This comment by @snowbird on a discussion about The Jhana Bros are here thread prompted me to listen to the four episodes of the Podcast “Untold: The Retreat” by Financial Times. It’s a podcast on the dangers of meditation, particularly the meditation retreats of S.N. Goenka. It raised lots of thoughts in my mind.
The podcast is basically a journalist’s story about how she was contacted by a distraught family whose twin daughters got involved in Goenka retreats, attending 4 retreats each and volunteering to work retreats. Subsequently, both daughters developed serious psychological problems and one committed suicide. The rest of the podcast consists of stories about other people who had similar traumatic experiences at Goenka retreats and the journalist’s warnings of the dangers of meditation and Goenka retreats.
It’s noteworthy to point out that the journalist begins the podcast by saying that before the parents of the twins contacted her, she had heard the word meditation but didn’t really know what it meant and had never known anyone who meditated. Over and over in the podcast, all “meditation” is used interchangeably and is never defined. All meditation is dangerous. Consequently, she formed her belief that all meditation is something quite harmful, dangerous and life threatening and repeats this many, many times throughout he episodes.
It’s also telling that the retreat attendees she talked about were attending the retreat for stress reduction and to experience metaphysical experiences. It seemed to me that they were attending retreats for unrealistic expectations and for reasons that had nothing to do with the Buddhist path. The journalist never once said a word about Buddhism or the Buddha.
I think that any person considering a Goenka retreat needs to have done some personal introspection confronting life issues. I can imagine that if a person who had never faced their hidden or ignored secrets, regrets, guilt, shame, addictions, self doubt or the operation of their mind and went to such an intense 10 day meditation retreat and looked inside themselves, that has the potential to be extremely traumatic for certain people. Particularly since they probably had no idea what they were about to embark upon. Not to mention that they would be doing it alone inside their untrained mind, unable to speak with anyone, get good guidance or help.
I attended two 10-day Goenka retreats about 15 years ago and disagree on most all of the journalist’s opinions and conclusions but she raised a few valid points. I made a comment in another thread on D&D about my retreat experiences and my appraisal has changed in some ways since then. After hearing this podcast I’m still certain that I wouldn’t recommend attending the retreat and certainly nobody without a pre-retreat briefing and a post-retreat debriefing by someone knowledgeable.
To be fair, the organizers of these retreats strongly promote the benefits these folks seek, and they explicitly say that the retreats are not “Buddhist”. This goes to the heart of the issue.
It’s been a few months since I listened but I came away with the opposite impression. I felt that the producers were clear that the issue was this specific form of intense practice. I also went into it with a prior negative feeling towards the retreats and organizers, so that probably influenced me.
I’m trying to find a way to bring the conversation back to the EBTs, but it’s difficult. (Probably why I didn’t start a thread about the podcast.)
I’ve been to two Goenka retreats and volunteered there ( 1990s ). I went to the “Jhana Bros” web site. What do the two organizations have to do with each other?
That’s notable that you and I came away with an opposite impression! It will be interesting to hear if anyone else has listened to the podcast and what their experience with it is.
Yes, it’s such a highly charged topic, it’s not surprising that it would leave different impressions. I can’t remember exactly, but I would agree that they didn’t put a lot of time into distinguishing Goenka retreats from the wide variety of meditation methods out there. And they didn’t go out of their way to defend meditation in general. But I didn’t see that as their goal.
Yes, I suppose it could be a highly charged topic. My intention here was to focus on the podcast, not Goenka retreats which is a previous discussion here on D&D.
I recently came across the term “ontological shock” to describe how sometimes “mystical experiences” shake someone to the core.
Well, I’d bring it back to the Noble Eightfold Path. Going the “right way” requires, first and foremost, “Right View”.
Before entering into an intensive, especially vipassanā, retreat, one should already have at least an intellectual acceptance of the Three Characteristics and a reflective faith in the Triple Gem: e.g. the escape from Saṃsāra. That is to say, the meditator should be “ontologically prepared” to see the First Noble Truth.
Seeing, directly, the unsatisfying nature of existence while still being a committed materialist … I can see how that might lead to suicidality.
I remember one time on a retreat my sense of my body in space started breaking down into the component experiences that made up that sense of my body in space. As a long-time Buddhist by then, I remember thinking - this is so cool!
But if didn’t have that frame of understanding I think it could have been quite shocking and a negative experience to have the sense of self undermined like that.
