Not everyone should meditate

Not that I’m aware of. But bipolar disorder is (very) poorly understood. Asking for evidence would imply for instance, that we know what bipolar IS, and from my knowledge, I don’t think we do. In order to have evidence that meditation and bipolar interact we would have to know what bipolar affects in our system that causes it. As far as I know we don’t know what causes it/how it works exactly. We have some inklings of what’s involved.

What we have is some medications that work with relatively extreme side effects (I am now pre diabetic due to daily Seroquel use) and sort of folk tradition of what to do and not to do - ie bipolar people are advised to stay away from religion for instance.

In my experience both the medication and the folk tradition are mostly right actually, as weird as that might sound. It’s not like psychologists are performing huge studies, but they can see patterns in the individual cases when they are studied in bulk - ie religious individuals might have more psychotic episodes etc.

I always wanted to write a book about what happened to me. The specifics of how spirituality came into to my life, because it was very unusual. And my story could captivate even the most dedicated of skeptics. It was that authentic.

But, for some reason - I was always very afraid to write such a book because it would mean giving away a part of "me". So, in this context, having more time means I can enjoy life without needing to preach a story that perhaps some people are not ready to hear. I don't know...

Funny thing is, I write for a living. Only web dev stuff opposed to digging deep into the psyche of this world.

Having a life-long love affair with Japanese Zen, and a ten year zazen practice, the most useful insight for me comes from Claire Gesshin Greenwood's book, Bow First, Ask Questions Later. Most teachers of Zen, in Japan at least, will tell you that Zen is "not about thinking," and that practice is something you do primarily with your body. Soto Zen's practice of Shinkantaza, 'Just Sitting' fits well this. It's the posture, stupid.

A few more snippets from Gesshin's book: In the Zen tradition especially, there is a lot of emphasis placed on "not thinking." In "Universal Instructions for Zazen", Dogen Zenji wrote, "Think of not-thinking. How do you think of not-thinking. Non-thinking. This in itself is the essential art of zazen."

So generally (in Japanese Zen) the advice given is to just practice without trying to understand what is happening, because the only way to actually learn something is to engage with the thing itself without adding your own idea. If you add your own idea, then you are just engaging with your idea, not the thing you are trying to learn. I should add that this is all advice that I have personally received.