Struggling in calm abiding meditation

[ramelec]

I have anxiety disorder and slight depression, I started calm abiding meditation but it's been a big challenge  (

[Jhana4]

A number of years ago I REstarted meditating after I had problems with anxiety for the first time in my life.   I started with just 10 minutes and sometimes I would get panicky even that.   Meditation may be not be all of the relief you need in the here and now, but no matter how little you can do it,  do it consistently everyday.   Like a slow growing vine eventually it come in and help you handle things better.

[Vivek]

Since you are starting on the path, it will definitely be a challenge. The important thing is to ensure that you are doing it properly and sticking to the practice. If you are facing any particular challenge, please start a thread on that. We have couple of experienced practitioners in Shamatha-Vipassana here, who would help you out.

[Morning Dew]

Friends. I invited ramelec to our community from another forum.

Thank you ramelec for joining us 

As others already mentioned, keeping the practice going is of great importance no matter how hard it seems at the moment, even if for just 10 minutes a day. Of course in a case your anxiety/depression is taking over your life you can ask for professional help and receive a talking therapy. Such therapy goes well hand in hand with calm-abiding meditation.

Depending on how much sun you get every day you could also start taking D3 vitamin supplement (5000IU a day). D-vitamin deficiency can cause mild depression. I take 6000IU per day and depression was not an issue for me anymore and anxiety can be calmed with meditation.

You asked me via PM to talk to you on Skype. I have to ask you to forgive me at the moment for not doing so because I too am in a very sensitive mood at the moment. My meditation practice have faced me with some old traumatic feelings which I am dealing with at the moment so I dont think I would be of great help to you at this very time    but as soon I feel I have passed this stage I would be very happy to do so.

This is the very reason for me inviting you here so others, more experienced members would support you on your way into mindfulness meditation.

Try to understand that ALL OF US went through the heavy beginner stage in meditation. It is not easy when starting, lots of anxiety lots of thoughts, emotions all over the place, heavy feelings of anger, worry, paranoia etc ... I was also at that stage and it is normal. There is no way one can avoid it because this very stage faces you with the very fact of your egotic existence.
This stage will face you with the very cause of your suffering; Ego Clinging to Desire and Aversion 
In meditation we learn how not to cling to desire and aversion and simply let things be as they are without engaging into them. Thoughts happen we notice them and go back to calm-abiding, again and again and again ...

This community has helped me alot and still is. I hope you will find inspiration here to continue your practice and be free from your suffering my friend 

Friendly Che

[Stefan]

I have anxiety disorder and slight depression, I started calm abiding meditation but it's been a big challenge

as Che says ... "all of us" ... you are not alone!
Just keep it up and remain patient, progress will come to you.

 

[Rocket]

I have anxiety disorder and slight depression, I started calm abiding meditation but it's been a big challenge  (

My view,  from significant experience,  is many or most westerners are not within reach of effective Shamatha practice without effective psychotherapy first.  We have excessive "high amplitude" afflicted emotional states.  These are the things that obstruct the following simple exersize:

- sit comfortably,   get very very relaxed,  place your attention on the sensations of breath entering and leaving the nose,  remain stable, doing that for 25 minutes without the mind wandering.

Simple enough,  right?

  If we can quiet big time afflicted emotional states down to a dull roar then we become able to utilize the very simple but rather exacting Shamatha technique.

When I refer to effective that does not mean the usual chit chat analyze this analyze that resolve to do this or that.  It refers to methods that bring a first hand encounter with the suppressed emotions that also invade and disrupt our "calm abiding",  first hand in the raw form,  as a child,  that caused us to wall these things off in the back of our mind in the first place.  In that kind of encounter these things are being cleared from your system,  or at least they lose the power to control your mind.  

When Shamatha practice evokes "nyam" or meditative experinces people often refer to as "the dark night" this seems to be the same process and is also the sign of things clearing from your system.  Shamatha dredges up all the rotting corpses from your psyche.   That is a sign post that you can expect good things to follow if your ducks are in a row......   ie ethics first.   If.

