Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/9/20 5:02 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Derek2 6/9/20 5:24 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/9/20 6:59 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) J W 6/10/20 4:23 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/10/20 5:12 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) J C 6/10/20 5:49 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/11/20 12:59 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) J W 6/11/20 11:14 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Derek2 6/10/20 9:12 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Bagpuss The Gnome 6/10/20 2:11 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) J C 6/10/20 2:46 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Chris M 6/10/20 2:48 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) J C 6/10/20 3:35 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Papa Che Dusko 6/10/20 3:06 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/11/20 2:17 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) spatial 6/9/20 6:13 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/9/20 6:39 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) spatial 6/9/20 8:00 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/10/20 1:34 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Papa Che Dusko 6/10/20 2:51 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Papa Che Dusko 6/10/20 3:18 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/11/20 1:55 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Papa Che Dusko 6/11/20 2:48 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Laurel Carrington 6/10/20 10:56 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) J C 6/10/20 1:41 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Papa Che Dusko 6/10/20 2:00 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Laurel Carrington 6/13/20 3:41 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/13/20 4:43 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) J C 6/10/20 1:57 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Z . 6/10/20 1:46 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Milo 6/10/20 11:21 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Konstantin Freiberg 6/11/20 2:01 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/12/20 7:43 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) David Matte 6/13/20 6:57 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Laurel Carrington 6/13/20 10:27 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/13/20 5:02 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Papa Che Dusko 6/13/20 5:21 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/13/20 7:33 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) George S 6/13/20 7:49 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/18/20 12:34 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Tim Farrington 6/18/20 3:03 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) shargrol 6/18/20 8:21 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/18/20 4:15 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) shargrol 6/18/20 5:29 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Tim Farrington 6/19/20 2:54 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Tim Farrington 6/19/20 2:50 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Pepe · 6/19/20 4:42 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Tim Farrington 6/19/20 4:55 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) terry 6/19/20 12:11 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/19/20 12:30 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Tim Farrington 6/19/20 2:53 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Pepe · 6/19/20 8:41 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/20/20 1:57 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) terry 6/19/20 8:02 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Tim Farrington 6/19/20 11:13 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/20/20 1:10 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Tim Farrington 6/20/20 1:23 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/20/20 1:41 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Tim Farrington 6/20/20 1:43 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/20/20 1:46 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Tim Farrington 6/20/20 2:39 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/20/20 3:22 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Papa Che Dusko 6/21/20 9:05 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/21/20 10:15 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Papa Che Dusko 6/22/20 10:35 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) terry 6/22/20 2:34 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Tim Farrington 6/22/20 9:03 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) terry 6/22/20 9:11 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/22/20 9:49 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Tim Farrington 6/23/20 8:51 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) terry 6/22/20 10:41 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Tim Farrington 6/22/20 11:01 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) terry 6/23/20 2:14 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) terry 6/22/20 12:55 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/20/20 1:44 AM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) terry 6/20/20 4:28 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Tim Farrington 6/20/20 9:17 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) C C 6/25/20 6:01 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Ricky Lee Nuthman 6/25/20 6:36 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) C C 6/25/20 8:15 PM
RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry) Tim Farrington 6/26/20 3:53 AM
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/9/20 5:02 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/9/20 4:42 PM

Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
I don't know if this is 'fear' as described in the progress of insight. I am definitely stuck in something and it has been going on for years now. It doesn't seem to ever really get any better, but it gets worse from time to time and makes it very difficult to live with all the time. For quick reference, I have 2 10 day retreats under my belt, 1 4 day, and many hundreds of hours practicing at home over about 8 years I believe.

The only time I can get any relief at all is during my actual meditation. I am not sure how any of this maps to the stages of insight, it seems so strange. When I sit for meditation, and start watching the breath, I notice large chunks of my experience that feel like solid metal while other parts feel like light tingling. Bursts of fear continually arise and I make note of them. In the background I am constantly barraged with sensations. all kinds of them, rapidly. So much so that my head starts swaying a bit. I have to catch myself and relax. They mostly all have a predominant flavor of slight to strong terror, worry, anxiety, restlessness. Which is funny because when I look at my fitbit after 3 hours of this, it says 'deep sleep'

That's another thing. Somehow I can sit like this endlessly. I often sit for 3 hours and think it has only been 1/2 an hour. So I am able to sit with the pain, fear, anxiety and such. Eventually it all sort of subsides and there is a stillness. In these moments I get a bit of relief.

Soon after I stop meditating, the fear starts again. Throughout my normal waking day, I am scared all of the time. Over the last couple of years, my brain has tried to make a reason for this fear, so I've developed sort of a hypochondria. Vipassana has trained me to notice every sensasion in the body. So now, having the fear along with the realization of these subtle (or strong) sensations; I start coming up with all kinds of diseases that I probably have. 

I am clearly doing something wrong, or not doing something right. I am not progressing any more, at least as far as I can tell, with my practice. My all day experience is difficult to explain. I feel like I can't care or think about anything but myself, which is really distressing. I feel 'stuck in my body', like my consciousness is somehow compressed.... my awareness feels tight and terrified. I am withdrawn into myself. This is the worst possible stage I could have gotten stuck in.


Oddly, I seem to be able to rest in the breath incredibly easy, but in regular life I have lost any ability to concentrate on work or anything else. My attention constantly - and I do mean CONSTANTLY - jumps from one body sensation to another.. worry... fear... tightness... tingle... pain... anxiousness... I can't explain any of this properly to my wife. I am failing at my job, I've lost all ability to organize anything, my short term memory is next to nil. I want to cry but can't, which kind of sucks because that gives a bit of temporary relief.

How the hell can I break this cycle? I feel like something wants to explode. Like there is energy stuck behind a high pressure valve that needs to be relieved, but can't find a way out. All I can think about is liberation. I can see the impermanence so clearly, but apparently not deeply enough. I feel dissatisfaction even more clearly. Every single sensation, event pleasant ones feels lacking. Whenever I'm not scared, I am feeling fed-up and exhausted with all these sensations. I am completely dysfunctional! 

From the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep, it feels like I'm in a car in the middle of a war zone, driving full speed, always just ahead of flying bullets and explosions. Chaos ensues around me. Yet here I am, calmly sitting in my computer chair. I just simply cannot emphasize how distressing this is, and how desperate I am to find a way out.

Please don't suggest that I see a psychologist, although I appreciate the compassion. This is all a result of my practice, and I truly believe that it can only be resolved through my practice. I am just not skilled enough to do it on my own, and need some highly skilled guidance.
Derek2, modified 3 Years ago at 6/9/20 5:24 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/9/20 5:24 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 230 Join Date: 9/21/16 Recent Posts
Sorry to hear about your difficulties. Unfortunately, the adverse effects of meditation are seriously under-researched. Willoughby Britton is the only researcher I know of in this area. An introduction to her work appeared in VICE magazine a couple of years ago under the title "Meditation Is a Powerful Mental Tool -- and For Some People It Goes Terribly Wrong." The first patient in the article, "David," suffered from meditation-induced anxiety.

The article includes a link to a more comprehensive paper, "The varieties of contemplative experience: A mixed-methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists." Again, the most common adverse effects of meditation were "Fear, anxiety, panic, or paranoia."

As you can see from the VICE magazine article, the solution for "David" was to quit meditation and take some medication for his anxiety disorder. If you do find a better solution, I hope you'll come back and share it here.
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spatial, modified 3 Years ago at 6/9/20 6:13 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/9/20 6:13 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 614 Join Date: 5/20/18 Recent Posts
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
In the background I am constantly barraged with sensations. all kinds of them, rapidly. So much so that my head starts swaying a bit. I have to catch myself and relax.

Is there a reason you're not allowing your head to sway?

Ricky Lee Nuthman:
How the hell can I break this cycle? I feel like something wants to explode. Like there is energy stuck behind a high pressure valve that needs to be relieved, but can't find a way out. All I can think about is liberation. I can see the impermanence so clearly, but apparently not deeply enough. I feel dissatisfaction even more clearly. Every single sensation, event pleasant ones feels lacking. Whenever I'm not scared, I am feeling fed-up and exhausted with all these sensations. I am completely dysfunctional! 

Sometimes things feel at their worst right before a breakthrough. Sometimes breakthroughs don't happen until you start complaining about how bad the pain is.
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/9/20 6:39 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/9/20 6:39 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
The head swaying feels like I am doing it on purpose, but I don't think that I am. It's hard to tell. Eventually it stops on its own if I wait it out. My breath tends to get erratic at this point as well, I've noticed.

I've been complaining quite a lot, to be honest. I'm sure my wife is tired of it. The pain and even moreso - the suffering has become almost unbearable. If the worst comes right before a breakthrough, then this breakthrough is certainly taking a very, very long time!

I feel like I'm missing some important piece. Like I'm not looking at things it the right way. Whenever I try to investigate any sensation, it just disappears so I don't really learn anything about it other than it's impermanent and painful (and certain to arise again at a later time).

I've also noticed that a lot of people adive 'surrendering' to experience. I don't really understand how to do that technically. I feel like I am already doing that, but the suffering just continues on and on. I know I'm supposed to not 'want' anything different. This is all so precarious. I am really feeling the 'best not to start / best to finish' thing. Because I would do anything to either go back, or move forward. Anything but this. I'm sure someone out there is thinking 'but this is where you need to be okay.'


How do you truly let go when your mind clings to every single thing that touches your senses like super glue.
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/9/20 6:59 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/9/20 6:42 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
Derek2:
As you can see from the VICE magazine article, the solution for "David" was to quit meditation and take some medication for his anxiety disorder. If you do find a better solution, I hope you'll come back and share it here.


Anxiety meds don't work on my particular problem. I've tried. They calm me down, but the problem is so 'existential' for lack of a better term that the medications just don't get to the root of the problem. Instead I just become a depressed zombie who's scared of everything.
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spatial, modified 3 Years ago at 6/9/20 8:00 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/9/20 7:59 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 614 Join Date: 5/20/18 Recent Posts
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
The head swaying feels like I am doing it on purpose, but I don't think that I am. It's hard to tell. Eventually it stops on its own if I wait it out. My breath tends to get erratic at this point as well, I've noticed.


Yeah, I know that feeling. Not being sure if it's "you" making it happen or not. My advice: let it happen. Let yourself screw this up. You can't lose this game. May as well enjoy it.

Ricky Lee Nuthman:

I feel like I'm missing some important piece. Like I'm not looking at things it the right way.


Sometimes you have to exhaust every possible way of looking at things before you finally give up hope.

Ricky Lee Nuthman:
I've also noticed that a lot of people adive 'surrendering' to experience. I don't really understand how to do that technically.


Learning to surrender isn't easy. This is the path. It's why you practice. I know a lot of people make it sound easy, but you can safely ignore that right now.

Ricky Lee Nuthman:

How do you truly let go when your mind clings to every single thing that touches your senses like super glue.


Instead of trying to let go, you might try grabbing on TIGHTER.

I also find long walks to be helpful.
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 1:34 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/9/20 10:27 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
spatial:
Sometimes you have to exhaust every possible way of looking at things before you finally give up hope.

...
...

Instead of trying to let go, you might try grabbing on TIGHTER.



Spatial - Thanks for your responses!

This is interesting - let me make sure that I understand. Is the 'giving up hope' on some deep level the same thing as 'letting go' or 'surrendering'? I somehow have to give up hope, but REALLY give up hope? on the so called 'experiential level'? I feel like this is what you are pointing at, but I just wanted to make sure. 

One of the crazy things about all of this stuff is that everthing must be done on a experiential level, vs intellectual. That's what makes this so hard. When someone says it, it's sort of like if I were to say - Drop the pencil! .... No, pick it back up. I need you to drop it on the experiential level. It's hard to create an experience that you can't just simply 'do'. 
 
The example I think of often that actually makes sense is: Being told fire is hot = intellectual knowledge; Sticking hand in fire = experiential wisdom. The problem with this when comparing it to meditation is that sticking your hand in a fire to gain the wisdom that fire is hot is extremely easy, straightforward and immediate. Meditation is more like feeling around in the dark having no idea where to look for the fire, nor how to stick your hand in it.

Sort of a digression, sorry. Can you sense my frustration? hehe. 


"Instead of trying to let go, you might try grabbing on TIGHTER."

Are you suggesting that perhaps increasing my suffering could lead to my liberation? Like perhaps I am just not quite suffering enough to make me give up up and let go completely? Interesting idea. If I can even figure out how to do it.

I am starting to understand why so many advanved yogis preach the importance of having a good teacher for guidance to keep nudging you on the path. 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 2:51 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 2:46 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2669 Join Date: 3/1/20 Recent Posts
I think you are in the best spot possible! I've been in such shit for about 8 years and got sick and tired of it all. Found an online teacher last year (Kenneth Folk) and kept going with Freestyle Noting Aloud and after 5 months of daily practice got through it all. 

You say something here;
"Meditation is more like feeling around in the dark having no idea where to look for the fire, nor how to stick your hand in it."

Hm, ... not sure what meditation you are practicing my friend but when I do Noting Aloud I know exactly what's going on emoticon and I mean throughout the whole sit. 
So, maybe you ought to rethink your meditation technique. emoticon 

Would you mind taking a minute or two and write down for us in words all you note in your experience. Matter of fact. No cheating emoticon You sit in front of your computer and focus for a second or two, ask yourself "Am I Mindful right now? I don't know let me see!" and you start describing in one word labeling style like "seeing, touching, preassure, etc "

One thing of the bat I would suggest is cut down that macho 3 hours sit to a 45-60 minute sit once a day. In 3 hours can happen lots of stuff like wasting time in scenario spinning, getting cought up in lust phantasies, dozing off into la la land etc 
What I personally think is of great benefit is Not Loosing the Stream of Consciosness (not having breaks in labeling 1-10 sensations a second). 

So instead of going all big on quantity , you go all big on quality. Shorter sits but full on. Here too Acceptance is key and Matter of Fact Constant Noting 1-10 sensations a second. I find doing this Aloud keeps me away from hindrances and more alert. If you speak the label with a calm voice you induce equanimity. If you speak very loud and clear you counter sleepiness etc. You are the Captain of your Ship, You are the Master of your soul. At least until "you" becoms nothing other but a myriad of particles popping in and out of black holes. 

This is my view only and different approaches might work better for you. As always, it's your own call to decide how to proceed. 

May you find a way out of this by actually percieving that very obstacle that's hindering you on this path! 
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 3:18 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 3:08 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2669 Join Date: 3/1/20 Recent Posts
Btw, I speak to you with such confidence as you sound exactly like my sorry ars for 8 years emoticon I drove my wife (now ex) crazy with my moaning about suffering and dark night and meditation oh gawd poor woman! 

But you clearly speak like I did; you know that therapy will not get you out of this! You know only proper meditation practice will do it. And you are sick and tired of it all. I was also thinking like this emoticon This is very good! 

Btw, do you have a daily hobby? Can you tell us more about it? How does it feel, any enjoyments there etc. 

If you don't have a hobby then GET one emoticon It helps to have something other than meditation to get lost into during this journey. 

And yes, let me stress this some more; do get a teacher! Find one who you find a bit intimidating. You don't need one that's going to pet you emoticon or worse yet, put you to sleep. 

