Meditation - the ancient hacking of reality in our time

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Superheroes are not a modern invention. Since ancient times, people dreamed of superpowers and superpowers, which was reflected in a large number of epics and legends about heroes, gods and how ordinary people became equal to them.


And if in the myths of Ancient Greece, usually superheroes had a part of divine blood, and in modern films and manga superheroes usually became such under random circumstances (spider bite, an experiment by scientists, etc.), then in literature and philosophy of Asia it often depended only from the person himself.


Moreover, there were various structures (sometimes called traditions, lines, systems, etc.) that accumulated knowledge and practiced methods that led people to what we would now call superpowers.


Here we will touch on one of the basic methods that has been used since antiquity for hacking reality - meditation.


Although my goal is to write everything simple and clear, but still there will be a few terms, studies, it may be boring. However, those who want to properly understand what meditation is and how to use it to hack reality - welcome to Cat.


BONUS - probably we all love miracles. How about increasing brain performance and prolonging life? In the article we will consider the first hack of reality to prolong a peppy life, teach how to use it, provide scientific evidence of its effectiveness and how to verify how it worked on the physical level.


As day is replaced by night, so constantly in order a person appears, changes, is destroyed, created.
Neither suffering and nor pleasure and no sensations, nor appearance and destruction are permanent for a person.
The elusive time plays a cruel game with all living creatures, where happiness suddenly passes, leaving everyone sad.
The philosophical text of Hinduism is “Yoga Vasishtha”, approximately 6-10 centuries AD.

What is meditation?


To begin with, we will understand what meditation is. So much has been wound around the term that the meaning is now not so simple to understand.


The term itself came from India, but for its designation in the translation, the Latin word meditatio was used - reflection. In the original, in Sanskrit, meditation was called dhyana. This word, for example, on Wikipedia is translated as contemplation, “vision with the mind,” “intuitive vision,” meditation, concentration, and reflection. Which gives us a hint that this is something related to the mind. However, for practical understanding this gives little.


If you read meditation in the Buddhist wiki , you can see that there it is defined as a method of transforming the mind.


Moreover, this is not one frozen method, but a huge number of practical methods that can be either fixed for everyone or individually applied depending on the mindset of the practitioner. Buddhism, which uses the methods of meditation most closely and studies a lot of them, arose around 500 BC and until our time, a huge number of practitioners and scientists have continuously applied and improved these methods to transform the mind in their chosen directions.


So, let's try to give a definition for the purposes of our article. Meditation is a method for working with the mind, most often (but not necessarily) consisting of reflection on a given topic and focusing the mind in any way described, which is aimed at transforming the practitioner's mind in the selected context.


For example, we may feel that greed overcomes us and wish to regulate this condition. To do this, we can begin the daily practice of specially designed meditation, usually from 10 to 30 minutes a day, and, after some time, this condition should return to normal.


Of course, you can change the mind in different ways, modifications can be useful, strange, useless, harmful, etc. Especially in modern times, when in the social. networks begin to post on this topic do not understand what. This feature of modernity works in all areas - for example, you can recall the battle with vaccinations, homeopathy, etc.


And modern medicine itself, which works with the body, which is supposedly simpler in design than the mind, often “changes the indications” - at first something is harmful, then as it is studied it is not harmful, then it is generally useful. A typical example from a variety of similar ones is cholesterol. A review article about this case in the Gicktime .


The same thing may well happen when working with our mind, they wanted, for example, reducing stress, they used some method, but they got completely different, for example, nervousness. Therefore, as always and everywhere, we need to use our brain, developed by a good education - to question everything, not to take anything on faith, to check everything.


About what method of meditation we have chosen and why we consider it reliable - later in the article.


What is reality hacking


A hacker is a person who is fond of researching the details (details) of programmable systems, studying the issue of increasing their capabilities, as opposed to most users who prefer to limit themselves to studying the necessary minimum.
Wikipedia

Each of us lives in his own reality - work, home, family, friends, hobbies, etc. And few of us would like to hack this reality. That is, it does not work until disability, fulfilling all its social obligations to death, but somehow take and hack reality. At the same time, we do not consider chemical hacking - alcohol and all sorts of more powerful substances, there is enough literature about it and so on. In this case, usually, over the long term, many of the substances (with rare exceptions) lead to a much worse reality than it was before.


