Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety
newscientist.com
newscientist.com
It may hold some value, but it strikes me that there is more pro-meditation dogma than anti-. Scientists will hold an open mind, but "gurus" who charge money for fancy retreats will insist in its value without evidence. As a general rule, there are no panaceas - major changes in cognition can go either way. Be careful!
On the other hand, I met my now-wife in the depression ward, which in the "active" phase right before my admission I visualized and wished for quite often.
I don't regret the 2-3 months of active ego dissolution phase, life has never been more beautiful and strangely peaceful and jarring at the same time.
However, I did lose my job, my apartment and almost permanently lost my sanity as well, but now in hindsight it looks like it was all for the better.
Nevertheless I don't think you should force something like this (like I very much did), the consequences to internal and external reality can be absolutely dramatic and I've preferred to live in peaceful ignorance since then... save for the short moments of.. remembering. Everything and nothing at once.
I _accidentally_ fell into a vipassana state of mind after the first time trying a particular religious chant, seriously, from out of the pains of boredom as a 20 year old.
At the time I lived nearby mountains, and after 'coming to', I saw them through the window. I cannot describe to you the overwhelming feeling of beauty and awe that crashed over me. It was as though this was the very first time I had ever seen mountains. I think the best description I can manage comes from 'Both Sides Now' by Joni Mitchell.
'I've looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down, and still somehow It's cloud illusions I recall I really don't know clouds at all'
The experience was so disorienting. As if I was seeing the mountains for what they were directly through my senses and not mediated by my knowledge of what mountains were like, linguistically.
It changed my entire life -- weeks later later I lost my job and fell into a 5 year extreme depression / anxiety spell in the attempt to reconcile my adolescent religious upbringing with the continued insight from that experience. Absolutely worthwhile, in hindsight, but it cost me near everything for it.
So the only course of action was not to search for rocks to cling to, but of learning how to swim, and dive in. As backwards as it may read, I only felt secure after having let go of myself.
As odd as this description may sound to someone who has not experienced this, it is instantly recognizable to those who have -- which helped discover others who traversed this before. It so happens that Buddhists have a rich tradition for navigating these waters, which helped satisfy my intellectual curiosity of what was happening. To know that I was not 'defective' but merely in an initial stage of 'unlearning' was a big jolt of positively to my psychology.
What topics could I read about to learn more about this?
Then, follow your nose through the bibliography. =)
All the best to you.
ducks
Meditation for medical purposes is almost always just a relaxation technique, e.g. autogenic training. The rest, beyond relaxation, is rarely recommended and usually frowned upon.
This is true for far Eastern styles of meditation, but it's not true for Christian meditation[1]. It aims to fill the mind rather than to empty it. In general Christian meditation is practiced more by the various Eastern Christian Churches, but there are Western traditions as well. I'm by no means an adept at the practice, but it has benefited me pragmatically and spiritually.
Modern / Hindu / Buddhist meditation (or what i have read and understood) typically centers around emptying one’s self or chanting a certain phrase to reach enlightenment.
Christian meditation is about filling oneself with the Holy Spirit and denying our own selfish desires.
When God gives his law for humanity in the book of Joshua he commands the people to “meditate on it day and night” because that is the way he intends them to know Him better.
" Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." John 12:24
"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. " Galatians 2:20
" For whoever strives to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. " Mark 8:35
Lots more.
apophatic is more similar to negation of self
however, it is not the same
the idea is to remove accidental properties until one perceives the essence itself, like peeling an onion with a diamond in the middle
There are people go by without ever questioning their wants, and never take responsibility for their own emotions in the most basic ways. They make every single one of their upsets someone else's responsibility and they come in hourly.
They aren't that many and they're easy to recognize when you've been burned by one though. They would also do everyone a big favor by embracing this advice.
On the other end are people who are driven to reduce their needs and scope as a response to pretty much anything. They'll be less of a hassle to others but advising them to reach harder for their familiar crutch is a disservice to them, and also their loved ones; neglect of others can be the the natural result of neglecting oneself. We don't do well with this advice.
The Buddha wasn’t about meditating so you could be more productive at work. It’s about letting go of all such desires.
Oh the irony.
That's a very broad statement given that there are many different types of meditations with different aims, religious/non-religious, with varying degrees of scientific evidence.
What I can say is, that mindfulness-based interventions, where meditation usually represents the formal "training" aspect, have a significant and growing evidence-base.
I agree there is no panacea, however in my opinion the risk/reward ratio of mindfulness meditation is astonishingly positive!
I am really curious about the origins of these "types". Who actually came up with these things? The concept of meditation has its origins in Hindu scriptures. However, now, it seems to have become a fad, with charlatans and marketers overwhelmingly using it to scam people.
I see the same with the so called "yoga".
But I have an open mind. There might be actual research that develops the concept of meditation. Would really love to see actual evidence. Like papers, books, etc.
There is lots of research on the meditation's effectiveness [0]. That research includes "47 trials in 3,515 participants suggests that mindfulness meditation programs show moderate evidence of improving anxiety and depression".
While I started meditating to reduce my anxiety (and it has), the goal of mindfulness meditation isn't reducing anxiety - it's awareness. Some people who start meditating, including myself, might start becoming more aware of their pre-existing anxiety. The good news is, once you become aware of the source of your anxiety, you can do something about it.
That's overloading the word meditation unnecessarily. There are decidedly non-Hindu forms of meditation that people around the world practice.
One example is Christian meditation as described in the Bible, which takes an antithetic form to Hindu meditation: the goal is to "meditate" on specific doctrines or scriptures from the Bible. The idea is that there is a definite "content" upon which one meditates: the practitioner fills the mind instead of attempting to empty it or focus attention on the self. A common illustration is that of an animal chewing the cud; and (iirc) the Hebrew word for "meditate" comes from the term for cows chewing the cud.
You’ve dismissed the parents view (and import of the linked article) as overly broad, and you have asserted the existence of an evidence base to support this.
Is there any summary of this evidence that you think is compelling?
The meta-analyses in [1] are a good starting point. Note that in particular in a clinical setting, the intervention usually comprise more than just the meditation aspects, e.g. psycho-education, a group setting, or some form of body movement.
You can find further evidence if you pick a specific intervention, e.g. Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) [2], which is considered the ancestor of modern mindfulness-based interventions.
However, you might find it more compelling to learn about the mechanism rather than effectiveness. In that case an interesting starting point are the studies that have been done on Buddhist monks as "extreme points" in the set of meditators, e.g. see the references in [3].
Regarding the original article, I find the title a bit clickbaity (X can worsen depression and anxiety is true for almost all X, in particular doing nothing can worsen depression and anxiety!) and it is a bit concerning to me that the author does not differentiate between mindfulness and meditation.
I couldn't find the paper from the article, my understanding is that 8 % of subjects reported adverse effects when doing a self-guided mindfulness meditation. I find 8 % quite low - 92 % did not report adverse effects?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness#Scientific_researc... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindfulness-based_stress_reduc... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthieu_Ricard
My current use is to create a quiet time for meta-cognition where I can organize my thoughts.
Some people use it to try to let go of thoughts and be mentally still, others might use it as a chance to observe and focus on their senses. There are likely thousands of uses for meditation.
Yes, the roots of meditation are in religious practices (as, are, arguably, the roots of every human activity). That doesn't mean that contemporary meditation practices are necessarily religious. Many aren't.
So if you're talking about the term "meditation" in general (as we were), to limit it to a religious practice is a mistake. It's much broader than that, even if it derives ultimately from something that once had a religious aspect.
But it also means that we can’t claim that there is an evidence base for the positive effects of meditation, and more than we can for ‘medication’ or ‘food’.
Meditation can be beneficial. Meditation can cause severe problems.
Both are clearly true statements.
The question is - what kinds of meditation are beneficial to whom?
It’s worth noting that the Asian religious traditions had a history of being very selective about who was taught.
