All the News That's Fit to Print
(Including Kundali)
I lived in New York City from 1970 to 1990, and my favorite daily ritual was to go to what my friends and I called the “Greasy Spoon,” a little diner on 101st and Broadway, for a donut, a cup of coffee, and the New York Times. It would be difficult to describe the sense of pride this young man gained from reading the NYTimes every single day, not to mention an expanded perspective and awareness of the world. I was fresh from the mountains of East Tennessee and in awe of the sophistication that literally seemed to ooze from all things Manhattan. Truly, the New York Times covered “all the news that’s fit to print,” which its masthead has proudly proclaimed since 1897, and though no one has ever quite explained why it is called the Gray Lady, I believe it had to do with a kind of “starch correctness” and probably a mildly conservative tendency in its earlier years. In the early1970’s, I saw the the New York Times as a gray lady in the best possible sense: “she” was staunchly gray, neither, black nor white, who could see even the most subtle shades between the opposites, almost like the figure of Justice, who is blind, holding the scales of Truth rather than getting lost on either side of it. This was almost twenty years before I understood Jung’s suggestion that an individuated person can “hold” or even bear the discomfort of opposites within himself. When one cannot bear ambivalence, he shakes away the discomfort and wraps himself or herself in the clothes of smug certitude.
It would be stupid to blame Donald Trump for the destruction of the NYTime's staunch Gray Lady impartiality. In fact, it is blind and dangerous to blame any object for causing hatred, which, unless I am gravely mistaken, still comes exclusively from subjects, but, of course, this is precisely what most of us seem destined to do. “He, She, It, They” caused my hatred. For sure. Watching the Gray Lady don black and white attire as a reflection of the astounding polarization in our country has been quite a painful experience for yours truly over the last twenty years.
“What does the New York Times have to do with kundalini?” you may politely ask. Mostly nothing at all. But you must admit it is a clever way to say that I want to tell all the news (about my life) that’s fit to print. These essays are, after all, something of a loose autobiography, or, as I mentioned earlier, a quilt of different and quite colorful patches. So the next major patch in my life’s quilt (and God knows a colorful one) occurred one decade after my trip to Crete, when I encountered an experience that changed the course of my life forever.
I have written extensively about Kundalini elsewhere, and prefer to let the little journal entries that follow “do the talking,” with the exception of these brief remarks: What Freud and Jung called libido is probably what the ancient yogis called Kundalini, but where Freud was obsessed with the biological/ sexual aspect of libido and its manifestation in our lives, and where Jung imagined libido as an urge toward psychological wholeness and (paradoxically) individuation, Kundalini, to the ancient Yogis, was spiritual energy par excellent. Let me add that Kundalini, to this day, is almost as “exotic” to us in the West as it is to Buddhists in the East. This was a shocking and painful lesson I had to learn from my own experience.
A few program notes: My journal leaves out a great deal of information, and most of it has long faded from memory. For one thing, as the “condition” worsened each day, any sustained writing over a few sentences made my brain erupt. I could literally feel an electric current running between the left and right hemisphere. With each electrical “disturbance” from trying to think, came a corresponding sound of screeching in my ears. Also, I was basically writing to calm myself, or perhaps more correctly said, trying to remain connected to my core self. Writing to share my experience with others was the furthest thing from my mind. At that point, I was so disconnected from human contact I was not able to feel any connection to others.
I have included a few comments in brackets and italics. Also, my account is somewhat confusing to read because near the end of the journal I refer to myself in the third person, “he,” and then switch back to the personal “I.”
I wrote this first entry after standing in the snow one beautiful, “blue black” night in December.
December 5, 1988
Every night I look up at the sky as I walk back to my room after washing the tea dishes. And each time when the sky is clear and the stars are so brilliant against the blue black night, the thing I see and know is how utterly small and ignorant I am. It is unmitigated. I could study for the remainder of my days, know the names of the stars, the galaxies, know the theories of their origin, feel the vastness and appreciate the beauty. It would not change one thing. I am and will always be completely ignorant in that configuration.
