This is really bugging me at the moment and I can’t get my head around it at all. How does the mushroom culture get away with not being open about the DN? Thousands of people must have passed through the doors of IMS etc and been affected etc. Well heeled, upwardly mobile people with lawyers etc.

Does anyone know if Goldstein et al will mention it in private interviews? How can they get away with not warning people about what they’re getting into?

Or are people there literally making no ‘progress’ at all?! On one month retreats they’re not even getting to A&P?

What does the Kabat-zinn brigade who are prescribing this stuff to people with serious mental health problems think about this? Kabat-zinn must be 'awake' to at least some degree - right?

Well, there are certainly (vipassana-)practitioners out there that claim that their methods simply do not involve anything like the dark night.

The Dhamma Sukha folks for one. I've discussed the issue with Sister Khema and she claims that nothing like the dark night exists along their path of development. Bhante V. talks about how the methods he uses were developed after practicing Mahasi style noting for a number of years and seeing the trouble that it caused people.

I also remember listening to a podcast from audiodharma.org (Gil Fronsdal & folks) held by a monk of many years who spoke specifically about problems like the dark night and claimed that he himself had had no such problems. Exactly what his practice consisted of I don't know.

I sometimes wonder if MCTB/noting practices aren't something of a high risk/high reward meditation style. It seems to be a path fraught with more potential pitfalls than some others, but perhaps the potential rewards are greater, or at least faster achieved.

Metta,
Simon

If vipassana gets people to let go of addiction I don't think it's possible to do this without withdrawal symptoms (dark night). If they have these better ways shouldn't they be writing detailed books?

They talk about it at IMS. I described my own dark nighting in group, and the teacher said, "It's a path of purification. You're soaking a dirty rag in water. All the dirt and grime are rising to the top. Stop clinging to high energy states and just be with your experience, and it will pass."

There was another yogi in my group on that retreat who was also DN'ing pretty hard. From the sounds of it, she had crossed the A&P doing a different type of practice earlier in the year, and so that probably allowed her to move pretty quickly into DN territory using vipassana, because she was moving about as quickly as I was, and I was already a stream-winner. They gave her some good feedback, too, and she made it up to Equanimity ñana. I don't think she got path, though.

So, for people who have the Mahasi/Burmese background (as these teachers did), they know about the dukkha ñanas. They just don't believe entering these states usually has any lasting effect once one stops meditating. I tend to agree. I think the dukkha ñanas get blamed for much that could be explained as normal neuroticism in daily life. I've encountered some pretty heavy stuff while on cushion and while on retreat, but I have only with very rare exceptions had any of this significantly "bleed" into daily life. And even then, it was nothing that couldn't be handled either by lifting some heavy weights at the gym or cracking open a cold beer.

As for the JKZ brigade, they're not doing any kind of intensive practice anyway. Worrying about DN'ing while doing MBSR is like the people who worry they're going to "bulk up" by doing Nautilus machines twice a week. I never even hit the first ñana while practicing MBSR techniques. There's no way you're going to hit A&P let alone anything higher doing that.

source

My take on it all is that if you are practicing correctly the dark night will not be a problem, whether you call it that or not.

I think the Burmese traditions are great in that they are so open and descriptive. There have been times when I really appreciated this technical, don't-say-I-didn't-warn-ya attitude.

On the other hand, there have been times when I really enjoyed the fact that some of the other traditions I have had experience with (namely Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village Zen Tradition, some of the Ramana Maharasi stuff) do not emphasis stages, states, and the like, rather staying focused on the moment to moment contentment/happiness/fulfillment. that is always accessible with good technique.

This is just my two cents...that it really comes down to putting the teachings into practice. I don't know how many times I have gotten angry at this and that teaching style/teacher/etc but when it all boiled down I was just spinning in my head.


I had gotten all excited thinking this was going to be a trip report on shrooms while in the dark night

The other thing I think is important to note on this issue is that I have never found a legitimate teacher from any tradition who advertizes practice. In other words, when people go to practice centers to do their thing, they are going because that is what they want to do, not because someone was going around promising certain results, preaching, etc. On the same token, I think that the majority of Yogis in the early and middle paths are not fully proficient at following techniques.

In the Tibetan tradition (in which the higher paths are emphasized - i.e. tantra), they would say that one is a "Hinayana practitioner" until he/she overcomes the problem represented by a metaphor of the three vessels.

Namely:

No cup upside down: where the practitioner is not receptive to the teachings because he is closed

No leaking cup: hears the teachings but doesn't retain them

No dirty cup: hears teachings but impure mind distorts, etc


This is one of the reasons I think the Tibetans don't spend a lot of teaching time on technique, jhana, stages, etc. Because they realize they are preaching to an audience that is limited in how they can apply such teaching. I have found the Mahayanists to take this approach in general, but once again I am veering into speculative realms.

Thanks for your kind and helpful responses.

It was my impression that your nanic 'cutting edge' would totally color your experience off cushion too, but maybe I got that wrong....

