Meditation and Language Learning

[querido]

I want to tell you what I've been thinking about and share some links with you.

 

A forum newcomer recently asked some challenging questions and in one of my replies I mentioned AJATT. Well, I hadn't been there for years and never practiced it myself, so I visited the website and the system. I found that there had been some changes and events in recent years that might distract a newcomer or complicate the simple formula that had been there, so I looked for other commentary and discovered MattvsJapan on YouTube.

 

Such was the greatness of my luck that this first video, "Matt's AJATT Journey + Complete AJATT Guide", was three hours long, a simple and remarkably honest, personal monologue, with a 1hr43min intro which began with his study history and experience and ended with a critique or confession about where that had led. [And as I have recently considered quitting, I felt I should listen to this very carefully.] He went on to review AJATT with some reasonable criticism too. I would direct anyone interested in AJATT to that.  

 

Some of his comments under his videos mentioning meditation caught my attention, perhaps above all this one (expand it (click on "Read more") and see the last long paragraph) and I saw the reasonableness behind it (as I've seen related ideas in the past but not connected to language learning), and so when he recommended "The Mind Illuminated" I bought the Kindle edition and started reading. While I could see that I might be a good candidate for meditation (for a lot of issues in addition to language learning), it seemed to me that my need or drive to study might just melt away if I started this. But such is my continuing luck that he just published (his first video on meditation I think), "Meditation and Language Learning", 37 minutes long. Oh, of course, people can practice meditation and still study successfully, maybe even more successfully. It seems promising to me.

 

[Shelley]

13 minutes ago, querido said:

can practice meditation and still study successfully,

For me study is a form of meditation.

 

Clear the mind and search for that one moment where you go ah ha I understand, for me this is akin to nirvana.

 

You may mock this idea, but to me study for study's sake is much like meditation. Pure and clear thoughts about what ever you are studying. This what I mean when I say I study for pleasure, there is something cleansing and refreshing that comes from learning and understanding.

 

I think that when people ask what is the point of us being here on this planet earth, my answer is to learn, to explore and to understand. This is a simplistic view and it is more complicated but too long and digressing for this post.

 

[querido]

Yes, I understand.

[querido]

[EDIT]

Oh, this post was a little too enthusiastic, sorry.

I'll avoid posting unless I have something specific to language learning.