It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death. Yogis writing about the practice (before it became big business) freely admit all sorts of horrible-sounding mental side effects, but couch them in religious terms (and encourage the acolyte to push through until they achieve "enlightenment", which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being). This whole idea of it being a casual activity that's good for the soul, or that it can make you a more effective person (on this plane of existence) is 1) new and 2) only modestly supported by the science.
It may hold some value, but it strikes me that there is more pro-meditation dogma than anti-. Scientists will hold an open mind, but "gurus" who charge money for fancy retreats will insist in its value without evidence. As a general rule, there are no panaceas - major changes in cognition can go either way. Be careful!
“which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being.”
This is very important to point out and I think is actually the big trap when approaching meditative practices. I fell into this nihilism trap when I was starting meditation in college and I abandoned my practice almost completely for the next 10 or so years.
It’s very easy to confuse the emptiness of self with the nonexistence of self. The latter is an extreme view that leads to nihilism. At least in the Buddhist traditions I’m aware of, nihilism is a wrong view and the teachings are explicitly not nihilistic.
Yet it’s exceptionally easy to get confused and fall into it if you’re just meditating without any real notion of what the teachings are. All the corporate “meditate for productivity” that has invaded the dialogue in the west I find at least misguided, and at the worst actually harmful.
For anyone that is interested I’d suggest reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s translation and commentary on the heart sutra called “The Other Shore”. It clears up a lot of the teaching on emptiness and will help you not fall into the nihilism trap.
(It’s also useful to note that the modern vipassana movement that is so popular in the west comes from a tradition that doesn’t emphasize the teachings on emptiness, even though they are in fact there in the Pali cannon.)
"It’s very easy to confuse the emptiness of self with the nonexistence of self."
Yeah, basically you have to realize that the fact you observe all of the normal brain noise is gone does not mean you are gone. You still observe. And most critically, you are not your brain noise, but something beyond that.
The beyond implies a spatial expanse in which one progresses. Becoming implies a temporal expanse in which one progresses. The cessation of these spatiotemporal limits is fundamental to that "state of being" (this phrase itself betrays that). In that sense memory itself creates that time-space substance, because it is through that, that it exists.
This is something that is very difficult to reconcile with, because this would also imply that cause and effect are non-objects. So then what is it that one "realizes"?
"because this would also imply that cause and effect are non-objects"
Cause and effect are no less real than, say, the sun. But the sensation of them and the conceptualization of them as we conceive them is a figment of the brain.
Brain itself can be wired in any way. All of our senses of external world are hallucinations inside our head driven by stimuli from sensory organs. All we can ever 'observe' is this hallucination. Yet it would be folly to believe that the external world would not exist. But! Our interpretation of the sensory experience can create lots of unreal things which are not true nor real.
I think the difficulty and key is separating the figments in our heads which reflect actual things from associations and fantasies made by our mind.
> It’s very easy to confuse the emptiness of self with the nonexistence of self.
I think part of the issue is that the words/concepts really don't translate into modern english well at all. Another example is how frequently the first of the Four Noble Truths is misrepresented as "Life is suffering". We don't have good ways of saying or explaining shunyata or dukkha that preserve the nuance of the concepts.
Edit: Thich Nhat Hanh is always a solid recommendation. I'll have to find his commentary on the heart sutra.
“I think part of the issue is that the words/concepts really don't translate into modern english well at all. Another example is how frequently the first of the Four Noble Truths is misrepresented as "Life is suffering".”
Absolutely, translations are difficult and imprecise, having multiple meanings even in the original Sanskrit or Pāli. Even different lineages place concepts in different categories, like whether or not suffering is one of the three dharma seals or not. Vipassana as taught by the Theravada would say it is, whereas Mahayana and Vajrayana would sometimes say it’s not.
No wonder new meditators get confused when they try to start a practice with all these modern apps and books that avoid teaching any of the lineages!
I prefer "unsatisfactoriness" rather than "suffering".
"The word is commonly explained as a derivation from Aryan terminology for an axle hole, referring to an axle hole which is not in the center and leads to a bumpy, uncomfortable ride."
The ego-death experience that meditation usually leads you to also strongly seeds the feeling that other consciousness are "unreachable" and therefore should be left as alone as possible while it reaches it's own enlightenment. I think it's a very narrow view of a richer theory like Jungian individuation.
That being said you can have a non-nihilistic ego-death or medidate only until your more intrusive thoughts "go away" without you loosing your complete identity, that's kind of like a scientific fact. Of course if you get "addicted" to it or start chasing the "ego-death" experience it can be harmful.
In Buddhism nihilism is one dualistic extreme, the other being eternalism. In the nihilistic view after death we are extinguished forever, and in the eternalist view we have a soul that goes on forever. Neither of these are considered correct in Buddhism. The teaching is a middle path between dualistic extremes.
There is a sutra that actually addresses nihilism, as it was a view that some schools of thought taught at the time of the Buddha. [1]
He considered it to be wrong view, a denial of the results of good or bad actions (karma) and rebirth. With the teachings on emptiness in the heart sutra it states all phenomena are marked by emptiness, “no birth no death, no being no nonbeing, no defilement no purity, no increasing no decreasing”. So nihilists would be led to cling to the view of nonbeing and not see everything else. For me at least that brought about a lot of aimless suffering.
Because it is not conducive to maintaining any kind of organized group of human beings.
The idea that "life is meaningless" means that society cannot rely on you, because you'll do whatever strikes your fancy, whatever the consequences.
Worse, it is also a philosophy that contributes absolutely nothing to actually understanding the nature of the world, which is kind of the point of philosophy.
In short, nihilists are utterly useless, to themselves and the world. On the upside, they won't care.
> The idea that "life is meaningless" means that society cannot rely on you, because you'll do whatever strikes your fancy, whatever the consequences.
How does "life is meaningless" imply "life is useless"? Also, why would nihilism entail radical individualism? The core of nihilism is that since the indifferent universe is without meaning humans have to give it meaning, quite the opposite of what you're implying.
> The core of nihilism is that since the indifferent universe is without meaning humans have to give it meaning.
I'm not that familiar with nihilism, but I'm rather surprised that "humans have to give it meaning" is part of the core. That's somewhat non-obvious to me; intuitively I would have expected nihilists to believe that meaning cannot exist.
Can you point me toward some sources that say nihilists actually believe that humans are capable of creating meaning?
>Can you point me toward some sources that say nihilists actually believe that humans are capable of creating meaning?
That's a big part of existentialism (Sartre, Camus, etc), in which life has no inherent meaning, and it's rather empty existence, and it's up to the person to make any meaning for themselves.
what marks humans out from the rest of the meaningless universe that suddenly blesses them as meaning bearers? almost seems to imply some sort of religious idea that humans are not a part of the ubiverse
We've been seeking answers to big questions like where did we come from, why are we here, and where are we going, for a very long time.
Now whether that those answers are accurate is a different question. But I think it's clear that humans crave meaning, and are happy to relegate meaning-making to third party institutions such as organized religion or the media.
Another way to understand it is that the universe is truly "objectless" because "objects" are merely concepts in the mind of the "subject."
Non-human subjective experiencers also imagine meaningful objects in their own minds. There's nothing special about humans other than their ability to communicate with other humans.
If there were no meaning outside of humans, then every human would be free to construct their own meaning. This then leads to radical individualism, since no frame of meaning would be truer than any other.
That's what we do. How would letting others construct a meaning for us be better? The reason societies exist is because we lean to a human-centric meaning, not radical individualism necessarily, because we are hard wired to do so. But having a meaning imposed on you is not good, I think. Also, the reason we do good to society is because it satisfies us INDIVIDUALLY, not because we think it is efficient - there was no thinking involved in us being social beings, but evolution.
I see it the other way around. Like, I can't even reconcile how you see the world with the reality around me.
Life is finite and it will end, just like the nihilist faction proclaims. No reincarnation, no eternal life. The eternalist faction got it wrong.
Life is an infinitesimally small spark of light but lost in the infinite darkness.
And there lies its value. Life is unique, every single moment you are alive is the most valuable moment in time, and it is therefore priceless. Carpe Diem.
Also, people always care. Even for trivialities, they always care.
I love being alive and I appreciate every single moment of it. Because I know it will be over some day.
> It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death.
That's a very broad statement given that there are many different types of meditations with different aims, religious/non-religious, with varying degrees of scientific evidence.
What I can say is, that mindfulness-based interventions, where meditation usually represents the formal "training" aspect, have a significant and growing evidence-base.
I agree there is no panacea, however in my opinion the risk/reward ratio of mindfulness meditation is astonishingly positive!
I am really curious about the origins of these "types". Who actually came up with these things? The concept of meditation has its origins in Hindu scriptures. However, now, it seems to have become a fad, with charlatans and marketers overwhelmingly using it to scam people.
I see the same with the so called "yoga".
But I have an open mind. There might be actual research that develops the concept of meditation. Would really love to see actual evidence. Like papers, books, etc.
> The concept of meditation has its origins in Hindu scriptures.
That's overloading the word meditation unnecessarily. There are decidedly non-Hindu forms of meditation that people around the world practice.
One example is Christian meditation as described in the Bible, which takes an antithetic form to Hindu meditation: the goal is to "meditate" on specific doctrines or scriptures from the Bible. The idea is that there is a definite "content" upon which one meditates: the practitioner fills the mind instead of attempting to empty it or focus attention on the self. A common illustration is that of an animal chewing the cud; and (iirc) the Hebrew word for "meditate" comes from the term for cows chewing the cud.
Siddhartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, is said to have practiced mindfulness meditation (vipassana) in the 5-4th century BCE. Though I haven't heard him referred to as the person who invented it.
There is lots of research on the meditation's effectiveness [0]. That research includes "47 trials in 3,515 participants suggests that mindfulness meditation programs show moderate evidence of improving anxiety and depression".
While I started meditating to reduce my anxiety (and it has), the goal of mindfulness meditation isn't reducing anxiety - it's awareness. Some people who start meditating, including myself, might start becoming more aware of their pre-existing anxiety. The good news is, once you become aware of the source of your anxiety, you can do something about it.
I know it can seem like a middlebrow dismissal to ask for supporting evidence, but in this case I think it’s important.
You’ve dismissed the parents view (and import of the linked article) as overly broad, and you have asserted the existence of an evidence base to support this.
Is there any summary of this evidence that you think is compelling?
> Is there any summary of this evidence that you think is compelling?
The meta-analyses in [1] are a good starting point. Note that in particular in a clinical setting, the intervention usually comprise more than just the meditation aspects, e.g. psycho-education, a group setting, or some form of body movement.
You can find further evidence if you pick a specific intervention, e.g.
Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) [2], which is considered the ancestor of modern mindfulness-based interventions.
However, you might find it more compelling to learn about the mechanism rather than effectiveness. In that case an interesting starting point are the studies that have been done on Buddhist monks as "extreme points" in the set of meditators, e.g. see the references in [3].
Regarding the original article, I find the title a bit clickbaity (X can worsen depression and anxiety is true for almost all X, in particular doing nothing can worsen depression and anxiety!) and it is a bit concerning to me that the author does not differentiate between mindfulness and meditation.
I couldn't find the paper from the article, my understanding is that 8 % of subjects reported adverse effects when doing a self-guided mindfulness meditation. I find 8 % quite low - 92 % did not report adverse effects?
Exactly. Meditation is just a tool with many uses.
My current use is to create a quiet time for meta-cognition where I can organize my thoughts.
Some people use it to try to let go of thoughts and be mentally still, others might use it as a chance to observe and focus on their senses. There are likely thousands of uses for meditation.
Meditation and other religious practices are always means to an end. Even if the end is actually unknown or shrouded in religious mystery. Thus, it is very important to be clear on what one actually wants to achieve with a particular practice. If you want to achieve something, but use the wrong means, at some point you'll realize that you're wasting time and effort. But if you don't know what you're after, you just walk farther and farther into the woods.