Btw, once you hit SE it's not over emoticon 
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Laurel Carrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 10:56 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 10:56 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 439 Join Date: 4/7/14 Recent Posts
This is ridiculous, it's not "normal," nor should you have to put up with it as a necessary stage on the way to liberation. I think you should contact Willoughby Britten, and get some sound advice from an expert on this stuff. Getting a hobby won't help in the least, and people who are strung out with anxiety don't relax because the brain thinks letting one's guard down is the worst thing you can do. Surrendering to it obviously hasn't helped, or even if it could, you need guidance to avoid having things get even worse. 

You might also try Shinzen Young, who has had success in resolving Dark Night issues for people. Keep in touch, take this seriously, and get EXPERT help. All my best to you, Laurel
Z , modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 1:46 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 1:38 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 201 Join Date: 3/16/18 Recent Posts
There's some good advice in the posts above, I like the idea of seeking out a teacher or more advanced practitioner you can speak with about this stuff. In my experience, it's better to work in person with someone for this difficult stuff. 

I am coming out of a prolonged phase similar to yours, which I would describe as a 24/7 hell. The following was helpful for me during that time: 

  • Find a setting where your body feels comfortable releasing strong emotions, crying, shaking, etc. For me this was a secluded place alone in my car at night. I often watched sad/touching videos and nostalgic music to "set the mood" during these sessions. It's something I had to do a couple times a week for about a year. Giving deeper/wounded parts of yourself space to release whatever they want to release in a safe, non-judgemental way is key here.
  • Find a place where the body feels comfortable to lie down and do deep diaphragmatic breathing, allowing the body to move and shake if necessary as much as it wants. 
  • Long walks in nature, the wilder the better. Long views and sweeping vistas are great too. Walking barefoot if possible. 
  • Moderate exercise every day as needed to burn off excess energy. 
  • Do standing meditation (Zhan Zhuang) or other grounding practices in place of a usual sitting practice. 
  • Give oneself permission to skip a day of practice, do less practice occasionally and generally loosen up any expectations or scheduling around practice. 
  • Simple acts of service or volunteering when possible 
  • Try to notice if there's anything in particular you are avoiding in life, and then deal with these issues head-on. Journaling could help in revealing these, but they might also be glaringly obvious. 
J C, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 1:41 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 1:41 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 644 Join Date: 4/24/13 Recent Posts
Laurel Carrington:

people who are strung out with anxiety don't relax because the brain thinks letting one's guard down is the worst thing you can do.


I really needed to hear that, Laurel. Thank you for that. It was very healing and beautifully phrased.
J C, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 1:57 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 1:57 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 644 Join Date: 4/24/13 Recent Posts
Ricky Lee Nuthman:

I feel like I'm missing some important piece. Like I'm not looking at things it the right way. **Whenever I try to investigate any sensation, it just disappears so I don't really learn anything about it other than it's impermanent and painful (and certain to arise again at a later time).**

I've also noticed that a lot of people adive 'surrendering' to experience. I don't really understand how to do that technically. I feel like I am already doing that, but the suffering just continues on and on. **I know I'm supposed to not 'want' anything different.**


How do you truly let go when your mind clings to every single thing that touches your senses like super glue.


Yeah, you are missing some things. Here is what I would suggest:

Look at the sensations of investigation and analysis. Specifically look at any thoughts or sensations associated with "this is certain to arise at a later time." That sentence stood out to me as what you are missing.

It's not true - you don't know what will happen at a later time - but more importantly, it's something you're caught up and embedded in. You need to disembed from that thought specifically. It's where you're stuck.

You need to turn your head 180 degrees (not literally) and look at the sensations that make up the anxious thoughts about your experience, especially any sensation about "later" - and in particular, note that all thoughts about "later" are happening NOW.

The other sentence that stood out to me as a major error was "I know I'm supposed to not 'want' anything different." This is a major sticking point. Basically, you are ignoring and repressing the door to freedom, which is looking closely at the sensations of desire, or wanting.

You ARE supposed to want everything different!!!

That's the entire point!!!

That's exactly what suffering is!!!

This practice isn't about trying to suppress your desires and wants, it's about seeing them clearly.

Look clearly at how much you want it to stop, and in particular at any thoughts or ideas that you're not supposed to want it. No wonder you're stuck, if you think you're not supposed to want suffering to stop!!

This is how surrender works. Surrender to everything, including the desire for it to stop and the feeling that you're not supposed to want it to stop.

Basically I think you're caught in the trap Daniel describes in MCTB: idealizing enlightenment and trying to force yourself into the idealized model by repressing or ignoring some part of your current experience.

This is all about shining the light on everything!!

A lot of people seem to think, "ok, desire leads to suffering, so I'll try to stop desiring." Wrong! It doesn't work that way! You can't do it! You can't force suffering to stop. All you can do is watch the desire and surrender to the experience of desire.

I think once you really get all this it will help a lot with anxiety. You're stuck at the very, very worst part of Reobservation or Desire for Deliverance, and once you can see that, you'll move on quickly.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 2:00 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 2:00 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2669 Join Date: 3/1/20 Recent Posts
J C:
Laurel Carrington:

people who are strung out with anxiety don't relax because the brain thinks letting one's guard down is the worst thing you can do.


I really needed to hear that, Laurel. Thank you for that. It was very healing and beautifully phrased.

That is true. I could not relax and let my guard down UNTIL I found a teacher that I have trust in (I chose Kenneth Folk). Once I started working with him I could let go and just do the 1-10 sensations a second until I plowed through it all for 5 months. I have suffered from PTSD since forever with meds and all. Still practice was the only way through this. Kenneth's presence and words did help but I had to do the actual work. Its possible.
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Bagpuss The Gnome, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 2:11 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 2:06 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 704 Join Date: 11/2/11 Recent Posts
Hi Ricky, please see the attached sound file. And by the way I forgot to mention that I tried antidepression pills and they absolutely were the worst possible thing. Don't go there if you can avoid it.
J C, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 2:46 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 2:46 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 644 Join Date: 4/24/13 Recent Posts
Bagpuss The Gnome:
Hi Ricky, please see the attached sound file. And by the way I forgot to mention that I tried antidepression pills and they absolutely were the worst possible thing. Don't go there if you can avoid it.

So true. Antidepressants (SSRIs/SNRIs) permanently destroyed my ability to feel in love and to feel sexual sensation. I'm searching desperately for a cure, but none is known. This is intolerable and far worse than my depression ever was. It's horrible.

No one should ever take SSRIs or SNRIs. The risk of permanent damage is too great.
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 2:48 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 2:48 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 5104 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
Anyone here an M.D.? Care to weigh in?
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 3:06 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 3:06 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

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I must add that my dose was the initial 50mg of Sertralin. Doctor suggested more but I refused. 50mg seemed to be enough for me. This is considered a low dose. Started taking them in 2011 after I dropped into Dark Night. Started with Shamatha meditation in May 2010. 

Got off of SSRI meds a few month after my Stream Entry (end of June 2019) and am off meds still today. 
J C, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 3:35 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 3:35 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

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Chris Marti:
Anyone here an M.D.? Care to weigh in?


If you are interested in reading more, here is a peer-reviewed article by David Healy, MD, discussing this problem.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0141076819899299
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J W, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 4:23 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 4:23 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 671 Join Date: 2/11/20 Recent Posts
[quote=Ricky Lee Nuthman

]Anxiety meds don't work on my particular problem. I've tried. They calm me down, but the problem is so 'existential' for lack of a better term that the medications just don't get to the root of the problem. Instead I just become a depressed zombie who's scared of everything.

I am not the most qualified person to answer so please take this accordingly, but it does seem that you may have answered your own question here.  An existential problem may require an existential solution... which is exactly what insight meditation is.  It is the path to understanding the true nature of perception and existence itself. Many (all?) major Buddhist schools teach that fear, anxiety, in fact all of samsara is rooted in ignorance.  Ignorance of what?  Of the non-existence of self.  In Tibetan this is referred to as 'self-grasping'.  What you may want to try is gradually, and gently, dissolving and loosening your concept of "Self".  With no inherently existent Self, there is no inherent fear of losing that Self, there is no existential crisis for that which does not exist.
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 5:12 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 5:12 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
Wow! Thank you all so much for your replies.

I need to read through everything and process a bit so that I can respond to each of you thoughtfully.

I have really felt so incredibly alone through this whole ordeal - and that's not just as a figure of speech.

It's a long story, but the thing that got me on this path to start with was a very strong experience that changed my life forever. I had an incident when I realized at my core that there was only 1 thing. (not me, you and other stuff) It terrified me so much (and introduced me to anxiety at age 14) that I couldn't get past it. In fact, somewhat ironically it split me into 2 people, the one who is watching, and the one who does things. I consider that I've been two completely different people in my life; he that came before, and he that came after this incident.

It's basically the difference between: 

"Wow, how liberating! There is nothing seperate. There is no self and other!"

vs the way that I feel which is: 

"OMG I am completely alone! There is nothing separate.. There is no self and other! I'm am trapped in the middle of the infinite. Stuck like an endless block of solid steel."


J C, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 5:49 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 5:49 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

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Have you seen this Shinzen video on that topic?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9zIKQCwDXsA
Derek2, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 9:12 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 9:12 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

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Ricky Lee Nuthman:
"OMG I am completely alone! There is nothing separate.. There is no self and other! I'm am trapped in the middle of the infinite. Stuck like an endless block of solid steel."

I start to suspect early trauma when I read something like that. Have you tried ordinary talk therapy to explore your fears?
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Milo, modified 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 11:21 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/10/20 11:17 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 371 Join Date: 11/13/18 Recent Posts
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
I don't know if this is 'fear' as described in the progress of insight. I am definitely stuck in something and it has been going on for years now. It doesn't seem to ever really get any better, but it gets worse from time to time and makes it very difficult to live with all the time. For quick reference, I have 2 10 day retreats under my belt, 1 4 day, and many hundreds of hours practicing at home over about 8 years I believe.

The only time I can get any relief at all is during my actual meditation. I am not sure how any of this maps to the stages of insight, it seems so strange. When I sit for meditation, and start watching the breath, I notice large chunks of my experience that feel like solid metal while other parts feel like light tingling. Bursts of fear continually arise and I make note of them. In the background I am constantly barraged with sensations. all kinds of them, rapidly. So much so that my head starts swaying a bit. I have to catch myself and relax. They mostly all have a predominant flavor of slight to strong terror, worry, anxiety, restlessness. Which is funny because when I look at my fitbit after 3 hours of this, it says 'deep sleep'

That's another thing. Somehow I can sit like this endlessly. I often sit for 3 hours and think it has only been 1/2 an hour. So I am able to sit with the pain, fear, anxiety and such. Eventually it all sort of subsides and there is a stillness. In these moments I get a bit of relief.

Soon after I stop meditating, the fear starts again. Throughout my normal waking day, I am scared all of the time. Over the last couple of years, my brain has tried to make a reason for this fear, so I've developed sort of a hypochondria. Vipassana has trained me to notice every sensasion in the body. So now, having the fear along with the realization of these subtle (or strong) sensations; I start coming up with all kinds of diseases that I probably have. 

I am clearly doing something wrong, or not doing something right. I am not progressing any more, at least as far as I can tell, with my practice. My all day experience is difficult to explain. I feel like I can't care or think about anything but myself, which is really distressing. I feel 'stuck in my body', like my consciousness is somehow compressed.... my awareness feels tight and terrified. I am withdrawn into myself. This is the worst possible stage I could have gotten stuck in.


Oddly, I seem to be able to rest in the breath incredibly easy, but in regular life I have lost any ability to concentrate on work or anything else. My attention constantly - and I do mean CONSTANTLY - jumps from one body sensation to another.. worry... fear... tightness... tingle... pain... anxiousness... I can't explain any of this properly to my wife. I am failing at my job, I've lost all ability to organize anything, my short term memory is next to nil. I want to cry but can't, which kind of sucks because that gives a bit of temporary relief.

How the hell can I break this cycle? I feel like something wants to explode. Like there is energy stuck behind a high pressure valve that needs to be relieved, but can't find a way out. All I can think about is liberation. I can see the impermanence so clearly, but apparently not deeply enough. I feel dissatisfaction even more clearly. Every single sensation, event pleasant ones feels lacking. Whenever I'm not scared, I am feeling fed-up and exhausted with all these sensations. I am completely dysfunctional! 

From the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep, it feels like I'm in a car in the middle of a war zone, driving full speed, always just ahead of flying bullets and explosions. Chaos ensues around me. Yet here I am, calmly sitting in my computer chair. I just simply cannot emphasize how distressing this is, and how desperate I am to find a way out.

Please don't suggest that I see a psychologist, although I appreciate the compassion. This is all a result of my practice, and I truly believe that it can only be resolved through my practice. I am just not skilled enough to do it on my own, and need some highly skilled guidance.

As a purely pragmatic thing, you might need to permit yourself some relatively nondestructive coping mechanisms for the time being.

Perhaps set aside 30 minutes in the day purely for worrying about things and for being with this anxiety. For those 30 minutes, just let it burn itself out.

Or take a walk on the beach / hike through the woods if that's available to you.

Or try a practice like metta or zazen that is more about open wholistic expansive awareness rather than hyperawareness and hyperalertness to every minute sensation. You might already be heavily inclined towards hyperanalytical experience and this type of practice is hindering more than helping at this moment.

IMO we fortunately have access to many different vehicles and techniques to get to the far shore, and some are better suited to particular individuals and moments than others. You have options.
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/11/20 12:59 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/11/20 12:59 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
J C:
Have you seen this Shinzen video on that topic?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9zIKQCwDXsA

That's incredible, I just watched it. "Enlightenment's Evil Twin"

He pretty much describes my experience exactly as it is. It freaks me out a little bit, because he mentions that he doesn't know if it's possible to convert DPDR into proper enlightenment. At least not the kind that was not born of meditation. My DPDR switched on when I was 14 and has never gone away - long before I began meditating.

That being said, I don't necessarily think it would make a difference if you got DPDR from meditation or otherwise. It's not as if meditators are somehow on a different ride than non-meditators. It would seem to me that the mind is going to cycle through all of this stuff with or without our awareness, and in my case it was without. In fact, I think that this is actually why it manifested as DPDR to begin with. I saw something that I wasn't prepared for, and my ego went nuts to protect its existence.

However, I will say that meditation has taken away the PTSD aspects of the DPDR. I used to have crazy flashbacks that would accompany my anxiety attacks. I actually knocked those out on the 6th day of my 1st Vipassana retreat. I started to puposely trigger these PTSD attacks during sits, and then watched the whole process play out mindfully. Because I was so concentrated, I was able to feel and experience everything without reacting. I (weirdly) made myself have anxiety attacks on purpose for the rest of the day which was incredibly entertaining. It was like watching my mind and body go through this whole process of having a fit, but it was somehow not scary. After that, the panic attacks were just gone. Well, from time to time they would creep in on a much weaker scale in normal life, but I'd just watch them and they would do their thing in a very predictable pattern. 

The part of the DPDR that never goes away, is the uncomfortable feeling of existing with no substance. The way I experience life ever since that event, is like something in my head is watching a movie, all the while aware that nothing is real. The way Shinzen describes it in the video is perfect - paper thin! It's as if at any moment I'm going to take off the VR goggles and emerge in the 'real world'. 
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/11/20 1:55 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/11/20 1:55 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
Papa Che Dusko:
I think you are in the best spot possible! I've been in such shit for about 8 years and got sick and tired of it all. Found an online teacher last year (Kenneth Folk) and kept going with Freestyle Noting Aloud and after 5 months of daily practice got through it all. 