As it goes, I got SE after doing considerably less in some ways than was suggested on my first MBSR course (by basically just sitting still in the dark 'doing nothing' twice a day) which included a one hour body scan. But then with my bipolar experiences I wonder if I've been rattling around these 'strata' of mind already for years without knowing it. F*** knows about all this stuff.....

I think hardcore dharma is highly geared towards bare insight and this is why the dukkha nanas can be such an issue. Pumping concentration works wonders after the a&p event, that is my experience. To me it seems to be a big mistake to act like there is a 'dark night conspiracy'. Any severe case of depression and/or existential angst is a big deal. Maybe this attitude is down to my experiences with psychedelics, for I have had strong trips go dark. My dukkha nanas were not a big deal in comparison...but it's all relative.

It might be interesting to consider the classical temperaments here. Maybe melancholic sorts have had such a close relationship with tragedy and disaster (or sorts), coming to uncomfortable territory is nothing new? Coming back to psychedelics, it has sometimes been said that it can having something a&p-ish about it. Well I suspect it cycles through latter nanas too.

I was once at this fountain, and at first was a&p bliss, happiness, greek images of utopian order and heirarchy, self replenishing water and sweet foods. Dissolution, the focused turned back on me, who was I and what was I doing there? I imagined many alternate scenarios based on the image of the location and myself in it. After that I had feelings of fear and hatred, general disturbance, and I remember a very clear sharp transition into a mind-state of pure revulsion.
The previously lovely lapping waves and splashing water turned into noises of vomiting, bleeding, maggots crawling.

A short while later, walking past seedy shops with people smoking in all sorts of strange devices, there was certainly some kind of desire for deliverance or something! But anything in the past is dreamlike and I can't really say I was in this or that nana.


Anyway, the reason someone has chosen to meditate is classically said to be because they have had a glimpse of the hopelessness of worldly endeavor. I know your viewpoint is in the mctb also, but it seems a bit wet to me to say that a meditator isn't warned more that they will face their uncomfortable repressions! That's just always looked self-evident to me.

I think we can learn from what happens with drug use, because drugs probably do similar things to the brain. Mindset makes a big difference. Setting makes a difference. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Set_and_setting

So if I go and meditate and I feel depressed before I start (set), then there's a decent chance I will severely aggravate the depression. If I go and meditate and I'm not happy in my surrounds (setting), again there's a chance of aggravating a low of mood state.

To me, 'set' and 'setting' are essentially the same thing, but Leary's term has stuck. The drug (or meditation) opens a door. How you feel before you enter the door determines to a large extent whether your experience is healing or terrifying.

So this is why for me, non-negativity is useful. I don't practice positive thinking, because that's too tricky - i found I would use the positivity to suppress and deny the negative thoughts, thereby making them stronger. For me, non-negativity means noticing that negative thoughts make me feel bad, and letting them go rather than grinding on them all day. Such a basic concept, yet it took me years to understand this properly. Then if I feel ok, by the end of the day I'll do some absorption practice. I'm not ready for the other type of practice. I view absorption practice the same way I would having a beer at the end of the day. I don't want to have 10 beers and end up feeling off the next day. I just have one to relax. My skill level at absorption is poor, but that's ok. The better I feel, the easier it is.

Sticking with the drug theme, it's normal for a low to follow a high. The brain gets flooded with serotonin and dopamine, then notices the depletion after it gets re-absorbed. My understanding is that the only way to avoid the low is to keep taking the drug, and maybe by extension.... keep meditating continuously?? I guess this is where the retreat idea comes in. You keep on keeping on, keep feeding the brain over and over and over, hoping to blast through to the other side. If you don't get there, you can expect the most horrible depression once you stop. My problem is that no-one gets there, so they all end up depressed. One has to cross the Abyss for it to not backfire. If you get to the Abyss and freak out, you're not going to end up in a good place. And since so few people are enlightened, I can only assume that either: 1) people are using bad/wrong techniques, so they don't get to stand on the precipice and/or 2) they get to the precipice but are not prepared to "die" to the moment.

I really wonder what you're talking about, because I do jhana-based meditation. I feel a bit dark, procrastinate a bit, but within a few minutes of entering jhana, it's like a second mind has taken over, and one can incline the mind towards investigating pleasure (which involves being smothered in pleasure) for example.
Maybe bare insight isn't your thing? I have a friend who thinks a similar thing to you, that meditation is a temporary drug or something. I guess the thing has either clicked or it hasn't.
You say you think everyone gets depressed after meditation? It sounds odd, good meditation doesn't bring about despondency. I absolutely empathize with what you wrote, me of exactly one year ago, that is. But eventually you break through... I think there are multiple ways of getting a certain energy going. One is psychedelic drug use. Another is going completely nuts, a la Osho dynamic meditation. I don't know, this kind of thing is up to you but be careful not to think your mind is representative of everything.

