Hi,
This is my first post, so i wanted to introduce myself properly. It's going to be quite elaborate, so now is the time to decide you're gonna skip this thread ;-) I hope this is the right thread to post the introduction, I didn't discover an introduction thread.
I'm a 48 years old woman, european (so pardon my english, please), living in a busy household and my big dogs and the cats make it busier still :-)
Unfortunately, i've been 'blessed' with severe major depressions and yearly
SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder, kind of a severe form of the commonly known winterblues, which affect me some 7 months of the year). It seems a hereditary condition, since it runs in the family, grandmother, mother, and others). I wouldn't have mentioned it right away, but this is how I came to meditate. I was dealing with a severe depression and around the time I met a good psychiater -who helped me tremendously with good meds- and a psychologist, someone dear to me started 'nagging' me once again that I ought to try mindfulness, which to me was a weird new agy kind of thing (boy, was I wrong). At that point I was desperate, so I decided to give it a try. I read a couple of books from Jon Kabatt-Zinn which made a lot of sense, did meditations like the one he did with the people at Google.
I was very surprised how good it felt and after a couple of months I got curious as to where that mindfulness stuff came from and I discovered the teachings from the budhha and when I tried to get over the weird pompous language which was kind of offputting at first, I started to discover that he actually made a lot of sense and more and more I could verify my experience with what the buddha said. On top of that, I had some big and small surprises with meditation; my memory is very bad the last couple of years, probably due to medication and randomly I noticed getting some memories back and not during the meditation itself, which was astonishing, because I initially assumed all these experiences from people happened during meditation. Not neccesarily important ones, but it was very surprising.
Gradually I noticed that I seemed to get more of a pause between thinking and saying unskillful things, which made a difference, I was getting less volatile.
One other impressive thing is that my way of thinking is changing dramatically. All my life it felt like I was on camera, being judged and scrutinized by every single person who happened to walk by. Gradually this feeling was at first replaced by a kind of "so what, if people judge me!", then it changed to "people have way more important things to do or think about, than judging me" and now the feeling of being judged is
completely gone! I just have the notion that every person is different and that's ok.
Maybe a year ago I started to realize that concentration practice is way more important than people say, so I've been experimenting more rigorously with it, starting with the courses Gil Fronsdal did, on Audiodharma.org. Experimenting with separate concentration sessions versus incorporating it with insight practice.
I could get to access concentration relatively easy, but the jhana's were a different story. Unexpectedly people would come home, slamming doors, a cat would crawl on my lap, lovingly putting nails in my legs, or dogs would walk with their nails on the hardwood floor.
A couple of months ago I finally reached the first jhana, but it has been really hard to reproduce it. At first I had the "Yay, I reached jhana!" effect, so now I changed more in the sense that I don't really care how that particularly session will turn out and that made it easier. But lately it seems I only get a kind of invalid jhana, where piti and sukha disappear fast and then I'm left with "shoot, what am I supposed to do now?" The last couple of 'jhana sessions' I decided that sinceI'm quite concentrated, I might as well switch to insight and look for the three characteristics.
I also started noting, hesitantly. More like experiments, so hours would go by and then I would remember: "Oops, I was supposed to note everything". But now I notice that - even if I don't do it much yet - I start to experiment vibrations. Usually some tinglings in my body, but one day I opened my eyes and everything I saw vibrated for maybe half a minute or so. Also, I've had maybe 4 nights the last month that before I dose off, I get tingly feelings in my head, neck or shoulders. Not unpleasant, except one time when I got tingling of the upper back, then it stopped, then it returned ten to thirty minutes later. This repeated maybe six times or so in that night. What was quite scary though was that as soon as the tingling would start I would experience a mortal fear. I would get really terrified. When the tingling stopped, the fear would stop too. Then it would start again. Even though I was terrified, it seemed a confirmation that I'm doing things right - things are starting to happen - and this was enough for me to start thinking - during the fear: " Relax, impermanence, not self and suffering at work. It will pass."
This episode convinced me that noting is a very important tool, so I'm getting ready to start to note more seriously. One question that does come up is: am I supposed to give up reading? Because those two don't match and I love to read (buddhist) books, articles and sutta's.
I've had one other very strange experience outside of meditation, which lasted for hours, but I asked about it on 2 other forums and not sure if it's appropriate to talk about it here as well.
Anyway, I've studied the progress of insight and I'm pretty sure I've yet to experience "Mind&Body", though I do realize that all these depressions could lead one to think 'Dark Night'. But that's just nurture and nature, in my opinion. Nothing of these insights seem to have happened, but I keep an eye out to 'see' the difference between mental and body, particularly during walking meditation, when I can intellectually grasp the difference between intentions and the body walking.
So, enough for now. I haven't been depressed in two years, by the way, thanks to the meds and the meditations and the impact buddhism has had on my life. Do suffer from the other SAD symptoms, like craving for carbohydrates, sleepiness, etc. And I aim to meditate some two hours a day, usually divided in at least two or three meditations. But sometimes it's one hour and sometimes two and a half, so it varies.
I really appreciate comments, have browsed around the site for hours, lurked for a couple of months to get a feel of this place, read 'the' book and learned heaps. Also, I'm glad that there are some female members who participate regularly.
Thanks for reading this. Have a nice day!
Edited to add link