Head pain and Breath Awareness

[seankerr123]

Korpo,

It's really a pleasure to read your thoughtful responses.

I think these pains and how we deal with them is really at the heart of the whole process. Equanimity, in my experience, is not necessarily so much a "relaxed attitude", as you describe it, gentle, like water, as an active and potent way of directly engaging an object. Honed to maturity, equanimity becomes a blow-torch that forcefully dissolves whatever it's concentrated on. A mind concentrated with equanimity becomes a dentist drill with which you can drill out all the cavities of your mind.

It's not a pleasant process, but it gives real returns. I look back over the evolution of my practice and can see the progression clearly: "tight spots", like you mention, the same burning knots of pain coming up in my back every course (ie vipassana course). As the hideous initial ones little by little got dissolved over these course of the first year or two, similar fiery little knots started cropping up more and more concentrated in the upper back. They snaked about there and consistently dissolved into the heart region for a year or so. As those got exhausted, they started coming up concentrated in the neck area, and after that the face and skull, and finally for about a year or so everything was coming up inside the brain, snaking around deep in there like little fizzling cartoon bomb fuses. As soon as that stock finally got exhausted, Kundalini went up! It was a total surprise, as I was under the impression that the meditation I was practicing had nothing to do with kundalini and everything to do just with purifying the mind of this stock of impurities. But the two things are intimately connected. Clearing this stock of burning mental defilements, "sankharas", is clearing your stock of karma. You're liberating yourself, which is a universal process. The "kundalini experience" is one step in that process.

A Yogi friend in India explains this by distinguishing between "sahaja kundalini" and "kevala kundalini". Kevala kundalini "kundalini in isolation" is the artificially aroused kundalini that is forcefully raised by working like the plumber we were discussing. Sahaja k, "natural kundalini" is the k. that rises spontaneoulsy when the mind is sufficiently purified of its stock of defilements. It's not capricious or unpredictable. There's no need to cross your fingers. You clear the stock, and it goes up automatically. - and without problems. I think my experience bears out the distinction he makes perfectly, as I was in no way working intentionally for this particular development. But in retrospect it makes perfect sense. With the systematic elimination of more and more subtle things, as soon as even the head was emptied out to a certain degree ( ), "pop" went the weasel.

So figuring how to work with these "pains" is really key to the whole process. And in my experience there's a definite right and a definite wrong way to do it. I was quick to caution you about dwelling prolongedly on such spots because I've gotten myself into trouble by doing that. Using brute force can work when your equanimity is iron strong, but it's natural to lose your equanimity by dwelling on spots of intense pain, and if you dwell on them hating them, just wanting them to go away, then you're reversing the process and compounding your misery. I spent one memorable course working like that - clamping down on the burning knot of pain i so much wanted to get rid of in the center of my back adn trying to dissolve it by brute force - and I ended up making my mind so gross, after a few days I couldn't feel subtle sensations even on my hands or feet. At that point I had to sigh, give up, and start over from the beginning, this time trying to figure out how to work properly.

The trick, as I see it, is to work to *observe* deeper, more objectively - very much like you describe in fact, trying to feel "beneath" and through the pain, down to the underlying subtle sensations.

There a good methodology to this, since things generally dissolve in a systematic manner: In any given "blockage" or "knot of pain", a little subtler than the dull, dense pain, there is an intense sense of pressure, weight, an active pulling heaviness. If you can tune into this pressure aspect of the pain, you are already tuning into a slightly subtler level of the sensation. It will begin to predominate, and the blinding "pain" aspect will start to recede. It becomes slightly more bearable. Forget pain - work observing pressure.

Again, going slightly deeper into the sensation, you will almost certainly find that along with the pressure, there is some heat. In fact this was what you were interpreting as pain - just heat, intense burning heat. If you tune into this level of the sensation completely, you will begin to feel the heat aspect exclusively and the sensations of "pain" and "pressure" will recede.

