Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Can meditation be harmful?
Many people are very positive about the benefits of meditation, but I suspect that some people who take up meditation soon drop out because they don’t like what it shows them. When I first started to meditate I had the common experience of discovering how chaotic my mind was. As time passed, I found I often became angry during meditation. Up to that time I had a habit of shutting out anything that bothered me with a “it doesn’t matter” attitude, but meditation made me aware of what had previously been kept outside of my conscious awareness. I started to re-assess many of the events in my life and, with a whole lifetime of experiences to review, I found a lot to be angry about. I also found a lot to feel anxious about and to feel embarrassed, guilty or ashamed about . I was often (and sometimes still am) more agitated and unhappy at the end of a meditation session than at the start, which was the opposite effect to the one intended. It was as if I had taken a left turn when I should have turned right and so I had ended up at the wrong destination.
In my experience, one of the pitfalls of meditation is that it reveals what previously was repressed. This could be a problem if someone is not prepared for it. In my own case, I uncovered some emotions that I had partly shut out up to that time, but at least I didn’t discover any traumatic memories that I had previously blocked out. That must happen to some people though and that could be a problem, especially if they have no support.
Our ability to think allows us to achieve many things, including learning about and practicing the dharma. But the ability to think also allows us to dwell on whatever bothers us and when we do that then we keep the suffering alive. In fact, by obsessively thinking about resentments, regrets, traumas and worries, we not only keep the suffering alive, but actually intensify it. Thoughts go round and round in the mind, building in strength like a hurricane. I can be sitting quietly, with a good posture and a passive expression, but if my head is full of thoughts then I’m not meditating. It seems to me that obsessing is the opposite of letting go. If I’m obsessing about something that makes me anxious then I’m worrying. If I’m obsessing about something that makes me angry then I’m brooding. Of course, we can have obsessive thoughts without meditation, but the focussed concentration of meditation can make matters worse. If we can develop positive emotions such as loving-kindness simply by focussing on them, then it stands to reason that we can deepen negative emotional states just by focussing on them. I would say that focussed concentration is a powerful tool that can be used skilfully or unskilfully. And by focussing on negative emotions and thoughts we end up focussing more on the self (for example, all the memories that make me angry are examples of “how dare they treat me like that!”). So, there is a risk that meditation results in the grip of the self being strengthened rather than loosened. Again, the opposite effect to the one intended.
<O:p</O:p
To give a fuller picture, I should say a few things. First of all, I don’t want to give the wrong impression. Most people see me as easy going (although I don’t see myself in that way). The feelings that I am talking about are all safely contained beneath the surface (I have advanced from repressed to suppressed
). Secondly, things have improved with time, although the improvement is not stable and I continue to have setbacks (old habits die hard). The improvement has come about by finding a middle way between shutting things out and obsessing about them, which requires that I am mindful of the tendency to obsess, so I can nip it in the bud before it takes hold. Thirdly, in coming to see and understand these emotions in myself, I also understand them better in other people and as a result I am better at interacting with others. When I started to meditate my goal was to become more chilled out. That didn’t happen, but I have gained some insight and I wonder if there is an element of meditation giving us what we need instead of what we want.
<O:pIn summary, meditation brings benefits when practised skilfully, but can unskilful practice create problems or even be harmful?
In my experience, one of the pitfalls of meditation is that it reveals what previously was repressed. This could be a problem if someone is not prepared for it. In my own case, I uncovered some emotions that I had partly shut out up to that time, but at least I didn’t discover any traumatic memories that I had previously blocked out. That must happen to some people though and that could be a problem, especially if they have no support.
Our ability to think allows us to achieve many things, including learning about and practicing the dharma. But the ability to think also allows us to dwell on whatever bothers us and when we do that then we keep the suffering alive. In fact, by obsessively thinking about resentments, regrets, traumas and worries, we not only keep the suffering alive, but actually intensify it. Thoughts go round and round in the mind, building in strength like a hurricane. I can be sitting quietly, with a good posture and a passive expression, but if my head is full of thoughts then I’m not meditating. It seems to me that obsessing is the opposite of letting go. If I’m obsessing about something that makes me anxious then I’m worrying. If I’m obsessing about something that makes me angry then I’m brooding. Of course, we can have obsessive thoughts without meditation, but the focussed concentration of meditation can make matters worse. If we can develop positive emotions such as loving-kindness simply by focussing on them, then it stands to reason that we can deepen negative emotional states just by focussing on them. I would say that focussed concentration is a powerful tool that can be used skilfully or unskilfully. And by focussing on negative emotions and thoughts we end up focussing more on the self (for example, all the memories that make me angry are examples of “how dare they treat me like that!”). So, there is a risk that meditation results in the grip of the self being strengthened rather than loosened. Again, the opposite effect to the one intended.
