8 ms·

This is exactly the kind of inappropriate advice that the author is cautioning against. He was not just starting out, he had experienced teachers, and the horri

This is exactly the kind of inappropriate advice that the author is cautioning against. He was not just starting out, he had experienced teachers, and the horriffic panic-attack-like state he was not something that could have been addressed by "returning to the moment".

cyberpunk 5y ago
He was an instructor in "Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction" -- sorry, this is not a real thing. He's been teaching things he clearly does not understand, and his mind was blown by this. When I say "a teacher would tell you to come back to the moment" it's not quite as simple as I make it sound, the key thing is who the advice is coming from (read: an actual zen teacher who has received transmission, not a charlatan mindfulness camp fleecing wannabe mindfulness bro's out of several hundred dollars to sit with no experience for 10 days). I don't really have much sympathy here, it seems, but I don't really understand how one could not expect something like this to happen unless they really avoided speaking to anyone with actual experience (which, yes, means a zen monk, and not someone who spent 3 days in a Hilton doubletree learning how to teach people to 'breathe' and 'unlock their chakras' -- which is all bollocks.)
- shmageggy 5y ago
  So, to clarify, you are aligning with the view he's opposing in the article that if someone has a profoundly negative experience due to meditation they're just "doing it wrong". That the practice, when done a certain way, carries 0% risk for very bad effects?
  - cyberpunk 5y ago
    Yes, essentially.
    - shmageggy 5y ago
      That just seems wildly unlikely to me. We're talking about a practice whose goal is to manipulate the brain, an organ that has been called the most complex object in the universe, something that centuries of science have only begin to understand, and that comes with vast and poorly understood diversity across people. There are first hand and scientific accounts of this happening, albeit rarely, to experienced and knowledgeable people. To claim that a certain group of monks has figured out a foolproof and risk-free formula for exploring altered states of consciousness seems implausible.
      - cyberpunk 5y ago
        Well, keep in mind this is a practice that as far as we know people have been practicing for at least 2600 years, I think doing things like a 5-10 day Vipassana retreat is not a risk free thing, but you really shouldn’t be doing those unless you are ready. I follow the Soto school of Zen Buddhism, my teacher would not allow me to go to Sessin (which is a multi day meditation retreat) until I had been practicing for like two years, and I had a lot of stuff come to the surface at my first one that really disturbed me… however, I had my teacher there, and he knew exactly what to say and do to help me through it as he has been through the same. He would not have permitted me to leave in such a disturbed state. This guy would not be able to do that for his students, and even for himself he didn’t even know about such things. This is bad, and more stories like this will happen as long as charlatans are taking one aspect of an established practice and ignoring the rest. As a whole, shikantaza when practiced with a teacher is safe. Things like breath awareness, vipassana and such I think are harmful, but that is due to my training and perhaps I am wrong, but for sure, meditation without the “rest” is largely a money machine these days, and people will be harmed by that. Edit: I would also add that shikantaza as opposed to other forms of meditation is not about manipulating the brain in any way, but simply observing it. This is why we do not do things with a goal, such as counting of breaths or trying to still the mind. Simply sit, observe, and the stillness comes with no effort. There is no goal, and no enlightenment. There is no separation of practice and experience, the practice is enlightenment.
        Zababa 5y ago
        Reading about your experience makes me realize that the mindfulness industry is probably another case of trying to remove the human element to improve scalability, with terrible results.
  - stelonix 5y ago
    No, he's stating what the author seems to have missed: mindfulness is not Buddhism; mindfulness is based on some Buddhist teachings. The author talks about meditation, mindfulness and Buddhism as if it were all the same thing, but that's not true. It just shows that whatever they're selling as "mindfulness" lacks what basic zen teaches. The author is blissfully ignorant of Buddhism and it's not his fault: that's how he learned it. What's his fault is that he's spreading what he learned as if it were truth, which simply isn't. There's no worldwide buddhist conspiracy to shun the "bad" parts of meditation, the post author learned from teachers with no qualification.
  - SyzygistSix 5y ago
    If one is thinking about these experiences as "right" or "wrong", they have certainly failed. Uncomfortable, sure. Experiencing the dark night of the soul is not meant to be comfy. It can be rewarding though. Sometimes it is merely insight into our physical and psychological make up though. I don't care what kind of adventures one gets into but if you start getting extreme with them, you're eventually going to experience some really sketchy, uncomfortable, and even life-threatening situations.