Again, slightly subtler than heat, there is invariably some pulsation. If you can catch this pulsation and tune into it, your work is already 3/4 done. It will be slow and heavy at first, since it is a very gross spot, but as you tune more fully into it, and concentrate exclusively on that, the sensation of "heat" will recede and the pulsation will become predominant - and begin to speed up.

As you stay calmly fixed on the pulsation as it begins to speed up (not hard at this point, since it is really pretty engrossing), little by little it will increase its speed until it becomes indistinguishable from the other subtle vibrations on your body - by this point, it has in fact "dissolved" right under your gaze.

In my experience, these phases are pretty constant. Pain - pressure - heat - pulsation - vibration: five rungs on the ladder back up to free flow. You've just cleared your "blockage" without force and without stress, by pure equanimous observation.

One perk: no plumber's bill

[seankerr123]

oh my, plumbers vs dentists what have we gotten ourselves into?

[Korpo]

Equanimity, in my experience, is not necessarily so much a "relaxed attitude", as you describe it, gentle, like water, as an active and potent way of directly engaging an object

Ah - words! Sweet, unreliable words - obscuring and revealing at the same time!

But I do engage the object.

The mind stays relaxed. If the mind not "tenses up" the blockage is not so much of a problem. Panicking over pain is a habit I untrain in every session. Or you could say I train in equanimity. Or you could say I try to achieve a relaxed mind that can look at a problem without inflating it and stay aware of it. Or you can say I focus on trouble spots and work with their energies in rather subtle ways. And all of that would be a less-than-accurate description.

A mind concentrated with equanimity becomes a dentist drill with which you can drill out all the cavities of your mind.

I rather not acquire that image into long-term storage... If we focus on the aspect of very fine precision, of going deeper, finer, subtler, where space expands and the mind zooms in and I suddenly work fine structures with the same awareness as formerly the gross, *then* I agree.

"tight spots", like you mention, the same burning knots of pain coming up in my back every course

I have a very tense body. My body became the dump of my mental habits. Instead of releasing I worked things into it. Now it comes back. Layer by layer. Many spots, everywhere. Forehead, scalp, behind the face, in the neck, in the right should, in the hands and arms, around my lungs and heart, in my abdomen, at the hips, in my thighs, knees, lower back, upper back, feet, ankles, fingers - you name it! But when I pay close attention I notice something - there is a widening layer, from the outside to the inside, in which I cleaned up. A layer that is just clean. I work at deeper layers now. Peeling myself like an onion.

finally for about a year or so everything was coming up inside the brain, snaking around deep in there like little fizzling cartoon bomb fuses.

Clearing this stock of burning mental defilements, "sankharas", is clearing your stock of karma.

That is funny - because my wife saw spots in my aura just there. They were of the "worst" aura color. Like patches of negative, stuck habits.

Sahaja k, "natural kundalini" is the k. that rises spontaneoulsy when the mind is sufficiently purified of its stock of defilements. It's not capricious or unpredictable. There's no need to cross your fingers. You clear the stock, and it goes up automatically. - and without problems.

Bardon mentions this: "When the elements are in balance, the serpent power rises on its own." Since Bardon's description of human character/personality/soul refers back to his four/five element theory, this description makes sense. Bardon recommends developing the balance of the elements instead of trying to work towards the serpent power, if I understood correctly. He also left chakras out of his discourse (on purpose). In his approach, the balance of the mental/emotional brings Kundalini. That was a thing about his explanations I liked. Pretty much the only thing.

Using brute force can work when your equanimity is iron strong, but it's natural to lose your equanimity by dwelling on spots of intense pain, and if you dwell on them hating them, just wanting them to go away, then you're reversing the process and compounding your misery.

This is not what I do - however: Been there, done that. Sometimes I lose my equanimity and just wish them away. But most of the time I just try to cultivate an attitude of "this too will pass away". It did before, and my practice continues, grows, expands, makes new things accessible. The frustration and impact of these long-term problems diminishes.

I don't hate them. I don't "stare them down". I try to look for their more subtle qualities, I try to suffuse them. I go where my out breath takes me, and become aware of what my in breath shows me. When I find a clear strong contour, I already know something can be done. When I sink softly into something hard, I know this is already progress. When I find a fluid energy, I stay in it and let it disperse it to space. When I find a clear spot, I enjoy its spacious quality. And I start over again.