You say something here;
"Meditation is more like feeling around in the dark having no idea where to look for the fire, nor how to stick your hand in it."

Hm, ... not sure what meditation you are practicing my friend but when I do Noting Aloud I know exactly what's going on emoticon and I mean throughout the whole sit. 
So, maybe you ought to rethink your meditation technique. emoticon 

Would you mind taking a minute or two and write down for us in words all you note in your experience. Matter of fact. No cheating emoticon You sit in front of your computer and focus for a second or two, ask yourself "Am I Mindful right now? I don't know let me see!" and you start describing in one word labeling style like "seeing, touching, preassure, etc "

One thing of the bat I would suggest is cut down that macho 3 hours sit to a 45-60 minute sit once a day. In 3 hours can happen lots of stuff like wasting time in scenario spinning, getting cought up in lust phantasies, dozing off into la la land etc 
What I personally think is of great benefit is Not Loosing the Stream of Consciosness (not having breaks in labeling 1-10 sensations a second). 

So instead of going all big on quantity , you go all big on quality. Shorter sits but full on. Here too Acceptance is key and Matter of Fact Constant Noting 1-10 sensations a second. I find doing this Aloud keeps me away from hindrances and more alert. If you speak the label with a calm voice you induce equanimity. If you speak very loud and clear you counter sleepiness etc. You are the Captain of your Ship, You are the Master of your soul. At least until "you" becoms nothing other but a myriad of particles popping in and out of black holes. 

This is my view only and different approaches might work better for you. As always, it's your own call to decide how to proceed. 

May you find a way out of this by actually percieving that very obstacle that's hindering you on this path! 

The method of meditation that I initially used was learned on a 10 day Goenka retreat (Southern California Vipassana Center). On my 3rd retreat, I met a guy on the last day who asked me if I'd ever heard of a dude named Daniel Ingram to which I answered no. He gave me a link to this forum a few years back and I crept around for a while before posting anything. Somewhere on here I saw Daniel suggest the Mahasi Sayadaw book "Practical Insight Meditation" which I purchased.

I have tried working with noting, but I find it a bit stifling. The sensations arise and pass very quickly now so I can't see how I'm supposed to use this method. I think it would have been easier if I had started out doing it this way. I guess I may be technically doing some kind of noting. When I feel a sensation, I might think 'tightness' on the first noticing, then sort of t t t t t with each arising. But I don't always even do that. I feel like the dialog of noting interrupts the continuity of awareness. Perhaps it's time to try something new?

Would you mind taking a minute or two and write down for us in words all you note in your experience. Matter of fact. No cheating emoticon You sit in front of your computer and focus for a second or two, ask yourself "Am I Mindful right now? I don't know let me see!" and you start describing in one word labeling style like "seeing, touching, preassure, etc "

Okay, let's see. 

restless tingling tingling seeing vibrating buzzing pulsing pressure pressure dryness coolness ticklish itch discomfort hearing pinching thinking tingling pricking restless frustration solid lightness falling lifting interest wondering annoyance confusion fear buzzing hearing hearing seeing smelling moisture tightness taste relaxation anxiety anxious pain sting expanding pressure pressure ticklish tisklish stretching stretching tight unstable wobbly lifting pulsing 

I find this exercise to be kind of difficult and distracting to be honest. I am unable to label almost all of my experience. The vast majority feels unnamable and what is able to be named has passed before the thinking mind has named it. 

Found an online teacher last year (Kenneth Folk) and kept going with Freestyle Noting Aloud and after 5 months of daily practice got through it all.

I have heard of Kenneth and read a lot of his stuff. I follow him on Twitter as well. To be honest, I thought about contacting him but sadly I don't think my wife would currently approve of the expense.  She did vipassana with me, but she isn't into the pragmatic dharma stuff like I am. Maybe one day insurance will cover this sort of thing. haha! It's sad that money would even be an issue, but to be honest I haven't been earning my fair share around here since the dark night hit. My income has dropped by about 80%. The funny thing is, if someone like Kenneth could help get me through this, I could start making proper money again and living life. Try to explain that to someone who's been watching you mope for 5 years, and lose interest in work and life.

This is my view only and different approaches might work better for you. As always, it's your own call to decide how to proceed. 

Hey, I am up for whatever works at this point!
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/11/20 2:17 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/11/20 2:17 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

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Bagpuss The Gnome:
Hi Ricky, please see the attached sound file. And by the way I forgot to mention that I tried antidepression pills and they absolutely were the worst possible thing. Don't go there if you can avoid it.


Hey! I just listened to your audio. Wow! Yes, from your description of your experiences I see a ton of similarities between us. I think it would be incredibly beneficial if I could have an audio chat with you at some point. Even our meditation technique sounds pretty much exactly the same. I will attempt to send you a private message which I've never done on this board before. Might be in the morning because I'm dead tired at the moment!
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 6/11/20 2:48 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/11/20 2:48 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2669 Join Date: 3/1/20 Recent Posts
"Okay, let's see. 

restless tingling tingling seeing vibrating buzzing pulsing pressure pressure dryness coolness ticklish itch discomfort hearing pinching thinking tingling pricking restless frustration solid lightness falling lifting interest wondering annoyance confusion fear buzzing hearing hearing seeing smelling moisture tightness taste relaxation anxiety anxious pain sting expanding pressure pressure ticklish tisklish stretching stretching tight unstable wobbly lifting pulsing 

I find this exercise to be kind of difficult and distracting to be honest. I am unable to label almost all of my experience. The vast majority feels unnamable and what is able to be named has passed before the thinking mind has named it. "

I have bolden the sentence here that is just perfect emoticon Your noting above is also perfect but lacks noting of the Feeling Tone like pleasant, neutral and unpleasant. That which is unnamable can be just NOTICED or if its causing feelings of frustration then you note frustration, unpleasant and then zoom out to the whole body to pin point the body sensation associated with this.

There is so much possibility opening up once we start practicing this way. No more sleepiness as hindrance, no more lost in scenario spinning about the practice, no more doubt taking over or restlesness or ill will, as all these are being named, loud and clear just like a scientist does when conducting a research and while doing it also speaking out aloud so to record the session.

Also dont be afraid of messing about with Awareness emoticon as we are always one step behind the actual experience anyway. All we can do is re-loop it so to know it. Also, no reason to speed up so to note all the myriad things arising in split moment emoticon Arahats might do this Yedi stuff but we mortals still happy with noting aloud one sensation per second and what ever is being noticed (without noting aloud) along side of it is home run!

Noting speed and noting clarity will change from sit to sit and this is fine as this is part of the stages and jhanas. If you want you can go to my recent log and find a few practice videos of mine where I show different approaches depending on the actual clarity. At times I note one sensation/mind state/feeling tone a second and at times the clarity is so strong I can either go deeper into that one sensation and examine it more or simply just use that to note as many sensations as possible in one second. All is home run.

I would suggest you get familiar with this Freestyle Noting Aloud as thought by Kenneth Folk on his you tube channel as he really expalins it well in a series of videos (body sensations, mind states, feeliing tone). Also look at his attitude while doing it, with a naivite' like curiosity and wonder. Also he does not speed up. I do that only when sensory clarity offers such possibility. One works with the terrain as it offers itself that day (one day it could be cloudy, one day sunny, one day foggy, one day just hot hell, some days very cooling and bliss-like). 

I would suggest (if you decide to do this) you give this Freestyle Noting ALOUD a few months and do it for no longer that 45 minutes once a day to get used to it a bit and increase only when you feel like there is more to be seen here and the 45 minutes is a bit too short. You want Genuine Curiosity to motivate the time of the sit. At times I find my own suffering can increase the sits and that too is fine.
I do noting just like Kenneth with Eyes Open but I sit realatively still on a normal chair so to look as uncool as possible to my internal meditator emoticon I personally use to focus my eyes on one spot on the wall (dirt spot usually) as this offers a kasina-like concentartion that can lead to some interesting developing in the image space (fun stuff). Also the noting aloud acts as a Mantra is a way so I use it at times very loud if sleepiness and unclarity is there or if there is too much fidgetting and restlessness I calm the voice down to get me in a more equnimous state (Shinzen calls this "use the voice" btw, he too advocates this Noting Aloud).

So you have a focal point some 2 meters away from you to rest your focus there, you have 1 to 2 body sensations/mind statesfeeling tones to note aloud per second and you automatcally have a Mantra in the package, and you certainly have the capacaity for 45-60 minutes sit once a day it seems. You good to go. Start a log here on DhO and we can go from there. Daily updates and you get replies from members here on stuff as it unfolds and you might have have questions.

Here is one of my practice vids but there are a few more in my log called Freestyle Noting Aloud (updated daily)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FeajWRJcXA&feature=youtu.be
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J W, modified 3 Years ago at 6/11/20 11:14 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/11/20 11:13 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 671 Join Date: 2/11/20 Recent Posts
J C:
Have you seen this Shinzen video on that topic?

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9zIKQCwDXsA
Wow, thanks for sharing. I'm really interested in this topic as well, especially now after hearing Shinzen refer to it as "falling into the void".  

The 2 things I got from that video seem to coincide with some of my thoughts on this.

I think perception of Emptiness plays a key part in this.  Myself and I suspect most of us here, have not had any direct realization of emptiness.  We can only think about it in analogy.  It's common to think about Emptiness as 'nothingness' but that's really not the case at all.  Nothingness implies non-existence, complete absence and yes, aloneness.  That is a scary concept, but it's not accurate.  Any description of emptiness is not accurate by definition.  But, through insight we can sort of get an idea of some of the properties of emptiness.  Mutual dependency is one of those such properties (how do we discern one object from another?) - this doesn't mean 'nothing exists', but rather, "nothing exists apart from anything else".  Interconnectedness- the opposite of aloneness.  It is Oneness.  The mind of a Buddha arises from Emptiness.  The mind of a Buddha cannot arise from nothingness, because nothing can arise from nothingness, otherwise it is not nothing emoticon

The other thing Shinzen mentioned I think is really important which is to look at things positively and cultivate calming states of mind.  If you find it encouraging, try thinking that this fear is a common response and it actually can be a sign that you are on the right track. It may not seem that way, I'm sure. But even just generating that state of mind can be helpful.  I like what someone else mentioned, just setting aside a certain time during the day to be kind to yourself and tell yourself that you are doing well, that you are on the right track, even if you don't believe it every second of the day.

You are not alone!
Konstantin Freiberg, modified 3 Years ago at 6/11/20 2:01 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/11/20 2:01 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

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Your words resonate deeply with me as I've struggled similarly and intensely for about 9 months from the horrors of dualistic perception, just now coming out of it.

It is possible! and I do think only practice can do it! But practice is not just sitting. What has and is still helping me is walking meditation in nature, Yoga in groups and mostly talking to people about this Dark Night of The Soul. And allowing yourself to go into blissful/calm concentration states of meditation. Hit me up, if you would like to talk, I'd love that. 
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/12/20 7:43 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/12/20 7:41 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

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Konstantin Freiberg:
 But practice is not just sitting. What has and is still helping me is walking meditation in nature, Yoga in groups and mostly talking to people about this Dark Night of The Soul. And allowing yourself to go into blissful/calm concentration states of meditation. Hit me up, if you would like to talk, I'd love that. 

Oh boy... I just wrote a really long post, clicked 'publish', and my post content dissapeared and was replaced with the subject line. How bizarre! Bleh, I guess I'm come back later and try again. It was a great post describing my practice too. lol!

I keep thinking that this site could do with being migrated to a more modern forum system. Or at least some reworking of the CSS to be responsive on mobile. But I am just grateful that it exists at all, to be fair!

Konstantin Freiberg - thansk for your comments. I have definitely been ramping up the mindfulness off of the mat. I don't know what has been driving me lately, but it seems like I am currently obsessed with the dharma, listening to talks, practicing etc. My mind is currently on meditation almost non-stop recently.
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David Matte, modified 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 6:57 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 6:57 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 108 Join Date: 8/3/19 Recent Posts
Dear Ricky,

Both Daniel and Shinzen describe the suffering of the Dark Night as a result of being in this in-between stage of the somethingness of self and nothingness of the void. From MCTB:

"This is a kind of suffering that has nothing to do with the circumstances of our life and everything to do with a basic misunderstanding of all of it. It occurs when we are in this strange in-between territory where everything is having a wrecking ball brought to it, but something better to resort to hasn't yet surfaced."

At least you have some contextualization of what's going on with your experience and why these overwhelming feelings are manifesting. It's a stage. And the way out is to keep practicing. Remember to keep practice going throughout the day, making a clear note of the sensations that make up everything in the field of experience.

Perhaps another retreat is in order?
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Laurel Carrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 10:27 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 10:27 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 439 Join Date: 4/7/14 Recent Posts
If it's another retreat that is in order, I would advise against Goenka. You need hands-on help with real teachers. Shinzen has an online retreat starting up, I believe; in fact, he has an extensive offering of practice programs that might help at https://www.shinzen.org/retreat-schedule/. Since he's the person who made that video you liked, he'd be a good option for you. And of course with COVID-19 still active no one is going anywhere for awhile. 
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Laurel Carrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 3:41 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 3:41 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 439 Join Date: 4/7/14 Recent Posts
J C:
Laurel Carrington:

people who are strung out with anxiety don't relax because the brain thinks letting one's guard down is the worst thing you can do.


I really needed to hear that, Laurel. Thank you for that. It was very healing and beautifully phrased.
Glad this resonated for you. It took awhile for me to understand myself. 

I should point out that my own chronic anxiety pretty much disappeared as a result of this practice and the breakthroughs I've experienced. Not sure how to label the one that did the job, and obviously my experience isn't going to be applicable to everyone. 
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 4:43 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 4:40 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
Laurel Carrington:
I should point out that my own chronic anxiety pretty much disappeared as a result of this practice and the breakthroughs I've experienced. Not sure how to label the one that did the job, and obviously my experience isn't going to be applicable to everyone.


That's awesome, Laurel! I used to have really bad panic attacks that I now see as sensations and they don't scare me anymore (in fact, they rarely ever happen anymore) but the constant baseline anxiety feeling is with me most of the day and night until I fall asleep. I go from being super interested in meditation and getting through this thing to ultimately frustrated and wanting to just give up everything.... Which I hear is a good thing to do, but I never quite am able to give up thoroughly.


It's like trying to dip your toes into a cold pool that you know you'll get used to quickly if you could just be brave enough to jump in fearlessly..... Except that jumping into the pool is complicated as hell requiring all kinds of mental gymnastics, remembering to be mindful of your entire experience as you are on your way into the pool and if you miss just a tiny amount you get thrown back to the grass 20 feet away from the pool.
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 5:02 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 5:02 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
Laurel Carrington:
If it's another retreat that is in order, I would advise against Goenka. You need hands-on help with real teachers. Shinzen has an online retreat starting up, I believe; in fact, he has an extensive offering of practice programs that might help at https://www.shinzen.org/retreat-schedule/. Since he's the person who made that video you liked, he'd be a good option for you. And of course with COVID-19 still active no one is going anywhere for awhile. 

