
I Left a Buddhist Retreat in Handcuffs - dredmorbius
https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-news/a25651175/the-other-side-of-paradise-how-i-left-a-buddhist-retreat-in-handcuffs/
======
mruts
I found the article a little disorganized and the author seems to be having
trouble expounding a clear thesis. I just read it for the second time, and I
still don’t have a good grasp of what he experienced or what connections he’s
trying to make to Buddhism. Maybe that’s understandable given what happened to
him (though I’m not really sure of, besides him going “crazy”), but I still
think that as a journalist he should be able to write a more cohesive and
lucid article. And for reference, I’m saying this as someone who’s gone
through a number of ineffable experiences with heavy doses of psychedelics.
Just saying that he felt like he was dying and being reborn ad infinitum
doesn’t really cut it as phenomenological explanation.

~~~
cobbzilla
> I found the article a little disorganized and the author seems to be having
> trouble expounding a clear thesis.

How many psychotic episodes have you had in your life?

Perhaps it is amazing that the author could even put _words to paper_ to
describe the experience. Yes, the piece is a bit rambling, but how often do
you get a first-hand account of a visit to the Dark Night and back again?

The notion that meditation is not a universally "good" thing, that it might
unlock parts of your mind that you might not want to (or be able to) deal
with, is certainly worthy of exploration.

~~~
sandGorgon
The MCTB book - [https://www.mctb.org](https://www.mctb.org)

And the Dharma Overground wiki and forum
[https://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-
wiki/-/wik...](https://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/dharma-
wiki/-/wiki/Main/MCTB)

I'm quite surprised that the article didn't link to it as a support and
enthusiast resource for hardcore meditators (even though he mentions it)

------
iliketosleep
This article is an important read for any meditation enthusiast who isn't
aware that it's not all rainbows and ponies. Intense meditation does affect
brain structure, and how it affects different individuals can be
unpredictable. This is why some people will need extra support.

I have done intense meditation before and became a much calmer person. I
experienced a level of peace and harmony that felt like my mind was a
spontaneously orchestrated symphony. I also experienced the so-called "dark
night" that was as deep and expansive as the universe itself. I experienced
what arises from "the void": anything and everything. I was able to reconcile
all of these experiences by coming to my own understanding of what the "The
Middle Way" in Buddhism is.

Mental journeys (or 'spiritual journeys') can be just as treacherous as
physical journeys; they can be transformational in many ways, but sometimes
people get lost and cannot find their way back.

~~~
HNLurker2
I think what you mean by dark night is the last chapter in The Mind
Illuminated.

Being red pilled with the literature doesn't make you immune to the "dark
night"

~~~
iliketosleep
I was referring to the "dark night" Dr Daniel Ingram expounds upon in his
writings (which I'm familiar with) and is referred to in the article. I
haven't read The Mind Illuminated, so I'm not sure if it's the same thing.

Regardless, there is no such thing as "red pilled" when it comes to all of
this, and nobody who engages in intense meditation is immune. I went through
it once and that was quite enough.

~~~
HNLurker2
> haven't read The Mind Illuminated, so I'm not sure if it's the same thing.

Basically it says at the end of the book telling us about: suffering,
impeanence and no self. He tell us we should notice we become angry and
enraged like a nihilist. (1) The idea is that meditation and absorption is the
only salvation to that , meaning without these skills you will be bound to
suffer for real.

>Regardless, there is no such thing as "red pilled" when it comes to all of
this, and nobody who engages in intense meditation is immune. I went through
it once and that was quite enough.

Well I am sorry for the language, as a lay Buddhist myself keeping up with the
discourses, middle length,combined of the Buddha and other sutras. They are
nihilistic and don't talk about the meaning of life but just about salivation
from suffering.

(1) Buddha was the first nihilist in the world. Source wikipedia.

~~~
iliketosleep
So the book that you mention takes things to the extreme, and this is what
often happens with belief systems of any sort. Personally, I have found
meditation on the three characteristics (unsatisfactoriness, impermanence, and
non-self) to be useful. Why? So I can go on craving things I can't have,
mourning losses, and getting caught up in my own ego, only without being
completely overwhelmed by it all.