As for Buddhism, which is at the root of what most people mean by "meditation" today, calling it a religion is a bit problematic because it doesn't involve worshiping gods and, in theory at least, is not supposed to be primarily faith based. Both of those things: god worship and faith seem so fundamental to the western concept of religion that applying that term uncritically to Buddhism seems ill-founded.
So it is neither atheistic nor theistic.
Of course people want quick and easy so "accomplished master" can easily be subbed out for "local yoga teacher" or even "NYT best selling book".
Most people who claim benefits from meditation would likely reap even more benefits from just making sure they had an hour or half hour distraction free with time for their thoughts. Go for a walk alone, or find a quiet place and write in a journal, give your self some time before you fall as sleep to think just think to yourself.
I didn't know that. But I can see that being a "guru" or a "priest" is a profession, say like being a doctor is one.
Now doctors are unlikely to say "go heal yourself". Rather they are likely to say "Come see me in 2 weeks and pay another $300 bucks".
So I suspect if ancient texts say "Do not try this without a teacher" the reason may be that teachers need students.
I recently read "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong, which covers the evolution of religion and various mystical traditions in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism. It's a really interesting book and one of the points she brings up is that there are many historical examples of attempts at mystical experimentation that end in madness. The teacher is supposed to be a sort of life guard.
Ultimately, the book made me even more skeptical of religion and meditation than I already was. Spiritual/meditative introspection seems like a risky and dangerous process.
MBSR and MBCT course with qualified teachers do have a very good track record and solid scientific backing.
There are also some replicated studies of the synergy between mindfulness and psychedelics. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S10538...
There are hundreds of meditation types and techniques, with many different effects, just like there are treatments in medicine.
Meditation is being sold as casual activity, one-size-fits-all, often by people who received only few years of training, if not months.
Please look for credited teachers with decades-long monastic experience. Ask them difficult questions.
But if you are doing more 30 minutes per day or specially more than one hour, you need some one guid you.
Best teachers are people spending more time in meditation than you are.
How to find these people are different from region to region.
I’m Theravada Buddhist and we have some monks living in jungles or border of jungles, they are full time meditators, wake up early -> meditation -> breakfast -> meditation -> lunch -> meditation(no dinner) -> sleep. we usually go to these monks for instructions when doing series meditation.
How is a beginner qualified to ask difficult questions, or to assess the answers?
A king in Europe attaining self realisation could have been executed by the church.
The reason why yoga and meditation developed into an advanced form in India and not elsewhere is because self realisation has always been the ultimate goal for at least 5000 years and highly valued.
When people say "grounded" they mean their surroundings and the people around them do not approve or support their transformation and they are frightened of leaving this familiar and comfortable routine.
Ultimately machines and AI will take all the jobs, what we will have is our self, it is quite valuable for the lucky few who were able to transform yourself.
The real problem is "trying to stay grounded", you do not have to.
This is actually captured in the Indian tradition itself. One set of people who reach this transformation early in their life, and the vast majority of the people who go through the different phases in life.
Children who play Students who learn A householder who runs a family, accumulates wealth, enjoys the pleasures of life of which pleasurable sex is also one to be pursued And retirement - even kings retire, denounce all worldly possessions in pursuit of moksha
Of course there are different kinds of yoga which includes perfection of ones art, knowledge and dedication.
Of course some additional challenges today include turning yoga into a boutique business (beer yoga, wine yoga), cultural appropriation and distortion (Christian yoga, Muslim yoga & Jewish yoga) and of course repackaging vipasana and other powerful techniques void of their roots and peddling them as trademarked products.
. . . which they describe as a profoundly nihilist state of being
This is very important to point out and I think is actually the big trap when approaching meditative practices. I fell into this nihilism trap when I was starting meditation in college and I abandoned my practice almost completely for the next 10 or so years.
It’s very easy to confuse the emptiness of self with the nonexistence of self. The latter is an extreme view that leads to nihilism. At least in the Buddhist traditions I’m aware of, nihilism is a wrong view and the teachings are explicitly not nihilistic.
Yet it’s exceptionally easy to get confused and fall into it if you’re just meditating without any real notion of what the teachings are. All the corporate “meditate for productivity” that has invaded the dialogue in the west I find at least misguided, and at the worst actually harmful.
For anyone that is interested I’d suggest reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s translation and commentary on the heart sutra called “The Other Shore”. It clears up a lot of the teaching on emptiness and will help you not fall into the nihilism trap.
(It’s also useful to note that the modern vipassana movement that is so popular in the west comes from a tradition that doesn’t emphasize the teachings on emptiness, even though they are in fact there in the Pali cannon.)
I think part of the issue is that the words/concepts really don't translate into modern english well at all. Another example is how frequently the first of the Four Noble Truths is misrepresented as "Life is suffering". We don't have good ways of saying or explaining shunyata or dukkha that preserve the nuance of the concepts.
Edit: Thich Nhat Hanh is always a solid recommendation. I'll have to find his commentary on the heart sutra.
Absolutely, translations are difficult and imprecise, having multiple meanings even in the original Sanskrit or Pāli. Even different lineages place concepts in different categories, like whether or not suffering is one of the three dharma seals or not. Vipassana as taught by the Theravada would say it is, whereas Mahayana and Vajrayana would sometimes say it’s not.
No wonder new meditators get confused when they try to start a practice with all these modern apps and books that avoid teaching any of the lineages!
"The word is commonly explained as a derivation from Aryan terminology for an axle hole, referring to an axle hole which is not in the center and leads to a bumpy, uncomfortable ride."
Yeah, basically you have to realize that the fact you observe all of the normal brain noise is gone does not mean you are gone. You still observe. And most critically, you are not your brain noise, but something beyond that.
The beyond implies a spatial expanse in which one progresses. Becoming implies a temporal expanse in which one progresses. The cessation of these spatiotemporal limits is fundamental to that "state of being" (this phrase itself betrays that). In that sense memory itself creates that time-space substance, because it is through that, that it exists.
This is something that is very difficult to reconcile with, because this would also imply that cause and effect are non-objects. So then what is it that one "realizes"?
Cause and effect are no less real than, say, the sun. But the sensation of them and the conceptualization of them as we conceive them is a figment of the brain.
Brain itself can be wired in any way. All of our senses of external world are hallucinations inside our head driven by stimuli from sensory organs. All we can ever 'observe' is this hallucination. Yet it would be folly to believe that the external world would not exist. But! Our interpretation of the sensory experience can create lots of unreal things which are not true nor real.
I think the difficulty and key is separating the figments in our heads which reflect actual things from associations and fantasies made by our mind.
That being said you can have a non-nihilistic ego-death or medidate only until your more intrusive thoughts "go away" without you loosing your complete identity, that's kind of like a scientific fact. Of course if you get "addicted" to it or start chasing the "ego-death" experience it can be harmful.
The idea that "life is meaningless" means that society cannot rely on you, because you'll do whatever strikes your fancy, whatever the consequences.
Worse, it is also a philosophy that contributes absolutely nothing to actually understanding the nature of the world, which is kind of the point of philosophy.
In short, nihilists are utterly useless, to themselves and the world. On the upside, they won't care.
How does "life is meaningless" imply "life is useless"? Also, why would nihilism entail radical individualism? The core of nihilism is that since the indifferent universe is without meaning humans have to give it meaning, quite the opposite of what you're implying.
I'm not that familiar with nihilism, but I'm rather surprised that "humans have to give it meaning" is part of the core. That's somewhat non-obvious to me; intuitively I would have expected nihilists to believe that meaning cannot exist.
Can you point me toward some sources that say nihilists actually believe that humans are capable of creating meaning?
what marks humans out from the rest of the meaningless universe that suddenly blesses them as meaning bearers? almost seems to imply some sort of religious idea that humans are not a part of the ubiverse
Now whether that those answers are accurate is a different question. But I think it's clear that humans crave meaning, and are happy to relegate meaning-making to third party institutions such as organized religion or the media.
Just a good-enough-for-you meaning.
>almost seems to imply some sort of religious idea that humans are not a part of the ubiverse
Well, they're not like other parts, in that they have meta-cognition, and a lot of it.
