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Meditation, recalling lots of painful past moment.
Rhodian
Loser Veteran
Lately I have been stirred by my past, seeing things I have forgotten or well memorizing.
My question is however in Bhante G's book he says if you feel restless keep sitting and let it all pass trough the arena and they will dissapear after a while and never come back. Though they just bubble up in my mind they do not make they're parade trough my arena and dissapear.
Are there any tips? I am not complaining but I want to know wether I should do something when I feel these things comming up or should I just stay sitting going back to my breath?
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I've seen the Bhante G's book mentioned but I don't have it. I just wanted to say that I know exactly how you feel.....it lately feels like it will never end, perhaps more because of the deep-buried emotions related to those memories, so I guess it's bound to take a while and not just play through in a snap.
I have no tips other than just keep doing the meditation in a normal routine -- maybe add one short one day and one short one night.
@Silver because of my thyroid issues I am now meditating either in on the edge of morning/afternoon or at the evening before bed. It isin't working out perfectly but trying my best. I do thank you for your message, and to bad you feel the same. Though we'll make a breaktrough for sure someday....
I must add though in the car I even was thinking of some of the horrible things I had done and forgotten and comming to terms with them maybe. But that will take time.
I would let them bubble and not necessarily will they go away for good. They might bubble up and then stop. then bubble again some time.
my tip would be to take confidence that whatever is happening still it is true that you are waking up. however the meditation goes that is what is happening in the awake mind. it doesn't have to do anything or get rid of anything. When you get totally lost in thought just return to the breath and think of it as just a natural process. getting lost in thoughts is not a failure it is just a natural process of the mind.
I don't know if this will give you heart or not:
Once upon a time, during a sesshin or Zen retreat, a humongous leg pain overcame me. Awful! Horrific!
In a room full of rock-still Zen students, I too was still, but in my mind I was screaming. Really, screaming! "I can't do this!!!! I'm getting the fuck out of here!!!! This is too much!!!! I can't, I can't, I can't ..."
... until, during the last 10 seconds of the sitting period, I recognized that at the same time I was screaming I couldn't do it, I was IN FACT doing what I screamed I could not do. It was quite an eye-opener. Not that I somehow escaped the pain, but I simply recognized the facts I had overlooked in my yowling sincerity.
Keep on keepin' on.
The mind can be a can't or a can-can.
G e n t l y return to the breath. The bubbles are as much metta convoluted as they are perverse attachment to Dukkha. The Middle Way is to accept or acknowledge the minds arisings but not to indulge its reality as a screaming/good/bad/painful/joyous experience etc.
These experiences can not happen to 'I' because no independent 'I' exists.
http://buddhism.about.com/od/basicbuddhistteachings/a/genesis.htm
Want to get through the first gate? Realise emptiness of I? Try here:
http://liberationunleashed.com
They are not permanent, even memory itself isn't a direct recalling of an event. It's a hazy personal interpretation of what happend. You give power to memory, likewise you can take the power away.
I do my best to treat all thoughts as equal. After all they are all just thoughts. Try and not attach to the thought. If a painful thought arises try remain as awareness and great distanced between you and the thought.
That helps me take the sting out of it.
If you grab at a thought that's when the pattern starts. If you just let it come... It will go.
Apparently if you detach for long enough these all disappear permanently. It makes sense.
Stay strong friend!
Sit there and let them bubble up, fizz out, and pass away.
Pretend like these uncomfortable thoughts are like cars going by on a freeway, and you are sitting in a patch of meadow beneath the overpass. Zoom, zoom. ZOOOOM, goes the traffic over your head. That was a Jetta. That was a Ford. Another Ford. Hey, a Jaguar! Oh look, a Yugo . . .
Don't get in the cars when they whiz past. "Getting in the car" is my version of saying I got carried away by a troublesome thought. It happens all the time. But I'm getting better at parsing out me 'leaving the meadow' and jumping into the cars. What is happening between the appearance of the thought and me getting sucked into the thought? At first, it was instantaneous, bam, I was in the car. Then I could sometimes see the car and chase it for a few steps before realizing I've lost my mindful observation.
Sometimes I'm like "OK, go away now. GO. AWAY. NOW. My body gets tense and I'll open my eyes and get VERY interested in a mark on my wall. I can 'feel' the car go by though these thoughts tend to feel like TRAINS, with endless freight cars, going by. But they do. All trains must end.
This stuff takes practice. Daily. It is not just something to do in meditation, the point is to be capable of not getting in the car while up and about your life. Meditation enables you to have space to pay attention to how thoughts arise and pass away, but the point is being able to do this while chatting with a friend, eating dinner, going to the bathroom, arguing with your sister, asking your parents for money, etc.
The hope is this 'mindful' relationship with your thoughts becomes more of your common state of mind than the monkey mind. Retreats establish a fantastic 'space' to practice this without as much interruption. Squeeze out that monkey mind!
Even five or ten minutes of getting in every OTHER car is huge progress from the 'typical' human mind. Heck, doing it ONCE is worth a celebration, because you ALWAYS do this part on your own. No one can set you up or directly 'help' you to experience the difference between getting in the car or staying in the meadow.
Don't be scared or depressed by the ugly stuff that comes up during meditation, @Rhodian.
It's a natural part of getting acquainted with the inner workings of your mind.
I think it is positive that all that nasty baggage that you have been carrying in your unconscious finally comes centerstage for you to be able to look at face to face.
Now it is there for you to see, you can work on it and hopefully move past it.
Don't buy into anything your mind thows up. They're just thoughts.
You attach labels and feelings to them.
Yes, you can just observe the continual rise and fall of thoughts, feelings, memories. It's analogous to standing in the sea and allowing the waves to pass - if you have a stable posture it's not a problem.
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I like. When you're reasonably calm, @Rhodian, which has been created in you because of your study of Buddha and Buddhism, you're in much better situation to examine these memories a whole lot closer, with much clarity and even if they DON'T disappear altogether, their emotional/mental impact will recede. It's a good thing.
(*)
Practice being mindful of the bad feeling and memories. Thich Naht Hanh says that when we experience a bad feeling or thought to just say "anger, pain (whatever it is) has arisen in me" - then bring a gentle awareness to it, do not become frantic and twisted up feeling you MUST get rid of it, if you just be with it - you will gain wisdom into it, you will realise it is fleeting and powerless
Yes, that's an important point, viewing difficult thoughts and feelings with kindness and acceptance, almost like old friends. Then they can be better understood and put into some kind of perspective, allowing them to pass. The normal tendency is often to just push them away, but of course that doesn't work because they keep coming back. Technically it's applying skilful means to Right Effort.