Buddhist Geeks on the Dark Night

I don't find much BG stuff very interesting these days but the latest ep, as many of you might have seen already, is a roundtable discussion of the Dark Night, or, as Willoughby Britton's project is now called because it's more likely to attract funding (tells you something), the Varieties of Contemplative Experience... with Daniel, Willoughby, Kelly Sosan Bearer and Emily Horn.

This is only the first half of a two-parter, and half an hour isn't long (and doesn't get to people discussing their own experiences), but the material I found most interesting was the description of the two most stereotypical types of people who encounter DN issues: young men 18-30 who've thrown themselves into intensive Mahasi practice soon after beginning meditation, usually involving retreats in Asia (this was me) and encounter DN phenomena quickly; and 'baby boomer Buddhists' who practice at IMS or Spirit Rock or similar centres who've had solid practices for a decent length of time (the quote was 7-8 years) and suddenly encounter this territory (my other favourite thing was that they had to create a scale for 'zealotry' for the former demographic )

Personally I'm, a little dubious that we're ever gonna be able to clearly demarcate, 'Dark Night on this side, mental illness on the other' - it seems to me for example that at certain times in my life both before and after beginning practice I clearly had depression/anxiety without DN, and there are some phenomena I've had that seemed pretty clearly DN not depression, but to my mind they're on a related spectrum or continuum of human experience and so not able to be disentangled so easily - and it's my observation that people with pre-existing depressive/anxious tendencies have worse DNs, though this is only anecdotal so I don't know if others disagree - whereas people may find meditation because they're experiencing these.

Though I'd wholeheartedly concur with the advice that in the latter as well as the former case, it's good to use various different approaches non-exclusively including psychotherapy with a therapist who gets it, medication if necessary, exercise and diet etc as well as intensive meditation (trhough this may be hard if you're on a six month Mahasi retreat in Burma )

Buddhist Geeks on the Dark Night

Since dark night periods bring up a sense of abandonment, confusion, not knowing, tension, anxiety, existential fear, etc to varying degrees, it makes a ton of sense that people with pre-existing not-dealt-with fear (such as abandonment issues, physical or emotional traumas, etc) are very likely to have those fears come to the surface in association, and thus be faced with what may have been repressed in a way that exacerbates the dark night.

My experience is that even people who had long slow practices with lots of preliminaries, or had therapy etc to come to terms with their "stuff" have it triggered during their spiritual process and end up having to re-deal with it. They just start from a stronger foundation and already have some tools of self-awareness, courage in facing ugly stuff, forebearance, and so on.

I also can't create a clear line between DN symptoms and Depression symptoms. Really, I think the only real difference is there is more "objectification" in the DN, because there is a hint that the symptoms are an artifact of meditation. That said, experientially I'd say that moving through depression and moving through the DN are very very similar.

My sense is that beneath most psychological problems is a subtle sense of pride (even if it is "I suffer more than anyone else"), which has to be uncovered and recognized, which then also allows for acceptance of suffering in this life (there's no way around it, we have to face the experiences that trigger psychological defense mechanisms). This is very similar to how we need to face the experiences of the DN and give up avoidance and our sense of control.

I'm curious if Jackson has any better clarity of the actual distinction after his schooling/training/experience as a counselor?

Yes, I have some initial reactions. Thanks for asking

I won't say much right now, 'cause I'm watching my little one run around my living room. She's quite busy these days.

I also don't like the idea of drawing any solid categorical lines between clinical depression, anxiety, or other manifestations of mental illness, and what may or may not occur resulting from meditation practice. I think the relationship between emotions, mental illness, and a person's individual and cultural contexts (both current and historical) is immensely complex. The experience of depression is, in some way, simply that - the experience of depression. Effectively treating depression can sometimes require knowing the specific cause, but that isn't always the case. For example, whether depressive symptoms are due to a Dark Night or due to a lack of behavioral activation, it will likely be alleviated to some degree by increasing physical activity - especially outdoors.*

And then there's the debate about whether a categorical system of syndromes based on collections of symptoms is helpful or harmful in treating suffering. I haven't really decided yet. But I do know that many mental health issues have the same symptoms, which means that someone can receive multiple diagnoses for the same collection of problems. This doesn't seem right to me, so I tend to stray from that practice.

