Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Left a Buddhist Retreat in Handcuffs

esquire.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 99 posts

Re: I Left a Buddhist Retreat in Handcuffs

#81

Post by kup0 »

arpa wrote: post #77
iliketosleep wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the book that you mention takes things to the extreme, and this is what often happens with belief systems of any sort. Personally, I have found meditation on the three characteristics (unsatisfactoriness, impermanence, and non-self) to be useful. Why? So I can go on craving things I can't have, mourning losses, and getting caught up in my own ego, only without being completely overwhelmed by it all. Life without s…

beautifully put! If I might add - the first noble truth is that life is suffering, to which, the noble eightfold path only offers a temporary remedy. It has been a long time since I've been on the path, but I still remember the beauty of the inner silence; however I also remember how the silence becomes the void that eats away at the world we dream, leaving only the cold and naked meaningless of the world - i still r…

IMHO, I think the translation "life is suffering" is inaccurate enough to be particularly negative/nihilistic. Though, maybe "pain is an inescapable part of life" is too much the other way, not sure.

"Life is dukkha" seems to mean so much more than that. Especially as the Buddha expounds on multiple types of Dukkha, only one of which is suffering/pain. The other two, being impermanence and conditioned states.

Re: I Left a Buddhist Retreat in Handcuffs

#82

Post by collyw »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #32
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took it as the author simply relating their experience and including some informed opinions on it. What was news to me was that this can happen just with meditation! I didn’t know that.

A retreat is more than just meditation . As others have point out in the discussion here, a retreat typically includes at least some of the follow: 1. Sudden and drastic change in sleep / wake schedule than you might be used to 2. Sudden and drastic change in diet 3. Sudden and drastic change in level of autonomy vs collectivism 4. Sudden and dramatic deference to authority / leadership 5. A lack of, or complete abse…

The majority of those could be encountered when you go on holiday.

Re: I Left a Buddhist Retreat in Handcuffs

#83

Post by collyw »

throwaway34241 wrote: post #19
maxander wrote: post #12

Meditation retreats sound interesting, but they've always struck me as tending to have a fairly grueling, bizarre schedule- awake and breakfast at ~6AM, dinner at 4pm, lights out at 9PM (and no meal until breakfast the next day.) It strikes me as the worst setup for long meditation sessions- getting everyone sleepy and hungry and out of sorts. That it would send susceptible people off the deep end doesn't sound surpr…

If you're going to sleep that early, I don't understand what the problem is with that schedule? For example, if you made everything 3 hours later, that would be breakfast at 9AM, dinner at 7PM and lights out at midnight. That's still 9 hours of sleep... it's probably a bit early compared to the average coder schedule, but waking up around sunrise doesn't seem all that strange (compared to waking up hours after the su…

I have tried arguing this with self proclaimed night owls including my girlfriend.

The time of day is nothing more than a number, so saying that "I can't sleep before 11pm" is pretty nonsense. We swap the clocks back / forward by an hour twice every year and it only takes a couple of days to get used to the change. Spain is an hour ahead of the UK, despite being on the same longitude. If you ever fly between time zones, again it only takes a few days for your body to adjust.

I am still looking for someone to give me a decent counterargument and that "night owls" is a real thing that couldn't be solved with some discipline about sleep and waking times. Night Owls always seem to focus on a specific time, ignoring that fact that it is all relative.

Re: I Left a Buddhist Retreat in Handcuffs

#84

Post by collyw »

philwelch wrote: post #26
maxander wrote: post #12

Meditation retreats sound interesting, but they've always struck me as tending to have a fairly grueling, bizarre schedule- awake and breakfast at ~6AM, dinner at 4pm, lights out at 9PM (and no meal until breakfast the next day.) It strikes me as the worst setup for long meditation sessions- getting everyone sleepy and hungry and out of sorts. That it would send susceptible people off the deep end doesn't sound surpr…

This is partially the purpose of army basic training. If you can’t take the stress of boot camp, it’s good to know that before you’re faced with the stress of combat.

I am curious if medical training (which apparently involves lots of crazy shifts) has a similar purpose.

Re: I Left a Buddhist Retreat in Handcuffs

#85

Post by kuss »

I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned already, but one thing I've found mentioned again and again in various meditation forums as an aid for people struggling with difficult feelings brought up by meditation is "metta" meditation, which translates roughly to "loving-kindness". Through one way or another (often repeated mantras are used), the meditation aims to generate feelings of love and goodwill towards both the meditator and towards others. This compassion can then be called on if difficult feelings arise (and my understanding is they often do at some point).

