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This is kind of unrelated but whenever discussions on meditation come up here, especially recently ones that have mentioned the dangers around it, I am reminded

This is kind of unrelated but whenever discussions on meditation come up here, especially recently ones that have mentioned the dangers around it, I am reminded that my lineage stresses that meditation should not be undertaken until one has sufficient preparation with simpler practices, such as karma yoga (service orientated worship). The perspective is that if you start these practices before "calming down" (like being easy to anger, easily distracted in thoughts) that it can be very dangerous to learn these higher practices - that you can easily become even more depressed, angry or insane than when you started. I've seen a number of articles on HN talking about people becoming depressed, depersonalized and so on after trying mindfulness meditation and I find it anecdotally interesting that it lines up with the teachings I am familiar with.

swayvil 5y ago
I dunno man. Awareness is already this big powertool that we are all using all the time. Casually, sloppily, intensely, obsessively, recklessly. But not really very intelligently. (like what's an engineer but a man who uses his awareness like a hammer, beating riddles into submission?) Learning to use your awareness intelligently strikes me as close to an unalloyed good thing. Meditation can do that.
- chana_masala 5y ago
  I don't disagree that it's good to use awareness intelligently, but you don't even need meditation for that, according to Hindu thought much of that can be achieved through other yogas, namely karma yoga. Meditation is much more than learning to use your awareness intelligently. There are many types of meditation, too.
  - swayvil 5y ago
    I know of only 2 meditation techniques. Samatha and Vipassana. (Aka Concentration and Growing. Aka meditation with a seed and meditation without a seed). I have never heard of a meditation technique that was not simply a variation on those 2. But if you have one then I am all ears. Also, ya, you could say that meditation touches some other stuff than just "getting intelligent with your awareness". Sure. And as far as other ways of getting intelligent with your awareness are concerned. Ya sure, I can imagine such existing. Also. Ya. Meditation can lead to much crazy. But that's a good education :)
    - loopz 5y ago
      Meditation doesn't really promote the intellect. It needs direction. Something which karma yoga may provide for societal concerns, hatha yoga for physical, jnana for mind, etc. There are over 100 meditations defined in Indian traditions. They're all useless without direction.
      - swayvil 5y ago
        >Meditation doesn't really promote the intellect. I can go with that. >It needs direction You mean like a goal? >Something which karma yoga may provide for societal concerns I think it's closer to aesthetics. >There are over 100 meditations defined in Indian traditions. They're all useless without direction. Meditation can be approached as an experiment and an exploration. No goal necessary. And when investigating a true mystery I think that a goal is inappropriate.
        chana_masala 5y ago
        That's a very secular and "I am my own Guru" approach. Not recommended.
ljm 5y ago
Many of the activities I've done in the service of tantric meditation have required an intense catharsis before continuing to the calm. All of that is one meditation.
tokenpreneur 5y ago
Worry not, for secular meditation does not get that far. Otherwise we'd have seen a psychosis pandemic vis-à-vis Calm.com's 40 million app installs.
- pasquinelli 5y ago
  what's app installs got to do with meditation? i guess that's your point though.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ramchip 5y ago
    It's a meditation app
    - pasquinelli 5y ago
      yeah, i got that, but installing an app isn't meditating, even if it's a meditation app. a measurment of app installs doesn't give you information on people's meditation practice.
      - tokenpreneur 5y ago
        You do not need information on their meditation practice to support the idea that secular meditation is on the rise and proof of that rise is at the very least evident in a secular meditation app getting such a large amount of installs.
- Finnucane 5y ago
  The Buddha sought an escape from the state of dukkha, and our western political and economic systems depend on maximizing the state of dukkha. How do you make ‘self-help’ from a philosophy that teaches that there is no permanent self to help?
  - 5y ago
lethologica 5y ago
Could you please elaborate more on the dangers of meditation?
- Trasmatta 5y ago
  Search "dark side of meditation" and you'll find a bunch of articles. Here's an organization dedicated to helping people who've been destabilized by meditation: https://www.cheetahhouse.org/ https://www.cheetahhouse.org/
- emacsen 5y ago
