This happened to a coworker of mine during a silent meditation retreat in the woods. He's okay now, I think, but when he broke and turned up at work agitated and babbling about karma, it was quite scary.
I didn't read the article completely but from my experience the overselling that's typical in the West is a problem here. Meditation (and now psychedelics) are sold as this wonderful cure to all problems. In yoga and meditation classes a lot of people seemed to feel obliged to feel great and spiritual even though they didn't really feel that way. Same probably in 10 day meditation classes. They get thrown into something with little instruction (Goenka's teachers don't really help from my experience) and if you aren't stable I can easily see how problems can arise. I have heard the same about Zen teachers that have breakdowns after 30 years of meditating because they forced something that wasn't there.
After my recent mildly disappointing or sobering experiences with psychedelics I am a little worried about that too. They often are sold as the fix to serious problems and unstable people may get into a bad position when their problems aren't solved but they still pretend that they are doing great.
I agree with you. People in the West want to feel and look good and have an obsession with "healing themselves", hence meditation and psychedelics are sold as ways to achieve that. However, if you study the origins of meditation and psychedelics, they have nothing to do with feeling good! These practices were closely guarded by a few select practitioners or shamans and normal people would not engage in them at all. However, in the case of meditation some teachers shared some of their learnings to householders, albeit in a very different way. They certainly did not advise laymen to go on intense meditation retreats to get in touch with their childhood trauma and heal themselves!
For those who are willing to really commit their lives to it, meditation - or to be more precise the spiritual path that leads to it and merges with it - can absolutely cure many neurotic issues. This happens when people stop pretending to feel great and honestly accept that they feel bad, anxious or whatever. By learning to befriend your "bad" emotions slowly and whilst nourishing "good" emotions (through e.g. loving kindness or compassion meditation), you start to slowly unravel some of your milder neurotic issues. But it should be communicated very clearly that you can't sprinkle a bit of mindfulness over your messed up life and expect to be enlightened...
Psychedelics are a good analogy. I don't think they are worth much in our culture and carry serious risk for people who are unstable. Even if you find an authentic shaman, you aren't going to have the cultural context to make it worthwhile by flying there over a weekend.
There is also probably not much more dangerous than a very poorly functioning spiritual practice / teacher. The story here about Vipassana is unsurprising to say the least. It is sort of like squatting a 200kg weight with bad form, over and over again for years, but instead of your body you are breaking your consciousness.
The key takeaway is that if you want to pursue this stuff you really need to find a good teacher who you trust.
The most accomplished people who I know in this stuff have spent decades moving from teacher to teacher.
Eventually you can tell who is full of shit and who isn't. There are certain red flags that you can learn to spot pretty quickly. If you spot a red flag it also doesn't necessarily mean the person doesn't know something worth learning, it just means they are stuck somewhere else. There are a lot of pretty high level people who are a little bit egotistical for example but it doesn't mean they don't know some useful techniques.
The guy teaching me has trained under like a dozen very well known people over the years and his current teacher spent several decades in Asia working his way up through a series of teachers. The latter person I'm describing has talked about being very skeptical of his teachers to the point where in one instance he went into a teachers fridge to confirm he was lying about what he did or didn't eat.
I would say that meditation is fine, cults are bad.
It isn't easy to sit and be still, everyone who tried will tell you, you will find any kind of excuse to not do it. However if you endure it and spend some time meditating, it will indeed bring perspective and clarity in your mind.
These kinds of retreats are stupid... For number of reasons. Also 'apps for meditation' are extra stupid, except maybe Oak because it is just a timer, so it actually serves a purpose. If you really want to meditate, just sit and relax. OK maybe I was too hard on every kind of retreat, but overall they tend to be profitable endevours.
Because your mind will be maleable, cults love to exploit this state to program you and indoctrinate you.
Also... what happened to this girl is known fenomenon. It usually helps if somebody can tell you in advance it would happen. As I read article, they loaded her with drugs afterwards, not sure which is worse.
Again, cults = bad, you have everything you need to be happy.
The irony of these apps coming out a few years ago. And the popularity of them. I guess it becomes more of a routine and escape from reality, rather than mindfulness and meditation.
So having a timer of say 10-15 minutes and meditating would be preferred over apps like Headspace, Calm, etc even though they have guided meditation? Isn't that risky? I don't have any medical conditions but reading this article has made me somewhat wary.
I recommend you check out Sam Harris’ “Waking Up” app. It contains a very gentle guided introduction to mediation, and has a ton of audio content which discusses meditation in its many forms and adjacent topics. If you are wary then listening to the introductory stuff should make you more informed.
I second this. "Waking up" is less of a meditation app, and more of a collection of tools to help you explore consciousness. In addition to the meditation content, the tools include interviews, walks through stoicism and even poetry.
> Megan mentioned that she had stopped taking her medication. She had been on the lowest therapeutic dose of Zoloft for mild anxiety since her early twenties.
Zoloft can really mess you up if you stop cold-turkey. How odd that they didn't bring up comorbid risk-factors until half-way through the article.
This example is less about the potential negatives side-affects of meditation, and more about the care one should take when getting off serious medications. Most retreat centers (and other "guides") usually suggest several weeks or more of no medication before going on your "journey". The side affects of getting off medications, especially ones she apparently was taking for years, can not be underestimated in this story.
It's also clear she was prone to emotional instability before the retreat, and like any treatment -- pharmaceutical or otherwise -- it can have side-affects that need to be managed, dosages that need to be tweaked, etc.
This story also ignores the 90+% of people who have profound experiences on these Vipassana retreats. Just know what you are getting into, and know it can be very very intense even for those who have practiced meditation for years.
Talk about burying the lede. I was on a low dose of Zoloft for only a few months, and the brain zaps* I experienced when I stopped were resoundingly unpleasant, and lasted for several weeks. I could easily picture someone in an already fragile mental state being pushed over the edge because of them.
The west (and the east too) has commercialized meditation and yogic practices and reduced them to some pseudo medical amalgam that will solve all your health and mental issues.
Per Hindu practices, Meditation is the first, foremost step towards self realization. For attaining liberation and knowing god. It is a tool to calm the mind and prepare it for deeper states of realization (samadhi, nirvikalpa samadhi, etc). It is just a tool, like a hammer or chainsaw, that serves a greater purpose.
Yogic practices, at-least the physical ones, are for strengthening the body to face the rigors of long term meditation and deeper conditions.
Hindu scriptures clearly say that such practices are to be done under the guidance of a qualified guru (A true guru is one who has attained realization him/her self.)
Nowadays, business ventures are being built around this fad with mostly falsehoods mixed with grains of truth.
There is an excellent book [0] that records the conversations of one of the greatest modern era yogis [1], whose whole life was spent in meditation. The book is a great read and records his conversations with many western visitors. Do read it to get a better understanding of the context of meditation and related topics.
One of my yoga teachers would coincidentally tell us to approach things slowly and carefully in the middle of practice because “you wouldn’t just toss around a running chainsaw would you?”
> A true guru is one who has attained realization him/her self.
But isn't that what all gurus say, that they are "true gurus". They would further warn you against anybody who doesn't agree with them as a "false guru"
Goenka (of the schools mentioned in the article) warns against gurus multiple times in his video lectures, and went out of his way to not dress or act like one. From what I heard, the recordings of him were by the insistence of other students, and wished that the actual teaching was taken up by a new generation. Unfortunately, playing back recordings scales very well, and they almost exclusively proxy as a teacher at the hundreds of vipassana schools around the globe. He was an excellent and charismatic communicator, and some people do deify him a little at the schools, so he kind of became a guru.
Thesis seems a high bar for a HN reply. It relates to this thread about gurus, their alleged shadiness, and to the particular school of meditation mentioned multiple times in the OP article. Was I speaking out of turn?
Edit: If you want to get your own measure of the character, the evening discourses are freely available, though perhaps disjointed without actually doing or committing to the actual practice.
I wouldn't go as far as to allege that gurus are "shady". Just that they have their own interest in the game, so they should be taken with a grain of salt. Same applies to more or less to teachers who benefit from ignorance and doctors who benefit from sickness, firemen who profit from fires and policemen who would lose their job if there was no crime. Not to forget priests who abuse the trust of their flock :-)
I can't speak on each and every guru out there, but many do seem to be eager to take your worldly possessions for you own benefit, and much of this is predicated on their self proclaimed enlightenment. The perverse incentives seem like a vacuum for sociopaths to occupy
You put it bluntly and concisely. Makes me think of Annie Lenox song "Some of them want to use you, some of them want to be used by you, everybody's looking for something". Other great related song is of course "Sexy Sadie" by Beatles :-)
in cultivating discernment, you realize that you possess the capacity to identify others in the world who have the quality of amplifying the light within yourself.
however, until you come to recognize that light within, you will be susceptible to images, projections, and trickery.
ultimately, the outer guru is merely there to introduce you to your inner guru... your inner teacher. the inner teacher in the highest form of guru.
You are correct (see the Wikipedia article). Meditation was - and is - not a practice that beginners on the spiritual path would engage with in traditional Yoga or Buddhist practices. The problem is that these practices were taken out of their context (stationary secluded environments like ashrams or secretive groups of wandering mendicants) and commercialized by the West in general and by snake-oil vending gurus in the East.
About 17 years ago I tried out some vamachara tantra exercises I found on the web. Heady stuff. It gave me a three week episode of full-blown mania. I only needed four hours sleep a night. I had this wild urge to run and jump everywhere I went.
After three weeks, it culminated in an auditory hallucination that was indistinguishable from telepathy. Then the mania suddenly drained and never came back however often I repeated the exercises.
Years later, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but it's usually fairly mild, with hypomania and mixed states which get worse when under stress. Nothing was ever again as intense as the meditation-induced mania of 2004.
Very interesting. I wonder if meditation acted as a "trigger" experience, much like how heavy use of psychedelics is known (or at least widely believed) to trigger latent schizophrenia in people who are predisposed towards it.
I’m bipolar. My understanding from my own experience is that any attempt to play around with altered states of consciousness is dangerous when you’re already predisposed to psychosis.
It might be forbidden within the context of certain religious paths/orders, but it's not forbidden for random people on the internet to experiment with whatever exercises they come across.
I think the site where I got it doesn't exist any more. I think I have a copy in my own archives somewhere.
The basic gist of the practices was a combination of various asanas, mantras, pranayama and visualisation.
It's not about it being religious, but about it being dangerous, or in some ways a hinderance/harmful to the self.
Kind of like how self harm is forbidden. Vamamarga is psychological self harm, in a sense. Aghoris then take that same principle to the next level.
The problem is people fetishize, or in other ways make arguments and ideas about Indian origin things within the context of religion. That has in my opinion done far more harm in understanding the philosophical approaches of Dharma than any other misconception, including translation errors.
Perhaps you're right, but I wasn't operating within a Buddhist or Hindu paradigm at that time. I was exploring a wide variety of practices as part of a novitiate with the Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros.
Even if someone had told me that it was risky, I still would have had the attitude of, thanks, but I need to find this out for myself from experience rather than just take your word for it.
And that's fine. In fact that is itself a valid argument within the Buddhist/Hindu context. I would even argue it's basis of both "religions"; proof through self experience.
So again, the point here is that it's important to be knowledgeable about whatever subject matter that you're taking part in, not least because of being respectful, but because that way whatever task is being undertaken can be done "correctly". Including, perhaps especially, if you have belief in occult ideas.
Most human activities could be seen as that. An american screaming madly at its tv screen showing a football game with ads telling them what to buy. A priest burning frankincense and telling other humans what to do... Those are all meaningful for the people practicing them and can look ridiculous for others.
Perhaps this was one of the many possible triggers and not a cause. It’s possible that some stressful events in your life would trigger something similar at a later date. The thing is that once such an episode happens one learns about some limits and how to stay away from them. How is your health now? I used to have some slight hypomanic states which were very productive and creative but would end up with a depressed and brain foggy period before I learned to avoid those triggers. One of those for me was drinking too much coffee, poor sleep hygene and some poorly
done or unattended breathing exercises which resulted in a short but very bad period of hyperventilating and a few panic attacks. Some 14-15 years have passed since and have been feeling just normal, if not much better as I have a better diet and a more ballanced lifestyle: exercise, good sleep, etc
Thanks for the question. My mental health these days is usually okay, although drinking too much is a problem for me, along with intermittent insomnia and depression. Having a stable income helps, and I live a lifestyle which doesn't invite much stress.
Glad to hear you're also feeling better these days :)
This article discusses how transcendental meditation has induced nihilism and reality disconnect upon some of its vulnerable practitioners.
In my ears, this lends cautionary support for Nietzsche's criticism of stoics and Buddhists. I'm not very knowledgeable here, but roughly his argument is that the avoidance of life's suffering is nothing but an escape from life itself. If one engages with the world, one must deal with pain and joy as a consequence.
On more practical terms, it's always good to measure how your inner model corresponds with reality.
As a Buddhist myself, that's a poor description of Buddhism. The "suffering" the Buddha spoke about is not general pain, it's a more specific ailment. The word he used was "dukkha" which a lot of modern Buddhists argue more directly translated to "unsatisfactoriness", or as I think of it, "wishing that things were different than the way they are."
That's the specific pain the Buddha teaches about and tries to help with—it's not about becoming numb to the world at all. It's simply overcoming the desire for things to be different than the way they actually are. The method, by the way, is to become more aware of the world and your feelings—not less so.
Disclaimer: I'm just a lay student of Buddhism and far from a teacher myself. This is just my understanding from years of reading about it. Not all Buddhists agree with this perspective, but I believe it's the vast majority amongst Theravadans at least.
Your description of dukkha reminds me of a concept in Stoicism. Early Stoics formalized "pneuma" as something of a "natural order" or "holy ghost". The teachings were that one could avoid self-destructive behavior by not fighting an intrinsic flow to the universe.
To frame this with what I saying about Nietzsche- his criticism might have encouraged one to wrestle with natural order. Or perhaps stated that passivity with regard to the state of things is undesirable.
There are also the factors that the person stopped taking her meds and didn't sleep for a long time before the mental break down.
When I was a kid, I thought about nihilism a lot, but I don't think thinking about it brought any adverse effect on my mental development or day-to-day behavior. "What is one life compared to the vast cosmos" I would ask myself such questions and feel very lost, but when lunch time comes, I knew I was hungry and I went to eat.
I suspect that the physiological factors contributes more to such psychosis as described in the article, than the idea of nihilism or Buddhism. The underlying mental condition, sleep deprivation, the vicissitude of her life, the exhaustion from sitting still, the sudden brake on taking meds... One of those would drive some people crazy, and she had them all.
"Nihilism" and "reality disconnect" is just a phase in one's progress through insight meditation; it's not the end goal. Meditation does not teach "avoidance" or even "escape" from suffering; on the contrary, it does teach deep engagement and insight. What looks from some perspectives like an 'escape' from suffering or even from life itself is more properly thought of as a reframing of one's perceptions, that gradually becomes better aligned with their proper nature and therefore less prone to fruitless attachment and craving.
Daniel M. Ingram is especially clear on these issues BTW, and his writings in general are a good introduction to insight meditation as it's actually practiced by those who seek some form of stream entry.
Interesting. I will check this out when I have a chance. I struggled mightily between something like Nietzsche-and-Buddhism as a kid in my 20s. Had to simply put it down one day, but it’s always been on the back burner.
