r/streamentry • u/Internal_North_5954 • 9d ago
Practice Intense fear
I was paying attention to my attention, seeing how jumpy it was. After some time i was calm and a subtle joy was present. Since i was paying attention to my attention, a perspective jumped into my mind. Who am i paying attention to? When i went to further explore this perspective, i felt different from my usual first person perspective. Following this i kept saying my name, I kept repeating my name in this third person perspective then an intense fear came over me. It felt if i follow this perspective more i would totally lose control. This third person voice would control me. I tried introducing joy and peace and love into this perspective. I kept saying my name and saying you are going to be okay like i was talking to someone else. One of the reason i feared this perspective is the voice was completely not me. My mom had schizophrenia so i was afraid if i go deeper into this perspective i would go completely psychotic. I stopped exploring the perspective but i am still shaken.
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u/Bells-palsy9 9d ago
These are just a whole bunch of thoughts. When you sit and meditate on the breath, just feel the breath, it doesn't have to be more complicated than that. Your attention will be captured by thoughts so simply bring attention back to the breath. Any existential thought is no different than a random thought about how hungry you are. If fear arises, keep noticing the breath. If confusion arises, keep noticing the breath. If joy arises, keep noticing the breath. If you find yourself in an unwholesome state, simply bring attention back to the breath and allow the wholesome state to re-esfablish. You're overthinking this whole thing, don't worry friend.
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u/duffstoic Love-drunk mystic 9d ago
First off, it's always OK to back down from a practice if things are getting too intense.
That said, this also sounds like a kind of fear of losing the small sense of self. That small self was always a construction anyway, as our selves are a bundle of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations, always changing. So it's the fear of realizing you have been living from a perspective that wasn't really fully true anyway. It's like a fear of the monsters under your bed not being real monsters, but just projections of your imagination. So it's the opposite of going psychotic, it's waking up from the everyday psychosis of thinking we have a permanent, unchanging sense of self.
And, once again, it's also OK to take it slow, to pace yourself. After awakening, you'll just be living your life anyway. So there's no rush. :)
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u/Ok_Animal9961 9d ago
First. Stop.
Right Concentration is not the path to Nirvana. The 4th noble truth is not "Right Concentration.
The 4th noble truth is "The 8 fold path".
You guys all want Nirvana here, yet none of you are following the 4th noble truth. You're right concentration addicts. You don't think you've attained Jhanas in prior lifetimes? Yet here you are still. You think after eons, this life is your "best" life of meditative attainment? It won't be.
The 4th noble truth is the "path that leads to nirvana". That path is called the 8 fold path.
You should spend time practicing the 8 fold path, not practicing right concentration.
If you want to build car, you don't say I'm just going to build a frame, and then scratch your head wondering why it doesn't drive, or move.
This experience shows me you have little intellectual understanding of No self. You believe that subjective experience requires a "possesor", when it has never had one.
It doesn't matter if the ancient native americans thought that Rain was a result of praying to the great spirits. It is, and always was, a process called Water Vapor and Condensation.
So too, for your self. Look at the table. Tell me it's a solid table. You can't, because in 3rd grade you learned there is no such thing as a solid table, its just vibrating atoms, and a "solid table" only in appearance.
Why did you stop externally? The Buddha said, hold my beer, what if we apply this to the self? Wow, turns out "self" only exists as a label, and literally nothing else. It is totally empty.
You are the perfect,pure citta /knowing behind the mind and body. There is knower, known, and knowing. The knower, and the known change all the time.
Knowing is eternal, it never changes. It only appears to rise and fall due to the "known" arising and falling.
You dont' need to fear having "no self", you already are operating that way. Where did the great spirits go? They can't be said to of gone anywhere, because they were not there in the first place.
You already know this. Haven't you "Oops, sorry I lost myself in the moment"? Thats right, when you're in the moment, you "lose yourself"...we even know if someone is partaking in the illusion too much.. we say "wow they are FULL of them SELVES"...or "wow, that person is "self-less"...we inherently recognize the knower and the known are everchanging, and thus not permanent. It is only pure knowing, the pure citta that never changes, from all the jhanas states, to the absense of them all, it never arises and never ceases.. its that which "knows" there was arising, and "knows" there was ceasing, but it itself is not a part of either.
These voices in your head, thoughts can take on different sounds in your head popping up unwanted.
Have you ever been on the last moment before passing out, and like seen your thoughts and voices and images just flowing through your mind... sometimes you hear many sounds and voices maybe your moms, or dads, or loads of other voices right on the brink of total passing out. This is what happened to you, except you were awake and lucid, its no different, it arises from the bhvanga (sub conscious), and they subside back into it as well.
