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bipolarity
What i mean is that im extremly unsteable - sometime i'm person who just want to lie in bed and die, i tell myself that meditation and enlightement is nonsense, and life is hard and ugly, and i should get used to it. It's hard to start meditation from this point, and once i start to meditate - i'm progressing slowly. At this point i don't know what meditation is and how to meditate properly, i understand nothing.
It's easy to move forward when i'm close to enlightement - but if i stop moving forward, i start to move backwards very fast, and once i'm on very bottom, it's hard to start moving forward again (and even if i start i'm moving very slowly, unless i reach some certain point of self-awareness).
Is someone experiencing this kind of bipolarity?
And how to deal with this kind of state? I can just wait and my state will eventually change(into state that allows me to meditate easly), but this may take days, weeks or months.
It's easy to move forward when i'm close to enlightement - but if i stop moving forward, i start to move backwards very fast, and once i'm on very bottom, it's hard to start moving forward again (and even if i start i'm moving very slowly, unless i reach some certain point of self-awareness).
Is someone experiencing this kind of bipolarity?
And how to deal with this kind of state? I can just wait and my state will eventually change(into state that allows me to meditate easly), but this may take days, weeks or months.
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Comments
All i can say is...don't fight it too much. Your brain is going through cycles of moods and feelings, most people's brains do this anyway. It is simply more pronounced in you. You have higher highs and lower lows. The important thing is not to push the lows any lower, and not to stretch the highs higher. Just let yourself be.
If you wake up in the morning and you are depressed, can't focus on meditation, feel like total crap....don't keep feeding it. Just realize it is only a temporary state. If you can, concentrate on your breathing, but don't sweat it.
It definitely takes time to deal with that kind of problem. If you truly feel it is a large hindrance in your life, you should see a psychiatrist. I personally believe mindfulness can help people recover from most mental conditions, but sometimes it is simply too hard.
The important part is not to stress out about it.
Don't think you have the wrong situation. Work with your situation as best as you are able. I find walking meditation easier when I am depressed (or psychotic). I have schizoaffective disorder which is a cousin of bipolar like a mixture of schizophrenia and depression (or mania for some but not me usually).
Sometimes it's easy and natural. But now it's not. If i start to meditate i find myself being deep in illussions - i try to meditate, but i keep "day dreaming". What should i do? Should i "kill" my illussions? Or should i accept them? Or should i "ask them" to go away?
How to meditate? what is meditation? Answer to this questions changes when i progress with meditation, but now i'm at point where these questions doesn't have any kind of answer.
Part of it is a sense of compassion for yourself when you feel you have made a mistake. That quality gradually emerges. Part of it is seeing such things as no big deal. The voices of lordly judgement in your head come and go. You say 'just chatter', 'just thinking'.
One issue I was always confused on by the 'just thinking' was wondering if all my thoughts are meaningless. Since then I think maybe that it moreso means that no thought needs an over reaction. That we are more stable and hold are seat in one sense. And also that we see that our thoughts are tools rather than reality.
Don't kill them, don't ask them to go away. Accept them, but if you notice attention collapsing down on them, include the experience of breathing in attention as well.
The times when it feels hardest are actually the greatest opportunities for progress. You've hit on some good stuff, here, so don't be discouraged.
How this can be greatest opportunity to progress? In some other topic i wrote that my experience from 2 years ago have changed my mind pernamently in some way - meditation comes very easly to me and i am able to make great progress very quickly. But even this is not true right now.
There are some kinds of illussions that i'm free from even now - like wealth;
But some illussions have grown in power, like loneliness or *social requirements*, and i'm unable to free my mind completly, which makes me unable to meditate. Sometimes, when in this state, i feel desire to follow these illussions and just forget about whole enlightement thing; even though i know it won't provide true happiness, it will just make me feel less miserable.
How this kind of state is greatest opportunity for progress?
Just sitting with all this 'shit' can develope awesome qualities of patience and forbearance. I admire you for sitting so long with this difficulty.
Try to create good karma by dedicating your practice or smiling at someone also suffering. Maybe something good will jump in your lap that helps to see this more clearly? A blessing or something.
I don't really look for this kind solution... it's not like i met some mountain i cannot jump over - i jumped it over many times. I could just wait till i jump it over again and write down solution if i wanted , but that doesn't changes anything - because i cannot understand this solution in this state... if i could, i woudn't be in this state.
I want something that makes sense now - not something, that will make sense when i will progress.
In that case try to get well. Talk to a doctor or psychologist or family member. Or hotline worker.
Just trying to get well and get through the day is then the dharma.
When you are well try to focus on the studies that can be carried with you to such a traumatic time. The messages and stories. I recommend Pema Chodron's books.
Someone posted a really good metaphor for this once, but I can't remember what it was. But its something like this...
When you begin to take away power from certain thoughts & emotions (i.e. you are being mindful), its normal for those thoughts & emotions to try to "fight back" as it were. So you begin to become mindful of your loneliness, and as a result your dredge up all the lonely feelings you've ever had. You seem overcome by loneliness because suddenly you are aware of just how lonely you've been for so many years.
But if you keep at it and stay mindful, it eventually recedes.
So do concentration meditation for now.
Just pick an object, sensation of the breath or a dot on the wall, and put your attention on it.
Don't kill your thoughts or day dreams, just simply and gently refocus your attention on the object every times you realized you were distracted or that your attention was somewhere else.
thats it. thats all you have to do.
When you attain the first jhana, you will be much calmer already and you will have a better idea about what to do next.
Yep, happens to me. I feel like I'm doing great, life is wonderful, so in love with everything, then I feel like I simply cannot go on. I think it's like..when we take a step forward, our ego tries that much harder to bring us down. I keep thinking that eventually it'll just have to give up, but I think that will be an even darker place than I've ever been before. But we kind of have to go there, you know? How can we really be fearless if we haven't seen the worst of the worst?
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche says in Smile at Fear, something about dipping in and out of fear. It sort of becomes this big joke. We watch how it arises and feel after some time that we can move freely in and out of it, that it's not really such a big problem afterall. But to know this, we really truly have to go there. And it does absolutely have to feel like the end of the world, or else it's not real, it's not worth anything when we find out that hey, it's not the end of the world! Make sense?
Take heart, you're not alone. I'm in a valley myself, and I honestly believe that I can't make it out of here. And I'm probably right. "I" can't. Maybe "I" won't make it out alive. And then maybe I'll be able to breathe again.
Hi Proxy,
I have had these kind of problems, and still do from time to time.
Do you have a teacher? If you do, take this question to him/her. If you do not then please consider finding one. A teacher can help you with the problem and give you better answers than I or any one here.
Meditation, is the state of freedom from involuntary thought.
When thoughts arrise (and they will), just let them go. Bring yourself back and start over, letting go of the thoughts.
Sometimes we need to prepare ourselves for meditation. Breathing techniques, yoga, tai chi, martial arts, prostrations, or other physical disciplines can be very helpful to prepare us for meditation.
Our thoughts are connected to our breath and our breath can be positively manipulated through these disciplines.
Mantras are extremely helpful for protecting the mind from invasive thoughts, but you need a qualified teacher to gain the real benefits.
Keep trying, meditate when it comes easily, and also when it is difficult. Start with short periods of meditation and work up to longer periods. With practice you will improve.
Best wishes and many blessings.