“Mastering the core teachings of Buddha” may be next on my audible... we shall see
FWIW, I don't think MCTB works well in audiobook form. The book is extremely dense and needs to be read in depth, even unpacking the meaning of a single paragraph can take some effort. It's something that you really want to have in written form if at all possible.
Oh good point to know, thanks. Kind of disappointed(and kind of happy to hear it’s worthy of such study) as I have to many textbooks to unpack already. The back burner is going to be burning for a while!
If you're willing to entertain another recommendation, in a different narrative style, look into Dreams of Light by Andrew Holecek.
I've mentioned it so many times in this thread that people will think I get a commission :D But I find it incredibly well written by someone with a very clear mind and a knack for wordplay.
I tried Stoicism earnestly for some time, reading Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus. What I found was actually a "nonchalance" enveloping me, where I lost any willpower or determination or urgency to do anything. It sure felt good. But activities and deadlines were slipping. I had to literally talk myself back into caring. I wonder if anyone else had similar experiences. Whenever I raise this point, some one says I did not really get it. Perhaps. But I did try it as per my understanding. It increased equanimity, but decreased my motivation and drive.
(As an aside, "sloth", which is one of the seven deadly sins, was originally "acedia", is a feeling of a lack of concern. [1])
AIUI there's nothing wrong from a Stoic perspective with "talking yourself into caring" about stuff, especially as it seems you were just getting into the ideas. Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus did it a lot, and it seems to have worked well for them.
I don't want to respond with "you were doing it wrong" since I don't know enough about what you did/thought to evaluate that, but my view of Stoicism is that the "nonchalance" should be applied to things that are outside of our control, while we should do everything we can to be virtuous with the things that are inside of our control. E.g If it's raining we shouldn't be tearing our hair out in panic and cursing the weather, but rather deal with it in the ways we can by taking an umbrella with us. I do agree that some Stoic practices (such as the 'view from above') could bring about an attitude of "eh, does it even matter?"
I think it's possible to gain a large deal of motivation and drive from the concepts of virtues and doing everything we can to live virtuously and improve the world accordingly.
"You can pass your life in an equable flow of happiness, if you can go by the right way, and think and act in the right way."
The "think in the right way" takes just a little practice. The "act in the right way" is the hard part, and the whole thing falls apart, in exactly the way you've noticed, without both. I've yet to achieve both, personally, though simply having "think the right way", with a little moderating wisdom from age, isn't nothing.
I think a trap in general with systems like Stoicism, or Zen Buddhism, or similar, is believing that thinking or knowing is anything more than one maybe-necessary-but-certainly-not-sufficient step.
(frankly, I'm not even sure what "go by the right way" means, yet, and would have to return to the original Greek to figure out whether it's just a summation of the two following ideas, or something separate—however, as I'm still working on "acting", I'll leave that for another day)
[EDIT] For those reading this without having read Meditations, it's heavy on duty and obligation, which is deep in the "doing" side of the above dichotomy. The "think the right way" is largely about ignoring that which one cannot control, but the trouble is that anything in the immediate past becomes "beyond one's control", which is where the parent's slipped-deadlines and such become easy to brush off without the duty-and-obligation and act-the-right-way habits balancing it out. Can absofuckinglutely confirm that if you get very good at the "think the right way" side, and only that side, it gets dangerously easy to not be bothered by failure or inaction.
Maybe you should have quit your job instead of talking yourself into being motivated again.
Meditations helped teach me how to ignore pain and temporary things in pursuit of the immortal virtuous life of purpose. One that creates long lasting works of art, beautiful memories and a solid reliable character that those I care about can count on.
Stoicism is like a filter. You shake out all the bullshit out of your life and theoretically find the thing that you cannot shake out. That is your true drive.
If you shook the bullshit out of your life and found nothing was left, then perhaps you should consider what is out there that you are attracted to.
> avoidance of life's suffering is nothing but an escape from life itself
Neither stoicism nor buddhism is avoidance of suffering, but inuring one's self to suffering. Buddhism (particularly the therevada teachings of Goenka) explicitly warns against aversion and craving to sensations (that of suffering/desire/etc.), but encourages a mind of equanimity in the face of either. Stoicism has this similar goal to temper reaction, but lacks an effective practice to reach it.
This article makes me think that people don’t consider the dosage of meditation enough. Most treatments/practices have some range from ineffective->helpful->harmful. 10 hours of vipassana is maybe a hundred times more intense than 10 minutes of guided meditation. It would be surprising if they both fell into the “helpful” range.
As someone who is bipolar and has had multiple psychotic breaks, this does not surprise me I’m the least.
Put the right stress on any mind, and it will break. I spent four months believing I was a fictional character from my own writing. The experience permanently changed my personality. (See my blog if you’re curious about some of my life experiences.)
My brain is more susceptible to this kind of thing, but it can happen to neurotypical people, usually from traumatic events.
I have mixed feelings about the article - a lot of that has to do with the fact that over the ~10 retreats I've been on, with dozens of people that I interacted with after the retreat was over, I haven't really observed the negative affects they're talking about.
However, I do agree that if you meditate for an hour a day or more (or sure, 40 minutes) having a good teacher is important.
The experience for me has been just like most others. Take weight lifting for example, you don't go into the gym and try dead lift 200 kilograms with poor technique or your liable to get hurt.
What a wise lifter might do is work their way up to the point they're ready and might enjoy lifting 200kgs and then attempt it.
Like most things, start small and work your way up. I'd imagine the same should apply to meditation.
Indeed, it wasn't mentioned in the article from what I can tell but I wonder if she had any prior meditation experience. Even a weekend retreat would seem like a lot for me and I've done daily 30 minute sessions for a while. 10 days? That's pretty extreme
The report points out that even moderate meditation (more than 30 minutes per day) can have an objective negative effect on sleep quality, contraditionary to the fact that subjects often report a positive effect. (I have not found the scientific report where the statement is based on yet.)
I think this is the study. "Amount of MM practice was correlated with increased PSG arousals, awakenings, stage 1 and decreased SWS, in a linear dose-dependent fashion."
I have a very intelligent, kind friend who lives alone, got deep into meditation during covid, started hallucinating / getting increasinly paranoid, and ended up hospitalized for a couple of weeks and diagnosed with schizophrenia. She is doing better now but will almost certainly have to drop out of school. That's not to say meditation is a bad thing, or should be avoided, but it isn't without risk or harmless necessarily either. If it can do so much good, what's to say it cannot also do bad. The mind is a powerful thing.
By "during covid", I guess you mean while isolating in lock down ?
I'd be more inclined to suggest it was the isolation, loneliness and stress of uncertainty that would trigger something like that. It was a dark time.
Curious if your friend started meditation hoping it might alleviate and already uncomfortable mental state, or they felt fine and just wanted to meditate for fun ?
I'm not a doctor, or psychiatrist but from the exposure I've had from my own practice, I'd imagine taking up anything other than a very, very, very light meditation course during such a stressful uncertain time could really expose one too a bit too much sensory overload.
Speaking to the possibility of other/multiple/connected upstream causes, there is this remark I once heard: "Meditation is what you do while you are losing touch with your friends and interests."
To me that can be appropriately unclear about what causes what.
Intensive retreats aren't to be underestimated. It's a serious spiritual path that isn't designed to make one well adjusted to this world right away. I think the end result can be a fully integrated self actualized person, but the traditional view is that it might take lifetimes.
Lifetimes are not what most westerners are (or should be, imho) willing to sacrifice.
Top tier meditation institutions in the west and in Asia are not ignorant of meditation induced psychosis and they have ways of dealing with it. Everyone who claims all meditation is great and nothing bad can happen is ignorant.
Some of my most respected meditation teachers are known for recommending that people don't take up intensive retreats if they feel they have a choice in the matter. If it feel unavoidable, then do it. If it's just something you want to try, don't.
I can immediately recall at least 4 saying this.
However, if 20 minutes of mindfulness a day sets you off into strange psychological territory, then I have a hard time believing that meditation was at fault. The "dosage" simply isn't high enough to be the key factor.
The Goenka schools provide a questionnaire to determine mental health and any medications the student will need. Each teacher is different in who they will let in, and all those schools are volunteer run. I can see that some teachers could be reckless with course admissions, but all teachers would have managed multiple courses before, and would know the difficulties for everyone if they let someone in who has a history of mental illness. It's not great situation for anyone if any student enters psychosis on a silent retreat, not the teacher/manager/other volunteers/other students.
Edit: Also it's tricky if your students are motivated enough to get in that they'll lie.
The Goenka centers do have a filtering questionnaire, but I think they tend to just get so incredibly much wrong on their handling of psychological problems. It's infuriating.
I will recommend that a friend does one, after giving some warnings, and making sure to talk with them afterwards, but I wouldn't blindly recommend anybody do one.
I imagine mental health issues are handled differently between schools and within them by the different teachers, but it's probably something that could be improved upon. There's probably also some merit to 'riding out the storm' for some people, but anyone with a family history of psychosis, or unmanageable psychiatric illness might want to think twice about attending, or at least be prepared to leave the course at first signs of trouble.
> However, if 20 minutes of mindfulness a day sets you off into strange psychological territory, then u have a hard time believing that meditation was at fault
About ten years ago, I experimented doing 20 minutes in the morning and an additional 20 minutes in the early evening. I did this for about six months, and I may have overdid it, because some very, very strange things began to happen. I stopped meditating after a particularly weird and frightening experience which I will now describe:
I was entirely stone cold sober, driving my car on the highway talking to a friend in the passenger seat, when suddenly I found myself looking down at the planet, from what I can only describe as an orbital altitude of somewhere around 400 km or so, while at the same time, I continued to drive the car and have a discussion!
Part of my consciousness (or perception) seemed to momentarily bifurcate and be somewhere else, in this case, floating high above the Earth. That was the day I stopped meditating. Apparently this is a known attainment in certain circles that believe in this kind of thing (I'm still a skeptic at heart) but being in two places at once wasn't my cup of tea. I have a hard enough time as it is focusing on the road in front of me!
I wouldn't say this is the only strange thing I experienced; there's a lot of them to speak of, but that was certainly the strangest of them all. I've taken much more pleasure and satisfaction from lucid dreaming instead, which is something I still do to this day.
That's a fascinating experience, but also scary, thanks for sharing. It's interesting how meditation can lead you to altered states of consciousness that are in some manners extremely similar to psychedelics.
> I've taken much more pleasure and satisfaction from lucid dreaming instead, which is something I still do to this day.
I feel like the potential therapeutic benefits of lucid dreaming are incredibly unexplored. Maybe partially because it can be difficult and inconsistent to induce them, especially depending on the person. I don't know if there's any one technique that works well for everyone.
My father reported a similar story induced by LSD. He had an out of body experience where he was up in the air watching himself have a conversation with a friend walking down the beach.
It's certainly a common enough experience, albeit rare in the middle of daily life on that amount of practice. What it means, benefits, etc. are what's up for question.
I guess by "strange psychological territory" I was more thinking of destabilizing and harmful things that don't stop even after you stop meditating.
This just in: those prone to lose touch with reality ended up losing touch with reality after engaging in practices that help you lose touch with reality.
> For a cumulative ten hours and forty-five minutes, she sat cross-legged on a rug, her spine erect, and tried to focus on her breath.
This practice _will_ cause disassociation at some point, which is precisely what happened when she broke out into psychosis after engaging in the practice for 60+ total hours.
...so you're qualified to make that sort of statement? Got any publications to back it up for example? Concentrating on something for a cumulative 10 hours and 45 minutes is actually not uncommon in the slightest. Does everyone who focuses on something for that long disassociate? Or just people who focus on their breath? Why is it that good posture and focusing on one's breath in particular would cause 'disassociation' if that's your claim?
Maybe you go through life constantly asserting and believing things that are in no way true....with no experience nor credentials nor having even read any literature to back any of them up...
I'm vastly more familiar with it than you are dude.
Sorry that me pointing out you don't know what you're talking about triggered you. It's not a healthy state of mind to assume you know more than others about things you actually know very little.
Because you ended the comment with an insulting fantasy of me.
> Maybe you go through life constantly asserting and believing things that are in no way true....with no experience nor credentials nor having even read any literature to back any of them up...
I would have loved to actually engage in a conversation on how vipassana meditation inevitably, whether it's after 8 hours or 8000 hours, leads to disassociation. Ego death. Seeing reality as it is. But if you refute it by calling the person inexperienced and ignorant, the other party will have no reason or motivation to discuss it further.
Yeah it seemed weird to me that those got flagged but also in line with a lot of what I read here.
If you have something authoritative to say about meditation, I may read it, but I don’t think you’re off to a good start so far. I’ve been getting the impression that you believe your speculation to be authoritative, which is dishonest and deluded. Sorry if this comes across as harsh, but you’ve yet to say anything that indicates to me I was wrong to say what I said.
It certainly does come across as harsh, and is probably why you were flagged. In a debate, you simply don’t insult their intelligence, especially without evidence disproving their claims. You haven’t said why you’re an alleged expert on this subject, either. And regardless if either one of us are experts, that shouldn’t change a thing. If they’re truly ignorant, that can be quickly shown by counter arguments. HN’s toxicity has risen over the years, but we still strive to keep things civil. What’s magical about this community is that you _do_ come across experts, and through civil discourse you can learn a ton from them.
> I'm not assuming. You've demonstrated your knowledge on the subject. (insinuating I have little knowledge on the subject)
> Maybe you go through life constantly asserting and believing things that are in no way true....with no experience nor credentials nor having even read any literature to back any of them up...
If you don’t find these offensive, you may have thicker skin than most, but it’s still best to leave them out.
yeah dude, you are going way out on a limb there. But wait...you've done a whole lot of dissociative practices? So basically you're totally dissociated from reality? (to put things in your own words)
So again...why would I care?
edit: also, just in case anybody takes this charlatan at his word and does decide to read 'the mind illuminated' know that many of the author's followers demonstrate cult-like behavior, as well as disillusionment with his claims after it broke that he had been deceptive to his community about his sexual affairs.
For one, I don’t think disassociating is a _bad_ thing. Psychedelics (and ketamine in particular) can be very therapeutic for their disassociative properties. This also transfers over to meditation.
But people need to be aware of it; meditation isn’t a cure-all and can induce a psychotic breakdown if you’re susceptible to them. I’m thankfully not in that camp, and it will take most people who _are_ susceptible a long time before such a breakdown occurs (like a weeklong vipassana retreat).
I know you don’t care, but it’s fun to share what one has learned.
Edit: also had no idea about the author’s affair. That’s unfortunate. I’ve learned a lot from professors with terrible home lives though.
Yeah, but those professors weren't claiming to be shining examples of ethics or practices that were supposed to lead to ethical behavior.
Anyways, basically your point is that meditation is like drugs in that it gets you high and helps you check out? Wow, how profound, definitely somebody I would give control of my life over to.
Erm, neither was the author of The Mind Illuminated. It’s literally just a textbook for how to meditate for western audiences.
I’m not sure how you got that from my comment. Not even sure what you mean by that last sentence. I’m sorry that even mentioning a substance had you jump to such conclusions.
>Erm, neither was the author of The Mind Illuminated. It’s literally just a textbook for how to meditate for western audiences.
Now you're coming across like you haven't read the very book that you recommend.
>I’m not sure how you got that from my comment. Not even sure what you mean by that last sentence. I’m sorry that even mentioning a substance had you jump to such conclusions.
