Be quite careful giving advice about meditation. Under your "beginner" heading you suggest Dhamma - the 10 day 9 day silent course (I'm assuming vipassana is an example of this).

I did a vipassana course after a similar suggestion. In me it triggered a full blown manic-psychotic (bipolar) episode. There had been no history of this in my family (or myself) before that point.

If you're interested, I made a bunch of podcasts detailing what it was like to be manic -> depressed -> better here: [0]

While I'm not saying it's necessarily bad advice, I suggest that anyone contemplating a 10 day silent retreat has prepared by doing a _lot_ of meditation before hand and to be aware that there can be consequences.

[0] http://livingvipassana.blogspot.com

Thanks for the nuance.

Meditation is like exercise, actually it is mental exercise. (Mental) injuries can happen, just like any other form of (mental) exercise. It is indeed an issue that there's less awareness about it compared to physical injuries with physical exercise.

Also, when you do the beginner level, you do need to have done the introductory level. This means that you at least have meditated for half an hour per day, for 5 weeks at a minimum. That's what those derivatives of MBCT and MBSR tell you to do.

Yip, I totally agree that it's like exercise, and I totally totally agree that you should start slowly.

However! where I did it (in New Zealand) vipassana specifically started you at the 10 day course (or did 8 years ago), there was no option to do a shorter one. Or if there was, they certainly didn't stop you jumping straight into a 10 day.

Good point. If I have to make an analogy it seems like putting a person not physically suited for the military into a strict military 10-day brutal survival bootcamp. They need to be more careful with this indeed.

Agreed. Traditions have, over thousands of years, established the dangers and pitfalls of meditation. Best to start slowly - a short amount of time daily - and find a good teacher backed by some of that tradition.

For me, Shambhala Buddhism really resonated. Skepticism is encouraged, and the brilliance of those thousands of years of wisdom is a great support along the path.

I had similar experience myself. I wouldn't attribute the risk to the retreat itself, however, but to the vipassana method, which tends to evoke insight experiences as quickly as possible, without first calming the mind using single object samatha practice. If someone were to just use classic anapanasati even for 10 days, I think the results would be somewhat different, as when properly praciced anapanasati calms the body and essentially turns of thinking first, which leads to much calmer and more pleasurable transformation of the mind. Insight experiences with active mind during vipassana practice always feel to me like open brain surgery. With some increasing understanding of not-self, however, it gets less and less scary with time.

Actually in another Burmese method (not Vipassana as taught by Goenka but the other 'big Burmese line', see Mahasi Sayadaw), going 'crazy' is actually part of the path.

I had a similar experience within the past few years stemming from hypnosis and meditation in college, and listening to your podcasts have been eerily similar to my experience with mania in particular.

Have you found many other people who experienced similar symptoms stemming from self-reflection triggers?

Yip, I get on average 1 - 2 mails a year from that site from people who have gone through a similar thing after a vipassana course...

And that blog is buried on Google, so I'm sure there are more people who are having issues.

That's more of a guide for converting to Buddhism... in a word, proselytizing.

Ehm, I'm not a Buddhist. So I'm not converting people to my 'faith'. Also, it's a bit tongue in cheek.

Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/proselytize

The very restricted diet followed for the 10days of the Vipassana retreat might have something to do with these side-effects. Drastically lowering your calorie intake can trigger depression.

FYI: your summary is more likely to discourage people from meditating than encourage them if:

1) They are not enthusiastic about religion. 2) They are already members of another religion and do not wish to convert, particularly if said religion is not very positive about Buddhism.

For any readers in those two camps: meditation and religion are often linked, but do not need to be. There are plenty of secular guides and practices too, and if you are religiously inclined, there are also likely to be guides on combining your religious beliefs with best-practice meditation.

Hmm... people seem to take whatever I wrote a bit too harsh on the religion thing. I take religion as inspiration on how to live my life. I'm not religious myself though, never will be. Perhaps I needed a proofreader first before publishing whatever I wrote.

My apologies for scaring people with the overtones being interpreted as religious. It wasn't my intention.

For any readers in those two camps... I really recommend Zen. It in known for its rejections of beliefs.

Second this.

But I have to admit, Zazen (the Zen form of meditation) is challenging. It's different from what one usually thinks about meditating.