  - chrispine 5y ago
    I mean, you could say the same about guns, automobiles, table saws...
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "the key thing is who the advice is coming from (read: an actual zen teacher who has received transmission, not a charlatan mindfulness camp fleecing wannabe mindfulness bro's out of several hundred dollars to sit with no experience for 10 days)" Why Zen specifically? There are many different types of Buddhism. Even if it does have to be Zen, which kind of Zen? Rinzai or Soto, or some mix of the two (which some Zen schools advocate)? And why Buddhism, anyway? Meditation is practiced in many different religious traditions. "mindfulness" is itself rooted in the Theraveda -- not Zen -- Buddhist tradition, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the "right" way to meditate must be a Buddhist way as opposed to, say, one of the many Hindu forms of meditation.
  - cyberpunk 5y ago
    I can only speak from my own experience as a Soto zen Buddhist. It’s ridiculous really, to spend years staring at a wall. Of course there are many paths, however I am only aware of the one I’ve been down. So, yeah, I have zen tinted glasses on such subjects and whatever I am saying should be taken with the appropriate sodium chloride.
  - NoOneNew 5y ago
    No one is obligated to list every facet to anything just to tickle your "I'm included in what some random person is saying". The commenter is speaking out of their own experience. It's not about you. Actually add something regarding those other practices instead of virtue signaling.
    - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
      The OP is mentioning different forms to probably indicate some forms might be easier to learn. If you don't have anything positive or constructive to add, why not stay silent? That too is a form of mediation.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    Theravada developed around the same time the Mahayana emerged. Mindfulness practice predates the Theravada by 500 years.
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  > an actual zen teacher who has received transmission, not a charlatan I'm really hoping you were going for darkly ironic humour, if not, please reread your sentence I quoted and, I don't know, contemplate on it. Received transmission? From the Trisolarians perhaps?
  - cyberpunk 5y ago
    Transmission simply means their teacher considers them ready to also become teachers, it’s not some whoo science fiction mind meld or something… There are some cases of teachers giving this out inappropriately however these are rather obvious if you were to speak to one who has achieved the real deal vs not.. Buddhism is largely an oral tradition, in that the teachers who exist today can trace their education back up a tree, this is all I mean by transmission.
  - SyzygistSix 5y ago
    Transmission is a form of teaching/learning.
  - imwillofficial 5y ago
    Transmission refers to receiving chi, or a spark of energy from an advanced teacher. Perhaps less snark, and more curiosity would serve you on topics like this.
    - ungamedplayer 5y ago
      I feel the terminology used in your post inspires it.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - imwillofficial 5y ago
        If you want to remain ignorant, go right ahead.
    - 5y ago
- spadros 5y ago
  I've practiced zen and Tibetan Buddhism for years. They both contain lots of "spiritual bullocks woo" at times, as does most forms of Buddhism I've encountered. You really need to filter out the good parts for yourself, I find. There are many paths to "meditation" or "mindfulness"; I disagree that those are necessarily separate traditions. This sounds like a "No true Scotsman" type fallacy.
  - cyberpunk 5y ago
    This is really what led me to soto, I don’t buy into the ritual, the chanting (unless it’s at a sessin, and even then only for the bonding experience) and the codes and so on of a lot of the other sects. Soto to me is a very pure expression, I’m also not a big fan of the Sotoshu (my teacher calls them the “funeral directors association”) and the more established Soto schools like the SF Zen Center. Soto, as I understand it, is all about just shikantaza. The rest is optional. I don’t shave my head and wear robes, I just sit. It took me a while, but this shoe fits. I read Dogen and he seems to agree with this for the most part, but of course ymmv.
    - a0-prw 5y ago
      > chanting When I was a kid / teen, I could get into an altered state by repeating a word (any word) in my mind. After a short while, I would "disconnect" (I don't know how to describe it) :)
      - alxndr 5y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation
- idiotsecant 5y ago
  Can we step back here and realize we're talking about what amounts to breathing exersices here? There is no need to be gatekeeper here - you don't get magic Jedi powers by practicing breathing a bunch.
SyzygistSix 5y ago
The author certainly had a meditation practice, maybe even a meditation habit. But it sounded very naive and like amateur hour to me. I would think any moderately well-traveled psychonaut would not be surprise by anything that the author experienced..

