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

My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

danlawton.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 419 posts

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#371

Post by leashless »

colechristensen wrote: post #256
leashless wrote: post #124

All of the real meditation traditions around the world - including the ones inside of Christianity - spend decades training highly skilled teachers to help people 1) avoid problems like this, and 2) clean up problems like this when they do happen. And even so those traditions never, ever (in my experience) describe themselves as anything other than perilous. "The way is long and narrow." "Like a snake entering a bamb…

All long term buddhist retreats will essentially sit you down and try make sure you're mentally healthy enough and prepared to partake. People losing it during long bouts is a regular occurrence.

Absolutely agree. And sometimes it’s probably an efficient method: get people through the tough stuff fast, rip off the band aid. But without the support teams in place the proposition changes dramatically for the worse.

And our paradigm for safety is very different. People are less expendable.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#372

Post by leashless »

hiidrew wrote: post #202
leashless wrote: post #124

All of the real meditation traditions around the world - including the ones inside of Christianity - spend decades training highly skilled teachers to help people 1) avoid problems like this, and 2) clean up problems like this when they do happen. And even so those traditions never, ever (in my experience) describe themselves as anything other than perilous. "The way is long and narrow." "Like a snake entering a bamb…

Thanks for sharing, going to check this out later off my work computer. I've been trying to become more disciplined with my meditation practice, I try to do 10 minutes every day.

This is probably not a good fit for you. Ten minutes a day would generally be safe for anybody. This is a different proposition.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#373

Post by mtalantikite »

zozbot234 wrote: post #336
mtalantikite wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best book I've read on this topic is Chögyam Trungpa's "Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism" [1]. He's very clear in pointing out how ego tries to get involved in everything. It sounds like you may have had an experience, to some extent, of dwelling in the union of wisdom and emptiness or what some call dharmadhatu [2]. It's not a teaching I encountered until I started practicing Vajrayana, as Theravada teacher…

> ... the union of wisdom and emptiness ... Ah, the extent that some people will go through to avoid acknowledging God. It's like some people take stubborn pleasure in being purposely nihilistic and strenuously denying all that's good about the world. How this can be part of a supposedly spiritual practice, I just can't understand.

It's quite common to first encounter the teachings on emptiness (sunyata) and be confused into thinking it's about nihilism. However, nihilism is considered one of the two extreme views that leads to suffering in Buddhism -- the other being eternalism -- and both are explicitly argued against. Thich Nhat Hanh has a great book that helps clarify the teachings on sunyata [1].

I also would point out that if anything Buddhism is life-affirming and immensely hopeful, not denying what's good in the world. It teaches that there's a way out of suffering right here and right now, and it's available to every being without exclusion. The fourth noble truth is the spiritual practice to make that happen. Every meditation session in Mahayana and Vajrayana lineages have the common preliminaries, which includes love and compassion for all beings.

[1] https://plumvillage.org/books/the-other-shore/

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#374

Post by mikem170 »

Zachsa999 wrote: post #368
mikem170 wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of what you said reminds me of a friend of mine who had "night terrors". This friend described how they would sometimes wake up in the wrong order. Their conscious mind would wake up while the body was still paralyzed with sleep, typically with a terrible feeling of dread, like someone behind them is going to attack them and they can't move. What you described made me wonder if sometimes you fall asleep in the w…

Thanks for the comment. Interesting observation, you suggest that I am experiencing a form of lucid dreaming, but I only notice it when I experience a specific dream? One thing that is constant throughout app these occurrences is the emotional path and my mouth lips and tongue that experience this feeling.

I googled and found the correct term for what bothered my friend: Sleep Paralysis [0]:

> Sleep paralysis is a condition identified by a brief loss of muscle control, known as atonia , that happens just after falling asleep or waking up. In addition to atonia, people often experience hallucinations during episodes of sleep paralysis.

I didn't get as far as knowing if there are mitigations. I saw where it can happen falling asleep and waking up, so maybe it is relevant.

[0] https://www.sleepfoundation.org/parasomnias/sleep-paralysis

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#375

Post by DontchaKnowit »

JamesBarney wrote: post #292
DontchaKnowit wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly you describe the shattering of your delusion as the return of your ego - I think it is the opposite. I think you invited an inflated ego into your life through your meditation : "I should become a guru and help humanity" <-- that is ego speaking. The shattering of this idea is is not ego but humility, to my way of thinking.

Meditation and psychology have a specific term for ego, like when referring to ego death. And it doesn't quite mean the same thing as ego in common usage. It usually means a break down of sense of self, this can happen on psychedelics or in schizophrenia. This can also be accompanied with delusions of grandeur, they're not mutually exclusive.

