<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0"> <channel> <title>Dealing with the Dark Night</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_category?p_l_id=&amp;mbCategoryId=89581</link> <description>Everything related to dealing with the Dark Night, Dukkha Ñanas, 3rd Vipassana Jhana, etc. can go here.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 19 Oct 2014 01:13:14 GMT</pubDate> <dc:date>2014-10-19T01:13:14Z</dc:date> <item> <title>RE: Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604113</link> <description>Hi, Pascal. I read this book recently. It tells you how to deal with kundalini symptoms and also gives exercises for proceeding safely. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;amazon&amp;#x2e;ca&amp;#x2f;Enlightenment-Through-Path-Kundalini-Tibetan-Buddhist-ebook&amp;#x2f;dp&amp;#x2f;B00LXD6WXC"&gt;http://www.amazon.ca/Enlightenment-Through-Path-Kundalini-Tibetan-Buddhist-ebook/dp/B00LXD6WXC&lt;/a&gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 14:50:31 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604113</guid> <dc:creator>Derek Cameron</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T14:50:31Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604055</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;6. You and other people are reacting to the same situations in similar ways because you&amp;#039;re similar beings. Often your thoughts are in sync for those reasons, not because thoughts are being transferred from one to another. If a thought occurs to you in a particular situation, it&amp;#039;s only natural that it should occur to them too (unless it&amp;#039;s &lt;/span&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;really&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;obscure and/or way out of context, which I don&amp;#039;t think your examples are).&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This were my first thoughts of course... But the amount of thoughts and the strangeness of them says otherwise. But it&amp;#039;s not important it&amp;#039;s not part of the problem I have with meditation without falling asleep I guess. Of course I told the most normal examples... telling stuff I barely believe myself wouldn&amp;#039;t get me any further I guess.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Any suggestions towards my problem? Like a reason why I can&amp;#039;t meditate anymore... or a technique which might help to do it again? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I just stopped a session of about 1.5 hours. The problem is that I just don&amp;#039;t sink into the &amp;#039;trance&amp;#039; state (well what I believe that state is...) anymore.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Greetings</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 11:59:17 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604055</guid> <dc:creator>Pascal</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T11:59:17Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604024</link> <description>Ha, that&amp;#039;s a good point.  Maybe it&amp;#039;s actually empathy.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:31:35 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604024</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T10:31:35Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604017</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Pascal:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For example: Late at night, you walk a few meters behind a person/woman and suddenly out of nowhere get this thought. &amp;#034;It&amp;#039;s late at night. I am male. She might think I follow her.&amp;#034; ... Then this woman reacts this way. She looks back at you, maybe frightened. She increases her speed. Or she actually changes the direction.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If she could really read your mind, she&amp;#039;d know you &lt;em&gt;weren&amp;#039;t&lt;/em&gt; following her...</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 10:16:03 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604017</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T10:16:03Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604011</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Pascal:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s why I questioned this reality and thought about being paranoid. In my opinion there were only 5 possibilities:&lt;br /&gt;1. I am reading the thoughts of others sometimes.&lt;br /&gt;2. Others are reading my thoughts.&lt;br /&gt;3. I am talking about my thoughts without noticing. (I am not joking.. I asked like 5 people about this right now and everyone assured me that I am not doing that.)&lt;br /&gt;4. I respond somehow to the thoughts of others.&lt;br /&gt;5. Others respond somehow to my thoughts.&lt;br /&gt;Also it&amp;#039;s not always this creepy thoughts which happen... it&amp;#039;s sometimes kind of good.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;6. You and other people are reacting to the same situations in similar ways because you&amp;#039;re similar beings. Often your thoughts are in sync for those reasons, not because thoughts are being transferred from one to another. If a thought occurs to you in a particular situation, it&amp;#039;s only natural that it should occur to them too (unless it&amp;#039;s &lt;em&gt;really&lt;/em&gt; obscure and/or way out of context, which I don&amp;#039;t think your examples are).</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 09:50:48 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5604011</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T09:50:48Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603960</link> <description>Thanks I will take a look at your thread right after I posted this.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;I see symptoms of depersonalization as well as symptoms of thought disorder and mood problems.  I&amp;#039;m not saying that you are &amp;#034;crazy,&amp;#034; but rather there are a few things that suggest some problems that may extend beyond the domain of the dark night itself that may indeed perhaps be caused by the dark night and only the dark night.  It&amp;#039;s difficult to determine at this point.  If these sorts of symptoms get worse I would recommend you look to other avenues of treatment beyond meditation and vipassana.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For now... those symptoms seem to be gone or at least way less, because as I stated I feel pretty well since mid September. But I will keep that in mind in case they come back.&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 08:37:34 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603960</guid> <dc:creator>Pascal</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T08:37:34Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603956</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Firstly, thanks for the kind response and concern about my well-being. I didn&amp;#039;t expect my experience to be &amp;#034;creepy&amp;#034; though. I thought everyone who meditates has those, that&amp;#039;s why I wrote in the first place. If I would&amp;#039;ve known before I wouldn&amp;#039;t have the guts to talk about them I guess....&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;You are right about the depression and social isolation part. But I am feeling pretty well and am socially active again since mid september. I am not sure if my depression is over, but I feel very good compared to the past 8-9 months.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Also I thought alot about the possibility of being mentally ill alot in the past months, but all people I talked too and asked about opinions helped to reduce this thought.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;I should probably try to explain the paranoid part a little more detailed I guess. Maybe I am using this word wrongly. Those were my concerns:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;- The constant feeling of being betrayed by others. (Talking behind my back. Feeling left out.)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;- The feeling of being under constant observation. (Kind of like the truman show.)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Those two feelings made me think I might have some sort of paranoya. But I can explain the second feeling now. It came from the fact, that I experience these massive amount of other peoples reactions according to my thoughts. I guess everybody knows this feeling if you think something that another person &amp;#039;might&amp;#039; think about a situation, and then suddenly this person acts the way you thought and kind of proves you right.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;For example: Late at night, you walk a few meters behind a person/woman and suddenly out of nowhere get this thought. &amp;#034;It&amp;#039;s late at night. I am male. She might think I follow her.&amp;#034; ... Then this woman reacts this way. She looks back at you, maybe frightened. She increases her speed. Or she actually changes the direction.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;This is the kind of thing that made me question my &amp;#034;saneness&amp;#034; sometimes. Because that&amp;#039;s not an 1 in a few weeks happening (like years back). Or an 1 in a day happening. That kind of stuff begins to happen as soon as I am around people and stops if I am not around people anymore. It happens every few moments. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;It became so weird. I can&amp;#039;t even describe how weird because my deepest and most unnormal thoughts nobody could possibly know or think about in the exact same moment came to be &amp;#039;alive&amp;#039; this way. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;That&amp;#039;s why I questioned this reality and thought about being paranoid. In my opinion there were only 5 possibilities:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;1. I am reading the thoughts of others sometimes.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;2. Others are reading my thoughts.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;3. I am talking about my thoughts without noticing. (I am not joking.. I asked like 5 people about this right now and everyone assured me that I am not doing that.)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;4. I respond somehow to the thoughts of others.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;5. Others respond somehow to my thoughts.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Also it&amp;#039;s not always this creepy thoughts which happen... it&amp;#039;s sometimes kind of good.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Once I worked in my semester holidays to earn some money. A female colleague I talked to, said to me how she hates it if one makes fun of another person.. A few days later, she had an pretty ugly angel figure at work (she won it at a christmas market or something). She hated this figure and made fun of it all day. Then she decided to make fun of one of her collegaues by giving it to him as a gift. Before she did, she told us how she finds it a funny way to get rid of it... making him (because he was pretty friendly) believe he actually got a present and acted kind and thankfully. She came back to our group laughed a little with others about him acting like it was a nice gift and continued to work. I sat there thinking how wrong she behaved.... telling me she hates people who make fun of others and does it herself. Suddenly she stands behind me and apologizes... saying to me and the people besides me that she thinks she did something wrong. Then she moved over apologized to him and came back. I was sure I didn&amp;#039;t speak out loud because by then I already started to bite my lips to make sure my mouth is closed when I thought about stuff I didn&amp;#039;t want others to hear. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;I know this sounds like an accident... but it&amp;#039;s the less weird story I can tell which is still believeable.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Sorry for the wall of text again... but this explains what I mean by &amp;#034;paranoid&amp;#034;. Well this stuff still happens alot... but I try to focus on good thoughts at the moment and I don&amp;#039;t feel so scared about it as I did weeks ago.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Your clarifications in this post makes me think that your experiences may be more along the lines of insight and less along the lines of mental illness.  Nothing you&amp;#039;ve stated here looks like a thought disorder (with the exception of maybe #2 and #3), but there definitely is some depersonalization going on.  Depersonalization is temporary and isn&amp;#039;t that big of a deal, in my opinion.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 08:34:19 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603956</guid> <dc:creator>Tom Tom</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T08:34:19Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603946</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;You need the Patanjali yoga.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I will look that up, thank you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;You are experiencing Kundalini awakening in increasing duration and intensity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I looked that up on wikipedia and must say it was pretty scary how similiar some descriptions were. Still there is some stuff I couldn&amp;#039;t relate to though.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;You will not find help here for what you are seeking.  You must find a Yogi/siddha/swami or avatar because of what you have been and what you will be.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope you are wrong about this. I am not sure if I am brave enough to leave my life/family and friends behind.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;But your awakening is one that is too rare to find your teacher here.  You must understand how desperately you need to see a teacher in flesh.  Do not be lazy!  Sell all your things and go to India if you have to!  You will Die if you don&amp;#039;t!!&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s alot of pressure you give me here. I am thinking about walking and leave my life behind since I started to have depression. But I have responsibilities for my family and I can only ignore them if I am 100% sure. I don&amp;#039;t want to make them suffer for a mistake I did. If I will die because of this, I am sure there is another chance in another life.... I can&amp;#039;t hurt my family this much. For now I need to find a way where I live.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;You know that the world of humans is one of delusions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Doesn&amp;#039;t everyone know?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;You have been enlightened for enough lifetimes that you do not need that process anymore. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t feel enlightened. I don&amp;#039;t even know how enlightment feels, but I always thought that the person will know if he/she is enlightened.... and I don&amp;#039;t.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;When you wake up to what you are, you will see that you will remember everything naturally if only you know to trust your own Divine nature, that which guides your path perfectly in ways you do not know.  Love tells you what to do, am I right?  You love so strongly that you cannot go against it, correct?  Do you not see that it is not an emotion, as it is to the human world, but rather the knowing of who to speak to, when to speak, and where to go?  You have the wisdom belonging to Buddhas!!  Look back on your life and see how your love has guided you to this moment!  Wake Up!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This paragraph made me shiver. Not this goosebumps feeling, but the shiver you get when you just saw/heard/read something important. Especially the love part... but doesn&amp;#039;t everyone act after this feeling? Also the knowing of &amp;#034;who to/when to/where to speak to.&amp;#034; it&amp;#039;s like I mostly talk or get to know people who suffer deep pain... and it hurts in my chest and I try and feel it gets less when talking. But I do believe everyone feels this. Your text make it sound like I am someone &amp;#039;special&amp;#039;. I don&amp;#039;t want to disappoint, but I don&amp;#039;t believe that. I believe I am like everyone else and I am just stuck somewhere on my path.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for the kind word. It felt pretty good to read them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Greetings, Pascal&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 08:26:05 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603946</guid> <dc:creator>Pascal</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T08:26:05Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603942</link> <description>There appears to be a mixture of insight cycle stages and some classical symptoms from clinical psychology/psychiatry in your description.  It is difficult to sort out whether these symptoms are due to a &amp;#034;mental illness&amp;#034; or due to the dark night itself.  This will depend on your ability to function and what happens after you exit the dark night stage.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;At the beginning of the year I was pretty depressed (so much, I don&amp;#039;t want to go into detail) and also got paranoid. I felt like everyone is against me and everyone is plotting things or talking behind my back. I began to think that everyone can read my mind or that I am retarted without knowing it because I might talk out loud all of my thoughts without knowing it. It sounds stupid I guess... but all the time when I am in contact with people... Stuff happens that make me believe my mind is open to be read by everyone. This made me feel pretty bad and I began to think that I am not living in a &amp;#039;real world&amp;#039; anymore. I also felt very distant... like I was looking at my self from a third persons distance. I couldn&amp;#039;t (and still can&amp;#039;t) concentrate my mind on one subject for very long... I am always drifting away.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I see symptoms of depersonalization as well as symptoms of thought disorder and mood problems.  I&amp;#039;m not saying that you are &amp;#034;crazy,&amp;#034; but rather there are a few things that suggest some problems that may extend beyond the domain of the dark night itself that may indeed perhaps be caused by the dark night and only the dark night.  It&amp;#039;s difficult to determine at this point.  If these sorts of symptoms get worse I would recommend you look to other avenues of treatment beyond meditation and vipassana.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You might get something out of reading the thread I wrote here: &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;3373753"&gt;http://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/3373753&lt;/a&gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 08:14:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603942</guid> <dc:creator>Tom Tom</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T08:14:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603914</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;bernd the broter:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Apart from that: I get from your text that you now suffer from depression and social isolation. Metta should help. I&amp;#039;m not sure about Insight practice, because that can unbalance people, without leading to a good place, especially if done without good instructions. So I would try to get some balance by practicing Metta first.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(The paranoid-thing sounds especially dangerous to me. Are you sure that something is not a side effect of an undiagnosed mental illness?)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Firstly, thanks for the kind response and concern about my well-being. I didn&amp;#039;t expect my experience to be &amp;#034;creepy&amp;#034; though. I thought everyone who meditates has those, that&amp;#039;s why I wrote in the first place. If I would&amp;#039;ve known before I wouldn&amp;#039;t have the guts to talk about them I guess....&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You are right about the depression and social isolation part. But I am feeling pretty well and am socially active again since mid september. I am not sure if my depression is over, but I feel very good compared to the past 8-9 months.&lt;br /&gt;Also I thought alot about the possibility of being mentally ill alot in the past months, but all people I talked too and asked about opinions helped to reduce this thought.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I should probably try to explain the paranoid part a little more detailed I guess. Maybe I am using this word wrongly. Those were my concerns:&lt;br /&gt;- The constant feeling of being betrayed by others. (Talking behind my back. Feeling left out.)&lt;br /&gt;- The feeling of being under constant observation. (Kind of like the truman show.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Those two feelings made me think I might have some sort of paranoya. But I can explain the second feeling now. It came from the fact, that I experience these massive amount of other peoples reactions according to my thoughts. I guess everybody knows this feeling if you think something that another person &amp;#039;might&amp;#039; think about a situation, and then suddenly this person acts the way you thought and kind of proves you right.&lt;br /&gt;For example: Late at night, you walk a few meters behind a person/woman and suddenly out of nowhere get this thought. &amp;#034;It&amp;#039;s late at night. I am male. She might think I follow her.&amp;#034; ... Then this woman reacts this way. She looks back at you, maybe frightened. She increases her speed. Or she actually changes the direction.&lt;br /&gt;This is the kind of thing that made me question my &amp;#034;saneness&amp;#034; sometimes. Because that&amp;#039;s not an 1 in a few weeks happening (like years back). Or an 1 in a day happening. That kind of stuff begins to happen as soon as I am around people and stops if I am not around people anymore. It happens every few moments. &lt;br /&gt;It became so weird. I can&amp;#039;t even describe how weird because my deepest and most unnormal thoughts nobody could possibly know or think about in the exact same moment came to be &amp;#039;alive&amp;#039; this way. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s why I questioned this reality and thought about being paranoid. In my opinion there were only 5 possibilities:&lt;br /&gt;1. I am reading the thoughts of others sometimes.&lt;br /&gt;2. Others are reading my thoughts.&lt;br /&gt;3. I am talking about my thoughts without noticing. (I am not joking.. I asked like 5 people about this right now and everyone assured me that I am not doing that.)&lt;br /&gt;4. I respond somehow to the thoughts of others.&lt;br /&gt;5. Others respond somehow to my thoughts.&lt;br /&gt;Also it&amp;#039;s not always this creepy thoughts which happen... it&amp;#039;s sometimes kind of good.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Once I worked in my semester holidays to earn some money. A female colleague I talked to, said to me how she hates it if one makes fun of another person.. A few days later, she had an pretty ugly angel figure at work (she won it at a christmas market or something). She hated this figure and made fun of it all day. Then she decided to make fun of one of her collegaues by giving it to him as a gift. Before she did, she told us how she finds it a funny way to get rid of it... making him (because he was pretty friendly) believe he actually got a present and acted kind and thankfully. She came back to our group laughed a little with others about him acting like it was a nice gift and continued to work. I sat there thinking how wrong she behaved.... telling me she hates people who make fun of others and does it herself. Suddenly she stands behind me and apologizes... saying to me and the people besides me that she thinks she did something wrong. Then she moved over apologized to him and came back. I was sure I didn&amp;#039;t speak out loud because by then I already started to bite my lips to make sure my mouth is closed when I thought about stuff I didn&amp;#039;t want others to hear. &lt;br /&gt;I know this sounds like an accident... but it&amp;#039;s the less weird story I can tell which is still believeable.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sorry for the wall of text again... but this explains what I mean by &amp;#034;paranoid&amp;#034;. Well this stuff still happens alot... but I try to focus on good thoughts at the moment and I don&amp;#039;t feel so scared about it as I did weeks ago.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 08:04:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603914</guid> <dc:creator>Pascal</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T08:04:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603899</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jeremy May:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;If I ever see you tell someone that they may be crazy, even once in all the years that I will watch you, I will tell everyone what you are in a way that will ruin you.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Jeremy,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This comes off as an unneccessary threat. Care to elaborate on your actual intention?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nick (mod mode)</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 07:16:26 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603899</guid> <dc:creator>Nikolai .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T07:16:26Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603880</link> <description>Just to add a DhO perspective, your experiences seem to line up with the progress of insight as described by Daniel in Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha.  At first meditation is just sitting there, maybe a bit relaxing, then one day you start to have special experiences (like your electrical zap and panoramic vision) which is called the Arising and Passing insight.  Then you begin to experience difficulty meditating and different unpleasant emotional states, which is called the dukkha insights, or The Dark Night, as you put it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you have been feeling paranoia for a long time, though, and your depression is causing you problems, it really might be useful to try some psychological techniques.  I&amp;#039;ve dealt with anxiety for a long time, and I can actually relate quite a lot to your whole story - a bit like reading my own experiences actually.  I was anxious before I started meditating, though, and I hoped meditation whould help me find peace of mind.  It actually can make negative emotions worse, though, if you aren&amp;#039;t using your increased concentration skillfully - that&amp;#039;s what happened to me.  A lot of these negative states are caused by ruminating on negative feelings.  Using behavioral therapy to dissolve these feelings will allow the mind to focus on more positive things, and then during the day your free floating concentration won&amp;#039;t get stuck on some or other bad mood and turn it into a waking nightmare.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 13 Oct 2014 06:28:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603880</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-13T06:28:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603725</link> <description>If I ever see you tell someone that they may be crazy, even once in all the years that I will watch you, I will tell everyone what you are in a way that will ruin you.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 22:53:24 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603725</guid> <dc:creator>Jeremy May</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T22:53:24Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603721</link> <description>You need the Patanjali yoga.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nothing you have said is important.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You are experiencing Kundalini awakening in increasing duration and intensity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is simply an indicator of who you have been before and it is an incredible credit to the strength you have in your meditations.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You will not find help here for what you are seeking.  You must find a Yogi/siddha/swami or avatar because of what you have been and what you will be.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Enlightenment is knowing that all things are percieved through a veil. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You know that the world of humans is one of delusions.  You have been enlightened for enough lifetimes that you do not need that process anymore.  You need awakening.  Even buddhas, except The Living Buddha, need to be awakened.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Awakening is Enlightenment for those who have never known Enlightenment before.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But your awakening is one that is too rare to find your teacher here.  You must understand how desperately you need to see a teacher in flesh.  Do not be lazy!  Sell all your things and go to India if you have to!  You will Die if you don&amp;#039;t!!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When you wake up to what you are, you will see that you will remember everything naturally if only you know to trust your own Divine nature, that which guides your path perfectly in ways you do not know.  