I think again we're back on what I referred to as the four stages of the development of mindfulness and understanding. If this person gets ill after a retreat from too much stress, OK reflect. What happened? Where did the stress come from? Try to look at when the strings were too tight. Rosemary talks about the stringed instrument, it's an analogy from the Buddha's day. Strings being too tight is very common. But you have to figure out which string was it? Many of those strings have to do with idealism, "I should be better, I should be able to do this, I should be able to do that." We've got to drop a certain amount of that. We need to learn to have compassion for who we are now. We do want a certain amount of idealism because the most idealist person on the planet was the Buddha. We're following in the Buddha's footsteps. So we are fairly idealistic on that.
But in order to follow in a balanced way, we have to be realistic at the same time - that is to work with the reality of who we are in the present. After the retreat if we're feeling ill, we're wiped out, OK something was wrong, maybe we worked too hard. Maybe it was in the walking meditation. How were you approaching your walking meditation, were you trying to achieve something? Or were you walking just in order to try to be aware of your walking. When you were doing the breath awareness, maybe at the nose, that's where a lot of people create stress. Headache! They're trying so hard to be concentrated at the nose. That's another area that might create too much tightness. Some people, in the Compassion/Lovingkindness meditation, they want a feeling all the time. They want the feeling, they want the feeling. Rosemary and I don't teach to get a feeling all the time. The sincerity of the wish is most important. Some people are trying too hard in one area of the practice and that will create stress, make them feel tired, exhausted. Doubts come when we think we're not doing something right. But sometimes it's true, we're simply not doing something right. What's the most important way to get rid of doubt? Kalyanamitta, a good wise kind spiritual friend. Go to your teachers, go to your good spiritual friends, if they're not teachers. Ask questions about your doubts. You've heard me say that doubt is the most important hindrance, because it can block us. The most important way to get rid of doubt is to get more information from somebody wiser or somebody who just can give a different perspective about what we're doing.
Being a workaholic, as the person says they were in normal life, will carry over into the meditation practice, and we have to relax somewhere, but we have to find out where it is best to relax. Of course the biggest danger for some people who are workaholics is that they relax totally and it's just sloth and torpor. So there is a balance needed in there and often we need more advice in order to find that out.