You're wrong about this. Maybe I haven't done it as explicitly as you want, but that's the point. For such a great 'meditator' you pay too much attention to your own thoughts.
No, you're just an asshole. I don't know what I did to offend you so badly, but I hope whomever you're following for ethical and moral guidance shows you that the eightfold path is more than just right meditation. Please stop calling people ignorant and dismissive, get off your high horse, and pay less attention to your own thoughts. You have yet to say anything of substance. Not that I'm complaining; this exchange has been fun regardless.
I have significant experience with meditation, and I tend to agree with Lieberman in this article. Trying to pin Megan's condition on meditation alone is sort of like blaming your mother for lifting up the carpet to find that's where you hid the mess.
Also of note in this article is that the hospital drugged her until she appeared cheerful....and then released her. I think this article actually says more about the state of mental health care in this country than problems with meditation. That's not to say there aren't any, but it doesn't seem like this article summarizes it very well, so I will: Insufficient mental frameworks and support structures coupled with deep meditative experiences can lead people to harm themselves. That's pretty much the main conclusion I've received from here, but surprise, lots of people harm themselves without meditation too.
Maybe this is part of America waking up to how messed up it is underneath it all.
A therapist told me that, for those who suffer from ocd, meditation can do more harm than help. Especially for those who suffer from more rumination-based variants (ie “pure-ocd”).
I’ve had mixed results - my personal observation is to treat it like a psychedelic trip: only go in when you’re in a good mental state.
The odd thing is the typical therapy for ocd is cbt (cognitive behavioral therapy), which, despite intersecting quite a bit with meditation, is very effective.
I was thinking about my own OCD treatment as I was reading the comments here. I've been reading 'The Mindfulness Workbook for OCD' and it had one of the best suggestions and explanations about meditation that I've seen.
As others have said, 'meditation' is a really vague term but in the context of OCD I got the impression it's just about practicing shifting your attention to one thing and then shifting it gently back there when it begins to wander; as well as allowing OCD thoughts to just 'exist' and not engaging with them.
As a fellow OCD sufferer I just wanted to say good luck. A bit off-topic for this thread but 'The OCD Stories' podcast, NOCD (https://www.treatmyocd.com) and the Zoom support groups run by OCDPeers (https://ocdpeers.com/) have been life-changing for me.
Meditation is a pretty broad term encompassing many different activities/intentions (though they all look pretty similar from the outside). In the studies I’ve read on the adverse effects of meditation, the style has a major influence. Due to historical accidents, vipassana is a common style in the West - I find this mind blowing, since it is probably the most likely to cause adverse effects.
As a long time meditator, my experience with vipassana is that it is the hardcore path, for those willing to risk crashing and burning to get to enlightenment faster. Techniques like mettā, tonglen, or dzogchen seem to be ~5-10x less likely to be associated with a psychotic event - which at that point, seems like it could just be about prior history [1]. It's worth mentioning that Britton, the academic meditation critic in the article is a co-author of this paper.
What you say about metta etc being less likely to induce psychosis than vipassana makes sense, Goenka retreats especially are super-intense bootcamps. Do you have a citation for the 5-10x figure? I can't find it in the Britton paper.
When I started meditating I also was introduced via Theravada based vipassana and eventually felt the need to give it up after having some strange things come up and also falling into the nihilism trap I think is common to hit. Thankfully years later I encountered Mahayana teachings and it clarified a ton for me, letting me restart my practice.
That’s all to say I think it’s important that people take it slow and get familiarized with the actual teachings to ground the experience. Jumping in to a 10 day, 10 hour per day training with little or no context is going to be seriously difficult. We have to understand that these practices come from places where the students wouldn’t be completely unfamiliar with the basics of the teachings. There would be at least a basic cultural understanding of the point of meditation (an actual spiritual practice) as opposed to a kid from the US that hears it makes you feel better and might make you more productive.
Everyone I know who did an intensive meditation retreat was warned up-front. It isn't just "sign here and pay" for reputable agencies.
I am also told, there is a strict post-retreat protocol regarding re-engagement in the wider world. People are amazingly vulnerable at this time. The facilitating staff are told to be strictly hands-off, and avoid situations of risk for either of them. (client, or helper)
I think that I'm just saying, its like the go-kart track down the road. the one which has a terms-and-conditions board a mile long: its a better choice than the one which doesn't seem to care about safety, even if its a bit off-putting at first.
Long term meditation "enthusiast" who has been around many meditation traditions and also done retreats from 3 days to 3 weeks.
Meditation is definitely not relaxation. In the language of Yoga (which meditative traditions share), long meditation sessions move the focus (prana) to certains parts of the body where long sustained focus can create "imbalances" and lead to breaks and other side effects (psychosis or related). Further description risks going into woo-woo land without a shared language.
Meditation carries with it the most definite risk of people experiencing a break. I would put the at-risk population in the low-to-mid single digits. I have seen folks go into long meditation retreats and experience breaks where they have an experience much like Megan in the article - they have to be admitted and most of them are never the same ever after. Very solid grounded people develop migraines, insomnia, loss of appetite, or start hallucinating.
Meditation and Pranayama are both neither innocuous nor mere placebo effects. There is a very strong mechanism at work which we do not understand in a modern scientific context. However, the majority of practitioners do not do long intense retreats and will get away without any serious consequences.
A good tradition will devote serious time on how to combat the effects of long meditation retreats. They will talk about it almost as much as the technique itself. The biggest antidotes are - getting good sleep, not overdoing it, physical exercise, long walks and getting enough food. The inversion - onset of insomnia or anxiety or loss of appetite - is a very bad sign and you should stop meditating immediately.
Please do not do take either practice lightly or you could risk effing up something internally for which we have no cure. Feel free to DM me if you want to chat more.
I encountered this and wrote about it in other meditation thread. Here I've inlined it below.
Meditation is a blade with no hilt.
I _accidentally_ fell into a vipassana state of mind after the first time trying a particular religious chant, seriously, from out of the pains of boredom as a 20 year old.
At the time I lived nearby mountains, and after 'coming to', I saw them through the window. I cannot describe to you the overwhelming feeling of beauty and awe that crashed over me. It was as though this was the very first time I had ever seen mountains. I think the best description I can manage comes from 'Both Sides Now' by Joni Mitchell.
'I've looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down, and still somehow It's cloud illusions I recall I really don't know clouds at all'
The experience was so disorienting. As if I was seeing the mountains for what they were directly through my senses and not mediated by my knowledge of what mountains were like, linguistically.
It changed my entire life -- weeks later later I lost my job and fell into a 5 year extreme depression / anxiety spell in the attempt to reconcile my adolescent religious upbringing with the continued insight from that experience. Absolutely worthwhile, in hindsight, but it cost me near everything for it.
I attended a Zen retreat in my late twenties. I had very little experience with meditation practice back then. We meditated four times for 90 minutes each day for about 10 days.
It was a beautiful experience. The sangha was great. The food was simple but very tasty. When we didn't meditate, we worked in the garden and prepared food together.
On the 6th or 7th day of the retreat I took a walk alone through the countryside.
The meditation practice had made me very receptive to all sensual inputs. Sound, taste, smell and colour felt like someone dialed them to their maximum values.
I walked along a small trail and encountered a snail making it's slow journey across my path. I stopped, and just watched her as she worked her way towards the other side.
That very moment I was hit by a realisation that I still - years later - can't really put into the appropriate words.
It felt like a veil suddenly lifted. The world exposed itself in all its complexity and aesthetic beauty.
The integration and the interdependence of all things was suddenly visible to me without any mental filters.
The abstractions were gone.
The semiotics were gone.
The dualism was gone.
It felt like I suddenly and violently woke up from a deep slumber.
There was this strong realisation that I was deeply embedded in the universe.
The leaves blowing in the wind, the snail, the pebbles on the trail, the grass, the sky, the universe and myself in it were just one thing.
I felt like I was suspended in the very "beingness" of it all.
Back then, I had no means to integrate this existential experience into everyday life. The giant question marks it raised stuck with me over the years.
Intense meditation practise can create very powerful shifts in perception of reality.
In hindsight, I believe that I was way too inexperienced to wield the powerful tool that is meditation.
I stopped meditation practice for a few years after this experience.
I felt that I ventured too far offshore. I suddenly realised how deep and unexplored the ocean that is perception are, once we swim out of the shallow water.
Back then, I decided to quickly swim back to shore and stopped my meditation practice for a few years.
I've rekindled my meditation praxis with the same sangha a few years later. But I stayed vigilant to not venture too fast too far out into unexplored territories of perception.
Some of the methods try to modify the behavior or emotion without solving or removing the root cause. This practically buries them deeper and adds an emotional deflection layer preventing person him/herself or other people approaching it.
This causes the emotion to ferment underneath that layer, and since it's prevented from venting itself, the person sometimes emotionally deforms more and everything becomes harder to solve.
Part because person is blind to what's happening and has a very powerful defensive layer which prevents everyone (including psychiatrists) reaching from problematic emotions and trying to heal them.
Venting may be the wrong word. Since what I tried to say is not Freud's catharsis. Let' me try to explain again:
Every emotion/trauma affects you and these effects manifest somehow. These effects are self-regulated via feedbacks like "I feel X", "I'm not feeling OK", "Hey, this makes me happy" or "Why do I feel like that", etc.
Ignoring an emotion's or secondary effect's presence removes the self regulation circuit hence, allows it to run amok. Since person trained him/herself to ignore these emotions or its manifestations with great effectiveness, wounds grow deeper while practitioner pretends it's OK.
At the last stage, person permanently ignores the problem and pointing to it results in violent responses from the affected person.
I've met with people these symptoms. All of them practiced or was practicing self-affirmation / self validation practices with minimal or no supervision.
Every practice, done mindlessly is dangerous. Including Zen, Yoga and others.
Any methods involving "programming" and teaching you to mask effects of any bad experiences via self-affirmation.
I don't know the exact names of the methods, but they essentially train to push these bad experiences deeper and pretend that they didn't happen or affect you in the first place.
However, they both happened and affected the person. Pretending not is dangerous akin ignoring a wound with infection.
Would you say these breaks are caused by negative low level physiological states
like anxiety, without an obvious root cause to the meditator? Or do they experience something very specific that is outside of their comfort zone which is so unsettling that they are unable to process it? Or both?
Proper meditation is a very powerful journey inside and has the power to uncover a lot of trauma or bad experiences masked or buried by other coping mechanisms. It can be said that purification is the process of uncovering these traumas and/or problems and solving them definitively, removing all secondary effects in the process, hence making person more free.
As OP said, the mechanisms are overly complex and extremely powerful. It's both not understood by modern science and very underrated by "woo woo" people.
Coming to your point, these breaks are caused by being faced with these traumas unprepared or without someone to support you. If you're advanced enough, you can face them yourself and solve them. If you're not and somehow face them, a more experienced practitioner can help you to collect yourself and face them at a later time. These experiences push you to the boundaries or out of your comfort zone, for sure.
In these cases, anxiety and other emotions are tip of the iceberg. If you're anxious about meditation, you wouldn't be able to focus properly.
In Zen, the practitioner wouldn't search for a root cause since it's not obvious. So, you don't try to process what's happening real time. These root cause reveals itself later. Either by noticing real-life changes or enlightenment (completion of background processing).
Hope that helps. If you have further questions, I'll try to answer.
Perhaps I'm not being direct enough. In the past, through various practices and substances I experienced what felt like a complete erasure of all rules - if something could be thought, it could be made real. This spun out of control and felt extremely dangerous to me, and scared me to the point of emotional paralysis and near psychosis for months. It was not past trauma that frightened me but a complete unveiling of what seemed like infinite possibilty that my weak mind was not ready for. I hear a lot about waking up trauma and past experiences and what not and I feel I could handle these sorts of awakenings - I'm more curious about meditation opening doors to new realities that I may not be prepared for, unveiling of normally hidden layers our world, tests of death and dissolution, etc. Maybe this is the "woo" side you and the OP are talking about.
Mindfulness meditation as taught by Thich Nhat Hanh; pieced together practices from dozens of other meditation books. Lots of reading in philosophy. Some limited study of the occult and magick. Ritualistic psytrance parties; LSD and mushrooms.
Understood. This was over 20 years ago. I've been recently picking up meditation practices again and approaching them unadulterated. Focusing on a particular type of buddhist meditation at the moment.
That seems to put a lot of faith in the claims of these systems. I get the sense that now that you can learn this stuff from the internet vs. going to live in a monastery, you get a lot more mix-n-match, even from teachers who are credentialed in a specific tradition.
Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind has lots of stories of people having positive psychedelic therapy, which does require essentially a spiritual guide.
It depends. Some systems work, some don't. Some systems work for some people, some work for others.
I personally changed a lot with the help of the practice I do. I've faced my phobias, solved a lot of self-confidence issues, found out what's wrong with me. I've also got therapy before starting Zen. While it helped me somehow, it failed to solve the underlying issue. Zen helped me to tackle the underlying issue and move forward.
To work with a good master, you don't need to always go to a monastery and, change your life temporarily. I left nothing behind. Still live in the city. Just go to see my master from time to time. Will continue when the pandemic ends.
I had an instructor in the city, who's also a student of the same master, but he passed away due to COVID-19.
Every tradition and way contains elements from each other, but these ways find the compatible combinations and way to build upon them. Also a master/student relationship helps to guide the student in the harder times. Internet doesn't provide the guidance and safeguards, unfortunately.
As an instructor, I keep track of my every student independently. Otherwise, there's no meaning doing what I do. They also call me when things go awry and we work through it together, and we both learn in the process.
Zen, Buddhism or anything is not the only way. There are many ways to do it.
Good question - I didn't have a very clear goal other than to know/experience the ultimate "truth" or "nature", whatever it is, assuming it even exists. I was a very undisciplined young adult at the time.
In Zen, meditation under influence is a big no so, I never had experiences like you mentioned.
Interacting with hidden layers are considered advanced practice and I'm just entering these levels. To be able to cope with it you both have to be very experienced and very powerful. I still practice with my masters if I'm going to go that deep.
Also, tests of death and dissolution is not something you should experience alone. It can be because of many different reasons. Everybody's experiences are different, even when faced with the same thing. So you need to get familiar with yourself first, under supervision of a more experienced instructor.
My advice is not to mix meditation with substances and not try deeper practices without someone more experienced on the subject matter.
I work at an ayahuasca retreat center and personally think your practice would be a sort of super weapon when combined with the right medicine. Fully agree with you otherwise- we all carry an incredible amount of hidden traumas and they can very sneakily hold us back from our full potentials.
If you're looking to put those experiences into a conceptual framework, I recommend Andrew Holecek's book Dreams of Light. Just be prepared to entertain the possibility that the "woo" is an accurate view of reality.
It's both not understood by modern science and very underrated by "woo woo" people.
My guess is, it's not understood by modern science exactly because it's underrated by "woo woo" people :( But I notice in later years an increased focus on mental studies so maybe modern science will get to this as well. That is, if it's not too busy explaining the earth is round... (*edited to reformat)
>> Coming to your point, these breaks are caused by being faced with these traumas unprepared or without someone to support you.
Unfortunately that can't be proved. When reading the article I got the impression the woman might have unearthed such a thing. Maybe she had a hidden shame. Someone even asked about it, but she never told what it was. Maybe there wasn't anything to work through and meditation can cause problems. We can never know when the subject is dead. We also cant know if ideas are put in someone's head when they're in such a state.
