Elijah Smith:
I've been meditating steadily for 40 minutes a day or more for nearly two years at this point with a heavy emphasis on mindfulness of every day activities. I got into meditation as a result of developing a medium amount of social anxiety after a couple traumatic experiences. Thus far, my journey has liberated some of my emotions but introduced other new ones. For a while I didn't understand why I wasn't rapidly improving given my intense effort and all of the scientific research I read. I got a teacher, but didn't find the interactions to be that helpful.
I saw Daniel's book over a year ago, but the intro turned me off since I wasn't really interested in "enlightenment" but rather just wanted to reduce my psychological suffering....
As of now, my practice consists of either brief periods of choiceless awareness cycling with brief periods of concentration, noting practice, or occasionally metta. I am intentionally avoiding long periods of noting or concentration practice since they can be destabilizing. In the future I plan to do them, but for now, I am doing a lot of choiceless awareness since I find it stabilizing and I've been getting brief insight from it....
You said in the past that you aren't really interested in "enlightenment," but rather that you "just wanted to reduce your psychological suffering."
Yet you seem not to have made the connection between gaining self-knowledge and a reduction in general dissatisfaction. If you know what is causing your dissatisfaction (
dukkha), isn't knowing that a pathway to an enlightened state? If you don't know what is causing you pain, how are you ever going to relieve it? Meaning, if you know the cause of unsatisfactoriness, and are able to see it for what it is (
anatta or its without-self nature), through renunciation you take its power away to harm you. It no longer can affect you in the way that it once did.
Perhaps your definition/perception of the concept of enlightenment needs to expand. You think?
Elijah Smith:
A lot has really changed since then, primarily for the better. It seemed from a recent meditation experience that I was cycling through DN/EQ. (clear transitions from fear to misery to EQ). However, in the grander scheme, it appears that I've moved from fear to misery. The persistent anxiety/worry that I used to feel has diminished greatly, however, now I am more sensitive to self-consciousness. I often feel long-lasting experiences of tension/pain in my head area. (The latter is often triggered when I have to study very intense topics for hours a day)
Moving from fear to misery could be seen as a move in the right direction. If by fear you mean that you lost a sense of empowerment, of being able to be pro-active about reducing the fear, feeling helpless. Misery can become a motivating factor to want to move beyond the misery itself. And to find release.
The heightened sensitivity to self-consciousness is a positive development. It means you have an opportunity to recognize the source of your dissatisfaction and anxiety and to root it out with wisdom.
The sensation of tension or pressure in your head is indicative of an increase in the level of concentration. Use that sensation wisely to let you know when your mind has become concentrated so that you can use that state to examine (contemplate) the content of your mind in an effort to see things clearly.
Ideally, the practice of meditation is meant to help one develop and cultivate the mind. If you are truly interested in learning how to "reduce psychological suffering," then use this skill that you are developing to assist you in reaching that clarity of mind which helps you to put an end to the suffering you are causing yourself by shining a light on it so that you can let go of it!
By developing the four establishments of mindfulness -– namely, contemplation of the body (
rupa), contemplation of feeling (
vedana), contemplation of mind states (
cittanupassana), and contemplation of phenomena (
dhammas) – you begin the journey to discover the source of your unsatisfactoriness. Letting go of attachment to and developing equanimity toward these sources of misery leads one to final release and eventual enlightenment. That's all enlightenment is. It is all that Gotama ever promised could be accomplished through practice of his Dhamma.
"Formerly, Anuradha, and also now, I make known only suffering and the cessation of suffering." (
SN 22.86) (MN 22.38)
"The mind imbued with wisdom becomes completely free from the corruptions, that is, from the corruption of sensuality, of becoming, of false views, and of ignorance." (DN 16.4.4)
"Nothing is fit to be clung to. If a monk has learnt that nothing is fit to be clung to, he directly knows everything; by directly knowing everything he fully understands everything..." (
AN 7.58)
Here is a hint he gave about the contemplation of feeling (
vedana). See if you can use it in your practice. "Is feeling permanent or impermanent? . . . Is what is impermanent suffering or happiness? . . . Is what is impermanent, suffering, and subject to change fit to be regarded thus: 'This is mine, This I am. This is myself'?" (
SN 22.59)