Hi, I am practicing Mahasi noting and in almost every session, 30 - 40 mins into the practice I experience some or all of the above mentioned in the subject. Most of the time I tend to lose concentration because of them.
Any suggestions on how to deal with these phenomena? They have been arising for at least 6 months now.
Tried noting them, tried forcing them to stop and tried encouraging..

Many thanks,
George

patient: dr dr, it hurts when I do this...
doctor: well don't do that then...

So maybe don't do mahasi noting?!

But how hard are you pushing? Doing much samatha?

Have you had A&P? Often crazy stuff can precede it, and dies down afterwards...

Ive experienced all of this at periods of deeper intensity and transformation. If we look at practice from a physiological rather than spiritual/emotional/cognitive view, intensive and consistent meditation seems to rewire not just cognitive processes but underlying physical responses as well. It makes sense from this angle that when you practice intensely, there is going to be drastic physical experiences just as there are drastic emotional or cognitive experiences. Is there anything negative occurring alongside these things that you think they should not be there or there is something wrong? My guess is it's just the body rewiring and releasing long held tension, and its nothing to be feared or corrected.

Kriyas, that is where I have read about the phenomenon. Do a google search for Kriyas Kundalini Symptoms, please understand I do not endorse any of the views or opinions held in what is found on the web pages, I am only trying to help you find out what is going on, and what you are describing matches what they are describing.

You will have to investigate for yourself, for I too do not know how to start or stop such phenomenon. My very rare experience of such has only led me to speculation, speculation that it is some deeply buried pattern of instinctual behavior that becomes "unlocked", that is just from intuition though.

May you find Peace

B

Just another opinion here, but that sounds like typical stuff encountered from the nana of 3 characteristics to the nana of arising and passing away. For me, doing noting practice, this is how it often goes:

-Bodily discomfort, itching, pain, odd tingling/pressure, a sense of intensity/mental agitation in the nana of 3 characteristics

-(sometimes massively intense) spinal shaking, feeling all the tingles and bodily sensations in the previous stage grow and enrapture my whole body, sexual/erotic overtones, the feeling like there is a black hole/massive gravity/massive pressure right between my eyes, eyes twitching and rolling up, spontaneous bodily jerks/twitches (and I noticed this off cushion after crossing A&P quite often in my earlier days), massive joy, feelings of interconnectedness, but also sometimes without the positive feelings...

Are you familiar with the nanas, particularly 1-4? It would probably be helpful/insightful to read about them somewhere, possibly in Daniel Ingram's book.

Try applying some equanimity... that is, no matter how odd, grand, enlightening, positive, negative, fun, or scary an experience is, just sit with it. Think about a very calm and compassionate teacher of young children. All sorts of kids will come, some will be boring, some will be a pain in the arse, some will be a great joy. But your job as the teacher (vipassana meditator) is to calmly watch them come and go. At the end of the day, they all go home. I found that the early nanas were the most fascinating and bizarre, being very easy to get fascinated with. Just tell yourself that you are allowed to experience these things, along with the doubt, fascination, unfamiliarity, fear, excitement, confusion, and whatever else comes with. Equanimity is evenness of mind. Think of a poker game, with all the highs and lows, things that feel at stake, etc... but even through all of this, a good poker player stays emotionally and mentally balanced even no matter what hand he gets dealt. Consider the cutting edge of your practice the hand you're dealt. You don't have much of a say about that, so invite these odd sensations in for tea, so to speak. They'll probably subside on their own and give way to new nanas once you become indifferent (equanimous) to the pleasantness/unpleasantness/intensity.

Alternately, if you're thinking you might be in A&P territory (or even if not), doing a simple concentration practice such as counting or watching the breath in a relaxed and solid way can in turn, do wonders for your vipassana practice. In my experience, jhanas are more accessible in this territory than usual.

Thank you for your replies.
I will try to provide some more details for all the questions raised.

My only concern is that these events make me lose the momentum.

Focus is on noting only, very little samatha at the start of each session.
Below is a post where I shared my practice once:
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/4801634

Been diagnosed as reaching the 3Cs nana. I tried going through the A&P threads, but it seems that many events can be explained as A&P events. I once had an out of body experience but brushed it aside as nothing important.
I had a lot of spontaneous bodily jerks off cushion and especially right before sleep.

How does the practice change after A&P? Is vibrations a sign? Does one cycle through the dark night always?

Hi!

Had lots of them. My solution for stream entry was walking meditation; it works just fine.

I don't have much data, but sometimes they are just temporary and resolve themselves quickly; sometimes they last years before going away; sometimes they just don't.

To make them go away, I did a lot of energy work, wich is a bit different from vipassana meditation. Here'sa good book if you are interested; It took a 4-5 months of, let's say 4 hours/day practice to make them go away; I don't have data about others dealing with them in the same way; have no idea of how it will work for you, if you'll be willing to give it a shot. However, my stuff was pretty heavy, even quite debilitating in daily life. If you do some form of energy work 24/7 you might well go throught the A&P; not sure I suggest that, 'cause the DN might be problematic afterwards.

Best of luck

Mario

I really like walking meditation, but since my knee injury months back, I had to stop.

Even though in the past I did some hatha yoga and pranayamas for around 2 years, looks like I still need to work on energy practices. Thanks for recommending the book.

Did you stop vipassana when you did the energy practices?

Yes and no; during sitting I would do just energy stuff; in daily life I'd keep vipassana going in order not to slip back from EQ into the DN, or doing some energy stuff as well in daily life. However, from a practical point of view, in order to make insight progress is necessary strong commitment, like 24/7 practice, and splitting intentions is not likely to create insight progress (it didn't for me, in any case). Since energy work requires some kind of intentional activity (moving energies here and there) practicing vipassana while doing energy work would require directly percieving even the sensations building up intentions to move energy, wich is quite hard for me.

On a side note, another thing I noticed is that developing plaesent sensations in the body can do a lot to suppress shakings for a short period of time, so jhana practice might be a good idea...