Ep250: When Meditation Goes Wrong - Dr Willoughby Britton
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- čas přidán 31. 05. 2024
- In this interview I am joined by Dr Willoughby Britton, an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behaviour at Brown University Medical School, an Associate Professor of Behaviour and Social Sciences in Brown University’s School of Public Health, the Director of Brown’s Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory, and founder of Cheetah House which provides support to those experiencing meditation-related difficulties.
Dr Britton recounts her unusual childhood interest in consciousness, why a friend’s suicide drove her to meditation, and how a psychedelic peak experience changed her view of the world.
Dr Britton considers the overlaps between spiritual experience and mental illness, why deconstructing the sense of self in search of enlightenment can lead to lasting psychological damage, and questions if experiences of fear are a necessary part of the meditative path.
Dr Britton also covers the neurobiology of attention, reveals the hidden religious messaging woven into mindfulness techniques such as Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), and shares how she deals with the negative responses from meditation enthusiasts towards her work.
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www.guruviking.com/podcast/ep...
Also available on CZcams, iTunes, & Spotify - search ‘Guru Viking Podcast’.
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Topics include:
00:00 - Intro
01:15 - Dr Britton’s upbringing and early interest in consciousness
03:58 - Friend’s suicide and a life crisis
05:02 - Powerful high dose psychedelic experiences
08:46 - Influence of peak experiences
09:28 - Operative mechanism of Dr Britton’s epiphany
11:04 - Is redefinition of the self necessary for awakening?
11:50 - What is the ‘self’?
13:31 - A caveat
14:19 - Many possible modifications to the sense of self and identity
18:18 - What do Buddhists really mean when they talk about no-self?
19:01 - Surprising disagreement between Buddhist sects
19:48 - Lack on consensus about the end goal in Buddhism
20:47 - Awakening or mental illness?
24:01 - Cultural differences in what constitutes mental health
24:58 - Cultural influences and personal goals
26:39 - When meditation goes wrong
28:35 - When no-self experiences lead to negative outcomes
30:46 - The importance of connection
32:14 - Strategic ambiguity of enlightenment
34:34 - The enlightenment fantasy
35:23 - Absorbing a world view from meditation instructions
36:31 - How to assess your meditation practice
39:04 - Stealth Buddhism
40:31 - Hidden frames of meditation techniques
41:37 - Metaphysics of MBSR
45:18 - Market forces and religion as product
47:50 - Negative reactions to Dr Britton’s work
51:48 - Does Dr Britton’s work threaten meditators?
54:39 - Nasty emails and internet comments
56:08 - Is Dr Britton upset by the negativity?
57:31 - What is the goal of Dr Britton’s work?
59:51 - Why look for problems?
01:01:07 - How often do meditation related problems happen?
01:03:03 - Founding Cheetah House to help meditators in crisis
01:04:29 - Is fear necessary on the spiritual path?
01:06:20 - The neurobiology of attention
01:07:43 - Attention and arousal
0110:12 - The phenomenology and meaning of fear in Buddhist meditation
01:11:46 - Is fear part of the path?
01:13:10 - Buddhism doesn’t have its story straight
01:14:30 - The desire for a comprehensive world view
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To find out more about Dr Willoughby Britton, visit:
- www.cheetahhouse.org/
- www.brown.edu/public-health/m...
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For more interviews, videos, and more visit:
- www.guruviking.com
Music ‘Deva Dasi’ by Steve James - Zábava
After attending four days of tibetan buddhist teachings and mainly out of intuition I became a buddhist practitioner. I was a deeply depressed person and had been in treatment before with little result. Meditation and buddhist philosophy changed my life completely. It gave me a new perspective on the way I perceived things. It calmed my mind and suicidal thoughts were gone for good. This journey started thirty years ago and I intend to continue walking this path until my life ends.
Great for you, but whatever, obviously it works for some people, maybe even most people. But the question here is where does it go wrong. If you look at 'The Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind' and 'Stilling the Mind: Shamatha Teachings from Dudjom Lingpa's Vajra Essence' by Alan B Wallace, you'll find that the Tibetans have a detailed set of descriptions about how the practice can go wrong. By the way Steve James you really need to get Wallace on here talking about those two books, if you can, Buddhist Geeks got him back in the day.
