> I cycled through these noticings. Just like on the beach a few years prior, for a moment I felt that there was no distinction between me, the train, the tunnel, and the space we were all moving through. Nothing to grip or hold on to.
I like to imagine what the Earth and everything on it looks like to a neutrino.
In the last few years or so I've been practicing letting go the compulsion to be doing Something Else in addition to the Main Thing I'm doing. For example: the urge to listen to a podcast while I'm doing the dishes. Among the worst is the urge to listen to music while I'm listening to music, or the desire to play a videogame while I'm reading a book to my child. Part of this change is because I don't want to break any more dishes for lack of attention, but also because attending to the Main Thing feels more valuable now in that if it doesn't require 100% focus my mind can wander, or just let the neutrinos stream through, and afterwards I appreciate the break.
Great piece! I’ve had a rambling zen practice for over 20 years and little of it has been the tranquil, peaceful experience that people imply when they colloquially call something ‘zen’. But totally worth it. And as you rightly pointed out, the act of just noticing can be done in motion as well as at rest. Thx for sharing…
Btw, I’m a big fan of Shinzen Young who has a secular/scientific(-ish) approach that combines various world traditions in a hybrid sorta MMA does with martial arts.
Love Shinzen! His Outline for Practice was fundamental in me discovering that there are different meditation maps that present different flavors of “progress”/“realization”
Thank you for mentioning Shinzen Young, I didn't know about him and just checked his website. It looks like there's some crossover with Sam Harris' "Waking Up" [1], do you happen to know how they compare?
I was in a similar rut for a while. I had a sense that meditation could help me deal with various mental health issues, but I couldn't do it: I just spent my sessions being bored and annoyed with myself. I tried picking it up many times but never got momentum.
After a few years of this I finally bit the bullet and went on a 10-day meditation retreat. ~12 hours a day of meditating, no books or talking or exercise. The first days were tough, all that boredom and irritation was still there and I had to sit with it for many, many hours. But I felt like I'd made a big commitment in going there, so I sat it out. The solidarity of a couple dozen other students going through the same thing helped a lot too, even if we weren't supposed to acknowledge each other's existence.
On the third or fourth day a switch kind of flipped in my brain and it was no longer hard to sit perfectly still for an hour.
At that point I guess I had learned the basic skill of meditating, and it's stuck with me. As long as I'm somewhere reasonably quiet and distraction-free I can get back into that state within a few minutes.
Also, as a side note, some of the Buddhist philosophy was also helpful. I originally perceived mental illness as similar to physical disease: people are generally healthy, and sometimes there's something wrong with you that needs to be treated and corrected, usually by a doctor of some kind. In Buddhism the script is flipped: existence is suffering by default, and most people require some kind of deliberate work to come to terms with their own existence. I get that it won't resonate with everyone, but in my case it helped a lot to view what I was going through as a manifestation of ordinary human suffering rather than some special, unusually intractable mental health condition.
EDIT: Also, shit gets intense when you keep ratcheting up your concentration and introspection. Getting past the boredom and being able to sit still for an hour is just a first step.
Pretty much cold, yeah. I'd meditated 10-20 minutes occasionally over a few years but never kept up a habit for more than a week. I didn't read very much on the subject either, although I did read Sam Harris's "waking up", which is what convinced me that a retreat was the best way to learn meditation.
I'd recommend trying to find a place with qualified teachers. I went to a Goenka retreat (i.e. dhamma.org) and there were some weird things about it: all the teaching was done through 30-year recordings of a guy who's been dead for 10 years. The facilitators actually present at the retreat were his "assistant teachers", and in my case they didn't seem to have a lot of expertise. They seemed to be following Goenka's script and were reluctant to deviate. I think everyone there really meant well and had no ulterior motives, but there were cult-y vibes nonetheless. If you can put up with that and are willing to work through difficulties largely on your own then maybe I'd recommend it. I had a great experience, in the end. The food and facilities were also quite nice.
