a simple technique that helped me suffer a lot less

approaching zero emotional suffering using inquiry practice / how to drop fetters 4 and 5

Sep 17, 2024

There was persistent painful sadness behind my eyes. Two pinpricks of pain. It sucked. I had lots of joy during the day, with others, and gratitude as well. But whenever I'd sit down to do some jhana practice or some other meditationy thing, these ouch points of sadness would show again.

I tried a lot. I flipped the valence of that experience using EK meditation [1], which helped for a time, but it didn't last. I did a technique of using metta to create a pain-happiness forge, knowing the emotional pain behind my eyes was turning into happiness for various people, happiness that I felt simultaneously as the pain. This also worked for a time. I looked for the I that was observing that pain, several layers deep of these identity structures, and would ask them to dissolve into the rest of Awareness [2]. They did, and this helped the sufferyness of the pain behind the eyes to lessen, again, for a time. I did parts work on the painful sadness behind the eyes [3]. It showed the sadness in that location was perhaps a part of me that said "I hate myself" at various times when I felt like I wasn't doing my best. The pain persisted. I welcomed the painful sadness, I forgave it and everything around it, I sent it metta, I just sat with it (do nothing). Lots of experiments, but no lasting effects.

Following a distinct shift [4], my fetters guide asked me to come up with a situation that didn't feel good, where I suffered, and say it in the form of "When x happens, I feel y", then say to myself or in my head, "Where is the y button?" And actually look in direct experience for said button.

I said, “When I sit down to meditate, I feel painful sadness.” It was there as I spoke. As I asked myself where the button was, as I looked, part of me already knew there wasn't a button to be found in the space of awareness where I was looking, but I was actually looking as if it might be there, because sure, I'd never really looked before.

It lessened. The sensate experience I would label as sadness shrunk, the pain quality lowered, the resistance around it dissolved much, and the sufferyness around the experience basically disappeared. In real time, what the technique of looking for the button felt like was that as the ripple of searching awareness expanded throughout the sensory landscape of my experience, the territory that this looking awareness occupied no longer felt bad, there was no more suffering in that space. As soon as it was touched by this expanding border of looking awareness, it was as if the suffering component of the experience evaporated.

That suffering returned in showers later on, following that initial call where the technique was introduced to me. But the technique of looking for the button was clearly in another league in its immediate ability to alleviate my suffering, and the hypothesis was that if done enough, another big, enduring shift would happen and this would contribute to lessening suffering in some more permanent way, so I did lots more of the technique. Here are the specifics:

It felt easy to apply the inquiry in daily life. I'd notice some triggering reaction, say the x y statement, ask myself the question, and look in direct experience for the button. Sometimes I would spam this a few times for the same immediate situation. There was a daytime dance party that I was feeling nervous at, so I said, “When I'm asked to dance, I feel nervous. Where is the nervous button?” And as I looked, the jaggedness, the sharp edges of the emotional experience would melt away. I think for a time, it just felt like the entire emotion was disappearing, and that the emotion was the thing that was meh feeling. I think sometimes a lot of the emotional experience would lessen, or disappear altogether. I did this inquiry for nervousness, for anger, for sadness and whatever I would notice in daily life. I wasn't a perfect machine about it, but it was fairly easy to notice situations where it'd apply, to apply it, and see the great benefit of doing the technique.

So I'd been doing the inquiry a lot irl, doing some longer dedicated sessions with it, maybe 30 minutes or so, maybe more, I forget. But I was going to Canada to visit a friend with another buddy. We were going to do a Mahamudra retreat together. I bounced off the retreat, it seemed way lower ROI, and just decided to do a lot of the techniques I was already running: fetters inquiry, do nothing meditation, wholeness work, and some metta-ey jhana stuff.

Up in Canada with those friends, I was meditating maybe four to six hours per day over like six days. Maybe more, and also was chatting about meditation-related things with them most of the time, going on high-awareness walks, etc. One could say I was somewhat locked in.

The main experiment I wanted to run was larger dosage on the techniques I was already doing, and I wanted to bring up the most tough emotional experiences possible to do the inquiry technique on. This was suggested by my fetters guide [5].

