The Messy World of Mindfulness w/ Dan Lawton

IndoctriNation

Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 566 Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2022

⏱️ 43 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: https://danlawton.substack.com/p/when-buddhism-goes-bad?s=r In this first half of their two-part conversation, Dan provides some cultural and historical background on the Vipassana and Western Insight traditions explaining how these practices changed as they reached the west in the 1950s. Dan goes on to share with Rachel the details of experiencing what he calls non-referential terror as a result of intense meditation practice. Together they discuss the findings of Dan's deep examination of the structures that led to his previously inexplicable emotional terror. Before You Go: Rachel gives insights into the response from the meditation community that Daniel and previous guest Dr. Britton have elicited and explains the relationship between meditation and executive functioning skills in the brain. More about Dan's work with Cheetah House Here: https://www.cheetahhouse.org/care-team?gclid=Cj0KCQjw5-WRBhCKARIsAAId9Fl9oSOnXTS5HCX-5jEKUhkuo7GO7-YPXitpU6hUwCHupKVX_QaYdS8aAsZ6EALw_wcB Thanks to all of our newest Patreon supporters: Rhona Stephanidis, Samuel Huff, Miracle Galston, Blair Lyonev, Michele, Renae, Erin Avenant, Jennifer Mosier, Dana Bradley, Mette Kousgaard, Sunrise Sun and Shenandoah (Shan) Ware 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: 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.
0:14.0	Hi, everybody. Today on the show we have Dan Lawton. Dan Lawton is a mindfulness instructor and writer with a specific interest in the
0:22.8	adverse effects of meditation practice. Dan is a certified instructor in mindfulness-based
0:28.4	stress reduction through Brown University and spent four years teaching meditation in New Orleans.
0:35.5	Dan spent a decade practicing meditation, primarily in the Western Insight
0:40.7	traditions, and completed roughly 15 silent retreats. He now mentors other meditators struggling
0:47.8	with adverse experiences through the organization Cheetah House. Before teaching meditation,
0:54.1	Dan worked as a newspaper reporter in California and Louisiana.
0:59.0	He's written about his own adverse experiences from meditation.
1:03.1	And you get to hear part one of my conversation with Dan now.
1:18.7	Thank you. with Dan now. I am very happy to have Dan Lotton with me today on this show.
1:23.4	We're going to be talking for a while, which I'm so happy about because there's so much to talk about.
1:30.0	I got your name from Nita, who is a previous guest on the show and a friend and an all-around good person.
1:37.1	So I would love for you to introduce yourself and then we'll start talking.
1:41.6	So my name is Dan Lawton.
1:43.4	I live in New Orleans.
1:44.9	And I guess what's going to be most germane for our conversation is I've spent the last 10 years
1:50.7	intensively meditating in Buddhist traditions, primarily what we might describe as
1:56.6	vipasana or American Insight.
1:59.9	And for the last four years, I worked as a mindfulness-based
2:03.3	stress reduction teacher. And I mean, I guess we'll probably dive into some of the experiences
	...

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