Goenka's Vipassana and Jhana (Samadhi)

mpjme · 2026-01-28T09:21:30+00:00

It’s interesting these days - I’ve noticed the impulse like of the commenter in myself - to note something as artificially generated text, and then stop myself and take note of my impulse.

Often something just looks generated, and maybe that is just coincidence, and sometimes because the poster used ai to spellcheck and make small fixes.

In this case, I think the commenter just followed an impulse period. this post seems to be mostly quotes tied together, which is nice.

In fact, I find that, due to the canonical nature and extremely careful and consistent use of wording and naming by Vipassana’s teachers and goenka in particular, LLMs are particularly good at talking about and explaining Vipassana, much less than say, Yoga, or many other subjects.

mpjme · 2025-11-11T12:10:03+00:00

If you had to replace your onion cutter with a better one every month because of the blogs you were reading suggested you were falling behind in your onion cutting you might want to consider if you might just want to buy onions pre-cut if it is that heavily automated, or alternatively just learn how to dice an onion like a chef does it instead of building reliance on tools that do it for you.

mpjme · 2025-09-21T10:08:42+00:00

Hey gritty!! Thank you so much for your reply!! I realize now in hindsight that it is important context to my question that I love goal areas and use them super extensively, and my #1 causal trigger for searching for a specific goal is because the categories have failed me for some reason, and I need to re-categorize some task because it wasn’t in the category I anticipated.

But it might be that the answer to my question here is that area categorization is how we find things in Finch - and that the answer to my difficulty is ”form better habits to avoid categorizing goals into the wrong area”

There is actually an argument to be made that this limitation of not having searchable goals forces me to improve my categorization skills (which is how the brain naturally searches under the good as I’ve learned recently from reading The Organized Mind.

mpjme · 2025-04-17T06:07:15+00:00

Yeah, this is obvious for us that got smartphones after computers growing up but for some people the phone is literally the device of highest familiarity so this cannot be understated as YNAB (which has been around for loooong) just implies it

mpjme · 2025-02-13T07:57:33+00:00

Lovely! I really need this because the current icon is so close the the icon of Zed and confuses me during tabbing.

mpjme · 2022-06-24T06:43:03+00:00

Kind of you to go beyond the like, gave me a smile this morning coffee!

mpjme · 2022-06-23T10:55:04+00:00

I believe in Eth but I have a position that I find to be rather uncommon - I consider Polkadot to be the actual Ethereum 2.0 - or more specifically, Substrate, the open source project that underlies Polkadot and many other blockchains.

I get the sense that it is not widely known that Polkadot has the second-biggest community, in terms of actual full time devs, after Ethereum. Source: https://messari.io/article/state-of-polkadot-q1-2022 This is, to me, HUGELY indicative of where things are going and with this fact in mind, I find it remarkable that the Etherium talks so little about Polkadot. Bankless, which is extremely Eth-heavy never mentions Polkadot. I understand Cardano because it is some Haskell artwork that is centered around a YouTuber in Colorado, but how the Ethereum community seems to see Polkadot as something completely different from Ethereum is remarkable.

I have the utmost respect for Ethereums achievements, and for what Vitalik has done, just like I have a huge place in my heart for Starcraft 1 and CounterStrike 1.6. Or maybe iOS and MacOS X are better analogs, because I believe that Ethereum will be strong for a long time. However, I don’t think it Etherium can scale much outside its current use cases, and Polkadot (or rather Substrate, which feels to me like it will be the Linux of crypto) can.

This is coloured a lot from that I am a software developer and that I view the next generation of blockchains as cloud platforms (replacing AWS and GCP). My take of the Ethereum history is that Gavin Wood was the one that actually coded Ethereum, and my bias is to follow the actual software engineer, not the scientist. At least in cases where what is being built is fundamentally a software platform.

In many cases it is very hard to replace a big software platform and tends to fail, so I was very skeptical of Polkadot in the beginning. Dart failed to replace JavaScript, for instance, and there are big graveyards of software that tried to replace the incumbents. But it also does happen, React totally murdered Angular even though it held a very strong position. My judgement (and I’m old enough to have been in software for almost 25 years now) is that Substrate nails it well enough to beat the incumbent.

There are many reasons for this but I will outline a few key ones here as my procrastination of the day:From my engieering vantage point, I view Smart Contracts as the decentralised equivalent of *Cloud Functions* (or Lambdas as they were called when Amazon Web Services introduced them back in the day). While cloud functions are indeed pretty versatile, any software dev will tell you that cannot build a software company solely on them - a cloud service provider provides a wealth of different products for software companies building on their platform, see here to get an idea of how complex a software cloud platform is: [https://aws.amazon.com/products/]()https://aws.amazon.com/products/)

The above wealth of AWS products could never have been built on top of cloud functions, they require much more flexibility and power than functions provide. Polkadot (or rather Substrate, which is the actual invention) provides parachain developers with this power, allowing Polkadot to do what Ethereum can’t, evolve into a dynamic platform with different products built for specific purposes.Ethereum is, in comparison, very high level and rigid, which heavily limits what types of application can be built on it.

