Robin Woods:
This is really bugging me at the moment and I can’t get my head around it at all. How does the mushroom culture get away with not being open about the DN? Thousands of people must have passed through the doors of IMS etc and been affected etc. Well heeled, upwardly mobile people with lawyers etc.
Does anyone know if Goldstein et al will mention it in private interviews? How can they get away with not warning people about what they’re getting into?
Or are people there literally making no ‘progress’ at all?! On one month retreats they’re not even getting to A&P?
What does the Kabat-zinn brigade who are prescribing this stuff to people with serious mental health problems think about this? Kabat-zinn must be 'awake' to at least some degree - right?
I think we can learn from what happens with drug use, because drugs probably do similar things to the brain. Mindset makes a big difference. Setting makes a difference. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_and_setting
So if I go and meditate and I feel depressed before I start (set), then there's a decent chance I will severely aggravate the depression. If I go and meditate and I'm not happy in my surrounds (setting), again there's a chance of aggravating a low of mood state.
To me, 'set' and 'setting' are essentially the same thing, but Leary's term has stuck. The drug (or meditation) opens a door. How you feel before you enter the door determines to a large extent whether your experience is healing or terrifying.
So this is why for me, non-negativity is useful. I don't practice positive thinking, because that's too tricky - i found I would use the positivity to suppress and deny the negative thoughts, thereby making them stronger. For me, non-negativity means noticing that negative thoughts make me feel bad, and letting them go rather than grinding on them all day. Such a basic concept, yet it took me years to understand this properly. Then if I feel ok, by the end of the day I'll do some absorption practice. I'm not ready for the other type of practice. I view absorption practice the same way I would having a beer at the end of the day. I don't want to have 10 beers and end up feeling off the next day. I just have one to relax. My skill level at absorption is poor, but that's ok. The better I feel, the easier it is.
Sticking with the drug theme, it's normal for a low to follow a high. The brain gets flooded with serotonin and dopamine, then notices the depletion after it gets re-absorbed. My understanding is that the only way to avoid the low is to keep taking the drug, and maybe by extension.... keep meditating continuously?? I guess this is where the retreat idea comes in. You keep on keeping on, keep feeding the brain over and over and over, hoping to blast through to the other side. If you don't get there, you can expect the most horrible depression once you stop. My problem is that no-one gets there, so they all end up depressed. One has to cross the Abyss for it to not backfire. If you get to the Abyss and freak out, you're not going to end up in a good place. And since so few people are enlightened, I can only assume that either: 1) people are using bad/wrong techniques, so they don't get to stand on the precipice and/or 2) they get to the precipice but are not prepared to "die" to the moment.