Also, I had some intense experiences that I would have thought were only possible with psychedelic drugs. It really scared me at one point: I was sure I was losing my mind. I almost asked to be taken to a hospital and put on antipsychotics. I think there is a chance that if I had done that, things would have gone very badly for me.
The other people on the retreat with me apparently did not have experiences like this. But it's not unique to me. [1]
Just go into it with an appreciation that you're attempting something significant and powerful and probably (at least for now) a bit outside of rational understanding.
It was worthwhile for me. I had a hard time justifying taking 10 days away from everything, but ultimately I convinced myself that it would be exciting to spend 10 days doing something wildly different from what I've done basically every other day for the last couple of years. Variety of experience is a good thing, right? :)
I don't understand Goenka. It's an extremely intense experience to do unless you are very experienced. The total hands off approach of the "assistant teachers" is extremely dangerous. These retreats are more intense than most Zen retreats. Bizarre and dangerous
Siddhartha is a fantastic book, it changed how I look at pain, love, and everything in-between. I recommend even if you're like me and don't want to meditate to read Siddhartha, it helped me step out of my own headspace into a way of thinking that actively tries to step further and further out from myself.
Just wanted to add that Hermann Hesse is a wonderful writer, and that I thoroughly enjoyed his other works as well (except, for some reason, The Glass Bead Game).
When I was 12-13 I used to have trouble falling asleep, since I'd be thinking of anything stressful from the day. I fixed it with a form of meditation - thinking about nothing was impossible, I forced myself to think of fantasies when I'm trying to go to sleep instead of anything real. It has worked well for me for 20 years.
My meditation is a very personal thing. I mention it to others but never in much detail. Being alone with myself is one of the aspects of meditation I value the most.
So for 10 years, the author read some books, occasionally did sitting meditation but only briefly and not getting anywhere, took no classes, got guidance from no teachers, did no retreats, etc, and ends the piece with a teaser for the next article/email.
I feel like if someone wrote that they wanted to understand computation, and over the course of 10 years they read Godel Escher Bach and some Smullyan puzzles, and occasionally pulled up a python interpreter to play with stuff for minutes at a time, and each time got bored and gave up, we wouldn't find it especially interesting that they hadn't reached any deep and satisfying understanding.
I'd like to be a better cook, and I read through Salt Fat Acid Heat and sometimes I try to make something more planned and effortful than I normally would, but over the past 10 years I have taken no cooking classes, made only sporadic efforts to learn more, and so I'm not surprised that my ability in the kitchen hasn't changed much.
What you get out of an endeavor is related to what you put in.
But if you have difficulty sticking with it, maybe introduce stuff in your life that helps you maintain that effort? My meditation practice was most consistent when I was doing a class that met weekly. In addition to guidance and instruction, there was always some component of sharing or discussing experiences, asking questions, etc. Even if it's not a "sangha" per se, having a regular, structured, social interaction attached to your practice can really help. As can having a more knowledgeable teacher, rather than just a pile of books.
Author here. Yes exactly! Intellectually that is 100% correct. In practice, as many others in the discussion have remarked, sustaining a meditation practice past the initial barriers is hard (as is learning programming, btw). Everyone brings their own baggage. Mine was that I thought I should be able to do it all on my own. :shrugs: Not surprisingly, I had the same experience with computer science before finding a teacher + community.
Thanks for your comment, not a fan of the snark but the content is great.
In all seriousness, I think my snark was in reaction to my impression that the content was really lacking. It feels like the intent was more to bulk out content and cultivate an audience than actually help or usefully inform your readers. You described a very common problem at some length, and some things which _didn't_ resolve your search, and then without reaching a solution, you just tell us to come back next time for more content ... possibly but not necessarily including what actually helped you develop a practice.
I empathize with the unsatisfying search. But I question the value of describing _only_ the unsatisfying portion of the search as a means to promote your next article.
I understand the cynicism about Substack thoughtbois. I send my emails to a very small group of people I’ve met in real life, and we chat and discuss many of these topics in person.