You're fine. Practice Sila, Practice the 8 fold path.
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u/Internal_North_5954 8d ago
interesting, ive never thought this way
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u/Ok_Animal9961 6d ago
The true nature of reality, doesn't become true, only upon realizing it. The thing about true nature of reality, is that it's ALWAYS true. It doesn't become "created" as true, once you realize it. So all that occurs is removing the ignorance of how conventional reality works.
Before Nirvana I saw mountains and rivers.
Practicing towards Nirvana I saw no mountains and rivers.
After Nirvana, I saw mountains and rivers again.This famous zen quote beautifully captures the "Two Truths Doctrine". Which is inherent in the 1st noble truth. Suffering IS real, the buddha no where makes the case that suffering is "actually fake", or that suffering is "actually just an illusion once you realize the true reality"...NEVER, the Buddha actually does the opposite, and triples down on the reality of suffering and how pervasive and MORE real it is.
The 1st noble truth is Conventional Reality, suffering, all things in conventional reality are suffering, no where does Buddha make the case that suffering beings are not real, and that suffering is actually an illusion and fake and you just realize it's fake. No, it's definitely real. Without accepting the reality of Suffering synonmous with Conventional Reality/Samsara, then you can't even look at the other truths.
1st truth- Conventional Reality
2nd Truth- Conventional Reality Cause
3rd Truth- Ultimate Reality
4th Truth- Ultimate Reality Cause
The 4 noble truths don't make any case at all to say that conventional reality, and it's causes are actually just fake and you need to destroy them. Infact the 2nd noble truth says that is one extreme view. Nihilism, or fear of losing the self.
The buddha doesn't say "kill your ego", thats impossible. Instead he says "transcend it".
Be simple about it...if you are not mind and body, then why do you need to kill mind and body? If you are not ego, then why do you need to kill it? It's not you, so why kill what isn't you already?
Ego is not self, go beyond it. Form is not self, go beyond it. You won't find a sutra that says destroy ego, that would just be another ego taking it's place. An ego taking responsibility for kiling off the "other less spiritual" ego. That's wrong view according to the 2nd noble truth.
Sorry to rant, I'm going to make a longer post here to help people struggling with Panic/ Existential Crisis / Depression / DPR/ De-realization post meditation.
It's always from wrong view, and I think I can get surgical to help people see that, and also follow the gradual path of the 8 fold path as laid out by Buddha in Majjhima Nikaya. Hope something here is helpful, you can always reach out 🙏
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u/Turbulent-Food1106 8d ago
Taoists (at least according to Bruce Frantzis in his book Relaxing Into Your Being) call this Ru Ding, the extremely intense fear of the death of the ego. It is a well known step on the path and a sign of progress to encounter it, but the end result is knowing the fear itself is empty.
Read more about this and perhaps practice more gently- a family history of schizophrenia is definitely something to take seriously and depersonalization without proper “view” as the Tibetan Buddhists would say is potentially destabilizing. Having a good grounded (and attained) teacher may be really helpful for you, is that something you have currently?
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u/thewesson be aware and let be 8d ago
Identifying with the 3rd person perspective, you become afraid of losing identification with "yourself".
Neither is necessarily identified with. Identification is just something the mind is doing.
It's just putting energy into some solidified mental concept which is supposed to be "you".
Well, the energy is "you" (if anything is) but the solidified mental concept certainly isn't.
Anyhow fear of identity-loss is a thing. You get used to it and then it goes away. You can identify more or less as you need to, in the end.
If you could totally 100% accept the fear and the prospect of identity-loss, the fear would pop like a bubble.
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u/astijusx 8d ago
Observe the fear, that’s just another thought, another filter you must let go of. Surrender even if you feel like something will go wrong, it’s just your old structure resisting
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u/Substantial-Fuel-545 9d ago
This sounds like DPDR.
It could be a positive sign of progress.
Stream entry is like a fruit with a skin. DPDR is the dry skin, that has nothing to do with the juiciness of the fruit.
If this is the case, you’ll realize more and more there’s never been a separate self and you’ll find a feeling of okayness associated.
I heard that awakening really feels like losing control, in a sense that you never had it.
One thing you can try is letting go of control, there’s no need to be scared since your brain will not have changed and will still repeat the same patterns, habits, thoughts. From the outside, you’ll still be yourself.
Thought provoking question: when you dream, does the characters’ voice feel like yours?
Of course not, but that IS your voice. That’s exactly how we work even when awake: things happen “automatically” but we have an illusion of agency.
My biased opinion: I don’t think you can actually do anything to induce schizophrenia prematurely with your bare “sober” mind. If schizophrenia comes for you, it’ll come when it wants to.
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