Reddit Reddit reviews The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness

We found 27 Reddit comments about The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness
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27 Reddit comments about The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness:

u/ItsAConspiracy · 24 pointsr/Meditation

It doesn't take any special effort, it's just mindfulness meditation. Things naturally pop up now and then. When they do you just observe them and they gradually dissipate.

The Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young talks about it a lot. For now I'm mainly practicing the method in The Mind Illuminated, supplemented with open focus guided meditation from the Princeton Biofeedback Centre, and both do this pretty effectively for me.

u/omapuppet · 11 pointsr/Meditation

> I start feeling warm and energized and just totally present. That’s when I can really “take in” the effects of meditation I guess. That’s where I experience bright colors, and “psychedelic” experiences, and all that fun stuff.

I don't know what tradition you are following, but in some traditions what you are describing sounds somewhat like one of the dullness traps. As described in The Mind Illuminated:

> The Seduction of Dullness
>
> Strong dullness can be a seductive trap. States of dullness lead to dream imagery, archetypal visions, pleasurable sensations, paranormal experiences like channeling, past-life recollections, and the overall feeling that something profound is occurring. If you anchor attention on the breath, you can sustain them for a long time without falling asleep. In certain traditions, these states are purposely cultivated. However, when it comes to cultivating attention and awareness, these states are only a hindrance. Remember that visionary experiences, brilliant insights, and any other seemingly profound encounters should all be avoided at this Stage [Stage Four, when you are free from both gross distractions and strong dullness. Dullness no longer leads to drowsiness, nor causes perception of the breath sensations to grow dim or take on hypnagogic distortions]

If those sorts of states are what you want, cool. Just be aware that dullness should be avoided if your intention is to strengthen awareness and keep the overall energy level of the mind high.

u/jormungandr_ · 10 pointsr/TheMindIlluminated

For those of you who have the old edition, the newer edition of the book has a foreword that can be read on the Amazon page.

First Impressions

The first few paragraphs of the Introduction was all it took to reel me in. To explain, I need to provide a little backstory:

There are tons of research papers highlighting exactly what the benefits of meditation are, ranging from stress reduction to mood regulation and more, many of them mentioned on page xiv. In fact, that was my initial motivation for starting a practice several years back, but rather quickly I became confused by the often contradictory instructions online and all the Pali and Sanskrit words everywhere. I ended up doing basic samatha practice, but my motivation waned at times because I didn't have any clue about training the mind. After a while, I settled into a state of strong dullness and had no clue that it wasn't what I was looking for. I remember wondering why I felt spaced out all the time after my sessions.

One of the reasons I no longer frequent the meditation subreddit is because with hindsight I recognize there is a lot of bad advice there from people who don't know any better. I'll share a rather humorous example: I recently read a thread where a guy was clearly experiencing dullness/drowsiness, and the only thing making him aware of this was the fact that his own flatulence startled him to wakefulness. Well, the top few responses were just jokes and everyone who answered him seriously gave bad advice because they didn't know any better.

I just remember thinking that if I didn't have TMI I would've been stuck in dullness forever, probably. I wouldn't have gotten out of it with the help of that sub. So you can imagine my feelings of relief to find this book, and to have my gut feeling be validated.


Key Points

I think overall there are four key points in the Introduction:

  • Through meditation it is possible to train your mind and to ultimately achieve awakening.

  • There is (or, was) a strong need for a clear map of the process because with meditation's rise in popularity, fewer and fewer people are even aware of the potential for Awakening through meditation.

  • Both samatha and vipassana are necessary for Awakening.

  • "Brief episodes of samatha can occur long before you become an adept practitioner. Insight can happen at any time as well. This means a temporary convergence of samatha and vipassana is possible and can lead to Awakening at any stage."

