Buddhists die harder

At the weekly gathering of the Seattle sangha last night, guiding teacher Rodney Smith made a disturbing observation. He used to be a hospice worker, and he said, "The people who had the hardest time dying were the ones who thought of themselves as most spiritual. And Buddhists -- they were the worst of the lot! They'd be thinking that they should be balanced and equanimous when everything was terrible and what they really needed to do was SCREAM!"

Maybe Buddhist training, at least in America, isn't really accomplishing what we think it's accomplishing.

Why I feel more dedicated to practice than before retreat

I am trying to figure out why, after a very difficult and at times very unpleasant two months, I am inspired to be more dedicated to practice. Is it simply, as Eric quipped, something like the Stockholm Syndrome, where I developed an affinity for the thing that caused me discomfort?

I don't think so. But some of my motivation may be unwholesome, and I should face that squarely.

Contained within the unpleasant overall retreat experience were some very pleasant episodes, experiences of bliss and rapture. Now, after retreat, I have not felt what I'd call bliss or rapture, but I have found ordinary life to be unusually pleasant. Sometimes, just looking at a cloud, or the moon, or a tree, adds pleasure to the act of breathing. Meditation now routinely brings pleasant physical sensations whereas before it did not. So one draw is pleasure. This is not necessarily an unwholesome motivation, but it's worth being aware of.

I sometimes see people's facial expressions in greater detail than before retreat, and they seem more human and kind to me.

I can be entertained by watching my morning oatmeal cook.

I can let emotions pass through me quickly and easily in a way that previously was totally unfamiliar to me.

It made me very happy on retreat to be able to see certain thought processes very clearly, to see how they caused me suffering, and to be able to interrupt them. I like to see the truth of things. I don't see those processes in that detail anymore, but it's quite possible that I've created new habits of interrupting them and that these new habits are contributing to a happier life now.

So ... it's quite possible that all of the above effects are temporary, part of what I call retreat afterglow. I've never seen afterglow last longer than 6 weeks, and I've never experienced such intense effects, but then I've never before done a retreat longer than 2 weeks. What if these effects go away? Will I continue to be motivated to practice intensively, and, if so, what will motivate me?

I've been a seeker of truth ever since I can remember, since I was a young child. I first sought truth in Catholicism, with which I'd been raised. I so wanted to see truth there, and I kept looking and asking questions, but by age 18 I was completely disillusioned. It seems, though, that there is some truth to be found by following the Buddhist path, and I saw evidence of that on my retreat. Or ... I think I did. Hmmm. More pondering to be done here.

Becoming sensitive

Terry: "Since my retreat, I've felt like my head is in some kind of magnetic field or vortex that draws it forward and down. It takes constant muscular effort to keep it upright."

Eric: "The center of your head is in front of your neck, so it takes effort to keep it upright. You just weren't mindful enough to notice the effort before."

Minutes after this exchange, I broke into laughter. What I had been interpreting as a mysterious, mystical force field has had a name for hundreds of years: gravity.

I've been reading a lot of Buddhist literature lately. Catching up. Two or three writers have mentioned that, as a meditation practice develops, one's sensitivity increases. I realized today that this explains a few things for me. Besides the weird head phenomenon, I also am newly aware that I clench my jaw (on the right side only). I'm also aware of a whole set of sensations and reactions on the right side of my body that seem to be ready to respond to a blow from the upper right. And I notice myself responding with fright and anger whenever anybody enters the house, or when Eric enters our bed.

I think these are good things.

Continuing to learn to feel

On my retreat, my experience of sensation in my body, especially the right side of my body from head down to abdomen, became more vivid. This has continued to increase and develop since retreat. Last weekend I frequently had periods of an hour or more during which these sensations were not only vivid, but very dynamic, and closely associated with my experience of emotion. I noticed that every few seconds I'd experience an emotion primarily in terms of these sensations, and that with a small mental gesture I could let go of each one as it occurred, making way for the next one. What a gift. For the past 25 years I'd very strongly suspected that my experience of life, and especially of my emotions, was somehow frozen or blocked. I have had several openings over that time, but this one seems especially important and enjoyable.

Today I am having this vivid bodily experience of emotion while doing my work as a computer programmer. Work is usually a part of my life during which I'm especially shut down emotionally. It just has not seemed possible -- until now -- to do my work and experience emotion at the same time. It's remarkable that this beautiful, vivid experience of being alive while working comes immediately after a day, yesterday, when work was particularly frustrating and I felt at the end of the day that probably a lot of intense emotions had come up that I had just habitually suppressed.

I wish I could think and write more on this ... but it's time to get back to work :-)

Thoughts of superiority

I've noticed that judgmental thoughts of other humans have become more extreme since my long meditation retreat. Before the retreat, I had many thoughts of being a quite superior person. Now, the thoughts declare that I am even more superior, really just head and shoulders above the vast majority of humanity.

I've wondered how to respond to those thoughts. Should I scale back my spiritual practice so that these thoughts have less fuel? So that I'm more like regular folk and participate more in the activities of regular folk?

I was startled yesterday to realize that I've faced this conundrum before, as early as age 10. At that age, I was bored in school. I had the opportunity to switch schools and enter a gifted program. I declined for this exact reason: wanting to tame my thoughts of superiority.

I wonder now if that was the right choice. So well-intentioned, but probably misguided. Clearly, the source of the thoughts is not my choice of activity, but something deeper.

Integration

Life since retreat has been rich and satisfying. There have been many periods of doubt, but mostly my sense is that I'm on a very rewarding path that has just been given a huge boost by 2 months of retreat.

Every day I am very aware of strong sensation in my right torso, neck, and head. Each day it is a little different. Today I'm aware that my head is constantly bobbing and waving, like kelp in the sea, and I wonder whether it appears quite odd. Of course if I make my breathing more shallow and move my awareness away from my body into my head--which is still what I habitually do when in conversation--the motion stops.

