Zandtao’s ego loves this following interpretation of the interaction in this clip. Willoughby has found herself a nice little meditation nest egg at Brown’s. She has a meeting with HHDL in which she bangs on about all her academic proliferations, and HHDL shuts her up by saying the meditators were doing it wrong and needed to study. Zandtao imagines her academic ego sitting and fuming at having her work so dismissed. Then HHDL developed his position and gave her an olive branch by saying we must be aware of the positive and negative in meditation. Zandtao then listened to the Mind and Life podcast with her but fell asleep while, as any good academic, she gave equal weight to any meditation approach seeking only consideration of the experiences – the weird shit.
Before zandtao goes on he makes a big caveat; however dismissive he is of Willoughby’s academic gather-all, at Brown’s she provides a centre for seekers who have adverse meditation experiences …. but it costs!!!; costing is never a good thing for healing. Even if it costs such a centre is good, and it appears it is needed. It is needed for Goenka alone as Christopher Titmuss said in a newsletter “Over the years as a Dharma teacher, I had my ears burnt listening to distressing stories of the horror these courses inflicted on certain vulnerable people”, but zandtao does not trust the FT podcasts as to the extent of the problem. In summary she said 2000 people attended Herefordshire alone in one year, for such a huge number of Goenka participants globally why does the FT career only have a few cases in her podcasts.
But 1 case is too many, and that is what the spiritual Sangha must work with. 1 case is too many.
As an aside the BBC did a thing on Teal, how can the spiritual trust reporters?
But whether the FT career was exaggerating, there is bad stuff happening to some people on Goenka retreats; 1 case is too many. Part of zandtao says a lot worse is done in the name of the patriarchal system but as a full response zandtao’s snipe is nowhere near acceptable. And at the end of the 4th podcast the career came up with some suggestions that mostly cannot be argued with, listen from 31.35 to 35.05 podcast 4. When ASI is discussing abuse of power here is one such organisation.
This is advice zandtaomed gave about retreats:-
“Zandtaomed wishes to continue to recommend meditation retreats but because he lacks experience of retreats he can only give general guidance. The time a seeker takes for meditation has to develop at the seeker’s pace – autonomy. If the seeker is considering a retreat, it is not necessary to do a full retreat of 10 days or whatever length. Develop your practice on a daily basis - morning and afternoon. Perhaps try what zandtaomed calls bhavana sessions at home where a seeker does several sessions with a break between. Then maybe try a weekend retreat, a retreat of a few days, a week. Experience how you feel about silence. Are there weekend silent retreats?”
The key to retreat safety is facilitating autonomy, let the seeker flee. Maybe Goenka success says “I worked through weird stuff”, but who is to say if the seeker fled another day they wouldn’t have got there? The point about the path is that there are no hard and fast rules.
To err into safety is the way forward, the path is always there and the aspiration to reconnect is also always there. Conditioning has forced us a long way from the path and it might be too much to try to get back too quickly. We don’t have to have 100% awareness and embodiment NOW despite what some hardline teachers say. Let your autonomy grow in confidence and trust in nature, after all nature wants us all following the path. If the seeker is doing the best they can, then let them choose their pace – let them be ready, let them decide their readiness. This is very frustrating for advisers, but a true kalyana mitta can live with their advice being ignored until the seeker is ready.
Zandtao has had weird experiences, and they have affected his daily life at times; he has no regrets about that. The biggest was upheaval in which he lost his job – there was initially no meditation involved. He couldn’t hold down the job, was drinking too much, couldn’t be bothered and did something stupid getting the sack. That was the incident that sparked the breakdown, and he ran home – not the best place to go when he now knows how and why home contributed to his problems – gave him his Sacred Wounds. He couldn’t afford to drink so sobered up and returned to London with the determination and discipline to hold down a job. Once in the Chiswick flat minimal meditation let in the bells and banjoes – tremendous weird stuff, and the Arts people cemented his new-found understanding. He ungraciously used the Belgian cottage returning to hold down a job as a houseparent. By the end of another year he travelled again returning after the money disappeared to start teaching. By then the path became the 2nd childhood with weird stuff happening only when he wrote.
Why was his weird stuff only pleasant? The only answer that comes is autonomy. However slow and addictively circuitous his path was it was always his after upheaval. He decided on the good and bad things – autonomy. When he was younger he never chose meditation, it came to him and was valued at the Chiswick loft but it never became a practice even when he learnt yoga and meditation in theosophy year. Weird stuff came to him when he was ready because it was always his control. Could he have ever chosen Goenka? He doubts it but if he felt he had to do the 10 days when he wasn’t ready he might well have suffered – but knowing himself he would have got through it. But to be imprisoned for 10 days in silence meditating sounds horrific unless you are ready ….
