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My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

danlawton.substack.com

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Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#111

Post by pmoriarty »

cyberpunk wrote: post #74
shmageggy wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly the kind of inappropriate advice that the author is cautioning against. He was not just starting out, he had experienced teachers, and the horriffic panic-attack-like state he was not something that could have been addressed by "returning to the moment".

He was an instructor in "Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction" -- sorry, this is not a real thing. He's been teaching things he clearly does not understand, and his mind was blown by this. When I say "a teacher would tell you to come back to the moment" it's not quite as simple as I make it sound, the key thing is who the advice is coming from (read: an actual zen teacher who has received transmission, not a charlatan…

"the key thing is who the advice is coming from (read: an actual zen teacher who has received transmission, not a charlatan mindfulness camp fleecing wannabe mindfulness bro's out of several hundred dollars to sit with no experience for 10 days)"

Why Zen specifically? There are many different types of Buddhism.

Even if it does have to be Zen, which kind of Zen? Rinzai or Soto, or some mix of the two (which some Zen schools advocate)?

And why Buddhism, anyway? Meditation is practiced in many different religious traditions.

"mindfulness" is itself rooted in the Theraveda -- not Zen -- Buddhist tradition, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the "right" way to meditate must be a Buddhist way as opposed to, say, one of the many Hindu forms of meditation.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#113

Post by Nursie »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #104
Nursie wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if one does, one may end up with mental health problems.

If one does not, they end up with [often undiagnosed] mental health problems anyway. Everything is dangerous, you just should try your best to do it the right way under supervision of a qualified person and stop if it goes wrong.

> Everything is dangerous

This is not what is being promoted by the mindfulness/buddhism-lite industry that the article is talking about.

> you just should try your best to do it the right way under supervision of a qualified person and stop if it goes wrong.

This appears to contradict "One should meditate always"

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#114

Post by tralarpa »

> As an instructor in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), I spent four years teaching meditation as a full-time job. A longtime meditator, I have logged roughly 4,000 hours of practice over 10 years, including over 100 days on silent meditation retreats.

These numbers are telling everything you need to know about the the state of meditation in the Western world... His teachers were probably not much better.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#115

Post by Nursie »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #96
nix23 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about during sleep, but meditation is nothing else then to life and think in the present, give your brain a task and focus just on that, then the next one. If you go into the future or past do it intended.

> give your brain a task and focus just on that Not really. It is important to maintain conscious. When you simply "focus on just that" you may then just wake up once the task is complete and find out you've went through it automatically like if it was a [non-lucid] dream. As about meditating while sleeping - I have not explored this part enough. Renowned Dzogchen teachers Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche and Chogyal Namkhai…

> You only live and actually own/use your time when mindful. When you are not it just disappears.

This sounds both judgemental and obsessive, just so you know.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#116

Post by pantulis »

denton-scratch wrote: post #89
pantulis wrote: post #8

As with many other types of exercise, practitioners are bound to have injuries. I'd even say the injuries the author suffered are equivalent to breaking a leg while running. This is the take away for me: > "I believe that these practices, with the correct framework, dosage, and education, can be a valuable tool for improving mental health. "

> This is the take away for me Well, perhaps you haven't read the article; the OP is saying that meditation is dangerous, and that meditation teachers don't warn you of the dangers. Isn't that the opposite of your "take away"?

It is a verbatim copy from the article, somewhat hidden in one of the last paragraphs (perhaps you didn't read the whole article? sorry could not resist!). Which was kind of surprising given the previous content, but it makes sense.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#117

Post by cyberpunk »

pmoriarty wrote: post #111
cyberpunk wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was an instructor in "Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction" -- sorry, this is not a real thing. He's been teaching things he clearly does not understand, and his mind was blown by this. When I say "a teacher would tell you to come back to the moment" it's not quite as simple as I make it sound, the key thing is who the advice is coming from (read: an actual zen teacher who has received transmission, not a charlatan…

"the key thing is who the advice is coming from (read: an actual zen teacher who has received transmission, not a charlatan mindfulness camp fleecing wannabe mindfulness bro's out of several hundred dollars to sit with no experience for 10 days)" Why Zen specifically? There are many different types of Buddhism. Even if it does have to be Zen, which kind of Zen? Rinzai or Soto, or some mix of the two (which some Zen s…

I can only speak from my own experience as a Soto zen Buddhist. It’s ridiculous really, to spend years staring at a wall.

Of course there are many paths, however I am only aware of the one I’ve been down. So, yeah, I have zen tinted glasses on such subjects and whatever I am saying should be taken with the appropriate sodium chloride.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#118

Post by NaN1352 »

Healing trauma is a much better approach, look into Julie Brown talks, "Nurturing Resilience" by Kathy Kain, Irene Lyons channel.

Vipassana is a form of trauma healing anyway, to clear the nervous system from your past essentially, and then keep going further where the ego itself as a form of "contraction" in the entire musculature and nervous system, also lets go.

The problem with those retreats is Vipassana is a completely outdated approach that was made for people living 1000+ years ago. The world, our lives drastically changed since.

A buddhist on a podcast said "trauma is the human condition".

Practicing gratitude, loving kindness, compassion are spiritual practices and also part of healing trauma... and should provide a much more stable ground for opening the body .

Or for a purely physical approach Yoga is great, though after a while... yoga will also surface anger, etc... if it needs to be processed.

I also did retreats 3 times. Yes I felt an immense love when I was there, and I was still miserable years later ... when I finally looked into therapy in general, and then trauma specifically.

When you go into the body and build capacity to feel the intense emotions that may be there, some say possibly even inherited trauma from before birth, you need to balance it out with some kind of grounding. THAT grounding is somewhat provided on retreats by the safe environment, and whatevers going on energetically (very strange)... but essentially they dont teach you that or very little, so then they send you on your way and now you know how to intensely feel the body, but you have no tools to handle the intense levels of fear, anxiety, grief and so on..that may come up.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#119

Post by CTDOCodebases »

jkhdigital wrote: post #103
warent wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My psychologist taught me that fear, anxiety, etc. destructive emotions are surface events, bubbling up from somewhere deeper. Mindfulness can be used as a resource for us to be with that fear; in the words of Thich Nhat Hanh "those painful emotions are like a child crying out. A child needs love and attention. Hold them with love, be with them." Once we can be with it, then we can start to follow it down to its root…

I’m sure the author would love to hear more about your diagnosis of his condition based solely on the content of an essay.

To be fair the diagnosis does align with the authors complaints.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#120

Post by qwerty456127 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #100
eurasiantiger wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buddhism is not a religion per se. I’m sure there are cults around it, but as Dalai Lama put it: if science shows Buddhism to be wrong, then Buddhism must change. Good luck finding that sentiment in any actual religion. If you require more proof, make it a priority to seek understanding of ”Buddha-nature”.

> make it a priority to seek understanding of ”Buddha-nature” Seriously? Buddha-nature teachings are regarded as heretical by many Buddhists. They assert that all beings have this buddha-nature innately, and that it is indestructible, because it does not arise dependent on causes and conditions. That is very much a religious view, and in direct conflict with the traditional teaching that ALL phenomena without excepti…

Regarding anything as heretical is a religious view. Discard it and check yourself through experiential practice and logical exercise. There are many Buddhist/Bön teachers who will never insist on you accepting any idea/dogma nor judge you for thinking different and only guide you to how to actually see it, without harming yourself. Needless to say, as a rather-rational thinker, this is the kind of gurus I prefer. Orthodox dogmatists are there for a different kind of minds. People are different and there are to be ways and teachers optimal for all kinds of them.
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