Hi all. First DhO post. I emailed Dan Ingram recently and asked him for advice. We talked on the phone and he also recommended I post my email on DhO and get a wide variety of opinions from the many strong yogis here.
I'd spoken with Dan only one other time before, a few years ago, not long after I'd read MCTB. At the time I was in renunciate mode (and a bit of shadow-side-making mode), living on 8 precepts in NYC and planning on becoming a Thai Forest monk. That never happened, but I did however follow through on my plan to quit my job, leave NYC, and do a long MBMC retreat and a stint of traveling to find a new life. I did the retreat. It ended quite badly. I wrote a huge email to Dan and never sent it. I spent two months in SE Asia recovering and then traveled for a good long time after that in various places and returned to the U.S. last December. This year so far has been very tough.
Here's the email I sent to Dan, shortened:
...
I am writing you hoping you can help me recognize what stages I was in during retreat and what stage I am in now, and also I'd like your advice about how to modulate my practice, including whether or not to follow through on a one month IMS retreat I've registered for. My belief is that I'm in a Dark Night, and I'm a bit divided about how to proceed.
What happened at MBMC (3.5 month retreat in the summer of 2007 ... ):
Awareness/concentration: I could easily keep the assigned meditation objects in mind for the full session. I might have missed one or two breaths or footsteps per hour but that was about it. I noted from the moment I gained consciousness in the morning to when I lost consciousness falling asleep. For a long period of time I was noting mono-syllabically five times a second. It happened automatically for the most part and I was aware of the pulses that I noted, the notes themselves, and any inane thoughts or mental conversations I was having simultaneously, and was also aware that these different mental streams were being observed by something. I had a fair amount of detachment from what I was noting. Even when things went totally nuts it felt like I was watching a movie character go nuts and could note the super-fast alternation between fear, craziness, and amusement over going nuts...it was like watching a movie reel with different narratives spliced together in alternating frames.
Weirdness/raptures:
--Electrical energy coursing through body. In the beginning it was mostly only the right side, and mostly the leg down to the feet. Strong pulsing and tingling. There was always energy in the forehead, later the vibrations spread to the entire scalp and also down the back. Still later the vibrations became much finer frequency and were evenly moving across right and left body. Often hands and feet would be painfully vibrating. Thumbs and fingers would convulse and fine lines of energy would move down lengths of forearms and fingers.
--A feeling that the energy was being pushed up from the solar plexus up behind the sternum and getting constricted in the throat, forehead and sclap. A vibrating anxiety energy locked in base of throat and upper chest under the collar bone.
--Sharp pinpricks on hands, feet and head. Sensation of insects crawling on skin on arms and legs.
--Ratchet effect when noting (as you call it in your book).
--Chronic tensions, mostly in jaw and on right side of trunk. With attention they'd pulse and breakup, but would re-appear quickly. Midway through the retreat they all cleared out but returned at the end with a vengeance.
--A few times when walking, I started to note the intention to lift/move/drop and my body suddenly became paralyzed for a few minutes. Sometimes when walking would feel like I was drunk and disoriented.
--Waking up in the night and automatically noting the individual movements of body as I shifted position, but it was as if it were not my body and I was watching a body move and a mind noting and observing it.
--Pleasant tingling down the back or through the arms and legs, usually brought on by memories of emotional powerfully scenes from books or movies that were running in the background of my mind.
--Chills, usually when concentrating on mosquito bites.
--For the second half of the retreat, whenever walking I would feel like I was floating and being suspended by my head and back, with feet moving as if propelled by a smooth machine. Sitting in good posture was effortless. At some point all the chronic tensions had been cleared out, only to return at the end with a vengeance.
--Brief vision of my right foot afflicted by various gross diseases.
--Lots of involuntary convulsions that released tension. This happened in pretty much every single sitting for the entire retreat. There were different patterns depending on what I was attending to.
Psychological/emotional stuff:
Fear that I was damaging myself physically and mentally. I grew up with OCD and some of those fear and thought patterns returned. I resorted to avoidance of the issues and rapid noting. Eventually these fears went away and I reached a good state of (somewhat guarded) calm and relaxation. Toward the end of the retreat it all went to hell, though. Fear returned big time, as did all the chronic tensions plus new ones. Energy pushing up into my head and vibrating it wildly. One episode of paranoia. Lots of restlessness and aversion to practice. When sitting I'd want to get the hell up and out of there immediately. I always stuck it out but was unable to close my eyes because some strong energy and vibration in the forehead and behind the eyes made them flicker painfully. "Can't move forward, can't move backward, can't stay still" was a recurring theme. I felt like I was going bonkers.
