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

My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

danlawton.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 600 posts

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#221

Post by lhorie »

cyberpunk wrote: post #63
rolleiflex wrote: post #12

Since this is a long article, here’s a summary for fellow readers — it’s mostly about the negative side effects of meditation that the author believes is under-documented or under-reported due to the ‘hype’ of meditation as the 21st century cure-all. He talks about dissociative experiences (which is well documented in medical research), it being a pseudo-religion, and lastly, his belief that the extended use of medit…

These sorts of things have been dealt with for centuries by Buddhists, it’s a fairly common effect when you start with Zazen. This is why taking one part of the practice and abandoning the rest (most specifically, an experienced teacher) isn’t a great idea for everyone. Most of the time all you need to hear is “just let whatever comes up during Zazen go, and return to the moment” but alas, if you don’t things can go…

One take I heard about yoga that kinda applies here is "if yoga is injuring you, your understanding of it is wrong"

I think the underlying issue with all these asian-spiritualism-turned-western-nouveau-health is that western people sometimes come in wanting things to be intense, clinical and goal-oriented. But that's literally the opposite of what most of what these disciplines are all about. Asian health upkeep practices (yoga, tai chi, meditation, radio taiso, etc) are mostly about gentle but consistent practice to keep gears oiled for the long run. Most of those aren't even meant to be healing disciplines.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#222

Post by andrewzah »

Nursie wrote: post #79

Wow, there are a lot of judgemental and defensive responses here, from people who are allegedly working towards greater self knowledge and detachment... So many saying some variation of "he's not doing it right". Yet with ten years of practice, it doesn't seem like this person was just dabbling or dipping their toe in the water. Surely, even if they are "doing it wrong" that just goes to prove the point, that what's…

10 years doesn't really mean much by itself. If I incorrectly practice guitar for 10 years, I'll have experience of practicing the guitar incorrectly, and maybe RSI/health issues from not learning correct posture, etc. There is no rule that I'll actually get "good" at guitar by practicing that way.

"that 's being taught and lauded so much as a panacea"

Lauded by whom? And exactly? Buddhism? Meditation? Those are very different and learning from an experienced practitioner is important.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#223

Post by ljm »

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).

I wouldn't even call them negative, per se, even though you might perceive them as such.

These are things you've held deep down that are, through your heightened self-awareness, being dragged kicking and screaming to the surface.

Once the duck is out of the bottle, you can't put it back in. You have to take care of the duck. Having a support network or community certainly helps, and the meditation just shone the light on what was already there.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#224

Post by xiii1408 »

There was an excellent article in Harpers about this a few months ago: https://harpers.org/archive/2021/04/lost-in-thought-psycholo...

I had no idea, but schizophrenic breaks and other psychological symptoms are not uncommon at meditation retreats, and staff are often untrained on how to deal with it.

Sorry this happened to you OP, and I hope you're able to get effective help.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#225

Post by theqabalist »

Forgive me if anyone has said as much, but something that directly stands out to me about all of the comments heretofore mentioned is that they are treating a state of consciousness in a formalist way, as if the mind exists independent of the body. The brain's activities and the things the mind experiences are very much situated in the realm of bodily states. One state that is very common amongst people who follow certain paths is malnutrition.

I am not necessarily going to try to start a flame war over which diet or whatever could cause which set of nutrient deficiencies, but I think its a salient point that he has self professed clinical symptoms (like convulsing muscles) and never sought medical help, only seeking more help from the same overly formal realm of rules.

Additionally, the author mentions following all these buddhist frameworks, but in Theravada at least, part of the eight fold path is not drinking or doing drugs, yet he says he would drink and do drugs when he didn't get the jolt he wanted from the practice. Alcohol and drugs, while not necessarily inherently bad, are great at depleting the body of essential things like vitamins, minerals, and neurotransmitters needed for proper brain functioning.

The only real treatment he gives to this is saying, "no preexisting conditions." Of course, I hope I don't have to explain that just because you haven't been diagnosed with a deficiency of some kind, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I also find his later comment that another practitioner had "no preexisting conditions except anxiety," to be particularly problematic. Anxiety is a preexisting condition, which lends some probability that his evaluation of preexisting conditions could be overly lax, and his consistent search for confirmation bias that Buddhism would solve his medical/biological problems could cause him to downplay actual preexisting conditions.

Anyway, I agree with many of the other people that dark nights, etc are well known phenomena, so I don't want to downplay any of that. I just wanted to add to the conversation that nutrition is very important, and if you fuck that up, you can get really fucked up psychologically due to dysfunctional parts.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#226

Post by Nursie »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #213
Nursie wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that's how you feel, that without meditation and mindfulness you do not feel fully awake and 'conscious', though I suspect what you mean by 'conscious' is different to what I might mean. I am glad you've found something that increases your enjoyment and appreciation of your life. I enjoy and appreciate mine, too. And hopefully we all learn pretty quickly that drinking too much can utterly ruin the next d…

This could be a nice end of the conversation as it was obviously meant to be but now I feel very curious about this: > I suspect what you mean by 'conscious' is different to what I might mean What do you mean? I would sincerely appreciate if you could dedicate some more time and try to explain.

