Hey guys ! i didnt find any post related to my question,so im making this one...

The question is,does meditation makes you smarter ?
We grow up and learn things so much easier and now it seems that i'm stuck...

I learned how to play drums 11 years old,i learned much of the stuff that i know now,on that age,how is it possible to keep learning and growing in musical appreciation,creativity,learn new instruments etc..

Is meditation a key for improvment in all areas of life ?

Thank you

Of course meditation makes you smarter...you will be able to understand you don't need to be smart anymore...and this is the smartest thing ever...

There will probably be some improvement from utilizing samatha jhanas as well as improvement from reaching certain stabilized plateaus.  I could definitely see intelligence decreasing during dark night or other difficul places in the path.  This might not be an actual decrease in intelligence, but rather an artificial seeming decrease due to a lack of ability to concentrate, focus, apathy, and dwelling on existential topics.

Here are a few things, other than meditation, that have empirically been shown to increse intelligence: 

http://brainworkshop.sourceforge.net

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Vitamin+and+mineral+supplements+increase+intelligence.-aa08542509

Meditation doesn't make you smarter in all areas.  It makes you less anxious, more open, and more accepting of reality.  This is smarter, but your IQ isn't going to change much because of it.  Your habits will likely still need adjusting no matter how far you go in the meditative path.

The best way to get smarter with meditation is to use the meditation to reduce anxiety towards the things you avoid that you must face but unless you face it there will be little change outwardly to people who know you, apart from some reduction of anxiety.  Just finding a checklist of behaviours and habits that smart people have and diligently adding them to your life will do more for smarts than meditation will.

..smarter..does that mean increased IQ points?...the answer is no unless questions about 2500 year old buddhist text suddenly appear on the tests.  does it increase the processing speed, memory capacity and cross concept thinking?...probably not and there is evidence to the contrary.  some awakened people report severe short term memory deterioration even.

this effect could be direct (loss of cognative ablility) or secondary (not giving a shit or obsessing over details now found to be uninteresting or irrelevant).

i think that its not a coincidence that the word wisdom is used much more often when talking about this stuff.  wisdom has much more to do with the conclusions we reach after processing much concious and unconcious information whereas, IMO, intelligence is mostly based on concious processing.

after we have done much meditation practice we tend to see the workings of previously unconcious processes much more clearly and thus know where we had previously been led astray or even hijacked by our predispositions and embedded tendencies.

for my money i would much rather take advice from an old kind person than a whippersnapper debate champion. 

wisdom trumps being smart.

tom

It's true that meditation probably doesn't directly increase "IQ points" (though it could be possible for some people, who knows?), but there is something to be gained, cognitively, from not being enslaved to the past or future and the absence (significant decrease) of previously useless brain/thought patterns that can now be freed up to think about things that you would rather be focusing on.

Obviously, the extent to which you will benefit from this will depend on how much you tended to ruminate on the past or future before you started meditating.

The other side of the coin would be that there is something about short-term memory and the process of useless past/future thoughts that tends to strengthen short-term memory for some people.  Some people report trouble with short-term memory after awakening.

Also after a period where thought has been significantly suppressed through jhana or other means there can be a temporary period of a slowing or sort of memory block when you want to start thinking or remembering things again. 

Check out the links I posted for other (better) methods of improving memory/intelligence.

Amazing thank youu