My understanding is that insight meditation practices in particular, like Vipassana mentioned in the article, are especially likely to bring up difficult feelings. But if one has some sort of "safe container" they can put those feelings within, then they have the opportunity to integrate the experience, and they can grow from that. It's much like being able to recount a traumatic experience in a setting where you feel safe and listened to; it can allow for real healing. But there _needs_ to be some safe context for the pain to be felt. I feel like I read a lot of stories about people trying to dig up as much "insight" as they can, but without giving thought to how they might be able to integrate them (both with meditation and also psychedelics).

For anyone interested in this stuff, I've found Radical Self Acceptance by Tara Brach to be a really great source of both guided metta meditations as well as discussions about balancing "Seeing"/"Insight" and having the safe emotional container for experiences. I would also highly recommend The Mind Illuminated, mentioned elsewhere in this thread, as a great general textbook on meditation, which also gives special attention to uncovering Insight in a way that can be safely integrated.

Re: I Left a Buddhist Retreat in Handcuffs

#86

Post by virtualwhys »

enraged_camel wrote: post #57
gotocake wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lack of sleep, sudden change of routine, total immersion in a new mindset, and withholding food is the classic playbook of cult indoctrination. The point is to weaken existing barriers that would otherwise keep people aloof, disengaged, and instead create a total experience. I’m not claiming that a meditation retreat is a cult indoctrination, at least not most of the time. It does however share some commonalities wit…

>>Lack of sleep, sudden change of routine, total immersion in a new mindset, and withholding food is the classic playbook of cult indoctrination. None of these: >>awake and breakfast at ~6AM, dinner at 4pm, lights out at 9PM (and no meal until breakfast the next day.) ..fit your criteria. Lights out at 9PM and waking up at 6AM gives up to 9 hours of sleep. That's plenty. Similarly, going from 4:30-5PM until 6AM witho…

> going from 4:30-5PM until 6AM without food is not a huge deal

In a Vipassana retreat it's actually no food after noon, so that would be 12PM to 7AM iirc (haven't done a 10-day retreat in many years).

And it isn't a huge deal as you'll likely have other things on your "plate", such as a heaping portion of pain in the X (where X is your knees, back, buttocks, etc.) to keep you full :)

Re: I Left a Buddhist Retreat in Handcuffs

#87

Post by philwelch »

collyw wrote: post #84
philwelch wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is partially the purpose of army basic training. If you can’t take the stress of boot camp, it’s good to know that before you’re faced with the stress of combat.

I am curious if medical training (which apparently involves lots of crazy shifts) has a similar purpose.

"Hazing" in general has a "let's subject you to hardship to see what you're made of" component to it, which is sometimes of value and sometimes is just a cargo-cult.

Re: I Left a Buddhist Retreat in Handcuffs

#88

Post by arpa »

kup0 wrote: post #81
arpa wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

beautifully put! If I might add - the first noble truth is that life is suffering, to which, the noble eightfold path only offers a temporary remedy. It has been a long time since I've been on the path, but I still remember the beauty of the inner silence; however I also remember how the silence becomes the void that eats away at the world we dream, leaving only the cold and naked meaningless of the world - i still r…

IMHO, I think the translation "life is suffering" is inaccurate enough to be particularly negative/nihilistic. Though, maybe "pain is an inescapable part of life" is too much the other way, not sure. "Life is dukkha" seems to mean so much more than that. Especially as the Buddha expounds on multiple types of Dukkha, only one of which is suffering/pain. The other two, being impermanence and conditioned states.

One could go even further and say that life can not be easily defined by a single term; hence the three marks of existence, which also seem to be reflected in a way in a western ethos. But even these three marks, in my humblest ans undereducated opinion, are just an entrypoint to describing the human condition.

It is probably most safe to say: "life is such". But that's akin to saying nothing; perhaps in this lies the absolute truth?

Re: I Left a Buddhist Retreat in Handcuffs

#90

Post by lnanek2 »

mruts wrote: post #3

I found the article a little disorganized and the author seems to be having trouble expounding a clear thesis. I just read it for the second time, and I still don’t have a good grasp of what he experienced or what connections he’s trying to make to Buddhism. Maybe that’s understandable given what happened to him (though I’m not really sure of, besides him going “crazy”), but I still think that as a journalist he shou…

He seemed to eventually find a case, a woman, where someone without prior mental illness experienced what he did. That makes a stronger point than his own experience, since he had spent months in a mental hospital previously. So I guess his thesis is that psychosis can be induced by meditation in some unidentifiable segment of the population. Although if you Google this Arising and Passing away business, it seems accepted and known to the practitioners anyway.
Post reply on HN