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For some, meditation has become more curse than cure

hoffcoder 10y ago
Not at all convincing. I have been meditating for more than 10 years and it has always been an exhilarating experience. The author is trying to make up a story, it seems.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  Anecdote, just like lots of people have great times with psychedelics. If you search you'll see "some" stories of people suffering derealization/depersonalization after going on a meditation retreat, for instance.
joyeuse6701 10y ago
I certainly had heard about this aspect of deep meditation and that it is in many cases a stopping point for many serious practitioners. I like that the article touches on the search within esoteric religious practices of dark experiences.
- gautamdivgi 10y ago
  I didn't read the article totally but this experience seems to be a result of incorrect practice. Just meditation without mastering the previous steps of Ashtanga Yoga is not advisable. Yes - you can use it but not as the main vehicle for your practice. I meditate daily - between 1/2 hr to an hour. I do not have the time to spend doing it for hours at a stretch. I do not think I have the temperament to do it either. Forcing myself to do it for hours on end is repressive - the focus and concentration should come about naturally. Even then a highly contemplative practice is not recommended without the close and personal guidance of a Teacher (or Guru).
cylinder 10y ago
Sounds like he just got older.
whack 10y ago
The entire article reeks of fear-mongering on the basis of rare and extreme anecdotes. It's good that people are investigating any potential side-effects that may exist, but until they find something that's conclusive and statistically significant, it's not worth worrying about. Let's not forget that the psychological/physiological benefits of meditation have been well documented and demonstrated by numerous scientific studies. If you're someone considering trying out meditation, you have much more to gain than lose by giving it a shot.
- Alex3917 10y ago
  > The entire article reeks of fear-mongering on the basis of rare and extreme anecdotes. At least in vipassana, the dark night period is considered to be a phase along the path or whatever. In other words, you basically can't reach enlightenment without having a complete mental breakdown and losing your ability to hold down a job and function normally in society, often for a couple years if not permanently. C.f. her interviews on the Buddhist Geeks. You're not going to have issues if you're just meditating for fifteen or twenty minutes a day or whatever, it's only if you're doing this for hours every day and getting into the ego dissolution stages.
  - GavinMcG 10y ago
    I feel that "at least in vipassana" is too broad to be useful – "vipassana" in Pali just means "insight", and there are an awful lot of different groups that lay claim to the term. That's especially true without more resources that support that claim. I'm no expert in this, but I have explored the meditation ecosystem a bit, and this is the first time I've heard the claim that the dark night is necessary.
    - Alex3917 10y ago
      Each tradition within vipassana has a slightly different roadmap, but they all seem to have some sort of 'completely losing your shit' stage somewhere in the middle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassan%C4%81-%C3%B1%C4%81%E1%B9%87a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassan%C4%81-%C3%B1%C4%81%E1... See also Daniel Ingram's book, which Buddhist Geeks also talks about all the time: http://www.buddhistische-gesellschaft-berlin.de/downloads/mastering-vers-3.pdf http://www.buddhistische-gesellschaft-berlin.de/downloads/ma...
failrate 10y ago
Meditation can induce a psychoactive experience much like you can get with a chemical agent. just as you can go on a bad trip or experience religious ecstasy on a drug, you can induce a similar state through meditation. This is neither good nor bad. You just need discipline and an understanding of the risks.
- CuriouslyC 10y ago
  In many respects deep meditative states resemble sensory deprivation. The majority of people find both calming, but hallucinations, altered states of consciousness and deeply unsettling experiences are possible in both cases.
quonn 10y ago
These experiences during meditation are real. It is therefore very important to develop compassion for yourself. In the Dhammapada the Buddha teaches to "Love yourself and watch". If you cannot love yourself, it may be better to not meditate (yet). There is a related and equally well known quote by Dogen which cautions against "driving the self to enlightenment". If one doesn't love himself, that will be what he will attempt to do and then because things don't work that way desperation results.
- llamataboot 10y ago
  yes, definitely developing compassion at the same time as encountering "nothingness" is a huge thing! Otherwise, totally possible to spin off into a sort of depressive nihilism.
- allisthemoist 10y ago
  One of the interviewees mentioned that meditating was very difficult because he kept having thoughts that were not supposed to come up emerge. My immediate thought was to what I learned in Buddhist teaching to have compassion for oneself. If he had been instructed well, we would have known to accept all the thoughts that arose and merely observe them. The following passage from Thich Nhat Hanh comes to mind: Before the Buddha attained full realization of the path, for example, he tried various methods to suppress his mind, and they did not work. In one discourse (the Mahasaccaka Sutta), he recounted: I thought, Why don't I grit my teeth, press my tongue against my palate, and use my mind to repress my mind? Then, as a wrestler might take hold of the head or the shoulders of someone weaker than he, and, in order to restrain and coerce that person, he has to hold him down constantly without letting go for a moment, so I gritted my teeth, pressed my tongue against my palate, and used my mind to suppress my mind. As I did this, I was bathed in sweat. Although I was not lacking in strength, although I maintained mindfulness and did not fall from mindfulness, my body and my mind were not at peace, and I was exhausted by these efforts, This practice caused other feelings of pain to arise in me besides the pain associated with the austerities, and I was not able to tame my mind.
CharlesW 10y ago
About 1 in 4 adults experience some level of mental illness in a given year. > "I started having thoughts like, 'Let me take over you,' combined with confusion and tons of terror," says David, a polite, articulate 27-year-old who arrived at Britton’s Cheetah House in 2013. "I had a vision of death with a scythe and a hood, and the thought 'Kill yourself' over and over again." That's not an effect of meditation, that's a symptom of a mental illness. Meditation probably helped him discover it earlier than he otherwise would have. I mean, the words "mental" and "illness" don't even appear in the article.
- ChrisClark 10y ago
  Yeah, they didn't mention "mental" or "illness", instead the article used the words "psychotic break" and "worsen symptoms in people who have certain psychiatric problems". So, yes the article did cover what you wanted them to. Someone who has an underlying problem may not have a good experience when he digs deep and explores his own thoughts.
