Freeze framed zazen

[Koushu]

I have had experiencing during my zazen sessions.

Maybe about five minutes into zazen even though my vision is focused on a point, my focus becomes fluid and then raising from my seat (tailbone) up my spinal cord to the crown of my head it feels like a soft but energetic pulse is flowing. This last maybe a minute or two the it is like my whole being is floating and relaxed, during this time my breathing stays balanced and normal and mind is still. When I reach this point I am completely calm and my zazen seems to be short but when I finished it really has been forty minutes to an hour and a half, like if time just goes into super slow motion, but I am still conscious of my surroundings but everything is slowed. Is this normal and the way it should be? Or am I going the wrong way and crazy? Like I said it doesn't happen all the time but the frequency is becoming more and more common. Like when I first started zazen fifteen years ago it would happen once every six months or so, when I started with you it was every fifty or sixty times but now it is happening two or three times a week. I do Zazen twice a day and three times a day on my days off. Also I do Zazen in the mountains, forest and snow when I can.

I am wondering if other's have had a similar experience!

Gassho
拡手

Satoday with my husky. Lol

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[Jundo]

Hi Koushu,

It is not an unusual experience to have time slow or stop, and much of the rest of what you describe. Time seems to slow or stop, there is great calm and stillness. That kind of experience may happen sometimes in a deep Samadhi concentration of sitting, but it is not what we cultivate or pursue in this style of Shikantaza sitting. Basically, in various forms of deep Samadhi, time can feel to slow down. It is generally a good thing, especially if there are felt to be no harmful or negative effects from it afterwards. If there does not seem to be any harmful effect, then there is nothing to fear and much to learn from the events. Be such when such.

Some types of Buddhist meditation try to cultivate such deep concentration or unusual mental experiences. They think that such things are the point of sitting. They try to go into deeper and deeper states of concentration and focused awareness, forexample. However, in Soto Zen, we neither run toward such experiences nor run away. When they happen, they happen. When the next whatever happens, the next whatever happens. All is the point of sitting.

As to the sensation up your back, there can be many reasons including relaxation of muscles. However, some Buddhists and other yogi might speak of energy and Chakra flows, Kundalini and all that. I am not much for the latter kind of explanation, but you might want to talk to some other more traditional Buddhists and see their twist on interpreting that.

Gassho, Jundo

SatToday

PS - If any other Sangha members have had similar experiences, I would be interested to hear too.

[Enjaku]

Thanks for sharing Koushu,

In my spine, nothing like this sadly - just lower back ache and sometimes a stiff neck!

I'm terms of perception of time, I've had some interesting experiences since practicing Shikantaza. The most common one is where I kind of "let go of time", or you could say I "allow time to go at its own pace". The only way I can describe it is using an example...

I was recently on a flight to Berlin and I had the usual thoughts of "I wonder if the journey will go quickly or slowly..." I thought it was a good opportunity to practice meditation so I just dropped all thoughts of fast and slow and sat quietly with my eyes open. I felt very peaceful and, when they announced the landing, it felt "perfect"... like it couldn't have been any faster or slower... Since this experience, I try to practice letting go of the bell in zazen. The more I can allow time to go at its own pace, the more it feels as though the bell rings "exactly" at the right moment. It may sound obvious but it feels "right"... (can't think of a word to do it justice)

Gassho,
Enjaku
Sat

[Jundo]

I'm terms of perception of time, I've had some interesting experiences since practicing Shikantaza. The most common one is where I kind of "let go of time", or you could say I "allow time to go at its own pace". The only way I can describe it is using an example...

I was recently on a flight to Berlin and I had the usual thoughts of "I wonder if the journey will go quickly or slowly..." I thought it was a good opportunity to practice meditation so I just dropped all thoughts of fast and slow and sat quietly with my eyes open. I felt very peaceful and, when they announced the landing, it felt "perfect"... like it couldn't have been any faster or slower... Since this experience, I try to practice letting go of the bell in zazen. The more I can allow time to go at its own pace, the more it feels as though the bell rings "exactly" at the right moment. It may sound obvious but it feels "right"... (can't think of a word to do it justice)

Gassho,
Enjaku
Sat

Lovely. Very nice, and sounds like you figured something out about sitting. Lovely.

And, of course, also don't forget that those days (and they are bound to happen too) in which time grabs you by the toes and won't let go, and every dragging second seems like 100 years ... also lovely too in their own way.

Gassho, Jundo

[Ryumon]

PS - If any other Sangha members have had similar experiences, I would be interested to hear too.

I've had a number of experiences like this, and we've communicated privately about them. Most often it's a feeling of - as I mentioned yesterday in another thread - the border between my "self" and the rest of the world dissolving. But it is also sometimes a feeling of infinitely vast space, time stopping, or, I guess, bliss. In one case, I had a feeling of being above a vast void, and, while it wasn't a negative feeling, it was a bit frightening.

But you explained long ago how these are just side-effects, so I note them and move on.

Gassho,

Kirk

#sattoday

[Tairin]

This morning while I sat the house was very quiet. After a short while in the silence I realized I was hearing my own breath almost like it wasn't me breathing. Suddenly I was struck with the thought that what I was listening to was the whole world breathing along with me.

