Neighbor's Noise Problem In Meditation [serious]

[Mirko]

Let me start saying that I've been meditating for 2 months everyday, 4-5 hours SDS/day at the moment. Attended 10 day Vipassana retreat etc… It's been pretty good except one thing…

My neighbor upstairs is constantly stomping and preventing me reaching higher meditation states. I spoke with him 2 times, nothing has changed. He is cool guy. He is not doing that on purpose.

The problem is in ME. Since my childhood, I have been overly sensitive to noises… I could not fall asleep when TV was turned on, or streets sounds coming thru my window etc. When I invited my parents to hear the stomping noises, they almost could not hear them! And my girlfriend has NO PROBLEM with my neighbor stomping. She falls asleep with no problem even when extreme noise is coming from above. BUT I think she and my parents don't hear the noise because of their THOUGHT and EGO smog preventing them to hear anything + their genes… I am just somehow „too aware“...

Even the previous man who lived in my current apartment did not hear any problematic noises...

I changed my living place 3 times… Now I live in studio apartment so I have no other room to hide myself… I don't have much of a problem sleeping, but there are many distractions happening in meditation – especially LOW FREQUENCY stomping from my neighbor above. And he doesn't leave apartment a much...

- Earbuds don't help with low frequency sounds (I have tried them all) … Low frequency noises penetrate your whole body and you vibrate with every stomp.

- All I am doing in meditation is noting hearing,hearing,hearing… HEARING

- Telling myself „come on! Noises are just happening… They are not happening to me… Life's just happening“… - DOESN'T work.

- Telling myself „Noises are here, but my neighbor is not doing them on purpose…“ - doesn't work.

- Tried to cover the noises with positive thoughts – doesn't work. Ignoring the noise doesn't help.

- White noise doesn't help – even when I put bass on full volume…. Stomping from above is PENETRATING me…

- Observing the noise helps… I learned a lot from this experience alone but , but I feel I am not making progress anymore. I am very conscious, very aware… I can feel rushing and warmth creeping into my body every time I hear stomp.

- My meditation is calm and peaceful UNTIL I hear stomp and I start to sweat immediately after that.

- Changing and moving to new apartment/house would not solve the problem… I think I would find something else to bother me!

I am rotten inside…. Some weird shit inside me is constantly turning on the Fight or Flight syndrome…

The very interface between me and reality is compromised! There's this „filter“ inside me that is not functioning well… The filter sees that fucking noise as dangerous. I WANT TO TURN THAT FILTER OFF.

- How can I see the noise as „Just a noise.“ ?

- How can I convince myself and see my neighbor truly as a nice guy and not somebody I want to kill during meditation?

- How can I prevent myself constantly waiting for next stomp and just enjoy meditation?

- How can I turn my laser sharp awareness to something more meaningful than A FUCKING STOMPING?

And… I need to tell you… In meditation I don't mind low frequency noises from the street… I don't mind occasional bassy sounds from my neighbor below. I don't mind occasional stomping from my above neighbor's kids… I don't mind dogs barking…. Or to say better, I recognize them, hear them, but they don't trigger fight or flight syndrome in me...

I have been trying to analyze/solve this problem for 3 years… And I think that the problem is that I somehow in my mind am moralizing to my neighbor above, telling myself that he SHOULD be responsible when he is 50 years old and stop stomping.

So:

- I am very aware and have great time when there's no stomping ...

- 6 months ago I REALIZED there is no free will. I don't have free will and my neighbor does not have free will either. He could NOT choose otherwise..

- I intellectually understand there is no ME and no self stuff and that noises are just happening to NO ONE.

I know I am the one who needs to change somehow… How can I see things for themselves as they actually are?

Any ideas?

My last hopes for dealing with this stomping problem:

- Metta (loving kindness) meditation towards my neighbor.

- I ordered DMT and waiting to see some „higher stuff“ and accept neighbor's noise as not that dangerous. (5-MeO-DMT is out of stock everywhere)

- Doing Byron Katie – The Work... Will it help?

- Meditating outside is impossible at the moment (too cold outside etc.)

 

And remember…

This is very serious problem for me… Even though I intellectually understand that „problems don't exist“ - Tell that to my meditating body covered in sweat after it hears first stomp from above!! :-D

 

BTW, I am 29y/o, male, central Europe, introvert.

[kurt]

2 minutes ago, Mirko said:

preventing me reaching higher meditation states.

First, mediation is not about getting into high states.  

Secondly, there is a you and noises are indeed happening to you.  A good start is to quit your denial, stop listening to neo-advaita and learn how to cope with your mind.  Your mind is a tool, an instrument, and if you welcome it, and welcome your ego you can learn how to train them to your benefit instead of denying them and trying to transcend them or escape them using spirituality.

