Seeing Diagonal Moving Lines While Failing To Meditate

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Onasander
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Seeing Diagonal Moving Lines While Failing To Meditate

Post by Onasander »

Christian but tried meditating under two Zen schools a decade ago in San Francisco- one was at the large Japanese school that follows Dogen- I learned nothing and think that is what the wanted but not the results I required- and also at a smaller Nicheran Zen dojo that rented a small room near where my philosophy group would meet.

At the larger zen place I would sit in the far back corner so those who were in more need could more quickly have access to the teachers, and sitting in the funny pose just made me ache, and my eyes would follow patterns of color blurring as if I stared at the lightbulb, but it would be people’s faces. They one session brought me to the basement and showed me where people would meditate facing the wall- and as soon as I sat down I saw a grease stain on the wall, and realized if I leaned my head forward my head would sit perfectly in that spot. I quickly grasped I would only contribute more oil to the wall if I stayed despite asking over and over if I was doing it right. I get from research Dogen thought the form and behavior created consciousness, but didn’t like the annoyance of the color show and absolute anarchy in not giving me insights. Also everyone went crazy one full moon and they reinacted a workout routine reminiscent of my mornings in basic training.

At the Nicheran room, I could get explanations from a very intelligent teacher, but a very weird phenomena would happen once everyone turned to the wall, and then he toned down the lighting. If you get the light at just the right level- I see diagonal lines converging. On the left they move left to right, on the right right to left, but they are not confined to just one eye but will compete with one another- and move into each other’s field of vision. I’m presuming this is my visual cortex and not my eyes persay.

What made me absolutely give up on meditation was this would go on and off. I noticed after a while when it went off, it was because a was verbalizing thought in my head- such as asking what was going off, but once I got back into mindless passive observation it would come back and dance even harder. The strife was magnificent, and it wasn’t supposed to be present at all.

This differs from the hypnogogic cascade I usually see because it had no colors, and it didn’t change shape (I can make triangles and faces), and hypnotic patterns follow the Pythagorean Table of Opposites in how they build from formless patterns into objects- the Pythagoreans needed a way to explain to one another shapes they were visualizing and used that method of incremental visual construction. I can see them regardless of the light, eyes open or closed, and they don’t change if I verbally think.

The diagonal lines appear only at light settings, do vanish when I think, but found I could none-verbally orient my thinking dualistically in observing them and their details (how I do not know, how do you focus on something in your visual cortex? I did).

So basically I came to the conclusion I was fundamentally broken and allergic to meditation, as every action conducted by default triggered a mode of thinking in another part of the brain. No matter what perception was happening and if I hammered that one gopher another would pop up in a neighboring hole. The zen teacher was perplexed, I assured him I used no drugs (ever), and he said he never encountered it before but in Japan they had texts of what he described like different personality types that could have certain odd reactions like I did- but never heard the details. The zen master looked like Dwight Schrute from The Office, he was based out of San Jose but drove up to San Francisco in Sundays.

Anyway- I’ve seen people with dementia have been known under very specific conditions to see checker board patterns in their eyes, but this has to be triggered by a doctor. I’ve only seen this pattern once in art, and it was from ancient Mesopotamia. I haven’t seen it ever in Buddhist art and follow a lot of history and art feeds on Instagram. I just never see it. I have seen Buddhist scripture that reverses the Hypnogogic Cascade on a cosmological level- where the universe is governed by a Buddha at every level of perception, till it is nearly formless and without being.... but I don’t see them talking about this. I basically have a meditation meter in my head that informs me if I am doing it wrong and it never says I am doing it right, and if it did I wouldn’t trust it, and if I didn’t see this or anything I wouldn’t know if progress was being made or if it was just more hair grease on the wall.

Has anyone come across this phenomena in books? Or similar oddities?
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PadmaVonSamba
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Re: Seeing Diagonal Moving Lines While Failing To Meditate

Post by PadmaVonSamba »

Meditating with eyes open or closed?
You didn’t say.

