| | Hi Daniel, and thanks for this. I appreciate the call back to basic practice, always. And I love this technique, and if it works for you it is a terrific way to slip through some real gnarliness.
For me, at the crunchiest points of what I think of as dark night, which is the maximum of Disgust, the directed attention and sheer practicality of any technique, or any use of the will or directing of attention, just make things worse. The worst of Disgust is usually disgust with whatever i have been trying to do, whatever I think I have been accomplishing, and so any technique or application of effort just tightens the knot. The only good thing for me here is that the Disgust and the desire for liberation become a perfect flame; nothing will do, nothing is worth doing, and any glimmer of an ambition burns up. If this goes on for more than a single session, the main problem is as always just being decent to people, but at the maximum of Disgust compassion flows naturally from the conviction that we're all equally fucked and there's no sense making things worse for anyone. There is really nothing worth doing, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and as things arise, in all their obvious miserable inadequacy, they burn away. I always feel like I have an infinite amount of misguided misery-making crap to burn, at this point, and there is a real clarity about the fact that there is nothing to do that doesn't make more crap, except let it burn. I just stop doing anything, including-- at the absolute max-- "breathing." So far, it always turns out that the next breath comes along on its own, and I just let it. It is impossible to feel gratitude for it at this point (gratitude for the breath is one of my fundamentals), but it is what it is, and that is enough (since nothing is enough). And there is a point amid all this, crap arising and crap passing away, breath coming and going, where quiet comes (a hopeless quiet, but a dstinct relief from Disgust), and then peace (a fairly clueless peace). In prolonged episodes, the peace is initially very fragile and will evaporate at the first whiff of Anything, but it does help with continuing to be decent to the rest of the sentient beings. And in the longer run, it stabilizes into a working Equanimity. |