Buddhist Geeks on the Dark Night

Chris Marti wrote:

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.

Shargrol, I'm still struggling with this definition of pride. I see paranoia, as in everyone is out to get me, but that's not necessarily because I'm special or better than everyone, just that I think everyone is out to get me. Maybe I'm still missing something key to your analysis...

I think I might know what is meant by "pride" in this context, but I wouldn't choose that particular word. When one believes the world is out to get them (even to the point of paranoia), there is a sense of specialness involved. Why would the CIA hide cameras in the ceiling if I weren't special or important in some way? Why me and not someone else?

I still don't think "pride" captures this. But there can be a contracted sense of self-centeredness or specialness. I don't know if this is so much a cause of mental illness so much as it could be a side effect that later becomes a mediator in the maintenance of a disorder.

I think you are all understanding it pretty well. When I was less emotionally grounded, I had a strong puritanical streak, so maybe at the time I needed to call it "pride" (a simply negative term for me at the time) so that I could jettison it? I also called it pride because it gave me a sense of agency in the midst of depression -- depression wasn't just something that was happening, I wasn't simply a victim, there were things (mostly patterns of thought and ways of evaluating evidence) that I was doing which reinforced it. I shouldn't be surprised if I was continuing being knocked out of my high throne, because I kept thinking I needed to climb up and sit in a high throne...

Basically, "pride" in this sense is a contrived sense of defensive specialness, which needs to be maintained by explaining away evidence and maintaining fantasies. Depression, paranoia, etc. are common in the sense that all evidence gets interpreted through a filter that reinforces the validity of the filter. Round and round. That standing whirlpool of pattern is held in place by (first unconsciously, but eventually consciously) thinking and behaving in a certain way.

I also call it pride because I have seen in myself (and my close friends/acquaintances) that when our identity becomes the whirlpool, we're terrified of stopping the behaviors that create it. We seem to know this almost primally --- that the end of the illness will be a kind of death, where we will have to recreate everything in our life from outside of that well-known pattern. Its the same thing as the alcoholic or sex addict, we all know that it won't kill us to quit, but we're terrified of a life without this orienting pattern. It's pride at that point, very clearly, because we can no longer really believe in the fantasies that explain away the evidence (e.g., shit, I really am making a mess of my life by drinking, I'm not such a fun guy, the life of the party, actually I'm a disaster!) but we still continue.

I'm not saying that everyone should be able to pull themselves out of the whirlpool --- frankly, it just seems to lose momentum over time, rather than get turned off -- but even if we are, let's say, truly trapped in depression, we should be doing what we can, even if it is just lifting the pill and putting it in our mouth. Or showing up for our therapy session. Or actually taking a lunch break and walking outside instead of reading depressing news on the internet. Whatever it is...

I'm sure all of us have had to help a friend get over a rough time. For some of our friends it takes some "tough love" at a certain point.

Calling it "pride" is my version of tough love. It doesn't deny the reality of the challenge, but it doesn't let us claim pure "victim status" either.

Hope that helps!

One thing I'm noticing here is the difference between acknowledging one's own sense of pride in their depression, and suspecting that some form of pride is either causing or perpetuating depression in someone else. The former may be more helpful than not most of the time. The latter, however, may create a situation where "blaming the victim" can occur. What none of us want to see is for someone to tell a depressed person to just "get over yourself, already!" That would give them just one more thing to believe they're failing at.

Excessive self-blame happens often for depressed individuals. In fact, one of the questions on the gold standard self-report measure for depression (the BDI-II) has to do with whether the client believes they are being punished, or ought to be punished. That certainly doesn't characterize pride, in my view.

Such a complex topic.

Just for the sake of throwing some Buddhism in here... later on I learned that Pride in Buddhist terms is: 1) believing you are superior to others, 2) believing you are inferior to others, or 3) believing you are equal to others.

I think it is our cultural programming: "pride" is a sin, fault, bad attitude-- for which the indulgent one can expect a richly deserved "fall." These are just the unquestioned "common sense" that we don't even recognize as beliefs.

But "ego" and "self" are also beliefs that are mostly invisible as such: it's "the way things are," the default setting that the extraordinary few "transcend."

Either set of beliefs can be questioned, deconstructed, poked fun of-- "so, it really is 'all about me'?" Maybe all of it is a wildly exaggerated interpretation of there being a focal point for an individual's perception. You could call that exaggerated interpretation "confusion"-- or "ego" or "pride."

