Welcome, dear reader, to another month of taking metta off the meditation cushion and out into everyday life.
Last month found me slowly finding my inner feet again after walking away from the rude spiritual awakening described in “Metta’s Mirror.” This month, the Dharma unexpectedly sprung meditation gardening leave on me.
Strictly speaking, gardening leave is a term that describes when an employee is asked to take time away from work when their contract still applies. In this case, the Dharma nudged me to step away from meditation altogether for a period as I helped to ready my new friends’ garden for spring by digging out the weed root network under the soil.
I sat my first 10-day Vipassana course 15 years ago and it provided me some much-needed inner breathing space and a pain management tool after many years of serious illness. Subsequent sits and service periods have helped to anchor these in me further in the company of fellow meditators.
In hindsight, however, there had also always been doubts niggling just beneath the surface that perhaps could only be fully unearthed by giving long-term service and then taking gardening leave.
I methodically dug up and turned the soil piece by piece and part by part, just as I had done on the meditation mat when I scanned my bodily sensations. As I removed root after root of invasive weeds to give the spring planting space to thrive, I listened to interviews and podcasts on the adverse effects of meditation. Rather than looking for dirt, I did so in the spirit of making sense of why something that had brought peace in one phase of my life had brought harm in another.
During my long-term service, I had witnessed too many course-servers leave the center with more baggage than they had when they arrived. When I expressed my concerns, they were brushed off as either the course servers’ pre-existing psychological problems, part of the Pure Land purification process, or my own imagination.
Where exactly was the line between the growing pains of spiritual practice and self-harm or abuse?
As I worked, I listened to story after story of meditation practice gone awry for everyone from occasional mindfulness app users to hardcore samurai wannabes combining psychedelics with sensory deprivation. It saddened me that I could match nearly every story with one of my own.
For example, one course-server asked me to meet privately for a cup of tea during the afternoon rest period. They shared how their son had sat a 10-day course abroad and had unexpectedly experienced what sounded to me like bhanga (Pali. a dissolution of experience of the body and mind). Not only did the assistant teacher on that retreat not explain what might be happening, but the center had him sectioned against his will in a foreign country! His parent was understandably struggling to reconcile something that gave them such comfort with something that had caused their son such harm.
Another course-server described being asked to leave two other centers because of their clinical depression. While I understood a voluntary organization needing to have certain safeguards in place, the way that these dismissals were handled and how they had affected the course-server was difficult to hear. I reflected back what a great help they had been in the kitchen, and even offered to chaperone their upcoming interview with the center teacher for moral support. They bravely opted to face them alone. The outcome of that interview? Being asked to leave until they could lead a purposeful life! When I later asked the person why they kept returning to a spiritual organization and tradition that clearly didn’t have their best interests at heart, they heartbreakingly responded that it was because it was their medicine.
One evening, while helping a new course-server close down the kitchen for the night, they shared how much they valued that I used everyone’s name when speaking with them. It gladdened my heart that my small effort to humanize volunteers was having the desired effect, however I kept quiet about how it was in response to a previous kitchen manager confessing that they felt the center treated servers like a conveyor belt of monkeys.
As I continued to turn the soil, I kept asking myself why information on the adverse effects of meditation was little known or discussed in meditation circles. With each new interview I listened to, it dawned on me that such transparency would probably be bad for the mindfulness “brand.” It was oddly comforting to discover that the “fight to the death” manner in which I was interrogated and then abruptly asked to leave the center practically had a playbook. It also gave me new compassion that what had appeared as service-to-self indifference in those around me was possibly due to dissociation or even addiction to meditation.
Dr. Willoughby Britton’s name came up again and again in these interviews, as well as that of Cheetah House, the non-profit organization she had founded to support people struggling with the adverse effects of meditation. Far from being anti-meditation, her work and interviews emphasize informed consent, and that the right meditation technique is a tool for the individual rather than a cure-all to be overused and even weaponized. It is a given that any medication can have side effects, yet somehow this is often ignored in the case of meditation. One person’s medicine can be another’s poison. These ancient practices were not designed with the modern-day aim of relaxation in mind.