Not the person you replied to but there’s many different ends that people aim for via meditation- out of body experiences, building mental fortitude and discipline, expanded awareness, ego-death, overcoming trauma, etc
Most of the anxiety/depression I've experienced revolves around the ego: expectations and pressures I place on myself, guilt/dissatisfaction when I don't feel like I'm meeting those expectations, etc. So a little bit of ego-death is just about the most peaceful thing imaginable for me. The idea that it's not all on my shoulders, that the world moves without me, that this isn't my story to ruin. I don't practice any kind of formalized meditation, really, but mindful quietness works pretty well. I guess it depends on where someone's difficulties are rooted.
Edit: I also want to point out, for those who don't know, that the broader concept of "ego" isn't the same as the colloquial usage, which tends to just mean "narcissism". The ego is the very idea of yourself as an individual, distinct from the world, with your own interests and goals and story. Some amount of this mindset is necessary for being a functioning person. But many people, especially in western cultures, have an over-inflated ego, even if it doesn't manifest as arrogance or blatant selfishness: we all care very much about our individual success compared to others in one way or another. Even insecurity and low self-esteem and identity crises come from the ego, because they're concerned with selfhood and the state of our selfhood. I think it often does us more harm than good.
I don’t meditate very regularly, but I try to think of it as a brief vacation from thinking. My mind is “thinking” all the time, from the moment I wake up until the moment I fall asleep, one thought after another without stopping. I’ve found that viewing meditation as a chance to take a break from that helps.
There are people go by without ever questioning their wants, and never take responsibility for their own emotions in the most basic ways. They make every single one of their upsets someone else's responsibility and they come in hourly.
They aren't that many and they're easy to recognize when you've been burned by one though. They would also do everyone a big favor by embracing this advice.
On the other end are people who are driven to reduce their needs and scope as a response to pretty much anything. They'll be less of a hassle to others but advising them to reach harder for their familiar crutch is a disservice to them, and also their loved ones; neglect of others can be the the natural result of neglecting oneself. We don't do well with this advice.
This is also why people who administer DMT on themselves respond to it in very different ways - primarily due to their mental history and vulnerabilities.
>It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death.
This is true for far Eastern styles of meditation, but it's not true for Christian meditation[1]. It aims to fill the mind rather than to empty it. In general Christian meditation is practiced more by the various Eastern Christian Churches, but there are Western traditions as well. I'm by no means an adept at the practice, but it has benefited me pragmatically and spiritually.
Isn't dying to self a central tenet of Christian teaching?
" Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." John 12:24
"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. " Galatians 2:20
" For whoever strives to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. " Mark 8:35
Yes, in Catholicism there are Jesuit spiritual exercises tailored both for priests and shorter for ordinary people, similar in orthodoxy. I think protestants lack that element and that's why meditation is so catchy in America.
Meditation is big in both Catholicism and Protestantism within the U.S. Meditation is catchy now due to some of the research behind it as well as society always looking for the next panacea.
Modern / Hindu / Buddhist meditation (or what i have read and understood) typically centers around emptying one’s self or chanting a certain phrase to reach enlightenment.
Christian meditation is about filling oneself with the Holy Spirit and denying our own selfish desires.
When God gives his law for humanity in the book of Joshua he commands the people to “meditate on it day and night” because that is the way he intends them to know Him better.
I heard once that the Eastern and Western religions have swapped definitions for meditation and contemplation, so that Christian contemplative prayer is analogous to Eastern meditation.
Can confirm from personal experience. Even a lot of vipassana meditation by itself can send you into psychotic states when you're not ready for all the insight yet. I came very close to psychosis once, experienced ego death, broke down mentally and had to spend 2 months in a depression ward. Cannot recommend.
On the other hand, I met my now-wife in the depression ward, which in the "active" phase right before my admission I visualized and wished for quite often.
I don't regret the 2-3 months of active ego dissolution phase, life has never been more beautiful and strangely peaceful and jarring at the same time.
However, I did lose my job, my apartment and almost permanently lost my sanity as well, but now in hindsight it looks like it was all for the better.
Nevertheless I don't think you should force something like this (like I very much did), the consequences to internal and external reality can be absolutely dramatic and I've preferred to live in peaceful ignorance since then... save for the short moments of.. remembering. Everything and nothing at once.
I _accidentally_ fell into a vipassana state of mind after the first time trying a particular religious chant, seriously, from out of the pains of boredom as a 20 year old.
At the time I lived nearby mountains, and after 'coming to', I saw them through the window. I cannot describe to you the overwhelming feeling of beauty and awe that crashed over me. It was as though this was the very first time I had ever seen mountains. I think the best description I can manage comes from 'Both Sides Now' by Joni Mitchell.
'I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down, and still somehow
It's cloud illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all'
The experience was so disorienting. As if I was seeing the mountains for what they were directly through my senses and not mediated by my knowledge of what mountains were like, linguistically.
It changed my entire life -- weeks later later I lost my job and fell into a 5 year extreme depression / anxiety spell in the attempt to reconcile my adolescent religious upbringing with the continued insight from that experience. Absolutely worthwhile, in hindsight, but it cost me near everything for it.
I recently got bored and started to practice my vocal cords by sustaining a single tone. Turn out it is good technique for getting into a meditative state. I think it is the controlled breathing and single focus on one thing that helps to bring it about. Thought it was fun, but my neighbours must think that I have lost it.
Yea, I think a pattern that modulates between two vowels works best, like OoohWaaaOoohm. I think you find this in many religions, for example the call to prayer, but I don't want to be shouting Alla, neighbours will call the police for sure.
I agree, it's far better than her studio version. But Joni Mitchell wrote the song. There's a video on YouTube of her performing it live, and it sounds a lot like the Judy Collins version, strangely enough.
There was no pulling up. And there was no ground beneath my feet. Just an endless ocean with no points of reference by which to orient oneself.
So the only course of action was not to search for rocks to cling to, but of learning how to swim, and dive in. As backwards as it may read, I only felt secure after having let go of myself.
As odd as this description may sound to someone who has not experienced this, it is instantly recognizable to those who have -- which helped discover others who traversed this before. It so happens that Buddhists have a rich tradition for navigating these waters, which helped satisfy my intellectual curiosity of what was happening. To know that I was not 'defective' but merely in an initial stage of 'unlearning' was a big jolt of positively to my psychology.
I highly recommend as an introduction Alan Watt's 'The Way of Zen', that covers, in great detail, the cultural background, history and practice of Buddhism, in its prominent forms, and its roots in India / Hinduism -- all of which are necessary to comprehend even basic 'traditional' buddhist literature, after having become so institutionalized over the centuries as to have obscure many of the original, and plain to state, insights with now archaic ways of thinking but nevertheless have been maintained essentially untouched.
Then, follow your nose through the bibliography. =)
I know few people who recommend mindfulness and meditation. It feels so pretentious and religion-like. Some people totally feel brainwashed. I had a friend who believed abuse would go away if you let it go and he was being abused for years. It's a common thing I found in my anecdotal group.
"major changes in cognition can go either way. Be careful!"
I read some spiritual books about LSD in my late teens and I almost believed the "holy spiritual drug changing consciousness" motive.
But I was cautious and never took it and wanted to wait for the right time (it never came so far). One of the main reasons of waiting longer was, that I met some LSD gurus in real live - who where just retards.
So I focused more on staying clear .. but a bit later I also met quite some "clear" people who never do or did drugs, but only meditated - and they were also so disconnected from reality, I found it even quite faszinating. Not illuminated. Just disconnected.
So, when I meditate, my focus is to connect more to reality. And to find a balance between it all. Drugs can be tools. Various meditation technics can be tools. Nothing is the universal golden way. Find the right balance of technics, that works for you. That is my takeaway after quite some years exploring the area.
I am right now thinking about simracing as a way to meditate. You totally have to just focus on perception, no thinking, no ego, no self, nothing but the car and the road, and you repeat, and repeat, and repeat the track, over and over.
It works your mind, without any harmful effects (that I know of).
Well, I kind of do that from time to time. Play old videogames my mind can do it in autopilot mode. But I do not consider that too helpfull for myself. Sometimes it is. But on average I would say not.
You still have the flickering screen, which I think is not god for my head for too long. And I have the screen already for work, so I rather go outside, when I can.
One very simple technic to calm the mind while walking (or running or sitting) is use peripheric vision. Meaning the gaze is not focused, but wide. Seeing all at once. My theory is, that this uses more brain processing power, which leads to useless thoughts going silent. And breathing. And feeling. And smelling. And listening.
I mean more about the experience of driving. Clicking buttons is quite different to feeling the road through the steering wheel. In a normal video game you can just memorize the timing sequence.
I am trying to highlight the "focus on perception" part of the experience.
I would love to go and drive in an open road somewhere remote. And see and smell all these real things.
But I can't use my car right now (without paying a fine for breaking quarantine) so I use simracing.
It's a mistake to think that "meditation" is only a religious practice or that it has only one aim. There are many forms of mediation, with many different aims, some religious, some not.
Can you point out some of the traditional practices of meditation that have no roots in religious traditions? I can't think of any truly secular traditions of the top of my head (or at least any that weren't invented in the last 50 years).
One might argue that stoicism would be one such case, though I don't think it developed techniques anywhere near as sophisticated as those of Eastern traditions.
As for Buddhism, which is at the root of what most people mean by "meditation" today, calling it a religion is a bit problematic because it doesn't involve worshiping gods and, in theory at least, is not supposed to be primarily faith based. Both of those things: god worship and faith seem so fundamental to the western concept of religion that applying that term uncritically to Buddhism seems ill-founded.
Neither I nor the post I was replying to limited meditation to traditional practices. Nor were we talking about the roots of meditation.
Yes, the roots of meditation are in religious practices (as, are, arguably, the roots of every human activity). That doesn't mean that contemporary meditation practices are necessarily religious. Many aren't.
So if you're talking about the term "meditation" in general (as we were), to limit it to a religious practice is a mistake. It's much broader than that, even if it derives ultimately from something that once had a religious aspect.
I think this a fair point - meditation is not a single practice. It is a broad category.
But it also means that we can’t claim that there is an evidence base for the positive effects of meditation, and more than we can for ‘medication’ or ‘food’.
Meditation can be beneficial. Meditation can cause severe problems.
Both are clearly true statements.
The question is - what kinds of meditation are beneficial to whom?
It’s worth noting that the Asian religious traditions had a history of being very selective about who was taught.
On top of that nearly all ancient texts on meditation basically include a "do not try this at home" statement of sorts. A pretty common theme is that meditation should be practiced in close proximity to an accomplished master with their guidance. This is not dissimilar to the advice anyone who makes use of psychedelics will give.
Of course people want quick and easy so "accomplished master" can easily be subbed out for "local yoga teacher" or even "NYT best selling book".
Most people who claim benefits from meditation would likely reap even more benefits from just making sure they had an hour or half hour distraction free with time for their thoughts. Go for a walk alone, or find a quiet place and write in a journal, give your self some time before you fall as sleep to think just think to yourself.
Doctors want money, but that does't mean they're completely useless. I wouldn't want to perform surgery on myself.
I recently read "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong, which covers the evolution of religion and various mystical traditions in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. It's a really interesting book and one of the points she brings up is that there are many historical examples of attempts at mystical experimentation that end in madness. The teacher is supposed to be a sort of life guard.
Ultimately, the book made me even more skeptical of religion and meditation than I already was. Spiritual/meditative introspection seems like a risky and dangerous process.
Ego-death might be blissful (everything is one) or an cosmic horror (everything is nothing). For descriptions of both states, I recommend "Realms of Unconsciousness" by Stanislav Grof. The latter can trigger an episode of depression.
On a personal note, depression is not only about anxiety, or any beliefs about oneself. It may stem from understimulation. In this case, lowering input (as with meditation) is unlikely to help.
I've experienced the latter (cosmic horror from ego death) and it was the worst experience of my life. From drugs, though, not meditation. But it was pretty similar in character to the "dark night of the soul" that I've heard some people have experienced from meditation.
I just finished going through the "De-Mystifying Mindfulness" course on Coursera and they do warn about the fact that "mindfulness" has become an industry and that the people who offer courses are often unqualified to teach them.
MBSR and MBCT course with qualified teachers do have a very good track record and solid scientific backing.
