Quote from Padmasambhava:
Padmasambhava, the eighth-century Indian guru who helped bring Buddhism to Tibet, is recorded as having said, "In the time when the iron bird flies, and chariots go without horses, the Tibetan people will be scattered like ants across the world, and the Dharma will come to the land of the red man." Link.
I haven't read his teachings since the early 80's, but I don't recall Padmasambhava saying anywhere, "And oh, by the way, all you monks of the future, 99 percent of the people you will be teaching are going to be householders. You will have to invent a new way of teaching to deal with them. Don't poison them with your anti-life attitudes. Their way is the way of of love and sex and working and following their desires. Their dharma is different from yours. Respect that."
The prevalence and characteristics of young and mid-age women who use yoga and meditation: Results of a nationally representative survey of 19,209 Australian women.
David Sibbritt, Jon Adams and Pamela van der Riet Complement Ther Med 19(2):71-7 (2011) PMID 21549257
To determine the characteristics of yoga and meditation users and non-users amongst young and mid-aged Australian women. The research was conducted as part of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (ALSWH) which was designed to investigate multiple factors affecting the health and well being of women over a 20-year period. The younger (28-33 years) (n=8885) and mid-aged (56-61 years) (n=10,324) cohorts of the ALSWH who completed Survey 5 in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Use of yoga. This study estimates that 35% of Australian women aged 28-33 and 27% of Australian women aged 56-61 use yoga or meditation. Younger women with back pain (OR=1.28; 95% CI: 1.08, 1.52) and allergies (OR=1.25; 95% CI: 1.06, 1.49) were more likely to use yoga or meditation, while younger women with migraines or headaches (OR=0.73; 95% CI: 0.62, 0.87) were less likely to use yoga or meditation. Mid-age women with low iron (OR=1.68; 95% CI: 1.29, 2.19) and bowel problems (OR=1.37; 95% CI: 1.13, 1.65) were more likely to use yoga or meditation, while mid age women with hypertension (OR=0.62; 95% CI: 0.52, 0.76) were less likely to use yoga or meditation. A large percentage of the female population are using yoga or meditation. Given that women who regularly use yoga or meditation positively associated with measures of mental and physical health, there is a need for further research to examine the experiences and potential benefits of these mind-body practices for women's health. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1016/j.ctim.2010.12.009
link
"In the West, I do not think it advisable to follow Buddhism. Changing religions is not like changing professions. Excitement lessens over the years, and soon you are not excited, and then where are you? Homeless inside yourself." link.
– The Dalai Lama, quoted in Tibet, Tibet by Patrick French
What Are the Dangers of Meditation?
Meditation is relaxing, how can there be any dangers to that?
Well, on the scale of things, meditation about as dangerous as taking a walk down a peaceful street. But taking a walk, you know – sunburn, dogs, traffic, and just life happening all around. Meditation is taking a walk in your inner world, and there are a few challenges, obstacles, hazards and dangers to consider.
The dangers of meditation proceed from the fact that it works so well that you let your guard down and stop using your common sense. When you approach meditation, you listen to your instincts more than usual – that's why we call our work Instinctive Meditation.
Meditation is powerful. It's a way of tapping into the body's built-in healing and rejuvenation ability. During meditation, the relaxation is so intense that the body enters a rest deeper than deep sleep, and a lot happens in a few minutes. Twenty minutes of meditation is a lot. Meditation is a little like working out, doing athletic training. You are using your body, and that is natural, but you are also using your body in a specially focussed way. Properly done, this will make you healthier and stronger. You will feel better physically, emotionally and mentally.
There are millions of people in the modern West practicing meditation each day, but there is little information about how to deal with the challenges and avoid the dangers. A 2002 study by the CDC found that about 7.6% of adults in the United States practice meditation, and 5% practice yoga.
Everyone who works out, whether they run, swim, walk miles, goes to a gym, or does yoga, is a hair's breadth away from injury at all times. Runners have a long list of minor and major injuries they encounter, including knee and lower back soreness. Swimmers can get shoulder injuries. People who walk can get sore legs. In gyms, people are constantly getting minor injuries on the equipment, especially overtraining injuries. In every sport, there are injuries and many people know what they are. The magazines devoted to the sport talk realistically about injury.