Life without suffering is not life, and those who truly believe in the
complete removal of suffering will indeed find their way to nihilism.

~~~
arpa
beautifully put! If I might add - the first noble truth is that life is
suffering, to which, the noble eightfold path only offers a temporary remedy.

It has been a long time since I've been on the path, but I still remember the
beauty of the inner silence; however I also remember how the silence becomes
the void that eats away at the world we dream, leaving only the cold and naked
meaningless of the world - i still remember how it was easy to become one with
nothing instead of becoming one with everything.

I also wanted to say something more regarding Karuna, however that would
probably be even more superfluous and pointless than my comment already is.

~~~
kup0
IMHO, I think the translation "life is suffering" is inaccurate enough to be
particularly negative/nihilistic. Though, maybe "pain is an inescapable part
of life" is too much the other way, not sure.

"Life is dukkha" seems to mean so much more than that. Especially as the
Buddha expounds on multiple types of Dukkha, only one of which is
suffering/pain. The other two, being impermanence and conditioned states.

~~~
arpa
One could go even further and say that life can not be easily defined by a
single term; hence the three marks of existence, which also seem to be
reflected in a way in a western ethos. But even these three marks, in my
humblest ans undereducated opinion, are just an entrypoint to describing the
human condition.

It is probably most safe to say: "life is such". But that's akin to saying
nothing; perhaps in this lies the absolute truth?

------
maxander
Meditation retreats sound interesting, but they've always struck me as tending
to have a fairly grueling, bizarre schedule- awake and breakfast at ~6AM,
dinner at 4pm, lights out at 9PM (and no meal until breakfast the next day.)
It strikes me as the _worst_ setup for long meditation sessions- getting
everyone sleepy and hungry and out of sorts. That it would send susceptible
people off the deep end doesn't sound surprising.

As a sort of "negative control," I wonder if psychosis is as frequently
triggered by other taxing programs; for instance, army basic training? There
too people are forced to sleep on an artificial schedule, meals are regimented
and at potentially unfamiliar times, and most of the day is spent in
unfamiliar, effortful activity (but all of which is probably diametrically
opposite to meditation.)

~~~
gotocake
Lack of sleep, sudden change of routine, total immersion in a new mindset, and
withholding food is the classic playbook of cult indoctrination. The point is
to weaken existing barriers that would otherwise keep people aloof,
disengaged, and instead create a total experience. I’m not claiming that a
meditation retreat is a cult indoctrination, at least not most of the time. It
does however share some commonalities with indoctrination, and interrogation.
If your goal is radical change, a breakthrough emotional or otherwise, this is
an ancient and proven system to make it happen.

Boot camp has some things in common, because it is quite the indoctrination,
but they feed you well, and focus more on breaking down the ego and forming a
group identity and esprit de corps. Cults focus on breaking people mentally
and creating dependence. Interrogation tends to focus on disorientation and a
need to bond with the interrogator. Meditation retreats focus on breaking
existing habits and perspectives and instilling new ones.

Similar tracks, different intentions and outcomes. Another difference is that
in the military you’re screened for prexisting psychological issues, and they
have a vested interest in that screening process. You also have trained
observers at all stages who know to look for signs of deterioration. In a
retreat you have no screening, no such resources, and no training in
recognizing early signs of psychosis.

~~~
namlem
There's never been any sleep or food deprivation at any retreat I've been to.
They keep an early schedule because that's what they used to. The routine that
parent described is basically normal for your typical early bird.

~~~
geomark
It's basically the standard monk's schedule. Might be a shock for late
sleepers used to eating and snacking throughout the day. Enough of a shock to
set off some people. The Thais have an idiom for it which translates to
"allergic to the robe". It happens to new monks sometimes. I saw it happen to
one new monk in the group I ordained with. A few days after ordination I saw
him running and yelling that the senior monks were trying to kill his family.

