General discussion of issues related to Theravada Meditation, e.g. meditation postures, developing a regular sitting practice, skillfully relating to difficulties and hindrances, etc.
leo123 wrote:
Is there any way I can remove the light visualization from the body scan technique? - so that I can go back to another retreat.
Yes. During the experience you described your mind was misbehaving (not doing what you tell it to do). Whether the lights and other visualisations are useful or not, a sign or progress or not, when you say "stop" they have to do your bidding. How can you begin to trust your mind otherwise?
The way to "tame" your mind is to enter samadhi. Samadhi will give you strength. For this strength you don't need jhana but any samadhi will suffice. Practice concentration on an object of your choice. Any object, it does not really matter. You can even use one of the lights or hallucinations. Concentrate on one object to the exclusion of everything else. For example, when the object is a light your goal is to BE that light, to sense nothing else but that light. To merge with it. This technique will show you how to control your mind, how to reign it in. Afterwards - when you can trust your mind - it will be your choice whether you want to explore the lights or not.
Quite excellent are well trained & completely tamed
Elephants and full-blooded horses, yet far better is
the one, who have tamed himself .... http://what-buddha-said.net/Canon/Sutta ... htm#hapter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; XXIII The Elephant - Nagga
At the retreat, I injured my back on the third day. I approached the "male manager" and asked if I could use a back-jack or other back support, but he refused. He told me that discomfort was an important part of the technique, and that everyone's back was in pain. So I suffered through for a couple of days, but I absolutely could not sit still and I was constantly trying to adjust to ease the back pain. The pain became so intense a couple of days later, I fainted. Even then, the male manager accused me of "faking it" (I was pale as a sheet, dripping sweat). I requested to speak with the AT. The AT listened to my explanation, immediately arranged for me to have a back jack. He told me, "This technique is not about torturing yourself!" Moral of the tale: I should have spoken with the AT the first time.
I had two hallucinations and an ongoing delusion while on the retreat. During one meditation session, the meditation hall suddenly filled with hundreds and hundreds of doves, and the roar of their flapping wings was incredible. This lasted approximately 20 seconds. During another meditation, I could hear the beating hearts of 3 deer who liked to loiter outside the meditation hall. I am surrounded by 70+ people in the meditation hall, but I can hear the hearts of deer outside. This lasted until the end of the session, approximately 20 minutes. (When I exited the hall, the deer were exactly where I imagined them to be.) Starting about Day 3, I became aware that one of the men in my group was an "evil man". Every time I was near him, I was struck with this awareness that he is an evil man. I even wrote a note on a piece of scrap paper and kept it in my pocket, "If I am murdered it was this man [his name]." This lasted for the remainder of the retreat. I did not tell the AT about this, probably because of my experiences with the male manager.
"As I am, so are others;
as others are, so am I."
Having thus identified self and others,
harm no one nor have them harmed.
Just as a precautionary measure, I have resolved myself that next time I do a structured course, I will cite sciatica or lower-back problems as a "pre-existing injury" so that if I require a chair or a back-rest I do not get any grief about it. Your experiences have re-inforced my inclination to do this - so, thank you.
Metta,
Retro.
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
I'm not surprised that you had a problem with a manager on a course. Most of my course experiences have been fine, but occassionally, a retreat experience has been notable because of the attitude or behaviour of a manager or server. With some people, it appears their sense of self importance grows in an inverse proportion to their knowledge and compassion. On my last retreat in December, I was disturbed every day while I elected to sit in the meditation cell complex during the 5-6 tea break. Over the last few years, the way I've worked my retreats has been to convert all of my break times to time in the cell so that apart from 30 minutes for breakfast and lunch, it is an undisturbed period from 4.30AM to 6PM in the cell for meditation. Coming out finally to sit the last three hours in the hall for group sit, discourse and final sit. This last course, it was the male manager or a male server who came into the cell complex repeatedly during the 5-6pm break to ding the bell. I'm not sure whether you've sat in a cell for meditation but the experience makes one's hearing so acute, that one can perceive the sound of insects walking up the inside wall of the cell. One could hear the gong from anywhere on the centre. I knew it was tea time but I didn't want to come out and have tea. After some days I finally spoke to the AT about it. The AT we had on the course is an old, old student and was the guy who donated the land for the centre. We had known each other since we were both at Goenkaji's main centre in India in 1989, and he could understand my frustration. However, it continued to go on for a few more days before it finally stopped. I'm looking forward to the 30 day cours in August (family and work permiting). During the long courses, one doesn't see or hear the servers at all, and one communicates to the manager via written notes.