> It's important to bear in mind that meditation is a religious practice specifically aimed at causing ego-death
For a lot of people it's simply a 15 min break in the day, between work, kids, netflix, games or whatever, we never just sit down, do nothing, relax and listen to our inner selves
I think that's why it became hype in the last few years, it's not so much that meditation will "heal your soul" or whatever pseudo science bs, it's more that it allows people to truly relax for a bit, unplug their brain of the incessant flow of information and distractions for a few minutes and reconnect with the baseline
Agreed. And before anyone interjects something like: "But medical professionals recommend meditation!"
Meditation for medical purposes is almost always just a relaxation technique, e.g. autogenic training. The rest, beyond relaxation, is rarely recommended and usually frowned upon.
There are many, many forms of meditation, with many supposed goals. So to say that "meditation is..." is a reduction to absurdity.
If you do something and you don't like the outcome, you stop. Driving a car may also lead to ego-death ... probably much more likely than from meditation. Yet we do it. There are certainly forms of meditation that are risky. There are also forms of Olympic sport that are risky. People disappear simply while taking a walk through the great outdoors.
Are there many hucksters trying to cash in on 'yoga' trends? Sure! I understand from many very old and very-earnest- traditions that a -real- spiritual teacher would -never- charge for help. 'Cashing in' is, after all, pretty much the antithesis of 'uplifting'.
Jung often pointed out that our waking egos are like planets orbiting a Self that's Sun-sized ... and much more in control than we realize. Most spiritual traditions emphasize that there are many stages of realization. (In the east, chakras symbolize this.)
While our present culture places little value on compassion or wisdom, this time is unusual in that way. (We're born with both, but it's easy to get lost.) Many people over millennia have learned that if we make the effort - noone else can do it - there are definite rewards. One place to get an overview of this history (Western perspective) is in Huxley's 'Perennial Philosophy'.
Mindfulness is not quite Meditation towards enlightenment.
The idea is simple, and that is to remove one from the chaos of the world, to not be defined by it, and especially to 'be in the moment'.
'Quieting the mind and being present' in a tiny aspect of the more religious aspects.
The 'big problem' is possibly that they are 'doing it wrong'.
If you want to 'get people in the moment'?
Play sports.
Meditation is supposed to be about 'less thoughts' but usually it leads to more and more self contemplation - which is the opposite of what we want.
Want to 'shut off' the contemplative mind -> Use another part of the brain!
Does anyone know people who 'like sports' that generally get depressed? No, I would say the opposite: generally more gregarious, positive, and care free.
You don't have 'thoughts' while you are chasing a ball, or managing around that rock you're about to hit.
And we all need more exercise.
I find running more meditative than any kind of meditation.
There are various different strains of religous/spiritual/philosophical traditions that use meditation (of various kinds), in Hinduism and Buddhism (buddhism especially spread around the region in different variations), (maybe also in esoteric/mystical Abrahamic traditions too?), I'm not sure "ego death" or nihilism is seen as a goal or anticipated as an outcome by all of them.
But I think it's probably true that none of them think meditation is a "simple stress-reliever". It is a powerful tool, and like all powerful tools, you can cut yourself with it, and should learn it with someone more expert who can guide you and keep you from hurting yourself.
I suppose what's "good for the soul" depends on your theory of the soul and what's good for it. (Those who believe something resembling "ego death" is the goal believe that's "good for the soul"!) Seeing it as a tool to make you "more effective" (sounds like some kind of "productivity") definitely doesn't seem right, although probably is common in the de-spiritualized "self-improvement" U.S. "mindfulness" trend.
This is a very interesting take, but I think it applies more to transcendental meditation, not for mindfulness meditation.
I think mindful practices are good stress relievers in general, which include free journaling, slow long walks, and also simple thought mindfulness where we just observe our thoughts dispassionately. (The word "meditation" should be removed from this activity IMHO to avoid confusion)
I think all this is over-interpreting a really harmless practice. Meditation is the only activity that deterministically lifts my mood and decreases pondering. I seriously doubt that sitting still for half an hour trying not to think of anything could destroy my ego or anything. (Most people probably would stop before, that's why it's possible to do a bunch of short different meditations subsequently, so it doesn't get boring.)
In fact there is scientific evidence that meditation and professional sports are the only activities that strengthen a person's will. I guess with sufficient motivation it's possible to find a study that claims anything.
> anti-. Scientists will hold an open mind, but "gurus" who charge money for fancy retreats will insist in its value without evidence.
I went for half a year every week to a free meditation meetup. The guy holding the meetup was the most relaxed person I have ever encountered in my life. Apparently he has has been travelling extensively to Japan and lived happily next to a Railway station. (Some people would go crazy living there with all the noises) For me he was the living proof this stuff actually works.
No need for Gurus here, although it's surely possible to get scammed like with everything. Probably one should get suspicious when the meditation is expensive or at a remote place.
If you are doing 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes sessions every day you don't need teacher. It’s a simple mental exercise. You may feel no effect on your mind to caffeine kick kind of effect.
But if you are doing more 30 minutes per day or specially more than one hour, you need some one guid you.
Best teachers are people spending more time in meditation than you are.
How to find these people are different from region to region.
I’m Theravada Buddhist and we have some monks living in jungles or border of jungles, they are full time meditators, wake up early -> meditation -> breakfast -> meditation -> lunch -> meditation(no dinner) -> sleep. we usually go to these monks for instructions when doing series meditation.
"meditation is a religious practice" this statement of your is enough to prove that you are motivated by theory that your book is the only one and everything else is false or satonic. Meditation will really help you, you should try.
I'm having a hard time parsing your comment - you're making a lot of aspersions and ending with the generic platitude "there are no panaceas". Can you frame your objection a little more concretely or specifically?
"Meditation" isn't one tradition. I know that it has become associated with Eastern practices, but there are others like the Catholic/Christian tradition like the one described in "The Ways of Mental Prayer" by Lehodey".
I think its important to note though, that its generally advised against to practice meditation outside of establishing a foundation in virtue/morality. Not that that is stopping anyone (past self included). I would argue that the religious texts are extremely important in grounding the meditation practice in that way. It's very easy to ascribe all kinds of super-natural ideas and beliefs to the stages of insight and the 'ego-death' at the end of those. In the end, its still you, with your perspective, your ideas, your wrongs and rights. Accepting that is the true jewel, in my eyes.
> I would argue that the religious texts are extremely important in grounding the meditation practice in that way. It's very easy to ascribe all kinds of super-natural ideas and beliefs to the stages of insight
Why is it ironic? Specifically, I don't make any claims whatsoever, nor do I say that there is anything special about it. To me, its a categorization of experiences which tend to happen when you sit down and do some vipassana meditation. Nothing special about that, it's even reproducable for the most part. Like self-exploration.
In ancient India if a beggar attains a state of self realisation he becomes a yogi and would find the king visiting him/her and begging them to stay at the palace.
A king in Europe attaining self realisation could have been executed by the church.
The reason why yoga and meditation developed into an advanced form in India and not elsewhere is because self realisation has always been the ultimate goal for at least 5000 years and highly valued.
When people say "grounded" they mean their surroundings and the people around them do not approve or support their transformation and they are frightened of leaving this familiar and comfortable routine.
Ultimately machines and AI will take all the jobs, what we will have is our self, it is quite valuable for the lucky few who were able to transform yourself.
The real problem is "trying to stay grounded", you do not have to.
This is actually captured in the Indian tradition itself. One set of people who reach this transformation early in their life, and the vast majority of the people who go through the different phases in life.
Children who play
Students who learn
A householder who runs a family, accumulates wealth, enjoys the pleasures of life of which pleasurable sex is also one to be pursued
And retirement - even kings retire, denounce all worldly possessions in pursuit of moksha
Of course there are different kinds of yoga which includes perfection of ones art, knowledge and dedication.
Of course some additional challenges today include turning yoga into a boutique business (beer yoga, wine yoga), cultural appropriation and distortion (Christian yoga, Muslim yoga & Jewish yoga) and of course repackaging vipasana and other powerful techniques void of their roots and peddling them as trademarked products.
Reading through the comments I'd like to help clear up some of the misconceptions/confusion when it comes to the use of the terms meditation and mindfulness:
There are different meditation practices, mindfulness meditation is a special type of meditation (popular are Headspace, Calm, the work of Jon-Kabat et al. and many more).
There are other types of meditation not aiming primarily at mindfulness, popular examples being Transcendental Meditation, visualisation type exercises, and many more.
Mindfulness (in the scientific sense) refers to a state of mind characterised by various qualities (which are slightly different depending on the author), in short being in the present moment, or "not on auto-pilot".
In a mindfulness course, meditation refers to the formal practice of catching your inner auto-pilot. This is usually complemented by applying mindfulness to every-day situations as well as some form of psycho-education.
As a last comment, a 10-day Vipassana retreat is a completely different beast than doing a 10 minute guided mindfulness meditation every day, especially in terms of risks. As has been mentioned by variosu posters, there is a small, but real risk, that the retreat can trigger psychosis. In my understanding this is significantly different to the worsening of a pre-existing condition as described in the article.
The free 10 day vipassana retreats are really quite dangerous IMO. They're often attended by complete beginners with no prior knowledge, since they're free and sort of marketed as a boot camp. The actual instruction is given on decades old tapes and videos. The "instructors" there are given explicit instruction not to advise anyone and just get them to listen to the tapes (which are very much steeped in religious Buddhism). So anyone who's struggling, in a weird mindstate, and unsure what's happening to them, and goes to a course leader for advice, won't get any advice other than to buckle down and listen to the tapes, and that often results in misapplying the technique, buckling down too hard, and not relaxing enough, which can cause the mind to... snap, I guess.
Goenka's method is very inflexible and quite divergent from his lineage and peers. The method of insight meditation outlined by Ledi Sayadaw, Mahasi Sayadaw, etc, is really quite simple, but there's a lot of misinformation, marketing, and fraudsters out there trying to convince people it's more than it is.
> In a mindfulness course, meditation refers to the formal practice of catching your inner auto-pilot. This is usually complemented by applying mindfulness to every-day situations as well as some form of psycho-education.
This is true and about as far as most people will get or want to get with it, and it really does have that benefit. You're right, these longer retreats are designed to essentially deconstruct your self-world boundary, and that isn't usually disclosed to people, there isn't much informed consent. The people who are seeking that usually know what they're getting into.
When I did the 10 day I found it interesting that on the tapes Goenka told stories about how he interacted with people and gave them detailed advice during their sessions with him. But the retreats that are run in his name are totally cookie cutter and you get no individual advice other than basically just to keep going.
When I lived in Maryland I attended classes with Tibetan teachers for a few years and they always pointed out that you need guidance through the tough spots or either your meditation effort is often wasted or even harmful.
I guess us Westerners have a tendency to simplify everything to make it easier to sell. Sometimes it works but often it gets simplified too much as it happened with yoga (our "yoga" is basically just a milder form of aerobics without any depth) or now with mindfulness. There is some benefit but we completely miss the big point.
I have been told that the same thing happened to Goenka himself: he and his peers all got personalised advice, and so his particular body scanning method was what worked for him, while his peers were given other techniques. So the dogma of the Goenka method is based on the assumption that you have the same kind of character as Goenka himself.
> The "instructors" there are given explicit instruction not to advise anyone and just get them to listen to the tapes (which are very much steeped in religious Buddhism). So anyone who's struggling, in a weird mindstate, and unsure what's happening to them, and goes to a course leader for advice, won't get any advice other than to buckle down and listen to the tapes, and that often results in misapplying the technique, buckling down too hard, and not relaxing enough, which can cause the mind to... snap, I guess.
That depends on the 'Assistant Teacher' that is running the course. Maybe some are more willing than others to riff on Goenka's teachings, but from what I've seen most ATs have been willing to give their time to the students. I believe, there are actually other ordained 'Teachers' that tour at the Goenka schools, presumably with their own take on things.
> that isn't usually disclosed to people, there isn't much informed consent. The people who are seeking that usually know what they're getting into.
It's right their in the discourses. And though discouraged, students can leave at any time. Also, to be fair, they do ask each student probing questions about mental state, medications etc. before giving permission to enter the course. I stated that I took alcohol at most once a week, and this was enough concern for them to ask me to clarify. The last thing they need during a silent course is someone losing the plot, or going into withdrawls.
