I feel like I should update the first post of this blog to say that it’s really just going to be random topics I feel like writing about because at this point it’s very much that and less so science content. 

Anyway, I recently read an article that suggested meditation might not be as universally beneficial as everyone claims it is. That there are potential downsides and adverse outcomes for certain people. It was an interesting read and it made me reflect on my own mediation practice. When I first started there were tremendous benefits and many eye opening experiences which were exciting and kept me motivated. But after almost 6 years of fairly regular practice I’ve hit a bit of a wall. While my experiences during meditation weren’t as dramatic as the woman in the article I read, it did give me grounds to understand the recent darkish turn in my practice I have been experiencing.

When I first started meditating I would sit for 5 minutes every morning as soon as I woke up. It was hard but it was important to me. At the time I needed something to help ground my mind and control my emotions and I knew meditation was good for both of these things. So I started with 5 minutes. Trying my best to count each breath. Eventually it became a vital part of my morning and missing that time made a big difference in my day. After a few months 5 minutes really wasn’t long enough. I would get to a relaxed and peaceful space and then my timer would go off. So I started sitting for 10 minutes and eventually this grew to 25 minutes each morning. I did this for about a year before my life became a bit less routine and I mostly stopped daily meditation but a week would rarely go by without some time dedicated to sitting in silence. 

Meditation has become popular as a way to tackle stress and a number of other mental health issues. A lot of studies seem to point to the benefits of having a daily mindfulness practice. I certainly got a lot out of my daily session from focusing on my breath. And it’s something I recommend to almost all of my friends as a means to overall contentment in their daily lives. Meditating has helped me tremendously and I believe it’s mostly good for everyone. 

Over the last two years or so I did get back into it again and this time in a more serious and structured way by using the Waking Up app created by Sam Harris. I’m a huge fan of his books and truly enjoy the content he puts out. Both his podcast and his meditation app are great resources for interesting thought and discussion. 

I went through the intro to meditation which was about 10 mins a day for over a month. Again, it felt so necessary to have that peace and clarity first thing in the morning. And I was truly in awe at what I was experiencing. 

The intro course walks you through the logic of practise, what you might glimpse and how to get started. One concept that Harris walks you through at the start is that your mind is the basis for everything you experience, good and bad and as such it makes sense to better understand how your mind works as a means to bring an increased sense of well being into your life. The first sessions are all focused on paying attention to the breath which is what I used to do for 5 mins a day years earlier. Then it moves on to incorporate other aspects of your awareness. You start observing sensations in your body and try to not identify with them as happening outside of your mind. It’s like, you know you really only feel your fingers inside your mind but we seem to experience the sensation as happening in our actual fingers. I remember tapping my fingers together and thinking that there was no way I could ever feel like this wasn’t happening below my brain down in my body at my fingertips. After a few more sessions it was clear that it was just a feeling my brain was producing, because of yes, some sensation but the actual place of my experience was in my mind. Does that make sense? After a while you kind of let go of the idea that you are your body and realize that the perception is happening in your mind. 

The next really transformational insight came when we focused on sound. Closing my eyes and being aware of sounds really expanded my understanding of what awareness was. How formless and open it is. At this point I was also starting to get a sense of where awareness was located. Exercises within the app would ask you if you felt you were located behind your face or in front of the back of your head really pushed the boundary of where the sense of self is to be found. 

After a while you start to see how your thoughts just appear out of nowhere and are completely uncontrolled by you. At first this is really liberating. Like, for where I was emotionally - the realization that my tendency to think the worst or feel bad about something in my life wasn’t a choice, it was something my brain just did and I didn’t have to be controlled by that emotion or feeling. But then this led me to question other things about mind. If the “bad” or negative feelings and thoughts weren’t a choice then so too were the good feelings right? My motivation and desires were also not “mine” in a way. Because what was “mine” - I’d already accepted that my sense of self was not real. For a while I was kind of lost in this numb place where I didn’t really know what my feelings were for, good or bad. 

In some ways that’s kind of the point of meditation isn't it? To get to a point of equanimity with both the good and the bad parts of life and to not let them affect you. But as this article pretty neatly sums up; “After a certain point, mindfulness doesn’t allow you to take responsibility for and analyse your feelings''. Because there is no self. So what was the point in working harder or keeping up with personal projects? What were those things really anyway? Losing a grounded sense of self coupled with a feeling that free will is not really that free left me kind of unsure of what “I” was and it confused my ideas of how to live my life. Those were dark times for me. 

I’ve since taken a pause from daily meditations. At this point I can somewhat quickly move my mind into an ish meditative state and feel a disconnection and openness that helps me navigate my emotions. I am also much more able to manage negative unproductive trains of thought. I do hope to get back into regular meditation and I’m sure I will because there is something truly profound to be examined there but for right now, I’m happy with the current state of calm confusion through which I experience the world.