Before you go on retreat set in your mind “I decide”, and be prepared to leave.
Whatever weird stuff happens “I decide” even if it amounts to letting the ego win and running away. Egos are not that substantive, when the mind is right they can be let go. Don’t stress, it doesn’t have to be now.
When you run away you still have to come back to the conditions of daily life. These conditions will soon send you back to the retreat, and then the weird stuff will be a friend. If it’s not a friend run away again, it doesn’t matter – the path is always there. Just do the best you can.
Zandtao is now convinced that horrific weird stuff comes from being forced and not being ready. FT career presented her case studies as being ready – zandtao doubts it, but they chose to start. It seems clear that these seekers did not choose to finish and even in one case when they didn’t finish it was too late. The career’s twins were volunteers but were damaged. They would have seen the suicide as damaged like themselves so would not see the signs. When Goenka is about forcing, can anyone see the signs? It sounds like Goenka is concerned with creating a personal hell which the path arising pulls the participant out of; in some cases the participant is left in the middle. Even if Goenka was open to accepting autonomy we cannot be 100% sure the seeker would leave. Can we save the 1 case without closing Goenka down?
Can we close Goenka down when there have been such a majority who have benefitted?
The zandtaomed position is clear, trust in the path trust in autonomy, and at any stage in a retreat just go - there will always be another time. Trust the seeker. If the seeker is getting to the stage of being overwhelmed then they should decide to leave. Again, where are they going back to? Conditioning that can only send them back to the path.
Here’s another. In a monastery a seeker does not choose and the path is slowed despite the renunciation. If a seeker is forced to do Goenka’s 10 days, they have not chosen. Having finished the 10 days, they feel good but good compared to the conditioning. But is it their best? Are they in control when it was forced? Can they have autonomy when they were forced? Can they be their best without autonomy?
What does that say to the traditions who have a “forced” component? Zen monastery discipline? Do we have to beat conditioned egos out of seekers?
Zandtao and HHDL agree, the bad weird stuff arises because of bad meditation methodology. Mindfulness grapples with knowledge until it becomes internalised, and that internalised knowledge will have a wisdom component that will guide the meditation – wisdom that is the autonomy of the inner guide. How this fits in with the Guru tradition of Tibetan zandtao does not know?
It's another good nail into MBSR – mindfulness for mindfulness’ sake. Zandtao reads it like this. MBSR helps towards well-being – relieving stress, at that stage MBSR is Google’s friend. But quite naturally a person would want to increase their well-being so they choose more intense meditation. But at some point the well-being cannot be improved without following the spiritual path, if the seeker wants to hold to conditioning whilst using meditation to create well-being there is a contradiction, and boom …. the mind blows up – PTSD and weird stuff. If that seeker continues in a meditation system that is not spiritual path, the mind will continue blowing up and PTSD will increase. With MBSR Willoughby limits herself to science, opening comment in the Mind and Life podcast. She talks of science and measuring, but whilst sankhara has its place as an aggregate only the spiritual path has a solution.
And if the blowing up is then forced to continue on a retreat like Goenka, that blowing up will get far worse – FT career called it psychosis.
FT career was about Goenka but because of her ignorance being in the world of conditioned career she did not see the real issue – meditation does not work unless it is backed up by wisdom. This leads to the assumption that there is not sufficient wisdom in Goenka but zandtao does not know. It is not wise to force when forcing means that the results can never be integrated wisely by the seeker because there is no autonomy.
But maybe the failing in Goenka is the Faith Vacuum. Without a Culture of Awakening, can the seeker know that the path can come? It does not have to be forced. No need for a kill-or-cure. Sure the seeker will be back in the world of suffering, but maybe they aren’t suffering enough to follow the path properly. Maybe? But no need to force especially no need to force into psychosis. If they leave a retreat, find a teacher who will be slower – guide them to autonomy and let the seeker’s autonomy do the rest.
FT career spoke of the need for an “emergency service” if it goes wrong, and she apparently justifiably claims Goenka doesn’t offer it. If zandtao is right the mind has blown up because of the lack of spiritual path and wisdom, is Cheetah House going to offer that? It seems not as Willoughby is into MBSR without a spiritual path, science not able to offer succour. And the family home would be the last place as that is the place where Sacred Wounds are formed – however caring and dutiful parents claim they are. When FT career’s twins returned home they were returning to the conditions that sent them to Goenka in the first place. They need a place where the spiritual path can get the mind back on track – get the mind out of the confrontation between meditation and ignorance. Build the wisdom and the mind can find a home, in the family home love (at best) is not enough.
