Hello,

​​​​​​​On and off for the last few years when doing meditation I have been experience a fear during meditation.

This fear is now coming up alot more.

The fear is in response to a sense of loss of individual self in meditation.

There are 2 ways that his has happend.

1. Expansion - There is a sense of expansion of the body. With it by body feels like it starts to disappear. Sometimes it my whole body at expanding. Sometimes it starts with my hands feeling like they are expanding. There is a certain kinda of lightness to the experience.

2. Absorption - This is a feeling of body not expanding but it feelings thick and heavy. I cannot really describe it. But its marked by a loss of sense of self. When coming out of this it takes time and I feel kinda sluggish. But once I open my eyes I feel ok but it takes time.

Both these sensation come on strong and through no will power. Meaning I cannot consciously make it happen. And when the sensation (expansion or absorption) starts its very strong and quick. I have no control of it. When it starts within a few seconds I get scared and then the sensation stops.


I have been doing counting breathe meditation for a few years. Counting from 1 to 10 and holding my awareness at the navel.

More recently starting doing silent illumination.

I want to be able to let go when these sensations take over but I get scared.

I have been looking in books but havnt been able to find anything help.

Any advice. Thanks Damian

You can use different kinds of journeying, shadow work or active imagination type practices to lean into and explore difficult emotions. Or you can work with a therapist, do psychedelics or whatever...

From a meditative point of view eventually you have to just really square up to relinquishing control. You have to let go and just be with it.

It may help to see that the fear or your reaction to it is impermanent, being made of lots of microscopic sense sparkles none of which have any permanence.
It may help to see that the fear, like all other phenomena, has some quality or sense of suffering to it and that in the face of suffering all you can really do is relax and lean in with compassion instead of recoiling from the truth of the experience. 
It may help to see that despite how you feel about the fear, there's really nothing you can do about it, it's not self. It arises and passes away all of its own accord. Entirely on its own without any meddling or direction. 

It may help to practice metta, to learn to really deeply relax or to include some more shamatha type practice in your sits. 

You've found your edge, which is a noble thing to find, see what you can do to gently lean into it. 

Ego death is frightening... to the ego, for obvious reasons. 

  Hi,

Developing a fearless and accepting mind and emotional state through practices such as the immeasurables, tonglen (perhaps even tonglen with the "part of you" that is afraid of disappearing?), etc., can be really really helpful.

Something that lead to very interesting results for me when this sort of thing was happening (and I'll assume you're in a similar place as I was when that was the case, as I feel I recognize the sorts of phenomena you describe, which may not be true), was to take an approach of noticing "who" was afraid of what was happening. Look for the person or subject that is scared, repeatedly, rapidly. In a way it is like "noticing the three characteristics of the fear" (which is also an approach you can try: find a way to directly notice that the fear changes, is not you, and sort fo sucks), but what really deepened these sorts of experiences for me when they were showing up was this specific active developing of a self-reflective perspective (direct self inquiry by investigating the subject of the fear of disappearing directly). It would usually lead to a spontaneous objectifying/dissociation from and letting go of the fear of disappearing, and a deepening of the expansion/disappearing. This sort of meditation requries a concentrated and subtle awareness which you likely already have developed to a significant degree given what you're describing (sense of the body fading, etc.). I remember that I would develop a really quiet mind for the first part of a meditation session up to a point when the fading would come up, and then do very rapid, consistent, precise, fearless investigation: "who is it that is afraid? who is it that may disappear? where is he in my direct experience" that would lead to a sort of attentional ping pong, dicrease of aversion, and then automatic deepening of the fading.

In general, I think these sorts of experiences are positive signs. You can also develop confidence by recognizing that this is the case (the fear is a good sign), try to remove the aversion towards that fear and subtly changing your relationship with it by e.g. formally intending to "follow the fear wherever it leads you" since you know it is leading you somewhere cool.

Hope that helps, if there is any confusion do ask, and let us know how things go.

Best,
Olivier
  

Damian, I suffered from the same fear of the loss of self during early meditation practice. It used to stop me in my tracks.

This fear was frustrating because I knew intellectually that this was an irrational response to certain experiences during my sits. What seemed to make the most difference was slowly, very slowly, allowing myself to enter those experiences and pay attention to what was happening right then and there.

After a while (probably a few weeks), I realized that what was happening was that I was assuming a permanent self that could be lost. It dawned on me that this fear was an attempt to protect me from some dramatic, catastrophic elimination - the world might come to an end for me!

​​​​​​​But guess what? I saw that there is no permanent self, so the notion that it had to be saved became an internal joke. I could see the self arise and pass, like anything else, and thus the fear was slowly overcome.

Ignore if this doesn't make sense to you.

Hi
​​​​​​​on...vaguely...off...vaguely, the last vaguely amount of few years...when doing "meditataion" (whatever that is vaguely) you experience "fear"?

alot is vaguely more than not vague

oh, amazeballs that you know that....great

wow, you are right on top of this, just 2?

ya, jhana 1, that happens. body distortions. no big deal really but kinda weird a couple of times.

shrug, is it all that bad? sense of what self? WTF is a self or not?

Sounds like you might wanna lean INTO the fear. What might happen? NON-control? What is the worst thing that might happen? do you really think your gonna die? LOLOLOL. nope. you are not special. many have experienced this. If you think this is bad.....wait til the real shit hits the non-fan!!! (grin)

ok

dunno what that is

be scared, then be ok with scared, then turn fear up more, then turn it down, notice it, is it controling you? can you control it? why or why not?  PLAY with it. Don"t be afraid of your fear! embrace it! when else are you gonna have a chance to figure this stuff out?

you help you by doing it again and again

Good Luck,
~D

We want to feel certain ways;
We want to maintain certain beliefs about our selves.
When we start to see these beliefs and feelings are impermanent we fear their loss;
We react and recoil;
This activity too is impermanent.

From the Dhammapada

Craving gives rise to grief;
Craving gives rise to fear.
For someone released from craving
There is no grief;
And from where would come fear?



-

Forgive me father it has been one day since my last quotation.

thanks for your reply Chris. Will take this on board. 

Thanks O...