This thread should be required reading for anyone considering any kind of serious meditation practice. Yes, meditation works. Yes, awakening is real. But sign on the dotted line before you hurt yourself.https://twitter.com/euvieivanova/status/982981406279258112 …
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Even the "mindfulness therapy" psychologists don't really have much of a clue, IME.
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They probably have less of a clue, unfortunately.
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I've actually found this to be true. It tends to confuse them for some reason. Although I've definitely met a few ACT and MBCT folks who have at least some useful traditional understanding, albeit not at an ideal level.
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alright, been biting my tongue but it seems appropriate at this point. this is controversial but fine, whatever. these blindspots would not be so common if more teachers (and more therapists) had a serious background in psychedelics and psychedelic integration.
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Psychedelics definitely create similar concerns. This raises the general problem around the Western psychological models and understanding of psychosis. I have some draft essays on this that I never got around to finishing. Maybe that's content for a future tweetstorm.
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a short-lived name for those substances (before Humphry Osmond coined "psychedelic") was psychotomimetic drugs. That's not quite right but it's understandable why a naive interpretation would lead there. psychedelic means "mind manifesting" and that's a bit more accurate.
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other labels that have been proposed: phanerothyme (means "spiritedness") which Lisa Bieberman wrote about helpfully here http://www.csp.org/practices/entheogens/docs/bieberman-phanerothyme.html … entheogen (means "giving rise to the divine within") which is reasonable for the mushroom and ayahuasca shamanic traditions.
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I would suggest this class of drugs might be usefully regarded as "path of perturbation" aids. where sitting meditation shows you your mind by making it still, the drugs show it to you by making it vibrate with enough amplitude to drown out the normal background noise.
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School I attended had both psychologists and longtime meditators, yet that still didn't help. One problem is that some of these western teachers are trying to break people's minds on purpose. And that breaking is what some mistake for "awakening"
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Can you elaborate on what "mind breaking" means, and how it differs from "awakening"? I'm not sure I understand what you mean.
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I've actually seen this happen to many people. They have an experience that they consider "transcendent" and believe that they are now "awakened." But most of these people have simply had a break with reality and need intense therapy or hospitalization.
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I don't doubt that this happens regularly. Still though, awakening - whatever the hell that means - is not always a pleasant experience that's followed by endless bliss. I don't think those claims are mutually exclusive.
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For me, "awakening" is waking up from the illusion. Meditative experiences, positive or negative, belong to the realm of duality, and though helpful, are not awakening. I see that other people think of it differently, and I can accept that. But i respectfully disagree.
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