Enlightenment enshitenment

What do you like about it?

-ona

Silly, flippant answer:

Nothing.

Real answer:

The sort of nuts and bolts training in day-to-day peaceful living. The comparative lack of detail/content. Zazen. The atmosphere at zen centers (colors, interior design, the obvious attempts by pracitioners to pay a quiet mindful attention to things). To me, the teachings of emptiness, the way so much of it is about approaching things from an emptiness to an emptiness.

The fact is, it's a rare person who once you know them doesn't share that they have all kinds of "issues". Even people who appear to be confident and cheerful all the time, in my experience, have as much personal crap as anyone else. It's just often that you don't see it or hear about it until you get to know them on a personal level. I recall being totally shocked some years ago when a long-time acquaintance who appeared to have a "perfect" life with everything going for her confided some really awful personal struggles. No one would have guessed.

Myself I have had many anxiety and depression issues over time. Sometimes disruptive to daily life, sometimes able to be kept private. The sole point of meditative practice is not necessarily to fix any of this, though I have found it has worked wonders. It seems most of all to decrease the "piling on of stories" that results in feeling bad about feeling bad (hating yourself for being angry, being ashamed of being anxious, being anxious and angry about being anxious and angry, etc.). In addition I have become more generally patient and compassionate both towards myself and others. I think if it's NOT doing that, then there is no shame at all in supplementing with western medicine, therapy, or whatever else might help, or seeking a different kind of meditation practice that better fits your needs.

Anxiety, and/or a sort of free-floating general discomfort have been huge issues for me, especially in the last ten years or so.

I've had about a month of freedom from this, ever since I had one of those almost cliche-like experiences of total giving up, surrender, letting go, you know. I just got sick of trying to control everything and just stopped. The amazing thing is that it has lasted, the urge to control hasn't come back and the surrender-attitude just keeps getting renewed.

It's nice, but I'm not assuming it will stay forever, or that it will end.

Another thing that I've seen help is to change my behavior slighty. A lot of my anxiety I think is directly related to procrastination, to avoiding certain tasks, people, situations and then just sort of feeling bad about myself and worried over what I'm avoiding. If I just do what I know in my gut I need to do, I usually feel better, more free, more peaceful, and calm right away.

If i might add, I've also found most meditators are pretty happy to point out benefits, but similarly, when you get to know them (or on some more open forums, like this one) they talk about their difficulties in practice - fears, anxieties, outright existential panic, whatever it may be - and that's important, too. The popular view is you start meditating and you just de-stress and get a lovely guru smile on your face. We all know it's much more complex - that there are profound transformations, but there is also plenty of shit to plow through (wallow in, embrace fully...lol)

I was reminded of it a bit when Vince Horn tweeted that he was dealing with a lot of fear in his #openpractice tweet today. That's nice and honest.

I had a rather funny experience once, where I had scheduled my only ever retreat (I practice alone most of the time, but would go to this one center on occasion). I was so excited to finally do a retreat (it was just a weekend). Of course the week before the retreat I started into this really awful period of meditation where I would just get pounded by fear. I really couldn't sit without being immersed in fear and it was really really hard to not just be sucked into it. I felt really stupid going to this retreat and then risking panting or gasping or shrieking unintentionally during the lovely perfect quiet meditations with everyone in their pretty robes. So the first day when we sat I whispered to the guy next to me that I was having a really hard time and didn't know what to do. He said everyone deals with this, especially if you go to a center where there are people who practice intensively, not just weekend visitors. People fall off their cushions in terror, and people fall off their cushions laughing. He said the rule he learned is - you help the guy on your right. So a couple times when he heard me panting in terror, he just put a hand on my arm, and that brought me back to where I could watch the thoughts again.