<O:p</O:p
To give a fuller picture, I should say a few things. First of all, I don’t want to give the wrong impression. Most people see me as easy going (although I don’t see myself in that way). The feelings that I am talking about are all safely contained beneath the surface (I have advanced from repressed to suppressed
). Secondly, things have improved with time, although the improvement is not stable and I continue to have setbacks (old habits die hard). The improvement has come about by finding a middle way between shutting things out and obsessing about them, which requires that I am mindful of the tendency to obsess, so I can nip it in the bud before it takes hold. Thirdly, in coming to see and understand these emotions in myself, I also understand them better in other people and as a result I am better at interacting with others. When I started to meditate my goal was to become more chilled out. That didn’t happen, but I have gained some insight and I wonder if there is an element of meditation giving us what we need instead of what we want.<O:pIn summary, meditation brings benefits when practised skilfully, but can unskilful practice create problems or even be harmful?
0
Comments
Just like you explained.
Just don't obsess over your emotions anymore.
Just observe them. Be okay with them, look at them and think "im okay with you, you can stay or you can go. I'm okay either way, it doesn't affect me...".
And they will eventually go.
Thats it.
The only frustrating part I find (meditating and focusing on the breathing as per the Shambhala teachings) is how difficult it is to simply breathe and empty your mind.
Buddhism as a whole, being awake etc, is indeed hard as we awake to reality, to what's around us, and face emotions, and qualities that we have that we kept hidden all these years. In fact this is what I wrote about here http://newbuddhist.com/forum/showthread.php?p=100333#post100333 why it hurts so much to be awake.
But I find meditation itself to be quite pleasant and look forward to starting each day with a 30 minute session.
I feel that I always knew I wanted to follow the path of Buddhism, but waited until I was mentally prepared to invest in it (emotionally) and be strong enough to do the work that is required. Like any act of love, it is work at it's core, but it is very rewarding work. It's not easy coming to terms with stuff we do not like about ourselves, or watching loved ones struggle in life when they do not have to.
But for me, mediation is part of the reward of following this path. I get to relax, to leave the troubles behind, and to become more aware of who I am and who I want to be and all this through taking a small portion of each day to simply breathe, and do nothing more.
Ironically I was always proud that I could multitask so well (being in an IT career and all) and now I'm finding that my personal challenge is to learn to single task, to do each thing with focus and complete attention and nothing else. And focusing on breathing during meditation is quite a challenge but I see progress every day and I'm very very grateful for this, as it prepares me for whatever good or bad awaits for me for the remainder of the day.
May I suggest some readings about breathing meditation? The purpose of the Shambhala meditation is to empty your mind and to allow thoughts to come and go, while you gently lead your focus back to the breath. If you fight the thoughts it becomes very counter productive and will result in frustration and anger. Sakyong Miphan uses the analogy of training a horse, the more you pull the more it will resist, but if you coax it gently it will come back to the corral without fighting you. The book by Sakyong Miphan "turning the mind into an ally" describes the process very well.
I guess I was 'too deep' or something, because I started to stop feeling anything. I honestly thought I was going to die if I continued, because I was being swallowed by 'nothing'. So I fought it. Bad idea. I thought of my family and how I still had to be here because I was very much attached to them. I came back and starting writing down everything that I could remember about it. I wrote about all sorts of "revelations" that I'd had, I couldn't get the words on paper fast enough. Hahaha, in fact I didn't have any paper around, so I reached for the nearest writable surface which happened to be a stack of business cards.
Then, I had all these thoughts about how I was a 'slave' to the moment before the present. Thoughts kept circling in my head about how I wasn't in control of anything; I never had been. All the beliefs that I had of life shattered. I wasn't ready for that and I freaked out. For days I felt absolutely terrified of everything. I couldn't sleep, I thought I'd finally snapped. I took the business cards that I had written on and threw them in the back of a drawer without reading them. It was months before I had the courage to actually read them. I kept trying to think of anything but that experienced, and I was terrified of remembering it. It was the worst feeling I have ever had in my life.
A couple days later I was alright though. It took a few months for me to regain my confidence. I guess I've grown since then, because now I often do the same thing. It's actually kind of fun lol, very relaxing.
