| | Hello,
My total retreat time is four ten day Goenka retreats since June 2008. I have practiced regularly for these past two years, striving for two hours a day, have now cut back to one hour on the cushion a day and am slipping rapidly, as always happens when momentum from past retreats slips. My depth of theory is minimal and I only began reading about meditation/Buddhism in August (one of the beautiful things to me about Goenka retreats was his selling points of non-sectarian, non-religious universal approach). Fortunately since then I have been introduced to this website, reading about the Mahasi Sayadaw tradition, Daniel Ingram's book, and the Buddhist Geeks podcasts (very grateful). So now I bravely appeal for help before I attend my fifth retreat this December.
Some background: in October of 2007 I had an experience while working with a very gifted healer, Paul Canali, that I now firmly believe to be an A&P event. I was in my bed meditating, when all of a sudden, from the back of my head, a feeling of pouring, rushing cold came out and spread down the back of my body and throughout my entire being. I had a vision of a mountain, flying up to this mountain, and at the peak of the mountain was a revolving light and seeing this light brought a wonderful knowing of self-worth, and how love and hate for yourself can be two sides of the same coin (sounds quite cheesy but yes), how I had to experience this rock-bottom pain in order to grow and live to my greatest potential. My body was filled with light and love and bliss and I experienced orgasmic pulsations throughout my body, accompanied by tears and relief and overwhelming joy. This lasted about twenty-thirty minutes although the feeling stayed on for a few days and I evangelically told my closest friends about it. I felt absolutely changed and still hold that moment to be the most intense so far. I realize now that prior to this experience I have had many many flirtings with mind/body awareness since I was a little girl, even putting myself to sleep by noticing the difference rhythms between my heart beating throughout my body and my breaths' rising and falling.
I believe I am now caught in the Dark Night (surprise, surprise) and I am demanding (from myself) deliverance! Or at least guidance on how to handle it while I'm here, and how to best proceed. I will describe, to the best of my memory, my retreats. Apologies for their gross descriptions as it has been awhile. I find the same process, somewhat, repeats during my ten days...usually having a distinct A&P event around Day 3 during bedtime and lasting after-effects for a half a day. After that, the worst part of my meditation comes around Day 6 and 7, when I am edgy, restless, like a child who can't sit still, cannot stay aware for even a second of my thoughts wandering, wanting to scream aloud, throw my pillows in the hall, my body racing rapidly, sometimes drowning, clawing at my sensations in my torso, and my mind completely losing its equanimity about every five minutes. Shortly after this (another day), I calm down again...WAY down. Like to utter boredom. My body has calmed enough to sit with relative comfort but I have lost a lot of concentration and a LOT of will, like 'what's the point' and find myself not caring when my awareness sees I'm thinking. In fact, defiantly following my daydreams. In short, not meditating, or 'piddling' (as I call it) in my thoughts, like a very heavy effort is needed to draw myself back to attention, a sluggish adolescent.
Retreat 1 I didn't have this, at all. I was so excited by the newness, and the instructions, I breezed once I got past the horror of the sittings of strong determination and though it was hard I found myself by Day 8 in complete buzzy Bungha (as Goenka calls it), enough to pass his suggestive tests of dropping ink into a bottle of water from the top of your head and watching/feeling it dissolve throughout the body, imagining my spinal cord as one electrified piece of rope, examining it inch by inch, or passing tiny needles from the backside of my body through to the front-side, or through the side of my body, wherever. I mentioned, after the first retreat, "it could be so much better!" to my astounded boyfriend. Please read this as honesty and not arrogance. I absolutely adore the Goenka retreats, and have immense respect for them. I noticed Goenka did very little in calling attention to thoughts or emotions and their subsequent manifestations on the body (this was part of the healing work I had been through before attending a retreat, and was all I knew to draw from).
Retreat 2 (one year later) I thought I knew everything and was quite disappointed to compare the giant boulder I'd hacked off my mountain of content on the first retreat to the pebble of the exact same old shit. This was the first time I had that desperate desire to give up, and wasted a heap of Day 8 piddling on my cushion in my cell. I found momentum on Day 9 but doubt very much I got through any of the Dark Night to any success (still not knowing this map theory).
Retreat 3 (Six months later) I resolved not to waste time piddling, but instead in my eagerness wasted the first three days of anapana in a desire to jump to body-scanning. This somehow made the Dark Night super horrible due to lack of concentration. I killed myself with laser-point precision body scanning, and had all sorts of dream-like visions of body pierced flesh, nightmarish bloody battles, inner screaming, like I was wailing for help or a stronghold. I asked the teacher for help and she said these were manifestations of inner defilements (sankaras), and to 'work in bigger chunks' which helped, and I got through to my usual boredom and desire for deliverance, but also kept concentration and mostly equanimous awareness.
Retreat 4 (August, eight months later) I feel I MAY have gotten (almost?) to Equanimity. My daily practice was stronger before attending than in the past, and also I was in Thailand which seemed to up the standard for intense surrounding practitioners. I remember feeling a lifted weight around Day 8, and a new kind of reality after the drama of my hellish previous days. I also felt a bit shaky in my awareness, like an invalid after bedrest who knows they're cured but still a bit panicked they could regress, and a chunky kind of reality as I scanned, as if there was too much time in between something occuring in my body and the noticing of it. Day 10, when noble silence was lifted, I went into my room and wept as I desired a longer retreat, felt I was on the cusp of something, and dreaded losing the momentum I'd gained. This time my mood swings following the retreat were horrible, and it took about a month to integrate. I felt very fragile, and susceptible to the world, argumentative with my boyfriend (now husband). This is when I fell into MCTB, this website, and began reading some lovely books loaned from a friend at the Buddhist Meditation Center in Penang.
Why Goenka? you might be asking. I am sort of asking the same thing now as I live and work in Kuala Lumpur and could meditate at several wonderful monasteries if I can find the time. Goenka is great in the US, and its severe/intense style suits my personality. I love the non-talking aspect but realizing now I may never be able to sit a longer course due to its rules. I am curious about switching to noting practice at this time, if this is even necessary given where I am, or if scanning Goenka style can still work. Also any help/advice on the very end stages of the Dark Night, recognizing/anticipating Equanimity and beyond. Or I have completely misread where I am to begin with...
Darcey |