If i might add, I've also found most meditators are pretty happy to point out benefits, but similarly, when you get to know them (or on some more open forums, like this one) they talk about their difficulties in practice - fears, anxieties, outright existential panic, whatever it may be - and that's important, too. The popular view is you start meditating and you just de-stress and get a lovely guru smile on your face. We all know it's much more complex - that there are profound transformations, but there is also plenty of shit to plow through (wallow in, embrace fully...lol)
I was reminded of it a bit when Vince Horn tweeted that he was dealing with a lot of fear in his #openpractice tweet today. That's nice and honest.
I had a rather funny experience once, where I had scheduled my only ever retreat (I practice alone most of the time, but would go to this one center on occasion). I was so excited to finally do a retreat (it was just a weekend). Of course the week before the retreat I started into this really awful period of meditation where I would just get pounded by fear. I really couldn't sit without being immersed in fear and it was really really hard to not just be sucked into it. I felt really stupid going to this retreat and then risking panting or gasping or shrieking unintentionally during the lovely perfect quiet meditations with everyone in their pretty robes. So the first day when we sat I whispered to the guy next to me that I was having a really hard time and didn't know what to do. He said everyone deals with this, especially if you go to a center where there are people who practice intensively, not just weekend visitors. People fall off their cushions in terror, and people fall off their cushions laughing. He said the rule he learned is - you help the guy on your right. So a couple times when he heard me panting in terror, he just put a hand on my arm, and that brought me back to where I could watch the thoughts again.

-ona

Pa .. la ... bra

So the first day when we sat I whispered to the guy next to me that I was having a really hard time and didn't know what to do. He said everyone deals with this, especially if you go to a center where there are people who practice intensively, not just weekend visitors. People fall off their cushions in terror, and people fall off their cushions laughing. He said the rule he learned is - you help the guy on your right. So a couple times when he heard me panting in terror, he just put a hand on my arm, and that brought me back to where I could watch the thoughts again.

-ona

I love this. It's pretty incredible how the felt presence of another can really ground us in times of distress. In working through some anxiety issues in my therapist's office, he more or less said that one of his roles as a therapist is to provide some extra ego to the experience. (By that he meant ego strength and resilience, not neurotic clinging.) We can really help others hold their difficulties, so they can work through them with more courage. It's nice to see how that played out for you on retreat, Ona.

lol - i got a pa-la-bra

you crack me up

and just to add - this has been a really cool round of conversation lately - i appreciate how much i learn from it, and its nice to have a place for it. thanks.

I was just listening to Mr. Sobel on Buddhist Geeks and he was giving a sort of thumbnail sketch of what was new about "the Buddha" and he said

"the idea that a human being can rely on their own effort to develop one's own awareness to go through a series of transformative exeriences and then stabilizations and eventually reach a state of pervading wakefulness."

Effort

Awareness

Transformative

Experiences

Stabilizations

State

Pervading Wakefullness

I feel like even though he was apparently speaking off the cuff in a discussion with Mr. Horn, each of those words was well chosen and have a specific meaning. I've never heard them put together in quite that way and in quite that order to describe the uniqueness of Buddhism.

I think a lot of us deal a lot with Effort, with developing our own awarenss, and with having transformative experiences. But, I don't see much on stabilizations, or on a state of pervading wakefulness other than as just an ideal. Anyone have any thoughts on those two things?

In my opinion...

For those of us who have had truly genuine and transformative awakening experiences, stabilization (and thus, integration) is really the next step. Whether or not many of us will ever stabilize to the point of reaching a state of pervading wakefulness is not something I claim to know, nor even understand all that well. I'm a long ways off from that, I think. I would like to think that it is possible.

I do think that Hokai's description is remarkable, as usual.

Maybe my recent experience of complete surrender followed by a (so far) constant and significant decrease in pain, discomfort, striving, etc. was a "stabilization."

Maybe.

Yeah, maybe

Yeah, maybe [image]

-awouldbehipster

It kind of just feels like I'm regular and normal for the first time ever.

