Q&A on "bleed through"

Q: The dhukka nanas were quite intense during meditation for a time ('disgust' was very strong for a while I and I think had some bleed through into daily life), but these nanas appear to be far more subtle now. Is this pretty normal?

A: Your practice IS your life. Daniel's [Ingram] concept of "bleed through" [from MCTB] is, in my opinion, looking in the wrong direction. You cannot cordon off your "practice" from "daily life." Our goal is to learn to be free within whatever comes up, not to relegate some aspects of life to the cushion. Whatever you are going through on the cushion IS going to affect your entire day. The sooner we accept this, the sooner we can stop rejecting parts of ourselves.

My understanding on the concept of "bleed through" seems to be slightly different than the one leading to the direct action of "cordoning off practice from daily life". I notice the effects of the dukkha nanas starting to "bleed through" every time I'm cycling through them, and instinctively I have not tried to repress them (although my intellect has told me a few times to try to fight them'¦and I think we all know how well that DOES NOT work). I've come to notice that the more I accept them as a part of nature and surrender to them the easier (and quicker) it is to go through them. I also have noticed how people around me (girlfriend, daughters, and friends) get affected by the 'bleed through' of my cycling through the dukkha nanas, as I become irritable, non-logical, and my sense of humor jumps out the window. In my experience the best way to deal with it is by remembering that my training in morality is a never-ending process and that I need to continue practicing every moment of my life. It also helps telling people around me that I may be feeling a bit stressed about a few things and to please forgive some of my moods and actions during this time but that everything will be fine (I talk to my girlfriend, parents and recently older daughter so they know the real reason why). People tend to have a lot more empathy that some times we give them credit for.
Jorge Freddy

I told the one person(my fiancee) who seemed to bear most of the brunt of my dark night agitation, that it was a specific thing called the dark night. I went through it with her and explained it was a real experience brought on my vipassana and that I would try my best not to let it influence my interactions with her. Well, it got to the point where sometimes the crap coming up was so intense I would just tell her, honey, I'm dark nighting it, and she would let me work it out cos I found if I got into an argument while going through stuff like that, I would come out as the arsehole in the relationship. So those two words when mentioned spared her and me any unnecessary multiplication of misery. She got used to it, barely though. Luckily with every path, the negative reactions died down and these days, I'll tell her smilingly, "It looks like dark night but meh!"....and she laughs at me.....she has even gotten used to the fact that if i react with anger or dissaproval over something, in a few seconds or so, I'll be calm and over it. She's taking advantage of that fact these days. Hehe!

I think this is the best period to train in morality, patience, honesty, respectfulness, etc. Things will naturally turn ugly and this is a beautiful thing in itself. Disgust, being upset, feeling worthless, losing patience. We will finally be able to discern this. Before awakening we never touch anger. We don't appreciate its fire. After awakening, every "fault" is seen as a perfect event part of a natural movement. Wisdom is cultivated finally.

Man, I don't understand "dark night" at all. My best guess at why is this: I had an A&P event so so long ago and at a younger age that my entire adult life has been an experience of being in and out of the "dark night" without knowing anything about it. So, for me, then, dark night symptoms are just what my normal life has always been.
Maybe for others whose lives have been more emotionally or mentally stable until starting vipassana practice it is easier to pick out and discern the dukkha nanas as distinctly different and new experiences?

If I am right, then I was "bleeding through" all over the place. I think my second wife could probably say a thing or two about that

"If I am right, then I was "bleeding through" all over the place. I think my second wife could probably say a thing or two about that "-telecaster

LOL. No doubt.

So now that the bleed through has been made conscious, we can move on to blaming the cat, drink, lack of sleep, work, daylight savings ,,,,

I'm pretty sure it was the cat.

I dunno guys, to be frank I find a lot of value in that bleed through thing. E.g. if someone does something which I usually dislike, and I am dark nighting, the inner response will be so violent that if I give into it with the corresponding actions, things turn out a lot worst than if I don't. This is something I've been able to observe a number of times.

For me it is mostly a matter of understanding where things are happening. It is much better to understand that "there is this thing this person did, and there is my own internal reaction to it, and there is the expectations and motivations that this person had when doing it," and then giving a thoughtful response with all those elements as nicely and positively as I can, rather than just "letting it rip." That's what I think is meant by "avoiding a bleed through."

And it is experiential too. Whenever I have just "let it rip," either I got what I wanted by squishing someone with wrathful bitterness, or I didn't get what I want and furthermore annoyed someone else in the process. No, ... much better to be sad and angry alone than dragging along everyone else. imho

"I dunno guys, to be frank I find a lot of value in that bleed through thing. "

I kinda agree. The idea of bleed through is useful for realizing that you don't necessarily need to believe your thoughts, and this helps with being free within whatever comes up... at least that's what the cat told me.