In my experience, these phases are pretty constant. Pain - pressure - heat - pulsation - vibration: five rungs on the ladder back up to free flow. You've just cleared your "blockage" without force and without stress, by pure equanimous observation.

My sensations sometimes match, and sometimes not. Not always heat. As I go through the layers of a complex a lot of things can come up. Most of the time I start with a dull pressure. The pressure may soften, get liquid, sometimes hot, then dissipate as I go deeper. Not every layer is like that. Sometimes knots of searing pain or a dull pain interwoven, sometimes not. Especially in long term headache spots, there are pain knots. Sometimes a layer does consist of hot, cold, airy energy. Then I observe this and it dissipates, too. No matter what it is, it leaves space. Sometimes a blockage throbs and pulsates as I my make contact. Sometimes I just falls away. Then a spacious, clear spot. And when I dwell in that spot, something else might arise out of it, deeper stuff.

The more coarse energies, they feel like tension of a muscle, like constriction and hardness. I'd say they are purely physical. Then there are sensations like feeling like choking, feeling like a tummy ache, like hunger, like nausea, agitation, nervousness. I'd say this is the nervous system and the etheric. Sometimes they are hot, cold, airy, and I think here it touches on emotions. I felt mental blocks, I believe. One I felt very directly - it felt abstract like a thought, non-material, and in another way had just the same quality as a clenched muscle. At other time just the spontaneous welling up of habitual thoughts tells me I struck emotion or thought blocks. I keep on exploring this.

As for being stuck with the more coarse due to concentrating on the stuck points - yes and no. If I work a blockage deeper and deeper, I come easily to the energies that interweave into it. Gross and subtle get loose, and I work them. And sometimes I get stuck on the blockage, and it numbs things. When that happens, as my mind becomes aware of it I start refocusing by reapplying my process, for example starting to change the quality of my breath.

Every time I get stuck such as this I know I lost the conscious awareness necessary to maintain this process with ease. Earlier in my practice I replied to this with brute force. Supplanting the subtle skill with willpower, which does not work very well or at all. At worst, it hurts. But now I realise that my mind just started to wander, and I restart the process. I return to the breath, and I reestablish the quality of mind I need. Then, with new-won proper attitude, I continue my work.

The breath becomes the anchor of creating the right mind attitude and maintaining it and finding it again when I wandered. I took me some time to realise that even when I did not "lose" the blockage, or the awareness thereof, that I still lost the proper attitude and finding that again first was indeed the proper solution.

oh my, plumbers vs dentists what have we gotten ourselves into?

Oliver

[Korpo]

PS -

seankerr123,

I have to add, this is really very interesting. The information about your practice, what you experience - those are "gold nuggets" for me.

I like to study Buddhist literature (not the sutras, modern authors) about this, but I am more drawn to the less formal practice I find in the branch of Daoism I have. I like to get inspiration for practice and different angles at problems that I then incorporate into my practice. Very often from Buddhists, primarily from the Vipassana branches.

Oliver

[Korpo]

seankerr123,

I wanted to discuss something specific:

The head pain at my scalp specifically starts also when I want to observe my thoughts. At the same time three things usually happen:

* Thought vanishes.
* Numb and dull pressures throughout the head become apparent and draw attention.
* A somewhat subtle "pre-thought" activity takes place.

So, it is neither no-thought nor thought. The subtle pre-thought makes it like if you compare silence with white noise. It's not music, but it is not silence either.

What I actually observe vanishes as if suppressed. Instead of thoughts going on on their own, speeding up, slowing down, going nowhere or somewhere they suddenly feel like suppressed, especially since it is accompanied by this feeling of pressure in my scalp.

Funnily enough it seems to me as if the inner reaction of my mind is whenever I want to observe thought to look at the third eye from the inside. Or tuning into the third eye. But since the third eye's secondary structures are blocked this brings up this painful numb pressures.

