[HN Gopher] My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)
___________________________________________________________________
My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)
Author : fxtentacle
Score : 259 points
Date : 2023-02-21 09:29 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (danlawton.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (danlawton.substack.com)
| me551ah wrote:
| What he experienced is actually expected, deeper states of
| meditation bring out even harder experiences. Meditation is
| marketed in the west as some sort of a relaxation pill, designed
| to cure anxiety and other mental ailments. It's actually not.
| Meditation is a hardcore exercise for the mind and if your mind
| is not strong enough then deeper states will break you.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Sounds as conveniently unfalsifibale as any more patent
| pseudoscience.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saccade
|
| Your own eyes jump around all day, but you never notice. You
| do not notice, because your visual sense, fills the gaps, and
| even refills these gaps, with storys that make sense. "You
| frozze with fear" when the bike approached, instead of "My
| eyes filled the buffer to slow for my car".
|
| Meditation is trying to break these cobbled together parts of
| the self-computer appart, trying to understand. Its a not
| very wise and not very calming endavour. After all the
| machine that should reassemble it, is the one that took it
| apart.
| feoren wrote:
| A good response to "that's not falsifiable" is offering a
| test that could prove the assertion false. This is only
| more unfalsifiable metaphor.
|
| Also: saccades are very easy to notice if you just pay a
| little attention to them, just like noticing your tongue in
| your mouth or your nose in your vision. They're not a deep
| psychological enigma.
| astrange wrote:
| > Meditation is a hardcore exercise for the mind and if your
| mind is not strong enough then deeper states will break you.
|
| This is certainly falsifiable. Just see if people doing more
| intensive meditation have more mental health issues.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Anything as subjective as one's own mindset interpreted by
| oneself is incompatible with the scientific method in the
| first place. It's not the right tool for the job because it
| is impossible to objectively measure the results.
|
| That does not make those results any less real.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Doesn't that make it basically impossible for research to
| be done on many medicines, including pain medications?
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Maybe not impossible, but if it was easy or if the gp
| didn't have a point, wouldn't we have figured out what
| fibromyalgia is by now? Also maybe we would have given
| more scrutiny to the widespread marketing and
| distribution of oxycotin in the U.S., at least enough to
| prevent the disaster it caused?
| fluoridation wrote:
| "Real" in what way? I would say that something is
| definitely real if I can agree with other people that it's
| there, while other things can at best be put in the "maybe"
| pile.
|
| Whatever you experience while meditating, other people
| won't be able to experience it, so it can't go in the
| "definitely real" pile. So the fact that it can't be
| studied scientifically definitely does make it less real,
| in the sense that your can't say that it's real with the
| same confidence, even when you're the one experiencing it.
| Karunamon wrote:
| As real as the rest of your feelings in that they color,
| if not drive, your subjective experience of the world.
| Which applies to pretty much every person on the planet.
| Frummy wrote:
| So not having the tool to measure something makes it not
| part of reality? Makes me think of how our worldview
| every now and then expands, from geocentrism to
| heliocentrism and so on. Surely the earth revolved around
| the sun before it was understood to be that way. And
| surely our experiences are real even though our minds are
| isolated from eachother. In Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus,
| the devil told Adrian roughly this: Your brain is sick,
| yes you are hallucinating me, but that doesn't make me
| less real.
| fluoridation wrote:
| You're confusing the words "true" and "real". It is true
| that the Earth revolves around the Sun, and the orbit is
| also real. That 2+2=4 is true, but it's not real. The
| electrochemical activity in your brain is real, and the
| fact that it causes your subjective experience is true.
| Your subjective experience is true to you (you're
| experiencing the things you're experiencing), but it's
| unknown to me. It is also of unknown realness, i.e. of
| unknown correlation with reality. You can see things that
| are not real and not see things that are real, or feel
| things for no reason (e.g. intense fear not because
| there's something frightening, but because there's a drug
| in your body).
| Frummy wrote:
| Thank you for your reply. In most ways I agree, in all
| ways actually. But my point is that the term "real"
| doesn't mean strictly material. The picture I'm painting
| is to bring away "reality" from strictly material and
| external. I do this to argue with the point above your
| original reply, saying that the scientific method is
| incompatible with these things. We're in philosophical
| territory and I won't pretend to be an expert but I think
| we will have plenty of tools to bring the scientific
| method even to our most personal experiences.
| fluoridation wrote:
| Which is why I originally asked what was meant by "real".
| From a consensus-realistic perspective, things that are
| purely subjective and non-material things are definitely
| less real or at least less-obviously real. From a
| solipsistic perspective the _only_ real thing is one 's
| subjective experience, and everything else is in doubt.
| But most people are not capable of consistently
| maintaining a solipsistic perspective, so I didn't assume
| that's what was meant.
| Frummy wrote:
| Thank you for the conversation. Your style reminds me of
| "Theaetus" by Plato. Maybe you'd like it.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Even the solipsistic must surely realise that there are
| simulacrum of external reality that can be dismissed as,
| say, 'it was just a shiver' rather than being a 'real'
| part of one's subjective experience.
|
| Reflecting, I guess I'm questioning if the solipsist
| really believes all that which is put before their minds
| is really "experience", per se.
|
| As sure as anything, Pyrrhonism is where it's at!
| fluoridation wrote:
| Necessarily, that which is experienced is experienced.
| The belief that one merely thinks is experiencing
| something but is actually mistaken is untenable. The
| question is whether the feeling of these keys under what
| I think are my fingers is caused by something that exists
| more or less as I perceive it, rather than some contrived
| hallucination or an illusion. But I'm not able to doubt
| that I am in fact feeling what I feel. Besides
| mathematical truths, it's all I can be certain of.
| enugu wrote:
| As someone noticed, you are trying to say something
| similar the private language argument of Wittgenstein.
|
| But notice that this isn't really private to a person.
|
| How are we sure about external events like a ball falling
| down? Are they not processed by our minds and then
| expressed in language. A ball falling down is fairly
| standardized and accessible, but for other events there
| is a lot more background which is needed. But human
| experience and culture is filled with phenomena which
| require a much larger shared context - which is acquired
| after walking in a shared territory. Like long time
| explorers of the seas who can have a a conversation on
| far away lands.
|
| Explaining many current physical concepts or how to
| interpret the experiments which are conducted at a non-
| superficial level requires years of training (leave alone
| research). Even someone who finishes high school algebra
| is at a rarefied stage compared to people thousands of
| years ago.
|
| Getting a shared context in meditation related
| explorations might actually require much lesser time.
|
| For similar reasons, negative stages itself have been
| meticulously documented in manuals like Visuddhimaga
| which are referenced in the books mentioned in the
| article.(fwiw, my 2 cents on the article - maybe instead
| of promoting intense concentration on sensory phenomena,
| love based practices like bhakti or metta might be a
| better popular practice).
|
| A good counter argument is that in the physics example
| there are gradual stages in learning where at each stage
| you can test what you learn and match it with the world,
| not spend 15 years of education to get to QFT and then
| match with experience.
|
| But that ladder is present even in the case of traditions
| which explore the mind.
| fluoridation wrote:
| However, I question whether there's actually a shared
| context when it comes to meditation. Unlike for external
| phenomena like gravity and QM, there's a lot of ambiguity
| related to communicating internal processes. For example,
| basic emotions like happiness and fear are easily
| communicated because they show up on the face. Two people
| can agree that the emotion that causes them to make the
| same face is the same one, and so can agree to call the
| emotion by a word. But are we sure the same is true for
| things that don't work like this? If someone says "do
| this and you'll feel like that" and I do and I don't feel
| that, what am I to understand? Is it that I did it wrong,
| that I did it right and my brain just works differently,
| or that the speaker and I are failing to understand each
| other? Did the speaker misuse a word? Did I mistakenly
| think a word meant something other than what was
| intended? Particularly when it comes to subjective
| feelings there's going to be a lot of metaphors involved,
| which never help for unambiguous communication.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Accidental Wittgenstein :)
| naasking wrote:
| Meditation is empirically associated with some degree of
| danger in some subset of the population:
|
| https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-science-
| behind-b...
|
| Doesn't sound unfalsifiable to me.
| cahooon wrote:
| Anything that happens only inside peoples' minds is in a
| pretty tough realm to study. It's okay to be afraid of it or
| to assume it doesn't mean anything, but it would be really
| stretching "skepticism" to say that people don't have
| visions/hallucinations of all kinds in response to meditative
| practice. You'd just be using "falsifiability" to avoid
| feeling uncomfortable.
| Silverback_VII wrote:
| Well danger if done wrong is a good selling point. it
| suggests that the method must be powerful. I'm sure some
| gurus exploit this (manipulative technique) to be perceived
| as more serious or experienced. The problem is now,
| speaking about the (real or not) dangers of meditation
| could also induce some kind of nocebo effect in
| practitioners. And since most people open for this stuff
| will be more on the irrational spectrum of humanity ... the
| danger of meditation may be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
|
| We speak about mindfulness here but there is the same
| discussion and warnings about kundalini for example.
|
| Obviously focusing (or not) on something and sitting for a
| long time will alter you state of consciousness to some
| degree like a trance. But are there real and objective
| dangers besides the rewiring of your brain?
| tarotuser wrote:
| It's easy to dismiss a whole class of phenomenon just because
| there isn't an ample understanding of it. And much of mind is
| unfalsifiable becuase we don't yet understand how to make
| heads or tails of the largest neural network in our
| existence: our brains.
|
| And before you look at my username, instead look no further
| than "Placebos". Why does a sugar pill named "morphine" work?
| Obviously, handing them a teaspoon of sugar does nothing, but
| when relabeled, works.
|
| And most of the occult as well is of mind - either my own
| mind, or that of others. Science even has a semi-explanation
| with the holographic universe theory, which says that every
| particle is encoded with the information of everything, just
| at the simplest resolution. And if mind could be tuned so,
| could access everything within their own mind. (The old
| occult principle is 'As above, so below.')
|
| But it's easy to paint things you either don't like or don't
| understand as "pseudoscience". Flat earth used to be science.
| Earth-centric orbits used to be science. Wearing masks full
| of herbs when dealing with plague victims used to be science.
| yamrzou wrote:
| So what? All our inner experiences are unfalsifiable.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Why do you think of affirmative to that is unacceptable? Is
| it scary?
| vanderZwan wrote:
| Uh, how exactly? What's unfalsifiable about self-reflection
| leading to painful confrontations, or those confrontations
| being provocative in ways that can manifest differently
| depending on the person? To name just one superficial aspect
| of mindfulness.
|
| Are you claiming that sports exercises are unfalsifiable?
| Because the principle is the same, except that we're talking
| about the mind instead of physical fitness.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| Just to be blunt about it, people lie about the state of
| their mind all the time. People make stuff up for
| attention, to fit in, or just for fun.
| naasking wrote:
| Sure, and people lie on surveys used in studies too. Only
| some percentage lie like this though.
| weregiraffe wrote:
| Yes, and you can never know which percentage, so surveys
| in general only teach you about how people answer
| surveys.
| naasking wrote:
| Of course we can. fMRI will be able to distinguish
| legitimate from illegitimate brain states.
| op00to wrote:
| Used to work in a neuroscience labs. fMRI can not be used
| as a lie detector.
| naasking wrote:
| Not as a lie detector, but to detect whether the
| underlying mental state is actually present. It seems
| almost certain that if someone is experiencing or has
| experienced a state of supreme bliss and is recalling it,
| that has to pretty visible on fMRI, as compare to someone
| who has never experienced supreme bliss and is just
| saying they have.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| So? That might make it hard for you and me to figure
| these things out in daily life, but psychology as field
| of science has been trying to study the mind rigorously
| for at least a century by now, and it's not exactly naive
| about this problem.
| melx wrote:
| Meditation is looking into one's mind to uncover the dirty
| things that one will have to face and "improve" upon. I
| meditate since 2011.
| lanstin wrote:
| Are you judging the various thoughts and emotions as dirty or
| clean? That is a very different practice from what I have
| been taught about Zen.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| Curious. It sounds like meditation has been misappropriated in
| the same way as therapy.
|
| Therapy _should_ bring up difficult emotions and experiences
| from the past because they are often the root of dysfunction
| and frustration in the present.
| samastur wrote:
| And then what?
|
| I'm genuinely curious as a loved one rejects therapy exactly
| because she already knows what causes of her depression are
| and does not see any use in debating them further as they
| only bring her down.
|
| I don't have experience or knowledge to explain how it would
| help her.
| thih9 wrote:
| Please remember that having a loved one that deals with
| depression is itself a big challenge and good reason for
| therapy too. The fact that she might need it "more" is not
| a reason to avoid seeking help yourself (if you feel that
| you need it).
| brabarossa wrote:
| And then you can see unhelpful thoughts and behaviors, and
| work on yourself.
|
| Here's an example of techniques for CBT:
| https://positivepsychology.com/cbt-cognitive-behavioral-
| ther...
| LastTrain wrote:
| Maybe she knows herself, hopefully she isn't getting
| pressured to do something she doesn't want to do. Ask her
| what, instead of talk therapy, she thinks would be helpful.
| The answer might be enlightening.
| richiebful1 wrote:
| A good therapist doesn't just talk about root causes, imo.
| A good therapist talks about healthy coping mechanisms, and
| ways to get out of negative thought cycles
| astrange wrote:
| That has the problem that it's boring. Where do people
| who are overly well adjusted go to get traumatized again?
| (Like a secular Tantrayana.)
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "because she already knows what causes of her depression
| are and does not see any use in debating them further as
| they only bring her down."
|
| Hard to advice without further knowing details, but I could
| relate in a way, that the global state of the world causes
| me depression, but I cannot change the root cause. But I
| can change my attitude towards things. Deal with the
| problems I can solve and accept the rest. Spot patterns,
| where I indulge myself into misery and choose a different
| track (if possible).
|
| And if we are talking about a childhood trauma, this person
| wants to avoid, then you can compare it to a splinter that
| is still in the flesh, causing misery and infection -
| removing the splinter will hurt and it will bleed - but
| after the splinter is gone, the wound can heal for good.
| HeckFeck wrote:
| From my experience the biggest source of depression was
| people around me. Especially those I felt obligated to,
| but they didn't seem obligated to me in return. Maybe
| looking here might help. Indeed, it is not uncommon to
| criticise the world as a substitute for those in our
| environment whom we cannot criticise.
|
| Leaving those people was difficult but the depression
| lifted and I was free to focus on my own life, which has
| been getting better.
|
| Also getting a good night's sleep is very helpful. There
| are certainly also intensifying factors in the modern
| western lifestyle.
| robocat wrote:
| Opening past mental wounds is often like massive invasive
| surgery, requiring immense skill, plenty of observation
| afterwards, and a lengthy recovery.
|
| Unfortunately many councillors and psychologists are barbers,
| butchering people's minds, or infecting them with hokum.
|
| The worst I have ever heard of was getting a bunch of
| troubled teenagers together, a session getting them to share
| their horrific experiences, then sending them home with zero
| concern for the consequences. I mean, you are already
| struggling and then you need to process other people's
| stories of rape, family violence, and worse. Or you need to
| face whatever Pandora's box demons you have shared. Ouch.
| thih9 wrote:
| There's additional layer of complexity: both "meditation" and
| "therapy" exist in various different forms. The above
| description might fit some methods better and some less.
|
| E.g. some meditation techniques do focus on relaxation; some
| therapy types focus less on emotions and experiences from the
| past and look at the present instead; etc.
| seltzered_ wrote:
| There's been works like 'McMindfulness' written about this,
| along with framings warning of practices of 'escapism
| meditation'
| zikzak wrote:
| There is a reason that it is normally recommended that
| serious/deep meditation practice be done with a teacher. It's
| isn't so people can scam newbies out of money. When you
| really practice meditation consistently over a long period of
| time, you experience a lot of different states of mind. Some
| of these can make you feel "god like" as if you were
| enlightened. Teachers bring you down to Earth and remind you
| that it's just your mind being present while not meditating
| that makes you feel that way. You can experience strange
| visions like flashing lights and things. Some people
| interpret these as a mystical experience or something but
| it's probably just some random crap your brain is doing in a
| deep, meditative state. The most common effect, though, is a
| stripping down of all the lies we tell ourselves. This can be
| very, very traumatic. The realization that you are mostly
| making things up as you go and that you might not even have
| free will can be very heavy and hard to take. You might
| question who you are and how you have lived until this point.
|
| The real issue, though, is the "I'm enlightened" crowd. They
| are insufferable and need to brought back down to reality
| before they go to a dinner party and annoy everyone.
| fallingfrog wrote:
| Did this guy go to the hospital? That sounds like a stroke or an
| aneurysm or something like that.
| henearkr wrote:
| Yes, that's what I immediately thought too. Like a small
| stroke.
|
| It can also be some cognitive effect from a latent condition
| like MS.
|
| Or any other neurological problem, really.
|
| To put the blame on the meditation is a bit quick, in my
| opinion.
|
| At most, the meditation _maybe_ put some load on brain regions
| that were not accustomed to work to this intensity, but it isn
| 't even required to explain the symptoms: could just be bad
| luck that the neurological problem occurred during meditation.
| agileAlligator wrote:
| I never understood exactly why the West views meditation as
| something healing, something that can be prescribed willy-nilly
| to individuals with a history of trauma. I guess it's because it
| is non-invasive and doesn't sound like it would harm the patient
| further if not help them.
| DasCorCor wrote:
| I think this author's perspective and story are really important.
| It's pretty clear that he overdid it and that there is an issue
| in some (possibly most) of the western Buddhist groups in
| marketing mindfulness as a cure all panacea. Everything has a
| concave dose-response curve, even water and radiation.
| YeahNO wrote:
| Intense meditation and self-introspection will dredge up long
| suppressed trauma you may not even be aware of. It may be beyond
| your ability to cope with its sudden release. Western
| appropriation of Eastern tradition can be fraught with peril.
|
| "Yet, somewhere six or seven years into my practice, whatever
| progress I was making petered out. I was experiencing a growing
| sense of bodily agitation and began self-medicating with drugs
| and alcohol. Looking back, it was also during this time period
| that I had my first dissociative experiences, in which elements
| of my sense of self became separated in a way that impaired my
| ability to function."
|
| Also, recreational drugs may introduce negative experiences in
| your meditation journey.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| Sounds like a psychotic episode.
| justsocrateasin wrote:
| Reminds me a lot of Overtraining Syndrome (OTS), the condition
| where your body stops responding positively to the stress of
| endurance sports and essentially stops recovering quickly. A 20
| mile run no longer makes you faster, instead the fatigue from it
| just settles inside your body.
|
| I remember reading that while training for an ironman and getting
| a bit spooked. But then I realized that the folks who suffer from
| OTS are taking it to such an extreme. This article reminded me a
| lot of that - it sounds like you can take anything too far. At
| the 99.99th percentile, probably any healthy activity can become
| an obsessive act that can ruin your life. But anywhere in between
| the 50th and 99th percentile it's probably still a good thing.