Tomorrow I am going on a 3 day retreat at our local Theravadan Buddhist retreat center, Cloud Mountain. It will be taught by Tina Rasmussen and Stephen Snyder, the two who first taught me concentration practice, at the same retreat center, two years ago. Their website talks about what they teach.

The more I practice, listen, and read, the more I see that the world of spiritual practice is both much larger than I'd been aware, and less diverse than I'd been aware. Larger: there are so many ways to practice, so many issues to consider, so many views of the path, so many perils and pitfalls, such depth of possible experience. The book THE POWER AND THE PAIN: Transforming Spiritual Hardship into Joy, by Andrew Holocek, has lately helped me wrap my mind around these. Less diverse: the writings of theistic and non-theistic practitioners are more and more seeming to share common ground. I've lately been reading the writings of Peace Pilgrim; she liberally references God, yet her practice shares so much with Buddhist practice, and passages that had once repelled me now speak to me.

Some of my doubt is habitual self-doubt; other doubt is appropriate caution. This quote from An Application of Buddhist practice of Mindfulness in Contemporary Western Psychotherapy by Audrius Beinorius, which I happened upon accidentally, highlights an area where I must be cautious:

Empirical evidences display that sometimes spiritual practice can be motivated in part by the secret, narcissistic wish to be special, if not superior; a stance of non-attachment can rationalize fears of closeness and the anxieties associated with intimacy: fear of feeling exposed, vulnerable, humiliated, shamed, hurt, rejected, or abandoned.

Daily life on retreat

Daily life at the Forest Refuge was much like daily life at any meditation retreat conducted at a Western retreat center in the Theravadan Buddhist tradition. For those who have never done such a retreat, I will describe a typical day.

The retreat center was a cluster of buildings surrounded by forest in rural Western Massachusetts (marker A below):

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Our lives centered around the meditation hall, dining hall, and dormitory, and a council house containing a library, yoga room, and rooms for teacher interviews. Also on site were an administration building, kitchen, staff area, maintenance barn, parking barn, and staff housing. Each of the 30 retreatants had a simple but very comfortable bedroom. Bathrooms and showers were shared.

The day officially began at 4:00 a.m. At many retreat centers there is a wake-up bell, but not at the Forest Refuge, probably because the Forest Refuge is primarily a place for self-guided retreats. This was a special organized, teacher-led retreat, but we still did not have a wake-up bell.

There were six sittings (meditation sessions) scheduled each day, each lasting 75 or 90 minutes. They were scheduled at 4:30 a.m., 7:45, 9:45, 1:00, 3:15, and 7:00. All were optional, and at a typical sitting about half of the retreatants would be there. Most of the others were presumably meditating in their rooms--or, during the 4:30 a.m. sit, sleeping in. During a sitting, people could gather in the meditation hall, sit on a cushion or chair, and meditate. Leaving in the middle was discouraged. Our main teacher, Pa Auk Sayadaw, sat with us at nearly every sitting, in the front of the hall, facing the Buddha statue. Sayadaw had a clock, and he would rise at the end, signaling to all that the session was over.

Breakfast was at 6:00. By retreat's end, it was still completely dark at that time. Breakfast was always the same: a buffet of various hot and cold cereals, breads, and fruits, along with butter, cream cheese, peanut butter, tahini, yogurt, raisins, and other toppings and condiments. And hard boiled eggs, and warm prunes. Warm prunes have been served at every meditation retreat I've attended. Presumably this is because sitting so much every day can slow peristalsis. Sorry if that's too much information.

Silence was continuous, including at meals. The idea is to be constantly aware of what is going on in one's immediate experience. So while eating, one pays attention to eating, or to one's meditation object, commonly the breath. My first day, I sat at an arbitrary table with some other people. A middle-aged Caucasian woman sat to my left, and a younger Afro-Caucasian man dressed completely in white sat to my right. Across from me was an old Asian man, and to the side was a young Caucasian woman with an angelic face. It turned out that these people sat in these same places for every meal, and I ended up sitting in the same place for nearly every meal, also--except for a couple of weeks when I chose to tour other tables during breakfast in order to spend time with some other people and offer them metta (good wishes).

Everyone had an assigned chore, and most of them were done right after breakfast. Mine was pot washing, which happened after lunch, so after breakfast I had a free hour. I did different things during this hour, but most commonly I went to my room and meditated until lunch. During much of the retreat I meditated almost exclusively outside the meditation hall--either in my room, in the library, outdoors, or in one of the walking meditation halls--because I would often get sleepy during seated meditation. When I got sleepy I would want to take a nap or switch to walking meditation immediately, but this was not possible when sitting in the meditation hall.

During my most intensive periods of practice, I would meditate in my room for over three hours straight. I'd sit until I'd get sleepy, then I'd walk, take a short power nap, or take a long nap, then go back to sitting again. Later in the retreat, I took mindful forest walks after breakfast, walking slowly on the trails while trying to maintain continuous attention on the sensations in my body. (or as continuous as I could muster--as every meditator knows, the reality is often very far from the ideal!)

The remaining activities of the day were lunch at 11:00, potwashing at 11:45, teacher interviews between 5:00 and 6:30, and bedtime. In keeping with monastic tradition, there was no evening meal. Lunch was two or three delicious vegetarian dishes plus a salad bar. Immediately afterward I went to the kitchen to wash everything that couldn't go in the dishwasher. Three of us worked together and it usually took a little over an hour. Pot washing was a highlight of my day, because it was very physical and not associated with any anxiety. It was also slightly social, even though we didn't speak except when necessary ("This pot needs a little more scrubbing on the bottom", "Do you know where the butter dishes get put away?"). At the end we did a little bowing ritual during which we'd each make eye contact with each other. This was the only eye contact we'd have all day except when talking to the teacher--"silence" includes keeping one's eyes downcast when passing another person. Kind of extreme!