I need to go on a retreat. Yes - I'd love to have an actual enlightened physical teacher guiding me - that would be amazing! I am hesitant to do any phone / remote teaching thing. Unless it were a one on one thing. I have thought about contacting Kenneth Folk, but after following him on Twitter for a while he seems a bit......... mean and somewhat cold. lol. Not sure if that's what I'm going for - I'm already anxious enough.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 5:21 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 5:21 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2669 Join Date: 3/1/20 Recent Posts
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
Laurel Carrington:
If it's another retreat that is in order, I would advise against Goenka. You need hands-on help with real teachers. Shinzen has an online retreat starting up, I believe; in fact, he has an extensive offering of practice programs that might help at https://www.shinzen.org/retreat-schedule/. Since he's the person who made that video you liked, he'd be a good option for you. And of course with COVID-19 still active no one is going anywhere for awhile. 

I need to go on a retreat. Yes - I'd love to have an actual enlightened physical teacher guiding me - that would be amazing! I am hesitant to do any phone / remote teaching thing. Unless it were a one on one thing. I have thought about contacting Kenneth Folk, but after following him on Twitter for a while he seems a bit......... mean and somewhat cold. lol. Not sure if that's what I'm going for - I'm already anxious enough.

Kenneth is far from cold and mean I can tell you that first hand! That Kenneth on social media, podcasts and twiter is a different Kenneth doing his best to bring down that mystical boo boo hoo boo thats surrounding Buddhisms and this Path towards Awakening. He is an iconoclast. He wants to bring Awakening down from that high chair of idealising it, to the level of going to a gym and working out emoticon I totally dig that emoticon 
But yes, he will be streight with you. He will not bullshit you or pet you but he will not bring you down either. He will also not meditate for you nor be a parent hodling our hand and push us to finish our lunch emoticon The work to be done is all on us. He will keep your feet to the fire but you need to do it.
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 7:33 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 7:33 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
Papa Che Dusko:

Kenneth is far from cold and mean I can tell you that first hand! That Kenneth on social media, podcasts and twiter is a different Kenneth doing his best to bring down that mystical boo boo hoo boo thats surrounding Buddhisms and this Path towards Awakening. He is an iconoclast. He wants to bring Awakening down from that high chair of idealising it, to the level of going to a gym and working out emoticon I totally dig that emoticon 
But yes, he will be streight with you. He will not bullshit you or pet you but he will not bring you down either. He will also not meditate for you nor be a parent hodling our hand and push us to finish our lunch emoticon The work to be done is all on us. He will keep your feet to the fire but you need to do it.

Well, I can certainly get on board with that. I don't want any nonsense, just some level of freedom from all of this. It seems like you can't really know what waking up is really like without doing it, but my expectations are that it is better than this. Hell, I'd be happy if my default state went to being okay most of the time, with a bit of misery here and there, instead of my current state of default state of misery with glimpses of being ok here and there.
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 7:49 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/13/20 7:49 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
Hi Ricky,

Sorry to hear about your problems. I've experienced some of what you've described and what I've found helpful is to try to consciously manufacture a pleasant experience out of my meditation. Sometimes when there's a lot of anxiety/pain/fear then noting it can seem to make it worse. Instead, try to find a pleasant sensation somewhere in your body. Doesn't have to be amazingly pleasant, just a little tingle or warmth or nice sensation somewhere. Focus on that and try to get a feel for it, like a groove or vibration. Try to resonate with it, play with it and make it grow a little. This is just a fun and pleasurable exercise, a little bit of time you set aside for you to have some fun and enjoy your body for a bit. No guilt or striving for insight, you're allowed to enjoy yourself here. If you allow yourself to get into it you can really have a nice time and have some very pleasurable experiences, which will help balance out the dark night energy. You've earned this - ENJOY!

Cheers
agnostic
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/18/20 12:34 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/18/20 12:32 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
agnostic:
Hi Ricky,

Sorry to hear about your problems. I've experienced some of what you've described and what I've found helpful is to try to consciously manufacture a pleasant experience out of my meditation. Sometimes when there's a lot of anxiety/pain/fear then noting it can seem to make it worse. Instead, try to find a pleasant sensation somewhere in your body. Doesn't have to be amazingly pleasant, just a little tingle or warmth or nice sensation somewhere. Focus on that and try to get a feel for it, like a groove or vibration. Try to resonate with it, play with it and make it grow a little. This is just a fun and pleasurable exercise, a little bit of time you set aside for you to have some fun and enjoy your body for a bit. No guilt or striving for insight, you're allowed to enjoy yourself here. If you allow yourself to get into it you can really have a nice time and have some very pleasurable experiences, which will help balance out the dark night energy. You've earned this - ENJOY!

Cheers
agnostic

Thanks Agnostic!

Funny enough, a couple of weeks ago I purchased "Right Concentration: A Practical Guide to the Jhanas" By Leigh Brasington. My thinking was that perhaps I am too traumatized to break stream entry with just access concentration. Perhaps it's a bit too dry for someone in my situation.

Unfortunately, I keep getting stuck at trying to find a pleasant sensation. I very easily get into access concentration, but am unable to enter the jhanas - at least not via pleasant sensations and off retreat. Whatever stage I am currently at, all sensations feel either neutral or unpleasant. I do get nice tingly sensations, but they always seem to come with a subtle feeling of.. How do I discribe it... Like unfulfilling? I have difficulty putting it into words.

However, I will continue trying for a while and see how it goes. I get a sense that if I can get concentrated enough, perhaps I'll be able to have a breakthrough when investigating the sensations of DN and EQ.

I've also been experimenting with self inquiry. I've noticed that the sense of self is a slippery beast. It appears as a bundle of sensations in the center or back of my head, and constantly morphs making itself vague and confusing. Then it will disappear for a while and reappear somewhere else, sometimes as a tiny irritating speck of sensation. I may be wrong, but it seems like the job of the self is to just confuse the mind into thinking there is something real there, like hold the body and mind together like glue. Because when you look at it, it goes nuts and makes no sense; growing, shrinking, morphing, always vague and full of confusion. Oh, and it tries to keep itself at the center of my attention, not so center that I can get a good look at it. So strange when you examine this thing!

I can't knock the feeling that I am just on the cutting edge of breaking through this thing. But who the hell knows. I could be completely wrong, but unfortunately I just don't know.
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/18/20 3:03 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/18/20 3:03 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2464 Join Date: 6/13/11 Recent Posts
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
agnostic:
Hi Ricky,

Sorry to hear about your problems. I've experienced some of what you've described and what I've found helpful is to try to consciously manufacture a pleasant experience out of my meditation. Sometimes when there's a lot of anxiety/pain/fear then noting it can seem to make it worse. Instead, try to find a pleasant sensation somewhere in your body. Doesn't have to be amazingly pleasant, just a little tingle or warmth or nice sensation somewhere. Focus on that and try to get a feel for it, like a groove or vibration. Try to resonate with it, play with it and make it grow a little. This is just a fun and pleasurable exercise, a little bit of time you set aside for you to have some fun and enjoy your body for a bit. No guilt or striving for insight, you're allowed to enjoy yourself here. If you allow yourself to get into it you can really have a nice time and have some very pleasurable experiences, which will help balance out the dark night energy. You've earned this - ENJOY!

Cheers
agnostic

Thanks Agnostic!

Funny enough, a couple of weeks ago I purchased "Right Concentration: A Practical Guide to the Jhanas" By Leigh Brasington. My thinking was that perhaps I am too traumatized to break stream entry with just access concentration. Perhaps it's a bit too dry for someone in my situation.

Unfortunately, I keep getting stuck at trying to find a pleasant sensation. I very easily get into access concentration, but am unable to enter the jhanas - at least not via pleasant sensations and off retreat. Whatever stage I am currently at, all sensations feel either neutral or unpleasant. I do get nice tingly sensations, but they always seem to come with a subtle feeling of.. How do I discribe it... Like unfulfilling? I have difficulty putting it into words.

However, I will continue trying for a while and see how it goes. I get a sense that if I can get concentrated enough, perhaps I'll be able to have a breakthrough when investigating the sensations of DN and EQ.

I've also been experimenting with self inquiry. I've noticed that the sense of self is a slippery beast. It appears as a bundle of sensations in the center or back of my head, and constantly morphs making itself vague and confusing. Then it will disappear for a while and reappear somewhere else, sometimes as a tiny irritating speck of sensation. I may be wrong, but it seems like the job of the self is to just confuse the mind into thinking there is something real there, like hold the body and mind together like glue. Because when you look at it, it goes nuts and makes no sense; growing, shrinking, morphing, always vague and full of confusion. Oh, and it tries to keep itself at the center of my attention, not so center that I can get a good look at it. So strange when you examine this thing!

I can't knock the feeling that I am just on the cutting edge of breaking through this thing. But who the hell knows. I could be completely wrong, but unfortunately I just don't know.


best way off any ride is to crash the vehicle. This is why downhill slopes on mountain highways have long gravelled pull-off ramps, for when truckers lose their brakes. Steer the rig into the next one, my friend, and when it comes to a stop, walk away clean. That cargo ain't yours, and their fucking insurance will cover it anyway.

love, tim

p.s. what agnostic said, +1
shargrol, modified 3 Years ago at 6/18/20 8:21 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/18/20 6:50 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2326 Join Date: 2/8/16 Recent Posts
Ricky Lee Nuthman:


Funny enough, a couple of weeks ago I purchased "Right Concentration: A Practical Guide to the Jhanas" By Leigh Brasington. My thinking was that perhaps I am too traumatized to break stream entry with just access concentration. Perhaps it's a bit too dry for someone in my situation.

Unfortunately, I keep getting stuck at trying to find a pleasant sensation. I very easily get into access concentration, but am unable to enter the jhanas - at least not via pleasant sensations and off retreat. Whatever stage I am currently at, all sensations feel either neutral or unpleasant. I do get nice tingly sensations, but they always seem to come with a subtle feeling of.. How do I discribe it... Like unfulfilling? I have difficulty putting it into words.

...

I can't knock the feeling that I am just on the cutting edge of breaking through this thing. But who the hell knows. I could be completely wrong, but unfortunately I just don't know.

I get the feeling that your are right at the edge of a breakthrough, too. Everything you have posted over the last couple pages shows that you have more than enough awareness to breakout of your pattern of fear and spiraling.

Time for some tough love: A really big part of this is getting over yourself.  Dukka/ego/small self/unawakening is basically that thing that needs to make everything into a big problem.

Whether or not you are strictly in reobservation -- time to re-read this: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/10-re-observation/


A big part of the fear spiral is wanting to be free and in control at the same time. We want to save ourself and be the hero. Sounds awesome. But it means both having a problem all the time and trying to fix a problem all the time. It seems like the right thing to do, but the freedom comes from seeing the other side of it: we are the one who is destroying ourself with all of this drama. So what we really need to do is JUST STOP.

How do we stop? We see what an idiot we are:

How many times do you believe a "I need to get off this ride thought"? Is the belief making your life better?

How many times do you believe a "I need to do more to save myself thought"? Is the belief making your life better?

How many times do you believe a "this meditation method won't work for me thought"? Is the belief making your life better?

How many times do you believe in a "this small experience of fear right now means that I'll be doomed in the future thought"? Is the belief making your life better?

How many times do you believe in a "I am missing something important that I need in order to escape from this thought"? Is the belief making your life better?

The answer is right there in front of you. See thoughts as thoughts and don't fully believe them.

How many times do you not recognize emotions as emotions, including doubting, uncertainty, fear, imbalance, not-knowing, worry, anticipation, hope  --- and instead you get caught in the loop of "I am doubtful, uncertain, afraid, imbalanced, don't know, worried, anticipating, hoping..."?

The answer is right there in front of you. See emotions as emotions and don't automatically react to them.

These are all the kinds of thoughts and emotions that spiral us ENDLESSLY in samsara. Tiny little wispy thoughts and fleeting little emotions that we believe and they propel us with fear and ambition and hope and yearning... but the answer is simply, simply, simply to notice how this is how samsara works. It all completely falls apart when you can actually notice these thoughts as thoughts and emotions as emotions.

The opposite of samara is "nibbana" which means extinquishing. When these thoughts are seen as thoughts and the associated emotions are seen as emotions, then they can end. It's our own clinging that keeps thoughts and emotions everpresent. It's in their nature to arise and pass at the speed of mind -- but like big dummies, we cling and keep them here. We need to see how doing this doesn't make our life any better.

There is nothing wrong with having these thoughts and emotions. They shouldn't be repressed or ignored, they contain a small piece of useful information. The big problem is making them bigger than they are.

There can be a lot of grieving when we really understand what we've been doing to ourselves for all these years. There can be a lot of crying when we finally get it, when we finally realize that we've been our own worst enemy... and we've made life difficult for those we love.
 

"Re-observation is like a toothless dog with a ferocious bark. If you run screaming or faint from fear when the dog barks, then it needed no teeth to prevent your progress. It is like a hologram of a snarling demon that you can just walk right through and it can’t touch or harm you at all. There is a curious freedom when you deeply realize that you are safe in Re-observation, that you can go deep into the pit, and the pit is just fine."

You are about to make a big leap in your practice, but you still probably have a lot of bad habits with pushing too hard. So my best advice is very short, very simple meditation sits: 30 minutes of the real practice of seeing thoughts as thoughts and emotions and emotions.

Then go for long walks and think about how "problemness" is constantly created and carried with you through mental habits.

Short, high-quality sits as someone said above, plus lots of space and ease as someone said above. This is the magic combination for this kind of work. 

There can be the distinct feeling that there is no way to go forward, and it is useless to go back, which is exactly the lesson we should learn. Acceptance of exactly this, right here and right now, is required, even if it seems that this mind and this body are completely unacceptable and unworthy objects of investigation.

I'm sorry to say that you will be stuck until you learn to do this. I'm happy to say that it's just a matter of seeing thoughts as thoughts and emotions as emotions.

Best wishes for your practice.

p.s. Please re-read your notes on jhana practice. It's the same sort of thing. You have access concentration, you have nice tingly sensations --- that's enough! --- but you make it complicated by focusing on the aspect that is still unfullfilling. This is classic reobservation -- you're making everything into a problem.
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/18/20 4:15 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/18/20 4:15 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
Shargrol - I don't have anything to say other than thank you for this. You've given me what I need, I now need to apply it.
shargrol, modified 3 Years ago at 6/18/20 5:29 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/18/20 5:29 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2326 Join Date: 2/8/16 Recent Posts
Right on. You can do it! Or not do it, so to speak emoticon
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terry, modified 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 12:11 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 12:11 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2424 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
I don't know if this is 'fear' as described in the progress of insight. I am definitely stuck in something and it has been going on for years now. It doesn't seem to ever really get any better, but it gets worse from time to time and makes it very difficult to live with all the time. For quick reference, I have 2 10 day retreats under my belt, 1 4 day, and many hundreds of hours practicing at home over about 8 years I believe.

The only time I can get any relief at all is during my actual meditation. I am not sure how any of this maps to the stages of insight, it seems so strange. When I sit for meditation, and start watching the breath, I notice large chunks of my experience that feel like solid metal while other parts feel like light tingling. Bursts of fear continually arise and I make note of them. In the background I am constantly barraged with sensations. all kinds of them, rapidly. So much so that my head starts swaying a bit. I have to catch myself and relax. They mostly all have a predominant flavor of slight to strong terror, worry, anxiety, restlessness. Which is funny because when I look at my fitbit after 3 hours of this, it says 'deep sleep'

That's another thing. Somehow I can sit like this endlessly. I often sit for 3 hours and think it has only been 1/2 an hour. So I am able to sit with the pain, fear, anxiety and such. Eventually it all sort of subsides and there is a stillness. In these moments I get a bit of relief.

