an introduction

I have had a strange trip. Instead of being young and innocent, I had strange experiences that nobody else seemed to have, or talk about. For instance, in a rainstorm I once felt this direct, intense, vivid "aliveness" of ... everything ... it was enough to be frightening to some extent, but very beautiful, truly feeling the power, the reality, of the storm ... I'm afraid no description I give can do it justice. I was just a kid. I would call it an altered state, but it felt more like being directly in touch with reality, unfiltered.

These events happened on occasion, and while often rich and beautiful, they seemed to instill a deep anxiety, and I suffered. In my teen years, I had serious depressions, where all the world was gray and people were just deluded, living out their dream lives robotically in a world with no meaning. Needless to say, by my late teens I was looking seriously for answers. The beauty seemed over with, but the anxiety and depression escalated to hellish levels. I read everything, tried everything, looking for relief. I found meditation, but I couldn't even count three breaths without my wild mind running off in some fantasy. I found Koans, and since they gave my mind a target, I went into them over and over and over. I read Krishnamurti and tried everything he taught. A book by Alan Watts, "The Secret of Knowing Who You Are" or something like that, gave me my first realization that I was not so separate. Somewhere along the way, all of the inquiry and meditation gave me some slight relief. Oddly enough, with a little freedom, people in my life say that I actually became much worse. With my tiny bit of freedom I became an ass with no consideration or compassion. Slowly I did become even more free, to the point where I did not live in fear. I rested there, maybe too long. I had become too detached. For the sake of my relationships, I decided to leave my safe haven, and here I am.

I was warned it would happen, and of course I have lost my security. I was told the last part of the journey is the journey back to being human, and that it would be painful. It is painful, but at least this time it was my choice.

So if I over-post and try too hard, it is just because I am frightened again, and feel separate.

"I have had a strange trip. Instead of being young and innocent, I had strange experiences that nobody else seemed to have, or talk about. For instance, in a rainstorm I once felt this direct, intense, vivid "aliveness" of ... everything ... it was enough to be frightening to some extent, but very beautiful, truly feeling the power, the reality, of the storm ... I'm afraid no description I give can do it justice. I was just a kid. I would call it an altered state, but it felt more like being directly in touch with reality, unfiltered."

Prominent experiences like this do tend to make it hard for people to adapt to "normal" life in some way. Integration of this kind of stuff, at least when you're young or it remains at this level, can be hard.

On the other hand...pretty awesome, huh?

The experiences themselves were awesome, yes. They made ordinary life seem like a dull, rather ugly, dream state by comparison. Since nobody else talked about them, I assumed I was crazy. I stayed quiet about it and tried to be normal, but it didn't work.

"The experiences themselves were awesome, yes. They made ordinary life seem like a dull, rather ugly, dream state by comparison. Since nobody else talked about them, I assumed I was crazy. I stayed quiet about it and tried to be normal, but it didn't work."

I described similar things, and similar reactions, in my practice journal (some time back). You may be interested in reading it.

(No guarantee that my current views are the same as what's in the journal.)

Is it in the "new practice journal!" thread?

Yes, somewhere around post 98 (I talk about it in a number of places, maybe before that post, maybe after that post, maybe both).

"Those past experiences (EDIT: similar in type to yours) were so profound to me that at the time I would always reflect that there was something defective about human life and that it was a terrible thing to be condemned to have seen that state (so far outside of the bounds of anything I have experienced otherwise, so far outside the bounds of anything I could imagine being possible to experience) and yet still to toil away in the muck of regular life, knowing that there was something better."

YES! That is it. That is it exactly. It was beautiful, it was REAL, and uncontaminated by problems, beyond such things -- no, not beyond, just reality without the garbage, without the mind and its endless opinions ... the mind struck dumb by the majesty of What Is. I know it is here every second, just beyond my mundane sight. It is some form of grace, I think. Can you go there now?

I go there more often than I ever thought would be possible.

And yes, "there" isn't anywhere other than here...here, minus whatever things are occluding it.

One valid position is that the Path is systematically learning about, and letting go of, whatever habit-patterns and deeply held presuppositions obscure and obstruct the natural display of reality-as-it-is.

Some people are blessed/cursed with profound glimpses of Reality (or whatever you wanna call it) before they pick up a formal practice. I count myself in this camp for sure. It's a blessing because you're starting out with these clear glimpses of how it's possible to live, experience and act. It's a curse because the (perceived) gap between Reality as it appears in those glimpses and one's baseline manner of experiencing can be so extreme that everyday life (as filtered through those habits and presuppositions) can seem incredibly bereft of meaning, deeply unsatisfying. Another problem is even if one finds some regular access to a more natural state unsullied by dualistic fixation, if one omits the careful investigation of one's own dualistic patterns one can become quite a jerk and even blame others or the world for one's inability to be natural all the time.

The only thing to do in my experience is pick up a consistent practice, both formal (sitting) and in daily life, aimed at two things; 1) orienting one's being towards appreciating those qualities revealed in the glimpses of Reality (sometimes relaxing completely all dualistic fixations) and 2) carefully and honestly examining, directly in real time (i.e., generally not reflecting and definitely not ruminating on) all the mental-emotional patterns which obscure the clear seeing of Reality and obstruct the natural expression of the clear View in one's actions of body, speech and mind.

In that light... what do you think about practice? Do you have a practice you use consistently now?

--Jake

ETA: right, just saw your practice thread, John

I have only recently tried to restart a consistent practice (as detailed in my practice thread). My hope was that my difficulties progressing in an insight practice were because of poor concentration, so now I am working very hard to develop concentration. Also, because my anxiety and low mood is sometimes so debilitating, I am hopeful that the jhana states can be a refuge for me during the rough patches.

In the past I tried about everything, Zen koan work, lots of insight meditation, but most of it just out of books and unguided. Now I am hoping to get some guidance from this site. I could learn from anyone here, because I have not progressed far at all. All I want is something that works. I have no preconceived ideas, but I do know what hasn't worked in the past for me. I threw myself into Zen koans for years, and might have made a little progress, but with no teacher I don't really know. I read Krishnamurti for years, but that didn't help. I read a lot, and tried a lot of things out, but I wasn't consistent enough to say that I gave the practices a fair chance. Often I've been kind of desperate, and needed help fast. If it didn't come, I found some other escape. Now I am through with escapes.

Yeah, I'm getting the feel from the tone of your posts that you are shifting into a more committed mode and that's awesome. I hear you about being "through with escapes" (although it's probably wise to be aware that this tendency to escape will likely be with us far far along the path in one form or another). Good luck to you, I'm sure you'll get a lot of great feedback here.

Ha! You are right. Besides finding escapes when things don't work on my timeline, a possibly greater obstacle has been that when I do get results and feel a lot better -- then I think I'm free forever and I quit working! Ah well, I'll do my best.

I do look forward to getting some feedback. For now, I assume that my practice is OK. Either that or my practice thread is just too boring and needs to be punched up with some humor to draw interest.