"Pride" works just as well for me as alternatives-- because of the learned view of all qualities having an inherent continuum of possibility: so there is "vajra pride/lust/rage/confusion"/nirvana" as the liberated possibilities inherent in pride/lust/rage/confusion/samsara. (This is a Cliff Note to Spectrum of Ecstasy, Ngak'chang Rinpoche's book on trek-chod practice.)

Jackson wrote: One thing I'm noticing here is the difference between acknowledging one's own sense of pride in their depression, and suspecting that some form of pride is either causing or perpetuating depression in someone else.


...the client believes they are being punished, or ought to be punished. That certainly doesn't characterize pride, in my view.

Such a complex topic.

I agree, it's quite complex. For example, the person that believes they are being punished and/or they ought to be punished (which I'm very familiar with) --- that's not inconsistent with pride. Often those same people (including my historical self) will feel the pain of injustice in the world, yet will somehow think that they deserve their own hardships. They think others are deserving in compassion/mercy, but not themselves. What makes them so different than everyone else in the world that suffers?

By the way, I agree -- it doesn't make any sense to suggest to these folks that this mechanism is at play... until it does. But it is important to see the mechanism of self-sabotage that is operating un-/semi-consciously.

Oh, and I also remembered another reason why I called it pride --- that same energy can be rechanneled into something positive, so the core of it is fundamentally workable. If I work on my sickness with the same intensity and energy that I work at keeping it, well that's something isn't it! I remember how positive it was to see that this same drive could be moved from unproductive lines to healthy/healing approaches --- well then, that core part of me didn't need to die, it just needed to be reborn.

Jinx Kate!

shargrol wrote: Just for the sake of throwing some Buddhism in here... later on I learned that Pride in Buddhist terms is: 1) believing you are superior to others, 2) believing you are inferior to others, or 3) believing you are equal to others.

I think that's the definition of what I called "conceit." - as in, "the conceit: I AM." It's described as a comparative process, just as you stated.

My take is that "dark night symptoms" are a certain practice-stream description of a subset of psychological problems-- those associated with those practices. But not all psychological problems are associated with meditation practice.

One of the things we say in AA is that most people when they come in, and during their active addiction, have had an oversized ego and an undersized self-esteem. This has certainly been true for me, and I think it's also true of depression as well as substance abuse (which are, of course, very often linked). The idea is to get oneself 'right-sized.'

For me, I'd have to say 'pride' was both an extreme downfall in that I felt I had been indelibly shamed and humiliated by 'the world,' events, etc in ways that made life hopeless, but also it had a saving grace in that I kept keeping up appearances and pulling through trying to look like things were OK on the outside - which is really exhausting, and can keep people from getting help, but does mean that one has an ongoing material foundation to build from and can avoid some of the unfortunate but existing stigma of mental illness or of periods of 'unproductivity' in a capitalist society.

I think I agree with Kate, if I've understood properly - Dark Night mimics and/or is related to psychological problems, but you can have psychological problems without Dark Night. Of course, we're also getting into the treacherous territory here of defining 'mental illness' against 'mental normality,' so to speak.

One distinguishing thing in my own experience is that, although depression does tend to extremely magnify things which are distressing in minor ways to the point that they overshadow everything else, Dark Night would do so for stuff that was even smaller - so for example, as I mentioned in a Hangout a while back, I had a couple of days in a DN phase where I completely freaked out about the fact that I have a half-sleeve tattoo and was like, I've wrecked my life, this is the worst thing that's ever happened (after having had it for some years, it wasn't like I'd just got it and then been like, oh that was a mistake, or it was my first tattoo, or something), everyone's staring at me and I can't bear it, etc.

And also, both depression and DN have that 'anhedonia' but perhaps in DN it has a more free-floating quality - I'm not sure about this, but in DN it's like, low-level but extremely pervasive and less-attached to self-fellings, so it's like, maybe if I was depressed I'd be watching my favourite TV show but couldn't enjoy it because I was so unhappy and couldn't imagine how I could ever be happy, but with DN, it was less intense, but it wasn't that I couldn't enjoy it because I was so unhappy, it was that I couldn't enjoy it because it was, in itself, inherently unenjoyable... it's a fine distinction (because both have that, 'what is the point of this and how can other people think it's meaningful or worth the effort' quality), and I haven't quite put it right, but something along those lines... like a more insight-existential quality to DN badness.

