Laurel's practice

My significant other uses the morning adrenaline to do house cleaning or yoga. I tend to prefer going for a brisk walk or sorting through papers and writing my to-do lists to prepare for the day ahead. I've never been a big fan of meditating straight out of bed, but tend to do my first sit after the aforementioned and a cup of coffee or juice. Of course work schedules can make this complicated. My SO does his "morning" meditation during the natural waking that often occurs around 3am, and then goes back to sleep until time to get up for work at 7am.

Another common cause of poor sleep and overall cortisol dysregulation--chronic cardio. So don't get too much exercise, Laurel!

This discussion has been helpful, and it explains a lot, as mu says.

My sits have been variable; haven't done longer than 30 minutes, but the out-of-control quality of a few days ago seems to have settled down. I sat for half an hour yesterday morning and again in the later afternoon; the morning ended up in what felt like low eq, as did the afternoon one (lots of dreaminess there; I almost fell asleep. I can feel tingling just by closing my eyes and focusing for a minute or two usually.

Tomorrow I head off for the retreat. I'll check in when I get back.

Sounds a bit like some of my review experiences, Laurel. I found it useful to spend some time just sitting doing nothing during those periods, and observe the phenomena as they occur, as there seemed to be quite enough activity without me doing anything, and it helped me get a better look at the insight cycles.

Hi Laurel,

I heard the exciting news from Beth yesterday. Sorry for missing it hear. Anyway, huge congratulations! And good luck with the retreat.

Metta
Andy

This is the last time I plan to post on this thread; future posts will be on a new one.

I have been a bit reticent about saying this, but for about 8 days after my major breakthrough on Jan 19 I walked around with a profoundly reduced sense of self, and it felt awful. There were benefits in the form of no anger or even irritation, a loss of the usual self-reinforcing stories in my head, and a lack of stickiness in my relationships with people. But I felt fearful and very, very alone a lot of the time. It was as if other people were part of some separate reality and I had no access to it any more. Instead of feeling a sense of freedom from this experience, I felt a sense of a lack of energy, of pointlessness, almost as if I had already died and was waiting for the fact to register.

I talked with three people about this: Beth, my teacher here, and the teacher at the retreat. All of them told me this would pass, and it has. I seem to be back, but I'm rather bewildered by what has happened. My retreat teacher said it might take a matter of months to sort the whole thing out. Both she and my teacher here don't know my practice well enough to say this was stream entry, but beyond that, they seem to disapprove of the whole idea of labeling such an attainment. This is frustrating because it really does matter in the sense that if I have gotten stream entry then I'm probably on track to start a new path, and quite frankly I don't want to do that. I want to slow this whole thing way, way down. My biggest concern is that I might land in the state I was in last week again and not be able to emerge from it.

I had thought loss of self would be a relief, but it turned out to be miserably lonely. I am not sure how to describe what happened--was it a long cessation? Is it normal? If other people experienced what I did, I can't imagine they would encourage anyone else to get there.

There's this annoying writer Jed McKenna who made the comment that it's impossible for "you" to want enlightenment, because if you get it, "you" will no longer be there to enjoy it. It sounds like a lot of wordplay, but for those 8 days I understood exactly what he meant. It was uncanny. There were moments when I would drop into a kind of calm acceptance and everything would be all right, but as time went on I had to confess that I had a serious case of buyer's remorse.

One thing I have to consider is that this practice is just not right for me. I may not have the nervous system for it. I imagine that I come across to some people as a drama queen, but the fact is I was not expecting this outcome or reaction--and to be fair, the "outcome" hasn't played itself out by any means. But the teacher I worked with over the past five days, a perfect example of mushroom culture, made the remark that too much depth in practice without breadth can have warped results. I don't think that's true of others necessarily, but it may be true for me.

I find the almost total disconnect between pragmatic dharma and the rest of western Buddhism to be frustrating. It seems that each side could actually benefit from some kind of open dialogue with the other. But from what I gather, this particular teacher isn't really trying to offer a path to enlightenment at all; I think she's trying to help people cultivate mindfulness in order to help them with their lives in a gradual, gentle process. The reticence about discussing attainments, together with the jet-set retreat setting (with a teacher who will likely never see me again) does not lend itself to the kind of communication that's really necessary to sort out something like this.

