Does anyone else experience this? I find that the term is a very accurate descriptor for what I feel. I think it's what the Buddha referred to when he meant dukkha, as in a "broken cart wheel", there's... friction... static... something doesn't fit right.

Anyways around when I was 16 this angst came into being for the very first time, it's been my constant companion and it hasn't left since. I attributed it to me being a bad person, in fact I came up with all sorts of explanations, but the point is it came out of nowhere and I've pretty much been stuck with it.

In terms of practice it seems to be the "dwelling heedlessly" of the Buddha, or the dukkha-patipada. I also seem to be able to discern what I need to do to release myself from this suffering. I suppose that's a succinct understanding of the four noble truths. I'm also a devout Buddhist and go for refuge quite often. In terms of actual practice I've done a lot of things: the upekkha brahmavihara, balancing the indriya, giving rise to the bojjhanga, practicing the iddhipada, anapanasati, I tried the noble eightfold path, practiced sila for some time, the satipatthana, the satta sanna etc.

I found them all unsatisfactory, as none of the work directly with dukkha. Consequently my recent practice has been working with dukkha directly.

Does anyone feel this, palpable, almost solid, angst?

If everything is dukkha, unsatisfactory, then what method of examining reality will feel satisfactory?

I'm convinced that the enlightenment and path to such an end spoken of in the old texts is exactly the same thing we're doing in vipassana techniques such as noting. Those texts seem to have the concentrated, concise, distilled essence of the practice and the enlightenment it leads to, but they're written for an entirely different audience, in an entirely different culture. There's some degree of faith required for believing that modern teachers are indeed teaching the same enlightenment and meditation as was taught thousands of years ago. The advantage in getting to know some modern insight teachers such as Daniel Ingram, Kenneth Folk, Shinzen Young and others is that they speak about the process of enlightenment in terms we can understand, leaving far less ambiguity and providing more signposts of being on the correct path. I began my meditation purely from the texts, but I didn't know exactly what I was looking for, didn't know exactly how to do it, didn't have any signposts of progress along the way, and didn't know anyone else who was seeking to do the same thing. Finding a pragmatic community what exactly what I needed, for all of those concerns.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as your understanding seems to come purely from the old texts, I would recommend looking into more modern descriptions of the path. Feelings of there being something wrong, something out of tune, something being off in perception are common in insight practice, and especially in the 3rd of 4th territory of vipassana. I've had plenty of those feelings, and you'll find a whole host of people who call themselves "dark night yogis", people who have those negative feelings to the max, due to having crossed the A&P, a threshold where the meditator will probably cycle up to the "dark night" territory.

How much of this stuff are you familiar with?
-Dark Night of the Soul
-Vipassana
-Noting
-Stages of Insight
-Models of Enlightenment

Basically, the jist of it is that meditators have insight into the nature of reality, those insights are dissonant with the way the meditator thinks and references himself to the world, and a lot of dissonant feeling can result. If they see that process of dissonance all the way through though, they'll get to a point of accepting and calming that dissonance down. If they keep looking into the nature of reality from there, they may hit a point where the perception syncs up with how reality actually is for a very quick moment. This seems to jettison the mind into nirvana for a moment, and when they come back, there are permanent, fundamental changes in how the mind works.

Sorry if I'm just repeating stuff you already knew. Basically, I'm saying, that feeling of angst is exactly what insight meditation reveals and exasperates, exasperates to the max. But the fact that that feeling is there is a sign of progress, a sign of what you're looking for and a sign of what insight meditation takes care of.

Hi man,

Thanks for replying. I'm quite familiar with this community, having stalked it for several years.

I liked Vipassana originally, having practiced it scantily for some time but I found it lacking when I hit what you guys would call 3rd Nana, as my mind seemed to get really messy, and this messed with me so I quit.

Since then I've been exploring Buddhism though. My main concern is this palpable angst, which I can't seem to rid myself of. It seems solid, which doesn't seem right, it also seems to be the same thing as 'me', which again doesn't seem right.

Whenever I try a technique though, I always find it lacking, but when I work with it directly, it seems to alleviate the suffering. Which is good I guess.

Thanks.

A pleasure, sir. I'm relatively new here but I went to town when I started so I've gotten to know the scene moderately well. I really dig it!



Are you trying to get enlightened? Why are you pursuing Buddhism? I'm interested in seeing why you're still going at it.

The thing with vipassana is that it really begs for completion. In looking into the 3 characteristics, it seems that we get closer and closer to directly seeing how we end up perpetuating dukkha. Once we see it clearly enough, there will always be a sense of living in dissonance with that, until enlightenment happens. This is why vipassana doesn't function well as a salve for pain or angst, and can actually increase discomfort. Your body, mind, emotions, paradigms, basically everything will be in hell at some point in vipassana, although there are pleasant points as well. But the point is that we're trying to see exactly why the pain, angst, discomfort can come about. When you get to the end of the nanas and get a fruition, you permanently destroy the mechanism.

This comes directly from the teaching of seeing the suffering, seeing the cause of the suffering, seeing the ending of suffering, and seeing a way to go about ending that suffering.

As far as the angst goes, I'm sympathetic to your story. I grew up with similar feelings. I felt like I was different, I felt like I thought in a way other people didn't, I felt like I was some sort of mis-manufactured person, contemplating but not being able to contemplate to any kind of satisfying end, wishing I could just give up the tendency to contemplate and just think about sports and pizza and silly youtube videos and girls. The feelings of angst and tension escalated to the max and I was basically at the bottom of the barrel, feeling massively alone, depressed, helpless, and up to my neck in pain that I didn't even understand the cause of.

Of course, these feelings don't necessarily have to have a spiritual, meditative cause, and it's always possible they have nothing to do with dharma and more to do with situations in life. But why are you so interested in Buddhism and meditation? What are you trying to do or figure out? Why do you spend time on forums like this? Haven't you seen how consistently people report negative feelings of angst, misery, and existential troubles in dark night territory?

If I'm understanding your existential angst correctly, you've most likely opened Pandora's box, and the only way out is forward. I'm not trying to sound intimidating or dramatic, but people who gain insight to reality to some extent are honestly likely to deal with the implications of those insights until they can find a way to shut them out, or until they get enlightened and permanently resolve the issues that those insights caused.

If you consider yourself stable and rational, I would encourage you to keep going with vipassana, with resolutions for stream entry. If you're interested in Buddhist teachings and alleviating suffering, the fruit of the path lies in doing vipassana. If you're truly not interested in walking that road, I'd recommend practicing jhana, or some form of concentration, as concentration tends to be soothing and stable. I wager that the existential problem will continue to arise though, and if that is indeed the case, I am certain you'd find the relief from that in getting stream entry. I certainly did.

That's exactly right though, so you're on the right track. Keep searching and trust yourself

Thanks everyone!

I'm going out tonight as it's New Year's eve. I'm thinking my plan of attack is to continue to work directly with suffering, if not I might try Vipassana.

May everyone have a fine time.