Hello Chad,
Welcome to the DhO.
Chad Corradini:
My question in this:
Is there a skillful practice I can begin that will ease the sense of convulsing and that will allow breathing?
If not, does it subside in time?
I asked the instructor at the retreat about this after only a couple experiences and he told me that when an organism has an awakening to new potential to experience such an event there is no telling how the energy in the body will react. I did not get the sense that he had personal experience with the consistent repetition I was experiencing (although for all I know this is always the case, but I did not get that sense from Dan's book) and personally knew of only one person who would, hence the question to Dan or one of his senior Posse.
While I am not one of Dan's senior Posse, I am a senior meditator (33 years), and so have some experience with meditation and some of the phenomena that one can fall subject to experience.
While this may not help much, what I can say about the experience you have described is that in all my 33 years of meditation, I've never experienced anything like what you described. (Thank goodness.) I've experienced other phenomena, but not this particular one. So that rules out your suspicion that such experiences are typical in the practice.
That said, I will offer the following as perhaps it may help you to begin making some sense of your experience. Without more information about you – like how old you are, how long you have been practicing mediation and other details – its difficult to say why you are experiencing this, beyond some kind of subconscious event that is triggering them to occur.
Most of the weird experiences that occurred in my own practice tended to occur during the first few years of my practice. Most were based upon a kind of pre-hypnotic suggestibility or expectation from the instruction I received at the time. Sometimes these may have been entered (experienced by triggering of the instruction) consciously, and other times subconsciously.
Chad Corradini:
As a body worker, movement therapist, yoga instructor, and functional personal trainer there are few who inhabit their physical body as fully as I do. I can say with certainty that it is not for a lack of stretching/flexibility, hydrating, circulation that this is occurring. After the 10 day sit my body is and has been since the occurrences began in a state of high equanimity/pain free. It is also not a cramping, but a felt sense of contraction and trembling.
This practice (as a body worker etc.) may have something to do with the way you have experienced (and continue to experience) this phenomenon. Although without additional questions of you about these practices, one cannot be certain.
As to what you can do about it, pay close attention to the breath and the gradual subsiding of the breath as you practice a
samatha (mental calming) meditation with the intent to become enveloped within the calmness as the breath become more and more shallow. Follow the seesaw (in / out) action of the breath as it subsides. If it completely subsides, follow the calming aspect of the experience. The whole point of
samatha meditation techniques is to calm the mind and body down, not the opposite. A lot has to do with the intention that you take into the meditation sit. Take a bit of time before you begin your session and give yourself instruction that you will
not experience these wild fluctuations and that it will proceed smoothly and tranquilly and see how that works.
Best of luck to you with this.
In peace,
Ian