This may having nothing to do with meditation
but instead could be an ocular migraine,
or simply tired eyes.
Do a web search: “seeing diagonal lines in vision”.

You sure do think about everything a lot!
Maybe, when you sit, just sit.
When appearances occur, just regard them as distractions and return to meditating.

Also, maybe see an eye doctor.

:P
EMPTIFUL.
An inward outlook produces outward insight.
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Ayu
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Re: Seeing Diagonal Moving Lines While Failing To Meditate

Post by Ayu »

:good:

I just want to mention, I don't believe in 'failing' in meditation. Meditation is a work in progress.
When I am digging for gold I don't say 'I failed' just because I didn't find the gold yet.
Onasander
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Re: Seeing Diagonal Moving Lines While Failing To Meditate

Post by Onasander »

There is a clear and absolute synchronicity between not verbally thinking and the appearance of those lines- but the lines do things on their own, and it isn’t a ocular migraine.

I do a lot of work in philosophy and the history of philosophy and came some years back on a 19th century book called “Degeneration” by Max Nordau- where he tried showing various art movements to be a sign of mental insanity- the book was never very popular and is quite easy to disagree with on any given diagnosis, but while researching it I had bought some used opthomology texts, looked up the various conditions he used and found a great many still exist in it (just doubt any modern eye doctor thinks it is evidence of attraction to a school of art, much less sign of insanity if you like Rembrandt).

But in that research I found no hint either. I learned a lot about how we see.

And my eyes are open. It only is triggered via a very specific light level- and I get the dogen dodge of don’t pay attention to it, or don’t do it at that light setting- thing is- it is real, very real, and it is cued to to a few different pathways of awareness and fluctuates when one is active and one is not- and becomes more and more excited when I earnestly try avoid thinking, and vanishes when I start mentally thinking (so another fail). I want to know what that nexus of mental space is, and I’m guessing most everyone else has this mental space too but can’t see it so think nothing is going on when if fact they have a massive traffic jam of cognition going on but just can’t sense it visually. It be great to know what that is, how to move away from it- if not to non-thinking to at least know where other modes of less thinking are.

Will say hypnogogic signs require darkness or eyes closed, but wasn’t seeing them then- these have a very different nature.
avatamsaka3
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Re: Seeing Diagonal Moving Lines While Failing To Meditate

Post by avatamsaka3 »

I'll second seeing an eye doctor. They've got fancy machines that can scan you up and make sure there's no problem. A lot of health insurance companies will actually offer discounts on that sort of thing, so investigate this thoroughly.
and also at a smaller Nicheran Zen dojo
This doesn't seem like traditional Nichiren. The main practice is chanting a mantra and part of the Lotus Sutra. This seems like it's just a Zen place... So perhaps you could try going to a traditional Nichiren center and seeing if you like that. But I could have also misunderstood something.

I'd go to the eye doctor and get checked for migraines, as was said already. Once we can rule that out, then we can get into the meditation side.

A simple solution would be to find a school that uses closed eyes. Plenty of those. Or, if you like, keep the eyes open and don't focus on what comes up. Or you could try meditating in darkness, or with just one soft light source. You can try these things.
So basically I came to the conclusion I was fundamentally broken and allergic to meditation
No, it's just a question of finding the methods that work for you. Your approach to meditation should be creative, flexible, adaptable. You don't need to go to places and then just accept/reject whatever they teach. You can tinker with methods yourself. But of course it's good to have a firm grounding in a traditional approach (and the doctrine behind it) before you do a lot of tinkering. Best of luck.
Last edited by avatamsaka3 on Sun Dec 20, 2020 8:42 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Anders
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Re: Seeing Diagonal Moving Lines While Failing To Meditate

Post by Anders »

It could be many things. A purely physiological or neurological condition, an old trauma constricting in the eyes, or even natural extra sensory sensitivity in the absence of training.