After I left the retreat I was a mess. I spent two months in Penang and later Chiang Mai trying to recuperate. Even though I didn't want to practice anymore my mind still kept noting automatically for weeks. I felt that I had damaged myself and had committed a terrible mistake and that I'd been too forceful and fearful in my practice and that this had messed me up. I had some hope that maybe it was just re-observation but at the time I didn't think so. I avoided practice and spiritual things for a while and was just a backpacker. Eventually I did retreats again but with organizations that were the opposite of Mahasi in style.
Well, it's two years later now. I still have a lot of kriyas that have evolved into different unusual patterns as time went on. I still have energy surges and vibrations all over. And unpleasant energetic pressures mostly in the forehead, sinus areas, throat, heart region. There are a lot of chronic tensions, mostly on the right side of the body. Vibrating anxiety lodged in throat and collarbone area and in the back near the right rear shoulder-blade.
My question is this: do you think I got into the dukkha nanas during my retreat? Or is it possible that I was just too forceful and messed things up? For example I stopped the rapid noting because I noticed every time I made a note there was an energy pulse that shot up from my solar plexus area to my throat or forehead, often it was uncomfortable. Even when I stopped rapid noting it would still happen at the same rhythm.
I have applied to do the 2nd month of the 2-month retreat at IMS. Yesterday one of the teachers called to talk to me about it. I'd told her all the stuff that's been going on and she said it was a Kundalini imbalance. She said for people like myself with traumatic backgrounds this can happen, because of energy blockages. She was concerned that if I came into the charged retreat environment and did a lot of sitting and walking that the there was a danger of an overload. She said probably what would happen is that they might ask me to sit only once a day, work two yogi jobs, and walk in the woods a lot, maybe do some reading. They would not want me sitting and walking and getting concentrated, and would have me do open, choiceless awareness or some sort of eyes-open practice. Her feeling was that maybe an intense retreat was not what I should be doing, and that maybe I should focus on getting stronger in other ways - parami, exercise, grounding myself, friendships. She said from talking with me that she felt I've learned a lot and have some wisdom and that was the only reason why she'd consider letting me do the retreat, but she had reservations. Her concern was that some yogis come and try and forcefully push their way through this. Some of them lose touch with reality or have to leave early. She did not want me coming with that kind of agenda. I admitted that there was I had some hope and expectation of my energy coming to balance in the retreat. She told me to think it all over and that she will call me Thursday (tomorrow) to see what my decision is.
Dan, do you agree with her assessment? I've talked with other teachers about this since MBMC and recently started reading stuff online about Kundalini, and the consensus does seem to be to back off of the spiritual stuff and focus on grounding. I've been doing that but also have been doing a Christian mantra meditation 1-3 hours a day and feel it helps, particularly when I focus on surrender rather than attaining anything. It reduces anxiety and the energy pressures break up some, sometimes becoming pleasurable. The IMS teacher however said they definitely would not want me doing mantra, and that strong concentration and opening can be dangerous for me at this time.
....
Much appreciation for all you've done.
.david
After reading this email Dan suggested we talk by phone. We had a long conversation that was very helpful for me. Because others may find it useful, here's a summary of what Dan and I discussed in our phone conversation (see also
A Conversation about Getting to Equanimity, which Dan created after our talk and which will be helpful for anyone who feels they are in a situation similar to mine):
Dan said I clearly had hit Re-observation, and due to not knowing what to do I ended up cooking myself. He said yogis have left retreat in Re-observation, called him, got the instructions on what to do, went back into retreat and made it past that stage. I expressed doubts that I'd crossed the A&P and Dan explained that it doesn't always show up as a distinct stage. He said what I should have been doing was easing up on the effort and broadening my attention once I'd hit the Dark Night.
Unfortunately I never eased up the entire time I was there. This was in part due to my gung-ho-ness and expectations, and partly due to the fact that the Sayadaw was constantly urging me to strive on and keep pouring on the effort, to not miss a single mind moment. He did not want me broadening attention but instructed me to keep on noting the few specific objects he'd designated (air element of breath and walking, for example, during the sitting and walking sessions). He never said anything about the stages of insight -- never said which one he thought I was in, and what I should be doing to adjust to that stage.
