Community Forum Discussions

Community conversations and shared experiences for people looking to discuss or learn from others about challenging meditation experiences.

A poster on this forum asks for comments on the suicide of Megan Vogt after going on a Vipassana meditation retreat.

Here are some of the comments:

• "Wow. A sad situation. It is frustrating to read how inept the center was at handling this situation. I started meditating seriously at a Goenka retreat and I would never recommend to someone to start with a Goenka retreat precisely for this reason."
  
  
• "I have a lot of respect for the tradition, I've been to three 10 day retreats, but in my opinion they need to introduce changes. The retreats are too dogmatic and overly ascetic. The way this girl was handled is appalling."
  
  
• "Thanx for posting this. Goenka seems to be the most egregious offender in terms of not offering much help to meditators who are having difficulty but even centers with teachers who supposedly have a "psychological" background like IMS do little better than dump a meditator having difficulty into the local emergency room for a 72 hr cooling off period, which may or may not work."
  
  
• "My belief is that these retreats have a disproportionate number of people developing serious problems from them and it is in large part due to the technique they teach. I also believe they should not take beginners, people who have never meditated before, and immerse them in their technique so intensively for so many days."