Love tells you what to do, am I right?  You love so strongly that you cannot go against it, correct?  Do you not see that it is not an emotion, as it is to the human world, but rather the knowing of who to speak to, when to speak, and where to go?  You have the wisdom belonging to Buddhas!!  Look back on your life and see how your love has guided you to this moment!  Wake Up!</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 22:52:12 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603721</guid> <dc:creator>Jeremy May</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T22:52:12Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603683</link> <description>Wow. These experience sound quite creepy. And I have no idea really what you&amp;#039;ve been doing there. I do though have the impression that it got you to a bad place. Finding a good teacher who knows you personally is probably an excellent idea.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Apart from that: I get from your text that you now suffer from depression and social isolation. Metta should help. I&amp;#039;m not sure about Insight practice, because that can unbalance people, without leading to a good place, especially if done without good instructions. So I would try to get some balance by practicing Metta first.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(The paranoid-thing sounds especially dangerous to me. Are you sure that something is not a side effect of an undiagnosed mental illness?)</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 21:56:24 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603683</guid> <dc:creator>bernd the broter</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T21:56:24Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Can someone help me?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603628</link> <description>Hi,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;my name is Pascal, I am 25 and I started meditating when I was 16. I never really read too much about this subject, neither did I get a teacher. I started with easy breathing techniques and wanted everything to happen naturally to me. I thought teachings will lead to believes and therefore could lead to wrong conclusions... therefore I wanted to experience everything &amp;#039;naturally&amp;#039;. It was great... for a long time of my life and different things happen which made me think I was on the right way all the time. I hope I am writing on a homepage where are actually people who experienced similiar, because telling this stuff to people who didn&amp;#039;t is just embarassing (because no one would believe me).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I will start from the beginning and try to explain everything. This will hopefully tell you at which point I am right now, because I have no overview anymore... I just know that something is wrong right now and I have no progress since years.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. My first interesting experience with meditation was in the first week when I tried it with 16. I felt my body fell asleep as my mind was still awake. It was enough for me to make me more curious and it soon was easier to meditate longer. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. The second experience which was pretty interesting to me was some time later (a few weeks I guess). My body began to heat up and tingle and I felt like full of energy. It was amazing the first time, didn&amp;#039;t know this was even possible back then.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3. The third experience happend 2 days after the second. My body got hot and tingly again and it started to feel like I could slowly move out of my body.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This lead me to more and longer sessions. But I always was to fearful to actually leave my body. Everytime I tried it felt like walking slowly to a burning wall of gelantine (no idea how else to describe). And it was kind of frightening and unpleasent to go further (not hurting but very unpleasant). Also I was scared if I would stop breathing if I actually go for the last bit.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4. I am not sure... but I guess I left my body 2 times by now. But both times I was too excited or frightened so it lasted about a few seconds... not more.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;5. This was my unforgettable experience. I felt a shock, kind of like the energy thing in 2. but pretty fast and rushing through my body and leaving a shiver sensation. Immediately after I was totally clear of mind. I don&amp;#039;t know how to explain this, but my meditation changed from &amp;#034;concentrating on my breath or something else&amp;#034; to &amp;#034;aware of everything at once&amp;#034;. Sorry I can&amp;#039;t describe it any better. I also kind of &amp;#039;saw&amp;#039; the whole room I was in, as if my eyes were open and I had a nearly 360° view. I was so surprised that I checked if my eyes were closed and ended this meditation accidentially as I did.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It became almost normal to me. I often experienced this... not always but alot. Also alot of this &amp;#039;shiver/shock&amp;#039; energy feeling happened in this state sometimes.&lt;br /&gt;And now there&amp;#039;s a point where I don&amp;#039;t know exactly when it happened.... Someday it didn&amp;#039;t happen anymore and it became pretty hard for me to meditate. I don&amp;#039;t know why but something that was an easy thing to me became like hard work. I got frustrated, got personal problems and I meditate less every day.&lt;br /&gt;I started to get depressions. I can&amp;#039;t recall the exact time, but it is since 3 to 4 years I guess. I am not exactly sure because I didn&amp;#039;t know I was sick back then because it wasn&amp;#039;t as extreme as it was in the beginning of this year.&lt;br /&gt;I tried different techniques, different times, different places. I also tried music, different diet, more sport, less sport... Nothing seems to work. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since about 1 year I am not able to get back into this state of mind when meditating. It&amp;#039;s even worse, I can&amp;#039;t feel my body fall asleep and most of the time I fall asleep myself. I can&amp;#039;t stay conscious anymore and I don&amp;#039;t know why.&lt;br /&gt;At the beginning of the year I was pretty depressed (so much, I don&amp;#039;t want to go into detail) and also got paranoid. I felt like everyone is against me and everyone is plotting things or talking behind my back. I began to think that everyone can read my mind or that I am retarted without knowing it because I might talk out loud all of my thoughts without knowing it. It sounds stupid I guess... but all the time when I am in contact with people... Stuff happens that make me believe my mind is open to be read by everyone. This made me feel pretty bad and I began to think that I am not living in a &amp;#039;real world&amp;#039; anymore. I also felt very distant... like I was looking at my self from a third persons distance. I couldn&amp;#039;t (and still can&amp;#039;t) concentrate my mind on one subject for very long... I am always drifting away.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I became very interested in spiritual and supernatural subjects again and read alot different stuff the past months.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I recently found the term &amp;#034;dark night of the soul&amp;#034; and found this homepage. I am not sure if my assumption is correct, but I might be in it right now. Since a few weeks my depression seem to reduce and I don&amp;#039;t know why, but I am happy about it. I feel better but I still can&amp;#039;t meditate without falling asleep.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope here is someone who read my wall of text and knows what I am in right now. I need help to get out of it. I just want to be able to continue my spiritual path but I feel stuck. I have no idea what to do next.... Someone?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for reading this long text in my poor english. Wish you the best!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Greetings, Pascal</description> <pubDate>Sun, 12 Oct 2014 20:49:55 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5603628</guid> <dc:creator>Pascal</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-12T20:49:55Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Dark Night can fuck up your life</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600950</link> <description>You&amp;#039;re one of my favorite posters, James.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Stay Strong.  The Dark Night fucked up my life a little bit.  But one the other side, my life completely fixed itself in every freakin way.  So whatever happens during this time for you is unimportant since it will all fix itself when the period is completed.  Just remind yourself if you need to that you Know by Gnosis that this is a truth.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think the Dark Night is essential precisely for its weight in suicidal drives and self-destructive tendencies.  When Enlightenment first reveals to us What is Not, The ego begans to die.  In the last phases of this, for me, the desire for suicide was so strong that my meditation practice became a kind of &amp;#039;mental suicide&amp;#039; where I killed all cares for the temporal life and decided to live, from that moment on, completely for other people.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What happened when this practice produced the desired result is inevitable.  You are going to be a powerful force in the world.  It is inevitable. It is sorely needed.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2014 08:16:16 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600950</guid> <dc:creator>Jeremy May</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-08T08:16:16Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Dark Night can fuck up your life</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600888</link> <description>That was actually very helpful, and very accurate. I will not comment too much on it. But thank you.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 08 Oct 2014 04:22:35 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600888</guid> <dc:creator>J J</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-08T04:22:35Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Dark Night can fuck up your life</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600301</link> <description>I think you can go overboard both ways in terms of sexual indulgence or suppression.  It is, undoubtedly, one of the most powerful drivers in our life, so it&amp;#039;s worth taking the time and effort to make peace with it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;JJ, I&amp;#039;ve been in your shoes.  I was still a virgin after college, and I was raised catholic, so I&amp;#039;ve had my share of emotional investment.  It was something I spent a lot of time thinking about back then.  The thing is, though, once I finally had sex, it lost about 90% of its drama and importance.  As an American (I don&amp;#039;t know if you are too), I think a lot of the problems our culture has with sexuality is due to the importance it&amp;#039;s given.  It&amp;#039;s seen as a sinful and dirty thing, so it becomes thrilling or titillating to the people who want it, and horrifying to the people who wish they could avoid it.  The truth is, though, if we strip it down to what it actually is, there&amp;#039;s nothing really there - either to fear or to want desperately.  The feelings we have about sex are programmed into us by the cultural environment we live in. It&amp;#039;s not &amp;#034;natural&amp;#034; to feel the way most humans do about it. Consider this, I was visiting a farm the other day, and I saw a rooster jump up on a hen and they did their thing. It took all of 10-20 seconds, then they shook their feathers out and walked off. That&amp;#039;s what nature thinks of sex. They might have just shook hands, haha.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you want to remain a virgin forever, that&amp;#039;s perfectly fine (and somewhat understandable, considering you could catch a disease) but there&amp;#039;s no reason to feel the way you do about sexuality from a moral standpoint. If you grew up learning that eating ice cream was sinful or depraved, you&amp;#039;d probably feel the same way you do about ice cream. But really, Ice cream is just something that tastes good and can make you fat if you eat it too much. Some people avoid it to stay healthy, but they don&amp;#039;t have any reason to judge people who eat it or to feel bad if they want it. They might see ice cream and drool a little, but they don&amp;#039;t philosophize about it on their couch late into the evening or try to stop eating all together (haha, that&amp;#039;s what I&amp;#039;ve done in the past - EDIT: metaphrically speaking.  I didn&amp;#039;t have an eating disorder...).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I guess what I&amp;#039;m saying is, if you really want to be free from the feeling of urgency and desire that is associated with sexuality - it&amp;#039;s good to realize that it&amp;#039;s not your biology that&amp;#039;s giving you trouble, it&amp;#039;s your culture and your desire to suppress your feelings. If you want to live as a single person happily free from those feelings 99% of the time, then have a wank once in a while and make peace with the fact that you see other people as sexually attractive. Your feelings are a complement to them, anyway, and they can be pleasant rather than urgent if you allow yourself to simply enjoy their physicality without the emotional baggage.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope that was helpful in some way.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 05:51:12 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600301</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T05:51:12Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Dark Night can fuck up your life</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599403</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;J J:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;...moreover their need and desperation for affection is so obvious that it feels like a violation to even take advantage of them and is in fact ethically wrong to fuck with their emotions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As such the cultural poison of sexuality is so rampant that I view it as an act of rebelliousness to be a virgin and celibate, the very nature of thirst is harmful, but the point is &lt;strong&gt;nobody is ever actually ready for sex, or emotionally mature enough for it.&lt;/strong&gt; It really is a violation of one&amp;#039;s body, mind and rights, no matter when or in what context the act is performed. So I abstain from it. I mean the very act itself is of sticking an appendage into an open wound.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For what it&amp;#039;s worth, I agree with the first paragraph and lived my life that way in my younger life. It was hard, but I&amp;#039;m happy I did. (I&amp;#039;ll also say that I recognized my own need and desperation for affection, which is also important. I didn&amp;#039;t want to have sex if I began from that foundation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And for what it&amp;#039;s worth, I really doubt the second paragraph is true, but I can see why you say that. I think you really can be ready for sex, so can someone else, and it can be a very mature thing when both are ready for it. But it takes two to tango and the wait for the appropriate dance partner can seem like a long wait. That said, sometimes it is time to dance. And when you do, wear your shoes. In fact, it best to buy your shoes before you might dance, if you know what I mean.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not saying this dogmatically, just what I&amp;#039;ve experienced. I&amp;#039;m 40, so you know, lots of miles travelled...</description> <pubDate>Sun, 05 Oct 2014 22:54:16 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599403</guid> <dc:creator>x x</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-05T22:54:16Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Dark Night can fuck up your life</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599364</link> <description>Hey Not Tao!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes that&amp;#039;s exactly it, the guard must be let down, although a distinction between volitionally (willfully) letting down the guard and letting go of control must be made. In the Reichian idea, which I&amp;#039;m trying to pursue, one does not &amp;#034;surrender&amp;#034;, rather the guard one &amp;#034;lets go of control&amp;#034;, has trust in, and has faith in one&amp;#039;s body, there is no act of will in letting down the guard, one just surrenders. Contradictory, I know. Thanks for hanging around this forum, BTW.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Some other generic thoughts:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I choose to define the dark night as being non-distinct from the bleed-through that is most often said to be a &lt;strong&gt;symptom&lt;/strong&gt; of the dark night, the dark night &lt;strong&gt;is&lt;/strong&gt; the bleed-through, just as Chogyam Trungpa defines Vipashyana as being the subsequent infiltration of post-meditation experience into daily life, the dark night is none other than the uncontrollable nature of one&amp;#039;s life, one&amp;#039;s &amp;#034;breaking out&amp;#034;, of the cultural poison that one has accepted into one&amp;#039;s body.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Once a dark-night-er starts acting out, he or she is effectively surrendering to the actions of the body to willfully, break free and oust the foreign objects of poison (the khandhas, often called barbs), sometimes &amp;#034;culture&amp;#034; that have infiltrated one&amp;#039;s body.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Therefore the neurotic and seemingly insane actions of a dark night yogi, are actually the &lt;strong&gt;sane&lt;/strong&gt; reactions to an &lt;strong&gt;insane&lt;/strong&gt; world.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Moreover the sense of a &lt;strong&gt;ride&lt;/strong&gt; is pronounced, which is where faith and trust come in. One has no choice but to &lt;strong&gt;trust&lt;/strong&gt; the process, which will hopefully liberate one from the cancer of kamma (intention, will).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;On sex.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I personally don&amp;#039;t think anyone should ever engage in sex, ideally, but seeing as that this is impossible (people will likely engage in sex, regardless of what people tell them) they should at least practice it safely, as in morally and harmlessly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The problem I view with our sexual culture is that it sexualizes young men and women at a far too early age, this leads them to constrict their body and muscles around an early age in order to make it fit an idealized image, as a result the body stays forever child-like and immature, moreover the vulnerability of said person is made obvious by the fact that he or she is simply looking for love and affection, which they now view as contingent upon their body.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is a sad state of affairs because if the person were to realize that said cultural poisons of needing love or love being contingent on how-you-are (which is not what love is, love is unconditional) were ultimately unhelpful, said person would grow normally, into a mature and full-bodied human being.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Me being on a college campus, I notice a lot of legally-aged adult young women, who are still child-like in their bodies, moreover their need and desperation for affection is so obvious that it feels like a &lt;strong&gt;violation&lt;/strong&gt; to even take advantage of them and is in fact ethically wrong to fuck with their emotions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As such the cultural poison of sexuality is so rampant that I view it as an act of rebelliousness to be a virgin and celibate, the very nature of thirst is harmful, but the point is &lt;strong&gt;nobody is ever actually ready for sex, or emotionally mature enough for it.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It really is a violation of one&amp;#039;s body, mind and rights, no matter when or in what context the act is performed. So I abstain from it. I mean the very act itself is of sticking an appendage into an open wound.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Regards,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;James</description> <pubDate>Sun, 05 Oct 2014 21:51:54 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599364</guid> <dc:creator>J J</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-05T21:51:54Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Dark Night can fuck up your life</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5598558</link> <description>I&amp;#039;ve been playing with this idea of a watcher, too.  I call it the &amp;#034;guard&amp;#034; (as in, letting down the guard).  I think it really is the basis for the negative emotions - especially anxiety and anger.  It&amp;#039;s like we&amp;#039;re trying to remember something and the emotion keeps it in out heads.  By letting go of control, we allow ourselves to forget the trigger and it becomes weaker.  It seems to help to adopt a kind of &amp;#034;reckless&amp;#034; mentality - trust the benevolent nature of the universe, so to speak. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/closed_eyes.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;P.s. I&amp;#039;ve noticed a few posts you&amp;#039;ve edited to be kinder, and I just wanted to say thank you for making this a nicer place.  It takes a lot of guts to do that.  I&amp;#039;ll try to follow your example.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 05 Oct 2014 11:56:33 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5598558</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-05T11:56:33Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Dark Night can fuck up your life</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5598418</link> <description>&lt;strike&gt;Way too busy to deal with your shit bro, if you have some problem with me maintaining some semblance of anonymity on this internet forum, then I have changed my name back to James Yen.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Peace&lt;/strike&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Edit:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I changed my name because I wanted to keep my offline and online life separate, it had nothing to do with avoiding people knowing (people who know me here), that I&amp;#039;m James Yen. I&amp;#039;m assuming that&amp;#039;s what you thought. Unless you have some other reason for wanting me to be known as James Yen.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Peace!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Edit 2:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sorry for lashing out, in the moment that you pointed out who I was I felt very exposed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;James</description> <pubDate>Sun, 05 Oct 2014 02:21:04 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5598418</guid> <dc:creator>J J</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-05T02:21:04Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Dark Night can fuck up your life</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5598412</link> <description>All note that J J is James Yen; he just changed his name on that account. Proof &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5570015&amp;#x23;_19_message_5578472"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;, screenshot &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;imgur&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;za9kV5Z"&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 05 Oct 2014 02:12:55 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5598412</guid> <dc:creator>Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-05T02:12:55Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Dark Night can fuck up your life</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5598271</link> <description>I hit the dark night hard two years ago and yes, it really fucked with my head and almost ruined my life. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But other stages can fuck up your life as well. For example, alienating and/or freaking out your friends and family with evangelical bliss-junkie mania during the A&amp;amp;P. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Moral of the story... keep calm and note like a motherfucker.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 05 Oct 2014 01:43:57 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5598271</guid> <dc:creator>Eric M W</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-05T01:43:57Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Dark Night can fuck up your life</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5598040</link> <description>Hey Droll! No worries, I actually come here to listen to people ramble, I come for the opinions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Functioning is extremely difficult for me, despite what I feel as &amp;#034;trying&amp;#034;, I often fuck up royally. It&amp;#039;s probably the case that I am interfering with natural bodily rives that would otherwise lead me to a state of equilibrium if I didn&amp;#039;t fuck with him. For example: I have near zero libido, I don&amp;#039;t masturbate anymore.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I consider this a disturbed state of bodily functioning, adopting the hardcore/pragmatic attitude has helped with alleviating certain emotional issues (sadness), so has taking medication, I have no feeling though.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I speculate that I originally underwent a bodily &amp;#034;opening&amp;#034; in my early teens (15-16), that, when I feared my own insanity, craziness or lack of control, I reflexively became aware and decided to start to control myself, after that I went mute for two years.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;During the opening I was definitely on a roller coaster, very manic, I was kicked out my high school, depressed, suicidal, living with relatives in a different country (than my hometown), eventually I think I caved or began to try to regulate myself instead of trusting myself. I attempted several times and had to leave my relatives to live with my parents.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t see how I could have ordinarily trusted myself anyway, I went through a lot of crap. So I sort of just stopped talking for two years (in my day to day life), after that I started participating here but committed a lot faux pas.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(A friend of mine commented that I had probably diminished the effect of what I went through on my life, this is the case, as I rarely give credence to what happened to me. In the following years I had problems with drug use that lead to suspension, I also had issues with socialization (due to having never properly been in a group environment for a long time); I committed a lot of social faux pas that were viewed as sexual harassment. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyways, I feel like I just dropped a bomb. Thanks for letting me ramble too! I will indeed check out Pierrakos and Lowen some more, I originally bought Lowen&amp;#039;s Narcissism book, however did not read into any of his other work.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Peace.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 05 Oct 2014 01:25:31 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5598040</guid> <dc:creator>J J</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-05T01:25:31Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Dark Night can fuck up your life</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597960</link> <description>I&amp;#039;m glad you find the Western bodywork helpful. If you like Willis I would definitely recommend reading Lowen and maybe Pierrakos. Pierrakos integrates the Western bodywork with spirituality more completely.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I admire the Western bodywork approach because it emphasizes the experience of feelings in the body, not unlike vipassana and actualism. The content/cognitive side is also accounted for without naively assuming that behavior can be radically changed without addressing feelings and the body.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I consider it unfortunate when Buddhism is reduced to therapy, especially cognitive. I consider it unfortunate when people swim in content without ever applying the techniques exactly according to instructions for extended periods of time. But, I think in reacting to the prevalent psychologized mushroom culture the pragmatic dharma movement may have created another serious shadow side: the naive hope that one could see experience as experience and attain Paths without having to uncover and integrate mass amounts of painful psychological material.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One can think of themselves as psychologically together, but simply by virtue of interacting with society at large one is sucked into &amp;#039;The Emotional Plague&amp;#039; (as Reich called it), to various degrees. Terence McKenna once remarked that the Judeo-Christian myth and guilt of original sin are &amp;#039;in the air that we breathe&amp;#039;. I agree. One necessarily confronts all kinds of social taboos on the path to enlightenment. Keeping it together when you realize that a majority of people are in a robotic state of semi-conscious hypnosis isn&amp;#039;t easy, especially when you yourself are still partially a robot. A few sane psychological models are helpful for this.