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The main thing that helped me let go a bit was meditation, but it doesn't work for everyone. I used to have Generalised Anxiety Disorder, literally a constant s
by bowsamic 4y ago
The main thing that helped me let go a bit was meditation, but it doesn't work for everyone. I used to have Generalised Anxiety Disorder, literally a constant sense of both perpetual dread about nothing in particular and perpetual worry about lots of things in my life, and also I had social anxiety. Meditation, somehow, got rid of both. I still have depression though, which seems far harder to fix.
It sounds kind of stupid, but the thing that really let me know that my anxiety was gone was when I realised I could smoke a lot of weed without any anxiety, which before would have been ridiculous, since I always panicked at the bodily sensations. Of course, meditation helps you learn to accept with equanimity a wider range of sensations that come up. Again, it did not help with my depression as much though.
- swayvil 4y agoRe : meditation as cure for generalized anxiety. Same here. Meditation cured it. I lost my taste for weed tho. I do dry vipassana every day. Biggest thing I ever found. Used to do concentration+vipassana, but that's too trippy for my lifestyle.
- bowsamic 4y agoI also lost the taste for weed. I found it boring without the anxiety ironically. Recently I stopped sitting for some reason, since I became a bit jaded with Buddhism as a religion and I got a knee injury from too much meditation. Btw I was doing shikantaza
- swayvil 4y agoI'm not really into Buddhism either. I call the techniques "concentration" and "vipassana" because that's the popular terminology. Vipassana is basically the same as shikantaza. As I see it, we've got 2 techniques. Then a dozen or so twists, combinations and names, depending on the tradition. Have you tried a seiza bench? It's easier on the knees. Really comfy actually. Here's some info on that. http://fleen.org/sit http://fleen.org/sit (the top 2 pics) http://fleen.org/bench http://fleen.org/bench
- bowsamic 4y agoHmm I should try a seiza. I practised in the Soto Zen tradition and some of the places here can be weird and strict about posture. Unfortunately my flexibility is not enough even to do Burmese safely for long periods, I’m not sure why
- swayvil 4y agoI used to do half lotus on a pillow. It always strained my knees. Then I hurt my knee doing this other thing and couldn't do half lotus anymore. Then I found seiza. It was like, "where have you been all my life!!!" Apparently some Tibetan Buddhists are all about seiza on a bench. The top students inherit the master's bench and such. So it isnt just for stifflegged westerners. Ancient wizards think it's cool too.