How about falling into magical realities in dreams and living a second life there? Or dying is carried away to other worlds and consciously stay there? Or live in this world not ~ 70 years, gradually dying and dumb, but fully and vigorously ~ 100 years? Such hacking usually causes us geeks an interest in what can be seen in the articles here and in the popularity of science fiction.


To start hacking, we’ll start by understanding the term reality. What it is? Even a wikipedia review article provides many definitions and characteristics of the term.


Reality (from lat. Realis - material, real) is a philosophical term used in different meanings as existing in general; objectively revealed world; a fragment of the universe that makes up the subject area of ​​the corresponding science; objectively existing phenomena, facts, that is, existing really. Distinguish between objective (material) reality and subjective (phenomena of consciousness) reality.
Wikipedia

This definition is one of many - in some philosophical systems we can read very different ones, however, we will take it as a basis to move on.


Of course, you can cheat and take subjective reality, describe it and tell that here - everything works. Happiness is greater, dreams are brighter, mood is better - cheers.


However, we will complicate our task and take the hardware term:


Reality is objective reality, that is, matter in the aggregate of its various types. Reality is contrasted here with subjective reality, that is, phenomena of consciousness, and is identified with the concept of matter.

And now we can go further - how to give an example of hacking of objective reality through meditation? To do this, we need to take some material object and prove that we can change it just by meditating for some time daily. Here we go?


How Meditation Changes Objective Reality


Of course, it would be cool to bring in all kinds of videos and photos of how rainbows arise on meditation retreats, holes are formed in the skull for consciousness to escape, how can we change the temperature of our body and sit in a sheet in the Himalayas in winter, meditating for days, eating a cup of rice in day. But we don’t have The X-Files here, so we’ll go wherever usual - to Pubmed.



A source


From the picture you can see the hype (hype) around meditation. The main reason, from my point of view, is that having satisfied a bunch of needs, people of a prosperous world find themselves face to face with the fact that this did not solve the problems of the mind and the level of happiness, perhaps this level even became lower than it was in less well-off times . Pelevin wrote brilliantly about this:


“On the right is the execution of twelve Somali pirates on the Aluta barge,” Sophie said. - On the left, Elder A. Zakling, the founder of international rejuvenation courses, understands during the morning shave that he is no longer young. The same thing, the same output of the M5 unit.
“That's right,” I said. - Apollo talked about it. What can be collected in a humane way more loot than inhumane. The Great Frequency Revolution ...
- The frame, the M5 unit is suffering. What does humane mean? Which gives a decent picture on the screen? Without shit and blood? This is not humanism, Rama. This is the ability to cover tracks ... ”
Batman Apollo Book, Pelevin

Faced with the fact that the satisfaction of material needs does not bring happiness, people began to search. Since in the era of the 60s, the neural freedom movement lost to consumer government policy, in which research on psychoactive substances was shifted to the criminal zone, meditation has become one of the new areas of study.


Since the late 1960s, many Buddhist meditation schools have opened in the United States, taught by Buddhist masters who fled from Tibet, as well as many masters of other Buddhist traditions. These were well-educated people with vast experience in meditation and working with people.


Buddhism and its practices began to be studied at universities, scientific research began, more and more meditation centers opened, which gradually led to the hype of our time. As always, during the hype a lot of muddy personalities and incomprehensible branches arose.


If you type a search, site:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ meditationwe will see that a total of 6,700 studies are available, of which 276 over the past year.


These studies have what we need, and finally, after long introductions, we move on to miracles. How the practice of meditation can change something in objective reality.


Meditation Hacking Example


“Well then, eat it,” said Alice. “If I get bigger from him, I can get the key, and if I get even smaller, I'll crawl under the door.” Whatever happens - I’ll get into the garden anyway! More or less? More or less? She repeated anxiously, biting off a piece of the pie, and even put her hand on the top of her head to monitor her transformations.
How surprised she was when it turned out that her size had not changed!
In fact, this usually happens to those who have pies, but Alice was so used to waiting for surprises and miracles alone that she was even a little upset - why did it all go away again, as usual!
Alice in Wonderland.