    I find that last point in particular to be a tremendously powerful idea- one that I've used to great success during my sits. I have a problem with being impulsive. Thanks to meditation it's much less of an issue, but I'm not able to always maintain the long-term view. Being able to remind myself before every sit that if there is sufficient cooperation among the sub-minds Awakening can happen at any moment - that's a very important concept for me. It makes it much easier to cultivate a joyful attitude.

u/jplewicke · 8 pointsr/slatestarcodex

If really figuring this stuff out is personally important to you, I'd suggest reading Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha and The Mind Illuminated, possibly along with /r/streamentry and /r/TheMindIlluminated . There are a lot of different possible ways to really dig into what's going on with our phenomenomological experience of ourselves and the world, and having access to a range of meditation techniques and Buddhist theory definitely helps. It's also worth noting that there are a range of Buddhist approaches to earthly desires, and that that's a part of the teachings that you can put on pause and come back to later when you've got a better handle on what's going on phenomenomologically.

> He formulated his highest order goals via abstract reasoning and then through mindful practice he re-programmed himself from the top down. This hypothetical person became the master of his own conscious architecture and transcended his incoherent initial conditions.

It's actually way more bottom up in practice -- just trying to stay with the incoherence and notice everything that's going on until your mind relaxes and lets go a little bit at a time. Trying to have a high-level conceptual goal and making yourself go there tends not to work. There are Buddhist "cultivation" practices like loving-kindness, but those are much more about just repeatedly noticing that you already enjoy something so that it's harder to lose sight of.

u/TamSanh · 7 pointsr/Buddhism

Take a look at The Mind Illuminated. An excellent, contemporary synthesis of Buddhist teachings on meditation, turning it into a step by step guide: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01INMZKAQ

u/5baserush · 5 pointsr/awakened

Good lord this sub sucks. In response to this question you were given mundane life advice and super shitty/cheesy quotes. No one mentioned meditation. I think that is what really gets me, ya'll talk the big talk but not once have i seen anyone discuss their practice. I think most of ya'll read fake buddha quotes, drop acid, and blow your wad way too prematurely. I cannot more firmly express my disdain for this community.

Op. You basically have two options. Ritual magic and meditation. For most people it is best to start with the latter.

https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Core-Teachings-Buddha-Unusually/dp/1904658407

Or

https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness-ebook/dp/B01INMZKAQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1541627640&sr=1-1&keywords=the+mind+illuminated

The road is long, but it is well marked with signs and goalposts. Peruse these books, think on them, and buy the one that most agrees with your intuition. Your suffering is your own making and it will take some work to undo that. The two books are pretty similar, both written by high accomplished masters, both inspired by the same source material. Personally i would recommend TMI but either will get you extremely far in attainment and realization. There are no better manuals available to westerners. If you can set aside some time to do this every day you're life will change and blossom in ways you could never even imagine before. I pray you heed my words.

u/citiesoftheplain75 · 5 pointsr/pics

Here is a list of monasteries where you will be able to practice meditation for an extended period of time and eventually ordain as a monk:

-Pa Auk Forest Monastery in Myanmar

-Panditarama Forest Meditation Center in Myanmar

-Wat Chom Tong in Thailand

-Wat Ram Poeng in Thailand

The monasteries below allow shorter stays for first-time visitors:

-Bhavana Society in West Virginia

-Metta Forest Monastery in California

-Sirimangalo International in Canada

-Bodhinyana in Australia

If you’re interested in learning how to meditate, the following books are excellent guides. Each of these authors has a novel approach to explaining meditation that complements the others.

-The Mind Illuminated by John Yates

-Shift Into Freedom by Loch Kelly

-With Each & Every Breath by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. This author has other great books available for free.

-In The Buddha’s Words by the Buddha (translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi)

I recommend that you check out /r/streamentry, an online community of laypeople (non-monks) pursuing awakening. You might also wish to contact /u/Bhikkhu_Jayasara, a fully ordained monk who often participates in /r/buddhism.

