[greenglass]

The people who have popularized meditation in the west, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzburg, Joseph Goldstein, zinn, all come at it from the Buddhist tradition.

It’s a useful approach for treating various medical problems. Anything, even nothing, can cause psychosis.

[bowsamic]

This is minimising the risks, and those people you mention, while being from traditional backgrounds, afaik do not teach traditional practises, so they have effectively removed the wider framework

Meditation is not “as safe as sitting down”. It has strong life altering risks

[greenglass]

For those dealing with chronic pain, insomnia and other debilitating conditions, these people offer a lot that cannot be achieved through other means. Opiates or benzodiazepines are more readily available, and preferred by mainstream medicine, but they too can alter one’s life. Anything can alter one’s life if you think about it.