That's true, it can depend on the volunteers and the locations of the centres themselves, so it's a bit of a gamble. I've talked to a few of people who've been travelling in Asia and attended Goenka retreats after huge benders, having never meditated before, because "why not, I've got 10 days left on my visa and need to detox". Then the teachers don't speak any English in some cases. Although one person I met who had done exactly that said it was the best experience of his life, getting through it. So there's that.
I'm not condemning the retreats entirely, I just think that having a complete or even relative beginner sit a 10 day intensive vipassana retreat after basically just checking if they do drugs or take medication or not is quite a risk, and people should know that risk. My friend who had a good experience said he had no clue what he was getting into and thought it would just be a nice relaxing experience that feels good. Having presumably sat one, you'll know that's usually not the case, at least for the first 6 or 7 days, which is a long time, and can be very intense when all the advice you get is "keep going and listening to the tapes".
> It's right their in the discourses.
Also true, to be clear I think that Goenka courses are great resources for people who have sat shorter retreats before or have a long-term, stable practice. It's the "jumping in at the deep end" type stuff that happens, partially because they're free and so easy to access, partly because of the "boot camp" style image, that's risky. Many people aren't inclined to dive into early Buddhist texts and make sense of its philosophy and practice before attending a retreat for the first time.
> basically just checking if they do drugs or take medication or not is quite a risk
The questions were a bit more probing than that. One question was something like, 'How are your relations with your family?', and I think there were questions about mental history etc.
> Also true, to be clear I think that Goenka courses are great resources for people who have sat shorter retreats before or have a long-term, stable practice. It's the "jumping in at the deep end" type stuff that happens, partially because they're free and so easy to access, partly because of the "boot camp" style image, that's risky. Many people aren't inclined to dive into early Buddhist texts and make sense of its philosophy and practice before attending a retreat for the first time.
Much of the seriousness of the retreat is described on the dhamma.org website. I had read and understood this before I signed up. I think I may have even had to confirm that I had read this before I was able to apply.
However, it's likely a lot of people just skip this like the T&Cs on their Facebook account. So I do agree with you, it would probably be to the benefit of the students to at least be aware of the seriousness of the course, and for this to be better communicated.
I had maybe sat 10 or so 1-hour meditation workshops just casually at festivals before I took my course. I had very little about Buddhist philosophy or practice, so I was very much diving in at the deep end, but I entered the course knowing it was a serious psychological intervention from the introduction on the website. During the course, I found the discourse tapes enough to give a satisfactory explanation of what I ought to be aiming for, and sometimes they even pre-empted questions or conflicts I had in my mind.
I've been practicing meditation for several years now.
The phenomenon described in the article is very obvious to every practitioner - it can happen that for some time you will feel worse (actually I'm surprised that it's only 8%).
It is related to psychological mechanisms of repression, which is weakened during meditation practices. That is why during serious meditation retreats (like 10 days vipassana) some people freak out and they aren't able to finish the retreat. It's perfectly normal and usually has positive effects in the long run. Although sometimes meditator is not able to work through the energies released - he should seek (any) professional help then.
Yep, I was just chatting with a friend about our experience with this kind of thing; each of us has done large amounts of subconscious healing work over many years, and each of us has experienced some (at-times quite serious, in my case) anxiety as we progressed, to the point where you really start to question whether it's beneficial or if it's doing more harm than good.
With continued work things turned around, and each of us can now confidently say we're better for having done it, but it's very tough when you're in the thick of it.
This phenomenon is well known in traditional/unconventional healing practices; it's often referred to as the "dark night of the soul" or in Jung philosophy it's the confrontation and integration of the "shadow" [1]. In their work with LSD and holotropic breathwork, Christina and Stan Grof described this as part of what they called the "spiritual emergency" [2].
For me it was the developing awareness about the worst aspects of myself and feeling great shame over past actions and fear of committing wrong deeds in the future. It started passing when I was able to start forgiving and accepting myself and trusting that I could function in the world without succumbing to destructive impulses. But that work is ongoing.
One thing it makes me realise is that it's unwise to proselytise this kind of work to others, as you may be pushing them to undertake a journey they're not ready for. People really have to be highly self-motivated, in order to be able to endure the most challenging parts of such a journey.
The way I like to explain meditation aimed at samatha it is that your mind is like a busy room full of conversations, and as you meditate, the conversations go quiet one by one, until there are just a few left. The ones left, the stubborn, uncooperative ones, are often the least pleasant. They are the ugly thoughts, the scary thoughts. And because you've let all your other thoughts go quiet, the unpleasant voices are now filling up the whole room. Before, you might not have been able to really hear them over the noise, but now even whispers ring out loud and clear. You can't make them shut up, and you aren't supposed to initiate new thoughts to refute them. You are only supposed to observe. In this way, a meditation session can, on a bad day, turn into sitting and listening to all your worst thoughts echo inside your head, not through any mistake, but as a natural consequence of how meditation works, especially for a beginner.
I don't know of any traditional meditation practice that claims to provide immediate benefit for a novice. It is presented as a skill that yields results through sustained development and practice, and difficulties are expected along the way. People presenting it as a quick and easy way to improve mood are the same kind of people who promote fad diets.
I just want to add that for some people the 'freak out' is psychosis, or other serious mental condition that needs immediate treatment.
There are many people who come into meditation to fix something because they have a sense that something is going wrong with them. Meditation has become very popular and there is strong incentive to avoid mentioning possible negatives. Then you just ship out damaged people from the back door and make them think it was their fault.
Meditation if practised as designed brings also negative mental states as part of the process. It's not just feel good hum-hum. People should seek professional mental help if they need and not to try some intensive meditation retreats that drive them into the walls.
I go to long meditation retreats regularly, but I don't recommend them to anyone. It's not the same for everyone. It can seriously harm some people.
I would add to it that like anything else in the world jumping on a deep end is the quickest way to learn something but some % will drown.
Walking is a good exercise for anyone. Would I recommend a 7 day backpack though wildness... maybe not if you heard about it from a friend of a friend as a good way to reconnect with the nature.
> People should seek professional mental help if they need and not to try some intensive meditation retreats that drive them into the walls.
Psychosis triggered by a very unexpected and emotionally strong event doesn't need immediate treatment. You may put yourself back together in a short amount of time and actually getting help may be worse in the long run as you will probably start adjusting variables in your life, like taking meds or getting closer or more distant to particular people, that not necessarily lead to the self-improvement you need.
The whole point of those long retreats is to be able to push yourself to those limits knowing that you will have some days to rest after and that people that are used to handling psychotic people after they had a reveal or something will be around to help you.
Of course as mostly everything that involves a 10 day long gathering with idiosyncratic strangers you need to be careful.
> Psychosis triggered by a very unexpected and emotionally strong event doesn't need immediate treatment.
People may come back without treatment but once you had a psychosis the propensity to get it again has increased. That's why it's usually good to seek help even if the symptoms go away.
while this is valid, one should take it with a pinch of salt of Not Invented Here Syndrome as meditation is generally a practice of the 'East' and there is a nervousness that it is a gateway drug to the eastern religions for the Christian / rational 'West'.
Asian monasteries have their share of weird and broken monks. Sutras and biographies are full of descriptions of people getting mentally ill. "Meditation sickness" is well documented.
Japanese Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769) wrote about his struggle with severe mental illness (Zen sickness he called it). He had to drop meditation practice for several years.
What percentage of cases that take that advice end up on the ever expanding array of drugs with unknown side effects?
We're conducting a massive experiment with the mentally ill right now feeding them experimental pharmaceuticals and I get the strong feeling we will end up being judged just like lobotomies were.
Unfortunately you can only give the treatments you have available. Maybe someday in the future we will have perfect treatments for all of our mental and emotional ills, but that day isn’t today.
Unless maybe you are suggesting we should do nothing, instead?
I have never sat down and properly given meditation a go. That said I have encountered it in various walks - through yoga, martial arts and casual meditation sessions.
What benefits would you describe you feeling from getting past beginner stage?
For me, having practised for around 6 years now, I can sum it up as the acceptance of reality as it is. Some valuable thing in my house breaks? Well, that's just what happens to things. There's very little resistance to what's going on even if it's painful.
There's also a strong sense that the self/world boundary is constructed, and I can see that construction happening in my mind in real-time. This has led to greater empathy and compassion, because of the felt sense that we're all the same 'stuff'.
Besides that, I have access to states of mind I couldn't conceive of before. I no longer feel like I am some kind of entity that lives behind my eyeballs, trapped in a body. I can always 'feel' the awareness of awareness, which isn't limited by my perception. So there's this great open space in which perception occurs, and I can continuously sense that. Having that as an anchor makes me far less reactive, and more calm in the face of challenges.
I can deconstruct my sensory experience in realtime, which basically means whatever the senses are delivering to me, I can recognise what kind of sensing it is. This sounds trivial or tautological, what it means in practice is that nothing really 'sticks'. If a strong emotion comes up, I recognise internal feeling and it just sort of flows out of me. If I'm having a thought or mental image, I recognise it's a thought or a mental image, and it's seen in proportion to the space of awareness, rather than the mind getting stuck into it.
If you're looking at a screen right now, you can sense the proportionality of the device to the room quite intuitively. That same sense of proportionality is given to the contents of the mind-body system with continued mindfulness practice. Everything just happening where it is, rather than somehow being stuck within it.
All that said, the linked article is quite right. Most people do not get to these states of mind without struggle, because we are complex psychological beings with trauma, regret, guilt, shame, and so on, and all of that comes up while sitting, to be seen and digested.
Robert Kegan has a constructive developmental model where he uses "Subject" and "Object" to describe the progression in development.
Basically, you identify with the Subject and at the next level you become aware that that identity is actually something you have, not something you are. Foe example, you have wants and needs you are not your wants and needs. Your identity is not grounded in the fulfilment of your needs.
Mindfulness helps with this. You stop identifying yourself with your body and you realize that you have a body. At an advanced level you stop identifying yourself with your mind and you realize that you have a mind. This ownership allows you to choose your reactions to outside stressors and to approach in a more rational manner changing the things you have. You can change your mind because you want to change it.
At ultimate level subject-object distinction disappears. Glimpses of this ultimate level can be obtained through proper use of entheogens but it is meditation that is the slow and steady road to the mountain top. In other words, you might get to experience the state in a psychedelic trip but if you want to live there, you need to pay the price. The price might be 10 years of daily meditation.
For a frequently funny and light-hearted approach to this subject I recommend the work of Anthony de Mello. He used the word "Awareness" to label this space an "Wake Up" for the process of getting there.
This is an excellent description. Thanks for sharing. Using a mental technique to objectify any subjectivity that arises. Surfing that boundary, interesting things happen.
Not GP but if I may also contribute: greater metacognitive awareness (I get sucked into binge YouTube/Reddit sessions much less; I'm much more aware that I will probably regret saying something I'm about to say and can just not say anything), greater self-control, much less fretting about chronic pain flareups and generally decreased concern about bouts of ill health, more of the occasional moments of appreciation for beauty in the outside environment. Subtle and gradual changes, so far for the better.
> That is why during serious meditation retreats (like 10 days vipassana) some people freak out and they aren't able to finish the retreat. It's perfectly normal and usually has positive effects in the long run.
To be fair the vast majority of people who leave (Goenka) Vipassana retreats leave on days 2 and 6 (Goenka himself mentioned this in one of the prerecorded talks). It's extremely unlikely that first timers get concentrated enough to start experiencing negative effects (such as 'bhanga jnana' or dissociation) in 1-5 days of meditation. Anyone familiar with those retreats would guess they couldn't take the boot camp schedule and not being allowed to speak or to peruse any kind of diversion such as book or smartphone.
Having an emotional breakdown is normal if you've been repressing and become overwhelmed.
It can be re-traumatizing if it happens in an unfavorable time/place, and I'm not saying it's even necessary for healing.
But, it's not a "side-effect" of meditation, and it suggests that meditation does exactly what it says on the tin. It's confronting thoughts and feelings that you find dangerous enough to suppress. These are the things causing neuroses and unhealthy behavior patterns in your daily life. Dealing with them isn't always going to be enjoyable or even safe.
So, similarly to taking psychedelics: manage your dosage, and if you want to go deep make sure you're somewhere that you feel safe and supported.