| californical wrote:
| Yeah I had similar thoughts about OTS when training for one
| myself -- but I think it's a lot easier to push into that
| hypothetical 99.99 percentile than you think.
|
| Like maybe 1/20 people will ever do something as intense as a
| triathlon, in general. So we're already at 95%. Then maybe 10%
| of triathletes will do a full Ironman. 99.5%. Of that top level
| who train for an Ironman, half are not training that hard and
| just having fun. 99.75%.
|
| So if you're someone who is training hard for an Ironman,
| you're already well beyond the 99th percentile. But still only
| a small fraction of people who train for an Ironman have any
| issues with it. But if you're at that level, you're already
| close to the top and it's not a crazy stretch to think you
| could get there if you got a bit carried away.
|
| Similar with meditation, I think the analogy works. If you're
| consistently meditating for 10min per day for several straight
| months, that's more than most people would ever do.
| codeptualize wrote:
| It sounds like he tortured himself then got PTSD from it.
|
| Most things are fine when done in moderation, most things are bad
| when taken to the extremes.
|
| "13 days to go" suggest this was some crazy regimen, if you would
| do that to prisoners I bet it's actually considered torture.
|
| If I read about his past, it sounds to me like he might have some
| underlying mental health problems that would be good to address.
| Not by guru's, retreats, or pseudoscience, but psychologists and
| other professionals.
|
| I think he does come to the right conclusion that the extremes
| can be very harmful. They are not that far from cults, always
| some guru or leader, then many people blindly following their
| weird practices based on absolutely nothing but pseudo science
| and believe, with a tendency to get more extreme (and more
| expensive!) the deeper you get into them.
|
| Meditation is fine if done in moderation and as long as you don't
| expect it to solve all your problems. It can help with certain
| things, it also won't solve serious mental problems.
|
| Working through mental health problems is no fun and a lot of
| work with many ups and downs, there is no easy solution, there
| are no shortcuts. Get professional help, get therapy, get
| medication if needed, be kind to yourself, and just keep working
| at it one step at a time.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > In fact, in Britton's study, 60% of the participants reporting
| distressing experiences were meditation teachers, rebutting
| Davidson's argument that experienced meditators don't end up in
| difficult territory.
|
| Meditation teacher !== experienced meditator. Author seems to
| have been hanging out in a McMindfulness milieu, with lots of
| people who are "professional" practitioners, and in an
| environment where lots of people treat meditation as something
| divorced from the Buddhist religion.
|
| I was annoyed when my teacher insisted that Buddhism was not a
| "science of mind", or some body of secular practices; it was
| intrisically religious. I tried for a decade to live with that,
| but eventually I gave it all up.
| grufus wrote:
| The theory of 16 stages is pretty entertaining.
|
| > According to Ingram, one must continue to meditate through
| these awful experiences until reaching a deeper state of
| awakening. He makes it clear that the consequences of stopping
| are severe.
|
| Ron Hubbard himself couldn't have stated it any better. He'd be
| proud.
| leashless wrote:
| _All_ of the real meditation traditions around the world -
| including the ones inside of Christianity - spend decades
| training highly skilled teachers to help people
|
| 1) avoid problems like this, and
|
| 2) clean up problems like this when they do happen.
|
| And even so those traditions never, ever (in my experience)
| describe themselves as anything other than perilous. "The way is
| long and narrow." "Like a snake entering a bamboo tube." And so
| on.
|
| I put together a system for solo practitioners working with
| absolutely minimal oversight in 2015. People doing it since then,
| I talk to them roughly once (on average) to check they're doing
| it right, then don't hear back from them for years until they're
| getting into the weird "foothills of enlightenment" end stage
| stuff -- if they make it that far. Most don't, they plateaux.
| Which is fine, that's a good, safe place to be.
|
| Instructions here. There's a bunch of other stuff in that same
| directory structure. It's fine.
|
| http://files.howtolivewiki.com/.meditation_2015/transcripts/...
| colechristensen wrote:
| All long term buddhist retreats will essentially sit you down
| and try make sure you're mentally healthy enough and prepared
| to partake. People losing it during long bouts is a _regular_
| occurrence.
| leashless wrote:
| Absolutely agree. And sometimes it's probably an efficient
| method: get people through the tough stuff fast, rip off the
| band aid. But without the support teams in place the
| proposition changes dramatically for the worse.
|
| And our paradigm for safety is very different. People are
| less expendable.
| hiidrew wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, going to check this out later off my work
| computer. I've been trying to become more disciplined with my
| meditation practice, I try to do 10 minutes every day.
| leashless wrote:
| This is probably not a good fit for you. Ten minutes a day
| would generally be safe for anybody. This is a different
| proposition.
| jossclimb wrote:
| Exactly!
|
| The same thing plays out with psychedelics. Many cultures have
| thousands of years of passed down knowledge with a community of
| elders to guide people through a trip. In the west we think we
| can replicate the same thing, sitting at home with a friend who
| has no clue what they are doing when things go bad.
| kouunji wrote:
| This feels like part of a western habit of cherry-picking from
| other traditions, and, in this case, not understanding the
| context we're pulling from. We see things like Zen as fun,
| playful and liberating, but miss the whole part of it that
| entails "killing the self". It's a practice of systematically
| disassembling what you thought you were until there is nothing
| left...and this is a process that is generally done in a highly
| structured, supervised way. It's telling that we just pluck out
| the practice and think it will let us deal with our shit so we
| can get more done at work. I say this from the context of having
| studied in Zen temples in Japan in my 20s, and having done myself
| real harm.
| data_maan wrote:
| I do not want to intrude - but I am curious at the same time
| what you mean by "real harm", was it something along the lines
| of what the original author described? (Or perhaps other people
| can share their experiences?)
|
| I'm also a bit confused from a logical point of view - if there
| is such and end goal of Zen, of being "completely disassembled"
| wouldn't Japanese temples where they do a lot of zazen, at some
| point need to look like asylums for the terminally psychically
| ill, once a majority has "disassembled themselves"?
| theonemind wrote:
| The dark-night-of-the-soul phenomenon is associated with
| vipassana meditation.
|
| In the Platform Sutra dating from perhaps around 700 AD, Huineng
| (ostensible author) talks about people going insane from ill-
| advised meditation methods of suppressing body and mind.
|
| It seems like these early 'mystical' offshoots around meditation-
| heavy religion typically don't typically involve or speak well of
| a lot of meditation, truthfully. Zen Master Bankei didn't want
| his monks to meditate at all.
|
| The problem is that meditation is a cargo-cult. Early in the
| history of Dzogchen, they had trekcho, "cutting straight
| through", not a heavy emphasis on meditation. Early in the Zen
| tradition, they had precious few words to say anything well of
| meditation at all.
|
| Zen Master Foyan wrote, maybe around 1200ish?:
|
| > Buddhism is an easily understood, energy-saving teaching;
| people strain themselves. Seeing them helpless, the ancients told
| people to try meditating quietly for a moment. These are good
| words, but later people did not understand the meaning of the
| ancients; they went off and sat like lumps with knitted brows and
| closed eyes, suppressing body and mind, waiting for
| enlightenment. How stupid! How foolish!
|
| As someone into this stuff, there is kind of something there--
| it's the advaita vedanta like realization that _this is it_ , the
| eye never sees itself. It's hard to describe in a few words, and
| has nothing at all to do with vipassana or jhanas. Alternatively,
| I think it has to do with switching to the floodlight perception
| of the right hemisphere as the default resting state of the mind.
| The left hemisphere tends to over-dominate because it works on
| positive-feedback--the more it engages with something, the more
| it wants to engage. It gets overheated and starts to turn its
| tunnel vision into a primary aspect of ordinary awareness and
| places a really heavy overlay on direct experience. The right
| hemisphere does the more typical negative feedback/diminishing
| marginal utility thing most of the time.
|
| I'm a big fan of direct-path teachings like Loch Kelly gives. I
| think heavy meditation, especially vipassana, is just a cargo-
| cult hazing.
| weregiraffe wrote:
| >the eye never sees itself.
|
| A mirror: allow me to introduce myself.
| inphovore wrote:
| Too much mindfulness reveals we are not alone in our own minds
| and your controls will destroy you for your awareness.
|
| The MKS[1] one hundred years ago spoke of crude tools for
| developing "mindfulness" and allowing the "master mind" to emerge
| (you discover you are not alone in your mind.) superficially this
| is blamed for positive thinking as "the secret". The "secret" is
| others can hear your thoughts and take mischievous (or
| benevolent) interest in our interests.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_Key_System
| mettamage wrote:
| I did an ask HN recently if there's something similar with
| stoicism [1]. I'd like to put the question into the public
| limelight again, since stoicism and mindfulness meditation share
| commonalities. They are also very different, so perhaps my
| question is silly. Then again, it was also silly with regards to
| meditation, until it wasn't.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34855673
| matthewaveryusa wrote:
| I think the key is to not surrender yourself to meditation.
| It's a means to your ambitious ends. A stoic with no ambition
| is just a push-over.
| jmfldn wrote:
| My personal take is that mindfulness as a stress reliever is
| normally fine in small doses. It can often be very beneficial in
| lowering stress. If you have a known underlying mental health
| problem however, I would recommend taking this up with some prior
| medical consultation all the same.
|
| Mindfulness employed as part of a spiritual practice however,
| should be practiced within the right context and with the right
| guidance. You have to remember that mindfulness is Buddhist in
| origin and, as a practice, sits within a whole web of practices
| that all support and interpenetrate. You absolutely cannot remove
| mindfulness from the other aspects of the path. It makes no sense
| to divorce it from right livelihood, right effort etc.
|
| Tldr. If you want spiritual progression, respect the tradition.
| That might sound a little conservative, but this is my own take
| on it at least. Jumping into a long retreat with no prior
| exposure to this amount of meditation and without a wider
| practice to ground it in, is not wise imho.
| ghoastl wrote:
| My most intense mindfulness experience was on a two-week silent
| retreat, in the woods, isolated from all of humanity. At the
| beginning, I met only the creatures of the forest and heard only
| the whispers of the trees.
|
| By the sixth day I was hallucinating gold and purple snakes
| slithering out of my belly onto the ground around me.
|
| By the eighth day I had visions of a cloud island vista with
| animals the world had never seen. They were cautious but
| friendly, and rode with me until the end of my journey that day.
|
| By the twelfth day, I could see nothing but heard the most
| beautiful music. Melodies and harmonies fluttered and floated
| across my audible plane, bringing an intense sense of peace and
| joy.
|
| When I left that place, I was a changed spirit. I may have been
| alone in physical form, but the universe embraced my inner self
| and showed me the path to enlightenment.
| nprateem wrote:
| Sounds like your upper chakras opened. Well done on making
| great progress. Sounds like an amazing experience.
|
| It's no surprise these experiences are often misinterpreted as
| psychosis by people without an awareness of where deep
| meditative states can lead.
| emptyfile wrote:
| [dead]
| AstixAndBelix wrote:
| [flagged]
| JoachimS wrote:
| Calling him a liar is quite uncalled for.
| nicolas_t wrote:
| There's a rather big difference between hiking and
| meditating. Solitary hikers in general hike, they don't spend
| their time trying to lose their sense of self.
| subrat_rout wrote:
| Mind disclosing the name of retreat and place where one can
| attend?
| mahathu wrote:
| You're describing a psychosis.
| bary12 wrote:
| It's only a problem if they experience psychosis in their
| daily life when they don't want to. Any mental illness is
| only considered an illness when it causes impairment of
| function. other than that, probably equivalent to
| hallucinatory drugs.
| detourdog wrote:
| Maybe everyone should experience a little psychosis.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Having had two psychotic breaks, I do not recommend the
| experience. The last one caused something like hardware-
| level damage that took years for my brain to recover from.
| detourdog wrote:
| No doubt they are serious. After I made my comment I
| thought about editing it provide nuance.
|
| My problem is more about language and giving names to
| things and society adherence to the mean. As children we
| experience many psychotic breaks as we adjust to the
| world. It could be that as we mature the frequency is
| reduced but that doesn't mean the episodes are inherently
| bad. They could be a normal part of a consciousness's
| maturation.
| [deleted]
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| > As children we experience many psychotic breaks as we
| adjust to the world.
|
| Neat, I didn't know this. Where could I read about it? :)
|
| Most of the google results I'm getting talk about
| childhood schizophrenia. (Which is a thing and quite
| serious.)
| detourdog wrote:
| Sorry I'm winging it based on experience:) That just
| happens to be my observation and why I spoke up.
| arbitrage wrote:
| so what you mean to say is that you're just making things
| up as you go? neat.
| detourdog wrote:
| True, but I don't see that as distinguishing me from
| anyone else.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Either we have different definitions of psychotic break
| or you're a pretty high outlier. I don't know anyone from
| my bipolar support group who had a psychotic break before
| puberty. Most of them haven't had one.
|
| I had bipolar symptoms at age 5 and severe depression at
| 9, but didn't have a break until I was 26.
| detourdog wrote:
| I grew up in a dynamic environment with plenty therapy
| and hospitalizations. There is definitely something on my
| mother's side. Suffice to say that I have a lifetime of
| experience. I think about the human side and the
| philosophical side. I'm only speaking from life
| experience and an effort to frame and understand the
| issues.
| mahathu wrote:
| Experiencing psychotic breaks in your childhood
| distinguishes you from other people though. It is not a
| common experience.
| detourdog wrote:
| These may be original thoughts conceived by an
| individual. If one needs third party verification for
| ideas read no further.
|
| I see great similarity in childhood tantrums and
| psychotic breaks. I believe a more warn/mature
| consciousness may have a negative reaction to large
| shifts changes in its perceptual comprehension. There can
| be a number of causes for that change which may affect
| duration.
|
| As for childhood psychotic breaks. I believe they are
| common. The undeveloped consciousness is so malleable
| that it is just part of perceiving and comprehending the
| world. As we mature we experience fewer upheavals but we
| also gather neuroses.
|
| I'm surprised to have my credentials questioned on an
| anonymous Internet forum.
| [deleted]
| ghoastl wrote:
| I am describing my experience. If you make the choice to
| medicalize my words, that is your own interpretation. But you
| were not there, you do not know.
| fluoridation wrote:
| You yourself describe it as a hallucinatory state, though.
| Were you aware that you were hallucinating at the time, or
| is it only in retrospect that you're able to realize that?
| akomtu wrote:
| In a country of deaf men, would hearing sounds count as
| hallucinations?
| bruce343434 wrote:
| You seem to have suffered a psychosis, actually
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| >According to a 2017 report by Marketdata Enterprises, the U.S.
| meditation market is predicted to grow to 2 billion dollars by
| 2022.
|
| There is no need for a "meditation market", and the term itself
| is absurd. Can I make a shameless plug for Vipassana here? In the
| tradition of the Buddha, the Vipassana school offers classes and
| retreats worldwide, and they do not charge a time; only accepting
| donations and service in return. dhamma.org
| frellus wrote:
| Serenity, now ... insanity, later
|
| Hoochi-mama! Hoochi-mama!
| Decabytes wrote:
| From what I have read, negative experiences from mindfulness
| practice have more to do with the fast food way of approaching it
| that we go about it in the west.
|
| It requires a much slower progression that is usually done with a
| more experienced mentor, who will guide you through the process
| and help you when you encounter these issues.
|
| These techniques are powerful and helpful and can definitely help
| alleviate stress and anxiety, but like in the Nietzsche quote
|
| "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become
| a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss
| gazes also into you"
|
| The way we teach it in the west does not equip us for when the
| abyss gazes back
| version_five wrote:
| Serenity Now!
| simmanian wrote:
| If people are looking for a guided way to learn Buddhism and its
| practices, there is an online English course designed to
| introduce you to the teachings and integrate you into the
| community. You do have to attend virtual sessions with your
| camera on. Please feel free to ask me for details if this
| interests you.
| dmillar wrote:
| _The next four hours were a hellscape of terror, panic and
| paranoia..._
|
| _Finally, after hours, the attack smoldered and I drifted off.
| It was the worst night of my life.
|
| The next morning, while making coffee..._
| BrianHenryIE wrote:
| Caffeine addiction is real.
| coldtea wrote:
| There's no Buddhism in the West, but in name.
|
| Buddhism is a religion associated with a way of life and a
| culture. It's not something a businessman does on a "weekend
| retreat" as "mindfulness practice" to get back in the rat race
| refreshed.
| Lacerda69 wrote:
| real Buddhism hasn't been tried yet
| coldtea wrote:
| It has.
|
| My distinction is not about doing it well either or going to
| reach the "real" nirvana or whatever.
|
| I'm seeing it in the anthropological sense, as a particular
| historical artifact. It's truth is in doing it because you
| were steeped in a Buddhist tradition/environment, as opposed
| as doing it as consumer lifestyle choice/hobby.
| lanstin wrote:
| If your parents tried it as a lifestyle choice, and you
| yourself grow up with people bowing to statues of Lord
| Buddha and chanting the Heart Sutra and performing dana
| rituals for your school grades, then where is the
| inauthenticity?
|
| It all flows together, reforming excessively strict early
| Hinduism, meditation in the forest, take these lessons and
| judge for yourself how they help, going to China with the
| Dhamma, going back to China for meditation lessons,
| bringing the practice of just sitting to the US when so few
| in Japan meditate, every where you look one sees traditions
| and insights flowing together in this great common effort
| to heal the suffering around and within us.
|
| I meditate because life become impossible without it.
| Always now, always here, the authentic past is another
| category our mind creates and places into the wholeness.
| One cannot be an authentic first monk in California, but
| one can sit still with attention and silence and focus. One
| can be rude to other Buddhists or respectful to them.
|
| As meditation makes it easier to see what is on its own
| apart from what I expected, the effects will vary depending
| on what one isn't seeing clearly. So caution is warranted.
| Normally retraumatizing oneself isn't helpful or skillful,
| but change will happen whether we fear it or long for it.
| Just make sure to sleep when tired and eat when hungry and
| pay attention within and without and it will work out.
| theodric wrote:
| "Real communism has never been tried" is a meme. GP is
| referencing this meme.
| coldtea wrote:
| I know, hence my use of the similar idea of "really
| existing Bhuddism" (a reference to "really existing
| socialism").
| wodenokoto wrote:
| It's definitely something a Thai business man would do though.
| coldtea wrote:
| Even the Thai businessman (and the whole country) has been
| quite removed from the culture that made Buddhism have a
| meaning there (as opposed to an empty shell).
|
| Though, even so, he'd still be far closer to it than someone
| in San Francisco who adopted it as a consumer lifestyle
| good...
