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Some insight, from a sufferer of dark / intrusive thoughts.
This thread struck a deep chord in me. Four years ago, much like the man in the podcast I started to suffer from intrusive thoughts that seemed to come out of no where. Also, much like the man in the podcast, I was unable to function normally since I was almost besieged by them several times a day. The gaps in between were blissful, almost euphoric, until the next thought decided to slip in undetected and unwanted. Each thought seemed almost tailor made by an invisible enemy who knew exactly what to suggest that would cause me the most suffering. Which images about my wife and children would be the absolute worst for me to see, and then showing me in vivid detail using my own imagination as it's engine. I'm a calm man, docile even. I wouldn't be able to carry out such atrocities, but that was part of this whole mental process. I wasn't a danger to anyone, but I started to wonder if I was. I've never hurt anyone in my life, but then I wondered if I could. If I could sit here and picture the steps that would be needed to do such terrible things, I thought to myself, then I have to be capable of it, right?
I know now that the answer is 'no', but I didn't then. I went to a councilor, we tried CBT for a long while, but I was never able to relax enough to be 'ok' with the thoughts themselves. No matter how hard I tried, thoughts led to anxiety, anxiety led to "what if" and the cycle continued to feed itself. I attribute this period of my life as the darkest point of it. Next came medication. Medication chopped the highs and the lows off my emotional sine wave, allowing me to live comfortably in the middle, but it didn't (and still doesn't) completely stop intrusive thoughts from happening. I also now know that it's a form of OCD that you're never cured of, you just learn to manage. So now I'll touch on Jundo's list from a personal standpoint.
1) Analysis: Trying to understand them made them worse. Why am I thinking such horrible things? The conclusion was always the same for me. Because I am a terrible human being capable of great atrocity. Obviously this only dug me deeper in to despair.
2) CBT: As I'd mentioned, not much success. My volume was simply turned up too high for me to ever find peace in this.
3) Mindfulness/Zazen: Here, friends, family, is where my personal Zen rubber hits the road. Where it's taken off the cushion in to life's practice. Learning to let thoughts come and go, with nothing to add, nothing to take away... Seeing them as just that. Thoughts, not actions, but thoughts allowed me to learn to peacefully abide while on the cushion. Months of practice turned in to the thoughts whispering in to my ear, and not screaming. Months more, and I was able to treat them as I treat everything when in Zazen. See it's there. Don't engage, don't acknowledge, let it go. This has become the cadence of my life now, and I've become so good at ignoring them as free floating things with out impact, that's even rare when I know they happen anymore. Every so often an image will flash and I'll frown, but that's the extend of it anymore. Most times, it doesn't even break whatever train of thought I'd been on before it reared it's ugly head.
So there you have it, I've certainly written a lot but not really sure if I've said anything. I guess that's up to how ya'll interpret it for yourselves. Heh. Ya'll. Is my Texas showing?
It is. Isn't it?
~Jigetsu_/\_
JigetsuComment
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That is wonderful how your practice has helped you. I can be a little OCD myself at times and can relate to what you said about how practice helps. Letting things come and go with nothing to add and nothing to take away. Thank you for sharing and thank you Jundo. I can hear your voice behind those words.
..sat2day•Comment
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Hello !
Just wanted to chime in to say that by "analysis", i think Jundo meant "psychoanalysis". Psychoanalysis has nothing to do with trying to "understand the content of thoughts". Instead, it sees the unwanted thoughts as a symptom of something unresolved in the unconscious structures of the patient, which are built from the first relations until adulthood and are evolving constantly - and which you can't figure out consciously, at all.
Psychoanalysis is not about analyzing thoughts logically and trying to figure them out ; it's the practice of a totally clear relationship with someone who is not emotionaly involved with you, which allows to firstly revisit the old, difficult schemes we are entrapped in, and then to rebuild, almost from scratch, a "sane" relationship background. It's a long process, but it has nothing to do with "understanding". Trying to understand symptoms or unwanted thoughts and fantasies is in fact a major - and often unavoidable - hindrance and resistance in a psychoanalytic process.
