Did meditation make you more passive?

Did meditation make you more satisfied with what you have and less likely to want more?

 

You don't know what you have until you see it while meditating. Every thing is the same but at the same time it's different. You start to pay attention in what you didn't pay any attention. The ordinary becomes extraordinary.

 

So the pleasure you feel from sex and other "major pleasures", you now feel spread out over minor pleasures?

 

Everything becomes "better" because you give full attention to every single task, there's nothing "worsrt".

 

So you can identify the gain in everything you do?

 

i think it made me less passive. the difference is, it's not an aggressive passive necessarily...it's a 'make the most of this moment/this day/this week' kind of aggressive. it's not 'even'-it cycles like everything else in life. i'm much more aware of choices i make.

really, it's a personal experience. you have to do some kind of semi-serious meditation for a long time in order to know what it will affect inside you.

 

Yes you can. Every task we do is simply beautiful on it's own.

It's like an orgasm, when you're at the "peak" you're totally into what you're doing/feeling, that's why everyone like to orgasm, they can feel the sensation without being disturbed.

The real gain of meditation is seen when it starts to become our normal state, the state that is always present, camouflaged by thoughts and feelings they provoke. It's very simple to realize, but at first requires some effort to get rid of old habits.

 

You see, seemingly my only weakness is my intolerance for activities with little pleasure involved. Are you saying I might be capable of staying focused on complex mathematics easily if I meditate?

I see. So if I tried to convince someone about something, I wouldn't get frustrated, but I would keep trying until I convinced them? The most notable example I can think of are my parents. They think they know best just because they're older. I know it's physically possible to convince them, but I just get frustrated too easily.

 

Yes you're capable of staying focused on complex mathematics easily, but it will not happen if you meditate before or after. To stay focused you need to be meditating, focusing in math needs to be everything, a whole.

I don't know if I understand what you're saying about convincing someone. If you see someone sufering, a compassion arises(coloring your*) and feel your emptiness(*peace), once you say what you have to say, there's nothing more to say or to hear. The mission of compassion is complete. When you try to convice someone, it can be compassion, but it's not a right compassion, you're trying to impose something, a true maybe. The right compassion is when you say something needed to be said and it creates curiosity. Then the person has the freedom to investigate, and find the truth by herself.

The compassion from your parents are not wrong, but it's not right too. They love you, but the ego/egocentrism affects them, they think they are their thoughts, so they need to be filled up two times. (Give food to heart and mind. The mind is not balanced, so she wants more and more. She needs to do more than what she are there to).

 

Yeah, meditation need to be lived for some period to reveal it's aroma.

Meditation can't be used as a drug or an artificial state, otherwhise the person one day will freak out and give up because they lived peace enough.

The meditation of observing mind is very revealing.

 

I see. Thanks for the good advice. I'll be sure to meditate daily from now on.

 

Passive? Perhaps in some fields of my life.

But in most, meditation has made me more focused, ready to accomplish things and strive to do what I love... or what I actually need to do.

Passive in the sense that I'll pass up the opportunity to fight? Yes.
Passive in the sense that I'll let someone beat me? No.

Speaking of passitivity in meditation, the greatest stride I've seen is my ability to choose mental battles to pursue, be passive about things like traffic, idiots, my own incompetents, jerks, and many other things that simply aren't worth my time being upset about.

You have three options in life regarding things that you dislike in life.
1. Let it be
2. Fight it
3. Stew over it

 

I have this problem that minor pleasures never motivate me, but only major pleasures do. Could meditation possibly increase my sensitivity to minor pleasures and make me more motivated of a person?

 

re: the meditation of observing mind...

i had this experience last night of bleeding out the ear....it was painful as hell. many years ago, i would have had some kind of emotional 'thing' about it. instead, i got up, poured some salt water in my ear, took an aspirin, and went back to bed. when you find you are observing pain in your body, you then realize that meditation has made you 'step back'...this is one of the effects i have read about, but had to experience to understand it. what you read 'doesn't register' until you live it (at least in my case). the writings are in many cases 'beautiful', but they don't equal the experience of living in a non-disturbable way...or 'in peace' if you'd prefer. not that i'm always at peace..i can exercise myself, but, then again, i'm sometimes aware that i'm observing myself exercising myself and thinking 'this is fairly funny'.

another thing i have noticed...other people are going to think you are strange..if they didn't understand you 'before you did extensive meditation', they sure as hell are not going to understand you after. not that it matters a damn bit, though. they don't understand most other people anyway...who does? and so....

if you read some ken wilbur or thich nhat hanh or maybe alan watts or suzuki...they writ emuch better about it than i can...lots of good writers, better words than i have...the words will not get you the experience of 'it', though...never will words 'do it'. you must 'do it' to have it. stephen norquist is someone i frequently mention, as he has synthesized 'my experience' better than i can put into words. you may have the experience at some point that nothing motivates you...and this may be normal..or not. it doesn't matter. motivation doesn't matter...you are not required to 'motivate'. if you want motivation, you will likely find that motivation is not 'it' in the conventional sense that you mean 'now'. you aren't required to 'do'; you are only 'to be'; and that is open to definition of 'the you that you find'...and maybe you will 'lose you'. apparently, some do for some period of time, and others do 'forever'. nothing is required...you get to pick.

you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, and you can even pick your friends' noses....maybe. heehee!

