Difficulty getting to the core

[piedwagtail91]

hi cheesus
you don't say where in the north you're from but if it's anywhere around lancashire then this http://www.lancashirecare.nhs.uk/Services/Adult-Mental-Health/Mindfulness.php website may be of interest if you want to go on a course.
the waiting list are growing quite a bit now though.
from reading your posts and the problems you're having it could really be beneficial to follow the mark williams course and address your issues one by one which is what his course does, or if you can get into a course and do it with others which is where the link will take you, that can sometimes be better.
mixing with others and sharing problems and experiences and you get to find out how others cope and struggle with the course.

[Cheesus]

Wow I really appreciate that so many people have taken their time to read and respond to my post. What a generous thing to do!

Jenna, I will check it out. I have never really suffered with depression though, it's more the deep fits of fear associated with the anxiety disorders that have gotten me.

OmniPada (at first I thought that was OmniPanda), thank you very much for your considered response. I think you are largely correct in your analysis of what's going on here. The way to untie a knot is to observe it. It reminds me of this phrase in Wherever You Go, There You Are:

Question: How can I set right a tangle which is entirely below the level of my consciousness?

Nisargadatta: By being with yourself... by watching yourself in your daily life with alert interest, with the intention to understand rather than to judge, in full acceptance of whatever may emerge, because it is there, you encourage the deep to come to the surface and enrich you life and consciousness with its captive energies. This is the great work of awareness: it removes obstacles and releases energies by understanding the nature of life and mind. Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.

It feels, as I mentioned earlier, however, that it's very much easier said than done! It's almost as though that if done properly it should be effortless, but for me its a huge stress producing effort! I think perhaps becoming more mindful of this in my sitting practice should assist me to find acceptance when walking.

Moreover, regarding your ideas of being 'in' or 'out' of emotions, I find that troubling to deal with. When I try to step outside of my emotions I find that a scary place to be. It doesn't feel right. It feels like I am trying to objectify them and so distance myself from them. I realise distancing is, again, the opposite of what we should be doing. I think this too will take some seasoned practice to come to terms with.

I am going through a difficult time in my life at the moment. I think perhaps I need to accept that this is a difficult time, and for the foreseeable future at least it will continue to be difficult. Perhaps that way I can stop trying to entangle myself in escape from it.

Fee, yes this a fundamental difficulty for me! I remember writing something to that effect in my notebook perhaps about a month ago. Later I jotted underneath it 'there is no wrong experience'. I suppose the thing is just to admit that this is what's happening right now, then return to the breath.

piedwagtail, I'm actually from Durham but live in Leeds. Lancashire isn't so far, but it's probably just a bit too far. Thank you for the suggestion, though. I think I will get back to basics and do the Mark Williams course and also look for a local group.

Again, thank you everyone for your input!

[JonW]

Around the time that I started mindfulness practice I read Eckhart Tolle's The Power Of Now and found it enormously helpful in terms of coping with the onslaught of difficult life changes. In the space of a couple of weeks I broke up with my partner, suffered two major health scares and my father passed away, amongst other things.
One thing that stuck with me from Tolle's book is the idea of asking oneself, "What is wrong right now, in this moment?"
My answer to that was always, "Nothing."
As Tolle writes, "Instead of having a wall of resistance inside you that gets constantly and painfully hit by things that 'should not be happening', let everything pass through you."
Mindfulness showed me how it was possible to, in a sense, let everything pass through me. By noticing my thoughts and feelings and using my breath as an anchor, I slowly learned to cope much better with thoughts and feelings that threatened to overwhelm me.
Purists can be sniffy about Tolle and I can see why. There's not much that is original in The Power Of Now but it is a brilliantly succinct distillation of Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, mindfulness, whatever labels you care to attach to this one thing.
"What is wrong right now, in this moment?"
It's a good question. Not wrong in the past, not wrong in the future. Right now. In this moment. If we allow ourselves to be compassionately aware and mindfully attentive, can we admit that there is nothing wrong in this very moment?
When going through a tough time, even just to experience a single moment of ease and lightness can be hugely beneficial. Just a chink of daylight can be the beginning of a healing process.
As ever, I'd like to note that I speak purely as a meditator and that I don't pretend to be an expert of any kind. Mindfulness may not work for everyone. Mindfulness alone may not work for everyone. Clearly there will be times when consulting a GP or another trained practitioner will be in order.

[Cheesus]

I have also found a lot of help in listening to the Audio Dharma podcast - is that the one you are using? If not, they can be found here: http://www.audiodharma.org/
You can scroll through and find talks on topics that seem related to what you are experiencing. I found the recent talk called "Working with Judgement" by Vinnie Ferraro on 3/18/13 to be really awesome. It is not just about judgement but also about letting go of striving, and of feeling like you have to somehow be different before you can really truly get into practice, and about the challenges that we face when we begin to be mindful. Sounds like it could be relevant to you.

