Need advice on meditation

[Guest sykkelpump]

This is a copy of what I just emailed bill bodri.

I just wanna see what people here think

 

Hello Bill.I have a friend with mental problems.I want to get him into meditation.I have tried following the breath,mantra,Your basic free lesson(very good),and white skeleton meditation and I can quiet the mind with each of them.Trained a lot.Thanks to you I gave up ten years of frustrating qi gong practices and I now have personally experienced that your teaching is what you say it is.Meditationexpert.com have given me a better life.Back to my friend,He is a little sceptic so I think I have to show him the right meditation the first time.I personally think it has to be between mantra or Your basic free lesson(thats what teached me to calm my mind first.after that I can adjust to other meditations fast)

The only reason I mention mantra is because it is so easy to learn,but I feel for mental problems it is of most importent to not supress your thoughts and let go of them.any advice?

[Guest sykkelpump]

Just got answer from bodri,didnt help me much.But I understand It.I ll just take a chance on mantra I think.Going for the (I am) mantra.That is the only meditation I think is difficult to go wrong with.It is after all better to learn meditation than go for an more "advanced"one and dont learn it and give up.

Here is the answer I got:

 

Mantra is good -- something people can cling to. Also brings assistance.A "free mind" for those with mental problems can lead to more problems.You control wild horses two ways -- (1) put them in a wide open plain where they can play and roam free (2) put a rope around their neck(mantra). Depends on the person, situation, etc. Therefore I cannot advise and have nothing to say.

Edited November 28, 2008 by sykkelpump

[steve]

I would advise caution in recommending meditation to someone with "mental problems."

If your friend chooses to practice meditation, it would be advisable to have it done with some supervision by an experienced teacher or therapist of some sort.

As the mind quiets with meditation, it is more sensitive than ever to pathology or imbalance.

Certainly meditation can be healing but it can also be harmful depending on your friend's pathology.

Be careful and consider discussing it with a mental health professional.

My experience is mostly in Daoist methods but also Zen, Vipassana, and Vedanta.

[Seth Ananda]

My friend manages his schizophrenia reasonably well with Mantra meditation. He used to have regular visits to the Mental ward and has significantly reduced them.

 

He cannot safely do any Visualization, Energy work/cultivation, ritual or chakra work. these pretty much would guarantee a relapse. He can safely use gentle self inquiry processes.

 

Every case is unique as well.

 

And what Xuesheng said

 

Good Luck,

Seth

[Ya Mu]

I would advise caution in recommending meditation to someone with "mental problems."

If your friend chooses to practice meditation, it would be advisable to have it done with some supervision by an experienced teacher or therapist of some sort.

As the mind quiets with meditation, it is more sensitive than ever to pathology or imbalance.

Certainly meditation can be healing but it can also be harmful depending on your friend's pathology.

Be careful and consider discussing it with a mental health professional.

My experience is mostly in Daoist methods but also Zen, Vipassana, and Vedanta.

 

 

Absolutely.

Have seen the negative results with folks who go out on their own with this. Energetic work and meditation techniques, under guidance with trained professionals can accomplish quite a bit. But we do have to be VERY careful as it can also open a can of worms. Be sure you know what you are doing!

 

Also, sometimes the meds are absolutely needed. Never advise ANYONE to get off their meds unless they are your patient (therefore you are a licensed physician) and even then be sure you know what you are doing. I put this here not because the OP has asked about meds but because I have seen a LOT of [counselors, body workers, energetic healers, ect.] think that they really have a clue about pharmacology and mental health.

[de_paradise]

Mantra might be the right way to go, worth a shot. Show him the David Lynch clips on youtube about "diving within" as he has been using TM mantra, and he is more compelling to the average person, non-cultivators.

 

You never know what is going to click with the person though, for example he may have negative reactions to his own internal voice. In that case perhaps change his mantra voice to a deeper tone.

 

I am not going to state what I feel about the reticent people who always advise caution and to put their faith in physicians.

[markern]

I face this same dilema when adviceing people I know that have mental problems about meditation and energy practices. Research shows pretty cleraly that simple meditation like Vipassana and mantra are very beneficial for people with anxiety, depression and bipolar disorder. There has been done at least one study on minfulness meditation and schizophrenia. It proved to be very helpfull to them. However, they always meditated with a therapist near by in case thay get pulled in to delutions. I think the risk might be a bit high in the case of psychosis and in those cases guidance is clearly needed. For depression and anxiety good instruction and a few warnings should suffice but extra monitoring is also good.

