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Dharma Diagnostic Clinic, aka "What was that?"

Fast muscle contractions, weird breathing patterns

Hello DhO, this is my first post here. I'm from Sweden so I'm not a native english speaker.
I've been meditating for about 10-45 minutes a day since the beginning of summer this year, so I'm really unexperienced and very thankfull for help. I'm roughly using the Thanissaro Bhikkhu's anapanasati method together with a little spinal breathing (without actually controlling the breath, just letting attention flow up and down the spine a few times before trying to change to full body awareness ). My goal right now is to learn to make piti arise put I'm not sure wether I've already have or not, so probably not. However, since about the beginning of August I've had som strange experiences during most meditation sessions: Most of the muscles in the upper body contract pretty hard, at once, often causing a forced out breath, then relax at once. This repeats itself a few times over the session. It happens not only while sitting but also during walking (as taught by Bhante Gunaratana). 
What is this? Is it a sign of progress?
 

RE: Fast muscle contractions, weird breathing patterns
Answer
10/1/14 3:24 AM as a reply to Pål.
Those things, namely weird breathing patterns, strange muscle contractions, are very common, standard marks of progress and are part of the first vipassana jhana, specifically the stages of Cause and Effect and the Three Characteristics, and can happen faster and more oddly in the stage of the Arising and Passing Away also. Just notice them as they occur.

RE: Fast muscle contractions, weird breathing patterns
Answer
10/1/14 7:56 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Ok, thank you!
It seems like the Buddha defined jhana as a state containing piti and sukha. I guess there is sukha in my meditation because it feels kind of nice, but what is the piti part? I thought piti was going to be some kind of ecstasy?
What is vipassana jhanas, and why do the suttas not divide jhana into samatha and vipassana jhanas?

RE: Fast muscle contractions, weird breathing patterns
Answer
10/4/14 12:38 AM as a reply to Pål.
I didn't even think I was doing insight practise. From reading the suttas I've drawn the conclusion that the dividing of meditation into concentration and insight practise does not come from the Buddhas teaching. It really seems in the suttas, especially Maha-Saccaka sutta, that his method is simply attaining the first four jhanas and then directing ones attention to the three hogher knowledges (of past lives and of the nature of reality). A division into concentration and insight practise does not seem to be necessary. This is why Thanissaro Bhikkhu's method felt right to me. I thought that if I am doing one of "samatha" or "vipassana" it must be "samatha" since you have to get to the fourth jhana to get any insight, according to the suttas fron what I've read there and in the writings of T.B. So I'm very suprised that you say I've made progress in insight.
Can you do that through concentration or have I been doing insight practise all pf the time? The method consists of 1) becoming aware of the breath 2) going through the body with attention on how the breath feels in the different parts 3) changing to full body awareness of breathing.

RE: Fast muscle contractions, weird breathing patterns
Answer
10/4/14 3:13 AM as a reply to Pål.
The Samatha/Vipassana thing is complicated.

There are clearly suttas where the Buddha divides the two, others where they are integrated. Without going into some long textual debate, the practical reality is that there is an axis. The more one looks at things as being smooth, pleasant, analog, the more one is doing samatha. The more one looks at things as being discrete, individual, transient sensations and notices that suffering caused by the tention in the illusion of duality, the more one is doing vipassana.

That said, in real practice, nobody can stay totally to one side or the other, and, in real practice, people oscillate from one side to the other to some degree.

So, it is nearly impossible to do pure jhana in a samatha sense and not see some of the true nature of phenomena and gain insight, and it is also nearly impossible to be doing strong vipassana practice and not chance into the samatha jhanas at times. What happens more often than not is what is described in sutta MN 111 where we get into something jhanic and then see some of their true nature and then get into the next jhana and see some of their true nature.

In this way, we get into Mind and Body, which is very samatha in general terms, and then get into Cause and Effect and the Three Characteristics, which are very vipassana, then get into the early A&P, which is very samatha in general, then get into the later part, which is very vipassana, then get into Dissiolution, which is very samatha, then get into Fear, Mistery, Disgust, etc. which are very vipassana, then get into early Equanimity, which is very samatha, then get into late Equanimity, which is very vipassana, this all being a generalization.

Thus, they are at once different things and also integrated. I talk some about this in a video here: http://vimeo.com/69475208

So, if you are having the experiences you are having, those are clearly stages of insight experiences, regardless of what practice you are doing.

The stages of insight are very normal things to just show up, even in non-trained, non-meditating people, as is commonly reported here (as hundreds of people have posted about), and much more so in people doing various meditative practices, including those who are just trying to do samatha or jhanas or whatever they wish to call them.

Helpful?

Daniel