I feel like this is my time to shine

Reminds me of the Beatles lyric:

> I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in

> And stops my mind from wandering

> Where it will go

diffuse attention is the technical name. it's contrasted to focal attention

It's called default mode thinking. Or the default mode network [1].

And I agree, not letting your mind do this from time to time results in higher stress and less ability to focus.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network

'boredom' is how I'd call it but it has a negative connotation. Being bored is useful, it lets your mind wander and it's where real creativity can happen.

I read "Non-Things: Upheaval in the Lifeworld" recently and since reading that I make an effort to not pick up my phone as much. I'd recommend reading the book, if you're looking for something to do instead of doomscrolling.

You reminded me of a post I had read on a math-related website. I think it was a math association where different authors could post articles, but it was one about a series of advice columns by people pursuing PhDs or graduate studies in math.

Anyway, the article I'm thinking of was about a guy who had advice along the lines of "keeping up your hygiene" or "maintaining your cleanliness habits" and his anecdote was about being stuck for a while in making progress on a problem, but he would have a habit of taking a daily shower. There was a detail he shared about getting an insight and then being able to write some ideas on the window with the condensation.

I wonder if I can find it again.

John Cleese had an amazing talk on this - https://youtu.be/nvKeu46jgwo?si=vIRHSJWXff8Kyf2l on being creative

When I go on vacation on cruise ships I never pay for internet and my phone is only used for tracking time and photos. Why be on vacation just to doom scroll?

I remember an Asimov short story about a guy who wished that he never waits on queues or for a taxi or for something to happen. He had his wish granted and deeply regretted it for it stall from him the moments of contemplation where his best ideas were coming from.

I believe boredom might be the word you're looking for.

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." -Blaise Pascal

Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll check it out!

Good Things Come to Those Who Shower by Robert Allen, perhaps?

What a gem! Thank you for sharing.

I put my phone in the safe until the vacation is over. And for the mind I do Sudoku at times and collect all my new ideas. It's like a harvest time!

> Is this not a form of meditation?

It could be, but it depends on what you're cultivating. If you're spaced out, day dreaming, then you're practicing distraction. Meditation is practicing the opposite of distraction, to become aware of the mind's true state.

Yes indeed! These are (or are related to) common meditation techniques. The proper way to understand the practice of meditation is "training your attention." There are many, many ways to do this, but the most direct form is to put your attention on some object and keep returning it to that object over and over again. This builds steadiness of attention (concentration) and has some nice side effects of clarifying the object of attention as well as keeping attention balanced relative to other objects (equanimity). Ideally, the object of attention is non-conceptual. Thoughts and emotions are the main objects that are constantly distorting and interrupting our attention, and ultimately the crux of the "training" is in finding harmonious ways to use/manage/embody them.

Unfortunately, it's very hard to understand how training attention in this manner can provoke dramatic improvements in attitude, happiness, and even conventional life goals. This is where a lot of the work in modern Buddhism is being done, and I personally believe we need to integrate these techniques into our everyday systems and ways of living. Otherwise, it's perfectly reasonable to dismiss them since good, objective evidence of their efficacy is hard to come by.

Perhaps a useful framing for readers on here is in reprogramming your self. We often accept that we cannot change or even that we want to change. By training our attention, we can focus it on the way the mind itself functions, and this eventually gives us the power to rewrite or rework core parts of our selves. The body contains the source code to our perception of reality, and when we can truly let go we find that we are free to be the person we want, and it is in fact our destiny.

After reading your comment, I was reminded of my first and last visit to a zen meditation center where we had to meditate by staring at a wall sitting on some sort special cushion designed for this sort of meditation.

I think your parallel is spot on!

I sometimes went to bed early just to think! I was excited about it and looking forward to it. I don't do that anymore, but going for a walk without smartphone, no music, no audiobook reminds me of that time.

A lot of "doing nothing" advice gets framed as clearing the mind, yet sometimes the valuable part is finally letting the mind choose its own direction

> When I was a kid, I would often sit on my bed and stare at the wall. My Dad would walk by my room and ask if everything was ok. I would always say "yeah", since I was literally just thinking.