Soon after I stop meditating, the fear starts again. Throughout my normal waking day, I am scared all of the time. Over the last couple of years, my brain has tried to make a reason for this fear, so I've developed sort of a hypochondria. Vipassana has trained me to notice every sensasion in the body. So now, having the fear along with the realization of these subtle (or strong) sensations; I start coming up with all kinds of diseases that I probably have. 

I am clearly doing something wrong, or not doing something right. I am not progressing any more, at least as far as I can tell, with my practice. My all day experience is difficult to explain. I feel like I can't care or think about anything but myself, which is really distressing. I feel 'stuck in my body', like my consciousness is somehow compressed.... my awareness feels tight and terrified. I am withdrawn into myself. This is the worst possible stage I could have gotten stuck in.


Oddly, I seem to be able to rest in the breath incredibly easy, but in regular life I have lost any ability to concentrate on work or anything else. My attention constantly - and I do mean CONSTANTLY - jumps from one body sensation to another.. worry... fear... tightness... tingle... pain... anxiousness... I can't explain any of this properly to my wife. I am failing at my job, I've lost all ability to organize anything, my short term memory is next to nil. I want to cry but can't, which kind of sucks because that gives a bit of temporary relief.

How the hell can I break this cycle? I feel like something wants to explode. Like there is energy stuck behind a high pressure valve that needs to be relieved, but can't find a way out. All I can think about is liberation. I can see the impermanence so clearly, but apparently not deeply enough. I feel dissatisfaction even more clearly. Every single sensation, event pleasant ones feels lacking. Whenever I'm not scared, I am feeling fed-up and exhausted with all these sensations. I am completely dysfunctional! 

From the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep, it feels like I'm in a car in the middle of a war zone, driving full speed, always just ahead of flying bullets and explosions. Chaos ensues around me. Yet here I am, calmly sitting in my computer chair. I just simply cannot emphasize how distressing this is, and how desperate I am to find a way out.

Please don't suggest that I see a psychologist, although I appreciate the compassion. This is all a result of my practice, and I truly believe that it can only be resolved through my practice. I am just not skilled enough to do it on my own, and need some highly skilled guidance.

perhaps you should consider monastic life, ditch the job and family and just meditate all the time...shave your head and take precepts, wear the orange robe...

alternatively, stellazine, thorazine...

t
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 12:30 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 12:30 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
terry:
perhaps you should consider monastic life, ditch the job and family and just meditate all the time...shave your head and take precepts, wear the orange robe...

alternatively, stellazine, thorazine...

t

LOL! Perhaps in another life. My son will be born some time in the next few weeks - I have my work cut out for me. I suppose it is part of the reason I have been pushing too hard to get over the hump of this thing. I would like to be here and somewhat stable for my kid and do it right. Didn't think I'd be a new dad in my mid 40s, but here I am!

I think the solution is to just do as Shargol suggests.

Practice seeing things simply as they are without adding my own flavor. Allow thoughts, feelings, emotions, or whatever to arise and know that they have no substance. Let them come and go without allowing each any every one of them to develop into their own made for TV drama.
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 2:50 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 2:50 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2464 Join Date: 6/13/11 Recent Posts
shargrol:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:


Funny enough, a couple of weeks ago I purchased "Right Concentration: A Practical Guide to the Jhanas" By Leigh Brasington. My thinking was that perhaps I am too traumatized to break stream entry with just access concentration. Perhaps it's a bit too dry for someone in my situation.

Unfortunately, I keep getting stuck at trying to find a pleasant sensation. I very easily get into access concentration, but am unable to enter the jhanas - at least not via pleasant sensations and off retreat. Whatever stage I am currently at, all sensations feel either neutral or unpleasant. I do get nice tingly sensations, but they always seem to come with a subtle feeling of.. How do I discribe it... Like unfulfilling? I have difficulty putting it into words.

...

I can't knock the feeling that I am just on the cutting edge of breaking through this thing. But who the hell knows. I could be completely wrong, but unfortunately I just don't know.

I get the feeling that your are right at the edge of a breakthrough, too. Everything you have posted over the last couple pages shows that you have more than enough awareness to breakout of your pattern of fear and spiraling.

Time for some tough love: A really big part of this is getting over yourself.  Dukka/ego/small self/unawakening is basically that thing that needs to make everything into a big problem.

Whether or not you are strictly in reobservation -- time to re-read this: https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-iv-insight/30-the-progress-of-insight/10-re-observation/


A big part of the fear spiral is wanting to be free and in control at the same time. We want to save ourself and be the hero. Sounds awesome. But it means both having a problem all the time and trying to fix a problem all the time. It seems like the right thing to do, but the freedom comes from seeing the other side of it: we are the one who is destroying ourself with all of this drama. So what we really need to do is JUST STOP.

How do we stop? We see what an idiot we are:

How many times do you believe a "I need to get off this ride thought"? Is the belief making your life better?

How many times do you believe a "I need to do more to save myself thought"? Is the belief making your life better?

How many times do you believe a "this meditation method won't work for me thought"? Is the belief making your life better?

How many times do you believe in a "this small experience of fear right now means that I'll be doomed in the future thought"? Is the belief making your life better?

How many times do you believe in a "I am missing something important that I need in order to escape from this thought"? Is the belief making your life better?

The answer is right there in front of you. See thoughts as thoughts and don't fully believe them.

How many times do you not recognize emotions as emotions, including doubting, uncertainty, fear, imbalance, not-knowing, worry, anticipation, hope  --- and instead you get caught in the loop of "I am doubtful, uncertain, afraid, imbalanced, don't know, worried, anticipating, hoping..."?

The answer is right there in front of you. See emotions as emotions and don't automatically react to them.

These are all the kinds of thoughts and emotions that spiral us ENDLESSLY in samsara. Tiny little wispy thoughts and fleeting little emotions that we believe and they propel us with fear and ambition and hope and yearning... but the answer is simply, simply, simply to notice how this is how samsara works. It all completely falls apart when you can actually notice these thoughts as thoughts and emotions as emotions.

The opposite of samara is "nibbana" which means extinquishing. When these thoughts are seen as thoughts and the associated emotions are seen as emotions, then they can end. It's our own clinging that keeps thoughts and emotions everpresent. It's in their nature to arise and pass at the speed of mind -- but like big dummies, we cling and keep them here. We need to see how doing this doesn't make our life any better.

There is nothing wrong with having these thoughts and emotions. They shouldn't be repressed or ignored, they contain a small piece of useful information. The big problem is making them bigger than they are.

There can be a lot of grieving when we really understand what we've been doing to ourselves for all these years. There can be a lot of crying when we finally get it, when we finally realize that we've been our own worst enemy... and we've made life difficult for those we love.
 

"Re-observation is like a toothless dog with a ferocious bark. If you run screaming or faint from fear when the dog barks, then it needed no teeth to prevent your progress. It is like a hologram of a snarling demon that you can just walk right through and it can’t touch or harm you at all. There is a curious freedom when you deeply realize that you are safe in Re-observation, that you can go deep into the pit, and the pit is just fine."

You are about to make a big leap in your practice, but you still probably have a lot of bad habits with pushing too hard. So my best advice is very short, very simple meditation sits: 30 minutes of the real practice of seeing thoughts as thoughts and emotions and emotions.

Then go for long walks and think about how "problemness" is constantly created and carried with you through mental habits.

Short, high-quality sits as someone said above, plus lots of space and ease as someone said above. This is the magic combination for this kind of work. 

There can be the distinct feeling that there is no way to go forward, and it is useless to go back, which is exactly the lesson we should learn. Acceptance of exactly this, right here and right now, is required, even if it seems that this mind and this body are completely unacceptable and unworthy objects of investigation.

I'm sorry to say that you will be stuck until you learn to do this. I'm happy to say that it's just a matter of seeing thoughts as thoughts and emotions as emotions.

Best wishes for your practice.

p.s. Please re-read your notes on jhana practice. It's the same sort of thing. You have access concentration, you have nice tingly sensations --- that's enough! --- but you make it complicated by focusing on the aspect that is still unfullfilling. This is classic reobservation -- you're making everything into a problem.

Pepe, you see this latest from Shargrol Of Course? Do you add it to the first collection, or is Volume Two in progress?

Pepe, again, condolences and my heartfelt prayers for you and yur mother's death. Eternal peace grant her, O G-d, and may perpetual light shine upon her, in her, and through her.

love, tim
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 2:53 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 2:53 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2464 Join Date: 6/13/11 Recent Posts
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
terry:
perhaps you should consider monastic life, ditch the job and family and just meditate all the time...shave your head and take precepts, wear the orange robe...

alternatively, stellazine, thorazine...

t

LOL! Perhaps in another life. My son will be born some time in the next few weeks - I have my work cut out for me. I suppose it is part of the reason I have been pushing too hard to get over the hump of this thing. I would like to be here and somewhat stable for my kid and do it right. Didn't think I'd be a new dad in my mid 40s, but here I am!

I think the solution is to just do as Shargol suggests.

Practice seeing things simply as they are without adding my own flavor. Allow thoughts, feelings, emotions, or whatever to arise and know that they have no substance. Let them come and go without allowing each any every one of them to develop into their own made for TV drama.

Ricky, of course you're welcome to attend to and heed the wisdom of Shargrol Of Course, as we all do.

But once you decide to ditch this shit show, terry's shaved head motorcycle gang is where it's at. Get yourself a big ole Hog and rev that fucker up, we're way the fuck gate gate gate megafuckingparamahagata in a cloud of fucking dust.

After you use up that gentle, utterly pragmatic, perfectly true Shargrol shit, is what i'm suggesting. He does mean well.

love, tim
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 2:54 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 2:54 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

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shargrol:
Right on. You can do it! Or not do it, so to speak emoticon
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Pepe ·, modified 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 4:42 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 4:40 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

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Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 4:55 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 4:55 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

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Pepe:
Tim, all in one single volume. Here you have, with just a little editing: See thoughts as thoughts and don't fully believe them. See emotions as emotions and don't automatically react to them  


Pepe, I love you. lol. really really love you. Thank you.

love, tim
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Pepe ·, modified 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 8:41 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 8:40 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

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Hi Ricky, we're working on the same issue. Check my practice log from May 17th onwards, in particular detecting thoughts, intentions, emotions from the sub-minds/Unconscious (analysis thoughts, ego reinforcement thoughts, emotional expressions, etc).

I meditate with earplugs, that helps to trigger lots of thoughts. They also help to detect tensions in your head/face: tensions there activate the heartbeat in the ears, so the only way to bring silence again is to relax and keep yourself that way. A cheap analog twentieth century solution for the digital Pragmatic Dharma crew emoticon     
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terry, modified 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 8:02 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 8:02 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2424 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
terry:
perhaps you should consider monastic life, ditch the job and family and just meditate all the time...shave your head and take precepts, wear the orange robe...

alternatively, stellazine, thorazine...

t

LOL! Perhaps in another life. My son will be born some time in the next few weeks - I have my work cut out for me. I suppose it is part of the reason I have been pushing too hard to get over the hump of this thing. I would like to be here and somewhat stable for my kid and do it right. Didn't think I'd be a new dad in my mid 40s, but here I am!

I think the solution is to just do as Shargol suggests.

Practice seeing things simply as they are without adding my own flavor. Allow thoughts, feelings, emotions, or whatever to arise and know that they have no substance. Let them come and go without allowing each any every one of them to develop into their own made for TV drama.



   The buddha named his son "fetter" and refused to kiss him when he left home forever, figuring it would just increase his attachment. Rahula (fetter) ended up an enlightened arhat in the buddha's community. Go figure.

   My sons are successful and happy family men, secure in their homes and marriages, and good fathers to their children. There is no room for me in their lives anymore, though I am revered as long as I keep some distance. My tme as paterfamilias has passed. I truly wonder if I would not have been better off as a monastic beggar. Maybe in my next life.

   They said to the buddha, it is wife and sons that make a man happy. The buddha retorted, it is wife and sons that make a man miserable. You may think that you fear for your life, your substance, your happiness. Fear for your children creates even more karma. When you weigh the welfare of your children against that of strangers, it is a rare parent who can maintain equanimity.

   Think of a schooll shooting or fire, with dozens dead, and your child might be one of them. You arrive on the scene to find one of two forks: your child is dead, and you witness the unbridled joy of those who have found their children safe. Or, your child is alive and you feel unbridled joy, despite the suffering all around you. This is the extreme of what happens to a parent every day. It is infamous, notorious what a parent will do for a child.

   "Leaving home" can be a metaphor for detachment, even if you do not physically remove yourself and you continue to shoulder your obligations unselfishly.  Tim's skinhead gangster on his hog.


terry
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 11:13 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/19/20 11:07 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2464 Join Date: 6/13/11 Recent Posts
terry:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
terry:
perhaps you should consider monastic life, ditch the job and family and just meditate all the time...shave your head and take precepts, wear the orange robe...

alternatively, stellazine, thorazine...

t

LOL! Perhaps in another life. My son will be born some time in the next few weeks - I have my work cut out for me. I suppose it is part of the reason I have been pushing too hard to get over the hump of this thing. I would like to be here and somewhat stable for my kid and do it right. Didn't think I'd be a new dad in my mid 40s, but here I am!

I think the solution is to just do as Shargol suggests.

Practice seeing things simply as they are without adding my own flavor. Allow thoughts, feelings, emotions, or whatever to arise and know that they have no substance. Let them come and go without allowing each any every one of them to develop into their own made for TV drama.



   The buddha named his son "fetter" and refused to kiss him when he left home forever, figuring it would just increase his attachment. Rahula (fetter) ended up an enlightened arhat in the buddha's community. Go figure.

   My sons are successful and happy family men, secure in their homes and marriages, and good fathers to their children. There is no room for me in their lives anymore, though I am revered as long as I keep some distance. My tme as paterfamilias has passed. I truly wonder if I would not have been better off as a monastic beggar. Maybe in my next life.

   They said to the buddha, it is wife and sons that make a man happy. The buddha retorted, it is wife and sons that make a man miserable. You may think that you fear for your life, your substance, your happiness. Fear for your children creates even more karma. When you weigh the welfare of your children against that of strangers, it is a rare parent who can maintain equanimity.

   Think of a schooll shooting or fire, with dozens dead, and your child might be one of them. You arrive on the scene to find one of two forks: your child is dead, and you witness the unbridled joy of those who have found their children safe. Or, your child is alive and you feel unbridled joy, despite the suffering all around you. This is the extreme of what happens to a parent every day. It is infamous, notorious what a parent will do for a child.

   "Leaving home" can be a metaphor for detachment, even if you do not physically remove yourself and you continue to shoulder your obligations unselfishly.  Tim's skinhead gangster on his hog.


terry


actually, tim's skinhead gangster on his hog would kill to protect his wife and kids. he's more attached than i can imagine, in the desert of my failed relationship life, on the whole: more fettered, more, . . . what's the word?

oh, i've got it. Loving. Human. Beautiful. Blessed with a heart capable of love and grief. What could be better? This is human existence. Fuck equanimity. I would die for those kids in a heartbeat. Die for my woman in a heartbeat.

Yes, it is wife and sons that make a man happy, and daughters. and it is the loss of those loved ones that make him crazy with the pain of grief. What's the problem, again?

