Hello Peter,
Welcome to the DhO.
You've presented quite a bit of rambling information here. Let's see if we can pare it down to make something of it. Perhaps some revelations will occur in the process.
Peter Riedler:
Hello, my first post – I have read recently MCTB and come across this forum and finally I begin to
make sense of what has happened to me over the last 30 years.
I crossed the A&P in 1981 at age 20 without any meditation practice or knowledge of spiritual teachings.
What is it exactly that
you mean by "crossed the A&P"? We'd be interested to learn what your perception and definition of this is. (There isn't a right or wrong answer here; just want to know what you're thinking, that's all.)
Peter Riedler:
It was quite intense and prolonged (six weeks of sublime happiness, at times I could see a blueish light flooding the body, nature showed an incredible beauty and aliveness) followed by a dark night of an almost life-threatening gravity with four weeks of almost complete insomnia, I lost 10 kilos weight and in the final stage the whole body seemed to be made up of a solid mass of despair, fear and physical pain. I came out of that in a single instant the moment I let go of the last hopes and I experienced an infinite relief (Was that some sort of equanimity?).
Anyway I did not have the good fortune to come across effective teachings or teachers to show me how to progress from there and I entered a difficult stage without any access to experiences of peace and joy (a regression into the dark night?).
Then, exactly a year after the first time the blissful A&P-experiences came back (another regression?), this time not followed by a dark night but rather a period -a few months - where I was quite cheerful but felt physical pain (again a regression? 3 characteristics?). Afterwards for a long time I was quite ok, had also the impression of being happier than most people around me but was never able to experience the blissful stages I had experienced at age 20/21.
Then; in 1989 there happened some sort of a spiritual accident as a consequence of an extreme disappointment.
The moment I gave in to the temptation to see the disappointment as justified and gave some kind of an inner consent to it it felt as if some dark energy entered the system (what the heck was that?).
After that I was completely in ordinary consciousness and it took me years to recover. Over the following years there were a few ups and downs but it was only five years ago that a decisive progress happened.
There was suddenly a shift in consciousness, a sensation of being at home, of finding again a long forgotten happiness which reminded me of the"feel“ of the period before the first A&P. (Perhaps Mind&Body?).
Do you see any kind of pattern here? The process of self-realization is a process of not just asking questions and receiving answers, but of being able
to see the answers
for oneself.
For instance: "
I came out of that in a single instant the moment
I let go..." This should tell you something. Are you able to
see it? Perhaps not. Perhaps it skips over your head. Or perhaps you're not certain how or why it occurred? Or how to do it again.
And again: "...without any access to experiences of peace and joy..." and "...the impression of being happier than most people around me..." and "...as a consequence of an extreme disappointment..." and "...it felt as if some dark energy entered the system..." and finally "...a shift in consciousness, a sensation of being at home, of finding again a long forgotten happiness which reminded me of the 'feel' of the period before the first A&P..."
These are all personal impressions, perceptions if you will, in their essence determinations of personal reality. Each of these presents a moment of self-identification. In other words "this is me, this is what I am, this is my self."
Is this
really how you see yourself? How you identify yourself? Or is it only a matter of what is seen without being connected to any personality? What is seen is
only the seen; what is heard is
only what is heard; what is cognized
only what is cognized, it has nothing to do with a "perceived" personallity. . . . This latter is a matter of insight. See?
The reactions patterns here tell a story. Are you able
to see that? . . . Perhaps not. Not yet, anyway.
Ask yourself: "How do I use meditation and contemplation? Do I use it only to experience bliss and joy? Or do I use it to be able to see things more clearly so that I'm not always getting in my own way (through self-identification) to cause myself
dukkha? Why can I let go of some things, but I am unable to let go of others? Why do I remain attached to some things that happen to me?" These are some of the questions you need to be able to answer for yourself. This takes concentration, self-honesty, and being able to look deeply into your own mind to discover the reaction patterns that are holding you back so that you can let go of those patterns. This isn't easy. But no one ever said it would be.
Peter Riedler:
...but only recently I realized the importance of training my concentration skills (mainly after reading MCTB ). When I meditate and concentrate on the breath sometimes I experience a deep relaxation of the brain which makes it easy to stay with the meditation object. However up to now it doesn't last for prolonged periods of time but I keep practicing (is this the beginning of access concentration?)
Perhaps it seems strange to have crossed the A&P at age 20 and at to be still struggling with access concentration at age 51, but it seems what has happened.
Any diagnosis of the various stages described here would be helpful and of course any suggestion how to proceed.
Keep cultivating that "deep relaxation of the brain" as you call it. Sooner or later, it will give way to insight. Once the mind is able to calm down and you're able to see things much clearer, insight will occur. What is obvious will become obvious to you, and you will be able to
see it as obvious. Use meditation for cultivating calmness and mental clarity in order to be able to access insight.
One thing I found that helped to prolong these moments of calm leading to insight was to cultivate absorption states (also known as jhana). Being able to access these states and to remain in them during sittings helps to recondition the mind toward quietude and clarity. Yet beyond this, the ability to stop the mind from proliferative thinking (to quieten the mind from speculation, especially negative speculation) will help serve the cultivation of greater insight and wisdom about how the mind works, which in turn leads to equanimity and contentment.
In peace,
Ian