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Comment by mruts | Hacker News Reader

I found the article a little disorganized and the author seems to be having trouble expounding a clear thesis. I just read it for the second time, and I still don’t have a good grasp of what he experienced or what connections he’s trying to make to Buddhism. Maybe that’s understandable given what happened to him (though I’m not really sure of, besides him going “crazy”), but I still think that as a journalist he should be able to write a more cohesive and lucid article. And for reference, I’m saying this as someone who’s gone through a number of ineffable experiences with heavy doses of psychedelics. Just saying that he felt like he was dying and being reborn ad infinitum doesn’t really cut it as phenomenological explanation.

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> I found the article a little disorganized and the author seems to be having trouble expounding a clear thesis.

How many psychotic episodes have you had in your life?

Perhaps it is amazing that the author could even put words to paper to describe the experience. Yes, the piece is a bit rambling, but how often do you get a first-hand account of a visit to the Dark Night and back again?

The notion that meditation is not a universally "good" thing, that it might unlock parts of your mind that you might not want to (or be able to) deal with, is certainly worthy of exploration.

>Yes, the piece is a bit rambling, but how often do you get a first-hand account of a visit to the Dark Night and back again?

All the time. From authors, from Dostoyevsky and Sartre to Hunter Thompson, to random people (seems a good chunk of Medium, for example, includes such experiences)

The MCTB book - https://www.mctb.org

And the Dharma Overground wiki and forum https://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-wiki/-/wik...

I'm quite surprised that the article didn't link to it as a support and enthusiast resource for hardcore meditators (even though he mentions it)

I’m bipolar and ha e gone through a number of experiences myself, both drug induced and otherwise. Many writers have described these kind of experiences with such poise and skill and I just think this guy falls short. With him being a journalist, I was just expecting a more coherent narrative and deeper introspection into his actual first person experience. I started off with him describing him arrested at a retreat but he never really seriously tried to make us understand his headspace.

the message is that meditation has a dark side and some previous imbalances may land you in deep trouble. people don’t really acknowledge this and put an = between meditation and calm/transcendence.

same thing as with certain types of substances. you may have a really good or a really bad experience. at least with meditation there is some work (a lot actually) involved and along the way you get a chance to process some of the things that happen to you.

The fact the author had a history of drug abuse and mental health problems, probably didn't help things any.

That's part of what mirceal just said.

I'll be honest. I was left feeling that the author has mental health problems and that this experience happened to trigger it. I'm coloured by past experiences as I've had a very good friend suffer from psychotic episodes that sounds very, very similar to what the author suffered. I think the idea that it was drugs, insomnia, or meditation that caused the problem is a rationalisation - one that my friend made as well (minus the drugs).

I witnessed one of my friend's psychotic episodes and it was probably the most terrifying thing I've ever seen in my life. They went from being the completely normal and wonderful friend that I'd known for years to (over the period of about 8 hours) slowly feeling like they could see and understand more and more about the universe. Finally they felt that they were a god and had a duty to overthrow a consipiracy against the world that only they could see. I luckily managed to persuade them to go to a hospital and after restraints and drugs they were perfectly normal again the next day.

Even as I say that the meditiation experience may have "triggered" the episode in the author, I don't understand enough about the condition to even say that this is probable or even likely. One of the things I learned about my friend's condition is that this feeling of knowing more than others, or "seeing the world as it really is" tends to bubble up leading to the very rationalisations that are used to deny the illness. My friend is very, very bright (and this seems likely to be the case for the author as well). Creating a running dialog of plausible explanations is easy for them.

I guess what I'm saying is that meditation may or may not have a dark side, but I'm relatively sure that the author's experience is not related directly to the meditation. It was an existing medical condition.

yes, your current experience is heavily influenced by your past experiences.

As a long time mediator, your response was what I also saw in the article.

People damage themselves in all kinds of ways when they are unsuited/poorly trained/ prepared for extreme environments.

