u/MuchPiezoelectricity

Can anyone advise me on how to get out of the spiral loops when it comes to thinking about thinking, or thoughts that arise about being aware of thoughts type of thing.

It feels like chasing my tail and also makes me feel like there’s no way of arriving at what it is I’m seeking for. Like it doesn’t even exist so why try, or that I’m just wasting my time believing that if I chase my tail hard enough some freedom from anxiety will happen. It’s actually giving me tons of anxiety.

I had a work accident which has put me on short term disability for a few months while I heal. I’ve been using this time as a boot camp to focus on improving my health and diving deep into meditation and clearing away the illusory thinker.

I’ve hit a new level in my life understanding and the deep stillness I can reach in meditation, and while it seems like I’m able to connect with the ineffable silence that feels more real than “I” do … it seems to come lately with a visitation of a late evening panic attack. I’ve had these type of episodes before (and they absolutely crippled me)… and they began after a cataclysmic awakening in 2019 which bought me a ticket to a 3 day psyche hold.

The weird thing is that these panic attacks start with intrusive thoughts like “what if I lose control of my mind and body?” “What if I tip into a psychosis?” And these thoughts start to intensify my physical sensations of panic….

But… this time it’s so different because that inner stillness is also simultaneously present, and it seems like I have a tool in my tool belt which allows the storm to just ride out and clear. There’s even the thought that “what if I can’t get out if this and end up permanently mental ill” and yet, there is a patient watcher that also just bides its stability. And then like magic in a few hours that intense panic can completely disappears as if the storm stops and I’m peaceful again and thinking thoughts like “ah I’m back in the saddle and have control of this horse, I’m so proud of myself” and all the physical manifestations flip 100% back to contentment and comfort. Whereas before a panic attack of this intensity would have me emotionally beaten and exhausted for weeks

Has anyone else encountered this? It’s like I’m not sure if this is a developmental stage that needs to be passed through or something else is going on, but it’s a bit wild and at times pretty intense.
Is shadow work and mind attacks a real thing? Does touching the peace somehow also mean a follow up refractory mental attack?

A fish that swims against the river comes to know the river

A fish that flows with the river becomes it.

This pointing emphasizes the barrier of “knowing” as an act in opposition to what life is presenting.

And how is it we come to know a “thing?”

We come to know it with thoughts, “knowing” only exists within the framework of thoughts.

Without the projection of words and language against the backdrop of unified perceiving, there is no separation that occurs which allows for a thing to be known.

Only pure unfiltered experience

Ok so here’s the real deal behind this post…

All these teachings keep saying “it’s here already…” and “we are already enlightened but it’s just covered up” so this got me thinking (in a very non enlightened way)..

As I sat in silence in my small sangha.. everyone meditating with their eyes closed but me… and as I was watching these meditators cradle/rocking themselves in a trance… it kinda hit me like…

Would the Buddha even meditate after his awakening?
I mean like… actively…. Sit there in silence with his eyes closed and try to actually do anything through meditation?

Or would he just already BE enlightened.

And if he is actually enlightened then there is nobody there to even meditate in the first place, because the person has dissolved.

And isn’t enlightenment more about BEING rather than doing or becoming? So doesn’t that mean that meditation is totally useless… and that it’s a true form and way of being to just say “ya I’m enlightened” and method act as if you are for the rest of your life. Because then you are “being that” rather than attempting to “do that”