Basically title. I want to retake meditation since I need to get a hold of my escapism and bad habits to change them and be more healthy mentally for the revolution.
However, upon reading Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana, it mentions how meditation should eventually dissolve any wants and cravings in the mind and try to meditate for hours every day and I can’t help but think that this is something that will try to make you be a bit numb to the pains of injustice, since it sounds like being dissociated from the world.
Is there a revolutionary way to think about meditation?
I have a hard time believing the cessation of your compulsions can, in any way, be numbing. Call me the Kool Aid Man the way I’m chugging it, but I see it ontologically good to meditate in a world that’s designed by every company to be intensely overstimulating. Meditating is like putting on your oxygen mask before assisting someone else.
I think of the classic newbie mistake in BJJ where you draw in a bunch of air and grunt while executing a maneuver. If I hear you do that then it’s trivial to be out of the way of your big move. Also you’re 10x more vulnerable to having the shit squeezed out of your torso (it’s a cruel pleasure to see them try to take a deep breath and deny it with a well timed leg squeeze). In other words, that calm breath is an essential nutrient in thinking a situation through and operating in discomfort.
If there is work to be done, then you’re better off doing it with a clear mind and a deep breath. The work means you unfortunately can’t meditate for hours a day.