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My mind is sick......
Bunks
Australia Veteran
I have finally realised something that I’ve only ever understood on an intellectual level.
My mind is sick…..I need a doctor.
Pretty much the only time the poisons of greed, anger and delusion aren’t purveying my mind are when I am in meditative absorption.
Is this the only time I can trust my thoughts?
I feel like I can’t trust my thoughts when these three poisons are present.
Does that mean I can only trust the Dharma?
1
Comments
Just let them be. But don't leap into thought worlds that drag you down. That's a meaning of mindfulness. You choose wholesome things to pursue. But if everything is poison just turn towards that feeling. Welcome poison. You have been here so often, poison. Easy for me to say; it is much harder in the experience of poison which I also have felt. But it is only the contents that are said to be poison. The nature of mind is neither pure nor impure. It is no problem. That is why some people wonder about Buddha nature to have confidence that there is something other than poison that exists in this world.
Hi Bunks!
I don't think you need a doctor, you've just realised the sickness and your doing a course of medicine through the dhamma.
Your in the same boat as most of us! Try not trust or distrust your thoughts, just try be mindful and you will grow!
The problem is one of our own device. Be as a stream and go with the flow! Don't fight it
Your less sick then a lot of people
I've thought the same many times. Then I realized I was judging myself again. What was and is important for me was the awareness of my thoughts. That that awareness was bigger than the thoughts. Capable of watching them , letting them be. My judging them , thinking to myself they shouldn't be or they are bad just fed/feeds them. More thinking...less presence . Ruminations and worrying results. I'm reminded of the Anthony De Mello quote
"That which I renounce I'm tied to"
Be kind to yourself.
We are whole and complete , perfectly imperfect...
Bring mindfulness to them best you can.That is what works for me at least.
Kia Ora @Bunks,
Some see the Buddha as a great physician or psychotherapist , and his teachings the medicine/therapy.
The four noble truths in particular are related to a medical diagnosis, as follows:
The diagnosis (The truth of dukkha: identifying the illness and the nature of the illness)
The etiology (The truth of origin: identifying the causes of the illness
The prognosis (The truth of cessation: identifying a cure for the illness)
The prescription(The truth of the path: recommending a treatment for the illness that can bring about a cure)
Metta Shoshin:)
Bravo. As people mention we are all in various conditions of dukkha. What's the plan? Good thing we have 'Buddha Medical Insurance'.
@Bunks
A mind is capable of telling you anything. Another way to consider it is......
A meditation practice helps illuminate that no matter how strongly the mind claims itself to be the whole show, it is actually just an actor on stage trying to upstage the performances of other actors offering sight , sound , smell , taste & sensation.
Here is the kicker...**You **are the audience in this scenario. There is no call to trust any of them to do anything more than put on a show and if one of them starts overshadowing the other actors on stage, simply paying more attention to whoever is being obscured will soon return the play to balance again.
You are not sick, @Bunks. Or rather, we all are.
You're simply aware of the presence of these negative thoughts in your mind.
Which is a good thing, because it means you're one step away from the solution.
It is when we are too full of our practice that we have a real problem, rather than to humbly recognize that- well, it's back to square one now and then.
The main thing is, don't buy into the negativity. Don't let these thoughts take over and become a weapon to berate yourself. Remember that your mind's main function is to produce thoughts. Don't get attached to them. Watch them for what they are. If there's an important issue that deserves further attention, work on it, and then drop it.
Treat yourself with compassion and patience. Remember some days are better than others and the work never ends. Tomorrow you might feel completely different.
Joseph Goldstein said wisdom is not something you can ever attain. You have to work every single day on it.
Yeah.
My personal experience of this has been a pervasive 'misery' infiltrating ... um, everything. I still remember the days a few years ago when I finally decided to start drinking again (five or six years no booze); my life was great. Everything was going well. Good job, wonderful family, decent health, a rather fabulous recovery from an abusive marriage in which I lost about everything you can lose in terms of 'things'. I had it all 'back', kind of like Job in the Old Testament.
I told myself the misery is just there, it's a part of being alive apparently. I need a break from it. Can't say now I was being all that open minded . . . but I was not depressed at all. This was a very reluctant conclusion I came to. It really was the same ole same ole, this existence of ours. Then, the dirt nap, which you got put down to take like a little kid who still wants to play.
Now I realize I was rather dispassionately seeing samsara but had no faith there was anything but samsara. The faith kindled in me now was not available then, for whatever reason.
So when I'd quit drinking for about a year, and being sober was normal instead of a relief, there was samsara, again, knocking at the door. There was NO THING I was aware of that I could fool myself into putting between 'me' and samsara, the endless rolling and rolling on. It was a pretty ugly couple of months. Sort of like being flayed alive, feeling and thinking everything and knowing it was all a bunch of bullshit in the final analysis. That's what samsara looks like when the alternative has yet to be 'seen', at least it was for me. No hope.
