Is the practice of meditation, in the pursuit of "enlightenment" a kind of self-induced schizophrenia? I started meditating last year and I've come to view the vast majority of problems people complain about as a kind of melodramatic form of mental scaffolding that they shackle themselves with just to give their brains something to do. If I hadn't learned acceptance through my meditative practices, I'd be annoyed at how whiny everyone is.
If you go deep into it of course. There''s a reason there are whole schools of thought about the correct way to progress in terms of a serious practice. I think for most people who do a little bit of mindfullness or whatever it won't be an issue but if you're deep diving you're gonna run into some legitimate and challenging weirdness.
I think there's probably other lads on here that would be able to elucidate a bit better, I only paddle in the shallow end for my own purposes. But I mean you're basically fundamentally fucking with your own internal thought processes and nervous system, so yeah it can be serious fucking business if you're not careful.
A while back I read an article somewhere discussing the practices of certain organisations running courses on meditation.
In particular in the UK there have been a few places running hotels in the theme of Tibetan monasteries, where people can pay a couple of grand, they get a few lectures in meditation from some old guru-type, and then they are locked up for a week just being let out an hour a day for food and exercise in silence.
Large numbers of people going on those courses are suffering from serious psychotic breaks and having to be sectioned, because they've been dumped right in the deep end without the sort of one-on-one support and guidance that you would get in a real monastery.
>the vast majority of problems people complain about as a kind of melodramatic form of mental scaffolding
I'm a dabbler in mindfulness at most, but even at the level I'm at its made me see this in people
