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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

#121

Post by mensetmanus1861 »

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…

I did a 10 day meditation (vipassana) few years ago. I remember some fellow meditators (majority of the sessions are in a hall full of meditators) having emotionally intense experiences (someone would cry inconsolably, someone will shout for few moments suddenly). I personally per say did not experience any such external emotional outburst but definitely got better clarity and calmness towards daily routine life.

The output of meditation is supposed to be a clearer mind from before and it may take a while to reach the desired state of mind. Stoicism should not be misinterpreted as having no zest for life. One psychologist I know told me something that made an impression on me "Just because life is going to end or that many good things come to an end eventually doesn't mean you should not enjoy the present". I am sure different people have different outcomes but I think the purpose of meditation is to learn the joy of life. One could see stoicism as being pessimistic towards life. I personally see meditation as a tool that hopefully helps you derive the joy of living in every moment of your daily existence while not being attached to it so that that if the circumstance changes, you don't lose the joyfulness and adapt to the new things in life knowing that the change won't last either.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#122

Post by mlang23 »

warent wrote: post #68
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…

My psychologist taught me that fear, anxiety, etc. destructive emotions are surface events, bubbling up from somewhere deeper. Mindfulness can be used as a resource for us to be with that fear; in the words of Thich Nhat Hanh "those painful emotions are like a child crying out. A child needs love and attention. Hold them with love, be with them." Once we can be with it, then we can start to follow it down to its root…

https://youtube.com/watch?v=TG2i_UoBEeg :-)

Sorry, not the most constructive reply ever, but I couldn't resist...

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#125

Post by dvh1990 »

From my experience, what the writer is talking about is a transcendental experience that sounds awfully similar to what happens under psychedelics. Experiences like this are highly influenced by set, setting and expectations, and can go wrong.

Meditation is an incredibly deep practice, and if you engage in it you must be aware that it is much more than a stress-relief tool. Many people meditate with the explicit purpose of reaching that state. When you keep that fact in mind, experiences like what was described in the article are desired and welcome.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#127

Post by EdwardDiego »

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…

> 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?

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#128

Post by mircea »

littlethrowaway wrote: post #61

Ha! I thought it might have been vipassana. My own experience of this (a 10 day silent retreat, not having done meditation before) was a full blown manic-psychotic experience (never having had any such thing before, nor in family history). If you're interested, I made some audio files [0] talking about what happened. I honestly think it's _insane_ that they (vipassana) will take regular people who haven't done medita…

How would you describe your psychological state before going to your first 10 day meditation retreat?

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#129

Post by mandmandam »

shmageggy wrote: post #92
cyberpunk wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, essentially.

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…

>To claim that a certain group of monks has figured out a foolproof and risk-free formula for exploring altered states of consciousness seems implausible.

... Why would that be implausible, at least for non-pedantic values of risk-free?

More and more, modern neuroscience confirms aspects of Buddhist teaching; from the nature of self to the workings of emotion. Buddhist meditation practice has been shown to have real and permanent (and positive) effects. Monks have studied the workings of the mind in altered and unaltered states for lifetimes, over thousands of years. Can you name any practice more effective? Because if you can, I'm certain the monks will be interested.

Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown

#130

Post by ljm »

stelonix wrote: post #86
cyberpunk wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is exactly what I took from it. He uses the terms "mindfulness" and "Buddhism" interchangeably, but they're not. Buddhism has ways to deal with meditations that "go bad", but mindfulness takes the Buddhism out of the practice. Mindfulness is not Buddhism.

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.

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