Thirdly, there is indeed free will, and you need to exercise it if you want to become free.  Thats what its there for You have a slither of influence and you need to employ it to work in your favour.  Again, listening to neo advaita and other stupid non dual teachers on youtube will not make your problems go away.  Stop hiding your head in the sand and face reality.  Reality is you have a mind, an ego.  The notion that you dont have free will belongs to awareness, because awareness is choiceless and not bothered with life.  Until you are that stop parroting the notion that you as an ego have no free will.  Thats just absurd.

Fourth, understand that the stomping is there because it is there and no matter what you do you cannot change that, you can only change your internal response to it.  Your attitude towards it.  You have no control over anything except how you interpret life, so better to start to use your thinking mind and ego to turn your conditioned attitude around.

No need to do metta towards your neighbour.  Its not like hes murdered a bus full of schoolchildren, is it?  The very fact you are thinking about sending metta to your neighbour for stomping indicates you probably need more than Vipassana to sort your attitude out.  

How can you just see noise as noise?  Just tell your mind "its just noise".  Your mind is not you, its your mind, you can tell it what you want.  Tell it that noise is just noise, and relax, and welcome the noise as an opportunity to practice patience.

Good luck!

[Pramit]

have you tried noise cancelling headphone? 

From your post, it seems you have tried it all and this is not a problem you can psychologically influence, so i won't give you any advice on how to think. 

[Arman]

Doubt DMT is going to be the answer, but maybe. Katie Byrons The Work may help.

Your predicament reminded me of a story Adyashanti told in one of his talks about his struggle to meditate because of noise. Please skip to 21:40 (if it doesn't go there automatically) and give it a listen. He will start the story in a minute or so.

 

[SSr]

I had this problem too and it was quite a huge one for me. I live in India and you would think I am used to noises by now! But I have an issue with certain noises. Any slight noise from upstairs neigbour caused such an anxiety. During meditation it was not an issue, but at other times it was, when it was very quiet, when I was alone etc. In my previous apt, I fought with my upstairs neighbour because she was causing some nuisance. She (and her adult son) made it worse for me by dragging furniture around all the time on the concrete floor! It was pure torture for me. We moved out after 2 months. But since then, for 2 years now, I am "tuned" to any noise from above. Loud noises are not a big deal. For ex, my neigbour's 2 dogs bark all the time, but that seems alright. For a long time I thought they did it on purpose like the other one. But now I am slowly starting to realize it may not be deliberate ?. So I know exactly what you are saying. 

Reg you issue, do not be hard on yourself. Do not resist how you are feeling but accept that it IS a serious problem for you and that you do not have a solution yet. Do not feel bad about not being able to overcome it during meditation. Calmness and acceptance ( of the noise, in your case) is not a natural state when you sit down to meditate, but rather a goal that you achieve over the years. Meanwhile, you should find a way around the problem - 1) See if you can meditate early in the morning before that neighbour wakes up and starts stomping around. ? 2) or find out if there is a centre nearby where you  can mediate in silence. Also, during mediation, if you are feeling nervous about the noise, accept that. If you are feeling bad about not being able to overcome  accept that. If you are feeling bad about feeling bad, accept that also. 

 

[Prabhaker]

3 minutes ago, SSr said:

dragging furniture around all the time on the concrete floor! It was pure torture for me.

If you are positive, then everything becomes positive. If you are negative, then everything turns negative, everything turns sour. So please remember this - not only about noises, but about everything in life: if you feel that something negative exists around you, go and find the cause within. It is you. You must be expecting something, you must be desiring something, you must be making some conditions.
Existence cannot be forced to go according to you, it flows in its own way. If you can flow with it, you will be positive. If you fight with it, you will become negative and the whole thing, the whole cosmos around you, will turn negative.
It is just like a person who is trying to float upstream, then the stream is negative. If you are trying to float upstream in a river, then the river will seem negative and you will feel that the river is fighting you - that the river is pushing you downwards. The river is trying to move you downstream, not upstream, so it will seem as if the river is fighting you. The river is completely unaware of you, blissfully unaware. And it is good; otherwise the river will go to a madhouse. The river is not fighting with you, you are fighting with the river. You are trying to float upstream.

[DoubleYou]

22 hours ago, Mirko said:

The very interface between me and reality is compromised! There's this „filter“ inside me that is not functioning well… The filter sees that fucking noise as dangerous. I WANT TO TURN THAT FILTER OFF.