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This has all been on my mind lately, so sorry if I just derailed your thread with my rambling. I hope this was helpful in some way.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 23:29:34 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597960</guid> <dc:creator>Droll Dedekind</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-04T23:29:34Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>The Dark Night can fuck up your life</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597934</link> <description>I&amp;#039;ve been doing Reichian bodywork found from Droll&amp;#039;s resources posted in his Reichian therapy thread (thanks Droll!) The author of the Reichian Home Therapy book (Jack Willis) emphasizes the need to go slowly, else one&amp;#039;s life devolve into chaos, ironically he (the author) mentions an exercise called a &amp;#034;passive session&amp;#034; which is essentially noting body sensations out loud, the author claims that the exercise is extremely powerful and that it should only be attempted after a year (after certain requirements have been met).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Moreover we have cases of people practicing classical New Burmese insight meditation and getting into all sorts of psychiatric problems.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyways I just mentioned this because I believe (or rather speculate) that I may have crossed the A&amp;amp;P and thus have been dark-night-ing since beginning this body work. Beginning last week (the 27th) the dark night started to bleed into my daily life, I started missing classes and having episodes of pretty intense suicidal ideation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is probably because I am applying the method of abdominal relaxation in daily life, thankfully though on the flipside I&amp;#039;ve been having good conversations with my parents about pent-up psychological issues and removing blockages to this body functioning without a regulator (ego).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am pretty in love with Reichian psychology, which emphasizes the idea that a healthy individual functions without a &amp;#034;watcher&amp;#034; (Ingram&amp;#039;s agent), and thus functions freely, on faith. Whereas an unhealthy person functions using a regulator, my goal is to remove the regulator (Chogyam Trungpa&amp;#039;s &amp;#034;watcher&amp;#034;) and slip back into blissful ignorance, if that makes sense.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers friends,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;James</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 22:13:07 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597934</guid> <dc:creator>J J</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-04T22:13:07Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Dream thought / Waking thought</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596654</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Not Tao:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I think sleep effects are actually to be expected if you are meditating frequently.  I was surprised by them too when I was really &amp;#034;going hard&amp;#034; a while back, but there have been a lot of threads about sleep-related things here.  A common one is seeing through the eyelids, which, is essentially a Wake Induced Lucid Dream.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This has happened to me in the past. But since you posted this I have been seeing through my eyelids again. Strange.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ll be having a normal dream and then I&amp;#039;ll start dreaming that I&amp;#039;m lying in bed. And then I&amp;#039;ll be like, &amp;#034;Wait, no, I actually am in bed.&amp;#034; And then I can just see myself lying in bed through my eye lids.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not so different from when I meditate. It&amp;#039;s just imagery. But it does make me wonder what&amp;#039;s &amp;#034;really&amp;#034; going on.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Life is dream-like.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 04:59:58 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596654</guid> <dc:creator>Ivory</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T04:59:58Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: wowwww this path is confusing</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595161</link> <description>Alright folks, here is an update:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since that first post things have changed a bit for me. The event (being incredibly depressed for a few days) that caused that post to be made looks &amp;#034;huge&amp;#034; in hindsight, and I find myself subconsciously dividing up memories into before/after that event. In the first few days after that event, I noticed a certain escape from suffering that was previously less obvious to me. The escape was basically to &amp;#034;pretend&amp;#034; that there was nothing but this moment. This practice, when done wholeheartedly, would dissolve whatever disatisfaction (minor or major) was present. I would literally just focus 100% on the present moment (including whatever emotional feeling was present) but with such intensity that not even subtle mental images or daydreams or interpretations would arise (including the image/interpretation of &amp;#034;I am practicing such and such&amp;#034;). If this could be maintained even for a minute or two then the feeling would fade and I would find a sense of joy, ease, care, and quality in whatever I was doing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since then (about 1 month ago) I have been able to replicate this &amp;#034;trick&amp;#034; over and over to a really good effect. The hindrance to this arises whenever I start to believe that I am either doing something very harmful by doing this, or I am avoiding dealing with something by doing this. The overcoming of this hindrance occurs when I decide that nothing is worth creating a problem over and suffering. This &amp;#034;trick&amp;#034; can&amp;#039;t be done by brute force, because if I believe that I really do need to create a problem and suffer over &amp;#034;xyz&amp;#034; then I simply won&amp;#039;t do it (i.e. focus 100% of my attention on the present). So I either find myself in that state of joy/ease that arises after the presence, or I find myself suffering without being fully willing to confront the suffering (in which case the suffering is relatively minor). Or I find myself in the process of confronting the suffering (once it starts to get too intense) which is mostly about having enough courage to &amp;#034;abandon&amp;#034; problems by becoming completely present and giving rise to none of the &amp;#034;tanha&amp;#034; that creates them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In this way of writing things it definitely looks like &amp;#034;running away&amp;#034; or &amp;#034;repressing&amp;#034; and I often see myself as doing that in practice. Yet I note that whenever I *actually* become fully present rather than worry about the idea that being fully present is repression/avoidance my life is at its best. So, every time I think about whether or not this is the right direction I have plenty of doubts, however when I actually do it it pays off hugely and immediately.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 01 Oct 2014 02:17:15 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595161</guid> <dc:creator>Adam . .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-01T02:17:15Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Dark Night Pro Tips</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593970</link> <description>Well, I just try to mimic the language other people are using based on my experiences.  I don&amp;#039;t know that I&amp;#039;ve dealt with what Daniel calls the DN.  I&amp;#039;ve definately dealt with a lot of crippling anxiety over the years, and it did seem to get worse for a time after I experience a kind of jhana event for the first time around New Years.  I felt like it was similar to what you were experiencing which is why I chimed in.  You might not think you have a concentration practice, but any kind of meditation is concentration practice, really.  If you weren&amp;#039;t meditating at all ever, then you can probably say you&amp;#039;re just dealing with depression - but I think depression is also a kind of concentration practice.  The jhanas are &amp;#034;absorptions&amp;#034; into positive states.  Depression and anxiety is just absorption into negative states.  This is probably why depressed people have the dramatic spiritual transformation stories - they finally learn that positive absorption is possible and thier concentration is so good already that they just need to learn how to direct it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I really couldn&amp;#039;t tell you what I&amp;#039;ve experienced or not, though.  I find most of the terminology to be confusion or not-quite-matching.  There&amp;#039;s stuff that still has no explanation at all, too.  I like the mystery, so I just judge my progress by whether or not I feel better these days, haha... &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/pac_man.gif" &gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2014 18:17:33 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593970</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-29T18:17:33Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Dark Night Pro Tips</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593683</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Not Tao:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;@ Elijah: I think it&amp;#039;d be interesting to ask everyone here the same question. Perhaps there is a meditation related Dark Night that has nothing to do with depression and has no real cause - but I think most of the posts I&amp;#039;ve seen on here about the DN are actually more related to a bad mix of unresolved emotional problems and heightened concentration ability. In this case, quitting meditation for a while and resolving the problems is probably a good idea.  Or, at least, switching to calm abiding meditation and using the concentration power to navigate out of the &amp;#034;unskillful&amp;#034; states.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Could be. I suspect that unresolved emotions often accompany DN. I believe this to be true in my case. Once the illusion of self starts breaking down on the mental level, emotions just can&amp;#039;t be held down in the same way they used to. They just start bubbling up.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not Tao, just out of curiosity, how do you differentiate between DN and unresolved emotional problems? And, have you been through DN yourself?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m not sure about concentration, I didn&amp;#039;t have a concentration practice.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2014 06:03:57 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593683</guid> <dc:creator>Ivory</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-29T06:03:57Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Dark Night Pro Tips</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593676</link> <description>Hey Elija,&lt;br /&gt;I didn&amp;#039;t say not meditating was the most useful route. I still do and was meditating, just not as much as I used to long time ago. And, even though I wasn&amp;#039;t putting as much time into formal meditation, mindfulness was still there. I still stay rooted in the body throughout the day. I still notice thoughts and emotions arising. There is still insight and there is still curiosity about my day to day experience. I&amp;#039;m still able to make skillful life changes as a result of that insight.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Consider the possibility that lifestyle changes may have occurred as a result of meditation/mindfulness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As for your first question, DN started for me while contemplating song lyrics I was listening to at the time, &amp;#034;There&amp;#039;s nothing good, because nothing lasts. All that comes, it comes here to pass.&amp;#034; From there, I just started noticing the truth those words.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I knew very little about Buddhism and nothing of the 3C&amp;#039;s.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My experience was an ongoing awareness of impermanence and dissatisfaction of all circumstances in life, in addition to a dissolution of the mind, body, and worldly experience. It was absolute horror. I exhausted myself trying to find meaning or something that I could enjoy. But none of the things I used to enjoy were cutting it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think that last bit is one main difference between depression and DN. In depression you are sit on your ass. In DN you scramble like a crazy person trying to find meaning or value.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I was horrified. I didn&amp;#039;t know what was happening so I started researching online and talking to spiritual teachers. One teacher emailed MTCB to help me understand what I was going through.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2014 05:54:36 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593676</guid> <dc:creator>Ivory</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-29T05:54:36Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Dark Night Pro Tips</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593546</link> <description>@ Elijah: I think it&amp;#039;d be interesting to ask everyone here the same question. Perhaps there is a meditation related Dark Night that has nothing to do with depression and has no real cause - but I think most of the posts I&amp;#039;ve seen on here about the DN are actually more related to a bad mix of unresolved emotional problems and heightened concentration ability. In this case, quitting meditation for a while and resolving the problems is probably a good idea.  Or, at least, switching to calm abiding meditation and using the concentration power to navigate out of the &amp;#034;unskillful&amp;#034; states.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2014 02:55:47 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593546</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-29T02:55:47Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Dark Night Pro Tips</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593534</link> <description>May I ask what makes you think that you were experiencing a spiritual dark night rather than depression? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I ask because it seems a little surprising to hear that you think not meditating was the most useful route, and that you were able to move to equanimity through mostly lifestyle changes rather than through meditation.  </description> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2014 02:37:34 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593534</guid> <dc:creator>Elijah Smith</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-29T02:37:34Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Dark Night Pro Tips</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593071</link> <description>Ok, so I thought I&amp;#039;d start a thread and post about some of the things that have helped me immensely in dealing with the DN. Some of the stuff that others post resonates with my experience, and some absolutely does not. That said, other&amp;#039;s mileage may vary here. But if you&amp;#039;re stuck, this may help.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have been residing in Equanimity more and more these days. There have been minor/brief bouts of negativity and dissatisfaction, but nothing too bad. This is the happiest I&amp;#039;ve ever been in my life, ever (that I know of). And, it&amp;#039;s getting easier to see how and what causes me to fall back into DN.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I won&amp;#039;t reflect too far back. So I&amp;#039;ll to stick with recent experiences and insights. I would like to come back and report as I get clearer on things. But only after I get more experience.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. On dealing with intense DN spells (misery and disgust). Lying down on my bed, breathing, and ignoring the content of mind is what gets me through this. I focus on the connection between in breath and out breath only. I&amp;#039;m not trying to quiet the mind, or concentrate, or escape, I&amp;#039;m simply IGNORING thought until the DN spell passes. And yes, it&amp;#039;s important to remember, &amp;#034;This will pass!&amp;#034;. After 10-100 times through DN (LOL), you start to realize that it does pass. I&amp;#039;ve also had success riding my bike and going on walks, but the key is to keep ignoring thought. Some say noting is a good way of dealing with this stuff, but if you really break it down, what you&amp;#039;re actually doing is ignoring thought without straining or forceful / unnatural effort.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. Lately what I&amp;#039;ve been doing in EQ is noticing how much I love everything that I&amp;#039;m doing and how amazing everything is. I love cleaning, cooking, eating meals, working, taking naps, talking to my room mates, going on walks, driving in my car, and relaxing. Basically what&amp;#039;s this has done for me is break down my attachment to specific things. If I can love anything, then it doesn&amp;#039;t matter what comes or goes. I no longer need to fear loss, or assert control over the future (which I don&amp;#039;t actually have anyways). I can enjoy each moment thoroughly, and the next, and the next. I can&amp;#039;t begin to explain how powerful this has been.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3. I&amp;#039;ve shifted all of my chores and errands to the weekend so I don&amp;#039;t have to spend my day through the work week worrying, stressing, or feeling overwhelmed by obligations. I have also stopped making unnecessary commitments, and instead, moving spontaneously, honoring how I feel in the moment. This has cleared my mind immensely.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4. I stopped going out, and I stopped trying to add more shit to my life. No more new hobbies, no chasing girls, routines, practices, and no more looking for things outside of my experience to be happy. Now that all the &amp;#034;doing&amp;#034; has come to a stand still, the mind is clear, and this allows me to see HOW fear (in it&amp;#039;s myriad forms) arises as it arises. Now I can get to the root of what&amp;#039;s causing my suffering. The difference is night and day. On a stormy sea you can&amp;#039;t detect the cause of, much less see, a ripple. But on a calm, waveless pond, you can detect the most subtle of disturbances.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;5. In the last point I mentioned staying home. Solitude. I spend my time at home indulging in simple/clean pleasures, relaxing, and just being as cozy as possible. I&amp;#039;ve been treating myself like a precioius child. Loads of amounts of self care. Cooking and eating healthy food, drinking water, cleaning and doing chores, decorating, taking hot showers, relaxing, and taking naps. This has been massively satisfying.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m not real sure about developing concentration or doing inquiry/vippassana at this stage. Hopefully soon I&amp;#039;ll get clearer on this. In DN, I have not found any amount of meditation or inquiry useful at all. My experience has been that the more I meditate, the more attached I become to it, and throughout the day I think about doing meditation at home rather than engaging in what I&amp;#039;m doing. I have yet in all my years of practice found formal meditation useful at all (except maybe a handful of times).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s all I got for now.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2014 18:46:22 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5593071</guid> <dc:creator>Ivory</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-26T18:46:22Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592573</link> <description>I think one place that people get stuck is they are looking for fireworks. Like, life should be all highs and excitement. Joy is much more subtle. Joy comes from being able to fully engage.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I just kept noticing how I enjoyed cleaning, cooking, working on the computer, relaxing, listening to music, going for rides in my car, talking to my roommates, taking naps.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then I was like, &amp;#034;Damn. If I can be happy with this then why do I insist on MORE? If I can be happy with the simple things, then why should I worry about losing anything?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is enough. Plain and simple.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The other thing is that all highs have lows. Attachment to highs makes us unable to appreciate the simple things.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The things you said about concentration and ruminating on the felt sensation ruminates also resonates. I don&amp;#039;t have high concentration, but I was intent on ignoring the content of mind.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s true that if you dive into the felt sensation, it will pass. But the thing is that it keeps coming back.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You do have to investigate the content of mind once and a while. You have to be curious about why these emotions are arising.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 20:13:59 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592573</guid> <dc:creator>Ivory</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T20:13:59Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592532</link> <description>Precisely.  &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/closed_eyes.gif" &gt;</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 19:20:02 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592532</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T19:20:02Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592457</link> <description>Well said, Not Tao. Love this post.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You helped me let go of some worry, actually. I had become attached to a future outcome, and I didn&amp;#039;t want what I have to end. This led to fear and control that I ultimately don&amp;#039;t have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I realized that if I stopped giving a fuck so much, I can enjoy what I have now without worrying that it isn&amp;#039;t going to last.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thing is, I can be happy doing anything as long as I can be engaged in what I&amp;#039;m doing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If I lose what I have, so what? I engage in the next thing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now I don&amp;#039;t have to worry about what I lose or what comes next.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If I make a mistake... Ooops!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So what? I engage in the next thing.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 18:00:24 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5592457</guid> <dc:creator>Ivory</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T18:00:24Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591487</link> <description>Hey Ivory,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve been posting this a lot lately, so I hope people don&amp;#039;t think I&amp;#039;m a broken record, but here&amp;#039;s my take on the dark night:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When we learn to meditate, we&amp;#039;re essentially learning to concentrate.  So, after our concentration begins to get more powerful, we pass a threshold and finally achieve jhana (the A&amp;amp;P event).  This concentration event horizon can be dangerous if we don&amp;#039;t have a handle on our problems because we now are concentrating at a higher level throughout our day.  Little things we used to forget about become objects of concentration and this begins the cycle of rumination.  Worse yet, since we don&amp;#039;t have a handle on our problems, we don&amp;#039;t really know what&amp;#039;s causing our negativity, so we ruminate about the feelings themselves and the content of our problems becomes hidden from us.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The fastest way out of this messy situation is to learn two things, one is to direct your concentration toward wholesome and positive states (as you said, stay in the moment),  the other is through good old psychotherapy, where we directly challenge those things that cause us problems and align our beliefs with tranquility.  What I mean by this is, if you notice yourself ruminating about how unsatisfying life is - you need to dismantle this belief at its core.  You need to change your mind about it completely.  You need to really understand that life IS satisfying just as it is.  You can use concentration to help you with this, and you can accept the emotions as they come to help you understand them better, but instead of looking to escape feelings, look to escape the beliefs that cause those feelings.  When the beliefs are gone, there is nothing there to cause the negativity again.  It&amp;#039;s been cut off at the root.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At our core, we are perfectly content.  Our dissatisfaction is added on top in order to protect ourselves from things we&amp;#039;ve seen as harmful in the past.  If we dismantle these prejudices about the world, we will always be content.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;EDIT: Also, don&amp;#039;t be afraid to think about things that cause negative reactions.  Those thoughts are pointing directly at what opinions need to be changed.  Think of it this way - you want to find freedom for your mind.  If you are driven by forces (emotions) that don&amp;#039;t allow you to think certain thoughts or encounter certain things in life, then those forces are what need to be challenged.  Think about those thoughts that bother you (your worries about the future) and change your opinion about them.  An uncertain future is not worth worrying about right now because right now you want to be happy &lt;em&gt;no matter what happens.&lt;/em&gt;  You want to be &lt;em&gt;unconditionally&lt;/em&gt; happy.  Throw caution to the winds!  Be reckless and actually enjoy yourself right now for no reason at all!  You can allow yourself to see nothing as particularly important precisely because, in your contentment, you&amp;#039;ll be able to handle all of your problems effortlessly.  You can trust yourself and rely on the spontaneous actions you take in the future.  There is simply is no reason anything needs to be unsatisfying ever.  We just decide to think that way.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 24 Sep 2014 18:53:19 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591487</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-24T18:53:19Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591404</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Piers M:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Hi Rob,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Really glad you posted this thread. It reminds me of a lot of the things that I have gone through over the last few years and you&amp;#039;ve encapsulated some of it nicely. To be honest I&amp;#039;m still not even sure I know what DN is or even if I&amp;#039;ve gone through it or indeed am still in it. If it includes such things as depression, anxiety, uncertainty (especially as to where you fit in with this society), loneliness (at times) - maybe all of the above then yes, sure I&amp;#039;ve experienced my share of DN woes. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;DN is a special beast. There are emotions such as depression, anxiety, loneliness, and uncertainty. But you can experience those any time. In DN all of those emotions are intensified. But that&amp;#039;s only one characteristic. The main thing for me was an ongoing awareness of impermanence and dissatisfaction in all aspects of life. I don&amp;#039;t have to meditate or inquire, it&amp;#039;s always apparent. There&amp;#039;s another element that makes DN challenging, which is having thought, but not believing it or identifying with it. Basically what&amp;#039;s happening is the so called human identity is breaking apart. And you never know if you should follow a thought or just let it pass. In other words, I had a really hard time knowing how to function in the world. Imagine standing in the middle of a busy street with a semi-truck coming right at you, you had a thought that said, &amp;#034;Get out of the way,&amp;#034; and you didn&amp;#039;t know if you should listen to that thought. This is an extreme example, but was basically what my experience was this last year. I forgot how to take care of myself and interact with the world. I had basically become a newborn baby.