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Ten years of trying to meditate

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Re: Ten years of trying to meditate

#71

Post by bowsamic »

Hasu wrote: post #66
bowsamic wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say it’s an increasing trend because people who are more invested in the traditions have “had enough” of so called “mcmindfulness” or dangerous approaches

If what you say is true, then it should be trivially easy to find an app that promotes these dangerous practices, find their daily active users, then check the reviews and find a high percentage (>10%) of negative reviews saying something like, "1/5, cannot recommend, after using this app every day for three months, I'm now experiencing horrible mental health issues". There are plenty of apps out there with millions…

I don’t have access to that data. Do you?

I would guess that about 5 to 10% of people who seriously try the practise for an extended period experience very scary and potentially trauma inducing effects

Re: Ten years of trying to meditate

#72

Post by bowsamic »

titanomachy wrote: post #70
bowsamic wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes really the whole point of it is to let go of your grip on reality

Yeah, I'm not sure what the difference is between the people who come away from the experienced more "enlightened" vs just more insane. It kind of feels like an all-or-nothing thing: once you start to "see through the illusion of self", you have to follow that through to its logical conclusion or you'll be stuck living with intense cognitive dissonance. I don't generally like to talk about this stuff too much because…

The difference is that insane people don’t focus on compassion towards all beings

Re: Ten years of trying to meditate

#73

Post by bowsamic »

feanaro wrote: post #64
bowsamic wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it will break down your values. Unfortunately if you have the taste of bodhicitta: the mind that wants to awaken and liberate yourself and others from suffering, then you will mostly be forced to do it. I don’t recommend meditation or Buddhism for all, it will change your life in many ways that you will consider bad from your current point of view. Less motivation for tackling stressful tasks, less romantic atta…

What do you mean exactly by "increased neurosis"? How do you define neurosis here?

Selfish or self aggrandising thinking, feelings of superiority, lack of attention to others

Re: Ten years of trying to meditate

#74

Post by bowsamic »

taylodl wrote: post #59
bowsamic wrote: post #9

My biggest advice for anyone is to not ignore the traditional advice. Secular meditation practises based on Buddhist meditation take the practise out of its context in a quick and forceful way. Buddhism has had 2500 years to slowly develop and work out what works and what does not. It is quite dangerous to take it and call the parts that do not immediately appeal to the secular western mind, like devotion, worship, c…

I would argue Zen Buddhism is secular, so I'm not quite sure the distinction you're trying to make.

Zen Buddhism is not secular at all. It is a traditional form of Mahayana Buddhism. In China and Vietnam Zen Buddhists practise Pure Land extensively. Dogen in Japan, the creator of Soto Zen, was heavily invested in the Lotus sutra and mentioned rebirth constantly. Where did you learn that it is secular? This is not true

Re: Ten years of trying to meditate

#75

Post by vorpalhex »

selykg wrote: post #42
vorpalhex wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of a study of about a thousand people who were asked to start a daily meditation process (with weekly check-ins), about 20% reported at least one negative episode. Now, that included everything from "feeling sad" to full blown panic attack. I'll see if I can dig up that particular study. Here is a similar one which tracked longterm meditators: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1428622/ > However, of the twenty-seve…

27 subjects is a pretty low number of people to base this one. In any scientific paper, doesn't Hacker News get super uppity about the small number? I seem to think this one should be treated the same way.

There are quite a few studies here though.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5584749/ (online survey, 84 respondants)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32820538/ (meta analysis, 6703 total participants across 55 studies)

My reading of this is we can't make claims like X% practicioners have negative outcomes - the numbers are too messy. We can definitely say a significant amount of practictioners do have negative outcomes.

But, those negative outcomes are wide and while they include suicide, depression and panic attacks, the majority of them are things like anxiety.

You are digging into and tinkering with your psyche. Of course there are going to be negative outcomes. I would be more skeptical if the claim was meditation did something and never had negative effects.

Re: Ten years of trying to meditate

#76

Post by bstrom »

bowsamic wrote: post #68
titanomachy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this stuff is actually pretty typical for folks who progress to a certain stage. I experienced it as well, if that makes you feel any better. The Buddhists definitely know about this, but a lot of their writing is pretty impenetrable and interlaced with weird metaphysics. Here's some modern, secular words on the subject (from the admittedly controversial author Daniel Ingram): https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table…

> The Buddhists definitely know about this, but a lot of their writing is pretty impenetrable and interlaced with weird metaphysics. Here's some modern, secular words on the subject: This and linking MCTB (of all things) are the exact dangerous taking out of context I’m warning against. Daniel Ingram is a terrible resource, he should not be recommended

I would be interested in hearing more about why Ingram is considered a terrible resource, if you care to share.