If you still have a desire for meditation, I'd suggest simply practice with eyes closed. And to work with a teacher that has experience with uncommon phenomena in meditation and can give more in depth advice than "just don't pay attention to it."

All of us have obstacles of various sorts. But none that make us designed to be incapable of meditation. That's just added narrative.
"Even if my body should be burnt to death in the fires of hell
I would endure it for myriad lifetimes
As your companion in practice"

--- Gandavyuha Sutra
Onasander
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Re: Seeing Diagonal Moving Lines While Failing To Meditate

Post by Onasander »

This doesn't seem like traditional Nichiren. The main practice is chanting a mantra and part of the Lotus Sutra.
Oh yeah, the robot chanting. I completely forgot about that. Yeah they did that, but this was just a satellite room they rented out of their main center. I was exposed to three schools in San Francisco- a bizarre Tibetan school with two “churches” and a museum full of foam in aquariums who centered their religion around cutting open monks heads and removing stones and placing them in aquariums- only reason I know they are Buddhist is because they had a absurdly large Buddha on the second story of their second church and had a couple of guys dressed like monks in brown robes listening to CDs in Chinese. The second and more obvious one was the Dogen School, they spoke a lot without explanation. And the third and most useful was the Nicheran. I also knew a more generic monk in my philosophy group but couldn’t recall what he followed, and had access to the various Buddhist philosophy groups on Second Life, but it was mostly Korean stuff and the ethics came off as fundamentally broken.

The Nicheran seemed most informed and I knew there was a teacher in Japan who worked on a concept of Human Geography where instead of embracing imperial fascism they would mutually trade, but this work wasn’t translated into English yet and I’ve since completely forgot his name- just know he died in Japanese custody during WW2. The monk was surprised I knew about it. Seemed like a nice school but I do remember thinking they chanted like a electric robotic chicken would. I know that’s a silly statement but that’s what I was thinking. The two aspects that are weakest in my mind are language skills and musical capacity- I can’t do accents or sing. So it wasn’t attractive to me with the chanting. I get why many would want that on a intellectual level, but I’m quite introverted and don’t talk out loud much so seems a uncomfortable burden.

As to if I really want to do meditation.... I don’t know. I’m thinking increasingly it does nothing in regards to the overall aim of meditation if you are getting something out of it. If I am trying for nothingness and getting something like fulfillment out of it then clearly I’m doing it wrong, even if I’m the economy of things that fulfillment is free and available to all, but I’m not the type to gain fulfillment from merely sitting around. I can sit around, but will get restless eventually. I know in Buddhism like The Rhinoceros Sutra sitting in one place wasn’t always the central aspect. Big difference in being a Frog vs a Rhino.

Also there is a fundamental discrepancy between works in Buddhism I like studying the works of Ratnakirti on a intellectual level- but can’t agree necessarily with him, much less like or identify with him- but found part one of The Songs of Milarepa and could identify and like him, and recognize in him a lot of the Classical Greek Cynic School survived (he uses many of the same phrases and formulations they did), but can’t really see how any of what he did was beneficially in terms of practice internally- great as a rhetorical device for others.... but kinda off the wall.

In the west we had a ancient Buddhist school in the eastern Roman Empire around Antioch called the Pyrrhonism, the major surviving works are via Sextus Empericus, though modern Buddhists have been rediscovering it. Some of their leaders, by the descriptions we have, seemed to of mediated, but naturally the skepticism of the school in asking if acts are self evidently needed got rid of that pretty quickly. I’ve often pondered on why would people meditate if it doesn’t have a obvious self evident link to reincarnation, or believe in Karma if reincarnation doesn’t have a evident link to Karna- it didn’t in the Chandogya Upanishad or in western concepts like that taught by Zalmoxis prior to Buddha. Buddha did put together a complex system but why do it if no particular part makes much sense in its own merits, and the various parts making the whole don’t particularly need to fit together and every school and sect in existences seems to chuck out something another school says is very important.