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Explaining yourself to others. Forget it. The rest of the so called &amp;#034;normal&amp;#034; world cannot and will never understand what you are up to. You might even find yourself dropping certain friends, either deliberately severing ties or just kinda drifting away from them. However, with family that&amp;#039;s almost impossible to do (and probably not meant to be that way anyhow - afterall, whatever you&amp;#039;re going through, especially with regards to most parents - they did give you an awful lot especially in the first 16 or so years of your life). I say almost because there are probably a small number who sever ties with family as well. However, if that can be avoided I don&amp;#039;t think it&amp;#039;s necessary. It&amp;#039;s also somewhat cruel. Remember that they don&amp;#039;t actually need to understand you or what you&amp;#039;re going through no matter how much you would like them to.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;That was my experience exactly. Most of my friends have dropped off the face of the map. That was necessary. And no, nobody will ever know what one goes through. It&amp;#039;s best to keep your mouth shut about your experience especially if you are experience heavy emotions, and absolutely keep your mouth shut about no-self.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Great. Do you have any sources/references you&amp;#039;d like to recommend? I&amp;#039;d be interested to read that too.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Sure. These were my mentors...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Byron Katie: For understanding the mind.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Rupert Spira and Greg Goode: For dismantling the &amp;#034;body&amp;#034; and day to day &amp;#034;reality&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Eckhart Tolle: For no reason at all. He&amp;#039;s just fun and relaxing to listen to (I like his audio). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;The Presence Process (Michael Brown): For emotional work.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Adyashanti: For landmarks and stepping stones on the spiritual path.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 24 Sep 2014 15:56:38 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591404</guid> <dc:creator>Ivory</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-24T15:56:38Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591401</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;katy steger:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;However, there is a bit of a challenge in dealing with explaining oneself to others. So what are you doing? Meditating? You quit to meditate? And then the months go on, temper is still lost, dissatisfaction still arrives, boredome still arrives, the winter-ready squirrels seem brilliant all of a sudden and, whee, we&amp;#039;ve left the well-known shore to try to enter the so-called stream???&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Haha! Yeah, I had to explain myself to a lot of people when I quit. Everyone thought I was nuts &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think everyone else is nuts because they&amp;#039;re so caught up in consumerism or are in a hurry to get somewhere.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Can you imagine what the world would be like without all that non-sense? Sigh. We can dream can&amp;#039;t we?</description> <pubDate>Wed, 24 Sep 2014 15:39:57 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591401</guid> <dc:creator>Ivory</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-24T15:39:57Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591393</link> <description>Hey guys,&lt;br /&gt;Great to hear from you. I can relate to what both of you are saying. We&amp;#039;ve had similar experiences.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Actually, I am working now (as of the last 2 weeks). I&amp;#039;m doing some part time freelancing work for a friend. I basically cut down on expenses, got a cheaper phone, got roommates, sold my car, and don&amp;#039;t eat out much. I work about 25 hours a week, which is great. But, it is challenging because it&amp;#039;s so uncertain. I have no idea when the work will end, or when I&amp;#039;ll get more. I just have to be with the worry as it arises and trust.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Which brings me to my next point...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s all about &lt;strong&gt;what&amp;#039;s happening now&lt;/strong&gt;. The way out of DN is to be with whatever is arising on a moment to moment basis without indulging or pushing away. If worry arises, be with the worry. Same for tiredness, physical pain, sadness, loneliness, fear, misery, disgust, etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s incredibly simple, but seems complex because the momevement of mind is always into the future. The negative experiences seem like they&amp;#039;re never going to end or that we need to do something about them. When allowed to be felt they pass rather quickly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The other thing I notice is that I have a tendency to think, &amp;#034;I&amp;#039;m so far away.&amp;#034; But this isn&amp;#039;t true. That belief is what triggers the spiritual seeker and the tendency to do more or try to get rid of. This is a perpetual loop in and of itself.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ll report back. But I think the reason I keep cycling back into DN is because I think I &amp;#034;got it&amp;#034;, then I start indulging and stop being consistent with breath work (meditation as you guys would say). Sometimes I&amp;#039;ll become afraid of no-self and react. The key is to keep going, step by step, inch by inch.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 24 Sep 2014 15:28:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591393</guid> <dc:creator>Ivory</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-24T15:28:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590195</link> <description>&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Hi Rob,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Really glad you posted this thread. It reminds me of a lot of the things that I have gone through over the last few years and you&amp;#039;ve encapsulated some of it nicely. To be honest I&amp;#039;m still not even sure I know what DN is or even if I&amp;#039;ve gone through it or indeed am still in it. If it includes such things as depression, anxiety, uncertainty (especially as to where you fit in with this society), loneliness (at times) - maybe all of the above then yes, sure I&amp;#039;ve experienced my share of DN woes. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I happen to be one of those who has made some major wreckless decisions in DN (like bailing on my software engineering career). I&amp;#039;m not really sure how to deal with those decisions, but am working through them. I still have some issues with society. Like having to work 40+ hours a week (I find that exhausting). And, I&amp;#039;m not real sure how that&amp;#039;s going to play out.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;With hindsight I did something very similar to you in 2008. I quit work completely, felt sure I was going to become a Buddhist Monk. Went on Pilgrimage to India/Nepal (visited all the holy sites) whilst at the same time feeling rather uneasy and thinking &amp;#034;what the f**k am I doing here?&amp;#034;. I kinda felt I had to go because &amp;#034;that&amp;#039;s what everyone does&amp;#034;. I didn&amp;#039;t take to India, and although there for 4 months, honestly I was only in the &amp;#034;real India&amp;#034; about 4 weeks or so in that time which was enough (the rest sheltered in Vipassana Centres or monasteries). I didn&amp;#039;t really feel remotely connected during the time I spent there and felt sheer relief when I touched back down in England.&lt;br /&gt;I was not unfamiliar with travel or even living in foreign lands having spent a considerable amount of time in S.E. Asia before this period and even lived in Bangkok for a couple of years in the early 2000&amp;#039;s. But those SE Asian countries are tame compared to India...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then I spent a period of time on and off at Amaravati (which is a well know Thai forest monastery in the West and used to be headed by a well respected American monk, Ajahn Sumedho, until he &amp;#034;retired&amp;#034; from being Abbott at the age of 76 I think).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well, after all that, I&amp;#039;m still a layman and still not working (yet) I may go back sooner or later.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;I personally want to have time for yoga, play guitar, and have time to hang out with people once and a while. I don&amp;#039;t know if that&amp;#039;s asking too much. I just don&amp;#039;t see how all of that is possible working so much (and having to commute).&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you want my pennysworth, don&amp;#039;t give up the day job just yet (re-reading what you said, sounds like you already have)...it can still keep you grounded to a certain extent. If it&amp;#039;s possible for you to go part time, even if it means switching jobs/career to a 2 or 3 day week, I&amp;#039;d advise that. If you&amp;#039;re not in debt and can afford to do so of course. Plus, you would be suprised at how much less you can get by on compared to the average Joe when you&amp;#039;re just not part of the consumer culture.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I would absolutely second what Katy says:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;However, there is a bit of a challenge in dealing with explaining oneself to others. So what are you doing? Meditating? You quit to meditate? And then the months go on, temper is still lost, dissatisfaction still arrives, boredome still arrives, the winter-ready squirrels seem brilliant all of a sudden and, whee, we&amp;#039;ve left the well-known shore to try to enter the so-called stream???&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Explaining yourself to others. Forget it. The rest of the so called &amp;#034;normal&amp;#034; world cannot and will never understand what you are up to. You might even find yourself dropping certain friends, either deliberately severing ties or just kinda drifting away from them. However, with family that&amp;#039;s almost impossible to do (and probably not meant to be that way anyhow - afterall, whatever you&amp;#039;re going through, especially with regards to most parents - they did give you an awful lot especially in the first 16 or so years of your life). I say almost because there are probably a small number who sever ties with family as well. However, if that can be avoided I don&amp;#039;t think it&amp;#039;s necessary. It&amp;#039;s also somewhat cruel. Remember that they don&amp;#039;t actually need to understand you or what you&amp;#039;re going through no matter how much you would like them to.&lt;br /&gt;Perhaps some of what I&amp;#039;m saying is not relevant to your particular situation anyhow...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;The good news is that I can see similarities in the Buddhist texts&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Great. Do you have any sources/references you&amp;#039;d like to recommend? I&amp;#039;d be interested to read that too.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I wish you every success in your journey. Remember, it&amp;#039;s important to also be kind to yourself too especially when things are getting rocky. Self Metta, can be a great help.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Piers.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 17:35:39 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5590195</guid> <dc:creator>Piers M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-23T17:35:39Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: wowwww this path is confusing</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588962</link> <description>Another thing I meant to suggest is: When you&amp;#039;ve chosen a path or practice, give it some time to work in progressive, organic and possibly mysterious ways over time, rather than constantly checking to see how you&amp;#039;re faring, how you&amp;#039;re feeling, and trying to consciously manage the process to bring about best results right now. Settle in for the ride, take the rough with the smooth, don&amp;#039;t look for immediate and dramatic change, but look back every once in a while to see what&amp;#039;s happened. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Obviously, this suggestion won&amp;#039;t apply if you choose actualism, but for anything else I think it&amp;#039;s sound -- especially for someone who&amp;#039;s prone to practice in fits and starts, like you and I have been.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 22 Sep 2014 22:45:51 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588962</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-22T22:45:51Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588356</link> <description>Counting works with a lot of people, but for me it made things a bit difficult because it always felt like &amp;#034;the voice in my head&amp;#034; was interrupting continuous concentration somehow. The same is true for verbal noting, I have to use fast monosyllabic noting (&amp;#034;beep&amp;#034;) or else I just get frustrated with my mental voice. It&amp;#039;s a person quirk, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What helped me the most with following the breath was Munindra&amp;#039;s instruction to be aware of each in-breath as if it were your first, and each out-breath as if it were your last. </description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 22:02:58 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588356</guid> <dc:creator>Eric M W</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T22:02:58Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588345</link> <description>Hello to You!&lt;br /&gt;And welcome. It&amp;#039;s a bumpy week in parts of DhOville, but you&amp;#039;ve been reading a while it seems, so you know how to surf elsewhere in the land if threads are testy and turbulenty.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So work, huh? Yes, I also peeled out of a handsome salary job with tires squealing (okay, no tire peel out, but multi-resignations) in the so-called Dark Night of the Soul, but this was useful. Frankly, if you don&amp;#039;t have massive debt and/or can reduce the debt load, there&amp;#039;s right livelihood out there to keep food on the table. You have a valuable trade and can probably stay fed. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, there is a bit of a challenge in dealing with explaining oneself to others. So what are you doing? Meditating? You quit to meditate? And then the months go on, temper is still lost, dissatisfaction still arrives, boredome still arrives, the winter-ready squirrels seem brilliant all of a sudden and, whee, we&amp;#039;ve left the well-known shore to try to enter the so-called stream???&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s okay. You have the means to acquire food and shelter. As they say in the Hitchhiker&amp;#039;s Guide, don&amp;#039;t panic. And when you/I do, just call a friend. The dark night is very common. Try to call a meditating friend or a squirrel; they&amp;#039;re good with nuts ;)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Seriously, welcome and best wishes. To me the practice and the choices to practice are worthwhile. </description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 21:55:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588345</guid> <dc:creator>katy steger</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T21:55:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588339</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Richard Zen:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I know it&amp;#039;s not the same but the instruction helped me move up the jhanas faster because I &lt;strong&gt;relaxed the thinking faster&lt;/strong&gt;.  It&amp;#039;s just the wording that helped me, not that they were the same.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh, fair enough. Sorry to side-track you.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 21:24:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588339</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T21:24:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588335</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;John Wilde:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Richard Zen:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Something I just found after reading about actualism and PCE&amp;#039;s and how they are thoughtless:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;actualfreedom&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2e;au&amp;#x2f;library&amp;#x2f;topics&amp;#x2f;pce&amp;#x2e;htm"&gt;http://actualfreedom.com.au/library/topics/pce.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Pure Consciousness Event: During meditation (...) one may become utterly silent inside, as though in a gap between thoughts, where one becomes completely perception- and thought-free. One neither thinks nor perceives any mental or sensory content.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Richard, just thought I&amp;#039;d point out that the pure consciousness &lt;u&gt;event&lt;/u&gt; (as described above) and the pure consciousness &lt;u&gt;experience&lt;/u&gt; (which actualists aspire to) are two completely different things. When actualists talk about a PCE, they&amp;#039;re talking about the pure consciousness &lt;u&gt;experience&lt;/u&gt;, not the pure consciousness &lt;u&gt;event&lt;/u&gt; described above. The latter doesn&amp;#039;t feature in their practice at all (despite it appearing in their library/ glossary).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The pure consciousness experience (the one that actualists aspire to) is not characterised by an absence of sensory content or thought.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I know it&amp;#039;s not the same but the instruction helped me move up the jhanas faster because I &lt;strong&gt;relaxed the thinking faster&lt;/strong&gt;.  It&amp;#039;s just the wording that helped me, not that they were the same.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 21:22:18 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588335</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T21:22:18Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588312</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Richard Zen:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Something I just found after reading about actualism and PCE&amp;#039;s and how they are thoughtless:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;actualfreedom&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2e;au&amp;#x2f;library&amp;#x2f;topics&amp;#x2f;pce&amp;#x2e;htm"&gt;http://actualfreedom.com.au/library/topics/pce.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Pure Consciousness Event: During meditation (...) one may become utterly silent inside, as though in a gap between thoughts, where one becomes completely perception- and thought-free. One neither thinks nor perceives any mental or sensory content.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Richard, just thought I&amp;#039;d point out that the pure consciousness &lt;u&gt;event&lt;/u&gt; (as described above) and the pure consciousness &lt;u&gt;experience&lt;/u&gt; (which actualists aspire to) are two completely different things. When actualists talk about a PCE, they&amp;#039;re talking about the pure consciousness &lt;u&gt;experience&lt;/u&gt;, not the pure consciousness &lt;u&gt;event&lt;/u&gt; described above. The latter doesn&amp;#039;t feature in their practice at all (despite it appearing in their library/ glossary).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The pure consciousness experience (the one that actualists aspire to) is not characterised by an absence of sensory content or thought.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 20:50:27 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588312</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T20:50:27Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588266</link> <description>Counting did help me lots when I did jhana practice.  I especially counted forwards up to ten and then backwards down to one to keep the mind alert.  In-breath &amp;#034;just&amp;#034; out-breath &amp;#034;one&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;just two&amp;#034; etc.  If my mind wandered and I lost count I would start over.  If I went past 10 from having a drifting mind then I started over.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I used the breath because I can feel my whole body move with it so the rapture could spread farther than my skull.  Noticing the nostrils was more difficult whereas the breath has more detail.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Dalai Lama&amp;#039;s instructions that got me to my 1st jhana were to not analyze the practice when the mind wandered but to return to the breath as soon as possible.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Something I just found after reading about actualism and PCE&amp;#039;s and how they are thoughtless:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;actualfreedom&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2e;au&amp;#x2f;library&amp;#x2f;topics&amp;#x2f;pce&amp;#x2e;htm"&gt;http://actualfreedom.com.au/library/topics/pce.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Pure Consciousness Event: During meditation (...) one may become utterly silent inside, as though in a gap between thoughts, where one becomes completely perception- and thought-free. One neither thinks nor perceives any mental or sensory content.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I tried going as far as I could (first time in awhile).  This isn&amp;#039;t a PCE because there&amp;#039;s sensory contact, but I purposefully pushed thoughts away and went back to the breath and I shifted higher and higher up to the 4th jhana with much more ease than in the past.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 18:15:52 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588266</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T18:15:52Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588234</link> <description>Counting the breaths from 1 to 10 helps develop continuous attention.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 17:13:09 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588234</guid> <dc:creator>Derek Cameron</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T17:13:09Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588162</link> <description>I should have been more specific, I am referring to the focus of the breath near the nostrils and not on the abdomen, hence the usage of &amp;#034;in&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;out&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am going to try using the abdomen as an anchor today and see how that works out. My concentration is weak and sloppy at the moment, focusing on the breath is a challenge and leaves me feeling frustrated.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 16:18:53 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5588162</guid> <dc:creator>Jake WM</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T16:18:53Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: wowwww this path is confusing</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587990</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Adam . .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;However how exactly do I not try to manipulate emotions directly?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Two really simple possibilities:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When you&amp;#039;re in contemplative mode: Treat them as if they&amp;#039;re all &amp;#039;made of&amp;#039; consciousness, and so are your thoughts. When you&amp;#039;re looking at thoughts and feelings that way, being curious about their composition as well as their content, you&amp;#039;re not directly in their grip any more, and you don&amp;#039;t feel as much need to manipulate them. (And &amp;#039;you&amp;#039;, the would-be manipulator, are &amp;#039;made of&amp;#039; the same stuff anyway). Also consider: nothing that&amp;#039;s made of consciousness can truly harm anything else that&amp;#039;s made of consciousness. Seeing things this way changes the way you feel, without direct manipulation. (If you were to employ this globally, I guess it&amp;#039;s analogous to the shift from content / mental proliferation to the 3Cs, except here there&amp;#039;s only 1C).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Other possibility: Work around them and focus on the situation instead. It&amp;#039;s what people have always done. ;-)</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 08:49:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587990</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T08:49:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: wowwww this path is confusing</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587880</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Adam . .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yea I think i know what you mean about the more expanded as opposed to narrow emotions are, and yes they are a bit more comfortable. However I really am not sure of my opinion on them in terms of their value, they seem to lack &amp;#034;innocence&amp;#034; and seem like a place to get stuck.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Understood and agreed. I wouldn&amp;#039;t make a religion out of them. I just figure that if you&amp;#039;re still subject to the afflictive emotions (whether you believe in their ultimate validity or not), it doesn&amp;#039;t make sense to eschew the healing feelings.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 06:48:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587880</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T06:48:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: wowwww this path is confusing</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587872</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Adam . .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;Yes this is all true. However how exactly do I not try to manipulate emotions directly? When they are there I react to them in some way or another. Maybe I go watch youtube videos and play video games, maybe I sit down for a serious focused contemplation, maybe I start ruminating about some topic. I think it is pretty hard to separate the emotion from the attempt to manipulate it. I wonder what the source of the emotion is in your opinion?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Speculating: As well as having the full suite of normal human passions, some people have an extra level of self-awareness or self-consciousness. (Cause or consequence of a neurosis). Part of the energy that would normally be channeled into stuff like finding a partner, establishing a career, striving to compete and excel in worldly ways, etc, has either been blocked for some reason, or has been turned back upon itself in ways that aren&amp;#039;t typical. Instead of being mostly transparent to ourselves and engaged with the world, our own thoughts and feelings become things to work upon and change. But we lack the leverage. And because of this, we get pulled into a cyclone of interactions with ourselves, trying to exert some kind of beneficial influence, but not knowing how to get a handle on it. For some people it&amp;#039;s a spur to artistic expression, intellectual / cultural achievements, etc; for others a psycho-spiritual quest. Either way, it&amp;#039;s bound to be wearying, frustrating and depressing sometimes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t know how much of your current feelings are primary, life related, and how many are a side-effect of an urge to fulfilment of some kind that&amp;#039;s currently not succeeding. I can only talk to you here about the secondary ones, of course. (Being no stranger to them).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(Will pick up the rest separately).</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 06:32:11 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587872</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T06:32:11Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Hello!</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587863</link> <description>Wow. I am loving this site. Very encouraging to read some of these posts.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I wanted to introduce myself, my name is Rob. I&amp;#039;m looking forward to meeting some of you guys, especially some of you have made it through DN.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I do not have a Buddhist background, so some of the terminology is strange (nanas, jhanas, etc). I have to admit that I&amp;#039;m not real fond of formal traditions, so Buddhism was a real turnoff for a long time. I guess now is a good time to be open minded.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have yet to find a teacher that I resonate with. So it&amp;#039;s refreshing to find a site like this with advanced practitioners.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As mentioned, I do not have a Buddhist background. I personally was curious about my experience, what &amp;#034;I&amp;#034; was, how the mind and emotions worked, what &amp;#034;reality&amp;#034; was, etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Unfortunately that curiosity launched me into Dark Night. It him me in April of 2013. I understand it better now, and the unpleasant side-effects have died down considerably.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The good news is that I can see similarities in the Buddhist texts and what I&amp;#039;ve experienced on my path. The path laid out in MCTB resonates greatly. I still oscillate between DN and EQ.