To brainstorm, I wrote out a lot of the most heavy regrets, fears, and aversions I had, as well as things I might be regretful, fearful, or aversive of, but maybe just wasn't consciously aware of. I brought up in as much detail the emotional experience from my gnarliest memories, I used visuals and narrated the events and how I felt aloud to create the best simulations possible. I would run through these different memories and situations in sessions of 30 minutes plus.

Some examples. *Warning! Skip this paragraph if you don't want to read about some of my tougher experiences.* The fear I'd felt in the past from stomach pain, that it might be cancer returning. The regret of breaking a dear friend and romantic interest's heart, because I ghosted her when I got cancer. When I was hit with a belt by my dad when I was younger. The anger I felt when my brother punched me in the face when I was younger. The helplessness and sadness watching a family member struggle with psychosis. The nervousness I'd felt asking out some gal in the past. The potential fear of failing at everything publicly. The doom I'd felt when I was young, and later when I had cancer, of not existing for eternity. The idea of never having sex again. Fear of running out of money. Being a public disgrace. Whatever toughest memories and potential scenarios I could think of to summon a big emotional response.

For memories, I would construct the inquiry like so: "When x happened", "When I did x", or “Because I did x, I feel y.” Like, “Because I broke Xenomorph's heart, I feel regret.” And then I would say, "Where is the regret button?" And actually look. For the things that might happen, I would put it in this form: “If I never have sex again, I will feel sad.” And I would try to call up that feeling. Sometimes emotions would be there, and part of me suspected that they were just there because I was giving space for intense feelings, rather than it being associated with the specific phrase I was using or scene I was trying to simulate. No matter, the inquiry was working.

It felt a bit like a game of iterating on the best combo for highest emotional response. I had a lot of enthusiasm about dredging up my toughest moments.

What also worked was to invoke triggering memories like my brother eating aloud, and say, “I hold no anger.” Or to think of ghosting Xeno and say, “I hold no regrets.” Often, there would be some anger or regret. Then I would look for the regret or other y button of course. Other versions of the question were also helpful, such as “Where's the lack button?” “Where's the trigger button?” Or “Where's the y reason?” Saying the causes x and results y portion (not the inquiry question) out loud and repeating them helped evoke stronger emotional responses in the body.

Between these inquiry sessions, I was doing do nothing meditation, some wholeness work, and some metta and gratitude collectedness practice, all of which would sometimes bubble up some emotional stuff to do inquiry on.

A few days from, or near the end of the somewhat lax retreat with my friends, I was doing the inquiry maybe nonverbally on several memories and situations as I was falling asleep. Suddenly, something shifted and it was clear there was never a button, there was never a reason to react to those patterns of sensation that were rising and falling as I cycled the scenes. I tested on more scenes and normally suffery simulations, but there was no thin blanket of suffering over the experience, no resistance to the sensate experience I could label as an emotion. It felt so obvious.

That night I had a vivid dream that was symbolic of the system update I had while falling asleep, and when I awoke I was confident something big had happened. When I told the others I'd dropped fetters four and five, one of 'em slapped me in the face and asked if I had a reaction :D. When I tried do nothing meditation it felt like I could sit forever, and I slipped into some uncommonly hyperrealistic and lasting imagery, including a super slow motion closeup of an iridescent rainbow wave that a woman was surfing on.

In the days following, there was a ton of baseline light airy joy and no traditionally-negative emotional reaction to anything; however, nothing challenging was really happening. The persistent painful pointed sadness behind the eyes has gone. I don't know if it stopped after that big update, or gradually before. I can't remember. The main thing that's persisted for me months after that experience is zero resistance to emotions that I can see, no suffering around the emotions, and some other stuff I wrote about in my last post [6]. I think there’s still updates cascading throughout the system.

I don't know if it's necessary to drop fetters one to three before this technique is effective. I only know the technique has been effective for me and two others, including my guide. Most of the stuff I tried was from my guide, he’s a fun wrapper for a website called SimplyTheSeen [7] and more, but I wasn't really studying every sentence the guy said on that site, I was just getting in reps in the version of the technique that I've described and seeing what worked for me. I hope the inquiry works well for you if you try it. <3