  - CharlesW 10y ago
    > So, yes the article did cover what you wanted them to. Not as I read it. In the article, "psychotic break" was used in the context of being caused by meditation instead of by an underlying mental illness. The second example gets closer to addressing the point I was making, but it's still just listing a possible risk for people who already have psychiatric problems. What I wanted the article to cover is the far more likely explanation: That 1 in 4 people who meditate will experience some level of mental illness in any given year — but not because of meditation. Of course, "meditation madness" is a much sexier premise.
    - near_how_far 10y ago
      This is as if to say that meditation is anything other than thinking for thought's sake. And so, to stretch further, this paraphrasing of what meditation actually IS, at the end of the day... Is it possible for a person to simply "think" themselves into a certain states or flavors of insanity, or rather the more proper term, mental illness?
llamataboot 10y ago
I'm not going to say I'm the most experienced meditator in the world, but I've gone fairly deep. I'd argue that if you aren't getting into weird ego-dissolution experiences you are still meditating for comfort (which is totally okay! meditation is a great stress dissolver) and not moving towards the actual point of most meditative practices...but this also points to two things -- 1) meditation can't "cure" everything, sometimes you need a good therapist, or some chemicals, or some combination of the above 2) you absolutely must have a meditation teacher you trust if you want to do deep dives (yes, a 10 day vipassana retreat is certainly a deep dive, as is a zen sesshin). Preferably one you know has actually touched most of these spaces, is well grounded and compassionate, isn't woo-ey or ego-challenged in terms of feeling like your bad experience might threaten their "good teacher" status, etc.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  I'd just note that the best "marketed" vipassana retreat, dhamma.org/Goenka is extremely woo-ey. Apart from simply false claims (eg cloud chambers we're always useless), the stated purpose of his practise is to excise "deeply rooted" problems so as to reincarnate better. This is in spite of them insisting it's a pure technique with zero dogma. I know that might not represent vipassana as a whole, just adding a warning since it's the most popular one.
  - alimw 10y ago
    Exactly what claim are you disputing about cloud chambers? According to Wikipedia they were extremely useful to the discoverers of the positron, the muon and the kaon.
    - MichaelGG 10y ago
      Sorry for being unclear. During Goenka's "discourses" he went off on many things. One of them being that cloud chambers were pointless as they only revealed things known to Buddha and Indian meditators for millennia. Yeah... That was just one thing out of many that put me off from those courses.
gedy 10y ago
Apart from mental illness, perhaps some practitioners of deep meditation have simply trained their brains to disconnect from physical reality and not align with the physical and emotional stimulus that keeps thoughts "normal"
niccaluim 10y ago
I meditate daily, and I'm part of a community that encourages it, but only after a thorough process of mental housecleaning. If you're full of un-dealt-with bitterness, anxiety, resentment, guilt, restlessness, shame, etc.—to say nothing of untreated mental illness or trauma—yeah, meditation is going to be a supremely unpleasant experience. Shutting out all distractions is only comfortable if you haven't been using those distractions to keep from having to deal with life.
allisthemoist 10y ago
There was stuff dropping away … [and] electric shocks through my body. [My] core sense of self, a persistent consciousness, the thoughts and stuff, were not me." This sounds to me like the beginnings of psychosis. I don't doubt that these feelings could be induced by meditation, but I do doubt that they would not have emerged in some other way.
ebiester 10y ago
I remember reading this when it came out, and noticing how it reflected some of my personal experiences. I found that meditation unlocked some of my inner anxiety and I was experiencing frequent panic attacks when I wasn't meditating. I had to stop for months. I have started again, mostly because I miss the benefits of meditation, but it is closer to what another poster labeled "comfort meditation." I still consider one of the longer retreats, but I don't know that I'm yet ready to face that again.
- thonos 10y ago
  I never did meditation but did a few "retreats" into other countries to get away from everything and just have some time for myself. I had a similar experience where it made 'click' and suddenly I was a lot more aware of all the anxieties that I have and usually don't think about. It made everything else so insignificant that I feel I am constantly wasting my time with almost everything I do. I still have it and not sure how to get rid of this feeling. At the same time I feel "good" that I "found myself". It made clear for me what I actually want in life. Now I treat things like a stable job, work and a salary are just temporary and intermediate steps to reach my actual goals. Getting reminded about these things with a scary anxiety attack is indeed not nice but I learned to "use it" to my advantage as good as I can. At the same time I need to keep myself busy to not get reminded about it too much. Again, still no idea how to "solve" this problem.
cpncrunch 10y ago
2014
- cpncrunch 10y ago
  What possible reason was there for downvoting this? I was pointing out that its an old story and should be noted in the title as per hn custom.
sandGorgon 10y ago
MCTB - Mastering the Core Teaching of the Buddha - which is a fairly hardcore "path" towards enlightenment has these phases well charted out. http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/MCTB+5.+Dissolution,+Entrance+to+the+Dark+Night http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki... Once one has crossed the Arising and Passing Event, one will enter the Dark Night regardless of whether one wants to or not. It doesn’t matter if you practice from this point on; once you cross the A&P you are in the Dark Night to some degree (i.e. are a Dark Night Yogi) until you figure out how to get through it, and if you do get through it without getting to the first stage of enlightenment, you will have to go through it again and again until you do. I mean this in the most absolute terms These are a well understood steps in the journey towards enlightenment and comes with necessary warnings. For most people, they will not step this far and this point is moot. For hardcore practitioners of meditation, it's a necessary step. What I think has happened is that meditation has become classified as "infinitely benevolent" : you can go down that path, as far as you can, and all will be good. Meditation like weightlifting, needs guidance and care. You can hurt yourself if you don't respect the barbell.
rainy-day 10y ago
