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

Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

harpers.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 289 posts

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#81

Post by theptip »

seigando wrote: post #79
theptip wrote: post #75

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/ ). 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 th…

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.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#82

Post by seigando »

theptip wrote: post #81
seigando wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#83

Post by h0l0cube »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #69
kumarvvr wrote: post #6

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). I…

> 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.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#84

Post by gojomo »

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

https://web.archive.org/web/20091114023754/https://www.sfwee...

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#85

Post by seigando »

prophesi wrote: post #35

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.

That’s... not what this kind of meditation is about. Nor is that necessarily what happened.

Shockingly ignorant and dismissive of you.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#86

Post by nightowl_games »

sn41 wrote: post #30
rarefied_tomato wrote: post #11

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…

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 n…

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.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#87

Post by h0l0cube »

rarefied_tomato wrote: post #11

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…

> 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.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#88

Post by frongpik »

mangamadaiyan wrote: post #31
kumarvvr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really curious. Can you give more details? Vamachara stuff is forbidden and can lead to extremely dangerous reverse effects.

Who forbids it?

From wikipedia: Vāmācāra is a Sanskrit term meaning "left-handed attainment" and is synonymous with "Left-Hand Path".

In occultism, "left hand path" means black magic. So it would be the "right hand path" followers who forbid practice vamachara.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#89

Post by h0l0cube »

travisjungroth wrote: post #29
calt wrote: post #24

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 A…

> Everyone who claims all meditation is great and nothing bad can happen is ignorant. Or lying. I doubt the meditation center in the article updated the claims on their site after these events.

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.

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards...

Post reply on HN