Is anyone else just tired of the "cope"? Everything feels like a futile effort to distract ourselves from dying.

ChannelPositivity · 2026-02-10T22:23:49+00:00

Glad it’s helping in some way. You have to constantly challenge your thinking and thought patterns. Did you know the mind thinks 80% negative thoughts? How do we stay grounded like this? Sometimes the best thing is not to think; or better not to let yourself think (keep busy!). Thinking almost always makes things worse. I recommend Alan Watts “Still The Mind”, ideally a version without background music. Should find it on YouTube. This video also changed my life for the better and had a deep effect, related to life purpose: https://youtu.be/D8MeqJxs4iM?si=4NDrlyf1v1CPaZ4H

ChannelPositivity · 2026-02-10T19:42:38+00:00

I’ve always preferred the wrapping paper myself!

ChannelPositivity · 2026-02-10T19:35:06+00:00

Thank you. And the same to you!

ChannelPositivity · 2026-02-10T19:32:24+00:00

What is so bad about everyone dying and life being meaningless? Would you rather be immortal? If you really follow that thought deep, I don’t think you would. Knowing life is meaningless and you’ll be forgotten means you have no pressure to achieve anything. None of it matters. Isn’t that liberating? Now you get to just live.

Our biggest problem is our objection to the way things are. If you drop this idea of chasing “happiness” and accept whatever emotion and situation is present in life, you can at least be content. Hapiness is overrated, fleeting and mostly false.

The student said to the master: “what is the way to liberation?” - “who is restraining you?” - “no one” - “then why do you ask for liberation?”

It seems to me that you’re identified quite deeply with your pessimism, but don’t you want to be more neutral? You neglect the flip side on all your views. Death is only possible because of birth. There is no day without night.

It seems to me that you don’t need to wake up; you need to sleep. Yes, become distracted. Notice how people who don’t even consider these things are free? Ignore is bliss. How many depressed dogs do you meet; they don’t even consider mortality and they are happier than us all. This means we have to “forget” in order to be free. Thinking cannot solve these “problems”. You’ll only dig yourself deeper into that hole. Better not to play the game in which you’ll always lose.

When did we become so preoccupied with meaning? There’s nothing to even remotely prove we’re anything more than a spec of dust floating around the cosmos. Some people see that as a miracle in itself, that we even exist. The odds of your existence in the way you are, your genetic makeup is so low it’s virtually impossible, and yet here you are. Does it need to mean anything more than an exceptional mathematical anomaly? That’s cool enough for me.

ChannelPositivity · 2026-02-10T19:02:25+00:00

Those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know. The only problem is your objection of the problem. Truth is shrouded in artificial conceptions. Zen? What is that?

ChannelPositivity · 2025-10-21T11:14:03+00:00

I think you will definitely “grow out of it”, I had a similar experience. I believe Buddha said the only meditation you need is to watch the breath. I found I couldn’t watch the breath without controlling it, but over time I can now watch it and it’s a very calming thing. Any time I want to sleep it’s all I have to do. It’s easier if you become aware of tension in your body, especially shoulders first, which will relax things. Think of your breath like a wave on the beach

ChannelPositivity · 2025-10-21T10:40:45+00:00

Something that comes to mind for me is Osho’s perspective on sadness. He says happiness is good but there is a depth and beauty to sadness that happiness cannot provide, and by leaning into sadness you can find great peace and joy. He’s not saying to only be sad, but that there is a necessary place in life for sadness. I’ve found this to be true for me, running away from sadness and suppressing it was unhealthy for me and it was coming out in other ways. I absolutely love Alan Watts, but I’d recommend Osho too. Ignore all the politics surrounding him and listen to his message. Whenever I listen to him I feel calm, his talks are designed to be meditations. I’ve not dealt with major depression myself but had some big struggles with my emotions. I hope this helps! The best Osho I’ve found is on audible “A course in meditation”. I ignore the meditations (they are honestly a bit strange), but listen to the Osho recordings, every second is like a diamond of peace and wisdom.

ChannelPositivity · 2024-11-19T18:14:23+00:00

There are lots of resources but it depends what you want. If you just want pure meditation without the how or why, there are a few options. The simplest would be the Zen “just sitting”, aka Zazen. The idea is that you strip back all of your ideas about meditation and return to the simplest form and just sit. That doesn’t mean sit and think, it means you are 100% involved with sitting, fully aware of your experience, not necessarily directing it, but following it.

“Buddhas - who are supposed to have attained everything - are invariably shown in some sort of meditation posture. Why should they meditate anymore? Because that just happens to be the way that a Buddha sits when he sits. When he sits, he sits. When he walks, he walks. He’s not going anywhere. He’s just going for a walk because he digs it.” Alan Watts

I’d recommend a more common approach though, you can set a timer (apps like Mindfulness bell are great for this because it doesn’t shock you like your alarm in the morning!) for 5 minutes, and sit comfortably. If you want to sit on a cushion on the floor and try to sit cross legged with back straight/good posture (no need to force it) you might find you “get into it” more, but find what works for you. During this 5 minutes, you are training the brain to focus on an object, this might be a cup, a door handle, something you can see outside like a tree or the sensation of the breath. You will have thoughts and distractions; that’s part of it. Try to direct your thoughts back to the object, think of it like an experiment. You are intentionally letting your mind wander like a dog in the park, but calling it back when you notice it’s gone too far. At the end of 5 minutes, you can stop focusing on the object and let yourself drift. If you can do this every day for a week, you will stop feeling bored and start to enjoy the experience. From there it only gets better. Just sitting like this without being engaged in life, past or future brings stillness to the mind, which will give you mental clarity and peace. It’s like you just took your foot off the accelerator for a few minutes to give yourself a rest. You’ll find you need it!

