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Is Meditation safe?
lobster
Crusty Veteran
in Meditation
As we all know all dharma and no balance leads to . . . well where? Here are the dangers:
http://www.businessinsider.com/dark-side-of-meditation-2014-6
Is meditation an extreme practice?
1
Comments
More stupid than extreme.
Interestingly I started meditation AFTER a psychotic break and it has been helpful for me. Without my volition my path is really gradual. I have never had visions etc in meditation.
Also I don't think correlation proves causality.
Nothing is safe. Meditation is just going for a walk in the park, if things happen before, during, or after, is it fair to say going for a walk in the park is bad for you?
A friend of mine is bipolar and she was advised against practising meditation by her psychiatrist.
She couldn't explain to me why, but in view of this article, it might be that in the face of certain psychological conditions, meditation could do more harm than good.
I mean, wrestling with the mental chatter and presently giving it our undivided attention during meditation is maddening enough for a sane person, I can imagine that people who suffer from delusional mental conditions or 'hear voices' could be rightly confused by all the seemingly endless din.
Meditation has many benefits and I still consider it the base of my practice.
Whether it is safe for everyone, it's for psychiatrists and people in the medical profession to determine.
Some parks are safer than others. Some meditation is safer than others?
That's an interesting question, @lobster. Which meditations are dangerous? My teacher in a teacher student public email said that she could not guide her student to do tummo because she didn't support that for whatever reason.
My teaching, formless practice, is supposed to be 'self sealing' because if you are not ready for the meditation to 'take off' nothing will happen to you and you might enjoy it in any case. It's unclear to me what happens when you are ready; is it safe still then?
When I read the article I couldn't help thinking that perhaps some of the individuals who had bad experiences were (or had been) experimenting with more than just meditation.
Depends on the person I think, but all meditation is safe in my opinion. The mind is dangerous not meditation.
Kia Ora @lobster,
Thanks for the link, it's quite fascinating...It's true meditation is not the be all and end all cure that some make it out to be...
One man's meat is another man's poison and this sadly would also be the case with meditation practice... Some greatly benefit, for some, it does nothing for them, whist others it would seem that it brings their latent neurosis to the forefront where it tends to linger...
So is meditation safe ? On a personal level yes, but in the case of others... yes & no...(maybe)
Metta Shoshin
If you have voices you will have them even if you are not meditating. I found meditation helpful with voices because meditation is calming and you are training in letting go of thoughts and seeing that the voices are just arising 'ornaments' of your mind.
Daniel Ingram (admin/owner of Dharmaoverground.org) goes to decent lengths about the 'dark side' in his book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha
_This from the Foreword and Warning of MCTB:
"In that same vein, I should further mention that the path I have followed has been dangerous, destabilizing more often than calm, excruciating more often than pleasant, harder to integrate than most other dharma paths I have heard of, and in general quite a rough ride. It has also been profound, amazing, and more glorious than most other paths I have heard tell of. Surfing the ragged edges of reality has been easier for me than slowing the thing down. In my explorations, accidents and adventures, I have learned a lot about not only how to make very fast progress in meditation but also a lot about how to do so without completely wiping out. I hope that I can pass on some of the knowledge of both in this book. This should be seen as another warning. This book and the path presented in it are not for the damaged and unstable spiritual seeker. You have to have your psychological trip fairly together to be able to handle the intense techniques, side effects and results I am about to discuss."
_
The destabilizing effects of meditation aren't explained much and preparation for them, in whatever form it takes, should be part of the education and support piece. This underscores the importance of working with a quality teacher, and being vigorously honest with yourself about expectations. In any event 'the dark night' or dangerous side to meditation is addressed by some teachers as it should be. I am psychologically sturdy but even so have been whacked hard by 'stuff' and so I take seriously the warnings I've read or been given.
