Need serious help with what I believe is 'Reobservation' before 1st Path? - Discussion
I'm NOT a psychological professional, so definitely don't believe or 100% trust what I'm saying...
First of all, these are all very serious diagnosis/experiences. Just because something happened while being a meditator doesn't mean that it should be fixed by more and more meditation. Sometimes people have old trauma, PTSD, addition, or just unhelpful ways of thinking that get revealled as we get older or face new challenges... There are a lot of mental health hotlines including suicide hotlines that have good-hearted people that can help people navigate these situations, both short term conversations and helpfing people find professional therapist that specialize in reducing these experiences.
A quick internet seach got me these, but I'm sure there are others too.
National Mental Health Hotline | 866-903-3787
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline | SAMHSA
hotlines - SuicideWatch (reddit.com)
As a psychologist friend who consults with meditators once said, in a supportive yet humorous way, "let's make sure you don't harm or kill yourself because you can't get enlightened if you're dead."
Reobservation is it is just thoughts and worries and fears and catastrophizing and worst-case-scenario-making and a lot of cortisol and adrenline dumping. It's sort of like PTSD in the sense that there is hyper-vigilence and it's very hard to chill out. In monestaries it's the "rolling up the meditation mat and leaving" stage. People have had enough and want to give up. The problem is people are believing their thoughts. It's basically that simple. Which is easy to say, yet hard to deal with because we naturally believe our thoughts.
This is where professional help and meditation help are similar but different. Professional help will guide a person through an investigation of all the ways their thinking is not correct and not helpful. Many many many people benefit from this kind of help. Unless we have a good guide, it's very hard to see that thoughts are the empty display of the mind and are not really real. Thoughts happen, but that doesn't mean they should automatically be believed. Professional help is also good/needed when people are completely disassociated with their thoughts and "hears voices" like in mild or serious forms of schizophrenia.
Sometimes we get caught in binary thinking: this is GOOD or BAD, this is TRUE or FALSE, I'm ENLIGHTENED or CRAZY, I'm SAVED or DOOMED... this sort of thinking is too simple and and exhausting. We need to learn to develop a mature relationship with our own mind, neither ignoring thoughts nor believing them totally. We need to have thoughts like "it seems like this might be true, but I'm not totally sure, so I'm going to investigate this and ask other people and slowly form a better opinion".
And sometimes things in life REALLY ARE WRONG and need to be addressed directly, like relationship problems, employment problems, health problems, family problems, housing problems, addictions, etc. A professional can help someone better understand what problems are real and need fixing and what problems are worries and are just worries. When life is difficult, sometimes it's hard to figure the differences only by ourself.
Pure meditation-based reobservation is more like intense frustration with meditation itself, not frustration with aspects of life. It often goes along with another stage called "desire for deliverance". It's well described here:
9. Desire for Deliverance – MCTB.org
10. Re-observation – MCTB.org
If there are any imbalances in our meditation practice, it will definitely be revealled during DfD and ReObs. If we are overly ambitious, then DfD will show all the ways we're "using" meditation to push away bad experiences and repress them, instead of gently welcoming the mind to be itself during a sit. If we still have psychological issues we haven't worked through, then ReObs which show us all the ways we go into a reactive patterns or trances or moodswings or emotional flashbacks and lose our sense of mindfulness.
Most people need to be very very very gentle with themselves at this stage. It's not something you "get through". In fact, it's almost the opposite. It's something you live inside of and slowly learn from. All of these "problems" need to be welcome and accepted and slowly and maturely dealth with. Many times we need to slow or stop meditation practice and fix the problems in our real life before we can keep going -- that's perfectly fine! We can't run away from life problems though mediation.
The trick to being a dark night yogi is to realize that the darkness is ultimately our teacher, our friend. Even though there are things we don't want to see in our lives and our mind, we need to learn to deal with it in a very adult way. For many people, the dark night is part of the maturing process, part of the wisdom process. It kind sucks, but it's the kind of sucking that motivates us to change our life and habits for the better.