Die for detachment? lol. what's in it for anyone? what's in it for anatta people, for that matter? what use an enlightenment that loses everything human for a heartless void and compassion toward strangers who are equally empty of meaning and heart connection? who would a bodhisattva save, and for what? Why do you think Arjuna is so fucked up he has to call time out in the fucking middle of the battle to moan to the creator of the universe? He's killing cousins, man. and the creator of the universe tells him, yep, and you love those cousins, don't you? put on your big girl panties, do your karma, do your dharma, love and grieve, create and kill. be the fucked up pain wracked human you have to be, just quit fucking whining. Jesus, Arjuna, you used to be fun.

Love, and grieve. This is the law of the heart. Live with that. That's as good as it gets.

love, Rahula Farrington, shave head dharma punk pussycat for family and friends. Will help beaten travelers found in roadside ditches, and neighbors, as well.
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 1:10 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 1:10 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
I don't know what kind of drugs you guys are on... Is this some post 8th path shit?
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 1:23 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 1:23 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

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Ricky Lee Nuthman:
I don't know what kind of drugs you guys are on... Is this some post 8th path shit?

it's traumatic regression, Ricky. we're professionals. don't try this at home.
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 1:44 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 1:36 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
terry

"Leaving home" can be a metaphor for detachment, even if you do not physically remove yourself and you continue to shoulder your obligations unselfishly.  Tim's skinhead gangster on his hog.



I think that, for me at least, I will choose to do this thing without renunciating the world. I could VERY easily go off and become a monk. In fact, right now more than ever that feels an extremely inviting prospect. The bit in MCTB (Desire for Deliverance) about wanting to drop everything and become a monk really resonated with me - I had an intense desire not long ago to go off to Burma or somewhere and get ordained. If you had asked me 5 years ago I would have said 'Become a monk? Hell no, never!'

When I really consider it, though, there is something about going full monk for the rest of my life that feels like cheating. I think doing long term retreats for months or a couple of years is a great idea. Even a couple long retreats per year has immense value.

I get a sense that if you were to take a monastic person who has lived their whole life in a monestary, and then dropped into the middle of a household with screaming kids, responsibilities and such, they'd not be as awakened as they think they are. How could they be? This stuff doesn't arise in a monestary. How can one investigate these things? Of course, I'm not enlightened so how would I know. Maybe it's the case that if you see things how they are, it turns everything into background noise, no matter what the content is. 

Even so, if that were the case then why even continue being a monk once fully awakened? Get out of there and explore the world... You've seen what you need to see, now explore the world free of delusion.

So yeah, for me working toward arhantship while maintaining responsibilities seems like the best course of action. I am much more useful to the world if I am both fully awakened, and actually in it. That's my take, anyway. 
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 1:41 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 1:41 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
Tim Farrington:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
I don't know what kind of drugs you guys are on... Is this some post 8th path shit?

it's traumatic regression, Ricky. we're professionals. don't try this at home.

LOL! I was hoping to get some of that.
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 1:43 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 1:43 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2464 Join Date: 6/13/11 Recent Posts
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
Tim Farrington:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
I don't know what kind of drugs you guys are on... Is this some post 8th path shit?

it's traumatic regression, Ricky. we're professionals. don't try this at home.

LOL! I was hoping to get some of that.

what state do you live in? a lot of them don't allow it to be mailed or otherwise conveyed across state lines. Equanimity is actually the only state i know with reasonable laws.
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 1:46 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 1:46 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
Tim Farrington:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
Tim Farrington:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
I don't know what kind of drugs you guys are on... Is this some post 8th path shit?

it's traumatic regression, Ricky. we're professionals. don't try this at home.

LOL! I was hoping to get some of that.

what state do you live in? a lot of them don't allow it to be mailed or otherwise conveyed across state lines. Equanimity is actually the only state i know with reasonable laws.

Re-Observation is where I live usually, but I'm on the border. I can get over to EQ for weekend trips if that helps. 
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 1:57 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 1:57 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
Pepe:
Hi Ricky, we're working on the same issue. Check my practice log from May 17th onwards, in particular detecting thoughts, intentions, emotions from the sub-minds/Unconscious (analysis thoughts, ego reinforcement thoughts, emotional expressions, etc).

I meditate with earplugs, that helps to trigger lots of thoughts. They also help to detect tensions in your head/face: tensions there activate the heartbeat in the ears, so the only way to bring silence again is to relax and keep yourself that way. A cheap analog twentieth century solution for the digital Pragmatic Dharma crew emoticon     

Thanks Pepe - I will give your log a read. I should start my own, really.
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 2:39 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 2:39 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2464 Join Date: 6/13/11 Recent Posts
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
Tim Farrington:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
Tim Farrington:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
I don't know what kind of drugs you guys are on... Is this some post 8th path shit?

it's traumatic regression, Ricky. we're professionals. don't try this at home.

LOL! I was hoping to get some of that.

what state do you live in? a lot of them don't allow it to be mailed or otherwise conveyed across state lines. Equanimity is actually the only state i know with reasonable laws.

Re-Observation is where I live usually, but I'm on the border. I can get over to EQ for weekend trips if that helps. 

lol, oh i reside in hell, somewhere so deep in the dukha nanas that the POI is irrelevant, Equanimity is a faint rumor of an exotic covilzation of mth, and besides i'm Catholic, it's just John of the Cross dark night unto oblivion for me and the rest of the distinctions disappear into the nothingness with everything else, like origami in a furnace. But we could meet near the border of sanity, yes. I don't have a visa or a passport, the hell authorities (and the heaven, and normality authorities too, for that matter) are very strict and scrupulous and the red tape and bribe cost are prohibitive. But I believe i could pass along some good shit in a paper bag on a quick pass, if you can come up with the cash, and are not actually some kind of narc doing a sting here.

By cash, I mean, nothing. money is an illusion too. you will learn this soon, after you start a practice log and the dark night sees you're hooked and starts destroying everything you thought of as your spirtual self, and then goes on to destroy everything else. This is called practice.

love, tim
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 3:22 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 3:22 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

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somewhere so deep in the dukha nanas that the POI is irrelevant, Equanimity is a faint rumor of an exotic covilzation of mth, and besides i'm Catholic, it's just John of the Cross dark night unto oblivion for me and the rest of the distinctions disappear into the nothingness with everything else, like origami in a furnace.


Sounds like East Dayton, Ohio where I'm originally from. Fill that ghetto grocery bag up with the good stuff. I'll be there man! 
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terry, modified 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 4:28 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 4:28 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2424 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
terry

"Leaving home" can be a metaphor for detachment, even if you do not physically remove yourself and you continue to shoulder your obligations unselfishly.  Tim's skinhead gangster on his hog.



I think that, for me at least, I will choose to do this thing without renunciating the world. I could VERY easily go off and become a monk. In fact, right now more than ever that feels an extremely inviting prospect. The bit in MCTB (Desire for Deliverance) about wanting to drop everything and become a monk really resonated with me - I had an intense desire not long ago to go off to Burma or somewhere and get ordained. If you had asked me 5 years ago I would have said 'Become a monk? Hell no, never!'

When I really consider it, though, there is something about going full monk for the rest of my life that feels like cheating. I think doing long term retreats for months or a couple of years is a great idea. Even a couple long retreats per year has immense value.

I get a sense that if you were to take a monastic person who has lived their whole life in a monestary, and then dropped into the middle of a household with screaming kids, responsibilities and such, they'd not be as awakened as they think they are. How could they be? This stuff doesn't arise in a monestary. How can one investigate these things? Of course, I'm not enlightened so how would I know. Maybe it's the case that if you see things how they are, it turns everything into background noise, no matter what the content is. 

Even so, if that were the case then why even continue being a monk once fully awakened? Get out of there and explore the world... You've seen what you need to see, now explore the world free of delusion.

So yeah, for me working toward arhantship while maintaining responsibilities seems like the best course of action. I am much more useful to the world if I am both fully awakened, and actually in it. That's my take, anyway. 


   There is a tradition in islam, ascribed to the prophet (peace be upon him) that says, "there is no monkery in islam." There are sufi orders but they don't shut themselves away from the world. Another hadith says "be in the world but not of it."

   One can renounce the world without renouncing one's karma, one's responsibilities. The world is nothing but a filthy old hag wearing makeup, in the sufi metaphor, but she has a glamor. When the glamor slips, we recoil in horror. Hey, I wasn't able to do it and I knew better, so it's easy to give insightful advice from the perspective of a grandfather. Monkhood is the easier way, if you have the knack for long term sitting. Of course you would try it for a few months before committing to it for life. Personally 45 minutes a day works for me in formal sitting, but everything I deliberately do I try to make a meditation of sorts. My formal practice is very important to me however.

   I would bet a lot of monks would handle a houseful of screaming kids better than you or I. My daddy always said, I'll give you something to scream about if you want to scream." I generally made sure it was in my children's best interests not to complain too loudly. Confucius says, "when it comes to discipline, one father is worth ten mothers." I never had to hit my boys, they learned to reason at a very early age.

   Anyhows, good luck with your child-rearing, I never had so much fun as I did raising my keiki. I got to play with all the old toys I fondly remembered and all the new ones too. We went camping and to the beach at every opportunity. 

   Enjoy.

terry



IT'S THE BEGINNING OF A GREAT ADVENTURE
(lou reed)

It might be fun to have a kid that I could kick around
a little me to fill up with my thoughts
A little me or he or she to fill up with my dreams
a way of saying life is not a loss
I'd keep the tyke away from school and tutor him myself
keep him from the poison of the crowd
But then again pristine isolation might not be the best idea
it's not good trying to immortalize yourself
Beginning of a great adventure
Beginning of a great adventure
Why stop at one, I might have ten, a regular TV brood
I'd breed a little liberal army in the wood
Just like these redneck lunatics I see at the local bar
with their tribe of mutant inbred piglets with cloven hooves
I'd teach 'em how to plant a bomb, start a fire, play guitar
and if they catch a hunter, shoot him in the nuts
I'd try to be as progressive as I could possibly be
as long as I don't have to try too much
Beginning of a great adventure
Beginning of a great adventure
Susie, Jesus, Bogart, Sam, Leslie, Jill and Jeff
Rita, Winny, Andy, Fran and Jet
Boris, Bono, Lucy, Ethel, Bunny, Reg and Tom
that's a lot of names to try not to forget
Carrie, Marlon, Mo and Steve, La Rue and Jerry Lee
Eggplant, Rufus, Dummy, Star and The Glob
I'd need a damn computer to keep track of all these names
I hope this baby thing don't go too far
I hope it's true what my wife said to me
I hope it's true what my wife said to me, hey
I hope it's true what my wife said to me
She says, "Baby, it's the beginning of a great adventure"
"Babe, beginning of a great adventure"
take a look
It might be fun to have a kid that I could kick around
create in my own image like a god
I'd raise my own pallbearers to carry me to my grave
and keep me company when I'm a wizened toothless clod
Some gibbering old fool sitting all alone drooling on his shirt
some senile old fart playing in the dirt
It might be fun to have a kid I could pass something on to
something better than rage, pain, anger and hurt
I hope it's true what my wife said to me
I hope it's true what my wife said to me
I hope it's true what my wife said to me
She says, "Lou, it's the beginning of a great adventure"
"Lou, Lou, Lou, beginning of a great adventure"
She says, "babe, how you call your lover boy"
"Sylvia, quite you call your lover man"
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 9:17 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/20/20 9:17 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2464 Join Date: 6/13/11 Recent Posts
terry:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
terry

"Leaving home" can be a metaphor for detachment, even if you do not physically remove yourself and you continue to shoulder your obligations unselfishly.  Tim's skinhead gangster on his hog.



I think that, for me at least, I will choose to do this thing without renunciating the world. I could VERY easily go off and become a monk. In fact, right now more than ever that feels an extremely inviting prospect. The bit in MCTB (Desire for Deliverance) about wanting to drop everything and become a monk really resonated with me - I had an intense desire not long ago to go off to Burma or somewhere and get ordained. If you had asked me 5 years ago I would have said 'Become a monk? Hell no, never!'

When I really consider it, though, there is something about going full monk for the rest of my life that feels like cheating. I think doing long term retreats for months or a couple of years is a great idea. Even a couple long retreats per year has immense value.

I get a sense that if you were to take a monastic person who has lived their whole life in a monestary, and then dropped into the middle of a household with screaming kids, responsibilities and such, they'd not be as awakened as they think they are. How could they be? This stuff doesn't arise in a monestary. How can one investigate these things? Of course, I'm not enlightened so how would I know. Maybe it's the case that if you see things how they are, it turns everything into background noise, no matter what the content is. 

Even so, if that were the case then why even continue being a monk once fully awakened? Get out of there and explore the world... You've seen what you need to see, now explore the world free of delusion.

So yeah, for me working toward arhantship while maintaining responsibilities seems like the best course of action. I am much more useful to the world if I am both fully awakened, and actually in it. That's my take, anyway. 


   There is a tradition in islam, ascribed to the prophet (peace be upon him) that says, "there is no monkery in islam." There are sufi orders but they don't shut themselves away from the world. Another hadith says "be in the world but not of it."

   One can renounce the world without renouncing one's karma, one's responsibilities. The world is nothing but a filthy old hag wearing makeup, in the sufi metaphor, but she has a glamor. When the glamor slips, we recoil in horror. Hey, I wasn't able to do it and I knew better, so it's easy to give insightful advice from the perspective of a grandfather. Monkhood is the easier way, if you have the knack for long term sitting. Of course you would try it for a few months before committing to it for life. Personally 45 minutes a day works for me in formal sitting, but everything I deliberately do I try to make a meditation of sorts. My formal practice is very important to me however.

   I would bet a lot of monks would handle a houseful of screaming kids better than you or I. My daddy always said, I'll give you something to scream about if you want to scream." I generally made sure it was in my children's best interests not to complain too loudly. Confucius says, "when it comes to discipline, one father is worth ten mothers." I never had to hit my boys, they learned to reason at a very early age.

   Anyhows, good luck with your child-rearing, I never had so much fun as I did raising my keiki. I got to play with all the old toys I fondly remembered and all the new ones too. We went camping and to the beach at every opportunity. 