Me too. And all I wanted was a Pepsi.

One thing I do point out to folks is that meditation comes in many shapes, there is no one size fits all. For some it is silent sitting Zazen style, for others it is walking mediation, or a sort of physical almost martial arts type thing. There is a thousand different style in between that. Do what works for you. If that is staring at walls, neat!

The hard part is that the training looks like nothing from the outside, so it's easy to dismiss (in a way)

I am a pretty peaceful person, but working with agents frequently (daily) makes me furious. I wonder if the context switching you mentioned leads to more fatigue, which makes me much more irritable.

Honestly, looking at this photo even for one second only triggers intrusive thoughts about how badly it needs to be corrected for distortion...

But maybe that's exactly the lesson.

It depends on who you ask.

Some Zen teachers think that it is impossible to meditate while walking as it keeps the mind moving rather than still. These are the folks that go against any kind of seasoning in food for the same reason. I always thought that was a very restrictive way to box in and needlessly constrain what meditation can be. If it works for you, great but don't sell it as the only path. That is the thing with a lot of folks, to try and overly define 'the only way', the smarter ones know there is a thousand paths to the top of the mountain.

Thích Nhất Hạnh used to swear by walking meditation, others would scoff at that. Each to their own.

'There is a thousand paths to the top of the mountain, the view is the same for all at the peak'

An incredibly prescient parable for the modern information overload age, if so. Do you recall the title? I'd love to give it a read. Asimov was a master.

As someone who's maintained a meditation practice since 2013, this is definitely meditation.

And by "maintain a practice", I mean it's more like something I return to with frequency and less a daily compulsion.

Focusing on the breathe or ambient sounds is "easy", and is precisely the reason meditation is seemingly difficult. The mind craves more than simplicity; for some this occurs after a few seconds, for others after a few minutes...it all depends on the day. Learning to observe when the mind wanders is one part of the practice. Labelling the quality of thought that caused the wandering (planning, worrying, visualizing, replaying, etc)and returning to the simpler act of focus on breathe or sounds is another part of the practice.

This article is very much the author discovering some variation of meditation; if they feel the need to "invent" something and share it in a blog post...then here's hoping it promotes more people to give it a shot and maybe it'll lead to at least one person developing a new practice for themselves.

staring at a wall is basically the zen practice of shikantaza [1], except you’re not staring, it’s more of an eyes half closed yet alert gaze. you don’t do anything, not even counting the breath. you just sit, that’s the entire practice. in my experience, the more you intellectualize it, the more difficult it becomes!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shikantaza

Reminds me of the “Wallfacers” in Cixin Liu’s “The Dark Forest.” I believe the term was derived from that meditative practice you refer to.

it almost is but meditation, is done with more intent.

In Zen Buddhism for example you are always striving to increase awareness, by constantly monitoring your internal monologue, pulling yourself back from day dreaming, expanding from focus on the breath to all near by sensation and phenomena.

True meditation, in the zen sense, is an order of magnitude more difficult to do consistently, and takes intense willpower.

Nice find. I'm going to print this and put it on my wall.

I live in an old warehouse converted into apartments. The walls are made of yellow brick and they're nice to look at because of the variation in texture/wear/color

There’s a lot of research on restorative environments (usually nature/outside)being good for focus. I definitely try to spend as much time outside as I can, but for some reason the wall works better for that 5-10 minutes. Being outside is much more enjoyable though haha

Yes, that sounds right:

> Additionally, during attention demanding tasks, sufficient deactivation of the default mode network at the time of memory encoding has been shown to result in more successful long-term memory consolidation.[33]

> Studies have shown that when people watch a movie,[34] listen to a story,[35][36] or read a story,[37] their DMNs are highly correlated with each other. DMNs are not correlated if the stories are scrambled or are in a language the person does not understand, suggesting that the network is highly involved in the comprehension and the subsequent memory formation of that story.[36] The DMN is shown to even be correlated if the same story is presented to different people in different languages,[38] further suggesting the DMN is truly involved in the comprehension aspect of the story and not the auditory or language aspect.

