> I'm guessing it's the pretense that you can simply teach anyone to meditate whether or not they want to learn
Meditation techniques aren't hard to learn, they're comparable to any form of exercise. The hard bit is in doing them sincerely, just like any form of exercise.
Can you teach someone press-ups? Then you can teach them meditation. You just can't make them do it, or effectively.
As to signing up for solitary for an extended period, I wish I could, but only if it was humane (e.g. no violence, feces flung at me etc), which I'm willing to bet (and the article seems to back up my suspicion) prison solitary isn't.
What you're describing is forcing people to meditate.
The way I understand what you describe:
"We will torture you, you can either have it better by doing this meditation thing _we teach you_ or you can suffer"
The issue here is the torture itself, not the fact that the torture is difficult to deal with.
Meditation techniques aren't hard to learn, they're comparable to any form of exercise. The hard bit is in doing them sincerely, just like any form of exercise.
Can you teach someone press-ups? Then you can teach them meditation. You just can't make them do it, or effectively.
As to signing up for solitary for an extended period, I wish I could, but only if it was humane (e.g. no violence, feces flung at me etc), which I'm willing to bet (and the article seems to back up my suspicion) prison solitary isn't.