   Enjoy.

terry



IT'S THE BEGINNING OF A GREAT ADVENTURE
(lou reed)

It might be fun to have a kid that I could kick around
a little me to fill up with my thoughts
A little me or he or she to fill up with my dreams
a way of saying life is not a loss
I'd keep the tyke away from school and tutor him myself
keep him from the poison of the crowd
But then again pristine isolation might not be the best idea
it's not good trying to immortalize yourself
Beginning of a great adventure
Beginning of a great adventure
Why stop at one, I might have ten, a regular TV brood
I'd breed a little liberal army in the wood
Just like these redneck lunatics I see at the local bar
with their tribe of mutant inbred piglets with cloven hooves
I'd teach 'em how to plant a bomb, start a fire, play guitar
and if they catch a hunter, shoot him in the nuts
I'd try to be as progressive as I could possibly be
as long as I don't have to try too much
Beginning of a great adventure
Beginning of a great adventure
Susie, Jesus, Bogart, Sam, Leslie, Jill and Jeff
Rita, Winny, Andy, Fran and Jet
Boris, Bono, Lucy, Ethel, Bunny, Reg and Tom
that's a lot of names to try not to forget
Carrie, Marlon, Mo and Steve, La Rue and Jerry Lee
Eggplant, Rufus, Dummy, Star and The Glob
I'd need a damn computer to keep track of all these names
I hope this baby thing don't go too far
I hope it's true what my wife said to me
I hope it's true what my wife said to me, hey
I hope it's true what my wife said to me
She says, "Baby, it's the beginning of a great adventure"
"Babe, beginning of a great adventure"
take a look
It might be fun to have a kid that I could kick around
create in my own image like a god
I'd raise my own pallbearers to carry me to my grave
and keep me company when I'm a wizened toothless clod
Some gibbering old fool sitting all alone drooling on his shirt
some senile old fart playing in the dirt
It might be fun to have a kid I could pass something on to
something better than rage, pain, anger and hurt
I hope it's true what my wife said to me
I hope it's true what my wife said to me
I hope it's true what my wife said to me
She says, "Lou, it's the beginning of a great adventure"
"Lou, Lou, Lou, beginning of a great adventure"
She says, "babe, how you call your lover boy"
"Sylvia, quite you call your lover man"

Terry, gorgeous, and thanks for the lou reed. I'd save this riff somewhere, if i were you; it's a kind of state of the art expression of something crucial and post-monastic, almost manifesto-like, but without that manifesto arrogance and self-importance and bombast.
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 6/21/20 9:05 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/21/20 9:05 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2669 Join Date: 3/1/20 Recent Posts
"So yeah, for me working toward arhantship while maintaining responsibilities seems like the best course of action. I am much more useful to the world if I am both fully awakened, and actually in it. That's my take, anyway. "

emoticon I'm sure most of us experience this in the Desire for Deliverance stage emoticon I sure had it happen to many times; just leave this wreched world and become a monk. Easier said than done emoticon 

Luckily this stuff can be done at home too. Not easy to always manage time for it but can be done if the household is supportive. But we also need to make sure we don't bleed all over then during ugly stages and make sure we update them when such stages arise. 

That quote of yours I used here sounds really good to me. Steady but surely with daily practice. We know there is no "way back" after a certain point. Nor can we just sit ducks in where we are. There is only plowing forward through the vast field of samsara. 

Screw this Dark Night by utterly accepting and noting its each arising-passing and you will get through it. Allow yourself to be sick and tired of it and decide for it all to wash over you as it pleases but note it all and Accept it all. It's all fluff that is perceived as solid suffering, hence it feels so dark.  

Try and make space for noting aloud for 45 minutes, 1-2 times a day. Do it precise, matter of fact without being lost in the content and not loosing the stream of consciousness for the duration. This can be challenging hence suggesting 45 minutes per sit. 

You are close to EQ and then SE unless you begin to "like" to be a  dark nigh yogi. But you do sound as you've had it enough. This is good as it's a very powerful motivator. 

Best wishes and may you attain to SE as fast as possible. 
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/21/20 10:15 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/21/20 10:15 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
Screw this Dark Night by utterly accepting and noting its each arising-passing and you will get through it. Allow yourself to be sick and tired of it and decide for it all to wash over you as it pleases but note it all and Accept it all. It's all fluff that is perceived as solid suffering, hence it feels so dark.  


Yeah, buddy! I am doing this to the best of my ability. This is really where faith in the process kicks into high gear.

Try and make space for noting aloud for 45 minutes, 1-2 times a day. Do it precise, matter of fact without being lost in the content and not loosing the stream of consciousness for the duration. This can be challenging hence suggesting 45 minutes per sit. 

I've never tried noting out loud. It will be interesting to try. I won't knock it, since I've seen it suggested by Kenneth Folk and others. Is there a video, or a description of the exact method of doing this somewhere? I can't get my head around the idea of talking while meditating. Seems very distracting being that speaking aloud depends upon the thinking mind. But obviously these are just my ignorant assumptions.
You are close to EQ and then SE unless you begin to "like" to be a  dark nigh yogi. But you do sound as you've had it enough. This is good as it's a very powerful motivator. 

Best wishes and may you attain to SE as fast as possible. 

Haha, I sure hope that I don't like being a DN yogi. I bet it's sort of like basking in self pity when you fail because getting back up and trying again seems too hard. One can get really comfortable in mediocrity. 

I feel so close to SE that I can taste it. By the way, I've started a practice log on here. We'll see how that goes! My short term memory has gotten to be pretty crap since I entered DN territory. Makes it hard to remember the details of my sits afterward. I also have to be careful not to think about my log while practicing. haha!
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Papa Che Dusko, modified 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 10:35 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 10:35 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2669 Join Date: 3/1/20 Recent Posts
Actually after reading your log you seem to have a rather strong concentration with vivid visuals and stuff. That's plenty of material to observe. Do the noting aloud only if all else fails! For now do your thing and maybe do what Olivier is suggesting. He seems to be relating to your experience better than me. 

I was as far as 5th Samatha Jhana but never had those kaleidoscope vivid images as you are discriminated them so can't tell really what that means. It sure reminds of what Ingram mentions about Fire Kasina and Magic Realms. They seem to have rather fun visuals. 

All the best! 


p.s. just go to YouTube and search Kenneth Folk freestyle noting aloud. He has a series of vids on how to do it. 
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terry, modified 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 12:55 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 12:55 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2424 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
Tim Farrington:
terry:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
terry:
perhaps you should consider monastic life, ditch the job and family and just meditate all the time...shave your head and take precepts, wear the orange robe...

alternatively, stellazine, thorazine...

t

LOL! Perhaps in another life. My son will be born some time in the next few weeks - I have my work cut out for me. I suppose it is part of the reason I have been pushing too hard to get over the hump of this thing. I would like to be here and somewhat stable for my kid and do it right. Didn't think I'd be a new dad in my mid 40s, but here I am!

I think the solution is to just do as Shargol suggests.

Practice seeing things simply as they are without adding my own flavor. Allow thoughts, feelings, emotions, or whatever to arise and know that they have no substance. Let them come and go without allowing each any every one of them to develop into their own made for TV drama.



   The buddha named his son "fetter" and refused to kiss him when he left home forever, figuring it would just increase his attachment. Rahula (fetter) ended up an enlightened arhat in the buddha's community. Go figure.

   My sons are successful and happy family men, secure in their homes and marriages, and good fathers to their children. There is no room for me in their lives anymore, though I am revered as long as I keep some distance. My tme as paterfamilias has passed. I truly wonder if I would not have been better off as a monastic beggar. Maybe in my next life.

   They said to the buddha, it is wife and sons that make a man happy. The buddha retorted, it is wife and sons that make a man miserable. You may think that you fear for your life, your substance, your happiness. Fear for your children creates even more karma. When you weigh the welfare of your children against that of strangers, it is a rare parent who can maintain equanimity.

   Think of a schooll shooting or fire, with dozens dead, and your child might be one of them. You arrive on the scene to find one of two forks: your child is dead, and you witness the unbridled joy of those who have found their children safe. Or, your child is alive and you feel unbridled joy, despite the suffering all around you. This is the extreme of what happens to a parent every day. It is infamous, notorious what a parent will do for a child.

   "Leaving home" can be a metaphor for detachment, even if you do not physically remove yourself and you continue to shoulder your obligations unselfishly.  Tim's skinhead gangster on his hog.


terry


actually, tim's skinhead gangster on his hog would kill to protect his wife and kids. he's more attached than i can imagine, in the desert of my failed relationship life, on the whole: more fettered, more, . . . what's the word?

oh, i've got it. Loving. Human. Beautiful. Blessed with a heart capable of love and grief. What could be better? This is human existence. Fuck equanimity. I would die for those kids in a heartbeat. Die for my woman in a heartbeat.

Yes, it is wife and sons that make a man happy, and daughters. and it is the loss of those loved ones that make him crazy with the pain of grief. What's the problem, again?

Die for detachment? lol. what's in it for anyone? what's in it for anatta people, for that matter? what use an enlightenment that loses everything human for a heartless void and compassion toward strangers who are equally empty of meaning and heart connection? who would a bodhisattva save, and for what? Why do you think Arjuna is so fucked up he has to call time out in the fucking middle of the battle to moan to the creator of the universe? He's killing cousins, man. and the creator of the universe tells him, yep, and you love those cousins, don't you? put on your big girl panties, do your karma, do your dharma, love and grieve, create and kill. be the fucked up pain wracked human you have to be, just quit fucking whining. Jesus, Arjuna, you used to be fun.

Love, and grieve. This is the law of the heart. Live with that. That's as good as it gets.

love, Rahula Farrington, shave head dharma punk pussycat for family and friends. Will help beaten travelers found in roadside ditches, and neighbors, as well.

    The law of the jungle. Just be an animal.

   Condemn your children to the fire.

   Whine not.


t




THE TYGER
(william blake)


Tyger Tyger Burning bright
In the forests of the night; 
What immortal hand or eye, 
Could frame thy fearful symmetry? 

In what distant deeps or skies. 
Burnt the fire of thine eyes? 
On what wings dare he aspire? 
What the hand, dare seize the fire? 

And what shoulder, & what art, 
Could twist the sinews of thy heart? 
And when thy heart began to beat, 
What dread hand? & what dread feet? 

What the hammer? what the chain, 
In what furnace was thy brain? 
What the anvil? what dread grasp, 
Dare its deadly terrors clasp! 

When the stars threw down their spears 
And water'd heaven with their tears: 
Did he smile his work to see? 
Did he who made the Lamb make thee? 

Tyger Tyger burning bright, 
In the forests of the night: 
What immortal hand or eye, 
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?



   Additionally, I always thought arjuna should have told krishna where he could stick it. The gita was written to protct the privileges of the ruling class, much like the new testament.



THE UNIVERSAL SOLDEIER
(Buffy Sainte-Marie)

He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years
He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill 
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you
And he's fighting for Canada, 
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA,
and he's fighting for the Russians 
and he's fighting for Japan, 
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way
And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide 
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls
But without him how would Hitler have 
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body 
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on
He's the universal soldier and he 
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war
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terry, modified 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 2:34 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 2:34 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2424 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
Tim Farrington:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
Tim Farrington:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
Tim Farrington:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
I don't know what kind of drugs you guys are on... Is this some post 8th path shit?

it's traumatic regression, Ricky. we're professionals. don't try this at home.

LOL! I was hoping to get some of that.

what state do you live in? a lot of them don't allow it to be mailed or otherwise conveyed across state lines. Equanimity is actually the only state i know with reasonable laws.

Re-Observation is where I live usually, but I'm on the border. I can get over to EQ for weekend trips if that helps. 

lol, oh i reside in hell, somewhere so deep in the dukha nanas that the POI is irrelevant, Equanimity is a faint rumor of an exotic covilzation of mth, and besides i'm Catholic, it's just John of the Cross dark night unto oblivion for me and the rest of the distinctions disappear into the nothingness with everything else, like origami in a furnace. But we could meet near the border of sanity, yes. I don't have a visa or a passport, the hell authorities (and the heaven, and normality authorities too, for that matter) are very strict and scrupulous and the red tape and bribe cost are prohibitive. But I believe i could pass along some good shit in a paper bag on a quick pass, if you can come up with the cash, and are not actually some kind of narc doing a sting here.

By cash, I mean, nothing. money is an illusion too. you will learn this soon, after you start a practice log and the dark night sees you're hooked and starts destroying everything you thought of as your spirtual self, and then goes on to destroy everything else. This is called practice.

love, tim
aloha tim,

    Hell dwellers prefer hell, and the rogues they meet there. They feel comfortable where they belong. Like prisoners in the pen who don't have to pretend they like the work or the food or the accommodations. They're tough guys who don't whine. I knew a guy one time, fresh out of the joint, not two weeks and he breaks into a drug store, takes a bunch of class a's, and sits on the floor waiting for the cops. For him, the pen was freedom, and outside was slavery. The joint was daylight, and the outisde world his dark night. Like the dwellers in plato's cave. They tried to kill an emissary from outside when he tried to tell them the true state of things.

   Hell, my friend, is the hag's true face, you are right there. I'm thinking apocalypse now, brando embracing the craziness, 'o the horror!' Just shoot me.

   I was drafted, bra; true fact. I ended up in the navy to avoid actually going to war. Stationed in hawaii, nam vets would be lifted straight out of the jungle for r&r in honlulu. It was a reward for spectacular exploits of ambush and murder. You were sent to honolulu if you had a wife who was going to meet you, but half the time the women didn't show up (smart girls). The guys would end up in waikiki looking for drugs, which was where I would meet them. I would drop acid or mescaline with these guys and listen to their war stories. These were supreme killers, who had perfected the art of ambush against a wily enemy and were known and feared on both sides. They invariably complained that they got their wounds only during rare moments of compassion. These men were beyond fucked up, they were perfectly sane and didn't mind saying that they enjoyed their work and their trophies and their little rituals. They had given up on "the world" to which they coud never go back and signed up for more tours of duty. One of these killers lived in the commune with us, was one of us, and had spent years after the war fighting in the arabian peninsula, biafra and the congo, arranged in amsterdam and paid in kruggerands in joburg. His dog was shot and airlifted out after one action doing "pipeline security." This guy still spends most of his time telling blood-curdling war stories about his time as a pow in tiger cages, being hauled from village to village having shit and piss thrown on him, and finally escaping, etc etc.

   Actually committing violence on a person, suddenly and shockingly as violence always is, isn't so easy, and I have seen it go down. I was a roughneck, a treeplanter (and many other things); barfights were the evenings entertainment, if nothing better was to be found. The vets were left alone, usually, or the fight was over very quickly. All of the men in the commune were vets. We found peace quite easy to maintain. Real men don't fight with civilians.

   I never hit my children, I never hit my dog. Children, like dogs, know how angry you are by "feel," and they know by instinct about how far they can push you to get your maximum attention without (hopefully) driving you over the edge to violence. I learned with them how to put an enough of an edge on so they really weren't sure whether I was seriously ticked or not. When I could see the trend and knew I would be pushed as far as they thought possible, I would stop short of real irritation and lay down the law, keeping them guessing. This practice, over the years, generally kept me short of real irritation, and losing my temper.

   Still, it was always clear to me that the basis of our relationship was still violence, the implied threat of punishment at some level if they didn't comply sufficiently with my wishes, whether this was in the abstract "for their own good" or not. The native americans didn't raise their children with this threat of violence and they were undoubtedly better parents than I.

   In hell, love is lust, violence and power, everyone out for their own gain, "the war of all against all" (bellum omnium contra omnes, hobbes). Siblings against siblings, parents against children, spouse against spouse. In hell, they call this "love" and wouldn't have it any other way. I love my wife, I love my children; why do they hate me?

   Milarepa loved his family. His extended family were all destitue. He was manly and strong, and they looked to him to support them. There were no jobs, and the only way he could get money was to waylay people along the highway, steal their goods and kill them. The family was happy for his support and did not want to know how he came by the blood-stained goods. Along comes marpa the translator, who milarepa recognizes as his guru. Marpa asked him why he would commit such terrible crimes and incur such awful karma; milarepa explained he was just taking care of his family. Marpa took milarepa to the family and asked each one of his relatives whether they knew what milarepa had been doing and whether they shared his karma. They all denied knowing anything about how he supported them and condemned him roundly as a worthless criminal. This opened milarepa's eyes, and he "left home."


terry



from "the way of chuang tzu" trans thomas merton (famous catholic)
   

THE FLIGHT OF LIN HUI

Lin Hui of Kia took to flight.
Pursued by enemies,
He threw away the precious jade
Symbol of his rank
And took his infant child on his back.
Why did he take the child
And leave the jade,
Which was worth a small fortune,
Whereas the child, if sold,
Would only bring him a paltry sum?