I would be lying if I said I am totally cozy with the fact of samsara versus the alternative -- being Awake. It's easy to intellectualize this, conceptualize this, but not so easy for me to BE this, if you know what I mean.
So, this is how the sickness rolled out for me
It is a series of 'holy shit!' kind of awakenings. I don't experience quite enough of the alternative to samsara to not still love on it, but enough to know samsara is not all there is.
You can trust your thoughts and feelings quite a lot, as long as you remember they are as samsaric as what inspires them. We live here, after all. Just don't believe them as having any more 'truth' in them than they appear to have, they are tools to negotiate this existence and hopefully orient and reorient us toward wakefulness.
@Banks. I admire your courage and your guts. How rare the man who sees his own faults.
Albert Ellis psychotherapist;
" The Buddha realised more than 2000 years ago that people are born friggin' mad "
We are all born with the sickness of delusion, Buddhadharma is the only method for thoroughly eliminating it and the suffering that arises from it.
Meditative absorption will temporarily abate gross delusions and make the mind calm and peaceful but subtle and very subtle delusions and their imprints remain so we need a method to thoroughly remove these from the mind for this reason Buddha taught the Prajnaparamita Sutra's which focus on the nature of ones mind and the nature of reality.
In order for delusions to cease permanently they need to be fully uprooted with the wisdom meditation on the emptiness of all phenomena, Principally that of our own Body, Self and others.
Vajrayana HYT is very swift at cutting at very subtle delusions and achieves very quick results !
That's alright. All humans have certain sicknesses. Judging yourself for having them only makes that sickness worse.
It is the human condition that we all suffer, that we all judge ourselves and others, and that we've got this big, clumsy ego stomping around like a bull in a china shop. Be kind to yourself about that.
The first step to getting well is remembering that you're only human. Mindful, loving attention to all manifesting aspects of your being is a very effective remedy
Sit with it. The 'cure' isn't coming from outside... The greatest strength is the greatest strength, and it has no mass, matter nor intent! Your mind is as sick as it desires - I desire not to feed it; I fed my sick mind for a very long time, but when it did not fail me, I realised it wasn't that sick, so decided to carry on until it really became sick, and up until now - it may appear sick, but is flourishing, bless it...
'I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant'. quote from somewhere oft quoted and misquoted, and I don't care who quoted it anyway!!
@Bunks this is MHO but Vajrayana is a psychedelic mind therapy without the drugs but can come with all the delusions btw; sorry @caz, but it may work for you but may not work for him or her, I've tried tantric stuff, but are you so dependent on a teacher that the teacher has to provide you with such stuff for you to continue. We need to debunk @Bunks...
I am currently challenging vajrayana practice as a practice because I believe it yields no results other than distraction, but unless you realise the distraction you cannot gain results, so I suppose it works - paradoxical training leads to Koans and is Zen.
I welcome your practiced responses ... \ lol / ...
@anataman could you flesh out some more why you think vajrayana has psychedelic components? It surely has an influence of yoga in my understanding. But psychedelics don't teach you anything. The next day all of your insights go up in a puff of smoke. Whereas Dzogchen is about getting glimpses of the nature of mind and then extending those glimpses over and over again.
Could you say a little on what you understand dzogchen to be? And mind you there is a lot more tantra than just dzogchen. Dzogchen and mahamudra are just the most refined and powerful views and they are called the highest.
Suffering arises from Delusions and Delusions arise from Self grasping ignorance, Self Grasping ignorance arises from Ordinary appearance and conception. Therefore these very subtle delusions need to be eliminated as quickly as possible.
Sutra does not present a method to do this quickly only Vajrayana HYT does through Generation stage practice which reduces and eliminates ordinary appearance and conception and then completion stage practice which will allow you to access the most subtle recess of the mind of clear light which can be used to meditate on emptiness to scrub away all those nasty very subtle delusions.
There is really nothing Psychedelic about it, It is a very profound method and works very well.
A good commentary to how Sutra and Tantra are to be practised as inseparably one can be found in the Free Book "Modern Buddhism"
http://emodernbuddhism.com/
I do not wish to comment on any particular tantric practice, but my point is simply this:
When you put your mind in something esoteric - it is likely that a trick is or will be played on you, by your self or the person introducing the tantric practice to you.
It's like believing a psychedelic drug will enlighten you - just put your faith in a few micrograms of something thats not really there, and your mind lets rip - boom, I'm God!, well good luck with that one, because there is always a big downer when a human thinks he or she is God; the sudden loss of omnipotence can be a disappointment .