These findings confirmed and challenged my thinking and understanding of my own meditation practice and experiences, and it was hardly surprising to hear Dr. Britton share some of the vicious backlash that she’s endured as a consequence—to the point of building herself an off-grid cabin in the woods of Vermont to retreat to as needed.
The biggest “aha!” was hearing Dr. Britton liken choosing a meditation practice to choosing a life partner, and the importance of being aware that you both will change with time. Many people that Cheetah House supports had entered a meditation tradition for specific reasons, only to find that these traditions had slowly morphed over time to fit the agenda of a teacher, center, or sangha. Anyone who struggled with their practice or questioned this drift was either told to meditate more or flat-out dismissed.
It was in this light that the deepest forgiveness I have ever had to unearth for myself began. I had spent years on medication that did me more harm than good, and whenever I had questioned its efficacy or explored alternatives, doctors had simply told me to increase the dose and threatened me with sectioning when I felt that I could no longer look after myself. When I finally weaned myself off the medication, I discovered two harsh truths: I had been misdiagnosed all along; and the drug itself hadn’t passed clinical trials for what it was supposed to be treating! Was it any wonder that learning to meditate had felt like a breath of fresh air?
With 15 years of hindsight, it had become clear to me that I had simply swapped Big Pharma for Big Dharma.
I shed many tears over how much pain I had been in then, and how desperate I had felt at the time to find something—anything—that might help me feel better. Thankfully, once my body had detoxed and my physical pain had subsided, my practical nature had prevented me from taking meditation to extremes or from sitting longer courses. Instead, practicing metta on and off the mat and focusing on service inside and outside of centers—rather than chasing misguided notions of enlightenment or placing unearned trust in a particular teacher—had turned out to be my saving grace.
For readers questioning whether their own spiritual practice or community is right for them, Dr. Britton suggests applying the snake-skin principle: all may seem smooth when you play by the rules and stroke the snake’s scales one way. However, try stroking the scales in the opposite direction by asking a question or setting a boundary, and observe what happens.
I knew that my conscience was clear in that I had always tried to help rather than shame or exclude anyone who had questioned methods or experienced adverse effects. After I had listened to their misgivings about the center and its courses, one kitchen manager sweetly thanked me for not judging a book by its cover and instead taking the time to read the whole damned book first!
Now that I was turning the page on Vipassana, the deeper question was: am I done with meditation altogether? I can honestly say, no. Paradoxically, because of the gardening leave I was taking to unearth its shadow.
Will I adjust my practice thanks to all I have learned over the past month? Most definitely. How exactly? By shortening my sits, softening my definition of purification, swapping Big Dharma for my Dharma, being more discerning when joining groups, and, most importantly, continuing—in the words of Dr. Britton—to feed kindness and starve harm.
In this Year of the Snake, you might say that my metta meditation practice had shed its scales and grown up so that I could renew my vows.
And so, dear reader, whatever area of your own life is experiencing growing pains, please consider taking some “gardening leave” and embracing it and yourself—shadows and all—with as much metta as you can muster, and give new spring planting some space to thrive.
Or, to metta-morphose Peter Gabriel’s song “Digging in the Dirt:”
This time you’ve gone too far
I told you, I told you, I told you, I told youDon’t talk back, just drive the car
Shut your mouth, I know what you are
Don’t say nothing, keep your hands on the wheel
Don’t turn around, this is for realDigging in the dirt
Stay with me, metta
I need support
I’m digging in the dirt
To find the places I got hurt
Open up the places I got hurt
See more
Cheetah House
Dalai Lama Presentation: Mind and Life XXIV (YouTube)
Mind & Life Podcast: Willoughby Britton-When Meditation Causes Harm (YouTube)
The Retreat, Ep. 5: The Insiders (Financial Times)
Related features from BDG
Buddhistdoor View: Are We Mainstreaming Buddhist Meditation, Again?
Overcoming Obstacles to Mindfulness Practice
Food for the Mind
Shining a Compassionate Light on Violent Communication
Gladden the Mind: Four Ways to Practice with Negative Thinking
Coping with Bad Memories
