For some, meditation has become more curse than cure

It can be caused both by external factors and our internal mental life.

And combined with the statements from this poor guy about not being able to block out intrusive thoughts ... people with clinical depression or schizophrenia need to be careful not to practice dissociating instead of meditating. Especially beginners who may think the point is to "keep pushing thoughts away and think of nothing". Mindfulness meditation is pretty different, and it's the one most of the promising research is concerned with.

That said, I like more dissociative types of meditation as well, it can be fun to try and get calm and focused enough to approach no thoughts at all. It taught me how to cure my insomnia for one, now I can stop that narrating train of thought that would often keep me awake and fall asleep basically whenever I want.

Also they seem to be freely mixing facts about research on mindfulness meditation with anecdotes about all different kinds of meditation. That's nonsense, there is no reason to assume the long term effects are similar.

Yes see a doctor. However, I feel that doctors often take a sledgehammer approach to mental illness, prescribing SSRIs and/or MAOIs whenever they hear the word "depression" or "anxiety". I'm not a MD, but after reading a little about the topic, it seems that a much better approach is to see what could be the cause of the deficiency in certain neurotransmitters. The reason could be that some of the enzymes involved in the process of producing them are defective due to genetic mutations. Certain tests (such as provided by 23andme) could reveal these defects, and could in theory provide much better treatment options. In many cases this could even start with taking certain dietary supplements, which help the body create the neurotransmitters. Such an approach seems so much more sensible than just "drowning" the brain in neurotransmitters, which is basically what SSRIs and MAOIs do.

However, I have yet to see a doctor that knows anything about metabolic pathways and such.

I'm a bit like this. I don't crave bad TV shows, hollywood junk, conflict, drama, money, trying to be seen a very smart/successful, etc like I used to. I certainly still fail at this, but there's probably a practical limit here considering my lifestyle. I'm not depressed, its just I quickly outgrew what those in my peer group valued and that has left me with a social hole in my life. I just deal with it. I absolutely do not want to go back to how I was, even if the previous me was "more fun." I'm a very different person than I was pre-meditation/pre-whatever. I don't see that as a problem.

I think its dangerous to just dismiss everything you don't understand as mental illness. Not too long ago we were doing this with the gay community, non-neurotypicals, and those from cultures with different values. Its also crazy that Western culture can call anyone not "having fun" all the time depressed. A more quiet and contemplative life shouldn't be seen as some horrible pathological condition. In a perfect world, people like that should be valued, not dismissed, but unfortunately that's not the world we live in.

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.

After all, leaving someone alone with their own thoughts... what harm could that do? And who could be blamed for such problems, except the individual?

It's almost like prescribing absolutely nothing.

So, when someone tells you this will surely ease your pain, but, rather than cure, or even do nothing at all (the general assumption a naive individual might make), it greatly amplifies one's problems, as if one were given a service animal only to be viciously attacked by it, such a result is probably going to surprise you.

Religious or Spiritual Problems is it's own section in the DSM-IV. While that particular issue isn't especially exciting, a lot of the symptoms that can manifest don't correspond with any other mental illness.

The question is if we can avoid it with the proper knowledge. Maybe avoiding meditation in some cases.

I'm speaking of memory, it has been a while since I read about those things, but in some of the classic texts of Zen and Chan there are warnings about this kind of thing. I think there are even advice in how to deal with it. Somebody should go to the sources instead of just forget about all that accumulated experience.

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.

Honestly, it sounds like David is someone with depression and mild anxiety. If I'd abandoned as much of my life as he had to fruitlessly chase an experience which wasn't returning then I think the same might happen to me.

People get unwell for many reasons. I think it'd be pretty uncontroversial to say that the sort of people willing to go hardcore with meditation are probably more likely to be susceptible to these problems. In the absence of any alternative evidence I'll continue to think of horses not zebras when I hear hoofbeats.

That's not to say that there couldn't be an issue. Self guided CBT can be prone to misuse by practitioners but that's just a symptom of their underlying depression, not the fault of the CBT.

Overall, what I got out of this article was that in some cases, problems can arise from engaging in contemplative practice. But these instances are rare and usually come about due to existing mental illness.

Among people who meditate seriously (i.e. not over a corporate weekend retreat) this is hardly the first time I've heard mention of this sort of thing. Meditation produces some fairly obscure frames of mind, and some of those (especially when mixed with ill-health, or drugs, or sleeplessness) seem to have the potential to be worryingly dissociative.

My biggest complaint isn't the lack of statistical rigor - it's a fluff piece - but the lack of rigorous terminology. Mindfulness meditation as taught in the west is mostly about "being in the moment" and I've rarely heard these claims associated with it. Samatha and other 'detached' meditations are the ones I've heard blamed for dissociation, and the article seems to almost actively not differentiate between different practices.

I know that might not represent vipassana as a whole, just adding a warning since it's the most popular one.

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.

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.

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.

Just do the non-judgmental observation stuff and see what happens and decide if you want more of it.

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.

Another possible reason is that idea of judgement of good and evil is primal in Western religions while in Eastern traditions, the idea of escape from state of confusion is primal. That's not to say that in the West, confusion is not considered a problem, or that in the East, doing or believing terrible things is ok. In meditation traditions, judgement between good and evil is just the first step, like a compass that points you in the right direction. In three major Western religions, once you make the proper judgement and choose the good side, you are done, finished.

Put in software terms, the improvements that come with meditation are "side effects" -- you're really just doing it to continually make your practice better. In that way it affects the rest of your life as you become more mindful of any activity you engage in.

I recommend the book Zen Mind Beginner's mind -- it does a great job communicating this concept of balance.

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...

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.