Which reminds me of this:

2. Similarly, if you note mental talk and it immediately disappears, keep your attention at
the internal "loudspeaker," the place where you "hear" your mental thoughts. Between
eruptions of self-talk, that place can only be in one of two states:
a. Pleasant silence
b. Subtle activity
Clearly detect which it is and continue to observe that state. Once again there are only
two possibilities. Either the silence/subtle activity will continue or more clear self-talk
will arise. The silence or the subtle activity is the reality of your verbal mental processing
at that moment. Suffuse it with awareness for as long as it lasts.
It is in the nature of thought to disappear as soon as we observe it. This is a part of its
"break up" sequence. It does not necessarily mean that we are suppressing. Eventually
whatever needs to come up will, but it is also important to be very clear about the
difference between pure mindfulness practice and other forms of practice and to be clear
which you are doing at a given time. In other forms of practice (samatha, metta) we are
trying to direct and control the thoughts. In pure mindfulness, we take a hands-off
attitude, allowing thoughts to last as long (or as short) and to come as frequently (or as
seldom) as they wish. Often when we observe just what is there without wanting the mind
to be any particular way, we discover that thinking is shorter and less frequent than we
had assumed.

The point here is that blankness of the internal screen or silence of the internal voice or
the presence of subtle preconscious processing are just as much aspects of thought as
conscious self-talk and pictures. There is always something to observe at the thinking
gate, so you never need to worry about being distracted "in between."

(from: http://www.shinzen.org/shinsub3/artExperAssoc.pdf)

The only difference is that if I focus on my "internal loudspeaker" - which seems to be the third eye - I get exposed to the pains in my head. The pains and tenseness in my head make it hard to focus in that way. Or maybe my mind just "wanders upward" when I listen inside. It's hard to explain, but I hope you know what I mean.

Oliver

[seankerr123]

Korpo,

Forgive me if this is a very short reply. I'm under pressure with a paper deadline right now.

First, let me apologise if I come across as if I'm trying to correct you or suggesting you're working improperly - far from it. The impersonal use of the english pronoun "you" is getting me into trouble again I think

I totally agree with you about RB likely having great powers of equanimity in deed, if not in word. And from what I gather of your way of working, if I've understood correctly, there is no conflict whatsoever with whatever I'm saying. Going deeper layer by layer, like an onion - that's it exactly. On the contrary I'm flabbergasted you've figured it all out by experimentation - I had to have everything spelled out for me explicitly before I could even hope to approximate an experiential understanding in practice.

Of course, no matter how precise the instructions, it's always a matter of experimentation and progress by trial and error, I think, in order to really figure out how to *do* it. Breath meditation is a perfect case in point, which has such deceptively simple instructions. I still remember the precise evening a couple years ago when after ...4 years? of daily practice something finally clicked and I realised "oh! Well, shucks, I've been doing it wrong all this time!" and that certainly proved to be a life-changing night.

I find meditative progress to be a bit like technological progress: all previous versions become obsolete.

But let me just jump to the part about your scalp.
1. I personally can't relate to the idea of an "internal loudspeaker" that has some fixed point. I have had experiences at times of the mind "converging" in the heart (or sub heart center to be more precise) which has given me the impression that the real locus of mind is there. Which is of course also the standard conception in buddhist thought. But outside of samadhi I personally don't experience thoughts as having any locus of origin other than where our awareness happens to be when it perceives them.

2. It seems to me the nature of the "brow center" itself is enough to account for your experience when you concentrate on it. It's well known that focusing on the brow stills thought and forcibly concentrates the awareness.

However, it is 100% discouraged by vipassana teachers, for exactly the same reasons I think that RB discusses. The typical advice I've heard given when a student comes to a vipassana teacher discussing sensations in the brow is: " ignore them completely. just skip over it." and sometimes a stronger warning - "you will give yourself a headache that will last for years together". very strong advice for a method based on objective observation of the whole physical/mental structure. so personally I've been very wary of this area even at times when it's spontaneously become active. That said, over the past 6 months or so, most of the activity i've been experiencing has been going on right there. But I make sure to let the process proceed at its own pace and have always avoided actively stimulating it. And honestly I don't think this policy has hampered its development in any way.

