I've done a lot of techniques over the years... To compress it a bunch:
Transcendental Meditation style mantra practice was a good way of establishing baseline concentration as a beginner
TWIM-style metta, and Rob Burbea style shamatha practice were good for opening up emotionally and bodily
Self-inquiry practice and Shinzen Young's "noting gone" were good for deconstructive potential
And these days it's all pretty much expanded awareness / do nothing practice
This is all hard to separate from an approach to experiencing aversive emotions I learned from a book called Existential Kink, and knowledge of my enneagram type was a really important driver for the direction of practice
Hey man, I've practiced Metta regularly for some months now and haven't felt anything I could describe as a sense of loving kindness. Did you also struggle initially? If so, was there anything in particular that helped you to cultivate it, or did you just arrive at it with lots of practice?
Thanks very much for this article, and for introducing me to Shinzen Young—he talks about meditation in such a lucid way, it's very helpful.
Have you tried Ajahn Brahms guided youtube video on metta? Helped me a lot - I found it hard to pinpoint what was loving kindness before that.
Also it is useful to first imagine a puppy, child, etc to raise the feeling in you, and then simply hold it for a while. Then start the practice.
Assuming that you do what the majority of guided videos do, which is chant a "Sending Metta to X" mantra - that's not actually the best way for me, and doesn't work well for folks who have body sensations shut off.
Another way to start if all sensations/feelings are muted is Existential Kink which Sasha has a great post on. This will help unlock more feelings over time. For me the initial feelings I could feel strongly were NOT metta or any other brahmavihara, so EK worked very well as an unlocker for those after a couple of months..
Thank you very much for taking the time to write this. I'll experiment with the things you've mentioned and get back to you!
Indeed, all I've been doing so far is repeating "I truly wish that you be at peace" (and similar) to myself.
There are moments where it feels as if I intellectually agree with those sentiments—that is, it 'make sense' to me rationally that I am wishing those things for myself—but it's rare for me to experience anything emotionally other than a dull mixture of sadness and fear.
RomeoStevens (neuroticgradient descent on blogspot) also likes core transformation to reach these states (and then use them for Jhana) Core Transformation is a super useful skill - a path via logic to get to a high valence emotional state - worked really well for me (am alexithymic to some degree I think) But might need help from someone to guide first.
Great! That sounds interesting as well. I think my problem is not so much that I don't feel anything, but that my repertoire of possible emotional states is very limited and overwhelmingly negative.
I've been thinking a lot about this article. This year has been a big practice year for me and I'm happier and going through life more honestly but I'm also having a lot of unexpected interpersonal issues. Some of those are outlined in your article. But here's another one which I completely didn't expect.
Sometimes - and this is when something comes up and I need to change my outlook - an example is the Trump election - when everyone else in my life goes into either a state of rarefied anxiety or excited triumphant glee - I go into what I'd call a spiritual id (like freudian id) mode. It's a flow state where I feel very unified with the world. But yet I am seeing things very strongly from the point of view of the singular organism I am. I'm just embedded here. I can see other people's feelings but any stitching together other people's reality from their conditioned points of view is quite difficult and takes a lot of mental reaching out.
My intellectual sense is that I've given up hedging at a base level. I still hedge with my consciousness when there's nothing much going on, when the perceived stakes are low. I sit around in a more activated state than necessary, not doing much but being ready for something bad to happen. Certainly less activated than before, but the mental habits are still there, and a lot of the internal barriers, fear and levels of mentalization and so on, are still there. But when something urgent happens that cuts through this, I can give it up nimbly and fall back on what feels alive.
This really isn't what people expect from me at all. They expect me to go into a kind of rationalization layer, full of cognitive empathy, supporting them in a kind of CBT fashion while they freak out about whatever happened. Now I am just a warm human animal, I'm more present and more perceptive and I can be a rock, but my previously heralded cognitive empathy and interest in people's storyhacking - it just feels kind of distant from me.
This is a great overview of what happens when one has been on the journey for a while. The "cool" factor section reminds me of the following quote:
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture , or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts." -- Henry David Thoreau
A great piece of writing that's very useful, thank you. There is certainly a misunderstanding that spirituality/enlightenment will somehow save us from being human. I have found that we allow meditation to change us, make us more humble, more compassionate...and if we get it 'right' we become more human :) In truly knowing who and what we are, we are no longer ruled by an egoic tyrant self who believes life needs to be a certain way and we can engage fully with life, rather than always against it. What a different way to live.
I feel like this sums up something I've been trying to describe for 20 years. I've printed out a copy to keep with me. Thanks for this. I really enjoy your writing.
I am maybe more interested in what you might think, feel or know of people who have issues grouped under the term "mental illness" and the particular challenges and opportunites that they might encounter via meditation, for instance the dismantling of their 'operating system' - so to speak - unleashing all manner of traumatic content which it evolved to keep at bay (I think that's more or less what happened to me).
