tension in the face while meditating

Hi all,
I started to notice, it's now maybe a month, a lot of tension in my face during meditation. It replaced subtler and nicer sensations I was used to. It's like after a dentist anaesthesia, there is a lot of rigidity, definitely not pleasant. Sometimes eventually the tension fades and is replaced by more pleasant sensations. It works as an energy block and seems to stop the progress of the meditation session. I practice lying-down, and I noticed that changing the position to sitting the tension does not manifest (just a test, I dont' like the sitting position). And even practicing tai chi I go easily in some relaxed state with no tension at all. Lying down the tension builds up almost immediately.
I wasn't very worried until I found this in the Q&A section of Shinzen Young'site:

"I have meditated for many years, and very often I feel a great deal of tension around my head and face. I have used this
tension as an object of meditation in the same way Shinzen has described using any body sensation as an object of meditation. The tension has persisted and I read from B. Allan Wallace in one his books that one should stop concentrating if there is persistent tension in the head while meditating, and focus more on relaxation, and that this tension can actually cause some damage. So I would be interested to know what you think"

My focus is more on relaxation than concentration, so the Alan Wallace rule doesn't apply.
Sometimes the tension move to a point in the middle of the eyes, if observed it could dissolve and spread all over the body, the first time in a very raptorous way. Now this point seems located more inside the head.
I haven't access to a meditation teacher, and I just don't want to mess something up.
Should I change the meditation posture? Or just wait for the end of this stuff?

Umberto

Hello Umberto,

I'm not an expert when it comes to energy work, but I've come across a few things that work to release some of the tension.

When I get some kind of energy build up in my head, I find that bringing attention to it can sometimes make it worse - that is, until it causes it to break up and disperse, which can take a while. Energy tends to flow where attention is applied.

If you want the energy to flow downward and come to rest, try breathing deeply in to your lower belly to activate the Hara, which is located below the navel and a bit inward. Somehow this moves the energy down to a place where it can rest without causing discomfort, at least not for me. You can do this while lying down, so there's no need to assume a sitting posture if you don't want to.

I hope it works for you. Share your experience with us if you try it out.

~Jackson

Thank you Jackson,

I know the Hara, in China it is called the Dan Tien...

In fact, even Shinzen Young says to move the attention to the periphery of the body to deal with this problem. I wasn't using a major alternative focus and just tried to stay with the flow of sensations, but it didn't work.

I will try with the Hara!

Umberto

Great! I hope it works for you.

On a side note: Reginald Ray put out an audio program called "Meditating With the Body" that is useful for this kind of stuff. He teaches prana breathing, earth breathing, and some other techniques that really help to spread energy throughout the body. You may even be able to find a pirated copy of it online somewhere, but you didn't hear it from me

~Jackson

hey guys,

I know that it's generally recommended in Zen to focus on the navel, especially at the beginning. Taoists likewise do belly breathing.. and Buddhists have the cosmic mudra hand symbol which is a circle created with your hands at the position of the navel. so I'm wondering.. why focus on the navel and what benefits does that give to somebody meditating?

anyone know?

mikael

Hi, Mikael. I'm not the best one to answer, but... there is an energy nexus in your abdomen. The Japanese call it the "hara." As far as I can tell, any object at all will work as an object of vipassana meditation, but that's not really what you're asking about.

My guess is that between Gozen (Zen/mudra) and Khara (Qigong/energy) you will get a full explanation.

"hey guys,

I know that it's generally recommended in Zen to focus on the navel, especially at the beginning. Taoists likewise do belly breathing.. and Buddhists have the cosmic mudra hand symbol which is a circle created with your hands at the position of the navel. so I'm wondering.. why focus on the navel and what benefits does that give to somebody meditating?

anyone know?

mikael"

Hi Mikael,

The Hara is a sort of gateway to the Absolute, the same way that the Third-Eye center is a gateway to Witnessing (or Presence) and the Heart center is the gateway to Compassion/Bodhicitta. Gozen posted a guest writing called "Zen is Always and Only About the Ultimate," and I think that somewhat explains the connection between Zen practice and the Hara.