3. About chakras from the point of view of "dissolution":

The first time kundalini happened, my perception very much conformed to the the standard description of a tangible energy forcing its way up.

BUT, later on with further episodes, I was able to get a more accurate understanding of what was going on, and now it seems perfectly clear. Kundalini is in essence just the same dissolution process taking place at the "core" of the onion. Once all the previous layers become pure, one after the other, the chakras "vomit" up enormous masses of gross defilements, starting at the base and proceeding upwards, and as your blow torch equanimity melts the successive loads away, one cakra becomes still and subtle at a new level of purity and now the next higher one vomits up a hideous load of albeit slightly subtler defilements - and so on, on up to the top. Ie, the whole process is actually one of heightened dissolution, rather than an active mass of magical energy forcing its way up - though that's what it may feel like. The thing is, the loads of defilements that they vomit out are so gross they feel like solid masses. But the solidity is, like all solidity, just an illusion.

So, I think the one suggestion I would make to you is to consider "blockages" as things that are surfacing from deep inside, where they've always been. Poisons finally getting vomited up. Everyone's body is a dump of mental habits. Becoming aware of these, bringing them up and dissolving them is the name of the game. There's an enormous stock. they are called in pali "anusaya kilesas" - "latent defilements" - all stored up in your heart just like all the poison in our livers that start getting released little by little when your health (ie equanimity) is at optimal levels where you can deal with them.

This is why I think "drilling your mental cavities" is a very apt metaphor for the process (other ones I've come up with involve septic tanks and scorpion nests, so at least consider that this is probably the most innocuous of the bunch ) Whatever pains and blockages we encounter inside have been there all along, just beneath the threshold of consciousness, and are just lurking down there waiting for life conditions conducive to their expression so they can manifest themselves in life situations that provoke exactly that sensation. Very unpleasant life situations. It's imperative to get rid of these, if we want happiness.

That's the reason for the very strong examples in buddhist parables, such as:

if a man wakes up in the night and finds his house on fire, the room he's in on fire, his bed on fire, his bedsheets on fire, his clothes and his hair on fire -
will he just decide to go back to sleep?
he won't; he'll work to extinguish the flames until not a single one remains - since even from a single ember the whole house can go up in flames again.

Practically speaking, if there's grist for the mill elsewhere in your body, personally I would definitely work there rather than on the brow, knowing that they're all interconnected anyway and making progress with the less severe ones actually constitutes making progress with with the bigger fish as well.

So much for brevity. Back to work!

[Korpo]

Forgive me if this is a very short reply.

Upon first scroll - oh so short indeed!

Thank you.

First, let me apologise if I come across as if I'm trying to correct you or suggesting you're working improperly - far from it. The impersonal use of the english pronoun "you" is getting me into trouble again I think

But I use it just the same.

Going deeper layer by layer, like an onion - that's it exactly. On the contrary I'm flabbergasted you've figured it all out by experimentation - I had to have everything spelled out for me explicitly before I could even hope to approximate an experiential understanding in practice.

You give me way too much credit. I had three kinds of help - an intuition about what to start, a book which leaves space for your own understanding and leaves you clearly aware of the gaps you have to fill in yourself, and meeting the right people to learn from at the right time. So I had tremendous amounts of help!

I longed so often for having it spelled out, and my drive to know it, understand it, apply it with a certain amount of skill drove me to practice every day, read, refine, discuss, learn. Sometimes I was plain stubborn. Sometimes I was obsessed with the wrong thing. Sometimes I did not heed a wise word, and sometimes I let myself be confused. Any kind of teacher would have been welcome, I tell you, but as I continued studying in earnesty I found that though there may be crisis and some dark hour of the soul, very often the slightest circumstance can provide what is needed, and sometimes it pays off to keep on listening.

You, like others before, have provided me with a service - yet another look at my practice, and most valuable of all, a look that is not stuck within only a sectarian world view. Rare enough!

