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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

#191

Post by SyzygistSix »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #127
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…

> an actual zen teacher who has received transmission, not a charlatan I'm really hoping you were going for darkly ironic humour, if not, please reread your sentence I quoted and, I don't know, contemplate on it. Received transmission? From the Trisolarians perhaps?

Transmission is a form of teaching/learning.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#192

Post by SyzygistSix »

shmageggy wrote: post #82
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…

So, to clarify, you are aligning with the view he's opposing in the article that if someone has a profoundly negative experience due to meditation they're just "doing it wrong". That the practice, when done a certain way, carries 0% risk for very bad effects?

If one is thinking about these experiences as "right" or "wrong", they have certainly failed.

Uncomfortable, sure. Experiencing the dark night of the soul is not meant to be comfy. It can be rewarding though. Sometimes it is merely insight into our physical and psychological make up though. I don't care what kind of adventures one gets into but if you start getting extreme with them, you're eventually going to experience some really sketchy, uncomfortable, and even life-threatening situations.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#193

Post by hderms »

icybox wrote: post #36
mlang23 wrote: post #33

> This terrain was fresh. I had never previously experienced a psychotic episode and have no history of mental illness besides occasional bouts of mild anxiety and depression. ... > Why did I start meditating? The short answer is that in 2009 I started a fist fight in a French Quarter bar over some jambalaya, a steamy kiss, and a stray comment I didn’t take fondly. The evening ended hours later after I broke a window…

Alan Watts used to say "When you've received the message, hang up the phone."

man, I love Alan Watts. We're so lucky to have so much of his actual speech recorded as the tone of his voice and the way he communicates ideas are really fascinating

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#194

Post by SyzygistSix »

Leparamour wrote: post #156
bencollier49 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "Dark Night" is typically attributed to St. John of the Cross, although I'd be willing to believe that the term has been used in other traditions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul Ah, note the last paragraph in this article: 'In modern mindfulness practice, many authors have named a similar phenomenon in meditation as the dark night of the soul after the poem. It is often described as a length…

>irresponsible meditation practices I can't imagine what an irresponsible meditation practice would look like. Any pointers?

In Buddhism, one big one would be not keeping in mind the primary goal of non-attachment. Non-attachment to bliss, horror, expectations, and certainly not to any goal.

The Biography of Naropa would make an amazing horror movie. Really wild read as well.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#195

Post by cyberpunk »

_y5hn wrote: post #185
ljm wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't conflate mindfulness (or capital M mindfulness, you could say) with meditation either. Meditation has always been a deeply spiritual practice; Mindfulness attempts to turn it into a psychological, clinical one.

From the article: > "I spent my last day in Los Angeles riding on a Segway, buying legal marijuana and staring at some turtles in an on-campus pond at UCLA. I was unsettled yet intrigued by Britton’s message. Some of the adverse experiences she had described were similar to challenges I had faced. But, at this point I was a decade into my intensive mindfulness meditation practice. I was too deep to get out. " There's…

Crazy.

Agree with everything, although I would say at least in Soto 45 mins seems to be the maximum for one period during sessin, and 15 of that will be kinhin (walking meditation), I tend to do about an hour a day in two sessions, but any longer and there isn’t really any reward.

Drugs are a hard no, I mean do them all you want but don’t combine the two.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#196

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

SyzygistSix wrote: post #189

I am nowhere near the experienced meditator or Buddhist student that the author is but this part stuck out: " I described how on numerous occasions all my thoughts disintegrated and I bathed for extended periods of time in states of deep, non-conceptual bliss. I thought awakening was right around the corner " Isn't this particularly warned against in meditation? To me this is more akin to trance and in Buddhism, more…

So, the trouble is that meditation as a practice, was always embedded into a larger sense of spirit/community/whatever.

The popularity of MBSR broke that largely, and now lots of people start meditating with the notion that it's just mental exercise (which it is, sortof) and are very unprepared for some of the negative side-effects (which are normally parts of the mind that your consciousness doesn't want to accept).

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#197

Post by qwerty456127 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #180
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”.

"Buddhism is not a religion per se." There are many types of Buddhism, and some types are definitely very religious. Take Pure Land Buddhism[1][2], for example, one of the most popular forms of Buddhism in Japan, believers of which essentially pray to the Buddha for salvation and hope to be reborn in a heavenly land. It has some interesting similarities to Christianity. Buddhism as it's actually practiced in parts of…

> Is faith in the effectiveness of the Eightfold Path, the Buddha, and the Sangha all that different from Christian faith in God

Unlike the Christian G-d, the Buddha does not judge, does not punish, does not forgive and has not died in tortures for your sins, this way enabling priests demand you feel guilty. AFAIK the Buddha taught you should pursue the Eightfold Path as a tool to attain your ultimate goal, not as a law breaking which is evil and a subject to punishment.

> Buddhism as it's actually practiced in parts of Asia has many magical, "superstitious" components, like believing that a red string connected to a statue of the Buddha can transfer magical power from the Buddha to what the string is tied to. Believers pray to Buddha all the time for protection, luck, or even wealth. Some Buddhists believe in magical effects from tattoos made by Buddhist monks or that a Buddhist funeral would bring an auspicious rebirth.

> There's been a concerted, conscious effort to desacralize Buddhism to make it more palatable to Westerners, but if you look at how Buddhism is actually practiced in the places where it came from before it got to the West it's pretty clear that it's a religion.

Some times I contemplate what a blessing it is we have been born in the west and given highest monastic kinds of Buddhism right away instead of being born in a Buddhist country where only (mostly) monks can pursue enlightenment and the laymen only know worship and magick. I know a monk would probably laugh at this and tell I don't understand the point and I believe I know why, nevertheless I won't deny such an idea visits me occasionally.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#198

Post by SyzygistSix »

thinkingemote wrote: post #80
IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your conclusion. I'd go a step further and state there is no such thing as a bad trip. There are just situations where loss go of control can result in the surfacing of things that are unresolved... and unpleasant. No one has a bad trip without the latter. Another reason why psychedelics should come with clear warning labels that describe bad outcomes for specific situations.

A bad trip can tell people unthruths or falsehoods that they then believe. That is objectively bad. In other words, a bad trip can manifest pathologies where none existed before.

The problem there is belief, not the psychedelics. It can happen with happy or blissful experiences as well.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#200

Post by SyzygistSix »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #196
SyzygistSix wrote: post #189

I am nowhere near the experienced meditator or Buddhist student that the author is but this part stuck out: " I described how on numerous occasions all my thoughts disintegrated and I bathed for extended periods of time in states of deep, non-conceptual bliss. I thought awakening was right around the corner " Isn't this particularly warned against in meditation? To me this is more akin to trance and in Buddhism, more…

So, the trouble is that meditation as a practice, was always embedded into a larger sense of spirit/community/whatever. The popularity of MBSR broke that largely, and now lots of people start meditating with the notion that it's just mental exercise (which it is, sortof) and are very unprepared for some of the negative side-effects (which are normally parts of the mind that your consciousness doesn't want to accept).

People like Aleister Crowley, Austin Spare, and modern psychonauts interested in chaos magic have worked/played in these spaces outside of established traditions and communities. And there have always been people like this. But they also fully expect some weirdness to occur.

Meditation within a community and tradition is certainly a safer, and often more fruitful way to go about it, just like traveling anywhere with a group, a guide, on established paths, and with a good map. It's a good way to learn the ropes but some folks like to take more adventurous approaches.

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