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I happen to be one of those who has made some major wreckless decisions in DN (like bailing on my software engineering career). I&amp;#039;m not really sure how to deal with those decisions, but am working through them. I still have some issues with society. Like having to work 40+ hours a week (I find that exhausting). And, I&amp;#039;m not real sure how that&amp;#039;s going to play out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It seems that acceptance and letting go of control is on the of biggest issues we are dealing with here. Work is my biggest issue.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I personally want to have time for yoga, play guitar, and have time to hang out with people once and a while. I don&amp;#039;t know if that&amp;#039;s asking too much. I just don&amp;#039;t see how all of that is possible working so much (and having to commute).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Of course, time for meditation is non-negotiable.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m currently only meditating about 40 mins a day. But I think it&amp;#039;s a good idea to up those numbers to stay out of DN.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyways, I&amp;#039;d like to post from time to time just to hear back from some of you who were stuck in DN like I&amp;#039;ve been. I have some life questions and some advice would be nice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyways, hope you all are well.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Rob</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 06:04:04 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587863</guid> <dc:creator>Ivory</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T06:04:04Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: wowwww this path is confusing</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587813</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Adam . .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes this is all true. However how exactly do I not try to manipulate emotions directly? When they are there I react to them in some way or another. Maybe I go watch youtube videos and play video games, maybe I sit down for a serious focused contemplation, maybe I start ruminating about some topic. I think it is pretty hard to separate the emotion from the attempt to manipulate it. I wonder what the source of the emotion is in your opinion?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000cd"&gt;Reactivity is based on causes and conditions.  Develop 7 factors of awakening (especially investigation and Right Effort). Everytime you use your&lt;strong&gt; intention &lt;/strong&gt;to develop this there should be a question in your mind when you get results. &amp;#034;Shouldn&amp;#039;t I do this all the time?&amp;#034;  It&amp;#039;s easy to examine the practice instead of practicing.  The answer to most questions is to keep practicing consistently. Secondly you can &lt;strong&gt;note what is absent&lt;/strong&gt; and them start &lt;strong&gt;developing the conditions of mental peace&lt;/strong&gt; (mindfulness of 4 foundations, metta, concentration, virtue, etc.) Don&amp;#039;t analyze your practice just keep doing it with intention and action. &lt;strong&gt;Don&amp;#039;t look at anything as being deficient but natural cause and effect&lt;/strong&gt; (meaning you can create new causes and effects that reduce stress). It&amp;#039;s important to take responsibility for the cause and effect you put in the past but with a sense of allowing/acceptance and then intentions to cultivate differently. This wouldn&amp;#039;t be to measure yourself but to gain better effects.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000cd"&gt;Thoughts must be included in your investigation (meaning you don&amp;#039;t repress them or add clinging stories to them). If you are aware when thoughts are present you can see it&amp;#039;s the &lt;strong&gt;not allowing/not welcoming&lt;/strong&gt; that&amp;#039;s the problem. Thoughts don&amp;#039;t hurt when there&amp;#039;s mindfulness but when there isn&amp;#039;t mindfulness then they do. Welcome the unpleasant thoughts but don&amp;#039;t feed stories to them so they vanish naturally. Even simple things like paying attention to the breath when I&amp;#039;m agitated is a big relief.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Be prepared to feel not so good at times. Fighting or resisting it wears you out more than letting it be there for a while. Letting it be there is also more likely to give you a taste of the natural (affective, but still somewhat effective) antidotes to acute personal misery. Afflictive feelings aren&amp;#039;t as painful when they&amp;#039;re experienced in a less personal way... and that&amp;#039;s when the more transcendent feelings (love, compassion, beauty, feelings that have a bitter-sweet or painful-but-valuable tone) can start to arise in their place. This happens not from direct dis-identification / dissociation but from an organic loosening, widening or expansion out of your currently too-narrow identification as an isolated, vulnerable, uniquely afflicted &amp;#039;me&amp;#039;. Not to be rushed or forced, but allowed over time.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yea I think i know what you mean about the more expanded as opposed to narrow emotions are, and yes they are a bit more comfortable. However I really am not sure of my opinion on them in terms of their value, they seem to lack &amp;#034;innocence&amp;#034; and seem like a place to get stuck.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000cd"&gt;Watch how &amp;#034;letting it be&amp;#034;, (which is the correct prescription), often still has some aversion in it, so it really isn&amp;#039;t letting it be.  &lt;strong&gt;Welcoming&lt;/strong&gt; is a much better way to make sure you&amp;#039;re developing equanimity that&amp;#039;s a fresh response to the unpleasant. For me it&amp;#039;s like the difference between switching a light on or off.  Equanimity mixed with indifference or nihilism is something to avoid. Welcoming can counter this and of course you have to do it ALL the time to get maximum benefit. Note with a sense of &lt;strong&gt;welcoming/allowing.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaseed&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;teacher&amp;#x2f;210&amp;#x2f;talk&amp;#x2f;9813&amp;#x2f;"&gt;http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/210/talk/9813/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Just a couple of observations and things that have helped me above in the &lt;span style="color: #0000cd"&gt;blue&lt;/span&gt;.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 03:43:23 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587813</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T03:43:23Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: wowwww this path is confusing</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587757</link> <description>&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&amp;#034;There may be a quick fix or a radical final solution, but you&amp;#039;re unlikely to find it by groping at it from despair or shallow optimism. You&amp;#039;ve been through enough cycles of optimistic beginnings -&amp;gt; disappointment -&amp;gt; dejection, despair, confusion -&amp;gt; clearing the work bench, starting afresh, trying something else -&amp;gt; optimistic beginnings -&amp;gt; disappointment -&amp;gt; and so on. Better to settle into something that will allow for these natural cycles, but will also mature and ripen over time, and take you somewhere you haven&amp;#039;t been before.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;yes the despair and optimism have a shallow quality to them, they are often a play put on for myself by myself i think. It is possible to &amp;#034;allow&amp;#034; the cycles, see them as natural and take them less seriously. Then sometimes something deeper comes along and I figure &amp;#034;better take that seriously.&amp;#034; After a while that level of depth becomes integrated into the category of things not to be taken seriously.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Don&amp;#039;t waste your energy trying to manipulate emotions directly (e.g., trying to feel something you&amp;#039;re not currently feeling; trying not to feel what you are currently feeling; trying to change this current feeling into a different feeling). It only wears you out, doesn&amp;#039;t make you genuinely happy, and is downstream from where the action really is. (My experience is that working directly with emotions is like trying to clean up a river downstream from the source of the pollution. Others will disagree, and for plausible reasons; so I can only suggest that you look to your own experience and judge for yourself).&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes this is all true. However how exactly do I not try to manipulate emotions directly? When they are there I react to them in some way or another. Maybe I go watch youtube videos and play video games, maybe I sit down for a serious focused contemplation, maybe I start ruminating about some topic. I think it is pretty hard to separate the emotion from the attempt to manipulate it. I wonder what the source of the emotion is in your opinion?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Be prepared to feel not so good at times. Fighting or resisting it wears you out more than letting it be there for a while. Letting it be there is also more likely to give you a taste of the natural (affective, but still somewhat effective) antidotes to acute personal misery. Afflictive feelings aren&amp;#039;t as painful when they&amp;#039;re experienced in a less personal way... and that&amp;#039;s when the more transcendent feelings (love, compassion, beauty, feelings that have a bitter-sweet or painful-but-valuable tone) can start to arise in their place. This happens not from direct dis-identification / dissociation but from an organic loosening, widening or expansion out of your currently too-narrow identification as an isolated, vulnerable, uniquely afflicted &amp;#039;me&amp;#039;. Not to be rushed or forced, but allowed over time.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yea I think i know what you mean about the more expanded as opposed to narrow emotions are, and yes they are a bit more comfortable. However I really am not sure of my opinion on them in terms of their value, they seem to lack &amp;#034;innocence&amp;#034; and seem like a place to get stuck.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;You&amp;#039;re an extremely intelligent and knowledgeable guy, and you have a penchant for inquiry. But pure intellectual inquiry can easily lead deep into the thicket of views with no way out. I would suggest continuing with inquiry, but only if one or both of these conditions is met: (1) your inquiry is directed toward systematically &lt;/span&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;removing&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt; built-in assumptions and bringing you ever closer to something that is more primary / fundamental, the substrate of your thoughts and/or &amp;#039;substance&amp;#039; of them; (2) you have a reasonably pleasant and comfortable place to keep coming back to when you&amp;#039;re inquiring. (Personal note: this is where direct path advaita excels for me; it&amp;#039;s deeply soothing at an organic / somatic level, like it takes out thick layers of unnecessary tension and obscurity).&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Every once and a while the inquiry leads to a place of &amp;#034;less knowing&amp;#034; rather than &amp;#034;more knowing&amp;#034; and I think that is probably the skillful direction.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think my practice has been turning since the meltdown that started this thread towards &amp;#034;not knowing&amp;#034; which specifically means not having preconceptions or tightly held views on who I should be. Recognizing to some degree that however I am right now is how I have to be and it is already unnavoidably natural, pure and innocent in a sense. In this way I am recognizing that the apparent split between how I act/think/feel and how I want to act/think/feel is an illusion... I am acting thinking and feeling exactly how I want to. Becoming conscious of that insight by writing this feels a bit weird. Previously it often seemed like nothing I felt or did could be natural or honest but now it seems like nothing i can ever do or feel would be unnatural or dishonest... but what has really changed?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Don&amp;#039;t look to psycho-spiritual practice or insights as a way to shirk everyday social reality. Go through the motions if you have to. If you hold such things at arm&amp;#039;s length figuring you&amp;#039;re going to be &amp;#039;free&amp;#039; soon anyway, you&amp;#039;ll create a wider and wider gulf between your inner world and the world you still have to (reluctantly) participate in... and that&amp;#039;s a recipe for something breaking down. Go through the motions, at whatever modest level seems appropriate, even if your heart isn&amp;#039;t in it... until maybe it is.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This comment hits me in some way but I can&amp;#039;t figure out exactly what to say about it. Maybe it is that the apparent reluctance to participate in everyday social reality is just a story I tell myself somehow.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I continue to appreciate these conversations, though maybe they are just commentary on something that is just going to have its own unpredictable way.&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Sun, 21 Sep 2014 01:44:53 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587757</guid> <dc:creator>Adam . .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-21T01:44:53Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: wowwww this path is confusing</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587671</link> <description>Thanks for the update, Adam. (I know what you mean about it being hard to separate cause &amp;amp; consequence wrt practices and results).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway.... you wrote in for suggestions, so here are some of mine, based on my own experiences and my understanding of yours.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- There may be a quick fix or a radical final solution, but you&amp;#039;re unlikely to find it by groping at it from despair or shallow optimism. You&amp;#039;ve been through enough cycles of optimistic beginnings -&amp;gt; disappointment -&amp;gt; dejection, despair, confusion -&amp;gt; clearing the work bench, starting afresh, trying something else -&amp;gt; optimistic beginnings -&amp;gt; disappointment -&amp;gt; and so on. Better to settle into something that will allow for these natural cycles, but will also mature and ripen over time, and take you somewhere you haven&amp;#039;t been before.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- Don&amp;#039;t waste your energy trying to manipulate emotions directly (e.g., trying to feel something you&amp;#039;re not currently feeling; trying not to feel what you are currently feeling; trying to change this current feeling into a different feeling). It only wears you out, doesn&amp;#039;t make you genuinely happy, and is downstream from where the action really is. (My experience is that working directly with emotions is like trying to clean up a river downstream from the source of the pollution. Others will disagree, and for plausible reasons; so I can only suggest that you look to your own experience and judge for yourself).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- Be prepared to feel not so good at times. Fighting or resisting it wears you out more than letting it be there for a while. Letting it be there is also more likely to give you a taste of the natural (affective, but still somewhat effective) antidotes to acute personal misery. Afflictive feelings aren&amp;#039;t as painful when they&amp;#039;re experienced in a less personal way... and that&amp;#039;s when the more transcendent feelings (love, compassion, beauty, feelings that have a bitter-sweet or painful-but-valuable tone) can start to arise in their place. This happens not from direct dis-identification / dissociation but from an organic loosening, widening or expansion out of your currently too-narrow identification as an isolated, vulnerable, uniquely afflicted &amp;#039;me&amp;#039;. Not to be rushed or forced, but allowed over time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- You&amp;#039;re an extremely intelligent and knowledgeable guy, and you have a penchant for inquiry. But pure intellectual inquiry can easily lead deep into the thicket of views with no way out. I would suggest continuing with inquiry, but only if one or both of these conditions is met: (1) your inquiry is directed toward systematically &lt;em&gt;removing&lt;/em&gt; built-in assumptions and bringing you ever closer to something that is more primary / fundamental, the substrate of your thoughts and/or &amp;#039;substance&amp;#039; of them; (2) you have a reasonably pleasant and comfortable place to keep coming back to when you&amp;#039;re inquiring. (Personal note: this is where direct path advaita excels for me; it&amp;#039;s deeply soothing at an organic / somatic level, like it takes out thick layers of unnecessary tension and obscurity).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;- Don&amp;#039;t look to psycho-spiritual practice or insights as a way to shirk everyday social reality. Go through the motions if you have to. If you hold such things at arm&amp;#039;s length figuring you&amp;#039;re going to be &amp;#039;free&amp;#039; soon anyway, you&amp;#039;ll create a wider and wider gulf between your inner world and the world you still have to (reluctantly) participate in... and that&amp;#039;s a recipe for something breaking down. Go through the motions, at whatever modest level seems appropriate, even if your heart isn&amp;#039;t in it... until maybe it is.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(Will add more as it occurs to me, pending feedback).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All the best...</description> <pubDate>Sat, 20 Sep 2014 23:50:13 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587671</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-20T23:50:13Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Dream thought / Waking thought</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587517</link> <description>I think sleep effects are actually to be expected if you are meditating frequently.  I was surprised by them too when I was really &amp;#034;going hard&amp;#034; a while back, but there have been a lot of threads about sleep-related things here.  A common one is seeing through the eyelids, which, is essentially a Wake Induced Lucid Dream. I think it&amp;#039;s because concentration becomes more commonplace, and it becomes natural to &amp;#034;pay attention&amp;#034; when we normally wouldn&amp;#039;t. Actually, the things you&amp;#039;re reporting here, if you&amp;#039;re interested, you could probably go right into lucid dreams.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you are having trouble with the DN, this could also be a symptom of increased concentration - little things that used to go away on their own become obsessions.  Since you find yourself bouncing between DN (rumination) and equanimity, see what happens if you try using that concentration power to intentionally ignore the things that are causing problems.  If this brings you into equanimity again, you&amp;#039;ll see you have an &amp;#034;escape route&amp;#034; if things get too tough, and this&amp;#039;ll give you the confidence to examine the emotions and find their cause.  It can be tricky, but the DN can be resolved quickly once you work through the problems.  It&amp;#039;s helpful to think of it in a very conventional way - &amp;#034;I&amp;#039;m worried/mad/sad because of X.&amp;#034;  Once you identify X, you can simply ask yourself if X is worth being worried/mad/sad about.  You might try to say &amp;#034;no&amp;#034; and the mind insists &amp;#034;yes&amp;#034; but these things can change pretty quickly if you spend a little time trying to understand them.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 20 Sep 2014 22:27:50 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587517</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-20T22:27:50Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Why the Dark Night Sucks and Why You're Stuck in it.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587369</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;. Jake .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All too often folks-- especially those who have the longest and most dramatic (as judged by posts anyhow) DN-- are either overemphasizing the content of their DN as opposed to merely noticing the arising and passing of content on subtler and subtler levels, or else, trying to power through the DN through aggressive practice which conveniently reinforces the felt sense of being a solid practitioner-self. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I believe that this was my problem. It&amp;#039;s getting clearer now. I was trying to dance around DN, thinking that if I did A -&amp;gt; B -&amp;gt; C, that DN would cease to arise.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The way out is through it. It has to be welcomed and felt fully, as do all emotions and states.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 20 Sep 2014 18:42:09 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587369</guid> <dc:creator>Ivory</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-20T18:42:09Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587363</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jake WM:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Following and noting the breath feels clunky during my sits recently. Doing open awareness noting without using the breath as an anchor feels like I am not doing the practice correctly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Does it matter if I use the breath as an anchor? I am leaning towards just sitting, noting anything that arises. The problem with this is that my attention shifts constantly, for example: feeling &amp;gt; hearing &amp;gt; hearing &amp;gt; hearing &amp;gt; thinking &amp;gt; thinking &amp;gt; feeling. This feels like I am not concentrating enough on one particular object, not giving myself time to investigate it clearly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have no teacher and little guidance, and do not trust my decisions these days. Looking for some reassurance that I am doing the practice correctly just to restore some faith to keep my practice going strong.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The breath is a great anchor and it saves me a lot of the time because it&amp;#039;s simple and concentration on the breath is a factor of awakening.  I think that you need to look at the 4 foundations of mindfulness and pick different foundations to work on.  It&amp;#039;s helpful to notice some of the repetitions in it.  Most of the important hindrances, mind states and fetters are different names for &lt;strong&gt;greed&lt;/strong&gt;/lust/desire and &lt;strong&gt;hatred&lt;/strong&gt;/aversion. &lt;strong&gt;Delusion&lt;/strong&gt; would mesh well with ignorance in dependent arising.  By treating objects as separate from cause and effect (inherent existence) this leads the brain to try and grasp or avert away from those objects with a push and pull of &amp;#034;objects/self object&amp;#034;.  Another simple way is to include any desire trance or aversion reaction and note it as &amp;#034;fixation&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Note &amp;#034;absent greed&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;absent hatred&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;absent delusion&amp;#034;.  When those things are absent you are about as free as you can be.  When those experiences start up again you can note &amp;#034;greed&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;aversion&amp;#034;, and &amp;#034;delusion&amp;#034; and let them be because mindfulness by itself prevents stories from feeding those states.  Continue noting anything else arising but in daily life focus particularly on greed, hatred, and delusion. Delusion about objects -&amp;gt; Do I like or dislike them? -&amp;gt; greed or hatred.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I like Daniel&amp;#039;s old quote below:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;Things happen due to conditions.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;Intentions cause actions.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;Sensations cause mental impressions.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;Start with those. Notice them again and again and again, thousands of times, arising causally, lawfully, with conditions leading to more conditions that lead to more conditions.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;It is that simple, but beyond the theory, you have to get good at seeing it in real-time, in your field of experience, in your body, in your mind, and, when you get really good at that, it is clear: intentions arise causally, lawfully, not due to some self. Mental impressions arise lawfully, causally, not due to some self. All is seen as it is, happening naturally, based on the laws of reality, not on the whims of some imagined independent entity that is somehow outside of lawful causality. This is a transformative insight.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;Helpful?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;Daniel&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Sat, 20 Sep 2014 18:23:06 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587363</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-20T18:23:06Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Dream thought / Waking thought</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587350</link> <description>I&amp;#039;m curious if anyone else experiences this...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I&amp;#039;m in bed at night and start to drift off to sleep, I&amp;#039;ll start to dream. A few waking thoughts will arise, then dream thought will arise (images and such). Waking thought and dream thought will flow back and forth as a seamless flow playing out like a movie reel. I&amp;#039;ll even notice images of the &amp;#034;body&amp;#034; lying in &amp;#034;bed&amp;#034; appear in that flow.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s not so much that &amp;#034;I&amp;#034; wake up and fall back asleep. It doesn&amp;#039;t feel like there&amp;#039;s a &amp;#034;me&amp;#034; there. Just appearances arising in spaciousness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I posted this in the Dark Night section because I still oscillate between DN and Equanimity. Meditation has some strange side effects like the one I&amp;#039;m mentioning here. As meditation deepens the self-ness nature of experience presents itself on many levels. This is just one I happen to find interesting.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 20 Sep 2014 18:05:21 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587350</guid> <dc:creator>Ivory</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-20T18:05:21Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587327</link> <description>Okay, so the abdomen is usually recommended in the Burmese tradition becaues anicca tends to be more obvious there, but the nostrils are recommended in other traditions (Pa Auk Sayadaw?) because concentration tends to be stronger, with it being a more restricted area of awareness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Both are perfectly fine for insight practice, but the abdomen is the most common in the Mahasi tradition and on this message board. I think the OP is talking about the abdomen but his use of &amp;#034;in/out&amp;#034; is perhaps more appropriate for the nostrils, or the entire breathing process.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sayadaw U Pandita recommends &amp;#034;verbally&amp;#034; noting the rising and falling, so I don&amp;#039;t think it&amp;#039;s an impediment to practice as long as one is mindful of what is going on.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 20 Sep 2014 17:28:02 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587327</guid> <dc:creator>Eric M W</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-20T17:28:02Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587104</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Derek Cameron:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Wait a minute ... are we talking about watching the breath at the nostrils or at the abdomen here? If at the abdomen, Mahasi Sayadaw uses the terms &amp;#034;rising&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;falling,&amp;#034; but he says &lt;u&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/u&gt; to use the actual words. The awareness is what matters. See Basic Exercise I on pages 5-6 of Mahasi Sayadaw&amp;#039;s &lt;em&gt;Practical Vipassana Exercises: &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;&lt;/em&gt;Never verbally repeat the words, rising, falling, and do not think of rising and falling as words. Be aware only of the actual process of the rising and falling movements of the abdomen.&amp;#034;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/mahasit1.pdf&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Clarification: Yes, I am talking about watching the breath at the abdomen.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also I&amp;#039;m talking about the instructions I received from teachers from the Ajahn Tong tradition.&lt;br /&gt;The instructions aren&amp;#039;t identical to those from Mahasi Sayadaw, that&amp;#039;s true. It works nevertheless. Probably it works better for many people, otherwise they wouldn&amp;#039;t have introduced it.