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| Yeah, only the Nepalese are pure enough to be Buddhists.
|
| I for one applaud the Taliban for blowing up statues of the
| Buddha. They aren't posers like we are.
| CitizenKane wrote:
| I'm not sure where your experience is from, but Buddhism is
| an integral part of Thai life and culture and I've seen
| this play out on a pragmatic level in many ways.
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| [flagged]
| rg111 wrote:
| Where did Buddha define Buddhism?
|
| Even in time of Buddha, there were thousands of Buddhists who
| were practising Buddhist while remaining in a family.
|
| Buddha, once addressing Ananda, told him that there were
| hundreds of disciples who attained Nirvana while remaining in a
| family and with a profession.
|
| I find this kind of opposition to Western Buddhist practices
| absolitely repulsive and baseless.
|
| Yes, I studied Buddhist scriptures extensively, with guides,
| and really, you don't need to burn insence sticks and bow k
| times before a statue to be a Buddhist.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > you don't need to burn insence sticks and bow k times
| before a statue to be a Buddhist.
|
| That's what would be called "devotional practices". I didn't
| care for all that - pujas, foundation practices, 100,000
| prostrations and so on. I wanted to do the insight practices,
| and gain insight.
|
| What I later learned is that you _have to_ do devotional
| practices as well as insight practices. A bird can 't fly
| with just one wing. Devotional practices supposedly give you
| the confidence to deal with awakening insight.
|
| /me no longer a practitioner or a Buddhist.
| sinuhe69 wrote:
| Not only give you confidence, it also guides you to deal
| with the issues arisen from your insight practices.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Even in time of Buddha, there were thousands of Buddhists
| who were practising Buddhist while remaining in a family._
|
| Which is neither here, nor there.
|
| My distinction is not about following Buddhist as "true to
| the spirit of Buddha" or not. It's not about "studying" or
| not, either.
|
| It's about Buddhist as a historical phenomenon, a tradition,
| emergent and adopted by specific cultures in specific ways of
| life, and being passed on, versus Buddhism as a consumer
| lifestyle choice, from some people millions of miles away, in
| a totally different culture and mindset, who adopted it as
| one of the "free to chose" religious or lifestyle fads
| available on their spirituality (or worse, wellness) market.
| rg111 wrote:
| I fully agree with your comment. But what you and pigsty
| keep repeating is that: "if it is free to choose, and
| lifestyle based approach adopted by anyone in West", it is
| wrong.
|
| I don't agree with this.
| javier123454321 wrote:
| So do you say that it is impossible to be a buddhist in the
| west? Maybe, but as a person that has been practicing a
| single tradition for a decade, made many life decisions
| based on that as the fundamental center of my life, helped
| run centers and actually see my work and family life
| completely integrated with my spiritual practice (and I
| chose to do so freely), your comment is comical. Anyway, I
| never strove to be a "buddhist".
| nativecoinc wrote:
| For sure. Most people would agree that doing something as a
| fitness regiment is not a religion.
|
| But you say that there is "no Buddhism" in the West. Clearly
| there are people who practice Buddhism in the West, whether
| that be "Western Buddhism" or something else. So one can only
| surmise that your argument is the following:
|
| Only Asians can be Buddhist.
|
| Well, that's quite essentialist and othering towards Asians.
| But what other conclusion could there be? Because if you
| dialogue with such a person, they will continually raise the
| bar for being "Buddhist", starting with pure merit and
| dedication (like: refrains from killing their parents; is nice
| to people; follows the N8XP) and then devolving into pseudo-
| anthropology like how Sri Lankans have different lifestyles
| compared to a Dutch person, or how Thai people might believe (I
| don't know?) in jungle/forest spirits.
|
| Eventually you realize that the only way a born-in-the-West
| person could become a Buddhist, according to this completely
| wrongheaded interpretation of "lived experience", is to do the
| following:
|
| 1. Be drafted into the Vietnam War
|
| 2. Get amnesia caused by a shrapnel stuck in your skull
|
| 3. Get lost in the Vietnamese jungle
|
| 4. Eventually find a village and become adopted
|
| 5. Learn the local language somehow
|
| 6. Become a Buddhist by being immersed in the "way of life and
| culture"
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Well, that's quite essentialist and othering towards
| Asians._
|
| It's rather seeing a religious tradition in its historical
| context, and recognizing its environment.
|
| It's "western buddhism" that is both orientalism (exoticizing
| the other) and a form of cultural appropriation and
| cheapining an original thing.
|
| Note that I don't say that that they are "better Buddhists"
| or "closer to what Buddha meant" etc, as those are
| irrelevant. They are authentic even if they are bad at it or
| indifferent to it.
|
| > _Eventually you realize that the only way a born-in-the-
| West person could become a Buddhist, according to this
| completely wrongheaded interpretation of "lived experience",
| is to do the following_
|
| That would be a good way, yes.
|
| At least they wouldn't be a tourist at it.
| gtirloni wrote:
| No True Scotsman? Or are you saying that in most cases it's
| just superficial?
|
| I certainly have met Buddhism pratictioners in the West that
| were deep into the way of life and culture.
| pigsty wrote:
| For the most part, western Buddhism is about good vibes bro
| and meditating and is, for all intents and purposes,
| irreligious and more of a general life philosophy (like how
| waking up at 5 am, jogging, and eating organic isn't a
| religion either).
|
| Buddhist buddhism involves demons, hell, and more praying or
| even chanting than meditating for the general population.
| Most Buddhists probably don't meditate at all, actually. Some
| western Buddhists probably have amulets to ward off demons
| and make fruit offerings to bodhisattvas, but it's very
| uncommon. But it's the norm in Asia.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| I feel uncomfortable on how you generalize Buddhism, with
| it's many strands in India, China, Japan and all over Asia
| - generalizing 500M people.
| pigsty wrote:
| I've been to temples all over Asia, visit them weekly,
| and referenced the unifying elements.
|
| It's like saying Christians pray and worship god. That's
| not a generalization. That's Christianity.
| rg111 wrote:
| > Buddhist buddhism involves demons, hell, and more praying
| or even chanting than meditating for the general
| population.
|
| You are mentioning Mahayana or later Vajrayana Buddhism.
|
| Buddha never asks you to pray, and he did not teach any
| concepts of hells or demons.
|
| Please stop appropriating Buddhism. You have no authority.
|
| Just like Christianity practised in the US is not true
| Christianity, Buddhism practised in East Asia is no truer
| Buddhism.
|
| And yes, Buddhism and its teachings are watered down in the
| West. But Western Buddhism, when not watered down, is no
| less truer than incense burning, praying, hell-believing
| Eastern Buddhism.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Just like Christianity practised in the US is not true
| Christianity, Buddhism practised in East Asia is no truer
| Buddhism._
|
| That's the "really existing Buddhism" - the kind that
| matters, and the only kind with roots in a millenia old
| tradition.
|
| The rest is either spirituallity tourists using it as a
| lifestyle accessory (the same way they'd adopt pilates or
| switch to some new age shit), or spirituallity "nerds"
| getting into an exotic religion (usually in a bizarro
| version as landed on their shores and according to the
| spiritual fads of the time it caught on, mid-20th
| century) to study the scriptures and debate "ways" and
| versions.
| fluoridation wrote:
| >That's the "really existing Buddhism" - the kind that
| matters, and the only kind with roots in a millenia old
| tradition.
|
| First, even if this "pseudo-Buddhism" is a lame imitation
| by Westerners, the fact that it's an _imitation_ means
| that it shares the same roots with "proper Buddhism".
| Second, why is proper Buddhism "the only one that
| matters"? I would say none of it matters, you would say
| only one of them matters, and there's probably some
| people who say both of them matter. By what criterion
| does one opinion take precedence?
| pigsty wrote:
| Western Buddhism is based off an aesthetic interpretation
| of Zen Buddhism.
|
| If Buddhism in East Asia is appropriation and people in
| East Asia have no authority to talk about it, defending
| western Buddhism, which is based off the customs of a
| Japanese interpretation (based off a Chinese branch), is
| a strange turn to take.
|
| (hell is mentioned within the context of Theravada as
| well)
| rg111 wrote:
| > Western Buddhism is based off
|
| There is nothing well-defined as "Western Buddhism". The
| _western buddhism_ I studied is based on Theraveda, and
| not Mahayana or Zen.
|
| > If Buddhism in East Asia is appropriation and people in
| East Asia have no authority
|
| No, they indeed do not. Western Buddhists or someone who
| learned from them don't tell these people that they are
| doing Buddhism wrongly, and should change. So, someone
| like you shouldn't tell Westerners that their practice is
| wrong and baseless and East Asian is version is the one
| true one.
| midiguy wrote:
| Have you even cracked open the Pali Canon upon which
| Theravada is based? It is rife with references to
| devas/demons and heavenly/hellish realms, purportedly
| spoken by the Buddha himself.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > hell is mentioned within the context of Theravada as
| well
|
| As far as I'm aware, Theravada is a body of teaching that
| developed late - around the same time as Mahayana. It's
| not some kind of "what the Buddha actually taught".
| pigsty wrote:
| It's the oldest branch.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| So they claim.
| nativecoinc wrote:
| Right on, brother. My friend from from Bhutan wants to get
| into Christianity by reading the Bible like a nerd. I keep
| reminding her that most Christians where I come from (the
| Old World, so authentic) mostly only go to church on
| Sundays and only follow the Ten Commandments to the degree
| that they don't kill people.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _I certainly have met Buddhism pratictioners in the West
| that were deep into the way of life and culture._
|
| They are "big in the way of life and culture" the same way
| they'd be deep in punk rock or effective altruism.
|
| Not as people living in a culture and tradition that is
| Buddhist - in an environment that nurtered and fosters its
| practice, and with all that comes from actual living
| tradition of a religion. It's more like pilates.
|
| They then switch it off and go be whatever they are everyday.
| d-z-m wrote:
| There are monastics in the West, perhaps you're simply
| unaware of them.
|
| Your "No True Buddhist" argument is sweeping and
| fallacious.
| jshaqaw wrote:
| Rather sweeping statements about an awful lot of people you
| have never met.
|
| It is actually easier to be superficial with spiritual
| practice when immersed in its culture. Plenty of
| "spiritual" practitioners are playing social status games,
| going through motions in a societally rewarded and expected
| manner, etc...
|
| Perhaps friend you are projecting your own dissatisfactions
| with finding an all encompassing one true meaning onto
| others?
| lib-dev wrote:
| Agreed. In fact a true follower of the Buddha would
| eventually get the point where they wish to try to
| integrate back into the business world if that's where
| they came from. Lots of karma to resolve there lol.
| nabla9 wrote:
| It's really frustrating when intensive meditation is sold as
| always positive. Like you can't get injured, and even if you do
| you did something wrong.
|
| I have been meditating 20 years, and I have gone trough intensive
| retreats, so I share.
|
| If you read Buddhist sutras, you find out that Buddha experienced
| similar and worse while meditating. Going into horrible states of
| mind at some point is what almost everybody goes trough if they
| meditate intensively at some point. That's not Buddhism going bad
| that's what Buddhism has been for 2000 years. If you stay in
| monasteries long enough, you see monks recovering from bad
| experience, even some rare cases who are permanently broken
| somehow. That's rare but it happens.
|
| If your image of intensive meditation is "maintaining constant
| calm", or that "middle path" means no storms just the calm, you
| are mistaken. Human's don't naturally pay attention into their
| inner workings as much as they do in intensive meditation,
| something will happen. That's why you are doing it.
|
| Living normal hectic life and doing intensive meditation retreats
| can be a problem. If you live in a monastery or similar place
| where you meditate 3-4 hours daily, attending intensive retreats
| is more balanced experience. Taking one year sabbatical and doing
| nothing but meditation was important step for me.
| 2devnull wrote:
| I'm inclined to think this stuff is more correlation than
| causation.
|
| Meditating is a weird thing to do. Outside of eastern religious
| practice at least. You get some some semi-normal people who do
| it, ray dalio comes to mind, but mostly it attracts people who
| aren't mentally well to begin with. It's exactly the group of
| people you'd expect to have these kinds of problems. The same
| group that should avoid weed and shrooms and for the same
| reasons. There are a lot of these people on hn and in the tech
| world, overachievers high on the neuroticism scale. A normal
| person doesn't meditate more than 30 minutes a day. That alone is
| a symptom of deeper issues.
| louison11 wrote:
| Nobody is mentally well to begin with. Suffering is universal.
| You simply get people who are ready to deal with their
| suffering and seek help through appropriate practices, and
| people who are in denial and convince themselves they're fine.
| There are a lot of very wise, sane, stable people who meditate
| a lot more than 30 minutes a day.
| 2devnull wrote:
| There is a spectrum, on one end well adapted, psychologically
| advantaged individuals, and at the other end people who are
| more prone to suffering or various difficulties. I cited ray
| dalio as one of many examples of same, wise stable people.
| That there is a bell curve is obviously the case. Most people
| do not meditate daily. Of those that do, the tendency to have
| psychological issues is greater than in the set of
| individuals that do not.
| sixo wrote:
| That meditation reliably causes these crisis events (so much
| that it's an acknowledged "stage" of the process; the "dark
| night of the soul" term comes from the Roman Catholic
| contemplative tradition which maybe doesn't refer to the same
| thing but has a similar role in the process) is pretty much THE
| criteria to establish causation; that it only happens to a
| portion of meditators additionally rules out "the kind of
| person who would meditate is going to have this happen anyway".
|
| Meditating IS weird but, historically, not nearly as weird as
| a-spirituality, which is the state of the "normal person" in
| your comment.
|
| And, of course the drive to meditate reflects some difference
| relative to the general population, but "symptoms of deeper
| issues" implies buy-in to a kind of the therapeutic/mental-
| health framework of "if you're unable to exist within the range
| of 'normal' all the time, you have a disease" and, well, it
| seems pretty reasonable to be discontent with your life--either
| your life or your feelings needs to change, and emotional
| searching is kind of the obvious way to address that.
| 2devnull wrote:
| My intent was to single out a-spiritual meditation.
| Meditation that occurs as part of an established program of
| spiritual practice, that goes along with other aspects of
| religion within a centuries old framework is obviously the
| opposite of weird. It is normal.
|
| Whether what you call crisis events that are part of the
| process is == psychotic episodes seems dubious to me. The
| psychosis I hear reported from more extreme "aspiritual"
| meditators doesn't sound productive but disabling and in many
| cases permanently so. In the context of established religion,
| such things are "selected against" in the Darwinian sense.
| Anything that's part of the process within the context of a
| long running time tested religious framework, be it Buddhism,
| Catholicism, Hasidism etc... must be evolutionarily
| advantageous (in a institutional not biological sense).
| twobitshifter wrote:
| You're saying it's a selection bias, but the author claims most
| people with these symptoms had no previous mental issues.
|
| Further, meditating is marketed as addressing emotional issues
| and if it's not doing that, it's either a placebo or worse
| potentially harmful to the people most likely to try it.
| 2devnull wrote:
| Most people who have a psychotic episode have never had a
| prior psychotic episode.
|
| Meditation being marketed as a solution to emotional
| (psychological) issues is precisely the point I'm trying to
| make.
|
| This is the same problem with detecting the link between
| antidepressants and suicide. The link between Prozac and
| suicide was noted in the 80s but written off as correlation.
| Because correlation is just as plausible an explanation as
| causation is. It's difficult to not to conflate the two.
|
| In the case of meditation, I don't see many people
| acknowledging the possibility that mental health problems
| could be correlated _with_ , as opposed to caused _by_ ,
| meditation itself.
|
| Most people I know are psychologically healthy and do not
| meditate. The people I know who have turned to meditation
| have done it help with their problems (physical or
| emotional). I wouldn't argue that it's a perfect or even
| strong correlation, merely that the correlation is there and
| it may be enough to explain these somewhat rare outcomes from
| meditation practice.
| nidnogg wrote:
| Great write-up. Where I'm based, there are not a lot of
| meditation retreats at all. It's often something that's not
| really talked about but even then I wasn't aware at all that
| these side effects were out there. The most I went through as a
| short mindfulness class in college, and I absolutely thought it
| would be beneficial to go deeper into it eventually. I could
| never find the time or (mostly) patience to follow up with it
| afterwards.
|
| Having had almost life ruining psychosis for pandemic related
| reasons in between then and now, reading this makes me glad I
| didn't and keen to learn more on this side of the issue.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| When I read articles like this, I'm reminded that you can
| overdose by taking any extreme. It was a great read discussing
| their experience, but seems to warn a very small dedicated group
| who will take it to the extreme when very few will ever do so in
| the first place.
|
| The stoics, buddhists, and taoists all had a similar idea of
| moderation of two extremes. The similar idea of having a dark
| night of the soul because you are imbalanced in some way leading
| to a crisis of faith. Even Shugendo/Yamabushi practices are a
| long extended journey where meditation is met with physical
| exhaustion. Thus it balances itself out.
|
| It's a lifelong practice and seems the awareness is doing its job
| of making one aware of the pain to work through. I don't think
| Buddhism is the problem here, the over attachment to it seems to
| have left the author with suffering.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| > I met her by happenstance, nine months before my disastrous
| retreat. She was leading a conference called "Do No Harm" in
| Los Angeles about adverse effects of meditation.
|
| This among other parts make me wonder if the author doesn't
| have another side to the story of their life. They mention the
| drinking and the drugs, but...
|
| I wonder what would have happened had they not gone to this
| event, not known there was someone out there educating on the
| bad sides of meditation, etc.
|
| No offense to the guy at all, but I consider the narrator
| unreliable.
| hot_topic wrote:
| Even more proof that mindfulness is about deeply analyzing the
| pressures on your own individual self
| rdevsrex wrote:
| What OP describes sounds like the common bad trip with various
| psychedelics. Of course there are differences, but it's very easy
| to get yourself into a state of mind that you can't easily get
| out of for hours on end. Definitely not fun.
| meindnoch wrote:
| Sorry for the loss of your old self. Your life will never be the
| same as before. Once you peek behind the curtains, you can't un-
| see what you saw there.
| scotty79 wrote:
| If you have similar symptoms it might be chronic caffeine
| overdose. Stop drinking coffee (or switch to deacf) and tea for
| few weeks to rule it out.
| dr-detroit wrote:
| [dead]
| [deleted]
| phkahler wrote:
| >> What we do share is a feeling that's common among those who
| have had traumatic experiences: neglect, shame and a sense of
| being unheard by those in power.
|
| They might want to read "Running on Empty" - the book notes that
| various forms of emotional neglect can have effects like trauma,
| but this is often overlooked by psychologist and therapists. I
| enjoyed the part in the article where the author said they
| finally allowed themself to be angry and wanted to ask "who
| should that anger really be directed at?"
| groffee wrote:
| See how many times they write the word 'I'?
|
| They've never meditated properly even once. Teacher my ass, these
| people do way more damage than help anyone.
