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Is this going to go on forever?
ravkes
Veteran
Basically. I've started my "meditation" practice. I used to get "fear" and "anxiety" attacks quite often when faced with the absurdity of life. I slowly learned to be the watcher. Emotions are undefined and so are words. In fact I'm not really sure why I'm asking this question, or really who I am in the first place.. lol. But, whenever I'm faced with the possibility that "I" could be living this life over and over again.. "I" get scared. Even though the end of suffering is possible, whose to say that you won't be born to suffer over and over and over? Why? It "freaks" me out, OK well it doesn't "freak" me out. I'm just a very lazy person and I don't want to do work over and over and over again through hundreds of lives just to suffer. I suppose this is just more of the false ego talking to me and as I type this I'm not present and watchful, but regardless if I'm born again I'm going to be tricked into thinking that "I" actually exist in the next life. I'll probably have to go through illusory suffering over and over and work my butt off and think everything is so serious and heavy before I go through this whole process again. How does one deal with this possibility? I guess, it doesn't matter because you won't remember but the infinite possibilities of life "scare" me. Any tips on dealing with surges of "I" attacks as I like to call them. They come full force like stabs of energy and it's difficult being observant especially with friends who are completely involved within the illusion. How does one maintain constant awareness?
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also, you needn't worry too much about the 'i' you won't find it in the next life. even better you won't find it in the next moment, cuz it's always different depending on circumstances - never the same i in any moment.
i saw this quote in another thread:
"If there is a solution, there is no need to worry about it. If there is no solution, there is no point in worrying about it."
The solution to suffering is to follow the path. So there you go. Keep following the path and you have no reason to worry about eternal suffering.
Hi ravkes
I can empathise. The best way I know is to just keep up a firm meditation practice. Seated, daily as well as your usual practice. Over time and with experience, things settle down a bit. I know it seems hard and sometimes endless, but things can change. If it helps, attend a local Sangha, a face to face breathing teacher in person. It is OK, one breath at a time. Blessings.
Best wishes, and bows,
Abu
ravkes,
I SO understand what you're saying. Thinking about the endless round of births used to upset me terribly and trigger panic attacks. It was like a particularly cruel kind of existential claustrophobia. 'Help! I can't get out! There's no exit!'
It was horrible. My imagination would run away with me.
What has helped me so far is immediately reminding myself that these kinds of questions are imponderables that have no answers I can understand right now. At best they are distractions from my practice and at worse they can drive a person nuts. I'm the kind of person they can drive nuts. The Buddha warned us about this and advised us to leave these questions aside and get back to our practice. I take that advice to heart.
I also remind myself that while I'm thinking and worrying about the possibility of future lives I'm not present in the moment. So I drag my attention back to this moment right now. Doing this is good mindfulness exercise, as you can imagine.
I also remind myself that worries like these are proof that I still don't understand things properly so if I bring myself back to the present moment and to my practice I will one day understand these things better.
I wish you peace.
Palzang
Palzang
Palzang
YES. Existential claustrophobia is the best way to put it, the panic attacks were horrendous before I came across mindful action. Mindfulness is the way. Firstly, this existential claustrophobia is one of the ego's trump cards. I realized that nothing is good nor bad and the emotions that I feel I can't define. Even the thoughts in my head I don't know what they are. I don't know anything. So when they attack, I have no idea who it's attacking or whats attacking. Do you get what I mean? I understand the reason for Koans now, once you delude yourself into realizing that you know nothing even when one isn't mindful the emotion attacks and i attacks don't matter because your intellect is worn out and can't figure it out because the words your intellect uses to figure them out don't even have credence themselves lol, it's funny that because there are no absolutes peace can be attained, what an interesting difference from samsara.
Well, that changes things. I think I'll have another look at koan practice. My intellectual mind is just killing me. Lol! Thanks for opening my eyes, ravkes.
Palzang
Brigid, Please tell me, what did Karma Dondrup Tashi say?
This will help you greatly. Please watch both the basic principles of the teaching and the application.