> The default mode network is deactivated during some external goal-oriented tasks such as visual attention or cognitive working memory tasks.[7] However, with internal goal-oriented tasks, such as social working memory or autobiographical tasks, the DMN is positively activated with the task and correlates with other networks such as the network involved in executive function.[8] Regions of the DMN are also activated during cognitively demanding tasks that require higher-order conceptual representations.[10] The DMN shows higher activation when behavioral responses are stable, and this activation is independent of self-reported mind wandering.[39] Meditation, which involves focusing the mind on breathing and relaxation, is associated with reduced activity of the DMN.[40]

I'm not a subject matter expert, but I'm wondering if all the context switching of short form video counts as way more drain on the brain, would be an interesting study. I have to think the brain eventually gets tired of all the short dopamine hits.

"Writing Time". it was the first thing I thought of too - the story definitely made an impression on me at the time!

here it is, not sure where you can find the text unless you traverse the high seas. I've read it in a story collection called after Azazel.

https://asimov.fandom.com/wiki/Writing_Time

It is, but just sitting can be a little deceiving in its brutal simplicity and I think some thought has to be put on the technique. I would often would just sit and think, not just sit. I wasted a lot of time sitting and thinking I am meditating. It's more like "just sit and be extremely watchful, alert". I also found it useful to have a timer nearby and evaluating how slow the time passes. The emptier the mind, the slower the passing of time. It also helps to tap into feeling the body, I would find that it's completely impossible for me to focus, if I do not have a good sense on feeling my body. Posture also plays a very important role. It's something to note that the average modern day person has posture that would take weeks or even months of focused practice to fix, especially one browsing this site. It's just sitting, but there are many things involved. * If you tell a beginner to just sit, they will drown in their own thoughts. Something more practical is, stare at the timer and try to not think, just perceive each second passing by, do not think, see how long can you last without a single thought **. Shikantaza is basically willful suppression of the thought process and pretty much the opposite of what the wikipedia article describes as a "similar technique" - "Do Nothing Meditation".

As for the article, I am actually doing 1 - 2 min shikantaza regularly while working. I'm staring at an empty screen. I do it multiple times per hour regardless if I feel focused or not.

* Don't try to fix the posture while attempting shikantaza.

** Obviously something even more practical for a beginner is to gain focus by counting breaths and then breath awareness, before trying the most difficult type of zazen. I'm just describing what would be a way for someone that does not practice to imagine what correct shikantaza feels like.

Maybe the useful framing is: just don't optimize the break

Precisely

> it almost is but meditation, is done with more intent.

> True meditation, in the zen sense, is an order of magnitude more difficult to do consistently, and takes intense willpower.

There are different forms of meditation and the one with the most evidence is also the easiest to do, mindfulness [1].

Very little intent is needed to get the majority of the benefits from meditation. I don't know that zen meditation offers more benefits, perhaps it does. But I do know that the "fake" forms of meditation are still beneficial.

[1] https://www.apa.org/topics/mindfulness/meditation

No need to gate keep meditation. The wall stare does have intent: to increase focus and calm the mind.

> True meditation, . . . takes intense willpower.

This seems counterintuitive. Maybe I'm doing it wrong but in my newbie practice it seems to be like resistance or cardiovascular training where there is effort in the moment and a sense of one's limits and a sense of unfolding and gains toward more depth and weight and duration. Like the gym it can be disappointing to lose ground after a break but there is also the contentment of regaining strength similar to rereading a familiar book and seeing it in new light.

There have been times that required more purposeful scheduling and preparation that is my default mode and times when whatever was in my head made me just actively hate sitting there and fail to realize that sensation as an ephemeral state. I accepted the door was closed that day and came back the next to pick up at the stopping point.

It's funny you said "shower-thinking" because showers are one of the few places where it's not practical to use a device and you really are alone with your thoughts. A normal day to day activity that is the same sort of "stare at walls" state that the OP describes.

The Three Body Problem has the Wallfacer project, named after a form of Buddhist meditation.

