I was quite unaware of these biases in meta analyses, thanks for this! I confess to being rosy myself on the topic, and will need to be more qualified in future.
It becomes clear that the scope of the post is evaluating the evidence for mindfulness meditation as a therapeutic tool. Totally fair. However, as the intro (and the title) seem much broader in scope perhaps it’s worth mentioning the non-trivial point that insight practices offer a lot more than that. Although I do not pray, if pondering “is prayer good for you?” I can appreciate a host of benefits beyond therapy.
While its recent popularity in developed non-Asian countries is as an instrumentally useful tool, I’d posit the predominant way it has been regarded globally (and historically) is as one component (along with others like concentration, joy etc.) of a rich contemplative tradition. I’d personally guess mindfulness is still presented as such in most of the world. Kabbat-Zinn and Harris do convey as much in their books.
(These aspects are certainly fair game for critiques, to be clear.)
Totally agree. I think the analysis in the post is useful but proponents of meditation claim that it has many benefits beyond what is examined here. I think that this short lesson (6min 39s) from Sam Harris is a good answer to this post. And what he says corresponds to my personal experience.
I was quite unaware of these biases in meta analyses, thanks for this! I confess to being rosy myself on the topic, and will need to be more qualified in future.
It becomes clear that the scope of the post is evaluating the evidence for mindfulness meditation as a therapeutic tool. Totally fair. However, as the intro (and the title) seem much broader in scope perhaps it’s worth mentioning the non-trivial point that insight practices offer a lot more than that. Although I do not pray, if pondering “is prayer good for you?” I can appreciate a host of benefits beyond therapy.
While its recent popularity in developed non-Asian countries is as an instrumentally useful tool, I’d posit the predominant way it has been regarded globally (and historically) is as one component (along with others like concentration, joy etc.) of a rich contemplative tradition. I’d personally guess mindfulness is still presented as such in most of the world. Kabbat-Zinn and Harris do convey as much in their books.
(These aspects are certainly fair game for critiques, to be clear.)
Totally agree. I think the analysis in the post is useful but proponents of meditation claim that it has many benefits beyond what is examined here. I think that this short lesson (6min 39s) from Sam Harris is a good answer to this post. And what he says corresponds to my personal experience.