In the field of yoga, over the past ten years, there has developed considerable attention to injuries and to prevention. This happened in part because people with yoga injuries were filling the waiting rooms of sports doctors and physical therapists across the United States. One physical therapist said, in the late 1990's, "Yoga is the best thing for my business since the jogging fad in the 70's."
By comparison with meditation, running is a very honest sport. There is good, accurate information about the types of injuries that occur, how to prevent them, and the best treatments to explore if you do get hurt. There is easy access to realistic information on what the dangers are and how to prevent them. Runners love their sport. They are passionate about it and want to minimize the time they spend sidelined by injuries. So why are yoga and meditation so dishonest?
The Taboo Against Honesty in Meditation
I don't know why meditation is such a deceptive field, so full of lies. Maybe it is because yoga and meditation come from Hinduism, and Yoga is "by definition" a perfect system, therefore if you get hurt, it's your bad karma. You must have been thinking impure thoughts. Perhaps you were criticizing the teacher in your mind, or not being respectful to the guru.
This quote by the Dalai Lama is the type of honest observation that is incredibly rare in meditation: "In the West, I do not think it advisable to follow Buddhism. Changing religions is not like changing professions. Excitement lessens over the years, and soon you are not excited, and then where are you? Homeless inside yourself." – The Dalai Lama, quoted in Tibet, Tibet by Patrick French.
Many of my friends are sort of homeless within their hearts, because they have been meditating in a Buddhist or Hindu tradition for the last twenty, thirty or more years. They seem lost. Meditators are always getting injured in subtle ways. It usually takes longer to come on than the sunburn or Achilles tendonitis runners get. Because meditation is powerful, it affects your body, nerves, muscles and senses. There are strong tendencies to be healthy and self-regulating in meditation. But any theory you have will probably throw you off balance. To stay in balance, you have to pay close attention to your senses. And to the extent you practice meditation in a religious mood, you will tend to not attend to your senses, and will override your inner wisdom.
For some reason or set of reasons, there is almost no information about the dangers of meditation. It is taboo to even think about it. Meditation is presented as an omni-beneficial activity. We are in the odd situation that the field that is supposed to be about truth, is presented in a deceptive manner. Discussion of the real obstacles and hazards of meditation is met with denial.
Runners get shin splints, sore knees and blisters; swimmers get shoulder injuries and ear infections; soccer players get head and neck injuries; volleyball players, tennis players, skiiers, weight lifters, and golfers all have their characteristic injuries. Coaches and sports doctors study these injuries, figure out how they happened, and how to prevent them. Then they revise the training to minimize injury and publish articles, and the information eventually gets out so that everyone can benefit from it.
This process of studying what works, where things break, and then modifying the training to make it better, is not going on in the field of meditation. It's not that people are lying. The lack of skill, and lack of observation demonstrated by meditation teachers is a manifestation of how denial itself is one of their main techniques.
By contrast, the process of noticing injuries and figuring out how to prevent them is going on in yoga. During the early 1970's, I noticed that quite a few of my friends had lower back, shoulder, and neck injuries from asana practice. By the late 70's, about a third of my meditating friends had more or less permanent injuries from yoga. In the early 1990's, I started meeting a lot of people with yoga injuries, and then I started to hear reports that orthopedic surgeon's offices, from Los Angeles to New York, will filled with yoga injuries and that the doctors were thanking the existence of yoga for paying for their Aspen ski condos. Then finally in the early 2000's, there started to be awareness of yoga injuries in the yoga journals and among yoga teachers. The last few years, my impression is that yoga is taught in a much more balanced and responsible way. I don't see as many new yoga injuries, and the students are encouraged to go at their own pace.
Of course, yoga injuries are similar to sports injuries and have to do with the joints and soft tissue. People know it when they are limping around, and get woken up by pain. They are motivated to go to a doctor.
Meditation injuries are usually very gradual and almost invisible, so they are harder to detect, impossible to x-ray, and difficult to gather data on. As a meditation teacher, it was not until after five years of teaching full-time that I began to see these injuries, because before that I wasn't experienced enough to be perceptive.
more about the Dangers . . .