Hah, when I was writing my sibling comment, I too had thought about psychedelics and the parallels there. I haven’t experienced those at all yet, mostly because the opportunities I’ve had to try haven’t felt like the right “set and setting”. Or maybe I’m just scared of what I’ll see :D
Note: I'm not a psychologist/psychiatrist. Afaik this is not unique for meditation, initially therapy sometimes has to focus a lot on "opening up", getting a person to talk and break down internal barriers, or repressed feelings. This leaves the person worse off for a while until the therapy can leave them better in the long term by dealing with these issues and emotions instead of just pushing them away.
I can imagine mediation and reflection can help with the opening up part, but some people really need a medical therapist to help them properly, so the warning seems sane.
It's like limping along on a badly healed broken leg. A doctor might have to break it again which will make it worse, but allow it to heal properly with good medical attention.
Therapy of this type is usually done in a controlled environment for this purpose. Both patient and therapist are aware of what’s happening and know what to expect.
Being guided through facing trauma and having it minimized in a controlled manner is vastly different than facing the full intensity unprepared with no one to rescue you if it goes badly.
I’m not a clinical psychologist, and every time I try to read beyond the first screen of this article on my phone I get some weird ad about Google giving away phones...
My own experience with meditation, guided and encouraged by my therapist when I did seek professional help, does match what the title of the article says at a minimum. But here’s the rub: I went to him to try to figure out and resolve the mental state I’d gotten into!
Very deliberate mindful meditation helped me observe the thoughts-below-the-thoughts from a somewhat neutral perspective (sometimes called “observing the river”). What I saw was profoundly uncomfortable! Some of the thoughts underlying my behaviour were just my current headspace (other companies had commercialized work similar to my grad school research while I was still researching it), and some of it was negative thought patterns I’d adopted in my early teens in response to some stressors.
I worked through those and came to peace with them. It wasn’t a pretty couple of months, but I’m a dramatically different and better person because of it.
There should probably be a giant disclaimer and some intake interviews for these 10-day retreats. If you’re going and expecting that it’s just going to be a nice opportunity to chill... you’re probably not going to be ready to actually inspect the shit that comes out of your brain when you give it a chance. And... the people who snap at these retreats likely would have benefitted from professional help anyway; spending time alone with their thoughts in that setting just brought that fact to the surface.
Are you suggesting that because some percentage of individuals experiences adverse effects, it doesn't help the vast majority of individuals?
Antidepressants such as Zoloft and Prozac are taken by tens of millions of Americans each year, yet both drugs carry a black box warning that they may cause or worsen suicidal thoughts, and both drugs have been shown in scientific studies to worsen depression in some percentage of patients. And manufacturers of both drugs have paid out large sums of money in class-action lawsuits where the drugs were implicated in suicides attempts.
If someone said "SSRIs are useful to treat people with clinical depression" would you simply reply:
>Yeah, citation needed for that. Because "people often have meltdowns and new or worsening suicidal thoughts" isn't really encouraging.
In other words, because thousands of individuals experience worsening depression or suicidal thoughts, you'd doubt that it provides long-term help to the millions who don't experience those effects?
This is the equivalent of saying exercise is bad because "People who engage in physical activities sometimes experience unwanted muscle soreness and joint pain". Dredging up old repressed emotions is one of the first things I learned about meditation, and you're supposed to learn to deal with them instead of keeping them buried in your head forever.
At the same time though meditation traditionally was practiced in various communities with social safety nets where elaborate maps of mental states and wise gurus could help guide you while the most potent and esoteric practices like Kundalini activation or advanced breathwork were kept hidden for most people until later stages.
Today these maps that all still very much exist inside various lineages through poetry, koans, books or through oral teachings have fallen away while people often sit alone in their rooms looking at apps completely deterritorialized from the incredible wisdom that sorrounds these rituals and that in my eyes form a very important yin to the yang of practice.
Besides that psychotheraphy and bodywork is also often a good preliminary "grounding mechanism" that already very disassociated people need as to not make themselves disassociate even more, or take a very deep fall into emotion after having fled from them for years.
This fall is called "Dark night of the soul" in modern language and is very well known.
For people interested in this stuff let me recommend the Stream Entry subreddit based on the books by Daniel Ingram "Mastering The Core Teachings of the Buddha" which is a pretty interesting and STEM like exploration of the subject - but that is also a bit cold and potent so above warnings apply.
What percentage of articles about mindfulness tell you that you’re going to recall terrible memories and have to work to overcome them? Do the human resource departments that advocate mindfulness tell employees about this?
Except that physical exercise is related to well understood, easily measurable mechanisms. Perhaps this article seeks to counterweight the overwhelmingly positive reputation that meditation etc has.
This is probably oversimplified, but it does make some sense.
Some people are happily trotting about in their objectively miserable lives.
Sit them down and let them think on it, and they just might realize how empty their lives are and how little control they have over their situation.
I've always been very "mindful" and depending on your inclination to cynicism, that inevitably means finding out that life is what it is.
Ever read Zen In The Art of Archery[1]? In it, the author talks about how, when learning a brand new physical practice like archery, at first you just dive in and start doing it without knowing the fundamentals and, truly, how difficult it is. So you're kind of blessed by naivete. But as soon as you choose to learn it the right way, you're immediately sent back to basics and are faced with the fact that you know nothing and are likely the worst you'll ever be at this. But that's a necessary part of the journey.
This happened to me in golf. I was naturally decent at it without ever taking a lesson or watching a video about how to swing. That only got me so far. Now I'm taking lessons and relearning everything. I feel worse at the sport today than I was two years ago. But if I acknowledge the truth in that and push forward, I'll ultimately be much better than I could have been.
Same process with meditation. I've been practicing for 11+ years and right now my practice is pretty challenging. But that comes with the process.
Tiger Woods himself went through something similar - he got a new coach to up his game, and at first, his results got way worse, but then it really paid off for him.
Thinking about every aspect of my life in a very deep and logical way is what got me depressed. And what got me out of it was being busy enough that I didn't have time for that.
what's so great about existential dread? If you don't have it then you don't have it.
I read a book on Zen Buddhism once about 20 years ago and it made sense to me. I've never read or practiced anything related since which makes me a constant practitioner in a way. Maybe i'm blessed or cursed but, to me, the endless pursuit of meditation/mindfulness is the same as the endless pursuit of anything else.
> what's so great about existential dread? If you don't have it then you don't have it.
Not sure what you're even asking here - everyone has problems. Would you advise them to ignore their problems and instead distract themselves with something else?
> Maybe i'm blessed or cursed but, to me, the endless pursuit of meditation/mindfulness is the same as the endless pursuit of anything else.
Yeah, I agree and I don’t understand the parent comment. As far as I know meditation is about NOT ruminating on thoughts, so a happy person surely shouldn’t become depressed by doing it. Sure, for most people, being told to sit in silence and reflect will make them unhappy. What the heck is the benefit of that? A lot of the work I do with CBT is to NOT reflect and ruminate and think about every aspect of my life and every decision I make. It works. I’m happier. Why would I want to get unhappy again because someone tells me it’s good for me? If that is the ‘benefit’ of meditation, I’ll pass!
That's a reasonable perspective. But the parent comment talked about a different kind of thinking. Constantly judgemental thinking is not healthy. If you just sit there meditating, and your idling mind (often) jumps to uncomfortably self-critical and doubtful thoughts, that is an unhealthy mental habit, right?
Here is how meditation can help here. (1) You become okay with having those sort of thoughts - you don't have to flee from them or push them away. (2) You can observe exactly based on what you criticize yourself, or what you feel hung up on. (3) After meditating, with a clear mind, you can rationally consider those matters. "Huh, do I really regret <xyz> decision? Why does <abc> aspect of it bother me now that I notice it?". You can resolve this conflict now.
This is my experience. Besides this, it just feels good to be calm.
> Why would I want to get unhappy again because someone tells me it’s good for me?
I also understand this sentiment. Sometimes if something gives you anxiety or intrusive thoughts, its better to leave it and let it slip by your thoughts rather than to bring it into attention. But even so I want to tell you this - a lot of the benefit of meditation comes not from exercising your cognitive and reasoning abilities, but from just being okay with how things are. It's really that simple.
CBT gives me the tools to do all of this much quicker. I simply write down anxious or critical thoughts and examine/interrogate them on paper. There seems to be no point in sitting with my eyes closed for twenty minutes when I can effectively chase off a negative thought with paper and pen in five. This also gives me practice with actually changing my thought patterns and building better life habits. I don’t see how focusing on my breath could possibly change my thoughts any more effectively than that.
> Sit them down and let them think on it, and they just might realize how empty their lives are and how little control they have over their situation.
As far as I'm aware, most meditation and mindful practices are descendent of Theravada buddhist discipline, which is not so much about rumination, but observing, and not reacting to one's thoughts and sensation, as well as the understanding that these thoughts and sensations will come to pass.
So say, if you found yourself in a cycle of self-pitying rumination, with enough practice you would hopefully become aware of the arising of thought, and learn to not let it affect you, and allow it to pass. Such practice is difficult, and often dispiriting. Proper guidance by an expert is definitely encouraged, and mitigates these adverse outcomes.
I’ll give you an example from my own life that meditation and therapy helped clear up for me.
In my 20s, I would routinely get into yelling and screaming matches with girlfriends. There were two significant driving forces behind that:
- that is how my parents interacted. Things are good, someone screws up, everyone yells at each other for a while, and the next day it’s as if nothing happened. There were addictions involved...
- because it was the family dynamic I was used to, I was naturally attracted to people with similar disagreement-resolution styles.
I started down this path when I met someone awesome (now going 10 years strong), and she came from a family that uhhh wasn’t quite as messed up as mine. We’d have a disagreement, I’d yell, and she would shut down. She basically told me that if I didn’t stop trying to argue like that, she’d be gone.
So I started figuring out how to take something I was upset about and generally stay calm enough to discuss it, but the anger was still there, I was just suppressing it. Turns out, when I did that consistently, I started to go emotionally numb. Sure, I didn’t fly off the handle when I was upset, but I also didn’t find much joy in anything either (which I had before!)
What I basically concluded one night was that I had effectively found my “volume knob” and I had turned it down too much. Therapy and meditation (encouraged by the therapist) helped me work through all the baggage that came from my weird childhood and helped me get that volume knob dialled in.
Now I have wonderful joyful experiences, and when my partner and I have a disagreement about something, we can resolve it calmly. I don’t think I’ve yelled at a single human being in probably 8 years.
Objectively happy vs. objectively miserable? I don’t know if objective applies since I didn’t collect any data :). But, if nothing else, I would wager my cortisol and other stress hormone levels are waaaaaaay down compared to how things used to be.
i used to be a very argumentative person, and one thing i noticed was a big difference between "supressing" vs "releasing" the emotion or need to argue
supressing, for me anyways, always lead to more stress and then a huge random argument about totally irrellevant things... conversely, mentally imagining that im "letting go" of that need/feeling to make my point, was alot more effective
It's actually a step in the right direction even if they "suffer more": this is merely the first step. But this is an issue if they get stuck here unless driving this to the conclusion.
They found that about 8 per cent
people who try meditation experience
an unwanted effect
What does that even mean?
That 8 percent of people who try meditation experience something "unwanted" within a certain time afterwards?
Is that different from a control group? Which control group? When you look at 100 random people people with the same situation and instead of letting them meditate let them go for a walk instead - what percentage will experience something unwanted?
We would need to look into the study to figure out if it has more info.
But the article seems to provide no link to the study. No DOI, no nothing.