Re: Ten years of trying to meditate

#77

Post by taeric »

bowsamic wrote: post #67
taeric wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way?

It should be done only under a very experienced guide

What sort of accreditation process do you put forth for the guides? My gut is that the vast majority of the experienced guides out there are also terrible and unlikely to dramatically alter the outcomes. Unless we are in a scotsman debate about "true guides would prevent bad outcomes." :(

Re: Ten years of trying to meditate

#78

Post by titanomachy »

bowsamic wrote: post #68
titanomachy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this stuff is actually pretty typical for folks who progress to a certain stage. I experienced it as well, if that makes you feel any better. The Buddhists definitely know about this, but a lot of their writing is pretty impenetrable and interlaced with weird metaphysics. Here's some modern, secular words on the subject (from the admittedly controversial author Daniel Ingram): https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table…

> The Buddhists definitely know about this, but a lot of their writing is pretty impenetrable and interlaced with weird metaphysics. Here's some modern, secular words on the subject: This and linking MCTB (of all things) are the exact dangerous taking out of context I’m warning against. Daniel Ingram is a terrible resource, he should not be recommended

You seem pretty experienced in this stuff. I agree with a lot of what you're saying in this thread: meditation can be dangerous and should be taken more seriously. Treating it as on par with a psychedelic therapy sounds about right.

Here's where I think we differ: a lot of people in secular western culture are intensely put off by all the religious stuff that comes with Buddhism. The metaphysics and reincarnation stuff is, in my view, a reflection of the culture that Siddhartha Gautama grew up in and taught in, rather than a necessary part of eliminating suffering. I think that retelling these lessons in a way that's accessible to modern audiences is important. Some people simply will not accept something taught in the form of ancient mysticism. Should those people be denied insight just because they didn't grow up in India during the Iron Age?

I get that Ingram is polarizing. I'll add a link to Mahasi Sayadaw as well, but I just don't think he explains things in a way that's as clear to someone with my cultural background.

Re: Ten years of trying to meditate

#79

Post by bowsamic »

bstrom wrote: post #76
bowsamic wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Buddhists definitely know about this, but a lot of their writing is pretty impenetrable and interlaced with weird metaphysics. Here's some modern, secular words on the subject: This and linking MCTB (of all things) are the exact dangerous taking out of context I’m warning against. Daniel Ingram is a terrible resource, he should not be recommended

I would be interested in hearing more about why Ingram is considered a terrible resource, if you care to share.

One reason is that he broke a major taboo in publicly declaring himself an Arhat

Then he has this book that is supposed to distil all of the powerful insight practises into a secular path, but everyone I’ve spoken to in his pragmatic dharma community is extremely toxic. It’s literally like the 4chan of Buddhism, huge amounts of racism, lots of depressed teens, very online, lots of people who think they are enlightened (one of which suddenly “rated my capacity for awakening” as zero, and when I said I didn’t care flew into a rage)

It’s exactly what you expect to happen when you take Buddhism, try and condense it down into a path for having the strongest and most intense experience, and market it to terminally online young adult men

Ingram was also heavily involved in this “fire kasina” stuff where you just stare at a flame for days until you start seeing things and go kind of crazy, which is a controversial practise in Buddhism

Finally he’s just not a qualified Buddhist teacher

Re: Ten years of trying to meditate

#80

Post by Hasu »

bowsamic wrote: post #71
Hasu wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If what you say is true, then it should be trivially easy to find an app that promotes these dangerous practices, find their daily active users, then check the reviews and find a high percentage (>10%) of negative reviews saying something like, "1/5, cannot recommend, after using this app every day for three months, I'm now experiencing horrible mental health issues". There are plenty of apps out there with millions…

I don’t have access to that data. Do you? I would guess that about 5 to 10% of people who seriously try the practise for an extended period experience very scary and potentially trauma inducing effects

I can use Google, and found this [1] article claiming over 4 million DAUs for Calm in June of 2020, with trendlines going up and to the right.

So the lower bound of your estimate gives us ~200,000 people who would be adversely affected. Looking through negative reviews, it's all complaints about pricing and paywalls. The same is true for Headspace, the second biggest app in this space (I don't have DAUs for them, but it's got about half as many downloads and reviews, so let's assume less than half as big).

I can't find a single complaint about adverse mental health effects, which doesn't mean it never happens, but it's not anywhere close to 5%.

[1] https://blog.apptopia.com/calm-app-outperforms-headspace-dur...

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