  This is a difficult topic because it's so fraught with misunderstanding and complexity, but I'd like to share a few thoughts, not all from the OP but from this topic in general. 1. Meditation as a tool for self-improvement Meditation, especially and specifically Buddhist meditation, has been sold to Westerners as a tool for self improvement for the purpose of "getting a leg up" and as another commenter pointed out, this is self-defeating. Buddhism, as taught by the Buddha himself, was about getting off the hamster wheel. It's about a prince who stepped down, but also who did not try to somehow get a leg up through suffering. But using Buddhism to get ahead in the corporate world is ultimately fraught with a contradiction of clarity, honesty, kindness, etc. with the tools often used in business- deception, exploitation, etc.- tools that are enforced by the constraints placed on corporate leadership. 2. Mindfulness as a tool of blame One of the paradoxes of Buddhism, but specifically Zen, is the idea that the practice teaches you to be able to handle enormous stress. Practioners are taught to stay in meditation through physical distress, through mental distress, even while being hit with sticks, etc. This is a form of training. What we have seen is that some unscrupulous people are using this as a way to exploit workers. "If you're stressed out, that's on you for not being strong enough/meditating enough." rather than address the working conditions. 3. Meditation as a badge People will misuse anything as a badge, and meditation is no exception. There are meditation "jocks" (for lack of a better word)- people who will go to retreats and push themselves to meditate in harsh conditions or for long periods. They will then come back and use this as a signal to others of their greatness. It's paradoxical to the ideals of Buddhism, but it nonetheless exists, and it's used in ways that other signals often are- as a way to create cliques and networks. 4. Inwards looking as the only direction Looking inward is great, but meditation and mindfulness are not substitutions for other types of self improvement, including therapy. All of those can be true and it can be true that meditation is great and helpful. Any practice can be too much, or weaponized. Those are just some of my thoughts on the topic.
pasquinelli 5y ago
that's kind of funny, because for a couple years there i had a consistent meditation practice, but in the last 9 months i've been unable to keep a schedule of any kind, or at least that's how it feels. i've tried, in place of meditation, just not being contemptuous of people. i'm not very good at it. but it's funny to me that i'm going about things backward.
- loopz 5y ago
  It sounds like you've become more conscious.
yann2 5y ago
Because we have a hopeless understanding of the vast differences in minds found in the chimp troupe. Leave alone the consequences of such huge variation. As soon as one chimp has a realization about its mind, it then thinks all the other chimps should and can have it too. Which is as dumb as a mango tree discovering it can produce a mango, and then walking around encouraging banana trees to try to do the same. The banana tree will fail no matter how much it studies the mango tree. It might even forgot it is capable of producing bananas.
bin_bash 5y ago
I’ve practiced meditation for over a decade with many, many traditions in and out of Buddhism and never heard of this concern. Not arguing that meditation can’t have downsides, but I think you’re way over exaggerating them.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "I’ve practiced meditation for over a decade with many, many traditions in and out of Buddhism and never heard of this concern. Not arguing that meditation can’t have downsides, but I think you’re way over exaggerating them." Here[1] is a recent HN discussion about an article[2] about just this. And here[3] is an earlier discussion about a similar article[4]. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27890790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27890790 [2] - https://danlawton.substack.com/p/when-buddhism-goes-bad https://danlawton.substack.com/p/when-buddhism-goes-bad [3] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11752317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11752317 [4] - http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-dark-knight-of-the-souls/372766/?single_page=true http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-dark-k...
swayvil 5y ago
Meditation (raja yoga) + karma yoga = 8fold path
bgroat 5y ago
I have a bit of a backdoor experience into mindfulness through my background in lucid dreaming. And I completely agree that people need to handle their psychic health before they go down these rabbit holes. Reality can get very fuzzy for anyone, let alone someone who's already depressive, manic, or dissociative.
- optimalsolver 5y ago
  >I have a bit of a backdoor experience into mindfulness through my background in lucid dreaming Could you elaborate on this? How does it help?
  - bgroat 5y ago
    90% of lucid dreaming is just becoming extremely aware of your surroundings, and your experience of your surroundings, and whether they're real. Once you find out a few times that they aren't it can pretty fundamentally change some of your perceptions
    - state_less 5y ago
      It’s an odd thing to ‘wake up’ to the reality that you’re dreaming. Any tips on getting into that state again would be welcome. It tends to happen for me after I’ve been pretty focused/mindful of the present for some time.
      - bgroat 5y ago
        What's helped me is getting really comfortable to the fact that the things around me are never really real. They're either wholly manufactured (dreams), or partially manufactured (flawed senses and biases). This tends to make me very mindful when awake, and very lucid while asleep