------
nanolith
It is not unheard of for these problems to occur with this sort of long
meditation retreat, but it is rare. The beginner's mind is not used to
spending so much time in this state, and it can lead to hallucinations or
extreme discomfort. That's why most sanghas and retreats require people to
build up to these longer retreats.

Those who have mental disorders, whether under treatment or not, should go
slowly with meditation and should keep a journal and keep in contact with a
counselor. There are psychologists just about everywhere who have mindfulness
and even Buddhist training, and who can help to guide people through this
safely. There are enough benefits to meditation that it is worth working with
a counselor to ensure that it is done safely. Those with certain forms of
psychosis should probably avoid meditation, as it can alter brain patterns in
a way that sidesteps the coping mechanisms one has been taught.

Long retreats are unnecessary for reaping the benefits of meditation or
mindfulness. Think of these long retreats like marathons. They are incredible
experiences for those willing to put in the hard work to train for them, but
most people get all of the health benefits they need from 30 minutes worth of
exercise. I have not yet gotten to the point of doing a long retreat in my own
practice, but I am working up to it. Fifteen minutes a day and a little
dedication will do it. Never bite off more than you can chew.

Also, note that if you are having a traumatic experience or suicidal ideation
-- no matter the cause or when it occurs -- stop what you are doing and please
immediately seek help. Meditation can turn up things that are difficult for
some people to cope with. There is nothing wrong with getting a little help to
deal with these things.

------
colechristensen
All of the similar Buddhist retreats I have looked in to (though I've never
attended) required interviews before even a 3 day retreat, never-mind 10, and
generally wouldn't allow you to do a long one before having done a short one.\

You can read many similar stories about retreat experiences which are less
extreme. It's just irresponsible to put yourself through that extreme or let
someone put themselves through it without proper preparation. Especially if
they have a history of problems.

------
jaggederest
I've been meditating for approximately two decades, and I think it was clear
to me from the beginning, more or less, that abnegation of the self was
absolutely a possible pitfall: to be either conscientiously approached,
carefully avoided, or embraced and thereby ultimately ameliorated. I haven't
had much success with any of the three, and it's something I still struggle
with.

I try to make this clear to people when I talk about meditation (which I
don't, often) - it's a sword, not a shield, and you can definitely misuse it.
But for people who feel lost and powerless, it is sometimes worth the danger.

------
zaro
This sounds a lot like vipasana meditation center. I've been to one in Nepal,
and the police didn't have to escort me out of it, I did it myself on the 3rd
day.

It was all fine, I didn't mind meditating, but evertyhing else was too much
like prison for my taste. One thing that just didn't sit right with me was
that,it was supposed to be a silent retreat but the only people you are not
supposed to talk to were the other guests. The staff was definitelly talking
to you and expected answers. Also things like, this afternoon I feel like
skipping one hour of mediation and taking a nap were not allowed.

Later reading about these meditation centers and Sri Goenka, I found out that
he developed his system in prisons and the prison like made sense to me.