But even my extreme skepticism doesn’t change the fact a couple of billion people think meditation is very important, and that when I do it I hit rather obvious roadblocks that seem to fly in the face of the core beliefs of most practitioners. Even people I would otherwise look down upon are slam dunking the initial stages and I’m left with the realization I belong on the short bus going to the special school for handicapped meditators. Even my cat does it better, it can go hours. Bugs seem experts. I seem to be the worst at it, and the only advantage I have is knowing I’m doing it wrong.
Anders
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Re: Seeing Diagonal Moving Lines While Failing To Meditate

Post by Anders »

What is it that you actually want, Onasander? I must admit, I find much of what you write here disconnected in many ways. What drew you to meditation in the first place? What intent in you was strong enough that it made you sign up here and share your difficulties?

I imagine it isn't a desire to muse about how bugs are better meditators than you, or even what a couple of billion people think about meditation. I can't figure out if this is you trying to close the book on a past unfulfilled chapter, or reaching out in the hope that sparring will help cut through the headspace meandering that makes this such a frustrating thing to approach.

Either one is a fine thing, but I do think both you and responders in this thread would be better served from clarifying what this is fundamentally about, even if it might not be wholly clear to you yet either.

If it is the latter, it is my impression that the greater obstacle here is not the light show, but your thoughts about what they mean for you as a meditator and what meditation is supposed to be (and such an obstacle I can assure you that you have in common with countless generations of meditators).
That, and not yet having enjoyed the good fortune of a skilled teacher who can guide you properly 1 to 1. A dedicated topic could probably yield good recommendations in your area if you were interested.
You expressed an affinity with Milarepa - the karma kagyu tradition have produced many generations of practitioners who have unearthed great practical value from the teachings passed on through him. This might also be a point of further exploration.

With best wishes :namaste:
"Even if my body should be burnt to death in the fires of hell
I would endure it for myriad lifetimes
As your companion in practice"

--- Gandavyuha Sutra
Onasander
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Re: Seeing Diagonal Moving Lines While Failing To Meditate

Post by Onasander »

I don’t quite know what I want from meditation persay- has to say what you expect from something unknowable. All I know is, many people who study the things I study in Asia happen to be enthusiasts about it and it is central to their practices, but I seem to gain nothing from it, and even elementary tries at it quickly result in obvious conclusive failure, as well as continued futility (oil stains from the heads on the wall at the zen center was proof of this).

But even if 99 out of 100 fail, one succeeds perhaps. Even if that number was 10,000 or 1,000,000 it still holds it is possible I could, so I am in the quandary of why I alone seem to keep coming to these weird paradoxical states that go against what is being taught. I’m told a aim, and am confronted with results that confirm upon analysis the method won’t go they way others seemingly have it going. And being told to just man up and carry through it like a bull for 10-15-50 years and then I will get it doesn’t sound like much of a plan at all, if the basics can’t even be mastered early on to let me know what I’m doing.