I agree with the advice that mental health professionals should probably read up on this stuff, and include questions about meditation and/or other spiritual practices in their standard clinical intake procedures. It might shed some light on whether a certain practice someone is doing is no longer helpful, and provide more treatment options.

*I've been using the metaphor of "jumping out of an airplane" to help my clients see that sometimes the way to got somewhere isn't the way back. That is, you can end up on the ground by jumping out of an airplane, but you can't just "jump" your way back up. Sometimes (or rather, quite often) you have to do something completely different.

shargrol wrote: My sense is that beneath most psychological problems is a subtle sense of pride (even if it is "I suffer more than anyone else"), which has to be uncovered and recognized, which then also allows for acceptance of suffering in this life (there's no way around it, we have to face the experiences that trigger psychological defense mechanisms). This is very similar to how we need to face the experiences of the DN and give up avoidance and our sense of control.

It might be due to lack of sleep, but I'm not sure that I follow you here regarding "pride" underlying most psychological problems. I think maybe it's the "most" I'm having a difficult time following.

Jackson wrote:

shargrol wrote: My sense is that beneath most psychological problems is a subtle sense of pride (even if it is "I suffer more than anyone else"), which has to be uncovered and recognized, which then also allows for acceptance of suffering in this life (there's no way around it, we have to face the experiences that trigger psychological defense mechanisms). This is very similar to how we need to face the experiences of the DN and give up avoidance and our sense of control.

It might be due to lack of sleep, but I'm not sure that I follow you here regarding "pride" underlying most psychological problems. I think maybe it's the "most" I'm having a difficult time following.

Never encountered anyone in your practice who evoked the term "drama queen?" Lucky you!

Kate - Ha! My practicum site tends to filter those individuals out, because they can. I hear they do come through on occasion, but I haven't worked with any yet.

I guess I know pride can be an issue, but I wouldn't say it underlies "most" mental illness. I think that's too simplistic an idea.

However, I would say "conceit" plays a role in some of the more rigid forms of mental illness. By conceit I mean the way we compare ourselves to others; "I am this way, you/they are that way." (I don't mean mental illness is due to being "conceited" according to the common use of the term, as though these people think they're awesome and other people suck.) Just about everyone who comes in for treatment (in my experience) compares themselves to others in ways that are problematic. I wouldn't say this is THE root of their problems, but it plays a large enough role to be noticed and addressed.

intriguing thought about pride. NOT the sort of handsome viilian with his chest puffed out, but something closer to 'terminal uniqueness' (the belief that you are so different no one can understand you) and a rigid sense of self-sufficiency and separation from others. in other words the opposite of being with things, surrender, owning responsibility and so on.

on a related note, we love to look for causality so we can apportion blame. but things arise from infinite conditions, so correlation is probably more helpful for understanding.

keeping in mind 'i'm better than you' is a coping mechanism against actually feeling very vulnerable... and doesn't always get acted out in the sitcom stereotype of the arrogant ass, etc.

in a christian context pretty much any problem has roots in pride, since at a spiritual level it is defined more as i described previously, so covers a wide range of expressions.

not, btw, saying 'yes, even depression is entangled with pride'. just saying interesting subject to explore.

Ona, I think the role of "pride" in personal difficulty makes sense in terms of the Christian emphasis on surrendering all to God. I'm still not sure how a more general or colloquial use of "pride" would map on to "most" mental illness issues. I know those weren't your words, but it's what I'm still trying to explore as a concept.

Depressed folks - who truly present as depressed, and not as trying to cover up their depression (which is most common, I think) - do not tend to have elevated views of themselves. There are exceptions, such as when a narcissistic individual is depressed because he no longer holds the status he once had with his peers, and thus has removed himself from spending time with those friends, resulting in depression. That's kind of a special case example, though, and not something I would categorize as typical depression.

I have noticed some depressed clients harboring a certain sense of moral superiority, but it's not a "voice" they "own." Rather, it's something they picked up from someone else, which they use to put themselves down to the point of major depression. In other words, they don't see themselves as living up to their own standards of what is good, right, okay, etc. (and often times, neither do others the others in their lives). Anyway... fun discussion.