In addition, the Sayadaw and I had massive communication problems and were constantly misunderstanding each other. One particularly bad case of this led to me spending weeks paying attention only to unpleasant sensations in the body during all sitting meditations, scanning for each and every bit of unpleasantness from head to feet. As time went on I became more and more convinced that this was not actually what he wanted me to do, but it took several communication attempts to finally get this cleared up. After that I was constantly nagged by doubt as to whether I was correctly understanding his instructions, and whether he had correctly understood my report of experiences.
Dan reminded me that excessive focus on sensations of only one feeling tone (positive, negative, or neutral) was bad news. Unfortunately, at the beginning of the retreat I'd made a formal determination to do everything the Sayadaw instructed me to do to the best of my ability, and thus I'd kept up the super-efforting and the unpleasant-sensation-watching. I've since realized that formal resolutions are good, but I need to be more flexible when circumstances require it.
Dan asked me if I was sure that I didn't get into Equanimity, explaining that formations sometimes show up in a not-so-obvious way. I said I was pretty sure I didn't...but having reflected on it some more and done a bit of reading up on the stage, I am considering that perhaps I did and then fell back.
Some advice he gave me:
- My enlightenment factors were/are out of balance. I am high in mindfulness, energy, and investigation but low in positive raptures, tranquility, and equanimity. Also was lacking in faith and acceptance. I have the first three vipassana jhanas down and now need to learn how to do the fourth.
- Don't indulge in drama.
- Don't have doubts about my ability to get Stream Entry and higher just because I have had trauma in my past, and have a history of mental illness. We all have had trauma. Plenty of people with past trauma, dysfunctional parents, and mental problems requiring medication have gotten highly enlightened. Doubt is not a problem, it comes and goes and isn't you.
- I told Dan I didn't tell IMS that my goal on retreat was Stream Entry, because at the moment even the thought of "going for Stream Entry" creates an adverse reaction in my body. He said "you don't
go for Stream Entry. You
accept into Stream Entry."
- Worry about the total self-acceptance of all of oneself later. At Anagami there'll be plenty of time for that. For Stream Entry you just need to be totally accepting of everything for three moments.
- He gave me some specific insight practice instructions for moving into Equanimity and Stream Entry. They can be found in the
A Conversation about Getting to Equanimity thread.
Finally, Dan told me that I have to realize that I can't do this alone, that enlightenment is a team sport, and I need to ask for help when I need it. This is not something I've typically been good at, but I understand now that it's extremely necessary. Dan urged me to get on DhO and get help. So here I am.
Please feel free to share any interpretations, advice, or thoughts!
I do have two specific questions:
1. How can I get through the Dark Night to Equanimity and beyond?
Some challenges I'm dealing with at the moment:
Many of the unpleasant raptures that emerged during retreat have flared up big time starting a year ago...I've been stressed and anxious all year and it's taking its toll...I'm socially isolated living at my mom's house in Pennsylvania, although I go to NYC when I can to have contact with friends...I've had a worsening problem of pain and cramping in my hands/wrists/forearms that started 7 months ago that I'm finally seeking different kinds of medical treatment for. It makes any sustained activity using the hands tricky, including computer use, driving, lifting...pretty much anything that involves prolonged exertion of the hands.
On the bright side I am not working, so I have lots of time and space to work this stuff out. Although I’m not necessarily feeling very positive about the future, I'm not depressed and I have plenty of energy. I plan to go to an anxiety CBT center to get counseling. I also found a good holistic primary care doctor who is going to have my neurotransmitter levels measured so that I can start a program of natural supplements to balance out my system. I am already taking B-complex, Holy Basil and magnesium and these have helped a lot. Also trying Bach Flower Remedies...I've no idea if they're working or not. I exercise regularly (although I've had to stop temporarily due to injuries sustained last week). I'm going to see a bodyworker to help with my hands and the chronic muscle tensions that have been spreading and painfully intensifying. I might see an acupuncturist to help with the energy/vibrational imbalances, although I've heard that's risky?
In terms of practice, I am doing the insight practice that Dan suggested. Plus still doing mantra meditation. Generally focusing on cultivating relaxation, acceptance, and faith.
Any other suggestions?
2. Should I do the 1-month IMS retreat on Oct. 24th given that I'm already in an anxious, kundalini-charged state and possibly won't be permitted to do much formal meditation, and in particular no concentration practice? IMS has reservations, Dan wasn't sure if it is a good idea, and I myself am having doubts. But if I do decide to go, I have a prescription for Chlonazepam in case I need it during the retreat. It's a medication I used to take many years ago that reduces anxiety.
Okay, well if any of you have made it to the end of this whale of a post, my thanks and good wishes to you. I look forward to any thoughts or suggestions you may wish to share regarding anything I’ve written.
.david