My point is that to blame hidden trauma is cop out. Blaming the victim. Sure, it's the cause sometimes, but we dont know if it's always the case.
BTW, similar risks exist in psychotherapy, but they too will deny risks and blame patients with "(s)he had issues" when they die.
The second is something that comes strings attached. You have to accept the Buddhist conceptual framework which says that the entire world is a fabrication.
During meditation you can experience this and, if you don't accept that you are more than just matter, then experiencing the fact that your body is empty of existence will mean that you are empty of existence. Which will be very frightening, as you can imagine.
Let me set this straight. Your comment is kinda short, but warrants a long answer. First of all, all of my comments are about what I experienced and know as a practitioner and instructor. Please don't take them in the context of the article. There are thousand ways of meditation, and I only know my way with all details. It'd be very irresponsible for me to speculate on something that I do not know.
Hidden trauma is not something like a faceless blob. It's something you remember, you know, however you didn't realize that it created a trauma with you. It's not something burning inside daily, distorting you daily. E.g.: You don't like a certain spice. That's OK, but why? Because somebody added it to your food excessively and your first encounter was very unpleasant. You put the event in the back burner, almost forgot about it, but its effects linger until this day. This is the hidden trauma. This can be something emotional about your past partners, something you botched up, etc. So when you re-remember it, it can be easy to work through or very hard. This difficulty is not related to the size of the event. You can go through events of great distress in a single breath and need to work on the loss of a sentimental item for years. This is where instructor comes in. Keeps you in balance, and guides through it.
The meditation I do doesn't judge anyone. There's no blame. It happened and it left a mark. Why? Doesn't matter. Who's wrong? Doesn't matter. There's a little lesson there. Did you learn it? It can be about you, other party, world, your dog. Doesn't matter. Get that little message, put it into your pocket, leave the emotion behind. That's not easy all the time. This is why instructors/masters are important. This is why the way is important.
Sometimes there's nothing to go through, at least for now. In a good practice, practice itself shouldn't search for problems but to explore what's inside and strengthen oneself. This strength and self-familiarity triggers the discovery of these hidden-traumas or not-so-right state of oneself. This mechanism is not fully understood, but it can be said that with self familiarity and self confidence, the practitioner has more courage to face with the problems which he/she buried to cope, so subconscious mind surfaces them to be dealt with. This is again where guidance and masters play a very important role.
I meditate everyday. I don't uncover the hell inside me every day, but it helps me to reflect, understand what I did right, what I did wrong, what I still carry. It helped me tremendously for transforming from a potato to myself, after years of physical and emotional bullying. It helped me to get rid of my dance phobia, fear of expressing myself and lack of self confidence.
There are many wrong ways to both meditation and psychotherapy. We're very very cautious with our practitioners. Everyone benefited somehow from our ways. Most important thing is, many friends has diverted to different paths and they're free to do so. There's no strings attached. We give the tools and show how to use them correctly. If another set of tools are better for them, we're happy. No hard feelings.
>> Hidden trauma is not something like a faceless blob. It's something you remember, you know, however you didn't realize that it created a trauma with you.
Some people will block the memory. Others are aware of it but don't associate it with current feelings, thoughts, or actions, so when asked they will essentially "forget" it and say "no trauma". Yet other forms of trauma form from years of subtle mistreatment and can not be traced to a specific event - only through extensive work can that be pieced together.
The subconscious can be a minefield, and to say poor outcomes are due to poor practice is almost as bad as victim blaming. I think triage is important, but there is a lot of belief that any practitioner can handle any person. I think that's false even with the best of them.
I’m in complete agreement, and will add that significant parts of a person’s personality can develop as a mechanism to mask or manage trauma, and that can end up suffusing all of their choices and relationships.
A sudden confrontation with this can be completely destabilizing.
I've written a detailed explanation above, but want to address a concern of you:
> A sudden confrontation with this can be completely destabilizing.
Many ways force a confrontation, and that's indeed dangerous. However, it doesn't have to be like that.
Emotions are like onions. They're layered. Slow practice and slow advancement naturally brings practitioners to outer layers of these onions, which are easier to understand, remove and resolve. In our way, you can't get to the next level unless you have the power to do so.
If you have the power, you can remove and solve it. If you can't remove that layer, you don't face with anything. It all happens progressively.
All in all, there's no forced search for battles to fight. Ours is self exploration. You face only what you're ready for. We have safeguards against it.
I'm doing this for ~7 years and I still get to harder levels of the same issues sometimes. It's not easy, but it's worth it.
Safeguards may not be needed if meditation is pursued in moderation and with a modicum of self-awareness.
When it becomes a competition or a drug or a lifestyle or an experimental therapy or hobby or social or cult activity, there are greater dangers. People should be meaningfully informed of the risks. But there is money to be made, so...
Philosophical studies and religious faith and teachings seem to smooth the way. Know thyself. Everything in moderation. To thine own self be true. The small still voice within. If it isn’t making you more kind and loving to all you meet, whatever it is, then stop. As true about meditation as anything else.
The best introduction I ever found on the topic of meditation was Introduction to Yoga Principles and Practices by Majumdar, University Books, 1964. No cult, no workshops, been dead for a while.
Everything you said is completely right. I personally experienced nearly all of the variants (unforgotten memories, detached emotions, long term, slow trauma, etc.) Some of them were easy, but I'm still struggling with some (That's OK).
However, I want to heavily emphasize that there's no such thing as "poor outcomes are due to poor practice" in our way. I never got that treatment from my masters or my deceased instructor. Same is valid for me. I'd never say something something similar to any of my students.
These students give us all their trust. Their wellbeing is more important than ours during practice and after that. We'd do anything in our capacity to help them, and we have preliminary response protocols if something goes wrong. This brings us to next point of you, which is equally valid.
> I think triage is important, but there is a lot of belief that any practitioner can handle any person.
That's absolutely true. If we sense something is beyond us, we direct our students to medical doctors. If there's an emergency, we directly take them there. Having knowledge of preliminary medical first aid is essential (we have them). Funny thing is, other trainer in my city is an MD. Our master was a field medic.
We neither denounce nor ignore modern medicine. We just can complement in lots of instances or teach people to help themselves. I think it's equally important to know the value and capacity of tradition and accept things evolve and advance.
It's assuring that none of students had any adverse effects or negative events in their life due to practices they made with us. If anything happens, its responsibility is on us, not them. We're showing the way, and we don't have the luxury to make mistakes.
I just have to say what a well thought out response. There is so much caution given in the literature around the need for a teacher or guide who can help the student through these issues when they arise. I remember reading about it in the Munger school texts on Prana and pranic healing.
The problem, as laid out in the article and Willoughby Britton’s work, is that these teachers or guides aren’t trained in psychiatry. Telling somebody who is experiencing psychological distress to meditate through it seems like it can cause harm.
> these teachers or guides aren’t trained in psychiatry
Some are :) https://meditatewithtucker.com/about/ I'm not affiliated with Tucker, just been on retreats with him in the past. I'm sure there are other teachers out there with similar training.
Well I think that’s a bit of a straw man. Who’s to say that these teachers do not have training in traditions that have essentially evolved their own treatment modality for psychiatric ailments. Just because they don’t have formal training doesn’t mean the cultural traditions don’t have effective treatment for meditation-induced psychosis. Sure maybe Goenka and his school may be an isolated case where such training wasn’t provided (hence the need for an advanced master) that’s not to say there aren’t examples of masters (several of whom I’ve witnessed personally) that are able to handle the psychotic imbalance that arises from pursuit of these advanced practices.
The problem with the article and also with your comment is that we use one word “meditation” , while it is as diverse as any discipline. You do raise very good points otherwise! Buddhist vipassana meditation is a long way from a vast range of yogic type meditations, or Sufi meditations and so forth. This clouds the discussion.
As someone who has instructed meditation, our lineage has many safe guards to make it mild for the neophyte to pick up and practice safely. First off all, not by renouncing the world, but by being part of it. Second to never overdo it. Third, no more than three pranayama breaths when you start.
The yoga sutras talk about sthira and sukha, effort and ease, which should be in balance. Basically you wouldn’t send someone up mount Everest untrained. Nor is there a reason to for the layman interested in the relaxation of the mind.
Zen masters also rejected meditation as a means to the spiritual progress because there is no such thing in the tradition. Sitting quietly is more appropriate IMHO.
The first variant of Zen-meditation is often to count your breathing from 1 to 10 repeatedly. Sounds easy enough, but the mind starts to wander pretty quickly. If you get lost in your counting you just start over on 1 again.
Zen meditation seems to be the meditation I have experienced and practised. Both formally and informally. I am unsure this form could lead me to completely fall off the rails, but I also don't think I could sincerely practise it for more than a couple of days (with lots of rest) without just giving up from mental exhaustion. In the same way I wouldn't want to run a marathon tomorrow with no training (even though I have actually run one before).
I suppose were I to subject myself to a week+ of meditation in my current state, I could conceivably "injure" myself if I were stubborn in my persistence. So maybe the warnings in this article aren't so unintuitive after all.
Would love for someone knowledgeable to contrast this form to the other forms mentioned in this thread for someone who is open minded and not a complete outsider.
Even if you don't go on retreats and just have a regular daily practice, there could come a point where you experience unusual, unpleasant moments.
The explanation might be difficult for you to accept, if you don't accept Buddhist philosophy (if you don't believe in enlightenment, basically).
If you are a materialist, you don't believe there is anything else besides matter. You are just your body.
Well, at some point during your meditation, you might experience the fact that this world is a construct, a fabrication. But if you don't know how to put it into context, it will feel like nothing, void, nonexistence. This could shock your mind-body system.
There are several ways to avoid this.
First, familiarise yourself with the Buddhist conceptual framework. Entertain the possibility that it is an accurate view of reality. The best book that I know for this is Dreams of light by Andrew Holecek.
Second, look into practices that cultivate positive mental states. Some examples are forgiveness meditation and metta meditation. A relaxed and open mind can more easily hold difficult experiences.
Third, take it slow and don't push yourself if you're having difficult experiences. Find a teacher or a community where you can ask for advice. One community that I recommend is /r/streamentry on Reddit.
I hope meditation is fruitful for you. Let me know if you have questions.
>Well, at some point during your meditation, you might experience the fact that this world is a construct, a fabrication. But if you don't know how to put it into context, it will feel like nothing, void, nonexistence. This could shock your mind-body system.
Without being arrogant or facetious this feels like a truism to me? After all, our sense of self is an emergent property of unfeeling chemical machines.
I suppose this is where philosophy of the self and ego comes into play which tends to stick people into two camps.
That said, I have yet to feel my mind wander down these paths and experiences during meditation. Although I have experienced something almost similar to psycho activity/wakeful dreaming during yoga shavasana
I may not be disagreeing with what you mean, but one should be careful to differentiate between concepts, that are knowable, and things they refer to, which are not¹. Lots of confusion stems from mistaking the two. From what you were taught are apples to the world or ones own self.
As an illustration, if I slap your face, you may argue it is an illusion, it may not affect your later in life, and you may not even remember it. I take it as true, that words nor imagination are no match for an actual good slap. After a slap, people may disagree whether it was a slap, they may have illusions about who, what, how or why .. yet I don't think many will argue it is an illusion in the sense that nothing in fact happened.
This is the risk of trying to summarize a big conceptual framework in just a few words. It leaves out a lot and its only hope is to entice the reader to explore further and discover that entire conceptual framework.
Even that conceptual framework can not describe what can't be described. It can only get you to experience again and again what can only be experienced until the moment that concepts drop off.
We don’t use sitting for beginners (this is not zen btw) they can lie down. The worst thing that can happen is they fall asleep (which happens on a rare occasion, most stay present through certain cues we use)
Sitting in half lotus or milder variations is hard for the chair accustomed person! Not to mention that lotus/half lotus can be tough, sometimes wrecking even, on the knees,hips or lowerback.
I don't think it correct to equate Zikr with meditation. To wit, your "Nor is there a reason to for the layman interested in the relaxation of the mind" underlines that fact. Zikr (remembrance of God's names and attributes) is highly recommended to all Muslims in the Qur'an, officially rated at being higher than prayer. It's not about "mind hacking". It is closer to Zen's "oxherding" purpose.
> First off all, not by renouncing the world, but by being part of it.
What is the world to me? What am I to the world? Truly, the example of this world and myself is that of a rider who seeks shade under a tree, then he moves on and leaves it behind. - Prophet Muhammad
So there are the very subtle (but quite important) distinctions made by Muhammad (SAWS) here regarding the correct meaning of "detachment" and "world" and the mental and spiritual position of the 'Completed Human' regarding these matters. (Many in their misguided and mininformed zeal about "poverty" and "detachment" forget about that comforting "shade" he mentioned. "Seek shade under a tree". Mediate on that.)
> I don't think it correct to equate Zikr with meditation.
Maybe I am missing something, but Zikr sounds suspiciously like japa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japa), which is a well accepted form of concentration meditation in all Dharmic traditions. Many teachers will ask neophytes to have a regular japa practice, where you recite a mantra a certain number of times often with the help of a mAlA, first audibly, and gradually, mentally (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japa#Degrees_of_loudness). The idea being that it's easier to focus on a gross object at first to keep your mind steady, and later proceed to more subtle forms. Patanjali himself recommends that Om be chanted and its meaning reflected upon (https://www.himalayanacademy.com/saivite-scriptures/patanjal...).
So of course, Zikr is a subset of general contemplation and given the universality of human body and psyche, you will find shared elements (such as seating, lowering & raising of head/gaze, and the big one, breathing) in various methodologies of contemplation across cultures, religions, and schools. This is to be expected and is natural.
In a sense, one could possibly say that Meditation aimed towards mastering the mind, whereas Zikr aims for breaking the imaginal boundary of lower self (i.e. aims for Unity of Selves harmonized by “Names”) by being fully focused and mindful of ‘The One’. Chanting Om is quite close to the effect.
When you say "good tradition", what did you have in mind? I realise you probably were trying to avoid a flame war, but as a Westerner interested in meditation I find it extremely hard to tell what's good and what's not. Or which teacher is reflecting a school's standard teaching and which is doing their own, idiosyncratic thing.
Not a buddhist, but 100% agree that this article is very lacking in depth in covering the hard fact that 'meditation' is not some singular practice - philosophical/spiritual/psychological context of the practitioner and intent will absolutely have a massive impact on how meditation 'experiences' will be internalized - is the 'insight' I had actually spiritually beneficial, or simply my own attachments/preconceived notions playing tricks on me?
Christian monastics have written tomes about the dangers of spiritual delusion arising in the course of practice (prelest); Without getting into theological debate about core teachings between various religions, I'm quite sure the same is true for any serious spiritual/religious ascetic discipline; The tendency in our culture to divorce the practices from their philosophical underpinnings to make them more 'consumable' by the uninitiated as seems to have happened here is likely a big contributing factor in cases such as this one, and the article completely sidesteps the point by falling victim to the same thinking ..
In a similar vein I also find it quite ironic that the article attempts to reconcile 'meditation' as one monolithic topic that is either 'good' or 'bad' within scientific literature, while at the same time ignoring that 'scientific literature' itself has many studies of differing results from differing psychological treatment modalities, many of which could be viewed as 'meditative' in some casual sense (e.g. CBT, so called 'mindfulness meditation', schema therapy, etc)
Sure - Don't have a good example of a work specifically focused on this - some excellent texts with significant portions dealing with this topic interspersed:
(very dense theologically, and intended for actual practicing monks, fitting the topic, beware )
Replying to myself to collect some observations and responses.