...at least that's what the cat told me.

betawave,
...there is no cat!

Kudos to whosoever renames their cat Dukkha Nana!

I want to see if I understand what this discussion is about, because I've also found the bleed-through idea to be helpful.
I think all Kenneth is saying is that there is never a time when what's happening on the cushion isn't affecting the rest of your life (and he would probably say vice-versa as well, I'm guessing). ("Whatever you are going through on the cushion IS going to affect your entire day. The sooner we accept this, the sooner we can stop rejecting parts of ourselves.")
Where does the rejecting come in? The point seems to be how you deal with what is coming up, whenever and wherever it comes up, regardless of whether you are on the cushion or off.
So a response to unpleasant sensations on the cushion would be to note/notice/dis-embed from them in the moment. You wouldn't say to yourself, "Oh, this is bad stuff from the argument I had this morning that is now bleeding through into my cushion time." Kenneth's point is to dis-embed from the stuff, on the cushion or off, rather than hypothesize about its origins?

I posted this over on my page recently, but I think it fits in well here too:

Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus. - Emerson (from "Experience)

To my way of thinking, the nanas are kind of like this, a layer over reality that we have to "adjust to" (ie: disembed from). Practice brings us more fully into these, because there is little to distract us from them. But they continue on around us all the time, and when they're stronger, we have the feeling of "bleed through". This is both good and bad, as it can cause us problems, but also gives us a chance to mix "practice" seamlessly into our "real life" (though this distinction exists only in our head; if we're cycling, we're cycling, on or off the cushion).

Thanks for the responses, everyone; this has turned into a great discussion. It sounds as though a lot of people find value in the concept of "bleed through" because it reminds them not to act out when negative feelings arise. I wonder if we can find some other ways to make this same point without seeming to imply that your mediation should not "leak" into "the rest of your life." It is this subtle desire to separate meditation and life that worries me. This problem of over-compartmentalization is very real and one that I have succumbed to many times.

For me, the general trend of my meditation practice is a spiral toward more and more integration, so anything that seeks to make distinctions between meditation and not-meditation is moving in the wrong direction.

So, how about this: it's better not to act out on difficult or negative emotions in a way that is destructive to people or relationships, whether they are coming from the dark night, pre-menstrual tension, or work-related stress. And in each case, it is useful to acknowledge these underlying conditions to both yourself and your loved ones.

Like Nick, I find it helpful to tell my wife when I am feeling especially irritable so she can either soothe me, tolerate me, or steer clear! And, as Joel reminds us, I can dis-embed from whatever arises by carefully noting sensations, feeling tones, mind states, and thoughts as they arise. As Emerson points out in the quote that Ian shared, life is a "train of moods like a string of beads." What would be the basis for thinking that meditation-related moods are somehow different from PMS-related moods?

To paraphrase Chris Marti, "Your life is not a mistake." (And neither are your moods!) Rather than keeping my life from "bleeding through" into my life, I can just let it be my life while also doing my best not to hurt anyone around me!

That makes perfect sense. Compartmentalization for me is nearly total. The last thing I need to do is subtly reinforce that.

But what about the cat?

This discussion got me thinking about what a friend of mine said when we were talking about new people vs. senior students in the zendo. Zen practice is often physically grueling and painful, and she said that she could always spot the new people when their faces grimaced and they grunted from numb legs.

She said they had not yet learned to keep the practice internal. That struck me. I had the idea that my practice was not yet internal if it meant that while I was digging around in the dark night I kept flinging it out at my loved ones and co-workers. Practice is life, but practice seems to accelerate our development and this can, at times, make us really freaking crazy.

Development hurts sometimes. Healing hurts sometimes. Perhaps right speech also means learning how, no matter what's causing it, to take care of our hurt instead of projecting it outward. One of the tools I found was helpful while I was awash in dukkha was to silently ask that, if this suffering could be experienced by me for the sake of somebody else, let it come. That always seems to get me out of myself and make suffering not a problem, which I think is the point of practice.

Not that "suffering" equals "dark night," but -- I often ponder these days just what percentage of suffering is caused by resistence to all the "objects" of our experience (I love quote marks and parenthetical phrases!).
I mean really, it sometimes seems that each phase of suffering is just proof of the fact that I'm not QUITE experienced enough to know how to objectify and disembed from this and this ... and this as well as that ... and that ... and that ....
AND, some or a lot of suffering is proof that we've let our mindfulness lag a bit and it is a message to start paying attention again.
Now I don't think a human can ever be free of difficulties, problems, pain, abject sorrow and heartbreak but this practice we are learning together certainly provides tools for working with and dealing with all that in what I suspect is the best possible way.
I also think that what can happen to those of us that are more "advanced" (!) in practice is without realizing it they get lulled into the mistaken belief that they've somehow become immune from sorrow and bad times. So when those things come -- as they ALWAYS will -- the initial resistence can often bring great pain. For a while.

