reminder: if using a PC, to modify easily the text size, press Ctrl and +

 

I have learned that the more you can bring up suffering in your meditation and are able to smartly cope with it till it dissolves, the more you’re bound to witness beautiful changes once back in your daily life… and I have decided to live up to this amazing truth!

Finally, I have discovered what I was looking for: certain hand movements performed in perfect harmony with the breath can trigger a huge amount of suffering buried deep within our beings and wash it away.

Thus “move’n breath” has become a way of life. All day long, wether I walk or eat or brush my teeth or pee, I make it a point to do it in harmony with the breath.

All the daily activities become a training field to make me fit before entering the battle ground : a cool cave where I will sit for hours, watching the breath and moving those hands…

Therefore, to be able to move’n breathe and SHINE, the first requisite is to know the breath perfectly:
the in-breath, the out-breath and the pauses.
Do you have a pause between the in-breath and the out-breath?
Do you have a pause after the out-breath, before the next in-breath?

A word of caution here: instructions given in these pages are especially tailored for those who have a pause after the out-breath, before the next in-breath, as shown in the diagram below...

In some cases the out-breath is divided in two phases, a strong phase and a quiet phase, and this is alright, since the quiet phase itself can be regarded as a pause.

At the beginning, this pause may be very short, but as you learn to patiently observe the breath, it will naturally increase. For this, you should master all the exercises presented in the page “the breath”.



Facing pain…  from Shinzen Young

Meditation master Shizen Young gives a clear explanation of why the pain of a long sitting session is increasing and what to do about it. But if I totally agree with his explanations about the origin of the pain, I'm far from sharing the attitude of acceptance he advocates.

A much fascinating and rewarding solution is to take the bull by the horns.

Let us find a technique that allows us to bring up this pain much quicker and stronger than usual. No need to delay the confrontation or lessen its intensity. That’s pure waste of time! And that’s no fun!

This is what this whole presentation is about, a denial of this attitude of acceptance.

Says Shizen Young about the origin of the pain: 

"Psychological impurities ("samskaras" in sanskrit), deep seated fixating, can now percolate up to the surface in tangible form. But what do we do about it? Nothing! Just try, to the best of your ability, to feel it and accept it. Sooner or later it will dissolve and break up.
If you have made an effort to try to accept it, when it does break up, you will have released one "quantum packet" of poison and pain from the deep reaches of the unconscious mind.
Of course the phenomenon may manifest again, but you haven't gone backwards. It is just that a deeper level of impurity has now percolated upward. Once again, try to the best of your ability to accept it. In this way, layer after layer of blockage from the deep unconscious, which would be very difficult to get to directly, percolates up to the surface and gets worked off.
Admittedly this is challenging because those very sensations are the tangible manifestation of deep seeded tendencies of non-acceptance. Although it is challenging, it is also quite doable by anyone.
Objectively, the suffering associated with this phenomenon is no greater than that associated with a rash or the flu. Anyone can learn to live with those kinds of sensations, but why would anyone want to? What is the payoff? The payoff is that consciousness is being cleansed at a radical level, a level that would perhaps be difficult to reach otherwise.
Trying to contact ones innermost conflicting tendencies directly in the unconscious is very difficult. But when the phenomenon of the 'icky-sticky' sensations arises, the endeavor becomes very simple. All you have to do is pay attention to those sensations, try to accept them and let time pass. Nature will do the rest." End of quote.