In retrospect, in this provisional Sarno framework, it seems possible that the pain and unpleasantness of meditation was a subconscious reaction to really not wanting to meditate, subconsciously. Knowing myself, paying attention to something that I don’t want to pay attention to breeds a high level of resentment, and meditation is the purified and crystallized form of that. I’ll tentatively try meditating again and see if the tension returns, with this perspective.
That makes sense to me—both directing attention and looking at your sense of self often can feel like the ultimate Ugh Field. TMI does have some good guidance about building the skill of directed attention gently and consistently, but it’s mostly in the early sections of the book and most people overlook it and tend towards exerting effort.
I haven’t read it yet, but there’s a new edition of MCTB that just came out with a lot of additional material. TMI is probably enough instructions to work from, but it doesn’t provide as much meat around what you can expect to happen emotionally and phenomenologically.
That makes sense to me—both directing attention and looking at your sense of self often can feel like the ultimate Ugh Field. TMI does have some good guidance about building the skill of directed attention gently and consistently, but it’s mostly in the early sections of the book and most people overlook it and tend towards exerting effort.
I haven’t read it yet, but there’s a new edition of MCTB that just came out with a lot of additional material. TMI is probably enough instructions to work from, but it doesn’t provide as much meat around what you can expect to happen emotionally and phenomenologically.