Sounds like you might have been entering the preliminary stages of First Jhana. There's nothing to be afraid of! You were going in the right direction of letting go (of controlling) and then your will (inner control freak) kicked in. Happens to me a lot too.
from a traditional perspective, the foundation for meditation is morality
this means our moral views are clear
even if we are not angry about the past, if our moral views are not clear, many distraction emotions & thoughts will arise in meditation
in your case, it appears you have some healing or reconciliation to do, in respect of where others have hurt you, where you have hurt others or otherwise where you have hurt yourself
for example, if another has hurt us, we must reflect on their actions using the dhamma as the mirror and place the experience in perspective
from a dhamma viewpoint, meditation is not harmful
it is like a pest inspector has found we have termites under our house
those troubling emotions are within you so you have the opporunity to clean them out and progress in your emotional & spiritual maturation
it may not be easy work but there can be rewards
with metta
dd
:smilec:
Hi tb or not tb?
You may be doing meditation wrongly. "It doesn't matter", when it mattered you suffer. It is the process that you should be noting and not pay attention to the content. Sometimes the content may be too strong and you get sucked in. Major issues may need to be resolved before starting meditation.
This is an important insight into how we function. Yes, that which we attend to is that which we reinforce.
However, what you describe as "unskillful meditation" is not meditation at all. This is where having a teacher to talk with, to monitor progress, is invaluable.
Occasionally, meditation will open up other types of experiences that are unpleasant or frightening, and again, a teacher can give you specific ways to work with those experiences.
In short, my experience is that meditation, done correctly and with proper guidance, is not harmful.
Thankfully, I've never had a frightening experience like that. In the past I started to think that something was actively disrupting my meditation, but that didn't make sense to me, so I ignored it. Rather than thoughts drifting into my attention during meditation, it was more like they were being pushed in, one after another until I finally took the bait and got hooked on one. Recently though, during one of my better meditations when my mind was calm and I was managing not to get hooked on thoughts, I realised that the thinking part of my mind was panicking at the idea of letting go and was desperately throwing thoughts at me. From the calm centre of my awareness I was trying to re-assure it, but it resisted (after all, the thinking mind's job is to think). I was disappointed that a didn't enter into a deeper state of absorption.
Recently I was wondering if meditation would benefit everyone and I concluded that the answer was no for some people. After reading your comments, I think a better answer would be that meditation on its own isn't beneficial to everyone. After reading the comments on this website in the last few weeks, I realize that I need to start paying more attention to the Noble Eightfold Path to develop a more 'holistic path', as you say.
Hi Olarte. Thanks for your reply. I had already read the thread that you included in your reply. In meditation classes I think people (including myself) don't really like to discuss their difficult meditation experiences with a group of strangers, but that can create the impression that everyone only has positive experiences. The greater anonymity of a website makes it a bit easier to more open about such things, which makes it interesting.<O:p</O:p
<O:p</O:p
Recently, my mindfulness of breathing meditation has improved after a long period of stagnation. Personally, I have found that just sitting with thoughts and emotions doesn’t lead to an improvement. If I let my mind run wild, then it stays wild. Instead, I remind myself that meditation is a skill to be developed and, for me at least, a discipline. This is a better approach for me. That’s obvious to me now, but, in my experience, it can take a long time to see the obvious. <O:p></O:p>
Labeling meditation as dangerous is a lot like killing the messenger. It is just a medium by which you experience the world. There are other mediums to experience the world, like television. I think the latter is far more dangerous...but hey, that's just me.
It wasn't the visit to the doctor that was the problem, although it did happen to be the moment in time the person discovered what was actually going on with their health.
However, with Buddhist meditation aside, you can seriously harm yourself physically and mentally through meditation. As new age as it sounds, you can "overload" energies in your body if you focus on them, disrupting your nervous system and mind. So if you ever consider taking meditative practices involving moving energies such as QiGong and Kundalini, I recommend only to do so with a guide. Not that I support half the jargon in the DSM, but there's a listing in the DSM called "qi-gong psychotic reaction"
I like the example. Simple and to the point. In my original post I said that I don't want to give the wrong impression, but I'm starting to think I have done that. I should add that I have had many positive experiences in meditation and that most of the time I am distracted in meditation it's because I'm making plans (about work, about what to eat, etc, etc). Some of my best meditation experiences have been when I suddenly got an entirely new perspective on an old memory, which made me see things in a new and more positive light. I've also found that loving-kindness meditation counters negative emotions in general. The original post is just about one aspect of meditation (both my own and other people's) I am curious about.
This is supposed to happen; as you keep your awareness on the in and out breaths you gradually abandon the five sensory awareness and it is as if the body fades away.