Question away! If I don’t stick the landing on the follow-up email (which I’m still working on - original email got too long hence the truncation), you can say that you were right ;)
I have practiced Autogenic Training for years on and off; for the past two years I have been practicing it regularly. I have observed very positive effects on my life, particularly a growing sense of confidence and enjoyment in and for life. When physical and emotional tensions are let go, old memories come back vividly in my mind, new hopes emerge, and my life seems to be made up of fragments that, on the whole, seem to make sense. My tension headaches are gone, poof, vanished.
Autogenic training is an easy practice, much easier than traditional meditation practices, the teachings of which are, at least to my Western mind, impenetrable. I have read quite a few books on meditation, breathing, jhanas (sp?), listened to practitioners and teachers, and for the life of me I cannot make sense of 95 percent of it. In part, I think, my confusion occurs because those teachings don't make a lot of sense, there is an intellectual short-circuit that causes people to create concepts and practices that don't make sense because they have to "chase" or follow or build on other concepts and practices that don't make a lot of sense. A vicious circle of nonsense.
Something similar happens in martial arts. Movies and books showed the mystical and magical abilities of traditional martial arts practitioners: breathing, ki energy, horse postures, "watch how the eagle soars." I think, at least for Westerners, the pinnacle and climax was reached with Bruce Lee, who philosophized and kicked (but never on stage against other "experts") at the same time. And not with the brutal methods of Western boxing, but with a single finger.
But, as we saw in mixed martial arts fights, empiricism-as usual and as expected-won out against magic, spirits and brutal training that made no sense; fighters who trained following empirical methods of training and fighting (develop the methods, test them, accept them if they work, abandon them if they don't) were throwing traditional martial arts practitioners out the proverbial window.
I would encourage many of those who have tried traditional meditation for years and faced all sorts of problems, from losing months to developing pathological conditions, to try Autogenic Training instead: easy, rewarding, accessible. And it works.
There is little material in English, while much more is available in German, Italian, and Spanish.
In English, I recommend "Autogenic Training.
A Mind-Body Approach to the Treatment of Fibromyalgia and Chronic Pain Syndrome," by Micah R. Sadigh, Roberto Patarca Montero (Part II and Part III).
I gave up after about 1,5 years which included a while year of almost daily body scans die about half an hour an even a full on Vipassana retreat. While my practice seemed to improve somewhat i simply didn't perceive any benefits within my psyche. It would not even calm me down. In the end it just didn't feel like it was worth the time investment.
These days i will pay attention to my breath at times when i cannot fall asleep. And that's about it.
Meditation does help me to become less reactive.
focus, observe thoughts but don't react to thoughts.
Goal is to eventually become observer than reacter. When done consistently, the subsconcious mind will learn it. You overall stop reacting in-general.
My biggest advice for anyone is to not ignore the traditional advice. Secular meditation practises based on Buddhist meditation take the practise out of its context in a quick and forceful way. Buddhism has had 2500 years to slowly develop and work out what works and what does not. It is quite dangerous to take it and call the parts that do not immediately appeal to the secular western mind, like devotion, worship, compassion, traditional forms & rituals, and cast them away. I personally know two people who went into severe psychosis and depression by trying to practise meditation in a secular context. Something about meditation attracts people that think they fully understand something before they’ve even tried it. This will get torn down by the practise, and if you do not have support in place, this quickly can result in extreme mental health problems. I always say that the effects of meditation can be like the head space of an lsd trip except you don’t come down. It’s hard to “unsee”, and a lot of this religious “backwards” Buddhist worldview and practise exists specifically to integrate these experiences
I don't know. This still feels heavy in the propaganda realm. Which... to be clear, propaganda works. Turns out, telling people directly how and what to feel is more effective than makes sense.
That is, looking at it as 2500 years of successfully developing what works is hiding a lot of the failure that has accompanied things in that same time span. Is akin to saying that the religions that avoid certain foods are on to something, because no way something like that would stick without a solid reason.