In the yoga tradition, meditation is not something you can just sit down and do regularly from the beginning. You are supposed to do asanas to prepare for breath exercises, and breath exercises to allow the mind to concentrate, and then the "meditation skill is unlocked". The general idea is that sleepiness and sluggishness is a certain outcome of an unhealthy body, as well as anxiety and irritability that are caused by various body aches. In the worst case, meditation can become a formality, just a checkbox to fill out, a way to spend an indulgent, lethargic half-hour, or the opposite - a constantly distracted, obsessive anxiety (which is perfectly fine and even to be expected at the beginning of a meditation, but not at all times). That's not to say that meditation is completely off limit: the idea is to do a bit of meditation and breath exercises at first and a lot of asanas, and then gradually increase breath exercises and then concentration; and finally meditation. But this whole idea that meditation can be counter-productive in some circumstances is not really alien to the Eastern traditions. They are not stupid and they've been doing it for a long time with an empirical, practical approach.
- uptownfunk 10y ago
  Yes, definitely this. And even before the asana and pranayama (breathing practice) are the yamas and niyamas (yama-niyama-asana-pranayama-pratyahara-dhyana-dharana-samadhi) there are eight rungs to the entire eastern yogic/meditative practice. The whole focus on "meditation" and physical poses by the modern western approach of $50/hr yoga classes completely goes against the eastern method of guru and disciple. There's a reason these things are meant to be studied under a learned master. What's the saying... a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. These practices were studied by students for years before they attempted what some people do in their first couple of yoga classes.. That said, I don't mean to discount the experiences of the individuals described in the article. I think it's terribly unfortunate that anyone has to suffer from practicing meditation and yoga, and also find it sad that they were unable to find a master to help them recover from their experiences sooner.
kordless 10y ago
> He panicked. Increasingly vivid pornographic fantasies and repressed memories from his childhood began to surface. As someone with Aphantasia, I'm absolutely fascinated by this.
rainy-day 10y ago
I would also add that meditation is a bit tricky in the sense that it increases awareness of what's there - and what's there may be good or bad, but increased awareness is a better gift than merely good or bad things. Noticing more things means I'm not as locked in to my obliviousness. It's paradoxial but having a bad meditation is often beneficial.
drjesusphd 10y ago
A while back I had the thought that meditation for self-improvement is a non-starter. Meditation, supposedly done properly, is supposed to be non-judgemental observation. But if you're approaching the whole practice as a way to improve some aspect of yourself, the entire foundation is flawed. In that case, the whole reason you're doing it is based on a negative judgement. I was wondering if someone more experienced with meditation can comment on this. Does this make any sense?
- hiddencost 10y ago
  What I draw from this is that you have a misguided notion of "self", "improvement", and "self-improvement". Just do the non-judgmental observation stuff and see what happens and decide if you want more of it.
- MarkPNeyer 10y ago
  I meditate about 20 minutes a night before i go to bed. Nonjudgement is a big part of this. I just sit there and observe my thoughts, without trying to change them. Why is this helpful? Because trying to change your thoughts is itself a form of thinking. Trying to change a thought is reacting to that thought, and a lot of my problems come from reacting to thoughts uncritically. When I sit there and just try to notice the thoughts, thoughts about disturbing thoughts bother me less and less. An unpleasant thought doesn't quickly lead to a progressive series of counter-thoughts or responses. To give you an example of how this helps: on the way to the grocery store yesterday, I thought "I'm out of beer, I could buy some beer." Reacting to the thought, without being critical of it, would mean going to buy the beer. But observing the thought allowed me to be aware of it and to _decide_ if that's what I actually wanted. I decided that no, I didn't really need the beer, and that I'd gain more utility from knowing I made a more responsible choice. For me, practicing nonjudgement allows me to better exercise judgement at suitable times. I couldn't tell you how many times i've gotten carried away giving imaginary speeches when I think about running for office - a practice which has caused me no good. It's like that judgement was entirely wasted. By meditating, I've become more aware of the background ebb and flow of thoughts, which has freed me up to be judgemental when it _matters_ - such as over the small part of the world I have control over, instead of wasting energy judging things I have no control over, because that's a conditioned response to unpleasant thoughts. I hope that helps. FWIW I did go through a 'dark night of the soul' period. It lasted a few years, and my life got noticeably worse, but eventually I stopped believing everything I thought, and focused on repairing my life, and now it's much better than it ever was. If meditation brings up dark or horrible thoughts - for me those were there all along, but I was just not paying attention because I constantly thought about getting rich, or politics, or starting a company, or p vs np, or whatever other abstractions i was into that day.
estefan 10y ago
No mention of kundalini anywhere... Seems he went a bit deep too soon with no guidance. Electrical currents, spasms, sexual thoughts, digestive issues, etc. Classic kundalini symptoms. Aypsite.org has some good info on it and how to avoid or deal with it.
- estefan 10y ago
  In fact, to elaborate a bit, he mentions feeling a 'knot' in his lower belly. That sounds like swadhistana chakra, or what the Taoists call the Lower Dan Tien. That'd correlate with the sexual thoughts as well. Normally the recommendations for this sort of thing is to back off, and to circulate energy in the micro cosmic orbit. See Mantak Chia for details. An interesting book I read years ago about this was "Path Notes of an American Ninja Master". Cheesy title, but pretty interesting as an alternative to Gopi Krishna. The author specifically addresses the 'Dark Night of the Soul' phenomenon and emphasises the importance of creating Good Feelings inside to smooth the process and to lessen the effects of the darker aspects...
  - obj-g 10y ago
    Oh of course, just circulate energy in the micro cosmic orbit! Duh!
  - TACIXAT 10y ago
    As someone who practices Taoist meditation, Mantak Chia is meh. Got most his notoriety through sexual practices which are nearly insignificant in actual Taoism (religious or mountain). His school has also latched onto the MCO as some great achievement when most other lineages treat it as simply an energetic movement that happens while practicing. Meditation, as with hallucinogens, if you or your family has a history of mental illness, tread carefully. Sitting can be surprisingly hard work. It pushes the body through pain while introducing you to the limits of your mind. In any training, slow progression is very important. You wouldn't go to a body building competition with no lifting experience, why do people dive into 10 day retreats without years of experience?
    - 10y ago
laughfactory 10y ago
