Regression progression

[khlawng]

Dear all,

I have been quite lucky this year to be able to dedicate more time to my meditation practise (Metta, 32 body parts, Samatha-jhana & Insight) this year and feel that there has been some solid progress.

However, each stage of progress is punctuated with a short period of regression e.g. lack of mindfulness, anger & lust arising easily, increase in unskillful thoughts, doubts and restlessness before coming back onto the path with a leap. I can best describe it as 1-step-forward-2-steps-back-then-3-steps-forward. It seems like a rite of passage for the mind to try its best to stop progress by conjuring a guanglet of such test as a hindrance to progress.

Is this something that is expected? Has anyone experience something similar?

Thank you in advance.

[DAWN]

Yes, there is somethink like that

Someone said : to go forward, sometimes you have to make one step back.

[Digity]

Yes, I can relate. I think it comes with the territory. The defilements will put up a good fight before they're put to rest.

[drifting cloud]

However, each stage of progress is punctuated with a short period of regression e.g. lack of mindfulness, anger & lust arising easily, increase in unskillful thoughts, doubts and restlessness before coming back onto the path with a leap. I can best describe it as 1-step-forward-2-steps-back-then-3-steps-forward. It seems like a rite of passage for the mind to try its best to stop progress by conjuring a guanglet of such test as a hindrance to progress.

Perhaps you are just becoming more aware of certain habits of mind - i.e. anger, unskillful thoughts, restlessness, etc - and because you are more aware, this appears to be 'regression', but is actually just a deepening of your practice...?

In any case, keep at it friend!

[ohnofabrications]

Do you keep your meditation times constant? A pattern i noticed for a while in my practice was that I would get really motivated, practice alot then 'adapt' to the freedom of mind such that I no longer appreciated it, and I would meditate less. Eventually this would catch up to me and my mind would be more fraught with hinderances and I'd regain the motivation due to the suffering. The solution to this in my opinion is meditating the same amount of time each day or taking the 8 precepts to keep yourself from laziness when you start taking the newfound clarity of mind for granted.

Also I think drifting cloud's analysis is probably accurate, that type of phenomena has always existed for me. It can be really hard to remember what your day to day experience was actually like at previous points in your practice, sometimes these days I will get a bit fed up with my mind, but if I try to look at it from the perspective of my whole practice I can recognize that the disturbance in my mind is vastly more subtle, small waverings of attention as compared to the rampant rumination which would even make me totally forget my meditation object at times. It seems that passion will always seem relative until we are totally free from it I recall a certain quote from the buddha about even a tiny bit of excrement under your finger nail still smelling really bad.

[bezieur]

I've got similar experience. In psychology there are four "stages" of progress: unaware incompetence, aware incompetence, aware competence and unaware competence. The second one is the hardest, as you become aware of your kilesa .

Metta,
bezieur.