Comments on: How to Deal with Spiritual Bypass http://blog.paradigm-sys.com/archives/302 Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:15:15 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Sandy http://blog.paradigm-sys.com/archives/302/comment-page-1#comment-17574 Sandy Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:58:07 +0000 http://blog.paradigm-sys.com/?p=302#comment-17574 In my own case, my counselor has been very surprised by how useful meditation has been for me. This is new territory as far as he is concerned. There are times when I need to work out problems with him in order to become unstuck with where I am in life. But other times the only thing that has helped is meditation. I think my counselor had previously looked at meditation as just being a good way to relax. Now he is asking questions about what else it may be doing. There is still the problem with meditation tending to increase the likelihood of having anomalous experiences. Sometimes I stop meditating because I don't like that part, but the benefits generally outweigh the problems so I keep going back to meditation. Talking to a counselor has made coping with the anomalous experiences easier to handle. I don't automatically interpret such experiences as being bad anymore. I'm learning to see the good in them. Meditation seems to be giving me at least a bit of control over the experiences. Somehow they seem to make more sense than they used to. So both counseling and meditation are helping me. It sure is a lot for me, and my counselor, to figure out though. In my own case, my counselor has been very surprised by how useful meditation has been for me. This is new territory as far as he is concerned. There are times when I need to work out problems with him in order to become unstuck with where I am in life. But other times the only thing that has helped is meditation.

I think my counselor had previously looked at meditation as just being a good way to relax. Now he is asking questions about what else it may be doing. There is still the problem with meditation tending to increase the likelihood of having anomalous experiences. Sometimes I stop meditating because I don’t like that part, but the benefits generally outweigh the problems so I keep going back to meditation.

Talking to a counselor has made coping with the anomalous experiences easier to handle. I don’t automatically interpret such experiences as being bad anymore. I’m learning to see the good in them. Meditation seems to be giving me at least a bit of control over the experiences. Somehow they seem to make more sense than they used to. So both counseling and meditation are helping me. It sure is a lot for me, and my counselor, to figure out though.

]]> By: Dr. Charles T. Tart http://blog.paradigm-sys.com/archives/302/comment-page-1#comment-17573 Dr. Charles T. Tart Sun, 21 Feb 2010 18:01:57 +0000 http://blog.paradigm-sys.com/?p=302#comment-17573 Right! To overstate it, psychologists know about how to deal (at least partly) with emotional problems and irrational defenses, but know nothing of the deeper mind meditation practice can reach. Meditaters tend to go for that deep stuff, but may be deeply blocked by unacknowledged emotional issues. Their teachers tell them to meditate more, which might do it after a zillion hours of further practice, but might be very inefficient compared to going and getting some psychological help to undo those emotional blocks. What I hope Transpersonal Psychology will be able to do some day, as we learn more, is to say, with high efficiency, when to meditate more and when to get some psychological help... I say a lot about this in my Waking Up book in a chapter on defense mechanisms and how they distort our efforts. Right! To overstate it, psychologists know about how to deal (at least partly) with emotional problems and irrational defenses, but know nothing of the deeper mind meditation practice can reach. Meditaters tend to go for that deep stuff, but may be deeply blocked by unacknowledged emotional issues. Their teachers tell them to meditate more, which might do it after a zillion hours of further practice, but might be very inefficient compared to going and getting some psychological help to undo those emotional blocks. What I hope Transpersonal Psychology will be able to do some day, as we learn more, is to say, with high efficiency, when to meditate more and when to get some psychological help…
I say a lot about this in my Waking Up book in a chapter on defense mechanisms and how they distort our efforts.

]]> By: Rocket http://blog.paradigm-sys.com/archives/302/comment-page-1#comment-17572 Rocket Sun, 21 Feb 2010 17:30:07 +0000 http://blog.paradigm-sys.com/?p=302#comment-17572 I have noticed folks who become meditators before they do the more gutsy emotional work on themselves often turn the meditator thing into an ego trip ... holier than thou ... it becomes a defense I suppose. Others, and I think this is common, psychologist friends have commented on it ..... go for meditation training and get nothing at all out of it. I was one. I strongly suspect emotional "skeletons in the closet" that hijack consciousness making the necessary unperturbable stability, focus and relaxation impossible. It's very hard work to become transparent to that emotional stuff. My experience is you have to return to the vulnerability of the child in a stable therapeutic container (psychedelics CAN speed it up like crazy too) to the time you sustained the original injury and then it transforms to tranparent immediately. Also most meditation instruction in the west leaves an essential step out, development of a degree of Samadhi first. Again emotional skeltons make the requisite degree of focus and relaxation almost impossible. "Yep. It’s not as if there’s any one behavior or internal strategy that is the optimal thing for all situations." Perhaps one could say one must become transparent to the emotional reactions, thus no longer controlled (limited) by them. Then Samadhi becomes accessible .... insight or Vipassana is one secondary or knock on result of the presence of Samadhi. That has been my experience. It was not in the least subtle. "Now the mindfulness traditions would claim that the practice of mindfulness is all you need. No, no, I shouldn’t say all. It’s the main thing you need to eventually recognize those sources and change them. That eventually you’ll have insights into your personality that will let you change some of the more maladaptive psychological things, but eventually you’ll have the more important insights as to who you really are, which will make the big change." Mindfulness may be all you need but emotional issues are a big obstacle to mindfulness. The Dalai Lama at a meeting of Neuroscience and Buddhists at Stanford in Oct 2005 flatly stated (paraphrasing) "mastery of the emotions" is what Buddhism has to bring to that table. We westerners have "special needs," so to speak, before we have access to the wisdom of the Tibetans. I have noticed folks who become meditators before they do the more gutsy emotional work on themselves often turn the meditator thing into an ego trip … holier than thou … it becomes a defense I suppose.

Others, and I think this is common, psychologist friends have commented on it ….. go for meditation training and get nothing at all out of it. I was one. I strongly suspect emotional “skeletons in the closet” that hijack consciousness making the necessary unperturbable stability, focus and relaxation impossible. It’s very hard work to become transparent to that emotional stuff. My experience is you have to return to the vulnerability of the child in a stable therapeutic container (psychedelics CAN speed it up like crazy too) to the time you sustained the original injury and then it transforms to tranparent immediately. Also most meditation instruction in the west leaves an essential step out, development of a degree of Samadhi first. Again emotional skeltons make the requisite degree of focus and relaxation almost impossible.

“Yep. It’s not as if there’s any one behavior or internal strategy that is the optimal thing for all situations.”

Perhaps one could say one must become transparent to the emotional reactions, thus no longer controlled (limited) by them. Then Samadhi becomes accessible …. insight or Vipassana is one secondary or knock on result of the presence of Samadhi. That has been my experience. It was not in the least subtle.

“Now the mindfulness traditions would claim that the practice of mindfulness is all you need. No, no, I shouldn’t say all. It’s the main thing you need to eventually recognize those sources and change them. That eventually you’ll have insights into your personality that will let you change some of the more maladaptive psychological things, but eventually you’ll have the more important insights as to who you really are, which will make the big change.”

Mindfulness may be all you need but emotional issues are a big obstacle to mindfulness. The Dalai Lama at a meeting of Neuroscience and Buddhists at Stanford in Oct 2005 flatly stated (paraphrasing) “mastery of the emotions” is what Buddhism has to bring to that table. We westerners have “special needs,” so to speak, before we have access to the wisdom of the Tibetans.

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