Hopefully you'll find some more help on this forum too.

Vixine that talk was precisely what I needed to hear right now. It has really given me a greater insight into what it is we're doing here. Thank you very much!

[Cheesus]

Around the time that I started mindfulness practice I read Eckhart Tolle's The Power Of Now and found it enormously helpful in terms of coping with the onslaught of difficult life changes. In the space of a couple of weeks I broke up with my partner, suffered two major health scares and my father passed away, amongst other things.
One thing that stuck with me from Tolle's book is the idea of asking oneself, "What is wrong right now, in this moment?"
My answer to that was always, "Nothing."
As Tolle writes, "Instead of having a wall of resistance inside you that gets constantly and painfully hit by things that 'should not be happening', let everything pass through you."
Mindfulness showed me how it was possible to, in a sense, let everything pass through me. By noticing my thoughts and feelings and using my breath as an anchor, I slowly learned to cope much better with thoughts and feelings that threatened to overwhelm me.
Purists can be sniffy about Tolle and I can see why. There's not much that is original in The Power Of Now but it is a brilliantly succinct distillation of Buddhism, Taoism, Zen, mindfulness, whatever labels you care to attach to this one thing.
"What is wrong right now, in this moment?"
It's a good question. Not wrong in the past, not wrong in the future. Right now. In this moment. If we allow ourselves to be compassionately aware and mindfully attentive, can we admit that there is nothing wrong in this very moment?
When going through a tough time, even just to experience a single moment of ease and lightness can be hugely beneficial. Just a chink of daylight can be the beginning of a healing process.
As ever, I'd like to note that I speak purely as a meditator and that I don't pretend to be an expert of any kind. Mindfulness may not work for everyone. Mindfulness alone may not work for everyone. Clearly there will be times when consulting a GP or another trained practitioner will be in order.

Jon, I've read The Power of Now and thought it was a great book. It helped motivate me into mindfulness. I would do well to remind myself of it and fish it down off my book shelf!

[OmniPada]

OmniPada (at first I thought that was OmniPanda),

lolz

The other mistake people make is pronouncing my first name like "ahm-nee" and it's "Ohm-nee", like "Om", yes *that* "Om", then "nee".

But I'm not too picky, just don't forget to call me when it's time to eat. Us pandas gotta keep the weight on. (he he)

Another funny use of my name is someone will say "The Dhammapada says..." and then someone will quote me on something and say "The Omnipada says...."

Nothing like having a wonderfully funnily confusing name. Now we add being confused as a panda to that list!

:^D

thank you very much for your considered response. I think you are largely correct in your analysis of what's going on here. The way to untie a knot is to observe it. It reminds me of this phrase in Wherever You Go, There You Are:

Funny you should mention that one. Seems like it's common advice for just about all of us. We're always trying to move away from whatever we don't like. This phrase points out that the "don't like" is the problem, not whatever it is we're wanting to move away from.

Excellent!

Question: How can I set right a tangle which is entirely below the level of my consciousness?

Nisargadatta: By being with yourself... by watching yourself in your daily life with alert interest, with the intention to understand rather than to judge, in full acceptance of whatever may emerge, because it is there, you encourage the deep to come to the surface and enrich you life and consciousness with its captive energies. This is the great work of awareness: it removes obstacles and releases energies by understanding the nature of life and mind. Intelligence is the door to freedom and alert attention is the mother of intelligence.

Looks like he was quoting right out of the Omnipada ;-D

(of course, we know it's the other way around, don't let no panda get the creds for such great thoughts!)

It feels, as I mentioned earlier, however, that it's very much easier said than done! It's almost as though that if done properly it should be effortless, but for me its a huge stress producing effort! I think perhaps becoming more mindful of this in my sitting practice should assist me to find acceptance when walking.

Moreover, regarding your ideas of being 'in' or 'out' of emotions, I find that troubling to deal with. When I try to step outside of my emotions I find that a scary place to be. It doesn't feel right. It feels like I am trying to objectify them and so distance myself from them. I realise distancing is, again, the opposite of what we should be doing. I think this too will take some seasoned practice to come to terms with.

Hmmmm. Thinking, thinking, thinking...

We could just be getting crossed on the words themselves. Some people would describe that what I'm saying as "distancing" and they mean it in the healthy form.

I think also your word "objectify" could also be used to describe it in the right way.

I'll elaborate a little to see if we can come closer on a clearer application of this idea.

First, what not to do. Ignoring, becoming emotionally calloused, closing up, cutting emotions off, etc, all of those are not healthy. That's definitely not what I recommend.

This is more like this little story:

I'm walking barefoot (wow, a panda with bear's feet...) outside. I step on a stick and get some pretty intense pain as this broken-of part jabs up into my foot.