Such a strange day! So many up and downs and sideways I’m really not used to. Joseph’s question and answer session was strong for me. Sometimes he is so deeply touching and inspiring. The interesting thing tonight was how strongly I was affected by his restating the fact that the mind can only take enlightenment in stages. Why? Because it can only bear to see or understand portions of dukkha at one time. And my core knows this with complete certainty. I think of this one, making light of his life for over 40 years. Ah, how it hurts, how I and so many of my friends have run from the truth of our suffering hearts. But how much truth can one bear?
After this, at the last sitting the sounds in my head were worse than ever. Oh my. If I thought they were loud yesterday! This is unbelievable, an insane asylum in there, suffering in there. And through it all the endless pounding heart. My God. It gets sore from the pounding, but still no arrhythmia. I have no idea whether I “meditated” or not, I was so shaken by the incredible noise in my head and a feeling of suffering that I more or less intuit but cannot bear to face. It is so ironic. It’s as if - at the end of 110 days of sitting – I am at a place of beginning. [Since the age of 10, I was terrified of the heart going into arrhythmia - and had to go many times to emergency rooms to face the dreaded “paddles”]
December 6, 9:40 AM
After I wrote last night I lay down to sleep. I had not taken a nap yesterday, and so there was every reason to assume that sleep would come, even with the stereophonic snoring in the rooms near by. Immediately after I lay down I discovered the coursing energy running up the back of my neck and into the head. Whining in the ears and “strands” of different sounds reaching higher and higher pitches. I lay there for 10 or 15 minutes and decided I would have to sit some more to let some of this “blow off,” so I got up and sat on the cushion in my room. I sat noting the sounds, trying to stay with rise and fall. [the meditation object we were practicing]. My body was completely trembling all over. The thing is, the more I tried to “stay with it” which is what we all are trying to do, it seemed to make the trembling worse. I can only describe the sounds in my head as what it would be like to stand on a runway between three 747 jets with their engines whining at unbelievably high pitches. My eyes were rolled back causing brilliant lights to flash. This has been happening for at least a week, but the thing is, until last night I would sit with the noise and trembling and it would build and build into a crescendo, reach a peak and then slowly die down. But something was different last night. It was as if the brain or nervous system had an agenda of its own, and all that I could do was to hold on. Each time one would think that the sounds could go no higher, they did go higher. Pitches I cannot describe. Higher than any musical instrument I have ever heard. [It reminds me of the high pitches that dogs can supposedly hear. I was hearing sounds beyond the range of the “normal” human ability.]
Eventually, I felt a tremendous vibration at the base of the spine and had the sense that I was actually hearing sounds from that specific place, a low hum. Also there was an intense pressure at the base of the neck and a sensation of burning. I thought my head was going to burst. Near the end of this, maybe an hour later there was a sort of crystal like object in the center of vision, but there was no one to be excited about some psychedelic experience. By then my attitude was “what is going to happen next?” I cannot imagine the pressure that is blowing through this nervous system.
At this point I went into that “other state” . . . . How to describe it? I so dread it and yet long for it, and there are absolutely no words to describe it. But it’s like the energy field or force changes, something “switches” and there is a force so huge and overwhelming I cannot bear to remember it even if I could. Maybe that is what I was aware of last night when I was looking at the stars. It seems so ridiculous to say that I cannot bear to remember it, but I am sure that it is so. I have experienced this two times previously, but never with the coursing energy and head about to burst.
When I felt that “other state,” it felt as if the brain was literally “emerging” from the head, and as that was happening the head seemed to be dissolving. Well, the physical head. It was dissolving along with the body, and the brain seemed to be getting larger and larger. At this point something new happened. I have had a sense of the body sort of disappearing for weeks. The shape of it. It feels like a huge ball that is vibrating. But it feels more or less pleasant. As weird as it seems, it’s still my body. But last night the whole thing started to dissolve. Even the sense of vision. It started to go black at the edges and even the sensation of the body as a space of vibrations began to vanish. At a certain point, it seemed as if something inevitable was going to happen, and I can only say that it felt as if I was not only dying, but I was sitting there letting it happen.