The real noise is happening within. Instead of focussing on how to stop the noises around you, look at the intensity of your thoughts. The noise isn't bothering you, your thoughts about it are. The noise doesn't hold a quality until you grant it one. Allow the thoughts to be what they are by focussing on that instead of the sounds. 

Sounds like a great opportunity to grow from. If you can be peaceful in the midst of chaos, meditation is doing it's job for you. Keep working on it. This is what meditation is all about. 

22 hours ago, Mirko said:

When I invited my parents to hear the stomping noises, they almost could not hear them! And my girlfriend has NO PROBLEM with my neighbor stomping. She falls asleep with no problem even when extreme noise is coming from above. BUT I think she and my parents don't hear the noise because of their THOUGHT and EGO smog preventing them to hear anything + their genes… I am just somehow „too aware“...

I hope you are able to see that It's actually your own thought and ego smog that's preventing you from being peaceful in the moment. Different people react different to different situations. No need to compare.

22 hours ago, Mirko said:

- Metta (loving kindness) meditation towards my neighbor.

Also, let's be honest here. You can love your neighbour all you want, but is that really what you feel in that moment? I would even advice to completely allow your anger to surface. Don't block it. Be with it in the moment. Those are the feelings that are creating your problem, so focus on that. 

Good luck!  

[SSr]

8 hours ago, Prabhaker said:

If you are positive, then everything becomes positive. If you are negative, then everything turns negative, everything turns sour. So please remember this - not only about noises, but about everything in life: if you feel that something negative exists around you, go and find the cause within. It is you. You must be expecting something, you must be desiring something, you must be making some conditions.
Existence cannot be forced to go according to you, it flows in its own way. If you can flow with it, you will be positive. If you fight with it, you will become negative and the whole thing, the whole cosmos around you, will turn negative.
It is just like a person who is trying to float upstream, then the stream is negative. If you are trying to float upstream in a river, then the river will seem negative and you will feel that the river is fighting you - that the river is pushing you downwards. The river is trying to move you downstream, not upstream, so it will seem as if the river is fighting you. The river is completely unaware of you, blissfully unaware. And it is good; otherwise the river will go to a madhouse. The river is not fighting with you, you are fighting with the river. You are trying to float upstream.

I have been meditating for 10 months and I have been able to "purge" many of my negative ways of thinking. But only stuff that were easier to change. Certain issues I am neurotic about, I have not been able to. However I am much more aware of my thought pattern, feelings now.  I know I could see them as an opportunity to work with those problems, but I really feel I am not there yet. 

[Neo]

I have chronic tinnitus. I tune into it. It's ok, I don't think it will turn out to be a problem.

[cirkussmile]

On 2016-12-24 at 1:42 PM, Mirko said:

- How can I see the noise as „Just a noise.“ ?

- How can I convince myself and see my neighbor truly as a nice guy and not somebody I want to kill during meditation?

- How can I prevent myself constantly waiting for next stomp and just enjoy meditation?

- How can I turn my laser sharp awareness to something more meaningful than A FUCKING STOMPING?

You are not supposed to do anything. The person/ego always wants to find something else than the present moment. Your thoughts are not more special than anything else so don't give them attention but instead allowing them.

 

 

[vizual]

You are already enlightened bro. Trying to create the perfect circumstances for you to become enlightened only prevents you from realizing your own enlightenment because in reality there is nothing to control. 

[Clayman]

@Mirko

Lets say that the reason you close your eyes, relax your body, ect is to shut your senses down, therefore limiting the sensory input into your mind. Why not shut your ears down or wash them with something non-distracting. Plug them, play some bi-neural beats, even loud ones if that is what it takes. I have meditated perfectly using these few simple tricks while people were raving in the room behind the wall on my back. There is no need of wasting willpower or forcing some ''great realizations'' at this point.

If that does not help, as the ''bass'' trick you tried did not. Why not consider changing your meditation location. At one point in my life, things were so dense around me, a lot of noise, 5 people in my room all the time, student stuff. So to keep up with my meditation goals, I decided to go and walk 20 mins every night, to a lonely bench by the nearby coast and meditate there. Worked out pretty well. And to add. It was Copenhagen's coast. In the middle of the winter.

Hope you will find any of these tips assistive mate. 
Peace.

Edited December 26, 2016 by Clayman

[Time Traveler]

Work with emotional response to stomping, not with sound itself.

Meditation isn't about reaching higher states or changing outside world, I think your Vipassana teacher should have told you that.

1. Accept that everything you feel, see, hear happens inside of you

2. When you hear stomping

a) thank it for returning your awareness to current moment (if you was drifted away)

b) watch how your emotional response rises in your body

c) explore that response with your awareness and sustain it as long as possible

d) if response fades away before the next stomp explore the emptiness before it

Good luck !