- Someone noted downthread that meditation is dose-sensitive. This is is an incredibly useful observation. Most folks doing 30-60 mins of meditation a day are not at risk but doing an intensive weeks long retreat with 8-10hrs/day of cushion time is in a different risk bucket.
- Second, there were many objections to using meditation as a singular monolithic phenomenon vs. distinguishing between the varieties of meditative experiences. I have struggled with this in the past too. For the sake of this discussion let's define meditation as a purposeful focus on an object of meditation with the goal of single pointed absorption.
This definition is incomplete and inaccurate in measures. However I do think it encompasses a fair variety of meditative experiences. The object might be the breath, the flow of thoughts, mantras (prayer), visualizations or an analytical meditation. I include conscious breath work in this category - pranayama, wimhof - since you are consciously moving the breath/attention to create a heightened psychological state. Yogic/Vedic/Buddhist meditation practices - even Zazen - all ascribe to the state of one-pointed absorption, nay, union of the object and subject (shamatha/shiney).
- More importantly for us all meditations - Vipassana, Mantra-based and Yogic - can create breaks as evidenced by experiences related else where in the thread. For the sake of this discussion we can transcend the varieties and just lump them as meditation.
- Based on many conversations, I believe that meditation first amplifies the psychological makeup. If someone's mind has nervous tendencies or a tendency to mania then meditation will amplify it and bring it out. The analog of Crossfit and related intense regimens are useful here. Crossfit done without consideration for the body's deficiencies (e.g. lack of mobility in certain joints) - will lead to injury centered on the where the deficiencies lie. So if I have bad shoulder mobility, doing overhead cleans will probably cause a tear in my rotator cuff. Intense meditation has to be tailored to the individual and just like intense workout regimens, there has to be concurrent rehab of deficient areas. I unfortunately am not qualified to speak more about this.
- Benefits of Meditation: There is a notion that meditation is beneficial and can cure things that ail us. I think this is a very mistaken idea bought about by commercialization and packaging of meditation. I break down benefits from meditative practice especially retreat into the following components but would appreciate hearing more on this:
-- Greater focus. Focusing on the breath or another object greatly helps sharpen our ability to focus. This has obvious benefits in daily life rife with distractions. Greater focus also manifests as "mindfulness" or just awareness. A person who is mindful, as a result of meditation, is perceived in an interaction as present and focused. AFAIK, the world mindfulness does not occur anywhere in the Buddhist teachings and is a artefact of translation ;)
-- Dopamine fasting - Removing all stimuli for a few days in retreat and simple sustenance amplifies the senses and rewinds the hedonic adaptation treadmill. Upon exiting retreat, this leads to feelings of euphoria on encountering everyday stimuli like food or a cup of tea or a flower.
- Meditative absorption - Single pointed absorption in an object is a flow state and can be very pleasurable. Watching a sports event or a great movie is a flow experience where you forget the distinction between object and subject. Meditation makes this experience reachable on a daily/weekly basis to a accomplished meditator.
- Finally, behavior change from meditative realizations. This is function of the framework of meditation - Vipassana, Yogic, Mantra, etc. For example, if I can realize that my states of mind are transient by experience than perhaps I will be more detached from them which might give me a super...
Glad to see this article explore the darker side of meditation. A few years back, I had a sobering experience at a Vipassana meditation retreat and left after a few days. I had feelings of anxiety and despair, which I expected (at least intellectually), but when I started to have suicidal thoughts, I decided it was time to get out.
While the Goenka retreats profess to be secular and for everyone, I got serious cult vibes from the minute that I arrived. Technically, the in-person instructors are only assistant teachers. There is only one true teacher: Goenka himself. During his nightly instruction via VHS tape - the only human interaction you're allowed all day - Goenka teaches Buddhist metaphysics (I recall something about vibrations of the universe).
The retreat creates the perfect environment to break you down psychologically: sleep deprivation, food restriction, lack of human interaction, prohibitions on reading, writing, and exercising. Throughout the retreat, there is ingroup/outgroup pressure: only the strong can make it through; people who leave or aren't able to handle the meditation are weak. If you have a concern about your experience, the standard solution is more meditation. If you question this, you didn't give the retreat a chance, you weren't meditating hard enough. Then, at the end of the retreat you're hit with a love bomb on the way out the door. [1]
Interpreted charitably, I thought this retreat was similar to military training or fraternity hazing. Less so, it was more like solitary confinement or torture.
I'm glad I went - I gained some insights and it was an incredibly valuable experience. I'm also glad I left early. If you're thinking of going on one of these retreats, know what the assistant teacher told me on mine: "This is a Buddhist purification ritual."
second, plenty of delicious food. if it's your first time, dinner is fruits. if it's not your first retreat you aren't offered dinner, but you really don't need the calories because you've mostly been sitting. all the food is vegetarian.
third, the assistant teachers are well trained.
finally, you left after a few days so you cannot speak to what happens at the end. it's called "loving-kindness" meditation and it's at the end because yes, the retreat can be intense, and it's like a balm to treat any difficulties you encountered along the way. here's a link to what it actually is: https://www.mettainstitute.org/mettameditation.html
It sounds to me like gurus want followers, teachers want students. It gives them power over their disciples. If you can get people to believe you, you can control them. I think that is the scary part. Hallucinations and peace of mind and stuff are fine, but once you start believing your teacher "knows the Truth", you're on tilted ground. I assume all religions are more or less like that. But with meditation you can actually experience "higher powers" which gives you more reason to believe.
Valid concerns about meditation induced psychosis aside, I think you're mischaracterising many aspects of the retreat.
> Technically, the in-person instructors are only assistant teachers. There is only one true teacher: Goenka himself.
There are some actual teachers that tour the globe. But mostly it's ATs. I think there's a lot of hoops to jump through to become a teacher. And I believe the ATs also must be able to jump in and teach if equipment fails.
> During his nightly instruction via VHS tape - the only human interaction you're allowed all day
You can meet with the AT one-on-one to discuss anything in the middle of the day. You can sit before the AT after the last meditation and ask questions.
> Goenka teaches Buddhist metaphysics (I recall something about vibrations of the universe).
Much of what he says is based on teachings 2500+ years old when philosophers didn't know what atoms were, but were thinking about what the most sub-divisible thing was. I heard it put this way, 'The course should be taken seriously, but not literally.'
Reminds me a lot of "the dark night of the soul" as described in "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha" by Daniel Ingram (the book is online at https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/).
This finishes with a Scott-at-his-best quote that is pertinent to the OP:
> Why would you want to do any of this?
> The Buddha is supposed to have said: “I gained nothing whatsoever from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment”. And sure, that’s the enigmatic Zen-sounding sort of statement we expect from our spiritual leaders. But if Buddhist practice is really difficult, and makes you perceive every single sensation as profoundly unsatisfactory in some hard-to-define way, and can plunge you into a neverending depression which you might get out of if you meditate hard enough, and then gives you a sort of permanent annoying low-grade bipolar disorder even if you succeed, then we’re going to need something better than pithy quotes...
> Once he’s stripped everything else away, he says the only thing one can say about enlightenment is that it grants a powerful true experience of the non-dual nature of the world.
> But still, why would we want to get that? I am super in favor of knowledge-for-knowledge’s-sake, but I’ve also read enough Lovecraft to have strong opinions about poking around Ultimate Reality in ways that tend to destroy your mental health.
Worth noting that as far as I can tell most of the meditation community doesn't get behind Ingram's account of the "dark night", and teachers talk more about having blissful/tranquil mental states available on tap. Ingram might retort that most teachers are full of shit and haven't attained enlightenment, they probably just got first Jhana.
Most people round here would probably read the "fire kasina" and magick stuff that he's talking about after "14 hours per day for 10-20 days in good practice conditions with full, unbridled, undistracted effort." and think -- yep, that sounds like a psychologically risky state.
My general take is basically the same as with using psychedelics for treating trauma and depression; any medicine which is powerful enough to modify your mind and cure major structural issues is also powerful enough to break your mind, if you're unlucky/unskilled/unguided in the application.
The (completely incorrect) Western image of deep meditation as "deep relaxation" is a big problem here, and that's compounded by it being quite awkward to actually claim you're enlightened, which makes it hard to credential-check your teachers; most people straight up call BS on such claims. From the little meditation I've done, I think it's more likely than not that "cessation" / "enlightenment" is a real mental phenomenon, but I'm not sure that it's actually worth dedicating a decade or two of your life to attain.
Having said all that, light meditation / mindfulness practice is well-documented as being beneficial, so if it's helping you don't stop; just don't feel you need to constantly increase your sit durations and go deeper, if you're not doing so with a specific goal in mind and ideally a community to support you.
Lovecraft didn’t actually have any special insight into ultimate reality. He was at least a little bit crazy. Not really a good reference for any of this.
It’s a joke. In Lovecraft novels the protagonist pokes around ultimate reality and finds madness therein. It’s not claiming anything specific about meditation.
Ah ok I guess the tone didn’t get through to me, though it does still sound like Alexander is making a similar claim about ultimate reality and mental health.
After a particularly horrific trip on DXM, some of Lovecraft's writing was by far the best description of what I went through mentally. I remember my jaw dropping when reading a few Lovecraft passages that seemed to perfectly capture my mental state and the horror of it.
Was it because Lovecraft had any special insight into reality? Nope, not at all. But he had insight into some of the horrors that can emerge from the depths of our own minds. Probably partially because, like you said, he was a little bit crazy.
The woman in the article was withdrawing from Zoloft during a very stressful time and went to meditate for 10 hours a day. It is not a surprise she had a psychotic break.
Disregarding we have hidden memories that are locked away, it is established that our minds suppress troubling memories. After a long meditation time, they can come out.
In my personal experience, I have had to discontinue sessions due to bad memories arising.
Very insightful comment, though I might point out that bad memories on their own don't inherently cause significant issues, it's in the the how/if one reacts to them.
That's enough on its own to cause the issues being attributed to meditation. That also tells us she had prior issues even though the article seems to be trying to place the blame solely on meditation.
Antidepressant withdrawal is nothing to mess with.
That some people have negative reactions – including anxiety, hallucinations, & seizures – to intense meditation has been under-reported, but long known. Here's a story from almost 19 years ago in the SFWeekly:
"Bad Vibes- Warning: Meditating may be hazardous to your health" SFWeekly, 2002-08-28
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 366 ms ] threadAfter my recent mildly disappointing or sobering experiences with psychedelics I am a little worried about that too. They often are sold as the fix to serious problems and unstable people may get into a bad position when their problems aren't solved but they still pretend that they are doing great.
For those who are willing to really commit their lives to it, meditation - or to be more precise the spiritual path that leads to it and merges with it - can absolutely cure many neurotic issues. This happens when people stop pretending to feel great and honestly accept that they feel bad, anxious or whatever. By learning to befriend your "bad" emotions slowly and whilst nourishing "good" emotions (through e.g. loving kindness or compassion meditation), you start to slowly unravel some of your milder neurotic issues. But it should be communicated very clearly that you can't sprinkle a bit of mindfulness over your messed up life and expect to be enlightened...
There is also probably not much more dangerous than a very poorly functioning spiritual practice / teacher. The story here about Vipassana is unsurprising to say the least. It is sort of like squatting a 200kg weight with bad form, over and over again for years, but instead of your body you are breaking your consciousness.
The key takeaway is that if you want to pursue this stuff you really need to find a good teacher who you trust.
That’s the problem. It’s easy to trust an incompetent teacher. How do you find completed teacher in a field with many very charismatic charlatans?
The most accomplished people who I know in this stuff have spent decades moving from teacher to teacher.
Eventually you can tell who is full of shit and who isn't. There are certain red flags that you can learn to spot pretty quickly. If you spot a red flag it also doesn't necessarily mean the person doesn't know something worth learning, it just means they are stuck somewhere else. There are a lot of pretty high level people who are a little bit egotistical for example but it doesn't mean they don't know some useful techniques.
The guy teaching me has trained under like a dozen very well known people over the years and his current teacher spent several decades in Asia working his way up through a series of teachers. The latter person I'm describing has talked about being very skeptical of his teachers to the point where in one instance he went into a teachers fridge to confirm he was lying about what he did or didn't eat.
It isn't easy to sit and be still, everyone who tried will tell you, you will find any kind of excuse to not do it. However if you endure it and spend some time meditating, it will indeed bring perspective and clarity in your mind.
These kinds of retreats are stupid... For number of reasons. Also 'apps for meditation' are extra stupid, except maybe Oak because it is just a timer, so it actually serves a purpose. If you really want to meditate, just sit and relax. OK maybe I was too hard on every kind of retreat, but overall they tend to be profitable endevours.
Because your mind will be maleable, cults love to exploit this state to program you and indoctrinate you.
Also... what happened to this girl is known fenomenon. It usually helps if somebody can tell you in advance it would happen. As I read article, they loaded her with drugs afterwards, not sure which is worse.
Again, cults = bad, you have everything you need to be happy.
The irony of these apps coming out a few years ago. And the popularity of them. I guess it becomes more of a routine and escape from reality, rather than mindfulness and meditation.
Zoloft can really mess you up if you stop cold-turkey. How odd that they didn't bring up comorbid risk-factors until half-way through the article.
This example is less about the potential negatives side-affects of meditation, and more about the care one should take when getting off serious medications. Most retreat centers (and other "guides") usually suggest several weeks or more of no medication before going on your "journey". The side affects of getting off medications, especially ones she apparently was taking for years, can not be underestimated in this story.
It's also clear she was prone to emotional instability before the retreat, and like any treatment -- pharmaceutical or otherwise -- it can have side-affects that need to be managed, dosages that need to be tweaked, etc.
This story also ignores the 90+% of people who have profound experiences on these Vipassana retreats. Just know what you are getting into, and know it can be very very intense even for those who have practiced meditation for years.
(*that's what the phenomenon is called: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-superhuman-mind/...)
Per Hindu practices, Meditation is the first, foremost step towards self realization. For attaining liberation and knowing god. It is a tool to calm the mind and prepare it for deeper states of realization (samadhi, nirvikalpa samadhi, etc). It is just a tool, like a hammer or chainsaw, that serves a greater purpose.
Yogic practices, at-least the physical ones, are for strengthening the body to face the rigors of long term meditation and deeper conditions.
Hindu scriptures clearly say that such practices are to be done under the guidance of a qualified guru (A true guru is one who has attained realization him/her self.)
Nowadays, business ventures are being built around this fad with mostly falsehoods mixed with grains of truth.
There is an excellent book [0] that records the conversations of one of the greatest modern era yogis [1], whose whole life was spent in meditation. The book is a great read and records his conversations with many western visitors. Do read it to get a better understanding of the context of meditation and related topics.
[0] https://selfdefinition.org/ramana/Talks-with-Sri-Ramana-Maha...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramana_Maharshi
I think it's better analogy to think of it as a technique, like a somersault or a cartwheel. but I'm just nitpicking.