No comment this person needs some serious time to study
What's you're meditation schedule like, do you have a sitting period every day?
And hopefully into your next lives too !🪷🪷🪷
I found the same peace in Soto Zen. The ways of the Tathagata are a true treasure.
I'm only 12 minutes in, but the level of grounded clarity that she brings to expression of ideas and experiences is just highly satisfying.
Thank you for this offering.
This conversation should have started decades ago. What a thing to witness the evolution of meditation in the west
Great interview ...Dr Britton"s intellectual integrity shines through ..as well as her tender and compassionate heart~ Thank you !
I think most of the problems she is describing are a result of teachers and practitioners who lack knowledge of the methods and goals of Buddhist practice. This becomes especially pronounced when so called secular meditation teachers teach Buddhist techniques divorced from actual Buddhist teachings.
The traditions that I am familiar with (Rinzai Zen and Dzogchen) have clear signs of accomplishment and approaches to deal with some of the difficulties that can arise. Of course serious engagement with these traditions presupposes that one is aligned with the Buddha’s view of human existence. If one does not truly accept the existential problem that the Buddha described, engagement with Buddhist techniques will just lead to confusion and may disrupt one’s normal life.
Yeah,...nah traditional teachers are as deficit of the failings as the secular community, though that is starting to change. First of all your can't see what you don't know. Mediative attainment is a very narrow understanding or knowledge base, they often don't even really understand how different styles of practice work, and if you happen to develop in a way that is different to their style of practice, there may be a real lack of recognition of progress. We can see that Jack Kornfield in his book 'After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path' who was possibly the first person to articulate in publication, this problem of attainment being a type of mastery that doesn't mean one has mastery of a variety of social skills. "Drawing on the experiences and insights of leaders and practitioners within the Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Sufi traditions, this book offers a uniquely intimate and honest understanding of how the modern spiritual journey unfolds--and how we can prepare our hearts for awakening. Through moving personal stories and traditional tales, we learn how the enlightened heart navigates the real world of family relationships, emotional pain, earning a living, sickness, loss, and death." Daniel Ingram's theory was that enlightenment and the exchange of the necessary understanding for the path to attainment is like mushrooms growing in the dark rather, than lotus flowers in the sun, because it was talked about so little. Another thought is that Yidam practice does nothing for me and never real has, yet it is an integral part of Mahamudra and Dzogchen. I think I have always seen more realisation through vipassana, metta and the ground of Mahamudra and Dzogchen. And if we go to the sutta's we see the buddha taught different people different things different ways. But Tantrayana finds it difficult to separate the Preliminaries and Yidam practice from the Dhamma because they find it so important. It's definitely not one side fits all, and if there isn't an effective feedback mechanism, teachers tend to think things work and you're not doing it right. I don't think it's always a case of the ego not being willing to take the mould.
Well-said....Buddhism the three legged stool has three legs for a reason.
Yes.
Very true. Buddhist teachings are deep and profound, and when people try to understand them as just another piece of quick information, they end up having lots of questions along with endless criticisms. But there are teachers (although very rare) who are able to explain things clearly and then it makes TOTAL sense. I am so glad that I found one of those teachers.
A lot of this is why I shifted from a more Buddhist type mediation to a practice more inspired by modern embodied process work such as practices from Gestalt therapy, Eugene Gendlin's work and the Diamond approach. I'm not trying to deconstruct the self but allow an organic process to shift naturally.
Excellent!
If you are only looking for relaxation and calmness, and not liberation, that’s the way to go!
Great conversation, excellent questions, brilliant responses. Thanks
People have ‘adverse effects’ even from exercise - examples are falling, muscle aches, etc. If someone were to do a survey on that, there would be a high percentage of adverse effects from exercise. Regarding the study she refers to (written together with Davidson), they counted simple things like body aches from sitting meditation to be an adverse effect!! Interestingly, in this study, it is stated that “Participants reporting adverse effects were equally glad to have practiced meditation as those not reporting adverse effects” - this statement itself indicates that the adverse effects are not serious at all.