It is strange for me to read in the comments all the advice to--as I understand it--be a relatively "whole" person before beginning meditation. In my limited experience and perspective, I was under the impression that meditation can assist one with releasing stress and anxiety... I thought meditation was one tool which could be applied for achieving more "wholeness" as a person, and I'm surprised at the suggestion that apparently other means must be pursued first? It seems to me that it would be hard to go wrong with 15-30 minutes of "meditation" spent focusing on breathing and non-judgmentally observing your thoughts as they bubble up and dissipate. I've often felt that a lot of my stress and anxiety and even depression is the result of hanging onto things and the result of trying to control things which are actually outside my control. Or perhaps these other comments are directed toward the serious, multiple-hour, practice of meditation? I have no desire to separate my consciousness from my physical being, for instance. I'm happy to stay firmly rooted on earth, while learning to accept the good in my inherent existence. If that makes sense.
- dlevine 10y ago
  This isn't talking about 15-30 minutes of meditation. It's talking about 2+ week retreats. Having been on a couple 10-day retreats, I've experienced what I can only describe as significantly altered states of consciousness (after 6+ days of meditating 14-16 hours a day). Fortunately, I managed to make my way back into the world after they ended, but I can see how some people might be permanently altered.
  - aedron 10y ago
    That sounds like something a lawsuit away from being shut down.
noonespecial 10y ago
Eventually, life lost its meaning. Colors began to fade. Spiritually dry, David didn't care about anything anymore. Everything he had found pleasurable before the retreat—hanging out with friends, playing music, drinking—all of that "turned to dirt," he says, "a plate of beautiful food turned to dirt." That's depression. Clinical depression. Fits my experience to a T. The first thing out of my mouth when I finally saw a "real" doctor was "I can't see colors or taste food anymore... I mean, I can tell you its red or blue or tasted like chicken but I can't see or taste it anymore. I know that sounds crazy but..." This article is a little dangerous. Like saying "Running causes heart failure" but omitting "in people with congestive heart failure". Its the heart condition that's the problem, not the running. If you have these symptoms, it wasn't the meditation. You're depressed. See a doctor. They can fix you.
- mveety 10y ago
  This is kinda something that meditation is supposed to do. It brings problems you have to the fore so that you can see them clearly and fix them. This is something entirely ignored by the new-agey "im super spiritual" types. Meditation isn't something to make you blissful or happy or whatever they're saying it does these days. It's just a tool to see yourself just like a microscope is a tool that allows you to see what's already there.
  - baldfat 10y ago
    Depression is a medical diagnosis because it has physical make up that causes people to be depressed. I work and live with people who think depression is a "spiritual" or personal lifestyle problem. I think they are wrong. I lost a sister to cancer when she was 15, my brother to probably suicide when he was 19 and my son died of cancer at 12. I seriously can say I never had a day of depression. I have had a broken heart missing them and feeling the pain. I will cry for them (I did for my son on Sunday while I was unloading groceries (Go figure)) But I have never lost the taste of food nor anything else. I have sorrow but their is a root cause for that. Depression is sorrow with no real root cause (to me). So I usually come out to defend people who are depressed since I feel like I should be the kind of depression but have never experienced it due to the luck of my genetics.
jrapdx3 10y ago
Adverse outcomes of meditation practices described in the article covered a range of disorders, e.g., depression, panic attacks, possibly frank psychosis. These conditions are familiar to psychiatrists and not rare, guessing something like <=5% of the whole population have a serious form of such conditions. We know that assigning a singular cause of psychiatric disorders is spurious since all major conditions have been connected to multiple genetic, social and environmental factors. It's certainly conceivable that meditation could precipitate an episode of a psychiatric disorder, and of course it is mostly impossible to say if or when the condition would have emerged otherwise. IOW the apparent sequential onset of psychiatric symptoms could be just chance occurrence reflecting the general population prevalence, or there might be a genuine causal effect of the preceding meditation event. Logically, at this time there's as much basis to assert meditation "caused" the condition as asserting meditation did not cause it. Until a lot more information is available, the relation remains indeterminate, or undefined. It's a good principle (and the safest course) to hold that any/all spiritual practices or psychiatric treatments have risk of bad outcomes. No "prescription" is going to be good for everyone. The idea that meditation and psychotherapy have overlapping risk potential is compelling. Haven't looked into to it yet, but definitely worth finding out what if any studies have been done. Along those lines there's a just-published meta-analysis re: outcome of treatment for depression with CBT or medication. With both treatments, ~5-7% of subjects had at least some "deterioration" of their condition, and those with the greatest pre-treatment symptoms had the worst outcomes. [0] While the domains are only partially congruent, 5% is probably a good initial guess concerning the probability of mild or greater adverse effect of meditation, IIRC corresponding to ~2 SD from the mean. I didn't see any references in the article to publications by the researchers profiled, but I'd imagine they'd have some data that sheds light on the prevalence of the outcomes they're studying. [0] Vittengl JR, Jarrett RB, Weitz E, et. al. "Divergent Outcomes in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Pharmacotherapy for Adult Depression." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=divergent+outcomes+depression+CBT+pharmacotherapy http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=divergent+outcomes+...
TACIXAT 10y ago
The title is wrong on the linked page. It says The Dark Knight of the Soul and everywhere else in the article refers to it as the Dark Night. I do appreciate the Batman of the Soul though.
- magicbeanss 10y ago
  I'm quite sure that was intentional. They're going for the double entendre (not Batman, but the notion of a force of darkness)
gdubs 10y ago
I practice mindfulness meditation and the way it has always been taught to me is to simply sit and observe without judgement. That is, don't actively try to push away thoughts. Simply acknowledge them as they arise, and return your focus to breathing in and out. Forcing away thoughts is just another way of engaging ego -- you get caught up trying to get somewhere rather than simply being in the moment. One of my favorite descriptions is by Alan Watts, called "listening meditation": http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7HYY4eitC9c http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7HYY4eitC9c