Padmasambhava, the eighth-century Indian guru who helped bring Buddhism to Tibet, is recorded as having said, "In the time when the iron bird flies, and chariots go without horses, the Tibetan people will be scattered like ants across the world, and the Dharma will come to the land of the red man." Link.
I haven't read his teachings since the early 80's, but I don't recall Padmasambhava saying anywhere, "And oh, by the way, all you monks of the future, 99 percent of the people you will be teaching are going to be householders. You will have to invent a new way of teaching to deal with them. Don't poison them with your anti-life attitudes. Their way is the way of of love and sex and working and following their desires. Their dharma is different from yours. Respect that."
The prevalence and characteristics of young and mid-age women who use yoga and meditation: Results of a nationally representative survey of 19,209 Australian women.
David Sibbritt, Jon Adams and Pamela van der Riet Complement Ther Med 19(2):71-7 (2011) PMID 21549257
To determine the characteristics of yoga and meditation users and non-users amongst young and mid-aged Australian women. The research was conducted as part of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (ALSWH) which was designed to investigate multiple factors affecting the health and well being of women over a 20-year period. The younger (28-33 years) (n=8885) and mid-aged (56-61 years) (n=10,324) cohorts of the ALSWH who completed Survey 5 in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Use of yoga. This study estimates that 35% of Australian women aged 28-33 and 27% of Australian women aged 56-61 use yoga or meditation. Younger women with back pain (OR=1.28; 95% CI: 1.08, 1.52) and allergies (OR=1.25; 95% CI: 1.06, 1.49) were more likely to use yoga or meditation, while younger women with migraines or headaches (OR=0.73; 95% CI: 0.62, 0.87) were less likely to use yoga or meditation. Mid-age women with low iron (OR=1.68; 95% CI: 1.29, 2.19) and bowel problems (OR=1.37; 95% CI: 1.13, 1.65) were more likely to use yoga or meditation, while mid age women with hypertension (OR=0.62; 95% CI: 0.52, 0.76) were less likely to use yoga or meditation. A large percentage of the female population are using yoga or meditation. Given that women who regularly use yoga or meditation positively associated with measures of mental and physical health, there is a need for further research to examine the experiences and potential benefits of these mind-body practices for women's health. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
DOI: 10.1016/j.ctim.2010.12.009
link
"In the West, I do not think it advisable to follow Buddhism. Changing religions is not like changing professions. Excitement lessens over the years, and soon you are not excited, and then where are you? Homeless inside yourself." link.
– The Dalai Lama, quoted in Tibet, Tibet by Patrick French
What Are the Dangers of Meditation?
Meditation is relaxing, how can there be any dangers to that?
Well, on the scale of things, meditation about as dangerous as taking a walk down a peaceful street. But taking a walk, you know – sunburn, dogs, traffic, and just life happening all around. Meditation is taking a walk in your inner world, and there are a few challenges, obstacles, hazards and dangers to consider.
The dangers of meditation proceed from the fact that it works so well that you let your guard down and stop using your common sense. When you approach meditation, you listen to your instincts more than usual – that's why we call our work Instinctive Meditation.
Meditation is powerful. It's a way of tapping into the body's built-in healing and rejuvenation ability. During meditation, the relaxation is so intense that the body enters a rest deeper than deep sleep, and a lot happens in a few minutes. Twenty minutes of meditation is a lot. Meditation is a little like working out, doing athletic training. You are using your body, and that is natural, but you are also using your body in a specially focussed way. Properly done, this will make you healthier and stronger. You will feel better physically, emotionally and mentally.
There are millions of people in the modern West practicing meditation each day, but there is little information about how to deal with the challenges and avoid the dangers. A 2002 study by the CDC found that about 7.6% of adults in the United States practice meditation, and 5% practice yoga.
Everyone who works out, whether they run, swim, walk miles, goes to a gym, or does yoga, is a hair's breadth away from injury at all times. Runners have a long list of minor and major injuries they encounter, including knee and lower back soreness. Swimmers can get shoulder injuries. People who walk can get sore legs. In gyms, people are constantly getting minor injuries on the equipment, especially overtraining injuries. In every sport, there are injuries and many people know what they are. The magazines devoted to the sport talk realistically about injury.
