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Psychedelics are a good analogy. I don't think they are worth much in our culture and carry serious risk for people who are unstable. Even if you find an authen

Psychedelics are a good analogy. I don't think they are worth much in our culture and carry serious risk for people who are unstable. Even if you find an authentic shaman, you aren't going to have the cultural context to make it worthwhile by flying there over a weekend. There is also probably not much more dangerous than a very poorly functioning spiritual practice / teacher. The story here about Vipassana is unsurprising to say the least. It is sort of like squatting a 200kg weight with bad form, over and over again for years, but instead of your body you are breaking your consciousness. The key takeaway is that if you want to pursue this stuff you really need to find a good teacher who you trust.

spaetzleesser 6y ago
“really need to find a good teacher who you trust.” That’s the problem. It’s easy to trust an incompetent teacher. How do you find completed teacher in a field with many very charismatic charlatans?
- alex504 6y ago
  That's the fun part :) The most accomplished people who I know in this stuff have spent decades moving from teacher to teacher. Eventually you can tell who is full of shit and who isn't. There are certain red flags that you can learn to spot pretty quickly. If you spot a red flag it also doesn't necessarily mean the person doesn't know something worth learning, it just means they are stuck somewhere else. There are a lot of pretty high level people who are a little bit egotistical for example but it doesn't mean they don't know some useful techniques. The guy teaching me has trained under like a dozen very well known people over the years and his current teacher spent several decades in Asia working his way up through a series of teachers. The latter person I'm describing has talked about being very skeptical of his teachers to the point where in one instance he went into a teachers fridge to confirm he was lying about what he did or didn't eat.

spaetzleesser 6y ago

“really need to find a good teacher who you trust.” That’s the problem. It’s easy to trust an incompetent teacher. How do you find completed teacher in a field with many very charismatic charlatans?

alex504 6y ago
That's the fun part :) The most accomplished people who I know in this stuff have spent decades moving from teacher to teacher. Eventually you can tell who is full of shit and who isn't. There are certain red flags that you can learn to spot pretty quickly. If you spot a red flag it also doesn't necessarily mean the person doesn't know something worth learning, it just means they are stuck somewhere else. There are a lot of pretty high level people who are a little bit egotistical for example but it doesn't mean they don't know some useful techniques. The guy teaching me has trained under like a dozen very well known people over the years and his current teacher spent several decades in Asia working his way up through a series of teachers. The latter person I'm describing has talked about being very skeptical of his teachers to the point where in one instance he went into a teachers fridge to confirm he was lying about what he did or didn't eat.