Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation • Hacker News Board

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#141

Post by froh » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 10:58 AM UTC

pure_simplicity wrote: post #121

cambaceres wrote: post #115

My theory is that both Christianity and Islam exists because of the fact that deep prolonged mediation causes hallucinations and psychotic experiences. Why? Because God talked to both Jesus and Muhammed while they where meditating in the desert.

It can be useful to speculate, but I think you're not that familiar with what meditation in the Abrahamic religions looks like. Meditation in the biblical sense is to think deeply about something. Meditation in the eastern religion sense is to not think about anything. Those two are basically polar opposites and the psychological / neurological effects of the latter cannot be achieved by practising the former. (vario…

in contrast this the Christian raised Buddhist scholar Kenneth S Leong would juxtapose his analysis that Jesus' teachings were indeed like Zen teachings and that Jesus' form of prayer was the silent prayer very much equivalent to Eastern meditation.

book: kenneth s leong the zen teachings of jesus

https://g.co/kgs/79Znnu

the silent prayer was also.identified with the "desert fathers" who have shaped much if the foundations of early Christianity.

silent prayer is a "come and see for yourself" approach, shifting the ownership of religious truth from the teacher as nd the church defining it to the individual discovering it through "discernment of the spirits", "in Christo".

silent, contemplative prayer is dismissed by some literalist and evangelical Churches as "satanic", "diabolical", "umbilical", but hey, what isn't :-)

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#142

Post by pattt » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 11:00 AM UTC

tugberkk wrote: post #129

prox wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This! I read Zen tradition and their meditation is sitting, calming and contemplating on things (depending on their school). The word "meditation" is used for almost everything and in different senses.

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.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#143

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 11:11 AM UTC

tugberkk wrote: post #129

prox wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This! I read Zen tradition and their meditation is sitting, calming and contemplating on things (depending on their school). The word "meditation" is used for almost everything and in different senses.

[deleted]

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#144

Post by fjfaase » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 11:16 AM UTC

hudon wrote: post #130

rasengan0 wrote: post #116

Let's face it, unfortunate suffering arises. Not everyone is cut out for Guriji's 12 hour meditation session. I'm not. How about 2 seconds of meditation? What is meditation? How long? Where? in a 102 degree F room or subzero little hut? Are you alone in solitary or with people? Is focusing on Guriji's toy poodle a part of the style? Seriously are you really ready ? It's not a game or vacation to shangri la. I think a…

> I'd pin that on the "mindfulness" industry and the infantile society we have become I think that’s the gist of the article, but maybe the author could have been more explicit. The “mindfulness” movement detached meditation from its source and repackaged it for consumerist society. On the receiving end, users of “Calm” or “Headspace” purchase a product with an incomplete warning label... but perhaps if we were more…

In addition, one could also infer from the article that the original purpose of meditation was to break from the cycle of infinite reincarnations by means of bringing the mind in a disassociative state with reality (life on earth). I understand that the psychotic state overlaps with a disassocative state. I also understood that it is common knowledge that meditating a lot leads to insommia and that even meditating more than 30 minutes per day as a measurable effect on sleep quality. So, it seems that meditation is only useful when you believe in reincarnation and believe it is the only way for escaping the endless wheel of reincarnation. If you believe you have but one life, it is probably not the best method to benefit from that one life.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#145

Post by krueger71 » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 11:37 AM UTC

tugberkk wrote: post #129

prox wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This! I read Zen tradition and their meditation is sitting, calming and contemplating on things (depending on their school). The word "meditation" is used for almost everything and in different senses.

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.

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#146

Post by fjfaase » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 11:42 AM UTC

viceroyalbean wrote: post #56

bamboozled wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#147

Post by Nemrod67 » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 11:42 AM UTC

mulberrybush wrote: post #125

asymptosis wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the syllabus I was working through: https://web.archive.org/web/20040612155253/http://www.kamaka... It isn't obvious that asanas, breathing exercises, mantras and visualisation are somehow breaching any taboos of any society that I know of ;)

This is derived from kriya yoga, not Vāmācāra. Another similar online tutorial is https://www.aypsite.org/10.html . Real Vāmācāra by definition involves breaking all taboos - see this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hiKDMsIHn8 (warning - it is pretty horrific)

Watching the doc, all I see is LARP.

Why do we consider those seriously while making fun of LaVey's rituals?

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#148

Post by krueger71 » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 11:45 AM UTC

In the Zen-tradition it's almost expected at some point during meditation to have hallucinations (sometimes severe) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maky%C5%8D

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#149

Post by JulianRaphael » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 11:49 AM UTC

spaetzleesser wrote: post #3

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 someth…

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...

Re: Lost in Thought: Psychological Risks of Meditation

#150

Post by Ploskin » Wed, Mar 17, 2021, 12:00 PM UTC

That's quite the lengthy article. Interesting topic though. I recently stumbled over the Astray podcast (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/astray/id1552069504) which is also a decent look at the psychological risks (and maybe easier to consume than a 6000 word essay).