Although we had no evening meal, hunger was never a problem for me. Firstly, I kept nuts, raisins, and later in the retreat, chocolate in my room, and had a small snack almost every day. Secondly, although the retreat was often stressful, somehow the stress was not the kind that prompts me to crave food. I guess my body adjusted to the two meals. The only time I felt hunger in a distracting way was at the early morning sitting. I learned to have a small snack upon rising if I was going to attend that sit.

At 5:00 daily, except Sundays, we had an opportunity to talk to Pa Auk Sayadaw. These interviews were always brief--between 2 and 10 minutes. For me they were always much closer to 2 minutes. This was because I was making no progress under his system, and also because he just didn't feel very chatty with me (to my surprise I learned after the retreat that he would get chatty with some retreatants).

Bedtime was always welcome to me, because the days were so often filled with anxiety. My bed was very comfortable and I almost always slept well. I had a skylight through which I could often see stars.

There are so many other details I would like to fill in, but this post is long enough, and I am tired. As always, feel free to ask questions!

The meditator's disease

Wanting to gain more understanding of why I suffered so much on this retreat, and why I made no progress in my jhana practice, I googled "long meditation retreat". The top hit of any relevance was a blog by someone who is planning to be in retreat for all of 2012. It appears that this blogger practices in a different tradition than the Theravadan Buddhist tradition I practice in. He points to a page on lung (pronounced loong), the meditator's disease.

Basically, lung is stress. There is nothing surprising or new in this web page. However, it is reassuring to see that my affliction is a recognized difficulty with a name and a recommended remedy (relaxing and easing up on the effort). It's remarkable, but perhaps not surprising, that my teacher, a world-renowned meditation master who has taught many, many stress-prone Westerners, did not recognize this and offer useful advice. His only advice for my affliction of facial tension while meditating was to be sure to place my focus closer to the lip rather than right on the nostrils. He had no advice for my aversion to the practice, except to continue practice.

The article states,

Geshe Rabten thought all Westerners have tsog lung (chronic heart lung). After he spent a year leading a calm abiding retreat for Westerners, Gen Lamrimpa said to us that he thought Westerners could never learn to meditate: Our minds are too fast because we grew up with machines and computers. In other words, we all have chronic low-grade anxiety or tsog lung. It is so ubiquitous that we think it is normal. There is an epidemic of depression and anxiety in modern industrialized society that is growing rapidly, even among children. Our lifestyle gives us lung. This same source of most of our health problems is also what causes us to have a difficult time in meditation retreats ….

While I was on retreat, I frequently reflected on the lifestyle I had retreated from, and it was more clear to me than ever that it is a lifestyle filled with completely unbalanced busy-ness. Even when we think we are relaxing, we tend to be busy. My passion during this time of transition back to regular life is to find ways to step out of the busy-ness. It is hard; there are a million pressures to be busy. Being un-busy can look like being antisocial (because one is not attending parties or participating in the compulsive chatter that passes for lively conversation) or irresponsible (because one is not joining committees or boards of directors, or keeping abreast of current events, or recycling or freecycling every possible item).

Two insights

In this post I will describe two of the insights I experienced, and explain what a meditative insight is.

I had several insights into my habitual patterns of thought. One was this: sometimes (or perhaps usually), when I am neither happy nor sad, but just have a neutral emotional state, and my mind is idle, I react to this with the following thought: "Hmmm, nothing seems to be going on. But I know that there must be some kind of problem or danger somewhere. I will set my mind to look for it." I then review my environment for something that needs fixing, and/or review my recent actions critically to find something I could conceivably regret or be unsure of. And I always find something.

When I noticed this, I at first could hardly believe it. But when I saw it over and over again, it became clear why I never feel at peace in my life!

I was able to notice this because, on retreat, one's mind is very quiet, and one is not very busy, so thought patterns that are usually obscured by constant activity become noticeable. Also, on retreat we try to practice mindfulness constantly -- we try to be aware of everything we are doing, as we are doing it, rather than daydreaming or planning. Of course, the many hours of formal meditation we do each day contribute both to the quietness of mind and to the skill of mindfulness.

Once I saw this, I chose to be on the lookout for its occurrence so that I could practice changing the habit. I'd be walking down the hallway to the dining hall, for example, and I'd notice my mind jumping to criticize my past actions (did I embarrass myself in my last teacher interview? was I a slacker to choose walking meditation instead of seated meditation during the last meditation period? etc.). That was my clue that I might have just had a moment of neutral emotion combined with an idle mind. I'd then review the previous few moments and realize that, indeed, my mind had been idle and I did have a neutral emotional state, and indeed, that I perceived this as a signal to look for problems.

Now I will describe a second insight, quite different in nature: an insight into the reality of my impending death. This one occurred during a meditation session. I was practicing anapanasati meditation, trying to keep my attention on the breath as it entered and exited the nostrils. However, I was sleepy, and my mind wandered quite a bit. Once it drifted to an image of my grandmother's kitchen as it was when I was a child. Then, the following thought entered my mind: that kitchen does not exist anymore! It only exists in my mind and the minds of my relatives! As vivid as it is, it does not represent anything real! Then, in my mind, I saw a kind of vertical timeline, with earlier times toward the top. At the top was Grandma's kitchen, and it rapidly dissolved from top to bottom. Next was Mom and Dad. They dissolved, too. Next was my lifetime. It, too, dissolved in an instant. And all of a sudden it became clear to me, in a new way, that one day in the next few decades I was going to disappear without much of a trace.

In Buddhist thought, there are three concepts we must fully grasp in order to end our own suffering: impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and "not-self". These three concepts are grasped through meditative insight. I had just had an insight into impermanence. Meditative insights are a kind of direct knowing, and much more impactful than insight gained through intentional reflection--although reflection is valuable, too.

I don't know exactly what happens in the mind to create this type of insight, but here is how I think of it: this knowledge is in our minds already, but it is normally hidden by various kinds of mental activity. It is hidden because we don't like to look at it. It reveals itself when we are ready to look at it, and when our minds are still enough to uncover it.

