I haven't read much about this so I wonder if anyone has advice to share. Basically I realized I haven't chilled out w/ regards to insight very much at all over the past few months, and though I've done samatha and all that, recently it has culminated in going a bit crazy. When I say 'realized', watch out; the following descriptions might be accurate, or might be inaccurate and me going crazy:
Basically the phenomena yesterday and a few days ago was that I was going through cycles very rapidly during daily life, having unbidden fruitions, in a generally anxious state of mind, etc. I noticed certain unpleasant thoughts kept coming up. I meditated on them at night and realized it was just dark night cycling, pretty quickly, with each type of thought occurring in a particular stage, not hanging out much in equanimity. I also saw the thoughts as not substantial, self-less, ephemeral, etc., much like the cycles themselves, so I realized that not wallowing in them was both doable and desirable.
Anyway all the uncontrolled cycling just seems exactly like an imbalance in the factors of enlightenment. It's better today. Yesterday I tried a few things.
* Apply insight to them (these thoughts are selfless, impermanent, etc.). Just caused the current thought/cycle to merge into the next type of thought/cycle. Not helpful.
* Be scared of my mind. Not something so much that I tried but that happened for a little bit, heh. Also not helpful.
* Realize that this cycling and stuff is actually 'me'. There isn't a separate person cycling there, it's all 'me'. Understanding this helped to realize I can control it, took away some of the fear, etc.
* Whenever I notice the thoughts/cycling, immediately bring my attention to some sense around me. Combined with taking a walk, this helped a lot.
* Try ignoring them. This just put them in the background, didn't do much.
* Will myself to stop thinking them. Didn't work that well.
* At night I sat in a chair, closed my eyes, willed myself to NOT CYCLE, and tried deepening some samatha jhanas. Seemed to help get it back under control.
Funny that some of these correspond to what
MN 20 says, which I got to by following links from one of
Trent's posts. That Buddha thought a lot of stuff through.
It's better today. From this calmer baseline I can look into the contents of the thoughts and trace them back to my past, see why they arise, and deal with them directly. I plan on just no longer doing any insight on purpose, and since it happens by itself whenever I lie down and close my eyes, to try to will myself to not cycle whenever I find myself in that position.
Does anyone have any other advice on how to chill out?