Monday, August 9, 2021

When Buddhism Goes Bad: Zen Brad Warner

Brad Warner (Hardcore Zen); Dan Lawton; Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

(Hardcore Zen, Aug. 4, 2021) Can right mindfulness go wrong? Yes, but then it wouldn't be right mindfulness. The Buddha didn't advocate mindfulness. He promoted sammasati, "right mindfulness." Done incorrectly, one could be in for a world of hurt.

American Buddhist teacher Dan Lawton
Dan Lawton tell his tale of melting down on account of too much [wrong] mindfulness:

One snowy evening in the mountains of North Carolina, I snuggled into bed on the second night of a Buddhist meditation retreat. I was exhausted and lay alone in my tiny cabin, longing for nourish-ing sleep. It didn’t come.


My body was strangely restless, and despite being cocooned in a mound of blankets, I was still cold. The type of meditation I had been practicing was jhana, a deep state of absorption concentration said to be essential in the Buddha’s awakening.

All day I had been concentrating on my breath and scanning my body for various sensations. I had 13 days ahead of me to work, with the goal of experiencing highly refined states of awareness — and perhaps something beyond. As I lay there musing in the brisk darkness, I suddenly sensed a tightening inside me.

It was as if I was being ever so gently wound. Then quickly, the pressure intensified, and I breathed in rapid-fire staccato and shook violently. I was a guitar string being tuned beyond its highest range. The string popped. A spike of fear slashed through my guts. And that’s when I split apart.

The next four hours were a hellscape of terror, panic, and paranoia. There were almost no thoughts, only my body begging to escape my skin, convulsing like a fish fighting for life. The fear was a bottomless trench. I knew nothing, except that something, everything, was terribly wrong.

For minutes, I was completely immobilized. And even when I regained control... More: danlawton.substack.com.
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