Hi All,

I'm new to DhO and I've enjoyed reading the Dark Night threads. I think I'm going thru DN myself for about 5 years now. I've been doing regular meditation since 1991 and I lived about 3 years at a small Zen monastery. I now live at a spiritual center in India (Amma's main ashram). I think my DN is pretty typical; feeling angry, irritable, very moody, anhedonia, no joy, etc, etc. I'm still mostly motivated to do my work but I've lost almost all interest in meditation practice. Whenever I try to meditate my mind is often filled with lots of dark, ugly thoughts. And when I don't have dark thoughts then my meditations are just really boring and filled with unpleasant emotions and bodily anxiety. Yuk.

Over the years I've been involved with some communication skills groups. Talking with other people about these things have helped me a lot. But I'm in India now and my former friends in USA are all bad at responding to emails.

So I'd like to find someone here willing to skype and talk. Don't have to talk about all serious stuff, but just talk about what's going on and let the dialog find its natural course. I'm a good listener and I like learning about other people and their inner worlds. Often when I open up with another I'll get good insights into what's going on inside me and how to deal with it in a positive way.

So if you'd like to skype shoot me an email; jaiamma@gmail.com. Greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Peace and Light to All,

Advait (the name given to me by Amma)

PS: What is the MCTB documents? I could not find out what MCTB means. Anyone know? Thanks.

MCTB="Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha", a book by Daniel Ingram: http://integrateddaniel.info/book/
On that page is a direct link to a PDF of the book. The summary of the book is: keep practicing, develop ever more discerning awareness of present moment experience and you shall progress. Hard as it is, continued awareness of DN, with all it's yuckiness is the way to leave it behind. But read the book!

Take care,

Matt

hi advaita,
i'm no skyper but it might be useful to describe your sits.  its a good start to mention the dark thoughts etc. but what else do you do and experience during your formal meditation?

shamata, vipassana, chakra...techniques, following the breath, watching the breath at the nostrils, counting breaths.  how long are your sits? do you do visualizations, chanting.?
was there a time in the past when your experience was markedly different etc.

good luck

tom

Hi All,

D.C. and B.F. have emailed me and offered to do a skype session so that will get me started. Thanks to them and thanks to the DhO for being a great resource.

Deep Gassho and Namaste,

Advait

OK, I downloaded MCTB and transferred it to my smartphone and will start reading thru it. As Daniel says, it looks like hardcore dharma! Thanks for the link.

Gassho,

Advait

I've also heard Daniel speak on a few podcasts so I've gotten a taste of his teachings and his unique approach to the Dharma.

Hello Tom, Great questions! It will take me a bit of typing to give some proper answers. As soon as I get a moment I'll do that. Thanks,

Gassho,

Advait

[[Hello Tom, my replies below in brackets.]]

hi advaita,

[[It's "Advait" with no "a" at the end. I think in India "Advait" is the name for males and "Advaita" for females.]]

i'm no skyper but it might be useful to describe your sits.  its a good start to mention the dark thoughts etc. but what else do you do and experience during your formal meditation? shamata, vipassana, chakra...techniques, following the breath, watching the breath at the nostrils, counting breaths.  how long are your sits? do you do visualizations, chanting.?

[[I've been meditating since 1991 (when I was 28), usually only about 1/2 hr to 45 min per day. So I'm not at all a super practitioner like many of the people here at DhO. I went on some short retreats about 2 or 3 times a year, but never had unusual meditative experiences. Between 1997 and 2002 I would on a regular basis experience deep bliss in meditation; happened about 4 or 5 times a month. Then they stopped and never happened again (I miss them! Please come back! :-) ). Except for those bliss experiences my meditations have ranged from simply boring to somewhat restless to slightly peaceful. My main practice has always been just observing whatever's happening with non-attachement; kind of like what Adyashanti teaches. I was never drawn to concentration or visualization practices.]]

[[Beginning in 2010 (shortly after I moved to this ashram here in India) my meditations started becoming filled with dark ugly thoughts mostly about resentments and anger toward people who had poked my fragile ego (either recently or in the distant past). And that has only gotten worse since then. Now I find it hard to do any meditation at all. In addition to the dark thoughts, my body is totally filled with anxiety centered in my gut. It's like having a 24/7 bad headache but in my gut, not my head. Also I feel this emotional pain all the time around my eyes like I want to cry. Just sitting with and observing all this internal nastiness has become more than I can bear. So now I meditate only about 5 or 10 minutes because the anxiety, emotional pain and ugly thoughts are just too much. And all these negative experiences are with me much of the day. I've spoken to a few other people here at the ashram who have similar experiences.]]

[[My guru is Amma (the Hugging Saint), who I feel is a genuine living Buddha and a living Master. The Hindu scriptures say that when you become a disciple of a real living Master, that Master will often bring up a lot of your old karma for quick (but painful!) processing. To be honest I think that's what's happening to me. But I like to keep an open mind so whatever insights you have please share them. I can always learn more and it's good for me to see my DN phase from different angles.]]

[[Thanks, Deep Gassho, -Advait.]]