I haven’t listened to the whole podcast, but I think it’s fine for it to be warning people that meditation is not a toy and can be dangerous, and questioning whether such a widespread practice movement as Goenka’s is trouble free.
I agree. So much effort is put into constructing a Self, that the sudden diminishing of it could be disturbing, especially if there was no preparation for it or direction of what that leads to.
[quote="Meggers, post:9, topic:37071, full:true”]
I haven’t listened to the whole podcast, but I think it’s fine for it to be warning people that meditation is not a toy and can be dangerous, and questioning whether such a widespread practice movement as Goenka’s is trouble free.
[/quote]
I agree. Meditation is powerful, especially in that kind of sudden immersion without appropriate view, training and guidance. Certain people can’t handle it. I witnessed that at a Goenka retreat. However, in listening to the podcast, I kept thinking that she was throwing the meditation baby out with the bathwater.
I think she makes plain that she knows very little about it. Journalists are often taught to be dumb and ask the dumb questions - for several reasons - with no point in going into it here. Plus, she’s dealing with a difficult topic and working with people who’ve experienced total devastation. It’s not reasonable to expect parents whose child killed herself after going to Goenka retreats not to want to throw out the meditation bathwater with the baby who died in it.
I saw a video about someone describing their experience there. The way they describe it shows they are primarily mistaken.
You’d be surprised at how painful it is to sit. It’s like an athletic event. Go into it with a mindset that’s antifragile
Some grit makes sense, but it was only grit, no mention of joyful feeling. Their main take away was “no pain, no gain.”
Imagine having none or little meditation experience and then suddenly being forced to meditate 10 hours a day for 10 days sitting straight up, fixating on only vipassana. What a pointless headache that would cause. Just caring about your body and even a few minutes of real letting go is better than any of that.
Yeah, I agree. I had heard about a retreat that was 10+ hours a day in silent meditation watching my mind and I knew that was the key. I had never meditated and knew zero about the Buddha when I did my first Goenka retreat. It blew my mind and I knew meditation was the direction I would go. And through that experience I eventually found the Buddha’s teachings and then it all began to make sense. Without the Buddha’s teachings, that Vipassana method didn’t lead me anywhere. And without the Buddha’s path, I can see how vulnerable people could go off the rails.
Really? I think he gives a good personal account of his experiences and what he has come away with from his retreats. I hear the centres are all different and that at some of them people are treated badly, so it isn’t possible to generalize, but Goenka’s focus is on the development of equanimity. At good centres, people are always saying “mind your equanimity” to help.
In Goenka’s talks he mentions that he himself was encouraged to try vipassana in Myanmar as a last hope to cure terrible migraines and was “outta there” and had to be convinced to stay. He also mentions that he was watching some guy in his cell in Myanmar who was actually bouncing off the floor during meditation and called whoever the head was out of concern. The head came, took a look at the guy in his cell and said, “leave him.” Goenka also relates that he found out later the guy worked for the US military designing inter-continental ballistic missiles, or something like that. And he says something like, “imagine the guy’s karma.”
Having just browsed the internet over the past 15 years, I’ve gathered that one of prominent features of these intense vippassana retreats is that people come home with a dull, gross, somatic headache.
These types of headaches are bound to arise, I believe, in some percentage of the young adult population regardless whether or not they go on vippassana retreats.
But having a young adult with some possible anxiety issues or other emotional disturbances, who is relentlessly watching and controlling their mind - yeah; it doesn’t suprise me that people are coming away with gross material headaches. That’s just what consciousness does; it clings - especially to itself.
My IRL second hand experience involves a friend who went on this kind of retreat and came home with what he described as a “box” around his heart. He even went up to the facilitator at the time and said, “hey, you’re going to fix this.” And of course the facilitator has no idea what to do.
Bhante, please if you get the opportunity To elaborate on your use of the word Materialist In this context, It may be valuable to other community members also. In my experience even a taste of Some forms of suffering Which are possible Is enough to spiral the Mind into Suicidality. I’ve been attempting to practice For the last 7 years And it’s only recently that my teacher has given me Meditation instructions For a short meditation, it has been Dana, Seela, Bavana For me the Bavana being mostly in the rhealm of other aspects of the noble 8 fold path other than the development of samadhi. I am yet to have built a solid foundation on which to begin Pushing myself on the cushion and trepidaciously I will attempt to attend a 5-day Retreat at the end of the year. If you’ve grown up doing stupid things And unskillful things And also perhaps seen a lot of horrible things I think it would be incredibly unwise to Try and meditation.