I read a 'review' of the 10 day vipassana retreat (Goenka) written by a woman who ended up leaving after a couple of days. She complained of intrusive thoughts with frightening content, where she was terrified and overwhelmed, and pretty much blamed it on the structure and intent of the retreat. If a person has a history of trauma or emotional instability it's not hard to imagine what happens when that stuff gets exposed, with no real preparation or support when it happens. They leave the retreat and stumble away, protective denial or blocked memories ripped away. This woman blamed vipassana and the retreat staff themselves for her 'experience'. They do carry some responsibility, but no blame for it.
My meditation practice is to let go of all words/thoughts and simply experience the moment. It causes me nothing but serenity.
This has crossed my mind several times over the years...As far as...is this for everyone? How do they know each person here is ready for this kind of kick up?
What happens if this guy next to me cracks and can't deal or isn't ready to deal with what thoughts and feelings arise?
The teachers don't know each individual bec of the volumes of people on retreats.
Even temples. I've noticed people that are so introverted and closed off, it seems they need the opposite of sitting by themselves and being quiet. I dunno....I'm glad it's getting talked about, though.
And so many people use retreats as vacations/to get away/unplug....when they soon find out, it's serious mental work and examination.
Thanks guys
:clap: .
Delusion, ignorance, premature unveiling of ones 'insight', the hell realms, calluses on the buttocks (never had that) etc. are all part of the fun. However as mentioned serenity, improved life and calm just some of the benefits.
As an extreme seeker, I can only say it was the only way I knew to proceed. Having been every which way and Thursday, I feel the results are worth the risks. Dharma for the half hearted? I would expect inconsequential results. Bring it on. Samsara, mara, karma and the hordes of benevolent Bodhisatvas . . . they come, they go . . .
Its in the end an individual matter of course..this psychiatrist would be quite happy for my clients/patients to practice Samatha/Shinay.
I would want to know however whether they were having hands on instruction if they were wanting to practice Burmese Satipatthana or HYT's.
But I would give that same advise on those practices to anyone anyway, with or without Mental Health issues.
Many of us, in all societies and walks of life, tend to do things that keep us busy.
When you're sitting in a quiet room and have nothing but your own mind to keep you company, I can imagine that for many people, there's a whole lot of crap that can surface.
For some with clinical mental illness, I can imagine that meditation would be either contraindicated or need to be highly supervised by an experienced teacher.
For others, I would probably advise seeking the guidance of a teacher. Misinterpreting what comes up through meditation could be dangerous, but I don't think it's necessarily something to avoid. We just need the right amount of support and guidance.
Buddhist Meditation is definitely not safe!
It distances you from consumerism that is the foundation of society. Makes you capable of superhuman feats such as NOT buying that new mobile... :clap: .
Makes you question basic tenets of society that everybody takes for granted.
More over it makes you think you really can live your life without somebody telling you how to do it.
Makes you suspicious of ALL newsmedia produce.
Raises suspicion of motives of most benevolent politicians.
etc...
It is most dangerous and should be avoided for a ignorant bliss full life path.
Cheers!
/Victor
@lobster I went to the blog where this image originated because I recognize how this cushion was made (fiber arts my fave craft). There are directions on how to make one's own such cushion. I am off . . . . damn creative compulsions . . .
Just my opinion, of course, but this is exactly why I personally believe having a teacher (or at least contact with one if you are not able to meet with one in person regularly) is so important. They are there to help guide you through some of the stuff that comes up. Yoga can be the same way for a lot of people. When you bring your mind and body together, stuff comes up. Just like throwing up, if you don't have a bowl to catch it and know what to do with it after, you end up covered in the gunk.
I do think some of the problem is people experimenting with what was once meant to be very advanced and high level teachings that are now available to anyone. The process of discerning who is truly ready for such information and practice is removed,a nd people are left to their own devices, which often is not such a great idea.
I practice qigong and had problems with meditation. In fact I even had to abandon it for a while.
