Hi Andrew.
I can certainly relate, as a parent, to the dichotomy of having an image of myself as an enlightened Buddhist and the reality of standing there screaming at the top of my lungs at my innocent, 7-year-old twins. It is a horrible feeling. The challenge of being present enough to truly see what your children are is very great. Those moments when you do see this are precious indeed. Parents must be super-aware or else they are totally doomed to just repeat whatever patterns they grew up with--right down to the exact gestures and tones of voice that both sets of parents used with them. I wish I could say that I was present all the time and never engaged in bullying, nagging, screaming and so forth. Alas, it is not true. However, I think meditation has helped me to be present and calm and fair-minded much more often than I would have been otherwise.

Jack Kornfield encourages people to think of kids as live-in Zen masters who mercilessly push all our buttons and hold our hypocrisies up to us in a mirror. I think of this a lot. Very helpful.

Regarding the dark night, if you can look back and point to a single meditation experience that stands out above all the rest and was so profound for you that you might describe it as an initial awakening or a powerful glimpse of enlightenment, then you might well have crossed the Arising & Passing Away of Phenomena, which you will see referred to on these boards as the A&P.

If you've crossed the A&P, you probably are stuck in the dark night, along with however many millions of other yogis worldwide. On this forum, you will find actual help in getting out of it, rather than conciliatory platitudes about it.
I hope you make it through this tough time.
-Joel

Thank you, J Groove, for your prompt and insightful response.

Well, there was one experience in particular. I had managed to let the mind calm down quite a lot, and at the end of the sit I did what I always do, nothing special, I made the volition "ok let's turn mindfulness on this state of mind, and investigate the various corners / strands of thought / assorted debris etc). So I turned mindfulness on the mind, and I felt mindfulness flow into mind, like water flowing into water, and after a few moments the realization came - 'I and my mind are not the same thing!' I have not been able to repeat this experience, cos now I'm trying, see? It happened because I wasn't trying anything special, just doing the practice...

So I do have this sense of mind as being something that I am responsible for, that I must care for and attend to, but I am not sure any more exactly where 'I' fit into all this. I can still give in to anger and ill-will, and can feel quite hurt when people insult and/or ridicule me. It is on the basis of this clinging, as well as the identification with mindful awareness ("I" felt aware of "my mind") that I would not think myself to be sotapanna, which from my limited understanding entails an actual and factual experience of the self-less nature of the five khandhas. So clearly, I don't know what level (if any) I am on...and in any case I ought to not worry it, and just practice more and get my lazy butt off the computer chair...see what I mean? ;)

With metta.

Hi Andrew.
If you haven't already done so, you might consider reading Daniel's book Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha. It's available at his Web site, www.InteractiveBuddha.net, as a free PDF. You'd probably find it very helpful on some of this stuff.
Best regards,
Joel