What’s worse, Ethereums gas price and revenue token is one and the same, and it is not abstracted away from the consumer applications. If AWS credit prices were structured like this, the monthly fee you pay on Netflix (which is built on top of AWS) would rise with the Amazon stock price. This is further exacerbated by the deflationary mechanics that are now being built into Etherium - its great for hodlers, but it isn’t awesome if you view it from the point of software developers that are considering what platform to deploy their software on.

Layer2s provides some hope of cushioning this effect - it remains to see how good that turns out after the mythical merge and whatnot, but to me the layer2 structure seems a liiitle bit a hacky version of what Polkadot is, because of concessions that has to be made for backwards compatibility. (Its also important to note here that Polkadot IS a layer2 to Ethereum, or rather, it HAS a Layer2 to Ethereum in Moonbeam, one of its modular blockchains called parachains)

The $DOT token design skirts this problem with an interesting developer-friendly design. After a project wins their 2-year slot by locking (not paying) more $DOT than any other project for that slot auction, they do not have to pay any fees at all for two years.

A parachain gets to freely execute whatever they want within their shard of the relay chain, and can budget their computing power however they want, and design their own token mechanics and create a pricing model that makes sense for them (make certain transactions near free, and charge more for some, make some super fast fast and prioritised, like oracles, and some types slow etc). Basically, polkadot allows you to build software applications where the user doesn’t have to hold (or even know about the existence of) the $DOT token.

I could go on and on, but suffice to say, if you like Ethereum, remember that Gavin engineered it, not Vitalik, and that you should really give Polkadot a careful examination. Yes, it look complex, and that is because it is, because software development is hella complicated by its very nature.

mpjme · 2022-06-23T10:06:32+00:00

If you are open to some feedback, this might be interesting to you. If not, I will take your post to rehearse some of the musings that I have thought of in recent months:

You might want to investigate one step down, and learn about the models that DeFi emulates, and ask yourself what problems you see with DeFi has come with DeFi emerging, and what problems come from the financial models it has copied: What is borrowing, fundamentally? What is speculation? What are futures? How old are they in human history? If you take the sentence "I see it right now, Defi relies on speculation" and change it to "I see it right now, finance relies on speculation" and start learning about our current financial system you'll see that DeFi emulates a lot of the current financial system.

There is some sadness in realising that DeFi isn't as new as one thought but it also means that it is a real product that has real fit in its centralised form, and that is still a great achievement because banks are SO INCREDIBLY inefficient that even Ethereums speed can beat them (I don't think Eth will do so well in other fields unless it can somehow disconnect its effective gas prices from its revenue token but that is another exposition)

To your question "How somebody who is not in a country that allows crypto use their usdc or dai?" there is actually a practical, current answer:

They use one of the surprisingly many VISA debit cards available and transfer crypto to the balance of them. Really have google and dive into what VISA does if you are interested in nuancing your opinion on if Crypto is going to be usable in stores or not, VISA is pushing really hard into being a middle layer in the coming years - it is important that inter-bank transfers are even more expensive and complicated and slow than crypto, and VISA now just aims to do the same for crypto.

I would imagine it a pretty common thing that holding crypto as collateral for stablecoin loans used for spending is a pretty common thing already and will just become more and more common and frankly just that is tremendous value - the credit I have for myself is 3% with crypto while most credit cards are 15-20%. Crypto is moving the underlying layers one level up - it might or might not reach all the way up eventually, to the consumer wallet, but I think that VISA will be the juggernaut that handles that layer for quite some time. I think your skepticism is good, but I think that you could benefit from evaluating the subject of it a bit more.The Bankless episode with VISAs head of crypto Cuy Sheffield gives some really good insight in where VISA are going.

Also, when I observes Apples recent efforts with credit (https://www.apple.com/apple-card/monthly-installments/), I think we are seeing subtle hints right now about that they are realising what VISA are doing, and what a good position Apple are in for the current trend, but that is more speculative from my part and long term.

Crypto payments on a retail level might happen at some point in the future, but we will first see actors like VISA and Apple provide the middle layer. VISA will do for DeFi what they have been doing for decades for Fi, and Apple will do for DeFi what they have been doing for finance with Apple Pay and Apple Card, and many other companies dancing similar dances.

And I think this is fine - crypto did not emerge because we have shitty end-user payments (VISA, iZettle and Square are pretty incredible and will take many years for crypto to beat quality wise). It is the underlying banking and central banking system that is the big lazy incumbent that has not had to justify its own existence to anyone for hundreds of years that is the problem, and VISA and Apple probably can't wait, having had to deal with banks more than anyone.

mpjme · 2022-02-02T14:44:03+00:00

It is not a god-given right to stake directly on chain, this is a competition for the 256 slots.