But isn't that what all gurus say, that they are "true gurus". They would further warn you against anybody who doesn't agree with them as a "false guru"
Edit: If you want to get your own measure of the character, the evening discourses are freely available, though perhaps disjointed without actually doing or committing to the actual practice.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz7QHNvNFfA
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Hell_(film)
> alleged shadiness
I can't speak on each and every guru out there, but many do seem to be eager to take your worldly possessions for you own benefit, and much of this is predicated on their self proclaimed enlightenment. The perverse incentives seem like a vacuum for sociopaths to occupy
in cultivating discernment, you realize that you possess the capacity to identify others in the world who have the quality of amplifying the light within yourself.
however, until you come to recognize that light within, you will be susceptible to images, projections, and trickery.
ultimately, the outer guru is merely there to introduce you to your inner guru... your inner teacher. the inner teacher in the highest form of guru.
Isn't it 7th stage or something? In yogic philosophies. Admittedly don't know lot about these stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashtanga_(eight_limbs_of_yoga)
After three weeks, it culminated in an auditory hallucination that was indistinguishable from telepathy. Then the mania suddenly drained and never came back however often I repeated the exercises.
Years later, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but it's usually fairly mild, with hypomania and mixed states which get worse when under stress. Nothing was ever again as intense as the meditation-induced mania of 2004.
Vamachara stuff is forbidden and can lead to extremely dangerous reverse effects.
I think the site where I got it doesn't exist any more. I think I have a copy in my own archives somewhere.
The basic gist of the practices was a combination of various asanas, mantras, pranayama and visualisation.
Kind of like how self harm is forbidden. Vamamarga is psychological self harm, in a sense. Aghoris then take that same principle to the next level.
The problem is people fetishize, or in other ways make arguments and ideas about Indian origin things within the context of religion. That has in my opinion done far more harm in understanding the philosophical approaches of Dharma than any other misconception, including translation errors.
Even if someone had told me that it was risky, I still would have had the attitude of, thanks, but I need to find this out for myself from experience rather than just take your word for it.
So again, the point here is that it's important to be knowledgeable about whatever subject matter that you're taking part in, not least because of being respectful, but because that way whatever task is being undertaken can be done "correctly". Including, perhaps especially, if you have belief in occult ideas.
this thread reads like an H.P. Lovecraft or Dan Brown novel. Please keep this thread alive, it's fascinating!
They'll mess you up.
It was so much cooler.
Basically, by definition it is about breaching Hindu societal taboos, unless I am vastly misunderstanding this brief summary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-hand_path_and_right-hand_...
It isn't obvious that asanas, breathing exercises, mantras and visualisation are somehow breaching any taboos of any society that I know of ;)
Why do we consider those seriously while making fun of LaVey's rituals?
In occultism, "left hand path" means black magic. So it would be the "right hand path" followers who forbid practice vamachara.
Glad to hear you're also feeling better these days :)
In my ears, this lends cautionary support for Nietzsche's criticism of stoics and Buddhists. I'm not very knowledgeable here, but roughly his argument is that the avoidance of life's suffering is nothing but an escape from life itself. If one engages with the world, one must deal with pain and joy as a consequence.
On more practical terms, it's always good to measure how your inner model corresponds with reality.
That's the specific pain the Buddha teaches about and tries to help with—it's not about becoming numb to the world at all. It's simply overcoming the desire for things to be different than the way they actually are. The method, by the way, is to become more aware of the world and your feelings—not less so.
Disclaimer: I'm just a lay student of Buddhism and far from a teacher myself. This is just my understanding from years of reading about it. Not all Buddhists agree with this perspective, but I believe it's the vast majority amongst Theravadans at least.
That's actually one of the best ways I've heard it described.
To frame this with what I saying about Nietzsche- his criticism might have encouraged one to wrestle with natural order. Or perhaps stated that passivity with regard to the state of things is undesirable.
But didn't Buddha himself want things to be different, and that's why he started teaching?
When I was a kid, I thought about nihilism a lot, but I don't think thinking about it brought any adverse effect on my mental development or day-to-day behavior. "What is one life compared to the vast cosmos" I would ask myself such questions and feel very lost, but when lunch time comes, I knew I was hungry and I went to eat.
I suspect that the physiological factors contributes more to such psychosis as described in the article, than the idea of nihilism or Buddhism. The underlying mental condition, sleep deprivation, the vicissitude of her life, the exhaustion from sitting still, the sudden brake on taking meds... One of those would drive some people crazy, and she had them all.
Daniel M. Ingram is especially clear on these issues BTW, and his writings in general are a good introduction to insight meditation as it's actually practiced by those who seek some form of stream entry.
“Mastering the core teachings of Buddha” may be next on my audible... we shall see
I've mentioned it so many times in this thread that people will think I get a commission :D But I find it incredibly well written by someone with a very clear mind and a knack for wordplay.
(As an aside, "sloth", which is one of the seven deadly sins, was originally "acedia", is a feeling of a lack of concern. [1])
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acedia
I think it's possible to gain a large deal of motivation and drive from the concepts of virtues and doing everything we can to live virtuously and improve the world accordingly.
The "think in the right way" takes just a little practice. The "act in the right way" is the hard part, and the whole thing falls apart, in exactly the way you've noticed, without both. I've yet to achieve both, personally, though simply having "think the right way", with a little moderating wisdom from age, isn't nothing.
I think a trap in general with systems like Stoicism, or Zen Buddhism, or similar, is believing that thinking or knowing is anything more than one maybe-necessary-but-certainly-not-sufficient step.
(frankly, I'm not even sure what "go by the right way" means, yet, and would have to return to the original Greek to figure out whether it's just a summation of the two following ideas, or something separate—however, as I'm still working on "acting", I'll leave that for another day)
[EDIT] For those reading this without having read Meditations, it's heavy on duty and obligation, which is deep in the "doing" side of the above dichotomy. The "think the right way" is largely about ignoring that which one cannot control, but the trouble is that anything in the immediate past becomes "beyond one's control", which is where the parent's slipped-deadlines and such become easy to brush off without the duty-and-obligation and act-the-right-way habits balancing it out. Can absofuckinglutely confirm that if you get very good at the "think the right way" side, and only that side, it gets dangerously easy to not be bothered by failure or inaction.
Meditations helped teach me how to ignore pain and temporary things in pursuit of the immortal virtuous life of purpose. One that creates long lasting works of art, beautiful memories and a solid reliable character that those I care about can count on.
Stoicism is like a filter. You shake out all the bullshit out of your life and theoretically find the thing that you cannot shake out. That is your true drive.
If you shook the bullshit out of your life and found nothing was left, then perhaps you should consider what is out there that you are attracted to.
Neither stoicism nor buddhism is avoidance of suffering, but inuring one's self to suffering. Buddhism (particularly the therevada teachings of Goenka) explicitly warns against aversion and craving to sensations (that of suffering/desire/etc.), but encourages a mind of equanimity in the face of either. Stoicism has this similar goal to temper reaction, but lacks an effective practice to reach it.
Put the right stress on any mind, and it will break. I spent four months believing I was a fictional character from my own writing. The experience permanently changed my personality. (See my blog if you’re curious about some of my life experiences.)
My brain is more susceptible to this kind of thing, but it can happen to neurotypical people, usually from traumatic events.
However, I do agree that if you meditate for an hour a day or more (or sure, 40 minutes) having a good teacher is important.
Dr. Britton put together something called a "Meditation Safety Toolbox" that looks really interesting, looking forward to diving into it: https://www.brown.edu/research/labs/britton/meditation-safet...
What a wise lifter might do is work their way up to the point they're ready and might enjoy lifting 200kgs and then attempt it.
Like most things, start small and work your way up. I'd imagine the same should apply to meditation.
I think this is the study. "Amount of MM practice was correlated with increased PSG arousals, awakenings, stage 1 and decreased SWS, in a linear dose-dependent fashion."
I'd be more inclined to suggest it was the isolation, loneliness and stress of uncertainty that would trigger something like that. It was a dark time.
Curious if your friend started meditation hoping it might alleviate and already uncomfortable mental state, or they felt fine and just wanted to meditate for fun ?
I'm not a doctor, or psychiatrist but from the exposure I've had from my own practice, I'd imagine taking up anything other than a very, very, very light meditation course during such a stressful uncertain time could really expose one too a bit too much sensory overload.
To me that can be appropriately unclear about what causes what.
This makes no sense to me.
Lifetimes are not what most westerners are (or should be, imho) willing to sacrifice.
Top tier meditation institutions in the west and in Asia are not ignorant of meditation induced psychosis and they have ways of dealing with it. Everyone who claims all meditation is great and nothing bad can happen is ignorant.
Some of my most respected meditation teachers are known for recommending that people don't take up intensive retreats if they feel they have a choice in the matter. If it feel unavoidable, then do it. If it's just something you want to try, don't. I can immediately recall at least 4 saying this.
However, if 20 minutes of mindfulness a day sets you off into strange psychological territory, then I have a hard time believing that meditation was at fault. The "dosage" simply isn't high enough to be the key factor.
Or lying. I doubt the meditation center in the article updated the claims on their site after these events.
Edit: Also it's tricky if your students are motivated enough to get in that they'll lie.
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards...
I will recommend that a friend does one, after giving some warnings, and making sure to talk with them afterwards, but I wouldn't blindly recommend anybody do one.
About ten years ago, I experimented doing 20 minutes in the morning and an additional 20 minutes in the early evening. I did this for about six months, and I may have overdid it, because some very, very strange things began to happen. I stopped meditating after a particularly weird and frightening experience which I will now describe:
I was entirely stone cold sober, driving my car on the highway talking to a friend in the passenger seat, when suddenly I found myself looking down at the planet, from what I can only describe as an orbital altitude of somewhere around 400 km or so, while at the same time, I continued to drive the car and have a discussion!
Part of my consciousness (or perception) seemed to momentarily bifurcate and be somewhere else, in this case, floating high above the Earth. That was the day I stopped meditating. Apparently this is a known attainment in certain circles that believe in this kind of thing (I'm still a skeptic at heart) but being in two places at once wasn't my cup of tea. I have a hard enough time as it is focusing on the road in front of me!
I wouldn't say this is the only strange thing I experienced; there's a lot of them to speak of, but that was certainly the strangest of them all. I've taken much more pleasure and satisfaction from lucid dreaming instead, which is something I still do to this day.
> I've taken much more pleasure and satisfaction from lucid dreaming instead, which is something I still do to this day.
I feel like the potential therapeutic benefits of lucid dreaming are incredibly unexplored. Maybe partially because it can be difficult and inconsistent to induce them, especially depending on the person. I don't know if there's any one technique that works well for everyone.
It's certainly a common enough experience, albeit rare in the middle of daily life on that amount of practice. What it means, benefits, etc. are what's up for question.
I guess by "strange psychological territory" I was more thinking of destabilizing and harmful things that don't stop even after you stop meditating.
Edit: also, thanks for sharing.
Shockingly ignorant and dismissive of you.
> For a cumulative ten hours and forty-five minutes, she sat cross-legged on a rug, her spine erect, and tried to focus on her breath.
This practice _will_ cause disassociation at some point, which is precisely what happened when she broke out into psychosis after engaging in the practice for 60+ total hours.
Maybe you go through life constantly asserting and believing things that are in no way true....with no experience nor credentials nor having even read any literature to back any of them up...
Sorry that me pointing out you don't know what you're talking about triggered you. It's not a healthy state of mind to assume you know more than others about things you actually know very little.
edit: also, instead of clarifying what you meant, you doubled down on your claims. That doesn't speak to me of misinterpretation on my part.
> Maybe you go through life constantly asserting and believing things that are in no way true....with no experience nor credentials nor having even read any literature to back any of them up...
I would have loved to actually engage in a conversation on how vipassana meditation inevitably, whether it's after 8 hours or 8000 hours, leads to disassociation. Ego death. Seeing reality as it is. But if you refute it by calling the person inexperienced and ignorant, the other party will have no reason or motivation to discuss it further.
I also didn't flag or downvote you, fyi.
If you have something authoritative to say about meditation, I may read it, but I don’t think you’re off to a good start so far. I’ve been getting the impression that you believe your speculation to be authoritative, which is dishonest and deluded. Sorry if this comes across as harsh, but you’ve yet to say anything that indicates to me I was wrong to say what I said.
> Shockingly ignorant and dismissive of you.
> I'm not assuming. You've demonstrated your knowledge on the subject. (insinuating I have little knowledge on the subject)
> Maybe you go through life constantly asserting and believing things that are in no way true....with no experience nor credentials nor having even read any literature to back any of them up...
If you don’t find these offensive, you may have thicker skin than most, but it’s still best to leave them out.
Edit: oops sorry for actually talking about meditation in this thread
Edit: oops sorry for actually clarifying why I may be an expert on this subject
So again...why would I care?
edit: also, just in case anybody takes this charlatan at his word and does decide to read 'the mind illuminated' know that many of the author's followers demonstrate cult-like behavior, as well as disillusionment with his claims after it broke that he had been deceptive to his community about his sexual affairs.
For one, I don’t think disassociating is a _bad_ thing. Psychedelics (and ketamine in particular) can be very therapeutic for their disassociative properties. This also transfers over to meditation.
But people need to be aware of it; meditation isn’t a cure-all and can induce a psychotic breakdown if you’re susceptible to them. I’m thankfully not in that camp, and it will take most people who _are_ susceptible a long time before such a breakdown occurs (like a weeklong vipassana retreat).
I know you don’t care, but it’s fun to share what one has learned.
Edit: also had no idea about the author’s affair. That’s unfortunate. I’ve learned a lot from professors with terrible home lives though.
Anyways, basically your point is that meditation is like drugs in that it gets you high and helps you check out? Wow, how profound, definitely somebody I would give control of my life over to.
I’m not sure how you got that from my comment. Not even sure what you mean by that last sentence. I’m sorry that even mentioning a substance had you jump to such conclusions.
Now you're coming across like you haven't read the very book that you recommend.
>I’m not sure how you got that from my comment. Not even sure what you mean by that last sentence. I’m sorry that even mentioning a substance had you jump to such conclusions.
Reread the comment I replied to.
Edit: oops sorry for asking why your opinion matters and mine doesn't
You're wrong about this. Maybe I haven't done it as explicitly as you want, but that's the point. For such a great 'meditator' you pay too much attention to your own thoughts.
No, you're just an asshole. I don't know what I did to offend you so badly, but I hope whomever you're following for ethical and moral guidance shows you that the eightfold path is more than just right meditation. Please stop calling people ignorant and dismissive, get off your high horse, and pay less attention to your own thoughts. You have yet to say anything of substance. Not that I'm complaining; this exchange has been fun regardless.
Maybe this is part of America waking up to how messed up it is underneath it all.
I’ve had mixed results - my personal observation is to treat it like a psychedelic trip: only go in when you’re in a good mental state.
The odd thing is the typical therapy for ocd is cbt (cognitive behavioral therapy), which, despite intersecting quite a bit with meditation, is very effective.
Yoga always feels beneficial.
As others have said, 'meditation' is a really vague term but in the context of OCD I got the impression it's just about practicing shifting your attention to one thing and then shifting it gently back there when it begins to wander; as well as allowing OCD thoughts to just 'exist' and not engaging with them.
As a fellow OCD sufferer I just wanted to say good luck. A bit off-topic for this thread but 'The OCD Stories' podcast, NOCD (https://www.treatmyocd.com) and the Zoom support groups run by OCDPeers (https://ocdpeers.com/) have been life-changing for me.