Gassho,
Ugrok
Sat TodayLast edited by Ugrok; 04-09-2015, 10:16 PM.Comment
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As a preface, I'll say that I'm not a professional or a patient. I'm just someone whose interest was piqued in Mindfulness by lots of positive and negative press reports, so I did an MBCT course in the UK. Other than this post, I'm not going to comment any further in this thread - my only interest is to point anyone who's interested towards some meditations that are used in Mindfulness courses.
On the MBCT (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy) course that's taught in the UK, there are a range of meditations, of which the closest to Zazen is probably "Sounds and Thoughts". There's a link to this at http://franticworld.com/free-meditat...m-mindfulness/ (Click on the image or title "Sounds and Thoughts Meditation"). It's only about 8 minutes, so worth a quick listen.
Please bear in mind that this meditation is taught in week 4 of an 8-week MBCT course designed specifically by clinicians for the treatment of patients with recurrent depression. Typically participants will have had no prior exposure to meditation.
Gassho
Jeremy
Will sit laterComment
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Hello,
Directed meditation is worth some thing.
Zazen is totally worthless.
Gassho
Myosha sat today"Recognize suffering, remove suffering." - Shakyamuni Buddha when asked, "Uhm . . .what?"Comment
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I'm on my lunch break from working with migrant workers through a volunteer program with my school. We have limited resources with regards to pharmacological treatments for mental health on this trip because we don't have a lot of follow up ability. Because of that we have been using some family therapist with came with us and they have been using CBT and mindfullness to great effect in the camps. They seem to tailor the technique to the problem and the person. For instance if the negative feelings are normal (like sadness from being away from their family) they might "give them" permission to feel the feelings, but to just feel them and let them go. However, if it a more destructive thought (i.e. smoking from stress) they might use the CBT techniques. It is a little out of my lane since I'm mostly taking care of their bodies, but I've watched a few therapist do some good work.
I'll add to Jishin's comment that right now us new students are taught to try meds first or a combo of meds and therapy for most problems. However, there are a few really exciting therapies that are being developed now, like virtual reality based therapy and prolonged exposure therapy that show promise in treating PTSD and phobias without as much medication.
GasshoIf I'm already enlightened why the hell is this so hard?Comment
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Hello:
An interesting thread and one that it near and dear to my heart. In recent years, working in the field of substance abuse treatment providing therapy in both individual and group settings, I have introduced mindfulness-based relapse prevention (MBRP) to clients. Of the 3 mentioned by Jundo, this would, in my opinion, be most closely related to Shikantaza for it focuses on establishing nonjudgemental awareness of thoughts. One of the exercises is called "urge surfing" which is a form of imaginal exposure therapy. Using this technique, clients are asked to imagine themselves in high risk situations. They are asked to picture themselves in such situations (such as sitting at a table with using friends and drugs), but they are instructed not to act. Once they are right up to the point of acting, then they are asked to notice how they experience an "urge" or "craving". They are instructed to locate the sensation in the body, emotionally, if there are tastes or smells, and in the thinking. The idea is to notice how the urge/craving rises, peaks, and then falls away (like a wave) without the client having to do anything. From a psychological perspective, the theory is that the intensity of the urge will be extinguished with repeated exposure to the cues. So, this approach is somewhat like Shikantaza in that clients are instructed to just observe, but very much unlike it in that there are some intentional, directed visualizations which are undertaken.
As for CBT and the cognitive therapies, these deal more with focusing on the content of thought v. the process of thought. Whereas in Shikantaza, we are watching thoughts as if they are clouds in the sky -- passing by without evaluating or judging -- in CBT the individual attempts to alter the shape of the cloud to effect a different emotional/behavioral outcome. This is very unlike Shikantaza in that there is a high degree of control which the client attempts to exercise over the content of thoughts. With that being said, clients are instructed to pay close attention to when they are evaluating or judging and to endeavor to drop that line of thinking. Similarly, in Shikantaza, we attempt to just observe thinking without the additional post-it notes. Again, however, CBT is very much concerned with content of thought v. process of thought. It seems to me that while Shikantaza involves both, it is mostly concerned with the latter.
Finally, the last school deals with issues of insight in many respects. However, one of the ways that this school most closely resembles Shikantaza could be traced back to early Freudian disciples like Carl Jung who embraced Buddhist notions of not-self. In fact, Jung believed that true psychological healing could only come once there occurs an ego-collapse. His theories of archetypes are also very closely related to Buddhist conceptions of karma.
