Head pain and Breath Awareness

[ButterflyWoman]

As long as I have some feeling of actually making progress, I'm fine with that.

Believe it or not, so am I, especially now that I realise that on some level I actually do choose "fast and painful and let's move on" most of the time. But then we get into discussions about suffering and how it's unnecessary and I start to wonder again...

[Korpo]

I see.

Oliver

[Korpo]

I don't know - what are people's energetic experiences in meditation? Does it stimulate flow? Does it increase overall flow? Do breathing awareness practices stimulate circulation of energy?

I've been making progress with these blockages - maybe it is time to pay them more attention to resolve them once and for all. Other major blockages have responded well to my practices, in other parts of the body. The last weeks were rather liberating in this regard. Maybe these re-occuring troubles with the head blockages mean that they are now "ripe" and ready to be dissolved.

I found it hard that these work so strongly against relaxation and meditation. I'm disappointed that there are so many meditation teachers and authors out there who seem to ignore the fact that the practice can bring in touch with a lot of pain and tension right from the beginning. While the emotional aspects of meditation are often discussed, it seems many cast a blind eye to the physical/etheric aspects of meditation and energy work.

This is IMO a disservice to many people out there with more severe conditions than my inherent tendency to tense up. I wonder what meditation would be like for them.

Oliver

[sleeper]

Have you tried doing energy work in areas close and closer in proximity to the areas that are bothering you? as you know, he more intense and practiced you are at energy work, the more that simple breathing will stimulate Kundalini and spinal chord energies (some people say the two are synonymous). In me, those energies tend to rise to the heart then from lower chakras, descend from above from higher ones, and filling the body completely with divine energies. that could stimulate your brow. or, just as likely, you have a blockage that you aren't as aware of, and the energy is forced to bypass through your brow.

For instance, i had a serious problem with my crown chakra for some time, and strange as it may sound, the energy that should have moved through that area came through my ears...and produced some unexplainable sensations. By working out my problems with my crown, I fixed my problems with my ears.

I have problems with tension in my shoulders, neck, jaw, and head, too, for what it's worth, including significant tension headaches that can last for days (longest I ever had was six weeks). I have some suggestions for material ways to deal with it, but energetically, the only thing so far I've found that does much good is the massage technique.

For a long time, I carried lots of tension in my shoulders that caused severe headaches, but recently, finally, i resolved them. Psychics kept telling me to stop carrying so many burdens on my shoulders, the weight of the world, etc. but that's not how I experienced it. I was carrying resentment...which i guess is a burden...but so are many emotional things. After i released the judgement and resentment first in my heart chakra, then in some smaller energy centers in my head but not my crown or third eye chakra, the tension left me. But it was a very emotionally painful process.

[Korpo]

Have you tried doing energy work in areas close and closer in proximity to the areas that are bothering you?

That's 95% of my energy work. Finding a block, feeling closer to it, be aware of it, dissolve it. You could say I do that multiple hours a day.

as you know, he more intense and practiced you are at energy work, the more that simple breathing will stimulate Kundalini and spinal chord energies (some people say the two are synonymous).

I tend to feel they are not the same. Never had any Kundalini phenomena nor am I trying to. I have circulation in the orbit, and cleaned that in many places.

or, just as likely, you have a blockage that you aren't as aware of, and the energy is forced to bypass through your brow.

My brow is blocked, so are its secondary centers - temples, nose, roof of mouth, scalp, behind eyes. I'm rather having problems with the blockages I am aware of.

Oliver

[Korpo]

Weird synchronicity:

The last few days I saw several times "stomping devices" - big machines that drive poles into the ground by repeatedly hitting them with a big weight they drop. Today I saw out of the train window and thought - "Good grief! That was the third one! Third one? What does that mean?". And I immediately thought "Go deeper."

I was sitting here, reading the article asalantu recommended here:

viewtopic.php?f=46&t=11636

I got stuck on these two short sentences:

Uncomfortable? Go deeper!

I think this relates to this. To what I described in this thread. Maybe this time the discomfort (that word was mentioned immediately before that) is no longer an obstacle to going deeper. Or getting rid of the blockages helps me go deeper.

I don't know. I'm just it relates to this, as it popped into my mind in this order.

Oliver

[Korpo]

Today I relistened to a track about breathing in meditation/energy work. It recommends using the natural properties of in and out breath - in increases/revitalises/energises awareness, out lets go/expels.

I was adhering to the instruction - as a blockage came in focus, I just got aware of its contour on in breath, and on the out breath I sank deeper into it and also let go. It seems very natural this way. This helped with exactly one of the major blockages in my scalp that had been such a big problem.

As I was about to finish it, I sank deeper down my body, sinking the energy with it, still focussing on in and out breath in the same way. My breathing got incredibly deep and smooth when I reached the chest. Really loud, too!