We all know where my predilections lie, so I offer this less in argument, than as a very different view-- one that seems convincing to me. Ngak'chang Rinpoche has often said that the distorted "Space" element (aka, depression) is the most difficult to deal with-- because there is an awareness of superior intellect. A hardcore depressive is illustrated by a story he tells of a woman's depressed husband whose reply to being taken outside to admire a spectacular sunset was: "Yes, it's beautiful-- but it doesn't help anything." Retracting from experience presents as THE winning strategy for staying safe from hurt.

www.aroencyclopaedia.org/shared/text/e/emotions_ar_eng.php

"The distorted Space reaction is fundamental, it underlies the other four because it is the initial misapprehension giving rise to the other four and into which they subsequently collapse. This fundamental distorted pattern is one in which we are quite simply and utterly overawed/overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of space. The tangent that we take is maybe better described as one in which we feel completely unable to take any kind of tangent – we become incapacitated and depressed. We cut off from the outside world and become introverted, locked inside ourselves – we play blind, deaf, dumb, insensate and numb to experience – we seek shelter in oblivion."

I know that, in my own periods of depression, I have the feeling 'I'm cursed,' 'the undeserving get everything and a deserving person like me gets nothing,' and 'God hates me' (even when I had zero belief in God - from a non-theistic perspective this can also translate to, 'this world/society is not the right place for me to be and things here will never work out for me'). I wouldn't call this 'pride,' but it has an egoism to it - 'I'm special, but in a bad way,' or 'God pays special attention to me, in order to thwart me' - and also inevitably involves comparing oneself to others who by definition are not like this.

What I'd also say, however, is that material circumstances are not immaterial to all of this, i.e. some people actually do have much more material suffering than others so there may be some accuracy in a distress they feel that that is the case. Now, that distress may not be serving them or useful, but it may describe 'reality' accurately. There's a psychologist called David Smail whose work I find really interesting, who thinks that this is much more the cause of people's suffering than any of us, the psych professions in particular, ever usually want to admit, because we would then have to address the extreme injustice in the structures of our own society instead of individualising the problem. My own take is that this is true, but also that in the final analysis the place we are able to work and to start is with our own 'stuff,' and that even with perfect material circumstances we won't have perfect happiness ( or possibly happiness at all) as per Buddhist teachings - but nonetheless I'm sympathetic to Smail's view.

Kate Gowen wrote: "The distorted Space reaction is fundamental, it underlies the other four because it is the initial misapprehension giving rise to the other four and into which they subsequently collapse. This fundamental distorted pattern is one in which we are quite simply and utterly overawed/overwhelmed by the sheer vastness of space. The tangent that we take is maybe better described as one in which we feel completely unable to take any kind of tangent – we become incapacitated and depressed. We cut off from the outside world and become introverted, locked inside ourselves – we play blind, deaf, dumb, insensate and numb to experience – we seek shelter in oblivion."

This is interesting, because a sense of inevitable and intractable separation (which could be seen as being surrounded by endless empty space) seems to be to be characteristic of depression - and also DN-type contemplative experiences. The psychoanalytic perspective has described this as the state where one is already dead, walled off from the living who go about their business around one without being able to see that one is actually in the realm of the dead - and certainly this also gels with my experience. There's a great book by Darian Leader, The New Black , which explores this.

This is a really interesting subject. Thanks guys.

This might blow some minds or be seen as completely trite, but the most interesting thing about finding my way out of depression was a koan I gave my self: "Okay, maybe the world is empirically shit, but even if it is, why do I think that I have to feel like shit?". I was realizing that behind it all was a need of the certainty of an identity that was right about things, better than things, and the way I did it was saying everything was wrong and dragging me down. All of this is grossly simplified, but at it's heart I could see there was a pride in being so negatively affected by the world. As if the entire world existed to bring me down. That's pride.

I do think there is something very strong willed about a lot of mental illness. I'm calling it pride for lack of a better term. It's insidious and central, whatever it is.

The fact that the world can be utter crap and you can be just fine, on the surface that seems selfish (which it could be) but it could also be basic mental health.

shargrol wrote: This might blow some minds or be seen as completely trite, but the most interesting thing about finding my way out of depression was a koan I gave my self: "Okay, maybe the world is empirically shit, but even if it is, why do I think that I have to feel like shit?". I was realizing that behind it all was a need of the certainty of an identity that was right about things, better than things, and the way I did it was saying everything was wrong and dragging me down. All of this is grossly simplified, but at it's heart I could see there was a pride in being so negatively affected by the world. As if the entire world existed to bring me down. That's pride.