FT career accepts her niche in patriarchy, she cannot begin her podcasts by saying the twins and others had grown up in a faith vacuum. Faith had turned then to Goenka, sending them back home is reinforcing the conditioning that gave them problems. From patriarchy’s niche, FT career can only attack Goenka and its institution. She cannot offer the spiritual path as a way out. And if Willoughby in her academic niche is only into mindfulness for mindfulness’s sake, she is not providing a solution either. MUTT Is Cheetah house cheater house because it only offers deception? Probably not true as they will offer caring, but that compassion needs to extend to the spiritual path.
Zandtao has increasing concerns about Willoughby. One of her scientific claims is that meditation stimulates the cortex thus making sleep more difficult. Meditation does not usually make sleep more difficult, in his own case sleep becomes erratic when he doesn’t meditate regularly. It is well known that meditation can send you to sleep so what’s going on? In the sleep aspect of meditation there are 2 factors in play – cortical stimulation and relaxation. Clarity arises in meditation – would that explain the cortical stimulation, whilst at the same time relaxation arises. The more he looks at Willoughby, the more Zandtao sees academic niche; and there is funding because establishment is threatened by the path of which meditation is key. MBSR is not a threat to the patriarchy even though it appears that meditation methods not concerned with path when used intensively appear to be the source of negative weird stuff – NOT bells and banjoes.
Zandtao is going down a patriarchy rabbit-hole as patriarchy tries to appropriate mindfulness for stress relief and Google compromise with the workplace. Understandably such things don’t stand still. Patriarchy makes greater incursions and eschews what it sees as a danger – the love-wisdom of the genuine path (Buddhist or otherwise). The world of spirituality needs to update itself, but not get updated by patriarchy and academia. To update itself it does need to see the dangers in existing practices.
FT career has pointed at one – the kill or cure of Goenka. Zandtao does not know Goenka, and without doing a deep dive cannot highlight issues with it. FT career’s observations in podcast 4 certainly are worth considering. With the increased popularity of mindfulness meditation training cannot be left in the hands of zealotry, kill-or-cure of zealotry eg zen monks beating is not now acceptable because people turning to this approach are vulnerable in a different way. Typically “going East” like Sharon Salzberg was like “all roads point to Rome” – no other way. Getting there and doing it required the sort of determination like Nicola Amadora PhD who ultimately was not even phased by anacondas. Are seekers turning to meditation with that grit and determination now? Or is it something to maybe look at in a Gap Year? Intense meditation in a Gap Year is intrinsically risky.
If one listens to Batgap the path can be hell, but none of the people on the path are critical of intensity, I think – none of Bagap. The legit ASI spiritual crits are abuse of power and bonking. Possibly Goenka comes into abuse of power. I think Goenka is “old school” – kill-or-cure. Given wokeness that “old school” can’t now exist as it has the potentiality to bring down far more. The old school of kill-or-cure throughout the traditions has to be questioned because there is no need to force. We have to be more concerned that out of patriarchy is coming mental illness rather than the clarity of grit and determination shown by Sharon and Nicola – amongst many others. People going East were lost but had grit and determination – this is not a characteristic of Gap year involvement.
Throughout the traditions it is recognised that meditation can throw up weird stuff that can lead to serious mental issues. In the 60s experimenters accepted this with drugs, and now people accept it with ayahuasca. But meditation is not the same, it is meant to be a safe way through. But not if it is kill-or-cure.
It appears that Goenka is isolated and unlikely to change so spirituality needs to marginalise it. Other “old schools” need to revise what they are doing to see whether their practices are suitable for the Gap year. Maybe a gap year weekend? Not only this but there needs to be more vigilance concerning the mental state of participants, wokeness will not allow damaged seekers to wander the earth until they find themselves. These old schools know people have changed but institutional intransigence might leave them with resistance to change. They have to make changes and review their programmes or wokeness will cancel them. There are many FT careers looking for an angle.
Typical old school is what is offered at Suan Mokh, participants just turn up. Because Buddhadasa is so revered in Thailand crits would just be put down to Farang and their egos. Whilst zandtao has no issues with the retreat schedule, Gap years might. Would vulnerable participants be weeded out in the in-person interviews? Has it gone wrong before? Will FT career-2 look to exploit those who have suffered to make a name? Does this retreat run the risk of being a woke target? Could it be seen as kill-or-cure? This is all so difficult. They are targets for the wrong reason but there has to be a rule of not even one case. And there has to be support if it goes wrong.