Scenario A
I get angry. I Pick up the stick break it in little pieces, throw it at a tree and yell. If there's someone next to me I blame them for walking to close to me and making me step on it. ETC.

Scenario B
I get angry. After taking my foot off the stick, I naturally hold/rub the spot and I pause deeply. I feel the anger just like in A, but this time I just look at the anger. "Ah, this is what really angry feels like" I feel the anger in my chest. I feel a little flushed in my face. I feel a natural tension in my limbs. Maybe even notice a little ringing sound of "tension" in my ears. I notice the thoughts and impulses that arise. The desire to throw the stick, to yell at my friend. These thoughts come up and I just watch them. I don't run away from the feelings, I don't deny them. I don't deny the thoughts that came up. I realize, the feeling, the thoughts, they aren't me anyway. It's just that silly panda-personality I have and I just watch the panda dance around for a little while.

See the diff? In the first my attention is practically oblivious to the anger, it goes from the stick to the tree to my friend. In the second my attention is directed right at the anger (cause) and the thoughts/feelings arising (effects).

And then I would tell myself "it was ok to feel mad, it was ok to think those thoughts, I see exactly why you thought those things and felt that way" and I then move on. No judgment. Being judgmental doesn't help. If I got angry, I got angry. Judging myself over it doesn't make anything better. So just to leave that step out.

This is mindfulness. Being aware of what is coming up.

The Satipatthana Sutta section III, "Cittanupassana", is what really clicked this whole idea for me (I reference it a lot). I'll be happy to send you the pdf if you can't find it easily and you'd like to read it. It's so simple it's almost laughable, but so profound when it "clicks".

Maybe when you're going to go on your walk, or do your sitting, whichever one you find it most likely to feel those feelings that you're not comfortable with, first prepare your mind: "I'm going to walk and that brings up _______ feeling. And that's ok. That feeling is going to come up whether I like it or not. It's going to come up whether I'm comfortable with it or not. So this time I'm going to go ahead and do my walk knowing that part of my walking experience will be that ______ feeling. And then once my walk is done, I'll go about the rest of my day, maybe with that feeling, maybe without it, but the activity of walking that brings that feeling up will be over and in the past."

Then when/if the feeling comes up, you say "Ahhhhh, old friend! I was wondering if you were going to come along on this walk or not!" and you just walk along content knowing that your good buddy didn't let you walk alone.

Anticipation of acceptance helps a lot.

I am going through a difficult time in my life at the moment. I think perhaps I need to accept that this is a difficult time, and for the foreseeable future at least it will continue to be difficult. Perhaps that way I can stop trying to entangle myself in escape from it.

ABSOLUTELY DEAD-ON!

I usually use the analogy of going through some tragedy, like cancer. I tell my student "let's say you were going to be diagnosed with cancer next week and I could see the future and tell you that you're going to have it for 2 years, but I can't tell if you will be cured or if it will kill you. Knowing that it's enevidable that you're going to go through this experience for 2 years, which way is better to go through, happy and easy going or upset and afraid?"

Of course everyone's instant answer is "well I'd be upset and afraid if I found out I had cancer" and no matter what they just want to hang on to that. I have to ask several times "but which way is *better* to go through, happy or upset?" Eventually they say "well happy of course".

Our natural point of resistance is having to go through the negative event itself. This is what we fight about. This is what gets us all upset. We just haven't accepted that we will go through it and we fight it all the way.

By asking this question "which way is better...?" The assumption is made already that you're going to go through and fighting it isn't an option. And this really is a closer reflection of reality. We don't get to chose what we go through, only how we go through it.

And your statement of accepting that it's a difficult time is 100% correct. Accepting that it's a difficult time, and you're just going to go through it will bring a lot of peace.

And check this - how would you like to be able to say "I went through this event, and this event, and this event, and I was happy the whole time - I've learned that my circumstances aren't in control of my attitude or my experience"???? Wouldn't that be powerful? Well, now you have that very opportunity.

Or, we can fight everything in life that we don't like, kick and scream, be miserable AND GO THROUGH THE SAME EVENTS ANYWAY, and when we come out we're glad it's all over. And we didn't gain a thing from it...

Fee, yes this a fundamental difficulty for me! I remember writing something to that effect in my notebook perhaps about a month ago. Later I jotted underneath it 'there is no wrong experience'. I suppose the thing is just to admit that this is what's happening right now, then return to the breath.

Another excellent point. No wrong experience. Sensation is sensation. Experience is experience. No right, no wrong, only what is. "this is happening" no judgment. "this is what I'm feeling" no judgment. "I did this and made things worse" no judgment.

I think you're way on the right track. Just keep doing what you're doing. You're getting it sorted out quite well!

Enjoy yourself,

Omni "Panda" ;-D

[Cheesus]

Nothing like having a wonderfully funnily confusing name. Now we add being confused as a panda to that list!