Sahdu Bhante!
Well, the first thing I’ll say is that suicidal thoughts are natural. Existence does suck sometimes! Suicidal thoughts aren’t a problem themselves unless you believe in them. This is where materialism is a problem. A materialist is one who believes that this (experience of dukkha) ends with the body. If you really believe that, then you have to rely on something else to prevent you from actually doing the deed (such as by telling yourself that things will get better later, or by committing yourself to some social obligations, etc).
A committed Buddhist who encounters dukkha has a very different reaction. They know that dukkha is inherent to any existence and cannot be escaped by dying. It can only be escaped by understanding it and its causes through meditation, which is uniquely possible to do as a human who has encountered the Dhamma. So they won’t throw away their precious opportunity, but will try to remain open and curious and introspective in the face of suffering in order to try to understand it. A much healthier attitude!
I started this topic in Watercooler and not in Discussion to give a little room for expansion but I can see how it’s difficult to separate the podcast from the Goenka retreats in general. The main problem I see is that the journalist couldn’t conceptualize meditation outside of the Goenka “technique.”
The Vipassana “technique” employed in the retreats are loosely based on the teachings of the Buddha.
" Vipassana, which means to see things as they really are, is one of India’s most ancient techniques of meditation. It was rediscovered by Gotama Buddha more than 2500 years ago and was taught by him as a universal remedy for universal ills, i.e., an Art Of Living. This non-sectarian technique aims for the total eradication of mental impurities and the resultant highest happiness of full liberation."
“Since the time of Buddha, Vipassana has been handed down, to the present day, by an unbroken chain of teachers. The current teachers in this tradition were appointed by the late Mr. S.N. Goenka, who was Indian by descent but was born and raised in Burma (Myanmar).”
During the retreat, Goenka draws heavily from certain traditions of Buddhism and the Abhidhamma, not so much the EBTs. And the farther one deviates from the EBTs, the more pitfalls arise. His method of establishing equanimity is quite different from what we see in MN118 where there is an overlay of mindfulness, the four satipatthanas and the seven awakening factors in order to cultivate equanimity.
As Meggers pointed out above, meditation such as this is not something to be taken lightly. And simply based on the huge numbers of people who attend these retreats, it seems to me to be, frankly, impossible to weed out or deal with people who might experience serious problems and to instruct everyone correctly. Here’s another quote from the vipassana website:
Can Vipassana make people mentally unbalanced?
No. Vipassana teaches you to be aware and equanimous, that is, balanced, despite all the ups and downs of life. But if someone comes to a course concealing serious emotional problems, that person may be unable to understand the technique or to apply it properly to achieve the desired results. This is why it is important to let us know your past history so that we can judge whether you will benefit from a course.
In the EBTs, my impression is that people were instructed very thoroughly and had a community to guide them.
Indeed. Also, I don’t see any evidence of their kind of intensive silent retreats, let alone lay people doing them, let alone “non-Budhists.” And we don’t see much evidence of meditation induced mental illness. It’s almost as if the Buddha didn’t intend for people to practice that way.
Well, that’s the problem with their mass market strategy. What we get from the podcast is evidence of the organizer’s abdication of responsibility to care for those that experience negative/deadly outcomes.
It’s kind of off topic, but I’d caution against assuming that committed Buddhists have a universal reaction to suicidality. A strong belief in karma and rebirth could easily lead someone to decide that they have had enough suffering in this life and just hope that the merit they have done will play out better in their next life. And of course committed Buddhists can also experience mental impairment just like anyone else.
The issue that the podcast raises is that the Goenka org is so committed to their own innocence that they ignore the results right in front of their faces.
My hypothesis would be that being intensely physical and mentally uncomfortable is the primary cause of triggering psychosis.
Basically, the same people who have a psychosis at a Goenka retreat are likely to also have a psychosis had they gone to e.g. bootcamp for the marines (or other intense program).
Or is there something about the Goenka teachings themselves?
Like, could just listening to the Goenka teachings in the comfort of their own home trigger psychosis in someone vulnerable?
What about an equally intense program focused on recollecting one’s own generosity for 10 hours + silence etc? Is it the Goenka teachings, the environment, how they combine, etc?