I was taught basic breathing meditation from a Vietnamese nun; but I'm not an expert. There are so many variations that I don't understand. I don't know much about Zen or it's take on meditation or mindfulness. On meditation, I know when I do it right, but have trouble helping people learn. I have trouble when I most need it (highly stressed), as I have the most trouble taking the time to relax without feeling too guilty.

As far as "inventing". I know what you (@reg_dunlop) mean but I don't see too much real harm. My father was into a book that talked about "not thinking". It was just a re-framing of part of mindfulness. If it helps... I'm not going to fuss about it.

As far as eyes. I was taught to not close my eyes completely but most of the way. I saw a documentary that explored Tibetan monks and their meditation. From what I recall, one of the monks said to use the eyelids as adjustable window blinds(or a valve... I'm paraphrasing to my understanding of what he was saying) so that if they got a bit sleepy they would open them more.

Personally, I'm a big believer in mindfulness but I do have some questions on some finer points. I might even aspire to teach it, but need further help myself first. Let me know of any resources that helped you (anyone)

Very powerful but takes much practice

I am a practicing Zen Buddhist and I wouldn’t agree with this description, at least not in my experience and the community that I’ve participated in.

Specifically I would say the concepts of “striving” and “intent” aren’t ones I would use.

What it actually is takes a little more to pin down (famously) but I would consider the concept of surrender to be more applicable. In fact I would say the absence of striving would be a good sign you’re on the right track.

I would consider staring at a wall without intent to be completely compatible with Zen practice.

But also. Is there really a 'true zen'?

I have heard of zen described as 'just sit down and shut up' and stare at a wall. With no goal, no purpose.

haha, great one.

Is this fair game? Looking at the details of the texture? Or wall here means "something plain, without characteristics".

I remember first hearing about this from the book Deep Work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_restoration_theory

> Let me know of any resources that helped you (anyone)

For me it was "The Mind Illuminated" by Culadasa. A meditation textbook which tells us what to practice, how to practice and why. Especially useful if you need the finer points.

Yeah, I think the actual "invention" I originally attributed to the author of the blog post should be attributed to the YouTuber. But if this version of meditation is helpful for the YouTuber and/or the blogger, then fantastic. That's 2 people who are benefiting from it.

I'm reluctant to say more about my own mindfulness practice; I feel the finer points about how or when to meditate are open to interpretation. Anyone can be as superficial or dogmatic as they'd like when it comes to choosing a practice, and how they adhere to it.

The point, for me, isn't strict adherence; It's both simpler and more interesting to let go of the preconceived notions of attempting to achieve something.

One thing I will say: If I believe I can't meditate for 5 minutes, I meditate for 15. This makes me more open and receptive in life when I find myself saying "....I should meditate".

How so? Compared to the mindfulness focus-on-breath that we hear about?

i’m not sure but they may be speaking about rinzai zen. watched a few bits and bobs about rinzai and some of the practices are kinda of that “willpower” ilk. dunno, never practiced it, not my vibe.

they definitely were not describing soto-zen tho, that’s for sure.

edit — i find it almost koan-esque that there’s two schools referred to as “zen”, both of which generally dislike the label “zen”, both of which have very different practices and methods.

A meditation practice(in the Soto Zen tradition) over the course of five years changed my life. Daily 40m of sitting facing a wall watching the breath and returning the mind to the present moment when it strays. No judgement. Just returning the mind to the present, again, and again, and again.... The BS starts to drop away. No enlightenment moments. But later, away from the practice you have more patience, more acceptance, more little moments of joy, less fear.

The meditation I practice is based on non-duality techniques. Mind needs a problem to solve so ask the question "Where am I ?". Anything that you can see both physically and mentally is not you. You are not the table, the chair, your hands, your legs, your face, your sensations, your feeling, your thoughts, your emotions. Neti-Neti (not this, not this).

You are something beyond all this. Try find it.

By going through the mind goes in a trance unable to think any thoughts. I find it better approach compared to try to disciplining the mind.

Aside from sleepiness, closing your eyes shut also tends to make daydreaming worse.

This is something I want to try. Does the time where the mind stays in the present before it strays away increase when you practice this?

