Existential dread & practice

sixty ten, modified 12 Years ago at 12/20/11 12:37 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 12/20/11 12:37 PM

Existential dread & practice

Posts: 3 Join Date: 12/20/11 Recent Posts
Hi everyone, this is my first post. Great to find this site and reading through some of the threads, it seems that people are balanced enough to offer decent advice. Makes a difference to a lot of Buddhist forums I've found out there where people seem to troll and flame each other endlessly (I know it's the internet but c'mon, where is the wisdom and compassion? :grinemoticon

Anyway I am going to post some of my story and difficulties. Probably what I am describing you have read many times before, but it would be most helpful to me to have my experiences addressed directly, so bear with me...

First, my life is relatively stable - I have a girlfriend, I just finished my PhD, I have enough money, etc. I can be somewhat anxious and avoidant in everyday life in certain situations, but generally I get by well in the world (although it was not always this easy).

My main question is regarding motivation to practice given some experiences I had a few years ago. These experiences were induced by psychedelic drugs, in a nutshell they revealed to me the absolute nature of my freedom. In the sense that there is no "fixed point" of reference i.e. self which endures through time. The emotions associated with this experience are extreme existential dread, despair.

I think there are two issues bound up together, which I can illustrate with two experiences. The first is my becoming aware (on psychedelics) when dancing in a room full of people, of how my movements were "caused" in some way by my sensory perceptions of other people in the room. In other words, rather than a view of self-as-controller, a view of my actions as arising depending on multiple internal and external conditions. This is the part bound up with extreme anxiety, not wanting to let go of control freakery.

The second experience is (on psychedelics!) smelling a pot of coffee and being aware in that moment with perfect clarity that the only thing that existed was the smell of the coffee. No self, no past, no future. The capacity of experience to annihilate and recreate itself completely. At the time the experience was clear and refreshing, but reflecting on it brings anxiety (likely relating to the above control freakery).

So I would appreciate any comments you have on these experiences for a start. I try to take into account the fact I had ingested powerful mind-altering chemicals at the time and so my perceptual apparatus was pretty warped (including reasoning). But I think these experiences continue to resonate in my life today, I can't deny their validity.

My major issue is that because of these experiences, I have a fear of going deeply into the practice, of seeing what is really going on. Quite frankly, I am aware just how much I don't want to let go of control, of my self. So while I still meditate daily for a short period, this puts me quite at odds with pursuing real insight (especially relating to the three characteristics).

Ok thanks for listening, I welcome your thoughts emoticon
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N A, modified 12 Years ago at 12/20/11 1:31 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 12/20/11 1:30 PM

RE: Existential dread & practice

Posts: 157 Join Date: 7/10/11 Recent Posts
Life already is what it is, it's not like you can change anything by simply refusing to acknowledge that. The experiences of depersonalization that you describe can be very frightening, especially on drugs, but notice that despite the perceived lack of control everything keeps happening normally. Consider how you have no control at all over other people, but somehow they manage to live just fine, anyway. Now consider yourself in the same light.

Edit: also, don't do drugs if they freak you out, and don't expect meditation to have the same effect.
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Jake , modified 12 Years ago at 12/20/11 2:14 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 12/20/11 2:14 PM

RE: Existential dread & practice

Posts: 695 Join Date: 5/22/10 Recent Posts
sixty ten:
Hi everyone, this is my first post. Great to find this site and reading through some of the threads


Hey sixty ten! Welcome to DhO, glad you found the place and hope you find some useful stuff here!



sixty ten:

My main question is regarding motivation to practice given some experiences I had a few years ago. These experiences were induced by psychedelic drugs, in a nutshell they revealed to me the absolute nature of my freedom. In the sense that there is no "fixed point" of reference i.e. self which endures through time. The emotions associated with this experience are extreme existential dread, despair.


Well, it's good that you can distinguish the experience from the reaction to the experience. As in any experience in life, an experience of insight into the nature of experience can be associated with pretty much any reaction ;-)

For instance, as a personal example, I have generated reactions of "wow! how amazing!" pervaded with feelings of exhileration and wonder in response to experiences of what you're calling "absolute freedom of no fixed reference point", as well as reactions of dread and misery, as well as reactions of "ho-hum, that again". In my experience really deep change comes when there has been a continuity of noticing that empty impermanence over a period of time relatively nakedly, i.e., relatively devoid of any reactions-- positive, negative, neutral-- to that empty impermanence. This equanimity and simplicity arises naturally when the very reactions are seen as more fodder for the insight into empty impermanence, if that makes sense.

Investigating the way reactions (to sense impressions, including thoughts) compound or form around a nucleus of aversion, desire or indifference is an important part of practice, as is distinguishing between simple sensory impressions-- sights, sounds, textures, thoughts-- and more complex mental-emotional reactions/interpretations to those impressions.


sixty ten:

My major issue is that because of these experiences, I have a fear of going deeply into the practice, of seeing what is really going on. Quite frankly, I am aware just how much I don't want to let go of control, of my self. So while I still meditate daily for a short period, this puts me quite at odds with pursuing real insight (especially relating to the three characteristics).

Ok thanks for listening, I welcome your thoughts emoticon


I think this is natural. There is a teacher named Culadasa who is brought up occasionally at DhO who has a slightly different approach to the path than is typical here. He basically argues that it is possible to notice the impermanent and impersonal nature of phenomena from the point of view of a visceral belief in solid, separate self.