Willoughby from the BG roundtable thing was making a point that certain maybe DN things along the lines of the psychotic are more in the realms of psychiatry and should be treated as such.

Chris Marti wrote: So getting back to the original topic of the thread, is the consensus here that psychological problems are indistinguishable from Dark Night symptoms?

Only if we're talking at the categorical level, as in the types of symptoms people might experience. The difference can be clear when a good case conceptualization is found, and the course of treatment can in some ways be radically different.

For example, if someone complains of visual or other hallucinations, and a clinician finds out they started at an intensive mediation retreat, it might be wise to hold off on prescribing antipsychotics until a fuller picture develops (especially family history).

Chris Marti wrote: Let me re-phrase the question in this way:

Are Dark Night symptoms indistinguishable from other psychological issues? So, for example, could a clinician or an experienced teacher be able to figure out which is which without being able to ask the subject/patient if they were a meditator?

Hmm... I don't know, really. What I want to believe is that a clinician who is also an experienced meditator would be able to tell the difference. Then again, how could even someone with those qualifications know the difference without knowing about the meditation practice history?

Daniel Ingram says in the BG episode that it's not always a matter of doing meditation, specifically. An A&P event can happen even without formal practice, if one is paying attention to their experience in a particular way, with enough concentration and awareness. So maybe knowing whether some kind of A&P happened is more important than whether or not they individual has been meditating.

Chris Marti wrote: Are Dark Night symptoms indistinguishable from other psychological issues? So, for example, could a clinician or an experienced teacher be able to figure out which is which without being able to ask the subject/patient if they were a meditator?

My guess would be no.

Even so-called meditation induced Dark Night is unpredictable, right? For example, none of us would say that first path DN is always worse than second path DN as a rule. So I don't think it makes sense to even diagnose something as meditation-induced dark night. Even if meditation is a factor, there can be lots of factors being triggered during any given time. So the practical consideration is what treatment is appropriate?

If any psychological experience is overwhelming and there doesn't seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel, then seek professional help!

If a psychological experience is forcing you to look at the ignored things in life (mortality, unfairness, unpredictability, suffering, uncertainty, vanity, competition) and it's uncomfortable but you can handle it, then good! That's part of life and the foundation for adult wisdom. Don't avoid the experience, don't repress it, don't indulge it either. Go through it. That's the growing pains of wisdom and morality.

If the above paragraph happens during a stage/phase of meditation... I don't see how it can be treated any differently? You don't manipulate it and you go through it. There might be some comfort in knowing that these types of experiences are common. It might help you look more objectively at what you are going through. But it can still be really hard to integrate the knowledge of the sufferings. And even if it is a phase of meditation... if you're really freaking out bad, if reducing or stopping meditation doesn't help, you still need to seek professional help.

Second part of the discussion is up:

www.buddhistgeeks.com/2013/12/bg-302-mental-illness-dark-night/

Haven't listened to it yet, but natch will report back once I've done so

www.buddhistgeeks.com/2013/11/bg-301-var...mplative-experience/

Increase in cases of 'dark night?' Expansion of WB's research into Abrahamic religious practices, etc.

DI made a very good point about the enormous number of things that can precipitate A&P, and the consequent number of people being thrown into confusion-- and subsequent practice-- AS A RESULT of inadvertent breakthroughs. Willoughby categorizes types of people who find themselves in trouble, along a "zealotry scale." Interesting: young, hardcore men, and middle-aged, long-term practitioner women who miss their practice when something dramatic happens.

(eta-- writing while I listen...)

I had a thread on this a little while ago - maybe merge? Yes, it was very interesting! Haven't yet had a chance to properly listen to the second part...

awakenetwork.org/forum/105-reading-liste...ks-on-the-dark-night

A brief thought on the second part, which is titled 'Mental Illness and the Dark Night' - it would've been nice to have someone talk who has experienced mental illness and the Dark Night (of course, not everyone may want to talk about this publicly but certainly there's been lots of great discussion on PD boards from first-person practitioner experience). Without that, it's a bit 'Othering,' and also no first hand testimony, which is supposedly what the PD scene is about.

More Willoughby Britton on "Dark Knight" [sic, or intentional?]

www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/...of-the-souls/372766/