Are there any people who went deeply on the path of meditation, who did NOT have problems? Like normal, happy, healthy childhood, great social and family relationships, success and pleasure in school, work, and sports. And long term happy and healthy, adjusted friendships? Like normal? No crises? But deep into meditation anyway? I’d like to hear from them.
The GOLDEN RULE of teaching is ... never ask another person to do something which you can not do. Too many people jump into teaching meditation merely from enthusiasm for the topic and without regard for the responsibilities they assume when doing so.
.... lordy whom would say that ? Utterly dangerous in myriad ways.
This is an important conversation to have. Thank you 🙏
In the guru-chela system, it is the guru that guides you through this stage. In the west, many are self taught. They lack guidance.
That's a massive inaccurate oversimplification.
@@PiceaSitchensis no, actually it is not an understatement. Their systems of spiritual education has lasted several thousand years, and their method is at the feet of the guru, who was responsible for your well being, not just a specific training.
My family that I've married into is Brahman- the teaching class, believe me it's been an ongoing discussion for almost a decade.
Thank you for this interview, it strengthened my sense of self in the right direction. I've been studying consciousness in a lay capacity for many years, and I listened to many teachers and many points of view. Did a slew of personal growth stuff from Encounter Groups and Psychodrama to Holotropic Breathwork and Psychedelic Sessions. I learned from all of them, and now listening to Dr. Willoughby, I feel encouraged to keep on learning, and never to become an object of exploitation for the advocates of any system that promises closure in an infinite universe.
Enlightenment is understanding and true forgiveness is understanding. Knowledge is power. Just relax and receive what you seek it's Law
As someone else already said here, one of the key takeaways from this episode is all the ways to verbally describe the different problems that arise. For instance, what sense of self is being attenuated? What's the definition of enlightenment? How can marketing be replaced by honest information? I'd love a sequel for sure. Thank you for this episode.
Thank you! I really appreciated this. I will now read more from Dr. Britton.
+1
Meditation, like psychedelics, is open to misunderstanding. Both deal directly with the mind and so require a skilled introduction and support. Willoughby is bringing this to our attention, but in a way that has created a separate support system which can appear a savior to the 'dark side of meditation'. I guess I would do the same, but what is needed, as well as scientific understanding, is experienced meditators who have walked the path and know the pitfalls. Real experience takes many years. Mindful practice, if treated like a spa day, makes any perceived negative outcome appear as a threat. Our understanding of contemplative practices needs to be informed and with a growing interest in meditation, this interview is part of that learning process.
Among scientists too there is no consensus about things like how to handle missing data in a dataset, etc. So, there may not be consensus among Buddhist practitioners on how to handle an emotion like anger (my personal view is: this is very much dependent on the context, such as the experience of the individual, their propensity, etc). However, just like in science, there are many things that all Buddhist meditators would agree on. These are things like the four noble truths, the four foundations of mindfulness, the three characteristics of existence, etc. I think it is best to focus on these commonalities rather then focus on things that differ among practitioners of Buddhism, and make a big deal out of it.
Wow, wow, wow. this is one of your best, ever.
1:00:00 Kudos to both of you for this conversation and work. They say that the plural of anecdote isn't data, except with human experience that is all we have, we owe it to those with potentially different viewpoints to characterize the space as evenly and clearly as possible.
This is an incredible step towards a robust equivalent of goals of care, and informed consent within the framework of not only modern medical psychiatry but ethics, and I suspect it will increasingly be met with questions at the interface of machine systems/simulations as well as animal sentience etc as we understand the physiological processes more.
They say that “when the student is ready the teacher will appear”. This episode has coincided with a presentation I've been writing about my position that Zazen does not need a “view”. That the practice will develop in a natural progression if simple initial instructions are given. The goal should be described as broadening attention. Dr. Britton has articulated so many concepts that were rolling around in my mind . Thank you Steven for your always insightful questioning.
I’d love to hear more from her
1:13:00 There may be a beautiful corollary here in that if different traditions have different frameworks for what is a problem but we are able to cross culturally borrow and teach to people who have ended up with distressing/impairing experiences.
It is a little sad that we cannot just plot it out like a D&D alignment chart.
