One of those days..oooh feeling negative

FullCircle

DId you ever have one of those days where none of this matters? It's a negative mindset day, but really NONE of this matters. No matter the neat insights, no matter how big the realization-and I've had cool stuff happen so what- no matter what- We are gonna wind up Right Back HERE.
There is NO WHERE to get to. There is nothing special. This life right now is IT. We deal with what we gotta deal with. Suffering is never gonna disappear. How could it when we have to deal with this body?
I really want someone to tell me what changes after a full realization (meaning you reach Stage 4 Theravadin or final stage whatever tradition)-- so WHAT that you see that you are everything or nothing or oneness or theres no you theres just being?
You still wind up Right Back Here. All paths lead to HERE.
sigh. Sorry to vent. This is the kind of day I'm having. Do you think many people experience a let down? lol I must sound crazy- supposedly a final realization is the greatest bliss ever or whatever- but still.... one winds up RIght Back HERE. And if your mind is of the nature to be negative, then won't it just still be that way? Maybe you see it clearly and don't believe it-
but will the thoughts still arise?
anyway, sorry I'm cranky;)

fivebells

One winds up right back here, but with a new set of skills and insights into the nature of suffering.

Sile

Oh man I SO am with you on the negative days, @FullCircle. They are NASTY.

My experience is this: the thoughts will still arise, but you they won't send you tanking as easily--and sometimes not at all. And without question, changing ones perspective has a tendency to sort of adjust the mental labeling machine...arising thoughts, though they may be exactly the same as the ones previously labeled "crap," are labeled, "ahh, no big deal."

It helps me, too, to think that I've had these grody-type days before, and they do go away, i.e., grody days are just part of life but they aren't usually the rule.

Hot baths, good books, blast of sunshine, those are a few of my tricks. Those days are hard.

Edit: Forgot to mention another thing that really helps (me at least): thinking, "I am taking this suffering for others." I always think that maybe I'm taking a little suffering off of factory farmed animals, sick and destitute people, etc. If nothing else, one can dedicate ones experience toward others, use it as a reason to have thought of them and prayed for them. For some reason that really does help, in my experience. I also often think, "At least there are not bombs falling on my head" (was raised on WWII lore).

how

@FullCircle
Just three roundabout thoughts on your posted question.

The spiritual heights ahead of us are always predicated on the mindfulness of where our feet are presently being placed. IMHO..the focus on an imagined spiritual travel destination, just distracts ones present view on where best to place the next step.

Our present mindsets, when overtly negative or positive, are just the obscuration of the truth of a wider heart/mind. One description of a meditation practise is just not identifying or feeding the attachment to any mindset, whether it seems inherent or manufactured.

Mindsets become more easily recognized as transitory when meditatively freed from our own mental tinkerings.

lobster

I find a little tinkering effective.
One day I woke up in the gunk. Tried to find the cause. Could not. Was in mode gunk.
So I examined its nature. What was the essence of the feeling? It was empty. The same emptiness in joy.
So I recalled and labelled it joy and acted as if in the emptiness of joy . . .
Soon enough the emptiness had a form that was joy again
. . . eventually I found the cause of gunk . . . but that is another story . . .

Also you can try hitting yourself over the head with a large tray. It won't improve things but you will feel a lot better when you stop . . .