 

If someone is able to meditate regulary with Vipassana or something else that is breath based I think that is a better place to start for people with mental problems. I tink it is better for developing the skills of being mindfull with regard to your symptoms and destructive paterns and disolving them/choosing differetnly. Mantra sometimes becomes too much of an escape although it certainly has many benefits and does deveopl a lot of mindfulness and in many regards is quicker than breath based stuff. However, many people find breath based meditation too difficult at first and need something which can quiet their minds quicker and mantra tends to do that better at first. What I plan to do with some people i know that want to learn basic meditation is to start of with breath and see what they think. If it is too hard for them or does not hook them I will sugest they use the SO HAM mantra coordinated with breath combined with ending each session with 5 minutes of observing breath and body without mantra. If that does not work I will suggest a different mantra that is not supposed to go a long with the breath

 

I also think that healing sounds and inner smile are absolutely superb for people with mental problems. Five animals probably as well because it aims so much for emotional balance. Wuji qigong/primordial qigong is also very good I think, especialy for people that alternate between being a bit too high and a bit to low like bipolar people and anyone that is not realy balanced. For anxiety any simple grounding excericse is also excellent. For all mental problems simple breathing techniques that focus on slow and even and free floating breath is also great and safe. Beyond that it gets more murky wether it is safe or not but some pranayamas like sudarshan kriya has showed superb results with regards to depression.

 

Chi nei tsang is also realy great for mental problems

[dwai]

This is a copy of what I just emailed bill bodri.

I just wanna see what people here think

 

Hello Bill.I have a friend with mental problems.I want to get him into meditation.I have tried following the breath,mantra,Your basic free lesson(very good),and white skeleton meditation and I can quiet the mind with each of them.Trained a lot.Thanks to you I gave up ten years of frustrating qi gong practices and I now have personally experienced that your teaching is what you say it is.Meditationexpert.com have given me a better life.Back to my friend,He is a little sceptic so I think I have to show him the right meditation the first time.I personally think it has to be between mantra or Your basic free lesson(thats what teached me to calm my mind first.after that I can adjust to other meditations fast)

The only reason I mention mantra is because it is so easy to learn,but I feel for mental problems it is of most importent to not supress your thoughts and let go of them.any advice?

 

Meditation tends to bring up unresolved emotions, issues that we suppress deep inside. These are very disconcerting and will take a lot of iteratively grown wisdom to work through. These are our inner demons and have to be dealt with using great compassion (towards ourselves).

 

As a preliminary practice, Mantra meditation is fine, but your friend really should be doing the practice (after the preliminary stages) under the guidance of a Teacher.

[Loke]

This is a copy of what I just emailed bill bodri.

I just wanna see what people here think

 

Hello Bill.I have a friend with mental problems.I want to get him into meditation.I have tried following the breath,mantra,Your basic free lesson(very good),and white skeleton meditation and I can quiet the mind with each of them.Trained a lot.Thanks to you I gave up ten years of frustrating qi gong practices and I now have personally experienced that your teaching is what you say it is.Meditationexpert.com have given me a better life.Back to my friend,He is a little sceptic so I think I have to show him the right meditation the first time.I personally think it has to be between mantra or Your basic free lesson(thats what teached me to calm my mind first.after that I can adjust to other meditations fast)

The only reason I mention mantra is because it is so easy to learn,but I feel for mental problems it is of most importent to not supress your thoughts and let go of them.any advice?

 

I should recommend him someting physical for example (Swedish) massage.

[Martial Development]

There are so many ways to improve one's life. Why counsel your friend to start with meditation, if he is predisposed to something else? Is such advice to his benefit, or to your own?

Edited November 29, 2008 by Martial Development

[Guest sykkelpump]

There are so many ways to improve one's life. Why counsel your friend to start with meditation, if he is predisposed to something else? Is such advice to his benefit, or to your own?

 

Ok,so what are you really saying?? You really dont give any advice here.

And meditation is the only thing I know that has a documented effect on people with mental problems.

Why should it benefit me,he can meditate me into enlightenment

[markern]

There are so many ways to improve one's life. Why counsel your friend to start with meditation, if he is predisposed to something else? Is such advice to his benefit, or to your own?

 

Meditation has repeatedly been shown to be one of the most eficient ways of treating depression and anxiety. What people on this forum know but that has not been firmly established yet is how great the benefits are on the realy long term. Both are good reasons to advice someone to meditate when they have mental problems. A large part of the people on this forum, if not most, probably were very skeptical towards meditation and energy practice earlier in their lives. So someone being sceptical, presumably from a lack of knowledge isen`t realy a good argument for not encouraging them to give it an open minded try.