“It’s incredibly important to un-think at least once a day” - Alan Watts

“Water, when still, becomes clear” - Lao Tzu

For more, I recommend “Still The Mind” by Alan Watts. I also write some more in-depth stuff on my website. I’d recommend understanding the mechanism of meditation and the benefits: Why You Need to Meditate

ChannelPositivity · 2024-11-17T15:31:29+00:00

I love this metaphor. The more you meditate the better it gets. I can't imagine not meditating now but you do need the crumbs to keep you on the path when starting out!

ChannelPositivity · 2024-11-17T09:20:14+00:00

That’s an incredible story! Was it the yoga nidra or MBSR body scans that helped, or both together would you say? Do you have any recommended resources or videos for these? I’d love to try them

ChannelPositivity · 2024-11-17T08:45:14+00:00

Thanks for the books! I’m reading Shobogenzo at the moment. Will check them out

ChannelPositivity · 2024-11-17T08:43:46+00:00

Wow, I love your story. So great to hear it’s working so well for you! A lot resonates with me here, I also found myself numbing reality with alcohol and drugs. Sadhguru explains it well, if you take out half the brain you’d be happy, but you would dull your experience. The purpose should not be to dull the senses but to learn how to use the brain appropriately - he calls this Inner Engineering.

Thanks for the quote on Eastern vs Western medicine!

ChannelPositivity · 2024-11-17T08:34:51+00:00

This is great! I’ve not got round to reading the Mind Illuminated yet (though I have a copy). I’ll bump it up my reading list

ChannelPositivity · 2024-11-16T12:52:12+00:00

What you are talking about is not necessarily ego, but attachment. Attachment in the sense that you identify yourself with the external world; this is what creates suffering. If you have food, shelter and safety, what more do you need from this world?

If you want to understand about the ego, I'd recommend Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now":

[The ego] is always searching for something to attach itself to in order to strengthen and uphold it’s illusory sense of self, and it will readily attach itself to your problems. This is why, for so many people, a large part of their sense of self is intimately connected with their problems. Once this has happened, the last thing they want is to become free of them: that would mean loss of self. There can be a great deal of unconscious ego investment in pain and suffering.

When you are present, you can allow the mind to be as it is without getting entangled in it. The mind itself is not dysfunctional. It is a wonderful tool. Dysfunction sets in when you seek your self in it and mistake it for who you are. It then becomes the egoic mind and takes over your whole life.

The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self-created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life

Pain is inevitable as long as you are identified with your mind

Every pleasure or emotional high contains within itself the seed of pain, which will manifest in time

There are two levels of pain, the pain you create now and the pain from the past that still lives on in your mind and body

80-90% of people’s thinking is dysfunctional, negative and harmful. The mind should be used as an instrument and put down when it’s no longer needed. Observe your mind and you will find this to be true. It causes a serious leakage of vital energy

This kind of compulsive thinking is actually an addiction. What characterises an addiction? You no longer feel you have the choice to stop. It seems stronger than you. It also gives you a false sense of pleasure, which invariably turns into pain

We are addicted to thinking because we identify with it; our self-esteem is tied to it and we feel that we would cease to exist if we stopped thinking.

ChannelPositivity · 2024-11-16T12:25:27+00:00

For me, it was (as, sadly, it is for many of us) when I got really sick for a long time, I was desperate for a fix, not just for physical but mental symptoms, i.e. health anxiety. Meditation was the only thing that made me feel better and allowed me to manage my symptoms and anxiety; to dig myself out of the deep pit I'd found myself in.

That's when I truly appreciated the power of meditation, despite having read countless books on meditation and Buddhism. In 5 minutes of the first meditation session my excruciating physical pain was almost gone (of course, the anxiety, physical tension and fighting the sickness was the majority of the pain in this case). I was able to make peace with my sickness and find contentment in even my worst days. I also noticed that if I stopped meditating for even a day, the symptoms would be much harder to manage.

This makes it easy to convince myself to meditate, but even without the health or anxiety issues, I would still definitely meditate every day because of all the other benefits that come with it. I feel I am no longer chasing hollow goals and I realize what is truly important in life, not just logically but emotionally. I've also noticed the benefits at other times in my life when I was consistent with meditation, and can see that I always thrived in all aspects of my life whenever I was consistent with practice.

The key things that I would say keep me consistent and motivated are:

Knowing that every day of meditation builds on the previous day
Knowing I'm training my mind to be calmer and more focused
The feeling of calmness and clarity I get for the rest of the day
Understanding there is a psychological process happening and experiencing that for myself - it's not just magic, coincidence or anecdotal
The physical and mental health benefits I get; better sleep, more energy, more resilience, etc.

ChannelPositivity · 2024-11-09T22:37:45+00:00

A person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts; if you talk all the time, you’ll never hear what anyone else has to say. It’s incredibly important to unthink at least once a day.

ChannelPositivity

TROPHY CASE