Of course, no matter how precise the instructions, it's always a matter of experimentation and progress by trial and error, I think, in order to really figure out how to *do* it. Breath meditation is a perfect case in point, which has such deceptively simple instructions. I still remember the precise evening a couple years ago when after ...4 years? of daily practice something finally clicked and I realised "oh! Well, shucks, I've been doing it wrong all this time!" and that certainly proved to be a life-changing night.

I find meditative progress to be a bit like technological progress: all previous versions become obsolete.

Yes, these moments are both humbling and precious, aren't they?

But let me just jump to the part about your scalp.
1. I personally can't relate to the idea of an "internal loudspeaker" that has some fixed point. I have had experiences at times of the mind "converging" in the heart (or sub heart center to be more precise) which has given me the impression that the real locus of mind is there. Which is of course also the standard conception in buddhist thought. But outside of samadhi I personally don't experience thoughts as having any locus of origin other than where our awareness happens to be when it perceives them.

I guess you are right. I have had the focus of my mind wander in my body, and never did it impair the chatter from being "right there". Whether my mind was in my belly, my right calf (!), in my throat or in my head, behind my eyes or at the crown.

2. It seems to me the nature of the "brow center" itself is enough to account for your experience when you concentrate on it. It's well known that focusing on the brow stills thought and forcibly concentrates the awareness.

Really? Damn! I wish I'd more often knew such well-known things.

I guess that's just my body's response for my mind wanting quiet, because that is when this reaction began. As strangely paradoxical as this sentence is on second inspection...

However, it is 100% discouraged by vipassana teachers, for exactly the same reasons I think that RB discusses. The typical advice I've heard given when a student comes to a vipassana teacher discussing sensations in the brow is: " ignore them completely. just skip over it." and sometimes a stronger warning - "you will give yourself a headache that will last for years together". very strong advice for a method based on objective observation of the whole physical/mental structure. so personally I've been very wary of this area even at times when it's spontaneously become active. That said, over the past 6 months or so, most of the activity i've been experiencing has been going on right there. But I make sure to let the process proceed at its own pace and have always avoided actively stimulating it. And honestly I don't think this policy has hampered its development in any way.

Ah, I see two issues intermixed here.

I don't require my third eye opener than it is. I want to do something about the headaches that crop up there and the tight spots around there. But I see your point, and it is a good one.

I have indeed better results with clearing spots all over the body without too much focus on the scalp, and I think the recommendation to distribute my effort is a good one.

So, I think the one suggestion I would make to you is to consider "blockages" as things that are surfacing from deep inside, where they've always been. Poisons finally getting vomited up. Everyone's body is a dump of mental habits. Becoming aware of these, bringing them up and dissolving them is the name of the game. There's an enormous stock. they are called in pali "anusaya kilesas" - "latent defilements" - all stored up in your heart just like all the poison in our livers that start getting released little by little when your health (ie equanimity) is at optimal levels where you can deal with them.

Ah, yes, I can relate to that. It may be that part of my scalp problem is indeed ripe for doing, but I do not solely focus on it. There's indeed enough other stuff. BTW, the Daoist energy work does not place a restriction on working with the third eye, indeed it starts the energy work at the top and works downward. It does not emphasize chakras over other energy gates very much, and energy gates, while vital, do not "♥♥♥♥♥" other parts of the body when it comes to dissolving them.

Practically speaking, if there's grist for the mill elsewhere in your body, personally I would definitely work there rather than on the brow, knowing that they're all interconnected anyway and making progress with the less severe ones actually constitutes making progress with with the bigger fish as well.

I'd heed that.

So much for brevity. Back to work!

Thank you,
Oliver

[Korpo]

3. About chakras from the point of view of "dissolution":

The first time kundalini happened, my perception very much conformed to the the standard description of a tangible energy forcing its way up.