There are likely many holes and more questions than answers in my post here. Just some of my thoughts I wanted to offer given my background and work in the area.
Gassho,
Jim
#sattoday探 TAN (Exploring)
人 JIN (Person)Comment
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Yes. This statement by Voyager reflects my reservations about CBT--
"Whereas in Shikantaza, we are watching thoughts as if they are clouds in the sky -- passing by without evaluating or judging -- in CBT the individual attempts to alter the shape of the cloud to effect a different emotional/behavioral outcome. This is very unlike Shikantaza in that there is a high degree of control which the client attempts to exercise over the content of thoughts."
Watching for, and talking oneself out of, negative thoughts seems to require a lot of judging and dualism--negative thoughts, positive thoughts.
Thank you all for an interesting discussion.
_/\_
L.
sat2dayComment
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Questions for our Mental Health Professionals: Dark Thoughts
Hi,
I find that although some mental health professionals profess to stick to a particular school of thought, this is just BS. Something to put down on paper to justify billing. What really happens is called eclectic therapy. You do what works.
Gassho, Jishin, _/st\_Last edited by Jishin; 06-19-2015, 12:20 AM.Comment
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Hi Jim,
I see your point with regard to Shikantaza, but perhaps CBT bears close relationship to another skill running throughout Buddhism: The ability to develop recognition of harmful thoughts/words/acts (based on, for example, greed, anger, divisive thinking and all included within that) and to replace those with the positive, helpful or harmless (generosity, peace, acceptance etc.). Please have a look, for example, at our recommended "Nurturing Seeds" Practice ...
Also, this thread on "vipassana" even within Zen Practice may be helpful ...The following is based on teachings by Thich Nhat Hahn as well as many others. It's roots stretch back to the very origins of Buddhism. It is a simple and common sense approach to changing how we think and feel ... realizing that our experience of life is always shaped through the various thoughts and emotions that we impose upon life within our little heads, like a bit of mental theatre the script for which we are constantly writing for ourselves. This technique is an instantaneous means to replace harmful, negative, destructive thoughts and emotions with constructive, positive, wholesome thoughts and emotions.
Of course, this practice is not meant as a substitute for "Zazen", our core activity. Far from it! All is hand-in-hand. Yet, just as with our other "Recommended Daily Practice", the recitation of Metta (Loving Kindness) ...
more here ...Buddhist Practice is usually described as flying upon the twin wings of Samatha (calming thoughts and emotions, illuminating and dropping body-mind) and awareness and understanding of vipassana (insight and awareness primarily into the nature and workings of 'self' and mental functions). That is true in Zen practice no less than most other forms of Buddhist practice.
In a nutshell, Vipassana might be described as insights and awareness, based on Buddhist psychology, as to how the mind works and plays it games. It is an understanding of the Skandhas (form, sensation, perception, mental formation, consciousness ... those words always sung in the Heart Sutra), how our thoughts and emotional reactions arise, how we label and divide the world. We should also understand the Buddha's ideas about how suffering arises within us, which is intimately tied to all that.
However, unlike some schools of Buddhism, in Shikantaza we do not pursue any particular practices --during-- Zazen itself in order to cultivate such vipassana insight ... and much insight naturally arises from Zazen as "Zazen does its thing". Perhaps we might say that, just in "just sitting" Shikantaza ... dropping thoughts of this and that, thus quieting the mind's "mind games" ... we develop a natural sensitivity and understanding of the mind's "mind games" (much like one first comes to really appreciate what "urban noise" is when one first drives out of the city to the middle of the desert or some other truly quiet place).
Gassho, J
SatToday (tried later to avoid some harmful thoughts today)Last edited by Jundo; 06-19-2015, 02:16 AM.ALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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"Perhaps we might say that, just in "just sitting" Shikantaza ... dropping thoughts of this and that, thus quieting the mind's "mind games" ... we develop a natural sensitivity and understanding of the mind's "mind games" (much like one first comes to really appreciate what "urban noise" is when one first drives out of the city to the middle of the desert or some other truly quiet place)."
Yes, this is what I imagine, and hope for.
_/\_
L.
sat2dayComment
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