I realise 'Omni' is a suffix meaning 'all' as well. So maybe we can think that you're speaking on behalf of every panda, or that you totally embody the principals of being a panda

Hmmmm. Thinking, thinking, thinking...

We could just be getting crossed on the words themselves. Some people would describe that what I'm saying as "distancing" and they mean it in the healthy form.

I think also your word "objectify" could also be used to describe it in the right way.

I'll elaborate a little to see if we can come closer on a clearer application of this idea.

[...]

The Satipatthana Sutta section III, "Cittanupassana", is what really clicked this whole idea for me (I reference it a lot). I'll be happy to send you the pdf if you can't find it easily and you'd like to read it. It's so simple it's almost laughable, but so profound when it "clicks".

Maybe when you're going to go on your walk, or do your sitting, whichever one you find it most likely to feel those feelings that you're not comfortable with, first prepare your mind: "I'm going to walk and that brings up _______ feeling. And that's ok. That feeling is going to come up whether I like it or not. It's going to come up whether I'm comfortable with it or not. So this time I'm going to go ahead and do my walk knowing that part of my walking experience will be that ______ feeling. And then once my walk is done, I'll go about the rest of my day, maybe with that feeling, maybe without it, but the activity of walking that brings that feeling up will be over and in the past."

Then when/if the feeling comes up, you say "Ahhhhh, old friend! I was wondering if you were going to come along on this walk or not!" and you just walk along content knowing that your good buddy didn't let you walk alone.

Anticipation of acceptance helps a lot.

I think I have it now! There were some fundamental things that I had misunderstood. I thought that by accepting something, it was supposed to become nothing. However I realise now that my emphasis was on it ultimately becoming nothing. I heard it put really well on that talk that Vixinne directed me to as well: "Just because you let go of something, doesn't mean it has to go anywhere". I think at one level I was saying to myself 'If I observe this long enough I will feel great'. Clearly that is not accepting, it is just intense awareness with an underlying motive of denial rather than acceptance.

I will certainly go look up that PDF.

And check this - how would you like to be able to say "I went through this event, and this event, and this event, and I was happy the whole time - I've learned that my circumstances aren't in control of my attitude or my experience"???? Wouldn't that be powerful? Well, now you have that very opportunity.

Yes, that would be extremely powerful and I would emerge all the wiser for it!

I think you're way on the right track. Just keep doing what you're doing. You're getting it sorted out quite well!

Enjoy yourself,

Omni "Panda" ;-D

Thank you very much for your time. This has been a real eye opener for me. It is just now that I need to cement that knowledge in practice, learning and discussion lest I forget our conversation here and revert to my old patterns.

Cheesus

[Vixine]

So glad that talk was helpful for you too Cheesus!

[OmniPada]

[I realise 'Omni' is a suffix meaning 'all' as well. So maybe we can think that you're speaking on behalf of every panda, or that you totally embody the principals of being a panda

That "omni" happens to mean "all" is an interesting coincidence of my name, here's the actual breakdown:

Om - the mystical sound in Sanskrit. (really funny is when you go to the Wikipedia page for om, it says "this page has problems" and I'm thinking "maybe it needs to meditate on it")

Ni - means under, below.

Pada - path, or foot.

So I'm the "mystical lower path". Not really flattering.

I think I have it now! There were some fundamental things that I had misunderstood. I thought that by accepting something, it was supposed to become nothing. However I realise now that my emphasis was on it ultimately becoming nothing. I heard it put really well on that talk that Vixinne directed me to as well: "Just because you let go of something, doesn't mean it has to go anywhere". I think at one level I was saying to myself 'If I observe this long enough I will feel great'. Clearly that is not accepting, it is just intense awareness with an underlying motive of denial rather than acceptance.

Ah. And you have helped me see an important thing to make clearly distinct when I present this idea.

It is true that "if I observe this long enough I will feel great" but that's part 2. Part 1 is just this thing I said, and as you've repeated in your own words and of that talk, it doesn't mean the negative has to go anywhere. The cool thing is when part 2 kicks in. The negative didn't go anywhere, but you've fully accepted it being there. Suddenly the pressure of "I shouldn't feel this way, I should be happy, I don't like this..." now being gone brings this flood of liberation, which then washes that negative feeling away and as you (correctly) thought, you observe it long enough and you will feel great.

I'll remember to make this more clear when I discuss it so I don't confuse people into thinking the end result is what they should get in the beginning.

Thank you very much for your time. This has been a real eye opener for me. It is just now that I need to cement that knowledge in practice, learning and discussion lest I forget our conversation here and revert to my old patterns.

Cheesus

Not at all, I enjoy it just as much as you. And you're right, by doing you make it a part of you and lock in the change.

Please do come back and update this thread with your progress on this. That way we all get to enjoy it with you!

Enjoy yourself,

Omni