[Sergey NMember]

Hi Louis,

I totally agree with Blake’s responses (also please be aware that he is an approved teacher of Culadasa, and I am just a guy practicing the book)

But what I can also suggest to try is this: try to let all these thoughts go for a day or two during your sessions, and then compare the results. Did you get more understanding of situation(s) in these two days compared to when you actively think?
As Culadasa later explains in the book (again, refer the book first, cause my understanding is still not deep enough), our “active thinking” is basically just a focus of attention, and it happens automatically, so we are somewhat tricked that we participate in it. In my experience, once I let it go during meditation, It happens same way (behind the scenes, unconsciously) as if I was actively thinking. And by letting it go you are able to become calmer (cause you are not actively involved into these thoughts), thus making this behind-the-scenes thought process even more effective. In my experience, it was actually yielding more effective understanding of my life situation. It would just pop out of nowhere later on into your consciousness, or you would just go and do something completely different and effective for your situation. Or will gain a new understanding. So at least something to try.

But yeah, basically pages on “discursive brilliance” topic in Mind Illuminated explain all the necessary steps to take. Hope you will be doing great!

Best regards,
Sergey

[Sergey NMember]

Another piece of advice is to try and make that tension your point of attention, and then try to notice where you react to it – it might be some different place, so then you make that place of reaction your point of attention. If that brings relief, try hanging out in that place as your primary object of attention.
I also had some tension in my neck that would drive me crazy, so as funny as it sounds, I sometimes meditate without my shirt – it makes that tension go away. So whatever you can physically do to help you sit relatively straight (be it chair or sofa or whatever) and with least pain, is the best.

[Sergey NMember]

Hi Stefan!

I am not an authorized teacher or a direct student of Culadasa, so it’s not an official advice – so you should probably take Dharma Treasure teachers’ advices above mine.
I am myself at Stages 5-6 and from what you write it sounds like you are at Stage 4 – you get distracted by pain and tension, that’s what happened to me on Stage 4. Stage 2, in my experience, is when you have that tension but you are very caught in all kinds of thoughts in your head and basically all your attention is in these racing thoughts.
You said that you don’t have problems with this pain and tension outside meditation – can you elaborate? If there’s something from your regular life that you can bring into meditation to easen that pain, that can be helpful – I had back problems so I learned that if I lie down for a bit of time before I start meditation, my session goes painless, otherwise there is a lot of back pain. Also I am heavyweight so I use extra pillows – more than regular cushion offers, to keep me lifted and solid.
Sometimes I also meditate lying down, or meditate in shorter periods (is your 1 hour one session?). Try meditating 2 times for 30 minutes and see if it helps.
Finally, I’ve checked quite few sources and books on kundalini subject, and absolutely best I found was “Enlightenment Through the Path of Kundalini” by Tara Springett. It’s on amazon, including ebook version. It really shines in explaining what happens with you, what to do and etc. I think this piece of advice is the most important in all I wrote.
On a side note, one of somewhat extreme measures is to stop meditating for a week and see the difference – in my experience when I did that (unintentionally) I would always notice how much worse my life becomes – more thoughts, more suffering, less progress, even less inner peace than usual, and even life events falling out of place. That’s somewhat a joking advice, you shouldn’t do that if you can – it’s much harder to start again due to the lost momentum.

Finally, don’t be discouraged! You are on a very tough but incredibly rewarding path. When so much stuff surfaces, it feels bad but in such cases crysis is an incredibly huge opportunity to grow. It just doesn’t let you do anything else much and you are somewhat forced to solve your issues here and now. That might sound tough, but otherwise you won’t be meditating, researching, and doing what you do – and it will bring it’s fruits soon, because it’s a part of a progress and figuring stuff out! I’ve been through similar amount of problems and suffering in past years but it really changed a lot in me and my life – it feels painful but you do a lot of things at fast speed to get rid of it. So as rough as it sounds, it’s a way of progressing and something that boosts us in our adventure.

Wishing lots of luck and progress to you, please keep us posted and let’s also see what other much more experienced guys will tell!

Best,
Sergey

[Sergey NMember]

Thanks so much, everyone!
Sorry for not posting earlier, I wanted to have some results at hand before I do, and also some time to figure things out.
I was overwhelmed by feelings and problems (my relationships with family showed their true nature, same was with my employer – so it took some time to adjust and recover. As for the job, I found a great new one, with much better personal relationships, which was the major issue in past job)
So eventually I got back to my daily practice, which now consists of one 40 minutes session, and another one of 30.
Got some nightmares back, but as I’ve read somewhere it’s unconscious mind reprocessing the deeply buried material – so even though those are relatively intense, this time I am really dedicated to go and push those forward. Speaking of dedication, something of that matter changed inside me, I have the clarity and energy to sit daily diligently, with much better dedication then before.
So yeah, other changes are Insight-related, personality-related and a bit lifestyle-related too.
Most of my sits are at stage 6 and a bit of stage 5. Getting more of mental pacification moments, which are quite amazing and bring a sense of peaceful, silent emptiness, which feels amazing.
I am very dedicated to reach first Jhana now, cause I believe it will be a huge relief for me. I don’t make it an obsession or craving, but intention is there.
We are moving to a low-populated countryside with my girlfriend in couple months to live by seaside. I am definitely going to spend more time in nature, and yes! I am getting a dog 🙂 I did some tries to get back to training here, but I feel that living in big industrial city makes a big impact on me at the moment, so I definitely look forward to exercise regularly once I move.
I also really hope for our relationship to improve and I am trying to take more responsibility for my feelings now, and explain more about what I am going through to ask for my girlfriend’s patience. I pay as much attention to her as I could though. This period made it definitely much harder compared to before, indeed.