Based on the name "Miguel Farias" mentioned in the article, it might be doi 10.1192/pb.bp.116.053686 from 2016:
Not to mention the selection bias that occurs with a cohort of people who want to try meditation (who already might be predisposed to certain kinds of mental aberrations)
Mindfulness meditation is not about negating ego, but about observing, seeing what is in front of you, not judging, it is about perspective, about patience (sitting in silence, not running after every thought or desire you have), about learning to be gentle and patient with yourself and others. It is about waking up to your current reality, to the present moment. About coming from an illusionary state of mind to an accepting, seeing-current-reality state of mind. It’s also about realizing that you are not your thinking mind (alone). Your thinking mind is a tool, and your thoughts are notions and models about the world. But there is also a level of perception that is meta-mind. A level that is beyond that. A mind that observes your thinking mind. When you don’t equate yourself and the world with your thoughts. Call it intuition if you will. But it’s more than that. Not dichotome as the thinking mind makes it. But holistic. - The Western notion about mindfulness practice is very distorted. Sometimes simplistic. Sometimes negative: „Buddhism is about killing your ego“. No it is not about killing anything. It is about observing it, in a non-judging, patient way. - Mindfulness meditation is about practicing being in the present moment, nothing more than that. And about a set of principles that‘ll help you practice being in the present moment: Being patient, being non-judgemental, perspective, breathing, sitting in silence, observing the breath, observing the thoughts that come and go, not attaching to them, letting go, being in the present moment.
I learned that trying to explain this topic to others is like forbidden fruit. Unless asked for. But I am going to write some anyways, because this why we are at this forum anyways.
There is no thing like ego, its not somebody. That's the problem itself. Its just your mind, which is forgotten that its just your tool given to you to put it to good use. And than there is something else behind it, that comes first. That perceives the output of the mind. Emotions, memories, all kinds of perceptions, everything.
After reading a lot of stuff, not particularly mindfulness but about anything, it really changed how i view the world. And i feel like it really comes down to the level of awareness you have about your inner working as a human.
One great example I experienced and got me speechless, more than once or twice:
Little children, who barely able to talk, just about 3 or 4 years old, got a question about about who did something bad in the past? And they are going to say their name. And the "adults" in the room are going to laugh, because it sounds funny to them. But the child did not intended it to be a joke, that`s obvious. Its that they does not yet identified themselves with their memories. And the adults laughed because its so obvious for them to say: "I did it". But its really just a memory at that point.
Spoiler alert: The whole realization is that the entire concept of you is artificial. The idea that there is an ever-present unchanging thing called "you" is fairly straightforward for the uninitiated to grasp. The idea that there is no "you" separate from "me" is harder— by a lot.
What attracted me to it was how well it blended in with our modern ideas in physics. Not just the idea that a wavefunction never dies to zero (unless there is a truly infinite potential somewhere), and that we are part of a large many-body system. But also the idea of the big-bang at the universes (re-?)conception: That spacetime itself started at a point and expanded. It is one thing- a big blob of clay- out of which lumps are formed. One is you and one is me. But we are connected. Your existence would be different if I didn't exist.
To kill the ego is to come to an intuitive understanding of this- by being aware and present.
My daily night routine includes looking at a picture of dinosaurs, and a high resolution picture of the hubble telescope[1] and realize that there is something that drove the making of all of this, the process of evolving, of galaxies, bacteries, dinosaurs, so on...being huge and getting big, as dinosaurs, galaxies, humans did. And the variety of those, and so on...None of those made any conscious decision of, for example growing a wing in the future, or the shape, or the structure, or the color if it. But yet it did happen.
So there is that thing that drove the making and changing of everything. And that there is no I or you, there is just this thing of making without knowing or being able to direct any of it. And this is the point where the we cant really describe it anymore precisely. Its everything you can not think of. The opposite of what the brain is capable of comprehending.
If I can keep this point of "worldview" so to say, before actually falling asleep, I get the best sleep anyone can wish for.
I find this subject very interesting. I'm an Indian with a typical understanding of the concept of meditation being about perspective, patience and such ideas.
But I have seen multiple times that Western culture somehow seem to try to extract something out of it. As if trying to commercialize meditation.
Peace with oneself, at one's current state is perhaps the only thing I relate with mindfulness. I have been in depression for years, have anxiety. And I started investing more into mindfulness recently, realizing I lost my roots.
The mind is a powerful tool, more so in silence. That's what I feel personally.
Western yoga has been evolving over the last couple of centuries. An age-old proverb says - Truth is one, wise express it in many ways. Indian teachers came to the West and Westerners went to India to learn about Indian Philosophy - Yoga. Ideally speaking, Yoga is free for all. Some teachers started charging a fee for making a living, which may be fine. Slowly dilution of purpose occurred and some worst-case teachers turned to be opportunists. The result is most of the Western Yoga schools/studios focus on postures, yoga pants for flexibility a few raise to teaching breathing techniques for a calmer mind, and rarely few pickup the actual spirit of Yoga described in original texts Bhagavad Gita or Patanjali yoga sutras.
Lastly, it is a happy coincidence people (including Indians) like yoga exercises. Most of us will be happy with the results of the exercises resulting in flexibility and transient calmness in mind. Real seekers go after Yoga for years and it is not available down the street or online. In reality, ultimate Yoga - a union of gross, subtle, and causal bodies - is very high-bar to reach.
Hopefully, it gives some people a glimpse of the original idea of Yoga. I'm sorry if this is too wordy and preachy.
That sounds great, but in practice I found out that people who meditate too little don't get any results, and people who meditate too much tend to neglect other parts of their life such as work and family (often a glorified attitude under the name of detachment), and over decades become less fulfilled than 'regular' people.
There's a wisdom in the simple life of ordinary people, too, don't need to subject yourself to ascetic practices for it. Ask yourself, would meditating for 10 days help you more than taking a vacation and learning something new, with the same focus? Something practical, that would make you better at life, not just feel better about life.
If spiritual practices like meditation were so powerful in a life affirming way, India would be the most advanced country. Rather than closing your eyes and floating in your empty mind, better to open them an learn what is amazing about the world. The world is more exciting than imagination and internal body feelings.
> A level that is beyond that. A mind that observes your thinking mind.
In the way I was taught mindfulness meditation, "equanimity" means observing without desire. You do not seek pleasure, you do not flee from pain. It does seem to give that "level above" feeling you mention. I consider this the most valuable skill I have learned during my limited time meditating.
> Mindfulness meditation is about practicing being in the present moment, nothing more than that.
This seems false. Even your own comment follows the "nothing more that that" with a list of additional things. As I mentioned, I've found the skills that help me be aware of the present moment are more valuable than actually being aware of the present moment.
I think of jogging. I hate jogging. Whenever I do it I am fully focused on the moment. Can I endure another 2 steps? And then another 2 steps? That's pretty focused on the moment. My desperate breaths, my aching side, that's living in the moment. Yet, it is not like meditating. I do not develop any of those skills you listed at the end of your comment when jogging. Thus, I think meditation is about the skills required to be in the present moment rather than actually being in the present moment. The detachment, the observing without desire, etc.
I believe this sort of misses the point. In swedish some of the more serious conditions are called meditationally (induced) psychosis, or meditational psychosis: Meditationspsykos.
Absolutely agree with this. I started meditating a year ago and it has worked wonders for my generalized anxiety disorder. Definitely more than drugs or therapy alone. To me, it's conscious acceptance of the present moment, including emotions. That way, I can control my emotions to a surprising extent. It allows me to significantly improve my rationality and acceptance of uncertainty.
"Mindfulness and other types of meditation are usually seen as simple stress-relievers"
That's the first problem. They are powerful "technologies" (okay, that's just a fancy way of saying "tools") of mind and self, not "simple stress-relievers".
Possible "negative" outcomes are not unknown in the cultures that originated these tools. Any powerful tool will have some potential metaphorical sharp edges.
Over 20 years ago, I took a yoga and meditation class (before or near the beginning of the U.S. cultural rise of non-spiritual "mindfulness"), and the instructor told us on the first class, something like:
"Sometimes people doing these techniques can experience odd things. You might have a negative reaction. Or see or experience something odd or scary. Or even think you are interacting with scary beings who aren't there or another plane of existence or something. I don't say this to scare you, it doesn't happen to many people. But so you can recognize it if it does, and just come talk to me. It happens sometime, it's not a big deal, but it's important you come talk to me if it does, left unattended/unguided it can become a big deal."
Because there are teachings/techniques from the traditions these tools orginate in to deal with some the sometimes negative effects too, that were also developed over generations in tandem with the tools. This is the danger of extracting "mindfulness" from it's cultural context, as just a "simple stress-reliever".
I must be taking meditation way less seriously than most of the other comments. I thought it was basically quiet reflection; a chance to calm your body (with breathing exercises). I had thought it was a chance to see if that reveals something you've been ignoring or to help you ignore something momentarily so you can decompress and evaluate your well being more objectively.
That's how I've been treating meditation anyway. I thought zen ego death was just overzealous marketing but from the comments its fairly common?
Meditation in the way western people think about it is kind of like shopping mall yoga: it's a tradition with a long religious history that's been turned into an anodyne "healthy" practice for American consumers.
Early in quarantine, I basically roasted my mental health with wellness practices. Strict diet, running, yoga, breathing exercises, strict sleep schedule, no alcohol, etc. etc. I felt great and in control for a few weeks and then slowly got more and more anxious, which is compounded by the helplessness of 'doing everything right' but not getting the desired result.
Last night I played video games and ate ice cream while watching a movie. Feel pretty good today :).
A couple years ago I moved to the mountains with my family and cutback on mindless tech consumption (social media, Netflix) and started reading more books and working out (power rack in my garage).
I feel my IQ has gone up a few points and I’m more in control over my behavior/emotions but my anxiety is worse. I’m plagued by my thoughts of the shortness of time and the temporary relationship I’ll have with my children.
I think it’s a natural part of the human condition and people escape for a reason.
Historically, religion remedied that in a lot of ways, which is why it was called “opium of the masses”. People need a worldview-framework to overwrite their base firmware.
Given that every time I've been depressed it has consisted precisely of detaching from the quotidian world somewhat, sitting still a lot, thinking, being aware of thinking, I'm not surprised by this result. It's too much 'yin'. I notice when the diagnosis is depression the first thing doctors reach for, before pills or anything else, is exercise, movement of any kind, which not coincidentally is a 'yang' thing. (Doesn't always work on its own since the patient has to have enough motivation to go do it.)
When your world is all crazy and on fire with hectic activity, that's when it's the most beneficial to stop and meditate. I think some of the meditation stuff as it's marketed in the West, is first of all done without much regard to the needs of (or actual effect on) those who buy the book/class/etc., and is secondly based on the implicit assumption that "our modern lives" are filled with too much activity - errands and dropping-off-the-kids and whatnot. But if you're depressed the opposite is usually the case.
For a couple years I practiced meditation from 30 minutes to a couple hours per day. I was introduced to it when I started practicing the Wim Hof method for health reasons. I tried to adhere to a zen style of emptiness. It made me extremely happy, greatly increased my satisfaction with life and improved my relationship with my wife.
The downside for me came when I was driving or in public. I became very anxious because I would sometimes feel my thoughts drifting away as they did when I meditated and I feared I would lose my ability to control myself. I had some mild anxiety prior to meditating (never while driving tough) but it was greatly amplified during this time. I eventually stopped meditating due to some unrelated circumstances (basically not having enough free time), and my anxiety virtually disappeared. My overall happiness has decreased and I have resumed some self destructive behaviors (such as occasional binge drinking) . Not sure if I will ever pick it up again. I would probably be much better off if I had some actual instruction and someone to discuss these issues with.
Since you mention your happiness a coupe times I wonder: Can you explain how you go about gauging, assessing, calculating or feeling how happy your are?
Since you have practiced meditation regularly for a couple years, what do you think about the idea that chasing happiness is also something to let go of?
Exactly how it works for me. I tried meditation and my anxiety became much worse. Somehow the meditation itself unlocks many more things to worry about.
Conversely, I found out that doing things that are exactly the opposite (of mindfulness) do great for me to not worry that much: Play computer games, go to "pointless" parties, "waste" some money... and of course, physical activity.
Meditation centers my mind squarely at the things that I worry about the most (and I don't have great influence on): politics, diseases (like getting cancer), what people think of me, etc.
.. many would strongly advise against avoiding those emotions, and possibly getting help / ideas / guidance on how best to defuse their affect on you.
There's a significant difference between understanding the political horrors, or knowing that cancer is a problem - versus being terrified of thinking about these realities.
Well, yeah, I hear you. But for the past 5 years I have progressed from panic attacks and benzodiazepine dependance... to mostly "nothing" by just "avoiding" the anxiety. I sleep all night, I am much more happy with my work, etc. All of this, just because of taking the "right" decisions, which are mostly avoiding stress, like switching jobs, improving my physical fitness, allowing myself to be lazy etc.