To that end, the folks you know that had a mental breakdown. Is there a counterfactual world where they did not have a breakdown by avoiding meditation? Or by picking it up with a new religion? My priors are low that that is the case, but I would be delighted to learn more.
It’s very new to us, why would we assume we have a perfect system for understanding it? It isn’t a toy to play with. Far more scientific research is needed before it’s safe to do in a secular context.
Isn't this true of all frames? I feel that I could claim the same for science and religion as things, as well.
Note that I'm fine pushing for caution on folks wanting to take up any practice. This would go as well for folks that think a running practice will help them. Maybe. At best.
I've been noticing an increasing trend of people saying things like this, and I don't get it. Meditation has many forms and traditions, within and without Buddhism. Which ones are "safe" and which ones aren't? Is using Headspace twice a week enough to be dangerous, or is there some lower bound where meditation practice without Buddhist beliefs switches from harmless to dangerous? And are Hindu or Christian meditation practices dangerous, or just the secular stuff? What precisely is the nature of this danger?
> I personally know two people who went into severe psychosis and depression by trying to practise meditation in a secular context.
Sorry, but I simply can't believe this. I mean I believe you have two friends with mental health issues, but I don't believe that psychosis can be triggered in a normal person by practicing "secular meditation". That's an extreme claim that requires a lot of evidence.
> And are Hindu or Christian meditation practices dangerous, or just the secular stuff? What precisely is the nature of this danger?
I don't think the argument is usually "meditation without Buddhism is dangerous" but rather "meditation techniques taken from their context can be dangerous". Regular mindfulness or insight meditation can cause shifts in mental state that a person isn't used to and they may not have the tools required to deal with it in a healthy manner.
It's like the mental equivalent of a normal person suddenly starting the same workout routine as an professional athlete, or even just an experienced weightlifter. They might be able to do the exercises, but they don't have the context provided by having a coach/being in the sport/etc to provide them with tools like "how to fall properly" or "knowing a torn muscle versus a normal sprain". That doesn't mean that doing the exercises in general are bad or that you need to do sport foo in order to exercise.
>That's an extreme claim that requires a lot of evidence.
For what it's worth, I Don't think it's an extreme claim at all.
The potential for ill-effects from more extreme efforts in Meditation is starting to be documented by western scientists. A lot of adverse outcomes aren't only possible, but actually quite common.
I personally had ZERO prior mental health issues, but after 3-4 months of meditating 30-90 minutes everyday in addition to fairly intense mindfulness practice throughout the day, I started to experience a lot of issues: strange emotional outbursts disconnected from any memory or thought, anger management issues, tension headaches, depression, etc.
These ultimately only resolved by stopping meditation entirely for a long time and only carefully reintroducing it in smaller less frequent doses.
I think this stuff is actually pretty typical for folks who progress to a certain stage. I experienced it as well, if that makes you feel any better.
The Buddhists definitely know about this, but a lot of their writing is pretty impenetrable and interlaced with weird metaphysics. Here's some modern, secular words on the subject (from the admittedly controversial author Daniel Ingram):
I think a very small fraction of people actually meditate enough to get to that point. Meditating 90 minutes a day (plus the constant mindfulness practice) is pretty extreme by most people's standards (at least in US secular culture).
