Recent articles describe over a quarter of people that practice meditation have bad experiences.
Here's my take.
I have taught meditation for over 15 years now and have practiced for well over 40 years. I have had bad experiences or bad trips while meditating and because of meditating. I have had many of my 'students' (I think of people that practice with me as more of a colleague than a student even though I am going through the steps of how, when, where, why and what to meditate about.) report difficulties, bad trips and unpleasant experiences. This is how I help people through and past those times.
I read four different articles from four different sources that turn out to be the same article, lightly massaged to appear different and had different titles. This seemed to become a big topic around 2018 or so. Now there are even associations that can help you if you have had bad experiences with mediation. Here are the links to those articles.
In the training and practice that I do, meditation is a part of daily life. So it only makes sense that 25% of meditation and life is going to have unpleasant experiences. Meditation is designed to help us effectively deal with 'bad trips', unpleasantness, and... you guessed it... suffering. This is the whole idea of the Buddha dharma or the teachings and truth of Buddhism itself. The idea of practice is to get ready for something. No one goes to practice thinking it is the real deal, the end of suffering. You need plenty of coaching, guidance, re-dos and discussion to really get the process. You cannot just sit down for 20 minutes and expect your mind to do what you want it to. You have spent your whole life training to be reactionary. It is going to take practice, effort, time and patience to just see it IS reactionary much less train it to not be reactionary.
QUICK FIX
The problem with meditation as it is taught currently by some is that it is somehow taught as a destination rather than a journey. We all want a quick fix without putting in any real work. Time and time again I hear people say to me 'I need to start meditating' , they may show up a couple times and then say they cannot practice for what ever reason. We seem to want a quick and intensive training to get years of practice into just a couple days. Look at how many seminars and workshops offer weekend transformational 'life changing' techniques. Occasionally some find huge benefit from them and it does indeed change their lives but the vast majority just go back to the rut of their 'normal lives' within a few days of the retreat.
Regular meditation
One of the articles even specifically mentioned 'regular meditators' which was a good distinction from those that are just starting out or those that occasionally 'try' meditation. However, many that are regular meditators are not really even meditating, they are ruminating. I had a "Meetup" group for over five years, with over a thousand 'members'. Most never showed up. Less than five percent became regular at their meditation and of those only about one percent of the thousand progressed to at least notice when they were ruminating.
Ruminating is re-chewing something over and over. Cows are called ruminants because they 'chew their cud'. They belch up stomach contents to re-chew it for digestive purposes. Many people do the same thing, running it over and over in the mind, trying to find another answer, or simply just attempting to think the problem to death. This is what I see many do in their minds when they stop to meditate. They sit and think over everything that the day was about, all the stuff they need to do and all kinds of junk they are worrying about. Here is the main problem with this- They are practicing worry. They are training their minds to ruminate, to worry, to fret, to be agitated. Sooner or later, they will be very adept at it.
I had a client come in for some work and we discussed meditation, he said he had been practicing TM for over 30 years and had to stop because it stopped working for him. With a little prodding it came clear. This guy was a high end executive and had a very stressful work life. When he would get stressed he would sequester himself away for 20 minutes and chant his mantra, he would meditate. The only problem was, he would only meditate when he was stressed so he started to link and anchor stress to his time meditating and also linked in his body mind his mantra to stress. No wonder it didn't work for him.
Being good at it
So here is the problem. You will become good at what you practice. Practice happiness you will become happy, practice gratitude, you will be more thankful. Your mind will look for ways to continue that feeling if it is beneficial. If you practice meditation or mindfulness at the right time, place etc. You will get better at it. But we have to ask, better at what? That depends on your intention or reason for meditating in the first place. We have to decide what our
I teach people to have as many anchors as they can when they meditate, I also tell them to find a specific time to meditate. What is an anchor you ask? A meditation anchor is anything you purposefully use routinely in a meditation where over time, this becomes part of the meditation and helps you to get to a place of your intent. These can be place, time, a color, sound, smell or any sensory aspect of your meditation. This way, when they have many specific links to relaxation, or even the intent of focus on calm, that is what you will do, focus on calm then they will become good at it. So when a stressful event occurs their set point is better, they see the stress coming and can choose to act differently. This takes time, study, discussion and practice. Without any discussion or study, you are merely sitting there in your own cesspool mind, practicing exactly what you are thinking... stress, clinging, worry, agitation...
When you have a place to meditate that is away from your regular stressors, with scents, colors, items, pictures, statues and even routine that is only used when you are setting your mind and body for meditation and calm, then you can really get the essence of the art of mediation, that it is a practice for when stuff comes up OFF the meditation cushion. That is when the rubber hits the road. You cannot check the air pressure, brakes and tread in the middle of a hard skidding stop. That should have been done before. That is why we call it PRACTICE.
This is probably the main reason I am not fond of the mindfulness movement. It has taken Buddhist meditation practice and secularized it, thinking that if they took out the moral training and study it would somehow make it less 'religious'. It doesn't work. S.N. Goenka did it with Vipassana, and it works lovely. There is hardly a mention of the Buddha. Instead, in my opinion, he was able to teach it as the Buddha intended. Approachable and doable by all, not just those that paid homage to him. No ceremony, no dogma, just insight meditation.
I was taught in the Buddhist Chan and Theravada traditions, so there is plenty of dogma and ceremony. I found it useful for me at times, other times, I did not so I let it go. I was able to see how my study of psychology and mental well being really meshed with that training and I have been able to transmogrify Buddhist (Eastern thought) into a more palatable form for Westerners.
The hard part is to slow people down with meditation and mindfulness. They want too much too fast. It was not designed to be that w
So, let go. Just sit. Comfortably... breathe. You can do this. If you can decide to sit you can decide to change the way you react to your mind.
See you on the mat.
No comments:
Post a Comment