The dissolving worked well on the cramped up muscles in my abdomen, too. It's so funny - I relaxed something in my abdomen, and I suddenly got noises from my shoulder unwinding. It never ceases to surprise me.

Oliver

[seankerr123]

Dear Korpo,

I just came across this and your "inner dissolving" thread and just wanted to say I'm very impressed. To my eye, you are supplying precisely the element that is lacking in RB's work (which is still great imo) - the work of purification based on equanimity. Coming from vipassana, I really can't imagine the cathartic process NOT starting with energy work. And yet this side seems pretty neglected in methods that just speak in terms of "drawing in", "stimulating", "circulating", "clearing blockages" etc - as if we were dealing with clogged plumbing! this kind of approach totally overlooks the mental side and the cathartic process.

From a vipassana pov a "blockage" is just as mental as it is physical: it's a knot of psychic tension, a blob of negative mental conditioning. Due to the strength of your practice it'ss been shaken up from deep inside where it's been all along. There's a pali term for these - which maybe you're already familiar with - "sankhara" (sanskrit "sanskara"). Its mental side is most likely apparent in the way your disposition changes when you focus on it: you can't help but hate it, be overwhelmed by it, over react to it - because it IS that reaction. The way to deal with them is by neutralising that reaction, ie not losing your equanimity.

Again, to look at it from the vipassana persp, it's the equanimity that shakes up the past conditioning, and it's the equanimity that eliminates it. As you describe it, you're working with equanimity, so it's no surprise you're getting the results you are. "Dissolving" these things IS the work of meditation - not an impediment to it. To my understanding, no pain or blockage is an impediment : working through them actually constitutes the purificatory process itself. It IS your progress, and in my experience, the deeper you go, the deeper and nastier the things that get shaken up to the surface. That's the whole process.

IME, dwelling on painful blocked areas is actually the least effective way to deal with them though. They'll quickly overpower you and make your mind grosser so it can no longer feel the prevailing subtle flow on the rest of the body. TRYING to remove blockages destroys the equanimity which is your real tool to remove them. Best way to let them dissolve is to keep working systematically through the whole body. In vipassana you keep sweeping head to feet and feet to head - not too different from RB's full body circuit. You pass your awareness through "blocked spots", maintaining your equanimity, and *keep moving*. Once you reconnect with the hands or feet a good deal of tension often gets discharged. With repeated passes, even the nastiest of sankharas gets eliminated.

But progress in this context involves bringing deeper, nastier things up as much as it involves getting rid of them. They have to surface in order to dissolve, so at times it seems like your practice is increasing your pains and at times decreasing them. Both parts constitute progress though

I've found over the years that it's the speed of this process that indicates progress. I used to sit for hours with the pains or passions that would come up. Now even very heavy things come up and pass away quite rapidly.

Sankhara actually means "compound" or "formation" - now that i think of it, it's a perfect opposite to the state of "dissolution". Just a matter of allowing them to dissolve into their natural "a-sankhata" state, lit. "un-compounded" - a synonym for nirvana: total dissolution.

[Korpo]

Hello, seankerr123.

Interesting point of view!

I'm still adapting my practice, and when I switched to going back to letting go on the out breath and sinking in, the situation vastly improved and changed. No longer was the blockage overwhelming, but the process got more natural and easier.

I agree with you, if I get stuck on a blockage, the process does not work too well. The recommendation for doing this is: Start at the top of the head, dissolve what you can, move down. It is less of a sweep than you suggest, but getting stuck is actually not such a good idea and not the intended way. I have however very tense points in my body which can become "traps" for awareness.

Focussing continually with relaxed, gentle attention (which is indeed enabled by more and more equanimity) on a blockage has a profound side effect in the long run. Each blockage, when the meditator follows the more subtle energies again and again, has the potential to dissolve to space and even emptiness. This is the most direct connection to emptiness through practice I have found yet in any technique. It is recommended by Bruce to stay in this emptiness as long as it lasts to let it transform you.

Each blockage then can become an entry point into a much deeper experience, because the energies intertwine and lead to ever subtle energies, back into the core of the being where the whole knot dissolves and becomes empty without content, and back to consciousness without content. I admit I had no encounter with this yet, but spacious feelings come and go. Some days I go deep, some days I do not. On rare days I find more space inside than in the room I am sitting in.

As you correctly noted, as my meditation changes, it drags up new things. Problems come to a boiling point, where they want attention. As the block wants attention, the mind has to adapt. I need to adapt, refine and change my technique in basic and subtle ways again and again, as the things that come up teach me (in the long run) how to deal with them. I deal with a host of body blockages and "lesser" emotions, and in recognising them, I learn over time how to deal with them.