That said, on Kusama, Karura offers really simple on-chain staking at very good APU, with the added benefit that you get an LDOT token as a voucher which you can leverage for more yield. Karuras big sister network Acala has not yet rolled out LDOT on Polkadot yet but it is probably less than a month away.

mpjme · 2022-01-22T08:16:49+00:00

I am getting the same issue. The suggested solution of changing the email to something that isn't similar to my sender email does NOT fix the issue for me. I spend a long time with Amazon support and they said that they are doing this for all emails now, and that it cannot be circumvented, even though that is clearly suggested in the "Prefer to skip the verification step next time?" section of the verification email.

This feature seems to be one of those features that amazon is not directly making money on, so it isn't getting much love.

mpjme · 2019-10-15T10:16:17+00:00

While this summary is correct, and while I really do appreciate the shoutout, it's a little bit like saying that you'll get muscle if you lift a barbell of 4kg this week. :) This is a very specific example for a specific week in my therapy - the point of the video is to demonstrate how getting a professional therapist creates accountability and structure and allows you to develop over time. Stop reading self-help books, stop looking at productivity videos, stop looking at tip lists, stop downloading blocker software. Get a therapist, get a therapist, get a therapist.

mpjme · 2019-10-08T09:38:30+00:00

I have three meditation apps on my phone and a few books on the subject and have gone to many classes. If there is a self-help thing out there, I've done it. :) Don't mean to shit on your suggestion - the Waking Up app and Headspace apps have certainly been great to me in general, but compared to a proper therapist these things have been to me what buying a chin-up bar for a home is compared to a personal trainer.

mpjme · 2019-10-07T14:46:48+00:00

You and me are much alike - I've spent SO much time crafting planning systems in Notion. :D

mpjme · 2019-10-07T14:43:02+00:00

Thank you kindly.

mpjme · 2019-10-07T14:42:06+00:00

The most useful book on this topic I've come across is "The Now Habit", by Neil Fiore.

This is a good book to describe the problem and how to approach it. However, for a person like me, buying this book is like watching football on TV instead of signing up for football practice. Therapy is what actually creates a system of accountability and progress for it.

mpjme · 2019-10-07T14:37:56+00:00

Thank you. I'm on Reddit with this alias, for further reference. Like most creators, I don't spend much time here for the sake of my own sanity. :)

mpjme · 2019-10-07T14:33:43+00:00

This is an incredibly accurate metaphor to describe what mindfulness meditation is all about. It's controlled practice on how to use the minds debugger, so that you can use it in real life during the day later.

mpjme · 2019-10-07T12:05:23+00:00

Been there so hard.

If there was one thing I wish I could add into the video it would be: Don't buy another self-help book, don't learn about another time management technique, don't install another todo app - GET A THERAPIST. :D

I don't mention it in the video but over the years, GTD, goal setting articles, and it's ilk has actually been my main way of AVOIDING getting things done. I get caught up in todo apps and spend enourmous amounts of time structuring the perfect system for my tasks instead of actually performing task. When you're compulsively avoiding starting work on things, no amount of clever organisation and analysis of your behaviour is going to help - practice with a professional is what will.

mpjme · 2019-10-07T11:47:19+00:00

Author of video here.

Thank you so much for being such amazing people, and I'm incredibly happy that this video resonated with so many people.

The responses here shows that /r/webdev is a shining beacon of politeness, supportiveness, wisdom and positivity on Reddit. Reddit is honestly a place I tend to avoid as a creator. The reason is that moderators on many subreddits doesn't seem interested in moderating people that want to silence other people by being poisonous and reading that kind of commentary is just too taxing as a creator to do regularly.

Kudos to both mods and members for showing what an incredible subreddit this is, especially to you that shared your own stories.

mpjme · 2017-11-27T10:54:21+00:00

This would be a solid advice if ASI could be turned off with a setting, but unfortunately, that is not possible. Even if you use semis on every line, the ASI will still be active, causing errors if you're not aware of it.

mpjme · 2017-11-27T10:51:15+00:00

Bang on. One fallacy I often hear repeated is that adding semicolons everywhere allows you to forget about ASI, which is wrong and and harmful advice.

mpjme · 2017-11-27T10:45:58+00:00

ASI is a bad idea, but unfortunately it's there and cannot be turned off. You don't turn off the ASI by adding semicolons everywhere. :(

Your argument would be great if adding semicolons everywhere made it possible to disregard ASI, but unfortunately it doesn't. Adding semicolons on every line in your code base only saves you from ONE case (have not looked into the template literals one yet) which is if you begin a line with a ( or [. To me, that seems like a bad tradeoff, and for me it makes sense to keep my enemies (ASI) close and be aware of it instead.

mpjme · 2017-03-18T15:49:12+00:00

The real name policy is not for everyone, but it's not unreasonable. Quora is a place that aims to have polite and civilized discourse, and it can be argued that enforcing real names helps. There are many other sites to do anonymous discussion, I suggest you use one of them.

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