Insight into one's own death may sound depressing, but I experienced it immediately as quite uplifting and motivating.

Emerged

I emerged yesterday from my two-month retreat with Pa Auk Sayadaw at the Forest Refuge. This was a much longer retreat than I'd ever done before, and it was very, very tough. I suffered a lot. If I had known how tough it would be, I never would have done it.

What did I carry away? Experientially, I learned a lot about samadhi, or meditative concentration. Anapanasati meditation (attention on the breath as it enters and exits the nostrils) was my main practice for the first 6 weeks, and my mind became more concentrated than it had ever been. With the help of this concentration plus heightened sensitivity of mind and body due to silence, I experienced a number of insights about the ways my mind creates my own suffering. The insights seem to have the potential to bring significant freedom to my life, and I may write more about them later. Acceptance of my own death increased, starting with an involuntary insight (which I also may write more about) and continuing via intentional reflection on death. Through the evening talks given by the assistant teacher, Venerable U Jagara, through my own reading in the library, and through talking with other retreatants at retreat's end, my knowledge and understanding of Buddhist theory and practice increased. Finally, via the school of very hard knocks, I learned how to pace myself on a long retreat.

Much of my suffering resulted from a lack of confidence in myself coupled with an intense fear of straying from rules and teachings. This difficulty was magnified by the austerity and incompleteness of the instruction that was given. I also drove myself too hard, despite making a firm commitment from the start to be gentle with myself. It was tricky because I had a goal of mastering a deep state of concentration called jhana, and in order to even attain jhana, one must be exert a great deal of extended effort while simultaneously staying happy and relaxed. A tall order! But I had attained jhana -- imperfect jhana -- multiple times on my last retreat. I thought it would not be difficult to re-attain and perfect the jhana on this retreat. I was wrong.

I had a couple of rapturous, as-good-as-really-good-sex meditation sessions, each lasting a couple of hours. I'd never experienced meditation quite that pleasurable before, and it was very fun and completely fascinating, but incidental to my purpose.

Although I never perfected jhana, my mind did become really concentrated, and during the last two weeks I applied that concentrated mind to the practice of insight meditation, using the mindfulness of body practice of Mahasi Sayadaw that has been my main practice for the last ten years. I practiced mindfulness on the cushion, in walking meditation, during forest strolls, and in daily activities such as walking to the dining hall. And it was in this way that I received insights about how my mind works.

As with any meditation retreat, the benefit to my experience of daily life will become apparent only after months, or perhaps may never be clearly discernible. Today, my first full day on the outside, I've experienced some new freedom from debilitating mental habits. However, I always experience greater freedom the week or so immediately after a retreat. It's as yet unknown how much, if any, of this freedom will be permanent. It is so delicious, I almost dare not hope that any of it will last.

I intend to expound on some of these topics in the coming days. Meanwhile, I welcome comments and questions. I most especially welcome extremely naive, "stupid" questions from people who think they don't know anything about meditation. Please don't hesitate to ask anything at all.

Entering retreat

Just landed in Boston. So happy to be embarking on this adventure. Many preparations: work, financial, relationships, household. Mediations became more regular and deep without a lot of effort. I feel confident. I would like to find an effective way of communicating about my experience upon my return. Eric says people are interested. Today I will go for a hike with my friend John, then go to the retreat center, the Forest Refuge. For two months, farewell!

A thawing of the throat and upper chest

Yesterday I had a session with my psychotherapist, Trip, where I felt very angry at him (as I often do) and tried to stay with and ride the feeling. I began to moan deeply -- haltingly at first, then continuously for about 5 or 10 minutes. It felt right. I thought, "this is what I want to express, not 'f.u. Trip' as Trip has sometimes suggested but which never felt right".

Today, while I was meditating on the bus, the noise from somebody's headphones began to irritate me. Instead of freezing in a miserable fight against myself, as I have in response to such noises for the past 30+ years, I let go into a warm, full, vibrant feeling in my upper chest, a feeling that is not familiar but pleasant and not at all miserable.

Right now I can feel it mildly. It extends into the throat, where before today, if I was aware of any feeling at all there, I felt only tightness. It's a good feeling.

Finally able to explore breathing fully

Many times in my life, in a yoga class or such, I've been instructed to breathe in a certain way, and I've always found this to be uncomfortable. Often I would be led to believe that a certain way of breathing would leave me feeling energized or centered or at peace, and usually it wouldn't. In recent years I've avoided following any kind of instructions about how to breathe.

But lately, while working with Stacie Haines' book, The Survivor's Guide to Sex, I've felt ready to again try to intentionally breathe differently than usual.

Several years ago I heard that some people avoid emptying their lungs, and habitually hold the breath when the lungs are full. These people, it was said, tend to have a certain personality type that I can't remember. And I heard that other people do the opposite: they tend to keep the lungs empty, and after filling the lungs (usually not very full), quickly empty them. These people are trying not to feel emotions.

This is me.

So lately, while reading Haines' book, I've practiced breathing fully, lingering in the state of having full lungs, and NOT lingering in the empty-lung state. And, finally, I am able to look at what is uncomfortable about this, rather than just getting upset and saying, "I hate this, I'm not doing it!"

When I breathe like this, I have more sensation in the throat and upper chest. In the upper chest, it's almost like the ocean. Constantly changing. The sensations are not inherently unpleasant, but they arouse anxiety, because they are unfamiliar and out of my control. And in the throat, tightness, as though there are words or noises wanting to be expressed.

I also have sensation in the head that I call lightheadedness. I don't really feel dizzy or like I'm going to faint, though. Still, the word "lightheadedness" seems to describe it.

This abundance of sensation is now tolerable to me. Even enjoyable on some level. So I am now able to practice full breathing and explore, mindfully, what it brings to me. Very exciting.

Mindfulness of breathing; limitations

When we follow the basic instruction to place attention on the breath, might we be reinforcing habits of holding in other parts of the body?

