the deeper you meditate
the easier you are to brainwash
what if I told you
that the most sophisticated mind control groups
do not bother brainwashing you at all
they do exactly the opposite
they teach you to meditate first
they teach you to observe your own thoughts
they teach you to watch your breath
they teach you to experience the present moment
you learn it
you feel like you have woken up
you feel like you finally see the truth
and then
you are completely trapped
hello
hi everyone
I am Leo Wang
today I want to talk about a question I have thought about for a long time
why are the people most deeply controlled by mind control groups
usually not the confused ones
but the smart ones the highly educated
even practitioners with years of meditation experience
look at the spiritual groups around the world that went badly wrong
from Aum Shinrikyo in Japan
to that American group that sold itself as self improvement training
the profile of their core members is strikingly consistent
highly educated
capable of independent thinking
many already had a background in meditation or yoga before joining
these people are absolutely not fools
it is precisely because they were too smart
and too hungry for the truth
that they became the perfect targets
our intuition tells us
the stronger your awareness is
the harder you are to fool
someone who sits in meditation every day
should be harder to manipulate than someone who never reflects
but reality is exactly the opposite
Yale psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton
after studying a large number of thought reform cases
and modern mind control groups
proposed eight criteria
one of them is called mystical manipulation
what does that mean
it means the controller deliberately engineers
spiritual experiences that look spontaneous and inner
so you believe you realized it yourself
when it was actually carefully designed
this is completely different from classic brainwashing
classic brainwashing says I will tell you what is right
mystical manipulation makes you feel you discovered what is right
the first one you can resist
the second one you do not even know who to resist
because it feels like your own judgment
have you ever thought about
what this means
it means
your awareness itself
can become a tool used against you
let me give you an analogy
you go learn to drive
the instructor first teaches you how to use the rearview mirror
how to judge the distance between cars
how to feel the feedback from the steering wheel
you learn it
you feel you can finally read the road clearly
but what if the instructor tampered with your rearview mirror
and installed a distorting mirror
everything you see is warped
and you have no idea
because you have learned to trust the mirror
the better your driving gets
the more you rely on that mirror
the more dangerous you are
awareness
is the rearview mirror of consciousness
Buddhism has a very precise concept called the self witnessing aspect
the most widely known account in Yogacara
breaks the process of knowing anything into four layers
the first is called the object aspect
that is the object you see
like this flower in front of you
the second is called the perceiving aspect
that is the act of seeing the flower itself
the capacity to see
the third is called the self witnessing aspect
that is knowing that you are looking at the flower
the fourth is called the witnessing of the self witnessing
that is being able to confirm you really know you are looking at the flower
what is the self witnessing aspect
it is the ability of consciousness to turn around and look at itself
you are not just thinking
you also know that you are thinking
that is awareness
modern cognitive science has a very close concept
called metacognition
alright
here is the problem
legitimate meditation training
has developing the self witnessing aspect as its core goal
you sit there watching your breath
a thought drifts in
you do not chase it
you just watch it
this is training your self witnessing aspect
so you can step back
and see how your own mind operates
this ability is extremely important
it is one of the core tools in what the Buddha taught
and the theoretical basis of modern mindfulness therapy
but
pay attention to this but
the self witnessing aspect itself is neutral
it is just a mirror
a mirror can reflect the truth
and it can reflect an illusion
what matters is not how bright the mirror is
but what is placed in front of it
psychology has a classic study called the Milgram obedience experiment
ordinary people were told to give electric shocks to another person
as long as the authority in the lab coat said continue
most of them kept going
even when the other person was screaming
what does this tell us
obedience to an authority frame runs deep in human bones
now imagine this
if the person in the lab coat were not a stranger running an experiment
but a spiritual teacher you trust from the bottom of your heart
and if he were not ordering you to shock someone
but guiding you to observe your own mind
how powerful would that obedience be
so powerful that you cannot even feel it there
sophisticated mind control groups understand this perfectly
their playbook has three steps
step one
give you something real
they really do teach you to meditate
they really do teach you to observe your emotions and thoughts
they really do give you a taste of deep calm and clarity
this part is not fake
this is genuine meditation technique
you really do benefit at this stage
body and mind both get better
this step builds trust
step two
swap out the foundation
once you trust the method
they slowly start introducing a specific worldview
like only our teacher can take you all the way
like the outside world is polluted
and only here can you stay clear
like that unease you feel
is exactly your karma stirring up
and you need to practice even deeper
notice
these ideas are not poured into you all at once
they seep in bit by bit
behavioral economics has a concept called the framing effect
the same information in a different frame leads to a completely different judgment
what mind control groups do is quietly swap out your cognitive frame
step three
lock you in with your own awareness
once those ideas are planted in your deep consciousness
your self witnessing aspect
the awareness you worked so hard to build
now starts serving those ideas
you notice a thought about leaving
but your awareness tells you
this thought is fear
fear is a sign of attachment
attachment means your practice is not deep enough
you notice doubt about the teacher
but your awareness tells you
doubt is the ego clinging of manas at work
you should let go of the ego
do you see it
your awareness has not weakened
your awareness is stronger than ever
but now it runs on a distorted foundation
just like that warped rearview mirror
the clearer it is
the more dangerous it is
in the language of Yogacara
they did not touch your first six consciousnesses