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 20 Sep 2014 08:49:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587104</guid> <dc:creator>bernd the broter</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-20T08:49:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586909</link> <description>Wait a minute ... are we talking about watching the breath at the nostrils or at the abdomen here? If at the abdomen, Mahasi Sayadaw uses the terms &amp;#034;rising&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;falling,&amp;#034; but he says &lt;u&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/u&gt; to use the actual words. The awareness is what matters. See Basic Exercise I on pages 5-6 of Mahasi Sayadaw&amp;#039;s &lt;em&gt;Practical Vipassana Exercises: &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;&lt;/em&gt;Never verbally repeat the words, rising, falling, and do not think of rising and falling as words. Be aware only of the actual process of the rising and falling movements of the abdomen.&amp;#034;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/mahasit1.pdf</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 23:25:43 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586909</guid> <dc:creator>Derek Cameron</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T23:25:43Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586900</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jake WM:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Question again about the breath that I am still confused about...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I notice the breath, do I note...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;iiiiiiiiiiiiinnn&amp;#034; - &amp;#034;ooouuuuutttt&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Or do I note...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;in&amp;#034; - actually feel / notice the breath - &amp;#034;in&amp;#034; - notice - &amp;#034;in&amp;#034; - notice - &amp;#034;out&amp;#034;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I used to do it verbally (silently) then on retreat I learned to feel the actual sensations....they get more and more subtle as you get concentrated which makes you have to focus more and get more concentrated....kinda cool. Use a finger to block one nostril to really feel the sensations....lock onto that feeling of air rushing past. Then let go and just breath a little harder then usual to lock onto the sensations...gradually stop manipulating the breath in any way and just stay on the sensations...move from one nostril to the other to switch it up. This will take a bit of time to get it...but once you do it&amp;#039;s worth it.&lt;br /&gt;~D</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 23:16:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586900</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T23:16:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586852</link> <description>Noting the 6 sense doors is fine. The danger is that you can become ungrounded or lost in all the sensations, but if your concentration is good you should be fine. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Some folks do better with focusing on a single thing to note, such as the breath, but others are better at a more open practice. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When noting the breath, there are different approaches, but I believe Daniel recommends noting &amp;#034;ininininin outoutoutoutoutout&amp;#034; because it helps impermanence to show itself. Also bear in mind that the breath is actually more than just the breath, it&amp;#039;s made of a bunch of smaller, faster sensations, including mental impressions of the breath. It can involve all six sense doors if you really get down to business.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 21:32:29 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586852</guid> <dc:creator>Eric M W</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T21:32:29Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586849</link> <description>I speak the words &amp;#034;rising&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;falling&amp;#034; rather slowly, so they align with the movement of the belly. (Not sure if this is according to the instructions, now I think about it. I would guess that it is a problem if it makes you playing around with the words instead of focusing on the body. Now I think of it, I&amp;#039;m not sure if I keep stretching the words, when the movement is very slow. Hm.)&lt;br /&gt;(which you probably mean by &amp;#034;iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn&amp;#034;)&lt;br /&gt;I try to watch the movement from the beginning to the end.&lt;br /&gt;So I do those two things at the same time. The main focus is on the body.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 21:31:04 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586849</guid> <dc:creator>bernd the broter</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T21:31:04Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586842</link> <description>Question again about the breath that I am still confused about...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I notice the breath, do I note...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;iiiiiiiiiiiiinnn&amp;#034; - &amp;#034;ooouuuuutttt&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Or do I note...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;in&amp;#034; - actually feel / notice the breath - &amp;#034;in&amp;#034; - notice - &amp;#034;in&amp;#034; - notice - &amp;#034;out&amp;#034;</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 21:15:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586842</guid> <dc:creator>Jake WM</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T21:15:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586797</link> <description>Hi,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I trained in the Ajahn Tong tradtion, which is an adaptation of Mahasi technique.&lt;br /&gt;There noting is taught roughly like this: (Ajahn Yuttadhammo explains it better than I could)&lt;br /&gt;note &amp;#034;rising, falling&amp;#034; all the time.&lt;br /&gt;When some distraction arises, note that three times. after that return to the breath (i.e. the rising, falling).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My teachers there told me:&lt;br /&gt; Students&amp;#039; most common problem is that they don&amp;#039;t return to the breath. One teacher advised me to note at max 3 different things before going back to the breath. If they don&amp;#039;t come back, they fail to develop enough concentration and don&amp;#039;t progress. It usually happens with people who haven&amp;#039;t learnt the technique properly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My own experience is that this method is very simple and works good. There&amp;#039;s not much you can do wrong, and it would reliably develop insight&amp;amp;concentration for me. I also noticed that concentration declined when I failed to come back to the breath regularly and then stay there.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Why do you not use breath as an anchor if it doesn&amp;#039;t feel right otherwise?</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 19:27:13 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586797</guid> <dc:creator>bernd the broter</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T19:27:13Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586706</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jake WM:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Following and noting the breath feels clunky during my sits recently. Doing open awareness noting without using the breath as an anchor feels like I am not doing the practice correctly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Does it matter if I use the breath as an anchor? I am leaning towards just sitting, noting anything that arises. The problem with this is that my attention shifts constantly, for example: feeling &amp;gt; hearing &amp;gt; hearing &amp;gt; hearing &amp;gt; thinking &amp;gt; thinking &amp;gt; feeling. This feels like I am not concentrating enough on one particular object, not giving myself time to investigate it clearly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have no teacher and little guidance, and do not trust my decisions these days. Looking for some reassurance that I am doing the practice correctly just to restore some faith to keep my practice going strong.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Noting the 6 senses is just fine. Just go at the speed that you can to see the attention shift from one sense to another or the same one again. See what results you get from this. If you want to do some ping pong noting on google hangouts I&amp;#039;d be willing.&lt;br /&gt;~D</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 16:33:05 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586706</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T16:33:05Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Noting - Open vs. Anchored</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586664</link> <description>Following and noting the breath feels clunky during my sits recently. Doing open awareness noting without using the breath as an anchor feels like I am not doing the practice correctly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Does it matter if I use the breath as an anchor? I am leaning towards just sitting, noting anything that arises. The problem with this is that my attention shifts constantly, for example: feeling &amp;gt; hearing &amp;gt; hearing &amp;gt; hearing &amp;gt; thinking &amp;gt; thinking &amp;gt; feeling. This feels like I am not concentrating enough on one particular object, not giving myself time to investigate it clearly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have no teacher and little guidance, and do not trust my decisions these days. Looking for some reassurance that I am doing the practice correctly just to restore some faith to keep my practice going strong.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 14:49:13 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586664</guid> <dc:creator>Jake WM</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T14:49:13Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Really scared</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585657</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Will:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;It did not occur to me that the Dark Night is a period of rumination but now that I think about it I totally agree. Most of the time the fear is about the future, whether or not I have been a good person, am going to hell, am going to come back as a spider monkey, i.e. pretty useless but nevertheless frightening thoughts.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You can resolve those thoughts by asking yourself a simple questions. Can you trust yourself? If you answer &amp;#034;no&amp;#034;, then those doubts are why you believe you need to hold on to your fear. At our core, we are all &amp;#034;good&amp;#034; - the things that cause us to be malicious or sad or angry are aquired traits we use to protect ourselves. If you trust yourself and allow your actions to come from spontenaity, you can see in real time that these &amp;#034;feeling&amp;#034; reminders aren&amp;#039;t needed. It brings relief to take your trust away from anxiety and put it onto the spontaneous core of your intellect.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you ask yourself, &amp;#034;have I been a good person?&amp;#034; Resond with, &amp;#034;will this question help me be good in the future?&amp;#034; Someone who is tense and anxious is likely to take out their feelings on other people. Instead, by being relaxed, you will be likely to be kind and generous. You don&amp;#039;t need to be anxious about your morality because it doesn&amp;#039;t help you be more moral. You are perfectly capable of pondering the merits of any action without fear of those actions, and without fear, you can more easily decide what will lead to your goal - being a good person.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you ask yourself, &amp;#034;am I going to hell?&amp;#034; You can respond with, &amp;#034;does asking this keep me out of hell?&amp;#034; This question will just make you anxious, and that anxiety may cause you to do things you don&amp;#039;t want to. There&amp;#039;s no need to be afraid of hell if you&amp;#039;re a good person, and the easiest way to be a good person is to be content and relaxed. There is no purpose for the anxiety you feel, so you can safely drop it, walk away from it, see it as useless. When you think about hell, consider the best attitude that will keep you out of it. By feeling contentment, you will not do anything that will lead you to hell. Thus, feeling contentment becomes the goal.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The best way to be content, is to trust yourself and trust the ultimate benevolence of spontenaity. Trust the core of who you are - a happy and harmless human being.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As for being a spider monkey, their lives don&amp;#039;t seem so bad, eh? Haha</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 17:28:08 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585657</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T17:28:08Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Really scared</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585595</link> <description>By the way Daniel, as soon as I started looking at the anxiety in my stomach as something enjoyable and thrilling and not unhealthy, I felt calmer almost immediately. This is something that had not occured to me to try.  Thank you and everyone else for all of your help.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:31:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585595</guid> <dc:creator>Will</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T15:31:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Really scared</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585591</link> <description>Thank you all very much for your help. It did not occur to me that the Dark Night is a period of rumination but now that I think about it I totally agree. Most of the time the fear is about the future, whether or not I have been a good person, am going to hell, am going to come back as a spider monkey, i.e. pretty useless but nevertheless frightening thoughts. My mind has always had a tendency to go to these places in the past, and whereas six months ago I could effortlessly drop the thoughts and return to breathe meditation, now its seems like its in complete overdrive. I think I am having a hard time believing that Stream-entry is possible for me, but maybe that&amp;#039;s just more rumination. And taking a break from the rumination and doing something else like going for a jog sounds really, really good. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I will put the advice given here to good use and let everyone know how it is turning out for me. I think that I will still go for the 10 day retreat starting next week, because I am feeling more confident and would really like this Dark Night night crap to diminish. I hope you guys  know how much it helps to be able to talk about this stuff -- I haven&amp;#039;t been able to really express to the people around me what the Dark Night is like, so it is very reassuring to have everyone&amp;#039;s help here. Thanks again everyone.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 15:26:41 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585591</guid> <dc:creator>Will</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T15:26:41Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Really scared</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585479</link> <description>Lots of good advice here already.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Notice that the sensations of fear can&amp;#039;t hurt you. This is a really important thing to just check out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Consider opening your eyes, sitting in the room, noticing the room and your body in it, and just notice that the part of the room where your body is has some sensations of fear and that is ok, as it can&amp;#039;t actually do anything bad at all, so you will be ok.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The room is safe.&lt;br /&gt;The body is safe.&lt;br /&gt;The sensations of fear are totally safe, totally non-toxic, just more qualities of what is going on, like colors, like the textures of a small part of the space in the room, that is all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Being an adrenaline junkie (remember, I work in a trauma center ER), I actually find Fear really thrilling and enjoyable, like a good horror movie, like a good roller coaster.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Try to appreciate that perspective, as, just like a horror movie and a good roller coaster, nothing is actually happening that is going to hurt you, so you can enjoy the thrill, the charge, the juice of that fear and really get into it if you wish to and be just fine.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thinks to play around with and think about and enjoy the adventure of,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Daniel</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 10:15:02 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585479</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T10:15:02Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Really scared</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585077</link> <description>Hey Will,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t have time to read through the whole thread right now, so I&amp;#039;m sorry if I&amp;#039;m just repeating things here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s important to realize that anxiety and emotions always have a reason for existing.  My personal theory on the dark night is that meditation increases concentration, but it does not resolve problems.  So what happens is, as the mind becomes more focused, even very small problems that you used to forget about very quickly are focused on and this creates rumination that leads to powerful and terrifying emotional states.  The advice on this forum - to stick with sensations no matter what - is a kind of brute force way of dealing with things.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is an easier way through, though.  My advice would be that, the moment you notice any kind of desperation in your desire to get out of an emotion, you distract yourself.  Go play some games, go for a walk, do something physical.  F orget about the sensations completely.  Then, once you&amp;#039;ve calmed down a bit and aren&amp;#039;t obsessing, examine what caused the emotion to find the cause.  There is always a cause!  After you understand the cause with a clear mind, try to notice when the cascade effect is starting again in the future and take your atention off of it.  The dark night is rumination, so break ruminations as soon as they happen.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, at a specific time you set aside (this is important - call it you self-therapy time or something - don&amp;#039;t do this throughout the day, just at the special time) perposefully bring up these issues and visualize yourself accepting the most negative outcomes you can imagine.  It&amp;#039;s important to realize that the fear DOES have a cause.  Don&amp;#039;t just say you have no idea where it&amp;#039;s coming from, that&amp;#039;s just giving your mind an excuse to suppress things.  If you can&amp;#039;t think of anything, assume you&amp;#039;re afraid of terrible pain and death, and imagine yourself calming walking to a firing squad or getting into a car accident.  If this makes you agitated, stop for a moment, take a few deep breaths, and try again.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This works, please try it.  There&amp;#039;s no need to blindly stare at horrible sensations.  The key to getting through any anxiety is to learn to trust yourself and feel confident that you can deal with the things your imagination presents to you.  Right now you are afraid of your imagination, and you are afraid of the sensations themselves.  By visualizing yourself actively dealing with the worst you can imagine, it will allow you to let go into spontenaity because you will trust yourself.  This is the direct path to mental stability.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 10:42:38 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585077</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T10:42:38Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Really scared</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584056</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Will:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Thank you both so incredibly much. Just hearing back from someone makes all the difference in world. I feel so much more confident. I will reconsider whether going on retreat is something that I am up to at this point. After I read both of your posts, I sat down and just followed the breath for a little while. It was relaxed and calm and the fear from earlier seemed to have definetley dissipated. Sorry about my freak out earlier, I suppose it was a long time coming. Thank you again to both of you, just knowing that this experience is in a sense normal and inevitable and that other people here have dealt with it helps so much. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Hey will. I&amp;#039;m glad you found the help you need. This place really is amazing for dealing with this kind of stuff. And no need to worry about posting a &amp;#034;freak out&amp;#034;, we need those posts. They keep it real so people know the full range of what can happen from meditating.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2014 06:49:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584056</guid> <dc:creator>Alex E</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-15T06:49:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Really scared</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584023</link> <description>Hi, Will. When I was going through this same terror (February till June), my only way of coping was to back off insight/vipassana practice completely and stick to &amp;#034;calm abiding&amp;#034; breath meditation and loving-kindness (metta) practice. And, as mentioned above, sitting with a group somehow makes the energy so much more supportive and gentle. I had a really rough two DNs in a row, and I didn&amp;#039;t practice much at all through them, maybe only 30 minutes per week. But that didn&amp;#039;t stop me at all from getting to low and then to high equanimity. </description> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2014 04:52:15 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584023</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-15T04:52:15Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Really scared</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584015</link> <description>Thank you both so incredibly much. Just hearing back from someone makes all the difference in world. I feel so much more confident. I will reconsider whether going on retreat is something that I am up to at this point. After I read both of your posts, I sat down and just followed the breath for a little while. It was relaxed and calm and the fear from earlier seemed to have definetley dissipated. Sorry about my freak out earlier, I suppose it was a long time coming. Thank you again to both of you, just knowing that this experience is in a sense normal and inevitable and that other people here have dealt with it helps so much. </description> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2014 04:15:56 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584015</guid> <dc:creator>Will</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-15T04:15:56Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Really scared</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583985</link> <description>Acceptance is important in the practice but make sure you&amp;#039;re still noting.  Try and note with bare awareness first before the note and don&amp;#039;t exclude any experiences like &amp;#034;analyzing&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;strategizing&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;doubt&amp;#034; etc.  You&amp;#039;re trying to notice enough detail so that it looks like there is no self but cause and effect instead.  You can note intentions and then actions.  All forms of thinking are allowed.  Sometimes just having people be completely normal and let go of clinging is good to simplify the practice so noting isn&amp;#039;t too mechanical.  Let your attention go where it wants to and &lt;strong&gt;focus more on noting it than stopping it&lt;/strong&gt;.  When you realize that your mind wandered &lt;strong&gt;you&amp;#039;re already back so there&amp;#039;s no need to have extra aversion to a wandering mind.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Next make sure you &lt;strong&gt;welcome&lt;/strong&gt; all sensations because habits will come out of your unconscious and trying to block them with more thinking/noting is more aversion. When there&amp;#039;s no mindfulness the habitual impulses will likely guide you to the same thinking and acting behaviours you&amp;#039;ve done in the past.  Maintaining awareness (in a gentle way) and by not clinging/ruminating/fixating/obsessing you can notice that those impulses (positive or negative) extinguish on their own and don&amp;#039;t require any repression but instead waiting and patience.  It&amp;#039;s like waiting for it to naturally pass away while staying with the body.  You can feel if you like or dislike a thought in the body that&amp;#039;s why in Buddhism it&amp;#039;s treated as 6 senses instead of 5 to be mindful of.  When the impulse passes away on it&amp;#039;s own it should feel like the brain resets into a non-reactive normal state.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the dark night (which is really just withdrawal symptoms because we are addicted to the chemicals triggered by our thinking and perceptions of objects), it&amp;#039;s good to block out all thinking and develop a concentration practice to reduce agitation.  You see this as a steadying move in the 7 factors to awakening.  It&amp;#039;s a temporary action but it can reduce the clinging and you can return to the insight practice.  Have faith and belief that it will pass because these bouts feel like crap when you&amp;#039;re in them but when they disapate on their own your new baseline habit of equanimity is becoming stronger and stronger. When you see the relief happen on it&amp;#039;s own you can trust on patience.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So some ways to avoid trapdoors:&lt;ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Maintain awareness without examining it.&lt;/strong&gt; Notice any aversion connected to the intention to pay attention.  That&amp;#039;s a clue that there&amp;#039;s some aversion to thinking you don&amp;#039;t want.  Paying attention should be an understanding that the consciousness (knowing part of the mind) is already automatically registering experience (including thinking) so nudging awareness to the objects of investigation should be gentle and have little strain.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Everything has the flavour of the impermanence (emptiness is another way of saying the same thing).&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Everything is cause and effect including your meditation practice.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Allow fast thinking to arise and don&amp;#039;t cling/repress/ruminate etc on it.  Thinking has to be allowed otherwise it&amp;#039;s just a temporary concentration practice.  With time and practice seeing thinking as it&amp;#039;s happening is easier.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Do not view appearances as being deficient (eg. have &lt;strong&gt;preferences&lt;/strong&gt; but &lt;strong&gt;don&amp;#039;t hold/cling/repress/ruminate&lt;/strong&gt; on them)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;When you&amp;#039;re not clinging to preferences the thoughts that naturally happen&lt;strong&gt; simultaneously arise and pass away&lt;/strong&gt;.  This is what makes thinking okay but at the same time not hurt.  Thinking is so highly manipulated in meditation because when it goes negative we start having aversion to thinking.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you &lt;strong&gt;welcome&lt;/strong&gt; thinking impulses and elaborate and add on to the skillful ones and let drop the unskillful ones then there&amp;#039;s less need to rein in thinking like reining in a horse. Everything is letting go if you don&amp;#039;t cling to anything.  Studying &lt;strong&gt;Right Effort&lt;/strong&gt; should be useful here and is very similar to classic cognitive therapy.  When you look at the word effort it should be more about consistency than forcing and straining. Gentle consistent effort.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;When welcoming impulses try and relax the body because fight or flight responses tend to tense the body and the tense body can continue to feed negative thoughts.  This is because vedana (pleasant, neutral and especially unpleasant sensations) triggers craving or aversion which in turn triggers clinging/complaining thinking/fixation/obsession/rumination.  To explain clinging look at how the mind quickly dislikes a situation with perception...&amp;#034;this is bad&amp;#034;, but then it goes into a story &amp;#034;this is bad &lt;strong&gt;because, because, because&lt;/strong&gt; etc&amp;#034;.  