Not at all convincing. I have been meditating for more than 10 years and it has always been an exhilarating experience. The author is trying to make up a story, it seems.

MichaelGG 10y ago
Anecdote, just like lots of people have great times with psychedelics. If you search you'll see "some" stories of people suffering derealization/depersonalization after going on a meditation retreat, for instance.

joyeuse6701 10y ago

I certainly had heard about this aspect of deep meditation and that it is in many cases a stopping point for many serious practitioners. I like that the article touches on the search within esoteric religious practices of dark experiences.

gautamdivgi 10y ago
I didn't read the article totally but this experience seems to be a result of incorrect practice. Just meditation without mastering the previous steps of Ashtanga Yoga is not advisable. Yes - you can use it but not as the main vehicle for your practice. I meditate daily - between 1/2 hr to an hour. I do not have the time to spend doing it for hours at a stretch. I do not think I have the temperament to do it either. Forcing myself to do it for hours on end is repressive - the focus and concentration should come about naturally. Even then a highly contemplative practice is not recommended without the close and personal guidance of a Teacher (or Guru).

cylinder 10y ago

Sounds like he just got older.

whack 10y ago

The entire article reeks of fear-mongering on the basis of rare and extreme anecdotes. It's good that people are investigating any potential side-effects that may exist, but until they find something that's conclusive and statistically significant, it's not worth worrying about. Let's not forget that the psychological/physiological benefits of meditation have been well documented and demonstrated by numerous scientific studies. If you're someone considering trying out meditation, you have much more to gain than lose by giving it a shot.

Alex3917 10y ago
> The entire article reeks of fear-mongering on the basis of rare and extreme anecdotes. At least in vipassana, the dark night period is considered to be a phase along the path or whatever. In other words, you basically can't reach enlightenment without having a complete mental breakdown and losing your ability to hold down a job and function normally in society, often for a couple years if not permanently. C.f. her interviews on the Buddhist Geeks. You're not going to have issues if you're just meditating for fifteen or twenty minutes a day or whatever, it's only if you're doing this for hours every day and getting into the ego dissolution stages.
- GavinMcG 10y ago
  I feel that "at least in vipassana" is too broad to be useful – "vipassana" in Pali just means "insight", and there are an awful lot of different groups that lay claim to the term. That's especially true without more resources that support that claim. I'm no expert in this, but I have explored the meditation ecosystem a bit, and this is the first time I've heard the claim that the dark night is necessary.
  - Alex3917 10y ago
    Each tradition within vipassana has a slightly different roadmap, but they all seem to have some sort of 'completely losing your shit' stage somewhere in the middle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassan%C4%81-%C3%B1%C4%81%E1%B9%87a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vipassan%C4%81-%C3%B1%C4%81%E1... See also Daniel Ingram's book, which Buddhist Geeks also talks about all the time: http://www.buddhistische-gesellschaft-berlin.de/downloads/mastering-vers-3.pdf http://www.buddhistische-gesellschaft-berlin.de/downloads/ma...

failrate 10y ago

Meditation can induce a psychoactive experience much like you can get with a chemical agent. just as you can go on a bad trip or experience religious ecstasy on a drug, you can induce a similar state through meditation. This is neither good nor bad. You just need discipline and an understanding of the risks.

CuriouslyC 10y ago
In many respects deep meditative states resemble sensory deprivation. The majority of people find both calming, but hallucinations, altered states of consciousness and deeply unsettling experiences are possible in both cases.

quonn 10y ago

These experiences during meditation are real. It is therefore very important to develop compassion for yourself. In the Dhammapada the Buddha teaches to "Love yourself and watch". If you cannot love yourself, it may be better to not meditate (yet). There is a related and equally well known quote by Dogen which cautions against "driving the self to enlightenment". If one doesn't love himself, that will be what he will attempt to do and then because things don't work that way desperation results.

llamataboot 10y ago
yes, definitely developing compassion at the same time as encountering "nothingness" is a huge thing! Otherwise, totally possible to spin off into a sort of depressive nihilism.
allisthemoist 10y ago
One of the interviewees mentioned that meditating was very difficult because he kept having thoughts that were not supposed to come up emerge. My immediate thought was to what I learned in Buddhist teaching to have compassion for oneself. If he had been instructed well, we would have known to accept all the thoughts that arose and merely observe them. The following passage from Thich Nhat Hanh comes to mind: Before the Buddha attained full realization of the path, for example, he tried various methods to suppress his mind, and they did not work. In one discourse (the Mahasaccaka Sutta), he recounted: I thought, Why don't I grit my teeth, press my tongue against my palate, and use my mind to repress my mind? Then, as a wrestler might take hold of the head or the shoulders of someone weaker than he, and, in order to restrain and coerce that person, he has to hold him down constantly without letting go for a moment, so I gritted my teeth, pressed my tongue against my palate, and used my mind to suppress my mind. As I did this, I was bathed in sweat. Although I was not lacking in strength, although I maintained mindfulness and did not fall from mindfulness, my body and my mind were not at peace, and I was exhausted by these efforts, This practice caused other feelings of pain to arise in me besides the pain associated with the austerities, and I was not able to tame my mind.

CharlesW 10y ago

About 1 in 4 adults experience some level of mental illness in a given year. > "I started having thoughts like, 'Let me take over you,' combined with confusion and tons of terror," says David, a polite, articulate 27-year-old who arrived at Britton’s Cheetah House in 2013. "I had a vision of death with a scythe and a hood, and the thought 'Kill yourself' over and over again." That's not an effect of meditation, that's a symptom of a mental illness. Meditation probably helped him discover it earlier than he otherwise would have. I mean, the words "mental" and "illness" don't even appear in the article.