When we sit on a cushion and ignore thoughts, might we be isolating ourselves from stimuli that trigger reactions, and thus failing to learn to experience those reactions mindfully?

A shift in balance

Writing poetically, as I did in my last post, allows me to record more of my experience. It's a more direct brain-to-language transfer that is faster and less fatiguing.

This morning on the bus I found my mind racing with typical concerns. I shifted attention to the sensations in my body. I felt a quantum increase in my gut-level confidence that the thoughts were not primary and not important -- that they were fueled by the sensations and that I could safely let them go. It seemed that the balance had shifted.

I enjoyed watching the sensations. They were pleasurable. And they bring up fear. It's becoming more and more clear to me that the fear is ancient and not connected to present reality, even though it triggers so many thoughts of unpleasant things that will or might happen in my actual future. It's great to just feel the fear, and not worry on top of that that I ought to be doing something. Still, to the extent that I still believe the fear (and I do still believe it to a significant extent), I do not rejoice in the pleasures of the sensations. I do not rejoice that I am finally becoming free. I rejoice in an abstract sense, but feelings of joy are still absent.

Opening

woke at midnight
don't recall which was first
irritation that Eric wasn't with me in bed
or big feeling rolling like the ocean
like the sound from our sound machine
bigger than I remember ever feeling before
in my right abdomen
the place that's been opening since my 50th birthday
either way, when I noticed the irritation
I tried to feel the feelings underneath
instead of holding and reacting
and those underneath feelings merged with the big rolling ocean feeling
and I felt more whole
and worthy
than before.

Got Staci Haines' book
The Survivor's Guide to Sex
from the library yet again (third time in ten years)
thinking it would have something new to say to me now that I can feel more
now that I am not so afraid of anger
It did have something new
The chapter on Dissociation, which I'd skimmed and skipped before, spoke to me yesterday.
Do I check out? YES!! during sex, during anger, and whenever anybody speaks to me
one-on-one
Do I tell myself that it's no big deal, that many are worse off than I
do I tell myself "whatever"?
YES
The advice seemed so impossible before
to see what is happening in my mind and
to feel what is happening in my body and
to notice the trigger
(why did that seem SO impossible?)
and also I used to tell myself that childhood sexual abuse was very unlikely
why very?
Because I don't remember it, and nobody told me about it?
Grandpa George: domineering. Grandma Julia: narcissistic.
Why would I hate my relatives so, from such an early age?
Haines says that one out of three girls is sexually abused
Can this be true?
I hold the idea that it was unlikely
because I also hold the idea that abuse survivors are whiners.
They make me uncomfortable. Why don't they just get over it?
Wasn't it their fault?
Was it as bad as they said?
What is wrong with them?

These days of the Cascadia Proteomics Symposium, noticing the feelings in my body
and making that my top priority
rather than trying to transfer as many droplets of information
as possible
from the speaker and her powerpoint slides
to my brain
so that I can say "I got something out of that!"
and sound like a scientist over wine and tapas later.

Another triumph from my reading of the book:
staying with my body
and asking for what I wanted
during sex
yesterday morning.
I enjoyed myself and
said no at least once
and then I enjoyed myself some more

And another,
after an hour of the big rolling ocean feeling in the middle of last night.
Thinking, maybe the nothingness I feel during the "touch my genitals" exercise
is not really numbness
maybe there is feeling so big
that I habitually suppress
all in a fraction of a second
so I tried it again
and in my sleepiness and fear
I do think I felt something big and scary
and also vague memories of being physically close and cuddled
and the smell of another

and then feeling closer to Eric
(who was by then beside me)
and having a clue what closeness might mean
this last bit is painful to write and I feel myself close down.

and I also asked Eric
in the middle of the big rolling feeling
to come to bed and massage the tense spot in my right abdomen
Actually when he saw me in the living room at 1:00 a.m.
with my hand on my belly,
he asked me if I wanted him to massage it.
It took a lot for me to even hope that he might.
Why are two survivors so scared of each other
so separate
instead of allies and helpers?

In my experience, self = tension

I've known for years that exploration of the question, "Who am I?", is an important component of the path to liberation. However, this question did not interest me until now. A few days ago, inspired by reading Stephen Batchelor's Buddhism Without Beliefs, I began asking, "Where is my self?" It turned out it was very easy to answer that question. Each time I ask it, an answer comes to mind quite quickly. If I ask it now, the answer is, "My self is the tension I feel in the right side of my chest right now." More often than not, I consider my self to be located primarily in some sensation of tension. No wonder I am reluctant to let go of this tension! No wonder I re-create it unconsciously after letting go! And, no wonder my baseline mood is pessimistic and depressed: if I consider my self to be a sense of constriction, a suppression of vitality.

A fun exercise for me the past few days has been to repeatedly ask myself "Where is my self?", then, to place awareness on that thing, whatever it is, until it disappears.

Re-discovering fear of taking action

Why do I end most work days feeling depleted? I am gaining some understanding of this.

Fear of taking action -- touched on in my previous post -- is one. When I do something that wasn't ordered by another person, I seem to expect grave consequences. When I am in a very mindful state, meaning that I've done a fair amount of meditation that day to subdue the habit of constant thought, I notice sensations in the right side of my head, neck, and torso that suggest I'm expecting a giant to rain me with blows from above when I'm doing something I haven't been told to do. I'm more comfortable taking actions that are ordered by others: my boss, my co-workers, my partner, my parents, a teacher. Even my to-do list can suffice as a giver-of-orders: I feel a similar comfort if I put a task on a to-do list, then do it, rather than just do it.

Phenomena such as this are not discovered once, then assimilated. These are things that I re-discover over and over and over again. They need to be rediscovered because noticing these phenomena runs against some very deeply engrained habits of thought. Also, often when I rediscover such phenomena, I see them in a slightly deeper, richer way. My knowledge slowly builds upon itself. It's maybe how each time one looks at a work of art, one sees something new about it, or understands it in a deeper way.