Yeah, it may backfire in the future, but I am not going back there, if I am allowed to choose.
Correct if wrong but this study sample included people who meditated at least once a week for at least two months? There's the problem. Meditation is a daily exercise conducted for at least 20 minutes. You won't be able to apply meditation-acquired skills, such as anxiety reduction, until a foundation is established-- at least 2 months, but probably more. Just as the benefits of a diet and exercise take time to work, so too does a disciplined meditation regiment.
Yea... you know, surgery is extremely painful. It can sometimes be worse than whatever is the reason you're getting cut open. The recovery period is a nightmare too sometimes.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.
Non-religious meditation is sort of the same for your psyche. You bring things to light that have been plaguing you in the background. Once in the light, you have to painfully deal with it. Make peace with it, make amends, or corrective course of action. Over time, such actions become less painful and future issues affect you less because you have the experience and maturity to deal with them swiftly.
This article just spins it all towards negativity. That last cop-out paragraph was a joke. A guided meditation app? I am all for a pro therapist to help people talk through their problems and help better explain their own thoughts and actions... but an app? Seriously? The whole point to meditation is for you to have better understanding of yourself. Not for someone else to dictate your own thoughts. A good therapist doesn't guide you to a pre determined path. They push you to walk your own path.
Damn, these things piss me off so much. This whole article feels like the opening pitch to some asshole's self help app that they're going to charge a monthly subscription for.
Your ire is misplaced. This article is talking about the minority of people for whom meditation does the opposite of what it's supposed to do.
This reminds me of study done where, again, a small percentage of people who were exposed to sounds that are typically used to reduce anxiety had the opposite effect to. I am trying to dig up this study but it was posted to HN close to a decade ago, so who knows what happened to it. I think a number of HNers expressed the issues they faced listening to these samples as well.
I mean I've known people who took LSD and instead of a fun trippy experience they had a really bad time. Totally shook them up.
In the long run it was good for them, spooked them enough to stay away from drugs permanently and, ultimately, turn their life around.
Meditation, like LSD, is only going to get you to a place -- what you find there is on you. If you blot out all distractions and look deep inside yourself... you may not like what you see. If you get someone with deep seated, repressed anxiety and make them bring it to the fore via meditation it's not going to make them less anxious, it's just going to make it more noticeable.
new scientist has always stuck me as a science magazine for the alt-right type. full page ads of BMWs on the opening page and some climate change article as well.
Huh... that's super interesting you said that. As a conservative, the entire "magazine" feels more leftist, snowflake to me. Avoiding painful, tough self-responsibility and action in life is what stuck out to me in this.
Serious question, other than the capitalism part and climate change stuff, what else makes you think they're alt-right? Maybe also, define what you believe alt-right means. Mostly because everyone has a weird spectrum grade as what they declare is "alt-right"... which to me is just a way of calling someone a nazi without saying "nazi".
if u let me extrapolate capitalism is alt-right. communal/social is alt-left.
UK is capitalist/imperial with some socialist 'guilt' (think NHS). but when shit hits the fan, they are capitalist. new scientist magazine is pretty much a UK view of the world.
sometimes though i've spotted some awesome articles in new scientist (eg., about mexican chinampas comes to mind), these seem to sneak under their alt-right radar...
I was part of a Zen meditation group for about six years. I did not personally notice members having psychotic breaks during retreats. What I did notice was that people were coming in with depression and anxiety, and that the mindfulness practice was not helping to drive people to manage the issue. They were just comforted by being in the presence of other people who had similar issues they could relate to.
What I found upsetting was that the leaders of the group were not interested in actually solving these issues either and were perpetuating the state of being present with the problems the meditators had. This created a vicious cycle of dependency. Anxiety and depression are not things you can just figure out and snap out of.
As a commenter mentioned earlier, the point of meditation (in the Buddhist context) was to facilitate ego death. Watching the self, knowing the self, and extricating the self, in order to be freed from the problems of self (which is thought to be causing the depression and anxiety). In our modern context most of us can't go into a forest refuge and isolate ourselves to do this practice.
Self-improvement clickbait works as well on HN as anywhere else. I do think that all of the orthorexic diet stuff has been downmodded over the last year or two, though (or the OCD weather in silicon valley has shifted.) It's been worse.
When i exercise or try to meditate i just wind up thinking about things i need to do, and i typically abandon my workout to go do it. It can be as simple as picking up a dirty sock or putting away a coffee cup.
My apartment is never more spotless than when I have to tackle some hard/complex piece of code that requires my undivided attention for a long stretch.
It's a pattern that is common for people with ADHD, but it's also pretty common for everyone else—just maybe not as common. I'm sorry if it wasn't intentional, but your comment reads like you're saying that the above comment is a sign the commenter might have ADHD and that seems unwarranted.
Meditation is ridiculously oversold as a magical solution to all of life's problems. The whole question of the relationship between meditation and the ego just strikes me as irrelevant if not made up entirely in the way that religions make up stories about the spiritual benefits that their practitioners can enjoy.
The most use I've gotten out of meditation is as a simple cure for habitual thoughts and behaviors. And I think the logic is incredibly straight forward: if you find yourself suspecting that what you're doing is not helpful and/or not deliberate, what better thing to do than to sit down and take an honest look at your thoughts and impulses? It's not rocket science and I don't think it's fundamentally a religious practice either (as some here have suggested).
Coming to the practice with an overinflated sense of what's possible will certainly lead to disappointment and maybe even depression.
Presenting meditation as something you can do every once in a while when you are feeling bad emotionally and want to feel better is like telling somebody that if they wake up feeling tired and out of shape, they should go for a quick three mile run and then they'll feel great for the rest of the day. It only works for people who are in decent shape already, and not only is it terrible advice for people who are looking for help, it's also presented in a way that makes people feel like something is wrong with them if it doesn't work for them like it supposedly does for other people.
Meditation will make you more sensitive to whatever you are feeling. If you are anxious or depressed you will feel it significantly more strongly and it will be extremely uncomfortable. As you continue the practice you will become desensitized to the negative aspects.
The whole point of vipassana is to break down what exactly is happening into its component parts. If your feeling anxious then you try to break that down into mental imagery, bodily sensations, mental chatter etc
You are essentially exploring your depression, anxiety or whatever else you are feeling and over time you'll be able to handle all these states of minds calmly.
One positive aspect of meditation is that it can start to make you feel very good. You can start off your meditation session with extreme states of anxiety and as you explore what it means to be anxious - anxious feelings all over your body can suddenly turn into extremely pleasant sensations sliding up your body. The more you do it the more persistent this feeling becomes.
I liken it to exercise. Too much and you strain your brain past its ability to repair. Yes you can overtrain your brain. You also need to take nutrition into account. You can hit the gym every day but if you don't dial in your nutrients, you won't see any improvement or worse, a degradation.
I started meditating weekly with a Zen Buddhist group about 4 months before I started taking medication for depression a couple years ago.
Mindfulness is emphasized in CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy). The idea behind this is that depression manifests as distorted thoughts (e.g. "Everyone hates me, I should die."), and the goal is to notice these thoughts and learn to substitute them (eventually automatically) with thoughts that are more productive/positive.
From what I've seen, most meditation practices are very helpful for the "notice the thoughts" part, but, especially in non-religious settings, tend to neglect the "substitute the thoughts" part. Usually what I hear is something like "notice the thought and let it go."
So if the thought "Everyone hates me, I should die" comes up during meditation, you just notice it and let it go. That often provides some relief in the short term (you're no longer actively thinking about dying), but you've done nothing to prevent it from arising again later, and you haven't learned any coping techniques for when similar thoughts won't go away (which can be a symptom during severe episodes). If you have depression or anxiety and want to get into meditation, I would strongly suggest at the very very least researching the principals of CBT in case you find yourself in this situation. I would recommend an app called Woebot. Even better would be to try some actual CBT if you are able.
All that said, I think that for me joining a meditation group was beneficial for me because of the social aspect more so than the actual meditation. This group emphasizes community (sangha) and service pretty heavily. A lot of people get social benefits from other religious communities, but as someone who didn't grow up in a religious household, I find Buddhists super easy to get along with. They tend to be very accepting, especially to newcomers, since they are taught not to make judgements of others. It's comforting to know if I'm going through a rough patch that at least I don't have to worry about people judging me for missing meditation that week.
Seems like every hacker and his uncle came to collectively share their unknowledge and misinformation about this subject. Please, _downvote_ this comment, go ahead - but I refuse to invest any more time in attempting to change this - this is just ridiculous.
I don't have experience with meditation so I can't comment on that but personally I have been though some very tough periods in my life, battling with depression and anxiety and what has helped me a lot during those periods is physical exercise and eating healthy food. Even better if I manage to join a group sport or activity. It is sometimes hard to find the motivation to do it, doesn't provide immediate gratification and relaxation but if I keep doing it is much more rewarding to my mental health compared to all other stuff I have tried.
That some people have negative reactions – including anxiety, hallucinations, & seizures – to intense meditation has long been recognized. Here's a story from 18 years ago in the SFWeekly:
"Bad Vibes- Warning: Meditating may be hazardous to your health" SFWeekly, 2002-08-28
There is rampant commercialization and distortion of powerful techniques. It takes a lot of experience and hands on training, and years of observing the guru teach others before one does it themselves.
So much so that there exists a term guru-sishia parampara, when the teaching of a school are perfected and handed down through the generations.
Another factor is a lot of us are perfectly aware of the pointlessness of our day to day activities, but are very frightened to break out of it. It gives us a kind of familiarity and is "normal" to be that way.
This is similar to how yoga affects your body. The first step of mending something is awareness. If you know what's broken you can fix it. Many people who start doing yoga start feeling worse at the start, they realize what's wrong with their body, but if they push on, it gets better. Perhaps something similar can be said for meditating. Also, just blindly trying to meditate or other online ways are not actually meditation, but that's another discussion.
> The first step of mending something is awareness. If you know what's broken you can fix it.
That leans toward something I was wondering about as I read the article. One of the things that was noted was "thoughts of suicide". Is the meditation causing that, or was it a thought pattern that was already going on made more obvious by practice? Not trying to diminish the danger of ToS or practicing without guidance and support, but I don't think there's quite enough to establish causality here.
Meditation and mindfulness practices reconnect you to your feelings. Fear (anxiety) and apathy (depression) are feelings. We disconnect from them through repression, suppression and escape. To move beyond any obstacle, you must first confront it. I wouldn't let the pain of feeling low vibration emotions discourage your meditation or mindfulness practice. When you confront and accept these painful feelings, there are greater, lighter emotions beyond.
The end goal of mindfulness is to make you realize you have no free will and that you don't exist. I wish more people understood that. Losing the illusion you have free will is the real danger behind mindfulness, because the practice leaves you there with nowhere to go.
Having your mind "run away with bad thoughts," while it sounds bad, isn't directly related to the fundamental issue of mindlessness, and could happen with any type of meditation.
As one begins meditation one becomes more aware of their thoughts and feelings. If one has been suppressing "negative" thoughts and feelings those will start to come to the forefront and may seem overwhelming. As a potential solution the article recommends working with a guided meditation either live with a teacher, or a recorded one. This is a great ideas as one develops the capacity to become comfortable with discomfort.
The lesson here is all in the “CAN worsen anxiety”.
Even if a study shows statistically significant result that meditation helps on average, the tails still matter. That is in health, individual responses to an intervention matter a lot. Sometimes a treatment helps most people a modest amount, but makes things much much worse for a small minority of people.
"when people are trying to still their thoughts, the mind can “rebel”, she says"
Who told them to "still their thoughts"? Sure thing it will rebel since it's impossible task. One can't "still the thought" since at exact moment you FIND yourself thinking it means the thought has already GONE!
There are lots of ways to do "Mindfulness and meditation" so I'm not surprised.
I've always found group meditations to be the most beneficial for me while solo meditations are harder and less likely for me to feel better afterwards (although I've had some really good ones)
I used to have mild tinnitus that I completely ignored (actually had to try to notice it) but after doing mindfulness it’s loud constant ringing that’s driving me insane.
