This is the key takeaway. This guy didn't do anything that the majority of meditators in the West aren't doing. Taking such a serious piece of advice from a bo

This is the key takeaway. This guy didn't do anything that the majority of meditators in the West aren't doing. Taking such a serious piece of advice from a book by some random guy (who seems like a nutjob) is a particularly foolish thing to do but the authors mindset that led him to that decision isn't an outlier. To recap he - Had no teacher - Mix and matched various concepts and techniques from different traditions that he inevitably had a poor / loose understanding of - Had a drug and alcohol problem - Trained an intense schedule for years And when he got himself into a bind none of the teachers he went to could help him out because they are all doing the same thing, more or less, minus the drugs and alcohol.