Best of luck to you on the path.

u/pupomin · 5 pointsr/electronic_cigarette

I would also recommend meditation. The Mind Illuminated is a really good plain-language guide to meditation.

u/Megananda_ · 3 pointsr/streamentry

Check out Culadasa's take on it:

https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness-ebook/dp/B01INMZKAQ

The book does NOT focus on "what to do" with energy flows, but is very clear on when and why they occur, what meditation practices lend to them, and offers (the beginning of) a physiological theory.

u/MilkAndJam · 3 pointsr/Buddhism

I just finished this book, https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness-ebook/dp/B01INMZKAQ

​

I strongly recommend it!

u/Up2Eleven · 3 pointsr/RedditForGrownups

It's basically about mindfulness but is very focused with techniques to deal with distractions, emotions, and other stuff. The best "manual" I've ever read about it is this: https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness-ebook/dp/B01INMZKAQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1541742102&sr=8-1&keywords=culadasa

u/jwarner95 · 2 pointsr/Stoicism

Second this.

https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Meditation-Integrating-Mindfulness-ebook/dp/B01INMZKAQ

Great guide for meditating, whether a beginner or an adept.

Also check out /r/meditation , /r/themindilluminated , and /r/Taoism for you more eclectically inclined folks.

u/NoMarkeu · 2 pointsr/india

How I got started is not very useful as it took time to get to the right resources. So I will answer the question as if someone where to ask me "How do you recommend someone should get started on meditation?".

The main resource to use is the book The Mind Illuminated, by Culadasa. You would need to read about 1/10th of the book to get started. But you can try some simple meditations while you are on that. You will also need some extra readings later to bring clarity to some ideas. So here's the course of action I recommend.

  • Download the Insight Timer app. It has got guided meditations and an excellent timer - you can set starting and ending sounds and interval sounds, many pleasant ones. Pick a short guided meditation, mindfulness is the best choice I suppose. This will get you started on getting used to sitting for a while. Once you read the book, you can shift practice.

  • Read The Mind Illuminated till the details of First Step. You will need as much to get started. You don't need to read the whole book. It will just be a waste of time. Take notes where you think necessary. Read to understand and take your time. Here's an ebook version. Some key points to understand - peripheral awareness, attention and how they differ, and 'relaxed intention'. And the book also gets into how to establish a meditation practice.

  • Once you have done it a couple of times the book way, read these two discussions to understand those concepts better: Discussion 1, Discussion 2.

    If you have any doubts, you can google it with the book name. There is a good online community around it. Also, don't hesitate to ask me if you have any questions as well.
u/mynameis_wat · 2 pointsr/Meditation

Consider the idea that you have both attention and awareness and they can both be active while you meditate. Your attention can be on the breath while maintaining peripheral awareness. Think of it like talking with a friend in a coffee shop or cocktail party. You can focus on them but you are still aware of the sounds, sights, and smells around you.

If you are sitting in meditation and you get distracted/shocked by a sound, it means your peripheral awareness was low and the sound pulled your attention. Most teachers will probably tell you to not use earplugs because developing awareness is a step in developing strong mindfulness. And, this helps you develop equanimity towards your present situation.

FWIW, QuietMind is built off the ideas presented in The Mind Illuminated- a pretty incredible manual on meditation I would highly recommend and can help you answer these types of questions.

u/beets_or_turnips · 2 pointsr/AmItheAsshole

I think this is a common misconception about meditation, and it frustrated me when I was getting started too. I got a much better understanding of what the task of meditation is at different stages by reading Culadasa's book The Mind Illuminated. Now when distractions come up and I become aware of them, I acknowledge them and savor that moment of insight before returning to the meditation object. I also recommend r/meditation and r/themindilluminated and r/streamentry if you want to take your meditation further.

u/ignamv · 1 pointr/samharris

Also check out The Mind Illuminated ( /r/TheMindIlluminated ). It emphasizes finding joy in the practice and is supposedly more stabilizing than the dry insight Ingram used to advocate.

u/BrandoTheNinjaMaster · 1 pointr/Meditation

You may want to consider some (in)formal instruction to help you maximize your practice for those sessions.

When I first started, I started with 15 minutes (20 is also not outside the realm of reason) and then added 5 minutes each successive week until I hit about 35 minutes per session; that's my personal limit for right now. During these sessions, I'm normally trying some kind of technique (labeling, checking in, noting, etc) to maintain focus on the meditation object (in my case the breath). By the end of these sessions, I wouldn't say that I am exhausted, but I have definitely spent effort to train my mind and I do notice it afterward.