I remember a friend at the time mentioning something like the Yoga syndrome which is when hidden problems suddenly emerge in an overwhelming way. I also heard a Chinese doctor once mention people who become incapable of taking care of themselves in China because of qigong. I think the real problem is what kind of meditation a person is taking and also knowing that mystical experiences and strange thoughts should be shunned if they appear during the practice. I find simple methods like counting breaths the saffest. Other methods like visualizing energy, feeling the energy, feeling the blood circulating, or even focusing on emotions if one is not prepared, I find them to be more dangerous.
I also believe that living correctly helps meditating correctly.
Eating correctly is also important. Sometimes when we adopt meditation we also adopt other lifestyles like veganism, but an incorrect diet may leave us mentaly frail if not followed correctly.
As I was reading in the article about suicide it reminded me that these dangers are also known in the Christian mystical practice of hesychasm.
Thanks guys,
I tend to agree with this from Dark Knight, Batman and Zen Master in the article:
Almost everyone who gets anywhere with meditation will pass through periods of negative emotion, confusion, [and] disorientation. …The same can happen in psychotherapy and other growth modalities. I would not refer to these types of experiences as 'dark night.' I would reserve the term for a somewhat rarer phenomenon. Within the Buddhist tradition, [this] is sometimes referred to as 'falling into the Pit of the Void.' It entails an authentic and irreversible insight into Emptiness and No Self. Instead of being empowering and fulfilling … it turns into the opposite. In a sense, it's Enlightenment's Evil Twin. This is serious but still manageable through intensive … guidance under a competent teacher. In some cases, it takes months or even years to fully metabolize, but in my experience the results are almost always highly positive.
Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-dark-knight-of-the-souls/372766/#ixzz364RYmVxL
'Enlightenment's Evil Twin.' is nihilism and the Shakyamuni warns against this extreme
http://www.budsas.org/ebud/whatbudbeliev/111.htm
. . . perhaps we are drawn to the blind leading the blind advocated in the comments section . . .
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Grof
I would expect contemplation to be capable of reaching the extremes of human experience. From the urge to make cushions, to laughing on futility, to explosive intensity, to psychosis, bliss and deep serenity.
Meditation it ain't what you think . . .
Mr Cushion has provided a self destruct/'Emergency Boddhisatvah' call out button . . .
OM YA HA HUM
Kia Ora,
Meditation can be liken to taking medication:
"The dosage determines whether or not it becomes a poison or a medicine!"
Metta Shoshin
Living is dangerous; one won't get out of it alive.
I suppose though, for any serious contemplation of the topic, 'Is meditation safe', one would have to define 'safe'. Specifically and off the top of my head, I'm thinking:
Considering #2, A certain someone who meditates is prone to disturbing thoughts. Without meditation they are prone to having a psychotic split.
Since we can't imagine what life would be like for anyone if they had not meditated, it could simply be that it was an improvement over what their life would have been like. But since no one can no what it would have been like...no sense contemplating it.
I think there is a very good point in this article, and as @karasti points out, this might be when a seasoned teacher becomes the invaluable asset or jigsaw piece. At the end of the day, how many people in the world are actually facing up to themselves or the consequences of their thoughts and actions?
Leading a contemplative life, means you may well reach experiential boundaries and personal barriers to understanding and the limitations of your consciousness, and these are not necessarily normal experiences. Turning to face into the full force of the the stream and having no knowledge as to how or whether you can overcome it may may confound and confuse the spirit of the investigation, and the fear and anxiety that may arise, as all your beliefs are shattered, can become overwhelming.
That is where faith in the teachings becomes invaluable, and as so is a disciplined meditation practice the raft that withstands the mental turbulence. But you have to brace yourself and meditate if you are to understand this. The question that the very action that brings insight and liberation may be unsafe, is in itself a subtle reminder that there is something to overcome, and it's really down to you to face your angels and demons. So find the dharma that works for you, and stick with it.
In normal circumstances, we can be thankful for all the crap that surfaces and that would otherwise remain lurking in the recesses of our minds.
A shadow you can see, is a shadow you can address.
The question remains, to what extent are we strong enough to deal with our mental refuse.
