Regular meditation may be more beneficial than vacation

Post by mettamage » Tue, Nov 08, 2016, 3:03 PM UTC

aaimnr wrote: post #137

littlethrowaway wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be quite careful giving advice about meditation. Under your "beginner" heading you suggest Dhamma - the 10 day 9 day silent course (I'm assuming vipassana is an example of this). I did a vipassana course after a similar suggestion. In me it triggered a full blown manic-psychotic (bipolar) episode. There had been no history of this in my family (or myself) before that point. If you're interested, I made a bunch of pod…

I had similar experience myself. I wouldn't attribute the risk to the retreat itself, however, but to the vipassana method, which tends to evoke insight experiences as quickly as possible, without first calming the mind using single object samatha practice. If someone were to just use classic anapanasati even for 10 days, I think the results would be somewhat different, as when properly praciced anapanasati calms the…

Post by mettamage » Tue, Nov 08, 2016, 3:09 PM UTC

thenomad wrote: post #102

mettamage wrote: post #77

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__Meditation: the summary for technical people__ Yea I'm making this up. I'm enthusiastic about it, my username even reflects that I meditate ;) .. Introductory Level Witty, scientific book: Search Inside Yourself - Chade-meng Tan (he used to be a software engineer, now he's trying to set up the conditions for world peace) Take any MBCT, MBSR or 5-week or 8-week mindfulness course .. Beginner Level Retreat practice:…

FYI: your summary is more likely to discourage people from meditating than encourage them if: 1) They are not enthusiastic about religion. 2) They are already members of another religion and do not wish to convert, particularly if said religion is not very positive about Buddhism. For any readers in those two camps: meditation and religion are often linked, but do not need to be. There are plenty of secular guides an…