I think the most effective path forward is often a combination of psychological/therapeutic guidance AND some very very gentle meditation. It helps to have other meditation friends to talk to, too. And psychology friends. It's very cool that now that there are all sorts of hotlines out there for people to call or even just text.
Hopefully, when you look back at this time in your life, you'll see that things were out of balance in the way you were doing things and it was time to find a more gentle and loving way to relate to your mind and practice.
I'm just a guy on the internet, so definitely feel free to ignore what I'm saying.
First of all, these are all very serious diagnosis/experiences. Just because something happened while being a meditator doesn't mean that it should be fixed by more and more meditation. Sometimes people have old trauma, PTSD, addition, or just unhelpful ways of thinking that get revealled as we get older or face new challenges... There are a lot of mental health hotlines including suicide hotlines that have good-hearted people that can help people navigate these situations, both short term conversations and helpfing people find professional therapist that specialize in reducing these experiences.
A quick internet seach got me these, but I'm sure there are others too.
National Mental Health Hotline | 866-903-3787
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline | SAMHSA
hotlines - SuicideWatch (reddit.com)
As a psychologist friend who consults with meditators once said, in a supportive yet humorous way, "let's make sure you don't harm or kill yourself because you can't get enlightened if you're dead."
Reobservation is it is just thoughts and worries and fears and catastrophizing and worst-case-scenario-making and a lot of cortisol and adrenline dumping. It's sort of like PTSD in the sense that there is hyper-vigilence and it's very hard to chill out. In monestaries it's the "rolling up the meditation mat and leaving" stage. People have had enough and want to give up. The problem is people are believing their thoughts. It's basically that simple. Which is easy to say, yet hard to deal with because we naturally believe our thoughts.
This is where professional help and meditation help are similar but different. Professional help will guide a person through an investigation of all the ways their thinking is not correct and not helpful. Many many many people benefit from this kind of help. Unless we have a good guide, it's very hard to see that thoughts are the empty display of the mind and are not really real. Thoughts happen, but that doesn't mean they should automatically be believed. Professional help is also good/needed when people are completely disassociated with their thoughts and "hears voices" like in mild or serious forms of schizophrenia.
Sometimes we get caught in binary thinking: this is GOOD or BAD, this is TRUE or FALSE, I'm ENLIGHTENED or CRAZY, I'm SAVED or DOOMED... this sort of thinking is too simple and and exhausting. We need to learn to develop a mature relationship with our own mind, neither ignoring thoughts nor believing them totally. We need to have thoughts like "it seems like this might be true, but I'm not totally sure, so I'm going to investigate this and ask other people and slowly form a better opinion".
And sometimes things in life REALLY ARE WRONG and need to be addressed directly, like relationship problems, employment problems, health problems, family problems, housing problems, addictions, etc. A professional can help someone better understand what problems are real and need fixing and what problems are worries and are just worries. When life is difficult, sometimes it's hard to figure the differences only by ourself.
Pure meditation-based reobservation is more like intense frustration with meditation itself, not frustration with aspects of life. It often goes along with another stage called "desire for deliverance". It's well described here:
9. Desire for Deliverance – MCTB.org
10. Re-observation – MCTB.org
If there are any imbalances in our meditation practice, it will definitely be revealled during DfD and ReObs. If we are overly ambitious, then DfD will show all the ways we're "using" meditation to push away bad experiences and repress them, instead of gently welcoming the mind to be itself during a sit. If we still have psychological issues we haven't worked through, then ReObs which show us all the ways we go into a reactive patterns or trances or moodswings or emotional flashbacks and lose our sense of mindfulness.
Most people need to be very very very gentle with themselves at this stage. It's not something you "get through". In fact, it's almost the opposite. It's something you live inside of and slowly learn from. All of these "problems" need to be welcome and accepted and slowly and maturely dealth with. Many times we need to slow or stop meditation practice and fix the problems in our real life before we can keep going -- that's perfectly fine! We can't run away from life problems though mediation.