Today the weather in Seattle is perhaps more summery than any previous day this season. After a morning meeting, I stood at my computer station and began to look at my work. I tried to first center myself by placing my awareness on bodily sensations. I noticed that, although I was quite adept and doing this, and was able to notice an unusually rich and even pleasurable set of sensations, I was also experiencing a very strong restlessness which felt like fear that I would be severely punished. Smashed. And then I thought, this is so strong, I ought to put my attention on the fear. But I didn't feel comfortable doing this at my desk, where there was some actual danger of being interrupted. So I walked to South Lake Union Park and continued this practice in the sunshine, on the lawn.

There, I spent about 15 minutes looking carefully at the sensations of fear. They are so strong and seemingly monolithic that my conscious mind is strongly pulled to believing their message: I will indeed be punished severely! There is real danger here! However, noticing the fear did lessen its hold on me somewhat. I walked back to work and felt calm and centered upon returning to my desk. Now, nearly 2 hours later, I still feel calm and centered. When my meditation timer goes off every 20 minutes, it is relatively easy to yield to the call, drop what I am doing, and direct my attention to the present. It is lovely to feel calm and centered and able to be in the present. My delight in this prompted me to write this post.

Things I've learned by observing my mind

While standing, each movement of my body forward is accompanied by a feeling of fear. I feel this as a tightening in the front of my throat and upper chest. I first observed this while doing a slow walking meditation in the basement at the IMS retreat center at a New Year retreat 2007/08. I've become more and more attuned to this, and now, if I pay attention, I can notice it at any time.

Similarly, while standing, each movement of my body backward is accompanied by another unpleasant feeling. I'm not sure what it is in this moment, but it could be the sadness of loss -- I imagine that by going away, I am saying good-bye forever and lose all chance of reunion.

I block out knowledge of achievement (detailed in an earlier blog post)

When I'm not busy doing anything, and there is no unpleasantness, I habitually scan my environment and my mental landscape for possible problems or threats. If I can catch this immediately (usually during meditation) and let go of the habitual scanning, I experience discomfort and disorientation with the resulting emptiness.

Aversion is a sensation distinct from the sensation I am averse to. For example, I dislike tension in my abdomen. The abdominal tension has a certain feeling, located in the abdomen. The aversion, the "dislike", has a distinct feeling, located in my upper right skull. By placing gentle attention on the sensation of aversion, the entire experience becomes less unpleasant.

A component of aversion is a wordless thought to the effect of, "if I am experiencing this, something is wrong with me, I have failed."

When I focus relaxed attention on a sensation of physical pain, the sensation dissolves into a shimmering field that changes constantly, and becomes less unpleasant, soemtimes even pleasant.

Habitual thought is not generated by my conscious will. I do not choose these thoughts, and they are often neither correct nor useful.

When walking, the approach of another person triggers anxiety.

When doing concentration meditation, casting aside distractions (the Buddhist "hindrances" of desire, aversion, restlessness, and doubt) is like walking steadily forward through turbulent surf in order to get to the calm waters beyond. [I did not list the hindrance of sleepiness because I am not able to cast that aside.] It can be entertaining to cast aside, cast aside, cast aside over and over again, almost like playing a video game.

Walking can be perceived as a series of about 20-30 motions per pace.

Telling myself an untrue story, and believing it, is harmful (insight at Spirit Rock about 5 years ago)

Anxiety about mundane things

Yesterday evening during a session of walking meditation, I noticed anxiety about looking at the clock, putting away my clothes, and changing my clothes. I'd vaguely noticed these anxieties before but had never looked closely at them. In fact, I'd been subtly chiding myself each time I felt them. The anxieties regarding the clock and the putting away of clothes seemed to be about noticing the passage of time, my progress towards death. The anxiety about changing clothes, perhaps about exposure, vulnerability.

A session of concentration practice

In preparation for my two-month retreat with Pa Auk Sayadaw starting September 1, I ordered his book, Knowing and Seeing. Amazon suggested I also order Ayya Khema's Who is my self? to get SuperSaver shipping, so I did. The book has been an inspiration. Ayya Khema encourages the reader to explore concentration meditation even when not on retreat, and states that the jhanas are quite accessible -- we only need to drop everything else. She also encourages constant practice, letting go of craving, examining the concept of self. Finally, while emphasizing that the jhanas are only a small step toward liberation, she states that they are an important step and provide immediate benefits.

Last night while waiting for Eric to be ready for bed, I sat in meditation, practicing anapanasati. After about 10 minutes I noticed sleepiness. Sleepiness usually derails my meditation, but this time I put my focus firmly back on the anapana spot and became quite concentrated. I successfully avoided grasping for concentration. I simply let go of thought and desire. I noticed increased skill in letting go: I'm increasingly convinced, on a deep level, that habitual thought and desire are not serving me. I just let go, let go, let go. Thought was still there, but I repeatedly set it aside. Deep concentration came to me and surprised me. It was not something I did. It just came, presumably as a result of the repeated letting go. Distractedness suddenly lessened, awareness of my visual field (with eyes closed) suddenly heightened, and pleasure increased. The visual field was textured darkness, possibly with a subtle six sided light image such as I'd seen on retreat one year ago. I noticed fear, familiar from my retreat experience, and made a firm decision to let go of it. I was not able to fully let go, and noticed my mind grasping for familiarity, trying to remember where I'd been a moment ago. I continued with anapanasati and moved in and out of the depth. Restlessness never disappeared.

I'd asked Eric to call me when he was ready, and he did. Emerging from meditation, I saw that 40 minutes had passed. I felt groggy and highly irritable. I decided to let go of my anger and focus on being with Eric. Surprisingly, within about 3 minutes my attention shifted to being with Eric, and I felt present and undistracted, though not particularly connected to Eric. It was like I'd just had sex with someone else and was returning. Today I find myself craving an opportunity to practice concentration meditation again. This is simultaneously exciting, gladdening, and frightening. Perhaps the best choice right now is to let go of that craving.