[Mak_Tin_Si]

As I can see this site is a mix-and-match-fusion learning. If you really want to get your friend's mental problem fixed, you may consider bringing him to a professional Taoist for a checkup. Our temple also offer this kind of service and we cure mental problems too. The problem maybe caused by some shocking in life or maybe some other spiritual problems. If you do not solve the cause of the mental problem, your friend may get well for a while and then back to normal again. Or maybe it will make him worst because the mantras you are doing are not traditionally attuned. So it is more wise to have your friend for a check up with a pro taoist.

 

I have done case like this.

 

A person came to me, just got in a car accident.. and then he start to have nightmares and mental problems all the time. Nervous all the time, and always having the image of the accident in his mind, the doctors just gave him some relaxation pills, but then it dosen't help. So what we do is we did an analyzing process in Taoism for him and we could find out that his 3 souls are not completely there, that means his souls are damaged. So we have gave him 3 fu. One fu is to burn at his house, one fu to wear around the neck and one fu to burn into water and pour over his head in the bath. After all these are done, ALL the problems are gone instantly after the bath. After 7 days, he came back to him and told me how amazing it is. But what I can say is that it is just some kind of stuff that the western doctors do not take care of, but we the taoist know how to fix, so it is no big deal. After that, we also fix up his internal bleeding and soars from the crash for him by using FU in Taoism medic. All those pain and stuff were gone in 7 days. so in total of 14days, the whole case is done and nothing is left. The doctors were shocked, but due to insurance purposes, he have to PRETEND painful all the time when he see these people, otherwise, he is very HAPPY and GOOD now!

 

 

 

 

This is a copy of what I just emailed bill bodri.

I just wanna see what people here think

 

Hello Bill.I have a friend with mental problems.I want to get him into meditation.I have tried following the breath,mantra,Your basic free lesson(very good),and white skeleton meditation and I can quiet the mind with each of them.Trained a lot.Thanks to you I gave up ten years of frustrating qi gong practices and I now have personally experienced that your teaching is what you say it is.Meditationexpert.com have given me a better life.Back to my friend,He is a little sceptic so I think I have to show him the right meditation the first time.I personally think it has to be between mantra or Your basic free lesson(thats what teached me to calm my mind first.after that I can adjust to other meditations fast)

The only reason I mention mantra is because it is so easy to learn,but I feel for mental problems it is of most importent to not supress your thoughts and let go of them.any advice?

[Anabhogya-Carya]

The doctors were shocked, but due to insurance purposes, he have to PRETEND painful all the time when he see these people, otherwise, he is very HAPPY and GOOD now!

 

the clincher!

We cured him, he just pretends to be in pain.

[Martial Development]

Ok,so what are you really saying?? You really dont give any advice here.

And meditation is the only thing I know that has a documented effect on people with mental problems.

Why should it benefit me,he can meditate me into enlightenment

 

There was another study released just last week, IIRC, about the mental benefits of hatha yoga. That is just one of a zillion alternatives--not my favorite, but obviously a popular choice. I'm not going to list them all.

 

When we set out to fix others, this can sometimes be an excuse to remake them in our own image. IOW, "healing" can be an act of vanity and insincerity.

 

To restate in the form of banal advice: don't be naughty.

Edited November 30, 2008 by Martial Development

[Guest sykkelpump]

There was another study released just last week, IIRC, about the mental benefits of hatha yoga. That is just one of a zillion alternatives--not my favorite, but obviously a popular choice. I'm not going to list them all.

 

When we set out to fix others, this can sometimes be an excuse to remake them in our own image. IOW, "healing" can be an act of vanity and insincerity.

 

To restate in the form of banal advice: don't be naughty.

 

 

Yoga also use meditation and mantras.

[Mak_Tin_Si]

Yeh, but the main thing is that the patient is all good after 14days, which is very amazing after a TOTAL car accident....

 

I have just got another one a few weeks ago which is a very scary smash who came to me for help.

 

This guy was driving and stopped in a turning position.. A 4x4 was in front.. and then another car just came face to face and smashed right on the 4x4, the 4x4 smashed onto his car.. the 4x4 was on fire and all the air bags where out.. nothing left... This guy's car was totalled.. the head was smashed up..

 

He came to me the day after the accident with all kinds of pain and mental problems...

 

What we did is used FU to help him to cure his internal bleedings which caused the pain to be so killing. Then we helped him to settle his souls which caused the mental problems.. After 7days, he called me again and told me all the pain was gone and no more mental problems anymore! I was so happy.

 

the clincher!

We cured him, he just pretends to be in pain.