Mike Kich:
I am paying attention to it, and that's the problem. I can't NOT pay attention to it. It just hurts, hurts, and hurts more. It doesn't have a specific location in the body, but I'm very aware of what the mental distress is doing to my body symptom-wise (chills running up and down my spine, lethargy, indigestion.)
hello mike,
what you're calling "the problem" here i would call "navigation through the dark night"!
(d.n. seems most likely in your case, i remember seeing some of your other recent posts).
for some people it can help to ask the question "why is this not good enough?"
the question could either settle things a bit and help in the acceptance of things as they are, or asking it may churn up more and more reasons why
nothing is ok--everywhere you look and however you look at your life, it's "not ok" and existentially unsettling. if that happens it's not a bad thing either, because it might mean that you're moving forward through the dark night stages and are approaching or going through the last bit of it--the worst hellish shit hole on the path (re-observation), and the more you look around and find that everything is shitty, the more you think that "this kind of blind, suffering life is no longer acceptable, not even for one more minute." despite how bad it feels, or because of how bad it feels, this could give you enough momentum to not live another day of your life without turning up the awareness (to the breath, sensations, whatever is arising) throughout your daily living and your sits, at least as much as you can possibly do in each circumstance and each moment. this "enough of this stinky life" fed-up feeling around the later stages of the dark night is a critical point that makes many people rev up the intensity in practice, often resulting in a successful push towards stream entry, whether or not they have info about where they're at.
i would say that in your case, it would be best to keep paying attention, look around at everything in your life and notice how awful and "not-ok" things are. look at the darkest side of things! see how everything is unsatisfying, makes you miserable, is lacking in liberating insight, and how crappy and dissonant the energy feels, and how life ought to be better than this, how it's just unacceptable that being alive should continue to be this crappy. THEREFORE there is no other sensible option left but to apply, sharpen, and refine attention and make progress ASAP. the way of looking that will get you through and beyond this period is constant attention to only the sensations arising in the present moment, not the stories that seem linked to them.
so IF what makes things awful, yucky, painful, annoying, intolerable, not-ok and physically uncomfortable is just plain paying attention to the bare sensations/conditions/feelings/reactions that come up, by all means keep doing it! pay attention to your present-moment experience constantly, vigilantly, and with highest frequency possible, without evaluating and analyzing the who-what-when-why-how of your life stories. when you unintentionally get caught up in your autobiography, simply notice it and move on. it may need to get worse until something inside gives--either exhaustion causes something to let go in a new way, or you figure out some new way to surrender, or something inside lets go of some kind of resistance that's too abstract and energetically-rooted be dealt with rationally. if and when things are too unstable, too rocky for you to maintain awareness, stick to the plain and simple breath for a while until there is enough calm to investigate. then pay relentless attention to all the uncomfortable sensations. surely when you get over this hump there will be relief--and tons of relief if you really happen to be approaching re-observation and early equanimity.
when i went through a similar period i couldn't resolve anything rationally either. the only slight temporary relief was resting on the breath, and the only way out was bare attention, attention, and more attention towards sensations, through all the hell, discomfort, dissonance, despite the (typical dark night) feeling that there is something seriously wrong with practice as well as life in general.
hope this helps!
jill