I'm still on the theory that this person already has some problems.
He says he has no history of mental illnesses (except for mild anxiety and depression), but that what provoked him to pursue meditation was a bar fight that began with vague details around jambalaya, a steamy kiss, and a stray comment.
> Why did I start meditating? The short answer is that in 2009 I started a fist fight in a French Quarter bar over some jambalaya, a steamy kiss, and a stray comment I didn’t take fondly. The evening ended hours later after I broke a window with my fist, misplaced my shirt, and guzzled about 16 bottles of Miller High Life.
I'm not sure that makes sense to me at all, and the overly romantic prose doesn't help with credibility.
If one does not, they end up with [often undiagnosed] mental health problems anyway. Everything is dangerous, you just should try your best to do it the right way under supervision of a qualified person and stop if it goes wrong.
> This is not what is being promoted by the mindfulness/buddhism-lite industry
Every industry is corrupt. But if you are lucky and smart enough you can actually get away with something good for you.
Out of curiosity, I have even attended a course in extrasensory abilities once. Paradoxically, besides some useful self-regulation and some trance-based techniques they also taught observing your thoughts and feelings detachedly and taking them critically which has boosted my rationality and helped me so many times. And good for them, they were pretty serious about making sure people with mental issues are not allowed to participate. Sadly most of the industry don't care.
> This appears to contradict "One should meditate always"
Almost nobody can meditate intensely for long periods of time in the beginning. You just do your best to awaken from unconscious daydreaming and stay conscious as often and for as long as you comfortably can. If you try and immediately find out you actually can (although not necessarily comfortably) maintain undisturbed conscious concentration for long periods of time you should go to a doctor or a Buddhist teacher experienced in meditation techniques and things which happen to people on this way. Choosing the latter absolutely doesn't imply you have to take the religion and believe in their saints - you only really need the psychotechnical (and the philosophical maybe) guidance.
I think that's the point of the article, though not just about people participating who have mental conditions - most of the industry does not care about the potential negatives.
> Almost nobody can meditate intensely for long periods of time in the beginning.
I don't think this is really the issue here, the issue is that doing so seems to have the potential to cause (or at least trigger) mental health problems for some practitioners, and the advice to just "do it more and practice better" when distressed is specifically called out as harmful.
