Attention is important. The ability to direct your attention where you want is important. If you can do it well then you can do tricks like “concentration”. Concentration is necessary for careful doing and deep seeing. Every engineer, scientist, artist, lawyer and professional thinker needs concentration to do their job.
People with ADHD have a problem controlling their attention. Or something. Normies aren’t too good at it either. (Is the ability to concentrate on stuff that you don’t really care about, to do that a lot every day, a power or a weakness? Good question but beside my point).
Meditation is all about getting better at using attention. Getting better control over it, seeing it doing its thing better, learning its ways.
We basically have 2 techniques. In the first one you practice concentration. It’s a skill that you get better at. And then you take it deeper and you learn a lot. You gain a superpower.
The second one is trickier but better.
The Buddhists call the techniques samatha and vipassana.
It’s great that you are trying to help, but from your comments I get the feeling that you have trouble accepting that meditation just isn’t a solution or useful tool for all of us.
Please have a more open mind towards the people who are trying to tell you that meditation doesn’t work for them. We are all built differently, what works for one doesn’t necessarily works for another.
If you have a retort then refer to something I said. Be specific and clear. Because this vague protestatory handwaving does nothing for me.
Personally I’ve tried, amongst others, transcendental meditation and a form of movement meditation, combined with yoga. Both did absolutely nothing for my day-to-day focus. The only thing which actually did something for my concentration (unfortunately) was medication.
You come across quite hostile, but so far your argument isn’t backed up by any scientific evidence, it’s just ‘meditation is meant to help concentration, so it also should help ADHD’. That’s a gross oversimplification of a very complex neurological process.
Asking you to be specific and clear is asking too much of you, it seems.
Judging from OP’s replies it seems that OP drank the meditation cool-aid a bit too much. OP: Maybe you should try to take those meds.
I did one of those ten-day vipassana courses. They’re absolutely excellent training if you can handle it. I wouldn’t go in there never having tried meditation before, though.
Now, if only I could focus on meditation for more than a minute or two.
Concentration meditation is hard for everybody.
If you can do it for 3 seconds straight then you’re doing great.
So you do it for 2 or 3 seconds, get distracted by your thoughts, notice that you got distracted, return to meditating, and so on.
And then maybe tomorrow you can do it for 4 seconds.
You get MUCH better with practice.
Ok now that I can meditate: now what?
I’m just selling superpowers here. I’m in no position to tell you how to run your life.
I wonder if those two techniques can help with ADHD.
I’ve definitely read that research shows that meditation can help people with ADHD.
I’m sure it helps to some degree just not to the extent OP implies
If ADHD is a lack of attention-control, and meditation increases attention-control, then it would naturally follow that meditation can help with ADHD.
But ADHD and not being able to focus isn’t solved by focusing harder. May be helpful but can’t solve a physical issue
“Focusing harder” doesn’t cover it. Better to see for yourself.
I mod the Buddhism coms here and am working on a PhD in Buddhism. I think I got it covered.
There’s a reason people take medication.
Do you meditate?
You could say that you are concentrating harder. You could also say that you are concentrating better, with greater care and understanding. You could also say that the concentration is merely a foil against which the action of awareness becomes clearer.
I mean, it’s a real thing. Therefore words can only hint at it, it has infinite depths and angles, etc.
It seems like you’re having a different conversation than my comment.
I think that I addressed your “concentration meditation is focusing harder” and “I’m experienced” (to paraphrase) comments pretty dead on actually.
Your “people take meds for a reason”…ya, I skipped it as nebulous.
So don’t give me that silly guff.
But seriously, do you meditate?
A brain that is wired differently will be very hard to control without some help of meds in my experience.
That sounds like an experiment begging to be conducted.
