Hi there — great blog. You write:

My own experiences with meditation are recent, relatively shallow, and would yield little to contribute to the world of science, but I do know it can bring remarkable effects — even in fairly short-term use.

I’m curious to know what the “remarkable effects” are that you’ve observed. My experience with meditation is similarly recent and shallow, but I do feel that even just 10 minutes a day can make a difference, though it’s hard to put that difference in words. What’s your view?

I’ve noticed a lot of crossover between the getting-things-done crowd and meditators. Maybe it’s all that “mind like water” talk, which (coming out of a meditation background myself) was certainly an evocative metaphor the first time I read it. Or maybe it’s just similar marketing- Sakyong Mipham’s new book title is “Ruling Your World”, after all- sounds like a DavidCo title!

Mike: There’s some effects that are really obvious and others that are quite subtle. Feeling a bit more relaxed and less scattered isn’t surprising — that’s printed right on the tin. :)

What I was surprised and delighted to get from reading about (and trying to practice) mindfulness is something much more profound. I’ve become more aware of how much time my brain spends dwelling on the past and fussing about the future, and how that leads to strange behaviors and a really unfulfilling daily experience.

Once you start doing it, it seems incredibly obvious, but mindfulness teaches you to always acknowledge that “This is it.” Seriously. Everything else is memories and hopes, and you have no actual experience of anything but now. This very nanosecond. That’s moving stuff once it really starts sinking in.

If this stuff appeals to you, don’t miss Alan Watts’s The Wisdom of Insecurity—a terrific book recommended to me by a reader on this post.

Bo: Maybe so. Between you and me? There’s so many connections between the problems people come to 43F to solve and what you can learn from mindfulness in particular and meditation in general. I deliberately don’t talk about it much here because it riles the trolls and enflames the “Stop talking about other things and just tell me how to do GTD!!!!” crowd. :)

Clever marketing by anyone aside, this stuff “sells” itself for the same reason it always has; it works, it’s simple, and it encourages you to stop tearing ass around the discotheque of your life for ten minutes and just sit still, being yourself. Has that been your experience?

I’m a pretty logical, practical guy, but I recognize that there is real value to the practice. Forget all that California hippy crystal fantasy crap; it is extremely practical and comes with real, tangible benefits.

My story is probably similar to Merlin’s—some, but not a lot of experience, so the following describes mostly the observations of a beginner:

Effects I’ve noticed: Most noticably, after just a short period of meditation (15 minutes or so), a pervasive calm. I lke to think of it as a “neutral” emotion (the word “centered” has too many silly Hollywood hippy connotations) — it tempers your otherwise out-of-proportion reactions to emotional stimuli. You find yourself more able to handle challenging situations, without your blood pressure going up. Of course, for me, since I haven’t yet made it a routine, this effect only lasts a little while after you meditate.

While you’re meditating, it’s not uncommon to break down a bit: emotions that are bottled up have a tendency to come out when you are loosened up like this. I imagine over time this would subside.

Another effect I’ve noticed only once or twice is sensory—the consciousness changes so that things like proximity and scale become perceptively distorted or irrelevant. It can be a bit freaky, but in a good way :)

Oh, and another thing: meditation is HARD. Especially for us jumpy nervous multitasking ADHD information age types. Not-doing is one of the most difficult things you can do, especially when you are always on the go.

I’ve heard that David Allen was a serious Zennie at one point, which would make sense given his writing and the things he focuses on.

I have a regular meditation practice in the Tibetan tradition (and I used to sit zazen), and I think the most useful aspect from a plain old regular life perspective is that it’s great practice in just dropping it. Whatever “it” might be.

That simple training in dropping the long and involved train of thought and just coming back to the present moment is awfully useful in daily life, whether you’re keeping your temper with your kids or just returning to work after a (10+2) session.

Great description, MH!

And the part about it being hard? In probably five previous attempts to “get into” meditation in the last 20 years, that’s always where I fell down. I’d done all the classics: “This is dumb,” “It’s not ‘working,’” “I’m sure I’m doing this wrong.”

What I never understood until this more successful attempt is that THAT is what meditation is — just putting the puppy back on the paper.

When your mind drfits, you watch the waves and then let it settle back down. Then again. Over and over and over. Then you’re done meditating.

That practice of gently accepting a distraction and then letting it drift away is so hard and yet it’s exactly what most of us could use more than almost anything else.

Why do you think “Wherever you go, there you are” is an unfortunate title? I always thought it was a great Yogi Berra-ism. (Actually, now that I google it, maybe it wasn’t Yogi Berra.)

“Tearing ass around the discotheque of your life”…now there is a quote I’d like to see in Bartlett’s one day.

Why do you think “Wherever you go, there you are” is an unfortunate title?

I don’t dispute it’s net truthfulness or its kinda-funny-the-first-time-you-hear-it quality, but it has a t-shirt philosophy feeling that doesn’t really portray the tone and usefulness of the book, IMHO. Personally I would have preferred “Loose Women Tightened Here” or “Federal Bikini Inspector.” ;-)

Yeah, I did cringe the first time I read the title, but it’s ended up being a book I really love and constantly recommend to people. So I must have gotten over it.

Meditation is indeed “hard,” but the gurus urge you not to judge your efforts against any particular yardstick. The gist isn’t not to think, but to detach yourself from your thoughts. The comparison I particularly like: you’re trying to observe your thoughts float by as if they were fish in a stream, and you’re trying not to catch one.

I’ve enjoyed Thich Nhat Hahn’s writings on mindfulness, as well as Shunryu Suzuki’s “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind,” which gets fairly technical but has useful advice about the imperfection of meditation practice, and the importance of imperfection.

Merlin: I agree that the constant realization that “This is it” is the key. The benefits of mindfulness go far beyond meditation practice — you can apply them to every aspect of everyday life. And life becomes much richer for it.

I think the greatest overlap between GTD and meditation is the notion that one should dump as much out of one’s mind as possible and put it on paper, computer, etc. I think meditators might call that emptying one’s mind. (Or Harry Potter fans’ might call it using a Pensieve).

However, I wonder if 43 Folders might have more difficulty with meditating than other people. As a group, with many exceptions, I think we tend to be more goal-oriented and ready to tweak things. This makes clearing the mind and focusing on one thing harder. Perhaps meditating is just another one of the many things we tweak and than abandon and then try again and than abandon in our never-ending cycle of karmic improvement and change. ;)