tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post7910605076953762738..comments2024-03-26T06:17:49.527-07:00Comments on Had Enough Therapy?: Is Meditation Risky?Stuart Schneidermanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12784043736879991769noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-5083182333500235822015-05-24T18:39:31.106-07:002015-05-24T18:39:31.106-07:00Read the book, A Death on Diamond Mountain by Scot...Read the book, A Death on Diamond Mountain by Scott Carney. <br /><br />This man was definitely NOT helped by meditation. It killed him in the end. <br /><br />But he took to extremes. Annehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13041676434895574477noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-87049023746811203432015-05-24T18:31:36.385-07:002015-05-24T18:31:36.385-07:00It is risky if road to nirvana has a dead man'...It is risky if road to nirvana has a dead man's curve. priss rulesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-35390212815393471822015-05-24T01:08:00.086-07:002015-05-24T01:08:00.086-07:00The Chinese have an idiom, zou huo ru mo, that tra...The Chinese have an idiom, <i>zou huo ru mo</i>, that translates roughly as, <i>running into fire, possessed by devils</i>, to describe a kind of psychosis that can result from excessive or wayward meditation. Hearing it from time to time in my youth, I always felt that the expression meant that someone has dabbled foolishly in magic or magical thinking, a selfish pursuit, and made themselves wickedly ill. It seemed to me a poignantly <i>face losing</i> pathos.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-15967947222858101092015-05-23T11:31:57.585-07:002015-05-23T11:31:57.585-07:00re: If its adepts rationalize it by saying that it...re: If its adepts rationalize it by saying that it merely brings out underlying problems, at the least they are saying that it does not treat or cure.<br /><br />I'll agree with this statement, both the rationalization as true, and the consequences that awareness of self is not simply helpful without learning new skills.<br /><br />This subject also reminds me of an apparent quote from Dalai Lama, and this cautionary response.<br />http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2012/11/15/why-the-dalai-lama-is-wrong-to-think-meditation-will-eliminate-violence/<br />“If every 8 year old in the world is taught meditation, we will eliminate violence from the world within one generation.”<br /><br />So we can accept things are not so simple, we have to consider the risks are similar to how drugs affects people, like alcohol can be said to reduce inhibitions, so a person with repressed rage is more likely to express that rage if he's triggered under the influence of alcohol.<br /><br />So meditation might offer something similar, giving you access to fragmented subpersonalities that you don't have regular conscious awareness of, and so just like a married couple needs good communication skills, our fragmented selves may compete for attention and dominance and so in states like meditation, which includes a sense of surrender, or receptivity, that our lesser selves are going to arise and make us uncomfortable.<br /><br />In parallel I remember reading a split between Freud and Jung was that Freud saw the unconscious as primarily dark, irrational and savage, so needed to be repressed, while Jung was more open to looking deeper into what his own unconscious had to say, and although it disturbed him, he had methods to not associate these unsconscious voices directly with self, but as archetypes, like human instincts to meet certain needs, so they could be heard for what they are, and not as something that needed to be followed. So whatever comes up from meditation might include some of this.<br /><br />Probably both Freud and Jung would agree that individual awareness of the unconscious can be disturbing and frightening to individuals who don't know what they are experiencing.<br /><br />I accept the idea that a social identity can be a useful and even necessary counter-balance against chaotic inner experiences that might arise from any "altered states" of awareness whether drugs or dreams or meditation.<br /><br />But the other side is that all "culture" also contains its own necessary "cognitive dissonance", things you have to know to be true, but know can't be talked about because its not polite, and so whatever "fragmented inner selves" that exist, probably they are in part reflections of "fragmented social selves."<br /><br />So its nice to believe in the hippy world "We're all people who need people", but there's also craziness going on in any culture, and so if your meditation is disturbing, it might be that something of your social self is disturbing and needs integration?<br /><br />Anyway, I've never seriously tried meditation, but found journal writing as helpful for releasing emotion-tinged thoughts, and contrasting how they change over time. So if any single disturbing thought arises, I can step back and remember other states of mind.<br /><br />But perhaps most people would rather keep their unconscious hidden, and stay within a closed community that all believes the same comforting lies that hold the inner chaos at bay.<br /><br />I mock it perhaps, but more out of despair to see most people prefer comforting lies than stark truths<br /><br />Psychologist Robert Moore calls this "protection against the numinous," ways we protect ourselves from inner forces, that might overwhelm us unprepared.<br /><br />I've also read about the sense of a "container", using physical and ritual structures to separate ordinary and sacred time and space, and it makes sense this is best done in a religious community where others can help guide us through disturbing experiences.Ares Olympushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09726811306826601686noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8078379512095504946.post-55115352720451654232015-05-23T10:25:00.073-07:002015-05-23T10:25:00.073-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.Ares Olympushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09726811306826601686noreply@blogger.com