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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

#161

Post by spadros »

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…

I've practiced zen and Tibetan Buddhism for years. They both contain lots of "spiritual bullocks woo" at times, as does most forms of Buddhism I've encountered. You really need to filter out the good parts for yourself, I find. There are many paths to "meditation" or "mindfulness"; I disagree that those are necessarily separate traditions. This sounds like a "No true Scotsman" type fallacy.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#162

Post by Zababa »

pmoriarty wrote: post #155
Zababa wrote: post #21

This is probably a relatively naive observation, but I've found that the way some people describe meditation and how their mind change is sometimes the same as how people describe their experience under psychadelics. These bad side effects of meditation sound a bit like a bad trip, but without being able to tell yourself that it's chemically induced and thus will stop in a few hours.

"These bad side effects of meditation sound a bit like a bad trip, but without being able to tell yourself that it's chemically induced and thus will stop in a few hours." It's not uncommon to forget one has taken psychedelics when one is having a powerful trip, and just telling yourself that it's chemically induced and will stop in a few hours doesn't necessarily help. That's not to mention that while under the infl…

That's totally fair. My point was, your experience (usually) stops at some point without you having to do anything. That doesn't seem to be the case with meditation.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#163

Post by qwerty456127 »

Nursie wrote: post #149
qwerty456127 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Now I'm here and enjoy the moment. Now I'm not and the body just lives on its own doing it's job like a robot could when I could be dead and not mindful of anything. A minute is gone. To me this seems rather simple. Perhaps my verbal abilities are not enough to explain. Once, as a schoolboy, I've heard about Buddhists who train to always stay consciousness while living, talking and whatever, I considered this am…

Well, you appear to be telling others that their lives and experiences have no value without mindfulness. You also seem to be telling us that the only way you feel your life experience has any value is through this thing also, that your own experience is hollow or even non-existent without it. That seems somewhat extreme. I would make the same comment to (for instance) someone telling us that they live every moment o…

"Being with Jesus" is a rather vague concept which. Different people may understand it differently. Often it even is primitivized to just attributing yourself to a church.

What I am telling, however, is a simple difference between automatic functioning in semi-hypnotic state and living in awake state. Let's take it to the extreme: imagine you were given a choice to spend the rest of your life in deep sleep (the kind you can't remember dreams after) and wake up just minutes before die. Would you agree? Would you consider such life making much sense or value to you? I wouldn't. To me it seems almost the same as dying straight away.

In fact Christianity includes the doctrine of Nepsis which is very much related to this (although many people believe it only means avoiding alcohol).

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#164

Post by damontal »

CretinDesAlpes wrote: post #151

This is an interesting discussion as I wasn't aware that meditation could go wrong if done improperly (never really thought about it). I have only started mindfulness recently, here in the UK via an NHS approved course (though not free...) called BeMindful. I haven't finished the course but so far I like it, and I am wondering what would you suggest for the best next steps? So far the list I have to explore is: * Thi…

Try Gil Fronsdal. He’s a good gentle meditation teacher. There’s a podcast of his talks and guided meditations or you can find them here https://www.audiodharma.org/teacher/1/

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#165

Post by saalweachter »

tommiegannert wrote: post #77

> I relayed my experiences that afternoon to the two teachers who were overseeing the retreat of about 40 meditators. They were both kind, compassionate, and welcoming, suggesting various ways that I might alter my meditation practice to alleviate my symptoms > > In fact, in Britton’s study, 60% of the participants reporting distressing experiences were meditation teachers, rebutting Davidson’s argument that experien…

Finance comes to mind. You make money every year, until you don't.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#166

Post by pmoriarty »

denton-scratch wrote: post #97
simiones wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you tell a real Buddhist teacher from a fake one? What if you are interested in secular meditation and do not believe Buddhism or other religions are truthful?

> How do you tell a real Buddhist teacher from a fake one? This is notoriously difficult. Buddhist teachers are extremely reluctant to criticise one another; you won't get a straight answer if you ask "Should I go on a retreat with teacher X?". Ultimately you have to rely on your own intuition, which makes it a bit of a game of dice. > What if you are interested in secular meditation and do not believe Buddhism or ot…

"Vipassana is a set of techniques for destroying the belief that you have an independent self. Not believing you have a self is itself a mark of psychosis."

This way of looking at it reveals a clash between Buddhism and mainstream "Western" psychology.

If one experiences the self as unreal, the world as unreal, others as unreal, according to some forms of Buddhism you're on your way to enlightenment (if not already there). But according to mainstream Western psychology you're mentally ill.

Which is it?

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#167

Post by Zababa »

cyberpunk wrote: post #107
shmageggy wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That just seems wildly unlikely to me. We're talking about a practice whose goal is to manipulate the brain, an organ that has been called the most complex object in the universe, something that centuries of science have only begin to understand, and that comes with vast and poorly understood diversity across people. There are first hand and scientific accounts of this happening, albeit rarely, to experienced and kno…

Well, keep in mind this is a practice that as far as we know people have been practicing for at least 2600 years, I think doing things like a 5-10 day Vipassana retreat is not a risk free thing, but you really shouldn’t be doing those unless you are ready. I follow the Soto school of Zen Buddhism, my teacher would not allow me to go to Sessin (which is a multi day meditation retreat) until I had been practicing for l…

Reading about your experience makes me realize that the mindfulness industry is probably another case of trying to remove the human element to improve scalability, with terrible results.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#168

Post by nprateem »

Kundalini syndrome. Not great. Widely written about but you need to know where to look. Gopi Krishna is probably the most widely known case, but you only have to peruse Reddit's Kundalini subs for more.

That's my issue with all this mindfulness stuff. A load of Westerners ripped the guts out of practices to shed the "dogma". But that "religion" they chucked out was the result of generations of people interpreting these strange experiences and is supposed to provide some kind of map of the terrain. Only since not everyone experiences spontaneous Kundalini events most of them don't understand the symbology.

I'm told a guide is invaluable, if you're fortunate enough to track down someone legit.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#169

Post by m12k »

damontal wrote: post #160
m12k wrote: post #93

A lot of people come into meditation/mindfulness with this preconceived notion that you sit down, close your eyes, focus on your breathing, and find your inner bliss. In my experience, nothing could be further from the truth. You sit down, close your eyes, focus on your breathing, and come face to face with the tornado of thoughts and emotions that is raging inside you. It's like running htop on your brain to find th…

What do you mean by dissociating? What is that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociation_(psychology)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissociative_disorder

TLDR, it's when some of the core associations in your brain start collapsing. E.g. you lose your sense of self, the world starts feeling unreal, your emotional responses to the world get out of whack. I think of it as semi-random rewiring of the connection between regions of your brain. Changing the layout of the connectivity of your brain is indeed a purpose of meditation, but always slowly over months and years. Doing so in a sudden, violent or random fashion most certainly isn't.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#170

Post by eurasiantiger »

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…

> 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

Yes.

> in direct conflict with the traditional teaching that ALL phenomena without exception arise dependent on causes and conditions

With all due respect, make it a priority to seek understanding of ”Buddha-nature”.

Try the Koans.

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