This! The famous Zen Koan of the Master, the Professor, and the overfilled tea cup illustrates this beautifully... I'd highly recommend checking it out! (Overall, the Blue Cliff record is a treasure trove of Koans, for anyone keen on the theme comes highly recommended)

The Zen approach, more than any other, seems to precisely emphasize the purity of 'sit down and shut up'. Shikantaza - literally means 'simply sitting'. It fundamentally involves no staring at walls, no koan to grasp and struggle over, even following your breath is not really a part of it... It really, really is 'just' sitting, in every systemic sense. A practice which has no clear goal or intent, instead focused on removing anything that could act as such, act as any tether over awareness. Awareness untethered, unbounded, past distinction.

Lao Tzu comes to mind... he said it much more succinctly: Wei - Wu Wei (do - not doing). The action of effortlessly being adrift with the flow, the action of surrender of your 'self' and the infinite schemes/designs/narratives that it builds (as someone in the discussion above here aptly suggested). Another quote comes to mind from elsewhere: 'Let go your earthly tether, enter the void, empty and become wind.'

As captured by the Leunig cartoon "TV sunrise"

https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/68809bfcd88dbd...

Good point

Interesting. I hadn't heard of that directly, but I've never found it to be true. I've found momentum and continuation to be more useful than rest or relaxation when it comes to tackling big things.

For my clients I put it that way: The mind is like a search engine, it can find everything. So don't ask "what did I wrong" but instead "how can I progress".

Usually that's an eye opener.

There is nothing wrong with that though. At some point, observation comes back. When practicing regularly, that happens more quickly.

I should pick up practice again. I feel very lucky having discovered Vipassana meditation when I was 19 and having had some great teachers throughout my twenties. It helped me accept parts of my youth that were not great or safe. In hindsight, going to a psychologist would have been a good addition, but that never occurred to early to mid 20s me, but in lieu of that Vipassa helped me a lot.

Look up "wall-gazing meditation".

I've been doing it on and off for years. Trouble is my "career" is dead. I think I'm technically "middle" aged, but really over "middle" of life. It's harder to relax the mind and body right now. When I do it "right", I feel more relaxed on both fronts. My body doesn't sit for hours or anything but 15-30 is my norm when it works. It's hard for me to continue, if I hadn't relaxed by say 5 min. I think mine is basically the same except I try and return to paying attention to my breathing when my mind wonders. I know my breathing is in the "present"; so this might just be a semantic difference. *I don't like the word "concentration" because, I think, it throws people off (so that's why I didn't use it)

The worse it feels, the more it's helping. It means you're surfacing and dismissing thoughts that would otherwise plague you when you're trying to get things done.

> When I do it "right"

i get the scare quote usage. but still feel like it’s a good time to point out.

there’s no right zazen. there’s no wrong zazen. there’s just zazen. sitting down and taking what comes. that’s all we’re doing. sitting down and getting quieter.

emphasis on the -er in quieter.

30 minutes of “crap” zazen is probably the most rewarding zazen. i just don’t appreciate it at the time.

something that helped me recently is just giving myself a day off. it’s okay. i’ll come back to it. as someone said to me recently — the worst way of maintaining a practice is to force it / control it.

something was bugging me so i’m adding a second comment.

i often end up crying during zazen. i’ve done it for a couple of years. i was never really sure why. it was just a thing. i cried for 5 mins after about 20 mins and then just got back on with the last 5 mins.

i (eventually) sat with an online group and they talked after sitting once about how zazen and zen aren’t there to deal with mental health issues. that’s what doctors, therapy etc are for. i had been definitely trying to “fix” some stuff that can’t be fixed through the practice for a while there.

this is why having a group or a teacher to practice with is important. i can get stuck in believing my own “crap” because i can’t see outside my own “crap”.

then again, sometimes “crap” zazen is just “crap” zazen. but having a group or a teacher helps with it — at least you’ll know you’re not the only one struggling! xD

Oh this reminds me of The way of Zen by Alan Watts.

Your comment is spot on. The support of a teacher and a group are essential to go along with the practice. They are called The Three Jewels for a reason.

ive never read (?) it but ill take that as a compliment. thanks!