When I started studying biochemistry and genetics, I was struck by how the cells work - this is a whole microworld with a huge complex of interrelated reactions, where cascades of reactions are launched to get some kind of substance. A picture of a planet with oceans, lakes, forests and tundra rose in imagination. If the wolves disappear, then the deer will become more sick and die. And everything is all interconnected with each other in the same and much more complex way.


For example, a diagram of the biosynthesis of amino acids of one of the most studied bacteria - Escherichia coli (E.coli)



And this is only one operation out of many. But inside the cells there is still a lot of things, for example glycolysis, which is generally implemented at the level of computer logic ( see. Geektimes article ).


I give this example in order to show how our body works - it is a complex interconnected system where, changing one thing, we influence a bunch of seemingly unrelated things. For example, after drinking a glass of wine, we launch a cascade of reactions of one of the faces of which is a pronounced sedative (relaxing) effect. This is the universally observed result of the influence of objective reality on the subjective (that is, substances or effects on the body change our internal state).


In turn, it turned out that our internal state affects objective reality.


Research has been done on the effects of meditation on our bodies.


On a note. We publish all the studies under consideration in our telegram channel. In February, March, April, we will be studying there in detail how to influence our health and brain health with the help of supplements. Research will not be hasty and detailed, only on scientific articles. If you are interested in this, you can subscribe to our channel .


The effect of meditation on body No. 1



Potential protective effects of prolonged meditation on atrophy of gray matter during aging. Study Link 1 Link 2


A study from 2014, 100 people were examined - 50 meditators and 50 ordinary people, the average age of about 50 years (from 24 to 77 years). Meditation experience from 4 to 46 years.


In the attached figure, the essence of the study is the volume of gray matter in ml along the vertical axis, and horizontal age. The blue line is ordinary people, the yellow line is meditators.


After 45 years, the difference in the amount of gray matter begins. (Note from our application - so the sooner you start to meditate, the better.)


The authors further describe the proposed mechanisms that lead to this result.


Suggested options:


  1. The formation of new matter - meditation stimulates dendrides and synapses, which leads to the growth of gray matter and this makes up for its loss during aging.
  2. Reduced age-related loss - meditation reduces stress, inflammation, etc. (see article ), which leads to a decrease in the loss of gray matter

Conclusion from the authors - this study provides another confirmation of the hypothesis that meditation can protect our brain during aging.


The effect of meditation on the body number 2




Increased “brain connectivity” ( read what it is ) in constantly meditating people.
Study Link


This 2011 study examined the structural connectivity of the brain in meditators. It is argued that practitioners of meditation are ideal for studying the plasticity of the brain, as they develop it daily.


Investigated 27 people practicing meditation + 27 control. As a result, it was found that the fractional anisotropy of the brain in meditators is much higher.


The level of fractional anisotropy is associated with cognitive aging, every 10 years it decreases by 3%. Study Link


Therefore, the study that meditation allows you to increase it gives physical confirmation that with its help the brain at the physical level slows down aging.


Conclusion


In addition to these two studies, there are a huge number of others that explore the different effects of meditation on the body and the psychological state of a person. For example, in a review article by scientists from the USA and Australia https://lifext.ru/tg/31, they conclude that the constant practice of meditation reduces the chronic inflammation associated with aging, which leads to a weakening of cognitive functions with age.


It turns out that just sitting for 5-10-20 minutes a day and doing the practice of meditation, we can physically change our brain and our body in the direction of increasing performance. There are a huge number of meditation practitioners, many of them are adapted to modern life, some are officially practiced by individual employees in technology giants like Google ( see article on Habr )


We want to offer those who are interested and who are willing to try to do meditation for 5-10 minutes twice a day. In this meditation, a hack is introduced, which should greatly accelerate its effect and the effect of slowing aging.


Meditation Technique + Hack


Success! Wordpress have been installed! Were you expecting more steps? Sorry to disappoint.
Wordpress developers

Let meditation be a hacking of reality, in the sense that we study reality and ourselves deeper and from new perspectives, while improving something quickly and effectively. Then the hack inside meditation should strengthen and accelerate this effect.


