Results 1 to 7 of 7

Thread: Panic

  1. #1

    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?

  2. #2

    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

  3. #3

    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

  4. #4
    Stephanie
    Guest

    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

  5. #5

    Re: Panic

    Quote Originally Posted by 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?
    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

  6. #6

    Re: Panic

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

  7. #7

    Re: Panic

    Quote Originally Posted by AmongTheLilies
    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

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •