Comment by Mo3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Mo3 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Can confirm from personal experience. Even a lot of vipassana meditation by itself can send you into psychotic states when you're not ready for all the insight yet. I came very close to psychosis once, experienced ego death, broke down mentally and had to spend 2 months in a depression ward. Cannot recommend.

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.

Meditation is a blade with no hilt.

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.

Great comment, although Judy Collins’ recording (which came first) is far better than Joni Mitchell’s :)

Ha, thanks for the history lesson. :)

I agree, it's far better than her studio version. But Joni Mitchell wrote the song. There's a video on YouTube of her performing it live, and it sounds a lot like the Judy Collins version, strangely enough.

How did you get out of the tailspin? It’s quite hard to “pull up” when there is nothing that feels grounded...

There was no pulling up. And there was no ground beneath my feet. Just an endless ocean with no points of reference by which to orient oneself.

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.

Thank you for the amazing and thoughtful help - it feels like I need to go down for a long nap.

> that Buddhists have a rich tradition for navigating these waters

What topics could I read about to learn more about this?

I highly recommend as an introduction Alan Watt's 'The Way of Zen', that covers, in great detail, the cultural background, history and practice of Buddhism, in its prominent forms, and its roots in India / Hinduism -- all of which are necessary to comprehend even basic 'traditional' buddhist literature, after having become so institutionalized over the centuries as to have obscure many of the original, and plain to state, insights with now archaic ways of thinking but nevertheless have been maintained essentially untouched.

Then, follow your nose through the bibliography. =)

Yep, that rings a bell. :)

All the best to you.

Like when you lose your gopro in the surf and you don't have any goggles on.

I recently got bored and started to practice my vocal cords by sustaining a single tone. Turn out it is good technique for getting into a meditative state. I think it is the controlled breathing and single focus on one thing that helps to bring it about. Thought it was fun, but my neighbours must think that I have lost it.

Oooooooooooooooooooooohm.

Or "kaaaayyyyyyyy ooooooooooooooooohm" if you want to be zazen a thousand times faster!

ducks

Yea, I think a pattern that modulates between two vowels works best, like OoohWaaaOoohm. I think you find this in many religions, for example the call to prayer, but I don't want to be shouting Alla, neighbours will call the police for sure.

Is this a metric EE joke?

I can't help but see some of the beauty you saw in the mountains in your post maybe.

What was the chant?

A simple 4 note repeating melody of the word, in pieces, 'Hal.le.lu.jah'. Forget where I learned it from.

Holy shit. You need to write more of this. I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

I know few people who recommend mindfulness and meditation. It feels so pretentious and religion-like. Some people totally feel brainwashed. I had a friend who believed abuse would go away if you let it go and he was being abused for years. It's a common thing I found in my anecdotal group.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com