I've also heard it said that when one's attention rests at the Hara, the six senses flow freely of their own accord. I find this to be true. For, when one's identity shifts into the place of non-abiding (usually temporarily - sometimes permanently) there is no "going out to meet" phenomena. I think this is what the Taoists would refer to as "wu wei" in the deepest sense, in that what is experienced is "natural action" or "action without action" (wei wu wei). When trees grow, they just grow. There is action, but no one acting. The Hara is associated to/linked with this non-abiding, non-doing, action without action.

Just my two cents.

~Jackson

"Hi Mikael,

The Hara is a sort of gateway to the Absolute, the same way that the Third-Eye center is a gateway to Witnessing (or Presence) and the Heart center is the gateway to Compassion/Bodhicitta.
"

The tension in the face was linked to the third eye development, I think.
The process ended with the tension moving to the third eye, and the third eye moving inside the head.
Witnessing is easier now (thanks Jackson). It starts with 'ordinary witnessing' (no thougths) and grows. It could include a lot of things and yesterday I was in a sort of Dark Night because of that (fear, misery, disgust of all of this chaos running).
I resign in trying to understand the maps (why the Witness lead to the Dark Knight/Progress of Insight stuff?), but it seems that all the gears are linked somehow.
I don't know what to do in formal practice: do the Witness, take the Witness as object and do the thermometer, do nothing... it seems that the process is already going on by itself.
Lucid dreaming, synchronicities all the time (the craziest thing, I'm really going mad), fascination with green and red. Green and red are everywhere, it started with observing trees, which are maroon - red + green!).

Umberto

p.s.: I will keep this thread to report my own meditation experiences.
I'm sorry for past intrusions in other threads with pointless questions...

Umberto, you can do anything while in the witness although you have to concentrate to keep it active most of the time. The point of the witness is to explore and then to abide in transpersonal awareness. The idea is to see what that is like, to see the awareness of awareness as it plays out, and then ultimately to question just what causes and creates that experience so that you can drop it, or any pretense of needing a witnessing/observing/experiencing "thing" around to hold onto.

In regard to your ideas about how, if at all, these various practices relate to each other -- yeah, they seem to be related but in the end I'm not sure it matters much that we figure out exactly how they all fit together. We tend to get bound up in our underwear over that kind of thing but I think it takes your energy away from the critical task at hand, which is the most important task we can ever take on.

That has been my recent experience.

Chris, I think I had a taste of rigpa months ago, and... well, I was scared.
I interpreted the experience as A&P/Dissolution/Fear (always the maps!), but now I know it was the dropping of the Witness.
'Feelings may vary', mostly for spontaneous events. I also remember that I was trying to recollect myself at all costs... definitely NOT surrendering
I'm still a little fearful... and now I'm abiding in the Witness and take my time...
This site provides a lot of support, inspiration and... confidence (and I think I need confidence now).

My best friends think I'm crazy when I talk about 'a ball of chi'... my tai chi teacher believes in chi balls, but thinks that all Theravada people are insane...
Thanks god KFD exists!

Umberto

Umberto, I'm not sure what it is you're describing but your comments matching experience to the names of common experiences don't square with mine. I think the way we here at KFDh sometimes talk it would be pretty easy to mistake the Theravada/Vipassana experience of what occurs leading up to path and fruition for "rigpa."

For example, what you call "rigpa," if it's what I would call the unborn, was for me the very first time a spontaneous dropping of the conditioning I've used since I was a very small child. It was not, however, accompanied by anything like fear. It was more like waking up to love, timelessness and the very simplest non-duality of the universe. Love is still the word that best describes it, though.