That &amp;#034;&lt;strong&gt;because&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;#034; in the repetative stories is clinging.  The brain can cling all day if you keep feeding it.  Instead of repressing it you can just stop feeding more becauses and the last impulse will die on it&amp;#039;s own.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;As you put into place these practices (which is less a doing and more a letting be) you should eventually see equanimity and eventually develop a strong habit of it.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Summary: Don&amp;#039;t repress, don&amp;#039;t cling, relax muscles, and don&amp;#039;t measure/rehearse/examine/self-reference over awareness or the practice instructions.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;I&amp;#039;ve been through the dark night and it&amp;#039;s just temporary waves of withdrawal symptoms but you should look into those negative feelings until you see some freedom hidden in there.  You&amp;#039;re becoming less addicted to your habits.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hopefully that helps you!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Metta,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Richard</description> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2014 03:26:46 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583985</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-15T03:26:46Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: wowwww this path is confusing</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583935</link> <description>I didn&amp;#039;t see the last two replies till just now, I was returning to this thread to give some updates on the week since that first post. What has been happening in a nutshell is that I am living my life as best i can, then whenever the familiar feeling starts coming up i instantly try to be as present as possible. It is interesting how it has been working, almost like a &amp;#034;hand to hot stove&amp;#034; reaction. As soon as a certain feeling appears, which i can immediately distinguish from other feelings, there is an intense arising of presence. The feeling usually has an accompaniment of negative thoughts about the future, and those are basically not taken seriously and discarded, labeled as &amp;#034;imaginative, speculative, biased, negative thinking.&amp;#034; The approach is a bit different from what has come before because I am just dropping the emotion like a hot coal, whereas before I might have used it to &amp;#034;motivate&amp;#034; myself into some action or I might have gotten upset about it being there. Perhaps something inside of me has realized how dangerous and useless that particular feeling is. Perhaps it is repressive and won&amp;#039;t lead anywhere though. I will see.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;of all the things you&amp;#039;ve practiced so far in your life, what has actually delivered the most benefit to you in terms of peace, happiness and understanding?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;This should be a simple question I think, but for me it isn&amp;#039;t. The reason it isn&amp;#039;t is because I am not sure if all the peaceful happy times were just based on how much I bought into the idea that my practice of *whatever* was working for me. Such that I would feel really happy and could be quite peaceful if I just believed I was &amp;#034;getting somewhere&amp;#034; because I bought into the conceptual explanation of how this practice worked. I think the time I felt happiest in this way was practicing Byron Katie style with the 4 questions. Then again it might be that she is an incredibly impressive presence/speaker and her description of her freedom is more radical than anyone else&amp;#039;s.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I was also pretty happy around when I first came to the DhO and heard Tarin talking about Actual Freedom, perhaps for the same reason. He described his freedom as being quite complete and he also had a very alluring innocence and sincerity quality. For all I know these people tricked themselves then tricked me... or maybe thats the cynical self that is trying to protect its depression talking!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2014 01:45:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583935</guid> <dc:creator>Adam . .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-15T01:45:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Really scared</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583885</link> <description>First thing that comes to mind: You can find some comfort in knowing that other people have been there and passed it. So it is temporary, like all things. And we have some knowledge about how to get through it. Make sure to read up on the suggestions given in MCTB and the discussions here. But the bottom line is just sitting and observing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As for what makes it easier, in my experience metta meditation helps a lot. Also group meditation makes it possible to sit when it isn&amp;#039;t possible otherwise.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And the attitude of &amp;#034;surrender&amp;#034; is helpful.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;About the 10 day Goenka retreat. I was also in dark night (I still go back and forth) when I went to my first 10 day retreat last December. I also had anxiety and fears. They blew up during the retreat. I had an pretty bad panic attack. It was a very difficult and traumatic experience. I don&amp;#039;t think it was entirely a good idea for me to do it at that time. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t want to scare you more but 10 day in isolation is a difficult thing as it is. Moreover people in there don&amp;#039;t have a clue about how to deal with people with anxiety. If you are feeling really scared now in the comfort of your home and with all the distractions, you can be sure that they will get more intense when you are in isolation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If I was doing it again I would hold off the retreat. Just my two cents as someone who has been meditating for 2 years or so, deals with anxiety and has been through the dark night stuff and still goes back and forth.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope I didn&amp;#039;t add to your fears. I just thought I should share my relevant experience.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My suggestion would be to work on strengthening your concentration, mindfulness and presence. Don&amp;#039;t rush things. Be patient.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As for hope, sure there is a lot of hope. Look at all the people here who are dealing with or have dealt with the same stuff. They understand what you are going through. Some of them have seen the other end. There is a lot of compassionate, helpful and supportive people here. Make use of it. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is a guy who mapped this thing about 1500 years ago. How cool is that. It is known territory. Or at least we have some idea. You just need to sit down and observe. Observe that these things are impermanent and impersonal. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You are getting to know what suffering is. The more you see it for what it is, the easier it will become.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Important thing is you need to stop wanting to get out of it. Desire is a big hinderance. &lt;strong&gt;Surrender&lt;/strong&gt; is a better attitude.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Find a meditation group in your area.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Exercise, eat well, be in good company, be kind to yourself.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2014 00:15:20 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583885</guid> <dc:creator>Trial And Error</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-15T00:15:20Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Really scared</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583870</link> <description>Hello, I am really freaked out about some Dark Night issues right now and I could really use some help. I have never posted here before, but I came across this website by accident a few months ago when I was trying to find out what the hell has happened to me. My meditation practice started off strong about a year ago, and I was having many blissfull, still moments of mind. And then all of a sudden it was as if I could no longer meditate. Every time I would sit down my mind felt like it was made of porrige. It wouldn&amp;#039;t stay on the breath and when it did out of sheer will power it only lasted for about 20 seconds and then would run off somewhere else.  Anyway, after a period of about three months of this, I started having the feeling of near-constant anxiety, with periods of just full blown terror. I am not interested in anything anymore and I can barely work, partly because I am so anxious, partly because I cannot focus on a damn thing. Everything that I have read about the DN from MCTB convinces me that I am somewhere in the dukkha nanas, but it feels utterly overwhelming. I just want it to end. I just got up from laying in a ball in my room begging Buddha to make the pain stop and I realized...maybe I need to do something about this. So I decided to post on here. I have read numerous other posts that are very simliar, so I apologize if this has already been answered. I am just freaking out so much. I don&amp;#039;t know what to do. I have tried noting practices all week, and for some reason I find them terrifying. I have never read anything in any of my Dharma books that explains this. I don&amp;#039;t even know what I&amp;#039;m afraid of. Anyway I could really use some hope right now. I am scheduled to go on a 10 day Goenka retreat next week, and I am really afraid that it will make things worse and that I will flip out. Sorry again about the repetetiveness of this post and thanks in advance.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 14 Sep 2014 23:50:29 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583870</guid> <dc:creator>Will</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-14T23:50:29Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Why the Dark Night Sucks and Why You're Stuck in it.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583744</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Tyler Durden:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When you say, &amp;#034;Don&amp;#039;t turn away from reality,&amp;#034; this is true. However, one&amp;#039;s avoidance patterns have to be made conscious or they are going to keep playing out. Seeing thoughts and images as &amp;#034;not-self&amp;#034; may give you some space to be present and open up to emotion, but you do have to see through some of those beliefs that keep you trapped in your patterns.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There IS a personal element to this. And that is going to be unique to everyone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Right, I agree for the most part.  All I&amp;#039;m trying to do is give people a different perspective that has the potential to be empowering.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Our perceptions regarding experience are fluid, and we have the power to shift them, irregardless of how challenging that is in each individual case.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You&amp;#039;re not going to see through what&amp;#039;s keeping you trapped until you face your experience, plain and simple.  Being able to make that shift can be helped by a shift in perception regarding the nature of the dark night.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 14 Sep 2014 21:12:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583744</guid> <dc:creator>dat Buddha-field</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-14T21:12:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Why the Dark Night Sucks and Why You're Stuck in it.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583559</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;dat Buddha-field:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If your Dark Night seems to be some eternal, hellish nightmare you&amp;#039;re not approaching it in a skillful way. The primary reason you are in the DN is because you need to learn it&amp;#039;s lessons.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I agree with this.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;You&amp;#039;re going to be in the DN until you learn what it is trying to teach you. There are difficult but important lessons to be had. Note and release your aversion to the DN. More than that, become the dark night! Revel in all it&amp;#039;s horrific, frightening, and terrible glory. Let the Dark Night flow through you! Attain it&amp;#039;s evil bliss. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s only part of it. Yes, you have to open up to all of experience, including the Dark Night&amp;#039;s horrific mental, emotional, and physical states.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s not all of it. And it certainly isn&amp;#039;t easy.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;If you can do that, it will likely be far easier than you have been led to believe. Be mindful of the 3Cs and don&amp;#039;t turn away from reality, it&amp;#039;s as simple as that.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Again, this is only part of it. And it&amp;#039;s only simple &lt;u&gt;&lt;strong&gt;IF&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/u&gt; one has worked through their emotional shit and proper self-care habits have been implemented (sleep, eat healthy, drink loads of water, exercise, etc). Self care will give you the mental clarity to see stuff as it arises.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve been stuck in Dark Night since April 2013. It hit me like a freight train. I did not see a way out. Since then, most of the side effects have lifted (nasty states, horrific feelings of meaninglessness, lack of energy and motivation, intense emotional states, etc). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I went on vacation, visited a Zen Center just for the hell of it, and was lucky enough to have a chunk of time to talk with the main teacher. He was awesome. I told him about my experience and how long I&amp;#039;d been stuck in DN.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;He said to me, &amp;#034;Six months is common. You&amp;#039;ve been stuck in DN for way too long. However, the awakening process is slow for most (for me it was rapid). Meditation isn&amp;#039;t going to do anything for you. You are going to have to inquire and find out what your core beliefs are. The beliefs you&amp;#039;ve had since childhood. Where there is fear, there is a belief. And you are going to have to look at that.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I had long held the belief that I couldn&amp;#039;t &amp;#034;do it&amp;#034;. That I was incapable. I&amp;#039;d shy away from challenges. I had a fear of standing up for myself and setting boundaries. I had a tendency to quit or bail on everything once things got challenging.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I bailed on my career (a new job in the field I had been working in for 9 years) right in the midst of Dark Night despite being advised not to. It was &amp;#034;too hard.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I intended on going on a big spiritual journey, which I did attempt, but got nowhere, and did nothing but indulge and spin in circles of confusion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When you say, &amp;#034;Don&amp;#039;t turn away from reality,&amp;#034; this is true. However, one&amp;#039;s avoidance patterns have to be made conscious or they are going to keep playing out. Seeing thoughts and images as &amp;#034;not-self&amp;#034; may give you some space to be present and open up to emotion, but you do have to see through some of those beliefs that keep you trapped in your patterns.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There IS a personal element to this. And that is going to be unique to everyone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ultimately what we are looking at is acceptance. But acceptance isn&amp;#039;t a doing, it&amp;#039;s the result of seeing through one&amp;#039;s patterns. Once you open up to the thing you&amp;#039;re avoiding, thoughts such as &amp;#034;I don&amp;#039;t like&amp;#034; or &amp;#034;I don&amp;#039;t want&amp;#034; will cease to arise. That is acceptance. Here we reside in equanimity.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 14 Sep 2014 17:24:57 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5583559</guid> <dc:creator>Tyler Durden</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-14T17:24:57Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: wowwww this path is confusing</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5582338</link> <description>Imported from another thread:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Adam:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well, to me it just doesn&amp;#039;t seem to matter &lt;br /&gt;all that much whether i am in &amp;#034;mi&amp;#034; or &amp;#034;dd&amp;#034; or &amp;#034;ro&amp;#034; I just want out. And &lt;br /&gt;even to distinguish between ro and eq seems possibly unskillful as &lt;strong&gt;what I&lt;br /&gt; really want is access to something that doesn&amp;#039;t really &lt;br /&gt;distinguish between anything and anything else... i.e. unconditional &lt;br /&gt;peace/happiness&lt;/strong&gt;. That&amp;#039;s why insight nanas and even paths have never &lt;br /&gt;really gotten my attention.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In my personal experience, that&amp;#039;s where the Consciousness-only teachings really excel... by taking you right to the essence of all experience. Instead of chasing the pleasing parts of multiplicity, you&amp;#039;re drawn back to the common feature(s) of everything... the one taste, as it were. It&amp;#039;s a great equaliser. It results -- (for me, anyway) -- in a durable, unforced equanimity that&amp;#039;s a good foundation for any further inquiries or practices.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Can I ask: of all the things you&amp;#039;ve practiced so far in your life, what has actually delivered the most benefit to you in terms of peace, happiness and understanding?</description> <pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2014 06:03:29 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5582338</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-13T06:03:29Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Use of medication to get out of re-observation</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5581873</link> <description>Thats interesting, because in my Dark Nights I have trouble listening to music. I&amp;#039;m a musician, but my dark night was so anhedonic that I didn&amp;#039;t see any point in listening to music. I found movies and writing to be better, but thats just me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In regards to the thread, I started taking clonanzepam during my Re-Ob because I just couldn&amp;#039;t sleep and was verging on madness. I got better at getting into jhanas but that still didn&amp;#039;t help me sleep. The whole experience reminds me of the manic and depressive phases of going back on anti-depressants: A&amp;amp;P as the manic, grandiose high, DN as the come down. </description> <pubDate>Fri, 12 Sep 2014 23:38:14 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5581873</guid> <dc:creator>Hazard J Gibbons</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-12T23:38:14Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Why the Dark Night Sucks and Why You're Stuck in it.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5579008</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;If you want to glean TB&amp;#039;s entire take on this topic of &amp;#034;abandoning craving&amp;#034; (aka the &amp;#034;letting go&amp;#034; school) versus the &amp;#034;investigating sensations as sensations&amp;#034; school, and not just one half of it, I highly Richard Shankman&amp;#039;s interview of TB in &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;amazon&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;Experience-Samadhi--depth-Exploration-Meditation-ebook&amp;#x2f;dp&amp;#x2f;B009W7IHEI&amp;#x2f;ref&amp;#x3d;sr_1_1&amp;#x3f;ie&amp;#x3d;UTF8&amp;#x26;qid&amp;#x3d;1410283549&amp;#x26;sr&amp;#x3d;8-1&amp;#x26;keywords&amp;#x3d;Richard&amp;#x2b;Shankman&amp;#x25;27s"&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Experience of Samadhi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. It is a brilliant talk on TB&amp;#039;s part. The short version is that TB has one foot in each camp, having been taught himself by masters of both.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;I&amp;#039;m not sure if I see those schools as that SUPER different from eachother, especially if you look at the words &amp;#039;attachment&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;craving&amp;#039; as potentially being synonyms.  In order to experience new things or to notice new sensations, you will IMO still need to let go of old opinions in some cases.  For instance, in order to perceive reality as being gappy, seems to me you will need to let go of your atttachment to your belief in a more solid world.  Personally, I was quite attached to a nice solid world I thought I already knew!  So even to &amp;#039;only&amp;#039; investigate sensation, seems to me you will be doing some letting go attachment as well .  Then another school is IMO saying something like to look for the more complex sensations/thoughts that are attachment/craving first, try to get those out of the way, and then move forward.  But to me, the variation in emphasis between the two does not seem to be that huge, but then again, seems I am a type that sees commonality in things very easily.  Anyway, I think I&amp;#039;ll pick up that book, sounds interesting! &lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;In this connection, I found it really interesting in one of this forum&amp;#039;s posts that Richard Zen was discussing with me the need to abandon clinging (or craving?), and Daniel Ingram joined in and basically indicated that he wasn&amp;#039;t even sure what &amp;#034;abandon clinging&amp;#034; even means. Instead, unsurprisingly, Daniel advised simply &amp;#034;investigating the sensations that arise&amp;#034; in terms of the three characteristics. &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Yeah, I guess if you stick with one school and one teacher, that can simplify things but where&amp;#039;s the fun in that!  ;-)  IME, all teachers in any field tend to identify very very strongly with the way that seems easiest to them.  That way worked for them and they trust it.  The way they chose often plays to that&amp;#039;s person strengths and that is why they chose it in the first place, because it seemed easiest and more right to them.  Whereas for many of the other methods, that can&amp;#039;t so easily tell how well they might work.  How many people, once they know of a seemingly easier way, still want to hear about another way that sounds harder to them?  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I think that it may be entirely possible that some people are enlightened by somehow just cognitively understanding very deeply what &amp;#034;abandoning clinging&amp;#034; involves and then, somehow by means of that understanding, being able to &amp;#034;let go.&amp;#034; And I think that there is always some kind of value in trying to do so, even if it is only fully apparent later on in Review or integration. However, I suspect that most of us have to do some hard time on the cushion, investigating the nature of sensations themselves, before something in us fully &amp;#034;gets&amp;#034; the Second Noble Truth well enough to see clinging abandoned, or at least made more infrequent and milder.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Or maybe some things that are harder for you are easier for them and the reverse.  What is obvious and easy to one person may seem very confusing to another.   &lt;br /&gt;-Eva </description> <pubDate>Wed, 10 Sep 2014 05:31:02 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5579008</guid> <dc:creator>Eva M Nie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-10T05:31:02Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Why the Dark Night Sucks and Why You're Stuck in it.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578990</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jen Pearly:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;To be clear if not reiterate: During my last Dark Night cycle, I didn&amp;#039;t even meditate, except every Friday for a half hour with my meditation group at work. And on those Fridays I practiced &lt;em&gt;samatha&lt;/em&gt;, actually doing all I could to &lt;em&gt;avoid&lt;/em&gt; insight meditation. I actually avoided insight so as not to further destabilize myself. So, if you asked me this then, while I was reeling from the suffering, &lt;em&gt;not investigating it&lt;/em&gt;, I couldn&amp;#039;t have answered you except to parrot what I had read in dharma books. This is why I&amp;#039;m so, so emphatic that I didn&amp;#039;t learn any lesson from the Dark Night except what suffering is, that there is suffering. I could not get on top of it well enough to articulate experientially  while in it the Second Noble Truth. To do that, I had to get to Equanimity, which I did, somehow. . . .  This said, maybe even though I wasn&amp;#039;t formally meditating and was actually trying to avoid insight, maybe on some pre-linguistic level I did have those insights. It is probably too soon for me to say.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Well I am personally not a  big rule person myself.  Even if there is a strong trend for certain things to happen at certain times, I am not going to go so far as to say that I know for sure that any one exact thing has to happen at any one exact time for all people on Earth no matter what.  Plus as you say, there seems to be a lot of shifts that happen below the totally conscious level.  There is a lot going on that we don&amp;#039;t understand it seems, kind of like an iceberg, we mostly on see a little piece of it at the conscious level.  I also think quite strongly that anything that can be done on the mat can be done off the mat.  Meditation is meant to focus one strongly in one direction and block distraction and escape so it&amp;#039;s meant to make for faster progress.  But it&amp;#039;s not like humans can&amp;#039;t and never learn anything or have insights at other times as well.  Stopping meditation can slow down progress, but I don&amp;#039;t think it can stop it completely.  You&amp;#039;ve probably heard the saying that once you open the door, it stays open.  ;-)&lt;br /&gt;-Eva   &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Wed, 10 Sep 2014 04:36:18 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578990</guid> <dc:creator>Eva M Nie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-10T04:36:18Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Why the Dark Night Sucks and Why You're Stuck in it.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578822</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;. Jake .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt; I have had a lot of breakthroughs which I *never* have had a clear cognitive understanding of, even though they left my experiential continuum transformed. Simply one day something stopped arising or something unravelled after months of paying clear attention to some funny highly unpleasent energetic thing in the solar plexus; I never would have even known that it was more than just an unpleasent sensation in that region which was present for a long time and then suddenly dissolved if a situation hadn&amp;#039;t arisen many months later which ususally triggered a whole set of identities to function and they didn&amp;#039;t show up. That whole raft of neurotic identities with all its attendant emotional reactions and counter-productive behaviors was just gone. And in that moment it became clear that that was what that whole solar plexus thing had been about: becuase that very (and extremely disturbing) sensation that I had sat with for literally months earlier in the year till it dissipated always used to come up when those identities were triggered too: they were a package. And somehow they had been worked through and released on a completely sensate level, and later this breakthrough was seen to have had profound affects on the psychological level and was finally cognitively understood at that time. If that particular trigger had never occurred again I would have never known that those identities had dissolved during those months of meditating on the strange energetic sensations!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #222222"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: arial"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 10px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #000000"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;this is a beautiful passage, it encapsulates a &amp;#039;world view&amp;#039; that has been rattling around in my head.  The idea that an experience is worth a thousand words.  Sure, we need a few words to get us to practice, but more than a few words are often a hindrance.  That we renaissance types need words to get out of the bed in the morning is unfortunate, but not an insurmountable obstacle on the the path.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s of tremendous value that people try to find the right words to describe, but only to the degree that some of us are lacking in faith.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think its the experiences that people of deep attainment have that enable them to write helpful books, not the other way around.