Yes, everything is ONE thing. That has to be experienced empirically. Read to understand Shuragama Sutra to stay safe from the dangerous side of meditation. 🌈
Great interview.
Much appreciation for your work which I have followed with great interest for some time now. Please keep going, kind regards
After two years of intense meditation I awakened kundalini which overloaded my system causing a downward spiral. I have since been bedridden for 6 years dealing with kundalini syndrome and resulting chronic illness condition. Symptoms have been extreme both physically and psychologically.
EDIT: I should add for anyone reading this who is frightened by my experience. I know that if I had the right guidance from the start and followed instructions from a teacher, this could have been prevented or mostly prevented. But I made many mistakes trying to navigate this by myself and with the help of people not knowledgeable on kundalini.
It can be reversed. Find someone who is very vital, understands qi and has transmitted the ability to others
@@jamesm5192 I have recently found a teacher who is working with me. Had to work intensively with various therapeutic modalities for a number of years to get my mental health back. Now I’m working on tackling the kundalini syndrome itself.
Yes, i could not agree more. Qi Gong exercises crafted for you and guided by a qualified master practitioner will probably help. I speak to some degree from personal experience. @@jamesm5192
Look up SKY yoga. They handle Kundalini problems. SKY is an acronym for Simplified Kundalini Yoga. It is what they teach. They can cause Kundalini to rise, and bring it back down. As you have discovered, Kundalini can be dangerous without a skilled teacher.
@@tomtillman That demonstrates you don't understand what the issue is... This improper training is a bag of trix; incorrect. You can short circuit yourself by trying to make the kundalini rise, which has clearly happened to a lot of people. So the opposite needs to be done. You need to learn to release, open and develop qi.
Meditation certainly can precipitate an unpleasant condition. Informed consent is an area that is neglected for sure.
I know of two of the well known schools that have had people go off the rails to some degree.
Chose your teacher wisely, because a good teacher will advise you to ease up, change, or stop if it is going wrong. And, he or she has to be available to hear you, on short notice.
Doing meditation without being connected to a teacher will likely be ok, but you should know the risk is there.
I also know of one well known Theravada based school that has cited Willoughby's Cheetah House as a place to get help if it is needed. Sometimes it is beyond the teacher's ability to fix it if something goes wrong.
“a contested space that’s so often presented as a settled issue…”
Who sees Buddhist views of methods or “emptiness” as a settled issue? I think any most Buddhist practitioners and scholars are quite aware and comfortable with the fact that there is no one definitive Buddhist view. 84000 sufferings. 84000 teachings. I’m surprised to hear that this is was a surprising finding.
Thanks Willoughby, for talking about this and doing research in this field. I have found ways of managing the dark night / dukkha nanna, but the after affects still remain. It's really hard to understand and articulate to people something might have gone wrong. I developed a higher sensitivity to sensations and everything was quiet wrong. Outside of practice and post retreat the good states where harder to maintain and the unpleasant states significantly increased, there was a hyper arousal to dukkha, this was a a very unhappy range of states even though very subtle. I could not longer pass through this by increased meditation and if I did pass through dukkha to equanimity I would quick return back to the hyper arousal of dukkha nanna. I was able to manage the dukkha nanna by just distracting myself and not mediating and gaming (non physical hyper focus), over time I moved my practice over to Metta and TWIM and that has been more manageable. I still need to stop my practice at times because everything becomes hyper sensitised. I feel like I rewired myself to unsatisfactoriness rather than pleasure, and lost a lot of my natural Samadhi ability because of Vipassana, which I am only now getting back because of TWIM. Ingrams push on through strategy that he acquired from Mahasi didn't help, but learning to relax and softly connect with metta did. Vipassana really turns off my ability to be able to relax into samadhi which still has insight within it, I really agree with Delson that Awareness Jhana is the right kind of Samadhi and the right kind of insight, and likely the main kind of practice that the Pali Buddha was talking about. Vipassana can work and absorption Jhana too, but they are just a lot hard for most people, most likely.
What meditation technique should I do if Im prone to anxiety? I feel like Im developing psychosis if I meditate consistently. I recently started countinf my breaths, that calms me down
Walking meditation and Metta meditation are options you may find beneficial .