Now I am not saying that I am a master of this - far from it - However, I am a master of unveiling and unravelling the world for what it really is from my perspective - but my experience is that some practices, and dare I say it practitioners, (and please don't feel I am attacking your practice - especially you @jeffrey), be it by skilful design or fault, can lead you to, or become a, distraction from what is the goal and sometimes lead you into reductio ad absurdem, that becomes a significant source of dissatisfaction
I find myself in absurd situations all the time, but realise the falsity and absurdity of them - sometimes a little bit late; ok sometimes very late. :0) but I'm just a fool seeking to become wise!
Love Jon Kabot-Zinn. Insightful, easily understood, and dead on for me. He addresses being with difficult aspects of ourselves in a way I find easily digestible. Passages like this one has helped me with anger when it arises.
" Meditation practice is hardly romantic. The ways in which we need to grow are usually those we are the most supremely defended against and are least willing to admit even exist, let alone take an undefended, mindful peek at and then act on to change. It won't be sustaining enough to have a quixotic idea of yourself as a meditator, or to hold the opinion that meditation is good for you because it has been good for others, or because Eastern wisdom sounds deep to you, or because you are in the habit of meditating. The vision we are speaking of has to be renewed every day, has to be right out front all the time, because mindfulness itself requires this level of awareness of purpose, of intention. Otherwise, we might as well stay in bed.
The practice itself has to become the daily embodiment of your vision and contain what you value most deeply. It doesn't mean trying to change or be different from how you are, calm when you're not feeling calm, or kind when you really feel angry. Rather, it is bearing in mind what is most important to you so that it is not lost or betrayed in the heatand reactivity of a particular moment. If mindfulness is deeply important to you, then every moment is
an opportunity to practice.
For example, suppose angry feelings come up at some point in your day. If you find yourself feeling angry and expressing it, you will also find yourself monitoring that expression and its effects moment by moment. You may be in touch with its validity as a feeling state, with the antecedent causes of your strong feeling, and the way it is coming out in your body gestures and stances, in your tone of voice, in your choice of words and arguments, as well as the impression it is making on others. There is much to
be said for the conscious expression of anger, and it is well known medically and psychologically that suppressing anger in the sense of internalizing it is unhealthy, particularly if it becomes habitual. But it is also unhealthy to vent anger uncontrollably as a matter of habit and reaction, however "justifiable." You can feel it cloud the mind. It breeds feelings of aggression and violence—even if the anger is in the service of righting a wrong or getting something important to happen—and thus intrinsically warps what is, whether you are in the right or not. You can feel this even when you can't stop yourself sometimes. Mindfulness can put you in touch with the toxicity of the anger to yourself and to others. I always come away from it feeling that there is something inadequate about anger, even when I am objectively on high ground. Its innate toxicity taints all it touches. If its energy can be transmuted to forcefulness and
wisdom, without the smoke and fire of self-absorption or self-righteousness, then its power multiplies, and so does its capacity to transform both the object of the anger and the source.
So, if you practice purposefully expanding the context of the anger (yours or someone else's) right in those very moments that it is arising and peaking, knowing that there must be something larger and more fundamental that you are forgetting in the heat of the emotion, then you can touch an awareness inside yourself which is not attached to or invested in the anger-fire. Awareness sees the anger; it knows the depth of the anger; and it is larger than the anger. It can therefore hold the anger the way a pot contains food. The pot of awareness helps us cradle the anger and see that it may be producing more harmful effects than beneficial ones, even if that is not our aim. In this way, it helps us cook the anger, digest the anger, so that we can use it effectively, and, in changing from an automatic reacting to a conscious responding, perhaps move beyond it altogether. This and other options stem from a careful listening to the dictates of the whole situation.
Our vision has to do with our values, and with our personal blueprint for what is most important in life. It has to do with first principles. If you believe in love, do you manifest it or just talk a lot? If you believe in compassion, in non-harming, in kindness, in wisdom, in generosity, in calmness, in solitude, in non-doing, in being even-handed and clear, do you manifest these qualities in your daily life? This is the level of intentionality which is required to keep your meditation practice vital, so that it doesn't
succumb to becoming purely a mechanical exercise, driven only by the forces of habit or belief."
Jon Kabot-Zinn
@anataman
The knowledge of something (whether real or assumed) is not sufficient of itself to give voice to it. From the stillness/spaciousness or equanimity of a meditation practice I'd first ask if the voicing of it....
is ceasing from harm?
is doing only good?
is purifying the mind/heart?
is the right time to speak of it?
is compassionate, loving or wise?
If not, the results will simply bring about unskillful results.
My offerings to you is the garbage can where half my posting go unseen.
@anataman, thanks for pointing out that you are not attacking my practice:
That's not a good analogy, the psychedelic drug. It's guilt by association. I will associate X practice with drugs to invalidate it.
