Forum: Daniel's Practice Hut

Hi all,

Just a short background on m pracitce, I have been trying to sit for about 1 hr a day somewhat consistently.

I experience to some degree an annoying and at times painful sensation at my forehead. The longer I get into a sitting, generally speaking, if I am focused well in the sitting then the pain will subdue.

On trying to note the sensations, the pain seems to pulsate and closely follow my pulse. The painful feelings are particularly strong at work and after a long day just after work.

Just wondering if this were an indication of something (ie. that I am noticing more) or if it's a regular part of pratice.

Thanks.

Hi putthajana,

I think I what kind of pain you're writing about. I went through about a month's worth of pulsing brow/forehead pain that appeared to be practice related. It still shows up at times, but it has become less of a problem.

I don't know the exact reason why it happens, but it appears to be related to the chakras. I get the headaches when energy gets blocked up at the level of the brow/third-eye chakra, but it passes when the blockages are cleared up through active practice (and sometimes by passive cycling).

Anyhow, It's annoying while it lasts, but I think it will ease up over time. That's how it worked for me.

Helpful?
~Jackson

Hello putthajana,

You didn't mention what type of meditation that you're doing when this happens, or your amount of experience as a meditator. This could be helpful info and may lead to a more accurate answer to your question.
If you're relatively new to meditation and doing concentration practice, it could be an indication that you're not fully relaxed. If that's the case, the pain that you're experiencing could simply be tension being concentrated in the brow area. Try noting if the pain subsides as you relax more throughout the sit.
If you're a more experienced meditator, and have been practicing methods that open the "third eye," then it could be related to the brow/third-eye chakra that Jackson mentioned.

In my case, problematic physical sensations have been:

1. A feeling of stiffness in the center of my face. This still lingers now.
2. A feeling of pressure or 'stretching tension' at my 'bai hui' (point at the crown of my head)
3. Tightness of lower back.

I did standing meditation, which is what I think brought out the back tightness.

I touched my tongue to the upper palette which, when combined with slow, gentle breathing, usually seemed to intensify the 'bai hui' sensation.

As for the sensation of tightness in face, I'm not really sure what to make of it. But I think it's probably the gradual release of tensions that I'd held onto for years.

Oh, and a useful book that goes into a wide range of subjective sensations and experiences that arise in the course of meditative practice:

Tao and Longevity, by Nan, Huai-Jin, with Chu, Wen-Kuang

http://www.amazon.com/Tao-Longevity-Transformation-Wen-Kuang-Chu/dp/087728542X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248233092&sr=8-1

Hi guys,

Thanks for the feedback.

I think it may just be due to stress and more importantly due to over thinking. I have noticed that I think and worry too much as reactive pattern. This seems to be my standard response when it comes to approaching problems. Work myself up to worry about an issue so that it builds sufficient "motivation" within me to act on the issue. It's a catch 22, because instead of the stress acting to motivate it demotivates to do anything about the problem I maybe facing at the time and to distract myself with sensory pleasure. Apologies for the rambling psych 101 self diagnosis. But actually, observing this helps me a lot.

I reached this conclusion because I focused on not getting worked up (self talk, imagining consequences of not meeting a deadline) and instead focused on what actions I could and could not do realistically and approached problems with this reasoning. And then went on to act as appropriately as possible.

As such, throughout work today the pain in my forehead was less and sometimes non-existant. It was noticeable at the end of the work day. The more I seem to desire something or work myself up to uselessly worry something the stronger the pain or annoyance at the forehead.

The annoying thing is the more I noticed it, the less the sensations became but then I began to stop noticing less. Meaning if I wanted to continue to be some what actively mindful the more energy I needed to put into it, where as before there was some motivation to look into the causes.

So, no this does not seem to be practiced based, but the old cause and effect pattern of being stressed as an ego reaction geared towards problem solving (which actually solves nothing, but seek sensory distractions instead).

As a background, I do mainly noting mahasi style practice at the moment.

I now tend to follow the rising and falling of the abdomen when it seems my noting is leading to being lost in thought or getting caught up in content.

Interestingly, at times when I was practicing the pain in the forehead would be an object of noting. As I continued to note the sensations naturally died down and became less prominent and most of the time would not reappear.

Anyways. Thanks for listening. Unfortunately no interesting practice points to pick, but even the realising the mundane way in which cause and effect works is quite liberating. "Quietly" liberating, but liberating none the less.

Mettha.

Regarding item 1: I've had bouts of the feeling of stiffness in the center of my face. Usually it's symptomatic of my holding tension somewhere else in my body and said tension usually finds its way into my jaw and/or face. I've had success dealing with this by readjusting my posture. If I'm holding myself up, as opposed to getting into a posture where I can just sit and let gravity work in my favor this problem emerges. I have knee and back problems and have to sit in a chair. When the "problem" happens I know I'm crooked, have a cushion pushing too far into the small of my back, too high/toolow, etc., or some aspect of posture in need of rebalancing.

Another possibility is striving. If I'm focusing on the breath at the anapana spot (right below the nose) and slip into striving my face will tighten up. For this, I relax tension on the exhale where ever I find it in the body and continue and keep doing the exhale/relax routine until the tightness is gone, and repeat as often as is necessary.

I hope this helps. Some of this may be applicable to item 3 as well.

Eric