While I personally use the book The Mind Illuminated as my means of instruction, you could also look into others like Mindfulness in Plain English or even an introductory program to help guide you along.

u/SilaSamadhi · 1 pointr/TheMindIlluminated

Thanks for the comment. For what it's worth, I heard that there are two versions of the ebook: the one that came out shortly after the original 2015 publication, and a newer edition that came out on January 2017, without many changes to the content, but with much improved format for the ebook.

The fact that a new version of the ebook was released is already a telltale sign that many technical publication improvements have been made. That's the usual reason they re-release ebooks not too long after the original, and without many content differences.

u/flowfall · 1 pointr/Meditation

Okay, life has sickness, aging, death and a load of pain in it, these are all inevitable. The suffering/dissatisfaction attached to these and the rest of the "negative" things in life we'd like to avoid( but have no control over what lot we get) can be dissolved, one can get very good at dissolving it, so good the brain stops producing it and experience takes on the form of relaxation. non-reactivity, and ever expansive awareness as its natural state resulting in a powerful consciousness and a deep sense of peace and well-being imbued into your entire experience.

This is made possible by the brain's neuroplasticity and it's cognitive feedback, the brain can learn and optimize itself to be more efficient, use less energy, and produce significantly less stress for this experience.

Now all of these changes happen on a progressive spectrum of time/experience, the greater the amount of this time/experience that is spent practicing the more deeply influenced the proceeding time/experience of ones life becomes by this.

You've tasted the very surface. One can get to complete and utter relaxation. A state of non-reactivity or equanimity in which one can observe experience impersonally and learn to see reality without the conceptual overlays of negativity, to be able to take life on as what it is rather than what our thoughts say what it is.

To get directly to this state one must learn to completely let go of all effort. On the progressive journey towards mastering concentration meditation one develops all of the mental skills necessary to be able to let go of all effort. More time spent in this stillness grants one compoundingly greater insights which allow jumps in ones progress, shifts in perspective that slowly show you how all of your internal reactions and conceptual overlays on experience were absolutely unnecessary, completely optional and the source of all your perceived problems/suffering.

It really doesn't take more than a few months to be able to get access(with proper guidance) to these states and start exercising them and increasing time being able to be spent in them in daily life. This is when life becomes meditation and it just does itself. The fast track to enlightenment. I've personally experienced virtually a complete loss of dissatisfaction with any part of experience and a deep lasting peace that began gradually and started expanding and solidifying into the permanent part of my experience it is now. There are still the products of my previous conditioning, bad habits and reactions that on occasion pull me in and fool me for a few minutes till I realize the silly mental prison I compulsively created. The clarity of perception allows much more efficient corrections as I become more aware of these habits and my brain will simply weed them out and continue relaxing into what it previously tensed up against. The process of learning and expanding is said to be endless. Life has become a smooth enjoyable ride in which I can delight in the ups and downs as my only job is to learn, adapt and most importantly relax.

The best guide around on developing concentration is "The Mind Illuminated" by Culadasa. It outlines the entire journey from beginning to complete mastery of concentration taking all the guesswork out. /r/streamentry is a community of people on their own journey to complete contentment with a growing number people that have achieved similar or greater results than me. The sidebar there is chockfull of info.

For a slightly longer and more detailed explanation of the path check out my other comment:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Meditation/comments/6le4mo/so_um_what_is_the_exact_point_of_meditation/djtp6xh/

You can go as deep or as shallow as you want with this to get however much benefit you like, but it becomes an effortless passion as you reap more and more benefits.