Planets and black holes and ants don't wonder about meaning.
Non-human subjective experiencers also imagine meaningful objects in their own minds. There's nothing special about humans other than their ability to communicate with other humans.
- Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
That's a big part of existentialism (Sartre, Camus, etc), in which life has no inherent meaning, and it's rather empty existence, and it's up to the person to make any meaning for themselves.
(Supposing they can understand us.)
For them, we are radical individualists with no regards for nothing but ourselves.
That's bad for society. Who said it's bad in itself or wrong?
That's hedonism.
Life is finite and it will end, just like the nihilist faction proclaims. No reincarnation, no eternal life. The eternalist faction got it wrong.
Life is an infinitesimally small spark of light but lost in the infinite darkness.
And there lies its value. Life is unique, every single moment you are alive is the most valuable moment in time, and it is therefore priceless. Carpe Diem.
Also, people always care. Even for trivialities, they always care.
I love being alive and I appreciate every single moment of it. Because I know it will be over some day.
There is a sutra that actually addresses nihilism, as it was a view that some schools of thought taught at the time of the Buddha. [1]
He considered it to be wrong view, a denial of the results of good or bad actions (karma) and rebirth. With the teachings on emptiness in the heart sutra it states all phenomena are marked by emptiness, “no birth no death, no being no nonbeing, no defilement no purity, no increasing no decreasing”. So nihilists would be led to cling to the view of nonbeing and not see everything else. For me at least that brought about a lot of aimless suffering.
[1] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.060.than.html
On a personal note, depression is not only about anxiety, or any beliefs about oneself. It may stem from understimulation. In this case, lowering input (as with meditation) is unlikely to help.
~JMJ
For a lot of people it's simply a 15 min break in the day, between work, kids, netflix, games or whatever, we never just sit down, do nothing, relax and listen to our inner selves
I think that's why it became hype in the last few years, it's not so much that meditation will "heal your soul" or whatever pseudo science bs, it's more that it allows people to truly relax for a bit, unplug their brain of the incessant flow of information and distractions for a few minutes and reconnect with the baseline
But I think it's probably true that none of them think meditation is a "simple stress-reliever". It is a powerful tool, and like all powerful tools, you can cut yourself with it, and should learn it with someone more expert who can guide you and keep you from hurting yourself.
I suppose what's "good for the soul" depends on your theory of the soul and what's good for it. (Those who believe something resembling "ego death" is the goal believe that's "good for the soul"!) Seeing it as a tool to make you "more effective" (sounds like some kind of "productivity") definitely doesn't seem right, although probably is common in the de-spiritualized "self-improvement" U.S. "mindfulness" trend.
In fact there is scientific evidence that meditation and professional sports are the only activities that strengthen a person's will. I guess with sufficient motivation it's possible to find a study that claims anything.
> anti-. Scientists will hold an open mind, but "gurus" who charge money for fancy retreats will insist in its value without evidence.
I went for half a year every week to a free meditation meetup. The guy holding the meetup was the most relaxed person I have ever encountered in my life. Apparently he has has been travelling extensively to Japan and lived happily next to a Railway station. (Some people would go crazy living there with all the noises) For me he was the living proof this stuff actually works.
No need for Gurus here, although it's surely possible to get scammed like with everything. Probably one should get suspicious when the meditation is expensive or at a remote place.
I read some spiritual books about LSD in my late teens and I almost believed the "holy spiritual drug changing consciousness" motive.
But I was cautious and never took it and wanted to wait for the right time (it never came so far). One of the main reasons of waiting longer was, that I met some LSD gurus in real live - who where just retards.
So I focused more on staying clear .. but a bit later I also met quite some "clear" people who never do or did drugs, but only meditated - and they were also so disconnected from reality, I found it even quite faszinating. Not illuminated. Just disconnected.
So, when I meditate, my focus is to connect more to reality. And to find a balance between it all. Drugs can be tools. Various meditation technics can be tools. Nothing is the universal golden way. Find the right balance of technics, that works for you. That is my takeaway after quite some years exploring the area.
I am right now thinking about simracing as a way to meditate. You totally have to just focus on perception, no thinking, no ego, no self, nothing but the car and the road, and you repeat, and repeat, and repeat the track, over and over.
It works your mind, without any harmful effects (that I know of).
Well, I kind of do that from time to time. Play old videogames my mind can do it in autopilot mode. But I do not consider that too helpfull for myself. Sometimes it is. But on average I would say not.
You still have the flickering screen, which I think is not god for my head for too long. And I have the screen already for work, so I rather go outside, when I can.
One very simple technic to calm the mind while walking (or running or sitting) is use peripheric vision. Meaning the gaze is not focused, but wide. Seeing all at once. My theory is, that this uses more brain processing power, which leads to useless thoughts going silent. And breathing. And feeling. And smelling. And listening.
(so a nice area is recommended)
I mean more about the experience of driving. Clicking buttons is quite different to feeling the road through the steering wheel. In a normal video game you can just memorize the timing sequence.
I am trying to highlight the "focus on perception" part of the experience.
I would love to go and drive in an open road somewhere remote. And see and smell all these real things.
But I can't use my car right now (without paying a fine for breaking quarantine) so I use simracing.
Only very specific types of meditation, at their advanced levels.
The kind of meditation the vast majority of people do in the US, for example, has absolutely zero intention of achieving ego-death.
Saying meditation is specifically aimed at causing ego-death makes as much as saying running is specifically aimed at qualifying for the Olympics.
The idea is simple, and that is to remove one from the chaos of the world, to not be defined by it, and especially to 'be in the moment'.
'Quieting the mind and being present' in a tiny aspect of the more religious aspects.
The 'big problem' is possibly that they are 'doing it wrong'.
If you want to 'get people in the moment'?
Play sports.
Meditation is supposed to be about 'less thoughts' but usually it leads to more and more self contemplation - which is the opposite of what we want.
Want to 'shut off' the contemplative mind -> Use another part of the brain!
Does anyone know people who 'like sports' that generally get depressed? No, I would say the opposite: generally more gregarious, positive, and care free.
You don't have 'thoughts' while you are chasing a ball, or managing around that rock you're about to hit.
And we all need more exercise.
I find running more meditative than any kind of meditation.
If you do something and you don't like the outcome, you stop. Driving a car may also lead to ego-death ... probably much more likely than from meditation. Yet we do it. There are certainly forms of meditation that are risky. There are also forms of Olympic sport that are risky. People disappear simply while taking a walk through the great outdoors.
Are there many hucksters trying to cash in on 'yoga' trends? Sure! I understand from many very old and very-earnest- traditions that a -real- spiritual teacher would -never- charge for help. 'Cashing in' is, after all, pretty much the antithesis of 'uplifting'.
Jung often pointed out that our waking egos are like planets orbiting a Self that's Sun-sized ... and much more in control than we realize. Most spiritual traditions emphasize that there are many stages of realization. (In the east, chakras symbolize this.)
While our present culture places little value on compassion or wisdom, this time is unusual in that way. (We're born with both, but it's easy to get lost.) Many people over millennia have learned that if we make the effort - noone else can do it - there are definite rewards. One place to get an overview of this history (Western perspective) is in Huxley's 'Perennial Philosophy'.
Do you mean driving as a form of meditation or about having a fatal accident on the road?
There are different meditation practices, mindfulness meditation is a special type of meditation (popular are Headspace, Calm, the work of Jon-Kabat et al. and many more).
There are other types of meditation not aiming primarily at mindfulness, popular examples being Transcendental Meditation, visualisation type exercises, and many more.
Mindfulness (in the scientific sense) refers to a state of mind characterised by various qualities (which are slightly different depending on the author), in short being in the present moment, or "not on auto-pilot".
In a mindfulness course, meditation refers to the formal practice of catching your inner auto-pilot. This is usually complemented by applying mindfulness to every-day situations as well as some form of psycho-education.