It's kind of funny if you think about it! In my own words I'd describe this as having a head-level insight into no-self-- you really see that "self" is partly a conceptual construct applied to fleeting, selfless, unfixed phenomena-- yet this seeing is being done by a gut-level or heart-level self that still completely believes in itself!

This is a recipe for existential dread, nausea, misery, etc. Culadasa recommends "lubricating" the process of insight with qualities like tranquility, joy, equanimity and so on. The idea is that if these qualities are allowed to really pervade one's whole experience, right down to a visceral level, the part of one's being which believes in a solid separate self will be much more relaxed and open when confronted with its own illusoriness. Confronting this illusoriness when there is a rigid, deeply held belief in "fixed self" can set up practice as a painful struggle. Cultivating some capacity for peaceful abiding here-and-now prior to engaging rugged insight practice could alleviate or mitigate some of these symptoms, and this cultivation can be approached in many ways if you're interested. In retrospect I think this is basically how the path to SE and beyond unfolded for me do to my style of practice and the things I learned from that *prior* to explicitly discovering and engaging MCTB style vipassana and the progress of insight. My experience of Dark Night was unpleasant at times, to be sure, even to a point of nearly comically absurd intensity (which wasn't so amusing at the time), but all things considered I seemed to navigate that territory with a lot less unnecessary *extra* suffering than many who jump right into a hard core vipassana approach. Who knows, individuals vary so much and there are so many factors involved it's difficult to say :-)

Anyways, my two cents!

--Jake

P.S. I threw out a bunch of jargon like "Dark Night", "progress of insight", and "MCTB" in my response. If those terms mean nothing to you I'd suggest checking out Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha, Daniel Ingram's dharma book (Ingram is the founder of DhO and this work is foundational for a lot of the discourse at DhO) which is available free online.
End in Sight, modified 12 Years ago at 12/20/11 9:56 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 12/20/11 9:56 PM

RE: Existential dread & practice

Posts: 1251 Join Date: 7/6/11 Recent Posts
sixty ten:
My major issue is that because of these experiences, I have a fear of going deeply into the practice, of seeing what is really going on. Quite frankly, I am aware just how much I don't want to let go of control, of my self. So while I still meditate daily for a short period, this puts me quite at odds with pursuing real insight (especially relating to the three characteristics).


Wouldn't it be cool to be rid of this anxiety?
sixty ten, modified 12 Years ago at 12/21/11 6:23 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 12/21/11 6:23 AM

RE: Existential dread & practice

Posts: 3 Join Date: 12/20/11 Recent Posts
Mr. Jake *:


For instance, as a personal example, I have generated reactions of "wow! how amazing!" pervaded with feelings of exhileration and wonder in response to experiences of what you're calling "absolute freedom of no fixed reference point", as well as reactions of dread and misery, as well as reactions of "ho-hum, that again". In my experience really deep change comes when there has been a continuity of noticing that empty impermanence over a period of time relatively nakedly, i.e., relatively devoid of any reactions-- positive, negative, neutral-- to that empty impermanence. This equanimity and simplicity arises naturally when the very reactions are seen as more fodder for the insight into empty impermanence, if that makes sense.

Investigating the way reactions (to sense impressions, including thoughts) compound or form around a nucleus of aversion, desire or indifference is an important part of practice, as is distinguishing between simple sensory impressions-- sights, sounds, textures, thoughts-- and more complex mental-emotional reactions/interpretations to those impressions.


Yes I understand what you mean by different emotional reactions, as I have had times where the feeling of freedom has been one of expansiveness and joy. My mind generally prefers to hang on to the nightmare-ish interpretation than the blissed out one though!

But I understand in principle what you mean by this investigation of reactions, although I think in practice I am quite a way off from doing that. These experiences I describe were before I discovered Buddhism, so I didn't have such methods to help me.

Mr. Jake *:

I think this is natural. There is a teacher named Culadasa who is brought up occasionally at DhO who has a slightly different approach to the path than is typical here. He basically argues that it is possible to notice the impermanent and impersonal nature of phenomena from the point of view of a visceral belief in solid, separate self.

It's kind of funny if you think about it! In my own words I'd describe this as having a head-level insight into no-self-- you really see that "self" is partly a conceptual construct applied to fleeting, selfless, unfixed phenomena-- yet this seeing is being done by a gut-level or heart-level self that still completely believes in itself!


This makes sense to me, given if I look at the "loss of control" experience there is a clear contradiction between the seeing of experience as the "conditioned arising" of events and the self that still cuts itself off from this and says "agh! I'm losing control!!".

As I said my general temperament tends to be anxious and I find that metta practice helps a lot, so maybe the path is to soften up for now emoticon
sixty ten, modified 12 Years ago at 12/21/11 6:36 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 12/21/11 6:36 AM

RE: Existential dread & practice

Posts: 3 Join Date: 12/20/11 Recent Posts
End in Sight:

Wouldn't it be cool to be rid of this anxiety?


Yes, it certainly would emoticon I think there is a lot of attachment to the anxiety, so trying to look what is "beyond" that anxiety brings to mind thoughts of annihilation/death/insanity. But I am starting to see into the roots of my anxiety bit by bit and seeing that there is a possibility to release it. Thanks for your reminder.

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