Wouter

Are there mental exercices you recommend during activities wich don't require concentration. For example when you sit in the car; you don't have to put mental effort in it, but the situation also isn't ideal for formal meditation. Or are there effect negligible compared to formal meditation? Btw: do you please want to mention if you see (big) mistakes in my englisch. So I can improve, because currently I don't feel comfortable writing Englisch..

Shinzen Young (who is a spiritual teacher) defines meditation as "an(y) activity which "improves" the baselevel of concentration". According to him there are people who meditate (according to this defenition) while doing other activities than formal meditation. But he doesn't tell anything more about it (as far as I understand/know). So now I am wondering if it is possible for everyone getting this "meditation without meditating"-benefits by adopting "the right" mindsets. For example I play table tennis as a hobby, and while I do it, I feel that I am in different mental mode. I could certainly believe that it is possible making this a meditation; if I had more insight in this topic. Is there anybody who can help?

First,,I higly recommend watching this video to many of you In wich Tim Urban models the brain of a procrastinator (he thinks almost everyone is a procratinator) as a rational decision maker is the captain of the ship (at least that is what is what we want). But when things get hard, the "instant gratification monkey" takes over the ship and brings it to "the dark playground" in wich we do the things we don't consider the best in the long term and we also don't really enjoy because we feel guilty. When there are deadlines the "panic monster" shows up and the instant gratification monkey goes away. But (and this is really really important) when there are no deadlines (I think society has no deadline for most of the things you want to accomplisch) the panic monster doesn't show up, so we take no action. And this bites us in the ass (to use Leo's words :-)) later in our lives... I think this is a very accurate description of "procrastion". But how can we weaken the instant gratification monkey? Are there things we can do in order to get rid of the urge for instant grafification? Some of my thoughts about this question: -maybe we don't want to get rid of this proces totally because if we already lose the battle against the instant gratification monkey, we aren't commited enough, so what the "rational decesion maker" would do would be an even bigger loss of time (since most of the time a big commetment is required to reap a benefit) -being aware of this proces already weakens the instant gratification monkey But still I would like to be able to weaken the urge for instant gratification. Are there techniques out there to achieve this?

I feel the same. I watched someof his videos and they aren't bad I think. He has a good vibe and a positive world view without lack beliefs etc. But if you are into personal develepment you probably have already a similar mindset, so it doesn't really help you learning the inner psychology of life. To be honest since act.org has become so advanced (I think it is really funny to watch a video from the beginning, it is really amazing how much the videos improved over time (althoug I was already a fan at the beginning)), most of the online personal develepment content seems a bit more shallow and vague to me. Anyway, I feel the same about Ralph Smart as you :-)

@SkyPanther The method of walking meditation seems interesting and resonates with me. I watched a video on it. (How To Meditate III - Walking Meditation by Yuttadhammo Bhikkhu). The formal proces he describes seems for advanced and commited meditators (I am also commited but it is only my 9th consecutive day I meditate). I am defenitely gonna try the informal practice you describe. Do you have further recommendatations or advice related to this topic? @Isle of View Do you think states of flow automatically carry over (signifantly) in the rest of your life? I like your remider "Put involvement into any activity" to live an intense live :-). Do you know about specific instructions to increase the carry over from the flow state to the rest of your life? @Arik "If I advance enough doing formal meditation practice, it wil become more or less obvious with time how to expand the practice to everyday life". Do you get you mean if my main takaway from what you said is what I quoted ? I already started formal meditation. Today is the 9th consecutive day I do formal meditation (20 minutes each day). And I feel like it has already an impact on my (that is why I was curious about how to expand the practice). I start noticing (this may be an inapropriate word since it could also be "experiencing the placebo effect") I am more compassionate. As an example: today I met someone who lived in an orphanage. And I felt really sorry that she couldn't live with her parents (even without she telling that she didn't like it, so I also made a judgment/assumption there), in a more explicit way than before. Do you think this is placebo effect? What where the first effects of your meditation practice you noticed? And in what time span?

@cetus56 Do you have specific instructions to "be empty awareness"? Do you like doing it? Do you feel "benefit" from doing it? Thanks for the answer. I am really curious :-).

@Elton Leo has great videos on this topic. I recommend them if you are commited to take action on that part of your life.

Are brainwaves helpfull for studying?

I think in dept understanding of the famous Marshmallow experiment could be crucial for ones successlevels.

yes :-)

@Hardik jain @Zane I watched the video also but I had a different interpretation. I don't think it was about how to deal with money. I think it was the question "what would you do (with your life) if money where no object". It is possible that your brain would at the background think "but money is an object". That's why he just asked "what would you do if you had 100 million", because than the sitiuation is really concrete and fictive (didn't ever think I would use these 2 words in the same sentence :-)), so the safety-voice of your brain doesn't hold you back from recognizing what you "truly" (=with wich I mean in this context: without needing to worry about "And how will I get paid doing this?") want.

So to you not having success=not living? Depends on what defenition of success you use of course..

If I were you I would be carefull though not to feel separated from the other guys of your school. I don't see any point in "proving them wrong". I think the only thing you are able to do is "proving yourself right".

"you're getting weird. I mean you gave up video games, stopped junk food and now you're listening to those weird stuff, you're becoming anti-social!" I would take this as a compliment :-)

Thanks a lot, this is very helpfull to me. I watched all this videos but this quick refresch is really nice in my opinion. Thumbs up :-) I am sure you will aso benefit from doing this.

Ghent, Belgium

I like to listen to Sam Harris

I would rather say eventually than easily

I like this suggestion!

I once found a -in my opinion- very helpful website with information concerning food supplements. The website is called ergogenics.org and reports scientific studies about the effect of food supplements and some habits (like mediation). It is rather focussed on the fitness communiry, but in my opionion also helpful for people who "just" want to improve their health and energy levels.