I have a lot of stress these days. Recently practice fizzled out and I think it should. At night when I'm trying to sleep it feels like 1000 volts are streaming through my body. I have to count my breaths to fall asleep which may or may not happen shortly after. If I'm lucky bliss sensations arise which I focus on to help me fall asleep. I call it bliss but its not actually satisfying, it's just ok. Unfortunately sometimes my body just hurts. Blunt physical pain in my head, tightness in my muscles. I can never seem to find a position that relaxes all the subtle tensions. And then a physical anxiety that feels like tiny evil leprechauns beating all my cells with shillelaghs. Then theres the subtle back and forth of attention between the sensations. Then there is the subtle tension in attention itself which hurts. Then maybe I will feel sad about my inability to do anything about this. I can also do "nothing" but once I'm motionless in bed I'm aware of my stream of thoughts which tend to piss me off so it seems I have to do something. Once I fall asleep, I sleep for a long time. More than 10 hours.

In the morning I feel like a thousand pounds, pretty consitently. Maybe its fatigue. I'm freaking tired in general, stressed out by life. In a Jack Kornfield talk he says what most people consider laziness is mostly actually just being tired. I tend to see this for myself. I give myself some slack. I try to do stuff but its hard.

It's hard dealing with the subtle angers during the day that feed this other anger, anger without a proximate cause. I will feel anger in my body as clouds of painful pressure. I'm pretty sure I derepressed a lot of unconscious anger too. I'm sure its for the best when (maybe) I'm finally purge it but right now it sucks. For a new years formal resolution, since it has more psychological charge, I told myself to hate less. So I'm practicing.

All this meditation stuff seems like a double edged sword. Maybe I have more mindfulness and am more intelligent in terms of whats really happening in my life, as well as greater knowedge of who I am and authenticity but it seems to be a lot more painful now.

After being educated on meditation therory it does seem plausible that I want reality to be extinguished totally. It feels like I go on because that is simply what has to happen. Killing myself seems stupid. To do that just involves more sensations and more suffering for those left on Earth. And I think more sensations probably exists after death.

If meditation must come to a halt for me now then rechnically I'm not working toward this supposed cessation non-experience whatever it is. If I am meditating then its going to fry my circuits more which sucks. And when I try to do calm meditaiton I usually just end up seeing how much I hurt.

Right now it's hands off mostly only concentrating to fall asleep. I'm just dealing with the consequences of meditation until I reach some point in my life when my body and mind is not so stressed to start up again.

What about the larger universe at hand? Why does this have to be? Why can't there just be nothing? Why doesn't god just annihilate itself? If it doesn't then surely there must be some good reason that perhaps makes this crappy life worth living besides the more Earthly reasons listed above. /end metaphysical questions.

I don't really know what to do about this stress besides hang in there, I've read all the advice. It just sucks that I have no one to talk to about this shit. I don't even mind not having anyone to talk about the cool parts of meditation with. It just sucks that I'm stuck in a prision of suffering alien to most of my fellow man. Oh well, that's what this post if for. To get this crap out of me in the most matter-of-fact language, well, besides the leprechauns & shillelaghs bit.

Whoa, slow down there partner, let's try to break this down... I'm assuming you're doing insight meditation, but what technique specifically? How long have you been going at it? How many minutes a day? 

Could be a number of things going on. It sounds like pretty classic Dark Night territory to me. Body aches, wondering why god doesn't just annihilate himself, subtle stress of attention, etc... 

If you're having a really hard time, the standard recommendation is to eat some greasy junk food, this will pull you down to earth and glaze you over just a bit. I strongly suggest switching from vipassana to metta meditation. It will really take the edge off the negative emotions and you can use the warm feelings as concentration objects, which opens the door to jhanas, which will help even more. You may have to tame your mind a bit before you can successfully re-engage with insight practice.

As for sleep, there are some over the counter things that can help. I've had success with benadryl and melatonin. If those don't help, there's no shame in seeing a doctor and discussing a stronger sleep aid.

I'm not doing formal insight meditation anymore. I began meditation mid 2011. I went on a ten day reatreat last spring and did about another 100+ hours at home after that before stopping. I can see how these things could be dark night territory. I've abandoned the using the maps in any significant way and wanting progress. Before, if I was angry, I would acknowledge that it's possibly DN territory and attempt to be disspationate towards it. Now I just attempt to be dispationate towards it or ignore it not really thinking about the insight maps that much anymore. I want this stuff to stop but at the same time I think I should back off of meditation (or at least insight meditation only) till my life offers me a more supportive environment in the future.

My mind does feel like a wild beast. It seems more wild than pre meditation, definitely. But maybe I'm just noticing it more. I've been considering metta but havn't followed through with a daily discipline yet. Maybe I will start tonight. I love heavy food and it definitely does help in moderation.

Hello,

I can relate to your feelings.  This kind of thing is easily remedied with concentration practice, though!  The idea behind concentration practice is actually the opposite of vipassana meditation.  During meditation, you attempt to stop the movement of your attention.  You pick an object to act as an anchor, like the sensation of breathing, and simply move the attention back onto it whenever you notice it has gone somewhere else.  Then, during the day, you use this skill (the ability to direct the attention where you want it) to remove attention from unpleasant and unskillful states of mind.  An example of how this works: you notice you're angry and intentionally stop putting attention on your anger.  In a minute, you've forgotten about it completely.  Maybe you remember the whole thing a little after that, but it's considerably less negative than it was before and can be resolved on the spot.

It's actually pretty easy to learn, and the benefits are much more instant than mindfulness/vipassana type practices.  You don't need to be able to reach jhanas for the concentration to have a very positive effect on your ability to dictate how you feel during the day, as well.  Attempting to watch unpleasant states of mind without the ability to remove the attention if things get too intense is, most likely, the cause of depressions or dark nights that arise from meditation.  As an added bonus, meditation itself becomes incredibly pleasant and self-perpetuating.

IMHO, I think this is how the Buddha taught meditation.

Attempting to be dispassionate towards negative feelings sounds like a form of aversion to me, which only inflames the mind further. It's better to cultivate metta towards the sensations or simply to note them very quickly.

I understand how frustrating it is when your life situation is not supportive of meditation. I crossed the A&P two years ago and hit the Dark Night really hard. By the time I realized what was happening, I had a baby on the way and had become the sole provider for my family. Regardless of your situation, it is important to meditate every day, even if that means five minutes before bed. 

May I also suggest cultivating rapture? If you keep hammering away at inisght practice without taking time to enjoy the positive or blissful aspects of it, you will just get really dark and fry yourself. Concentration practice is great for this, especially if you can attain to the second jhana.

I'm happy to report this actually helped me a lot. I've been bringing my attention back to the body when moving about doing tasks and if anxiety or something begins to get the best of me I search for some positive sensation and then focus on it. I notice that whenever I concentrate on what I'm doing things usually go better.

Thanks for the support Eric. I want to be able to cultivate helpful meditation qualities even when life is difficult as you have done. I won't stop at this.