I have little insights like this from time to time while sitting. Unfortunately they don't last long because it seems as soon as I am conscious of the insight my analytical mind starts its internal commentary.

Gassho
Warren
Sat today

[Jishin]

If I did, I would not remember, which means I may or may not have.

Hard to say.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Zenmei]

Recently, I had an experience where I felt like I was finally actually just sitting. Not adding anything, not taking anything away, just being the experience of the universe universing itself around and through me, and I felt a deep sense of wholeness with it all. I was no longer really conscious of my mind and body, my sense of self kind of spread out across the universe. Then I noticed it and it was over. That was fun.

Reading Enjaku's comment made me remember going to church with my parents as a child. It was so unbelievably boring. Sitting in that pew for an hour a week was excruciating, each minute felt like a hundred. So I started experimenting to see if I could make time go faster. I concentrated on it and eventually found I could get to a state where I felt like I stepped out of time. I'd sit down, concentrate a bit and then the service would be over.
I'd completely forgotten about that until now. I never connected what I did there with meditation, I was just changing the way I perceived time.

Gassho, Zenmei
#sat

[Koushu]

Thank you Jundo and everyone. It is good to know it is not just me.

It is encouraging. So I will just sit.

Gassho
拡手

Satoday

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[Enjaku]

Sitting in that pew for an hour a week was excruciating, each minute felt like a hundred. So I started experimenting to see if I could make time go faster. I concentrated on it and eventually found I could get to a state where I felt like I stepped out of time.

I feel sorry for the poor priest whose sermon was so boring children had to alter their perception of time to get through it!

Gassho,
Enjaku
Sat

[Zenmei]

I feel sorry for the poor priest whose sermon was so boring children had to alter their perception of time to get through it!

Gassho,
Enjaku
Sat

Nobody was doing the hokey pokey up there, that's for sure

Gassho, Zenmei
#sat

[Jishin]

IMG_0704.JPG

Just sit.

Gasho, Jishin, _/st\_

[Jundo]

Thank you Jundo and everyone. It is good to know it is not just me.

It is encouraging. So I will just sit.

Gassho
拡手

Yes, it is a very special experience. It is simply that Shikantaza is a bit wisely-weird as meditation in that we take all experience, and all of life, as special in that moment. Nonetheless, we sit and let thoughts go with this feeling (something I wrote for an essay for a magazine) ...

Shikantaza Zazen must be sat, for the time it is sat, with the student profoundly trusting deep in her bones that sitting itself is a complete and sacred act, the one and only action that need be done in the whole world in that instant of sitting. This truth should not be thought about or voiced in so many words, but must be silently and subtly felt deep down. The student must taste vibrantly that the mere act of sitting Zazen, in that moment, is whole and thoroughly complete, the total fruition of life’s goals, with nothing lacking and nothing to be added to the bare fact of sitting here and now. The student must taste vibrantly that the mere act of sitting Zazen, in that moment, is whole and thoroughly complete, the total fruition of life’s goals, with nothing lacking and nothing to be added to the bare fact of sitting here and now. ... In doing so, one develops the sense that everything in one’s day is equally sacred, not lacking, thoroughly complete.

In doing so, the body-mind will tend to balance, the heart and thoughts to quiet, and sometimes now and then such experiences of timelessness may happen. Brain researchers may be getting a handle on why ...

Newberg and d’Aquili [in ttheir book "Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science & the Biology of Belief] related that change in parietal activation to the height of the meditative experience, when their volunteers reported experiencing a greater interconnectedness of things with a sense of timelessness and spacelessness. Indeed, on the contrary, “the parietal lobe, when active, gives us a sense of our self in relation to time, space, and other objects in the world” (p 51-52).
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...iences/361882/

When we remember that all of our experiences of the world ... even on a "normal" day ... are based on how the brain organizes the data, then such brain changes during meditation present perfectly valid, alternative ways of experiencing time and self-reality. It is a good thing to experience the reality that, not only are we separate creatures living in passing time, but that we are also joined without separation to all the rest of the world, existing in an ongoing timeless nowness. Both are good ways to experience the nature of our self and life, and it is rare and valuable to have such insight. (That's also what makes such experiences and brain changes different from a simple hallucination, for example, that there is suddenly a pink elephant in the room that we are riding. It is quite likely that there is no pink elephant here although seen. On the other hand, the transcendence of the borders of the self/other distinction, and realizing that memories of "past" and dreams of the possible "future" are in fact themselves mental constructs (and that the past was the "now" then, and that any future will be the "now" when it happens) are facts about the universe that even a physicist can understand these days).

As to the electrical sensations, some folks who are into "Kundalini" and such will impose all manner of interpretations on like phenomena. The following is pulled at random off the internet to show what many people describe ...