ChrisClark 10y ago
Yeah, they didn't mention "mental" or "illness", instead the article used the words "psychotic break" and "worsen symptoms in people who have certain psychiatric problems". So, yes the article did cover what you wanted them to. Someone who has an underlying problem may not have a good experience when he digs deep and explores his own thoughts.
- CharlesW 10y ago
  > So, yes the article did cover what you wanted them to. Not as I read it. In the article, "psychotic break" was used in the context of being caused by meditation instead of by an underlying mental illness. The second example gets closer to addressing the point I was making, but it's still just listing a possible risk for people who already have psychiatric problems. What I wanted the article to cover is the far more likely explanation: That 1 in 4 people who meditate will experience some level of mental illness in any given year — but not because of meditation. Of course, "meditation madness" is a much sexier premise.
  - near_how_far 10y ago
    This is as if to say that meditation is anything other than thinking for thought's sake. And so, to stretch further, this paraphrasing of what meditation actually IS, at the end of the day... Is it possible for a person to simply "think" themselves into a certain states or flavors of insanity, or rather the more proper term, mental illness?

llamataboot 10y ago

I'm not going to say I'm the most experienced meditator in the world, but I've gone fairly deep. I'd argue that if you aren't getting into weird ego-dissolution experiences you are still meditating for comfort (which is totally okay! meditation is a great stress dissolver) and not moving towards the actual point of most meditative practices...but this also points to two things -- 1) meditation can't "cure" everything, sometimes you need a good therapist, or some chemicals, or some combination of the above 2) you absolutely must have a meditation teacher you trust if you want to do deep dives (yes, a 10 day vipassana retreat is certainly a deep dive, as is a zen sesshin). Preferably one you know has actually touched most of these spaces, is well grounded and compassionate, isn't woo-ey or ego-challenged in terms of feeling like your bad experience might threaten their "good teacher" status, etc.

MichaelGG 10y ago
I'd just note that the best "marketed" vipassana retreat, dhamma.org/Goenka is extremely woo-ey. Apart from simply false claims (eg cloud chambers we're always useless), the stated purpose of his practise is to excise "deeply rooted" problems so as to reincarnate better. This is in spite of them insisting it's a pure technique with zero dogma. I know that might not represent vipassana as a whole, just adding a warning since it's the most popular one.
- alimw 10y ago
  Exactly what claim are you disputing about cloud chambers? According to Wikipedia they were extremely useful to the discoverers of the positron, the muon and the kaon.
  - MichaelGG 10y ago
    Sorry for being unclear. During Goenka's "discourses" he went off on many things. One of them being that cloud chambers were pointless as they only revealed things known to Buddha and Indian meditators for millennia. Yeah... That was just one thing out of many that put me off from those courses.

gedy 10y ago

Apart from mental illness, perhaps some practitioners of deep meditation have simply trained their brains to disconnect from physical reality and not align with the physical and emotional stimulus that keeps thoughts "normal"

niccaluim 10y ago

I meditate daily, and I'm part of a community that encourages it, but only after a thorough process of mental housecleaning. If you're full of un-dealt-with bitterness, anxiety, resentment, guilt, restlessness, shame, etc.—to say nothing of untreated mental illness or trauma—yeah, meditation is going to be a supremely unpleasant experience. Shutting out all distractions is only comfortable if you haven't been using those distractions to keep from having to deal with life.

allisthemoist 10y ago

There was stuff dropping away … [and] electric shocks through my body. [My] core sense of self, a persistent consciousness, the thoughts and stuff, were not me." This sounds to me like the beginnings of psychosis. I don't doubt that these feelings could be induced by meditation, but I do doubt that they would not have emerged in some other way.

ebiester 10y ago

I remember reading this when it came out, and noticing how it reflected some of my personal experiences. I found that meditation unlocked some of my inner anxiety and I was experiencing frequent panic attacks when I wasn't meditating. I had to stop for months. I have started again, mostly because I miss the benefits of meditation, but it is closer to what another poster labeled "comfort meditation." I still consider one of the longer retreats, but I don't know that I'm yet ready to face that again.

thonos 10y ago
I never did meditation but did a few "retreats" into other countries to get away from everything and just have some time for myself. I had a similar experience where it made 'click' and suddenly I was a lot more aware of all the anxieties that I have and usually don't think about. It made everything else so insignificant that I feel I am constantly wasting my time with almost everything I do. I still have it and not sure how to get rid of this feeling. At the same time I feel "good" that I "found myself". It made clear for me what I actually want in life. Now I treat things like a stable job, work and a salary are just temporary and intermediate steps to reach my actual goals. Getting reminded about these things with a scary anxiety attack is indeed not nice but I learned to "use it" to my advantage as good as I can. At the same time I need to keep myself busy to not get reminded about it too much. Again, still no idea how to "solve" this problem.

cpncrunch 10y ago

2014

cpncrunch 10y ago
What possible reason was there for downvoting this? I was pointing out that its an old story and should be noted in the title as per hn custom.

sandGorgon 10y ago

MCTB - Mastering the Core Teaching of the Buddha - which is a fairly hardcore "path" towards enlightenment has these phases well charted out. http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki/Main/MCTB+5.+Dissolution,+Entrance+to+the+Dark+Night http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wiki... Once one has crossed the Arising and Passing Event, one will enter the Dark Night regardless of whether one wants to or not. It doesn’t matter if you practice from this point on; once you cross the A&P you are in the Dark Night to some degree (i.e. are a Dark Night Yogi) until you figure out how to get through it, and if you do get through it without getting to the first stage of enlightenment, you will have to go through it again and again until you do. I mean this in the most absolute terms These are a well understood steps in the journey towards enlightenment and comes with necessary warnings. For most people, they will not step this far and this point is moot. For hardcore practitioners of meditation, it's a necessary step. What I think has happened is that meditation has become classified as "infinitely benevolent" : you can go down that path, as far as you can, and all will be good. Meditation like weightlifting, needs guidance and care. You can hurt yourself if you don't respect the barbell.