Anyway - thank you for writing. I am very grateful to have been pointed to your work.
I'm particularly struck by Sasha's revelation that one can lose one's shit even when one is a great good distance down the path of awakening. "It was disorienting and a little humiliating," Sasha wrote. "I thought I was better than that."
Such emotional/spiritual conundrums are also addressed by Tibetan lama Tarthang Tulku as quoted by John Welwood:
"Any moment, wherever you are, driving a car, sitting around, working, talking, any activities you have—even if you are very disturbed emotionally, very passionate, or even if your mind has become very strong, raging, overcome with the worst possible things and you cannot control yourself, or you feel depressed . . . if you really go into it, there’s nothing there. Whatever comes up becomes your meditation. Even if you become extremely tense, if you go into your thought and your awareness comes alive, that moment can be more powerful than working a long time in meditation practice."
In other words, don't hold back the shit. And don't stop at simply shitting! Rather, *be* the shit. Not because you have a choice, but rather that's what the universe needs from you in the moment.
I think for me the pay off of a contemplative way of Being with Life is not missing my direct interface with life. The practice holds me aloft, like a scaffolding, temporary adn up high and untangled for a moment so I can reorient, (like climbing a high tree when I’m lost in the woods.) The not missing my life thing, not misinterpreting the opportunities to dig in and love up and open to, that challenges are, has rendered so much joy territory within! For example, last night, I was at my oldest daughter’s house, helping her finish her drywall. I hadn’t been very happy all day (recently hit by a mack truck and my body is still in a crumple) but I stayed With myself in the challenges, each now, each ask, I just stayed with me and kept presence as a navigation tool. so that, at the end of the day so weary and hurting I still had the presence to witness and take in an interaction between my adult nonbinary kiddo who had been cooking all day for the work crews, talking to my youngest grandson who was on the couch with our dog who’d been paraylzed in mack truck accident and is HEALING HALLELUJAH. Frankie told Tuck, Bonnie isn’t yet strong enough to get up and down off the couch and she feels a little nervous when she’s alone. She just wants to feel seen.” Frank turned back to potatoes and we both heard Tuck (4) quietly start patting Bonnies head and saying over and over “I see you. I see you Bonnie, I see you.”
“And sometimes people dislike that I can sympathize with their worry but I palpably don’t feel it the same way. It feels sociopathic, or like I’m not taking them seriously.”
Oh my god, I feel seen. I have been exploring how I show up in these moments, working with the idea that it’s somehow “my fault” that I’m not expressing my sympathy effectively enough. Reading this, I think I might be closer to setting that down. Thanks!
>But it just doesn’t get you much in terms of material output to display. If you consider opportunity cost, meditation is likely to materially reduce the number of goodies you can boast about.
This is a variation on a claim that I've seen a few times, and it has always striked me as pretty weird. Shouldn't much calmer, happier (relatively suffering-free?) people make in general better decisions in life, be more productive, visibly competent etc, so that it's clear to outsiders? Meditation has been around for ages, and yet meditators don't seem to obviously outperform other people in any ostensibly unrelated walks of life.
One possible explanation is that consciousness basically isn't important, things that matter the body does on the autopilot, and our "awareness" and "experiences" are epiphenomena. There are a few other lines of evidence that lead to this conclusion, but it definitely is profoundly uncomfortable.
"it’s become clear that suffering can be load-bearing"
That's a whopper, and feels 100% true. This is a very relatable description of an experience that sounds very foreign to most of us, indeed. It's a state of mind that I think comes across here and there in small windows to at least some of us (ergo relatable), but it's a big thing to imagine feeling like that all the time— as you say: tradeoffs.
i jumped onto the comment section half way into the post just to say "it almost felt like you have microscopic view of my life, its scary and freeing to see the clarity in thought"
Sasha, just started reading your 'Newsletter' (courtesy a post in T. Cowen's 'Marginal Revolution'.
Great stuff! I certainly related to the 'accomplishment from dread' observation—a successful career, conventionally measured, followed by years of wandering in the desert when I couldn't take the pointlessness anymore (and could afford not to). I probably could have saved a few of those years by the meditation you cover, but, just stubborn, I guess.
fascinating. love your writing. what does your meditation practice consist of?
I've done a lot of techniques over the years... To compress it a bunch:
Transcendental Meditation style mantra practice was a good way of establishing baseline concentration as a beginner
TWIM-style metta, and Rob Burbea style shamatha practice were good for opening up emotionally and bodily
Self-inquiry practice and Shinzen Young's "noting gone" were good for deconstructive potential
And these days it's all pretty much expanded awareness / do nothing practice
This is all hard to separate from an approach to experiencing aversive emotions I learned from a book called Existential Kink, and knowledge of my enneagram type was a really important driver for the direction of practice
How did knowing your Enneagram type change your practice compared to if you never heard of it?
