Let's face it, unfortunate suffering arises. Not everyone is cut out for Guriji's 12 hour meditation session. I'm not. How about 2 seconds of meditation? What is meditation? How long? Where? in a 102 degree F room or subzero little hut? Are you alone in solitary or with people? Is focusing on Guriji's toy poodle a part of the style? Seriously are you really ready ? It's not a game or vacation to shangri la. I think a little self-awareness would have helped prevent these tragedies. There were errors in judgement with the meditation center in not contacting the attendee's provider regardless of sign off (imho with inpatient psychiatric ward, MBSR, basic Satipatthana/Vipassana experience) All of my meditation teachers, instructed: practice to your comfort level. Heck they let you sit in a chair?! It's not a race; there's no winning. Consistency, not more is key. I have not met any 20 year meditators who are "enlightened." They still go to the toilet like everyone else. The Dalai Lama gave good advice in the reply, study and understand what you're getting into before leaping into practice. Well, who knows maybe we can extrapolate Britton's 71.6% "moderate to severe impairment in their day-to-day functioning" on all meditating monks and nuns of the world. What a crazy psychotic bunch! No actually, I'd pin that on the "mindfulness" industry and the infantile society we have become.
> I'd pin that on the "mindfulness" industry and the infantile society we have become
I think that’s the gist of the article, but maybe the author could have been more explicit. The “mindfulness” movement detached meditation from its source and repackaged it for consumerist society. On the receiving end, users of “Calm” or “Headspace” purchase a product with an incomplete warning label... but perhaps if we were more mature spiritually we wouldn’t go venturing so naively into hazardous territory while being so ill-equipped to deal with what’s out there (or “in here”, as it were).
In addition, one could also infer from the article that the original purpose of meditation was to break from the cycle of infinite reincarnations by means of bringing the mind in a disassociative state with reality (life on earth). I understand that the psychotic state overlaps with a disassocative state.
I also understood that it is common knowledge that meditating a lot leads to insommia and that even meditating more than 30 minutes per day as a measurable effect on sleep quality. So, it seems that meditation is only useful when you believe in reincarnation and believe it is the only way for escaping the endless wheel of reincarnation. If you believe you have but one life, it is probably not the best method to benefit from that one life.