Indeed, equanimity becomes more and more the key factor. Learning how to relate to the objects of my meditation again and again with a gentle, relaxed attitude. At first I though I lost this attitude. Then I realized, that these are stronger pains and blocks. After a certain discouragement I refined my technique again and now it works again. And again many more problems became now "approachable". With each cycle of refinement, the technique again allows another level of inner knot to be cleared up.

Bruce Frantzis wrote that the relaxed mind necessary, the attitude, is similar or the same in Buddhism as in this school of Taoism. Actually his teacher was both - a Buddhist of Tientai school in younger years, recognised enlightened by this school, and a Taoist in later years. In China there is a certain flux possible between these, and even some Buddhists mention "attaining the Tao".

The attitude of the mind he described with two examples - the Taoist example was a stone in water. The stone is the object, the awareness is the water. As the stone moves gently in the currents of the water, the awareness just surrounds the stone. The stone is in water, constantly touched by it, but not under pressure. Water is not tense. Its fluidity is the quality of mind that should represent the relaxed state.

In the Buddhist example he mentioned how the Buddha explained to a musician who tried very hard how the mind has to be for meditation - like a string. If the string is too loose, there is no sound. The string flaps. If the string is too tightly wound, it snaps. To produce the right sound, the right amount of effort is necessary. The Daoists would call this effortless effort - a minimal amount of effort that suffices to do the job well and can be maintained for a long time.

From a vipassana pov a "blockage" is just as mental as it is physical: it's a knot of psychic tension, a blob of negative mental conditioning.

Indeed. In my practice I always "look" for the deeper underlying energy that manifested the more dense problem. As the awareness softens the blockage, subtler energies and causes become available, as they are no longer obscured by the more coarse energies. They intertwine, and the coarse can lead back to the subtle, and dissolving of the subtle can resolve the coarse.

"Dissolving" these things IS the work of meditation - not an impediment to it. To my understanding, no pain or blockage is an impediment : working through them actually constitutes the purificatory process itself. It IS your progress, and in my experience, the deeper you go, the deeper and nastier the things that get shaken up to the surface. That's the whole process.

It indeed is. Periodically I have to remind myself of this, as this has not fully sunken in. Taking a step back from the problem and realising that "this too will go" has not fully replaced the reflex of "Oh woe is me, another problem!".

TRYING to remove blockages destroys the equanimity which is your real tool to remove them.

In my experience the only way to let go of the grosser distractions is to become aware of them. They make themselves available, they arise, and with the right attitude of mind, which is becoming fully aware of them without falling for their overwhelming qualities, allows them to pass away, too. I can see where you come from here, and I try to evaluate different approaches to this, too, but the only way I found to skillfully deal with them as of now is to turn my attention on them as they arise, then expending minimal effort as not to create more tension, but resolution. As one of the Buddhist meditation manuals I currently read "non-attached, but with care".

Thanks for your excellent input,
Oliver

[Korpo]

To my eye, you are supplying precisely the element that is lacking in RB's work (which is still great imo) - the work of purification based on equanimity. Coming from vipassana, I really can't imagine the cathartic process NOT starting with energy work. And yet this side seems pretty neglected in methods that just speak in terms of "drawing in", "stimulating", "circulating", "clearing blockages" etc - as if we were dealing with clogged plumbing! this kind of approach totally overlooks the mental side and the cathartic process.

Several thoughts on this:

In the Taoist tradition of circulation practices, which Robert seems to draw on (Chia's book about the Micro-Cosmic Orbit was in his bibliography of MAP), there is a similar sentiment. This tradition works purely with energy it seems. I have the strong feeling about them that they emphasize willpower instead of "letting go". Actually the approach of these Daoists was indeed one of plumbers - flushing channels in a certain order to increase energy and develop certain skills!

As for Robert - he seems to switch between both. If you look at his article about "void meditation", you find references to "suppressing" the surface mind/lower self. This ties in with his seemingly forceful approach at quieting the mind - Mind Taming. Or with the use of forceful thought forms when dealing with blockages - using a visualised jackhammer to overcome a blockage. Robert also purposefully triggered his first Kundalini raising with the known effects.

I think this all pertains to traditions defining meditation purely as a matter of concentration, and therefore also of trance, and use the term "mind control". This fits in with more "Indian" approaches of practice as more common in Yoga than let's say in Buddhism (which is of Indian origin as well, but has different concepts).

At the same time there is a lot of softness and gentleness in Robert's approaches, and reading so many of his stuff over time, there is no doubt that Robert's approach to things is not a hard or forced one. Even in the same short article about "void meditation" he mentions "letting go" and "surrender" as key points.

So, while Robert may not always emphasize equanimity in the methods he publishes, I believe he as a person possesses a great deal of it.

Oliver