As a long time meditator, my experience with vipassana is that it is the hardcore path, for those willing to risk crashing and burning to get to enlightenment faster. Techniques like mettā, tonglen, or dzogchen seem to be ~5-10x less likely to be associated with a psychotic event - which at that point, seems like it could just be about prior history [1]. It's worth mentioning that Britton, the academic meditation critic in the article is a co-author of this paper.
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
That’s all to say I think it’s important that people take it slow and get familiarized with the actual teachings to ground the experience. Jumping in to a 10 day, 10 hour per day training with little or no context is going to be seriously difficult. We have to understand that these practices come from places where the students wouldn’t be completely unfamiliar with the basics of the teachings. There would be at least a basic cultural understanding of the point of meditation (an actual spiritual practice) as opposed to a kid from the US that hears it makes you feel better and might make you more productive.
I am also told, there is a strict post-retreat protocol regarding re-engagement in the wider world. People are amazingly vulnerable at this time. The facilitating staff are told to be strictly hands-off, and avoid situations of risk for either of them. (client, or helper)
I think that I'm just saying, its like the go-kart track down the road. the one which has a terms-and-conditions board a mile long: its a better choice than the one which doesn't seem to care about safety, even if its a bit off-putting at first.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19222467
Meditation is definitely not relaxation. In the language of Yoga (which meditative traditions share), long meditation sessions move the focus (prana) to certains parts of the body where long sustained focus can create "imbalances" and lead to breaks and other side effects (psychosis or related). Further description risks going into woo-woo land without a shared language.
Meditation carries with it the most definite risk of people experiencing a break. I would put the at-risk population in the low-to-mid single digits. I have seen folks go into long meditation retreats and experience breaks where they have an experience much like Megan in the article - they have to be admitted and most of them are never the same ever after. Very solid grounded people develop migraines, insomnia, loss of appetite, or start hallucinating.
Meditation and Pranayama are both neither innocuous nor mere placebo effects. There is a very strong mechanism at work which we do not understand in a modern scientific context. However, the majority of practitioners do not do long intense retreats and will get away without any serious consequences.
A good tradition will devote serious time on how to combat the effects of long meditation retreats. They will talk about it almost as much as the technique itself. The biggest antidotes are - getting good sleep, not overdoing it, physical exercise, long walks and getting enough food. The inversion - onset of insomnia or anxiety or loss of appetite - is a very bad sign and you should stop meditating immediately.
Please do not do take either practice lightly or you could risk effing up something internally for which we have no cure. Feel free to DM me if you want to chat more.
Can you share what happened to them?
Also, you mentioned 3 week retreats. Can you share what changes (good or bad) you experienced during these long retreats?
Meditation is a blade with no hilt.
I _accidentally_ fell into a vipassana state of mind after the first time trying a particular religious chant, seriously, from out of the pains of boredom as a 20 year old.
At the time I lived nearby mountains, and after 'coming to', I saw them through the window. I cannot describe to you the overwhelming feeling of beauty and awe that crashed over me. It was as though this was the very first time I had ever seen mountains. I think the best description I can manage comes from 'Both Sides Now' by Joni Mitchell.
'I've looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down, and still somehow It's cloud illusions I recall I really don't know clouds at all'
The experience was so disorienting. As if I was seeing the mountains for what they were directly through my senses and not mediated by my knowledge of what mountains were like, linguistically.
It changed my entire life -- weeks later later I lost my job and fell into a 5 year extreme depression / anxiety spell in the attempt to reconcile my adolescent religious upbringing with the continued insight from that experience. Absolutely worthwhile, in hindsight, but it cost me near everything for it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24186942
That very moment I was hit by a realisation that I still - years later - can't really put into the appropriate words. It felt like a veil suddenly lifted. The world exposed itself in all its complexity and aesthetic beauty. The integration and the interdependence of all things was suddenly visible to me without any mental filters. The abstractions were gone. The semiotics were gone. The dualism was gone.
It felt like I suddenly and violently woke up from a deep slumber.
There was this strong realisation that I was deeply embedded in the universe. The leaves blowing in the wind, the snail, the pebbles on the trail, the grass, the sky, the universe and myself in it were just one thing. I felt like I was suspended in the very "beingness" of it all.
Back then, I had no means to integrate this existential experience into everyday life. The giant question marks it raised stuck with me over the years. Intense meditation practise can create very powerful shifts in perception of reality. In hindsight, I believe that I was way too inexperienced to wield the powerful tool that is meditation. I stopped meditation practice for a few years after this experience. I felt that I ventured too far offshore. I suddenly realised how deep and unexplored the ocean that is perception are, once we swim out of the shallow water. Back then, I decided to quickly swim back to shore and stopped my meditation practice for a few years.
I've rekindled my meditation praxis with the same sangha a few years later. But I stayed vigilant to not venture too fast too far out into unexplored territories of perception.
This causes the emotion to ferment underneath that layer, and since it's prevented from venting itself, the person sometimes emotionally deforms more and everything becomes harder to solve.
Part because person is blind to what's happening and has a very powerful defensive layer which prevents everyone (including psychiatrists) reaching from problematic emotions and trying to heal them.
Every emotion/trauma affects you and these effects manifest somehow. These effects are self-regulated via feedbacks like "I feel X", "I'm not feeling OK", "Hey, this makes me happy" or "Why do I feel like that", etc.
Ignoring an emotion's or secondary effect's presence removes the self regulation circuit hence, allows it to run amok. Since person trained him/herself to ignore these emotions or its manifestations with great effectiveness, wounds grow deeper while practitioner pretends it's OK.
At the last stage, person permanently ignores the problem and pointing to it results in violent responses from the affected person.
I've met with people these symptoms. All of them practiced or was practicing self-affirmation / self validation practices with minimal or no supervision.
Every practice, done mindlessly is dangerous. Including Zen, Yoga and others.
Sounds odd - what exact methods are you talking about?
I don't know the exact names of the methods, but they essentially train to push these bad experiences deeper and pretend that they didn't happen or affect you in the first place.
However, they both happened and affected the person. Pretending not is dangerous akin ignoring a wound with infection.
Proper meditation is a very powerful journey inside and has the power to uncover a lot of trauma or bad experiences masked or buried by other coping mechanisms. It can be said that purification is the process of uncovering these traumas and/or problems and solving them definitively, removing all secondary effects in the process, hence making person more free.
As OP said, the mechanisms are overly complex and extremely powerful. It's both not understood by modern science and very underrated by "woo woo" people.
Coming to your point, these breaks are caused by being faced with these traumas unprepared or without someone to support you. If you're advanced enough, you can face them yourself and solve them. If you're not and somehow face them, a more experienced practitioner can help you to collect yourself and face them at a later time. These experiences push you to the boundaries or out of your comfort zone, for sure.
In these cases, anxiety and other emotions are tip of the iceberg. If you're anxious about meditation, you wouldn't be able to focus properly.
In Zen, the practitioner wouldn't search for a root cause since it's not obvious. So, you don't try to process what's happening real time. These root cause reveals itself later. Either by noticing real-life changes or enlightenment (completion of background processing).
Hope that helps. If you have further questions, I'll try to answer.
If you don't mind, could you mention what practices and substances are you referring to?
Every practice regimen has a bigger system in work so, mixing and matching can create havoc on your body.
Adding LSD and mushrooms on top of it is just lighting a big fire and calling storm on you.
I'm not against LSD, mushrooms or other practice systems, but never seen any positive outcome from these kinds of experiments.
Please, don't do it.
Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind has lots of stories of people having positive psychedelic therapy, which does require essentially a spiritual guide.
I personally changed a lot with the help of the practice I do. I've faced my phobias, solved a lot of self-confidence issues, found out what's wrong with me. I've also got therapy before starting Zen. While it helped me somehow, it failed to solve the underlying issue. Zen helped me to tackle the underlying issue and move forward.
To work with a good master, you don't need to always go to a monastery and, change your life temporarily. I left nothing behind. Still live in the city. Just go to see my master from time to time. Will continue when the pandemic ends.
I had an instructor in the city, who's also a student of the same master, but he passed away due to COVID-19.
Every tradition and way contains elements from each other, but these ways find the compatible combinations and way to build upon them. Also a master/student relationship helps to guide the student in the harder times. Internet doesn't provide the guidance and safeguards, unfortunately.
As an instructor, I keep track of my every student independently. Otherwise, there's no meaning doing what I do. They also call me when things go awry and we work through it together, and we both learn in the process.
Zen, Buddhism or anything is not the only way. There are many ways to do it.
I'm very curious on what was your main goal to achive?
Interacting with hidden layers are considered advanced practice and I'm just entering these levels. To be able to cope with it you both have to be very experienced and very powerful. I still practice with my masters if I'm going to go that deep.
Also, tests of death and dissolution is not something you should experience alone. It can be because of many different reasons. Everybody's experiences are different, even when faced with the same thing. So you need to get familiar with yourself first, under supervision of a more experienced instructor.
My advice is not to mix meditation with substances and not try deeper practices without someone more experienced on the subject matter.
My guess is, it's not understood by modern science exactly because it's underrated by "woo woo" people :( But I notice in later years an increased focus on mental studies so maybe modern science will get to this as well. That is, if it's not too busy explaining the earth is round... (*edited to reformat)
Unfortunately that can't be proved. When reading the article I got the impression the woman might have unearthed such a thing. Maybe she had a hidden shame. Someone even asked about it, but she never told what it was. Maybe there wasn't anything to work through and meditation can cause problems. We can never know when the subject is dead. We also cant know if ideas are put in someone's head when they're in such a state.
My point is that to blame hidden trauma is cop out. Blaming the victim. Sure, it's the cause sometimes, but we dont know if it's always the case.
BTW, similar risks exist in psychotherapy, but they too will deny risks and blame patients with "(s)he had issues" when they die.
The first is hidden trauma.
The second is something that comes strings attached. You have to accept the Buddhist conceptual framework which says that the entire world is a fabrication.
During meditation you can experience this and, if you don't accept that you are more than just matter, then experiencing the fact that your body is empty of existence will mean that you are empty of existence. Which will be very frightening, as you can imagine.
Hidden trauma is not something like a faceless blob. It's something you remember, you know, however you didn't realize that it created a trauma with you. It's not something burning inside daily, distorting you daily. E.g.: You don't like a certain spice. That's OK, but why? Because somebody added it to your food excessively and your first encounter was very unpleasant. You put the event in the back burner, almost forgot about it, but its effects linger until this day. This is the hidden trauma. This can be something emotional about your past partners, something you botched up, etc. So when you re-remember it, it can be easy to work through or very hard. This difficulty is not related to the size of the event. You can go through events of great distress in a single breath and need to work on the loss of a sentimental item for years. This is where instructor comes in. Keeps you in balance, and guides through it.
The meditation I do doesn't judge anyone. There's no blame. It happened and it left a mark. Why? Doesn't matter. Who's wrong? Doesn't matter. There's a little lesson there. Did you learn it? It can be about you, other party, world, your dog. Doesn't matter. Get that little message, put it into your pocket, leave the emotion behind. That's not easy all the time. This is why instructors/masters are important. This is why the way is important.
Sometimes there's nothing to go through, at least for now. In a good practice, practice itself shouldn't search for problems but to explore what's inside and strengthen oneself. This strength and self-familiarity triggers the discovery of these hidden-traumas or not-so-right state of oneself. This mechanism is not fully understood, but it can be said that with self familiarity and self confidence, the practitioner has more courage to face with the problems which he/she buried to cope, so subconscious mind surfaces them to be dealt with. This is again where guidance and masters play a very important role.
I meditate everyday. I don't uncover the hell inside me every day, but it helps me to reflect, understand what I did right, what I did wrong, what I still carry. It helped me tremendously for transforming from a potato to myself, after years of physical and emotional bullying. It helped me to get rid of my dance phobia, fear of expressing myself and lack of self confidence.
There are many wrong ways to both meditation and psychotherapy. We're very very cautious with our practitioners. Everyone benefited somehow from our ways. Most important thing is, many friends has diverted to different paths and they're free to do so. There's no strings attached. We give the tools and show how to use them correctly. If another set of tools are better for them, we're happy. No hard feelings.
>> Hidden trauma is not something like a faceless blob. It's something you remember, you know, however you didn't realize that it created a trauma with you.
Some people will block the memory. Others are aware of it but don't associate it with current feelings, thoughts, or actions, so when asked they will essentially "forget" it and say "no trauma". Yet other forms of trauma form from years of subtle mistreatment and can not be traced to a specific event - only through extensive work can that be pieced together.
The subconscious can be a minefield, and to say poor outcomes are due to poor practice is almost as bad as victim blaming. I think triage is important, but there is a lot of belief that any practitioner can handle any person. I think that's false even with the best of them.
A sudden confrontation with this can be completely destabilizing.
> A sudden confrontation with this can be completely destabilizing.
Many ways force a confrontation, and that's indeed dangerous. However, it doesn't have to be like that.
Emotions are like onions. They're layered. Slow practice and slow advancement naturally brings practitioners to outer layers of these onions, which are easier to understand, remove and resolve. In our way, you can't get to the next level unless you have the power to do so.
If you have the power, you can remove and solve it. If you can't remove that layer, you don't face with anything. It all happens progressively.
All in all, there's no forced search for battles to fight. Ours is self exploration. You face only what you're ready for. We have safeguards against it.
I'm doing this for ~7 years and I still get to harder levels of the same issues sometimes. It's not easy, but it's worth it.
I’ve also spent time with numerous different meditation groups from different traditions.
My experience is that they vary a lot.
> You face only what you're ready for. We have safeguards against it.
Your particular community may have safeguards.
That is simply not true in the general case as the linked article asserts.
When it becomes a competition or a drug or a lifestyle or an experimental therapy or hobby or social or cult activity, there are greater dangers. People should be meaningfully informed of the risks. But there is money to be made, so...
Philosophical studies and religious faith and teachings seem to smooth the way. Know thyself. Everything in moderation. To thine own self be true. The small still voice within. If it isn’t making you more kind and loving to all you meet, whatever it is, then stop. As true about meditation as anything else.
The best introduction I ever found on the topic of meditation was Introduction to Yoga Principles and Practices by Majumdar, University Books, 1964. No cult, no workshops, been dead for a while.
That seems like a tautology to me.
You are essentially saying that those who practice safely do not need safeguards.
This is true, but of course the safeguards are not for those people.
They are for people who are at risk but don’t know it.
However, I want to heavily emphasize that there's no such thing as "poor outcomes are due to poor practice" in our way. I never got that treatment from my masters or my deceased instructor. Same is valid for me. I'd never say something something similar to any of my students.
These students give us all their trust. Their wellbeing is more important than ours during practice and after that. We'd do anything in our capacity to help them, and we have preliminary response protocols if something goes wrong. This brings us to next point of you, which is equally valid.
> I think triage is important, but there is a lot of belief that any practitioner can handle any person.
That's absolutely true. If we sense something is beyond us, we direct our students to medical doctors. If there's an emergency, we directly take them there. Having knowledge of preliminary medical first aid is essential (we have them). Funny thing is, other trainer in my city is an MD. Our master was a field medic.
We neither denounce nor ignore modern medicine. We just can complement in lots of instances or teach people to help themselves. I think it's equally important to know the value and capacity of tradition and accept things evolve and advance.
It's assuring that none of students had any adverse effects or negative events in their life due to practices they made with us. If anything happens, its responsibility is on us, not them. We're showing the way, and we don't have the luxury to make mistakes.