The times when fear has entered my practice always relate to what I would call The One Big Fear. For example, in the throes of getting to my first fruition (back to Theravada/Vipassna) I experienced a fear of what I would call dissolution, or the loss of "me." In those brief few seconds before fruition it's pretty clear that "me" was going to disappear, and since I've been using "me" my whole life, I was clinging to that concept to keep "me" from falling into what appears to be the deathly state of nothingness. I was scared, literally scared out of my wits, to "die." That fear kept me away from obtaining first path for some time.

Also, constructing "me" is the most natural, easiest thing ever. It took years of work to see that the "me" construction project was even going on. My practice has thus focused on seeing the "me" construction project in all its gory detail and learning how to stop it dead in its tracks

I don't know if I've helped you but it seemed to be the right thing to say as I read your comments.

Best of luck in your practice!

hi cmarti, how did you get over that fear? I have exactly the same problem that you had.

Chris, you helped me a lot. This was my original doubt about that experience.
I had The One Big Fear, the loss of "me".
As I wrote, originally I mapped that experience to A&P/Dissolution/Fear.
But, according to the way I practice, I started to doubt that my A&P experiences were Witnessing (see Jack Kornfield about 3 gears), because of my open focus, opposed to Mahasi style. And found in the Alex case study here the description of rigpa as transition from Witnessing to No Self.
I'm not well versed in the canon and traditions... my main texts are MCTB and Kenneth's writings... and I'm practice oriented, obsession with maps comes only to understand what's going on.
I already posted what I described, and I'm happy to finally sorted it out.

Umberto

"how did you get over that fear? I have exactly the same problem that you had."

Lots of people have it, Mikael. I just kept going, and at some point the experience itself, that of obtaining path/fruition, just overcame the fear that was present. I wish I had a magic bullet for you, but I don't think there is one. Just keep going. Look at the fear. Face it, know it, see it for what it is.

"
"how did you get over that fear? I have exactly the same problem that you had."

Lots of people have it, Mikael. I just kept going, and at some point the experience itself, that of obtaining path/fruition, just overcame the fear that was present. I wish I had a magic bullet for you, but I don't think there is one. Just keep going. Look at the fear. Face it, know it, see it for what it is.

"

Thank you

"... what I would call the unborn, was for me the very first time a spontaneous dropping of the conditioning I've used since I was a very small child. It was not, however, accompanied by anything like fear. It was more like waking up to love, timelessness and the very simplest non-duality of the universe. Love is still the word that best describes it, though. " - cmarti

Exactly. Well said Chris.

Also agree about "The One Big Fear". When it became clear that "me" doesn't exist, "The One Big Fear" dissolved.

Michael

"The point of the witness is to explore and then to abide in transpersonal awareness." - cmarti

Chris, this transpersonal awareness is something like being in a crowd, and suddenly you aren't anymore a single observer, but you belong to the crowd as a whole (just like in the sufi Simurgh tale)?

Umberto

Transpersonal awareness is the sense, if you concentrate on developing it, that there is a watcher, an observer, that is witnessing your experience. It's not you, or the sense of you. It's before that you develops.

Hi Geppo,

Since you say that you are focused on relaxation - not concentration, then tension in your face is not what you want. Often tension in the face is caused when one is trying to concentrate forcefully. Tension in the face generally means your mind is up in your head. One side effect of this is that it can cause headaches.
I think you should not try to control the speed or the depth of your breathing, breadth will slow by itself and lower as you become more concentrated. You may want to try and let the breadth sink lower, gently without forcing it. Sometimes focusing on the soles of the feet is a way to relax the face, though I think just paying attention to relaxing and letting the breadth sink down works fine.
I don't think it a good idea to get into changing your meditation posture every time you get tension in your face. Just learn to recognize it, try to relax gently, then continue.

Hope this helps,

Stuart

Hi Stuart,
thank you for the tips, I will try your advices.
In fact, after vanishing for a while, the tension is returned, even if doesn't last and eventually subsides.
I don't think I'm putting too much effort, because I'm a very lazy meditator...
Umberto