"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone"
Pascal
My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)
291–300 of 419 posts
Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
I expect there will be higher cases of psychosis happening on intense retreats, but as anecdotal as this, I had it happen to me (albeit not as extreme as OP) after meditating for much shorter periods (approx 10 minutes up to an hour). I really did not see it coming. For some context, I don't know of any deep seated trauma that I have and I liked to think of myself as someone robust mentally. I experienced a deep real…
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.
Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)
#293It is notable at the author keeps using frames like "harmful", pathologizing what is really just direct contact with one's sensations and experiences. A less enculturated person might be able to go with the flow they've newly tapped into without fighting it. There's a lot of grasping ego.
The thing they don't seem to get is that what they are experience may just be normal consciousness to many people who don't have a mind that is continually discriminating and sorting. I take more as an indictment of the disconnection our culture creates in people than the practice itself.
Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)
#294Reminds me of a similar anecdote from Holly Elmore in 2021 [1].
[1] https://hollyelmore.substack.com/p/i-believed-the-hype-and-d...
Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)
#295I’m an autistic person and it sounds like in some way this person achieved exactly the point of certain forms of meditation like this which is to open up awareness. And I think as many autistic folks will tell you, being very aware is extremely difficult and is mentally and physically taxing. If you aren’t prepared for it I could indeed see it being extremely disturbing. Being exposed to all your inner workings and t…
So, could this meditation craze actually be making people autistic?
There are pretty strong overlaps in certain areas, but that isn't the case though. Autism is caused by physical neurological changes that have to do with brain development before or near birth and while meditation (to my knowledge at least) can alter overall brain structure it won't alter the more fundamental structural changes which are seen in folks with autism.
Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I experienced a deep realisation that our thoughts manifest from nowhere and not from ourselves (words fail me here) and that the construct of 'me' was completely false and was just a reverberation of my environment. I understood there was no me. If you were tripping this is called ego death. In some circles, including mine, what you described after: > I started to think that I should be looking to help other peopl…
And this is exactly why "tripping" is heavily frowned upon by serious meditators and spiritual practitioners. Experiencing "ego death" (i.e. the three marks of existence) without having the previous spiritual grounding for it to help free you from attachment to the ego, is only a recipe for being even more deeply mired in craving and dukkha.
Those probably aren't meditators I would be listening to, it sounds as unhealthy as the person that attaches their identity to their ego return.
Psychedelics are a tool, and the different doses you figure out are ways of using that tool. Ego death requires a fairly heroic dose, something on the order of 3-5 grams of mushrooms for most strains. This, to me, is comparable to the isolation and introspection without breaks to incur ego death in meditation.
Ego death, from my perspective, is also a tool. Done with knowledge of what will happen during and after let's the user experience the absence of ego and helps them live with their ego when it returns. Done without the knowledge of what will happen after, humans often fully embrace that ego as a new life based on wisdom. A false wisdom.
My point here is the medium in which you choose is largely irrelevant. How you use the tools and the knowledge you go into them with are the paramount pieces. It's honestly surprising to me that anyone who meditates would have such judgy and pithy opinions, but it's a big world out there.
Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)
#297There's no Buddhism in the West, but in name. Buddhism is a religion associated with a way of life and a culture. It's not something a businessman does on a "weekend retreat" as "mindfulness practice" to get back in the rat race refreshed.
For sure. Most people would agree that doing something as a fitness regiment is not a religion.
But you say that there is “no Buddhism” in the West. Clearly there are people who practice Buddhism in the West, whether that be “Western Buddhism” or something else. So one can only surmise that your argument is the following:
Only Asians can be Buddhist.
Well, that’s quite essentialist and othering towards Asians. But what other conclusion could there be? Because if you dialogue with such a person, they will continually raise the bar for being “Buddhist”, starting with pure merit and dedication (like: refrains from killing their parents; is nice to people; follows the N8XP) and then devolving into pseudo-anthropology like how Sri Lankans have different lifestyles compared to a Dutch person, or how Thai people might believe (I don’t know?) in jungle/forest spirits.
Eventually you realize that the only way a born-in-the-West person could become a Buddhist, according to this completely wrongheaded interpretation of “lived experience”, is to do the following:
1. Be drafted into the Vietnam War
2. Get amnesia caused by a shrapnel stuck in your skull
3. Get lost in the Vietnamese jungle
4. Eventually find a village and become adopted
5. Learn the local language somehow
6. Become a Buddhist by being immersed in the “way of life and culture”
Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)
#298There's actually a whole subculture around hardcore spirituality through Jed McKenna books.
Sample: https://twitter.com/a_yawning_cat/status/1329310154630696960...
Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)
#299I’m an autistic person and it sounds like in some way this person achieved exactly the point of certain forms of meditation like this which is to open up awareness. And I think as many autistic folks will tell you, being very aware is extremely difficult and is mentally and physically taxing. If you aren’t prepared for it I could indeed see it being extremely disturbing. Being exposed to all your inner workings and t…
How common is something like a retreat there for a median Buddhist?
I wouldn't say I'm the most knowledgeable in this regard but as far as I know it's not super common. Buddhism in Thailand is strongly tied to making merit[1] which is more or less doing good deeds. And generally, this is seen as something to be done regularly as a part of daily life as opposed to taking a break out of normal life for it. That being said, I'm sure there are still plenty of folks who do so, but at least in my experience it was primarily non-Thai folks doing so.
Re: My mindfulness practice led me to meltdown (2021)
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
No True Scotsman? Or are you saying that in most cases it's just superficial? I certainly have met Buddhism pratictioners in the West that were deep into the way of life and culture.
For the most part, western Buddhism is about good vibes bro and meditating and is, for all intents and purposes, irreligious and more of a general life philosophy (like how waking up at 5 am, jogging, and eating organic isn’t a religion either). Buddhist buddhism involves demons, hell, and more praying or even chanting than meditating for the general population. Most Buddhists probably don’t meditate at all, actually…
Right on, brother. My friend from from Bhutan wants to get into Christianity by reading the Bible like a nerd. I keep reminding her that most Christians where I come from (the Old World, so authentic) mostly only go to church on Sundays and only follow the Ten Commandments to the degree that they don’t kill people.