Interacting with hidden layers are considered advanced practice and I'm just entering these levels. To be able to cope with it you both have to be very experienced and very powerful. I still practice with my masters if I'm going to go that deep.

Also, tests of death and dissolution is not something you should experience alone. It can be because of many different reasons. Everybody's experiences are different, even when faced with the same thing. So you need to get familiar with yourself first, under supervision of a more experienced instructor.

My advice is not to mix meditation with substances and not try deeper practices without someone more experienced on the subject matter.

If you don't mind, could you mention what practices and substances are you referring to?

Every practice regimen has a bigger system in work so, mixing and matching can create havoc on your body.

Adding LSD and mushrooms on top of it is just lighting a big fire and calling storm on you.

I'm not against LSD, mushrooms or other practice systems, but never seen any positive outcome from these kinds of experiments.

Please, don't do it.

Michael Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind has lots of stories of people having positive psychedelic therapy, which does require essentially a spiritual guide.

I personally changed a lot with the help of the practice I do. I've faced my phobias, solved a lot of self-confidence issues, found out what's wrong with me. I've also got therapy before starting Zen. While it helped me somehow, it failed to solve the underlying issue. Zen helped me to tackle the underlying issue and move forward.

To work with a good master, you don't need to always go to a monastery and, change your life temporarily. I left nothing behind. Still live in the city. Just go to see my master from time to time. Will continue when the pandemic ends.

I had an instructor in the city, who's also a student of the same master, but he passed away due to COVID-19.

Every tradition and way contains elements from each other, but these ways find the compatible combinations and way to build upon them. Also a master/student relationship helps to guide the student in the harder times. Internet doesn't provide the guidance and safeguards, unfortunately.

As an instructor, I keep track of my every student independently. Otherwise, there's no meaning doing what I do. They also call me when things go awry and we work through it together, and we both learn in the process.

Zen, Buddhism or anything is not the only way. There are many ways to do it.

I'm very curious on what was your main goal to achive?

Unfortunately that can't be proved. When reading the article I got the impression the woman might have unearthed such a thing. Maybe she had a hidden shame. Someone even asked about it, but she never told what it was. Maybe there wasn't anything to work through and meditation can cause problems. We can never know when the subject is dead. We also cant know if ideas are put in someone's head when they're in such a state.

My point is that to blame hidden trauma is cop out. Blaming the victim. Sure, it's the cause sometimes, but we dont know if it's always the case.

BTW, similar risks exist in psychotherapy, but they too will deny risks and blame patients with "(s)he had issues" when they die.

The first is hidden trauma.

The second is something that comes strings attached. You have to accept the Buddhist conceptual framework which says that the entire world is a fabrication.

During meditation you can experience this and, if you don't accept that you are more than just matter, then experiencing the fact that your body is empty of existence will mean that you are empty of existence. Which will be very frightening, as you can imagine.

Hidden trauma is not something like a faceless blob. It's something you remember, you know, however you didn't realize that it created a trauma with you. It's not something burning inside daily, distorting you daily. E.g.: You don't like a certain spice. That's OK, but why? Because somebody added it to your food excessively and your first encounter was very unpleasant. You put the event in the back burner, almost forgot about it, but its effects linger until this day. This is the hidden trauma. This can be something emotional about your past partners, something you botched up, etc. So when you re-remember it, it can be easy to work through or very hard. This difficulty is not related to the size of the event. You can go through events of great distress in a single breath and need to work on the loss of a sentimental item for years. This is where instructor comes in. Keeps you in balance, and guides through it.

The meditation I do doesn't judge anyone. There's no blame. It happened and it left a mark. Why? Doesn't matter. Who's wrong? Doesn't matter. There's a little lesson there. Did you learn it? It can be about you, other party, world, your dog. Doesn't matter. Get that little message, put it into your pocket, leave the emotion behind. That's not easy all the time. This is why instructors/masters are important. This is why the way is important.

Sometimes there's nothing to go through, at least for now. In a good practice, practice itself shouldn't search for problems but to explore what's inside and strengthen oneself. This strength and self-familiarity triggers the discovery of these hidden-traumas or not-so-right state of oneself. This mechanism is not fully understood, but it can be said that with self familiarity and self confidence, the practitioner has more courage to face with the problems which he/she buried to cope, so subconscious mind surfaces them to be dealt with. This is again where guidance and masters play a very important role.

