From Buddhist Practice to Malpractice w/Dan Lawton

IndoctriNation

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 566 Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2022

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Dan Lawton is a mindfulness instructor and writer, with a specific interest in the adverse effects of meditation practice. Dan is a certified instructor in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) through Brown University and spent four years teaching meditation in New Orleans. Dan spent a decade practicing meditation, primarily in the Vipassana and Western Insight traditions and completed roughly 15 silent retreats. He now mentors other meditators struggling with adverse experiences through the organization, Cheetah House. Before teaching meditation, Dan worked as a newspaper reporter in California and Louisiana. He has written about his own adverse experiences from meditation at: www.danlawton.substack.com In this second half of their two-part conversation, Dan explains the unique way western Buddhism intermingles with science, academia, and government by presenting mindfulness practices as secular and rational despite its religious claims and dogmatic history. Together Rachel and Dan break down the defensiveness of the mindfulness communities, pointing out the common reactions people have when their faith is questioned. Dan explains how he has restructured his mindfulness teachings with the more complete knowledge he has of the dangers of intense practice. Before You Go: Rachel explains the importance of not surrendering to any particular practice but rather remaining open to them while observing the risks and ensuring safeguards are in place to reduce the chances of negative impacts. More info on Dan here: https://nolamindfulness.com/ More about Dan's work with Cheetah House Here: http://www.cheetahhouse.org Thanks to all of our newest Patreon supporters: Amelia Brunner, Jon Butler, Ashley Moose and 4MileCircus !!! To help support the show monthly and get bonus episodes, shirts, and tote bags, please visit: www.patreon.com/indoctrination Prefer to support the IndoctriNation show with a one-time donation? Use this link: http://www.paypal.me/indoctrination You can help the show for free by leaving a rating on Spotify or Apple/ iTunes. It really helps the visibility of the show! Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to indoctrination, a weekly conversation series about protecting yourself from systems of control.
0:11.2	I'm your host, Rachel Bernstein.
0:13.5	Hi, everybody.
0:14.9	Today on the show we have Dan Lawton.
0:17.1	Dan Lawton is a mindfulness instructor and writer with a specific interest in the adverse effects
0:23.0	of meditation practice. Dan is a certified instructor in mindfulness-based stress reduction
0:28.8	through Brown University and spent four years teaching meditation in New Orleans. Dan spent a decade
0:36.1	practicing meditation and completed roughly 15 silent
0:40.4	retreats. He now mentors other meditators struggling with adverse experiences through the
0:46.2	organization Cheetah House. Before teaching meditation, Dan worked as a newspaper reporter in
0:52.9	California and Louisiana.
0:55.2	He's written about his own adverse experiences from meditation.
0:59.3	And you get to hear part two of my conversation favorite words uttered by therapists is the word resistance.
1:22.5	Because I think what that seems to do, first of all, it has judgment in it.
1:26.8	But if someone is not opening up to something that you're saying, it could be because they're either not ready or it's not what they're needing. And there was a particular class that I went to where they were teaching mysticism and you were supposed to buy certain texts, and the texts were written
1:45.2	in an ancient language that also was not used anymore. And you're supposed to scan the text
1:51.0	with your fingertips, not being able to understand the words, but that somehow the power of the
1:56.9	different letters and the words would enter into your fingertips and go through your
2:01.7	system and could keep you from getting sick from really anything that you didn't want to have
2:07.9	happened to you. If it didn't work, it was because you had a blockage somewhere. And they were going to
2:14.2	offer you the way to unblock this blockage. And of course it was you, you need to take more classes and you need to do this more and you need to buy more text and scan more. And you need to be present and open. And like you're saying, they would use the word surrender. You need to surrender to this. I think that some people do need to be able to surrender to certain things that they're
2:38.1	kind of bucking up against that could be helpful to them. But I think if somebody is not
	...

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