Okay, so I will give this a try to help myself be more grounded and aware and maybe see patterns that I might otherwise ignore, running around in circles. I will allow myself to do this in a playful and not necessarily systematic way, to take away some pressure. These notes may include reflections outside of my formal practice as well, and even outside my informal practice, as long as I’m explicit about it. After all, I want my practice to benefit my off cushion life, which is not necessarily all about awakening. I do have other responsibilities.
So, today I tried a guided meditation by Rob Burbea on connecting with one’s energy body. It is part of a recorded reatreat material on the path to the imaginal. This is exactly the sort of thing that I had decided to avoid because that door seemed to be closed to me. Oddly enough, my practice kept pointing to it, and people in another community kept pointing it out to me. Yesterday I realized that I have been repressing my imagination for the sake of survival, but that is no longer necessary, and it’s still alive somewhere beneath all these layers of adjustement. This is a link to the talk in which the guided meditation is embedded:
https://media.dharmaseed.org/cache/DS/20150807-Rob_Burbea-GAIA-energy_body_instructions_1-31525.mp3I sat down on the cushion and followed the instructions. I have had a few days with some disconnection with my body making my practice more superficial and my yoga less in synch. On the other hand I have come into some other kind of synch, with solutions to problems being dropped at my feet, more or less. The advice to check out this recorded retreat was one example of that, because this was exactly what I needed right now: a way to get back in my body while simultaneously opening up to a more imaginative realm.
First I had some trouble finding the right posture. I took some time to adjust it, because that was recommended in the directions. I accepted that I had that level of distraction and didn’t feel particularly bothered by it. Soon enough, the posture adjusted itself as I found concentration in the imagining practice. It does that from time to time, kind of falls into place on its own volition when I surrender to the buzzing feelings in my hands or other body parts.
I missed a few details in the beginning of the instructions because of my distraction, but I came back to it and felt that I knew what he was talking about, roughly, so I just went with what felt right at the time. He repeated them shortly thereafter and they corresponded with what I had been doing: trying to shift my attention not to parts of my body, but to the whole of it and some space around it. I don’t know how this is supposed to be done, but I have had perceptions of dropping into such a state before, so I went with that. It’s not a very centered attention, more like a widening, and more of letting go than intentional effort. I noticed that the feet were most difficult to include in that notion of the energy body (they are also very stiff, physically; I’m working on that), but at some point I also noticed my right foot heating up.
I think it was somewhere in the beginning of this imagining part that I felt resistence. My body was signalling that there wasn’t enough air. I instantly knew that was resistence. I check my lungs every week because I’m undergoing a hyposensibilization treatment, and my breathing is fine, and I know from experience that my breathing can be very light for a long time and even stop for a moment without any problem. I also recently read a paper where Leigh Brasington said that the breath gets very light before one enters the jhanas. Therefore I just noted the heart raising and the impulse to grasp for air and trusted that it would be OK. I think that was when the first shift in posture came about by itself. That actually made the breathing easier, and I felt a lightness.
There were breathing exercises. I was supposed to imagine the breath coming in and out from different points of departure. First it was in the belly. That was easy in the posture I had come into, and I felt calm. I don’t remember the details very well now (I had to go to the hospital before I was finished making these notes), but I remember that the different points of departure for the breathing made a noticable difference. Whereas the belly was calm, the crown of the head had an energetic feeling to it. There were some blockages resulting in resistence, don’t remember where. I think one of them was in my head, manifesting as a a slight pressure. When I let go of it, the posture adjusted itself on its own volition again. It felt like layers of blockages being released. Breathing along the spine was flowing energy throughout the body. Somewhere along the line my eyelids started flickering and the left part of my upper lip started twitching. These are familiar movements to me. It happens when I get into a more trans like state. I had shiverings all over my body and felt blissful.
There was one exercise involving color. That was difficult for me. Visualization is difficult for me. Most of these exercises could be done by way of kinestetic imagining, but the color exercise wasn’t my thing at this point in time.
At one point I was supposed to make a decicion as to what exercise to return to. That made me hesitate. I don’t remember now what I chose. I know that I picked one of the breathing exercises. I think it was the one departing from the crown of the head. I was able to maintain the concentration despite the hesitation. In the end of the session the instructions told me to open my eyes, and so I did. The flavour of concentration remained. When the guided meditation stopped and the talk continued, I decided to stay in this mode while listening. In doing so, the words and the sounds were more immediate and gave shivering and other energetic sensations. The phone rang in the middle of that. For a brief moment I was annoyed, but then I thought that it is quite possible, after all, to remain concentration while interacting. So I took the phone call. It was from the Swedish Medical Products Agency. I had reported adverse effects of a birth control product and they needed to ask a few questions. I answered the questions and we wished each other a merry christmas. After the call I sat down on the cushion again and continued listening. The shiverings were still there and I felt very relaxed and almost a bit tipsy. I felt the need to start swaying back and forth a bit, so I did. After a while I noticed that my head was also tilting back and forth in a way that together with the swaying of my upper body back and forth made my chin make circles in the air. My breathing was synchronized with this movement. I continued with this for a while. Then I lay down in baby pose and breathed into my lower back. I felt safe.
Afterwards I felt a bit shaky, but in a good way. Something had been released.
