" I even started this thread on music and meditation in which I voiced my disapproval for music as a temptation to merely drift off and space out, i.e. not meditating at all (in the strictest zazen sense of the word). Additionally, I had planned to open another one asking for a discussion regarding the difference between meditation and trance which is anything but clearcut, and I might still do that.

Now I rather think that you'll have to draw the dividing line according to other criteria. On the one hand, you have austere religious practices e.g. within the context of Buddhism, with very long-term goals, leaving no leeway for experimentation whatsoever, and on the other… let's call it free-form mental journeying as well as possibly pathworking. I'm so prejudiced against the latter that I have to try really hard not to wax polemical against it. There was a stage in my meditation practice when I was struggling to banish certain songs from my mind - imagine sitting in a quiet room while guitar power chords and thrashing cymbals were raging in your head. Things have much improved since then but these songs will still make an appearance now and then. To imagine that those apps will not only play hypnotizing music lulling me into a (superficial? temporary?) state of well-being while some voice commands me what to do, what to think and imagine… a nightmarish idea for me who strives to make his mind a complete blank as instructed in Caroll's Liber MMM and Bardon's IIH Step 1.

In a book about Buddhism, the author recounts that a woman once came to his teacher and wished to learn meditation, so he taught her the basics and send her home. One day she returned and complained that all she could find in her mind were knots of anxiety and unease. "Good", the teacher said, "you're learning awareness." She replied, "I don't care about awareness, I want peace." Which is exactly the point. Nobody should be forced to walk an arduous path they didn't choose themselves on their own volition. A meditation app would have been probably better suited to her needs.

Another objection of mine is that guided meditations are artificially inducing emotions - so does music, so do movies, and it's the reason why we enjoy them but my aim is equanimity, not indulging in all kinds of strange or exciting feelings (my mind still seems to have other ideas sometimes but anyway), and I don't mean fake Zen master tranquility but genuine calm from deep down once my addiction to emotional highs of any kind has died a natural death.

Without having tried one myself, I think that the purpose of meditation apps is producing all sorts of interesting experiences you're probably unable to kindle without their help. To be honest, I just don't like the idea, I'm puritan that way, but to each his or her own.

 

[rice candy]

Headspace is a good meditation app.

Keep in mind that not all types meditation are inherently spiritual or magical.
This one is more clinical in nature, where it can target various things like keeping present or reducing anxiety.

But I don't recommend any apps for binaural beats. Subliminal messaging is very real and present in commercial products.

 

[solxyz]

Until quite recently I used to be an empty-mind meditation fundie who would have curtly replied to this thread: "All you need is a timer, meditation apps are for daydreaming junkies and sissies!" I even started this thread on music and meditation in which I voiced my disapproval for music as a temptation to merely drift off and space out, i.e. not meditating at all (in the strictest zazen sense of the word). Additionally, I had planned to open another one asking for a discussion regarding the difference between meditation and trance which is anything but clearcut, and I might still do that.

Now I rather think that you'll have to draw the dividing line according to other criteria. On the one hand, you have austere religious practices e.g. within the context of Buddhism, with very long-term goals, leaving no leeway for experimentation whatsoever, and on the other… let's call it free-form mental journeying as well as possibly pathworking. I'm so prejudiced against the latter that I have to try really hard not to wax polemical against it. There was a stage in my meditation practice when I was struggling to banish certain songs from my mind - imagine sitting in a quiet room while guitar power chords and thrashing cymbals were raging in your head. Things have much improved since then but these songs will still make an appearance now and then. To imagine that those apps will not only play hypnotizing music lulling me into a (superficial? temporary?) state of well-being while some voice commands me what to do, what to think and imagine… a nightmarish idea for me who strives to make his mind a complete blank as instructed in Caroll's Liber MMM and Bardon's IIH Step 1.

In a book about Buddhism, the author recounts that a woman once came to his teacher and wished to learn meditation, so he taught her the basics and send her home. One day she returned and complained that all she could find in her mind were knots of anxiety and unease. "Good", the teacher said, "you're learning awareness." She replied, "I don't care about awareness, I want peace." Which is exactly the point. Nobody should be forced to walk an arduous path they didn't choose themselves on their own volition. A meditation app would have been probably better suited to her needs.

Another objection of mine is that guided meditations are artificially inducing emotions - so does music, so do movies, and it's the reason why we enjoy them but my aim is equanimity, not indulging in all kinds of strange or exciting feelings (my mind still seems to have other ideas sometimes but anyway), and I don't mean fake Zen master tranquility but genuine calm from deep down once my addiction to emotional highs of any kind has died a natural death.

Without having tried one myself, I think that the purpose of meditation apps is producing all sorts of interesting experiences you're probably unable to kindle without their help. To be honest, I just don't like the idea, I'm puritan that way, but to each his or her own.

I was also at one time something like a zazen purist. One thing that helped me get past that was recognizing the polysemy of the word "meditation" - and especially that of the english word, which was not custom built to refer to zazen, but rather had a range of meanings before the rise of Buddhism in the west, meanings which continued to be employed and developed alongside the Buddhism-based meanings, but even parallel words in languages with a deeper Buddhist history, such as the Tibetan word gom. If we accept the way language is actually used, "meditation" refers to any highly structured and specified mind training practice. Jhana-style concentration work is meditation. Deity yoga, which certainly involves generating particular emotions, is meditation. Tummo is meditation. Taichi, when pursued as a meditation, is meditation. Busting moves on the dance floor is not meditation (except for those who have overcome the distinction between meditation and post meditation). Open-ended astral journeying is not meditation.

Another factor that has really softened my stance around this is recognizing that these meditative skills overlap and are mutually supportive in pretty significant ways. It is nearly impossible for a beginner to do zazen well if they are not relaxing, or at least learning to relax in meditation is one of the biggest things a beginner can do to improve their zazen. Likewise, as I beleive you know, it is traditional in many Theravada schools for the practitioner to develop pretty serious jhana skills (which is in fact a kind of trance) before moving onto vipassana.

Now, I do think that non-dual, open awareness-style practices should have a kind of pride of place within the ecosystem of meditative practices. One of my big gripes with the pop meditation / meditation app scene is that seems to be no-one to inform people that they are going to start hitting diminishing returns on their relaxation work at some point, and they should probably move onto other things at that point. Likewise, the gains from building concentration tend to plateau at a certain point. Etc. But in the scheme of things that are wrong in this world, this complaint is relatively minor.