Lin Hui said:
"My bond with the jade symbol
And with my office
Was the bond of self-interest.
My bond with the child
Was the bond of Tao.
"Where self-interest is the bond,
The friendship is dissolved
When calamity comes.
Where Tao is the bond,
Friendship is made perfect
By calamity.

"The friendship of wise men Is tasteless as water.
The friendship of fools
Is sweet as wine.
But the tastelessness of the wise
Brings true affection
And the savor of fools' company
Ends in hatred."
[xx. 5.]
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 9:03 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 9:03 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2464 Join Date: 6/13/11 Recent Posts
terry:
Tim Farrington:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
Tim Farrington:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
Tim Farrington:
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
I don't know what kind of drugs you guys are on... Is this some post 8th path shit?

it's traumatic regression, Ricky. we're professionals. don't try this at home.

LOL! I was hoping to get some of that.

what state do you live in? a lot of them don't allow it to be mailed or otherwise conveyed across state lines. Equanimity is actually the only state i know with reasonable laws.

Re-Observation is where I live usually, but I'm on the border. I can get over to EQ for weekend trips if that helps. 

lol, oh i reside in hell, somewhere so deep in the dukha nanas that the POI is irrelevant, Equanimity is a faint rumor of an exotic covilzation of mth, and besides i'm Catholic, it's just John of the Cross dark night unto oblivion for me and the rest of the distinctions disappear into the nothingness with everything else, like origami in a furnace. But we could meet near the border of sanity, yes. I don't have a visa or a passport, the hell authorities (and the heaven, and normality authorities too, for that matter) are very strict and scrupulous and the red tape and bribe cost are prohibitive. But I believe i could pass along some good shit in a paper bag on a quick pass, if you can come up with the cash, and are not actually some kind of narc doing a sting here.

By cash, I mean, nothing. money is an illusion too. you will learn this soon, after you start a practice log and the dark night sees you're hooked and starts destroying everything you thought of as your spirtual self, and then goes on to destroy everything else. This is called practice.

love, tim
aloha tim,

    Hell dwellers prefer hell, and the rogues they meet there. They feel comfortable where they belong. Like prisoners in the pen who don't have to pretend they like the work or the food or the accommodations. They're tough guys who don't whine. I knew a guy one time, fresh out of the joint, not two weeks and he breaks into a drug store, takes a bunch of class a's, and sits on the floor waiting for the cops. For him, the pen was freedom, and outside was slavery. The joint was daylight, and the outisde world his dark night. Like the dwellers in plato's cave. They tried to kill an emissary from outside when he tried to tell them the true state of things.

   Hell, my friend, is the hag's true face, you are right there. I'm thinking apocalypse now, brando embracing the craziness, 'o the horror!' Just shoot me.

   I was drafted, bra; true fact. I ended up in the navy to avoid actually going to war. Stationed in hawaii, nam vets would be lifted straight out of the jungle for r&r in honlulu. It was a reward for spectacular exploits of ambush and murder. You were sent to honolulu if you had a wife who was going to meet you, but half the time the women didn't show up (smart girls). The guys would end up in waikiki looking for drugs, which was where I would meet them. I would drop acid or mescaline with these guys and listen to their war stories. These were supreme killers, who had perfected the art of ambush against a wily enemy and were known and feared on both sides. They invariably complained that they got their wounds only during rare moments of compassion. These men were beyond fucked up, they were perfectly sane and didn't mind saying that they enjoyed their work and their trophies and their little rituals. They had given up on "the world" to which they coud never go back and signed up for more tours of duty. One of these killers lived in the commune with us, was one of us, and had spent years after the war fighting in the arabian peninsula, biafra and the congo, arranged in amsterdam and paid in kruggerands in joburg. His dog was shot and airlifted out after one action doing "pipeline security." This guy still spends most of his time telling blood-curdling war stories about his time as a pow in tiger cages, being hauled from village to village having shit and piss thrown on him, and finally escaping, etc etc.

   Actually committing violence on a person, suddenly and shockingly as violence always is, isn't so easy, and I have seen it go down. I was a roughneck, a treeplanter (and many other things); barfights were the evenings entertainment, if nothing better was to be found. The vets were left alone, usually, or the fight was over very quickly. All of the men in the commune were vets. We found peace quite easy to maintain. Real men don't fight with civilians.

   I never hit my children, I never hit my dog. Children, like dogs, know how angry you are by "feel," and they know by instinct about how far they can push you to get your maximum attention without (hopefully) driving you over the edge to violence. I learned with them how to put an enough of an edge on so they really weren't sure whether I was seriously ticked or not. When I could see the trend and knew I would be pushed as far as they thought possible, I would stop short of real irritation and lay down the law, keeping them guessing. This practice, over the years, generally kept me short of real irritation, and losing my temper.

   Still, it was always clear to me that the basis of our relationship was still violence, the implied threat of punishment at some level if they didn't comply sufficiently with my wishes, whether this was in the abstract "for their own good" or not. The native americans didn't raise their children with this threat of violence and they were undoubtedly better parents than I.

   In hell, love is lust, violence and power, everyone out for their own gain, "the war of all against all" (bellum omnium contra omnes, hobbes). Siblings against siblings, parents against children, spouse against spouse. In hell, they call this "love" and wouldn't have it any other way. I love my wife, I love my children; why do they hate me?

   Milarepa loved his family. His extended family were all destitue. He was manly and strong, and they looked to him to support them. There were no jobs, and the only way he could get money was to waylay people along the highway, steal their goods and kill them. The family was happy for his support and did not want to know how he came by the blood-stained goods. Along comes marpa the translator, who milarepa recognizes as his guru. Marpa asked him why he would commit such terrible crimes and incur such awful karma; milarepa explained he was just taking care of his family. Marpa took milarepa to the family and asked each one of his relatives whether they knew what milarepa had been doing and whether they shared his karma. They all denied knowing anything about how he supported them and condemned him roundly as a worthless criminal. This opened milarepa's eyes, and he "left home."


terry



from "the way of chuang tzu" trans thomas merton (famous catholic)
   

THE FLIGHT OF LIN HUI

Lin Hui of Kia took to flight.
Pursued by enemies,
He threw away the precious jade
Symbol of his rank
And took his infant child on his back.
Why did he take the child
And leave the jade,
Which was worth a small fortune,
Whereas the child, if sold,
Would only bring him a paltry sum?

Lin Hui said:
"My bond with the jade symbol
And with my office
Was the bond of self-interest.
My bond with the child
Was the bond of Tao.
"Where self-interest is the bond,
The friendship is dissolved
When calamity comes.
Where Tao is the bond,
Friendship is made perfect
By calamity.

"The friendship of wise men Is tasteless as water.
The friendship of fools
Is sweet as wine.
But the tastelessness of the wise
Brings true affection
And the savor of fools' company
Ends in hatred."
[xx. 5.]

Hey Rickie Lee,

You must have some real fucked up karma, to draw this piece of shit out of the dung heap on your thread. 

love, tim (infamous catholic)
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terry, modified 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 9:11 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 9:11 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2424 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
Tim Farrington:
[quote=]

Hey Rickie Lee,

You must have some real fucked up karma, to draw this piece of shit out of the dung heap on your thread. 

love, tim (infamous catholic)

 you don't give yourself enough credit
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Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 9:49 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 9:49 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
Hey Rickie Lee,

You must have some real fucked up karma, to draw this piece of shit out of the dung heap on your thread. 


LOL! I think this thread has turned into one big A&P apex event. I need to catch up on all the posts now, there is a bit to go through.
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terry, modified 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 10:41 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 10:41 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2424 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
terry:
Tim Farrington:
[quote=]

Hey Rickie Lee,

You must have some real fucked up karma, to draw this piece of shit out of the dung heap on your thread. 

love, tim (infamous catholic)


 you don't give yourself enough credit











just for you, tim, one of my favorite poems, which I often think of when the tide of vulgarity threatens to rise over my head...




GO WITH MUDDY FEET
(nanao sakaki)


When you hear dirty story
wash your ears.

When you see ugly stuff
wash your eyes.

When you get bad thoughts
wash your mind.
and
Keep your feet muddy.
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 11:01 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/22/20 11:01 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2464 Join Date: 6/13/11 Recent Posts
terry:
terry:
Tim Farrington:
[quote=]

Hey Rickie Lee,

You must have some real fucked up karma, to draw this piece of shit out of the dung heap on your thread. 

love, tim (infamous catholic)


 you don't give yourself enough credit











just for you, tim, one of my favorite poems, which I often think of when the tide of vulgarity threatens to rise over my head...




GO WITH MUDDY FEET
(nanao sakaki)


When you hear dirty story
wash your ears.

When you see ugly stuff
wash your eyes.

When you get bad thoughts
wash your mind.
and
Keep your feet muddy.

Terry, you know I love you. But my brother, I AM the tide of vulgarity rising above your head.

love, tim
thumbnail
terry, modified 3 Years ago at 6/23/20 2:14 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/23/20 2:14 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2424 Join Date: 8/7/17 Recent Posts
Tim Farrington:
terry:
terry:
Tim Farrington:
[quote=]

Hey Rickie Lee,

You must have some real fucked up karma, to draw this piece of shit out of the dung heap on your thread. 

love, tim (infamous catholic)


 you don't give yourself enough credit











just for you, tim, one of my favorite poems, which I often think of when the tide of vulgarity threatens to rise over my head...




GO WITH MUDDY FEET
(nanao sakaki)


When you hear dirty story
wash your ears.

When you see ugly stuff
wash your eyes.

When you get bad thoughts
wash your mind.
and
Keep your feet muddy.

Terry, you know I love you. But my brother, I AM the tide of vulgarity rising above your head.

love, tim

  You got the point, for once!
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/23/20 8:51 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/23/20 8:51 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2464 Join Date: 6/13/11 Recent Posts
Ricky Lee Nuthman:
Hey Rickie Lee,

You must have some real fucked up karma, to draw this piece of shit out of the dung heap on your thread. 


LOL! I think this thread has turned into one big A&P apex event. I need to catch up on all the posts now, there is a bit to go through.
Don't bother, my man, it's just the same old losers in love with the sounding of their own typing.

love, tim
C C, modified 3 Years ago at 6/25/20 6:01 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/25/20 5:57 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2 Join Date: 6/25/20 Recent Posts
I logged in just to help you because I somehow noticed your thread and I was alarmed by how much you are suffering.

First of all, meditation with a downward gaze tends to ventilate the subconscious.  Right now you have this crazy loop going on so I am going to recommend an upward gaze meditation.  It is a yogic practice (tratak).  Maybe you have seen pictures of famous yogis gazing upwards?  This is what they are doing.  Sit in your room and open the blinds and gaze upwards at the open sky.  If there is something blocking your view, find a room with a view or even do it in the car.  Hold a soft gaze at a comfortable angle....don’t strain.  At first, you may be only able to do this for 5 minutes.  That is ok.  You will eventually be able to do it longer.  Just do it everyday.

This upward gaze lifts the emotional nature and makes you feel good.  You will experience waves and waves of mental relief and the eyes start to water and tears come out.  It may take a while of doing this daily to get those results but keep trying.  Do this practice when you sit before any breath meditation with the downward gaze.

As a person that struggled with suicidal depression and crippling anxiety for decades, this practice helped me a great deal.  I hope the same for you too.  

Namaste. emoticon
thumbnail
Ricky Lee Nuthman, modified 3 Years ago at 6/25/20 6:36 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/25/20 6:36 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 92 Join Date: 4/22/18 Recent Posts
C C:
I logged in just to help you because I somehow noticed your thread and I was alarmed by how much you are suffering.

First of all, meditation with a downward gaze tends to ventilate the subconscious.  Right now you have this crazy loop going on so I am going to recommend an upward gaze meditation.  It is a yogic practice (tratak).  Maybe you have seen pictures of famous yogis gazing upwards?  This is what they are doing.  Sit in your room and open the blinds and gaze upwards at the open sky.  If there is something blocking your view, find a room with a view or even do it in the car.  Hold a soft gaze at a comfortable angle....don’t strain.  At first, you may be only able to do this for 5 minutes.  That is ok.  You will eventually be able to do it longer.  Just do it everyday.

This upward gaze lifts the emotional nature and makes you feel good.  You will experience waves and waves of mental relief and the eyes start to water and tears come out.  It may take a while of doing this daily to get those results but keep trying.  Do this practice when you sit before any breath meditation with the downward gaze.

As a person that struggled with suicidal depression and crippling anxiety for decades, this practice helped me a great deal.  I hope the same for you too.  

Namaste. emoticon

Thanks for your kind response and concern!

You know, without really having any preconceived notion of the direction of my gaze (or attention in general) I have noticed something interesting. Whenever my attention, or eyes even, seem to be investigating upward, which ends up somewhere in the middle of my forehead or in the center of my upper skull; the experience that follows seems to be quite different to when I am resting with attention downwards. 

I always sort of shrugged it off as just content. However, it is an interesting distinction. With upward attention, I get a sensation of accelerating energy and 'blasting off' A&P type experience where everything seems to be sucked up into the center of the forhead and drawn into the sky into a vortex.

With downward attention, there seems to be a slowing down sensation. Like all of the energy is draining out at a point at the.... ahem.. 'bottom end of the body'. I feels like draining from the top of the head, to the anus sucking down into the Earth. It's definitely an odd experiencing feeling like your entire existance is being drained out through your back end. 

I've been practicing as suggested to me by Shargrol and working on letting go of the effort and trying to be OK with the stillness of EQ. Since I wrote this original post, I have been predominantly in EQ, rather than DN which I believed myself to be in initially. However, I seem to be cycling between A&P and EQ during actual meditation practice. 
C C, modified 3 Years ago at 6/25/20 8:15 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/25/20 8:15 PM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2 Join Date: 6/25/20 Recent Posts
Yes that “taking off like a rocket feeling” can also happen. 

Glad to hear you are doing better. emoticon

Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 6/26/20 3:53 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 6/26/20 3:53 AM

RE: Someone please help me off this ride (or at least to stream entry)

Posts: 2464 Join Date: 6/13/11 Recent Posts
C C:
I logged in just to help you because I somehow noticed your thread and I was alarmed by how much you are suffering.

First of all, meditation with a downward gaze tends to ventilate the subconscious.  Right now you have this crazy loop going on so I am going to recommend an upward gaze meditation.  It is a yogic practice (tratak).  Maybe you have seen pictures of famous yogis gazing upwards?  This is what they are doing.  Sit in your room and open the blinds and gaze upwards at the open sky.  If there is something blocking your view, find a room with a view or even do it in the car.  Hold a soft gaze at a comfortable angle....don’t strain.  At first, you may be only able to do this for 5 minutes.  That is ok.  You will eventually be able to do it longer.  Just do it everyday.

This upward gaze lifts the emotional nature and makes you feel good.  You will experience waves and waves of mental relief and the eyes start to water and tears come out.  It may take a while of doing this daily to get those results but keep trying.  Do this practice when you sit before any breath meditation with the downward gaze.

As a person that struggled with suicidal depression and crippling anxiety for decades, this practice helped me a great deal.  I hope the same for you too.  

Namaste. emoticon

Dear C C,

this has got to be one of the loveliest, most generous and beautiful posts i have ever seen on DhO. 

love, tim

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