If it is unsafe, probably no more so than the alternative non-meditation
It depends where you take yourself. Living your life is just your doing. However, mindfully living your life and intervening - now that has consequences.
Kia Ora,
Is Meditation Safe ? ...Not when you're driving....
..
Metta Shoshin
@Shoshin - Unless you use driving as a form of meditation
http://www.buddhismtoday.com/english/meditation/Zen/005-drivingmeditation.htm
Kia Ora,
But I strongly recommend not doing it with ones eyes closed .
..
Metta Shoshin
I do driving meditation for at last 2.5 hours a day - eyes wide open!
if you crash whilst meditating -it is not someone elses thought - it's yours
Driving is an example of panoramic experience. You are not looking at only one certain thing rather you take in a panorama of vision. It's an example of awareness and I think sometimes people get caught thinking mindfulness is only of a solitary object such as the breath. I used to do mindful driving but just forgot about it. Cheri Huber talks about how and why to do driving meditation.
We mostly use a centrally-focussed (I suppose you could call it ego-centric) consciousness, but in the background there is always a broader fied that takes in everything within the sensual field of consciousness - and that's what's driving when you are on the phone! However, don't think it's gonna let you chat away to your friend without giving it some respect and attention from time to time .... OR: crash! ...
A shadow you can see, is a shadow you can address.
The question remains, to what extent are we strong enough to deal with our mental refuse.
My life has been one with many abnormal circumstances, then
. That crap surfacing has been something I needed professional help with!
To what extent are we strong enough to deal with it? Indeed.
Don't doubt yourself @Hamsaka! You are much tougher than you think...
Kia Ora,
It would seem some go into meditation with eyes wide open and find it so safe, they can even do it with their eyes closed, whilst others go into it blindly(eyes closed) and end up being blinded by the light, when it shines upon them...
Metta Shoshin
Aw thanks
I don't doubt the process, and in comparison, I have had it easy. It is important for a new practitioner to be realistic about themselves, and extremely compassionate. We can be frail creatures along with chest-thumping courage. Some meditation techniques are meant to 'hack' the operating system. I wouldn't just start rewriting code into my computers central bios/innards without experienced direction. To continue the metaphor, the trojan or virus causing problems only does so when central functions are fiddled with, and is by far a bigger problem than a naive computer user can handle on their own.
You know, never in my decades of meditation and leading or being in meditation groups have I encountered someone harmed by meditation. Now, I am willing to submit this is Zen meditation and not that fancy yoga or tantra stuff so I can only speak about my own practice. So to the question raised, and it does get raised once in a while, my reaction is always:
You're just sitting down, doing nothing. Unless you've got a sudden urge halfway through crossing a busy street to sit down and meditate, what could be safer?
What are people afraid is going to happen? It's you sitting there. It's you counting your breaths, or watching your thoughts come and go, or visualizing your chakra in your stomach or whatever. It's still you, your ordinary, everyday mind, sitting down and eventually getting back up.
Sitting, doing nothing. Easy-peasy.
Well said @Cinorjer :thumbsup: .
I have found a lot of injured people attracted to spirituality and it often stabilises but often makes them worse. They become caricatures, extremists and also interestingly enough experts, teachers and dharma police. Some of the nonsense that is taught as wisdom or insight provides much to amuse ordinary folk . . .
The dangers emerge when people engage in extreme practices for long periods. Change is not necessarily progress. New personality is just shackle changing.
It is not just yoga and Tantra, Zen too has its sickness mode, with 'experts' providing pithy humour and put downs with no depth to their 'understanding'. Enlightenment and being awake becomes the most impressive ego game in town . . .
For me meditation is a grounding. It is very simple. Nothing happens. Loads of stuff comes and goes . . .
http://www.mountainrunnerdoc.com/RelDis2.html
I'm pretty sure she goes so far as to say that she doesn't want to be on the road with anyone who isn't doing driving meditation.
There is the famous " Zen sickness " where ( a tiny few ) have some kind of small experience and then spend the rest of their lives telling everyone that that don't exist. Completely alienated...
