| | I recently experienced the suicide of my closest friend, significant other. I had been struggling with depression beforehand, but this has completely blown everything out of the water in terms of sheer pain felt. I have been seeing a psychologist, but I get the impression that seeing psychologists is not very effective for me personally. I'm doing what I can to maintain daily balance as far as food and sleep and keeping engaged in my schoolwork, but I still struggle there. Some days I feel complete and utter disregard for my own well-being, but I try to keep it in check.
I am utterly grateful for the fact that I've done a fair bit of work in concentration practice and insight practice. With the absolute storm of thoughts and emotions going on right now, I have the ability to watch from a distance and not let myself fixate on them. I understand that the point of practice isn't to dispatch thoughts and emotions, and it isn't my intention to practice to obliviate them. But I do sense that I really need to deepen my practice. It is more viable an option than drinking, smoking, dissociating, and burying the suffering beneath diversions, which admittedly does happen.
I'm just apprehensive to throw myself into the progress of insight deeply again, since I know that the 3rd VJ can lead to instability, of which I have plenty at the moment. But on another level, I see that tragedy is never going to stop, painful experiences are never going to stop, and my attempts to fashion a stable conventional life can only take me so far in being happy and content.
So I'm looking for some advice on how to practice in spite of a very high level of pain, fairly miserable life experiences, etc... On one hand, I think that it might be better to wait until I'm on more level ground. But on the other hand, I seem to be dealt shitty cards quite frequently, and I get the sense that there may be no better time to deepen my insight practice than right now. I have been trying to do concentration practice, but I feel disabled by how hard this terrible tragedy has hit me. It's hard to get into jhanas at this point. I also have noticed that my concentration practice is always limited by my progress in insight practice. So maybe it's best to hit the ground running towards path. If anyone can offer advice in regards to practicing when life is unstable/mind is unstable, please let me know. Wherever I go from here, here is not where I want to be, in terms of suffering. |