Yeah, it came as a real shock to me at first. I had made many mistakes in my early meditation career. But I learned a lot more and suddenly started progressing. This was wonderful at first. I started to feel and experience some pretty mind-blowing things on the cushion at first and then extending well off the cushion into the rest of my life. Then... I remember random memories started to kind of pop into my awareness. I started to see a bright light shining through my eyes/head while I was on the cushion. This was accompanied by these almost divine feelings of bliss and content, which sometimes extended for hours after my sit. This was very cool at first. Then... this weird head pressure and uncomfortable feeling between my eyes started showing up. My single pointed focus was impossible to maintain because the intense feeling of pressure between my eyes or on the crown of my head would grow more and more distracting as I tried to regain the single pointed focus I had been enjoying. Then... shortly after that, the pressure turned into full tension headaches that lasted all day on bad days. Then... I was working in my office at home one day and my vision suddenly became blurry. Then, I started to feel nauseous. I went to throw up, I could feel the usual feelings of vomiting coming up from my abdomen, then up my throat, then... when it reached my mouth/face, instead of vomit this wave of intense sadness reached my face and it contorted into an expression of anguish. For the next like 30 minutes, wave after wave of this sadness, in every nuanced flavor I'd ever experienced started coming up, taking over my face, then passing. Then the rage. So much anger and rage and betrayel and hurt came and did the same thing. Wave after wave. I had NO idea WTF was happening to me, but I'd always been an absolute pinnacle of mental stability so this was very unusual. I didn't know what else to do but to let it pass.
After that, for months, the head pressure / headaches would reappear and then they'd be relieved by me crying. Feeling the intense feelings and going away.
But... I really wasn't expecting any of that. I just wanted to be able to focus better and think more clearly. I didn't sign up for THIS. So I just let it go and fade. I didn't really want to accidentally screw my brain up. So, unfortunately, I haven't started a daily practice again since. It all did feel pretty cathartic though.
I've dabbled here and there with meditating again. When I do it with any real regularity though, the head pressure tends to come back.
Those are the kind of things that make me stay away from deeper forms of meditation and mindfulness.
Also, I'm not very fond of taking the traditional advice so literally. These sources focus solely on training new Buddhist monks, and most people doing secular practice just want some peace of mind while they continue their, productivity focused, western lifestyle.
We need to take these sources with a grain of salt and reorient our practice so that it cultivates more peace of mind without making us implode when the cultivated buddhist mindset creates a conflict with our western lifestyle
Wow, thanks for sharing. I have no advice to offer but maybe an experienced teacher could help.
I've experienced intense emotional swings like you describe but not the pain or pressure. The emotional swings at least were something I was able to get through, eventually. They were strong for a while but stopped with continued practice. I'm definitely still more sensitive than I was before. I feel both positive and negative feelings more intensely, but hold onto them less.
> The Buddhists definitely know about this, but a lot of their writing is pretty impenetrable and interlaced with weird metaphysics. Here's some modern, secular words on the subject:
This and linking MCTB (of all things) are the exact dangerous taking out of context I’m warning against. Daniel Ingram is a terrible resource, he should not be recommended
You seem pretty experienced in this stuff. I agree with a lot of what you're saying in this thread: meditation can be dangerous and should be taken more seriously. Treating it as on par with a psychedelic therapy sounds about right.
Here's where I think we differ: a lot of people in secular western culture are intensely put off by all the religious stuff that comes with Buddhism. The metaphysics and reincarnation stuff is, in my view, a reflection of the culture that Siddhartha Gautama grew up in and taught in, rather than a necessary part of eliminating suffering. I think that retelling these lessons in a way that's accessible to modern audiences is important. Some people simply will not accept something taught in the form of ancient mysticism. Should those people be denied insight just because they didn't grow up in India during the Iron Age?
I get that Ingram is polarizing. I'll add a link to Mahasi Sayadaw as well, but I just don't think he explains things in a way that's as clear to someone with my cultural background.
I also had some of those side effects. I also had a trippy period, where I struggled to see anything as real. It was about a 2 week long solipsistic nightmare. I do think this is all “part of the path”, but without the traditional context, you will be quite lost on what to do next. Even with it, it’s very difficult
I would say it’s an increasing trend because people who are more invested in the traditions have “had enough” of so called “mcmindfulness” or dangerous approaches
If what you say is true, then it should be trivially easy to find an app that promotes these dangerous practices, find their daily active users, then check the reviews and find a high percentage (>10%) of negative reviews saying something like, "1/5, cannot recommend, after using this app every day for three months, I'm now experiencing horrible mental health issues".