| nayroclade wrote:
| Do you meditate? Because if it leads to an attitude like you're
| displaying, it's not a great advertisment.
| dijit wrote:
| Well.
|
| https://www.psychnewsdaily.com/study-links-mindfulness-
| medit...
| detourdog wrote:
| I had a hard time with this article. The pool the subjects
| were pulled from is suspect to me. They also didn't
| interview any Rabbis, Priests, Mullahs,.... They study
| spirituality of a small subset of people pursuing it.
| dijit wrote:
| Mindfulness as practiced by the typical western audience
| (largely secular, young professionals) _is_ well
| represented.
|
| If you want to take something else away or are looking
| for alternative discussions about the nature of
| spirituality itself: go ahead, but that's not the study
| for that.
|
| Only mindfulness meditation as practiced in western
| society in the fashionable way.
| detourdog wrote:
| I disagree. The pool seems to be derived from students
| and professionals of mindfulness. I believe mindfulness
| can be practiced outside of that group. That group also
| seems like the most confused group of people practicing
| mindfulness.
|
| Mindfulnesss practiced in a fashionable way seems like
| the bottom of the barrel of mindfulness.
|
| Maybe I did read the article with the wrong point of
| view. I thought it was posted to support the notion that
| Mindfulness is flawed.
| dijit wrote:
| Mindfulness as practiced by people in the west in the
| fashionable fashion gives people a sense of superiority.
|
| Thats the crux of what is spelled out at length, could
| the study be improved? Maybe.
|
| But I see no evidence here of anything else, so until it
| is replicated or failed to replicate it will be my
| opinion.
| manuelmoreale wrote:
| Maybe secular young professionals all share some trait
| that can be associated with sense of superiority? And
| it's not really about mindfulness or meditation?
| dijit wrote:
| study controls for that.
| detourdog wrote:
| I didn't go back to read check but my memory is that it
| was around 531 participants. So with that sample size who
| know how small the control group is. In any case it
| certainly is dominating more of my life than I'm
| comfortable with right now.
| dinkleberg wrote:
| How is one to write a story of their personal story in which
| they are the main, and for the most part the only character,
| without using the word "I" all the time?
| fluoridation wrote:
| "Rather than retelling it as a subjective narrative, you
| could retell it as an objective or omniscient narrator. It
| would sound completely ridiculous if the listener realizes
| that you're just telling your account from your perspective,
| particularly if you need to refer to yourself in the third
| person", said fluoridation as he thought how absurd the idea
| even is.
| fluoridation wrote:
| What would be acceptable an acceptable number? Zero? More than
| zero? How is it determined, and why is it important?
| nprateem wrote:
| Sounds like jhana worked and they awoke, via a Kundalini
| awakening. It's a shame the teachers couldn't provide more
| support.
| [deleted]
| passion__desire wrote:
| I would just say the feedback loops between awareness got
| magnified by a lot. I would suggest the author to read the book
| "Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man". In that book, Gopi
| Krishna relates how his attention got fractured experienced
| sensations far intense.
|
| > Often in the silence and darkness of my room at night I found
| myself looking with dread at horribly disfigured faces and
| distorted forms bending and twisting into shapes, appearing and
| disappearing rapidly in the shining medium, eddying and
| swirling in and around me. They left me trembling with fear,
| unable to account for their presence. At times, though such
| occurrences were rare, I could perceive within the luminous
| mist a brighter radiance emanating from a luciferous, ethereal
| shape, with a hardly distinguishable face and figure, but
| nevertheless a presence, emitting a lustre so soft, enchanting,
| and soothing that on such occasions my mind overflowed with
| happiness and an indescribable divine peace filled every fibre
| of my being. Strangely enough, on every such occasion the
| memory of the primary vision, which occurred on the first day
| of the awakening, came vividly to me as if to hearten me in the
| midst of despondency with a fleeting glimpse of a
| supercondition towards which I was being painfully and
| inexorably drawn.
| nprateem wrote:
| Yes, the author should totally study Kundalini. Krishna's
| story is scary.
|
| It's even mentioned in Mastering the Core Teachings of the
| Buddha and The Mind Illuminated. Some traditions make it a
| central component (tantric & yogic), while some ignore it
| (Zen), but it's there in all of them. The core of religions
| flowed out of these experiences IMO.
|
| There should absolutely be greater awareness that this is
| where meditation can lead if practiced with sufficient
| intensity. It's hard to say what the frequency is, but the
| centrality of these experiences and extrasensory stories
| (e.g. the Buddha seeing spirits), suggests it's a widely
| experienced phenomenon along the path. I mean, if the aim of
| meditation is to awaken to the greater consciousness, then
| one day you're going to have to experience it to progress.
|
| This is where the West has lost its way. The culture has
| swung so far in favour of materialism it rejects the idea of
| universal consciousness, so sells mindfulness as simply brain
| exercises. That means if someone experiences the bigger
| reality they have no frame of reference and little support
| like they would if they followed a tradition where these
| experiences are more widely experienced.
| dayvid wrote:
| Agree 100%. Many western meditation practices, especially
| mindfulness, take the soul and context out of meditation
| and treat it like an extreme sport or pilates class.
| Reminds me of when Tim Ferris went on a prolonged fast
| before doing a mindfulness retreat and almost has a full
| mental breakdown.
| javier123454321 wrote:
| In the west, many conflate meditation for stress release and
| meditation for transcendence of the self.
|
| If your goal is to develop yourself to go beyond every limitation
| that you ever believed about yourself, to transcend every piece
| of identity that you ever identified with in order to reach
| enlightenment, then it is best to look for a teacher that:
|
| 1. has achieved the goal you are after. (A teacher that practices
| what they preach) 2. is willing to take you as a student 3. You
| are willing to commit to their path and working through the
| difficulties like the ones outlined in the post
|
| Note that this is explicitly about no longer identifying with
| your ego, and will be a very difficult, and sometimes dangerous
| road. Otherwise, then take the advice of the article and just do
| a little here and there.
|
| Just don't conflate the two things, and - especially if you are
| doing the latter - definitely don't go around shopping for a
| bunch of different methods and try to practice them all as the
| author did. Grab a method and stick with it, if it's not for you
| then chose another one and stick with that, but don't fall into
| the trap of trying to create your own medicine from the vastness
| of teachings and methods.
| 300bps wrote:
| This article reminds me of the 28 year old mother that died from
| water intoxication trying to win a Wii for her children in 2007.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jennifer-stranges-family-awarde...
|
| I don't know what happened to the OP. Maybe he was experiencing
| psychosis, maybe he was in some stage of enlightenment, maybe
| he's the victim of a harmful practice.
|
| But I do know he took mindfulness to an extreme that only a tiny
| fraction do.
|
| Anything in excess can kill you. Even drinking water. The 10 to
| 20 minutes per day many mindfulness meditators do doesn't seem
| likely to have the same effect as experienced by the OP.
| snozolli wrote:
| I'd like to know what physical activity and exercise the author
| was getting during this period. I believe that 10 - 12 hours of
| breath counting was mentioned, and I can't imagine that being
| physically still for that long is good for the body. Some of the
| stuff about involuntary jerking and the author's shoulder
| reminded me of my experience with a pinched nerve due to a bulged
| disc in my neck.
|
| Also, I'm a bit suspicious of the quiet references to alcohol and
| drugs. I'm far from a tee-totaler, but I recognize that one man's
| casual drinking or smoking (i.e. THC) is another's depression or
| anxiety-inducing dose.
| [deleted]
| binarysolo wrote:
| This "meltdown" is a highly known outcome of the practice (and
| kinda why people historically do it with guidance in a safe space
| with a lot of time-honed set of best practices from thousands of
| years of history).
|
| It's kinda like people who are in reasonably healthy mental shape
| suddenly decide to run an ultramarathon of the mind. I'm not sure
| if OP may have the correct expectations.
| jeremyt wrote:
| I have quite a lot of experience with meditation. I've done
| thousands of hours, including more than ten retreats that
| involved sitting for as many as 18 hours per day.
|
| I've also done many healing modalities, including somatic
| experiencing.
|
| From my perspective, we have taken "Buddhism" and "meditation"
| and we have done what us Westerners almost always do: we boil it
| down into "stuff that does stuff" and "everything else".
|
| We are so intensely and impatiently interested in "doing stuff".
|
| So, we have taken a tradition/religion that has existed for
| thousands of years, includes many practices and parts, and we
| have pulled out the part that "does stuff", and we call that
| mindfulness.
|
| But, if you really look at the tradition itself, particularly in
| non-Zen forms of Buddhism, what you often see is what are called
| "preliminary practices". Used to, if the Westerner goes east in
| search of meditation instruction, he or she has to get special
| permission to skip the preliminary practices.
|
| And what our preliminary practices? In the West we call that
| therapy.
|
| So, this really important thing, that one must do therapy and
| what they would call in the East "purification" before one is
| ready to start meditating has been tossed aside because it
| doesn't yield immediate results like a few days of mindfulness.
|
| In addition, the traditions are almost totally unaware of our
| understanding of trauma and the best they can do is use the
| language of "demons".
|
| So, I'm aware of "mindful-based stress reduction", but I'm not
| intimately familiar with it. It doesn't make sense to me why
| someone would use mindfulness to reduce stress or in place of a
| therapeutic or trauma modality.
|
| I mean, sometimes it is way more comfortable to not be aware of
| things than to be aware of things. And, in my experience,
| becoming aware of oneself is just a bunch of not fun
| realizations, including realizations like "I'm a people pleaser"
| or "I always sabotage relationships in a similar way".
|
| These realizations are not fun because just seeing the truth or
| the pattern doesn't change it, so you sit and watch yourself
| doing the same shit over and over and not quite having the power
| to change it... That requires much deeper meditation and
| awareness.
|
| At any point in this process, one can become too aware and too
| burdened with one's issues, and that can result in all kinds of
| stuff including breakdown and psychosis.
|
| At the end of the day, meditation and mindfulness and all the
| rest is basically just the matrix movie... Don't take the red
| pill unless you really want the red pill because sleepwalking
| through life unaware of one's issues and happily eating the steak
| that isn't there is sometimes more pleasant.
|
| Meditation is for those who want the truth, regardless of whether
| it feels good or not. For everyone else, there's therapy.
| whitepaint wrote:
| Very beautifully put. I completely relate with the last 2
| sentences. Do you have recommendations for books?
| jeremyt wrote:
| There are as many schools of thought and meditation
| methodologies as there are people. What resonates with me may
| not resonate with you.
|
| Having said that, "Streams of Wisdom" by Dustin Diperna is,
| IMO, the finest 40,000 foot view of meditation and spiritual
| development that I know of.
|
| For an actual no bullshit practical guide to meditation
| Eckhart Tolle's "The power of now" is what I would point to.
| You really need nothing more than this book.
| javier123454321 wrote:
| Find a teacher you trust, and inspires you to become like
| them. Books can help, but I'd say to use them as a
| compliment.
| graderjs wrote:
| Yeah maybe because your mind was too full. Don't be too full of
| mind. Just meditation. Very simple. Let go. It's not easy, for
| most people I think, but it is simple.
|
| Good to see so much sensible awareness and respect of the
| powerful nature of these practices here in the comments! It gives
| me hope.
|
| Also, I really wanna wholeheartedly agree with what one person
| said which was that the people are probably not getting a lot of
| exercise during that time. I think physical activity exercise is
| so essential to mental health and the body's ability and the
| mind's to regulate itself. Our bodies were evolved and designed
| to require certain amount of movement every day, or fairly
| fucking regularly and without that I mean, you just get mentally
| ill, really. I mean, mostly. I mean you need regular physical
| activity to maintain good mental and emotional and I believe
| energetic health. So the physical activity is one thing that's
| really important and actually one main point of hatha yoga is to
| provide that physical activity foundation and to prepare the body
| to be able to support those kinds of meditation practice.
|
| I think another thing that's happening is our solar system is
| passing through the galactic current sheet so there's more high
| energy, radiation and particles impacting The earth, effects on
| the magnetosphere as well as an uptick in solar events affecting
| earth and so all of the stuff will drive people a little bit more
| crazy.
|
| Add that to as other comments, said how these meltdowns seem to
| happen after intensive's. Also, consider the economic aspects of
| these intensive that are normally high outlay sort of
| transformation type workshop things that are at least from one
| level, essentially designed to generate a large amount of money
| from participants. I'm not saying everyone who creates those
| things is shady at all, but I think there is that there's an
| economic aspect of those things that is intensive as well, and
| sometimes that probably coincides with less Karen attention to
| authentic and safe practices, and consideration towards the
| participants... and in any case for someone joining that it's not
| the same as if you're just going to yoga class three times a week
| or less for 90 minutes or whatever.
|
| People don't realize how powerful some of these simple practices
| are and they're playing with things they don't know how to
| control and they don't know what they are and things get out of
| hand. So doing those intensively day in and day out, the sort of
| like the energetic equivalent of basically taking people to
| Everest base camp and saying "well you know you've seen the intro
| video and here's a map we will be with you in radio contact.
| you're ready to go! up there is your direction."
|
| The other thing I think is going on is that the Indians as in
| people from the subcontinent, you know Hindus and others from
| from India, I think well aware of the powerful effects on subtle
| energy that these types of practices can have and people are
| playing with energies and abilities and information that they
| have no framework to understand or interpret, and they have no
| ability to control, or even the awareness of what they're doing
| on an energetic level. And things are bound to go wrong,
| especially the sort of commoditization of commercialization of a
| lot of these practices, at least in western countries although
| it's probably happening in many places, things are bound to go
| wrong in that case, where these powerful techniques are divorced
| from the whole context of teaching and awareness for what they're
| actually doing, and how do use them in a safe and sustainable
| manner. That may sound to woo for some people but it's real and I
| think some of what is happening is it by participating in the
| such practices people are unwittingly unlocking and plugging into
| these sorts of abilities, energies, information, and they don't
| have the training or the framework or the ability to be able to
| handle that and so they go nuts.
| anon9931 wrote:
| The place where I learned to do deep meditation also had a strong
| emphasis on self-pacing. Maybe that would help reduce these kinds
| of negative experiences. With meditation, more isn't better, and
| it's important to stay grounded.
|
| (Note that I rarely meditate anymore, but it did help me through
| some difficult times)
|
| https://www.aypsite.org/38.html - self pacing
|
| https://www.aypsite.org/13.html - deep meditation
| theusus wrote:
| I was 2 months into the practice and I started getting delusions
| and paranoia. And I still don't know why.
|
| But I can say for sure that I am able to replicate the experience
| if I start meditating.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| When I read this sort of thing I can't help but wonder whether
| the problem is with the person here rather than with meditation
| per se. Like I can't imagine a person with a healthy state of
| mind thinking "Gee, I need to meditate intensely for 8+ hours a
| day for fourteen days."
|
| It sounds crazy already. No wonder it turned out badly.
| justincredible wrote:
| [dead]
| pkrotich wrote:
| Being mindful can open scary doors for sure... but something
| about the article gives me the vibes of depersonalization opesode
| of sort. Perhaps the effect of Marijuana + Mindfulness + Other
| stuff?
|
| I say that because a while back I started using CBD oil (yes, I
| bought into awesome benefits in listicles!) AND it triggered the
| worst 3 weeks of my life ever! Endless stream of panic attacks,
| paranonia and Depersonalization-Derealization [1].
|
| I'm never touching CBD again!
|
| [1]- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization-
| derealizatio...
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I'm submitting this article because I thought it was somewhat
| objectively written and an interesting subject to consider. My
| impression (from far away) of some of the meditation gurus is
| also that they look like they are kinda addicted to their new
| "hobby". Also, it's rarely healthy if your income depends on you
| strongly believing in something (anything, really).
|
| "60% of the participants reporting distressing experiences were
| meditation teachers"
|
| "Britton theorized that the effects of mindfulness might follow
| an inverted U-shaped curve, where at some point therapeutic
| returns not only diminish but mindfulness could have negative
| side effects"
| [deleted]
| culebron21 wrote:
| It was here on HN couple of years ago on top as well. Sadly,
| the main reaction here is "he did it wrong" or "not hard
| enough". Even though he addresses this objection in the
| article.
| dorchadas wrote:
| I think these things are well known, and the problem is that
| meditation is being lifted from its original context by people
| who don't understand it - and who can't navigate these things
| that are supposed to be navigated with teachers.
|
| And then top it off by corporations promoting mindfulness as a
| panacea for everything so they don't have to worry about fixing
| underlying issues and can keep us running for longer, and I'm
| surprised this isn't more commonly talked about.
| andai wrote:
| > Once we have crossed the Arising and Passing Away (and if we
| don't suddenly die or get severe brain damage due to some
| unfortunate life circumstances), we shall enter insight stages
| five through ten regardless of whether we want to. It doesn't
| matter if we practice from this point on; once we cross the A&P,
| we are in the Dark Night to some degree and become what is
| sometimes called a "Dark Night yogi", or simply "darknighter",
| until we figure out how to get through it. If we do get through
| it without getting to the first stage of enlightenment, we will
| have to go through it again and again until we do. I mean this in
| the most absolute terms. It appears to be a hardwired part of
| human physiology as far as I can tell. I have a very large and
| growing body of case studies and a wealth of shared experiences
| among meditation friends and acquaintances to back this up, and I
| am not alone. Tens of thousands of meditators have noticed these
| stages in their own practice and countless teachers have noticed
| them also.
|
| Daniel Ingram, Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha
|
| https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight...
| wirrbel wrote:
| btw. Daniel Ingram refers to himself as an Aharat/aharant and
| it is kind of a no-no in buddhism to talk about your own
| "awakening-status". That's a serious red-flag.
| wirrbel wrote:
| It should be noted that Daniel Ingram is following the Mahasi
| sayadaw method and is a bit from of a fringe Buddhist
| subculture promoting (if I am not confusing things ,,dry
| insight" meditation).
|
| Maybe the cultivation of the non-dry aspects is actually
| helpful.
| andai wrote:
| I am a noob, does dry insight mean no concentration
| practices? The book says a significant amount of
| concentration practice is necessary before it is possible to
| make any progress with insight practice, and also recommends
| continuing concentration practice as a stabilizing and
| comforting influence against the destabilizing and often
| unpleasant insight journey.
| wirrbel wrote:
| I guess I am also a noob and I am not an expert on the
| Mahasi method, but in general buddhist meditation has like
| 3 pillars, metta (loving-kindness meditation, also features
| self-love), samatha: (tranquility or calm abiding),
| vipassana (insight). Samatha and vipassana would be
| preconditions to awakening (bodhi).
|
| samatha contains sati [mindfulness], samadhi [stable
| attention], piti [joy], passaddhi [tranquility], upekkha
| [equanimy]).
|
| vipassana is insight (among others) into anicca
| [impermanence], sunnata [emptyness], dukkha [stress],
| paticcasamuppada [interdependence of phenomena], anatta
| [no-observable self],....