Thank you very much everyone, and thank you Culadasa – you guys were of tremendous support.
It’s hard to be on this path, but last weeks without meditation clearly showed me that not meditating is totally not an option for me. I yet have some purifications to go through, and some Insight to mature – so once I meditate I can clearly feel myself getting built back piece by piece, if that makes sense.

I also decided to join some local meditation group once I move, will try to find the best teacher I can nearby. I am a bit concerned of Dark Night and it’s description (sounds like it can be 10-50x times more intense than my worst sufferings were in last years. But as I said, it’s the only option. That’s why I decided to try and find a local teacher so that I don’t bother you guys and Culadasa with my questions, haha. Which I will still occasionally do, but I will also try my best to help people at Stages 1-4 to overcome their problems.

Many, many thanks again, I am glad to get to know all of you and hope to chat with you more in future! Happy upcoming Xmas! (Or was that too much? :D)

Cheers!

Sergey

• This reply was modified 8 years, 7 months ago by  Sergey N.

[Sergey NMember]

Thanks for your help, Jevan.

I think it’s partly leftovers of my traumatic past, partly dark night
I had a quite good awareness/mindfulness since 5 years ago, as well as the darkest period of my life, and at about that time I enrolled into psychotherapy, and my awareness grew tremendously fast every year – my life was also becoming increasingly more good and peaceful, but concentration is still much much worse than mindfulness is.
After I started meditating this year I finally noticed my mood getting better, so that was definitely a huge relief, there was a huge period of purification, and I feel it’s still going on (I feel my sessions are at Stages 4-6 usually, probably mostly Stage 6), but the mood is still negative most of the time.
The problem is, I can’t really see the source of my negative mood.
I don’t really exercise, I sleep well, I don’t really eat healthy – and I can’t see any point in it for myself. I tried and it definitely gives a mood boost, but there is always that underlying base unhappiness where everything comes back to eventually and which drags me down. I definitely feel like there is some apathy and general yet unhealed trauma from the past, cause you know, many people, when given a completely free weekend, are usually relaxed and joyful to some degree, and they will go do something fun, but for me it’s just another bad day. But I think there is a dark night thing going to a small degree too, cause I can’t find much reasons in daily activities, goals, exercising (even though I really want to do that), and having fun in regular ways (also I have problems actually having fun/enjoying things)
I also have very little love in my life, i.e. I don’t really love myself, enjoy the things in my life, and when it comes to others I give them all the tiny love I have and care about them, but that comes more from awareness than heart, so yeah, I am lacking love energy terribly. Maybe I should try loving-kindness meditation for a while?

Thank you again for spending your time on this

• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by  Sergey N.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by  Sergey N.

[Sergey NMember]

Jevan, not sure if that’s Insight-related, but there are a few things:
– I am quite uncomfortable with my body, I have muscle tension in my stomach, my back, and especially my neck – e.g. I can’t lie down on my back being relaxed, I feel like my cloths start pushing on my neck/chest and I am quite uncomfortable with that, but even if I take off the t-shirt and lie on my back I still feel this thing, and it’s sometimes happening with seated meditation too, even though less with time as it seems
– I have that overall feeling of energy-less in my consciousness, mind and body, like if I have no fuel, it’s quite empty everywhere inside of me
– emotionally, it’s usually a mix/cycles of light-medium levels of tension, despair, apathy and sometimes grief – in best case it’s just a dull, somewhat melancholic, emptiness

It’s getting better with time I guess, cause I’ve ripped of many of my negative emotions layers in the last couple years, but sometimes it feels a bit like walking in circles, getting into similar base emotions again and again

As a full disclosure, I had a terribly fucked up childhood, but well, many of of us did. After spending quite some time in psychotherapy and meditation I was really surprised to discover (due to meditation making me remember my dreams) that I was still getting dreams of my family/childhood many nights per week, just in the last month

[Sergey NMember]

Hi Jevan,

I think it made me more detached of my future and my goals – I am more present now (that present moment is mostly uncomfortable though). I dream of future much less, and I spend much less time planning and worrying about the future, the plans, etc. Just to be clear, I still do a lot (or more) of wholesome healthy things for myself, so this Insight didn’t really make me more passive or apathetic.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by  Sergey N.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by  Sergey N.

[Sergey NMember]

Hey everyone,

So much thanks for all you wrote! I actually did a 40 minutes session today and plan to do another one, and I got back my meditation tracker apps too. I will post an update here in a week or two, to tell how everything worked out, but I feel a change already!

Literally each of you had some precious piece of advice for me: I used Ivan’s “you don’t need to know who is meditating to just sit and meditate”, I also discovered some negative feelings indeed as Ted suggested, and as Meshe suggessted I’ve checked the book on Narrating Mind and gonna read that Interlude thoroughly.

By the way Meshe, interesting thing about being outside – I actually was stricken last month or two about being outside in nature and how complete it feels, and due to that decided to drop big city life and move to a beautiful countryside (luckily for myself I’m working from home)

Cheers,
Sergey

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