A walk in nature could be better than meditation

I've meditated every day since 1970. So obviously I'm a big believer in meditation. 

But the more meditating I've done, the less I believe it is the best way to feel better and deal effectively with life's problems. 

Sure, it is one way. There just are so many others -- as Brené Brown implied in an answer to a question posed to her in the "8 Questions" feature on the last page of a recent issue of TIME magazine.

You say one of the keys to all this is spirituality. Why is that?

I really wrestled with that. The way I define spirituality is a deeply held belief that we are inextricably connected to one another by something bigger than us, and something that is grounded in love. Some people call that God, and some people call that fishing.

Well, my wife would call that "nature."

She, like me, finds much peace and contentment in walks, usually with our dog. I feel as calm, centered, and at ease with myself and the world after a few minutes of walking on the unpaved natural paths in our rural neighborhood as I do after a considerably longer meditation session.

Which doesn't mean meditation is useless. I enjoy closing my eyes, following my breath, and letting myself be immersed in the present moment. 

However, there are lots of ways to be mindful of the here and now. Some don't require any special attention or effort -- such as engaging in a physical activity that grabs one's attention fully.

Dancing. Surfing. Skiing. Sex. To name a few.

So I enjoyed a piece by Adam Grant in the New York Times, "Can We End the Meditation Madness?" Meditation, like yoga, has become a trendy fad. The hype, though, is greater than the reality. Grant writes:

I am being stalked by meditation evangelists.

They approach with the fervor of a football fan attacking a keg at a tailgate party. “Which method of meditation do you use?”

I admit that I don’t meditate, and they are incredulous. It’s as if I’ve just announced that the Earth is flat. “How could you not meditate?!”

I have nothing against it. I just happen to find it dreadfully boring.

“But Steve Jobs meditated!”

Yeah, and he also did L.S.D. — do you want me to try that, too?

“L.S.D. is dangerous. Science shows that meditation is good for you. It will change your life.”

Will it?

...Before we’re all swept into this fad, we ought to ask why meditation is useful. So I polled a group of meditation researchers, teachers and practitioners on why they recommend it. I liked their answers, but none of them were unique to meditation. Every benefit of the practice can be gained through other activities.

This is the conclusion from an analysis of 47 trials of meditation programs, published last year in JAMA Internal Medicine: “We found no evidence that meditation programs were better than any active treatment (i.e., drugs, exercise and other behavioral therapies).”

The primary reason people meditate, the experts tell me, is that it may reduce stress. Fine. But so does quality sleep and exercise. And you can reduce stress simply by changing the way you think about it. When you’re feeling anxious, it’s a signal that you care about the outcome of an upcoming event — and it can motivate you to prepare.

In an experiment led by the Stanford psychologist Alia Crum, when people had only 10 minutes to prepare a charismatic speech, simply reframing the stress response as healthy was enough to relax them and reduce their physiological responses, if they tended to be highly reactive.

Sure, meditate if you enjoy it. And do something else if that makes you feel better than meditation does. 

In the long history of humanity, most people have lived their lives pleasantly and meaningfully without doing a special thing called "meditation."

During my many years of meditating, I haven't found that, in general, people who meditate are any kinder, happier, or wiser than people who don't meditate. 

Like fishing, meditation appeals to some, while not to others. Each to their own. Vive la difference.

Comments

[777]

In a way this is true as a start :

Some of you, while young, might have seen angels, talked even with fairies, . . other Tolkien phenomena
with the gardiens of the trees . .

Heard strange music ?

This FAR FROM IQ is a much closer situation to Truth than what has been programmed actually in our brains
one at 6 months, another is left in peace up to 4 years when definitely severe brainwashings were applied

What Simran does ( to start with ) is , is breaking off step by step the impurities, the lies, the hypocrisy, the digitalized what was analogue
You might throw away your CD s and buy the old vintage vinyls
which have no numbers

It can clean us from stuffs that boycot our "spirit in a physical experience"

When we are really damaged is may take time
Sometimes it's a peace of cake
and all nature seems in Blossom and Bloom, specially water
and this is only what appears on the outside
Imagine the inside
Please don't give it up

777

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reWMJPKkePQ

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[william nelson]

Wow. Watering meditation down to "stress relief" is really missing the boat on what meditation entails (realization, deeper awareness). The modern day McDonalidization of Meditation (mindfulness training) really leaves a bad taste in my mind and mirrors my observation that meditation has become mostly a "technique" for the vast majority and not the dance of understanding and discovery that the truly contemplative mind finds resonance with.

[Brian Hines]

william, I think the point of the guy who wrote the NY Times piece is that we have to pin down words such as two you used: realization, deeper awareness.

What exactly does this mean? Realization of what? Deeper awareness of what?

When we are in touch with ourselves and what surrounds us in the present moment, what more is there to realize or be aware of?

I realize that there is much more to reality than ourselves and what immediately surrounds us. But meditation typically is believed to put us in touch with just such a non-conceptual immediate reality.

So i'm wondering what you think meditation offers in addition to, say, being aware of ourselves and reality through a walk in nature?