cyberpunk 5y ago

He was an instructor in "Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction" -- sorry, this is not a real thing. He's been teaching things he clearly does not understand, and his mind was blown by this. When I say "a teacher would tell you to come back to the moment" it's not quite as simple as I make it sound, the key thing is who the advice is coming from (read: an actual zen teacher who has received transmission, not a charlatan mindfulness camp fleecing wannabe mindfulness bro's out of several hundred dollars to sit with no experience for 10 days). I don't really have much sympathy here, it seems, but I don't really understand how one could not expect something like this to happen unless they really avoided speaking to anyone with actual experience (which, yes, means a zen monk, and not someone who spent 3 days in a Hilton doubletree learning how to teach people to 'breathe' and 'unlock their chakras' -- which is all bollocks.)

shmageggy 5y ago
So, to clarify, you are aligning with the view he's opposing in the article that if someone has a profoundly negative experience due to meditation they're just "doing it wrong". That the practice, when done a certain way, carries 0% risk for very bad effects?
- cyberpunk 5y ago
  Yes, essentially.
  - shmageggy 5y ago
    That just seems wildly unlikely to me. We're talking about a practice whose goal is to manipulate the brain, an organ that has been called the most complex object in the universe, something that centuries of science have only begin to understand, and that comes with vast and poorly understood diversity across people. There are first hand and scientific accounts of this happening, albeit rarely, to experienced and knowledgeable people. To claim that a certain group of monks has figured out a foolproof and risk-free formula for exploring altered states of consciousness seems implausible.
    - cyberpunk 5y ago
      Well, keep in mind this is a practice that as far as we know people have been practicing for at least 2600 years, I think doing things like a 5-10 day Vipassana retreat is not a risk free thing, but you really shouldn’t be doing those unless you are ready. I follow the Soto school of Zen Buddhism, my teacher would not allow me to go to Sessin (which is a multi day meditation retreat) until I had been practicing for like two years, and I had a lot of stuff come to the surface at my first one that really disturbed me… however, I had my teacher there, and he knew exactly what to say and do to help me through it as he has been through the same. He would not have permitted me to leave in such a disturbed state. This guy would not be able to do that for his students, and even for himself he didn’t even know about such things. This is bad, and more stories like this will happen as long as charlatans are taking one aspect of an established practice and ignoring the rest. As a whole, shikantaza when practiced with a teacher is safe. Things like breath awareness, vipassana and such I think are harmful, but that is due to my training and perhaps I am wrong, but for sure, meditation without the “rest” is largely a money machine these days, and people will be harmed by that. Edit: I would also add that shikantaza as opposed to other forms of meditation is not about manipulating the brain in any way, but simply observing it. This is why we do not do things with a goal, such as counting of breaths or trying to still the mind. Simply sit, observe, and the stillness comes with no effort. There is no goal, and no enlightenment. There is no separation of practice and experience, the practice is enlightenment.
      - Zababa 5y ago
        Reading about your experience makes me realize that the mindfulness industry is probably another case of trying to remove the human element to improve scalability, with terrible results.
- stelonix 5y ago
  No, he's stating what the author seems to have missed: mindfulness is not Buddhism; mindfulness is based on some Buddhist teachings. The author talks about meditation, mindfulness and Buddhism as if it were all the same thing, but that's not true. It just shows that whatever they're selling as "mindfulness" lacks what basic zen teaches. The author is blissfully ignorant of Buddhism and it's not his fault: that's how he learned it. What's his fault is that he's spreading what he learned as if it were truth, which simply isn't. There's no worldwide buddhist conspiracy to shun the "bad" parts of meditation, the post author learned from teachers with no qualification.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  If one is thinking about these experiences as "right" or "wrong", they have certainly failed. Uncomfortable, sure. Experiencing the dark night of the soul is not meant to be comfy. It can be rewarding though. Sometimes it is merely insight into our physical and psychological make up though. I don't care what kind of adventures one gets into but if you start getting extreme with them, you're eventually going to experience some really sketchy, uncomfortable, and even life-threatening situations.