I cannot explain what happened next, but at the very last moment my resolve broke and “I” slightly altered the experience. How does one do this? I can’t say, but I know that up to the very last moment one has that choice. It’s unbelievable. There was nothing inside that could make a physical command, but something inside knew that if it could just move some part of the body it could regain control. “it” finally wiggled one toe. But unlike the other times, I did not quit, I kept sitting. I just pulled back a little, enough to “stay” on this side of the passageway but at the same time continue. God how stupid. And now what a mess.
[When this had happened earlier in the retreat, I had just “cut and run” more or less forcing my eyes open and slowly getting off the cushion. The thing about this particular night is that I both willed myself to run away, yet at the same time I willed myself to stay. Physically not a muscle moved and the eyes remained locked. The sense I have now is that just as the energy was expanding, I somehow managed to stop the process and got stuck, like in a doorway. Something very primitive, like the survival instinct was what pulled away.]
After 10 or 15 more minutes of this intensity I got up and walked to the main building, and did walking meditation. I don’t know, maybe 30 minutes, and then went into the meditation hall and sat again. Another hour of intensity that I cannot even begin to describe. I think that there was a resolve to let it go where it needed to go, to let it go on this time. I sat for at least an hour but the energy was just stuck now. It couldn’t go higher than the peak place it already was. I walked some more and then sat one last time. Again close to an hour. Heart was getting a little sore now, and I decided that I might be able to sleep now. [By now it was 2am] I was so surprised to discover that there are many late night walkers who come back around 1:30 in the AM. Such a beautiful sight. “I cling not to well-being; in sorrow and pain I am not disturbed.” I say this over and over and it helps a lot.
[I was completely exhausted by this point, and hoped to fall asleep immediately. The big surprise waiting for me was the discovery that I could no longer lie on my back. The moment I lay down on my little foam mattress, it felt as if I were lying in the middle of one of those giant rolling California earthquakes. It felt as if the earth was totally vibrating, expanding and contracting and there was no way I could have fallen asleep. But worse than the rolling was the effect on the electrical currents running into the brain. For some reason, lying with the head parallel to the body made the energy run wild. It was as if the energy needed the spine to be in an erect position. I sat up, it settled down. I lay down, it went berserk. I remember just shrugging and propping my pillows against the wall, sitting halfway up and within minutes I was thankfully, and blissfully sound asleep. Since that night I have always understood why it is called “sitting meditation.”]
Now it is 10 AM and I have skipped the entire morning practice. I didn’t even attempt to get up. Head is actually still in that state it was in last night. It’s hard to imagine how it could stand the pressure. Heart and chest are absolutely trembling; eyes are very tired from the pressure of being rolled back most of the time last night. All this at 10 in the morning? Amazingly, I do not feel afraid. But this is SO unpleasant.
Interview with Sharon at 11. I hope she can help.
1:30 PM
Sat for an hour and a half. Walking slower than a snail. What a day. I am fairly sure that the resolve is to go on if the death moment comes again, but who can be sure until the terrifying moment? There is a sense inside - growing - of get it over with. Each time I have sat since last night I have shared merits with dear ones, just in case. God! What a last will and testimony to leave! Must continue on.
7 PM
I walked and then went back to sit for another one and a half hours. Extremely intense. I began to weep for no reason. It felt as if my heart was breaking in two. But again it feels as if the intensity has nowhere to go, no outlet although I’m not sure what that even means. Am I being too greedy? I don’t know Maybe I’m pushing for the experience? At the 4:30 sit I seemed in a daze for the first 30 minutes then the brain began to heat up the last 30 minutes and this time I am certain that there was a level of intensity that was the same level as last night. It just went on and on, even higher pitches. It feels as if my brain is getting fried. I swear. Is this a burning out of impurities?
[ I believe the rising of kundalini is precisely that. The brain and nervous system automatically start a “rewiring” and “purifying” program that already exists in our DNA. Not purifying in a moral sense as much as deleting a lot of “junk data” - even memories - no longer useful in the system.]
