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Meditation sucks

Posted February 2nd, 2012 by sternenlos

Hello there!

I want to talk about meditation ...

...and I'm very sorry for my bad English. I'm german and I forgot everything I learnt at school... ;-)

Back to meditation!

The problem is that I forgot „how to meditate“. It's just weird. As a teenager I used to be a „gifted“ meditator. Meditation was very easy for me. I sat down, closed my eyes and within seconds I experienced all kind of things. I felt energy, something lifted me out of my body, I experienced white light, I turned into black space, I felt a powerful presence and I experienced bliss. I experienced these things every time I sat down, and I meditated every day because I enjoyed it so much!

As I grew older, my life changed. I went to a new school and startet partying... I did all kind of things a normal 16 year old kid is supposed to do. Because of that I stopped my meditation practice.

An frankly, I also stopped because the presence that „showed up“ in my meditations became so powerful that it scared the hell out of me. So I stopped and lived my life.

Four or five years ago I started practicing again – but my meditation doesn't „work“: I don't experience the phenomena I experienced as a kid. And that's very painful for me because meditation used to be my source of happiness. During meditation I used to experience pure bliss and expansion. Now I experience only pain, the only phenomenon which arises in my meditation is a horrible self contraction. I practice almost every day. It's always the same – my meditation feels terrible. I never ever experienced a single good feeling during meditation in the last couple of years.

A couple of days ago I stopped practicing completely. I simply don't want to practice anymore because I have the feeling, that meditation leads to nothing. Frankly, I hate meditation. I don't want to do it. But at the same time I clearly remember how my „early years“ felt and I miss the meditations I experienced as a teenager. To tell the truth: I really need my former source of happiness, I miss it and I'm very sad because of that. I know how true bliss feels and I can't experience it anymore. Without this bliss and expansion the world feels boring and grey. I want to experience it again and I can't ....

Any advice? And please don't tell me that I'm supposed to witness the pain because only the witness is real .... ;-)

By the way...I'm really sorry for my English. ;-)

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Meditation

Posted February 12th, 2012 by Stanley

Many traditions say that meditation is best done in the context of surrendering to an authentic teacher who could be a great guide and help. Good luck to you.

No cyber-stalking please. http://integrallife.com/member/stanley/blog/cyber-stalking

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try to be more specific

Posted February 2nd, 2012 by Layman Pascal

Your situations sounds terrible. Anyone who loves their inner practice can sympathize with the possibility of losing their trust in it. What could the problem be?

Perhaps you are using a method of meditation that is no longer appropriate to your structure. What is the method you are using? How would describe your "practice"?
The difficulty may be from some other part of your life. Perhaps there is an emotional, energetic or nutritional problem which your consciousness only detects when you look inwards?
Are you resisting the unpleasant contraction sensations? Counter-resistance strengthens our tensions. You may be able to gain a little relief by allowing yourself to fail utterly.

Even if it starts "working" again, it will never be what it was. It is always something new.

Of course people will tell you witness the pain or else they might say that meditation should have no goal -- that you shouldn't be so worried about recaptured earlier glory. But these sayings will not help very much.

Perhaps you need a good pre-meditation activity. Something which will leave you naturally "open" to experience things as straightforwardly as before. Some techniques advise people to jump around and speak gibberish for a while before meditating.

Perhaps you could have some success praying for release, asking for guidance, breathing into the constrictive sensations while reaching deeply into the emotional core of your heart and asking very sincerely to open.

Thanks, I've been...

Layman Pascal

(to receive other "Weekly Harangues" write to: pretendtomeditate@gmail.com)

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try to be more specific

Posted February 6th, 2012 by sternenlos in response to try to be more specific

Finally I have the time to answer Layman's questions!

1. As a kid ( =„good“ meditations) I just sat down, closed my eyes and felt the energy in my body. I „followed“ this energy that moved through my body and I ended up in different „states“: Outside the body, light, bliss, space, expansion. Sometimes I just closed my eyes and „left my body“ at will. It was as naturally as moving my arm.

Now I'm „trying“ to witness what's arising because the things I described above are "not working" anymore. I still feel the energy that moves though my body, I can feel how it moves though the self contraction an believe me: that's very painful. I can't „engage“ with this energy like I did as a Teenager, I can't „follow“ it. The only thing I can do is witness it.