|
| The meditative states of jhana (dhyana in sanskrit, chan in
| chinese, Zen in japanese although the meaning has changed
| while the term traveled further east) originate from
| samatha practice.
|
| Overall most Theravada traditions or traditions that take
| the pali canon as a source kind of use this metta,
| samatha/sati, vipassana classification and acknowledge
| jhanas as meditative states. However, the meditation
| practice in the theravada tradition was revived in the
| 19th/20th century only, so there is in the theravada
| tradition no continuous meditation teaching lineage, so
| people had to make sense of the Pali canon source texts,
| which aren't exactly a meditation manual as we expect it
| today and there are concurrent approaches.
|
| I am just a casual meditator (like 2-3 times per week) but
| overall an avid reader so I have seen quite a few different
| takes on how metta, mindfulness and insight meditation
| relate, most aren't dismissing one of these practices
| entirely, but the order and emphasis on when to practice
| what differ greatly. "dry-insight" is a I think to be
| understood as a counterpoint to voices that stated that a
| buddhist needs to practice concentration first and
| potentially even reach the jhanas before practicing
| Vipassana. So concentration / sati is not entirely
| dismissed. The idea of "dry-insight" is, that fewer
| meditation hours practicing concentration may be enough to
| develop insights and it is thus also advertised as a
| "quicker way" to awakening.
|
| Overall, when reading or listening to meditation teachers,
| I am cautious about claims to "speed", which makes me a bit
| reserved about the Mahasi noting method crowd.
|
| What made sense to me was: Laypeople should practice Metta
| meditation in any case. Practicing Sati (mindfulness) and
| Samadhi (concentration) is like taking your brain to the
| gym & spa, it should also help you a lot in dealing with
| stressful emotions, if your meditation object are your
| senses (breath, feet in walking meditation, hands while
| washing dishes) this seems to be a rather well-grounded
| activity and not inherently dangerous (unless maybe you
| have a serious psychological condition).
|
| Proficient enough in Sati (mindfulness) and Samadhi
| (concentration), the route could go to practicing samatha
| and vipassana. Now my assumption would be that if you
| directly overemphasize vipassana and your skills for
| concentration, tranquility and equanimity aren't sufficient
| to contain reactions when 'insight' hits you.
|
| That being said, Vipassana covers a wide range of stuff.
| Like "Body Scans" as done in Mindfulness based Stress
| reduction (MBSR) are thought of IIRC as vipassana
| practices, and IMHO they could just as well be thought of
| as sati practice.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| I assume that's a reference to reaching awareness of the
| three characteristics by "noting" perceptions and
| sensations in the mind as if blasting enemies in a video
| game. That's a very intense vipassana practice and while it
| apparently makes for quick progress towards full awakening,
| one could argue that it's not for everyone.
| dayvid wrote:
| Doing intensive meditation retreats is a Navy Seal hell-week for
| your mind. If people took that into consideration, they would be
| better prepared for the results.
|
| It's much better to start with a simple meditation practice or go
| on a shorter retreat (1-3 days), build up a base and periodically
| dip your feet in deep waters. There are too many people in the
| west who treat it like an extreme sport and get burned out in the
| process.
|
| It reminded me of when Tim Ferris decided to go on a 10-day
| meditation retreat after a multi-day fast and almost had a full
| mental breakdown.
| spacemadness wrote:
| I think some of that is the type A crowd being competitive
| about their meditation practices. It's partly status seeking
| whether they realize it or not. Coupled with a mental health
| crisis I can see that being a terrible combination. Most people
| aren't going to go on retreats or try to climb the
| enlightenment ladder like this.
| starkd wrote:
| Never understood the need for meditation retreats. The only
| purpose of gathering would be to meet and converse with other
| people. Not to sit and listen to them breathe.
| jelling wrote:
| I suspect the primary driver for 1 - 2 week retreats is that
| is the average Western vacation length and the mindful
| companies are maximizing revenue relative to CAC.
|
| Formal Buddhist training - such as to be a teacher within the
| Kadampa tradition - can be done once a week over a course of
| years. Other traditions training requires full-time reading
| training over years.
|
| I wouldn't recommend someone try to master an instrument in 7
| - 14 days as learning takes time for integration and people
| progress at different rates. So I'm skeptical of why anyone
| would suggest that for attempting to master the mind.
| starkd wrote:
| I can think of better ways I would want to spend a
| vacation.
| dayvid wrote:
| I think for a good deal of them you're in silence (no cell
| phones or talking with others). It's really valuable to be in
| silence if you haven't before. You can gain awareness of
| random thoughts and things you don't notice when you're
| surrounded by distractions. Doing it for too long or with no
| stimulation (e.g. only sitting all day and meditating or
| wandering off w/ no structure when you can maybe do some
| activities in-between) can lead to strange things popping up.
| starkd wrote:
| I suppose there's some value in them for supplying some
| kind of structure.
| hilbertseries wrote:
| Did anyone commenting read the article? The author was a
| meditation teacher who had been meditating for over 10 years,
| when he had this experience.
| MauroIksem wrote:
| There's a great podcast that explorers this issue when a guy goes
| missing in india after he loses his mind much like this guy
| notShabu wrote:
| There's actually a whole subculture around hardcore spirituality
| through Jed McKenna books.
|
| Sample:
| https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1329310154630696960...
| jdeaton wrote:
| I used to compulsively meditate when I experienced anxiety, so
| much so that my mind began associating meditation with anxiety.
| The ironic effect was that meditation itself started to become
| slightly anxiety inducing.
| AlexCoventry wrote:
| Contemporary mindfulness practices are a harmful corruption of
| the original approach. A good book on the subject is _Right
| Mindfulness: Memory & Ardency on the Buddhist Path_[1] by Ven.
| Thanissaro.
|
| > _For the past several decades, a growing flood of books,
| articles, and teachings has advanced theories about the practice
| of mindfulness which are highly questionable and--for anyone
| hoping to realize the end of suffering--seriously misleading. The
| main aim of this book is to show that the practice of mindfulness
| is most fruitful when informed by the Buddha's own definition of
| right mindfulness and his explanations of its role on the path._
|
| [1]
| https://www.dhammatalks.org/ebook_index.html#right_mindfulne...
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| A cultural addiction to dualism meeting a practice that opens one
| up to what lies beyond the innate denial of dualism will
| typically result in fear or pain. Setting expectations about what
| one will or won't uncover when one digs into the unknown
| subconscious is a recipe for all this.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit
| quietly in a room alone" Pascal
| marhee wrote:
| > ...and began self-medicating with drugs and alcohol. Looking
| back, it was also during this time period that I had my first
| dissociative experiences, in which elements of my sense of self
| became separated in a way that impaired my ability to function.
|
| This was a couple of years before the "meltdown". While
| meditation surely may have induced mental health issues, the
| drugs and alcohol probably didn't help.
|
| What stands out is that he had mental health issues and some
| point that grew worse, sadly. It temporally correlated with
| meditation but that doesn't mean it was predominantly caused by
| it.
|
| The meditation may have triggered things, sure, but my guess is
| he likely would have had a meltdown also if he went all-in on
| some other activity for 10 years.
|
| After all, with multiple years (4, 6?) between the first
| dissociative symptoms and the break down, you could also argue
| that the mediation may even slowed or alleviated the effects of
| the mental disorder until some threshold was hit.
| CitizenKane wrote:
| I'm an autistic person and it sounds like in some way this person
| achieved exactly the point of certain forms of meditation like
| this which is to open up awareness. And I think as many autistic
| folks will tell you, being very aware is extremely difficult and
| is mentally and physically taxing. If you aren't prepared for it
| I could indeed see it being extremely disturbing. Being exposed
| to all your inner workings and thoughts constantly is not for the
| faint of heart.
|
| That being said, I think mindfulness in western countries skips a
| lot of Buddhist teachings, which are in large part designed to
| help deal with this kind of experience. I highly suggest that
| anyone that is going down this path seek out teachers that have
| experience and can be of aid. There are pragmatic aspects of it
| that go beyond meditation and in my opinion are just as important
| if not more so.
|
| And just to contextualize this, I'm a Buddhist. I live in
| Thailand and it's something that is part of my normal life. As
| such, it's rare the I'm meditating outside of a temple and I have
| easy access to a whole host of teachers. I would urge caution
| around retreats and other intensive practices. Mindset and
| setting are extremely important and should be considered
| carefully.
|
| I've had a lifetime to learn to live like this and I would not
| want to see anyone dropped in the deep end without proper
| preparation.
| starkd wrote:
| So, could this meditation craze actually be making people
| autistic?
| CitizenKane wrote:
| There are pretty strong overlaps in certain areas, but that
| isn't the case though. Autism is caused by physical
| neurological changes that have to do with brain development
| before or near birth and while meditation (to my knowledge at
| least) can alter overall brain structure it won't alter the
| more fundamental structural changes which are seen in folks
| with autism.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| Anecdotally, my father is probably autistic and doing
| heart-focused meditation has made him much better able to
| handle some of the side effects, particularly sensory
| overload and social frustration. It might be a question of
| some meditation being more 'cerebral' versus others that
| are more 'grounding' interacting differently with a
| tendency for something like autism.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| How common is something like a retreat there for a median
| Buddhist?
| CitizenKane wrote:
| I wouldn't say I'm the most knowledgeable in this regard but
| as far as I know it's not super common. Buddhism in Thailand
| is strongly tied to making merit[1] which is more or less
| doing good deeds. And generally, this is seen as something to
| be done regularly as a part of daily life as opposed to
| taking a break out of normal life for it. That being said,
| I'm sure there are still plenty of folks who do so, but at
| least in my experience it was primarily non-Thai folks doing
| so.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit_(Buddhism)
| b800h wrote:
| I came here to say the same thing, and you said it much more
| charitably than I was going to. This is what you get when you
| try to turn complex religious practice into multi-level
| marketing, with certifications, and people being paid to
| instruct.
| sclarisse wrote:
| Was going to post this. There are reasons we have brains with
| selective attention instead of constant mindfulness, and a
| whole spectrum of disorders that arises when that sort of a
| filter breaks down. (I am lucky. I don't have it bad.)
| Unfiltered mindfulness of this sort sounds like basically the
| same thing.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| Pretty much. I'm bipolar and every moment I need to have some
| awareness of where my mood is and do course corrections to
| head off episodes or emotional overreactions.
|
| I quite literally can't trust how I feel from minute to
| minute. Knowing my logical analysis of situations can also be
| compromised causes me to run deeper mental self-tests several
| times per day.
|
| I'm used to this but it's a constant low-grade drain on my
| attention.
|
| Meditation is dangerous for me as it quickly leads to
| dangerous psychosis. (Life is a video game and I can't really
| die.)
| [deleted]
| cutler wrote:
| I can't help thinking that most of these examples of negative
| side effects are related to intensives rather than
| meditation/mindfulness itself. There's a world of difference
| between 20 minutes a day and 10 days in a retreat looking inward.
| Maybe it's just better for you in short bursts, not long
| marathons. I once experienced negative effects after joining a
| Buddhist meditation group while at university. Every time I faced
| anything which provoked anxiety, such as preparation for my final
| exams, I would turn to meditation assuming it would help me get
| things done but it had the opposite effect of avoiding what I
| needed to face. I ended-up spending longer and longer periods
| meditating but I felt I was getting weaker both physically and
| neurologically. Eventually, during the end-of-term holiday break,
| I consulted a doctor who gave me tranquillisers for a few weeks
| and I left the Buddhist group when I returned to university but
| it took a while to get back to normal.
|
| These days I do 20 minutes a day of mind control which involves
| nothing more than counting down from 9 to 1 repeatedly. No quest
| for Enlightenment. Just a sense of calm I can depend on balanced
| by facing stress and, most important, some kind of short-burst
| physical activity such as 3 sets of full squats to bring me right
| back into my body in no uncertain terms. Works wonders. It's all
| about balance. 10-day mindfulness retreats full of 2-hour
| sessions, in my view, are for zealots.
| waboremo wrote:
| Not entirely sure if any study demonstrating the benefits of
| meditation or mindfulness considers counting 9 to 1 repeatedly
| an act of either. That aligns much more closely with the advice
| given to those with panic disorders in how to ride out their
| panic attacks or prevent them when they feel coming on.
| cyberbanjo wrote:
| I'm not Buddhist or experienced meditator, but I have surely
| seen instruction for counting based mindfulness practices.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganana#Technique
| zeknife wrote:
| Rather, it is a concentration practice, and concentration
| facilitates mindfulness
| cal85 wrote:
| The comment didn't claim it was an act of either, either.
| waboremo wrote:
| We're in a thread about mindfulness.
| maxFlow wrote:
| > These days I do 20 minutes a day of mind control which
| involves nothing more than counting down from 9 to 1
| repeatedly.
|
| If it works for you that's great. However, I would say
| approaching meditation from a "mind control" exercise such as
| "counting down from 9 to 1 repeatedly" goes counter to its
| purpose and will hinder its full potential. If you're willing
| to experiment with other methods, try letting your mind wander
| and don't let it stick; just experience the ebb and flow.
| Twenty-minute sessions sound about right for me as well.
| rdevsrex wrote:
| User name checks out.
| naasking wrote:
| > Maybe it's just better for you in short bursts, not long
| marathons.
|
| Actual marathons aren't great for your body either, especially
| if it's not something you've diligently trained for properly,
| so that makes sense.
| jossclimb wrote:
| I expect there will be higher cases of psychosis happening on
| intense retreats, but as anecdotal as this, I had it happen to
| me (albeit not as extreme as OP) after meditating for much
| shorter periods (approx 10 minutes up to an hour).
|
| I really did not see it coming. For some context, I don't know
| of any deep seated trauma that I have and I liked to think of
| myself as someone robust mentally.
|
| I experienced a deep realisation that our thoughts manifest
| from nowhere and not from ourselves (words fail me here) and
| that the construct of 'me' was completely false and was just a
| reverberation of my environment. I understood there was no me.
| This was really nice for about two weeks. I started to think
| that I should be looking to help other people and become a
| guru, perhaps write a book to help humanity, but then my ego (I
| expect) came back with a vengeance, kicked my ass and brought
| me back down to earth with a crash (maybe its a safety system).
| I experienced huge panic attacks like I have never had before,
| I carried this constant feeling of absolute dread in my soul,
| like a sense of impending doom. I have heard it described as
| the dark night of the soul. Some try to push through this, but
| I held back as i cannot afford to have a complete meltdown as I
| need to care for a young family and hold down a job.
|
| I spoke with a well respected meditator about this, and they
| said the some people are wired to have an accelerated
| experience and are able to obtain deep introspection with
| limited time on the cushion.
|
| I would say I am almost back to normal now. I had to stop all
| meditation and instead focused on health food, sleep habits and
| lots of exercise. My main mediation type thing is now running,
| it quietens my mind, but the grounding effect of the movement
| keeps me in a safe play pen to explore my reality.
|
| meditation is incredibly powerful, in the west we have confused
| it as being a corporate stress ball that you squeeze or like a
| lavender scented, candle lit bath while listening to Enya. The
| truth is, it can reveal incredibly deep seated aspects of
| ourselves that we are in no way prepared to witness, let alone
| accept.
| kodah wrote:
| > I experienced a deep realisation that our thoughts manifest
| from nowhere and not from ourselves (words fail me here) and
| that the construct of 'me' was completely false and was just
| a reverberation of my environment. I understood there was no
| me.
|
| If you were tripping this is called ego death. In some
| circles, including mine, what you described after:
|
| > I started to think that I should be looking to help other
| people and become a guru, perhaps write a book to help
| humanity, but then my ego (I expect) came back with a
| vengeance, kicked my ass and brought me back down to earth
| with a crash (maybe its a safety system).
|
| Can be common. When I experienced ego death I was aware that
| it would return so I was able to deal with it. I think of it
| kind of like the trip itself; the more you fight it the
| harder it fights you.
|
| Not sure this helps as it's entirely my own experience and
| was drug induced, but I do think occasional ego death is
| worth it. Just be cognizant of what you're doing. The mind is
| a powerful place.
| davedx wrote:
| "The little death that brings total obliteration".
| zozbot234 wrote:
| And this is exactly why "tripping" is heavily frowned upon
| by serious meditators and spiritual practitioners.
| Experiencing "ego death" (i.e. the three marks of
| existence) without having the previous spiritual grounding
| for it to help free you from attachment to the ego, is only
| a recipe for being even more deeply mired in craving and
| dukkha.
| jcbrand wrote:
| > And this is exactly why "tripping" is heavily frowned
| upon by serious meditators and spiritual practitioners.
|
| This is needlessly judgmental. I know life-long
| meditators, 30+ of years disciplined practice who
| sometimes take psychedelics.
|
| I'm not a fan of various aspects of the psychedelic
| scene, e.g. the spiritual bypassing and the narcissism
| that can sometimes come from it, but let's not throw the
| baby out with the bathwater.
|
| Usage of psychedelics can be profoundly healing and
| helpful.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > I know life-long meditators, 30+ of years disciplined
| practice who sometimes take psychedelics.
|
| I'm not dismissing spiritual practice, but psychedelics
| are entirely incidental to it and can be a snare for the
| unprepared mind. What's "profoundly healing and helpful"
| is always the spiritual part, not the means used to
| achieve it.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| And yet "spiritual" people are at least as prone to
| narcissism as everyone else. IMO one of the reasons
| spirituality of all kinds - including both traditional
| and non-traditional religion - has remained so
| consistently popular that it provides such excellent
| cover for more base actions and desires.
|
| If you've found a drama-free spiritual community where
| everyone is deeply chilled and yet also adult and
| effective without losing a sense of humour, please let me
| know. That really hasn't been my experience.
|
| In fact I think mindfulness, meditation, and so on
| confuse a kind of metaphysics of morality with what is
| probably some fairly basic brain mode switching.
|
| Being "enlightened" for a brief period does not seem to
| create good people with any consistency or reliability.
| It doesn't even create consistently happier people.
| (Sometimes? Yes. More reliably and safely than other
| activities? Very likely not.)
|
| It does seem to remove certain existential tangles,
| sometimes. But rather than being about "ego" - boo, hiss
| - perhaps those are more to do with easy/default vs less
| accessible modes of emotional cognition.
|
| And actually - that's all.
| kodah wrote:
| Those probably aren't meditators I would be listening to,
| it sounds as unhealthy as the person that attaches their
| identity to their ego return.
|
| Psychedelics are a tool, and the different doses you
| figure out are ways of using that tool. Ego death
| requires a fairly heroic dose, something on the order of
| 3-5 grams of mushrooms for most strains. This, to me, is
| comparable to the isolation and introspection without
| breaks to incur ego death in meditation.