As a last comment, a 10-day Vipassana retreat is a completely different beast than doing a 10 minute guided mindfulness meditation every day, especially in terms of risks. As has been mentioned by variosu posters, there is a small, but real risk, that the retreat can trigger psychosis. In my understanding this is significantly different to the worsening of a pre-existing condition as described in the article.
Goenka's method is very inflexible and quite divergent from his lineage and peers. The method of insight meditation outlined by Ledi Sayadaw, Mahasi Sayadaw, etc, is really quite simple, but there's a lot of misinformation, marketing, and fraudsters out there trying to convince people it's more than it is.
> In a mindfulness course, meditation refers to the formal practice of catching your inner auto-pilot. This is usually complemented by applying mindfulness to every-day situations as well as some form of psycho-education.
This is true and about as far as most people will get or want to get with it, and it really does have that benefit. You're right, these longer retreats are designed to essentially deconstruct your self-world boundary, and that isn't usually disclosed to people, there isn't much informed consent. The people who are seeking that usually know what they're getting into.
When I lived in Maryland I attended classes with Tibetan teachers for a few years and they always pointed out that you need guidance through the tough spots or either your meditation effort is often wasted or even harmful.
I guess us Westerners have a tendency to simplify everything to make it easier to sell. Sometimes it works but often it gets simplified too much as it happened with yoga (our "yoga" is basically just a milder form of aerobics without any depth) or now with mindfulness. There is some benefit but we completely miss the big point.
That depends on the 'Assistant Teacher' that is running the course. Maybe some are more willing than others to riff on Goenka's teachings, but from what I've seen most ATs have been willing to give their time to the students. I believe, there are actually other ordained 'Teachers' that tour at the Goenka schools, presumably with their own take on things.
> that isn't usually disclosed to people, there isn't much informed consent. The people who are seeking that usually know what they're getting into.
It's right their in the discourses. And though discouraged, students can leave at any time. Also, to be fair, they do ask each student probing questions about mental state, medications etc. before giving permission to enter the course. I stated that I took alcohol at most once a week, and this was enough concern for them to ask me to clarify. The last thing they need during a silent course is someone losing the plot, or going into withdrawls.
I'm not condemning the retreats entirely, I just think that having a complete or even relative beginner sit a 10 day intensive vipassana retreat after basically just checking if they do drugs or take medication or not is quite a risk, and people should know that risk. My friend who had a good experience said he had no clue what he was getting into and thought it would just be a nice relaxing experience that feels good. Having presumably sat one, you'll know that's usually not the case, at least for the first 6 or 7 days, which is a long time, and can be very intense when all the advice you get is "keep going and listening to the tapes".
> It's right their in the discourses.
Also true, to be clear I think that Goenka courses are great resources for people who have sat shorter retreats before or have a long-term, stable practice. It's the "jumping in at the deep end" type stuff that happens, partially because they're free and so easy to access, partly because of the "boot camp" style image, that's risky. Many people aren't inclined to dive into early Buddhist texts and make sense of its philosophy and practice before attending a retreat for the first time.
The questions were a bit more probing than that. One question was something like, 'How are your relations with your family?', and I think there were questions about mental history etc.
> Also true, to be clear I think that Goenka courses are great resources for people who have sat shorter retreats before or have a long-term, stable practice. It's the "jumping in at the deep end" type stuff that happens, partially because they're free and so easy to access, partly because of the "boot camp" style image, that's risky. Many people aren't inclined to dive into early Buddhist texts and make sense of its philosophy and practice before attending a retreat for the first time.
Much of the seriousness of the retreat is described on the dhamma.org website. I had read and understood this before I signed up. I think I may have even had to confirm that I had read this before I was able to apply.
However, it's likely a lot of people just skip this like the T&Cs on their Facebook account. So I do agree with you, it would probably be to the benefit of the students to at least be aware of the seriousness of the course, and for this to be better communicated.
I had maybe sat 10 or so 1-hour meditation workshops just casually at festivals before I took my course. I had very little about Buddhist philosophy or practice, so I was very much diving in at the deep end, but I entered the course knowing it was a serious psychological intervention from the introduction on the website. During the course, I found the discourse tapes enough to give a satisfactory explanation of what I ought to be aiming for, and sometimes they even pre-empted questions or conflicts I had in my mind.
The phenomenon described in the article is very obvious to every practitioner - it can happen that for some time you will feel worse (actually I'm surprised that it's only 8%).
It is related to psychological mechanisms of repression, which is weakened during meditation practices. That is why during serious meditation retreats (like 10 days vipassana) some people freak out and they aren't able to finish the retreat. It's perfectly normal and usually has positive effects in the long run. Although sometimes meditator is not able to work through the energies released - he should seek (any) professional help then.
What benefits would you describe you feeling from getting past beginner stage?
There's also a strong sense that the self/world boundary is constructed, and I can see that construction happening in my mind in real-time. This has led to greater empathy and compassion, because of the felt sense that we're all the same 'stuff'.
Besides that, I have access to states of mind I couldn't conceive of before. I no longer feel like I am some kind of entity that lives behind my eyeballs, trapped in a body. I can always 'feel' the awareness of awareness, which isn't limited by my perception. So there's this great open space in which perception occurs, and I can continuously sense that. Having that as an anchor makes me far less reactive, and more calm in the face of challenges.
I can deconstruct my sensory experience in realtime, which basically means whatever the senses are delivering to me, I can recognise what kind of sensing it is. This sounds trivial or tautological, what it means in practice is that nothing really 'sticks'. If a strong emotion comes up, I recognise internal feeling and it just sort of flows out of me. If I'm having a thought or mental image, I recognise it's a thought or a mental image, and it's seen in proportion to the space of awareness, rather than the mind getting stuck into it.
If you're looking at a screen right now, you can sense the proportionality of the device to the room quite intuitively. That same sense of proportionality is given to the contents of the mind-body system with continued mindfulness practice. Everything just happening where it is, rather than somehow being stuck within it.
All that said, the linked article is quite right. Most people do not get to these states of mind without struggle, because we are complex psychological beings with trauma, regret, guilt, shame, and so on, and all of that comes up while sitting, to be seen and digested.
Nothing to add, just good to see I‘m still not insane and all the best to you.
Basically, you identify with the Subject and at the next level you become aware that that identity is actually something you have, not something you are. Foe example, you have wants and needs you are not your wants and needs. Your identity is not grounded in the fulfilment of your needs.
Mindfulness helps with this. You stop identifying yourself with your body and you realize that you have a body. At an advanced level you stop identifying yourself with your mind and you realize that you have a mind. This ownership allows you to choose your reactions to outside stressors and to approach in a more rational manner changing the things you have. You can change your mind because you want to change it.
At ultimate level subject-object distinction disappears. Glimpses of this ultimate level can be obtained through proper use of entheogens but it is meditation that is the slow and steady road to the mountain top. In other words, you might get to experience the state in a psychedelic trip but if you want to live there, you need to pay the price. The price might be 10 years of daily meditation.
For a frequently funny and light-hearted approach to this subject I recommend the work of Anthony de Mello. He used the word "Awareness" to label this space an "Wake Up" for the process of getting there.
Yeah, citation needed for that. Because "people often have meltdowns and need professional therapy" isn't really encouraging.
I can imagine mediation and reflection can help with the opening up part, but some people really need a medical therapist to help them properly, so the warning seems sane.
It's like limping along on a badly healed broken leg. A doctor might have to break it again which will make it worse, but allow it to heal properly with good medical attention.
Being guided through facing trauma and having it minimized in a controlled manner is vastly different than facing the full intensity unprepared with no one to rescue you if it goes badly.
It can be re-traumatizing if it happens in an unfavorable time/place, and I'm not saying it's even necessary for healing.
But, it's not a "side-effect" of meditation, and it suggests that meditation does exactly what it says on the tin. It's confronting thoughts and feelings that you find dangerous enough to suppress. These are the things causing neuroses and unhealthy behavior patterns in your daily life. Dealing with them isn't always going to be enjoyable or even safe.