I tried Mantra, focusing on the breath/body and prayer. Mantras and focusing don't work. My mind simply doesn't want to engage with a Mantra and focusing on the breath or the body increases the tension I feel in my mind and body. Prayer doesn't make sense because I don't believe in god.

3.Yes, I am resisting. Of course I am. The simple reason is that sometimes the pain gets so strong that I have (!) to resist. I can't accept the pain and I can't witness it. It's like witnessing your hand in a campfire... ;-)

2. Other parts of my life: Well, I'm grown up. There were a couple of deaths in my family, I had a hard time at university and now I'm working hard. I'm not very happy, there is „always“ a lingering depression in the background. As a kid I believed in god, angels and reincarnation and believed, that the world is a good place, I trusted in life. I loved my spiritual books. Now I am an atheist and I "know" that „life is short an love is always over in the morning“. (You know what I mean ...). In my early twenties I had a really rough time, I suffered from depression, anxiety and panic attacks. University and the deaths were just too much to bear ... so I turned into a „tough girl“: I fought for my life, studied hard, got my degree ... and I didn't have compassion for myself - I still don't have it. Now I'm older, the depression is bearable, the panic attacks are gone and I don't experience a lot of anxiety. I'm fine.

And frankly, I think that meditation „healed“ me. I don't doubt that for a second. But now the „healing“ is almost (!) done and I really want the colours and the light back ... I just want to feel the love that lives inside myself again. But I dont' feel it at all and that's f**** painful.

I hope you guys understood my crappy English and I'm sorry that I didn't answer immediately. But I'm quite busy ...

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a few ideas

Posted February 6th, 2012 by Layman Pascal in response to try to be more specific

Thanks for details. And your English is not so terrible. A lot of us know the frustration of not being able to reliably reconnect with our childhood epiphanies or past best experiences. Everyone is different but also a little bit the same.

It seems like there is "more of you" now than when you were a child. You have more structure, more density. So it is understandable that the same expansive energy may not be enough to open & illuminate you now. When the energy tries to get through your shell it is either suppressed or becomes an unbearable intensity. Witnessing meditations can be very helpful for personal development, or for exploring oneself as "pure consciousness" but they are indifferent to subtle energy flow.

To reconnect to expansive flow you probably either having to "open" your dense structure or else increase the amount of energy until it finds a way to do what it wants to do.

Prayer doesn't require believing in a "god". Not exactly. It only means using your internal machinery to "ask" and "turn upward" and "open to receive". Sometimes people find that by repeatedly asking or demanding to open up they can achieve an internal shift which lets energy and radiance move more smoothly again. Forceful people can sometimes push themselves to expand, open, stretch as many times as it takes until your system breaks through into flow. But this is an expansion from the heart, from the deepest place of the heart. So it also requires trying to find that compassionate tender place deep within where you can care for yourself. Life-energy wants to flow where it is cared for -- but that means finding the sensitive place where you can care for yourself.

It can be tricky to soften our heart without losing our strength. But it can be done.

In general, however, I should suggest that you supplement your personal inner work with some general energy-body work. A good acupuncturist or bioenergetic therapist can help to depressurize the layers of highly sensitive pain which separate us from the experience of our own energy flow.

Here's one more suggestion:

Have you tried "conscious connected breathing"? It is a special method of breathing which is designed to process tensions and energy blocks. The trick is to have no pause between inhale/exhale or exhale/inhale. The breath goes in a fluid loop which increases the amount of oxygen and energy in our bodies. There is no danger of hyperventilation as long as we do not "force" the breathing. Doing this for extended periods of time 15min to 30min periodically may increase the strain at first, or even make the body feel numb or frozen. But these are phases in allowing higher levels of energy to saturate our dense structure.

All these ideas are about making you more permeable to the emotional and energetic streams.

Please let me know if you have any more details to share.

Thanks, I've been...

Layman Pascal

(to receive other "Weekly Harangues" write to: pretendtomeditate@gmail.com)

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And also...

Posted February 3rd, 2012 by Annie in response to try to be more specific

All good advice, and knowing this we also know that meditation is not the salve that we apply to life's wounds, but meditation becomes the "conscious body" that learns to adjust to its circumstance. If we could see our meditation as our body in action, we would recognize that each moment offers a new environment in which the body must respond. Initially it can be all bliss and exuberant joy, and in part it is because we acclimate to this Reality (our bodies Divine), we may not notice with the same intensity as when we first began. Perhaps it is more likely that we choose one aspect of Duality over another, and in so doing we create the Duality.

