Serge. It is often difficult to answer a question , without having more data about a person . So all I can go by is the specific things you say: firstly, that no practices seem to work for you, and secondly, that your mind is so 'monkey-fied' ( Buddhists describe our restless mind as 'monkey mind' as it is always jumping all over the place) that you get stressed to the point of not sleeping! So OK, here is my response.
Often we blame methods or are critical towards spiritual practices, either because we don't do them properly or we are not ready for them and so cannot do them, or conversely, we don't get instructed properly. (My first yoga teacher was terrible and so I felt I could never do yoga!) Also, meditation is not for all of us. In addition, we feel that spiritual practices ought to be easy and that we should 'get it' at once. Practices aren't like that. They need a lot of discipline and a lot of determination. And Meditation is not easy. Not if we want to learn to do it properly. Our ego self that is so attached to keeping us restless - as it won't have the same control over us if we start to quieten down - will do anything to try to stop us doing things to help us become more peaceful. In fact ,our whole dysfunctional system of power politics, big business, large multi-national drug companies - all that corruption - it all survives through our minds remaining unquiet.
Unquiet minds lead to war and the system needs war to sell its weapons and so not go bankrupt. ( Isn't that insane? Our planet holds itself together by producing the very things that will blast it apart!) In a nutshell, unquiet minds lead to all our many dysfunctional behaviours that so many of us are so addicted to. Indeed, we swim in this drama every day and because it constitutes such a large part of our reality, we often think there is nothing else. My point is that there are all sorts of forces out there in the world, geared to making us remain in higgledy piggledy states and not be moved to do anything to try to move beyond them.
So these could be some of the reasons why Buddhist practices may not work for you. The fault is certainly not with the practice. They have been passed down through many traditions, and if we can do them and are ready and able to do them, they certainly work. It also greatly helps if we find ourselves a good teacher. Have you done that ? And do you persevere? Are you committed? Do you put as much energy and attention into your inner work as to your outer work? These are all questions to ask yourself.
The other question that is important, is to inquire if you are ready for meditation? Not everyone is. Not necessarily because one is not evolved enough, but because one may be carrying a lot of emotional junk that needs clearing out first of all. Put simply, Meditation is not a panacea for all of our discontents. Nor is it a substitute for psychotherapy. It may help bring up hidden emotions from the depths of our unconscious, but it may not necessarily help us to heal them. So if, say, we are still very angry with our parents; if we will have been traumatised in some way, or if we have certain kinds of personality disorders, any of these things can make us feel very disconbobulated and resistant to meditation . Indeed, it may not be what we need in order to feel more peaceful.
The East and the West represent two different approaches to healing and self development. In the East , we learn to heal ourselves through expanding our awareness and developing greater insight into what is. This is the way of Meditation. In the West, on the other hand, our focus is more on the power of investigating. So if something is making us feel very anxious, it may be that we will initially need to adopt a Western approach and explore what is going on with us emotionally, and 'go into' the painful feelings, and in this way try to release them. Many of us are not yet ready for deep, insightful, meditative work until we have completed quite a lot of investigative work first.
And perhaps this is what you need. I would be happy if you wanted to ring me and we might talk this issue over. I am now doing a lot of sessions with people using SKYPE and we could do a session that could help you see what your real issue is. I think that if we can see our issues clearly, then we are much better placed to handle them. One of the arts of being on a spiritual path is being able to stand back and observe ourselves and so sense what is right for us at any time or what it is we really need.
Often, what may be helpful at one stage of our development, can be counter productive when we move into a new phase. So it just may be that Buddhist Meditation is not what you need at this moment and may be exactly what you need later, when you will have first investigated what it is that seems to be blocking your ability to feel emotionally at peace.
Individual Soul-based Psychotherapy and Coaching
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