There are plenty of apps out there with millions of daily active users. What percentage of those users do you expect to suffer negative mental health side effects? Where is the evidence that they exist at all?
I would guess that about 5 to 10% of people who seriously try the practise for an extended period experience very scary and potentially trauma inducing effects
I can use Google, and found this [1] article claiming over 4 million DAUs for Calm in June of 2020, with trendlines going up and to the right.
So the lower bound of your estimate gives us ~200,000 people who would be adversely affected. Looking through negative reviews, it's all complaints about pricing and paywalls. The same is true for Headspace, the second biggest app in this space (I don't have DAUs for them, but it's got about half as many downloads and reviews, so let's assume less than half as big).
I can't find a single complaint about adverse mental health effects, which doesn't mean it never happens, but it's not anywhere close to 5%.
I'm going to call bs on your claim that you "personally know two people who went into severe psychosis and depression".
Since we're in "my personal experience"-land, I've been meditating and have been around people who meditate daily for 26 years. Never seen or heard about anything close to what you describe.
Out of a study of about a thousand people who were asked to start a daily meditation process (with weekly check-ins), about 20% reported at least one negative episode.
Now, that included everything from "feeling sad" to full blown panic attack.
I'll see if I can dig up that particular study. Here is a similar one which tracked longterm meditators:
27 subjects is a pretty low number of people to base this one. In any scientific paper, doesn't Hacker News get super uppity about the small number? I seem to think this one should be treated the same way.
My reading of this is we can't make claims like X% practicioners have negative outcomes - the numbers are too messy. We can definitely say a significant amount of practictioners do have negative outcomes.
But, those negative outcomes are wide and while they include suicide, depression and panic attacks, the majority of them are things like anxiety.
You are digging into and tinkering with your psyche. Of course there are going to be negative outcomes. I would be more skeptical if the claim was meditation did something and never had negative effects.
I push back against the "of course there are going to be negative outcomes." The evidence at hand is strictly that there are depressed people and that panic attacks and suicidal tendencies exist. Unless the studies show a significant uptick in how many people feel these after starting meditation, this feels akin to the logic people use to show that vaccines cause autism.
I think we should generally be risk averse when the stakes are high. Telling someone to meditate is like telling them to trip, but without them even realising it is a trip, building up over time. It is quite dangerous. I mentioned those two people who had issues but I have others, maybe four or five, who are unsure if they would have embarked on this experience if they knew
I believe it, I personally experienced something like a psychotic episode while on a meditation retreat. Also a panic attack, a few hours before that. No prior history of panic attacks or psychosis.
I actually think that some of the benefits of meditation are adjacent to psychosis, in a way: as you get closer to the "insight" that is the intended result of Buddhist meditation, you are also flirting with losing your grip on reality.
In my case, it went fine. I resolved the experience and integrated it. But I could see how it might go the other way for some.
Professor Britton at Brown has made a career of studying these kinds of experiences, plenty of examples here:
Yeah, I'm not sure what the difference is between the people who come away from the experienced more "enlightened" vs just more insane.
It kind of feels like an all-or-nothing thing: once you start to "see through the illusion of self", you have to follow that through to its logical conclusion or you'll be stuck living with intense cognitive dissonance.
I don't generally like to talk about this stuff too much because it sounds absolutely nuts to people who haven't experienced it.
This was specifically a group who practise based on Daniel Ingrams book MTCB, which is largely imo based on generating intense insight experiences as quickly as possible. Perhaps you did not have experience with such people
On the other hand, be careful - meditation in the context of Buddhism is a marketing funnel backed by 2500 years of experience. It systematically breaks down your value system and replaces it with one that puts Buddhist practice at the core. So if you’re not looking for a religious awakening don’t take any of their advice too seriously.
Yes, it will break down your values. Unfortunately if you have the taste of bodhicitta: the mind that wants to awaken and liberate yourself and others from suffering, then you will mostly be forced to do it. I don’t recommend meditation or Buddhism for all, it will change your life in many ways that you will consider bad from your current point of view. Less motivation for tackling stressful tasks, less romantic attachment, less hunger for new experiences, often an increased neurosis, etc.