Basic Principles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgtOL9kl7fc&feature=related
Application: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlIuOOFBe0c&feature=related
It doesn't matter what Karma Dondrup Tashi said because your mind just wants to conceptualize it. Watch the videos and practice mindfulness throughout your day.
I have PTSD, and have suffered panic attacks, anxiety and depression, severe TMJ, and nightmares for the last several years in working through some past trauma.
There are so many ways to work it through. What have you already tried that helps sometimes?
Keeping "dont-know" mind is essential. What I did was used intellectual reasoning at first to try to understand what was happening, when I found out that emotions are undefined and thoughts are just conditioned words defined by more conditioned words that have no absolute credence themselves the attacks subsided. In addition to the intellectual realization that I didn't have any intellect other than the ability to do schoolwork lol, mindfulness walking, sitting, eating.. is pretty cool too. Because you realize that your thoughts are a waste of time and emotions are undefined, you're almost forced into mindfulness to rest as awareness.
But I think the main point, especially with "panic" attacks and such phenomena arising through emotions is that emotions are undefined. So when the panic attack comes you don't know what it is, just like when you feel "happy" or "sad" or "angry".. they're all just desperation moves by your egoic consciousness to define. Unfortunately, these desperation moves called words surround us on a daily basis in the western world, but hey who cares it doesn't matter don't be attached to the words. Words are just words. If you question enough you'll realize that you know nothing, and from this know nothing peace will be attained.
Mtns.
not that i've experienced completely eliminated suffering, i just believe that it's possible from what i've read.
Thank you for the youtube links. I will explore them.
One problem is that I've fallen away from practice for various reasons and need to get myself into a regular practice again.
That's a good mantra for panic.
Now that I'm older I'm getting better at identifying the scary thoughts I think just before the panic strikes. My goal is to work through it in a neurological/physiological way by forcing the scary thoughts to go to the reasoning part of my brain (frontal cortex?) instead of going straight to the amygdala, the ancient fear center deep in the brain. I've been forming clear neural pathways to the amygdala through my conditioned responses to scary thoughts since I was a child so I have to abandon those pathways and forge new ones to the reasoning center of the brain. Eventually the panic response will become less automatic and the reasoning response will take over.
The reason why I like what Tashi said is because responding in that way is doing exactly what I just described. It's forcing the scary thought to go to the reasoning part of the brain instead of bypassing it and going straight to the fear center. When I feel the panic starting to nip at my heels I remind myself immediately that there is no actual danger occurring in reality. There is nothing to fear, no response to anything is required. If I can calm myself down enough I can then identify what scary thoughts triggered the panic and I can use reason to prove to myself that whatever I was thinking isn't actually a threat.
Doing this actually changes the neurological/physiological make up of the brain. I'm fairly certain an MRI machine could track the process by highlighting the parts of the brain being used.
What's bad and good? What's at worst? What even is anxiety? You don't know. Like Brigid said it helps to relay the anxiety to the reasoning area, because your reasoning area won't know what to do with it, because we all have "don't-know" mind meaning we don't know the intrinsic nature of any phenomena that arises so how can we judge these phenomena? Thus be mindful. It's the only sane way to live. When the anxiety arises observe it sanely (without judging it), then by itself it will subside (this is neither good nor bad that it does it just does) and eventually thoughts will subside and you will rest as awareness.
-- What's then left to do? Do you think before you breathe? No you just breathe. So breathe, abide by your impulse to eat and drink water. Abide by the natural peaceful state achieved through sane mindfulness; peace. Abide. Let it be. Your body knows what it's doing, you're just the observer.
The Buddha himself never ever taught rebirth and not-self (anatta) together.
Rebirth is a moral teaching that encourages goodness and helps people who fear death.
But if you are interested in penetrating the reality of anatta, then please drop the rebirth view.
Of rebirth view, the Buddha said:
Of not-self (anatta), the Buddha said:
upadhivepakkā = "burdens", attachment