You wouldn't expect a grossly overweight person to run 11hrs a day for 10 days. Goenka's practices are extreme, and the 10 day silent retreat isn't suitable for everyone.

This is why there's the questionnaire for Vipassana during enrollment: it's an attempt to recognise someone who's not fit enough (yet) for it. That the author was able to persuade the volunteers, despite his known past, to let him in should not really reflect against them.

Sounds like you started reading prepared to defend Buddhism but failed to find a well defined attack against it.

I took it as the author simply relating their experience and including some informed opinions on it. What was news to me was that this can happen just with meditation! I didn’t know that.

If you think about it, the people going on 10 day meditation retreats are probably not the most relaxed people in the world. The author was struggling with a lot of issues...

Also, if you don't believe in God, you get hit with a conundrum at some point: Why do so many people say they have had religious experiences, or talked to God, or near death experiences, etc? Are they lying, or is something happening in the brain?

There is a lot to be said that the human mind may have never evolved to live in a complex society like we live in with billions of other people in it. There seems to be a lot of loose wires in there.

A retreat is more than just meditation.

As others have point out in the discussion here, a retreat typically includes at least some of the follow:

1. Sudden and drastic change in sleep / wake schedule than you might be used to

2. Sudden and drastic change in diet

3. Sudden and drastic change in level of autonomy vs collectivism

4. Sudden and dramatic deference to authority / leadership

5. A lack of, or complete absence of, trained mental healthcare professional

6. Potentially bad actors, presence of people with malicious intent. This may be subtle, and the agent may not be aware of what they're doing.

7. You may not even be aware there is an ongoing investigation to past wrong-doings[1]. I personally know people who attended ashrams connected with [1] who were not aware of the active Royal Commission investigation. Of course the Ashram didn't advertise the fact, so if you didn't happen to see it in the news you may not have been aware.

Call me paranoid, but I'm highly suspicious of anything and anyone connected to (quasi-)religious organisations.

1. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-14/children-lived-in-fea...

I've been doing 2 to 3 week long meditation retreats every year for the past 10 years or so. I don't disagree with anything your are saying in particular. However I do think there is value in them (otherwise I wouldn't keep going), but I also think people should ease their way in. Do a 1 day retreat first, then do some three days, and then do a week. Have a regular meditation practice, preferably with the same people you are doing the retreats with. So in my specific case I've known all of the teachers for 15 years or so, and usually most of participants for many years. We do ask for medical disclosures for participants, and it's not like we have been completely without any incidents. I think your points are well taken, but I would advise people who are interested in meditation and retreats so just use some common sense and don't rush into it and know the people you are doing it with. For me at least it's a very rewarding experience.

What sort of incidents?

Some guy took off his clothes and started wandering around the outside grounds

These Vipassana retreats are not ashrams like you mention. Many of your other points are not untrue, but seem a little baited to me, understandably, given your position.

There's a great deal of difference between honest people trying to help those looking for something outside the standard (because it's helped them personally), and predators. I'm sorry for your friends, but what happened at Mangrove Mtn is a different story.

I also don't disagree that there's a lot to be suspicious of, but it shouldn't cloud your mind to assume that everyone is either delusional, fraudulent or predatory.

Many people have experiences and feelings that can't be explained by healthcare professionals. Many healthcare professionals have had unexplainable experiences and feelings. The phenomena of near death experiences is an example: people clinically dead, but were able to describe their operating room from a strange angle with great precision. This is why people go there in the first place: they're looking for answers. Unfortunately, your friends found wolves.

The majority of those could be encountered when you go on holiday.

He seemed to eventually find a case, a woman, where someone without prior mental illness experienced what he did. That makes a stronger point than his own experience, since he had spent months in a mental hospital previously. So I guess his thesis is that psychosis can be induced by meditation in some unidentifiable segment of the population. Although if you Google this Arising and Passing away business, it seems accepted and known to the practitioners anyway.

>I found the article a little disorganized and the author seems to be having trouble expounding a clear thesis.

So, like regular long-form journalism then, at least in the style of the New Yorker.

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