Panic

[AmongTheLilies]

Today I sat for about half an hour. Towards the last couple of minutes (maybe 5 minutes or so), my mental state suddenly shifted from what it ordinarily is during zazen to one of complete and utter panic. I sat with the panic, but it still deeply shook me.

I was wondering, is this a common occurrence for any of you? Is it at all unusual, or simply another aspect of sitting that usually comes up at some point? If it isn't, any ideas about what it might mean? I suspect it might reflect some long-repressed emotion coming to the surface (as has happened to me before in the course of sitting), but it was just a generalized feeling of stark raving terror instead of an insight about something.

Any thoughts?

[Jundo]

Re: Panic

Hi,

In Zen Practice, we have to be careful of certain games the mind will play during Zazen once in awhile ... including unusual visual and auditory sensations, brief periods of paranoia or panic, memories arising from deep down in our subconscious. Once, during a Sesshin, I became irate inside because I felt the monk at Sojiji sitting next to me was "encroaching on my space". I once had a little Buddha pop out of the wall and chat with me for several minutes (I pinched myself ... he stayed!), and felt like I was floating in the air. It is common during Sesshin, because of the strains involved, the "sensory deprivation", to experience such things as emotional swings, hearing becoming so sharp you can be disturbed by an ant walking across the room, strange bodily sensations such as feelings of floating or being giant sized, and paranoia.

If it is just once in awhile ... and if you are aware of this, and it was not too overwhelming ... then I do not think it cause for worry. If it becomes too overwhelming, break off that sitting and take a little time off until you cool down. If it becomes a regular event, that may be a sign of something else that needs to be approached. But, once in awhile ... I would not be concerned.

We tend to call such things "Makyo", defined as follows (by Daido Loori Roshi). He speaks of hallucinatory like experiences, but I would put a panic attack or paranoia in there too ...

In Zen, hallucinations are called makyo. It is not unusual for practitioners sitting in meditation for long periods of time to experience makyo. Some people feel like they are levitating, others see visions of the Buddha bathed in light, some hear sounds or voices. This in itself is not a problem. The problem arises when we confuse these experiences with enlightenment. When students come to me in dokusan to give me elaborate description of their makyo, a common response from me could be something like, “Oh, don’t worry about it—it will go away. Maybe you’re not sitting straight.” In other words, don’t attach to it. But if a dream is real, why isn’t makyo real? Are dreams, makyo, enlightenment and delusion the same, or are they different?

We learn from all these experience ... we learn how the mind is like a theatre, and creates our experience of the life-world.

If, however, the feeling becomes overwhelming, or will not pass with time ... we can talk more about it.

Gassho, Jundo

[Shui_Di]

Re: Panic

Panic, yeah the same with me... in the past time I also panic, mostly in the end of zazen.

It's ok, just keep sitting..., whether panic or not, drop it, or just let it go. it will not kill you, any way.

Well, that's my opinion

Gassho, mujo

[Stephanie]

Re: Panic

RELIGIOUS STATUES

After a while
I started playing with dolls
I loved their peaceful expressions
They all had their places
in a corner of Room 315

I would say to myself:
It doesn't matter
that Leonard can't breathe
that he is hopelessly involved
in the panic of the situation

I'd light a cigarette
and a stick of Nag Champa
Both would burn too fast
in the draft of the ceiling fan

Then I might say
something like:
Thank You
for the terms of my life
which make it so painlessly clear
that I am powerless
to do anything

and I'd watch CNN
the rest of the night
but now
from a completely different
point of view

Leonard Cohen, from Book of Longing

[Rich]

Re: Panic

Today I sat for about half an hour. Towards the last couple of minutes (maybe 5 minutes or so), my mental state suddenly shifted from what it ordinarily is during zazen to one of complete and utter panic. I sat with the panic, but it still deeply shook me.

I was wondering, is this a common occurrence for any of you? Is it at all unusual, or simply another aspect of sitting that usually comes up at some point? If it isn't, any ideas about what it might mean? I suspect it might reflect some long-repressed emotion coming to the surface (as has happened to me before in the course of sitting), but it was just a generalized feeling of stark raving terror instead of an insight about something.

Any thoughts?

Your store consciousness contains everything you have ever experienced. In dreams or while just sitting any kind of feeling or thinking could arise. Because of karma or habit some of this is stronger than the average, but returning to the present moment ie just sitting or just doing whatever, slowing breaks the bonds of karmic attachment. It's not that I don't have these things, its just that I don't give them as much time and attention because there is so much to do in the present.
/Rich

[AmongTheLilies]

Re: Panic

Do all makyo reflect hidden seeds in one's mind coming to light, or are some of them just...random?

[Jundo]

Re: Panic

Do all makyo reflect hidden seeds in one's mind coming to light, or are some of them just...random?

Sometimes a dream about a cigar moving back and forth through a train tunnel has deep significance.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

(do you know that joke, Lily?)

Personally, I am not sure about the very ancient Buddhist description of a "Store" or "Seed Consciousness", which is said in traditional Buddhist psychology (of some schools) to hold the "seeds" of all our experiences and potential actions ... love, hate, peace, violence, you name it. The effects of the past leave these "seeds" in our "Seed Consciousness" and when a particular seed gets watered and come to bloom, we act such way ... angry effects of the past leave an "angry seed" in us which, when sprouting, results in "angry action" and an "angry" experience of life.

The Thich Nhat Hanh book I recommend from time to time, "Understanding Our Mind", provides one of the clearest explanations of how this works, as well as attempts to update the idea and make it more relevant to the modern world ... You should read it if interested in such things ...

http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Our ... 797&sr=8-1

Now, is there actually a "Store/Storehouse/Seed Consciousness" and "Angry Seeds" and such actually located somewhere, as ancient Buddhist philosophers asserted? Probably not, I think.

But the general mechanism is true and insightful as a description of human behavior. Effects from the past (for example, a violent childhood) leave scars and "seeds" for potential anger and violence within the victim which, when he/she grows, have the potential to cause the person to act in angry and violent ways. When we act and perceive the world with that anger, the world is perceived as an ugly and violent place. When we have "seeds" of peace within us, and can nurture that ... we tend to experience the world with peaceful eyes.

So, whether actually existing or just a symbolic description, the "Seed Consciousness" is a good and useful image for how we bear the effects of the past, and how our minds shape our experience of life ... and how we should try to water the peaceful seeds within us, and not the angry and violent seeds.

That is one reason that I recommend a daily "Nurturing the Seeds" practice, very much inspired by Thich Nhat Hanh ...

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1730

Now, when you ask "Do all makyo reflect hidden seeds in one's mind coming to light, or are some of them just...random?", that kind of question has been debated by Buddhist philosophers for thousands of years ... to very different conclusions. In my view, the answer is as complicated as the human mind itself. Probably, many are just random (I just read a fascinating essay on many alleged school child abuse cases in the 1970's and 80's, such as the McMartin Pre-school, where memories of abuse "surfaced" in hypnosis and in talks with counselors ... and it seems that many of the "memories" were either originally false, mass hysteria or implanted accidently by suggestion of the hypnotists called to "bring them to the surface", parents and counselors during interviews of the children. In some cases, the memories were true or based on actual events. Not everything we remember as having happened really happened).

So, sometimes a dream of a cigar is a symbol with deep meaning to old Sigmund Freud ... sometimes it is just a dream about a cigar. :roll:

Gassho, Jundo