I read this.kitztack wrote:suttametta wrote:I had this problem too up until recently. The head pressure drove me nuts, literally. I also had this extreme tension between the shoulder blades that seemed locked in place. I think a remnant of a debilitating injury I suffered fifteen years ago. I tried everything. What finally allowed me to relax these things was to balance samatha and vipassana. Focusing of anapanasati helped me temporarily to remove the hidden thought of the tensing. Focusing on vipassana helped me to not let that thought come back. For me, these potent distracting tensions were like a great nemesis. Defeating this nemesis has been very illuminating exercise about what does and doesn't help. Specifically, Pak Aw Sayadaw's talks on the kalapas brought together a problem I've been trying long to crack and now I'm very relaxed myself. Powerful oppressing thoughts lurk underneath the surface of awareness. And when I tried to find this oppressor, I could only find this tension. I could only find a shadow of the past. When I saw it, it seemed as useless as taking to a shadow. Trying to crack this shell of tension using only shamatha didn't allow me to destroy the thought permanently. Focusing on vipassana make it worse because I was building up hope to destroy that thought faster. With shamatha and vipassana together, I was able to reduce this thought to nothing. Don't take a one sided approach, is my advice. Corner it from all sides using all the weapons of dhamma.
hi suttametta
could you by any chance provide a link for the talks by Ven. Pa Auk Sayadaw you listened to.
i have trouble finding ones of good quality audio that i can follow. thanks
http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/know-see.pdf