“I experienced a wave of self-hatred so shocking, so intense, that it changed the way I relate . . . to my own dharma path and the meaning of life itself.” So recalls Jay Michaelson of the moment on a long, silent vipassana retreat when he fell into what he calls a “dark night” of intensely difficult mental states.14 The Visuddhimagga pegs this crisis as most likely at the point a meditator experiences the transitory lightness of thoughts. Right on schedule, Michaelson hit his dark night after having cruised through a quietly ecstatic landmark on that path, the stage of “arising and passing,”
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