Hello,

I experienced something very similar. I had this romanticized idea that stream entry was going to solve my problems, but it didn't and the loss of the sense of a stable self was very disorienting. I remember feeling like I had been duped into believing this whole thing was great when the experience of it was somewhat terrifying at certain points and somewhat blissful at others. Your description is very similar to my own experience, it's kind of eerie. I remember telling my teacher that I felt like I was at the funeral of a tortured best friend. Yes, it was nice that the pain wasn't continuing in the way it was before, but damn, it was sad that they were gone. If your experience continues in the way mine did it will get much better. I think you are right to mention this grieving. I think it is very common and that people don't mention it much, perhaps because they feel like they should be enjoying their new "attainment". Everything changes, is always changing, and this too will pass. My guess is that you will know a new freedom when it does. This continues be my experience. Shift, elation, then grief, then deeper depths of freedom. Sometimes the grieving comes first. The more it's happened the more I recognize it for what it is and don't become preoccupied. I seem to be in a similar stage now myself. In the interest of slowing down you may want to cut back or not sit for a week or so. Be well.

Bill

I do plan to talk with Beth, and with my local teacher. I need a sense of how to proceed. I am at present strongly inclined however to avoid anything goal-directed in the foreseeable future. I want to round things out and stabilize. My Dark Night was miserable. I'm not trying to brag about it and say look at me, see how I've suffered, but it was awful and I'm in no mood for another trip through that place. I realize that I can't ignore fear, misery, and disgust, but I can make a point of gently nudging these emotions in a spirit of friendly inquiry from now on.

Strangely enough, speaking from where I am right here at this moment, I have to say that I am beginning to feel some peace. It's as if I'm finally resigning from the job of struggling to fix myself after all these years. I'm also beginning to think that maybe it's best just to stop, take a leisurely look around, and just observe the way things are. I don't think I would be here if I had not taken this route, either--it has propelled me in a way that the mushroom culture never would have done. I could even consider that I might need both approaches, each at different times. It may be that there is less contradiction than complementarity between them. But I can't say for sure that that's the case.

One other thing: I don't think one's "stuff" can ever be divorced from this practice, because insight brings one face to face with it. Insight takes us to places far beyond what talking therapy can do, but our lifetime conditioning is going to be waiting for us when we get there. It is this body, this mind, in this life that I have to work with in practice.

Thanks, Bill. I was reluctant to post about it because I don't want to seem whiny and ungrateful. I posted 484 before reading what you wrote; as you can see, I'm already beginning to settle down.

A few years ago I became fascinated with a rather cheesy t.v. show on USA network called "Burn Notice," about a spy who'd been "burned" by his superiors, dumped in a town (in his case, Miami) with no identity, no job, no life, and left there to cobble together whatever sort of life he could. Soon after I started avidly following "In Plain Sight" on the same network about people who went through the Witness Protection Program, forced to give up their lives and identities and start fresh in a completely different place. I knew at the time that I loved these shows because I was burned out with my life, with my very self, and wanted to just walk away from all of it. I began this practice in the mood of a terrible sickness with myself, the sheer petty stupidity of my age-old neurotic patterns repeating endlessly, like an eternal Groundhog's Day.

I got a taste of what I asked for, a chance to spend eight days without much of any self at all, and I realized something: I wanted my life back. I want to love the people I love and do the work I do; I don't want to run away from any of it. Whatever was eating me so much that I hated the very sight of myself, whatever ways I thought I'd failed, however I thought I'd let myself down, none of that is even remotely important compared to how precious this life is, every single infinitesimal unrepeatable moment of it. However stupid and ignorant I've been, all is forgiven.

So there it is.

Beautiful. Sounds like wisdom to me.

"however I thought I'd let myself down, none of that is even remotely important compared to how precious this life is, every single infinitesimal unrepeatable moment of it. However stupid and ignorant I've been, all is forgiven"

Laurel, that forgivenness and embrace of life you express is not something i've heard before from you. it's wonderful to be able to embrace life like that. i think that's an important aspect of wholesome practice. and i find that people discover that ability to embrace, forgive, etc exactly because they realize they are not that illusion of a little frightened person locked inside their head, but part of the infinite universe. that, imo, is the loss of the false sense of being a separate ego-centered self. not a nihilistic destruction of identity, but the releasing of the fortress we build around our hearts. we think if we let go, we will be terribly harmed. instead this forgiveness, compassion and patience arises. love even. best wishes to you.

Echo that! This sounds like a very different LaurelJC. Welcome to "what's really going on."

Congrats again!

Laurel, how are you adjusting?

I had a big, fat, persistent fear papancha going on, which I'm now regarding as a phenomenon to be observed rather than a belief to be swallowed hook, line, and sinker. So yes, I'm adjusting. I've realized that freedom comes with simple awareness, not with worrying or trying to control the situation. I've gotten a sense of self back, but with that I can see all my old patterns and there they just plain are. I stopped meditating for awhile and that experiment was interesting and now I'm starting up again. We'll see how things unfold as time goes on. Thanks for asking!

Very glad to hear! Thanks for checking back in.