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RE: Jojo Practice Log

Jojo Practice Log
Answer
10/6/14 5:27 PM
I am not a native speaker of English. So please excuse clumsiness and mistakes.   

Here is my weird story (to borrow a nice expression from Jenny, with gratitude): I stumbled into Zen in the dark later nineties, when I was doing a therapy that was supposed to remove my suicidal tendencies (which it did, actually).

No real internet around then, no printed readings on practice available in the bookstores, so I trusted completely into what the next corner dojo Zen monk told me. Which was close to nothing.

At that time I supposed that it needed to be this way. Zen monks were supposed not to talk, so I did not ask either. I went to his dojo once a week to sit for an hour. He was an nice and scruffy old man, in an scruffy old dojo. I liked him because he was totally unesoteric and did not threaten to hug me, nor demand any kind of false harmony. During the sitting, I made up colorful stories, to get around the pain, while he read to us small stories about Zen monks, which I did not understand.

Half a year later I went to a 9 day Soto retreat, totally unprepared in terms of technique, and since I thought that enlightenment was somehow to do with severe pain, I sat through, always on the brink of screaming, tears and total desperation. That was one of the worst experiences in my entire life.

The master who lead the retreat, was surrounded by 200 practitioners. His entourage made clear that he was not available to beginners. So I remained silent.

On the last day, however, I decided to quit this shit. Before the monks in charge could pick me up in the dorm and drag me to the dojo (absence from sitting was not allowed), I went off and took a long, silent walk in the woods, watching the sunrise and listening to the awakening birds. Which, after this week of torment and pain, was heartbreakingly beautiful.

And this was the point when I had a kind of - I would have said experience, why not. A very profound experience. I understood completely how beautiful the world was, and that I was totally free, had always been. That was one of the best experiences in my entire life.

The best about it was that my body TOTALLY relaxed. For the first time in my life, I was physically free, and this made me emotionally and mentally free. I went home and thought “wow, now you´re enlightened!”. Obviously it had worked out: pain -> enlightenment. I no longer needed this shitty sitting practice, did I? So I dropped it.

I was free for six weeks in total, in which I put my life upside down, or better downside up. I started doing whatever was needed, no procrastination or depression any more, no more suicidal tendencies, no more social phobia. The positive consequences from these six weeks bear fruit until the present day.  

And then the cob webs of angst came back into my life.

I went back to the cushion, but did not talk about this, neither about my sudden freedom nor about my going back to body-and-mind-jail, neither to my Zen friends nor to the teacher. I sat once a week at the dojo, and went to more retreats to bring back “the experience”.  The main difference was that I now KNEW for sure that there was something in Zen that I could not get otherwise.

After four years of waiting and spinning away on the cushion, I gave up and stopped sitting.

I went about my life, depressed as ever, and spent the next six years getting into a job (which was, at that time with mass unemployment, not easy), and after a near physical breakdown, went to AA to get rid of my inclination with alcohol (and luckily, was able to get rid of it).

But still my life remained to be a mess, and in the back of my head, there was always this longing, for this experience I could not forget about. So one day in 2006, in a book store, I picked up a book by a Theravada nun about meditation techniques. And that was it. Finally I understood that there was something to be done on the cushion.

I walked straight to the next Soto Zen dojo, enrolled as a member and plunged into the practice. Which at that time meant 30 minutes sitting at home every day, three times a week sit one hour in the dojo, and three retreats per year, one of them for nine days, two for three days.

This time I made sure to ask whoever I met what exactly he was doing while sitting on the cushion. The answers remained very vague. The teachers I met were equally elusive. I could not make out if I was on the right trip. Now, having read my way through MCTB, I think they did not know what they were doing.

Still, I carried on and in 2008, had another experience which reminded me of what I was looking for: everything lightened up, the body relaxed, and a great joy welled up, and turned into love and compassion with everything and everybody. It lasted for two days, and then quickly faded.
I went to a Soto master and he asked if I knew how I had gotten there, and if I was able to reproduce this experience.  I did not know, except that there had been – again – a period of severe pain before the opening. So he told me to go home and practice until I knew. That was the teaching.
At least I gained from it that there obviously was a systematic way of achieving this state.