|
| Ego death, from my perspective, is also a tool. Done with
| knowledge of what will happen during and after let's the
| user experience the absence of ego and helps them live
| with their ego when it returns. Done without the
| knowledge of what will happen after, humans often fully
| embrace that ego as a new life based on wisdom. A false
| wisdom.
|
| My point here is the medium in which you choose is
| largely irrelevant. How you use the tools and the
| knowledge you go into them with are the paramount pieces.
| It's honestly surprising to me that anyone who meditates
| would have such judgy and pithy opinions, but it's a big
| world out there.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Psychedelics are a tool
|
| I don't think most users of psychedelics view them as a
| "tool" for serious spiritual practice. They just think
| tripping is a lot of fun.
| kodah wrote:
| That's an incredibly cynical take and possibly bordering
| on gatekeeping based on "spiritual" boundaries.
|
| Psychedelics can be fun, but in my experience they're fun
| if your mind is in the right place. They act as a conduit
| for more deeply connecting with the world around you.
|
| On the other hand, if you have work to do then those
| things have a chance to appear in your trip. That can be
| healthy, if you're ready to face something, or it can be
| incredibly terrifying. I've had both experiences through
| my own isolation and meditation before. As someone with
| years of trauma, including a year long stint in a war
| zone, I can attest that my trips were sometimes fun,
| almost always challenging, and sometimes terrifying. As
| time has gone on and I've done work to unpack my trips
| and connect them with my experiences and understanding
| when I'm sober my trips have averaged to being "more fun"
| and "connected". This is something I was not able to
| achieve with meditation alone.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > That can be healthy, if you're ready to face something,
| or it can be incredibly terrifying.
|
| Yes, and there's no guarantee that your bad trip or
| encounter with these entities will resolve itself without
| major effort. That ought to be enough to be seriously
| concerned about whether it is in any way appropriate to
| endorse this as some sort of ordinary, routine practice
| for the uninitiated.
| kodah wrote:
| This can be easily said about spirituality as well.
| Anecdotally, I've met far more people with higher density
| narcissistic traits who cover their behavior with
| beliefs, enlightenment, and morality than I have of those
| with trippers. Unlike you, I don't think spirituality is
| a poison pill as a result. Instead I think of it as
| something that must be constantly measured, dosed, and
| negotiated with depending on the outcomes for a
| particular person. This is similar to how I think of
| psychedelics.
| bigbluedots wrote:
| I'm finding it fascinating how much dogmatic religious
| junk is being thrown around in the comments here -
| discussing an article where one of the author's central
| points is that none of the dogmatic religious junk helped
| him.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| A tradition of meditation and spiritual practices with a
| history encompassing more than two thousand years is the
| polar opposite from "dogmatic religious junk"; it's
| filled with observations derived from experience. The
| Westernized use of psychedelics is barely a few decades
| old. I think it's reasonably clear what we should choose
| if we are to remain humble and avoid dogmaticism.
| wafflemaker wrote:
| So there is this pattern of light spiritual practice (ok, not
| in your case, here light was the heavy) being safe and chill,
| And of heavy spiritual practice having the potential to be
| dangerous.
|
| I see an analogy to using psychedelics as described in this
| lecture fragment (starts around 12th minute)
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j72C_lDHTk0 Ram Dass on "When
| is it right to use psychedealics?"
|
| There he talks about two types of psychedelic usage.
| Recreational - here we don't need to prepare, we should use
| little of the substance and can enjoy f.ex. our favorite
| music sounding a little better. Transformational - here, we
| have to prepare thoroughly studying spiritual/philosophical
| books, have a proper fast before the experience and have a
| proper guide. This way the potential for a difficult
| experience lessens and the potential for transformative
| experience grows.
|
| Interestingly, the lecture excerpt starts with description of
| ancient/historical use of psychedelics, where they were used
| in rituals aimed at transformation of the subject. Subject
| attended the ritual being thoroughly prepared, something
| completely different than being offered psylocibin
| mushrooms/acid on a party. I wonder if this advice (going
| light doesn't require preparation, going heavy requires
| preparing as much as possible trough fasting and study) could
| also apply here, to meditation practice.
|
| Sorry if this idea/lecture was posted here already, had only
| limited time to read and reply in this thread.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Interestingly you describe the shattering of your delusion as
| the return of your ego - I think it is the opposite. I think
| you invited an inflated ego into your life through your
| meditation : "I should become a guru and help humanity" <--
| that is ego speaking. The shattering of this idea is is not
| ego but humility, to my way of thinking.
| 2-718-281-828 wrote:
| you have a point
| realce wrote:
| It's also just a mind that might be desperate for a core
| identity after having its last one logically dissolved
| through introspection.
|
| While ego can hijack identity for it's own mad desires,
| an identity is required for the actuation of relational
| actions on a basic level. With no "center" from which to
| make decisions, the functions of your mind tasked with
| making choices will panic - this is a foundation of
| brainwashing/psychological manipulation. Very similar
| things happen to people who have a TBI, where they become
| stressed when forced to make choices that seem to have
| zero baring on "their" lives.
|
| So dissolved identity > Panic attacks when choice-
| satisfaction plummets > subconscious suggests all kinds
| of cartoonist extremes for an easy and powerful identity
| > Conscious mind agrees to play along, uses this
| character to make decisions about > Choice-satisfaction
| rises.
| flycaliguy wrote:
| Can you elaborate on your comment regarding TBI? I'm, uh,
| asking for a friend.
| realce wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoiZs7QpDUY
|
| I remember a clip I'd seen where a veteran with a TBI
| would break down when shopping, since there's so many
| choices that are focused at appealing to personality
| rather than utility, and his notion of his own
| personality was minimal.
| Eupraxias wrote:
| "So dissolved identity > Panic attacks when choice-
| satisfaction plummets > subconscious suggests all kinds
| of cartoonist extremes for an easy and powerful identity
| > Conscious mind agrees to play along, uses this
| character to make decisions about > Choice-satisfaction
| rises. "
|
| I'm sure it's different for most others, but I had the
| opposite experience. It has introduced a great calm into
| my life.
|
| From where I am now, I see identity as the central
| problem we face as a species.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > From where I am now, I see identity as the central
| problem we face as a species.
|
| Yeah, except that in practice awareness of no-self is
| very far from an ethical cure-it-all. There's plenty of
| supposedly "enlightened" folks in a variety of spiritual
| traditions who routinely engage in morally sub-standard
| behavior, despite having reached that awareness
| themselves and teaching it to others. We know for a fact
| that many spiritual traditions view correct ethics and
| behavior as paramount, and as the hardest part of their
| training.
| mettamage wrote:
| Favorited, I'm on a quest to be egoless as I'm finding the
| ego to be an issue in my day to day. It's hard to pinpoint
| the ego, but you did so wonderfully :)
| rattlesnakedave wrote:
| you need some ego. otherwise you won't know where to
| point your fork to eat.
| nick__m wrote:
| you reminded me of some John lenon comment on ego death :
| I got the message that I should destroy my ego and I did,
| you know. I was reading that stupid book of Leary's; we
| were going through a whole game that everybody went
| through, and I destroyed myself. I was slowly putting
| myself together round about Maharishi time. Bit by bit
| over a two-year period, I had destroyed me ego.
| I didn't believe I could do anything and let people make
| me, and let them all just do what they wanted. I just was
| nothing. I was shit. Then Derek tripped me out at his
| house after he got back from L.A. He sort of said "You're
| all right," and pointed out which songs I had written.
| "You wrote this," and "You said this" and "You are
| intelligent, don't be frightened."
|
| -- https://www.johnlennon.com/music/interviews/rolling-
| stone-in...
| astrange wrote:
| That's very similar to the boddhisatva vow many Buddhists
| are required to take.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| Meditation and psychology have a specific term for ego,
| like when referring to ego death. And it doesn't quite mean
| the same thing as ego in common usage. It usually means a
| break down of sense of self, this can happen on
| psychedelics or in schizophrenia. This can also be
| accompanied with delusions of grandeur, they're not
| mutually exclusive.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Delusions of granduer is basically an inflated sense of
| self - e.g. an inflated ego. Whether using the common
| parlance or the jungian definition, its the same thing in
| this context.
|
| Always tough to discuss slippery, ill defined things such
| as ego, which in a real sense does not actually exist.
| electrondood wrote:
| You get it.
|
| These adverse experiences are the ego's last-ditch effort
| to maintain cohesion. It's the same with psychedelics. If
| you let go in the face of the terror and accept, the terror
| becomes utter bliss.
|
| In response to these experiences, ask "Who exactly are they
| happening to?"
| jossclimb wrote:
| I was more humouring the situation there and adding some
| color, but for sure, the ego is incredibly powerful and
| deep seated. I firmly believe what I had initially was
| profound, and was hijacked by the ego (and this is a very
| common happening to anyone on a spiritual journey of some
| sort).
| mtalantikite wrote:
| The best book I've read on this topic is Chogyam
| Trungpa's "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" [1].
| He's very clear in pointing out how ego tries to get
| involved in everything.
|
| It sounds like you may have had an experience, to some
| extent, of dwelling in the union of wisdom and emptiness
| or what some call dharmadhatu [2]. It's not a teaching I
| encountered until I started practicing Vajrayana, as
| Theravada teachers don't often emphasize the teachings on
| sunyata. It's something you'll encounter in Mahamudra and
| Dzogchen teachings.
|
| [1] https://www.shambhala.com/cutting-through-spiritual-
| material...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmadhatu
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > ... the union of wisdom and emptiness ...
|
| Ah, the extent that some people will go through to avoid
| acknowledging God. It's like some people take stubborn
| pleasure in being purposely nihilistic and strenuously
| denying all that's good about the world. How this can be
| part of a supposedly spiritual practice, I just can't
| understand.
| mtalantikite wrote:
| It's quite common to first encounter the teachings on
| emptiness (sunyata) and be confused into thinking it's
| about nihilism. However, nihilism is considered one of
| the two extreme views that leads to suffering in Buddhism
| -- the other being eternalism -- and both are explicitly
| argued against. Thich Nhat Hanh has a great book that
| helps clarify the teachings on sunyata [1].
|
| I also would point out that if anything Buddhism is life-
| affirming and immensely hopeful, not denying what's good
| in the world. It teaches that there's a way out of
| suffering right here and right now, and it's available to
| every being without exclusion. The fourth noble truth is
| the spiritual practice to make that happen. Every
| meditation session in Mahayana and Vajrayana lineages
| have the common preliminaries, which includes love and
| compassion for all beings.
|
| [1] https://plumvillage.org/books/the-other-shore/
| cybervaz wrote:
| They think they are on a journey yo self enlightenment
| when they're actually in a very dangerous road to
| spiritual weakness, causing damage to their souls and
| leaving gaps to be used by entities that they'll not feel
| any pleasure of knowing.
|
| That sense of impeding doom is nothing more than those
| spiritual entities oppressing with overwhelming power
| them by those gaps.
|
| We are locked out of that world for a reason. The safe
| means to get unlocked is by getting your soul to borrow
| the power of God and slowly expose yourself to such
| world. Other than that, self enlightenment is just
| wishful thinking of empty vessels.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| Word. The more I explore the the world of occult
| practices throughout history the more I am convinced that
| it is always an excercise in self destruction.
|
| Our intentions, understanding, morality, sense of self,
| sense of direction, is so frail. A man who believes he
| can manufacture these things for himself (which is, in my
| opinion, wfundamentally what occultists are doing) is
| doomed to spiritual sufferring.
| akomtu wrote:
| The original term behind "emptiness" is a lot richer than
| this english word. That's why many books leave those
| words as is, e.g. rig-pa.
|
| "Emptiness" of your mind means something like a thin soap
| bubble around you. This bubble acts as a lens, it can
| enlarge arbitrary things, it can create stable patterns
| on its surface, and all that is useful, but it blocks
| whatever is outside the bubble. In its natural state it
| would be a perfect invisible sphere, letting you see
| outside: this union of clarity and emptiness creates
| wisdom. You are still going to use this bubble as a
| whiteboard for your thoughts, but you'll also know how to
| see thru it.
|
| The concept of emptiness applies to material world in
| general: the western science calls it space-time, the
| idea that any thing can turn into any other thing, for
| both are fundamentally just motions of energy that has no
| natural shape. Buddhism tries to teach this basic idea in
| different terms.
|
| For some reason that I don't quite understand, the
| founders of the three religions had fragmented the truth:
| buddhism teaches wisdom, christianity teaches love and
| islam teaches action - the three aspects of the spirit.
| Perhaps they thought that mixing everything into one bag
| would be too difficult to grasp, or maybe they hope it
| will make the peoples collaborate to assemble the pieces.
| elbear wrote:
| Buddhism also teaches love. The Heart Practices are an
| example.
| AnonCoward42 wrote:
| > I wasn't born Richard Alpert. I was just born as a human
| being and then I learned this whole business of who I am,
| whether I'm good or bad, achieving or not - all that's
| learned along the way. And you see all those learn things
| separate, so you start to have this dissociative experience,
| where all that can become is a point of awareness. I remember
| the first time this happened to me, I got a terrible panic,
| because indeed I was gonna cease to exist.
|
| -- Richard Alpert aka Ram Dass
|
| I hope it's transcribed correctly.
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| But you are anoncoward42?
| tuyiown wrote:
| > I experienced a deep realisation that our thoughts manifest
| from nowhere and not from ourselves (words fail me here) and
| that the construct of 'me' was completely false and was just
| a reverberation of my environment. I understood there was no
| me. This was really nice for about two weeks and then my ego
| (I expect) just kicked my arse and brought me back down to
| earth with a crash (maybe its a safety system)
|
| Just for the conversation: the <<from nowhere>> really just
| might be the unconscious brain, as the relationship between
| conscious and unconscious is ambiguous at best. The conscious
| insist in being in control, most of the time fooling itself,
| while the unconscious does most of the work in a really
| autonomous way.
|
| Maybe the <<safety system>> was just the unconscious
| rebelling to prove it does indeed exist and that the
| conscious should take note, and resume its part in the
| general guidance of the being :)
| haswell wrote:
| > * the <<from nowhere>> really just might be the
| unconscious brain*
|
| The trouble is that once you start to consider the nature
| of the unconscious brain, such consideration leads to the
| same conclusion.
|
| If the unconscious brain somehow has "control", from where
| does it derive this control? Unless you then accept some
| kind of metaphysical explanation, it's centerlessness all
| the way down.
| im3w1l wrote:
| Well I would say it like this. The ancient part and the
| modern part of the brain are in a sort of dialogue. The
| ancient part can place a thought into the modern part of
| the brain, like a sort of notification. The modern part
| can then decide to pay attention to this or decide not
| to. It can reason about it. And finally it can say
| something back to the ancient part of the brain. It can
| communicate some plan that the ancient part executes.
|
| I say ancient/modern rather than unconsious/conscious,
| because to a certain extent even the reasoning "just
| happens", so you might be tempted to say that even the
| reasoning is unconscious and it's actually all
| unconscious except some supernatural me that is just
| passively watching everything without actually taking any
| action. But we can bypass that (quite interesting)
| subject, by talking about ancient / modern, because the
| reasoning part is separate and more modern.
|
| Tldr: The neocortex is the homunculus (in the sense of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_argument).
| haswell wrote:
| That is an interesting way to categorize those functions
| of the brain, but philosophically, doesn't this leave us
| in the same place? Whether you classify it as
| ancient/modern, or subconscious/conscious, we're still
| talking about two modes.
|
| In one of these modes we actively perceive/experience our
| concept of reality, and the other acts as a black box -
| not available for direct interrogation, but still
| possible to reason about via observations in conscious
| experience.
|
| The issue I'm having with this take is that our
| definition of reasoning still depends on the black box.
| The experience of feeling like a being capable of
| reasoning and then using that ability to consider a
| problem is all built on a foundation of thoughts,
| sensations and feelings that just "appear" in conscious
| experience with very little evidence that the conscious
| mind had anything to do with putting them there.
| kfajdsl wrote:
| Is being centerless really such a bad thing?
|
| Then again, I really haven't experienced the concept at a
| fundamental, spiritual level, only intellectually; I
| don't really meditate. Maybe there's something deep in
| our wiring (probably in our unconscious mind, which
| really pulls most of the strings) that has difficulty
| grappling with the loss of the idea of "self".
| haswell wrote:
| I don't believe it's a bad thing at all, it just _is_.
|
| And glimpsing centerlessness for yourself sounds
| disconcerting, but instead seems paradoxically comforting
| when it happens.
|
| For me personally, it brought with it a deep sense of
| peace and wonder about my existence and coexistence with
| a world full of similarly centerless beings.
|
| To your point about wiring, I think absolutely yes. From
| an evolutionary psychology perspective, many aspects of
| conscious experience ensure we stay alive and procreate,
| but are not necessarily _pleasant_ and seem to be
| increasingly incompatible with modern life.
|
| Robert Wright's book "Why Buddhism is True" explores this
| at length and is a really interesting read. It's not a
| book about religious truth, but one that maps a modern
| understanding of evolutionary psychology onto the
| insights of Buddhist philosophy and how such philosophy
| can be incredibly helpful when dealing with the
| implications of living in a body that did not evolve to
| survive the conditions to which it is currently subject.
| tuyiown wrote:
| > it's centerlessness all the way down
|
| Well I didn't meant anything else actually. I realize
| that the <<unconscious>> term is tainted, as it can
| represent something like a hidden part of personality,
| especially on Freudian literature and likes.
|
| I didn't meant that, I was thinking of the sum of the
| autonomous processing and coordination of the numerous
| intricate and distributed functions of the brain, senses,
| motor, emotional, etc...
| haswell wrote:
| That's a good clarification clarification. I misread the
| quoted part as trying to shift the "well" of
| consciousness to the unconscious brain, which really just
| moves the problem down one level.
| janeerie wrote:
| A couple of years ago, I started a light meditation practice
| (10-20 minutes) and did it for about a month with good
| results. At that point, I read this article (on Hacker News)
| and spent the next two years terrified this would happen to
| me.
|
| I had struggled with panic disorder in the past, but CBT
| pretty much fixed it for me. This article triggered my first
| panic attacks in years and led to a constant sense of dread
| and anxiety. It was so terrifying to think that a simple
| mental process could potentially trigger a breakdown (and
| like you, I had a family to take care of).
|
| Fast-forward a couple of years, and I'm moving towards the
| view that these breakdowns are simple anxiety disorders that
| just happen to be triggered by meditation, in the same way
| that a panic attack triggered my anxiety disorder when I was
| young. I don't think there's anything particularly special or
| mystical about it - it's just our stupid brains activating
| the fear response, and it appears that the same methods for
| dealing with anxiety disorders work here.
|
| I feel like in a way I was the control group for an
| experiment - can a fear of meditation provoke the same
| response as meditation itself?
