Hey there!

Are there some good exercises which you can recommend?

I often have a pressure on the heart chakra. I don't know what I should make of it.


metta

G'day.

Stress. What is it? What's stressing you?

Hi Voku,

I asked a question about the relationship of the heart area (heart chakra area) and vipassana back in 2009. Tarin gave me some interesting things to explore with that 'pressure' in the chest. Maybe it will give you an avenue to explore with your practice.

Nick

G'day

mostly pressure to perform. also examples in past and future of not doing things correctly.

thats a cool link thx I've already read it

--Pressure to perform.
--Doing doing things correctly

Not feeling good enough for others. Feeling imperfect, inadequate. Feeling like you don't measure up. Feeling like others judge you harshly.

The mind goes astray when it:
1. dwells on mistakes, wanting the past to be re-written.
2. dwells on desires, wanting the future to be different to the way it is now.

So there's a future or past orientation. You might day-dream of having a nice relationship or a house renovation or a new car or promotion. But this pulls you out of the present. If you're a true perfectionist you might live your whole life wanting things to be different to what they are right now. Maybe you day-dream about being enlightened. Maybe you day-dream of being able to re-sit your exams, or say sorry to that friend, or take back certain actions. This also pulls you out of the present moment. Only the present moment has any energy. Letting your mind drift from the *here and now* causes enormous energy loss which is experienced first as anxiety and then anxiety+depression.

So pull your mind back into the present reality. Focus on "what is". Focus on the "what is" of your job, the "what is" of your relationship, the "what is" of your finances, the "what is" of your friends, the "what is" of your family, the "what is" of your past, the "what is" of your appearance, the "what is" of your spiritual development.

Pulling your mind back to "what is" with some degree of non-judgement implies that "what is" must be ok. Therefore your self-esteem soars. Life becomes easier. Perfectionism disappears. Social anxiety disappears. Social ease happens. Happiness happens.

The very moment you strive to change "what is", you are day dreaming and you're losing energy. Anyone who makes formal arrangements to sit in meditation is making this very, very basic error, and they don't even know it. The whole thing is a dead end. It has to be. Meditation happens spontaneously if at all. Proper meditation can never be something that you plan out or arrange to do in advance.... to say nothing of striving to achieve state x or stage y. It happens when you are first happy with the present moment. Then it's just your true nature unfolding.

If you do this just once, you will see that what I'm saying is true. The first change will be in how others relate to you. Then the energy changes.

Report back here if you could, so that others can see it working for you.

thx for the answer!!

Yeah theoretically I know all of that, but to practically establish this wisdom is sometimes very hard. It seems that there are 2 extremes: Beeing in the flow and beeing in my thoughts. the rythm changes like ebb and flow. I already thought about DN or Reobservation... (the whole thing is a bit complicated)

http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/3731485

Everytime I get into the depressive state, which is characterised by the things you said above, I now use Do Nothing and "Breathing through the third eye". It seems to help. but it's hard to judge since I established this "rule" just a short time ago.

the problem was that even noting got me stressed in the depressive state, because I was overwhelmed with negative thoughts, which I feared also during meditation. Doing nothing seems to be like jumping into cold water and it seems to dismantle the power of negative thoughts... it also seems to be a cure of the pressure to meditate correctly, which distractes my noting meditation

I thought I should probably add that this is not my experience at all. Or the experience of many people with whom I spoke.

To be clearer: it is not my experience that making formal arrangements to sit in meditation leads to a dead end. Quite the opposite, for me it seems to lead to a progressive perceptual change of which I have yet to see an end. When I did it in a retreat setting, the change was quite fast and profound.

CCC: I would appreciate it if you change your way of convening your views on meditation and practice. Whenever you say "meditation is bullshit, you just have to learn to love yourself" or something along those lines, please amend to say that this is just your experience, or your opinion (as the case may be), rather than making omniscient-like statements ("It has to be.").

You seem to post very intensely, I think because you have some need to share your divergent view with others, and this sometimes results in an overrepresentation of your point of view, and makes it seem like you are somehow expressing something which people in this forum stand behind of, which is often not the case.

I won't discuss your "love yourself" universal formula very much, I think loving oneself in right amounts is great and healthy. But I will mention that I think that the content of your posts is poor in terms of pragmatical advice that can be implemented by others, and if you really do want to help people love themselves more, and "live in the moment" more, you should maybe share effective ways of doing so, practical information that you have a direct experience with.

Otherwise, your advice is more philosophical and abstract rather than practical and helpful. Then the inevitable response is:

I have had recent success in opening and relaxing the heart region by a technique called Yin Tui-Na.

It is a form of massage and requires a partner. It is considerably less effective if done to oneself (in my experience), but that also does something. Typically you would get two willing people who do Yin Tui-Na to each other for half-an-hour to one-hour each.

The technique is really very very simple, and can be learned and executed by anyone with two hands. Here is a free book in pdf that teaches it.

Having release and relaxation in the heart chakra is an effective way of loving yourself more. I.e. being more friendly, supportive, understanding and caring towards yourself.

If you do any zz or embrace the tree, investigate the usage of lining up the middle fingers (pericardium channel) or the pinky fingers (heart channel)...I personally find the pc to be more useful. If you get a finer appreciation for the more subtle things there, try touching the middle fingers and thumbs, draw your favorite mandalas in this embraced heartspace, or you can also subtly perturb the energy dynamic and sort of "untie knots." For a slightly different feel, keep the finger and thumb just slightly apart.

Best ended with pulling down the heavens exercise followed by stillness.

As to "trying to change oneself," the fundamental nature of energy is transformation - forget the duality or worrying about being perfect, or not perfect. Although I think the essence was contained in "just be...and be happy," more or less. Too many words sometimes spoils the core intent