On Mar 7, 2007, at 3:26 PM, Alex Stanley wrote:
The pattern since getting involved with Waking Down is that I keep revisiting the same stuff over and over again in cycles of pressure and release. And, I feel into it a bit deeper in each pressure cycle. Thing is, this stuff is all I've known for more than 30 years. I don't even know what's innate and what's conditioned. And, I don't know how to "work with it" other than just be with whatever is holding my attention.
Sounds like you found one of the evolutionary reasons for "witnessing" which is if you can witness, you can go into that state and let the tape loops roll and let the unconscious pour its crapola (without being involved in the mind-sewer). Then you're no longer feeding the loops. If you're experiencing them as suffering, there are probably still elements where you separate from them through aversion ("pushing away").
You have a number of choices: witness and remain uninvolved or be so spacious, it's all one and there is no separation.
One way I work with this type of pattern is to invoke them in dreaming sleep and then freeze them. Believe me, if you use your *utter annoyance* at the repetition of the tape loops to inspire your focus, you can get the dream to stop. It's just a karmic VCR and you're the only one with the remote. Then just hold the loop elements in your awareness till they open, relax and go away. Then you might go to another set of loops, but hopefully one that is either so long you aren't annoyed by it's constant repetitions or it's content is simply more livable without having to resort to witnessing. Or it may completely open up. The best antitode IME is non-dual meditation, eyes open, in a unified state and let the clouds come and go. If there is no separation, there is no possible tension and so the loops resolve, of themselves, by themselves, like a snake untying itself from a knot.
