Wow, there are a lot of judgemental and defensive responses here, from people who are allegedly working towards greater self knowledge and detachment...
So many saying some variation of "he's not doing it right". Yet with ten years of practice, it doesn't seem like this person was just dabbling or dipping their toe in the water.
Surely, even if they are "doing it wrong" that just goes to prove the point, that what's being taught and lauded so much as a panacea by some in the western world is potentially dangerous? And such dangers are downplayed or hand-waved away?
10 years doesn't really mean much by itself. If I incorrectly practice guitar for 10 years, I'll have experience of practicing the guitar incorrectly, and maybe RSI/health issues from not learning correct posture, etc. There is no rule that I'll actually get "good" at guitar by practicing that way.
"that <what>'s being taught and lauded so much as a panacea"
Lauded by whom? And <what> exactly? Buddhism? Meditation? Those are very different and learning from an experienced practitioner is important.
> If I incorrectly practice guitar for 10 years, I'll have experience of practicing the guitar incorrectly, and maybe RSI/health issues
Whether the person in the article practised incorrectly or not is not really the issue. The narrative on and praise for mindfulness in recent years has not included any warnings that there may be dangers. Quite the opposite, it is usually posited as an unambiguous positive.
Your idea that this person was 'doing it wrong' is quite a hand-wavy posture to start with, especially as the author finds that such problems have been described by experienced practitioners.
> Lauded by whom?
The article mentions whom - the various interested parties in mindfulness, the great and the good that attend and throw conferences, those that throw workshops and run retreats. To some extent mainstream journalism and society at large, and even hacker news - mindfulness has been favourably covered here and in a variety of other places over the last several years, never have I seen a warning that you may experience mental health problems if you do it badly, or too much, or whatever.
> Those are very different and learning from an experienced practitioner is important.
Oh I'm sure they are, and I'm sure it is. Do you have evidence that the author was not learning from experienced practitioners? Or are you merely knee-jerking to the defence of something you personally like?
> Your idea that this person was 'doing it wrong' is quite a hand-wavy posture to start with, especially as the author finds that such problems have been described by experienced practitioners.
How they handled it and went about it was wrong. Actual experienced practicioners may face those problems (see dukkha nanas / the dark night of the soul), but with proper instructors there are well-known ways of dealing with it.
> The article mentions whom ... the great and the good that attend and throw conferences, those that throw workshops and run retreats
What I was getting at is that <what> is ambiguous. "Mindfulness" is anywhere from jhana, "intensive meditation", etc, to more elements of stoicism. Practicing stoicism has just about nothing that can actively harm anyone or is dangerous. As pointed out in this article's discussion, the author has been conflating terminology which demonstrates a lack of understanding.
> Do you have evidence that the author was not learning from experienced practitioners?
Firstly, problems like the ones described in the article are well-known. Knowledgeable instructors are upfront about them and provide frameworks and guidance for dealing with them, instead of, as per the article, just "suggesting various ways that I might alter my meditation practice to alleviate my symptoms".
This looks to me like a case of the blind leading the blind in a consumerized and repackaged version of meditation that advertises "mindfulness/meditation" as a cure-all for one's problems. There is a reason that Transmission [0] is a thing. Just like even if I practice guitar for 10 years, that doesn't mean I'm actually qualified to teach it or provide useful guidance.
But the point stands, if the most popular method of teaching guitar is wrong and can lead to serious injury then potential students need to be aware of the risks.
This guy didn't do anything that the majority of meditators in the West aren't doing. Taking such a serious piece of advice from a book by some random guy (who seems like a nutjob) is a particularly foolish thing to do but the authors mindset that led him to that decision isn't an outlier. To recap he
- Had no teacher
- Mix and matched various concepts and techniques from different traditions that he inevitably had a poor / loose understanding of
- Had a drug and alcohol problem
- Trained an intense schedule for years
And when he got himself into a bind none of the teachers he went to could help him out because they are all doing the same thing, more or less, minus the drugs and alcohol.
> that just goes to prove the point, that what's being taught and lauded so much as a panacea by some in the western world is potentially dangerous?
I'm not an expert or even regular meditator but I can understand some of the defensiveness here. There is an analogy I think holds up: Imagine a headline "How I hurt myself exercising", in a world where people are so unfamiliar with the idea of physical exercise they may arrive at the conclusion that exercise is dangerous.
The word meditation these days just means almost any sort of mental exercise. They could be totally different exercises, with totally different goals.
The sort of meditation that is often praised and practiced by the general public is usually something like 15 minute attempts to relax and be undistracted, in a world with constant distractions. The sort of meditation that you see people write about mental breakdowns about are usually 10 day silent retreats where you try to accept the impermanence of all things or achieve ego death or something.
It seems very similar to the dangers of physical exercise. In some types of exercise like weightlifting, technique is important to avoid injury, but you can still get injured with correct technique. Some extreme sports are inherently risky. Even doing light exercise some people may get unlucky and have a heart attack.
But despite all this saying "exercise is risky" is probably too broad a generalization. I think especially the sort of meditation you see commonly talked about and praised in mainstream culture is pretty far off from these intense 10 day retreats that the negative experiences are usually about.
So many saying some variation of "he's not doing it right". Yet with ten years of practice, it doesn't seem like this person was just dabbling or dipping their toe in the water.
Surely, even if they are "doing it wrong" that just goes to prove the point, that what's being taught and lauded so much as a panacea by some in the western world is potentially dangerous? And such dangers are downplayed or hand-waved away?