The trick to being a dark night yogi is to realize that the darkness is ultimately our teacher, our friend. Even though there are things we don't want to see in our lives and our mind, we need to learn to deal with it in a very adult way. For many people, the dark night is part of the maturing process, part of the wisdom process. It kind sucks, but it's the kind of sucking that motivates us to change our life and habits for the better.
I think the most effective path forward is often a combination of psychological/therapeutic guidance AND some very very gentle meditation. It helps to have other meditation friends to talk to, too. And psychology friends. It's very cool that now that there are all sorts of hotlines out there for people to call or even just text.
Hopefully, when you look back at this time in your life, you'll see that things were out of balance in the way you were doing things and it was time to find a more gentle and loving way to relate to your mind and practice.
I'm just a guy on the internet, so definitely feel free to ignore what I'm saying.
"EXTREME neurosis
•Existential despair
•Suicidal ideation
•Restlessness
•Borderline psychotic episodes
•Perpetual music/songs/melodies being played in my head
•Disgust and aversion towards practice "
Except the suicidal ideation I've had all of the above pre-Stream Entry and yes Post A&P. The seeing of the whole of universe however happened to me long before I begun meditating. Ingram calls this an A&P Event.
I've done similar meditation to what you did when I've got into DN. Was struggling for several years until I decided to try the one thing I never really believed in and that was the Noting meditation. So I contacted Kenneth Folk and did Noting Aloud as described by him. This was the missing part in my practice. After several months of daily noting aloud practice the path cessation happened and I've got Stream Entry.
Noting Aloud is very helpful as it gives that auditory input and when I can hear myself clearly I also get into the rhythm of noting matter of fact experience better. Also less chance to sink too deep into the feelings you describe. More feeling of "job well done" after the sit.
I can post a video of how I did noting aloud with open eyes fixed on a Kasina spot so to be as alert as possible. This worked for me. Kenneth has a very good few and short instruction videos on what to note; body sensations, feeling tones, thoughts, mind states, mind images ... I can link to these videos of his if you are interested to give this a shot.
Also all this being suggested by me I would like to second what Shargrol wrote above! Do have a handy phone number or friend if suicidal stuff gets overwhelming.
At the end you will start seeing that all this emotional stuff is but fluffy clouds and have no self behind it nor are they really real. But there is this lovely human being here unfolding in thisness which seem to be rather compassionate and loving.
Wishing you and your practice ALL the best!
•Existential despair
•Suicidal ideation
•Restlessness
•Borderline psychotic episodes
•Perpetual music/songs/melodies being played in my head
•Disgust and aversion towards practice "
Except the suicidal ideation I've had all of the above pre-Stream Entry and yes Post A&P. The seeing of the whole of universe however happened to me long before I begun meditating. Ingram calls this an A&P Event.
I've done similar meditation to what you did when I've got into DN. Was struggling for several years until I decided to try the one thing I never really believed in and that was the Noting meditation. So I contacted Kenneth Folk and did Noting Aloud as described by him. This was the missing part in my practice. After several months of daily noting aloud practice the path cessation happened and I've got Stream Entry.
Noting Aloud is very helpful as it gives that auditory input and when I can hear myself clearly I also get into the rhythm of noting matter of fact experience better. Also less chance to sink too deep into the feelings you describe. More feeling of "job well done" after the sit.
I can post a video of how I did noting aloud with open eyes fixed on a Kasina spot so to be as alert as possible. This worked for me. Kenneth has a very good few and short instruction videos on what to note; body sensations, feeling tones, thoughts, mind states, mind images ... I can link to these videos of his if you are interested to give this a shot.
Also all this being suggested by me I would like to second what Shargrol wrote above! Do have a handy phone number or friend if suicidal stuff gets overwhelming.
At the end you will start seeing that all this emotional stuff is but fluffy clouds and have no self behind it nor are they really real. But there is this lovely human being here unfolding in thisness which seem to be rather compassionate and loving.
Wishing you and your practice ALL the best!