Even so, there are times when your heart cries out for peace amid the warring forces of your being, and you think; if only I could find that bliss again. But, know this...you must be tested with fire and strengthened by adversity to withstand the totality of Divinity.

When you enter into Blissful and exuberant Joy unhindered by your body, you are merely testing the waters with your big toe --so to speak. The recognition that Divinity resides in the middle of this duality, one must withstand the Energy of both realities, only now the body participates and that is where the toughened Soul becomes crucial. I don't know who or what sits there, perhaps it is the Soul, but I do know that we must welcome the feeling and emotional nature of the body while embracing the Godhead or Spirit. In a sense we allow the body to act as its nature within the Divine, every activity carries the Divine and all things that we touch have the potency and energetic component that we once refused to acknowledge.

If today you cannot know this, just sit each day in as much silence as you can withstand, until the day comes when Silence overtakes you. Be patient with yourself.

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Maybe it's supposed to suck (occasionaly)

Posted February 4th, 2012 by Rivo Suuder

Hi sternenlos.

I am not a expert on meditation, so I can only suggest what I learned in my own practice. The truth about medition is that it's not supposed to be fun all time, in fact if it is then there is a large probability that your are doing something wrong. Meditation is about bringing to awareness what ever arises, sometimes it's bliss, other times it's pain and confusion. The other truth is that being or becoming aware of pain does not always eliminate it. Many things might pop up that you been suppressing and often they are bad (beacause people don't usually suppress the good stuff), but when they do they might require some therapeutic practice or work. If you say that lately meditation is all bad then I would suggest that you take up somekind of shadow practice. Not dealing and only witnessing what bothers you doesnt get you anywhere but STUCK with things that bother you and that might be the reason why it only sucks lately. So that would be my suggestion. I hope it helps.

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Maybe

Posted February 4th, 2012 by tanya charlie

This has something to do with levels of development and how each developmental stage approaches meditation?

Seeing as you are here, I assume you are going to be familiar with developmental psychology's concept of stage development?

But there is no harm in pointing out the basics again to present the following point:

I'm thinking about the most basic map of development in terms of:

Selfish

Care

Universal Care

It may be that when we are younger we approach life and it's various activities as a means of getting something. We must do "X" because it makes us happy. State experiences can fall nicely into this category too, despite meditation carrying new age connotations of being an activity that is centred around a certain level of maturity or worldcentric attitudes.

Then, as we develop, we engage in a process of conforming and trying to work things out with the world. At this stage meditation may be used as a way of growing in self-awareness and integration.... which is mostly not a very 'nice' experience. Quite challenging to say the least, eh?

Hopefully all this sweat and toil eventually leads to post-conventional attitudes, where we face the world with a sense of embrace and genuine care/concern for the well being of ourselves and others. It would be easy to approach our meditation practice as a way of now serving the world.

Maybe you are unwittingly still trying to get something from your practice? If this is true for you, it may be in your 'self-serving interest' to aknowledge this before you can consciously let go and move on?

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get something

Posted February 9th, 2012 by sternenlos in response to Maybe

Of course I'm trying “to get” something from my meditation. I'm very aware of that. I want to develop love and compassion for every sentinent being, I want my state experiences back, I want to develop happiness and self acceptance. I want to “turn into” a good person, I want to develop “good energy” within myself so that people feel comfortable in my presence. I want to "heal" the lingering depression. And I want to understand death. Whatever THAT means ...

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Witnessing

Posted February 4th, 2012 by tanya charlie in response to Maybe

Your comment about witnessing the pain, I am going to take at face value.

I would like to suggest that pain is real. Very real. But it isn't 'real' as it appears in the sense that it may be a symptom of a re-pressed impulse.

For example, if my symptom persists, I might be better off translating the feeling back into its original emotion.

Let's imagine that I think I'm depressed.

Just witnessing "depression arising" is not going to shift my symptom. What can sometimes happen here is I can do the un-healthy thing of separating from part of my psyche. It is much better for me to recognize that I am probably more angry about something than depressed about it.

That is real.

Then I sit feeling angry instead of depressed.

Nothing needs to be done. I just have to know I am angry. The why may or may not appear. The point is I have dis-identified in a healthy way (instead of un-healthily dissociating)

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