J

If you're only "a bit dark" jhana won't be a problem. Anything more severe - actual depression - and that's highly problematic. I'm speaking to those who are having difficulty, and even though I say "everyone" I know it's not everyone. I do read the other threads where people are going along happily, and I have nothing to add to that sort of thread. But those who are having difficulties are high in number, especially with insight practice.

Osho's dynamic meditations aim to rid the body and mind of negatives before you do any meditation, so yeh I'm basically in line with that sort of idea. I just don't go in for catharsis because you can just as easily trigger strong negative states. Some of Osho's followers did go nuts from what I've read. Instead of letting go, they got taken in by the negative feelings. if you're thrashing about wildly, it's hard to know what you're doing sometimes.

A depressed person will do better distracting himself with TV than meditating.

Regarding the notion that the Dark Night is a product of Noting/MCTB-style practice:

I crossed the A&P at least 6 times over roughly 10 years before I ever did any formal meditation practice: this with no sitting, no tradition, no concept of meditation really, just by being alive.

Then, in the early-mid 90's I also crossed it just doing very Thai-forest style vipassana on 3 retreats with Christopher Titmuss: no noting, just attending mindfully to what was arising.

I hit a heavy Dark Night after every single A&P and the chaos can be easily mapped by the trail of destruction my relationships, school, etc. as I had no idea what the hell was going on, coming to this in no tradition whatever that talked about: first the ignorance of standard Westernism, then the mushroom culture of the Thai tradition.

It was only after I learned noting on my first Mahasi retreat at MCTB that I got really high Equanimity and knew how I had done it and knew what came next that planted the seeds for getting beyond all that to something much better, a project that took years, but at least I knew what the hell was going on and could navigate it much more consciously and with vastly better techniques for doing something about it than I had before, and finally to this very, very different way of perceiving things and relating to things cyclic, which I must say is way, way, way better, and when I think about what my life would likely be like without having found the Mahasi stuff, it is very hard to imagine that I would have found anything anywhere near this effective, powerful, clarifying, empowering, and remarkable.

Daniel

The same can be said of my own experience. Goenka sweeping set me off into dark night territory for 8 years and taking up mahasi noting got me constantly out of it and to 1st path and beyond within 2 years of taking it up and within 4months of taking it up seriously. I can honestly say, now i do not suffer a 'dark night'.

Nick

Daniel,

Do you have any opinion regarding how common your experience is? In other words, how common is it for people to cross the A&P without any formal meditation practice? What still confuses me regarding this view of the A&P/dark night in daily life is how it seems to be indistinguishable from regular (for some value of regular) depression/general feelings of crappyness.

It's absolutely fascinating to me that there are such differing views on this subject. It really seems to show how little we actually know about the brain and mental development.

Metta,
Simon

A Pew Forum survey in 2009 found that 49% of the population have had some kind of mystical or spiritual experience at some point in their lives.

I made a list of common symptoms, beginning at the 8'45" mark in this video here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swNMOiWXcII

Hi Derek,



That sounds like a plausible number in itself, but does that equate to 49% of the population being stuck in some version of the dark night? If so that seems like a really an incredibly high number

Metta,
Simon

Well, the whole principle of this community is normalizing awakening, right? What if that number is accurate for a&p level awakening? (Not saying it is-- lots of mystical experiences probably don't qualify as a&p). But what if the deeper point is that awakening is a natural part of human development? For human development to happen, you need the basic neural circuitry PLUS an appropriate kind of socialization to trigger that circuitry and influence the plasticity of that circuits unfolding and integration with the rest of the brain/body/mind system. Feral children don't ever really seem to learn 'language' if they miss that window where circuitry requires socialization to be triggered and guided.

Seeing the whole metaphor of 'mushroom culture' in dharma in this developmental light, in light of what is possible when awakening is normalized and explicit cultures can flourish which address these neuro-phenomenal potentials of the human being, is really exciting to me!

Back to the theme of the conversation, my own experience fits the spontaneous a&p --> accidental dark night --> accidental eq and thereafter circling around those states with little understanding of their relationship until coming across these maps. So although my experience has differed in many ways from the 'hard-core' approach, especially after initial awakening, I can still vouch experientially for the notion that these stages represent something quite natural. On the other hand, it also seems self-evident that there are different explicit cultures of awakening which deal with the human being in different ways, emphasizing and de-emphasizing particular aspects of the whole process in myriad ways. There are also individual differences in temperament which may partially account for different experiences of undergoing these processes. So the thing is way more complex than simply: "everyone undergoes the stages as mapped by the mahasi system and just has varying degrees of recognizing this", as was once the dharma dogma of this community IMO.

Yes it does, doesn't it. Respondents to the survey got to reply in the light of their own understanding of what constitutes a "mystical or spiritual experience." We have no way of following up with them to ask to what extent their symptoms coincided with Daniel's list of A&P or Dark Night symptoms.

That's my view, too.



My hypothesis is that Daniel's list of symptoms http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/1509672#_19_message_1509672 includes some that are common to all human experiences of derepression and some that are simply side-effects of this particular practice.