collection of articles on serious problems that can happen with deep meditation

https://tonic.vice.com/en_us/article/vbaedd/meditation-is-a-powerful-mental-tool-and-for-some-it-goes-terribly-wrong

I've had personal experience with panic attacks, bad episodes in the past. It's a huge topic, and I'm not going to try to address everything, but here are some things that are extremely helpful, from personal experience.

PIE = precious internal energy. 

In taoism, they talk about jing, qi, shen. PIE is my way of describing that internal alchemy.

If you meditate correctly, full pacification/relaxation of body and mind, mind free of thinking,  what you're doing is baking PIE.
The more you meditate, the better the PIE tastes, the more massive and powerful the energy running through the network of interconnected loops in the body.

PIE energy running through the energy channel loops in the body is not imaginary. It's a tangible force that throbs through every cell in your body. At different stages, depending on how coarse the energy is, it can feel like flashes of heat, electricity, a feeling like you're sitting in a jacuzzi and the powerful jets of water are going up your spine, around your head, down your chest and back to the tailbone.At times, your belly feels and sounds like a bee hive throbbing with magnetic gooey energy.  It can feel like you're a water balloon that's expanding. At a higher stage, it feels like just an air balloon expanding. At a higher stage, then the PIE manisfests as an abundance of visible light, that grows in size and intensity/brightness the longer and more nurturing you bake the PIE with. The body starts to feel empty.

When you're working with circulating  massive amounts of PIE in the body/mind, it requires a definite commitment and lifestyle change. Besides all the common sense good advice, such as eat healthy, take vitamins regularly as a hedge and insurance, get enough sleep, exercise at least 60-120min a day with at least 30min of decent cardio with elevated heart and full/deep breathing, there is one thing of special importance that most people don't believe, don't want to believe, but is of crucial importance.

Zero tolerance for any thought of lust

Brahmacariya. Celibacy. This doesn't just mean abstinence from sexual intercourse and masturbation. This means the mind 24/7 must be vigilant guarding and wiping out any thoughts of lust immediately. Once you become skilled in meditation, you'll understand why. Even just a split second of strong lust in the mind, you can feel a massive amount of PIE energy churning and humming in the body. This PIE can not be recycled, contrary to what Taoist and Tantric charlatans claim have bringing up the energy up the spine and recycling it. This is wishful thinking, and has led many people to a premature death and massive health problems.

 For people who aren't celibate, what practitioners who do taiji (Tai Chi) quan seriously, the grandmasters have given advice such as this these:
* If you plan to have sex, for 3 days before, and 2 days after, don't do any qigong or meditation.
* If you plan to have sex, no meditation/qigong 24 hours before or after
* If you plan to have sex, no meditation/qigong for an hour before, or an hour after

 The more advanced your meditation is, the more realize brahmacariya/celibacy is the only way to go. The type of advice given above, you'll find out very quickly why that's there. And even if you do follow it, someone who is an advanced meditator will feel like they're having a terrible hangover or worse, for 12-24 hours or longer. Eventually the wise realize if you're going to go down this path that leads to the deathless, the immortal PIE, brahmacariya/celibacy is not an option.

Back to the article

So now you can understand from the linked article, why some people who meditated correctly, and initially got great results, but later had anxiety, depression, panic attacks, physical health problems, migraine headaches,  etc. Odds are most of them are sexually active in some way, whether through sex with a partner or masturbation. There is probably no faster and dangerous way to destroy PIE as sexual activity.

But what about people who are celibate and still have those problems?

and in general, how to prevent this problem from happening?

Doing a combination of correct jhāna meditation, maintaining prolonged celibacy, and exercises that will repair your jhāna battery with its damaged infrastructure. 

Details of recommended exercises here: ☯🦍  

So what happen if we only think lustful thoughts but don't act out on it?

It's not only physical sexual activity,  lustful thoughts deplete massive amounts of vital energy.

Just as people with really intense anger, intense grief, do damage to their internal organs, and can even cause instant death. Many cases in history of people dying of 'broken heart' related to bad breakups, unrequited love, or people so angry they die from a burst artery.

In 2022, I read an article it's common now that young men, teens through thirties, have much higher rates of impotence and erectile dysfunction. That's from watching pornography, so easily available in modern times. The article didn't say, but even if they don't masturbate physically, just watching porn and inciting strong lustful thoughts, are going deplete vital nervous system energy, just as everyone has probably had the experience of being intensely angry, and feeling the body feels weak, messed up and depleted, even without physically acting out the anger with energetic activity. Strong thoughts can have that strong effect. 

People with strong lustful thoughts, daydreaming, fantasizing, can have an orgasm and ejaculation without any physical contact from themself or others. Strong thoughts can have that strong effect. 

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collection of articles on serious problems that can happen with deep meditation