Some are :) https://meditatewithtucker.com/about/ I'm not affiliated with Tucker, just been on retreats with him in the past. I'm sure there are other teachers out there with similar training.
As someone who has instructed meditation, our lineage has many safe guards to make it mild for the neophyte to pick up and practice safely. First off all, not by renouncing the world, but by being part of it. Second to never overdo it. Third, no more than three pranayama breaths when you start.
The yoga sutras talk about sthira and sukha, effort and ease, which should be in balance. Basically you wouldn’t send someone up mount Everest untrained. Nor is there a reason to for the layman interested in the relaxation of the mind.
The word "meditation" is used for almost everything and in different senses.
I suppose were I to subject myself to a week+ of meditation in my current state, I could conceivably "injure" myself if I were stubborn in my persistence. So maybe the warnings in this article aren't so unintuitive after all.
Would love for someone knowledgeable to contrast this form to the other forms mentioned in this thread for someone who is open minded and not a complete outsider.
The explanation might be difficult for you to accept, if you don't accept Buddhist philosophy (if you don't believe in enlightenment, basically).
If you are a materialist, you don't believe there is anything else besides matter. You are just your body.
Well, at some point during your meditation, you might experience the fact that this world is a construct, a fabrication. But if you don't know how to put it into context, it will feel like nothing, void, nonexistence. This could shock your mind-body system.
There are several ways to avoid this.
First, familiarise yourself with the Buddhist conceptual framework. Entertain the possibility that it is an accurate view of reality. The best book that I know for this is Dreams of light by Andrew Holecek.
Second, look into practices that cultivate positive mental states. Some examples are forgiveness meditation and metta meditation. A relaxed and open mind can more easily hold difficult experiences.
Third, take it slow and don't push yourself if you're having difficult experiences. Find a teacher or a community where you can ask for advice. One community that I recommend is /r/streamentry on Reddit.
I hope meditation is fruitful for you. Let me know if you have questions.
Without being arrogant or facetious this feels like a truism to me? After all, our sense of self is an emergent property of unfeeling chemical machines.
I suppose this is where philosophy of the self and ego comes into play which tends to stick people into two camps.
That said, I have yet to feel my mind wander down these paths and experiences during meditation. Although I have experienced something almost similar to psycho activity/wakeful dreaming during yoga shavasana
In any case, I may not be conveying the message properly, because I'm still trying to understand these things conceptually.
The book I mentioned does a far better job with this.
I may not be disagreeing with what you mean, but one should be careful to differentiate between concepts, that are knowable, and things they refer to, which are not¹. Lots of confusion stems from mistaking the two. From what you were taught are apples to the world or ones own self.
As an illustration, if I slap your face, you may argue it is an illusion, it may not affect your later in life, and you may not even remember it. I take it as true, that words nor imagination are no match for an actual good slap. After a slap, people may disagree whether it was a slap, they may have illusions about who, what, how or why .. yet I don't think many will argue it is an illusion in the sense that nothing in fact happened.
¹ Well, most of them anyway.
Even that conceptual framework can not describe what can't be described. It can only get you to experience again and again what can only be experienced until the moment that concepts drop off.
Sitting in half lotus or milder variations is hard for the chair accustomed person! Not to mention that lotus/half lotus can be tough, sometimes wrecking even, on the knees,hips or lowerback.
> First off all, not by renouncing the world, but by being part of it.
What is the world to me? What am I to the world? Truly, the example of this world and myself is that of a rider who seeks shade under a tree, then he moves on and leaves it behind. - Prophet Muhammad
So there are the very subtle (but quite important) distinctions made by Muhammad (SAWS) here regarding the correct meaning of "detachment" and "world" and the mental and spiritual position of the 'Completed Human' regarding these matters. (Many in their misguided and mininformed zeal about "poverty" and "detachment" forget about that comforting "shade" he mentioned. "Seek shade under a tree". Mediate on that.)
Maybe I am missing something, but Zikr sounds suspiciously like japa (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japa), which is a well accepted form of concentration meditation in all Dharmic traditions. Many teachers will ask neophytes to have a regular japa practice, where you recite a mantra a certain number of times often with the help of a mAlA, first audibly, and gradually, mentally (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japa#Degrees_of_loudness). The idea being that it's easier to focus on a gross object at first to keep your mind steady, and later proceed to more subtle forms. Patanjali himself recommends that Om be chanted and its meaning reflected upon (https://www.himalayanacademy.com/saivite-scriptures/patanjal...).
The forms of meditations in dharmic traditions is quite bewildering. Patanjali himself recommends to concentrate on anything that you are comfortable with (https://www.himalayanacademy.com/saivite-scriptures/patanjal...).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhikr
So of course, Zikr is a subset of general contemplation and given the universality of human body and psyche, you will find shared elements (such as seating, lowering & raising of head/gaze, and the big one, breathing) in various methodologies of contemplation across cultures, religions, and schools. This is to be expected and is natural.
In a sense, one could possibly say that Meditation aimed towards mastering the mind, whereas Zikr aims for breaking the imaginal boundary of lower self (i.e. aims for Unity of Selves harmonized by “Names”) by being fully focused and mindful of ‘The One’. Chanting Om is quite close to the effect.
Christian monastics have written tomes about the dangers of spiritual delusion arising in the course of practice (prelest); Without getting into theological debate about core teachings between various religions, I'm quite sure the same is true for any serious spiritual/religious ascetic discipline; The tendency in our culture to divorce the practices from their philosophical underpinnings to make them more 'consumable' by the uninitiated as seems to have happened here is likely a big contributing factor in cases such as this one, and the article completely sidesteps the point by falling victim to the same thinking ..
In a similar vein I also find it quite ironic that the article attempts to reconcile 'meditation' as one monolithic topic that is either 'good' or 'bad' within scientific literature, while at the same time ignoring that 'scientific literature' itself has many studies of differing results from differing psychological treatment modalities, many of which could be viewed as 'meditative' in some casual sense (e.g. CBT, so called 'mindfulness meditation', schema therapy, etc)
I wasn't aware of this. Could you point us to some of these writings? Curious to read more about it.
(very dense theologically, and intended for actual practicing monks, fitting the topic, beware )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ladder_of_Divine_Ascent
"18–26: Avoidance of the traps of asceticism (laziness, pride, mental stagnation"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apophthegmata_Patrum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philokalia
"On the Signs of Grace and Delusion, Written for the Confessor Longinos: Ten Texts"
less familiar with western christian works, though i'm sure there are some.
How can people do that if HN doesn't have DMs and you don't have any information listed on your profile?
- Someone noted downthread that meditation is dose-sensitive. This is is an incredibly useful observation. Most folks doing 30-60 mins of meditation a day are not at risk but doing an intensive weeks long retreat with 8-10hrs/day of cushion time is in a different risk bucket.
- Second, there were many objections to using meditation as a singular monolithic phenomenon vs. distinguishing between the varieties of meditative experiences. I have struggled with this in the past too. For the sake of this discussion let's define meditation as a purposeful focus on an object of meditation with the goal of single pointed absorption.
This definition is incomplete and inaccurate in measures. However I do think it encompasses a fair variety of meditative experiences. The object might be the breath, the flow of thoughts, mantras (prayer), visualizations or an analytical meditation. I include conscious breath work in this category - pranayama, wimhof - since you are consciously moving the breath/attention to create a heightened psychological state. Yogic/Vedic/Buddhist meditation practices - even Zazen - all ascribe to the state of one-pointed absorption, nay, union of the object and subject (shamatha/shiney).
- More importantly for us all meditations - Vipassana, Mantra-based and Yogic - can create breaks as evidenced by experiences related else where in the thread. For the sake of this discussion we can transcend the varieties and just lump them as meditation.
- Based on many conversations, I believe that meditation first amplifies the psychological makeup. If someone's mind has nervous tendencies or a tendency to mania then meditation will amplify it and bring it out. The analog of Crossfit and related intense regimens are useful here. Crossfit done without consideration for the body's deficiencies (e.g. lack of mobility in certain joints) - will lead to injury centered on the where the deficiencies lie. So if I have bad shoulder mobility, doing overhead cleans will probably cause a tear in my rotator cuff. Intense meditation has to be tailored to the individual and just like intense workout regimens, there has to be concurrent rehab of deficient areas. I unfortunately am not qualified to speak more about this.
- Benefits of Meditation: There is a notion that meditation is beneficial and can cure things that ail us. I think this is a very mistaken idea bought about by commercialization and packaging of meditation. I break down benefits from meditative practice especially retreat into the following components but would appreciate hearing more on this:
-- Greater focus. Focusing on the breath or another object greatly helps sharpen our ability to focus. This has obvious benefits in daily life rife with distractions. Greater focus also manifests as "mindfulness" or just awareness. A person who is mindful, as a result of meditation, is perceived in an interaction as present and focused. AFAIK, the world mindfulness does not occur anywhere in the Buddhist teachings and is a artefact of translation ;)
-- Dopamine fasting - Removing all stimuli for a few days in retreat and simple sustenance amplifies the senses and rewinds the hedonic adaptation treadmill. Upon exiting retreat, this leads to feelings of euphoria on encountering everyday stimuli like food or a cup of tea or a flower.
- Meditative absorption - Single pointed absorption in an object is a flow state and can be very pleasurable. Watching a sports event or a great movie is a flow experience where you forget the distinction between object and subject. Meditation makes this experience reachable on a daily/weekly basis to a accomplished meditator.
- Finally, behavior change from meditative realizations. This is function of the framework of meditation - Vipassana, Yogic, Mantra, etc. For example, if I can realize that my states of mind are transient by experience than perhaps I will be more detached from them which might give me a super...
While the Goenka retreats profess to be secular and for everyone, I got serious cult vibes from the minute that I arrived. Technically, the in-person instructors are only assistant teachers. There is only one true teacher: Goenka himself. During his nightly instruction via VHS tape - the only human interaction you're allowed all day - Goenka teaches Buddhist metaphysics (I recall something about vibrations of the universe).
The retreat creates the perfect environment to break you down psychologically: sleep deprivation, food restriction, lack of human interaction, prohibitions on reading, writing, and exercising. Throughout the retreat, there is ingroup/outgroup pressure: only the strong can make it through; people who leave or aren't able to handle the meditation are weak. If you have a concern about your experience, the standard solution is more meditation. If you question this, you didn't give the retreat a chance, you weren't meditating hard enough. Then, at the end of the retreat you're hit with a love bomb on the way out the door. [1]
Interpreted charitably, I thought this retreat was similar to military training or fraternity hazing. Less so, it was more like solitary confinement or torture.
I'm glad I went - I gained some insights and it was an incredibly valuable experience. I'm also glad I left early. If you're thinking of going on one of these retreats, know what the assistant teacher told me on mine: "This is a Buddhist purification ritual."
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_bombing
first, the nightly videos. not cultish and not metaphysics. don't believe me? view them all here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cz7QHNvNFfA&list=PLPJVlVRVmh...
second, plenty of delicious food. if it's your first time, dinner is fruits. if it's not your first retreat you aren't offered dinner, but you really don't need the calories because you've mostly been sitting. all the food is vegetarian.
third, the assistant teachers are well trained.
finally, you left after a few days so you cannot speak to what happens at the end. it's called "loving-kindness" meditation and it's at the end because yes, the retreat can be intense, and it's like a balm to treat any difficulties you encountered along the way. here's a link to what it actually is: https://www.mettainstitute.org/mettameditation.html
> Technically, the in-person instructors are only assistant teachers. There is only one true teacher: Goenka himself.
There are some actual teachers that tour the globe. But mostly it's ATs. I think there's a lot of hoops to jump through to become a teacher. And I believe the ATs also must be able to jump in and teach if equipment fails.
> During his nightly instruction via VHS tape - the only human interaction you're allowed all day
You can meet with the AT one-on-one to discuss anything in the middle of the day. You can sit before the AT after the last meditation and ask questions.
> Goenka teaches Buddhist metaphysics (I recall something about vibrations of the universe).
Much of what he says is based on teachings 2500+ years old when philosophers didn't know what atoms were, but were thinking about what the most sub-divisible thing was. I heard it put this way, 'The course should be taken seriously, but not literally.'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomism
> Then, at the end of the retreat you're hit with a love bomb on the way out the door.
They teach 'metta' at the end. Which is not so much being love-bombed, but you meditating on loving-kindness to others.
I'm glad you got out when you did.
Edit: Fixed a quote + clarification
Edit: Why the downvote, did I say something that wasn't factual?
Scott Alexander did a great book review if you want the summary: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/09/18/book-review-mastering-...
This finishes with a Scott-at-his-best quote that is pertinent to the OP:
> Why would you want to do any of this?
> The Buddha is supposed to have said: “I gained nothing whatsoever from Supreme Enlightenment, and for that reason it is called Supreme Enlightenment”. And sure, that’s the enigmatic Zen-sounding sort of statement we expect from our spiritual leaders. But if Buddhist practice is really difficult, and makes you perceive every single sensation as profoundly unsatisfactory in some hard-to-define way, and can plunge you into a neverending depression which you might get out of if you meditate hard enough, and then gives you a sort of permanent annoying low-grade bipolar disorder even if you succeed, then we’re going to need something better than pithy quotes...
> Once he’s stripped everything else away, he says the only thing one can say about enlightenment is that it grants a powerful true experience of the non-dual nature of the world.
> But still, why would we want to get that? I am super in favor of knowledge-for-knowledge’s-sake, but I’ve also read enough Lovecraft to have strong opinions about poking around Ultimate Reality in ways that tend to destroy your mental health.
Worth noting that as far as I can tell most of the meditation community doesn't get behind Ingram's account of the "dark night", and teachers talk more about having blissful/tranquil mental states available on tap. Ingram might retort that most teachers are full of shit and haven't attained enlightenment, they probably just got first Jhana.
Most people round here would probably read the "fire kasina" and magick stuff that he's talking about after "14 hours per day for 10-20 days in good practice conditions with full, unbridled, undistracted effort." and think -- yep, that sounds like a psychologically risky state.
My general take is basically the same as with using psychedelics for treating trauma and depression; any medicine which is powerful enough to modify your mind and cure major structural issues is also powerful enough to break your mind, if you're unlucky/unskilled/unguided in the application.
The (completely incorrect) Western image of deep meditation as "deep relaxation" is a big problem here, and that's compounded by it being quite awkward to actually claim you're enlightened, which makes it hard to credential-check your teachers; most people straight up call BS on such claims. From the little meditation I've done, I think it's more likely than not that "cessation" / "enlightenment" is a real mental phenomenon, but I'm not sure that it's actually worth dedicating a decade or two of your life to attain.
Having said all that, light meditation / mindfulness practice is well-documented as being beneficial, so if it's helping you don't stop; just don't feel you need to constantly increase your sit durations and go deeper, if you're not doing so with a specific goal in mind and ideally a community to support you.
Was it because Lovecraft had any special insight into reality? Nope, not at all. But he had insight into some of the horrors that can emerge from the depths of our own minds. Probably partially because, like you said, he was a little bit crazy.
That's enough on its own to cause the issues being attributed to meditation. That also tells us she had prior issues even though the article seems to be trying to place the blame solely on meditation.
Antidepressant withdrawal is nothing to mess with.
"Bad Vibes- Warning: Meditating may be hazardous to your health" SFWeekly, 2002-08-28
https://web.archive.org/web/20091114023754/https://www.sfwee...