So, Daniel yesterday put up a query in regards to
"Getting ready for Prime Time: a Long Term Plan" in which he points out some of his own interests in the utility of meditation and askes,
"What aspects of this stuff would you like to see to make this stuff ready for Prime Time? What would it take to get there? Who will do that work? How do we get them to do it?"A while back I read this article on
deadly itching, The Itch, a journalistic report from Dr. Atul Gawande. Itchiness is a common antagonist in new meditators and in some stages of meditation.
After a bit of meditation practice, itch perception seems to transform, sometimes causing the perception of a sensation that seems to sit out in space or sometimes abating completely and sometimes existing with out the itch-and-scratch compulsion. When one learns to let itches arise and passes, some aspect of craving and gratification has also been transformed, thus the perception of the sensation changes. I've heard several practitioners mentions their itching lessens or stops completely.
The severe, even fatal, itch which Dr. Gawande describes may be of a totally different origin, however, I do wonder:
-- if there is a relationship to itching, long-term emotional profile, and the vagus nerve (emotional profile seems to be an origin of adult onset dietary allergies)
-- if perception of itch sensation diminishes for new meditators and after how much practice?
-- if histamine response to the scratch test goes down after meditation (skin that is perceived to be very itchy usually has a significant histamine response to the scratch test).
A number of meditations could be useful to a person, however, I would be curious about testing anapanasati and metta.
In both cases practitioners would need to learn what is "harvesting" a sensation from a mental state. For example, I may trigger or "re-fresh" metta practice by recalling the giggle of a childhood friend, then I look at how that sensation is diffusing, then there is cultivating that sensation to suffusion. Anapanasati can be triggered similarly (e.g., recalling a very happy, alert occasion) and then that sensation becomes associated to the breath: inhale becomes "very happy sensation" in first jhana. Each breath then takes on a habit of causing sensation associated "happiness and alertness".
Further, I wonder if another group who would practice anapanasati and would dedicate their practice efforts to the well-being of others, how that dedication of intention would also effect the anapanasati results.