Well I tried to find out how to do this, but shortly after my talk to this teacher, my job life turned into a horror movie, and my focus went onto daily survival rather than onto the exploration of meditative techniques. At that time I came across the Soto precepts, and because it appealed to me intuitively, I started practicing very seriously to put a focus on “not criticize”.

At that time, my mind was deeply inhabited by criticizing – myself and others. Looking back, I must have started doing an intuitive kind of noting technique on “criticizing thought”, combined with the practice of equanimity towards results, and a practice of consciously detecting and dissolving all negative somatic feelings that arose in combination with my numerous communicative failures.

The sitting faded at that time, I was not able at that time to maintain a daily sitting schedule. But the practice of “not criticize” changed my communicative behavior very deeply. On this basis, after four years or so, I managed to unravel my job difficulties, and my life settled a bit. Still, my depressive tendencies continued.

I started peeking around for teachers outside the Soto tradition I had been stuck with for all these years. I found a teacher who did secular Rinzai style retreats with a demanding amount of sitting hours, and went there.

After the second retreat with him, I knew that my previous style of practice was not going to work with this. I had to do much more sitting at home. Which I did. I turned to volume up to two hours per day. And something started changing, while I did not know exactly what. In October 2013, I lost my depression, and my panic attacks. They disappeared and never came back.

A few months after the depression went away, my body – which had always been very stiff – began to shake during sitting. This lead to a gradual relaxation of the body and to profound changes in posture, which at times were very painful, but in the end lead to a much better physical and emotional balance. I was able to drop the “not-criticize”-practice.

I also started experiencing strong kundalini symptoms, first trembling, then shaking, and after a few months, spasms. A few times I even woke up at nights and found my body shaking, literally jumping about in the bed. I was not frightened, because it was so relaxing. But I had no idea what this was. The Rinzai teacher was either unable or unwilling to help me with this, and so I searched the internet. During this search, I came across various kundalini theorists and practitioners, and also across Shinzen Young and the dharmaoverground platform.  

I am very glad to FINALLY have found a place where somebody is actually talking about meditation and what is happening in it, in plain language and not in a mystic tone. So I am now here, trying to figure out where I am, what is going on, and how to proceed.

The kundalini symptoms have faded, only during sitting I still experience a continual and regular shaking. However, while it used to be relaxing before, it has now become simply annoying. Suppressing it does not work, either. That results in periodic and painful spasms which just shatter my awareness, but do not change anything. I must practice in some other way, but I do not know exactly how.

The body has settled into a posture and pattern of muscle tension that is not bad, but also not totally satisfying, not totally grounded. There is still a lot of unnecessary tension around, which I cannot get rid of. Also there remain some very annoying habits in daily life, especially a procrastination that drives me crazy.

Currently, I am trying to settle with a conscious technique. I tried Mahasi style noting, but for me it seems to lead only to confusion. I have no idea what these vibrations might be Daniel is talking about. It seems better to me to stick with a simple focus out, and especially with somatic experience at a wide focus.

On the other hand, after the spectacular changes which have taken place during the past months, it is hard for me to stay with the subtler physical phenomena. I find it simply boring.

So at the moment, I feel a bit stuck, and maybe need some reflection.

Sorry for this long piece, there is one more newbie splashing her lengthy story out above the board, but I felt I needed this in order to explain it to myself, and to give me a foundation.

I will continue in much shorter pieces.
Any comments and thoughts are very welcome.

RE: Jojo Practice Log
Answer
10/6/14 7:51 PM as a reply to Jo Jo.
Hi Jo Jo, 

Thank you for such a clear explanation of how you got here. Wow. I personally don't think you need to be shorter; it was so clear and easy to read. 

Okay:
Any comments and thoughts are very welcome.

Okay, about your shaking. Have you read the posts of a man named Mario Nistri here? Or contacted him? I don't know if you two will resonate well, but he's dealt a lot with such body shaking and has written somewhere on the forum of ways he's been working with that aspect.