they did not make you stupid
they did not weaken your thinking
they did not even directly manipulate manas
that deep rooted self centered mind
what they did goes deeper
they planted new seeds in your alaya consciousness
what is the alaya consciousness
it is the storehouse of all your experience memory and habit
it is so deep
so deep that your everyday awareness cannot see it at all
and then they teach you awareness
the sharper your self witnessing aspect gets
the more you notice the thoughts and feelings sprouting from those new seeds
but you will think they were yours all along
you will feel that this is the truth
it is like a computer
normally
antivirus software scans the system for malicious programs
but if someone first goes into the bottom layer of your system
and plants a virus disguised as a system file
and then installs a very powerful antivirus for you
what happens
the antivirus scans the whole drive
it sees that virus
but its database tells it this is a safe system file
so the more you trust the antivirus
the safer that virus becomes
the self witnessing aspect is that antivirus
the alaya consciousness is that bottom layer of the operating system
and this danger does not only exist inside mind control groups
professor Willoughby Britton at Brown University
studying the adverse effects of mindfulness meditation found
that fifty eight percent of participants
had adverse reactions with negative feelings during mindfulness programs
another survey of the general US population showed
fifty percent of meditators reported at least one adverse experience
anxiety trauma reexperiencing and emotional hypersensitivity were the three most common
what deserves even more attention
is that people with childhood trauma
have a clearly higher risk of adverse effects
notice
this does not mean meditation itself is harmful
meditation is a scalpel
the problem is never the blade
it is who is holding it
and in what setting it is used
when awareness is over activated in an unsafe environment
when a traumatized person without professional protection
is guided straight into the deep layers of consciousness
it can open things you are not ready to face
and mind control groups are experts at using that fragile window
Lifton also mentions another concept in his eight criteria
called doctrine over person
when your personal experience conflicts with the doctrine of the group
you are trained to always trust the doctrine and doubt your experience
but
what if from the very beginning the group used meditation training
to make the doctrine feel like your own experience
then doctrine over person becomes fully automatic
you do not even know it is running
because it feels like you are just being true to your heart
this is the most sophisticated form of control
it does not suppress your free will
it redefines your free will
you think you are choosing freely
but the basis of your choice has been replaced
so how do you tell real practice guidance from mind control
I have three key signals
first
does it encourage you to leave
real meditation traditions tell you
the teaching is a raft
once you cross the river you put it down
the teacher is a finger pointing at the moon
not the moon itself
if a group tells you
that leaving means losing everything
that leaving means falling
that leaving wastes everything you built
then it is holding you hostage with fear
no matter how good its meditation technique is
second
is your social world getting wider or narrower
real practice makes you more compassionate and open to everyone
you find it easier to get along with anyone
if as you practice
you drift away from friends and family outside the group
feeling they do not understand you they are on a lower level they are lost in ignorance
feeling only fellow practitioners can understand you
then be careful
Lifton calls this milieu control
it is the first step of mind control
and the most critical one
once your social world shrinks to just this circle
all your sources of information emotional support
and identity are locked inside the same system
third
and this is the most fundamental one
is there someone who cannot be questioned
one of the last teachings the Buddha left before he passed was
be an island unto yourself
take the dharma as your island
he did not say take me as your island
there is a saying passed down in the Buddhist tradition
it goes roughly like this
examine my teaching
the way a goldsmith tests gold
hammer it burn it cut it
make sure it is real
and only then accept it
and in the Kalama Sutta
the Buddha lists ten guidelines outright
do not believe something just because it is tradition
do not believe it just because it is scripture
do not believe it just because it comes from your teacher
have you ever seen the leader of a mind control group
dare to say that to his followers
a real teacher
will encourage you to question him
a controller
will use spiritual language to make questioning feel like regression
make doubt feel like karmic obstruction
make disbelief feel like a lack of affinity
at this point
I want to invite you to run a small experiment
right now
think of one belief you hold without any doubt
whether it is about spirituality about life
or about how the world works
then ask yourself one question
this belief
did I figure it out myself
or did someone teach it to me
if someone taught it to me
before they taught me
did they first teach me how to be aware
this question does not need an answer right away
but if it makes your chest tighten slightly
that is the point
that tightening
is your real self witnessing aspect at work
it is noticing an assumption you may have never examined
awareness is the most precious capacity of human consciousness
but precisely because it is precious
it needs to be protected
protecting it does not mean not using it
it means always remembering one thing
the object of awareness can be swapped
but awareness itself belongs to no one
it obeys no doctrine
and it points to no single answer
when we talked about predictive coding before we said
the brain is not passively receiving the world
it is actively constructing it
everything you see is the best guess of your brain
not raw data
awareness makes it possible to see that construction process itself
but what if someone has already tampered with
the prior model your brain uses to guess
the sharper your awareness
the more deeply you believe that tampered guess is the truth
so the core of what I want to say today is one sentence
the awareness is yours
but the direction of that awareness may not be
when someone tells you
where your awareness should look and where it should not
that is exactly the moment you most need your awareness to examine it
do you think the awareness you have right now
is completely free
or is it
already running inside a frame you never noticed
this question itself
may be the first crack in that frame
I am Leo Wang
see you next episode