I don't think the breath meditation can harm anyone in anyway. But I feel that it is always better to get some guidance form a teacher or a handbook before starting off so that you will know what is to be expected and what you are supposed to do.
I don't think it can be harmful if done properly. I would say that many things can be harmful when used incorrectly but looking at what is buried deep inside me can be eye opening and if I try to learn from it instead of getting hung up on it, you can get through it, move on and grow.
I would say that, for me, the biggest "danger" about meditation practice, is to let it become an "escape" from reality, instead of what it's meant to be, which is being present, here and now. I find that I tend to zone out and become "entranced" sometimes, instead of keeping my awareness sharp. So that's something I'm working on, but other than that, I see no dangers in it.
tb or not tb, I have had a somewhat similar experience to yours. I practiced Vipassana meditation for about a year and a half, daily. It helped me tremendously, I believe, but eventually I did hit a few bumps in the road. First off let me point out, that I live in a rather remote area, and the nearest meditation class is an hour and a half away, so I had to learn from books mostly. Anyway, I've always had an overactive mind, but typically during my meditations about 20 minutes in my mind would start to calm down and the chaos would "dissolve". But, inexplicably, at the year and a half mark I started experiencing racing thoughts that not only didn't dissolve, they got worse during the meditation. And, like you, I ended up often feeling worse, less peaceful, and even a little more downtrodden after each meditation. I started to experience frustration that, with now clockwork consistency, I was being agitated by meditations. I also started to feel resentment when I would read meditation books that would talk about how "the thoughts and feelings will pass" or that the thoughts are "impermanent and will dissolve". I thought "Well, yeah, the thoughts might dissolve and are impermanent, but they come back pretty quick and stick around for a long time."
I was disturbed. I wished I had a teacher. That's seriously important, I think. I actually believe I was being shown something valuable, actually--Like I was being shown some sort of truth. However, it hasn't been fully revealed to me yet. I continue to meditate, but less. About several times a week. And got involved in more physically active forms of meditation like tai-chi and standing meditation. I also realize that I had to shoulder some responsiblity here. If I was being caused mental turmoil during meditation, I shouldn't run away but maybe I should "ease up" and listen to myself. The books help, but they are written for a large audience, and the majority of people don't have *persistently* racing minds, so maybe the majority of people will find peace if they practice what the books say. That's where it's important to sometimes "be your own teacher" and find what works for you. I'm glad I found this thread and hope this helped shed some insight onto the problem. I hope you find a solution!
:rolleyes:
I agree that sometimes you have to be your own teacher and find out what works for you. In my own case I've realised that thoughts and feelings don't just pass away and instead I remind myself that meditation is a skill and a discipline and I have to make an effort to actively stop thoughts taking a hold. As I said in a previous reply, if I let my mind run wild then it stays wild, so the "teacher" has to be a disciplinarian.
Recently I've been trying to practice mindfulness outside of meditation. So, I try to be more aware of the workings of my mind when I am watching television, or working, or walking along a street and so on. I have discovered that when I do this my meditation improves. It's as if, because I am seeing the workings of my mind outside of meditation, then there is less need for this to be revealed during meditation.
During one of my deeper, more peaceful meditations I started to obsess about something and suddenly the words "lighten up" popped into my mind. It felt like the words came from some deep part of my mind and it felt like perfect advice, the best advice that anyone had ever given me (if that makes sense).
One of the Buddha's metaphors for awakening or "enlightenment" was, "beyond conditioned experience".
It is this very process of bringing into consciousness that which has become habitual - and that which has become repressed - that wakes us up and releases us from conditioning - so to describe this as a pitfall of meditation is perhaps missing the point.
Here you are definitely closer to what matters. I did recall some really heavy childhood trauma that was totally dissociated prior to being a meditator. At the time I was living in a meditation centre on staff and it is certainly the practice of Shamatha meditation that gave me enough of a stable base and clarity to start the recall.
The meditation centre I lived in though was not warm to this. At a point in the process where I was dealing with the emerging revelations, having worked there for a year and a half, I was asked to leave.
Without the strong community and supportive environment my life fell apart for a few years. I was ready to cope, but not if thrown back into the real world, which is what happened.
There was a lack of understanding and compassion from those who made this decision, a lack of wisdom. I don't hold it against them, we each have our faults, but it has influenced my attitude to the Sangha and thus I caution some people not to engage with them whilst for others it seems a suitable place to practice.
Yes if you are doing it wrong .. and, even if you are doing it right ... unskillfulness in those around you be a bigger problem or even more harmful.
Warmly,
In the Dhamma,
Matthew
</o>