Skip to main content

goenka breath meditation and vipassana: Questions about reacting to bodily sensations

 

user on stackexchange asked:

Questions about reacting to bodily sensations

I'm currently reading The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation and it says to observe sensations in the body without reacting.

  1. What would be an example of a reaction that one might have? When I feel an emotion - perhaps I remember a conversation that I had that produced a strong emotion - I notice a sensation in my body associated with the emotion. Is the goal to focus on the sensation and wait for it to pass?

  2. Also, I've tried starting a meditation session by focusing on my breathing. I then try to observe sensations in my body -for example, my stomach gurgling, a tingling on my skin or the temperature on my skin. If I focus on this, no emotions are coming up because I'm focusing only on my breathing or sensations in my body. In the book it says to observe the sensations without reacting. There's nothing to react to though if I'm just focusing on the bodily sensations so I'm not sure what this piece of advice is referring to.


frankk response:

  1. an example of a typical reaction would be bodily feelings of pain and reacting with aversion, anger, etc. Or feelings of bodily pleasure, and then the mind running off with thoughts of things from the past that the bodily pleasure reminded them of.
  2. what you describe is exactly what should happen if you're doing breath meditation correctly, or kaya-gata-sati body immersed mindfulness correclty. You're focused on the kinaesthetic experience of how the breath and bodily sensations feel in all the cells of the body, so the bandwidth of your attention is completely occupied with skillful thoughts of Dharma, and there's no room for unwanted thoughts and emotions to interrupt. This is training of samadhi, training the mind to think what you want to think and not think what you don't want to think, using the breath as a skillful way to occupy the mind.

Now where your question #1 is ultimately heading, building on #2, once you have stability and control of your mind, then you can observe sensations in the body without the 'reactions', typical deluded responses and filters we impose on top of the raw experience of mind and body, and instead use lucid discerning and wisdom to see reality moment by moment as it actually is, and by doing that, you free yourself from suffering.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Advice to younger meditators on jhāna, sex, porn, masturbation

Someone asked: Is porn considered harmful sexual.activity? I don't have a sex life because I don't have a partner and I don't wish to engage in casual sex so I use porn to quench the biological urge to orgasm. I can't see that's it's harmful because nobody is being forced into it. The actors are all paid well and claim to enjoy it etc. The only harm I can see is that it's so accessible these days on smart devices and so children may access it but I believe that this is the parents responsibility to not allow unsupervised use of devices etc. Views? Frankk response: In another thread, you asked about pleasant sensations and jhāna.  I'm guessing you're young, so here's some important advice you won't get from suttas   if you're serious about jhāna.  (since monastics are already celibate by rule)   If you want to attain stable and higher jhānas,   celibacy and noble silence to the best of your ability are the feedstock and prerequiste to tha
Post a Comment
Read more

illustration of Buddha Gotoma where he looks like a human being

Illustration by Bhikkhu Vimalo from a BPS postcard wishing a happy vesak   More images where Buddha looks human: https://notesonthedhamma.blogspot.com/2021/02/where-are-buddha-images-and-statues.html Buddha and Arahant images that look like real humans
Post a Comment
Read more

1min. video: Dalai Lama kissing boy and asking him to suck his tongue

To give more context, this is a public event,  * everyone knows cameras are rolling  *  it's a room full of children * the boy's mom is standing off camera a few feet away watching all of this * the boy initiated contact, he had already had a hug with Dalai Lama earlier and then asked Dalai Lama for another hug which triggered this segment  17 min. video showing what happened before that 1 min. clip and after, with some explanation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bT0qey5Ts78 16min talk from Ajahn Acalo with his thoughts on Dalai Lama kissing boy, relevance to Bhikkhu monastic code, sexual predators in religion in general, and how celibate monastics deal with sexual energy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK2m0TcUib0 The child's comments about the incident in a filmed interview later https://www.marca.com/en/lifestyle/world-news/2023/04/18/643eba5d46163ffc078b457c.html The child: It's a great experience It was amazing to meet His Holiness and I think it's a great ex
Post a Comment
Read more