Delusions of granduer is basically an inflated sense of self - e.g. an inflated ego. Whether using the common parlance or the jungian definition, its the same thing in this context.

Always tough to discuss slippery, ill defined things such as ego, which in a real sense does not actually exist.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#376

Post by DontchaKnowit »

cybervaz wrote: post #346
zozbot234 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... the union of wisdom and emptiness ... Ah, the extent that some people will go through to avoid acknowledging God. It's like some people take stubborn pleasure in being purposely nihilistic and strenuously denying all that's good about the world. How this can be part of a supposedly spiritual practice, I just can't understand.

They think they are on a journey yo self enlightenment when they're actually in a very dangerous road to spiritual weakness, causing damage to their souls and leaving gaps to be used by entities that they'll not feel any pleasure of knowing. That sense of impeding doom is nothing more than those spiritual entities oppressing with overwhelming power them by those gaps. We are locked out of that world for a reason. The…

Word. The more I explore the the world of occult practices throughout history the more I am convinced that it is always an excercise in self destruction.

Our intentions, understanding, morality, sense of self, sense of direction, is so frail. A man who believes he can manufacture these things for himself (which is, in my opinion, wfundamentally what occultists are doing) is doomed to spiritual sufferring.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#377

Post by starkd »

astrange wrote: post #286
starkd wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is something very cultish about it. An indication of it being a cult is the tendency to get caught up in definitions of new words. It is easy to think that once you learn the vocabulary (like "vipassana", "sati", or whatever), you are have achieved something, when all you are doing is reciting new words but the thinking is done for you.

Well… it's literally a religion. And those are just foreign words. McMindfulness (the stuff you'd get corporate trainings about) doesn't teach you any of those words, uses several different techniques at once, gives regular people little bits of the techniques used for monks to develop revulsion for all earthly things, etc.

Seems like having revulsion for all earthly things can backfire in unpredictable ways. I have a suspicion that the early Buddhist may have been onto something, but something vital was lost a long time ago.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#378

Post by hilbertseries »

dayvid wrote: post #113

Doing intensive meditation retreats is a Navy Seal hell-week for your mind. If people took that into consideration, they would be better prepared for the results. It's much better to start with a simple meditation practice or go on a shorter retreat (1-3 days), build up a base and periodically dip your feet in deep waters. There are too many people in the west who treat it like an extreme sport and get burned out in…

Did anyone commenting read the article? The author was a meditation teacher who had been meditating for over 10 years, when he had this experience.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#379

Post by jeremyt »

whitepaint wrote: post #192
jeremyt wrote: post #131

I have quite a lot of experience with meditation. I've done thousands of hours, including more than ten retreats that involved sitting for as many as 18 hours per day. I've also done many healing modalities, including somatic experiencing. From my perspective, we have taken "Buddhism" and "meditation" and we have done what us Westerners almost always do: we boil it down into "stuff that does stuff" and "everything el…

Very beautifully put. I completely relate with the last 2 sentences. Do you have recommendations for books?

There are as many schools of thought and meditation methodologies as there are people. What resonates with me may not resonate with you.

Having said that, "Streams of Wisdom" by Dustin Diperna is, IMO, the finest 40,000 foot view of meditation and spiritual development that I know of.

For an actual no bullshit practical guide to meditation Eckhart Tolle's "The power of now" is what I would point to. You really need nothing more than this book.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)

#380

Post by blueprint »

cutler wrote: post #114

I can't help thinking that most of these examples of negative side effects are related to intensives rather than meditation/mindfulness itself. There's a world of difference between 20 minutes a day and 10 days in a retreat looking inward. Maybe it's just better for you in short bursts, not long marathons. I once experienced negative effects after joining a Buddhist meditation group while at university. Every time I…

buddha was not enlightened through meditation. that is a dangerous falsehood that has been added by monks. he was enlightened through his accumulation of virtue through his specific practices of educating others while he was in the mountains. this placed him in turmoil. he left the mountains, and sat down under a tree to collect himself. it was only after he became calm that he realized that he had already attained the supreme enlightenment. you cannot attain it through any other means than teaching after entering a samadhi. but to enter samadhi means you have to stop your karma. even then, it can be reborn, just like anything else. the final enlightenment - that of a buddha - is to burn down all your karma. the greatest way to do this is the practice of true love.

this is a path which will cause you to face inordinate difficulties and loneliness. most people are waylaid. "strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto Life and few there be who find it."

Post reply on HN