Zandtao is not interested in adding to woke clamour. Wokeness is going in the wrong direction as exemplified by Willoughby. There needs to be a spiritual path not simply a therapeutic MBSR. That path needs to be provided by the spiritual, or Willoughbys will step in. The spiritual need to take control of this, see what woke wants, and provide it on their own terms ie spiritual terms. This means considering what FT career asked for in podcast 4. The ASI are investigating this stuff. Whilst zandtao questions some academic direction within their examinations, these people are opening the questioning. Zandtao has no real idea about what is going on inside traditions or with individual spiritual teachers/advisers, so directs you to these people.
1 case is too many. Traditions and individual spiritual teachers/advisers need to accept that. Traditions are big enough to develop support, individuals need to put a support plan in place. Otherwise the only support seekers will get will be within family, the playground of Sacred Wounds, or academic-funded Cheetahs whose aim is not spiritual.
Zandtao has managed to watch most of Willoughby’s Mind and Life podcast, and he hopes Dr Zandtao Strange has been prevented from zapping her on the astral plane.  – complete joke for any budding podcast investigators. The truth is zandtao is extremely grateful for Willoughby highlighting a weakness in the consciousness of his methodology as he is of the old school – any meditation is beneficial.
Where Dr Zandtao Strange wants to zap her astral projection concerns her starting point – where does she measure adversity from? It appears she is measuring adversity as to whether it has an impact on daily life in any way. Zandtao is not being at all academic in this reflection because of his Sacred Wound contributing to his view of academia – especially academia getting anywhere near the path. What zandtao says is not going anywhere near a journal. Did she say heightened colour sensitivity was an adverse effect? She might have qualified this. Did she say seeing a nimitta was an adverse effect?
She gave a good caution. Someone has experienced some form of transcendence during a retreat, and had difficulty driving as her/his transcendence was “not of daily life”. This was an actual case; luckily a fellow attendee picked up on the state of mind, and took over the driving. This could have been a serious adverse effect – very much a worst-case scenario.
If the benchmark is impact on daily life, then all of these are adverse effects, maybe this is the benchmark her grant funding is dependent on? For zandtao any meditation work would be based on following the path and releasing conditioning that prevents a seeker from following the path. Then all of the above are benefits with a caveat – if he were ever involved in a retreat he would make sure there were people/attendees checking that there were no transcending space cadets about to drive. Zandtao wants any meditation to impact on daily life.
Zandtao’s most powerful release of trauma was Nyanga. At night he dug inside and released Peyton and a bit of the Sacred Wounds of his parents. He woke up feeling great but he wandered around Nyanga the next day in a bit of a daze. But Nyanga was so beneficial in the long term, and if Willoughby had asked bill if there were any adverse effects during Nyanga he would have laughed at her.
If zandtao’s advice is working he is releasing trauma. As an adviser he wants that trauma released in a calm and non-volcanic way, he wants the seeker to be confronting their trauma in a way that their autonomy can manage. So zandtao would issue a trauma warning – if you work with zandtao you might release trauma. As zandtaomed because he was distant he encouraged seekers to have a contact available in case stuff went volcanically wrong. Zandtao PhD does not see this as acceptable now, a new zandtao PhD would have a clinical practice (with appropriate expertise) dealing with trauma even though ultimately new zandtao would be advising the seeker on how to follow the path.
The benchmark zandtao is now working on is Sacred Wounds, these are powerful. Basically if a seeker works with all these benchmarks it is likely that there would be almost a 100% adverse effects. Advising using these benchmarks could release almost 100% trauma, zandtao would consider this beneficial; by the benchmark of impact on daily life there would be almost 100% adverse effects.
Here’s a benchmark that zandtao accepts that would prevent Willoughby getting near a grant board. Patriarchy has created such a climate of mental illness that any trauma that could be released in meditation is far greater than before, if one’s benchmark is daily life following meditation the seeker would still have to have mental illness.
What is also ludicrous is that seekers with more powerful adverse effects automatically return home – bill did. There is no recognition in society that the home is where consciousness has placed the new life to deal with Sacred Wounds. Whilst parents would be caring it is not likely that they would have got rid of their significant component of Sacred Wound so it can only make matters worse. By their very nature parents are the worst place to be at such a time as the seeker will just fall back into the conditioning that sent them to the retreat in the first place.