So, similarly to taking psychedelics: manage your dosage, and if you want to go deep make sure you're somewhere that you feel safe and supported.
My own experience with meditation, guided and encouraged by my therapist when I did seek professional help, does match what the title of the article says at a minimum. But here’s the rub: I went to him to try to figure out and resolve the mental state I’d gotten into!
Very deliberate mindful meditation helped me observe the thoughts-below-the-thoughts from a somewhat neutral perspective (sometimes called “observing the river”). What I saw was profoundly uncomfortable! Some of the thoughts underlying my behaviour were just my current headspace (other companies had commercialized work similar to my grad school research while I was still researching it), and some of it was negative thought patterns I’d adopted in my early teens in response to some stressors.
I worked through those and came to peace with them. It wasn’t a pretty couple of months, but I’m a dramatically different and better person because of it.
There should probably be a giant disclaimer and some intake interviews for these 10-day retreats. If you’re going and expecting that it’s just going to be a nice opportunity to chill... you’re probably not going to be ready to actually inspect the shit that comes out of your brain when you give it a chance. And... the people who snap at these retreats likely would have benefitted from professional help anyway; spending time alone with their thoughts in that setting just brought that fact to the surface.
Antidepressants such as Zoloft and Prozac are taken by tens of millions of Americans each year, yet both drugs carry a black box warning that they may cause or worsen suicidal thoughts, and both drugs have been shown in scientific studies to worsen depression in some percentage of patients. And manufacturers of both drugs have paid out large sums of money in class-action lawsuits where the drugs were implicated in suicides attempts.
If someone said "SSRIs are useful to treat people with clinical depression" would you simply reply:
>Yeah, citation needed for that. Because "people often have meltdowns and new or worsening suicidal thoughts" isn't really encouraging.
In other words, because thousands of individuals experience worsening depression or suicidal thoughts, you'd doubt that it provides long-term help to the millions who don't experience those effects?
There are many people who come into meditation to fix something because they have a sense that something is going wrong with them. Meditation has become very popular and there is strong incentive to avoid mentioning possible negatives. Then you just ship out damaged people from the back door and make them think it was their fault.
Meditation if practised as designed brings also negative mental states as part of the process. It's not just feel good hum-hum. People should seek professional mental help if they need and not to try some intensive meditation retreats that drive them into the walls.
I go to long meditation retreats regularly, but I don't recommend them to anyone. It's not the same for everyone. It can seriously harm some people.
What percentage of cases that take that advice end up on the ever expanding array of drugs with unknown side effects?
We're conducting a massive experiment with the mentally ill right now feeding them experimental pharmaceuticals and I get the strong feeling we will end up being judged just like lobotomies were.
Unless maybe you are suggesting we should do nothing, instead?
Walking is a good exercise for anyone. Would I recommend a 7 day backpack though wildness... maybe not if you heard about it from a friend of a friend as a good way to reconnect with the nature.
> People should seek professional mental help if they need and not to try some intensive meditation retreats that drive them into the walls.
Absolutely.
Japanese Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1769) wrote about his struggle with severe mental illness (Zen sickness he called it). He had to drop meditation practice for several years.
The whole point of those long retreats is to be able to push yourself to those limits knowing that you will have some days to rest after and that people that are used to handling psychotic people after they had a reveal or something will be around to help you.
Of course as mostly everything that involves a 10 day long gathering with idiosyncratic strangers you need to be careful.
People may come back without treatment but once you had a psychosis the propensity to get it again has increased. That's why it's usually good to seek help even if the symptoms go away.
With continued work things turned around, and each of us can now confidently say we're better for having done it, but it's very tough when you're in the thick of it.
This phenomenon is well known in traditional/unconventional healing practices; it's often referred to as the "dark night of the soul" or in Jung philosophy it's the confrontation and integration of the "shadow" [1]. In their work with LSD and holotropic breathwork, Christina and Stan Grof described this as part of what they called the "spiritual emergency" [2].
For me it was the developing awareness about the worst aspects of myself and feeling great shame over past actions and fear of committing wrong deeds in the future. It started passing when I was able to start forgiving and accepting myself and trusting that I could function in the world without succumbing to destructive impulses. But that work is ongoing.
One thing it makes me realise is that it's unwise to proselytise this kind of work to others, as you may be pushing them to undertake a journey they're not ready for. People really have to be highly self-motivated, in order to be able to endure the most challenging parts of such a journey.
[1] https://healthypsych.com/navigating-the-dark-night-of-the-so...
[2] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Spiritual-Emergency%3A...
Feel free to email me (address in profile) and I can share the material and invite you to the group.
To be fair the vast majority of people who leave (Goenka) Vipassana retreats leave on days 2 and 6 (Goenka himself mentioned this in one of the prerecorded talks). It's extremely unlikely that first timers get concentrated enough to start experiencing negative effects (such as 'bhanga jnana' or dissociation) in 1-5 days of meditation. Anyone familiar with those retreats would guess they couldn't take the boot camp schedule and not being allowed to speak or to peruse any kind of diversion such as book or smartphone.
I don't know of any traditional meditation practice that claims to provide immediate benefit for a novice. It is presented as a skill that yields results through sustained development and practice, and difficulties are expected along the way. People presenting it as a quick and easy way to improve mood are the same kind of people who promote fad diets.
At the same time though meditation traditionally was practiced in various communities with social safety nets where elaborate maps of mental states and wise gurus could help guide you while the most potent and esoteric practices like Kundalini activation or advanced breathwork were kept hidden for most people until later stages.
Today these maps that all still very much exist inside various lineages through poetry, koans, books or through oral teachings have fallen away while people often sit alone in their rooms looking at apps completely deterritorialized from the incredible wisdom that sorrounds these rituals and that in my eyes form a very important yin to the yang of practice.
Besides that psychotheraphy and bodywork is also often a good preliminary "grounding mechanism" that already very disassociated people need as to not make themselves disassociate even more, or take a very deep fall into emotion after having fled from them for years.
This fall is called "Dark night of the soul" in modern language and is very well known.
For people interested in this stuff let me recommend the Stream Entry subreddit based on the books by Daniel Ingram "Mastering The Core Teachings of the Buddha" which is a pretty interesting and STEM like exploration of the subject - but that is also a bit cold and potent so above warnings apply.
I've always been very "mindful" and depending on your inclination to cynicism, that inevitably means finding out that life is what it is.
It's actually a step in the right direction even if they "suffer more": this is merely the first step. But this is an issue if they get stuck here unless driving this to the conclusion.
AKA Workaholic. Just another way to distract oneself from the existential dread.
I read a book on Zen Buddhism once about 20 years ago and it made sense to me. I've never read or practiced anything related since which makes me a constant practitioner in a way. Maybe i'm blessed or cursed but, to me, the endless pursuit of meditation/mindfulness is the same as the endless pursuit of anything else.
Not sure what you're even asking here - everyone has problems. Would you advise them to ignore their problems and instead distract themselves with something else?
> Maybe i'm blessed or cursed but, to me, the endless pursuit of meditation/mindfulness is the same as the endless pursuit of anything else.
So, in a word, nihilism.
Here is how meditation can help here. (1) You become okay with having those sort of thoughts - you don't have to flee from them or push them away. (2) You can observe exactly based on what you criticize yourself, or what you feel hung up on. (3) After meditating, with a clear mind, you can rationally consider those matters. "Huh, do I really regret <xyz> decision? Why does <abc> aspect of it bother me now that I notice it?". You can resolve this conflict now.
This is my experience. Besides this, it just feels good to be calm.
> Why would I want to get unhappy again because someone tells me it’s good for me?
I also understand this sentiment. Sometimes if something gives you anxiety or intrusive thoughts, its better to leave it and let it slip by your thoughts rather than to bring it into attention. But even so I want to tell you this - a lot of the benefit of meditation comes not from exercising your cognitive and reasoning abilities, but from just being okay with how things are. It's really that simple.
