There is this big western idea that meditation is a calming exercise. If done right, it always calms the mind, gives the practitioner inner peace. So, just like doctors prescribe antacids to calm a troubled digestive system, various teachers and experts prescribe meditation for calming troubled minds.Then, when it doesn’t give the expected results, scholarly articles are written about the dangers.
- “Mindfulness and meditation can worsen depression and anxiety” — New Scientist
- “How too much mindfulness can spike anxiety” — the BBC
This simplistic expectation of so-called inner peace is ridiculous. My only hope is that most people who eagerly follow this advice do not become proficient enough in meditation to see its true effects.
The subconscious mind is constantly trying to let us “operate smoothly” in our vyavahaarik lives. This means that disturbing thoughts, experiences, unanswered questions, fears, are all buried by these blankets. Just like grief is suppressed by the hubbub of our lives. Meditation practices, if done well, tend to rip off the layers of blanketing our subconscious mind has put on its innards to allow us to function smoothly.
Meditation practices allow us to see all the layers below the covers. What the upper layers of our minds are trying to push down slowly rises to the surface. Sometimes, these revelations and realisations can be traumatic. But only when the come to the surface does the student get a chance to deal with them, then sort them out, then proceed to build a more resilient, healthier psychological foundation.
It may be useful to think of meditation as analogous to a fast car. When everyone in the world is walking on foot, some enlightened people (called “Engineers”) offer people fast cars, claiming that they can reach their destinations faster in cars, saving time. But when people start driving, they realise that fast cars hurtle towards obstacles very fast, and if you lose your nerve, or if you drive faster than your skill permits, you’ll crash. Then scholarly articles begin to get published in New Scientist, BBC and elsewhere, warning people of how fast cars can cause death in 1 out of 12 drivers. And you and I stand on the roadside and wonder: what were they expecting?
Therefore, meditation students need genuine, experienced, and committed guides who can help students cope with the detritus which surfaces. Only if one has the guidance, the courage, and the resilience to go through these revelations, look them in the eye, make one’s peace with them, will some modicum of inner peace emerge. One can start without a teacher — thousands of students do — and develop a first-level proficiency and a habit of practice. Later, a teacher or master is valuable. The Vipassana tradition expects students to go for periodic refresher courses at their meditation centres maybe once a year, or whenever they feel the need for guidance.
I am amazed to see how meditation practices are described. I guess many beginners, at least in the west, expect that all cures are as easy and clean as popping paracetamol. Well, paracetamol can suppress fevers without sorting out underlying causes — it cures nothing.