But I can’t really say I’d be much of a Buddhist, the tangential aspects you noted are the associations I have that would keep me from being able to truthfully I could be one. To me I wouldn’t be able to believe in reincarnation, link karma to reincarnation, and I just listened to a discussion on sunyata this morning after my surgery:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AbMUGvDfKbg
and I am wondering if people are walking around taking their life lesson from that, that they are the awareness of syllogistic negation of space. I’ve spent a while imagining a mad samurai monk named Sunyata running around looping limbs off people declaring “You are not that!” with crowds of people running shocked and screaming. The entire process seems to be knowing self as awareness through negative syllogism, so someone is bound to come to the conclusion they are negative syllogism. So I wouldn’t make a very good Buddhist. But I should make just as good of a mediator as anyone else- as the practice doesn’t seemed tied especially to any one religion- but when I honestly try I honestly am confronted by obstacles and can’t see where this is going in the long run- furthermore I don’t even really know why it is a central aspect of Buddhism. Why is it monks meditating as a practice instead of gaining enlightenment through yo-yo competitions? The Great Jump Roping Yogi’s of Shangra-la? What makes this particular physical-mental technique so valued? My inability is a bit of Freudian Penis Envy- my cat really does seem closer to it than I ever could come. This also triggers question about Buddhist enlightenment involving mediation and reincarnation. Buddha was a warrior prince with a lot of concepts floating around in his head, but he seems to of started a religion based on karma and reincarnation, and many of its followers try to be like frogs and tree stumps cognitively through years of study. Why don’t frogs gain enlightenment and become like Buddha? Why aren’t lichen at the top of the enlightenment food chain and humans at the very bottom of all media ration is to get rid of all the ways of thinking and feeing yourself from externalities in life? I’m pretty sure lichen are there already. Shouldn’t there be hundreds of trillions of Buddhas around in the immediate environment of every human if that is the case?
avatamsaka3
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Re: Seeing Diagonal Moving Lines While Failing To Meditate

Post by avatamsaka3 »

If you want to move forward, you need to do two things. One is that you need to drop everything you think you understand about meditation and Buddhism. By drop, I mean completely discard it to the point where the ideas you've accumulated don't affect your thinking or emotions. You need to start over with a truly blank slate. Otherwise, it will be very, very hard for anyone to help you here. The second one is you need to come up with a consistent framework for meditation practice or Buddhist study. In your case, I'd suggest having a framework rather than not, since your thinking and practice is so scattered. For meditation, it could be "I don't know anything about meditation. I'm exploring the inner world with true openness, and I'm investigating methods as taught by various schools openly." Or it could be "I'd like to find some measure of inner peace, and I will search for those methods and ways of thinking that lead to that goal in my case". Or it could be "I'd like to improve myself in the following ways. I will investigate meditation and Buddhism with the goal of gathering insights to help me do this".

You really would benefit from a clear framework. To be clear, the framework can't be something that you pick up by visiting a place. It has to be the product of genuine introspection and reflection. Then, you can use that genuine foundation to bring all your insights and learnings into a cohesive network. Then, you can study traditional forms of Buddhism in a rigorous way and integrate those insights. Otherwise, it will be like Columbus with a plan to set sail and explore, but he can't decide on which ship to use, he can't decide on a destination, has no crew, and has no way of making these decisions. You can pontificate from the docks, or you can set sail: it's up to you. The stronger and more genuine your foundation is at this point, the better the practice will be in the long run.
Last edited by avatamsaka3 on Thu Dec 24, 2020 9:26 pm, edited 4 times in total.
karmanyingpo
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Re: Seeing Diagonal Moving Lines While Failing To Meditate

Post by karmanyingpo »

avatamsaka3 wrote: Thu Dec 24, 2020 9:16 pm If you want to move forward, you need to do two things. One is that you need to drop everything you think you understand about meditation and Buddhism. By drop, I mean completely discard it to the point where the ideas you've accumulated don't affect your thinking or emotions. You need to start over with a truly blank slate. Otherwise, it will be very, very hard for anyone to help you here. The second one is you need to come up with a consistent framework for meditation practice or Buddhist study. In your case, I'd suggest having a framework rather than not, since your thinking and practice is so scattered. For meditation, it could be "I don't know anything about meditation. I'm exploring the inner world with true openness, and I'm investigating methods as taught by various schools openly." Or it could be "I'd like to find some measure of inner peace, and I will search for those methods and ways of thinking that lead to that goal in my case". Or it could be "I'd like to improve myself in the following ways. I will investigate meditation and Buddhism with the goal of gathering insights to help me do this".