Well, to me, the semantic definition of being conscious is simply to be awake, rather than asleep, insensible, anaesthetised, blacked out or whatever else.

You seem to have a slightly different definition, I think, based on these remarks -

  "It is important to maintain conscious"
  "I've heard about Buddhists who train to always stay consciousness while living, talking and whatever,"
  "I enjoy more value out of my life if I am more awake, conscious for longer and more frequent periods of time"
I maintain consciousness whenever I am awake, because that's what being awake is, as far as I understand the word. The second quote, well being conscious is a pre-requisite for me talking (unless you count mumbling in my sleep, which does happen). And I don't think in that last quote you're talking about deliberate sleep deprivation so you can be awake longer (you could be?).

It just made me think you were not using the word in the same sense I would. Do you think it's possible to be awake (i.e. not asleep) without necessarily being conscious? If so that would just confirm we have different definitions of that word.

I could be wrong.

(And I don't especially want to direct this conversation towards "what really is consciousness?" because it's a very slippery eel of a topic)

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#227

Post by qwerty456127 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #201
pmoriarty wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 t…

In Western psychiatry, the loss of a sense of self is dissociation, and is a mark of psychosis (to diagnose psychosis, you'd need some other marks, especially delusions or hallucinations). I was over-simplifying when I said "destroying the belief that you have an independent self" - the cause of suffering is attachment to the sense of an independent self. Attachment in general is seen as a cause of suffering, but att…

> The Abidharma is the closest thing in Buddhism to psychology; it presents a detailed, practical (for meditators) way of thinking about the mind and how it works. It doesn't resemble Western psychology at all.

By the way, why does is not? What do you mean under Western psychology at all? Freud and Jung? If so, is it a mere incoincidence the models of the mind they invented are different from that of Abidharma or did they sort of look on the object from different angles?

When trying to model a mind there are obvious elements everybody can note (can they?): the mood, the memories, the focus of the attention, the sense of self, rational logic, computational intelligence, slow and fast decision functions, self-control, compassion, random thoughts popping up and making mental noise, attitude, instincts (like fear, jealousy, arousal, etc), probably some other. Why do different thinkers come up with different models?

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#228

Post by pmoriarty »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #197
pmoriarty wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

"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."

The gods are not the same, but the faith seems very similar to me.

What is the difference between a Pure Land Buddhist believing chanting the nenbutsu[1] ("I take refuge in the Buddha of Inconceivable Light!") in order to get in to ensure rebirth in to Amitabha's pure land and a Christian saying they accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior in order to get in to heaven?

Not much, from what I can see.

Even in the more secular forms of Buddhism, Buddhists regularly follow the precepts, take refuge in the dharma, Buddha, and Sangha because they believe it'll get them to enlightenment. And some believe "just sitting" for 20 years or whatever will make them enlightened.

Interestingly, some forms of Buddhism preach that one should not be so goal-oriented and should "just sit" without reason or expectation. That also sounds not very different from blind faith to me, where the believer is encouraged to throw reason out the window and "just believe" or "just do" (whatever the religious authorities tell them to).

"FAIK 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."

Well, the "punishment" in the case of Buddhism is supposedly just the iron law of karma and rebirth in to the world of suffering. It's not meted out by a god in Buddhism's case, but it still serves as a very effective stick on the Buddhist faithful.

"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."

Is secular Buddhism the highest kind? Just as in any major religion, there is great disagreement among the various Buddhist traditions as to which is the truer Buddhism. Many of these branches don't accept each other's most sacred texts as being as authentic or as important as their own, which preach radically different understandings of the Buddha's teachings.

One of them really might be more authentic, and everybody's got their own opinion on that, but ultimately who's to say?

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nianfo

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#229

Post by scotty79 »

theqabalist wrote: post #225

Forgive me if anyone has said as much, but something that directly stands out to me about all of the comments heretofore mentioned is that they are treating a state of consciousness in a formalist way, as if the mind exists independent of the body. The brain's activities and the things the mind experiences are very much situated in the realm of bodily states. One state that is very common amongst people who follow ce…

I had pretty much the same symptoms as this guy with zero meditation, just caffeine overdose. When I stopped drinking coffee and tea all symptoms, including dread and feeling that something is very wrong, muscle twitching and other odd feelings went away.

And I didn't even drink that much by coffee drinkers standards.

Post reply on HN