This happened to me in golf. I was naturally decent at it without ever taking a lesson or watching a video about how to swing. That only got me so far. Now I'm taking lessons and relearning everything. I feel worse at the sport today than I was two years ago. But if I acknowledge the truth in that and push forward, I'll ultimately be much better than I could have been.
Same process with meditation. I've been practicing for 11+ years and right now my practice is pretty challenging. But that comes with the process.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Archery-Eugen-Herrigel/dp/037...
In my 20s, I would routinely get into yelling and screaming matches with girlfriends. There were two significant driving forces behind that:
- that is how my parents interacted. Things are good, someone screws up, everyone yells at each other for a while, and the next day it’s as if nothing happened. There were addictions involved...
- because it was the family dynamic I was used to, I was naturally attracted to people with similar disagreement-resolution styles.
I started down this path when I met someone awesome (now going 10 years strong), and she came from a family that uhhh wasn’t quite as messed up as mine. We’d have a disagreement, I’d yell, and she would shut down. She basically told me that if I didn’t stop trying to argue like that, she’d be gone.
So I started figuring out how to take something I was upset about and generally stay calm enough to discuss it, but the anger was still there, I was just suppressing it. Turns out, when I did that consistently, I started to go emotionally numb. Sure, I didn’t fly off the handle when I was upset, but I also didn’t find much joy in anything either (which I had before!)
What I basically concluded one night was that I had effectively found my “volume knob” and I had turned it down too much. Therapy and meditation (encouraged by the therapist) helped me work through all the baggage that came from my weird childhood and helped me get that volume knob dialled in.
Now I have wonderful joyful experiences, and when my partner and I have a disagreement about something, we can resolve it calmly. I don’t think I’ve yelled at a single human being in probably 8 years.
Objectively happy vs. objectively miserable? I don’t know if objective applies since I didn’t collect any data :). But, if nothing else, I would wager my cortisol and other stress hormone levels are waaaaaaay down compared to how things used to be.
supressing, for me anyways, always lead to more stress and then a huge random argument about totally irrellevant things... conversely, mentally imagining that im "letting go" of that need/feeling to make my point, was alot more effective
As far as I'm aware, most meditation and mindful practices are descendent of Theravada buddhist discipline, which is not so much about rumination, but observing, and not reacting to one's thoughts and sensation, as well as the understanding that these thoughts and sensations will come to pass.
So say, if you found yourself in a cycle of self-pitying rumination, with enough practice you would hopefully become aware of the arising of thought, and learn to not let it affect you, and allow it to pass. Such practice is difficult, and often dispiriting. Proper guidance by an expert is definitely encouraged, and mitigates these adverse outcomes.
They found that about 8 per cent
people who try meditation experience
an unwanted effect
That 8 percent of people who try meditation experience something "unwanted" within a certain time afterwards?
Is that different from a control group? Which control group? When you look at 100 random people people with the same situation and instead of letting them meditate let them go for a walk instead - what percentage will experience something unwanted?
We would need to look into the study to figure out if it has more info.
But the article seems to provide no link to the study. No DOI, no nothing.
Based on the name "Miguel Farias" mentioned in the article, it might be doi 10.1192/pb.bp.116.053686 from 2016:
"Journal reference: Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, in press"
So its not available yet. You'll find it here when/if its accepted.
But I have seen multiple times that Western culture somehow seem to try to extract something out of it. As if trying to commercialize meditation.
Peace with oneself, at one's current state is perhaps the only thing I relate with mindfulness. I have been in depression for years, have anxiety. And I started investing more into mindfulness recently, realizing I lost my roots.
The mind is a powerful tool, more so in silence. That's what I feel personally.
I wonder what you think about yoga in the West? I think it gets competitive.
" The total structure of life requires of our total being to be united with it in a practical demonstration of thought, speech and action – this is yoga." [https://www.swami-krishnananda.org/patanjali/raja_01.html]
If you want to know what yoga is, a good starting point is Aurobindo's "The Synthesis of Yoga "[http://www.sriaurobindo.nl/docs/Sri%20Aurobindo/23-24TheSynt...]
Lastly, it is a happy coincidence people (including Indians) like yoga exercises. Most of us will be happy with the results of the exercises resulting in flexibility and transient calmness in mind. Real seekers go after Yoga for years and it is not available down the street or online. In reality, ultimate Yoga - a union of gross, subtle, and causal bodies - is very high-bar to reach.
Hopefully, it gives some people a glimpse of the original idea of Yoga. I'm sorry if this is too wordy and preachy.
I learned that trying to explain this topic to others is like forbidden fruit. Unless asked for. But I am going to write some anyways, because this why we are at this forum anyways.
There is no thing like ego, its not somebody. That's the problem itself. Its just your mind, which is forgotten that its just your tool given to you to put it to good use. And than there is something else behind it, that comes first. That perceives the output of the mind. Emotions, memories, all kinds of perceptions, everything.
After reading a lot of stuff, not particularly mindfulness but about anything, it really changed how i view the world. And i feel like it really comes down to the level of awareness you have about your inner working as a human.
One great example I experienced and got me speechless, more than once or twice: Little children, who barely able to talk, just about 3 or 4 years old, got a question about about who did something bad in the past? And they are going to say their name. And the "adults" in the room are going to laugh, because it sounds funny to them. But the child did not intended it to be a joke, that`s obvious. Its that they does not yet identified themselves with their memories. And the adults laughed because its so obvious for them to say: "I did it". But its really just a memory at that point.
What attracted me to it was how well it blended in with our modern ideas in physics. Not just the idea that a wavefunction never dies to zero (unless there is a truly infinite potential somewhere), and that we are part of a large many-body system. But also the idea of the big-bang at the universes (re-?)conception: That spacetime itself started at a point and expanded. It is one thing- a big blob of clay- out of which lumps are formed. One is you and one is me. But we are connected. Your existence would be different if I didn't exist.
To kill the ego is to come to an intuitive understanding of this- by being aware and present.
[1] https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/1996/01/385-Ima...
5 times vipassana, ive experienced ALOT of abuse as a child. It did make me raw... my inner child is very hurt ... that is truth.
Sadness is warranted and worthy, that is truth ... sadness is transient, that is truth.
If the world will deny my inner child and dismiss my abuse and rape as depression, i must stay with myself until he finds comfort in my arms.
In the way I was taught mindfulness meditation, "equanimity" means observing without desire. You do not seek pleasure, you do not flee from pain. It does seem to give that "level above" feeling you mention. I consider this the most valuable skill I have learned during my limited time meditating.
> Mindfulness meditation is about practicing being in the present moment, nothing more than that.
This seems false. Even your own comment follows the "nothing more that that" with a list of additional things. As I mentioned, I've found the skills that help me be aware of the present moment are more valuable than actually being aware of the present moment.
I think of jogging. I hate jogging. Whenever I do it I am fully focused on the moment. Can I endure another 2 steps? And then another 2 steps? That's pretty focused on the moment. My desperate breaths, my aching side, that's living in the moment. Yet, it is not like meditating. I do not develop any of those skills you listed at the end of your comment when jogging. Thus, I think meditation is about the skills required to be in the present moment rather than actually being in the present moment. The detachment, the observing without desire, etc.
There's a wisdom in the simple life of ordinary people, too, don't need to subject yourself to ascetic practices for it. Ask yourself, would meditating for 10 days help you more than taking a vacation and learning something new, with the same focus? Something practical, that would make you better at life, not just feel better about life.
If spiritual practices like meditation were so powerful in a life affirming way, India would be the most advanced country. Rather than closing your eyes and floating in your empty mind, better to open them an learn what is amazing about the world. The world is more exciting than imagination and internal body feelings.
That's the first problem. They are powerful "technologies" (okay, that's just a fancy way of saying "tools") of mind and self, not "simple stress-relievers".
Possible "negative" outcomes are not unknown in the cultures that originated these tools. Any powerful tool will have some potential metaphorical sharp edges.
