discouraged

I am writing to share that I feel deep discouragement lately after a period of sits that were - I dont know what to say - largely peaceful. I am mostly doing noting practice with a recent and brief foray into Who am I practice. I realize that first gear is where I live right now and that it is best to keep on noting. But at this particular moment I feel like a failure. There's a lot of boredom and restlessness and distraction. I told Kenneth that it took ten (actually longer) years of very hard work, (discipline, persistence, steadiness, total commitment) for me to begin to be a really fine dancer and artist. So, it seems that it'd make sense for me to be patient with myself in this journey. Not so. I shall press on.

Hi PeonyIris.
Except for the part about being a dancer--which, believe me, I am not--I could have written your post above. I've been dealing with a ton of restlessness, as well as dullness that can be so heavy it's like I've been shot with a tranquilizer gun. This comes up only when I do the noting practice, which is what I'm most enthusiastic about/interested in right now.
If I'm rested, I can get into a peaceful state by using a samatha technique with no trouble at all. But it's the noting practice that seems to lead to actual progress for people, and so I have to note "frustration, frustration," and try to deal with my relative lack of progress on a sensate level.

You'll hear people talk about the importance of receptive effort, of really, truly relaxing in practice. I'm going to work on doing this--on softening, the effort of non-effort, and on somehow integrating this with the more effortful work that is vipassana and noting practice.
B. Alan Wallace teaches a technique where you try to relax with your whole body on the out-breath and kind of "go out" with the out-breath, but then perk up and pay attention a bit on the in-breath. The idea is to have active and receptive effort in one breath.
Likewise, there are some exercises taught by Thanissaro Bhikkhu in his recent talks at IMC, available at the Audio Dharma Web site, that are about relaxing or "breathing" at the energy centers. You start at the naval and work up the front of the body, to the crown of the head and then back down the spine. The notion here is of "tranquilizing the bodily formations" as taught in the suttas. Another idea I ran across had to do with relaxing as much as possible any tension in the forehead at the third-eye area.
Anyway, my hunch is that I'm overstriving and need to work with these receptive approaches. Don't know if that helps!

"...At this particular moment I feel like a failure....It seems that it'd make sense for me to be patient with myself in this journey. "


I may be wrong, but a big part of frustration, it seems, is with frustration itself. Feeling discouraged by the appearance of discouragement. A feeling of "I shouldn't be impatient! Why won't this impatience go away now?!" ; )

I've been intimately familiar with feeling like a failure in practice, lately. So, I can empathize, for sure. And, at the same time, my empathy isn't meant to let you off the proverbial hook, practice-wise. To see this stuff in its bodily form, it really clearly just comes and goes, or maybe it comes and sticks around, but at least it's clearly an object - not I, me, mine. And try to really catch where it's showing. For instance, just now frustration appeared in my head, then in my stomach.

As for a period of sits that were largely peaceful, frankly that sounds rather nice! Maybe the issue there, as I've been learning about recently, is being Ok with things being OK. Along with seeing the subtler and subtler levels of "not OK," our task it so meet equanimity with equanimity, as it were. Hope that helps! : )

Karuna,
Ryan

deleted this post.

Thank you jgroove and ryan so very much. (this is the second time I am posting this, but I lost the first post somehow) "...softening, the effort of non-effort" is a helpful phrase for me. I will check out Bhikku's talks too.
"To see this stuff in its bodily form, it really clearly just comes and goes, or maybe it comes and sticks around, but at least it's clearly an object - not I, me, mine." Now this is important to remember, but sometimes I just plain forget and I get caught up in what is rising up and I identify with it, hence the failure feelings.

Now I will sit - with this encouragement and assistance. again, thanks. peony