Or has my nervous system gone haywire? I skipped the 6:15 sit and walked instead. Maybe I have gotten too overbalanced, sitting far more than walking, and maybe more walking will help. This is so unbelievable. It feels impossible that this little body could bear the incredible pressure and the heat and energy. Right now the heart is literally pounding out of the chest, the chest is trembling almost as if an engine is working at the right side of the heart. The neck feels on fire, the head just bursts with a pressure as if it will explode, the base of the spine is quivering, and yet so far, the little heart just holds. I think of all the attacks for so many years, all the trips to emergency rooms. Well, my heart has had a lot of practice! One thing is for sure, the length of this retreat has certainly added the depth factor to my practice! My number one trick was always and forever to avoid “staying too long at the fair.” Because there was always something relentless in my urge to walk the path, the only one way I could remain in control of the process was to dip here and there. A little yoga, a little analysis, a little romance. Never a lot of anything. It worked! And now I am, for the first time in my life, completely over my head.
Time for the Dharma talk --- I am on fire. All over on fire. Nothing more to say.
December 7, 7 AM
I am. . . . . . . how strange that sounds. I am rather confused I guess I would say. This has not even slightly died down which means - 3 days? The expectation is for it to hit a peak, a “breakthrough” - I guess this is the typical thought of a linear mind - and dare I say it, the hope for some some respite and peace from this. But this has not happened, and I have begun to get confused, disoriented maybe. It’s like, I no longer know what I’m supposed to be doing. I feel that I am at some sort of beginning stage just as we are ending the retreat. One can feel it. I suspect that a lot of people have already started whispering, but for sure it is in the air. In some way it feels that some of this is a taste of dukkha, of suffering, but it is experienced not on an emotional level but in some strange way on the psychic level. But that does not really make sense to me. All I know is that I long for a sit that is just simple and still.
At my last sit last night I had gotten to a state where I was convinced that this was just mind and identification, sort of indulging in the experience, and I sat with such determination to stay in the observer, and note. I did OK and it did not make the slightest difference (except, of course there was much more equanimity and less distress). But it just started Screeching the moment I sat down.
Interview with Sharon at 9AM and one with Joseph tonight. Lord I hope they have some insights. I have none.
1PM
Did yoga from 11 to 12:15 and it really seemed to calm down the system a little. It occurs to me that perhaps one should be doing more yoga, which is not something that I have felt during this retreat. The energy calmed down a little after the head stand which I did for perhaps 10 minutes. Maybe the energy is grounded by doing more yoga. The thing is, I cannot say that for sure. Perhaps it was all the yoga that got me in this trouble in the first place.
Suddenly it hit me like a thunder bolt. Has the sushuma channel opened? I have thought from the beginning of this that I was experiencing kundalini, but only now has it occurred to me that this is what they call the rising of kundalini coming up the central channel and uniting in the brain. It would explain what is happening and explain a lot of this phenomena, although I must say it would be no wish of mine. I remember reading what happened to Gopi Khrisha and it sounded absolutely horrible.
[Thankfully, I had read Gopi Krishna’s book about his experience of Kundalini rising a few years before the three-month retreat. In retrospect, I am deeply grateful that I had that information in the back of my mind.]
Perhaps the system will gradually “grow” around all this new energy? Or perhaps this one is stuck for the foreseeable future. I have not mentioned the interview with Sharon yesterday, but really it was not helpful. There was some kind of “gap” between us that I just could not bridge. She is so very kind of course, but all she could do was repeat the standard Vipassana instruction. “Just note it.” And what else could she really say? But in some way that I do not understand, there is something going on here that is not being addressed. If I were having a heart attack, one wouldn't say, “just note it and don’t get lost in the content.” They’d say, “Get to a hospital!” I don’t understand what to do.
4 PM
Really falling down (not energy wise !!) emotionally. I skipped walking and sitting sessions as a sort of defeated feeling spreads. Hopefully it is a momentary rising, which will pass quickly.
7:30 PM
Wont this ever stop? I am feeling - not panic - but perhaps that is around the door. Logic and experience - even the Buddhist teaching of anicca [impermanence] says that this is bound to vanish as does all phenomena. But so far it seems to get worse and worse although I bet a lot of that is just my being less able to stay out of the fear. I think about flying to California, or driving my parents to Florida in January. How can I possibly do anything like that in this state? Then I think, well maybe it will somehow adjust to those circumstances even if it doesn’t go away. As I write, I can feel these electrical currents passing from left brain to right brain and right to left. My head feels like Dr. Frankenstein’s lab gone amuck.