You can sit until the cows come home,  if you cannot get your mind stabilized you are wasting your time.

[Matthew]

Calm abiding is about learning not to struggle through relaxing into "acceptance of what is". This is not to say that change will not come - it most certainly will.

Just remember that "relaxing into acceptance of what is now". That is the stage you are at. Your anxiety is probably longstanding and will take some time to settle. Meditation can make it seem worse - it does not actually make it worse but it heightens your perceptions.

Just breathe and relax, breathe and relax, don't worry if you are doing it right or wrong, don't worry if you spend 99% of your time worrying. For now, just breathe and relax and when you find the mind running wild return your attention gently to the felt sensations in the body (muscle moving, gut moving in and out, etc.) created by the breathing process.

No guilt, no shame, no need to be anxious. Feel your body, breathe and relax, do it again and again. As others said try and do it daily even if only for ten minutes though I personally recommend 20 as a minimum, you might want to start with 5 minutes and add one a day (or every other day) until you get to twenty.

It's quite normal for meditation to expand your sense of these emotional states. Breathing and relaxing and feeling the body will quickly give you the stability of mind to cope with the expanded sense of them.

Welcome to the forums,

Matthew

[Matthew]

My view,  from significant experience,  is many or most westerners are not within reach of effective Shamatha practice without effective psychotherapy first.  We have excessive "high amplitude" afflicted emotional states.  These are the things that obstruct the following simple exersize:

- sit comfortably,   get very very relaxed,  place your attention on the sensations of breath entering and leaving the nose,  remain stable, doing that for 25 minutes without the mind wandering.

Simple enough,  right?........

Simple enough but wrong. Psychotherapy does not need to come first. It may make things worse. The main problem is disembodiment/over-identification with thoughts. For this reason: pay no attention to the nose. The attention needs to be on the whole body breathing experience. Just to be clear and to avoid conceptualising this means "the felt physical sensations in the body as you breathe in and out". It does not mean a conceptualised image of the body, it does not mean following the breathe up and down your windpipe/lungs, it certainly does not mean your nose (in-except that the nose is a small part of the body).

Concentrating on the nose for most westerners is a bad idea for reasons I have explained in depth elsewhere (search from the home page for 'Vagus Nerve').

Warmly,

Matthew

[rideforever]

You can sit until the cows come home,  if you cannot get your mind stabilized you are wasting your time.

I can understand this.  I had a lot of therapy before meditation and it helped me.

I also think bodywork can help; in particular Osho-type therapies where you scream your guts out for an hour and then sit still .... and it really helps, the exhaustion helps, getting the craziness out of your head helps ... not having to understand any instructions helps.

I have just been doing Bikram yoga for a month (bloody exhausting as well) ... and I bet you could sit easily after a session, you are just exhausted.

[Rocket]

I also think bodywork can help; in particular Osho-type therapies where you scream your guts out for an hour and then sit still .... and it really helps, the exhaustion helps, getting the craziness out of your head helps ... not having to understand any instructions helps

Until the early 90s the Tibetan culture had never even heard of low self esteem.  During an early Mind and Life meeting it came up from the Westerner contingent ....   the DL company were taken aback,  never heard of this,  had no word or concept for it in Tibetan culture.  They spent quite some time bringing the Tibetan contingent up to speed on this Western style obstacles to simply sitting,  relaxing and focussing attention.

Shamatha practice was originated in a context where such emotional obstacles were  were not figured into the equation.

This is not about the nose ...  its about stabilizing the attention....   and becoming familiar with the obstacles to rock solid crystal clear stable attention on whatever object one chooses,   ie afflicted emotional states invading our capacity to place our attention on whatever we choose as long as we wish.  The sensations of the breath at the nose are a suitable object at one stage because they will always be there as long as you are living and thus taken as the object bring all other contents of you mind into relief in service of the process of becoming familiar with your mind.

It may be true one with these bigger obstacles could experience shamatha and vipassana thru Samadhi in a reasonalble amount of time.   I suspect it's more like if one had many decades or centuries sit with our minds widldly all over the place.  

My experience is getting the obstacles reduced to a manageable level first enabled me to go right into it.


Moderator Edit: I think I've cleaned your post up to appear as it should - let me know if not, TIB

[Rocket]

I can understand this.  I had a lot of therapy before meditation and it helped me.

I also think bodywork can help; in particular Osho-type therapies where you scream your guts out for an hour and then sit still .... and it really helps, the exhaustion helps, getting the craziness out of your head helps ... not having to understand any instructions helps.

Again speaking from lots of experience and professional training too .... those things come only  from an authentic intrepid attitude to personal growth and willingness to open yourself to things you know are there in you and were too threatening to deal with in youth or earlier in life so they get walled off into the back of our minds.  (We keep them on hand to interrupt our shamatha practice later on ....) ....  when you do get them to go quieter then finally silent and experience the crystal clear profoundly stablized  deafening silence  after a little shamatha practice it's worth it.

Also finding the right vehicle,  ie support setting,   is a huge challenge.  That's a big problem,  lack of it.  

I see Shamatha practice as the final polish to get your utterly clean and into higher states 24/7.



Moderator edit: Ditto, TIB

[ramelec]

So I understand for my situation, it's better to continue everyday to do the samatha calm abiding meditation. Say if I miss it a day will that be an issue?  Sometimes I am so tired that I cannot even do the calm abiding well

[Andrew]

Hi Ramelec,
Despite it's name, Calm-abiding can be anything but calm! The idea as I understand and experience it is that we sit and feel ourselves breathing. We will have thoughts and feelings come and go like they do all day. We aren't to try and calm down or change them at all. If you panic, watch and see what it is like with the minimum of 'i have to change this this' 'i'm doing it wrong' ' why is my life like this?' type thoughts. Just panic and breath, watching the sensations in the body.

Where do you feel it?


You might say in your mind 'hot burning feeling', don't say 'I'm panicking!!' If you must call it that say 'panic', and that's all. Notice things like 'burning in chest' 'upset belly' 'pickly feeling in neck'. If you can stand this for 15mins, you have gained the very same thing that therapy provides -perspective and awareness.

At the moment I mostly feel anger, frustration, and restlessness when I sit. I know however that only 3 things are important. 1) I keep sitting 2) I see only what is there. 3) I keep breathing and feeling myself breathing.

For me, I understand that most of my life I have been driven by these feelings blindly, interpreting them and running of to try and calm them or satisfy them. The time is now to see them as they are without this layer of interpretation.


Everything else is time, skill and living my life and philosophies with conviction. There is no use thinking this is a magic pill. You just never know how much good you have done yourself facing things as they are for 5 minutes despite feeling 'the same' afterward. One last thing, because of this no session is 'bad'; just ones we enjoy and those we don't!!

love

andy

p.s. for the record, I have suffered depression before. 3 years ago went to see a clinical psychologist for anger. There was no 'delving into the past' or any of that. Just a bit of hypnosis and asserting some perspective and awareness..for 6 months once per week. I was lucky in that he was very much into the eastern way of dealing with things, no analysis or 'tell me about your childhood', just get in there and fix what really matters, out thoughts about it!!!  I would say I realized that most of my issues were in how I interpreted them, not in the feelings themselves. For this reason, I don't disagree with the previous advice about therapy, as I have no way of knowing if I would be here talking to you without it!!

[Andrew]

Hi again, I don't think I answered your question, just went off a bit!!!

Yes do it every day, preferably twice. Once in the morning once at night. Why would you miss a day? Seriously, if you miss days the habit won't form. Forming the habit is the very first stage.

If you are tired, still do it. Watch what being tired feels like!! If it's a everyday issue, get more sleep. Infact, when was the last time you sat and felt tired without trying to do something about it? (coffee, tea, sleep etc)

for me I've learned to ignore stories of how fantastic I should be feeling. I will feel what I feel. No use pretending or running away. The goal in my mind is 'to see it how it is' not experience bliss etc etc. There is a massive difference in how you feel about each session when viewed in the first way. Bliss may happen one day, in fact I'm counting on it to be honest, but WANTING it now, is a sure way to never get there at all. Keep it simple, keep it now.

love

andy

[Vivek]

Say if I miss it a day will that be an issue?

