Re: Salivation and swallowing
anagaarika wrote: ↑Sat Jan 09, 2021 12:23 amHello my noble friends!
I´ve encountered a very annoying issue recently. Currently, I´m on sort of a private retreat in the mountains which means I have enough time to meditate (I try to stick to the 3 x 1 hour session per day scheme). I have great mental clarity and my focus is getting really solid, but here´s the thing - although I had meditated (in patches) years before I committed to the eightfold path, I have virtually never faced problems with salivation and swallowing (maybe in the very beginnings). I didn´t face them even one, two weeks ago - but now it seems as if my body built some kind of "reflex" or defensive structure which triggers when I shift my attention to breath. Sometimes it´s better, sometimes it´s worse, but it starts to cause me some distress as it clearly prevents me from going deeper which I think I could do quite easily now. I also noticed this does not happen when I concentrate on something else or switch to vipassana.
Of course I do believe that this hindrance will eventually be overcome, but I would still like to get some advice from someone more experienced. A lot of people say that one should just swallow mindfully and get back to the breath, but that still kind of disrupts the samadhi (or at least prevents it from deepening). Maybe I should change my meditation object for a while? Please advise!
Thank you!
This is a common problem. It's quite common, in large group sits at a retreat, you hear a couple of yogis swallowing, and then it cascades into most of room. There's also a group energy, when many meditators sitting in close proximity, the energy circulating in the body is stronger.
The main cause here of the throat and chest blockage causing swallowing of saliva, is what I call jhana constipation. Energy channels partially or fully blocked.
I describe with many examples here:
https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2 ... here.html
If you watch the video of the 8 extraordinary meridians, the 2nd one, that goes down from the top of head, down the face, neck, chest, is a big bottleneck every meditator has to go through.
I was swallowing saliva from blockage in this channel for many years.
When the blockage melts sufficiently, and you get a clear pathway from the head all the way down to the belly area,
that's when most people will get a taste of first jhana.
If you're going to ordain, you're keeping 8 precepts, and you're meditating 4+ hours of day and also many hours on top of that of noble silence, that will charge up your jhana battery building up force and heat, that will melt the blockages over time assuming you're meditating correctly. Depending on age, health, etc., can take anywhere from 3 months to 3 years to get a decent first and second jhana.
Just be patient and meditate correctly. Jhana constipation will pass naturally. The hard part is to relax the body when it's going through blockage discomfort and even pain. I had a spot in my mid/low back area that really hurt, but only when I meditate (correctly). Didn't hurt outside of that. Must have been 5 years, but when that blockage was gone, pain just completely vanished too.
The main cause here of the throat and chest blockage causing swallowing of saliva, is what I call jhana constipation. Energy channels partially or fully blocked.
I describe with many examples here:
https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2 ... here.html
If you watch the video of the 8 extraordinary meridians, the 2nd one, that goes down from the top of head, down the face, neck, chest, is a big bottleneck every meditator has to go through.
I was swallowing saliva from blockage in this channel for many years.
When the blockage melts sufficiently, and you get a clear pathway from the head all the way down to the belly area,
that's when most people will get a taste of first jhana.
If you're going to ordain, you're keeping 8 precepts, and you're meditating 4+ hours of day and also many hours on top of that of noble silence, that will charge up your jhana battery building up force and heat, that will melt the blockages over time assuming you're meditating correctly. Depending on age, health, etc., can take anywhere from 3 months to 3 years to get a decent first and second jhana.
Just be patient and meditate correctly. Jhana constipation will pass naturally. The hard part is to relax the body when it's going through blockage discomfort and even pain. I had a spot in my mid/low back area that really hurt, but only when I meditate (correctly). Didn't hurt outside of that. Must have been 5 years, but when that blockage was gone, pain just completely vanished too.
Re: Salivation and swallowing
That's a good point, I didn't mean to make the saliva issue seem like a deviant behavior.
Lots of saliva production is a good healthy thing - it usually shows your jhana battery is getting stronger.
Body shaking and tremors, prolific saliva, these are usually all very good signs on the way to jhana. Unfortunately there's quite a bit of misunderstanding about it and people view it like it's an aberrant, abnormal, or bad thing. On the contrary, if you're not experiencing that, unless you've already got jhana, then you should be wondering what your problem is if you aren't salivating prolifically and you can't feel winds and currents of energy flowing through your body more strongly and causing shaking and vibrations.
Lots of saliva production is a good healthy thing - it usually shows your jhana battery is getting stronger.
Body shaking and tremors, prolific saliva, these are usually all very good signs on the way to jhana. Unfortunately there's quite a bit of misunderstanding about it and people view it like it's an aberrant, abnormal, or bad thing. On the contrary, if you're not experiencing that, unless you've already got jhana, then you should be wondering what your problem is if you aren't salivating prolifically and you can't feel winds and currents of energy flowing through your body more strongly and causing shaking and vibrations.
auto wrote: ↑Sat Jan 09, 2021 8:33 amfrank k wrote: ↑Sat Jan 09, 2021 7:52 amThis is a common problem. It's quite common, in large group sits at a retreat, you hear a couple of yogis swallowing, and then it cascades into mostWhich could be not a problem at all. In cultivation book there is talked about saliva, when it is running, it is to be gathered and then swallowed at once, correctly and it is suppose to be make sound.
There i also this that the saliva can fall back to breathing tube and it will trigger this incessant desire to cough(with some suction into belly, really weird intent to caugh) and if more lucky you can swallow it accompanied with distinct sound, can happen also when swallowing water and water tries to go wrong tube. Which i want to believe is this kammic experience of drowning but won't happen for real. I think these all are somehow related.
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