Question
What are the disadvantages of practicing mindfulness? I use mindfulness to mean, "bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis."
Answer
You seem to be talking specifically about the practice of vipassana, not the more general philosophy that many people talk about under the idea of "mindfulness" (which includes everything from Boyd's OODA model Mindfulness to the rather annoying ramblings of Eckharte Tolle).
Vipassana is not really about the "here and now." That's just an entry-point idea, and not a very good one. Much seems to get lost in translation.
Narrowly understood, sustained practice of vipassana alters your direct experience of life and reality in very low-level ways. Manipulating your experience of time itself, is one of them (for a crude understanding of what might happen, think of Neo dodging bullets in slow motion).
I think of it as systematically rewriting your firmware at the lowest level possible, or hardware hacking of the sort you do when you overclock a processor. You are screwing around at a layer below the one where concepts like "here" and "now" are defined for people with normal software.
The dramatic effects that can result include an ability to calmly and quietly self-immolate. 99.9999% of humanity would run around screaming in extreme pain if they were burning to death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thi...
What are the disadvantages of going down this path in a dead serious way? Does it reduce creative ability?
It is a meaningless question. The very categorical ideas of "creativity", "advantage" and "disadvantage" are likely to get completely rewired before you go too far down the path.
Vipassana is not really about the "here and now." That's just an entry-point idea, and not a very good one. Much seems to get lost in translation.
Narrowly understood, sustained practice of vipassana alters your direct experience of life and reality in very low-level ways. Manipulating your experience of time itself, is one of them (for a crude understanding of what might happen, think of Neo dodging bullets in slow motion).
I think of it as systematically rewriting your firmware at the lowest level possible, or hardware hacking of the sort you do when you overclock a processor. You are screwing around at a layer below the one where concepts like "here" and "now" are defined for people with normal software.
The dramatic effects that can result include an ability to calmly and quietly self-immolate. 99.9999% of humanity would run around screaming in extreme pain if they were burning to death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thi...
What are the disadvantages of going down this path in a dead serious way? Does it reduce creative ability?
It is a meaningless question. The very categorical ideas of "creativity", "advantage" and "disadvantage" are likely to get completely rewired before you go too far down the path.