December 8
Martha’s birthday. Is this the day of the Buddha’s enlightenment? Maybe. I found a note on the bulletin board; I am to be practice leader in the hall today. The last thing I need, but I will try. Sat the 5:50 AM sit and will try to do the whole day. This is no better, which probably makes it seems far worse. God, what would have happened to me had this happened a few years ago?
[I had just ended three years of Jungian analysis with Dr. Edward Whitmont in early 1987. The work with him gave me the psychological anchor, a stability that carried me through this experience.]
December 9, 1988 (9:30 AM)
Last interview with Joseph - made sure he really got it. Odd. Never mind. Let’s see. . . . relatively stable system, slept till 8 AM. I have no idea when I fell asleep last night but it was real late. There is this clinging, desperate hope that if I can get to that point again, and go through it, perhaps this energy will “break”. Ah. Even as I write it I know it wouldn’t happen that way anyway. Lord help me, perhaps it would be even a higher vibratory level. So very tired, and fairly upset. Went to bed and the thing just went wild inside. Sat up determined to just sit it out or die. I sat, and sat and sat and sat. It was like sitting in the middle of Piccadilly Square as the Germans blew up the city. One cannot imagine how long the body can keep this up. But the body, Oh this little body just holds together.
During Joseph’s Dharma talk last night, at the beginning, I started to panic and thought I would have to leave, but it was OK after awhile. I can feel the fear of going insane. The thing is, the thing he must do is to avoid anticipating. It is when I start thinking about not being able to bear this that it becomes unbearable. Each moment has been bearable. That is what one has to do now. Now everything is relatively stable although writing here clearly makes it worse. Each word I write causes a small explosion in the brain. In his talk last night Joseph quoted these words which felt like rain on parched earth.
“When you practice the Holy Dharma
Slowly the clouds of sorrow
Will drift away
And the sun of wisdom and
great joy
Will be shining I the clear sky
of your mind. ”
10:40 PM
Last night it never broke, just sort of defied the forest fire analogy and he finally just lay down, propped up against the wall and fell asleep so exhausted.
So today he walked to town to the post office, mailing much stuff, came back just barely in time for lunch. Ate with no desire, but with a sense that the body needs the food. Did not sit for the entire day. The first time in well over three months that he did not sit. Did yoga tonight to a feeling of mounting panic inside, and eventually broke silence and called John. Thought he might have some advice about the sushuma opening. He was very sweet but really did not know what to say, except that i probably needed to find some yoga master quick.
Maybe he is OK. Maybe he is not, the underlying panic or fear is not even that this wont end, although God knows that would be a kind of living hell, but that the body is not going to be able to tolerate this energic level much longer. Some of this is just mixing up all the yoga reading of years ago. i remember that there is a state of samadhi that yogis have supposedly gone into, where they do not come out. i think it said that the body lasted seven days in this state and then fell away. So that has been in the back of my mind for days, although I am not so deluded as to think that I am in some incredibly high state of absorption. Even if my memory is correct, that state would be a state where one lost all consciousness, and clearly I could not even be writing if I were in such a state. And so far, my digestion is fine, my heart is fine, although I am burning all the time, I bet my body temperature would be “normal” if a doctor checked it. It would surely be interesting to have that checked. Clearly, something inside is on fire. Perhaps there is a psychic temperature as well as a physical temperature? [Of course this has to be true!] Maybe. One can’t squeeze in, one can’t squeeze out, and the brain-nervous system is just operating at that last level when I started to dissolve and pulled back.
It may be that the system will just work this out. Why not? That would seem so obvious, either one will gradually come down or the system will eventually dissolve what is blocking the process. This could take months or years. The other possibility is that one will eventually have no alternative but to try to push on through (certainly before the U Pandita retreat). Don’t know. Do not know. As I write, the system is just exploding. It does that every time I try to write. Brain can’t do what it is doing and this [thinking - cognition] too. Amen. God be here.
