| Hi everyone!
I recently found out about MCTB and found it to be a great resource to the questions that I have regarding meditation since I am currently not in contact with any group or meditation teacher. First, I would like to start by thanking Daniel for managing the time and effort to write such a book. Second, I would also like to thank everyone who reads this post and can help me understand better.
I'll try to keep my background as short as possible. I believe it's important to know where I'm coming from and understand where I'm currently at. I have been practicing meditation for about 1.5 years now and doing it regularly every day for the past 6 months. It started with headspace, to insight timer, to Kriya Yoga and now to MCTB. I used to drink and do a lot of drugs back sometimes two years ago and lost my temper, punched the wall and fractured my hand badly. Long story short, it changed me. I started loving myself more, working out, eating healthy, reduced my drug consumption (weed is my vice), read more self-help book and overall working towards a better me. Sometime last year I did LSD, meditated and found this great feeling of bliss when I opened my eyes. Nothing particularly happened though, I only felt very present. Needless to say, since that particular session, I started disciplining myself to meditate every day. Last November/December I found out about this whole Enlightenment thing and have been very interested in this topic. Now I have been a non-believer all my life and realized that every human being in some sort of way is trying to understand the question of metaphysics in their own way. I guess this whole Enlightenment thing was sort of my answer to that particular question. I am currently really enjoying meditating and understanding about Buddhism. I also found myself wanting to meditate more and more since I can definitely feel that I'm slowly changing to be more compassionate, loving, calm and overall more present on my activities.
Now to my meditation experience, I have been practicing a regular Pranayama such as Ujjayi breathing, alternate nostril breathing, imagining air going up and down of my spine while chanting "so hum" or chanting "om" 6x during in/out breath while focusing on my third eye. I usually just swap each other if I feel bored. Little did I know that I was practicing concentration after reading about the training part in MCTB! Now it makes sense what I'm doing and I believe it helped greatly on my concentration. I found myself sometimes now able to gaze at an object and can focus on that object for 2-3 minutes, maybe even more. There's this feeling of intense focus and I'm able to hear the slight ring in my hear. I can also feel this sensation on my head, like a heartbeat I would say? During the practice, I am very used to the idea of noting, due to reading Om Swami's book on how to meditate where he says something about being an archer arrowing down your thoughts before it manifested into bigger thoughts. I am able to know or even feel the texture? as a thought about to rise and quickly note it and go back to my breath. There was a lot of consciousness to this as well, since I am able to link a certain emotion to tightness on my right (ex impatience is usually linked to tightness in my right side/shoulder). I don't know if this makes any sense but it's how I feel at the moment. I didn't do any insight meditation and only got to it recently due to MCTB!
I'm not a native speaker of English so it's hard for me to understand some of the terms in MCTB2 and I would like to ask some question about my meditation experience and about the book.
1. Currently, I find it quite easy to go into a focused stable meditative state. Now when I'm doing insight meditation. I'm unsure if I'm doing it correctly. Basically what I'm doing now is that I begin by trying to relax my body from the tip of my head to my toes. After I find myself relaxed, I focus on the breath, I can feel the sensation of the breath on my nose at the beginning, but I found myself after a while able to feel the rising and falling sensation inside my nose. Is this correct? Thoughts, feelings and physical sensation arise afterward during the session. Now here's the question, I have been practicing noting very-very diligently in my concentration practice. Sometimes in my daily life when I'm talking, or at the gym found myself lost in thinking or feeling, I note it as soon as I started to realize, I just let that thought go. What I'm unsure of is that during insight meditation, say there's a thought that I'm thinking about the time. I'm currently able to identify these thoughts before it even pops up into something bigger or even become an emotion, say "impatience". Should I just observe this thought and let it rise and pass away on its own? Or should I note it as soon as I start realizing it? Sometimes I have difficulty even labeling these thoughts as they go so fast when I realize they're rising.
2. How do you actually properly label these thoughts or emotion during insight meditation? Say if I feel that there is a thought saying that what I'm doing now is incorrect. Should I label it as "thinking" or an emotion "self-doubt"?
3. During insight meditation, without having prior knowledge about The Three Characteristics. I sort of get the gist of the idea that pain is temporary and or thoughts/feeling comes and go. Even focusing on my breath I can feel a bit of pain/heaviness in my chest at the end of the inhale and exhale. This is actually where I realize that the idea that there is pain, but it doesn't last. As a matter of fact, nothing lasts forever, and upon reading about The Three Characteristics, I realized it was impermanence. Now I don't quite understand the part about the book about "vibration" or "mental consciousness" due to my English skill. I have been reading it back and forth for almost 1 hour on impermanence and can't just wrap my head around it. Could you please elaborate about this in easier term perhaps? I am unable to progress the book since I just can't wrap my head around this part. I don't really understand about the part regarding the part about physical and mental sensations. I really don't feel like skipping this part and continue to read on as I feel this is very important for me to be able to progress further.
4. Upon knowing about The Three Characteristics, although not in detail, something interesting happened today during my insight meditation session. My body started swaying back and forth. When I note this as "swaying, swaying, swaying" it usually stops. Then I go back to the breath and it comes back. Again and again for almost an hour. I did two 1 hour session and this swaying begins as soon as I feel I'm quite stable and able to focus on the sensation of the breath. Should I continue doing this? I find it quite frustrating, to be honest since it's very distracting. However, I just gently note the thought "frustration" then to "swaying, swaying, swaying", am I doing it right? Sometimes even during this swaying, I am thinking, who is the one swaying or feeling the swaying motion? I can feel sort of a louder ringing on my ear and pressure on my head? What is going on?
5. Last but not least. During insight meditation, if I focus the sensation of the breath, the breath slowly gets really shallow and I find myself running out of oxygen. What am I supposed to do? I don't feel like I'm controlling the breath, but I feel that I definitely will stop breathing if I follow this sensation on and on.
I think that's about it for now. Again, many thanks to anyone who spend some time reading this and help me answer my question so that I can progress better on my spiritual path. Wishing you all the best too in your journey. |