EDIT: I find it quite horrifying that doctors prescribe it now. If you follow the doctors advice, mindfulness meditation every day, properly, then the doctor does not understand where that will take you. It is not a known thing for them. It only is “safe” because most people don’t actually bother doing it regularly or put effort in
Hmm not really, just the general side effects that cause people to go deeper into the practise. I saw a study that said that meditation can increase selfishness or neurosis, but other than that I only have anecdotal evidence. The whole thing is about realising your attachments are fake, and that so is your perception of the world, and realising that on a deep level. Obviously priorities will shift due to this
Are you describing something which can happen without proper technique/guidance or something which inevitably happens? And I guess I'm wondering the same for the rest of your list of changes.
Author here. This is so spot on. I spent years avoiding the traditional practices/concepts because of a desire to be Someone Special (spiritual materialism). Burning that desire is probably one of the more profound early experiences of formal practice I’ve had with a teacher and a community. Wish I had the humility to avoid those 10 wandering years.
Disclaimer: This is probably going to make me sound crazy but perhaps it’s fitting.
In a deeply meditative state you can open up yourself to a spiritual state of perception. In this transcendental state you can attract other spiritual and ethereal entities. Not all of which are benevolent.
Lots of the meditative mantras, prayers and rituals perhaps are meant to ward off negative entities and even perhaps attract compassionate and positive spiritual forces
In a sense train yourself to open the door to different states of mind … this and of itself doesn’t equal enlightenment or happiness.
Yes, in the realm of emptiness (which we are never apart from) we can directly touch Buddhas and bodhisattvas, since we are never separate from them anyway. Buddhist practise helps us see this directly
Absolutely meditation is just one part of 8 part Hindu Yoga system objective of which is to be one with the ultimate reality and live a good life no matter what. Person grown with strong Abrahmic values with find it confusing any strange.
After reading Bhagwad Geeta I realised that yoga/meditation is all about discharging your duties with no expectations. I won't say I am transformed but my life do change for good by a huge margin after realising this.
The people who have popularized meditation in the west, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzburg, Joseph Goldstein, zinn, all come at it from the Buddhist tradition.
It’s a useful approach for treating various medical problems. Anything, even nothing, can cause psychosis.
This is minimising the risks, and those people you mention, while being from traditional backgrounds, afaik do not teach traditional practises, so they have effectively removed the wider framework
Meditation is not “as safe as sitting down”. It has strong life altering risks
For those dealing with chronic pain, insomnia and other debilitating conditions, these people offer a lot that cannot be achieved through other means. Opiates or benzodiazepines are more readily available, and preferred by mainstream medicine, but they too can alter one’s life. Anything can alter one’s life if you think about it.
Zen Buddhism is not secular at all. It is a traditional form of Mahayana Buddhism. In China and Vietnam Zen Buddhists practise Pure Land extensively. Dogen in Japan, the creator of Soto Zen, was heavily invested in the Lotus sutra and mentioned rebirth constantly. Where did you learn that it is secular? This is not true
Contemplation is one use of our brains. It usually means focusing on an idea.
Meditation can mean many different things, but in the mindfulness sense, it usually means engaging in awareness and observing metacognition instead of cognition. This usually means observing the flow of mind, body, feelings, and truth. It isn't a process of shutting down.
I like to imagine what the Earth and everything on it looks like to a neutrino.
In the last few years or so I've been practicing letting go the compulsion to be doing Something Else in addition to the Main Thing I'm doing. For example: the urge to listen to a podcast while I'm doing the dishes. Among the worst is the urge to listen to music while I'm listening to music, or the desire to play a videogame while I'm reading a book to my child. Part of this change is because I don't want to break any more dishes for lack of attention, but also because attending to the Main Thing feels more valuable now in that if it doesn't require 100% focus my mind can wander, or just let the neutrinos stream through, and afterwards I appreciate the break.