------
pubudutr
Being a Buddhist born person living in a mostly Buddhist country this saddens
me. It seems all this hype with so called Buddhist retreats and meditation
apps in the western world is pretty much twisting the teachings of Buddha.
Monks have practiced meditation for centuries without any adverse effects as
mentioned in the article. It seems like they focus on _state of being mindful_
than really being mindful. Meditation is not that difficult. And certainly
does not require an app or a spiritual guide. Try learning a little about
Buddhism and read up on meditation.(maybe avoid the best sellers and go for
something written by a real monk?)

~~~
solidsnack9000
In the west, Buddhism is often stripped of the low intensity, community
oriented aspects of Buddhism present in Buddhist countries; and what remains
of them is invested with alien majesty.

For example, when Japanese Zen is practiced in the west, bowing to Buddha and
one another is an integral part of the practice. It is something that many
western people struggle with, as it connotes considerable deference in the
west. In Japan, however, people bow in many professional contexts, at the
beginning of class, and in many non-institutional social contexts as well. The
bowing in a temple setting is a continuation of this. It's a little more
regimented -- in a temple setting, we are to bow to everyone as we pass them
-- but not such an enormous departure from everyday life. One the one hand,
bowing in the west is something that has an exaggerated significance, relative
to what it has in Japan; on the other, bowing is something where we see a
continuity between Buddhism and everyday life in Japan, but not in the west.

------
droithomme
The fee based retreat this poor guy went to reminds me of the fee based
authentic native sweat lodge performances done in Sedona Arizona where people
die and the lodge medicine man later proves to be some guy that has no
connection to any native nation.

People can have profound insights and yes also freak outs based on intense
meditation. That's normally considered a success, and is something that a
legitimate monastery or retreat is equipped to handle without calling police
to arrest the meditator by force and imprisoning him in a psychiatric
detention facility, to have the paper trail from that frame and follow him for
the rest of his life.

------
kuss
I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned already, but one thing I've found
mentioned again and again in various meditation forums as an aid for people
struggling with difficult feelings brought up by meditation is "metta"
meditation, which translates roughly to "loving-kindness". Through one way or
another (often repeated mantras are used), the meditation aims to generate
feelings of love and goodwill towards both the meditator and towards others.
This compassion can then be called on if difficult feelings arise (and my
understanding is they often do at some point).

My understanding is that insight meditation practices in particular, like
Vipassana mentioned in the article, are especially likely to bring up
difficult feelings. But if one has some sort of "safe container" they can put
those feelings within, then they have the opportunity to integrate the
experience, and they can grow from that. It's much like being able to recount
a traumatic experience in a setting where you feel safe and listened to; it
can allow for real healing. But there _needs_ to be some safe context for the
pain to be felt. I feel like I read a lot of stories about people trying to
dig up as much "insight" as they can, but without giving thought to how they
might be able to integrate them (both with meditation and also psychedelics).

For anyone interested in this stuff, I've found Radical Self Acceptance by
Tara Brach to be a really great source of both guided metta meditations as
well as discussions about balancing "Seeing"/"Insight" and having the safe
emotional container for experiences. I would also highly recommend The Mind
Illuminated, mentioned elsewhere in this thread, as a great general textbook
on meditation, which also gives special attention to uncovering Insight in a
way that can be safely integrated.

------
throwaway67548
I'm a 25 year practising western Buddhist. My perspective on this is it can be
a danger to take just one part of the noble eight-fold path to such an extreme
completely separated from the rest of the path. One should focus first on the
base of path, get that in order and reinforce it through repeated practice. By
that I mean (mundane) right view, (mundane) right intention, right speech,
right action and right livelihood. They should be the majority of your focus
at least. Not the higher level work of right effort, right mindfulness and
right concentration (the meditative practices). That would be like trying to
build the top on a pyramid before building the bottom, or trying to row your
boat across the river without unhitching it from the bank.

------
nihonde
Understanding the difference between nihilism and oneness is what is required
to detach from ego in a productive way. To paraphrase Alan Watts,
enlightenment is like space travel, it requires enormous, longstanding
discipline to go all the way out and come back intact.

------
MammalWithLegs
He mentions that he did a bunch of drugs back in the day, and that the diet at
the retreat was likely to cause weight loss. This made me wonder if part of
what he experienced was drugs stored within his fat cells re-entering his
body.

------
8bitsrule
It's an 8-fold way.
[http://www.zenguide.com/principles/eight_fold_path.cfm](http://www.zenguide.com/principles/eight_fold_path.cfm)

"It avoids the extreme of self-torture that weakens one's intellect and the
extreme of self-indulgence that retards spiritual progress."

Hard to sit on a 2-legged chair.

------
aliswe
This phenomenon is in sweden termed meditational psychosis
(meditationspsykos), and is not connected to meditation that is especially
intense or extensive. Having happened to people without drug backgrounds or
mental problems, some tried meditation only once. The only common denominator
is meditation, in any form really.

------
AstralStorm
Funny thing, Hindus warned of this in multiple tracts in their own flowery
ancient language, so it is apparently not unknown. Their solution was to
stress out the role of their experienced guru to guide it and carefully mete
this out.

------
walrus01
> I didn’t want to stay medicated (my previous stint had lasted a decade), and
> I understood that the rules of the retreat meant that as I had left before
> the end, I could not go back. Vipassanā makes it clear in its literature
> regarding “serious mental disorders” that: “Our capacity as a non-
> professional volunteer organisation makes it impossible to properly care for
> people with these backgrounds.”

I don't really see what the author's personal troubles have to do with
specifically _Buddhism_. If you stop taking powerful psychiatric medications
and freak out in a greek monastery on the the Athos peninsula, you're also
likely to get hauled away in handcuffs.

I'm no mental health expert but it seems risky to stop taking your meds, cold
turkey, and likely against the advice of your mental health professional,
proceed to immerse yourself 24x7 in any sort of religious retreat.

