Some Questions About Chronic Night Yogis

I'm trying to determine for myself whether there's a good probability that my weird meditation experience of a while back might've been the A&P - if so I should be stuck in the dark night. Except that if I am, it's not really a big problem for me. So I guess I have two questions.

One: if one is stuck in the dark night do they cycle through all the dukkha nanas or only as far as their leading edge?

Two: we hear a lot from people with really nasty dark nights, but is it fairly common that one can be stuck there and not even really have good indicators of this? Is there such a thing as really mild dark night? Or is it worse when one is actively practising?

(1) You will rise up to your cutting edge, but with consistent, regular practice, the cutting edge will go higher.

(2) The severity of the dark night can be pretty mild, and if you don't even know the dark night exists, you may not get out of it everything you would expect to get out of it if you did know it. For instance, my own dark night was pretty mild in terms of the actual impact on my meditation, but I was terrified of it from what I had read, so I made a mountain out of a molehill. Dark night seems just as often to be annoying or irritating as painful or really distressful.

Having just read your meditation log, it sounds like you've just crossed the A&P and are into the 5th and 6th ñanas. I'm interpreting the shaking and fine vibrations as the A&P. The awareness of thought and feeling and their interactions prior to that is the 1st and 2nd ñanas. The fact that the vibrations and shaking seemed to be calming down tells me you're probably entering 5th ñana (this has a cool, spaced-out feeling). The fact that shaking wasn't strong on your last sit tells me the "center of gravity" of your sits is moving off the A&P and into the dark night.

This is all great news. Dark night can be a little difficult, but don't psych yourself out for it. If you do, turn the psyching out into the object to meditation and vipassana-ize it. Whatever shows up, that's the level you're at, that's the level you have to disembed from.

Good job!

I agree it's best not to plan ahead and worry about what coulda woulda shoulda happen(ed) in your practice. What's going on right now is the stuff to apply your practice to. If it happens to include worrying or anticipating or regretting, chuck that in the blender, too. Everyone's experiences vary widely. And the exciting/fun/pleasant stuff will alternate with the boring/sleepy/dull stuff and the agitating/irritating/uncomfortable stuff over and over and over. So the greatest thing you can do is learn to apply your practice method to *everything* so you get the most insight benefit out of the process as it trundles along.

@apperception - Thanks for the answers! I have to admit that the idea of the dark night does bring along some trepidation, but I'm also willing to work through it all to get there - I'd just be pleasantly surprised if it doesn't necessarily have to cause major problems (like I said, I've been known to have a panic attack or two so going through that repeatedly in the long-term doesn't impress). I'm explaining to the wifey what's going on in my meditation and what *could* happen (I've gotta get her to read some of these descriptions of the dark night).

@giragirasol - that sounds like good advice and I'll do my best to keep it in mind, even if stuff gets bad!

" I'm explaining to the wifey what's going on in my meditation and what *could* happen (I've gotta get her to read some of these descriptions of the dark night).
"

"What could happen" is probably about zero useful both to you and wifey. Nothing better than telling your partner "hey, who knows, in the next few weeks I could have some really weird interior personal mystical experiences that freak me out, just so you can start worrying now, in case I turn into a raving lunatic..." ??? That will be reassuring and helpful!!!! The only thing to fear is fear itself, and fear is just a bunch of sensations and thoughts arising and passing away. Planning ahead for worst case scenarios just sets you up to meet your own expectations.

I wasn't thinking of saying anything quite so dramatic as that (maybe something more along the lines of "this might put me under the weather a bit"), but point taken.

Don't let her read any of my stuff. I was kind of nuts before I even started. hehe

Tell as few people as possible about the dark night or the path - at least until you've achieved stream-entry. That was the tack I took, and it had two results:

(1) The entire time I was going through dark night, I treated people around me better than I normally do. I was better behaved. This is because I assumed anything that came up was a result of dark night, I didn't externalize it, and it just became more grist for the vipassana mill.

(2) I got through dark night faster than most people seem to, because I wasn't wasting any energy externalizing that stuff. I was just seeing it as more sensations to disembed from.

Keep to an iron-clad No Bleedthrough policy. There's a sample dark night no-bleedthrough declaration in MCTB. I suggest writing your own and keeping to it like the law. That's what I did, and I found it made DN not so bad.

I had notably freakish dark nights, but almost never any bleed-through. I could have a totally lovely day, sit down on the cushion, and Bammo: Weird Icky Stuff. Timer goes off: Done, get up and go back to my lovely day. Whether this was out of some determination on my part to not spew my inner stuff onto other people, or just good luck, I don't know. I never told anyone except my teacher(s) either.

@Laurel: OK, I won't! As a fellow shaker, I have to say that I've seen a lot of familiar reading your logs!

@apperception and giragirasol: OK, I will keep this all to myself, assume whatever I'm feeling is due to the DN, and keep trucking until stream entry. I appreciate the advice guys, thanks.

"
Two: we hear a lot from people with really nasty dark nights, but is it fairly common that one can be stuck there and not even really have good indicators of this? Is there such a thing as really mild dark night? Or is it worse when one is actively practising?"

Actually I just posted a bit on the DN here, post #21:
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/4261391/-

I had a horrible DN before I ever meditated, re-observation, which left me shattered really badly. Worst experience in my life (read it here
dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussio...readView=combination )
DN intensity differs in degree IMHO.