So many opportunities for practice

In our busy lives there are still so many moments throughout the day available for mindfulness practice. A great deal of my practice takes place during those moments. Perhaps a majority. The past several months, I've spent 5-60 minutes per day (average maybe 20) in my attic doing dedicated mindfulness practice, usually a slow walk during which I observe whatever mental or physical phenomena are most compelling. Most meditation teachers, by the way, would consider this a departure from standard Buddhist mindfulness practice, though how much of a departure would depend on the teacher.

But, in addition to that, I also habitually practice mindfulness while waiting at stoplights, waiting for computer programs to run, cycling home, or waiting for someone. These are moments during which people in our culture customarily surf the web, make plans, review the day, listen to music or podcasts, or read. It takes discipline to practice mindfulness during these moments, especially when one is a novice practitioner, because what one faces immediately is the compulsion to distract oneself with one of those more customary activities. One can bring mindfulness to that compulsion, or set that aside and bring mindfulness to the breath or some other object.

Today I made a commitment to keep Facebook and my personal email account closed at work. I usually turn to these when I am waiting for a computer program to run or when I am having difficulty focusing on the task at hand. Today I also made a commitment to use my meditation alarm clock and practice mindfulness every 20 minutes. This is something I did consistently during the months leading up to my 2-week jhana retreat in 2009-10, but have been less consistent about the past 12 months.

Today during my meditation breaks I've brought attention to the sensations associated with the idea of unsatisfactoriness, or "not rightness". Whatever I am doing, whatever my situation, if I am not drugged on alcohol or caffeine or adrenaline or fantasy, I typically experience the notion that I am not quite right, or that what I am doing is not quite right. Associated with this notion is a sensation of fullness in the upper right brain. I was not aware of this sensation until several months ago. Today I am trying to just notice it and accept it without blame. Doing this is both rewarding and agitating. Rewarding, because after I've done this for 30 seconds or so, the sensation becomes less solid and more dynamic and shimmery, and the notion of not-rightness lifts somewhat. Agitating, because underneath the not-rightness seems to be some kind of terror, something that keeps me from luxuriating in non-not-rightness. Fascinating work that requires discipline.

Can we handle knowing our minds in depth?

I read recently that there are two reasons we humans don't walk around in a continuous state of fear: denial and distraction. The premise is that the world is indeed a dangerous place, and we need these mechanisms in order to function.

With mindfulness meditation, we bring awareness to these mechanisms, eventually seeing beyond them to the underlying realities of our situation.

I once read that Jung thought most people wouldn't be able to handle the results of Buddhist meditation practice, that it would disturb important mental structures and we'd become less able to function in the world. Jung was a smart guy. Why was he wrong? Or was he wrong?

A friend who's a meditation practitioner has a couple of friends who've reached "first path" or "stream entry", a stage of practice where a chunk of one's sense of self becomes significantly less solid. She said that her friends, while glad about their achievements, are a bit cranky at the loss of that more solid sense of self.

We are just animals, evolved to reproduce. There is no reproductive advantage to knowing one's own mind. Our minds are not built to know themselves. It seems a bit conceited of us to think that we can do this safely.

Denial of achievement

I've had a growing awareness lately of some odd mental activity that occurs when I achieve a goal. I first noticed it while orienteering. Orienteering is an off-trail cross-country running sport. You have a detailed map with a number of control locations circled, and you try to visit them all in order as fast as you can, on foot. Each control is marked by an orange and white flag in the field.

I've noticed that when I glimpse a flag I've been aiming for, my mind kind of tries to block it out. For about a second, there is a tangled jumble of mental activity--I can feel sensation in my brain--it seems as though there is a cascade of reaction too fast for me to discern. Next, a kind of mental numbness. There is little or no joy in the achievement. Almost disappointment, and bewilderment. Within one or two seconds, my focus has shifted to the next goal (traveling to the next control).

Right now, this very moment, I am on the verge of achieving a minor goal at work. I have been trying to create a web interface for visualizing some data. I think I am on the cusp of getting it to work! Instead of forging ahead with the last little bits, though, I'm doing a thought experiment: what will my reaction be to actually achieving this?

I imagined getting it to work, seeing it work, and thinking, "I've done it!" And some voice in my brain answered, "No you haven't!" Incredible.

Then I imagine setting aside that message and thinking, again and again, "I've done it!" I notice resistance, discomfort ... a fullness in the right torso ... slightly constricted breathing.

It's dangerous to have achieved something. The parents will smash me.

Is this why I struggle constantly, at work, with feeling like I am too slow and that I haven't done anything?

When is meditation harmful?

I am planning to do two months of retreat under Pa Auk Sayadaw starting September 1. This will be an order of magnitude more intense than any retreat I've done so far, the longest a 2-week jhana retreat. Today I googled long meditation retreat harmful OR dangerous, and found Can Meditation be Bad for You?, by Mary Garden. She summarizes various research and anecdotal evidence showing that it can sometimes be bad. This evidence is far from conclusive, and it will be great when better research is conducted.

I am grateful to Mary for exploring under what conditions meditation can be harmful. This question is neglected in meditation communities. If you are interested in how and when meditation may be harmful, I direct you to her link. I have little disagreement with what she has to say, but I do have a comment on her conclusion.

She ends her article by saying that her life is "immeasurably richer" without meditation, that she "no longer regards the world as a place from which to escape or detach myself". She then quotes from the poem "Against Meditative Knowlege", by the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore:

Those who wish to sit, shut their eyes and meditate to know if the world's true or lies, may do so. It's their choice. But I meanwhile with hungry eyes that can't be satisfied shall take a look at the world in broad daylight. (1896)

I think Mary, poet Tagore, and others may have searched for extraordinary experiences in meditation. For me, meditation is a practice that helps me look at the world in broad daylight. It helps uncover my hungry eyes, by giving me a better understanding of the fear that so often keeps those eyes closed.