Kundalini is a psycho-spiritual energy, the energy of the consciousness, which is thought to reside within the sleeping body, and is aroused either through spiritual discipline or spontaneously to bring new states of consciousness, including mystical illumination. ... Typically the yogi meditates to arouse the kundalini and then to raise it through his or her body. (It should be remembered though, not all types of yoga are devoted to the arousal of kundalini.) First, the yogi feels the sensation on heat at the base of the spine, which may be intensely hot or pleasantly warm. The energy then travels up a psychic pathway parallel to the spinal column. The sushumna is the central axis, crisscrossed in a helix by the ida and pingala. As it rises the kundalini activates the chakras in succession. The body becomes cold and corpse-like as the kundalini leaves the lower portions and begins to rise. The yogi is likely to shudder, tremble, or rock violently, feel extreme heat and cold, hear strange but not unpleasant sounds, and see various kinds of lights including an inner light. The length of the kundalini may be fleeting or last several minutes. The objective is to raise the kundalini to the crown chakra, where it unites with the Shiva, or the male polarity, and brings illumination.
https://www.themystica.com/mystica/a...kundalini.html

I am skeptical of such explanations for lack of any evidence whatsoever that such a system of energy exists in the body. It is an ancient belief that arose before our understanding of modern physiology. On the other hand, however, I believe that the sensations described as felt by meditators in deep concentration are true, and that folks actually feel, see and hear these things that they report. But what could be the cause?? Part of it may just be sitters convincing themself, i.e., if one believes according to an ancient book that the body must start to feel certain things in mediation, then lo and behold, one may start to feel them in a process of self-hypnosis. Another is that the deep concentration of meditation, when simply combined with the normal tension and sensations of the muscles relaxing and nerve endings on our skin that we are not normally aware of in the day-to-day, can cause such always present feeling to become noticed in the quiet of sitting. (Here is an experiment: Bring your awareness right now to the muscle tension on the back of your neck. Feel it relax a bit, and also bring your attention to the nerve endings around your spine in your upper back. Feel the warmth of the skin there. You may suddenly begin to feel the warmth and "energy" there, and to become aware of them, simply by bringing your attention there. It feels rather electrical too. In fact, those sensations are always present, but are excluded by the brain which is just very busy and distracted by a million other matters it must focus on in life. If I then ask you, for example, to please "feel that the skin on the back of the neck is getting hot, as if you had a sunburn there" or "feel it icy cold", you might actually start to feel as if there was a sunburn or chill. It is a hop skip and jump to suddenly feeling the "energy flow" rising up from the spine to the skull as the body relaxes in meditation. )

Gassho, J

SatToday (and felt electricity in my back as I went looking for it today while sitting).

[Koushu]

I will agree with your last observation, Jundo. I was reading a manual on acupuncture today, as we well known the brain sends messages through our body via electric snaps, this manual was written by a Taoist mystic some two hundred years ago, he states that some forms of meditation like those used by Wu Tang and the Chan Buddhist sect of China have a physio-psychological effect of opening up the meridians of the bodies nervous system. He also remarks that this opening of meridians through meditation is achieved by mid-level practitioners of Chan and Wu Tang, for from his observation it is when the mind has come to a higher state that this effect happens as the mind begins to open.

So I have found parts of my answers through the brothers and sisters here and also through Traditional Chinese Medicine, as well as Professor Charles Tart and Professor R. Block and their research into Altered States of Consciousness and the Psychology of Time.

I am curious to know if the Patriarchs had similar experiences. But I will keep setting and like thoughts when it comes I will mentally bow to it as a friend and let it go like a friend.

Gassho
拡手
Koushu

Satoday

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[Jundo]

I will agree with your last observation, Jundo. I was reading a manual on acupuncture today, as we well known the brain sends messages through our body via electric snaps, this manual was written by a Taoist mystic some two hundred years ago, he states that some forms of meditation like those used by Wu Tang and the Chan Buddhist sect of China have a physio-psychological effect of opening up the meridians of the bodies nervous system. He also remarks that this opening of meridians through meditation is achieved by mid-level practitioners of Chan and Wu Tang, for from his observation it is when the mind has come to a higher state that this effect happens as the mind begins to open.

So I have found parts of my answers through the brothers and sisters here and also through Traditional Chinese Medicine, as well as Professor Charles Tart and Professor R. Block and their research into Altered States of Consciousness and the Psychology of Time.

I am curious to know if the Patriarchs had similar experiences. But I will keep setting and like thoughts when it comes I will mentally bow to it as a friend and let it go like a friend.

Gassho
拡手
Koushu

Having lived in China and Japan most of my life, and having more than a passing interest, I don't believe in the whole meridians/acupunture system which has clung on as the product of an ancient time without much understanding, or interest in, how the body actually works. It is poppy-cock. There may be some physiological relationship to the nerves or psychological/placebo effects with real results from sticking needles here and there, but the traditional description of why makes no sense.

But, people will believe anything they will when it comes to such things.

Gassho, J

SatToday

PS - All folks with a serious interest in such subjects should do some study of the history of Chinese, Japanese and general Asian scientific (actually, pre-scientific) and medical beliefs. There are many fine books on the topic, I will just point to a couple of the more approachable ...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Culture-Traditional-Japan-Sugimoto/dp/080481614X

https://www.amazon.com/Cultural-History-Histories-Technology-Medicine/dp/0674030427