| pushrax wrote:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6612475/ is a
| review of Britton's research discussed in the article. It
| presents several points of evidence with a coherent
| argument for why meditation brings benefits while an
| excessive level of meditation may cause adverse effects.
| ok_dad wrote:
| It's interesting that anyone even had to specify that
| excessive meditation could cause harm. Isn't the whole
| point of Buddhism to follow the "middle way"?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > This article triggered my first panic attacks in years
| and led to a constant sense of dread and anxiety.
|
| Perhaps you should think of your dread and anxiety as a
| symptom of craving. But if you think your family
| obligations get in the way, there's nothing wrong with
| avoiding deep insight practices for now. You can do light
| meditation and even take an intellectual interest in the
| deeper teachings without seriously triggering anything.
| robocat wrote:
| > You can do light meditation and even take an
| intellectual interest in the deeper teachings without
| seriously triggering anything.
|
| Our fears can dominate our reality, and you are tritely
| recommending a possibly harmful path without knowing
| anything about them . . . like recommending eating a
| peanut to someone who knows they have a dangerous
| allergic reaction to peanuts. In the context of the
| article, your advice is especially egregious.
|
| Please tread carefully in the world, effortless advice
| can cause long term harm.
|
| Sometimes it is good to listen to our fears, sometimes
| not. Hard to judge others across the vast distance of a
| few sentences.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Of course. There is a world of difference between
| understanding something on an intellectual level and
| engaging in serious insight practice. Unlike insight
| meditation itself, there isn't really any evidence that
| the path I suggested is "possibly harmful".
| dsubburam wrote:
| > I experienced a deep realisation that our thoughts manifest
| from nowhere and not from ourselves (words fail me here) and
| that the construct of 'me' was completely false and was just
| a reverberation of my environment. I understood there was no
| me.
|
| A way to frame such an experience (a version of which I've
| had too) is to say that we realize that the purpose we've
| been having for our striving is bogus. e.g. There's no
| special "me" that's important to make look good, that needs
| respect and fame etc.
|
| But that doesn't mean we lose all striving. We just find a
| new, more wholesome, purpose for it.
|
| I think Eckhart Tolle talks about this. There are other
| perspectives, too, that one can garner by reading philosophy.
| (e.g. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, which puts virtue as
| most worth striving for; there're also much simpler takes on
| what's worth striving for in an ego-less sense, which are
| paradoxically harder to intellectually grok while being much
| more commonly espoused in practice, such as love for home,
| and family).
| jvanderbot wrote:
| The stories we tell ourselves matter. Staring into the mind
| and seeing nothing is a powerful and frightening story. There
| may be a more positive reframing, but it's also not a
| mandatory story to tell yourself.
| cutler wrote:
| "Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After
| enlightenment chop wood, carry water." We need the mundane
| earthly activities to balance any inward quests.
| hrnnnnnn wrote:
| Or the contemporary version: after enlightenment, the
| dishes.
| Southworth wrote:
| One of my most treasured quotes. Glad to see it here.
| jossclimb wrote:
| totally agree.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| That sounds pragmatic; in the end, you still have to return
| to the real world and get on with things like survive.
|
| Although this talk about becoming enlightened sounds like
| people have given up on themselves and realilty entirely to
| pursue something in their minds. It sounds like a self-
| induced state of tripping balls.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Cthulhu discussion Buddhism. Am _I_ tripping?
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I've always taken it to (also) mean that one ought not
| expect _rebirth_ in enlightenment, or some instant
| transformation of one 's condition and even of one's
| spiritual (if you will) practice. It's not like graduating
| from school and moving into the workforce, where you stop
| going to classes and your life shifts radically in a short
| span. One day you're not enlightened, the next you are,
| and... that's the whole thing, congrats, you did it, now
| life goes on surprisingly-similarly to how it did before.
|
| "Oh, you're enlightened? That's nice. Now, on with what we
| were doing...."
| hosh wrote:
| That's the No Self realization. I only had a brief glimpse of
| it, including the weirdly simultaneous panic. It did not
| happen during a meditation session, and it was brief.
|
| I remember a podcast interview with Adyashanti about this. A
| lot of people experience unity consciousness first before no
| self, but some people experience no self first. He mentioned
| about someone he knows who experienced that, and had it for
| years, while also having to care for a child.
|
| On reddit, I read someone stating that psychedelic can break
| someone, and it happened to him. Lots of people responded by
| saying things, and he was telling them, no, literally, there
| was something that broke and there's no coming back from it.
| analyst74 wrote:
| > I experienced a deep realisation that our thoughts manifest
| from nowhere and not from ourselves (words fail me here) and
| that the construct of 'me' was completely false and was just
| a reverberation of my environment.
|
| Wait, is this not common knowledge??
| yyyk wrote:
| It's a common _argument_ , which may or may not be true if
| it can be properly defined at all.
| haswell wrote:
| Knowledge is not the same thing as insight, and
| _experiencing_ what the parent comment describes is
| something that most people never attempt (or even realize
| there is something to attempt).
|
| Having a philosophical/intellectual conversation about the
| nature of mind is very different than your own mind
| wrapping itself around these concepts directly.
| ystad wrote:
| To add on. I think the key is probably to have a balance. Your
| life, work, sport, medity
| rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote:
| Meditation is a dose-dependent drug.
|
| Most people will reap most of the health benefits that
| meditation has to offer by sitting for 20 minutes a couple
| times a day.
|
| You can go much deeper, of course, but that's a philosophical /
| spiritual quest to gain a deeper understanding of yourself and
| the world around you - it's not a health pursuit. A multi-day
| meditation retreat is in many ways like running an
| ultramarathon: it's not really a _healthy_ undertaking, per se,
| but you might learn something about yourself by doing it, and
| the way to do it responsibly is by working your way up to it
| over months and years of practice.
| adamsmith143 wrote:
| I think stories like this relate to misunderstanding the point
| of meditation practice, the practice. The time spent may be
| helpful in of itself but really you're meant to do the practice
| and learn more about how your mind works and be able to have
| better control of your emotional states. Not retreat into
| meditating whenever you fell something other than contentment.
| Disappointing that you apparently didn't learn this from a
| Buddhist group and instead focused on the actual act of
| meditating as the useful thing.
| starkd wrote:
| I think the ones that "go deeper" are doing so because they
| don't know what else to do, what the next step is. But they
| have achieved some "success", so they keep doing it. It also
| feeds the rise of new gurus that think they are helping by
| spreading the message, but they are merely feeding a new ego.
| There are so many teachers and online gurus hoping to turn it
| into a vocation.
| SeattleAltruist wrote:
| Yes. Moderation in all things.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| > I would turn to meditation assuming it would help me get
| things done but it had the opposite effect of avoiding what I
| needed to face.
|
| Marcus Aurelius--quoted from memory, so probably not quite
| right, and it's in translation at any rate:
|
| > You can pass your life in a calm flow of happiness, if you
| learn to think the right way and to act the right way.
|
| I personally found the "think the right way" easy to get into,
| but without the "act the right way" it can indeed lead to
| apathy, detachment, and avoidance. Whoops.
| ycombinete wrote:
| There are often first-hand comments about the dangers of
| mindfulness practice here on HN. But when the commenters
| describe their practices they are so extreme that it was almost
| inevitable that they had negative effects.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| There's quite a spectrum between a 10-20min almost daily
| habit and trying to actually reach "enlightenment". These 10
| day silent retreats are a lot closer to the Bodhidharma
| sitting in a cave end of the spectrum. Probably not the first
| people to go a little crazy attempting that in Buddhist
| history. Given the context I would imagine it's mostly
| overachievers but that is not really a healthy approach to
| religion or mental health (going hard as a mf)
| ycombinete wrote:
| > Probably not the first people to go a little crazy
| attempting that in Buddhist history
|
| During the signup process for a 10 day Vipassana retreat,
| they ask for a lot of details about your psychological
| health. Even warning against doing the retreat if you're
| not in a good mental place. So I'm sure you're right.
| threatofrain wrote:
| It also makes me wonder whether it's unusual people who
| select themselves into such extreme activities, and not that
| meditation is dangerous.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| Haven't we all looked inwardly too much already? I'd list that
| as a top reason for the general malaise I see around me. I've
| never really found looking inward that useful, looking outward
| and acting outward and thinking about others has to be a 100:1
| ratio on returns vs looking inward.
| haswell wrote:
| What is too much, and why would such introspection be a bad
| thing if it consistently leads to improved mental states? But
| I think more importantly, "looking inward" is not really the
| primary focus, but a technique to help one realize what is
| (and is not) already there.
|
| At one time I think I would have written a comment similar to
| yours, because I had not yet experienced the difference
| between the perspective-altering practice of "looking inward"
| through mindfulness and the lost-in-thought version, which
| looks a lot more like rumination and just experiencing the
| thought loop without perspective, which can be deeply
| painful.
|
| These practices are full of paradox. This isn't to say the
| practice is invalid, but to highlight the fact that such
| practice is not intuitive or obvious. Evolutionary psychology
| is helping us unpack the illusions that lead to such apparent
| paradox.
|
| One such paradox being that looking inward through the
| practice of mindfulness is the thing that enables someone to
| look outward and actually _see_. Most people struggle to
| describe this in words, but it starts to emerge clearly with
| practice.
|
| Put another way, the premise is that we are all so lost in
| thought by default that we don't even realize we are
| thinking. To claim that we can see outward in this state is
| to remain unaware of the possibility space of what is
| available to see, and to remain controlled by thought. You'll
| still "see", but this seeing is distorted by evolutionary
| reward systems, and what you think you're seeing is still
| suspect.
|
| But seeing the truth about one's own mind changes how one
| sees other people in deeply impactful ways.
|
| For me personally, my internal anxiety and self talk was so
| dominant that it made some outward pursuits feel nearly
| impossible. Once my relationship with thoughts/feelings
| started to shift, it didn't just help with the anxiety in the
| sense that it subsided, it fundamentally shifted my
| relationship with the concept of anxiety, and made it
| possible for me to examine it from a broader perspective
| instead of just experiencing and being swallowed by it.
|
| You go from knowing that anxiety (etc.) is a feeling to
| _experiencing_ that anxiety is a feeling, and one that
| appears alongside everything else in consciousness. The
| difference between these states is enormous.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Maybe the brain is smart, once you know meditation works, it
| then anticipates it to work. The expectation of it working
| interferes with the actual mindfulness and you take longer and
| longer.
|
| Is a law of diminishing utility thing and also a basic instinct
| for people to get used to stuff the more they are exposed
| heydemo wrote:
| One of the findings from researchers in the book Altered Traits
| is that largest (positive) cerebral changes were associated
| with time spent at intensive retreats. This is also very much a
| part of Zen practice (etc) so presumably practitioners have
| found some additional value in intensives over the years.
| starkd wrote:
| I have a theory that meditation/mindfulness is essentially just
| an excercise in self-erasure. This can be beneficial to some
| degree in that we all need to erase those negative associations
| and question our assumptions. However, carried to an extreme,
| it can erase some of the associations we need to make in order
| to live and create extreme hyper-selfawareness. Or in other
| words, you open up your mind too much, your brains start to
| fall out.
| pmart123 wrote:
| I'm no expert, but this still seems like avoidance more than
| mindfulness. Obviously, meditating for six hours as a means to
| escape and avoid uncomfortable thoughts is healthier than
| blacking out or doing opioids, but it's still escaping versus
| being present, processing, and facing uncomfortable feelings
| and emotions.
| kwertyoowiyop wrote:
| Meditation sounds a bit like spice on your food. A little can be
| good, too much isn't. And if you don't like it, stop.
| tk17 wrote:
| I have severe panic attacks and was basically unemployable for 5
| years. It's impossible to say what happened here. I had a similar
| array of experiences and I still think meditation is a net
| positive and that these experiences are very rare. But the nocebo
| effect is powerful and it can be a bitch.
|
| Meditation is probably fine. I don't see a reason to reject the
| null hypothesis that it is no more dangerous than any other
| intense pursuit. Work and capitalism probably have 10,000x the
| psychiatric casualty rate. In fact, open plan offices are
| probably more dangerous than an LSD trip once per year (though I
| don't recommend the latter except in a controlled therapeutic
| setting).
| kashif wrote:
| I think he had a panic attack
| bjt2n3904 wrote:
| > I spent my last day in Los Angeles riding on a Segway, buying
| legal marijuana and staring at some turtles in an on-campus pond
| at UCLA.
|
| Yeah, I'm sure that has nothing to do with psychotic breakdowns.
| tough wrote:
| Segway's are really potent
| Zachsa999 wrote:
| Innocent question by a non meditator.
|
| Every couple months when it takes an hour or two to fall asleep,
| I get this otherworldly feeling; like a specific part of my body
| is growing unbelievably heavy, large and uncontrollable. It feels
| like this body part will end up crushing me, suffocating me,
| imploding, etc. It feels like it's happening to me, but I am not
| in my body. I start to feel emotions start to wash by me, it
| starts with curiosity, shifts to discomfort then quickly on to
| anxiety, fear, depression, terror, and once the last three in a
| horrifying mix.
|
| It started when I was young, probably 10 or 12, and has slightly
| decreased over time. I'm closer to 25 now, and it's lost it's
| hold slightly. Two or three times it got me out of bed and pacing
| around grabbing things for fear of death or an unimaginable
| irrational fear of my swelling tounge. Currently I have a high
| level of control over it, I can choose whether I want to dive in
| or what level of emotion I want to experience.
|
| Is this an accidental over application of meditation? Is it
| dementia at an extremely young age?
|
| I would love to hear your thoughts.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| The state of being about to fall asleep is an altered state of
| consciousness, and not too different from the states that are
| entered while meditating. The standard way to address it would
| be to try and bring that state of anxiety, fear and terror
| towards a calm equanimity: a sense and intuition that no matter
| what happens, everything will be okay. This might even help you
| realize that you actually have some unresolved baggage or
| stress to work through that's blocking this path and leaving
| you with that anxiety. But that's quite common and not very
| hard to address in turn.
| Zachsa999 wrote:
| Thanks for the comment.
|
| I agree, and my experience has been that I can turn it all
| off. I didn't put it here as a "help me god" but it's been on
| the back of my mind for years, and I was hoping someone here
| might have academic knowledgeable with this exact experience.
| mikem170 wrote:
| Some of what you said reminds me of a friend of mine who had
| "night terrors". This friend described how they would sometimes
| wake up in the wrong order. Their conscious mind would wake up
| while the body was still paralyzed with sleep, typically with a
| terrible feeling of dread, like someone behind them is going to
| attack them and they can't move. What you described made me
| wonder if sometimes you fall asleep in the wrong order.
| Zachsa999 wrote:
| Thanks for the comment. Interesting observation, you suggest
| that I am experiencing a form of lucid dreaming, but I only
| notice it when I experience a specific dream?
|
| One thing that is constant throughout app these occurrences
| is the emotional path and my mouth lips and tongue that
| experience this feeling.
| mikem170 wrote:
| I googled and found the correct term for what bothered my
| friend: Sleep Paralysis [0]:
|
| > Sleep paralysis is a condition identified by a brief loss
| of muscle control, known as atonia , that happens just
| after falling asleep or waking up. In addition to atonia,
| people often experience hallucinations during episodes of
| sleep paralysis.
|
| I didn't get as far as knowing if there are mitigations. I
| saw where it can happen falling asleep and waking up, so
| maybe it is relevant.
|
| [0] https://www.sleepfoundation.org/parasomnias/sleep-
| paralysis
| sinuhe69 wrote:
| If you mediate, you should be aided by a master or friends. You
| should not mediate, especially deep mediate in a confusing state
| of mind, when you are panic or exhausted, when you are hungry or
| too full. If you don't follow the rules and practice according to
| your levels, you can hallucinate and harm yourself (Zou Huo Ru Mo
| ). These are very clear advises from every Buddhist school.
|
| Meditation is one way to practice mindfulness. It's NOT the only
| one. It's by no way the silver bullet for all your problems. It's
| also not a technique recommend for beginners. No Buddhist master
| would recommend it for you, if you haven't studied the Buddhist
| teachings sufficiently.
|
| Above all, Buddhist meditation should always be practiced in
| accordance with the Buddhist teachings, first and foremost with
| compassion in mind. Abuse any technique and it will bring harm,
| especially on yourself.
| schnable wrote:
| Sounds like a bad acid trip.
| hislaziness wrote:
| I think the author is confusing Buddhism and mindfulness.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Buddhism is all about reducing suffering. BUT, once a large group
| gets together in an organization, like with the big Zen Centers,
| they fall prey to the same organizational defenses. The
| organization becomes more important than the individuals, just
| like any corporation, it becomes a beast with its own survival
| instincts. Once this happens, you could argue that they are no
| longer representing Buddhism.
|
| But this is pretty tough issue, or balance, because meditation
| does help people, so how do they get exposed if there is no
| organization? People have to get started somewhere, so some
| weekend meditation courses or sittings are good for an
| organization to 'organize' and get the word out.
|
| The big mistake is people jumping right into these long week long
| silent retreats. Those are supposed to be for advanced
| meditators, not right off the couch. Like doing a 10K right from
| the couch, don't do a week long retreat from nothing.
| magwa101 wrote:
| [dead]
| golemotron wrote:
| It is notable at the author keeps using frames like "harmful",
| pathologizing what is really just direct contact with one's
| sensations and experiences. A less enculturated person might be
| able to go with the flow they've newly tapped into without
| fighting it. There's a lot of grasping ego.
|
| The thing they don't seem to get is that what they are experience
| may just be normal consciousness to many people who don't have a
| mind that is continually discriminating and sorting. I take more
| as an indictment of the disconnection our culture creates in
| people than the practice itself.
| neilellis wrote:
| Yep that's what an intense panic attack feels like. Literally the
| worst experience you can imagine. His description matches my own
| worst experiences. And yes it would freak anyone out.
|
| Guess how I overcame them :-) yep, you guessed, meditation - but
| it took time. I no longer have panic attacks but it was not a
| smooth journey. I also made big life changes and spent a lot of
| time in nature, coupled with medications.
|
| On reflection I was pushing myself hard and was filled with ego -
| I'd had difficulties in the past before I started meditating and
| was massively overworking myself. A crash was inevitable. I am
| humbled by what I passed through - and that in itself is a
| victory.
|
| Do I think meditation 'caused' the panic attacks, no, it brought
| to the surface something that was pretty much inevitable because
| of how I was living my life. Should I have treated meditation
| more respectfully and seriously. Yes, for sure.
|
| Meditation is not a miracle drug, a panacea or a therapy. It
| should be viewed as the journey out of suffering - and that path
| by its very nature is likely to confront you with difficult
| experiences. If I can offer a tip or two from my own experiences
| :-
|
| AGAIN: Meditation is not a miracle drug, a panacea or a therapy.
|
| Serious meditation is a serious endeavour, like free-climbing.
