Pretty much every "meditation was bad for me" story seems to play out like this. The author basically abused meditation in the way that someone might abuse drugs.

Some people clearly are susceptible to being caught up in this kind of behavior. So I think the point in TFA: "meditation can have risks for some people" is valid. But that "some people" seems to be a fairly specific personality type, and most people could probably benefit from some mind-calming body-centering breathing exercises every day.

It’s a common enough effect that it should be noted. Many spiritual people end up being detached from the world, for better or worse.

Detachment is a tenet of Buddhism, not an effect of meditation.

Note that the tenet of Buddhism is non-attachment, not detachment. They are different.

Traditional sutric Buddhism was definitely about detachment (or “renunciation”); you’re supposed to never have sex and if you’re eating food you should imagine it’s a rotting corpse so you won’t end up enjoying it.

The presentation of Buddhism as chill and peaceful and all about meditation is a modernization to keep it alive after the white people found it.

> you’re supposed to never have sex and if you’re eating food you should imagine it’s a rotting corpse so you won’t end up enjoying it.

Possibly as an instrumental practice on the way to full buddhahood (and that would come after even the very advanced stage of arahantship, which basically means guaranteed complete enlightenment after your lifetime!). Surely not as mere penance or mortification of the flesh shorn of any contemplative practice, because that was very clearly criticized by the Buddha as misleading and useless when the Hinduists were doing it.

(Then again, IIRC, the Stoics talk about doing something very similar. The idea itself would not have been unfamiliar in the West.)

Certainly not in the sense of "overlooking anything else in your life". Moral living is a key component of successful dharmic/meditative practice according to Buddhist and other teachings.

So no part of buddhism is about healthy re-integration into society? That seems troubling.

There are plenty of ways to meditate without adhering to Buddist belief and practice.