" if this suffering could be experienced by me for the sake of somebody else, let it come"

I love that owen.

"It is this subtle desire to separate meditation and life that worries me. "

It's one of the characteristics of the mind that it likes to split reality into two parts. I don't think that's right or wrong; it's just the way the mind works. And (says he, splitting the world into two parts), there are those who are aware of it happening, and those who are not aware of it happening.

"Development hurts sometimes. Healing hurts sometimes. Perhaps right speech also means learning how, no matter what's causing it, to take care of our hurt instead of projecting it outward. One of the tools I found was helpful while I was awash in dukkha was to silently ask that, if this suffering could be experienced by me for the sake of somebody else, let it come. That always seems to get me out of myself and make suffering not a problem, which I think is the point of practice."

Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu... this is a real interesting topic and I am glad that it has been opened for discussion. Naturally everything falls within our practice. I know however that at certain times it helped for me to see that certain things were a symptom of vipassana... it certainly helped me be more mindful of my speech etc... I think the concept of bleed through may be a helpful one, so long as we remember that it is after all a concept...

At the risk of being obtuse, I want to re-emphasize a certain point because I think it is so essential and because I think our particular practice culture is so vulnerable to over-compartmentalization. "Bleed through" implies that something leaks from something into something else. Ask yourself what is leaking into what?

I don't mean this in some subtle, esoteric way (although that would work too). I just mean, why are we trying to cordon off our practice from our lives? What would be the advantage of "internalizing" our practice in such a way that there is a dividing line between knee pain from sitting and knee pain from playing basketball? And who says we should embrace Japanese stoicism to the point where no one can tell from the outside that we are suffering? (!)

Goal-oriented dharma has its pros and cons. One of the glaring weaknesses, so often attacked by our detractors, is a kind of "hyper-masculinity" that includes, among other things, over-compartmentalization.

Knowing the maps and being able to make the connection between your practice and your moods is highly valuable and recommended. But it has nothing to do with trying to prevent your practice from leaking into your life. I am intimately familiar with Daniel's concept of bleed through, having seen him go through periods where he was making an almost superhuman effort to "keep it together" in his off-the-cushion life while moving through the dark night on the cushion. It's a very macho trip, did not work particularly well in his case, and is not, in my opinion, the best way to negotiate the dark night. In other words, all attempts to prevent bleed through are doomed to failure. You cannot separate your life from your meditation. If you try, you can only fail, while simultaneously reinforcing your own grandiose notions of who you are! (Yes, it happened to me too, so I'm not singling out Daniel for criticism.)

I hope perhaps as my practice develops I will figure out when I'm 'cycling' and when I'm not. Indeed I may be cycling already without knowing it (wot no bicycle? ). Similar to Mike, I'm pretty sure I got caught in a dark night patch for some years from getting stuck at a certain level of practice and not realizing it. I then thought I had to be a 'good' buddh'ist' and keep all this yukky stuff in. Result? Compacted yukky stuff. Mind you, I'm not sure how my partner would react if I told him I was having an off day due to being in a dark night cycle. He might think I was talking about Batman or something. Perhaps I'll just say it's because I tripped over the cat

Yeh, I agree with Kenneth. I think the best solution for me was, especially when I wasn't remembering to disembed was to tell my loved one/s what was happening to me as she had nothing to do with it. Because she accepted this (luckily) I was able to not feel like I had to "bottle it up" and "hide it". I guess that is what we want to avoid. Although not the most pleasant situation, once my fiancee understood that she was not at fault or the object of my agitation she used to really help with it. She either left me alone or gave me a back massage. And if I reacted badly towards her knowing it was dark night stuff influencing me, I would quickly apologize and try and disembed. She would have left me long ago if I had not been honest about it. I was well aware when I was going through dark night and really saw a difference to when i was just irritated from lack of sleep for example. Definitely a different experience for me. Bu it was so a part of my everyday life. I would have popped in the wrong way had I bottled it up.

Okay, well I think I'm going to go away and experiment with being honest with my nearest and dearest when I feel I may be in 'off the cushion' dhukka nanas mode. I was thinking I might show my partner this thread as a way in, but you know, whilst I make no secret of my practice and being on this forum I try and avoid using lingo too much in case it becomes alienating. The last thing I want to do is perpetuate the 'us and them' myth (practitioners and non-practitioners). This is where wits and wisdom comes in methinks....