Unpleasant piti effects
There was a book I read which said that not all piti experiences have to be pleasant. From time to time when I start trying to meditate again and I increase my daily seated practice time it can happen that I will start to get cold running through my body. If it were hot I would blame Kundalini, but it is very cold. It is also very unpleasant and quickly leads to drowsiness. Because I tend to think that piti should feel good I have tended to believe that I'm just not getting piti. There is definitely no sukkha in it. Has anyone here had to deal with unpleasant piti symptoms?
Re: Unpleasant piti effects
I really wouldn't call that pīti.
In the EBT suttas, the Buddha goes out of his way to emphasize the mental aspect of piti, and the physical aspect of sukha in the jhanas.
So for simplicity, piti is like the emotional thrill, and the endorphins and pleasure chemicals of the brain are sukha.
Not getting sukha in meditation is caused by energy channels not being opened up enough. I call this condition 'jhana constipation'.
All kind of strange sensations and physical problems happen to most people (can take many years) before one gets a proper jhana with pleasure and no pain.
http://lucid24.org/sted/8aam/8samadhi ... ndex.html
It's completey normal that if one is meditating correctly, the body will use the force and heat from jhana to melt energy blockages and clear up old latent illnesses in the body.
Don't make the mistake some people do thinking meditation causes illness or causes your body to be cold, and cease meditating as a result.
I'm not a medical professional, so I'm not advising you either way on how to meditate, whether to meditate, whether to coordinate with proper medical supervision, etc. I'll just say if I were in your position, I find that western medicine over 95% of the time is pretty worthless for the kind of latent body illnesses that meditation problems are working on, the best help would be highly skilled meditators who are also traditional chinese medicine doctors. Unfortunately that's hard to find. If it was me, I'd just throw on as many blankets as necessary and meditate as much as possible, but seek medical help if something is scaring you. Again, all disclaimers apply, I'm not giving you any advice, just saying what I would try if I was in your situation. Don't sue me.
Please let us know your progress, and what you did to fix it.
Reading your OP again,
the part about getting sleepy tells me it's probably like I said above, the body is using heat and sleep to fight off latent illnesses. Very normal, and happens to everyone whether they meditate or not, IMO.
Body getting super cold doesn't necesarily mean it's not kudnalini, it probably just means you don't have enough of it. A powerful person their meditation would flare up with heat and sweat out body illnesses quickly, and then go back to normal. A weak person would use the same kundalini to fight illness, but they have less heat to work with and would feel very cold. Very normal. IMO.
If you're vegan, you'll have a lot less heat than a lacto ovo veg or an omnivore.
If you're not celibate, that's also a big body heat killer.
So if you want to progress in meditation and overcame latent body illnesses, celibacy is your best bet.
In the EBT suttas, the Buddha goes out of his way to emphasize the mental aspect of piti, and the physical aspect of sukha in the jhanas.
So for simplicity, piti is like the emotional thrill, and the endorphins and pleasure chemicals of the brain are sukha.
Not getting sukha in meditation is caused by energy channels not being opened up enough. I call this condition 'jhana constipation'.
All kind of strange sensations and physical problems happen to most people (can take many years) before one gets a proper jhana with pleasure and no pain.
http://lucid24.org/sted/8aam/8samadhi ... ndex.html
It's completey normal that if one is meditating correctly, the body will use the force and heat from jhana to melt energy blockages and clear up old latent illnesses in the body.
Don't make the mistake some people do thinking meditation causes illness or causes your body to be cold, and cease meditating as a result.
I'm not a medical professional, so I'm not advising you either way on how to meditate, whether to meditate, whether to coordinate with proper medical supervision, etc. I'll just say if I were in your position, I find that western medicine over 95% of the time is pretty worthless for the kind of latent body illnesses that meditation problems are working on, the best help would be highly skilled meditators who are also traditional chinese medicine doctors. Unfortunately that's hard to find. If it was me, I'd just throw on as many blankets as necessary and meditate as much as possible, but seek medical help if something is scaring you. Again, all disclaimers apply, I'm not giving you any advice, just saying what I would try if I was in your situation. Don't sue me.
Please let us know your progress, and what you did to fix it.
Reading your OP again,
the part about getting sleepy tells me it's probably like I said above, the body is using heat and sleep to fight off latent illnesses. Very normal, and happens to everyone whether they meditate or not, IMO.
Body getting super cold doesn't necesarily mean it's not kudnalini, it probably just means you don't have enough of it. A powerful person their meditation would flare up with heat and sweat out body illnesses quickly, and then go back to normal. A weak person would use the same kundalini to fight illness, but they have less heat to work with and would feel very cold. Very normal. IMO.
If you're vegan, you'll have a lot less heat than a lacto ovo veg or an omnivore.
If you're not celibate, that's also a big body heat killer.
So if you want to progress in meditation and overcame latent body illnesses, celibacy is your best bet.
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>>>In the EBT suttas, the Buddha goes out of his way to emphasize the mental aspect of piti, and the physical aspect of sukha in the jhanas.
ReplyDeletePlease, if you could direct me to where in the suttas the Buddha emphasizes the mental aspect of piti and the physical aspect of sukha. (Actually, I am rather familiar with the latter, but the mental aspects of piti--I feel like I have seen talk of piti pervading the body: perhaps in the jhana formulas.)
You have probably written on this; so you could even direct me to where in the archives I might find this, if that would be easier.
from the home page of lucid24.org,
ReplyDelete (7sb☀️) 0👂☸ 1🐘 2💭🕵️ 3🏹 4😁
select the 4th one, piti,
for general overview, then from that page,
🔬details: Pīti😁 & Pā-mojja😁
Select that article for collection of sutta references.
For the physical aspects of sukha, AN 5.28 and MN 62 would be two of the more prominent examples.
It's legitimate to assign a physical aspect to piti, but IMO that would be the direct effect of the Piti manassa (mental cause of piti) that leads to pleasure chemicals associated with emotional thrill. But IMO, it's much simpler to describe the meditation process by just assigning the mental part to piti, and the physical part to sukha. Making both a mental and physical component for each of piti and sukha just complicates things from a teachng and learning perspective without really adding anything of practical use.
Thank you. I will look up those references.
Delete>>It's legitimate to assign a physical aspect to piti, but IMO that would be the direct effect of the Piti manassa (mental cause of piti) that leads to pleasure chemicals associated with emotional thrill.
Interesting perspective. I will have to dwell on it. But what comes to mind immediately is that focusing on the mental side of pīti may allow one greater "control" over the physical result. (Something which I have trouble with.) Even your "orgasmic pīti" metaphor notwithstanding--the mental conditioning of an orgasmic being at least as important, if not more, than the physical.