swayvil 5y ago

I dunno man. Awareness is already this big powertool that we are all using all the time. Casually, sloppily, intensely, obsessively, recklessly. But not really very intelligently. (like what's an engineer but a man who uses his awareness like a hammer, beating riddles into submission?) Learning to use your awareness intelligently strikes me as close to an unalloyed good thing. Meditation can do that.

chana_masala 5y ago
I don't disagree that it's good to use awareness intelligently, but you don't even need meditation for that, according to Hindu thought much of that can be achieved through other yogas, namely karma yoga. Meditation is much more than learning to use your awareness intelligently. There are many types of meditation, too.
- swayvil 5y ago
  I know of only 2 meditation techniques. Samatha and Vipassana. (Aka Concentration and Growing. Aka meditation with a seed and meditation without a seed). I have never heard of a meditation technique that was not simply a variation on those 2. But if you have one then I am all ears. Also, ya, you could say that meditation touches some other stuff than just "getting intelligent with your awareness". Sure. And as far as other ways of getting intelligent with your awareness are concerned. Ya sure, I can imagine such existing. Also. Ya. Meditation can lead to much crazy. But that's a good education :)
  - loopz 5y ago
    Meditation doesn't really promote the intellect. It needs direction. Something which karma yoga may provide for societal concerns, hatha yoga for physical, jnana for mind, etc. There are over 100 meditations defined in Indian traditions. They're all useless without direction.
    - swayvil 5y ago
      >Meditation doesn't really promote the intellect. I can go with that. >It needs direction You mean like a goal? >Something which karma yoga may provide for societal concerns I think it's closer to aesthetics. >There are over 100 meditations defined in Indian traditions. They're all useless without direction. Meditation can be approached as an experiment and an exploration. No goal necessary. And when investigating a true mystery I think that a goal is inappropriate.
      - chana_masala 5y ago
        That's a very secular and "I am my own Guru" approach. Not recommended.

ljm 5y ago

Many of the activities I've done in the service of tantric meditation have required an intense catharsis before continuing to the calm. All of that is one meditation.

tokenpreneur 5y ago

Worry not, for secular meditation does not get that far. Otherwise we'd have seen a psychosis pandemic vis-à-vis Calm.com's 40 million app installs.

pasquinelli 5y ago
what's app installs got to do with meditation? i guess that's your point though.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ramchip 5y ago
  It's a meditation app
  - pasquinelli 5y ago
    yeah, i got that, but installing an app isn't meditating, even if it's a meditation app. a measurment of app installs doesn't give you information on people's meditation practice.
    - tokenpreneur 5y ago
      You do not need information on their meditation practice to support the idea that secular meditation is on the rise and proof of that rise is at the very least evident in a secular meditation app getting such a large amount of installs.
Finnucane 5y ago
The Buddha sought an escape from the state of dukkha, and our western political and economic systems depend on maximizing the state of dukkha. How do you make ‘self-help’ from a philosophy that teaches that there is no permanent self to help?
- 5y ago

lethologica 5y ago

Could you please elaborate more on the dangers of meditation?