If you are feeling more fully, through removing your mental blocks, then the fear is going to increase. That is necessary for it to pass through and eventually go away.
On safari, you can’t reject the tracking cookies on that site. The only button that works is accept all recommended. Anyone have a link that lets you avoid that?
This is anecdotal, but I feel that learning to meditate has caused my mind to go blank much more easily during conversation.
Before I ever knew about meditation, it felt like my brain would always serve up whatever words and ideas were needed to keep the sentence going. I even felt like I was quite a quick-witted person. But now I'll often lose my train of thought and suddenly be left with a completely empty head. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this didn't happen in the pre-meditation days.
Meditation is prolonged concentration on something. Perhaps what you practiced was exactly "thinking about nothing and keeping your mind blank"? That would be the opposite of meditation and could be harmful, I guess. There are very subtle objects used in meditation, like light or space, but it's definitely not nothing.
> Perhaps what you practiced was exactly "thinking about nothing and keeping your mind blank"? That would be the opposite of meditation and could be harmful, I guess.
I mean, it requires prolonged concentration to clear one's head -- but I'll admit that I'm not a meditation expert. Perhaps I was taught incorrectly.
What thoughts should be running through your head while you meditate?
There should be no usual analytical activity in your mind during that time. Meditation is a lot like watching a still thought with your mind. Beginners pick simple objects like a black triangle on white background and try to keep their mind completely still, but with eyes open, with no other thoughts for 5 mins. People here that do software can easily achieve photographic quality meditation on simple shapes like that triangle. Then you increase complexity and start choosing proper objects like a little Buddha shape. The added complexity makes meditation difficult: the 3d image (which is a reflection of the object) gets blurry, dim or the attention is outright dragged away by other thoughts. It's like trying to balance on one leg with strong unpredictable winds. The goal is to develop strength to balance the mind and properly reflect complex static objects.
Then you switch from objects to ideas and that's a lot harder, but that's the actual goal. For example, you think a lot about the nature or idea of software. Once you think you've found this idea, you sit and spend 5 mins meditating on this idea. Ideas can't be drawn, they don't have shapes and our mind is not really suited for dealing with ideas.
Meditation is addictive. Even at the early stages you'll notice the flow of something thru your body during meditation and the weird, but pleasant feeling of physically stretching out your brains. This addiction is considered an obstacle, so the usual advise is to do a few short sessions that stop once you start noticing that feeling.
Your daily thinking will become sharper as you progress, and you'll get this feeling of physical balance. If it's not the case, you're doing something wrong and you'd have to seek an in person advice.
One particularly dangerous mistake is trying to clear mind of thoughts and make it blank. Tsong-kha-pa wrote a good deal about this mistake in his books to warn people.
Thanks for this reply! I never quite understood what people meant when they said they were going to meditate on a thing or an idea. This clears things up a lot.
Meditation is a process to calm the mind. Make it more lucid and reduce thoughts.
It's a tool to discover the inner self, one of the first steps in self realization, as per Hindu scriptures.
It has been studied for millennia and it's methods fine tuned.
The reason for meditating is not to improve productivity, solve depression / anxiety issues, and all the issues related to modern living.
It is a first step towards God Realization.
But why is it used so widely for the above mentioned reasons?
- The initial stages of meditation bring about a calm and peace. Many people find health benefits to such a process. It might as well be true.
Meditation is supposed to be done and progressed under a realized guru. It's not a vocational course that someone takes and becomes an expert in it.It is not a tool to solve anxiety and depression. It is not a tool to improve the life we experience with this body. It is a tool to discover our true nature.
Of course you are going to get results that fall into a wide spectrum if you do it wrongly, under no proper guidance and with no clarity as to it's true purpose.
You cannot expect a person with depression and anxiety to sit alone in a room and meditate and not expect an aggravation in such thoughts.
To live a happy and healthy life, Hinduism promotes a way of life for the householder (one who is married and has a family)
- Get up early.
- Exercise (This includes preliminary forms of Hatha Yoga)
- Eat healthy food
- Spend time with family
- Teach your kids
- Avoid vices
- Have a healthy sex life
- Spend some time contemplating the true nature of the world. Just thinking, no meditation, no process, no nothing.
- Sleep well
- Have a good circle of friends and keep good relations with extended family, to share your joys and sorrows.
In India, for every one of the above activity, there are a myriad of books, anecdotes, stories, proverbs, etc. A householder is never told to do meditation or try to be in peace by such methods. To glue the society together, there are festivals, rituals, cultural activities that are to be followed both by the individual and the society. Some by men, some by women, some by rulers, some by priests, etc.
Meditation and other related yogic methods are only taught to a person who has developed a certain aversion to the ways of this world and wants to advance spiritually. That too, a qualified guru will test him in all aspects and only then start training in meditation and yoga. Until then, no such methods are taught.
Western nations have misused and misconstrued everything about Yoga and Meditation, and then put out such articles.
I remember reading something a long time ago about a study that showed that people suffering from depressive episodes made more accurate assessments of the true state of their finances, their relationships, etc., than people who were always happy.
What if, in the process of meditating, you've thought long and hard about your lot in life, and have realized that it actually is shit?
Maybe it's a mistake to strictly focus on the "depression is a disease" narrative. Maybe a lot of people actually do have a lot to be sad about while also having nothing they can realistically do about those things. If a person is stuck in a dead-end job, in a place with no opportunity, with responsibilities that prevent you from taking risks, with no savings, then it's really hard to see how that person can be "happy".
I've struggled with depression for most of my adult life. The absolute worst period of depression I went through was when I was single, living alone, working a job I hated, in a city that was far too encouraging of drinking as the only viable past time (Philadelphia). I was very fearful of medication at that time. I had heard a lot of bad stories, not just about side effects, but about effects, like the medication removing both the lows and the highs of their emotional state. There were also stories of negative consequences for people's jobs: losing security clearances and the like (which are very old stories by now, but such rumors don't have a lot of respect for changing times).
I was able to get out of that state through career coaching. I was feeling bad because I hated where I was in life. Fixing that, I got a lot happier. It felt really good to put form to my woes, to put a target on them, and eliminate it, one by one.
I got married. I had kids. And then I hit another, big, depressive period. Work had been a mess going on 5 years by that point. My wife gently pressured me into going to see a doctor and get medication.
I did the medication for a while, and it helped at first, but I think it mostly just confused my own, internal understanding of my emotions. I started it about 2.5 years ago, in the middle of a hellscape of an office. After a year, it just stopped working. The doctor increased my dosage levels, but things never went back to square. I think what happened was that I just recalibrated my understanding of my emotions. I had physical cues before the medication: heart racing, running thoughts, a physical feeling of the floor dropping out from under me. Now, I lacked those feelings, but I actually recognized situations in which I should have felt them, and in some ways the lack of the feelings felt like stumbling, like taking a step for a stair that isn't there. I spent another year on the medication, under the belief that things would be a lot worse without it. There were some negative side effects that were also having a bad impact on my mood.
But I think the biggest positive impact on my mood was getting a good job where I'm respected and nobody brow-beats me over made up deadlines. Halfway through that last year of medication, I changed jobs. I noticed things getting better. I got so sick of not feeling like I was in control of my body, listening to doctors who had no clue what was going on just make guesses at what to do, that I told my doctor I was going to make my own guesses and quit the medication.
I've now been off of it for 6 months and everything is... as good as the best days when I first started the medication, minus the negative side effects, so better in every aspect.
If you are stressed out from your job and turn to some capitalism mindfullness sponsered by Google(TM) with the (of course) unstated goal to have you functioning again I'm not surprised.
Meditation can be a delicate thing that has positive great effects if applied correctly but it's also a tool for sects since forever.
I really like the vipassana medition approach but the whole ideology around it and the things they'll tell you on the retreat turned me off.
Even if you do it for yourself without any objective target it can get worse as you may realize it's actually like in your surpressed fears.
If you do metta (loving kindness) you can cultivate equanimity and other positive qualities. These can act like resources that can help you deal with trauma resurfacing in a healthier way. They can also reduce the aversion towards the parts of you that carry the trauma and this can be beneficial.
In para.3 they say this is specifically about mindfulness meditation. And they provide experts who give reasons why the results could quantitatively be wrong in both directions.
The term "meditation" has such a fuzzy meaning these days. It really refers to prolonged concentration on something. We do this all the time. Yogis or occultists refine the term further into 3 stages: a brief concentration, a prolonged concentration (i.e. meditation) on something real and tangible like a symbol, and meditation on the idea behind that something real and tangible. Knowledge workers are very familiar with meditation, although they don't recognize it as a special activity. However that 3rd stage is unattainable for most people today: ideas are qualitatevily different. Mastering meditation on ideas switches mind into a special state. From that point directing mind at things like sun, moon, light or more abstract ideas like the relationship between space and sound produces significant effects or just summons ideas and thoughts about them. This is how great scientists make discoveries: they direct their mind at some topic and summon ideas about it (they don't produce ideas with induction or deduction) and then they materialise ideas into more tangible math.
The problem stems from the fact that the initial translations of the Pali Canon to western languages comes from German monks who understood Pali well but could not find appropriate words in western languages to capture the semantics. Mindfulness technique was used for at least 2000-3000 years before Buddha. So words used in the Pali canon have an etymology associated with them that cannot be easily captured in western languages.
"Mindfulness" is a best-effort translation of the word "Sati". What the word "Sati" really captures is "REMEMBERING to pay attention to what is happening in the mind at all times". A trained mind develops this automatic memory to constantly check and introspect the current state of the mind. Based on whether the current state is wholesome (leading to happiness) the "Sati" helps refocus the mind on wholesome thoughts (this is right effort of noble 8 fold path). Over time two things happen: you get intimately familiar with the workings of the mind and you know how to "manage" your thoughts without using "will" or "force" to repress the thoughts into the subconscious. This is an exercise in finesse rather than force. The gist of it is that "ignorance of reality" (that there is an "I") is the root cause of suffering in living beings. But to grasp that at the "intuitive" level (and not just intellectual) requires years of training and you start to see the fruits along the way.
Do you think there is an advantage in using meditation to achieve a state where you can manage your thoughts, vs other techniques like CBT? It seems to me that most people don’t need the abstract/spiritual concepts like there not being an I, whatever that means. Your comment implies that understanding the abstract concepts is the real point of meditation, and I still don’t see what the benefit of that is - unless it’s just a very mystical way to say that we don’t have fixed, unchangeable personalities and we should worry less about our ego.
I would suggest that both meditation and CBT have a similar objective, which is to see reality more clearly for what it is. CBT goes far enough to transform distorted thoughts into more realistic ones. This goes far enough to help you live a happy life in the "normal" sense. Meditation can be used to go all the way to the realization of the Ego/body limited self as an illusory concept. This normally results in a rush of a very clear sense of reality. Which lets all worries, problems, hopes, insecurities etc. collapse into what they really are. A constant play and variation of matter/form/energy/consciousness/god whatever you want to call it. That are just other forms of our "true" self matter/form/energy/consciousness/god, experiencing this variation and play. This gives a lot of room for joy or bliss if you will. From my own experience it takes some practice to keep remembering this reality more and more often.
Do you buy into the criticism of our phones and social media being addictive and harmful to our ability to maintain focus and concentration? If so, then there must be a way to build strength in the opposite direction, right? For some (including me), meditation seems to help.
I used the guided sessions from the free Oak app and a lot of the beginner stuff is about just sitting and focusing on one thing (usually the breath). An early skill is to recognize when a distracting thought enters your mind. You acknowledge it and return to focusing on the breath. I use this when I'm working. If I suddenly remember that I'm supposed to do something later in the week or start to wonder if the SR-71 could ever achieve a trajectory with escape velocity, I write it down and come back to it later.
I really like ‘mind tools’ like writing down thoughts/worries to get them out of my head. But sitting still never helped me develop them. Reading about and practicing using the tools did. I guess though if meditation is simply a different approach to developing the same tools, that’s fine - it may work better for some people.
It may hold some value, but it strikes me that there is more pro-meditation dogma than anti-. Scientists will hold an open mind, but "gurus" who charge money for fancy retreats will insist in its value without evidence. As a general rule, there are no panaceas - major changes in cognition can go either way. Be careful!