@DavidKortava I’m reluctant to name and shame particular Buddhist/meditation brands, for many obvious reasons.
However, someone has to do the consumer protection work of pointing out that some are riskier than others.
@DavidKortava Many people have had good experiences with Goenka retreats, including my spouse and another family member.
I would still recommend avoiding them. This article makes clear some specific risks of this brand relative even to other vipassana brands.
@DavidKortava Goenka retreats accept people with minimal prior meditation experience and put them into an extremely intense, rigid regimen that may be positively transformational, or destructive.
The staff are often not adequately trained in meditation/Buddhism, let alone mental health crises
🎙 Two very different, worthwhile podcasts about the decaying university system:
🎙 @MeganMOConnor with @eriktorenberg on the unbundling of vocational/technical education. Universities aren’t well-suited for the current main purpose, educating people who want mainstream jobs. Megan and Erik discuss promising alternatives. spreaker.com/user/10197011/…
🎙 @PsychRabble on @fourbeerspod discussing the political corruption of academia, particularly social psychology.
The anecdotes are troubling, but as an outsider, I can’t tell quantitatively how bad this is. The hosts push back some at the end.
The problem with orthodox opinion is not that it bans contradiction, it’s that it makes people uncomfortable saying anything other than whatever the orthodoxy has designated as the most important thing to say today.
Let us now read the catechism aloud in unison
More obviously I’m subtweeting political twitter, which encourages contradicting the Bad Tribe, but only concerning Trending Topics.
Less obviously, I’m subtweeting Buddhist twitter, which is terrified to say anything that might not be sufficiently holy.
Western Buddhists’ dysfunctional relationship with authority combines rejection of respect for mere humans who have great depth of understanding, with pathetic deference to absurd and obsolete doctrines.
The former are “no better than anyone else,” the latter “ancient wisdom.”
When white people rant about how racist and awful all white people are, maybe they mean something by “white supremacy” other than the official definition.
Some anti-racism is not about race... what actual experience of white people does it express?
Spending time in many different countries and cultures lets you see how sex and gender work differently. America is more rigorously egalitarian than almost all, yet many women feel they live in a rigidly oppressive patriarchy.
Returning to the US after months away, I’m immediately struck by how uncomfortable American gender relations are. We’re doing *something* exceptionally wrong.
Calling that “patriarchy” is misleading if taken literally, but it expresses real pervasive legitimate revulsion.
I first noticed this with “capitalism,” which means something quite different—more local and personal and concrete—for anti-capitalists than for economists.
Roughly, “I hate my job and my boss, there’s not enough money, same for everyone I know.”
It’s a huge problem that everyone hates their job and their boss, and most *don’t* pay enough. Those in power are entirely failing to take that seriously, which makes most people rightly angry.
Blaming “capitalism” is technically wrong, but most people know what you mean.
“Destroying capitalism” would make everything catastrophically worse if “capitalism” means what economists mean by it.
But the current pattern of economic stagnation plus housing cost inflation plus increasing income inequality does need creative destruction.
Save this link in case of emergencies (you or someone you know is having trouble with meditation that affects your ability to function normally for more than a little while after stopping meditation): cheetahhouse.org/get-help-intro
Being a sciency kinda guy, I'd like quantitative evidence.
Much of the academic and clinical work on negative effects of meditation has been done by Willoughby Britton and her colleagues. See her site for details! vivo.brown.edu/display/wbritt…
I was misleading and probably caused harm by being polite and indirect instead of saying “this popular thing looks bad to me” explicitly. I regret this and intend to be less polite in future. But the opposite error is also harmful…
Many turn to meditation as a less grueling, less expensive, more popular alternative to psychotherapy or psychedelics. And in small doses it's usually beneficial.
What no one tells you is that the mainstream meditation methods were explicitly designed to turn you into a zombie. That's what their inventors said they wanted. And if you practice them seriously, that's what happens.