Trasmatta 5y ago
Search "dark side of meditation" and you'll find a bunch of articles. Here's an organization dedicated to helping people who've been destabilized by meditation: https://www.cheetahhouse.org/ https://www.cheetahhouse.org/
emacsen 5y ago
This is a difficult topic because it's so fraught with misunderstanding and complexity, but I'd like to share a few thoughts, not all from the OP but from this topic in general. 1. Meditation as a tool for self-improvement Meditation, especially and specifically Buddhist meditation, has been sold to Westerners as a tool for self improvement for the purpose of "getting a leg up" and as another commenter pointed out, this is self-defeating. Buddhism, as taught by the Buddha himself, was about getting off the hamster wheel. It's about a prince who stepped down, but also who did not try to somehow get a leg up through suffering. But using Buddhism to get ahead in the corporate world is ultimately fraught with a contradiction of clarity, honesty, kindness, etc. with the tools often used in business- deception, exploitation, etc.- tools that are enforced by the constraints placed on corporate leadership. 2. Mindfulness as a tool of blame One of the paradoxes of Buddhism, but specifically Zen, is the idea that the practice teaches you to be able to handle enormous stress. Practioners are taught to stay in meditation through physical distress, through mental distress, even while being hit with sticks, etc. This is a form of training. What we have seen is that some unscrupulous people are using this as a way to exploit workers. "If you're stressed out, that's on you for not being strong enough/meditating enough." rather than address the working conditions. 3. Meditation as a badge People will misuse anything as a badge, and meditation is no exception. There are meditation "jocks" (for lack of a better word)- people who will go to retreats and push themselves to meditate in harsh conditions or for long periods. They will then come back and use this as a signal to others of their greatness. It's paradoxical to the ideals of Buddhism, but it nonetheless exists, and it's used in ways that other signals often are- as a way to create cliques and networks. 4. Inwards looking as the only direction Looking inward is great, but meditation and mindfulness are not substitutions for other types of self improvement, including therapy. All of those can be true and it can be true that meditation is great and helpful. Any practice can be too much, or weaponized. Those are just some of my thoughts on the topic.

pasquinelli 5y ago

that's kind of funny, because for a couple years there i had a consistent meditation practice, but in the last 9 months i've been unable to keep a schedule of any kind, or at least that's how it feels. i've tried, in place of meditation, just not being contemptuous of people. i'm not very good at it. but it's funny to me that i'm going about things backward.

loopz 5y ago
It sounds like you've become more conscious.

yann2 5y ago

Because we have a hopeless understanding of the vast differences in minds found in the chimp troupe. Leave alone the consequences of such huge variation. As soon as one chimp has a realization about its mind, it then thinks all the other chimps should and can have it too. Which is as dumb as a mango tree discovering it can produce a mango, and then walking around encouraging banana trees to try to do the same. The banana tree will fail no matter how much it studies the mango tree. It might even forgot it is capable of producing bananas.

bin_bash 5y ago

I’ve practiced meditation for over a decade with many, many traditions in and out of Buddhism and never heard of this concern. Not arguing that meditation can’t have downsides, but I think you’re way over exaggerating them.

pmoriarty 5y ago
"I’ve practiced meditation for over a decade with many, many traditions in and out of Buddhism and never heard of this concern. Not arguing that meditation can’t have downsides, but I think you’re way over exaggerating them." Here[1] is a recent HN discussion about an article[2] about just this. And here[3] is an earlier discussion about a similar article[4]. [1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27890790 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27890790 [2] - https://danlawton.substack.com/p/when-buddhism-goes-bad https://danlawton.substack.com/p/when-buddhism-goes-bad [3] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11752317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11752317 [4] - http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-dark-knight-of-the-souls/372766/?single_page=true http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-dark-k...

swayvil 5y ago

Meditation (raja yoga) + karma yoga = 8fold path

bgroat 5y ago

I have a bit of a backdoor experience into mindfulness through my background in lucid dreaming. And I completely agree that people need to handle their psychic health before they go down these rabbit holes. Reality can get very fuzzy for anyone, let alone someone who's already depressive, manic, or dissociative.

optimalsolver 5y ago
>I have a bit of a backdoor experience into mindfulness through my background in lucid dreaming Could you elaborate on this? How does it help?
- bgroat 5y ago
  90% of lucid dreaming is just becoming extremely aware of your surroundings, and your experience of your surroundings, and whether they're real. Once you find out a few times that they aren't it can pretty fundamentally change some of your perceptions
  - state_less 5y ago
    It’s an odd thing to ‘wake up’ to the reality that you’re dreaming. Any tips on getting into that state again would be welcome. It tends to happen for me after I’ve been pretty focused/mindful of the present for some time.
    - bgroat 5y ago
      What's helped me is getting really comfortable to the fact that the things around me are never really real. They're either wholly manufactured (dreams), or partially manufactured (flawed senses and biases). This tends to make me very mindful when awake, and very lucid while asleep