Without offering any form of academic justification zandtao puts forward that almost 100% of adverse effects depend on the way the benchmark is defined, and for zandtao’s benchmarks he is interested in seeing these adverse effects as benefits.
But the transcending driver is a big issue so zandtao would have to look out for that. Whilst zandtao was not aware of the issues being raised by Willoughby …. academic queeeeen, zandtaomed’s methodology had him covered. There was ongoing feedback, and the seeker was expected to evaluate any weird stuff. With his current consideration zandtao would be stressing more the need for autonomy in consideration of weird stuff, the seeker must decide even if it slows path access down. This is because there cannot be ….
ONE case
Let zandtao stress that – any methodology for zandtao has to focus on there not being ONE case.
FT career exposed more than one Goenka case – 2 possible suicides and long-term psychosis. A callous view might be that this is only a small decimal percentage of attendees – sorry. That callousness is not acceptable. Goenka centres need to charge or ask for additional donations to cover emergency medical treatment and available medical advice. Goenka needs to be able to say “we’ve got it covered”. They need to tell seekers that 1 in 100,000 – or however many – have developed psychosis. They also need to say leave if you want to, whilst the disciplined staying may have led to Goenka success there have been MORE THAN ONE case – that is NOT acceptable.
If zandtaomed has new seekers or if zandtao is asked, he will say that trauma will in all likelihood be released if you follow zandtaomed’s advice. Zandtaomed’s primary role is helping the seeker follow the path, but an important secondary role is managing the inevitable arising trauma. With zandtao’s benchmarks almost 100% trauma will arise, this includes the trauma that led to psychosis in FT career’s examples. What is very important to understand is that the release of trauma has to happen on the path, and the path is integration. This trauma could already be showing as mental illness but for those considering the spiritual path it is more likely to be shadow. The process is the same – integration, and integration will mean releasing trauma that arises – as in Nyanga.
Here is the good thing that Willoughby and recent thinking has done for zandtao, it has made zandtao more conscious of this trauma and made him question whether he can manage such trauma in all cases. And the answer quite simply is no. Given the increasing inroads of patriarchy such trauma is on the increase, and zandtao cannot guarantee against the ONE case.
So zandtao has become trapped by the intellectuals, his methodology has to have more than compassion for dealing with trauma – he needs expertise. He needs to be zandtao PhD as Nicola is Nicola Amadora PhD. He needs clinical expertise (like Jordan Peterson – aagggghhh!) – not Jordan’s mindset but his evident clinical expertise. He also needs the protections of a professional association so that he can say “I jumped through the hoops”. In this patriarchal world death from mental illness is happening, these are patriarchy’s throwaways. Patriarchy needs fewer and fewer wage slaves but they have to be more focussed, for patriarchy losing a few lives to mental illness whilst the successful get this focus doesn’t matter. For zandtao every person matters and ONE case is not allowable. As zandtaomed he has much to offer but he is now scared because he cannot guarantee against ONE case and cannot offer professional credentials. Result – he cannot push such meditation advice.
Look at the establishment attacking the wonderful Teal. She seems to be coping but patriarchy creates doubts sadly. Patriarchy wants Willoughbys because Willoughy doesn’t say the problem is the mental illness arising from patriarchy. Teal does, and she’s right.
It seems that the days of solitary meditation advisors is over – unless they are PhDs. This is a consequence of the increased mental illness – and the resulting possible psychosis with intense meditation. The work of ASI is good but it might be too little too late. Advisers are now under attack from the woke, and they need to protect the spiritual path – as opposed to letting Willoughbys turn the “path academic”.
The way patriarchy is progressing all good things will have to happen under the radar in communities. Meditation advisers need to be recognised as the “village shamans”, and need to make an effort to find the community they can work in – preferably in-person. It sounds cultish but it might be the way forward so long as the adviser is not a leader – not at risk from ego.
It is interesting that Willoughby saw apps as the 2nd danger after ill-guided intense meditation. We need to train ourselves in meditation and we need advisers to help with that training. But seekers need to see that meditation has risks because of the increasing trauma in our society. Seekers need to train themselves in meditation, they need to understand that society is increasingly traumatic and meditation can release that trauma – perhaps uncontrollably. Meditation might not be for everyone, and intense meditation definitely isn’t. Seekers can still follow their paths without intense meditation but it might be slower. Do be careful as patriarchy is increasing trauma in upbringing. Trauma is there, meditation can release it but do take care. Take your time and be ready.
|