December 10, 9:30 AM
was able to sit at 8AM and it was relatively quiet which was so welcome. Even as I am writing now I feel how it is “upsetting” the mind – noises getting worse - will write more slowly. Again couldn’t sleep last night so just let it go on for an hour and a half. Just unbelievable. But “it” finally let body sleep. The mind, of course, is obsessed now. There is paranoia and panic always a few steps away. So far, one has been able to stay centered. This is pain, but perhaps it is my cup to drink for a long time.
10:50 AM
have been in samadhi for past hour, lying on back [eyes rolled back] It is unavoidable, just comes and nothing can stop it. Process seems to be beyond my control now and that is that. What is brain doing? It feels as if it is burning out.
9:15 PM
feeling of excitement as he writes, but awareness of incredible sensitivity of brain - so, writing slowly. (Already brain is heating up) – will stop and try to write again tomorrow. How astonishing.
11:15 PM
Will try to write. had a can of tomato soup with crackers. The excitement was that the situation has changed. Met with Joseph and Sharon at 5:30.
[I had finally written Joseph and Sharon a note that described the panic I was experiencing. Literally, I gave Joseph a credit card number and asked him if he would call anyone, anywhere who might have some insight into what was happening to me. It was not a nice letter, but it surely got Joseph’s attention! Later I realized that they had no idea what I was going through. Many times in the previous thirty years I had heard from nurses in emergency wards that they had no idea when I would come up to the desk and say that I was in tachycardia that it was in fact true. I was called “asymptomatic” because I seemed perfectly fine, when In fact my heart was racing as fast as 240 beats a minute. So many times, I would sit patiently for 10 to 20 minutes and a nurse would finally come to take my pulse. It always happened the same way: she would have a disinterested look on her face and then slowly a look of recognition, fear, and within a matter of one minute I would be in a wheelchair being rushed to a bed and an IV being hastily stuck in my arm. So I now suspect that my own tendency to underplay what I was experiencing probably confused both Joseph and Sharon.
Sharon and Joseph responded quickly and met with me that afternoon. They responded with concern and great warmth, suggesting that I make an appointment for acupuncture treatments as soon as possible. [I particularly loved Sharon’s very practical advice after asking if I was vegetarian. I responded that I was not, and she said, “You need to eat some meat!” Sharon spoke of one of the teachers who had had a similar experience a few years earlier.] They both agreed that I should consider suspending sitting for a few days, and take long walks. And thank the good Lord, Sharon said that I had permission to use the bathroom in the main building so that I can take some long hot baths!
[ I cannot express how profoundly I was affected by the human contact with Sharon and Joseph and how their caring pulled me out of my paranoia. I no longer felt a “gap” between myself and others. We made human contact, and I would say that from that moment on I became “psychological” again. The ego reconstructed itself during our meeting. From that moment on, I had a sense of regaining some control over my fate. A conscious ego was back in place, shaken and fragile but present it was back and it had no intention of allowing the kundalini energy to dominate. This connection to humans was what I most needed]
11:15 (continued)
Just the contact with Sharon and Joseph helped me think logically again. A part of me has been so spaced out, it couldn’t even think rationally in terms of dealing with the situation. My brain is so sensitive right now and anything will get it cooking again. Need to eat meat, take hot baths, walk long distance.
I broke the vow of celibacy. I lit a candle and prayed, and in consciousness ended the retreat one day early. Still coursing energy and trembling chest, but something has so changed - a sense of taking charge.
[ Within minutes of leaving Joseph’s office, I began to think about my situation as a problem of energy being stuck at the crown chakra. Even without any understanding at all, it was clear to me that somehow the energy was completely stuck in the crown and had no way to circulate in the body. How would one move the energy back down into body? The answer was obvious. Surely, the energy could be pulled out of the crown chakra through a sensual-sexual act which engages the lower chakras. I had not had one single sexual thought in months, and I do not believe at that point that I could have conjured up some sexual fantasy had my life depended on it! But the mechanical exercise of activating the sexual energy was amazingly easy, and from that moment on I felt a shift in the wild energy. I could feel how the energy began to circulate tenuously in the body again. Little could Joseph or Sharon have suspected the consequences of our visit! And for sure my solution was not Buddhist! In retrospect, I have often wondered what would have happened had I not pulled the energy out of the crown chakra. I do have regrets in the sense of never knowing what would have happened. But not once have I ever blamed myself.]