Also CBT , cognitive behavior therapy is helpful in combination .
@@dandybufo9664 thanks, I will try to do more metta. I propably found the problem. In this paper "The Influence of Buddhist Meditation" Traditions on the Autonomic System and Attention" they found out vipassana causes alertness in the nervous system but theravada and mahayana calms it down. That makes so much sense now.
At 55:00....I feel you on this one Dr. Willoughby Britton.....as a lay Buddhist.....this isn't a Buddhist saying...but what's helped me considerably is ...."if you meet the Buddha...kill him/her". Thanks so much! 🙏. So as not to get into hot water here, that just means...look to no other to determine your path. Dr. Willoughby Britton, I don't see you as a 'Debby Downer'. I sit ever day in Discord and run guided body scans....we have to meet people where they are, but there is a certain amount of discipline required to get the benefits of meditation...where is the line..how have you negotiated that as a practitioner. I've sat Vipassana for 25 years....a world of complex PTSD was overcome via my path....but it was...my...path. Be well to you both and many thanks Guru Viking
34:30 I know she probably won't see this, but this is often actually what I answer to why I want to touch nibbana; I know so deeply in my heart that it is possible, and I have the general feeling that this has been a long, long journey, and I am tired. Not in a 'I want to kill myself' way, but as in a 'this is enough; I've searched enough; now I just need to let go.' So there are those of us out here that do seek nibbana as a way out of rebirth.
From a Sotapanna:
"Follow your dreams. You can reach your goals. I'm living proof. Beefcake!"
Why does this guy only have 20 k followers. He has so many intersting talks on here
Are we blaming meditation for the fact that some people should perhaps first have gone for therapy? Cultivating awareness in an individual who is struggling physiologically seems to me like an obvious recipe for problems.
Ah yes. Doctor Willow B. Britton
JED mckenna would love this lady
Hey dude. Good interview.
I met you a few years back at Byron.
I had a 'panic attack' (the second I'd had) about a week into a Vipassana. Was very intense. Managed to just sit through it, and am actually glad it happened. This was in contrast to the first panic attack I had, several years previous, that happened right after a guided meditation, leading to many months of feeling on the edge of psychosis. That wasn't fun.
Hope you're having good times, man.
Everyone wants to believe they are Right!! On either side of anything!!??
Her assertions that there are many “selves” seems to miss the vital point of consciousness. All of those concepts of self feel authentic but derive from the mind. But the seer and the non doer who passes from one iteration to the next has a continuity that these other selves cannot claim. And buddhists may disagree about the aim but it did not lead to crusades. It led to more than 1000 years of nuanced philosophical debate. I see the appeal of these arguments and there is a lot of interesting discussion but it seems like you are supporting an agenda in which meditation is anti mental health when really, being in your own least excited state has obvious benefits which are self evident. It’s the ego and false selves in the mind which also want it to somehow make them invincible in the material which is entirely concerned with the body and the vanities which we all come to wrestle with. Anyway at least the discussion is on the table. 😂
I wonder if the host will ever share why he thinks all of the collaboration between materialism and so-called spirituality is honest. Perhaps start with the brain and the mind, which all of these appeals to authority serve. Everytime someone name drops their credentials or uses the word neuroscience or talks about the brain, then anyone who can recognize materialism should have the same kinds of questions arise. How do they think they've magically established a connection between consciousness and the meat organ "brain" such that they have insight the rest of us do not? Funny how this doesn't go the other way; no experts in the difference between mind, body and soul infiltrate academia to make it less materialistic. It is only the other direction during my life time so far: all of the mainstream collaborations between materialism and spirituality allow the word "empiricism" to degrade - without arguing the point or even noticing. The materialists can extend "empirical" to mean all sorts of modifications to the faculties of direct perception; microscopes, telescopes, studies, meta studies, millions of other people's senses condensed and averaged... Again, I notice this goes one way, but not the other. The world famous traditions have one definition of empircal - and indeed it was coined off of their backs - and meanwhile the "sciences" have another much more diluted and permissive definition of it.
I too sometimes get annoyed at some of the epistemological assumptions - often unaddressed in academia. But my initial impression is that she seems open minded, down to earth and is not a snob.
