When Meditation Makes You Feel Worse

Meditation has adverse effects, and the research is finally saying so. What almost nobody says is what to do when it happens to the person in front of you.Fourteen centuries ago Zhiyi, the Chinese master who wrote the manual on silent sitting, named this exact situation. Extreme weariness, illness, drowsiness that will not lift, obstacles that displace concentrated mindfulness so the practitioner cannot dispel them. For these he prescribed chanting, and he explained why it works in anatomical rather than devotional terms.In this talk: what Zhiyi actually wrote, why a vocal practice works differently than a silent one, why almost nobody has studied chanting, and what I've learned about recognizing when my own practice has gone out of balance.Full essay at https://www.twobuddhas.org/post/adverse-effects-in-meditationSource: Zhiyi, Clear Serenity, Quiet Insight, trans. Paul L. Swanson (University of Hawaii Press, 2018), 249.