LEAN INTO THE HURT being a really useful ongoing pointer, for one thing
Also understanding just how much I would not want to sit and why
Hey man, I've practiced Metta regularly for some months now and haven't felt anything I could describe as a sense of loving kindness. Did you also struggle initially? If so, was there anything in particular that helped you to cultivate it, or did you just arrive at it with lots of practice?
Thanks very much for this article, and for introducing me to Shinzen Young—he talks about meditation in such a lucid way, it's very helpful.
Have you tried Ajahn Brahms guided youtube video on metta? Helped me a lot - I found it hard to pinpoint what was loving kindness before that.
Also it is useful to first imagine a puppy, child, etc to raise the feeling in you, and then simply hold it for a while. Then start the practice.
Assuming that you do what the majority of guided videos do, which is chant a "Sending Metta to X" mantra - that's not actually the best way for me, and doesn't work well for folks who have body sensations shut off.
Another way to start if all sensations/feelings are muted is Existential Kink which Sasha has a great post on. This will help unlock more feelings over time. For me the initial feelings I could feel strongly were NOT metta or any other brahmavihara, so EK worked very well as an unlocker for those after a couple of months..
Thank you very much for taking the time to write this. I'll experiment with the things you've mentioned and get back to you!
Indeed, all I've been doing so far is repeating "I truly wish that you be at peace" (and similar) to myself.
There are moments where it feels as if I intellectually agree with those sentiments—that is, it 'make sense' to me rationally that I am wishing those things for myself—but it's rare for me to experience anything emotionally other than a dull mixture of sadness and fear.
RomeoStevens (neuroticgradient descent on blogspot) also likes core transformation to reach these states (and then use them for Jhana) Core Transformation is a super useful skill - a path via logic to get to a high valence emotional state - worked really well for me (am alexithymic to some degree I think) But might need help from someone to guide first.
Great! That sounds interesting as well. I think my problem is not so much that I don't feel anything, but that my repertoire of possible emotional states is very limited and overwhelmingly negative.
Do you have any resources for working with one’s enneagram type? I’m a 9.
are you related to a mathematician named Solomyak?
I've been thinking a lot about this article. This year has been a big practice year for me and I'm happier and going through life more honestly but I'm also having a lot of unexpected interpersonal issues. Some of those are outlined in your article. But here's another one which I completely didn't expect.
Sometimes - and this is when something comes up and I need to change my outlook - an example is the Trump election - when everyone else in my life goes into either a state of rarefied anxiety or excited triumphant glee - I go into what I'd call a spiritual id (like freudian id) mode. It's a flow state where I feel very unified with the world. But yet I am seeing things very strongly from the point of view of the singular organism I am. I'm just embedded here. I can see other people's feelings but any stitching together other people's reality from their conditioned points of view is quite difficult and takes a lot of mental reaching out.
My intellectual sense is that I've given up hedging at a base level. I still hedge with my consciousness when there's nothing much going on, when the perceived stakes are low. I sit around in a more activated state than necessary, not doing much but being ready for something bad to happen. Certainly less activated than before, but the mental habits are still there, and a lot of the internal barriers, fear and levels of mentalization and so on, are still there. But when something urgent happens that cuts through this, I can give it up nimbly and fall back on what feels alive.
This really isn't what people expect from me at all. They expect me to go into a kind of rationalization layer, full of cognitive empathy, supporting them in a kind of CBT fashion while they freak out about whatever happened. Now I am just a warm human animal, I'm more present and more perceptive and I can be a rock, but my previously heralded cognitive empathy and interest in people's storyhacking - it just feels kind of distant from me.
Anyway, work in progress.
I have experienced similar things!
This is a great overview of what happens when one has been on the journey for a while. The "cool" factor section reminds me of the following quote:
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor. It is something to be able to paint a particular picture , or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts." -- Henry David Thoreau
A great piece of writing that's very useful, thank you. There is certainly a misunderstanding that spirituality/enlightenment will somehow save us from being human. I have found that we allow meditation to change us, make us more humble, more compassionate...and if we get it 'right' we become more human :) In truly knowing who and what we are, we are no longer ruled by an egoic tyrant self who believes life needs to be a certain way and we can engage fully with life, rather than always against it. What a different way to live.
I feel like this sums up something I've been trying to describe for 20 years. I've printed out a copy to keep with me. Thanks for this. I really enjoy your writing.