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How to practice depends on how many words we need to do it the right way.  I curse &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt; the need in me to follow this thread all the way to this point.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #000000"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;I think experience vs didactic examples abound: which is more effective way to pick up a language: cultural immersion or a classroom and text books?  How much physics training do you need to strike out the batter?  How many books does it take to accomplish a 1 hour/day sitting practice?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #000000"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;I think I lost (can&amp;#039;t say it&amp;#039;s permanent yet) much of my tendency to react unhelpfully to social stress through mindful experience of dukkha and anicca while involved in sports type activities, long before I started sitting.  I just wanted to be better with a ball, but I found my whole life experience had changed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I like the way Goenka put it (not that he gets the credit): Listen, analyze, experience and repeat.  Finding the right balance is why good teachers are invaluable.  I run from teachers that would rather sit around and talk way beyond my needs.&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Tue, 09 Sep 2014 18:32:17 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578822</guid> <dc:creator>the real matt</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-09T18:32:17Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Why the Dark Night Sucks and Why You're Stuck in it.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578816</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;. Jake .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;John Wilde:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jen Pearly:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Times&amp;#x20;New&amp;#x20;Roman"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Again, as a Thanissaro-esque practitioner, I know what it is to purposefully adjust practice and examine emotional reactions and assumptions. Yes, nice when that works. But this was not &amp;#034;the lesson&amp;#034; that the dukka nanas taught me.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; I w&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Times&amp;#x20;New&amp;#x20;Roman"&gt;ould say almost the opposite: the dukka nanas taught me what folly it was to think that a self can tweak anything. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My personal slant on what others are saying in this thread: the &amp;#034;lesson&amp;#034; of the dark night is not so much that you should be tweaking or fabricating your way out of it (with the implication that if you&amp;#039;re not doing that, you&amp;#039;re wallowing). Rather, the &amp;#034;lesson&amp;#034; is that the intense personal suffering of the DN is contingent upon a certain &lt;em&gt;identification&lt;/em&gt; that is not being thoroughly understood at the time. Release from that identification could be purely organic, in which case cognitive / analytical insight only comes in retrospect (and could be called the &amp;#034;lesson of equanimity&amp;#034;). But perhaps for some people, the cognitive insight into identification during dark night is the very thing that enables equanimity to arise, and that&amp;#039;s the &amp;#034;lesson&amp;#034; it has for them.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;John, thanks for chiming in. I think this is pretty close to what I&amp;#039;m talking about. I also really like the distinction between an insight that is explicitly cognized when it occurrs (i.e., one can say, &amp;#034;this is what the insight is/means&amp;#034;) and one that happens more subteraneonly and only later, if ever, is explicitly cognized. And then, there is another element that will be different for each of us, which is: how it is then explicitly cognized-- within what framework (Therevada? Mahayana? Eclectic? etc..), with which words, etc. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Part of the undertone to my own responses on this thread has been much more along the lines of &amp;#034;I wonder if some of the posters here are articulating a similar insight differently, or if they had an &amp;#039;unconscious&amp;#039; or implicit insight during the DN which was never consciously articulated?&amp;#034; than along the lines of &amp;#034;well they must not have attained X Y or Z then because they are articulating their experience differently than me&amp;#034;. My sense of how these things work is that, in the context of the Progress of Insight, there are definite (families of) &amp;#034;insights&amp;#034; that one has in each stage which are exactly what allows one to move to the next stage. These insight-families seem to correspond pretty well, in general, with clinging aversion and ignorance as the themes that one gains existential insight into before moving on to the next broad stage. A&amp;amp;P has a lot of low hanging fruit and seems like it&amp;#039;s chock full of stuff to cling to; so much so that we can spend years trying to get *back* to it even though that would actually be regressive. The Dn has lots of phenomena which are easy to resist. EQ can be EXTREMELY boring and pointless-seeming. The only insight needed to progress is the existential insight whereby the clinging, aversion and ignorance are dropped; and good practice emphasises clear stable inclusive seeing that drops those attitudes. But the thing is, &amp;#034;insights&amp;#034; are really more existential-emotional than cognitive: the cognitive component is good for reflecting on it later or communicating about it later-- but that&amp;#039;s not the &amp;#039;insight&amp;#039;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I have had a lot of breakthroughs which I *never* have had a clear cognitive understanding of, even though they left my experiential continuum transformed. Simply one day something stopped arising or something unravelled after months of paying clear attention to some funny highly unpleasent energetic thing in the solar plexus; I never would have even known that it was more than just an unpleasent sensation in that region which was present for a long time and then suddenly dissolved if a situation hadn&amp;#039;t arisen many months later which ususally triggered a whole set of identities to function and they didn&amp;#039;t show up. That whole raft of neurotic identities with all its attendant emotional reactions and counter-productive behaviors was just gone. And in that moment it became clear that that was what that whole solar plexus thing had been about: becuase that very (and extremely disturbing) sensation that I had sat with for literally months earlier in the year till it dissipated always used to come up when those identities were triggered too: they were a package. And somehow they had been worked through and released on a completely sensate level, and later this breakthrough was seen to have had profound affects on the psychological level and was finally cognitively understood at that time. If that particular trigger had never occurred again I would have never known that those identities had dissolved during those months of meditating on the strange energetic sensations!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jake, all that you say here so well makes perfect sense to me. I do think that it is entirely possible that whatever I was going through during this most recent, especially terrible, DN was dropping &amp;#034;seeds&amp;#034; of insight that sprouted and saw the light of day only later, in EQ. In fact, by all signs and most accounts, I&amp;#039;m in Review now and am only beginning to sort out conceptually what has happened. Oddly, enough, my reading and writing on this thread is helping me do so now.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks,&lt;br /&gt;Jenny</description> <pubDate>Tue, 09 Sep 2014 18:05:20 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578816</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-09T18:05:20Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Why the Dark Night Sucks and Why You're Stuck in it.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578813</link> <description>&lt;strong&gt;dat Buddha-field:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;(1) Dukkha... no one doubts there is any confusion there.  (2) The cause of dukkha - What was going on in the mind that was causing you to suffer?  How does Thanissaro Bhikku talk about the 2nd noble truth in &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Wings&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;?&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;  &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;If I remember correctly, he talks about this/that conditionality.  He talks about understanding the workings of cause and effect.  How did cause and effect function in your DN? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;To be clear if not reiterate: During my last Dark Night cycle, I didn&amp;#039;t even meditate, except every Friday for a half hour with my meditation group at work. And on those Fridays I practiced &lt;em&gt;samatha&lt;/em&gt;, actually doing all I could to &lt;em&gt;avoid&lt;/em&gt; insight meditation. I actually avoided insight so as not to further destabilize myself. So, if you asked me this then, while I was reeling from the suffering, &lt;em&gt;not investigating it&lt;/em&gt;, I couldn&amp;#039;t have answered you except to parrot what I had read in dharma books. This is why I&amp;#039;m so, so emphatic that I didn&amp;#039;t learn any lesson from the Dark Night except what suffering is, that there is suffering. I could not get on top of it well enough to articulate experientially  while in it the Second Noble Truth. To do that, I had to get to Equanimity, which I did, somehow. . . .  This said, maybe even though I wasn&amp;#039;t formally meditating and was actually trying to avoid insight, maybe on some pre-linguistic level I did have those insights. It is probably too soon for me to say.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Maybe I should also mention that my emergence into Low EQ happened during the same week that my antidepressant medication kicked in. I was suddenly able to meditate again, and my desire to was keen because of the horror I had just gone through and did not want to ever repeat like that again. In short, my experience of the Dark Night + medication = Desire for Deliverance. From there the path completed as the maps would indicate.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Jenny</description> <pubDate>Tue, 09 Sep 2014 17:56:52 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578813</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-09T17:56:52Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Why the Dark Night Sucks and Why You're Stuck in it.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578805</link> <description>&lt;strong&gt;Eva, quoting Thanissaro Bhikkhu:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&amp;#034;Accepting the fact that there is craving, you&amp;#039;re not denying that it is there, but you don&amp;#039;t stop with the acceptance, there&amp;#039;s a further duty to be done.  In terms of the suffering, you try to comprehend where is this coming from, why is it happening.  When you see it is coming, you look for any possible craving that might be coming with it because the craving is what underlies it.  The craving together with the ignorance.  That&amp;#039;s something you want to abandon.  You want to let go, you want to stop it.  (few words I could not hear)  Put it simply, craving is something you are doing and you learn how to stop doing the craving.&amp;#034;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&amp;#034;Meditation is not simply a matter of sitting here and watching things come and go.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;If you want to glean TB&amp;#039;s entire take on this topic of &amp;#034;abandoning craving&amp;#034; (aka the &amp;#034;letting go&amp;#034; school) versus the &amp;#034;investigating sensations as sensations&amp;#034; school, and not just one half of it, I highly Richard Shankman&amp;#039;s interview of TB in &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;amazon&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;Experience-Samadhi--depth-Exploration-Meditation-ebook&amp;#x2f;dp&amp;#x2f;B009W7IHEI&amp;#x2f;ref&amp;#x3d;sr_1_1&amp;#x3f;ie&amp;#x3d;UTF8&amp;#x26;qid&amp;#x3d;1410283549&amp;#x26;sr&amp;#x3d;8-1&amp;#x26;keywords&amp;#x3d;Richard&amp;#x2b;Shankman&amp;#x25;27s"&gt;&lt;em&gt;The Experience of Samadhi&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;. It is a brilliant talk on TB&amp;#039;s part. The short version is that TB has one foot in each camp, having been taught himself by masters of both.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In this connection, I found it really interesting in one of this forum&amp;#039;s posts that Richard Zen was discussing with me the need to abandon clinging (or craving?), and Daniel Ingram joined in and basically indicated that he wasn&amp;#039;t even sure what &amp;#034;abandon clinging&amp;#034; even means. Instead, unsurprisingly, Daniel advised simply &amp;#034;investigating the sensations that arise&amp;#034; in terms of the three characteristics. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think that it may be entirely possible that some people are enlightened by somehow just cognitively understanding very deeply what &amp;#034;abandoning clinging&amp;#034; involves and then, somehow by means of that understanding, being able to &amp;#034;let go.&amp;#034; And I think that there is always some kind of value in trying to do so, even if it is only fully apparent later on in Review or integration. However, I suspect that most of us have to do some hard time on the cushion, investigating the nature of sensations themselves, before something in us fully &amp;#034;gets&amp;#034; the Second Noble Truth well enough to see clinging abandoned, or at least made more infrequent and milder.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 09 Sep 2014 17:40:49 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578805</guid> <dc:creator>_</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-09T17:40:49Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Why the Dark Night Sucks and Why You're Stuck in it.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578703</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Eva M Nie:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For me it was a whole bunch of smaller lessons that built and built on eachother until there were some overall changes in perspective that you could summarize in a few general words, but repeating the few general words I think would not be able to impart the knowledge of all those little lessons that brought me to the general knowledge in the first place.  I think everyone would have to go through the little steps themselves, although I would imagine there would be considerable variation in the smaller details across individuals. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;I actually ended up spending a lot of time dreaming about this concept last night from an abstract sense.  It&amp;#039;s something like that big plans/ideas/intentions if built up from many small realizations and understandings will likely work well.  But if the plan/idea/intention is not built up from a bunch of smaller understandings, it won&amp;#039;t work/survive.  I think that is why people often have desires and plans that seem heartfelt and strong at the time but don&amp;#039;t go far.  It&amp;#039;s not that the desire is not strong, but because they haven&amp;#039;t yet built up all the little understandings inside that would give it a more substance and momentum to work.  And also why gurus can say wise things and most of us just won&amp;#039;t be able to understand it deeply just from that.  Although we can hear the words, we can&amp;#039;t easily understand the depth of them, it&amp;#039;s the difference between understanding the words from a superficial perspective vs truly &amp;#039;groking&amp;#039; it.  Because what they tell us is a summary of a hundreds or thousands of little insights some of them not even really well understood or some of them not easily put in words, but they all built up over time and worked together until there were larger understandings that could eventually be summarized into more sweeping kinds of wise statements and concepts.   But when we hear the summaries, if we haven&amp;#039;t built up the smaller insights and knowledges yet, the wise words won&amp;#039;t have much power for us and we won&amp;#039;t understand it deeply until we do.  Since the little realizations that make up the wisdom are often very personal and so many and in many cases not even verbally understood well, that is why we have to do all this internal work instead of just listening to some nice words/summaries from gurus and understanding it easily from doing that.  It would also be why those so called easy get rich quick power of attraction new age systems don&amp;#039;t generally work well for most, because also for those systems, the map is not the territory, you have to understand the territory really well and the only way to do that is to travel the territory personally, reading the map summary is not even nearly good enough to get the job done.  You have to travel the territory intimately and build up all those little lessons and insights before you can truly understand and use the summarized wisdom that comes from it.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yes, I guess this thread has wandered as many of they do, but I&amp;#039;m not sure that is a bad thing.  Human discussion often wanders and sometimes or often, will go in strange looking directions to look for answers.  But one point I am trying to make is I think I agree with others that have already said it that just because knowledge is not easily verbalized or summarized does not mean nothing has been learned at all.  Experiences do change you.    &lt;br /&gt;-Eva     </description> <pubDate>Tue, 09 Sep 2014 12:43:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578703</guid> <dc:creator>Eva M Nie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-09T12:43:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Why the Dark Night Sucks and Why You're Stuck in it.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578494</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jen Pearly:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: times&amp;#x20;new&amp;#x20;roman&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;times&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;serif"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So next I guess any of you can say that, well, I achieved something merely &amp;#034;technical&amp;#034; and that I haven&amp;#039;t &amp;#034;really gotten anywhere&amp;#034; because I did not learn your truth. I don&amp;#039;t know what to say to that, except that it sounds like you are saying that, until I have a conceptual understanding of First Path, I haven&amp;#039;t &amp;#034;really&amp;#034; even attained it. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hi Jen, &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At the end of the day, it doesn&amp;#039;t matter to me whether you&amp;#039;re a stream-enterer or not.  It&amp;#039;s up to you to decide whether that&amp;#039;s a helpful concept to identify with.  What we can say unequivocally about &amp;#039;stream-enterers&amp;#039; and &amp;#039;englightened&amp;#039; people though, is that they understand the Four Noble Truths.  Understand experientially, and at least to some extent, conceptually.  (1) Dukkha... no one doubts there is any confusion there.  (2) The cause of dukkha - What was going on in the mind that was causing you to suffer?  How does Thanissaro Bhikku talk about the 2nd noble truth in &lt;em&gt;Wings&lt;/em&gt;?&lt;em&gt;  &lt;/em&gt;If I remember correctly, he talks about this/that conditionality.  He talks about understanding the workings of cause and effect.  How did cause and effect function in your DN?  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Perhaps unfortunately, there is a certain degree of conceptual understanding that is necessary for liberation.  The Buddha called this Right View.  It&amp;#039;s also the first step on the Noble Eightfold Path.  It&amp;#039;s important to always be clear about what we&amp;#039;re doing and why we&amp;#039;re doing it.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You probably recognize that the practitioners you look up to, TB and Daniel, seem to posses a high degree of conceptual understanding and technical knowledge.  Coincidence?  I think not.  This is why they don&amp;#039;t just tell us to all go meditate without instruction, and is why we should feel fortunate to hear the Dharma.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is a Dzogchen Tantra called &lt;em&gt;Buddhahood Without Meditation&lt;/em&gt;.  At this level, meditation is left in the dust and practitioners attain liberation by spending their time contemplating reality and their View of it.  Now that is high Dharma.  It is most profound how much our view of things affects our experience of reality.      &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Zach  </description> <pubDate>Mon, 08 Sep 2014 20:59:57 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578494</guid> <dc:creator>dat Buddha-field</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-08T20:59:57Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Why the Dark Night Sucks and Why You're Stuck in it.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578373</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;John Wilde:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jen Pearly:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Times&amp;#x20;New&amp;#x20;Roman"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Again, as a Thanissaro-esque practitioner, I know what it is to purposefully adjust practice and examine emotional reactions and assumptions. Yes, nice when that works. But this was not &amp;#034;the lesson&amp;#034; that the dukka nanas taught me.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt; I w&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Times&amp;#x20;New&amp;#x20;Roman"&gt;ould say almost the opposite: the dukka nanas taught me what folly it was to think that a self can tweak anything. &lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My personal slant on what others are saying in this thread: the &amp;#034;lesson&amp;#034; of the dark night is not so much that you should be tweaking or fabricating your way out of it (with the implication that if you&amp;#039;re not doing that, you&amp;#039;re wallowing). Rather, the &amp;#034;lesson&amp;#034; is that the intense personal suffering of the DN is contingent upon a certain &lt;em&gt;identification&lt;/em&gt; that is not being thoroughly understood at the time. Release from that identification could be purely organic, in which case cognitive / analytical insight only comes in retrospect (and could be called the &amp;#034;lesson of equanimity&amp;#034;). But perhaps for some people, the cognitive insight into identification during dark night is the very thing that enables equanimity to arise, and that&amp;#039;s the &amp;#034;lesson&amp;#034; it has for them.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;John, thanks for chiming in. I think this is pretty close to what I&amp;#039;m talking about. I also really like the distinction between an insight that is explicitly cognized when it occurrs (i.e., one can say, &amp;#034;this is what the insight is/means&amp;#034;) and one that happens more subteraneonly and only later, if ever, is explicitly cognized. And then, there is another element that will be different for each of us, which is: how it is then explicitly cognized-- within what framework (Therevada? Mahayana? Eclectic? etc..), with which words, etc. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Part of the undertone to my own responses on this thread has been much more along the lines of &amp;#034;I wonder if some of the posters here are articulating a similar insight differently, or if they had an &amp;#039;unconscious&amp;#039; or implicit insight during the DN which was never consciously articulated?&amp;#034; than along the lines of &amp;#034;well they must not have attained X Y or Z then because they are articulating their experience differently than me&amp;#034;. My sense of how these things work is that, in the context of the Progress of Insight, there are definite (families of) &amp;#034;insights&amp;#034; that one has in each stage which are exactly what allows one to move to the next stage. These insight-families seem to correspond pretty well, in general, with clinging aversion and ignorance as the themes that one gains existential insight into before moving on to the next broad stage. A&amp;amp;P has a lot of low hanging fruit and seems like it&amp;#039;s chock full of stuff to cling to; so much so that we can spend years trying to get *back* to it even though that would actually be regressive. The Dn has lots of phenomena which are easy to resist. EQ can be EXTREMELY boring and pointless-seeming. The only insight needed to progress is the existential insight whereby the clinging, aversion and ignorance are dropped; and good practice emphasises clear stable inclusive seeing that drops those attitudes. But the thing is, &amp;#034;insights&amp;#034; are really more existential-emotional than cognitive: the cognitive component is good for reflecting on it later or communicating about it later-- but that&amp;#039;s not the &amp;#039;insight&amp;#039;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I have had a lot of breakthroughs which I *never* have had a clear cognitive understanding of, even though they left my experiential continuum transformed. Simply one day something stopped arising or something unravelled after months of paying clear attention to some funny highly unpleasent energetic thing in the solar plexus; I never would have even known that it was more than just an unpleasent sensation in that region which was present for a long time and then suddenly dissolved if a situation hadn&amp;#039;t arisen many months later which ususally triggered a whole set of identities to function and they didn&amp;#039;t show up. That whole raft of neurotic identities with all its attendant emotional reactions and counter-productive behaviors was just gone. And in that moment it became clear that that was what that whole solar plexus thing had been about: becuase that very (and extremely disturbing) sensation that I had sat with for literally months earlier in the year till it dissipated always used to come up when those identities were triggered too: they were a package. And somehow they had been worked through and released on a completely sensate level, and later this breakthrough was seen to have had profound affects on the psychological level and was finally cognitively understood at that time. If that particular trigger had never occurred again I would have never known that those identities had dissolved during those months of meditating on the strange energetic sensations!</description> <pubDate>Mon, 08 Sep 2014 17:16:21 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578373</guid> <dc:creator>. Jake .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-08T17:16:21Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Why the Dark Night Sucks and Why You're Stuck in it.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578360</link> <description>Oh and speaking of Thanissaro, you guys got me to go and listen to some of his youtube videos and ironically he has one that deals with similar topics to what we are discussing here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMSzLZi6mt0 and ironically, he even uses the wallow word.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;You are not simply content to wallow in the greed, anger, and delusion.  You realize you should do something about them.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Accepting the fact that there is craving, you&amp;#039;re not denying that it is there, but you don&amp;#039;t stop with the acceptance, there&amp;#039;s a further duty to be done.  In terms of the suffering, you try to comprehend where is this coming from, why is it happening.  When you see it is coming, you look for any possible craving that might be coming with it because the craving is what underlies it.  The craving together with the ignorance.  That&amp;#039;s something you want to abandon.  You want to let go, you want to stop it.  (few words I could not hear)  Put it simply, craving is something you are doing and you learn how to stop doing the craving.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Meditation is not simply a matter of sitting here and watching things come and go.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;One of the best ways of learning something in the meditation is if something comes up to the mind it seems this is this and that&amp;#039;s that, ask yourself what if the opposite were true.  Take that as a hypothesis for a while.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Remember it&amp;#039;s a doing, you don&amp;#039;t have to just sit here and put up with whatever comes along....As for what you are doing in the mind, don&amp;#039;t just sit here and accept it, realize there are further duties, things to be done...you don&amp;#039;t simply accept things, you learn how to shape things in a positive direction&amp;#034;</description> <pubDate>Mon, 08 Sep 2014 16:12:03 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5578360</guid> <dc:creator>Eva M Nie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-08T16:12:03Z</dc:date> </item> </channel> </rss> 