It will be if you make an issue out of it, ramelac. There is no need to be hard on yourself if you miss a sitting. If that happens, just accept the fact: it so happened, never mind, I'll stick to it next time. To get established in the practice, is going to take some time.

[ramelec]

Missing one day = out for work and then hang out with friends till late after work...

[ramelec]

Hi again, I don't think I answered your question, just went off a bit!!!

Yes do it every day, preferably twice. Once in the morning once at night. Why would you miss a day? Seriously, if you miss days the habit won't form. Forming the habit is the very first stage.

If you are tired, still do it. Watch what being tired feels like!! If it's a everyday issue, get more sleep. Infact, when was the last time you sat and felt tired without trying to do something about it? (coffee, tea, sleep etc)

for me I've learned to ignore stories of how fantastic I should be feeling. I will feel what I feel. No use pretending or running away. The goal in my mind is 'to see it how it is' not experience bliss etc etc. There is a massive difference in how you feel about each session when viewed in the first way. Bliss may happen one day, in fact I'm counting on it to be honest, but WANTING it now, is a sure way to never get there at all. Keep it simple, keep it now.

love

andy

Thanks Andy. If you see my previous post..one day out is already explained.  By the way, when a person is so tired...that's the issue..we can be hypnotized to fall asleep (due to insuffcient sleep) when doing calm-abiding meditation. Is there a way to do it?  How many years you have been meditating?  Do you do only calm abiding meditation (duration?) during your depression days if I don't mind asking and did it help you?

[ramelec]

The problem about taking SSRi medication is it does calm you down so much that when doing the calm abiding meditation.!

More question:
1) During calm abiding meditation, if you eye start to shift or out of focus or start wandering (tired) - what do you do?
2) During calm abiding meditation, if your body start to slouch due to tired - what do you do?
3) If you hear outside noises like car moving (even with ear plugs), what do you do?
4) How do you know that the calm abiding practise you are doing is correct? I mean how do you feel afterwards? Relax
5) Upon the completion of the meditation, do you just sit for a minute or two before getting up?

and one of the forummer wrote (for those who attending the Goenka retreat)
First goal: Samatha Meditation daily morning and night 30 minutes minimum each, for one month without breaking the routine once. (If you break the routine, you have to start the goal over).  Hmm..so it's confusing..

Thanks.

[Andrew]

Hi mate,

Vivek said it best regarding days off; it isn't something to make an issues of! Regarding being tired, perhaps I'm trying to be a bit too clever! If you really are 'late night out with friends tired', just sleep!!! I tend to sit down and 'meditate' anyway, though I start going to sleep pretty quick!. For me it's about the habit.

I have been 'trying to' meditate for around 8 years, though I've only just got what it is all about. I always thought I wasn't doing it right because I wouldn't feel any bliss or calm like I read about; so I would give up and only try once or twice a week. It has only been around a month since I have started 'getting it'. It only occurred to me to join a forum to help last month!! The last month has brought together a lot of the reading/experience of my life (I've always been into spirituality) with the practical work of 'sitting'.

During depression/anger phase, which I still struggle with, but not so much lately, I wasn't doing meditation much at all. I was really striving to be happy, but I didn't want to just face that I needed help. I got a referral from a doctor to see the psychologist. It was very uneventful and not dramatic at all, which is probably why it helped!!!

Re eyes; I close my eyes, so I don't worry about things like that.

Posture; right now, I'm working in 2 sitting positions. I will sit for 10 mins in lotus (which is a struggle) then I'll sit for 15 min on a chair. I do this because I want to be strong for sitting anywhere/ anytime and not rely on chairs.

I think the 'forummer' was just saying it takes time to form the habit. I think we are both at this stage it would seem!!