BUT, later on with further episodes, I was able to get a more accurate understanding of what was going on, and now it seems perfectly clear. Kundalini is in essence just the same dissolution process taking place at the "core" of the onion. Once all the previous layers become pure, one after the other, the chakras "vomit" up enormous masses of gross defilements, starting at the base and proceeding upwards, and as your blow torch equanimity melts the successive loads away, one cakra becomes still and subtle at a new level of purity and now the next higher one vomits up a hideous load of albeit slightly subtler defilements - and so on, on up to the top. Ie, the whole process is actually one of heightened dissolution, rather than an active mass of magical energy forcing its way up - though that's what it may feel like. The thing is, the loads of defilements that they vomit out are so gross they feel like solid masses. But the solidity is, like all solidity, just an illusion.

So, I think the one suggestion I would make to you is to consider "blockages" as things that are surfacing from deep inside, where they've always been. Poisons finally getting vomited up. Everyone's body is a dump of mental habits. Becoming aware of these, bringing them up and dissolving them is the name of the game. There's an enormous stock. they are called in pali "anusaya kilesas" - "latent defilements" - all stored up in your heart just like all the poison in our livers that start getting released little by little when your health (ie equanimity) is at optimal levels where you can deal with them.

Though I do not understand them fully, I have the distinct feeling that these are the wisest words about Kundalini I have read yet.

I can see how this process can be destabilising to the non-equanimous mind and how the premature Kundalini rising can be dangerous or at least a mixed blessing.

What I do not understand - what layers are we talking about? The layers of a blockage? The layers of your whole being? I have lost the reference point here.

On a side note:

In the instructions I have for the dissolving process there is this picture of layers of a blockage, leading deeper inside. When the core of the being is finally touched, all layers "penetrated", the whole blockage falls away at once, leading to a "holographic ripple" in the body that makes all blockages fall away that tie in to this as well. All stuck points woven holographically into your being that connect together to form this distributed whole "block" drop away. In this sense the blockage is both the entry point to the problem complex and the problem complex itself.

Oliver

[Korpo]

Regarding head blockages...

I had always problems with tensing up or "overdosing" awareness in a problem I was already aware of and wanted to handle carefully. But I found a way today, and it works like a charm...

Breathing in energises, breathing out releases. The same is true when you focus on a spot and brief and are aware of the breath as it happens - then this effect strongly focuses on that spot - be it energising or releasing. So breathing into a problematic blockage I'm already aware of can induce a feeling of tension, or put too much awareness into it to be comfortable.

Today I found a strategy to finetune this. Upon breathing in I focus somewhere in my body where it is unproblematic - the abdomen or the diaphragm. As the breath changes to breathing out, I refocus on the blockage, and it infuses it with a wave of release *without* changing the amount of awareness or tensing up the spot. I still breathe into blockages I'm barely aware of to get a good feeling of them, but the ones that already are really apparent, I handle now in this way.

I did this this evening, and it worked like a charm, it makes for a good fine-tuning for the dissolving. After a while it dropped me into a state where I can keep this up while walking down the street, and then it dropped into a feeling of like I don't really have a worry in the world - very neutral and aware, not in any way euphoric, but in a quiet way pleasant. I got rid of so many stuff, it exhausted me - in a good way. The sleepiness of a job well done.

Oliver

[seankerr123]

Korpo,

Sorry for the delay. I've been caught up in work.

One thing that occurred to me: sometimes you mention "scalp" and sometimes "brow". In my experience though these areas seem very separate. The top of the head (crown area) can be worked on as much as you want, without nasty side effects. In fact clearing this area seems somehow very key to the whole process. I know all vibrational input I get from outside comes through the top of the head. It almost seems like this area functions as the "pupil" of the mind (the 6th sense organ in pan-indian conception), that allows it to perceive "dhammas" - mental sense objects. So the top of the head can and should be cleaned up as much as possible I think. Despite any strong nausea/discomfort that it may bring up. In my experience these are harmless.

But like you say, blockages, and especially those rooted in chakras, put out tentacles throughout the body. If it's brow-blockage-tentacles reaching into your scalp, that's another story.