For example I could say meditation was like psychedelic drugs
I could say mindfulness is like psychedelic drugs.
I could say that honesty is like psychedelic drugs.
So do you see that it is guilt by association?
@anataman Can I ask who is or was your Tsawai and what scrub thabs she/he prescribed for you ?
Oh dear my mind is so sick! lol. But some really great comments.
So @jeffrey, there is no guilt by association on my part - don't you see you are required to feel guilty when you associate yourself with the thing you are associating with in a way that you don't find acceptable; if that is a certain drug, psychedelic or otherwise. then so be it, but do you think I care what you associate yourself with? No so then it's not my guilt you are associating yourself with. In answer to your statements: they are your own judgements not mine; reconcile them with your judgements.
@Citta, I cannot name my Tsawai, it is bad form to do so; your question though is very welcome, and I trust your Tsawai keeps you well. A path of no path cannot be prescribed or proscribed in the manner you have stated it. Suffice it to say that my wife is my light and environment, and my children, are merely perfected reflections of the greatest treasure that is the Mind that abides in the aspect of itself that needs no prescription, and it really has no need to be prescribed, other than as it is. However, I am given the right to prescribe myself this: and that is to laugh and continue to laugh and laugh out loud, and everything echoes with my own laughter and the happiness, madness and sadness of it all. The greatest of perfections allows for all the little unnoticed imperfections.
@how I get what you are saying - but who is saying that they are voicing anything, but laughter! I get the Zen 'shut up and don't speak of it, but I also get the paradox of the Koan. My personal Koan, I cannot speak of, but suffice it to say, it was not: 'you must know and understand something yet never impart that knowledge to another in a way that is still and silent' oh no! I make waves and I see the ripples and hey they are washing against your shore, and everyone else's, and I see all your little ripples too, no matter how much you try to hide your wake...
A simple question: should the ignorant mind always remain ignorant, and be bound by its ignorance? I suppose that is just a ridiculous and paradoxical philosophical conundrum, however, I know the answer to this conundrum - it's called the middle way; avoidance of extremes. However, otherwise, what? It will wake up to what it really is. Is that really that bad, or is the awakening, which is the end of ignorance, just an unveiling of the greater ignorance?
Anyway, I'm just prevaricating here, thinking ignorant thoughts, in a world out of my control, in which I am so insignificant I mean nothing to anyone. But I still think I can probe it a little bit, just to see if it remains on its toes, and see if its really alive! And I like being probed back - you lot of weird aliens, all of you, yes all of you, but I wouldn't change any one of you!
Metta
@anataman I meant that you were criticizing esoteric practices while comparing them to a drug.
In fact esoteric practices are not related to psychedelics such as LSD, I accused you of impeaching esoteric practices on the basis of them being like psychedelic drugs. I accused you of associating esoteric practices with psychedelic drugs. That is what you did and that is why I say it is guilt by association. There is no guilty person. Neither you or me is guilty. The guilty party is the teachings and not the people. You associated esoteric teachings with psychedelic drugs. That is putting the practice next to LSD etc and making guilt by association.
Yes I suppose I am criticising esoteric practices @jeffrey, but only with your help, not least because they are only available to those who have access to a particular lifestyle or certain connections; so what really is the difference? DId I really make an association between drugs and Dzogchen? Oh well I'll have to be a bit more careful when choosing my words next time...
The 4NTs are available to all, but initiated Dzogchen students are made to feel special - thats for the inner circle and their friends and initiates… Hey some of you are really going to take this personally aren't you? Don't (Please!) I am nothing and there's no use persecuting me, because, well I'm nothing!
I've just done a self-evaluation questionnaire of where I am in the bhavarachakra, and I'm stuck right in the middle again. … \ lol / ...
Well, laughing even at self is good-- except I'm not supposed to say self. So laugh at nothing then I guess.
Laughing at self seems just fine to me. Self may be a construct of the mind but it still is. I shall laugh at my self finger pointing at the moon! lol! Bob
I'm far from offended, @anataman. I just don't believe you have much knowledge of Dzogchen. Is that not the case? Why do you think Dzogchen practitioners feel a special (relative to other schools) sense of being special?
I wouldn't worry too much @Jeffrey.
@anataman it is absolutely NOT bad form to name one's Tsawai...its normative, and universal. lol.
Can I get treatment under the National 'Elf Service?
Only if you have complied with Elf and Safety regulations.
I think also you have to be "under the doctor"
Ooooh Matron...
I heard that in his voice......
Ooooh Signora..
Now that's just wrong....
(It should be 'Caposala'....'Head of Ward'....)
Don't be too hard on yourself.
It is entirely NORMAL to experience greed, anger and delusion.
Just do what you can - and let the rest go.