I used to meditate a lot and it kinda helped while it lasted (I jumped on the self improvement wagon along with meditation). So it went hand in hand with reading about healthy diet and doing sports,... So it was definitely good back then. I did it for a couple of years and it has both upsides and downsides.
First upsides:
I loved the increase concentration. I think what others jerk about getting ultra concentration through adderall, I've got through meditation. I was able to read books and study without any interruptions of thoughts whatsoever. When the thought rose up, I simply didn't give a fuck and went on studying and reading.
I'm 70% sure that the book I have in mind was this one: Mastering the Core teaching of Buddha by Daniel Ingram
The book said that deep concentration on tasks for hours on end (eg studying) can lead to elevated states of counciousness (~feeling high), what I definitely experienced; it also got me hooked onto the whole learning/concentration thing because I felt so good for studying for hours on end.
Secondly, being counciouss of your thoughts and being aware of "wrong" thoughts is basically the same as the CBT therapy described by the book called feeling good by the psychologist David Burns. One of his main ideas were the 10 cognitive distortions. For example: while you're depressed you're more prone to overgeneralize and think something like "no one's gonna employ me", then you write it down and think about why the thought is basically wrong. So it's basically the same as the disengagement from the thoughts in meditation practice: "I think, but the thoughts are not me, therefore I do not have to listen to them"
Now to the downsides:
Sorry lengthy rant about the western spiritual dogma, you can skip to personal negative experiences if not interested:
- whole mediation industry is HIGHLY westernized. (To read about differences between western and eastern buddhism I'd suggest "The making of modern Buddhism" by David McMahan).
Meditation is usually sold as the Truth™ to vulnerable people (like us) to end their suffering. They looooooooooove to teach you all or nothing thinking like:
- all thoughts are bad
- future and past is fake (because it's only in your mind), only present exists, therefore just live in the moment
- the only way to experience the world is through your senses, every label you attach to your senses means absolutely nothing (eg touching table is real, notion of "table" (~labeling the senses) is fake and means absolutely nothing) -> True Reality™ is being hyperaware 24/7 of your senses
It might seem really dumb but I read all that stuff without any critical thinking whatsoever. I remember in the first weeks how I tried to eliminate all thoughts I had because "they're fake anyway" (spoiler: didn't do shit). If you read some meditation subreddits they're full of those "woke" people who try to convince you how all of our existence is fake, thoughts are fake and you're fake
My opinion is that the westernized Buddhism is just highly dumbing down on mental capacities and gives just another way to vurnerable people to escape reality.
The traditional Buddhism gives a fuck about future. One of their main tasks is to provide rituals to deceased people so they get reincarnated in better states (why would they do it if future is fake and only present exists)? They don't think that the world is fake and only their senses exist (why would Dalai Lama do all the stuff he's doing)?
It might seem exaggerated, but it really is, what people like Sam Harris are teaching.
I'm not saying, that everything is bullshit what they say, but how they sell it is just purely extreme.
They take a healthy approach to life like: Oh, maybe all the stuff I used to tell about me isn't that rigid and I have the means to change some stuff about it if I want to
And it morphs into: My ego is fake, nothing is real
First approach helps you in life, second is just escaping
Personal negative experiences:
There's a whole institute which is researching negative aspects of meditation which is called cheetahhouse ( I encourage you to look it up because there are some really interesting cases like people who's feeling of mind went from head into another body parts or people who come out of a meditation retreat thinking they are out of their body and stop being able to get back to their lifes for years)
So basically what I experienced might be considered by some meditation teachers as progress, but I found it disturbing, therefore I didn't like it
- I experienced high emotional detachment (not feeling anything for my friends or relatives)
- I had some meditation induced manic episodes where I was just laying around in jolly mood for days (again it's not really helpful in life + is actually considered bad practice by meditation teachers)
- general detachment from life (not caring about future) based on "future is only in my mind anyway"