Unfortunately, medical research of our hack has not been conducted, but we hope that in the next year or two we will be able to conduct them ourselves.


However, to the point, the classic basic meditation is that we sit on a chair or on the floor with legs crossed, the back is straight. Breathing nose, eyes half closed or completely closed. After that, we pay attention to our breathing and begin to realize (directionally feel) how the air comes out and comes out of our nostrils. at the same time, we take inspirations. Each cycle can be, for example, 10, 20, etc. breaths.


At the same time, while we breathe and believe, we pay attention to the fact that it is not possible to hold attention to the breath, different thoughts come into our heads, no matter what - about work, home, relationships, good, bad, none, etc. We do not try to get rid of thoughts and the goal is not to drive them away.


The goal is to catch the moment when we are distracted, look at the last thought, not evaluate it and return to focusing on breathing.


Everything. The famous Buddhist meditation is changing reality.


The point here is that in life we ​​treat thoughts and emotions as something that is given. For example, experiencing anger, we experience it until he passes. At the same time, we can fight it, suppress it (which is not very good) or splash it out (which is also not very), suppress it with alcohol, etc. ... We feel it as if ours, with what is given and what we have to go through, what we need to work through .


This simple meditation, day after day, reflashes our neural paths, showing us that thoughts and emotions are just some concepts that you don’t have to cling to. This is both practice and theory. After some time of practice, we can suddenly notice that we become less nervous or, if the problem was lethargy, then we became more alert. In meditation, the brain works, which increases its plasticity and physically preserves the volume during aging.


Full instructions on how to practice this meditation are in the links below.


Meditative hack


In general, our startup Lifext began with the idea of ​​this meditative hack. It is not clear where we will come, but we are interested. I began to study biochemistry at MIT in order to understand scientific articles at Pubmed, my friend Fedor began to learn how to write mobile applications and today we present his first beta. There is a lot of work, everything is done in our free time, we don’t have time, but we are interested.


The hack itself proceeds from the observation (opinion) that people who bring public benefit, such as professors, prominent scientists, teachers, are aging more slowly. And if they stop working, they quickly fade away.


Hypothesis - if a person is significant for society, benefits him and is necessary for the development of the community, then this switches something in our body. A person begins to age more slowly, get sick less, the brain becomes more clear.


The meditation technique that I cited above appeared around 500 BC. After that, the community of practitioners developed, monasteries, universities were built, scientists studied, practiced, etc. And, about the first century BC, additional techniques took shape, in which meditation became not only personal, but also spread to all beings.


Therefore, we can assume that this hack was invented and used for about 2000 years, and we simply adapt it to modern urban conditions.


The point is that during meditation we visualize (this term in the context of meditation means - represent, internally describe, psychologically imagine, etc.) a group of people and bring them happiness and benefit. This is a very simple, basic practice, tested over the centuries, so you can not be afraid of psychological schools.


We suggest that this hack may trigger mechanisms that help you live longer and be healthier.


We also plan to verify this statement with the help of analyzes, as described in the previous article .


At the moment, there are already two researchers and we invite everyone! To start the study, you just need to pass two analyzes, which are indicated in the appendix, meditate 2 times a day for 5 minutes for three months and then pass them again.


IMPORTANT! Below are links to the application. This is a beta version, only for those who want to practice meditation. If you are ready to allocate 5 minutes in the morning and in the evening and intend to do this for three months, then we invite you to download it.


If not, then do not download yet, please wait for the first working version, which will be beautiful and in which will be added:


  • A complete set of recommended tests to be taken (your age, height, weight, etc. will be taken into account)
  • analysis interpretation
  • doctors' recommendations
  • lifestyle change recommendations
  • personalized life extension supplement recommendations
  • physical training at home, 1 time per day 10 minutes
  • two meditations per day for 5 minutes

The final


Links for those who want to start the practice now and are not afraid of the lack of design:



That's all, thanks to those who read it!


Our ship Lifext continues a fascinating voyage through life and we hope that soon there will be a lot of new interesting and useful information.


Our other research articles



Recommended complex for daily use:



Fish oil and vitamin D are very important for both the brain and the body, minerals and protein are important for the long-term health of the body. It is advisable to take those who are over 30 years old.


A complete life extension technique on our wiki


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