 

Motivation does matter, I suffer from reward insensitivity and this is causing me to commit antisocial behavior since I'm always in a dysphoric mood and everyday pleasures can't satisfy my reward system.

 

Meditation is definitely not worth digging into if you're seeking hedonist pleasurable feelings on things that were originally mundane. This is NOT (and I repeat, "not") the intentions one should have if committing into a 'way of the flow'

You don't need that dopamine reward you speak of to get what you want in life. Do things step-by-step and with the aid of meditation, you will see the three selves of You starting to bond together and bring forth internal balance. That is the goal of most of those that meditate. Not only can it be a de-stresser to get you out and continuing your life journey (dopamine reward or not), but as has been said, you will gain appreciation for the subtle gifts that have been there all along.

Try Qigong meditation. It's the source of feng shui, tai chi, and kung fu (and many more) and is based around the Traditional Chinese Medicine theory that we are comprised entirely of vibrational energy (scientific fact btw) and through mental control & clarity with an aided boost from devoted Qigong practice then one can control their own energy and eventually the energies of things, people, and plants nearby. Kind of like a real-life Force from Star Wars; now doesn't that sound better than the simple pursuit of temporary pleasures that never satisfy and leave you always wanting more?

Meditation is like sex, eating, pooping, and sleeping as its an essential key both to survival and into unlocking the many doors towards eternal journeying of the outwards and inwards. A journey worth 'spiraling out' to its very end

 

reward insensitivity??? let me see if i understand 'what that means'...if you do something, and 'get rewarded' it doesn't matter to you??? if you are then not motivated by any reward, then you don't have motivation because rewards don't matter??? so you have no motivation to conform, as a result, to societal mores???

i guess i would think there existed a serious problem if punishment insensitivity were the issue, as well.

what does satisfy your reward system? what is it that you seek? are you willing to do anything to seek? or you are not willing to do anything, because there is no perceived reward?

time/meditation/something affected me thusly...i rarely experience pleasure or pain the same way-the same level-in quantum...as i did many years ago. i have to rely on my inner principles to act...and sometimes, that is not enough. perhaps i have reward insensitivity....i don't know. that's too complex a term...perhaps 'boredom' or something is accurate enough? 'having' or whatever....that's not enough. maybe 'not having' as in 'not having food' is a motivator? maslow would find this interesting, i suppose.

if one is simply not motivated, one is likely not going to meditate to see what could be accomplished. a spiritual issue, perhaps? you have flummoxed my sensors..i really do not know what to tell you that might help.

 

A reward, such as getting a very high test-score, doesn't make me feel good, at most it might make me feel satisfied because I feel a temporary lack of punishment. Another is making progress with girls. I feel little reward from good progress and I've never had a gf, yet I masturbate 3-5 times a day on weekdays and 6+ times on weekend days.

Yep. It isn't possible to induce something like that in me though. I also have poor pain threshold, and I perform poorly in sports due to excessive inhibition or insufficient motivation.

Masturbation to intense or deviated stuff satisfies it. When someone gives me something, I don't feel rewarded, but I feel punished because that person might expect something in return. On the other hand, if I steal something or get something from a person I don't have to give stuff in return to get more, I feel rewarded.

I see this as a pathology that I have to fix, not working for something extra. I wouldn't feel rewarded for fixing something, but I would feel punished if I wouldn't fix it.

 

have you ever done a search on 'reward insensitivity'? i did one...amazingly, it appears to be a medically in use term...

http://www.rxpgnews.com/research/Co...-behavior-and-drug-abuse-in-boys_432742.shtml


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1801075/

the examples i saw within this are somewhat extreme to what you describe, however. as far as 'gifts', if something is expected in return, then what is presented is not a gift, but a quid pro quo.

there is something there for you to deal with...how to characterize it, i don't know. perhaps that section on the discussion of 'fight or flight' has some clues. frankly, society just doesn't get it imo. some people don't give a shit about society; the fact that a majority 'seem to' doesn't mean squat. many of them are only riding the idea to get ahead. wearing a suit, having a religion, putting on a face in public, but using your fellow man worse than i would use a donkey doesn't mean one is acceptable....or 'well' or...whatever.

i am a wellfont of productive assistance...no doubt about it. *sarcasm alert*

maybe the real issue is self acceptance of 'who you are now'? i had to put myself through that. it's ugly, difficult, and sometimes painful and takes a lot of time. meditation helped me...but the real thing that 'does it' is you wanting to understand who you are. shakespeare said 'all the world's a stage...'; in fact, it is. the multitude of masks people wear is amazing...i kept ripping one off, and then finding more. it's humbling, to say the least. we are all liars, angels, thieves, compassionate friends, sinners, killers, helpers, lovers, fighters...under the masks. ultimately, there may be no reward except the experience itself.

 

Hello,

I have just started meditation and got curious if it indeed will make me more passive than I already am. I have been an observer most of my life and basically do not complain as I go through the routine of everyday life. I'd like to know how meditation has produced a positive effect in your perspective and outlook on the challenges that life brings you. Can anyone share their thoughts? thanks very much in advance.