Also, I should mention that I have anxiety issues as well. I encountered many difficulties last year that left me with some kind of panic disorder for a few months. At first I felt stupid for being a relatively experienced meditation practitioner and counseling psychology student (i.e. future therapist) with an anxiety disorder. Shouldn't I know how to deal with this? Shouldn't I have NOT developed the problem in the first place? I had to let that go pretty quick if I was going to get any better. It can happen to any of us.


-awouldbehipster

Thanks for sharing It really amazes me how much contemplative practice, with the developing capacity for mindful and equanimous complete experiencing (to borrow a few Shinzen Young phrases), facilitates psychological understanding. Here is where I find the global shift in the "gestalt" of experience and identity, which can come about through contemplative practice, can liberate attention and energy to heal psychological and even physiological processes, simply through devoting one's self-friendly and spacious attention, with "acceptance and commitment" , towards those processes which are disturbing and disconnected. The paradoxical theory of change!

And the reciprocal truth as well: as my habitual identifications become more integral, streamlined, inclusive and flexible, mind becomes more stable, behavior more straightforward, thus liberating energy and attention to further appreciate the phenomenological, global truths about experience/being as a whole.

It kind of just feels like I'm regular and normal for the first time ever.


-michaelmonson

Wow, sounds like a nice shift! I'm glad for you

For what it's worth, I seem to have approached what Hokai describes from the other side: glimpsing the profundity that "beneath" all my bullshit and sufferings experience is already pervaded by effortlessly stable wakefullness, I began to exert effort towards becoming aware of that which was blocking me from living like that continuously, which process led to some beginnings of transformation. Fascinating. As my practice develops, I've lately taken to seeing the reconnecting with effortless wakeful experiencing flow as "shamatha" and the investigation or seeing clearly of what removes me from / returns me to that mode as "vipassana". It sounds like this could be a fruitful sort of approach for you, since you lately have such a capacity/inclination to relax in that mode of here-and-now simplicity. It might be interesting to look at exactly what the differences are between the reactive striving suffering mode and the relaxed open mode, in terms of a sort of commitment to living in accord with the truth you've seen. Then again, I don't mean to imply you aren't already doing this or something else/better for you, or that you're asking for advice (you don't seem to be), just thought I'd offer my feedback

Thanks, I hate advice

Anyway, wow, so many many times I've seen what you call the effortlessly stable wakefullness that is always there beneath all my bullshit and sufferings. It's like a land that I've visited many many times and seen in many seasons, weathers, times of day or night. I can actually, with a bit of effort, conjure it up in a way, you know?

However, until now, after each glimpse I always returned to a default state that is not stable, effortless, or wakefull.

My default state now is kind of calm and free of my usual upsets and anxieties and overall discomfort. It has been stable and it doesn't seem to be taking much effort to maintain. But, I don't think I would describe it as "wakefull."

I had to delurk to thank Ona for that story and everyone's comments over the last day or so. I'm feeling a little guilty consuming without contributing, but I probably couldn't improve on what's been said.

I don't do palabra, so just

Thanks shargrol -- you just contributed, so back at you.

" It is ALWAYS expressing itself. I may or may not be open to it."

For me that reminds me of a story of Adyashanti's that I adore, where he uses the metaphor of driving a car. He said (my own words, not his) you keep wanting to drive the car, you try to keep a death grip on the steering wheel. But the truth is you aren't driving anyway, you are just interfering with the driving. So let go of the damn steering wheel.

Ona, I don't get that Adyashanti car story.

I'd expect it to mean something like ... see, if you let go of the wheel (like surrender, etc), everything will actually be all right.

But, seriously, if one lets go of a steering wheel while driving, they and possibly others might die or get seriously injured. Right?

Dude, I like being curious.

I got the point of the Adya story, but I can see how it's confusing if taken literally.

I like paradoxical metaphors better. One that is used by ACT therapists (I mention ACT a lot, don't I) regarding anxiety and control is the quicksand metaphor. You see, anxiety is like quicksand in that the more you struggle the faster you sink, and the more anxious you get as a result. In other words, drop the struggle!

I think that relates to what he was trying to say.