Over 20 years ago, I took a yoga and meditation class (before or near the beginning of the U.S. cultural rise of non-spiritual "mindfulness"), and the instructor told us on the first class, something like:
"Sometimes people doing these techniques can experience odd things. You might have a negative reaction. Or see or experience something odd or scary. Or even think you are interacting with scary beings who aren't there or another plane of existence or something. I don't say this to scare you, it doesn't happen to many people. But so you can recognize it if it does, and just come talk to me. It happens sometime, it's not a big deal, but it's important you come talk to me if it does, left unattended/unguided it can become a big deal."
Because there are teachings/techniques from the traditions these tools orginate in to deal with some the sometimes negative effects too, that were also developed over generations in tandem with the tools. This is the danger of extracting "mindfulness" from it's cultural context, as just a "simple stress-reliever".
That's how I've been treating meditation anyway. I thought zen ego death was just overzealous marketing but from the comments its fairly common?
Last night I played video games and ate ice cream while watching a movie. Feel pretty good today :).
I feel my IQ has gone up a few points and I’m more in control over my behavior/emotions but my anxiety is worse. I’m plagued by my thoughts of the shortness of time and the temporary relationship I’ll have with my children.
I think it’s a natural part of the human condition and people escape for a reason.
Historically, religion remedied that in a lot of ways, which is why it was called “opium of the masses”. People need a worldview-framework to overwrite their base firmware.
When your world is all crazy and on fire with hectic activity, that's when it's the most beneficial to stop and meditate. I think some of the meditation stuff as it's marketed in the West, is first of all done without much regard to the needs of (or actual effect on) those who buy the book/class/etc., and is secondly based on the implicit assumption that "our modern lives" are filled with too much activity - errands and dropping-off-the-kids and whatnot. But if you're depressed the opposite is usually the case.
The downside for me came when I was driving or in public. I became very anxious because I would sometimes feel my thoughts drifting away as they did when I meditated and I feared I would lose my ability to control myself. I had some mild anxiety prior to meditating (never while driving tough) but it was greatly amplified during this time. I eventually stopped meditating due to some unrelated circumstances (basically not having enough free time), and my anxiety virtually disappeared. My overall happiness has decreased and I have resumed some self destructive behaviors (such as occasional binge drinking) . Not sure if I will ever pick it up again. I would probably be much better off if I had some actual instruction and someone to discuss these issues with.
Since you have practiced meditation regularly for a couple years, what do you think about the idea that chasing happiness is also something to let go of?
Conversely, I found out that doing things that are exactly the opposite (of mindfulness) do great for me to not worry that much: Play computer games, go to "pointless" parties, "waste" some money... and of course, physical activity.
Meditation centers my mind squarely at the things that I worry about the most (and I don't have great influence on): politics, diseases (like getting cancer), what people think of me, etc.
There's a significant difference between understanding the political horrors, or knowing that cancer is a problem - versus being terrified of thinking about these realities.
Yeah, it may backfire in the future, but I am not going back there, if I am allowed to choose.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.
Non-religious meditation is sort of the same for your psyche. You bring things to light that have been plaguing you in the background. Once in the light, you have to painfully deal with it. Make peace with it, make amends, or corrective course of action. Over time, such actions become less painful and future issues affect you less because you have the experience and maturity to deal with them swiftly.
This article just spins it all towards negativity. That last cop-out paragraph was a joke. A guided meditation app? I am all for a pro therapist to help people talk through their problems and help better explain their own thoughts and actions... but an app? Seriously? The whole point to meditation is for you to have better understanding of yourself. Not for someone else to dictate your own thoughts. A good therapist doesn't guide you to a pre determined path. They push you to walk your own path.
Damn, these things piss me off so much. This whole article feels like the opening pitch to some asshole's self help app that they're going to charge a monthly subscription for.
This reminds me of study done where, again, a small percentage of people who were exposed to sounds that are typically used to reduce anxiety had the opposite effect to. I am trying to dig up this study but it was posted to HN close to a decade ago, so who knows what happened to it. I think a number of HNers expressed the issues they faced listening to these samples as well.
In the long run it was good for them, spooked them enough to stay away from drugs permanently and, ultimately, turn their life around.
Meditation, like LSD, is only going to get you to a place -- what you find there is on you. If you blot out all distractions and look deep inside yourself... you may not like what you see. If you get someone with deep seated, repressed anxiety and make them bring it to the fore via meditation it's not going to make them less anxious, it's just going to make it more noticeable.
Serious question, other than the capitalism part and climate change stuff, what else makes you think they're alt-right? Maybe also, define what you believe alt-right means. Mostly because everyone has a weird spectrum grade as what they declare is "alt-right"... which to me is just a way of calling someone a nazi without saying "nazi".
UK is capitalist/imperial with some socialist 'guilt' (think NHS). but when shit hits the fan, they are capitalist. new scientist magazine is pretty much a UK view of the world.
sometimes though i've spotted some awesome articles in new scientist (eg., about mexican chinampas comes to mind), these seem to sneak under their alt-right radar...
What I found upsetting was that the leaders of the group were not interested in actually solving these issues either and were perpetuating the state of being present with the problems the meditators had. This created a vicious cycle of dependency. Anxiety and depression are not things you can just figure out and snap out of.
As a commenter mentioned earlier, the point of meditation (in the Buddhist context) was to facilitate ego death. Watching the self, knowing the self, and extricating the self, in order to be freed from the problems of self (which is thought to be causing the depression and anxiety). In our modern context most of us can't go into a forest refuge and isolate ourselves to do this practice.
Or more generally: "Exceptions to the rule exist".
What's the value of these articles?
My apartment is never more spotless than when I have to tackle some hard/complex piece of code that requires my undivided attention for a long stretch.
The most use I've gotten out of meditation is as a simple cure for habitual thoughts and behaviors. And I think the logic is incredibly straight forward: if you find yourself suspecting that what you're doing is not helpful and/or not deliberate, what better thing to do than to sit down and take an honest look at your thoughts and impulses? It's not rocket science and I don't think it's fundamentally a religious practice either (as some here have suggested).
Coming to the practice with an overinflated sense of what's possible will certainly lead to disappointment and maybe even depression.
The whole point of vipassana is to break down what exactly is happening into its component parts. If your feeling anxious then you try to break that down into mental imagery, bodily sensations, mental chatter etc
You are essentially exploring your depression, anxiety or whatever else you are feeling and over time you'll be able to handle all these states of minds calmly.
One positive aspect of meditation is that it can start to make you feel very good. You can start off your meditation session with extreme states of anxiety and as you explore what it means to be anxious - anxious feelings all over your body can suddenly turn into extremely pleasant sensations sliding up your body. The more you do it the more persistent this feeling becomes.
Mindfulness is emphasized in CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy). The idea behind this is that depression manifests as distorted thoughts (e.g. "Everyone hates me, I should die."), and the goal is to notice these thoughts and learn to substitute them (eventually automatically) with thoughts that are more productive/positive.
From what I've seen, most meditation practices are very helpful for the "notice the thoughts" part, but, especially in non-religious settings, tend to neglect the "substitute the thoughts" part. Usually what I hear is something like "notice the thought and let it go."
So if the thought "Everyone hates me, I should die" comes up during meditation, you just notice it and let it go. That often provides some relief in the short term (you're no longer actively thinking about dying), but you've done nothing to prevent it from arising again later, and you haven't learned any coping techniques for when similar thoughts won't go away (which can be a symptom during severe episodes). If you have depression or anxiety and want to get into meditation, I would strongly suggest at the very very least researching the principals of CBT in case you find yourself in this situation. I would recommend an app called Woebot. Even better would be to try some actual CBT if you are able.
All that said, I think that for me joining a meditation group was beneficial for me because of the social aspect more so than the actual meditation. This group emphasizes community (sangha) and service pretty heavily. A lot of people get social benefits from other religious communities, but as someone who didn't grow up in a religious household, I find Buddhists super easy to get along with. They tend to be very accepting, especially to newcomers, since they are taught not to make judgements of others. It's comforting to know if I'm going through a rough patch that at least I don't have to worry about people judging me for missing meditation that week.