You really would benefit from a clear framework. To be clear, the framework can't be something that you pick up by visiting a place. It has to be the product of genuine introspection and reflection. Then, you can use that genuine foundation to bring all your insights and learnings into a cohesive network. Then, you can study traditional forms of Buddhism in a rigorous way and integrate those insights. Otherwise, it will be like Columbus with a plan to set sail and explore, but he can't decide on which ship to use, he can't decide on a destination, has no crew, and has no way of making these decisions. You can pontificate from the docks, or you can set sail: it's up to you. The stronger and more genuine your foundation is at this point, the better the practice will be in the long run.
:good: Marry Christmas every one.
I agree with this post. It is better to be open to changing views and being wrong, then to make your mind up, and close yourself off from the benefit of the Dharma. Openness is better than just having doubt. If we have to chose between the two, better to have mixed openness and doubt than it is to just doubt. And we just do the best we can depending on where we are at.

KN
Last edited by karmanyingpo on Sat Dec 26, 2020 3:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
ma lu dzok pe san gye thop par shok!
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kusulu
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Re: Seeing Diagonal Moving Lines While Failing To Meditate

Post by kusulu »

Odd visual effects aren't the only distractions. You could write an encyclopedia on distractions. It would be an utterly useless exercise, but so much of human cultural production is useless anyway.

If you looking for a skill, a discipline, a practice, then obviously you get out of it what you put into it. It doesn't matter how many hours or years. It is reciprocal. It might not solve all your problems, but then again it might. I'd keep it simple however and just practice from the heart. It sounds like your mind is over-loaded.

:anjali:
SilenceMonkey
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Re: Seeing Diagonal Moving Lines While Failing To Meditate

Post by SilenceMonkey »

Onasander wrote: Sun Dec 20, 2020 11:28 am
At the larger zen place I would sit in the far back corner so those who were in more need could more quickly have access to the teachers, and sitting in the funny pose just made me ache, and my eyes would follow patterns of color blurring as if I stared at the lightbulb, but it would be people’s faces.

...

Has anyone come across this phenomena in books? Or similar oddities?
When I was first getting into meditation in high school, I had this experience for a few years. (Not the zig zagging, but the blurring as if looking at a lightbulb.) If I'm reading you right, this is called an after-image and happens to some meditators because their eyes become more sensitive to light. I was very interested in this because I thought it was involved with seeing auras, but it led nowhere. And anyway, now I know that seeing auras is just parlor tricks and a waste of time.

Aside from that, all kinds of things can show up in your perception when you close your eyes. Often it's nothing more than what happens in a sensory deprivation tank.
At the Nicheran room, I could get explanations from a very intelligent teacher, but a very weird phenomena would happen once everyone turned to the wall, and then he toned down the lighting. If you get the light at just the right level- I see diagonal lines converging. On the left they move left to right, on the right right to left, but they are not confined to just one eye but will compete with one another- and move into each other’s field of vision. I’m presuming this is my visual cortex and not my eyes persay.

What made me absolutely give up on meditation was this would go on and off. I noticed after a while when it went off, it was because a was verbalizing thought in my head- such as asking what was going off, but once I got back into mindless passive observation it would come back and dance even harder. The strife was magnificent, and it wasn’t supposed to be present at all.
It sounds like you never found good guidance on this, which is very unfortunate. Such a small and insignificant phenomena led to a misunderstanding that led to you leaving the Dharma for over twenty years... Any qualified Dharma teacher would have told you not to pay much attention to this, and especially not to fuel your stories about it. It sounds like you were grasping onto these zig zaggy lines as not just the object of meditation, but the objective! Thereby creating all these stories and meaning behind some random perception, and tying your feelings about how successful you were in meditation to how often you would see these lights. A good zen teacher would have told you to drop all of this.

It sounds like you've held onto this experience after all these years and are still chasing after it, if only just to understand what happened. If you happen to meet a zen teacher again, maybe ask him or her about this and how to proceed. This kind of thing has to do with your personal projections and so it's best to talk with someone (a teacher) who can get to know you and how your mind works.

Just my opinion.
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