On a side note:

In the instructions I have for the dissolving process there is this picture of layers of a blockage, leading deeper inside. When the core of the being is finally touched, all layers "penetrated", the whole blockage falls away at once, leading to a "holographic ripple" in the body that makes all blockages fall away that tie in to this as well. All stuck points woven holographically into your being that connect together to form this distributed whole "block" drop away. In this sense the blockage is both the entry point to the problem complex and the problem complex itself.

I think this is a fantastic image. But rather than sitting on a blockage and trying to penetrate to the core of it, I find it much more productive to start with an outlying "tentacle" and work inward from there. These tentacles reach out from the core all the way to the surface of the body, so the straightest path into the core is by catching hold of the far end of a tentacle and following it in. Like you say - "feeling for a contour", but even further out this works too. The farther away, the easier it is to work with. It will often dissolve easily and like a fizzling cartoon bomb fuse you can follow it into the heart of a problem as it dissolves and then *boom* - a few firework and problem solved

What I do not understand - what layers are we talking about? The layers of a blockage? The layers of your whole being? I have lost the reference point here.

Sorry, I can't resist a good metaphor I just loved the onion image you used. I thought I was using it in the same way - the whole body is the onion - you clean it up layer by layer, starting from the skin and going inward. The movement from outside to inside is parallel to the movement from bottom to top. Maybe this is its "holographic" nature. In any case, the spine is at the center of the onion. Once the previous layers are all clear, the same dissolution process begins there automatically ie "kundalini" (or "bhanga" in buddhist terminology - "bhanga" means: dissolution). Working like this, there's certainly no need to concentrate on the base of the spine to try to forcefully induce the process. I'd certainly never ever recommend anything like that. The most hideous stuff in your mind is down there. Why stir it up? Better to let it happen naturally.

A biographical note:
In 2002 I signed up for my first 10 day Vipassana course, and about 2 months before attending it I discovered RB's NEW tutorial on the web. Going through it blew my mind. I couldn't even penetrate into my body, but just working on the hands and up the arms and on the feet and up the legs, I knew that working like this through the entire body was indeed the work that had to be done. So you could say the work began then. Arriving at the Vipassana course, I was shocked on day 4 to discover that that was exactly the work that is done in these courses.

I think anyone who starts with NEW should go to a 10 day Vipassana course. It's the same work, and with 10 days of just this, you can do it really thoroughly - first on the surface and then going deeper, inside too. Working exactly according to the instructions, it's not uncommon to reach "bhanga" the first or second course (and someone who's already started with NEW I would think is almost assured of it).

The first three days of a ten day course are spent observing breath at the entrance of the nostrils. With three days of this - which is usually quite a maddening roller-coaster ride in itself - the mind gets sufficiently calmed and concentrated enough to feel vibrations wherever you place your awareness - ie, RB's "tactile imaging" motions - stirring, brushing, etc - become unnecessary. The mind is sharp enough that it can just feel them. So, on the fourth day you take your concentrated point of awareness away from your nostrils and start moving it from head to foot, exploring, dissolving, observing - so starts the process.

Working like this with uninterrupted continuity, it's not long till the first bhanga experience, which in turn shakes up a whole new level of even deeper defilements, and you really have your work cut out for you to continue with the process.

In my case 4 years went by between the first and second bhanga or "kundalini" experiences, steadily working in the same way the whole time. Maybe this corresponds to the distinction made in terms of kundalini of "waking" vs "raising", I don't know. In the interim I thought the first experience was a fluke and actually unconnected with, or at least tangential to, the real work of purification, which kept going. But after 4 years I got a surprise when the k. process started up again spontaneously, and this time in full force: without even knowing, I'd been working steadily towards it the whole time!

Which is what brought me back here to have another look at RB and these forums. It really all is the same process, I think, one that can be very aptly referred to as a process of "dissolution", at successively more refined levels. (NB the proper sanskrit term for "kundalini yoga" is "laya yoga" - "laya" means "dissolution".)

If this isn't always apparent, it's only because everyone really *does* need to re-invent the wheel for himself. Your conception of what you are actually inventing may vary along the way, but at the end you will have created the genuine thing all by yourself out of your own experience.

Real wheels can't be borrowed or bought - they have to be invented