~~~
egypturnash
Look at this paragraph a couple above the one you quoted:

> In the mid-Nineties, in my mid-twenties when I was working as a journalist
> in London, I took enough recreational drugs to keep me awake for nine days,
> at the end of which I was psychotic, sectioned, sedated and held in hospital
> for four months. That might sound dramatic, but I did it to myself and for
> all I know the treatment (including drugs since withdrawn from use) and the
> incarceration saved my life.

So, mid-90s, freaked out on recreational drugs, ended up in the hospital for
four months.

Went on legal brain-altering drugs for a decade. Which would have him going
off of them somewhere in the 00s.

...and then if you look at the paragraph right above the one you quoted...

> It seemed clear to me that if I could reach such an altered state through
> intoxication and insomnia once, and then do it again 20 years later through
> silence and concentration [...]

...we can pencil in about a decade of being _off_ the legal brain-altering
chemicals. Whatever triggered this, it wasn't the result of going cold turkey
off of something he'd been taking up to the last day before starting the
meditation course.

------
Alex3917
I've shared a bunch of Willoughby Britton's talks here in the past, mostly
from the Buddhist Geeks podcast/conference. They're super interesting, I'd
recommend checking them out.

~~~
jaggederest
Do you have any links? I browsed your submission history but it's fairly
lengthy.

~~~
Alex3917
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=alex3917%20willoughby&sort=byP...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=alex3917%20willoughby&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment)

------
mnm1
Sounds like psychedelic drugs, used properly (unlike the author), are a safer
alternative. Who'd have thought?

~~~
AstralStorm
They're not, which is why the experimenters always had an experienced "sitter"
watching and there was emphasis on (mind) "set and setting".

Or why in other cultures such a psychedelic trip was guided by a shaman.

------
DoofusOfDeath
[joke]

A more advanced student would be taken away with just ONE hand cuffed.

[/joke]

------
latchkey
I now live about 5 minutes from where the Vietnamese monk burned himself alive
and drive past it all the time [1]. It is now a very busy intersection with
probably hundreds of thousands of people passing by daily, there is a temple
on the corner. I'd say that the majority of people passing by have no idea
what happened here in the past.

[1] [https://goo.gl/maps/A1BeFPr9nuA2](https://goo.gl/maps/A1BeFPr9nuA2)

------
simplecomplex
> my previous stint [taking mind altering anti-psychotic drugs] had lasted a
> decade

Very interesting how much the author focuses on this one weekend retreat of
sitting around, and not on his admitted long term use of experimental mind
altering antipsychotic drugs.

This sounds like commonly reported withdrawal symptoms (aka freaking the fuck
out) from long term use of very very powerful poorly understood drugs.

~~~
newnewpdro
> This sounds like commonly reported withdrawal symptoms (aka freaking the
> fuck out) from long term use of very very powerful poorly understood drugs.

Withdrawal symptoms do not last decades.

------
craftyguy
How[0] many[1] times[3] is this going to be posted here?

1\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18798910](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18798910)

2\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18792327](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18792327)

3\.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18789188](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18789188)

~~~
dredmorbius
FYI, the repost was recommended by HN itself, which they occasionally do.

