My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

> I honestly think it's _insane_ that they (vipassana) will take regular people who haven't done meditation and allow them to do a 10 day silent retreat.

I did a Vipassana 12 day retreat (years ago) but I didn't find it to be that wild.

The hardest part for me was actually sitting down 15? hours a day. Had I known what I was going to do I would have prepared by doing exercises to strengthen my back.

Buddhists are currently engaging in the genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar. No philosophy is beyond being subverted to evil, and ascribing to a particular philosophy will not protect you from doing evil.

Meditation is a blade with no hilt.

I _accidentally_ fell into a vipassana state of mind after the first time trying a particular religious chant, seriously, from out of the pains of boredom as a 20 year old.

At the time I lived nearby mountains, and after 'coming to', I saw them through the window. I cannot describe to you the overwhelming feeling of beauty and awe that crashed over me. It was as though this was the very first time I had ever seen mountains. I think the best description I can manage comes from 'Both Sides Now' by Joni Mitchell.

'I've looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down, and still somehow It's cloud illusions I recall I really don't know clouds at all'

The experience was so disorienting. As if I was seeing the mountains for what they were directly through my senses and not mediated by my knowledge of what mountains were like, linguistically.

It changed my entire life -- weeks later later I lost my job and fell into a 5 year extreme depression / anxiety spell in the attempt to reconcile my adolescent religious upbringing with the continued insight from that experience. Absolutely worthwhile, in hindsight, but it cost me near everything for it.

I try to follow the more science-y literature and news on meditation, so here's my take.

Diana Winston [1] runs the Mindfulness Education at UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC). In her book, The Little Book of Being, she describes a mental breakdown--for lack of a better word--during an extended meditation retreat, just as this author. She spent a year as a Burmese nun, too.

In it, she talks about how she would cry every day on some retreats, even in front of her meditation teacher. Looking back, she credits the experience to some psychological issues (my words, not hers).

Sam Harris PhD, one of most unforgiving people of bad science, has a great meditation app, Waking Up [2], which I really like. In it, he specifically says, if this is causing you harm, or you're losing touch with reality, STOP immediately.

He likens it to exercise. Exercise is great for you; hell, it's one of the best things you can do for your mind and body, and the research is very clear on this.

But, some exercises might be bad for you. If you have a bad shoulder, DON'T DO PUSHUPS. If you have bum knees, STOP JOGGING. You need to talk to a professional to find out how to do work around your specific injury.

Most of us aren't able to self-diagnose our psyches like this. It's almost impossible. There are, however, trained meditators out there of various religious and non-religious persuasions that can help you on your journey.

My two cents, and others have mentioned this too, is that removing some of the "Eastern aura" of meditation is great for us in the West. Less robes and incense, more love and kindness. The Dhali Llama has said that the Buddhism that he here in the West study is some of the "purest" there is.

But there's thousands of pages in Buddhist literature about all the demons and bliss you can experience during meditation, and how to approach it and understand it. Put it into context, some one to tell you, "Keep going, you're starting to get it", or, "Stop, you're doing it wrong, you're doing more harm than good."

BUT going on a 10-day silent meditation retreat, even one day, is insane if you've never meditated. Much like running an ultramarathon with no training. If your body doesn't break down, your mind certainly will.

Personally, when I started meditating, I couldn't do >5 minutes at a time. Took me weeks to get to 20 minutes. And you gotta do the reading or join a group to help you understand what you're going through, which also was very helpful for me.

[1]: https://twitter.com/dianawinston [2]: http://wakingup.com/