December 12, 6 PM
“go around” just finished. An unforgettable experience, yogis speaking for the first time in three months, expressing bottomless gratitude. He said very little, said he was a yoga teacher, etc. --- the thing is, there continues to be a certain emptiness - it has remained and remained. Mind is the same - same silly thoughts etc., and mindfulness is not that improved, sometimes he observes the thoughts, sometimes gets lost in them. I think so. Do I? Don't know what this is yet. Initial euphoria over getting over this ‘condition” ended when it was clear that it really has not ended. All that ended was its “out of control” nature. No more “brain fevers” ever since Saturday night, but as he writes, state is simply boggling. Today so much electricity the hair would not lay flat on head. It was just a joke. Someone left me a note on the bulletin board that said “there is a light radiating out of your head”. They should hear the sounds.
Took two showers already, skin is so dry feels as if I am sunburned. Have made effort to get acupuncture treatment tomorrow, and did. Sharon said “it will really bring you down”. On so many levels it feels crucial that he tries the acupuncture. This is so extreme – one can tell in one hundred ways.
almost 9 PM
Borrowed “thumper,” a massage machine and the body feels a deep relief - also took first hot bath in four months a couple of hours ago. Skin is so chapped and red. So dry. Probably has been this way for a week or longer but have been completely oblivious to it. Temperature was 8 below last night, but body is so hot have not felt the cold, nor discomfort of skin because so much other stuff was drowning out the sensation signals. Now they are coming in loud and clear. Have really soaked in moisturizing lotion.
Thumper machine took out a lot of the vibration in the spine. Feels so good, but I am sure the vibrations will be back shortly. Sounds in head are pretty bad. How empty is he / am I? Have “I” burned out aspects of unreal self? It feels as if there is observation going on without a lot of attachment to small self’s usual drama. But - for instance - coming from bath, smiled at retreat manager who looked back with a frown on her face. He observed irritation in himself and spoke to himself and said “let that go” and it really did go away. Have not had single thought of incident until writing about it now. But who got irritated? Obviously unreal personality still functions and does that mean it will gradually reattach its one million grasping and pushing away tentacles? Will it grow new ones even? Or is it in some core way disabled - disabled in a way that will continue a process of deterioration?
December 13, midnight
Just turned out light and felt the room moving, swaying. This after acupuncture session this afternoon. It did let off much heat and excess energy I think. But just now as one felt a subtle wave of paranoia (imagining that it could get bad again at night like last week) there was some separation and awareness that the emotion was just mental, not “real,” not “I” and in that moment came the awareness that objectivity requires separation. You cannot be objective about your “situation” no matter how logical or unemotional if you are identified with the thinking. There absolutely has to be an observer who is not in personality.
[I vividly recall the experience of driving in a car to Amherst for the first acupuncture treatment. One of the cooks drove me in her car. I could barely stand to look out the window of the car as it sped through the countryside. For four months I had moved at “mindfulness to walking” pace. Lifting the foot, observing the intention to moving it through the air. Observing the intention to lower it before lowering it. Feeling the cool surface on the floor in contact with the warm foot. Now I watched the trees pass by at blinding speed. Sixty miles an hour was far beyond my system’s capacity to process.]
December 14, 7 AM
got up for breakfast but could not face food. (ate in Amherst yesterday) went to sleep after a while last night, a bit unhappy about condition but certainly knowing that it is now tolerable. Woke at some hour (3AM?) to some event unlike any in this lifetime, so alien there is no word in my vocabulary to describe the feeling let alone the sensation. Explosion or implosion. Catastrophic. There was a loud noise like an explosion. For a while one was absolutely certain that the body had exploded and death was certain. Don’t know if I sat up, don’t know what I did. Now a few hours later, mind circling naturally, seeking rational explanation for what happened. There is the idea that this is the direct result of the acupuncture treatment. Dr. had said that I was all “yang”, all fire and had put needle in left foot just below ankle. Exactly hitting spot that had throbbed for weeks, although I had not mentioned it to him. One more needle in lower spine. Sense is that in sleep, system finally was able to release, or even process a big chunk of stored energy, but that is just intuition mixed with some hope. Can’t say it was anything.