- chrispine 5y ago
  I mean, you could say the same about guns, automobiles, table saws...
pmoriarty 5y ago
"the key thing is who the advice is coming from (read: an actual zen teacher who has received transmission, not a charlatan mindfulness camp fleecing wannabe mindfulness bro's out of several hundred dollars to sit with no experience for 10 days)" Why Zen specifically? There are many different types of Buddhism. Even if it does have to be Zen, which kind of Zen? Rinzai or Soto, or some mix of the two (which some Zen schools advocate)? And why Buddhism, anyway? Meditation is practiced in many different religious traditions. "mindfulness" is itself rooted in the Theraveda -- not Zen -- Buddhist tradition, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the "right" way to meditate must be a Buddhist way as opposed to, say, one of the many Hindu forms of meditation.
- cyberpunk 5y ago
  I can only speak from my own experience as a Soto zen Buddhist. It’s ridiculous really, to spend years staring at a wall. Of course there are many paths, however I am only aware of the one I’ve been down. So, yeah, I have zen tinted glasses on such subjects and whatever I am saying should be taken with the appropriate sodium chloride.
- NoOneNew 5y ago
  No one is obligated to list every facet to anything just to tickle your "I'm included in what some random person is saying". The commenter is speaking out of their own experience. It's not about you. Actually add something regarding those other practices instead of virtue signaling.
  - cscurmudgeon 5y ago
    The OP is mentioning different forms to probably indicate some forms might be easier to learn. If you don't have anything positive or constructive to add, why not stay silent? That too is a form of mediation.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  Theravada developed around the same time the Mahayana emerged. Mindfulness practice predates the Theravada by 500 years.
EdwardDiego 5y ago
> an actual zen teacher who has received transmission, not a charlatan I'm really hoping you were going for darkly ironic humour, if not, please reread your sentence I quoted and, I don't know, contemplate on it. Received transmission? From the Trisolarians perhaps?
- cyberpunk 5y ago
  Transmission simply means their teacher considers them ready to also become teachers, it’s not some whoo science fiction mind meld or something… There are some cases of teachers giving this out inappropriately however these are rather obvious if you were to speak to one who has achieved the real deal vs not.. Buddhism is largely an oral tradition, in that the teachers who exist today can trace their education back up a tree, this is all I mean by transmission.
- SyzygistSix 5y ago
  Transmission is a form of teaching/learning.
- imwillofficial 5y ago
  Transmission refers to receiving chi, or a spark of energy from an advanced teacher. Perhaps less snark, and more curiosity would serve you on topics like this.
  - ungamedplayer 5y ago
    I feel the terminology used in your post inspires it.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - imwillofficial 5y ago
      If you want to remain ignorant, go right ahead.
  - 5y ago
spadros 5y ago
I've practiced zen and Tibetan Buddhism for years. They both contain lots of "spiritual bullocks woo" at times, as does most forms of Buddhism I've encountered. You really need to filter out the good parts for yourself, I find. There are many paths to "meditation" or "mindfulness"; I disagree that those are necessarily separate traditions. This sounds like a "No true Scotsman" type fallacy.
- cyberpunk 5y ago
  This is really what led me to soto, I don’t buy into the ritual, the chanting (unless it’s at a sessin, and even then only for the bonding experience) and the codes and so on of a lot of the other sects. Soto to me is a very pure expression, I’m also not a big fan of the Sotoshu (my teacher calls them the “funeral directors association”) and the more established Soto schools like the SF Zen Center. Soto, as I understand it, is all about just shikantaza. The rest is optional. I don’t shave my head and wear robes, I just sit. It took me a while, but this shoe fits. I read Dogen and he seems to agree with this for the most part, but of course ymmv.
  - a0-prw 5y ago
    > chanting When I was a kid / teen, I could get into an altered state by repeating a word (any word) in my mind. After a short while, I would "disconnect" (I don't know how to describe it) :)
    - alxndr 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation
idiotsecant 5y ago
Can we step back here and realize we're talking about what amounts to breathing exersices here? There is no need to be gatekeeper here - you don't get magic Jedi powers by practicing breathing a bunch.

SyzygistSix 5y ago

The author certainly had a meditation practice, maybe even a meditation habit. But it sounded very naive and like amateur hour to me. I would think any moderately well-traveled psychonaut would not be surprise by anything that the author experienced..