Whenever I mention my retreats to interested non-practitioners, there comes a time that I quash whatever stereotype they have of meditation being something nice and relaxing and self indulgent. Usually the words 'it is such hard work' is enough to do it, or 'not for the feint hearted'. But its usually with co-practitioners that I describe just how harrowing intensive vipassana can be. Working in a dark silent meditation cell intensifies the seclusion and the meditative experience. I am convinced that in order to be rid of one's defilements, one must remain equanimous to them and usually while they are manifesting. Perhaps this is what is alluded to in the descriptions of Gotama on the night he attained awakening when he was confronted by the armies and daughters of Mara. For me, the retreat, and sitting in a cell practicing anapana and then vipassana is the star chamber, the crucible, it is that intensely excoriating experience that takes one to the brink of insanity, suffering and liberation.
Monkey Mind, don't let some dimwit male manager put you off. the great thing about them is that they, like everything else, are anicca!
Take care friend and all the best with your practice!
metta
Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Ben wrote:Over the last few years, the way I've worked my retreats has been to convert all of my break times to time in the cell so that apart from 30 minutes for breakfast and lunch, it is an undisturbed period from 4.30AM to 6PM in the cell for meditation.
how do you deal with digestion, then?
I need to have a walk after the lunch, and to lie down for at least 5 minutes about 45 min after eating in order to get my stomach settled. Otherwise I feel very drowsy and my digestion can get perturbed.
or is it that you eat so little you already got everything digested within 30 min?
Where knowledge ends, religion begins. - B. Disraeli
I eat very little. Breakfast is a cup of herbal tea and maybe two pieces of toast. Lunch is just a very small portion. I eat less in one day than I would normally have in one meal. If you're not moving, you're not burning calories and if I get hungry - its just another sensation. Eating less means that I have a clearer mind during retreat.
metta
Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Ben wrote:
I eat very little. Breakfast is a cup of herbal tea and maybe two pieces of toast. Lunch is just a very small portion. I eat less in one day than I would normally have in one meal. If you're not moving, you're not burning calories and if I get hungry - its just another sensation. Eating less means that I have a clearer mind during retreat.
But do you loose weight during the course?
my problem is over time (last several years) I'm getting ever skinnier, it begins to freak me a little bit.
For example I spent one month in Dhammagiri (Goenka's one) last summer, reducing my food intake and since then my cheeks have become hollow (which had never happened before) and they're not getting back to what they were previously.
Besides the constant remarks I get all the time from everyone, this is not very easy for me in my job as I work with teenagers.
Where knowledge ends, religion begins. - B. Disraeli
Sometimes I loose weight. Weight loss isn;t my objective during a course.
With regards to your weight loss, I recommend that you get some advice from your doctor or get a referral to a dietitian. Perhaps you already have.
I wish you all the best with your practice!
metta
Ben
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
I wanted to pop in and offer a comment for those who experience the phenomenon of awaking unable to move and experiencing what seem to be hallucinations. This is known as sleep paralysis or hypnagogic experience, and has been linked to anomalous behavior of the temporal lobes. Basically you're awake but the body is not, so you're still in a dream state and unable to move. Google it and read about it.
Actually per usual Wikepedia has a lot of specious information on it but gives the basic idea.
I know quite a bit about it because I have experienced these very intensely since I was a small child and continue to do so, though not as frequently, to this day. I wake up and see people in the room with me, sometimes not human entities, quite often standing around my bed looking at me. Used to scare the living crap out of me. Then one day I began talking to them and I wasn't scared of them any more.
I don't thing the hypnagogic event has anything to do with meditation artifacts as it occurs during the waking portion of sleep. But if it occurs during meditation it might be very interesting to investigate, as apparently according to brain scans, the temporal lobe is affected by long-term meditation.
Which makes me wonder--speculatively of course--are those entities really imaginary--or does the temporal lobe act as a "flashlight" enabling us to sometimes see the denizens of the other realms?
J
Author of Redneck Buddhism: or Will You Reincarnate as Your Own Cousin?
“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.”
- Cormac McCarthy, The Road
Learn this from the waters:
in mountain clefts and chasms,
loud gush the streamlets,
but great rivers flow silently.
- Sutta Nipata 3.725
Bubbabuddhist wrote:Basically you're awake but the body is not, so you're still in a dream state and unable to move.
could it be lucid dreaming?
It has a tendency to happen to me during vipassana courses
Are you sure it isn't astral projection? It has a lot of similarities to lucid dreaming but is not exactly the same state. It is what one usually reaches via meditation techniques rather than lucid dream. Some enter it rather naturally.