"Bad Vibes- Warning: Meditating may be hazardous to your health" SFWeekly, 2002-08-28
https://web.archive.org/web/20091114023754/https://www.sfwee...
So much so that there exists a term guru-sishia parampara, when the teaching of a school are perfected and handed down through the generations.
Another factor is a lot of us are perfectly aware of the pointlessness of our day to day activities, but are very frightened to break out of it. It gives us a kind of familiarity and is "normal" to be that way.
Specifically I could not find any recent publications by a Miguel Farias in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica
That leans toward something I was wondering about as I read the article. One of the things that was noted was "thoughts of suicide". Is the meditation causing that, or was it a thought pattern that was already going on made more obvious by practice? Not trying to diminish the danger of ToS or practicing without guidance and support, but I don't think there's quite enough to establish causality here.
Having your mind "run away with bad thoughts," while it sounds bad, isn't directly related to the fundamental issue of mindlessness, and could happen with any type of meditation.
Even if a study shows statistically significant result that meditation helps on average, the tails still matter. That is in health, individual responses to an intervention matter a lot. Sometimes a treatment helps most people a modest amount, but makes things much much worse for a small minority of people.
Who told them to "still their thoughts"? Sure thing it will rebel since it's impossible task. One can't "still the thought" since at exact moment you FIND yourself thinking it means the thought has already GONE!
https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight...
I've always found group meditations to be the most beneficial for me while solo meditations are harder and less likely for me to feel better afterwards (although I've had some really good ones)
This is what passes for science these days. You can't draw any realistic conclusion from this, one way or another.
Before I ever knew about meditation, it felt like my brain would always serve up whatever words and ideas were needed to keep the sentence going. I even felt like I was quite a quick-witted person. But now I'll often lose my train of thought and suddenly be left with a completely empty head. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure this didn't happen in the pre-meditation days.
I mean, it requires prolonged concentration to clear one's head -- but I'll admit that I'm not a meditation expert. Perhaps I was taught incorrectly.
What thoughts should be running through your head while you meditate?
Then you switch from objects to ideas and that's a lot harder, but that's the actual goal. For example, you think a lot about the nature or idea of software. Once you think you've found this idea, you sit and spend 5 mins meditating on this idea. Ideas can't be drawn, they don't have shapes and our mind is not really suited for dealing with ideas.
Meditation is addictive. Even at the early stages you'll notice the flow of something thru your body during meditation and the weird, but pleasant feeling of physically stretching out your brains. This addiction is considered an obstacle, so the usual advise is to do a few short sessions that stop once you start noticing that feeling.
Your daily thinking will become sharper as you progress, and you'll get this feeling of physical balance. If it's not the case, you're doing something wrong and you'd have to seek an in person advice.
One particularly dangerous mistake is trying to clear mind of thoughts and make it blank. Tsong-kha-pa wrote a good deal about this mistake in his books to warn people.
It's a tool to discover the inner self, one of the first steps in self realization, as per Hindu scriptures.
It has been studied for millennia and it's methods fine tuned.
The reason for meditating is not to improve productivity, solve depression / anxiety issues, and all the issues related to modern living.
It is a first step towards God Realization.
But why is it used so widely for the above mentioned reasons?
- The initial stages of meditation bring about a calm and peace. Many people find health benefits to such a process. It might as well be true.
Meditation is supposed to be done and progressed under a realized guru. It's not a vocational course that someone takes and becomes an expert in it.It is not a tool to solve anxiety and depression. It is not a tool to improve the life we experience with this body. It is a tool to discover our true nature.
Of course you are going to get results that fall into a wide spectrum if you do it wrongly, under no proper guidance and with no clarity as to it's true purpose.
You cannot expect a person with depression and anxiety to sit alone in a room and meditate and not expect an aggravation in such thoughts.
To live a happy and healthy life, Hinduism promotes a way of life for the householder (one who is married and has a family)
- Get up early. - Exercise (This includes preliminary forms of Hatha Yoga) - Eat healthy food - Spend time with family - Teach your kids - Avoid vices - Have a healthy sex life - Spend some time contemplating the true nature of the world. Just thinking, no meditation, no process, no nothing. - Sleep well - Have a good circle of friends and keep good relations with extended family, to share your joys and sorrows.
In India, for every one of the above activity, there are a myriad of books, anecdotes, stories, proverbs, etc. A householder is never told to do meditation or try to be in peace by such methods. To glue the society together, there are festivals, rituals, cultural activities that are to be followed both by the individual and the society. Some by men, some by women, some by rulers, some by priests, etc.
Meditation and other related yogic methods are only taught to a person who has developed a certain aversion to the ways of this world and wants to advance spiritually. That too, a qualified guru will test him in all aspects and only then start training in meditation and yoga. Until then, no such methods are taught.
Western nations have misused and misconstrued everything about Yoga and Meditation, and then put out such articles.
Unfortunate.
1. Things get worse before they get better. 2. Who said things would get better?
What if, in the process of meditating, you've thought long and hard about your lot in life, and have realized that it actually is shit?
Maybe it's a mistake to strictly focus on the "depression is a disease" narrative. Maybe a lot of people actually do have a lot to be sad about while also having nothing they can realistically do about those things. If a person is stuck in a dead-end job, in a place with no opportunity, with responsibilities that prevent you from taking risks, with no savings, then it's really hard to see how that person can be "happy".
I've struggled with depression for most of my adult life. The absolute worst period of depression I went through was when I was single, living alone, working a job I hated, in a city that was far too encouraging of drinking as the only viable past time (Philadelphia). I was very fearful of medication at that time. I had heard a lot of bad stories, not just about side effects, but about effects, like the medication removing both the lows and the highs of their emotional state. There were also stories of negative consequences for people's jobs: losing security clearances and the like (which are very old stories by now, but such rumors don't have a lot of respect for changing times).
I was able to get out of that state through career coaching. I was feeling bad because I hated where I was in life. Fixing that, I got a lot happier. It felt really good to put form to my woes, to put a target on them, and eliminate it, one by one.
I got married. I had kids. And then I hit another, big, depressive period. Work had been a mess going on 5 years by that point. My wife gently pressured me into going to see a doctor and get medication.
I did the medication for a while, and it helped at first, but I think it mostly just confused my own, internal understanding of my emotions. I started it about 2.5 years ago, in the middle of a hellscape of an office. After a year, it just stopped working. The doctor increased my dosage levels, but things never went back to square. I think what happened was that I just recalibrated my understanding of my emotions. I had physical cues before the medication: heart racing, running thoughts, a physical feeling of the floor dropping out from under me. Now, I lacked those feelings, but I actually recognized situations in which I should have felt them, and in some ways the lack of the feelings felt like stumbling, like taking a step for a stair that isn't there. I spent another year on the medication, under the belief that things would be a lot worse without it. There were some negative side effects that were also having a bad impact on my mood.
But I think the biggest positive impact on my mood was getting a good job where I'm respected and nobody brow-beats me over made up deadlines. Halfway through that last year of medication, I changed jobs. I noticed things getting better. I got so sick of not feeling like I was in control of my body, listening to doctors who had no clue what was going on just make guesses at what to do, that I told my doctor I was going to make my own guesses and quit the medication.
I've now been off of it for 6 months and everything is... as good as the best days when I first started the medication, minus the negative side effects, so better in every aspect.
Meditation can be a delicate thing that has positive great effects if applied correctly but it's also a tool for sects since forever.
I really like the vipassana medition approach but the whole ideology around it and the things they'll tell you on the retreat turned me off.
Even if you do it for yourself without any objective target it can get worse as you may realize it's actually like in your surpressed fears.
Be careful what you subscribe to.
If you do metta (loving kindness) you can cultivate equanimity and other positive qualities. These can act like resources that can help you deal with trauma resurfacing in a healthier way. They can also reduce the aversion towards the parts of you that carry the trauma and this can be beneficial.
The conclusion does not seem to have any provable basis.
Depression makes you think clear.
Anxiety pushes you to snap out of mediocrity and spark creativity.