I do think there is something very strong willed about a lot of mental illness. I'm calling it pride for lack of a better term. It's insidious and central, whatever it is.

The fact that the world can be utter crap and you can be just fine, on the surface that seems selfish (which it could be) but it could also be basic mental health.

That's interesting! Thanks for the example. Pride here being a sense that one is so important that everything that happens (good or bad) is all about you.

In all of this, I'm wary of the paradigm that depression is about willpower, or about a chosen (even if subconsciously) way of seeing the world, and that one can deal with or get rid of it by using willpower or purposefully introducing a different way of seeing the world (I'm not saying anyone's said that, but to some degree it may be implicit in certain paradigms we're discussing here). That's not my experience at all. Of course, there are many things that are sensible to do - psychotherapy, medication, exercise, meditation, etc etc - but I've gotta say, the thing that gave me a foundation to be able to do any of those things was medication. It's not enough on its own at all, but without that there was just nothing I could do to alter these negative-hamster-wheel-thought-loops, be it mindfulness/insight, spiritual practices, thinking through the logic or consequences of my idea of self-and-world, whatever.

ETA: in one way, everything that happens IS about 'you,' because 'you' are your universe and the entire universe. At a certain point, I was like, I don't care if this is about me or not about me, if it's a deity's curse or completely random, as long as this negative affect and circumstances which seem to have struck me down from 'outside' continue and are outside of my control to change, it's difficult if not impossible to experience life as worth living. It was only after Second Path that I really started to find this 'not about me' paradigm something that could resonate with me and I could work with when dealing with negative/aversive states.

"In all of this, I'm wary of the paradigm that depression is about willpower, or about a chosen (even if subconsciously) way of seeing the world, and that one can deal with or get rid of it by using willpower or purposefully introducing a different way of seeing the world (I'm not saying anyone's said that, but to some degree it may be implicit in certain paradigms we're discussing here)."

I think it is extremely important to respect the very sharp edge of the analysis around "agency" to use a less freighted term than "will." I've been close to people who heard Rinpoche's teachings as a kind of 'victim-blaming,' so I've gone a journey in making my own sense of it. I think there is a great conflict in our secularizing society about psychology, "mental health," and the holdover ideas about Christian morality, virtues, and vices. So there's an unhelpful need for people to be either innocent or guilty, either weak-willed or helpless victims, either "sick" and in need of medicine, or just unwilling to buckle down to work.

This is where I've found it useful (in myself, as second-guessing others seldom helps) to grant that every attitude and action, including the blank inertia of depression, is an attempt to solve a painful problem. It may not be successful; but it is not completely perverse or irrational, either. When in pain, holding very still can give one's healing powers a chance to take hold. At some point, though, movement and change are necessary; then holding very still is the problem.

So, getting back to "neurosis as the distorted energy of wisdom" represented in Rinpoche's analysis-- for someone willing and able to consider that view, there is implicit affirmation in allowing the "pervasive intelligence" at the core of depressive collapse to just shine through, at moments. But like the rest of his teaching-- it's not everybody's cup of tea.

Kate Gowen wrote: So there's an unhelpful need for people to be either innocent or guilty, either weak-willed or helpless victims, either "sick" and in need of medicine, or just unwilling to buckle down to work.

This is where I've found it useful (in myself, as second-guessing others seldom helps) to grant that every attitude and action, including the blank inertia of depression, is an attempt to solve a painful problem. It may not be successful; but it is not completely perverse or irrational, either. When in pain, holding very still can give one's healing powers a chance to take hold. At some point, though, movement and change are necessary; then holding very still is the problem.

Beautiful.

Chris Marti wrote: It would be unfair of us not to at least nod in the direction of brain chemistry in a discussion of mental illness. It matters.

Yes! It certainly does.

My counseling training has included an emphasis on conceptualizing cases using a "Bio-Psycho-Social-Spiritual" type model. Speaking of there being a single cause of depression in any one case is not encouraged. Psychology is complex, and these different factors feed back into each other. Interventions at any one factor can lead to healing, and sometimes all need to be consciously worked with.