Lastly no, don't set silence of the mind as a goal. That comes as a natural side-effect of getting better at letting go of effort. No effort means no reactivity. Your breath will guide you deeper and deeper into states of less effort. Make sure you have at least 20 good minutes in/beyond those deep relaxed states as thats when the really productive meditation happens. You'll get better and faster at getting to this stillness as well. Once you can engage it like a muscle for momentary bursts of stillness you can practice using it and expanding your time in it in waking life. A place holder for this is the attempt to relax and pacify the mind on the breath during difficult times, it's increasingly more helpful as you get better on the mat. Also as you suggested in your other comment, maintaining awareness of breathe/footsteps (active meditation), helps you learn to extend these abilities to your life by helping you remain calmer and less reactive. You can soon find it's effortless and automatic. If you can understand this you can see there is no difference on or off the mat, only how much stimuli there exists to pull is into reactivity, the habit of non-reactivity dissolves the difference as you can be internally still and speak interact and work anywhere your mind is.

Also this video and the following 2 parts may be helpful.

You asked for how to work on the real problem, this is the only problem which spawns everything else you see. Practice, patience and a radical confrontation and relaxation into every aspect of life is the only solution.

u/balanced_goat · 1 pointr/Meditation

You helped me. Great insights. If you haven't caught wind of it yet, I recommend checking out Culadasa's The Mind Illuminated. In my patchwork quilt of things that are working, this is the stitches. All the best on your journey.

u/heartsutra · 1 pointr/Buddhism

I don't want to dissuade you from doing a meditation practice that resonates for you, but have you read "The Mind Illuminated" by Culadasa? It provides detailed instructions for reaching the higher stages of meditation and attaining Insight (including stream entry). Culadasa says that this is all doable while leading a normal, non-monastic life: maybe 1-2 hours of meditation per day, and occasional retreats lasting a week or so.

Here's an early version of the overview chapter, which describes the 10 stages of meditation. Note that the book itself goes into about 50x more detail!

Many people have succeeded with his methods while holding a normal job, etc. Check out r/themindilluminated and r/streamentry to learn more.

Good luck!

u/MeatFloggerActual · 1 pointr/Meditation

This is a C+P of a response I made to a similar question:


>You have an emotion that you are calling anxiety (this works with any of them, though). When you first notice that emotion, acknowledge it. Even if it's days, months, or years afterwards. Label it. The more you consciously do this, the more you will unconsciously do it. It will become easier and easier to recognize Anxiety closer and closer to the triggering point. As you do, explore the physical manifestations of this Anxiety. Just because they're subjective and mean different things to different people: What I label as anxiety has a deep, throbbing pain feels just below heart. This could be very different for you, but the important thing is that you start to understand the body's reactions to the emotion, because they always precede their conscious counterparts. This skill will progress, and as it does, you'll be able to pick up on ever-more subtle manifestations that allow you to understand that anxiety is rising within you before it has the ability to take over completely.
>
>It's the same basic idea behind the breath meditation that we are practicing with TMI. In the first stages, you get distracted and can only notice it retrospectively. So you return to your breath with the intention of noticing it earlier and earlier. And over time it works until the Gross Distractions have become Subtle. In the same way, labeling and resolving to understand the manifestations of an emotion go from enveloping us and taking over our thought-stream and actions, to a more subtle understanding that the emotion is there, but we don't have to engage with it.

There are a few terms that I reference from The Mind Illuminated, but that's the only vocabulary I have to discuss these things. If you would like any further clarifications about any of it, though, please don't hesitate to ask

u/proverbialbunny · 1 pointr/socialskills

It's real, I can assure you. The trick is to look at the etymology and see when it went from a self-help philosophy to being so popular kings started creating religions from it as a way to control their people. Which is why it is both a philosophy and a religion, but fuck the religious part.

Have you heard of The Mind Illuminated? It's a relatively new meditation book but has gained a lot of popularity as of late. I haven't yet read it yet, but every quote I've seen from it has been gold. Needless to say, I'm rather impressed so far.

Me, I looked at the eightfold path and noticed every single thing it recommended calmed the mind, which aids meditation, as well as psychological exploration. So I just investigated that for meditation advice. It's a bit hard core to do it that way, but it does work if you have absurd levels of concentration, which ironically comes from meditation.

u/autumnwolf27 · 1 pointr/Meditation

I'm really sorry to hear that.

In addition to meditation practice, I would also suggest cultivating the right thoughts/mindset; Enjoying with family, and friends. I found this book really good: the mind illuminated