Else, I can just say I relate to your zen start. I love it now, and needed it to "get the party started" twenty-plus years ago, but there was a long window in there where it did not apparently help me and I needed these clear path-type practices. I also want to say that I think the moral practices (similar to your not-criticize maybe), the "paramis" are essentially companions: generosity, ethical discipline, patience, joyous perseverance, meditative stabilization and their resultant understanding. Anyway, that's just me. It sounds like you find your way well.

Welcome to the forum and best wishes.

RE: Jojo Practice Log
Answer
10/12/14 4:05 PM as a reply to katy steger.
Thank you, katy, for the nice welcome. I tried to track Mario´s posts but did not find anything on shaking. I´ll send him a pm these days. 

The last three weeks were hard. I had a three weeks IT training on the job, each day 5 hours, plus the usual work load to do. Plus in the weekends, I supported a friend who had to move flats with no money. So I did not manage to sit my full share of 2 hours per day, and two days went without sitting altogether. This shows immediately.
 
I tried to replace the formal training by informal practice, but it´s simply not the same.

Yet, since I have stumbled into DhO, informal practice has become much more relevant to me. Interesting, that while on the cushion noting does not seem to work for me, during the day it has become my favorite tool. I do not aim at high-speed, though. I just keep noting which sense door is engaged in the given moment. That gives me a good clue when I am going off into thinking. I can do this when walking or waiting. On the job, I get lost in what I am doing. 

Today, we and a few friends did a five hours sitting sunday (8 periods x 35 minutes, in between walking and lunch, all in silence). We do this once a month. It went well today. Had a lot of pain during the first 4 periods, but the shaking was less than usual. I could keep my concentration and achieved equanimity in a few stretches of time. After a few minutes of equanimity, the pain coming and going in waves, the body relaxed and the pain lost its bite. During the last two sitting periods, the shaking returned, and I was back at waiting for the bell. 


RE: Jojo Practice Log
Answer
10/12/14 4:45 PM as a reply to Jo Jo.
Wow. I read the whole text and my first thought was "Wow. That reads like the saddest story ever."

I recommend that you learn to practice Metta. There is so much hurt in your story. Metta (and Mudita, and Karuna!) helps a lot. It may be exactly what you need. Daniel doesn't talk much about it in MCTB, but it is extremely valuable for people who've lost their balance.

Metta isn't Vipassana, so it won't get you insight. So maybe it seems a bit boring to you now. But in my experience it's... necessary.

RE: Jojo Practice Log
Answer
10/14/14 11:31 AM as a reply to Jo Jo.
Hi Jo Jo,

Welcome to the forum. That was a very impressive story. A lot of strength and courage and perseverence in there. You're truly on the Hero's Journey, as Joseph Campbell describes it (Rob Preece gives a must-read explanation of how it applies to the spiritual path in Wisdom of Imperfection: The Challenge of Individuation in Buddhist Life), and I'm sure there can yet be a happy ending. You've certainly found a wonderful oasis in this place.

A lot of it sounds like you were repeatedly going from 3C's into A&P territory while your baseline was probably in the DN. But then this makes me think you've subsequently become more established in it: 
The kundalini symptoms have faded, only during sitting I still experience a continual and regular shaking. However, while it used to be relaxing before, it has now become simply annoying. Suppressing it does not work, either. That results in periodic and painful spasms which just shatter my awareness, but do not change anything. I must practice in some other way, but I do not know exactly how. 

The body has settled into a posture and pattern of muscle tension that is not bad, but also not totally satisfying, not totally grounded. There is still a lot of unnecessary tension around, which I cannot get rid of. Also there remain some very annoying habits in daily life, especially a procrastination that drives me crazy. 

Here be dragons! Battle on brave knight! 

You seem to be basically on the right track, so really all I'd like to do is give my warmest encouragement, and reiterate Daniel's advice to not stop practicing.

Also, you mention not knowing what Daniel means by "vibrations". In my experience at least, the vibrations can be difficult to discern in the DN, and for a while I saw that as indicative of poor perception and a weak practice, which lead me to think I hadn't crossed the A&P when in fact I had. Eventually, the recurring periods of EQ amidst the DN made it obvious.

I hope the practice log is beneficial for you.