rainy-day 10y ago

In the yoga tradition, meditation is not something you can just sit down and do regularly from the beginning. You are supposed to do asanas to prepare for breath exercises, and breath exercises to allow the mind to concentrate, and then the "meditation skill is unlocked". The general idea is that sleepiness and sluggishness is a certain outcome of an unhealthy body, as well as anxiety and irritability that are caused by various body aches. In the worst case, meditation can become a formality, just a checkbox to fill out, a way to spend an indulgent, lethargic half-hour, or the opposite - a constantly distracted, obsessive anxiety (which is perfectly fine and even to be expected at the beginning of a meditation, but not at all times). That's not to say that meditation is completely off limit: the idea is to do a bit of meditation and breath exercises at first and a lot of asanas, and then gradually increase breath exercises and then concentration; and finally meditation. But this whole idea that meditation can be counter-productive in some circumstances is not really alien to the Eastern traditions. They are not stupid and they've been doing it for a long time with an empirical, practical approach.

uptownfunk 10y ago
Yes, definitely this. And even before the asana and pranayama (breathing practice) are the yamas and niyamas (yama-niyama-asana-pranayama-pratyahara-dhyana-dharana-samadhi) there are eight rungs to the entire eastern yogic/meditative practice. The whole focus on "meditation" and physical poses by the modern western approach of $50/hr yoga classes completely goes against the eastern method of guru and disciple. There's a reason these things are meant to be studied under a learned master. What's the saying... a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. These practices were studied by students for years before they attempted what some people do in their first couple of yoga classes.. That said, I don't mean to discount the experiences of the individuals described in the article. I think it's terribly unfortunate that anyone has to suffer from practicing meditation and yoga, and also find it sad that they were unable to find a master to help them recover from their experiences sooner.

kordless 10y ago

> He panicked. Increasingly vivid pornographic fantasies and repressed memories from his childhood began to surface. As someone with Aphantasia, I'm absolutely fascinated by this.

rainy-day 10y ago

I would also add that meditation is a bit tricky in the sense that it increases awareness of what's there - and what's there may be good or bad, but increased awareness is a better gift than merely good or bad things. Noticing more things means I'm not as locked in to my obliviousness. It's paradoxial but having a bad meditation is often beneficial.

drjesusphd 10y ago

A while back I had the thought that meditation for self-improvement is a non-starter. Meditation, supposedly done properly, is supposed to be non-judgemental observation. But if you're approaching the whole practice as a way to improve some aspect of yourself, the entire foundation is flawed. In that case, the whole reason you're doing it is based on a negative judgement. I was wondering if someone more experienced with meditation can comment on this. Does this make any sense?

hiddencost 10y ago
What I draw from this is that you have a misguided notion of "self", "improvement", and "self-improvement". Just do the non-judgmental observation stuff and see what happens and decide if you want more of it.
MarkPNeyer 10y ago
I meditate about 20 minutes a night before i go to bed. Nonjudgement is a big part of this. I just sit there and observe my thoughts, without trying to change them. Why is this helpful? Because trying to change your thoughts is itself a form of thinking. Trying to change a thought is reacting to that thought, and a lot of my problems come from reacting to thoughts uncritically. When I sit there and just try to notice the thoughts, thoughts about disturbing thoughts bother me less and less. An unpleasant thought doesn't quickly lead to a progressive series of counter-thoughts or responses. To give you an example of how this helps: on the way to the grocery store yesterday, I thought "I'm out of beer, I could buy some beer." Reacting to the thought, without being critical of it, would mean going to buy the beer. But observing the thought allowed me to be aware of it and to _decide_ if that's what I actually wanted. I decided that no, I didn't really need the beer, and that I'd gain more utility from knowing I made a more responsible choice. For me, practicing nonjudgement allows me to better exercise judgement at suitable times. I couldn't tell you how many times i've gotten carried away giving imaginary speeches when I think about running for office - a practice which has caused me no good. It's like that judgement was entirely wasted. By meditating, I've become more aware of the background ebb and flow of thoughts, which has freed me up to be judgemental when it _matters_ - such as over the small part of the world I have control over, instead of wasting energy judging things I have no control over, because that's a conditioned response to unpleasant thoughts. I hope that helps. FWIW I did go through a 'dark night of the soul' period. It lasted a few years, and my life got noticeably worse, but eventually I stopped believing everything I thought, and focused on repairing my life, and now it's much better than it ever was. If meditation brings up dark or horrible thoughts - for me those were there all along, but I was just not paying attention because I constantly thought about getting rich, or politics, or starting a company, or p vs np, or whatever other abstractions i was into that day.

estefan 10y ago

No mention of kundalini anywhere... Seems he went a bit deep too soon with no guidance. Electrical currents, spasms, sexual thoughts, digestive issues, etc. Classic kundalini symptoms. Aypsite.org has some good info on it and how to avoid or deal with it.

estefan 10y ago
In fact, to elaborate a bit, he mentions feeling a 'knot' in his lower belly. That sounds like swadhistana chakra, or what the Taoists call the Lower Dan Tien. That'd correlate with the sexual thoughts as well. Normally the recommendations for this sort of thing is to back off, and to circulate energy in the micro cosmic orbit. See Mantak Chia for details. An interesting book I read years ago about this was "Path Notes of an American Ninja Master". Cheesy title, but pretty interesting as an alternative to Gopi Krishna. The author specifically addresses the 'Dark Night of the Soul' phenomenon and emphasises the importance of creating Good Feelings inside to smooth the process and to lessen the effects of the darker aspects...
- obj-g 10y ago
  Oh of course, just circulate energy in the micro cosmic orbit! Duh!
- TACIXAT 10y ago
  As someone who practices Taoist meditation, Mantak Chia is meh. Got most his notoriety through sexual practices which are nearly insignificant in actual Taoism (religious or mountain). His school has also latched onto the MCO as some great achievement when most other lineages treat it as simply an energetic movement that happens while practicing. Meditation, as with hallucinogens, if you or your family has a history of mental illness, tread carefully. Sitting can be surprisingly hard work. It pushes the body through pain while introducing you to the limits of your mind. In any training, slow progression is very important. You wouldn't go to a body building competition with no lifting experience, why do people dive into 10 day retreats without years of experience?
  - 10y ago