Can you provide a compelling alternative framework that can consistently explain and predict the observable phenomena related to consciousness and spirituality, while also offering testable hypotheses and empirical evidence to support its claims? Do you think that such an endeavor shouldn't even be permissible? You speak of a "soul"; how are you defining this and on what basis? You can offer your insights on the "soul" to academia if you like, but they might find this insightful that meditators find discussion of neural pathways and such. Are you offended that not everyone shares your metaphysics?
@@NothingTheGreat It doesn't seem you understood my comment. That is OK. Have a good one.
@@jamesm5192can you explain what you find dishonest about it then?
@@NothingTheGreat I think there's plenty to unpack in the above comment, and it seems at least 8 others understood it to some degree, or else why would they thumbs up it.
"Meditation" and sila are supporting each other. Celibacy to preserve energy for "meditation" and moral-conduct supporting each other. Meditation 'goes wrong' for that reason it seems. PS. Analysis is paralysis.
As usual a psychiatrist's interest and focus is on the problem's. I hate psychiatrists🥵🥵🥵
I disagree with a lot of what she is saying. If one has an example of an enlightened master one can see what the goal is, HH Dalai Lama is the greatest example, he is the embodiment of the Bodhisattva.
True. I think she hardly understands the original teachings of the Buddha. Perhaps this is what people who write long emails to her (as she mentioned) are trying to tell her - but she is not even open to listening to other views and prefers to cling to her own misguided views.
As I listened to this, I felt that she has large gaps in her understandings relating to Buddhist practices, especially Buddhist philosophy. As I see it, her arguments are comparable to a child saying that he 'appreciates the moon better than the sun because the moon comes up when it is dark, whereas sun is there during daylight when there is light anyway.' Buddhist teachings are deep and profound, and although she talks as if she has understood everything - there is a LOT that she is missing. It is very sad that she is misleading people even at the university level - very unfortunate. Hope she would realize this and change her ways and understand that there can be something that requires deeper thinking than simple reasoning that most people engage in.
These are methods with specific goals, and “self discovery” usually isn’t one of them. Giving people maps isn’t deception. A person going to a distant unfamiliar location may require a few days to get there with a map. Without one, they’d likely never come close and just wander aimlessly.
This person seems to have a bias against traditional systems, and non academics in general. I don’t believe for a second that there weren’t any meditators that she interviewed who didn’t know the definition of nibbana. Typical academic elitism.
This is just the normal deception of the medical industry, commonly seen in the USA. They want you to come to them so they can teach you very limited techniques such as MBSR and MBCT on your insurance company’s dollar. After all, we’re all too dumb to know what we want. We can’t learn about different meditation methods for different purposes in books and the like, only academics know how to do that. Right??
One thing is for sure, if you have all these goals, you should stay away from Vajrayana, - you are not ready. Do some mindfulness and psychiatry on her level of understanding in this life instead, if you wish.
Folks need to hear these kinds of things because meditation is a form of mefication and it is not a one size fits all. There will always be cautions and contraindications in meditation, yoga, qigong, etc. as one can get qi sickness and kundalini sickness, leading to nerve damage, brain, and mental/psychological damage. Proceed with caution.
The Ego is a crybaby and of course any confrontation will cause pain. Courage and integrity will set us free. To be or not to be.
Her anti wording of self must Come from an inner need for specialness... oh call me Doctor and don't say self.. wt?
this has always been true, unfortunately meditation isnt for the psychologically unstable 😅 there used to be many more hurdles to a meditation teacher.
If you read her papers you will see that even mentally stable people may experience long lasting side-effects.
@@Tomas33392 yeah, and the meditation destabilized them... the thing is meditation should pull the rug out from under you, so to say... but youve gotta be ready and willing 😯
@@mattrkelly Right, but most people in the West who come to meditation and mindfulness have no idea of the ultimate Buddhist goal or of what effects meditation might have on their mental state. They just try meditation as a way to relax, feel better, etc. (because it's mostly sold as a cure-all) and suddenly find themselves having a mental breakdown.
The endless xenophobia, ethnocentrism, and sinophobia as well as lack of multiculturalism is starkly astonishing.
Sorry but …clueless.