Mary states that her morning swim relaxes her as effectively as meditation. For me, too, vigorous exercise is relaxing. But it is not as enjoyable. During vigorous exercise, I am haunted by anxious resistance. During meditation, I make the space to look the anxiety in the eye, and each time I do, I know it a little bit better.

Staying aware of self while listening

diffuse glowing sensation centered in lower right abdomen, the sensation I call Julia's fire
changes like the weather
one year ago it was just coming out of hiding, I was usually unaware
now it is there nearly always
it is not always diffuse glowing
today it is
it's like the sun
but even now as I watch it, it's no longer centered in the abdomen
center moving up, to chest, to throat, with shimmers all up and down the right side
from pelvis to head
echoes in the genitals
lurking in the throat, evidence of something unsaid, not yet safe to say

trying these days to stay aware of this while listening to others
deeply engrained habit to NOT be aware
deeply!
feels as though something very bad will happen if I put any attention there
while another is speaking to me
feels like multitasking, not holistic
worry that I'll miss what the other is saying, and what if they find out!!
they will either abandon me, or demand that I get it
by taking more of my attention and explaining in further excruciating detail

The voice that says, "You are doing the wrong thing"

I just saw this morning that there is a blog at blogspot.com with the same name as this blog. And with the same kinds of musings. The more explorers, the more productive our explorations can be.

Woke this morning and, after spending 30 minutes groggily waking up while infused with feelings and thoughts of dread, sat in bed on 2 pillows. I explored, both mentally and manually, the unusual sensations in my right torso, the ones I've been working with for the past year. I noticed sensitivity, yearning, responsiveness to massage, in the superficial tissue just at the bottom of my ribs, across a maybe 6 inch width on the side. I gently massaged there.

Then, a thought that I was doing the wrong thing. A thought that pervades my daily life. The past ~10 years, I've practiced dismissing the thought. This was progress over what I used to do, which was to think about what I should be doing instead. But today I went further and examined the source of the thought. It seemed accessible in a way it had not seemed before. Just barely.

I knew abstractly that this thought was probably an internalization of multiple external messages, external messages that were so strong that they terrorized me. This morning I thought, "I internalized these messages because it felt better to pre-empt them by delivering them to myself, rather than to be shocked by them coming from outside each time." Not a new thought, but today I could feel the truth of it. I could feel the inevitability of it--internalizing the messages was the only thing I could do to survive.

I visualized a gigantic Dad approaching me from above and attacking me for something I'd done. I thought, "If I were really ready to work with this idea, I'd be using my body and fending off the attack, but I just don't feel that impulse." But I did feel a tiny pre-impulse, maybe just a fullness in my torso, a desire to energize my arms. I carefully followed this impulse, not knowing at all where it would take me. As usual with such exercises, it required a lot of determination and focus, and was accompanied by a boatload of uncertainty. But over the course of maybe 10 minutes, I was indeed fending off the imagined (or remembered) attack with my body. My right hand continued to massage the lower right side ribs while the other protected my head from blows. Then my right arm tired of massaging, even though my ribs still desired it, and I used my right arm also for protection. Breathing, imagining ... twisting my body slowly from side to side ... just imagining the gigantic Dad coming down on me and following impulse, not knowing where the impulse would take me next. Felt constriction in the throat, knew that if I could give that some space then I'd see some opening there, too, but didn't have the mental bandwidth to do that exercise.

Tired of this work, I allowed myself to transition into yoga. During yoga and beyond, I stayed alert for the voice that said, "You are doing the wrong thing," and remembered the gigantic Dad, and felt more freedom.

What delight, to think that underneath the voice that constantly goads and punishes myself is a wisdom that actually knows the right thing to do. I fear that, underneath, there is no impetus to act at all, that without the voice, I'd languish and sink into a state of greater suffering. But my confidence is growing beyond that fear.

This work is one of the biggest adventures of my life, but not one that can easily be shared and celebrated with others.

Why it all feels futile

This morning while meditating I paid attention to sensations in my right upper chest and throat. Strong urges to dismiss them: "what a waste of time, it's useless, I have more important things to do". Kept directing attention there again and again. Eventually got into mindset of myself as a very young child, feeling clearly in my body the certainty that if I acted, if I tried to do what I wanted or needed to do, I was going to get smashed. This is where the idea "it's useless" likely comes from. At that time in my life, it was indeed useless, futile, to try to do what I wanted. Others had absolute power over me. I knew this abstractly before, but today felt it for the first time. Felt lighter the rest of the morning.

The Boss

Examining compulsion to get stuff done at work. What do I come in to work looking for? What causes the afternoon disappointment? I think I'm looking for approval. I have set up an elaborate internal system to give myself approval based on a set of rules. The same system gives punishment. I imagine that The Boss is doling these out. But The Boss is an imaginary boss, and his behavior only vaguely matches my real boss's actual behavior. Approval comes when I check things off the list, especially things that I know my real boss or team leader will like.

If I take time to pay attention to my thoughts and feelings, I imagine that The Boss berates me for wasting time.

If I take time to pay attention to my thoughts and feelings, and let go of the thought process supporting the elaborate approval/punishment system, there is so much empty space that it's frightening.

<later same day>

Looking at the empty space ... why am I not curious, excited? Self-doubt. "I've been so wrong in the past ... had hope when it wasn't warranted ... if I stay open to this space, I'm going to do something foolish, laughable, regretable."

Anger as suppressed desire

When I'm experiencing and working with anger in a psychotherapy session, I'm usually quite uncomfortable, and often this thought comes to mind: "There's no use! It's no use! What's the point?"

Occurred to me this morning during walking meditation that the source of this thought is desire. That an element of the anger is suppressed desire. It's suppressed because I learned long ago that certain desires would not be fulfilled, despite my most fervent wishes and earnest efforts. Now I am looking forward to feeling that desire and learning more about it. What am I desiring?