You’re always one decision away from a completely different life
That decision is to have a completely different life
I would be interested to know your thoughts about meditation and mental illness should that ever feel like something you wanted to write about. I don't mean so much the potential for one exacerbating the other (I wrote about that in esquire a few years ago here (long piece BTW): https://www.esquire.com/uk/latest-news/a25651175/the-other-side-of-paradise-how-i-left-a-buddhist-retreat-in-handcuffs/
I am maybe more interested in what you might think, feel or know of people who have issues grouped under the term "mental illness" and the particular challenges and opportunites that they might encounter via meditation, for instance the dismantling of their 'operating system' - so to speak - unleashing all manner of traumatic content which it evolved to keep at bay (I think that's more or less what happened to me).
Anyway - thank you for writing. I am very grateful to have been pointed to your work.
MH
Loved your piece
Thank you Jeffrey - glad it connected.
An abundance of abundance here!
I'm particularly struck by Sasha's revelation that one can lose one's shit even when one is a great good distance down the path of awakening. "It was disorienting and a little humiliating," Sasha wrote. "I thought I was better than that."
Such emotional/spiritual conundrums are also addressed by Tibetan lama Tarthang Tulku as quoted by John Welwood:
"Any moment, wherever you are, driving a car, sitting around, working, talking, any activities you have—even if you are very disturbed emotionally, very passionate, or even if your mind has become very strong, raging, overcome with the worst possible things and you cannot control yourself, or you feel depressed . . . if you really go into it, there’s nothing there. Whatever comes up becomes your meditation. Even if you become extremely tense, if you go into your thought and your awareness comes alive, that moment can be more powerful than working a long time in meditation practice."
In other words, don't hold back the shit. And don't stop at simply shitting! Rather, *be* the shit. Not because you have a choice, but rather that's what the universe needs from you in the moment.
thanks for this article. points to a lot of what i'm experiencing these days.
I think for me the pay off of a contemplative way of Being with Life is not missing my direct interface with life. The practice holds me aloft, like a scaffolding, temporary adn up high and untangled for a moment so I can reorient, (like climbing a high tree when I’m lost in the woods.) The not missing my life thing, not misinterpreting the opportunities to dig in and love up and open to, that challenges are, has rendered so much joy territory within! For example, last night, I was at my oldest daughter’s house, helping her finish her drywall. I hadn’t been very happy all day (recently hit by a mack truck and my body is still in a crumple) but I stayed With myself in the challenges, each now, each ask, I just stayed with me and kept presence as a navigation tool. so that, at the end of the day so weary and hurting I still had the presence to witness and take in an interaction between my adult nonbinary kiddo who had been cooking all day for the work crews, talking to my youngest grandson who was on the couch with our dog who’d been paraylzed in mack truck accident and is HEALING HALLELUJAH. Frankie told Tuck, Bonnie isn’t yet strong enough to get up and down off the couch and she feels a little nervous when she’s alone. She just wants to feel seen.” Frank turned back to potatoes and we both heard Tuck (4) quietly start patting Bonnies head and saying over and over “I see you. I see you Bonnie, I see you.”
“And sometimes people dislike that I can sympathize with their worry but I palpably don’t feel it the same way. It feels sociopathic, or like I’m not taking them seriously.”
Oh my god, I feel seen. I have been exploring how I show up in these moments, working with the idea that it’s somehow “my fault” that I’m not expressing my sympathy effectively enough. Reading this, I think I might be closer to setting that down. Thanks!
>But it just doesn’t get you much in terms of material output to display. If you consider opportunity cost, meditation is likely to materially reduce the number of goodies you can boast about.
This is a variation on a claim that I've seen a few times, and it has always striked me as pretty weird. Shouldn't much calmer, happier (relatively suffering-free?) people make in general better decisions in life, be more productive, visibly competent etc, so that it's clear to outsiders? Meditation has been around for ages, and yet meditators don't seem to obviously outperform other people in any ostensibly unrelated walks of life.
One possible explanation is that consciousness basically isn't important, things that matter the body does on the autopilot, and our "awareness" and "experiences" are epiphenomena. There are a few other lines of evidence that lead to this conclusion, but it definitely is profoundly uncomfortable.
"it’s become clear that suffering can be load-bearing"
That's a whopper, and feels 100% true. This is a very relatable description of an experience that sounds very foreign to most of us, indeed. It's a state of mind that I think comes across here and there in small windows to at least some of us (ergo relatable), but it's a big thing to imagine feeling like that all the time— as you say: tradeoffs.
Thank you
i jumped onto the comment section half way into the post just to say "it almost felt like you have microscopic view of my life, its scary and freeing to see the clarity in thought"
Sasha, just started reading your 'Newsletter' (courtesy a post in T. Cowen's 'Marginal Revolution'.
Great stuff! I certainly related to the 'accomplishment from dread' observation—a successful career, conventionally measured, followed by years of wandering in the desert when I couldn't take the pointlessness anymore (and could afford not to). I probably could have saved a few of those years by the meditation you cover, but, just stubborn, I guess.
I'm looking forward to future musings!