[In retrospect from that moment on the energy seemed more “tame”. It was still huge and unwieldy, but it never “took over” again.]
Am struck with the incredible vulnerability of it. Mind once again relentlessly coming in and trying to reassure itself that “all is well” . . . we are alive with nothing about to crash down upon us. And so it has to deny death as a moment-to-moment experience which of course it really is. The best one can seem to do in that mode of rationality is to accept death as an “event” out there that one day must befall us. But that is all thinking, and unreal finally. Death is happening as intimately as life in me, and my mind seems to have no mechanism for understanding that. This seems to me to be where we are truly different from our brother and sisters in other life forms on this planet. Not only do they have no mechanism for a real understanding of death, they do not have an awareness of it as an eventual happening. They simply live, in a way so much more fully because of that ignorance. But one can see the downside as well. Even as I write - I am so keenly aware that he will now get up - take a shower - and pretend that he is only alive (not also dying) until the next contradiction comes to shake up his safe little world - one day from now? one week? or perhaps as he is walking to the shower, perhaps he will gently fall to the floor and be gone.
December 15, 1988
Such an odd, odd time. So easy to “identify” now as all the discipline and mindfulness slowly wilts from the absence of tending to the garden. As I write, the wind is absolutely howling outside, so alive, such a force in the winter landscape. I have been sitting two or three times a day, and no walking. Have been reading news magazines and newspapers left on the tables in the dining rooms. The attempt to create a period of talking, then going back into silent periods, reading some, sitting some, making a gentle reentry is really correct and probably effective. I was so “gone” the few days before the intensive practice ended that I never found a place to reenter. Slept till 7 AM and sort of wandered around all day. Good visit with guy I so admire and a true sharing. He went to his room and brought back a book “Awaken Healing Energy Through the Tao” which describes my “condition” down to a description of the sounds one may hear, referring to the Indian description of them as “divine” and once heard as becoming the object of meditation. The book describes the “pump” at the base of the spine, back and neck and the heat.
Actually I had one in the pit of the belly that it does not mention. Apparently the Chinese system described in the book is based on connecting the energy from back to the front through the tongue. From this author’s point of view, the Indian system is linear (up and down) and in my case, the problem came when the energy at the top of the head locked and thus could not recirculate. The way it would travel down the front and back down into the belly would be through the tongue which would be pressed against the roof of the mouth. I sure don’t know. Have second acupuncture treatment tomorrow.
Doubt about returning here for eight months next year is so ridiculous. The doubt is as predictable as the fact that the weather is bound to change. What choice do I have but to push on?
December 17, 5:30 PM
Retreat is over and over and over, but nothing feels over at all. Psychological one is back in fine form, really amazing. Today, he wanted to talk, to interact, to be noticed, to dominate, all versions of greed, greed, greed. If there are three types - greed, aversion and delusion, isn’t this one clearly a greedy type? Says he’s leaving for a couple of months to “digest all this.” Wonder who’s talking - what do his words mean? Clearly he is leaving because he decided that months ago, and it is the plan. And I will wander around for a few months because that is the plan. Then he will not be strong enough to prevent this process from continuing and soon I will be back here, again trying to swim across the lake. So much is just dead now. It is a joke. The entity is still caught in the triple snare of greed, hatred and delusion. No doubt about that. But it is such a hollow sound now, the play is still going on, the actors are still in make up, and the audience is still out front, but Oh, something is wrong! Is it the lights? Have they dimmed so dramatically so as to create shadows on the faces and damage the illusion? Or is it that the makeup is wearing too thin, and the real face is beginning to show? This is the feeling of deadness. He goes on with the play, but the show is mostly over.