| You should never take it lightly and you must be serious about
| it. When you take something seriously you do so with awareness of
| the dangers and the hardships you may face.
|
| You may have genuinely very difficult experiences as the OP did,
| that is why it's important to have an experienced and wise
| Teacher. They can help you face these experiences and help you to
| grow stronger by doing so.
|
| Take your time, the path is a long path, don't try for Nibbana by
| Tuesday, instead look for small concrete improvements and build
| on them over time. Be humble and realise that you have a lot of
| stuff to deal with and it takes time.
|
| NEVER EVER lie, omit or exaggerate on an application form. This
| is how meditation teachers determine the risk of you having an
| experience you can't deal with. This was mentioned in the
| article, but I can say for sure that the teachers of Goenka
| retreats do try their hardest to not accept people on causes who
| might have difficulties. They also do drill in the idea that it's
| a serious undertaking.
|
| If you have a difficult experience and can face it, even a
| little, your mind is stronger for it. The next time it happens
| maybe you can face it a little more.
|
| I hope this article does not put people off meditation, it turned
| my life around. But at the same time, I hope people can take away
| the seriousness of such endeavours as the article does highlight.
|
| When something that over a 100,000 people a year do any activity
| there will always be a tragic story. Be it running a marathon,
| boating or driving cars. Of course we should do everything
| possible to avoid that happening. But we do need to be realistic
| and acknowledge that tragedies do happen even when people have
| the mental equivalent of a driving license, air bags, seat belts
| and drive carefully.
|
| Wishing you all happiness.
| ergonaught wrote:
| I read this when it was first published and I'll just continue to
| accept the author's assertions that they are
| experienced/informed/educated and point out that the
| "mindfulness" style of "meditation" is entirely different from
| the concentration-based styles of "meditation".
|
| It at least sounds like they were unaware of the differences, and
| unaware that the concentration-based styles are quite well
| documented as tending to produce various phenomena (glorious or
| horrifying and all points between and beyond) on the route.
|
| Even ignoring "awakening kundalini" types of things that other
| commenters mentioned, this is where most practitioners would say
| this kind of experience is why it helps to have a "guru" for
| assistance.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I have been told that Trungpa said "they always run".
|
| The context was people on retreats jumping up from their
| meditation cushion and running away as fast as they can, not to
| reach some destination, but just to escape. I've never witnessed
| this, but I never did many retreats.
|
| The practice wasn't the jhanas, it was meditation on emptiness.
| The idea is that when you achieve a certain level of realisation
| into emptiness, a sudden and irreversible change occurs, like a
| seismic shift, which results in terror. The practioner runs
| mainly to get away from the place where it happened (i.e., the
| cushion). Apparently they keep running until they feel safe.
|
| I was told that the jhanas (roughly, single-pointed
| concentration) were particularly risky, because it's easy to do
| them wrong. Note that the jhanas are not a type of mindfulness
| practice; the author seems to conflate them.
|
| > mainstream branding of mindfulness meditation as a panacea for
| all our woes.
|
| The fundamental purpose of mindfulness practice in Buddhism is to
| convince yourself that your sense of selfhood is false. Because
| we are so strongly attached to the sense of selfhood, achieving
| that conviction is going to be a wrench. In western psychology,
| the loss of a sense of selfhood is called "dissociation", and is
| a pathology. McMindfulness ignores all that.
|
| I once had negative experiences of meditation on emptiness; I was
| told to stop doing it. I'm quite certain that my experiences were
| not the result of any realisation!
| zozbot234 wrote:
| I think you're conflating the concentration and insight
| jhanas/meditative practices. What you said about losing the
| sense of self is true of the insight jhanas, but "mindfulness"
| as a meditative practice is more reminiscent of concentration.
| Also, it's not like "losing the sense of self" is always bad
| for you; it depends how deep your attachment to the self was in
| the first place. Sila (moral and ethical practice) and
| intellectual insights like Stoicism can help you gradually
| loosen the notion that a personal self must be integral to
| existence, without abandoning it completely.
| passion__desire wrote:
| The running is to bring in line the higher cognition centers to
| the physiology of body which is what brain should be doing,
| sort of like syncing up.
| yakubin wrote:
| Mindfulness is the new agile. Every criticism is deflected with
| "you're not doing it right".
| starkd wrote:
| There is something very cultish about it. An indication of it
| being a cult is the tendency to get caught up in definitions
| of new words. It is easy to think that once you learn the
| vocabulary (like "vipassana", "sati", or whatever), you are
| have achieved something, when all you are doing is reciting
| new words but the thinking is done for you.
| astrange wrote:
| Well... it's literally a religion. And those are just
| foreign words.
|
| McMindfulness (the stuff you'd get corporate trainings
| about) doesn't teach you any of those words, uses several
| different techniques at once, gives regular people little
| bits of the techniques used for monks to develop revulsion
| for all earthly things, etc.
| starkd wrote:
| Seems like having revulsion for all earthly things can
| backfire in unpredictable ways. I have a suspicion that
| the early Buddhist may have been onto something, but
| something vital was lost a long time ago.
| wirrbel wrote:
| Realisation of no self (anatta) would be canonically fit into
| vipssana meditation whereas mindfulness (sati) is something
| done for concentration practice
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I did a lot of mindfulness sitting practice. We were
| specifically directed not to attempt concentration. There's
| more than one kind of mindfulness, and more than one kind of
| vipassana. I was mainly taught vipassana as something that
| arises naturally from shamatha; but I've been on courses
| where it was taught as a systematic exploration of the
| skhandas, to convince yourself that there is no self in the
| five skhandas.
|
| I've also been to McMindfulness groups, where they blended
| shamatha-type mindfulness with guided vipassana meditation.
| It makes no sense to me, to teach vipassana divorced from the
| no-self doctrine, and all the abhidharma ideas about the
| skhandas and the different kinds of consciousness.
|
| Shamatha is "calm abiding", which I think is what the
| McMindfulness crowd are trying to teach. It should really be
| treated as a sort of universal preliminary for most other
| types of meditation. But it's perfectly reasonable to treat
| shamatha as your main practice (as I did).
|
| I was told that chod is a specifically Tibetan practice; I
| don't know what it would be called in Sanskrit. It's a
| visualisation practice, in which you imagine chopping up your
| body and your senses, and make an offering of them. I've
| never tried it; I was told it's scary. I was also told it's
| sutrayana, although the visualisation makes it sound
| vajrayana. I guess chod is a kind of vipassana?
| wirrbel wrote:
| > There's more than one kind of mindfulness, and more than
| one kind of vipassana
|
| Definitely true, by itself sati/smrti is a hard-to-
| translate term.
|
| > Shamatha is "calm abiding", which I think is what the
| McMindfulness crowd are trying to teach. It should really
| be treated as a sort of universal preliminary for most
| other types of meditation. But it's perfectly reasonable to
| treat shamatha as your main practice (as I did).
|
| I am mostly focussing on some breathing mindfulness
| meditation and some metta, not much, but enough that I feel
| a calming effect, and I overall am trying to foster some
| 'buddhist values' in my life.
|
| > I was told that chod is a specifically Tibetan practice;
| I don't know what it would be called in Sanskrit. It's a
| visualisation practice, in which you imagine chopping up
| your body and your senses, and make an offering of them.
| I've never tried it; I was told it's scary. I was also told
| it's sutrayana, although the visualisation makes it sound
| vajrayana. I guess chod is a kind of vipassana?
|
| I heard of meditating on your 'own decaying body'
| definitely from a theravada context, but was overall warned
| that meditation objects from the imagination are more risky
| overall for psychological emergencies.
|
| > sutrayana
|
| That sounds like Bhante Vimalaramsi?
| denton-scratch wrote:
| No idea what Bhante Vimalaramsi is. I used the term as a
| synonym for sravakayana; I think I probably used it
| incorrectly, it should probably include a lot of mahayana
| practice (because mahayana sutras). Maybe it just means
| "practices that don't depend on revealed teachings". At
| any rate, "not tantrayana".
| wirrbel wrote:
| Ah, Bhante Vimalaramsi is an american monk originally
| from the theravada tradition who IIRC uses Sutrayana for
| his take on what the Pali canon says, as he deviates from
| the theravada interpretation of the text.
| astrange wrote:
| "Sutrayana" meaning "not Vajrayana" is typical for
| Tibetan Buddhism.
| oska wrote:
| > The fundamental purpose of mindfulness practice in Buddhism
| is to convince yourself that your sense of selfhood is false.
| Because we are so strongly attached to the sense of selfhood,
| achieving that conviction is going to be a wrench.
|
| I found quite a few signs of egotism in the writer, so I'm not
| surprised that he experienced a great wrench in confronting his
| sense of selfhood. And then lashes out at the teachings and
| practices he had previously rushed to embrace.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I'm not sure if anyone could read that story and not at least
| heard some of the B-side track.
| scop wrote:
| Had anybody else noticed that for many Stoicism has replaced
| Buddhism as the "cool" and "intellectual" spirituality amongst
| those in the liberal tech world?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Stoicism is more like Buddhism on easy mode for those in the
| Western tradition. Even Buddhists themselves are very clear
| that one should not pursue serious meditation unless they have
| their sila (morality, ethical behavior) down pat and are at an
| appropriate stage of life where they have the time and means
| for it; Stoicism is all about the practice of sila. If you skip
| on that, you end up with stories like OP's, and the people
| suffering psychotic breaks while on a meditative retreat.
| scop wrote:
| I really appreciate your comment. I think I'll remember the
| phrase "Buddhism on easy mode" for the rest of my life!
|
| Your observation about preparation, behavior, state of life
| etc is also very poignant. I am Catholic and something that
| I've found delving into the writings of the saints is that it
| is often like staring at the sun: it's too intense and I'm
| not ready for it. For example, when I was an atheist in
| college I read St Augustine's Confessions and found it
| interesting from a philosophical point of view and an easy
| read. Now, as a believing and practicing Catholic, I can't
| even finish the book. It's spiritual fruit, of which I was
| ignorant in my youth, are too intense for me. I come back to
| it every couple of years and each time make it a little bit
| further.
|
| That is all to say, it is funny how in mainstream discourse
| about religion/spirituality there is very little mention of
| "ability". "Religious practice" is most certainly a skill
| that is acquired and refined through hard work (and grace).
| zozbot234 wrote:
| The Catholic tradition and Christian tradition in general
| are deeply informed by Stoicism, especially Stoic ethics.
| So coming from that kind of tradition, you might find that
| you're already aware of many of these things, even if you
| couldn't quite tell where they originally came from.
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| It's probably no coincidence Stoicism (and Cynicism) appeared
| in the centuries following Alexander's campaign to India, and
| the bidirectional greco-indian cultural exchange that
| followed.
|
| (It's also no coincidence that a Indian Buddhist monks
| ostensibly wear orange togas; not that the Romans conquered
| India or the Indians went to Rome, but the two seem to have
| been inspired by the Greek Chiton and Himation)
|
| This cultural exchange is pretty fascinating thing in
| general. Here are some complementary reading:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Buddhism
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_in_Greece
| [deleted]
| spccdt wrote:
| Reminds me of a similar anecdote from Holly Elmore in 2021 [1].
|
| [1] https://hollyelmore.substack.com/p/i-believed-the-hype-
| and-d...
| ccooffee wrote:
| Thanks for sharing. Your article feels a lot more intimate
| (less analytical) than the OP's. In particular, I was delighted
| to read the "Harm: loss of 3D vision" section because I now
| realize that my experience of rarely perceiving 3D isn't just
| me making things up. In particular:
|
| > I can pop in and out of 2D and 3D vision at will, it's just
| that 2D is the default, and 3D always feels more real.
|
| I _wish_ I could do this at will. Probably once a month or so I
| notice that I have 3D vision and become entranced with just
| looking at things around me. Usually the feeling subsides
| within an hour, but it's rarely a "pop out" and more a gradual
| decline in how 3D things are.
|
| And now I'm off to the wikipedia rabbit hole to learn more
| about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereopsis_recovery
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| "The short answer is that in 2009 I started a fist fight in a
| French Quarter bar over some jambalaya, a steamy kiss, and a
| stray comment I didn't take fondly" - the author should seriously
| consider the possibility that their later issues had more to do
| with whatever led to this episode in the first place than with
| meditation, which is not a magic cure all. People are not likely
| to think themselves in or out of psychosis, although there can be
| a triggering even for onset of symptoms that would emerge anyway.
| Better understanding of the underlying condition can lead to
| better treatment, likely with Western medicine and therapy,
| possibly also with meditation/yoga tailored to these symptoms.
| Relaxing is generally good for you, seeking intense experiences
| with one is already on edge is counterproductive.
| adamgordonbell wrote:
| Scott Alexander had reviews of Dan Ingram and related 'modern day
| enlightened'. I seem to recall a suggestion that these people
| could be considered to have developed something like a self
| induced, positive version of dissociative personality disorder.
|
| They would get angry or hungry or grumpy, but 'they' were a step
| away from this person that was hungry or angry or whatever.
|
| It's like they had zoomed in and drawn some separations between
| the various layers of consciousness that we consider all one and
| the same.
|
| Fascinating, but not something I'm interested in doing.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > these people could be considered to have developed something
| like a self induced, positive version of dissociative
| personality disorder.
|
| Yes, the self disorders https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-
| disorders of schizophrenics (such as feeling like thoughts are
| being radioed into your head) read like what might be expected
| to happen if one reaches sudden, involuntary awareness of the
| three marks of existence without having done any sort of
| meditative or even devotional practice, let alone reached any
| enlightenment. This only underscores that awareness of the
| three characteristics is part of what frees us from dukkha but
| is not in itself sufficient; after all, people who undergo
| these psychotic breaks are obviously very deeply mired in
| craving and dukkha.
| cracoucax wrote:
| Daniel Ingram is a deluded fool, and imo being this deluded
| probably means a sort of mental disorder. His book and system
| just show how far away from any real form of enlightenment he
| is. Sadly because he sounds modern & a little scientific people
| keep taking him seriously. No, the Vipassana nanas are not what
| he describes. Anyone wondering about him should just forget
| this stuff, burn this book and go to a retreat with a well
| known teacher.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Are you basing this purely on reading about supposedly
| enlightened people getting angry or grumpy? That's a
| surprisingly common thing, actually. I know that Ingram's
| claims of arahatship are controversial and quite possibly
| mistaken (i.e. it's quite possible that there are levels to
| enlightenment well beyond what he discusses, especially wrt.
| the grounding of sila and renouncing one's cravings), but
| that's not to say one should dismiss his whole teaching.
| cracoucax wrote:
| Basically what he did what read about the "insight
| knownledges", (which are initially described in the
| Visuddhimagga, in a very loose way), and interpret them in
| whatever ways he sees fit, then proceed to see his, and
| everyone's life through the lens of that. He even diagnose
| everyone like an MD on his forums. (And incidentally, he
| /is/ a MD.)
|
| You hear a dog bark and feel afraid ? Do you do meditation
| ? yes ? Surely you must be in a Bhaya nana phase, and are
| on your way to enlightenment. Because bhaya = fear. Did you
| already experience that a few years ago ? did you go
| through this and that extremely loosely defined stages ?
| Then surely you are already a Sotapanna and are headed to
| the attainment of once-returner.
|
| Based on this he is an Arahant (because he says he cycled
| the insight knownledges 4 times).
|
| But being an Arahat basically means being free of ill will,
| desire of the senses, and of a sense of self-existent self
| (and other things). It does not mean "just go though those
| phases, and that's it, that's his own reduction of the path
| to a few pages in the Visuddhimagga, which i would not even
| consider canonical personally.
|
| > Are you basing this purely on reading about supposedly
| enlightened people getting angry or grumpy? That's a
| surprisingly common thing, actually.
|
| People believing they are enlightened are common in some
| circles, yes, and it's always a red flag imo.
|
| Yes, an Arhat does not get angry, that's in the very
| definition of the term: ill will has been totally
| eliminated. You cannot say you are an Arahat but you get
| angry, it would just mean you are something else than an
| Arhat, by definition.
| fjfaase wrote:
| This has been discussed before:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27890790
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27890790 - July 2021 (568
| comments)
| lr4444lr wrote:
| I suffered from bad anxiety for a while post pandemic.
|
| Mindfulness meditation made me feel better during and for about
| half an hour afterward, but it wasn't "me again": it was some
| altered state that not only wasn't addressing the underlying
| issues (that I've since made great strides on in psychotherapy).
| I felt periods of great calm, but it was as if I was taking some
| drug to achieve an altered state.
|
| I read a lot about how to "bring the meditative state into daily
| life", and that only made the anxiety worse when it broke
| through, because it sensitized me to focus increasingly on
| internal physical phenomena. Yeah, I tried not to "judge" them,
| to neither anticipate their arrival and to just observe their
| rise and fall, but the observing meant attention, and the
| attention magnified them.
|
| I finally beat the anxiety mostly for good by acknowledging and
| facing the problems in my life. I haven't even solved much of
| them yet, but I'm pretty honest about it both to myself and the
| people close to me.
| coffeebeqn wrote:
| Me too, I had always had low level anxiety+depression but at
| the end of the pandemic it went out of control. Your comment
| made me think that people like to self medicate. Maybe a 10 day
| silent retreat is not that different from a heroic dose of
| psilocybin. Both are certainly high risk (potentially high
| reward) maneuvers to treat a mental health problem.
|
| Meditation was mildly helpful but it wasn't really a practical
| solution for a working parent. You can't hit pause on your life
| very often. SSRIs it is for now
| revskill wrote:
| To me, real meditation comes after hard work, really painfully
| hard work to make the system convenient before the rest period.
|
| You need to solve your life issues in first place to do whatever
| you want.
|
| Stay, doing nor thinking nothing about it? No, the problems is
| still there.
|
| You don't make it go away with your wasting time doing nothing
| like a Buddha (Buddha has no life issues to solve).
| throwaway71271 wrote:
| as Jung says: the western individual is ready do travel great
| lengths, go farthest to the east, in the deserts, in the ice,
| meditate, change what they eat, what they drink, they will do
| anything, but look inside themselves.
| qikInNdOutReply wrote:
| Sublimation and carefully crafted neurosis to turn us all into
| powertools our society wields?
| throwaway71271 wrote:
| thats what McKenna says :)
| quijoteuniv wrote:
| I though i read "my me me let me to a meltdown" . No, joke aside.
| Moderation is good. Not everything needs to be intense. Some
| people that have use drugs tend to arrive to meditation as a
| replacement of those intense experiences. No need to be famous,
| tell my story, and yes there are a lot of lunatics conducting
| retreats with no idea on what they are doing. And yes if you play
| with fire you tend to get burned. Also i find that meditation
| usually and gently can release some energy, but that does mean
| that your are smarter. I am just the same idiot with more energy
| :)
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