I meditate everyday. I don't uncover the hell inside me every day, but it helps me to reflect, understand what I did right, what I did wrong, what I still carry. It helped me tremendously for transforming from a potato to myself, after years of physical and emotional bullying. It helped me to get rid of my dance phobia, fear of expressing myself and lack of self confidence.

There are many wrong ways to both meditation and psychotherapy. We're very very cautious with our practitioners. Everyone benefited somehow from our ways. Most important thing is, many friends has diverted to different paths and they're free to do so. There's no strings attached. We give the tools and show how to use them correctly. If another set of tools are better for them, we're happy. No hard feelings.

>> Hidden trauma is not something like a faceless blob. It's something you remember, you know, however you didn't realize that it created a trauma with you.

Some people will block the memory. Others are aware of it but don't associate it with current feelings, thoughts, or actions, so when asked they will essentially "forget" it and say "no trauma". Yet other forms of trauma form from years of subtle mistreatment and can not be traced to a specific event - only through extensive work can that be pieced together.

The subconscious can be a minefield, and to say poor outcomes are due to poor practice is almost as bad as victim blaming. I think triage is important, but there is a lot of belief that any practitioner can handle any person. I think that's false even with the best of them.

However, I want to heavily emphasize that there's no such thing as "poor outcomes are due to poor practice" in our way. I never got that treatment from my masters or my deceased instructor. Same is valid for me. I'd never say something something similar to any of my students.

These students give us all their trust. Their wellbeing is more important than ours during practice and after that. We'd do anything in our capacity to help them, and we have preliminary response protocols if something goes wrong. This brings us to next point of you, which is equally valid.

> I think triage is important, but there is a lot of belief that any practitioner can handle any person.

That's absolutely true. If we sense something is beyond us, we direct our students to medical doctors. If there's an emergency, we directly take them there. Having knowledge of preliminary medical first aid is essential (we have them). Funny thing is, other trainer in my city is an MD. Our master was a field medic.

We neither denounce nor ignore modern medicine. We just can complement in lots of instances or teach people to help themselves. I think it's equally important to know the value and capacity of tradition and accept things evolve and advance.

It's assuring that none of students had any adverse effects or negative events in their life due to practices they made with us. If anything happens, its responsibility is on us, not them. We're showing the way, and we don't have the luxury to make mistakes.

A sudden confrontation with this can be completely destabilizing.

> A sudden confrontation with this can be completely destabilizing.

Many ways force a confrontation, and that's indeed dangerous. However, it doesn't have to be like that.

Emotions are like onions. They're layered. Slow practice and slow advancement naturally brings practitioners to outer layers of these onions, which are easier to understand, remove and resolve. In our way, you can't get to the next level unless you have the power to do so.

If you have the power, you can remove and solve it. If you can't remove that layer, you don't face with anything. It all happens progressively.

All in all, there's no forced search for battles to fight. Ours is self exploration. You face only what you're ready for. We have safeguards against it.

I'm doing this for ~7 years and I still get to harder levels of the same issues sometimes. It's not easy, but it's worth it.

I’ve also spent time with numerous different meditation groups from different traditions.

My experience is that they vary a lot.

> You face only what you're ready for. We have safeguards against it.

Your particular community may have safeguards.

That is simply not true in the general case as the linked article asserts.

When it becomes a competition or a drug or a lifestyle or an experimental therapy or hobby or social or cult activity, there are greater dangers. People should be meaningfully informed of the risks. But there is money to be made, so...

Philosophical studies and religious faith and teachings seem to smooth the way. Know thyself. Everything in moderation. To thine own self be true. The small still voice within. If it isn’t making you more kind and loving to all you meet, whatever it is, then stop. As true about meditation as anything else.

The best introduction I ever found on the topic of meditation was Introduction to Yoga Principles and Practices by Majumdar, University Books, 1964. No cult, no workshops, been dead for a while.

That seems like a tautology to me.

You are essentially saying that those who practice safely do not need safeguards.

This is true, but of course the safeguards are not for those people.

They are for people who are at risk but don’t know it.

My guess is, it's not understood by modern science exactly because it's underrated by "woo woo" people :( But I notice in later years an increased focus on mental studies so maybe modern science will get to this as well. That is, if it's not too busy explaining the earth is round... (*edited to reformat)