It is rare, but it happens. I doubt that it happens much to people with a job, kids, responsibilities.
I think Zen Sickness sufferers are probably space cadets to start with.
I find an increasing number of people recommending meditation divorced from any kind of suitable moral framework such as Buddhism or Hinduism. Meditation is taught as a technique in its own right which is a bit like teaching someone how to daub paint with a paintbrush - without being taught perspective and how to see all that will happen is a messy canvas. The guy who had repressed memories and pornographic images is an example of this. When I learned the basics many years ago I was told this would happen and that it is just the mind kicking against being tamed. When a non Buddhist friend of mine learned meditation as a form of therapy he wasn't taught about these phenomena and so he immediately thought he was under satanic attack and panicked. You can have "Buddhism without beliefs" as long as the underlying mind is basically sound, if it is rotten by half-beliefs in various other traditions then there is the possibility of the extra load caused by meditation snapping what structure there was.
I think that meditation is inherently safe but the accumulated detritus in the mind is often unsafe.
And that is where purification practices come in handy @ZenBadger - if you've got the same shit resurfacing all the time, you're probably swimming in a mental compost heap that needs a good turning over.
But purification is often dismissed as "mumbo-jumbo". I think there is some value in practising something which allows you to consider your past mistakes and indiscretions as dealt with, on a symbolic level even if you don't subscribe to the idea of purification.
I think the manner of that purification is key @ZenBadger..
Allowing repressed or 'forgotten' material to surface into the light of consciousness is one thing..and a very good thing. When that material is seen clearly and let go without clinging.
Some kind of Freudian seeking for buried material and then scrutinising it...I am less convinced about.
Dharma is Dharma.
Psychoananalysis..which might be a good or even necessary preliminary process, is something different.
This reminds me of an old saying from a wise. He said, think of a Nunchuk (the martial arts thingy). It can do more damage to you than your enemy, if you do not know how to handle it. If samsara (viscous cycle of birth and death) is your enemy and meditation is your weapon, humm you get the rest....
I am sure there are many analogies to this showing anything can go terribly wrong if not used correctly. Why we think Meditation is different.
Thanks guys,
From the article:
Read more: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-dark-knight-of-the-souls/372766/#ixzz36TMZuetf
I hope that gets addressed in the future by similar projects or initiatives. The fragility, susceptibility and often complete inexperience of such possibilities is not being addressed. Some are even dismissive. I would agree with @kavee that meditation needs to be a supervised training or at least journaled. How many would be on the path if it had potential dangers? Personally I would consider it an occupational hazard. I consider genuine, knowledgeable and experienced instruction to be a rarity. We have to consider that grounding in the ordinary, the chores of life mentioned in another thread, stabilise the abnormal arisings and extreme practices some engage in . . .
:wave: .
@Cinorjer, I totally agree with you. I have been practising meditation for over twenty years now and have only experienced good things, so depending on my experience, I would never consider the practice of meditation dangerous.
Whatever comes up during meditation, the mental chatter, I mean, can be put to good use as material for self-knowledge and spiritual growth. I have only experienced more clear-headed thinking and present-moment awareness as a consequence of my practice. Only positive things, if you ask me. Even the negative stuff that comes up is good compost for recycling into something positive.
But for example yesterday morning I was having coffee with my neighbour. He moved in a few months ago and we're only getting to know each other.
He's a single, Charlie-Harper sort of party guy. He told me he has the radio on all day because he can't stand the din in his head. Apparently he suffers of a hearing condition by which he hears a constant buzz in his head. And when he wakes up in the morning and has to face this static, he's on an aggressive mode well into an hour of waking up.
I can only suspect he's on medication about this, since I have never been privy to his aggressive side.
Well, this is a mild example of someone who has a hard time having a one-to-one encounter with his own mind, but just imagine that bevvy of illuminati who think they are enlightened or the next avatar come true.... could the practice of meditation reinforce them in their delusions?