In the field of yoga, over the past ten years, there has developed considerable attention to injuries and to prevention. This happened in part because people with yoga injuries were filling the waiting rooms of sports doctors and physical therapists across the United States. One physical therapist said, in the late 1990's, "Yoga is the best thing for my business since the jogging fad in the 70's."
By comparison with meditation, running is a very honest sport. There is good, accurate information about the types of injuries that occur, how to prevent them, and the best treatments to explore if you do get hurt. There is easy access to realistic information on what the dangers are and how to prevent them. Runners love their sport. They are passionate about it and want to minimize the time they spend sidelined by injuries. So why are yoga and meditation so dishonest?
The Taboo Against Honesty in Meditation
I don't know why meditation is such a deceptive field, so full of lies. Maybe it is because yoga and meditation come from Hinduism, and Yoga is "by definition" a perfect system, therefore if you get hurt, it's your bad karma. You must have been thinking impure thoughts. Perhaps you were criticizing the teacher in your mind, or not being respectful to the guru.
This quote by the Dalai Lama is the type of honest observation that is incredibly rare in meditation: "In the West, I do not think it advisable to follow Buddhism. Changing religions is not like changing professions. Excitement lessens over the years, and soon you are not excited, and then where are you? Homeless inside yourself." – The Dalai Lama, quoted in Tibet, Tibet by Patrick French.
Many of my friends are sort of homeless within their hearts, because they have been meditating in a Buddhist or Hindu tradition for the last twenty, thirty or more years. They seem lost. Meditators are always getting injured in subtle ways. It usually takes longer to come on than the sunburn or Achilles tendonitis runners get. Because meditation is powerful, it affects your body, nerves, muscles and senses. There are strong tendencies to be healthy and self-regulating in meditation. But any theory you have will probably throw you off balance. To stay in balance, you have to pay close attention to your senses. And to the extent you practice meditation in a religious mood, you will tend to not attend to your senses, and will override your inner wisdom.
For some reason or set of reasons, there is almost no information about the dangers of meditation. It is taboo to even think about it. Meditation is presented as an omni-beneficial activity. We are in the odd situation that the field that is supposed to be about truth, is presented in a deceptive manner. Discussion of the real obstacles and hazards of meditation is met with denial.
Runners get shin splints, sore knees and blisters; swimmers get shoulder injuries and ear infections; soccer players get head and neck injuries; volleyball players, tennis players, skiiers, weight lifters, and golfers all have their characteristic injuries. Coaches and sports doctors study these injuries, figure out how they happened, and how to prevent them. Then they revise the training to minimize injury and publish articles, and the information eventually gets out so that everyone can benefit from it.
This process of studying what works, where things break, and then modifying the training to make it better, is not going on in the field of meditation. It's not that people are lying. The lack of skill, and lack of observation demonstrated by meditation teachers is a manifestation of how denial itself is one of their main techniques.
By contrast, the process of noticing injuries and figuring out how to prevent them is going on in yoga. During the early 1970's, I noticed that quite a few of my friends had lower back, shoulder, and neck injuries from asana practice. By the late 70's, about a third of my meditating friends had more or less permanent injuries from yoga. In the early 1990's, I started meeting a lot of people with yoga injuries, and then I started to hear reports that orthopedic surgeon's offices, from Los Angeles to New York, will filled with yoga injuries and that the doctors were thanking the existence of yoga for paying for their Aspen ski condos. Then finally in the early 2000's, there started to be awareness of yoga injuries in the yoga journals and among yoga teachers. The last few years, my impression is that yoga is taught in a much more balanced and responsible way. I don't see as many new yoga injuries, and the students are encouraged to go at their own pace.
Of course, yoga injuries are similar to sports injuries and have to do with the joints and soft tissue. People know it when they are limping around, and get woken up by pain. They are motivated to go to a doctor.
Meditation injuries are usually very gradual and almost invisible, so they are harder to detect, impossible to x-ray, and difficult to gather data on. As a meditation teacher, it was not until after five years of teaching full-time that I began to see these injuries, because before that I wasn't experienced enough to be perceptive.
more about the Dangers . . .