A cool new meditation technique...🧘

[Nice2knowU]

Hey guys,

I took a day off today so it’s a perfect time to write about this.

The other day I found myself living that classic meme: browsing YouTube videos at 3am since I couldn’t sleep. It was not unfruitful though. My algorithm provides me a mix of entertainment and useful stuff. This time I was watching some videos about consciousness and language. There was one video I had parts that I agreed with and parts I disagreed with. One thing stood out was how the guy explained how the brain instantly labels stuff even before we can process it fully. In that way he explained language as “evil” which I disagreed with because how he explained it is that language is a tool, which it is.

My job is language related so I often think about it.

So anyways that guy let an image of a triangle pop up and he asked the viewer what’s the initial reaction. And obviously everybody instantly thought “triangle”. Then he went on and said do that with your immediate surrounding. So I did that. Things like “desk” , “bed” “lamp” etc. He went on to say, notice how each language label imprisons the object. That is to say how language is never the full representation of the object. How we are taught to use language in this way to label things.

Obviously that made me think about conceptual thinking which we know all too well from our forum. And it reminded me of talking with my colleague about exactly this. Especially considering multiple languages. I noticed this when translating to and fro. Each language created it’s own limitations while at the same time trying to express the idea as best as possible.

My colleague for example is from a place where it never snows. He says in his language they have no word for snow. It simply doesn’t exist. On the contrary, they have like 10 words to describe sunny weather and it’s nuances. It made total sense to me.

Back to that video, the guy went on to say you can see this with anything. Not only things, but also feelings etc. The label is constricting.

Then he introduced this idea of “unlabeling”. Basically you see the triangle but you actively resist naming it triangle. In fact you give it no name. Then he said, you’ll realize how much the brain wants to name it. Which makes sense because the brain wants to make sense of it all, probably to operate more efficiently.

This is effectively meditation. Well a specific kind of.

This is also somewhat similar to this:

ASCENDING? escaping the Matrix? what it really means. INTEGRATING THE CONCEPT INTO PRACTICAL APPROACH

Not that I’m a big fan of the term ascension by any means, but feel free to employ the following experiment: Pick a day, any day, and start from the morning. Go ahead and judge everything and anything you see, witness, observe. Try to use all the senses. And go overboard and I don’t mean to judge only negatively but also positively. Just go full blown all the way. For example for breakfast maybe you’re having pancakes and think “Woah this is a heavenly pancake, incredible” and perhaps a coffee…

The no judging.

So then I decided to try this in everyday life. The cool thing is that you don’t need to sit down and close your eyes so it’s not like a formal meditation but has interestingly similar effects:

First I practiced a little. You see an object, I know it’s name, but I don’t name it. I did this for like 5-10 minutes. The initial resistance from the brain is quickly overcome which clearly indicates it’s like a loosely running software at best.

Then I went to work as usual. But this time outside, I see the road but I don’t label it road, I see the tree but I don’t name it tree, I feel sleepy but I don’t say sleepy, I see people, and I don’t give a name, I even do my work but I don’t name it.

What this felt like was like clearing out RAM from the memory. Like making space again. Which is usually the effect meditation has on the brain.

I even did this on YouTube shorts and curiously there was no fatigue.

I suppose it’s a bit like induced mindfulness but coming from a different approach. I think it has some pretty interesting effects on the brain, definitely refreshing, feelings of calm and being centered, relaxed and recharged.

Thinking further, I assume this is the way ego develops, by having all these labels and never taking the time to “unlabel” them. But that’s simply conjecture. Indeed it makes you think about lots of things.

I suppose this is also a great practice for conceptual thinking whereby you unlabel the thing or the emotion and you simply experience it without the pre-bias of it’s label.

Anyways do give this one a try. For me that day went very smooth. I got more shit done while being more relaxed.

I hope this all makes sense and hope it helps. Peace

[SoulStar33]

Thanks for sharing.

I did try for a few minutes and indeed the brain does brainy things lol, like naming anything in my mind.

It got ridiculous as it took me minutes to even be able to look at things and not label them automatically, akin to “think about anything, just don’t think of a house”, and that’s exactly What you think about.

Very interesting stuff. Thanks.

Im gonna try at least here and there this sort of “unlearning” or “unlabeling”.

[toby]

yess this is great. This is backed up by hemisphere neuroscience. This is something i’ve heard before about childhood: when you’re a kid you don’t have labels or the capacity for labelling the world and things in the world so you have this spectacularly unique and magical experience. But one day you learn about a concept called a tree, and a bush, and an ant, and a leaf. And soon, what was once a magical experience of a completely unique forest, becomes ‘just a tree’ and ‘just a bush’ etc. In other words, by conceptualising things as ‘tree’ and ‘bush’ they lose their individual uniqueness. This is why going on a silent retreat is so powerful because you stop engaging the parts of our brain that want to generalize the world, and so everything appears as unique again.

give this video a go, it explains this tendency to label very well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3vTEry-3mQ

[IAmJonathan]

@Nice2knowU

assume this is the way ego develops

On my lil forum break I thought of this post (checked it out amidst it) whilst listening to 3 peat by Lil Wayne, the clean version, so the curse words are silenced…

I thought how interesting it is that what’s most necessary for radio was cutting out the swear words but not the actual explicit lyrics

Labels or words just be tools to get a point across