A question for you.. what is your goal for your meditation? What is it you want from it?

love

andy

[ramelec]

Andy, to calm my ego self

[Andrew]

sorry missed your last three questions again!!!

Noises are not a problem. We are seeing 'what is' that is all. If you hear cars, you hear cars. We don't need to have a perfect environment to see 'what is'. If it annoys you, watch the feeling rise, and watch it fall. You will most likely start wondering how you could make you room quieter etc etc, just gently return you thoughts to your body and how it feels to breath. I have an automatic air-freshener that makes me jump!! It is a bizarre thing just to watch the feelings!!

No, being relaxed is not the goal in my opinion. Being aware is. If you get up and say 'that was a waste of time', you will miss the subtle ways your mind has actually become more aware. You may just be aware of how frustrated you are, but that is good. Not many people can just be aware of it without thinking some other negative thought about it.

Don't get me wrong, I have had a couple of experience over the years, even one the other day, that I would describe as 'blissful' or close to it, but my goal now is not that at all. You have succeeded if you have sat down for 10 mins and given it a go. DON'T BE HARD ON YOURSELF, BE NICE!!! It is possible you know

Once done, I do give myself a chance to think about it and frame it in a positive light. So yes, I sit for a minute or two and remind myself of the things I believe to be true about what I'm doing. (that subtly awareness is growing, that the frustration is being understood clearly, perhaps I will increase the time I sit etc) Above all I catch any negative thoughts and breath...the other thing I do is not think of meditation as something that is only done when sitting; during the day I keep my eyes and ears open to what is around me, not so much lost in my thoughts.


love

andy

ps. your answer just came in!!!  What is your understanding of 'your ego self'?  Flesh it out a bit for me....
 

[Andrew]

Hi Jeffery, (I just saw your signature!)

You know, I think I probably have given you everything I know, and I start to get a bit beyond myself. I was just reading your posts over on the SRI site and I can see you are able to relax quite a bit!! (Probably more that I can by the sounds of it!!)

Is your anxiety something a doctor has diagnosed? For me meditation is something that is useful only when your other thoughts about life have been sorted through.  I mean it is all fine to talk about various buddhist concepts, but there are many times I think that they are just being used in place of more usual terms. Is it possible for your to consult with someone professional and talk through the issues? The internet is very limited in this regard and I think there are a lot of very helpful councilors out there.

love

andy

[Jeeprs]

take up exercise. That really helps too. Long distance running is great. Anything that releases endorphins and elevates the heart rate for sustained periods of time. Alternatively, martial arts, qi gong, tai chi, karate, and so on. After a very long hard workout it is much easier to relax because you don't have so much nervous energy.

Also don't worry about 'doing it right'. Zen Buddhism teaches 'just sitting'. Just sitting is just sitting, no ifs, ands or buts. Just sit. If you just sit for the time you have decided, there you are, mission accomplished. Nothing else to be done.

[NickAWilson]

Regarding missing days...

I have to travel a bit these days. I've found at a pinch I can get 20mins on the train or in the hotel. It's not perfect, but like others have said I think it's more about habit forming.

I have all kinds of issues just trying to do calm-abiding. Mostly raised heartrate and tension but I'm observing it and working on it! Good luck with your practice.

[Matthew]

...
More question:
1) During calm abiding meditation, if you eye start to shift or out of focus or start wandering (tired) - what do you do?
2) During calm abiding meditation, if your body start to slouch due to tired - what do you do?
3) If you hear outside noises like car moving (even with ear plugs), what do you do?
4) How do you know that the calm abiding practise you are doing is correct? I mean how do you feel afterwards? Relax
5) Upon the completion of the meditation, do you just sit for a minute or two before getting up?
.....

Almost all these questions have been asked and answered on the forum before. From the home page try searching for some !

4) You know you are doing calm abiding practice right when you feel calm or even bliss during the meditation and are left with this sense afterwards.
5) When finished I never get straight up. I stretch on the cushion, yawn, and come back to the external world for a few moments before rising.

Warmly,

Matthew