laughfactory 10y ago

It is strange for me to read in the comments all the advice to--as I understand it--be a relatively "whole" person before beginning meditation. In my limited experience and perspective, I was under the impression that meditation can assist one with releasing stress and anxiety... I thought meditation was one tool which could be applied for achieving more "wholeness" as a person, and I'm surprised at the suggestion that apparently other means must be pursued first? It seems to me that it would be hard to go wrong with 15-30 minutes of "meditation" spent focusing on breathing and non-judgmentally observing your thoughts as they bubble up and dissipate. I've often felt that a lot of my stress and anxiety and even depression is the result of hanging onto things and the result of trying to control things which are actually outside my control. Or perhaps these other comments are directed toward the serious, multiple-hour, practice of meditation? I have no desire to separate my consciousness from my physical being, for instance. I'm happy to stay firmly rooted on earth, while learning to accept the good in my inherent existence. If that makes sense.

dlevine 10y ago
This isn't talking about 15-30 minutes of meditation. It's talking about 2+ week retreats. Having been on a couple 10-day retreats, I've experienced what I can only describe as significantly altered states of consciousness (after 6+ days of meditating 14-16 hours a day). Fortunately, I managed to make my way back into the world after they ended, but I can see how some people might be permanently altered.
- aedron 10y ago
  That sounds like something a lawsuit away from being shut down.

noonespecial 10y ago

Eventually, life lost its meaning. Colors began to fade. Spiritually dry, David didn't care about anything anymore. Everything he had found pleasurable before the retreat—hanging out with friends, playing music, drinking—all of that "turned to dirt," he says, "a plate of beautiful food turned to dirt." That's depression. Clinical depression. Fits my experience to a T. The first thing out of my mouth when I finally saw a "real" doctor was "I can't see colors or taste food anymore... I mean, I can tell you its red or blue or tasted like chicken but I can't see or taste it anymore. I know that sounds crazy but..." This article is a little dangerous. Like saying "Running causes heart failure" but omitting "in people with congestive heart failure". Its the heart condition that's the problem, not the running. If you have these symptoms, it wasn't the meditation. You're depressed. See a doctor. They can fix you.

mveety 10y ago
This is kinda something that meditation is supposed to do. It brings problems you have to the fore so that you can see them clearly and fix them. This is something entirely ignored by the new-agey "im super spiritual" types. Meditation isn't something to make you blissful or happy or whatever they're saying it does these days. It's just a tool to see yourself just like a microscope is a tool that allows you to see what's already there.
- baldfat 10y ago
  Depression is a medical diagnosis because it has physical make up that causes people to be depressed. I work and live with people who think depression is a "spiritual" or personal lifestyle problem. I think they are wrong. I lost a sister to cancer when she was 15, my brother to probably suicide when he was 19 and my son died of cancer at 12. I seriously can say I never had a day of depression. I have had a broken heart missing them and feeling the pain. I will cry for them (I did for my son on Sunday while I was unloading groceries (Go figure)) But I have never lost the taste of food nor anything else. I have sorrow but their is a root cause for that. Depression is sorrow with no real root cause (to me). So I usually come out to defend people who are depressed since I feel like I should be the kind of depression but have never experienced it due to the luck of my genetics.

jrapdx3 10y ago

Adverse outcomes of meditation practices described in the article covered a range of disorders, e.g., depression, panic attacks, possibly frank psychosis. These conditions are familiar to psychiatrists and not rare, guessing something like <=5% of the whole population have a serious form of such conditions. We know that assigning a singular cause of psychiatric disorders is spurious since all major conditions have been connected to multiple genetic, social and environmental factors. It's certainly conceivable that meditation could precipitate an episode of a psychiatric disorder, and of course it is mostly impossible to say if or when the condition would have emerged otherwise. IOW the apparent sequential onset of psychiatric symptoms could be just chance occurrence reflecting the general population prevalence, or there might be a genuine causal effect of the preceding meditation event. Logically, at this time there's as much basis to assert meditation "caused" the condition as asserting meditation did not cause it. Until a lot more information is available, the relation remains indeterminate, or undefined. It's a good principle (and the safest course) to hold that any/all spiritual practices or psychiatric treatments have risk of bad outcomes. No "prescription" is going to be good for everyone. The idea that meditation and psychotherapy have overlapping risk potential is compelling. Haven't looked into to it yet, but definitely worth finding out what if any studies have been done. Along those lines there's a just-published meta-analysis re: outcome of treatment for depression with CBT or medication. With both treatments, ~5-7% of subjects had at least some "deterioration" of their condition, and those with the greatest pre-treatment symptoms had the worst outcomes. [0] While the domains are only partially congruent, 5% is probably a good initial guess concerning the probability of mild or greater adverse effect of meditation, IIRC corresponding to ~2 SD from the mean. I didn't see any references in the article to publications by the researchers profiled, but I'd imagine they'd have some data that sheds light on the prevalence of the outcomes they're studying. [0] Vittengl JR, Jarrett RB, Weitz E, et. al. "Divergent Outcomes in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Pharmacotherapy for Adult Depression." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=divergent+outcomes+depression+CBT+pharmacotherapy http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=divergent+outcomes+...

TACIXAT 10y ago

The title is wrong on the linked page. It says The Dark Knight of the Soul and everywhere else in the article refers to it as the Dark Night. I do appreciate the Batman of the Soul though.

magicbeanss 10y ago
I'm quite sure that was intentional. They're going for the double entendre (not Batman, but the notion of a force of darkness)

gdubs 10y ago

I practice mindfulness meditation and the way it has always been taught to me is to simply sit and observe without judgement. That is, don't actively try to push away thoughts. Simply acknowledge them as they arise, and return your focus to breathing in and out. Forcing away thoughts is just another way of engaging ego -- you get caught up trying to get somewhere rather than simply being in the moment. One of my favorite descriptions is by Alan Watts, called "listening meditation": http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7HYY4eitC9c http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7HYY4eitC9c