Concentrated Heart-Opening Practices

Hey Guys,
So I have a fair amount of experience with all of the Brahmaviharas and doing other techniques recommended by Shinzen. His are known as "Nurture Positive" and are a little different, but I get that it is at least in the same ball park. Recently I have had an uproar of rage and loneliness in life/my practice. It feels as if there is a clenching in my gut, I start to sweat, and it feels like my heart is burning. I've been primarily working with choice-less awareness lately, which I use, but my teacher suggested I start incorporating more loving-kindness-ish practices right now.

Typically I feel fairly all over the place with my Brahmaviharas-ish stuff. I'll be using the phrase "May I open to uncondintional love" and feeling a surrender like choiceless-awareness with some emotional love permeating in my body/space. Then I'll move onto doing traditional metta phrases, then if I start crying and having rage uproars using the phrase "May my suffering be held with compassion." I think working in this way is having benificial results, but I'de like to simplify and have a more concentrated Brahmavihara-ish (as in pragmatic heart opening techniques) sits. Any tips on doing this with the emotions I mentioned above coming up? Sometimes I just don't have the motivation to do loving kindness and go back to choiceless awareness, but really feel some heart practices would be helpful right now.

Are you looking for something that can be an antidote EDIT: to (delete: into) the reactivity or something that will help you fully experience the reactivity?

Nurture Positive often leads to a counter-intuitive endpoint -- we wind up primally confronting our own limitations of feeling worthy. A lot of reactivity emerges that tends to push us back into our old sense of self.

This transcript is from a bio-psychologist who has studied how people will self-sabotage when experiencing good fortune or joy. The average lottery winner will spend away all their money in 18 months. To have good fortune is so stressful, they unconsciously get rid of it. It's not a conscious thing at all. www.soundstrue.com/podcast/transcripts/m...romhome=camefromhome

My best guess is that the dynamics of this was known by the different meditation traditions. That's why the nurturing of positive states are so challenging and effective: it brings a lot of unconscious reactivity to the surface. If that reactivity can be fully experienced, it will release on its own. No need to win the lottery, just wish for happiness for ourselves and others --- then look how the mind reacts.

The good news is --- unless you buy into the reactions --- you can move your baseline sense of worthiness and capacity to experience positive sensations.

Kinda a long reply, hope it helps in some way.

I've found mantra work to be useful in this regard, if the mantra is one that has an emotional meaning for you. Also, arousing a devotional feeling - personally I never had a 'natural feeling' with Buddhist metta but devotional practices worked for me better in terms of feeling like they were right for me , and arousing those emotions. I did these with Gods or deities, but if that doesn't work for you I think it could work in the same way with a figure you admire or who's central to practice tradition e.g. the Buddha. There can be a nice surrender quality to these practices too, which acted on my experience that a lot of work I'd done with negative emotions, it was hard to get to a deep level of seeing how much there was a feeling that my agency could alter my experience of them and that that's what I was trying to do.

About four months ago as a supplement to my regular vipassana/choiceless awareness practice, I did a bunch of Reggie Ray's bodhicitta meditation that I learned on retreat last winter: basically sitting in the upright shikantaza posture he teaches (I can find instructions for the posture if you like), breathing directly into the heart center, and feeling the sensations there. Reggie said that one of his students mistook the feeling of opening the heart center for the onset of a heart attack, but since the instructions were so basic, I was skeptical that breathing into the center of my chest would do anything special.

My regular vipassana practice had caused some gnarly emotional upheaval and physical discomfort (nausea, heart pounding, sweating, chills) which the heart breathing seemed to intensify. After about a week of doing the bodhicitta practice during sitting and throughout the day, a blockage released around the heart center in probably the most intense experience I've had since first A&P. I took a break from meditating for a month to let things calm down. I haven't resumed heart breathing since the process was so uncomfortable and I didn't feel that I was truly prepared to undergo it.

Instead I took up the ten points practice ( www.dharmaocean.org/meditation/learn-to-...ndational-practices/ ) to clear out some more emotional and energetic blockages. If you haven't done any type of bodywork yet I recommend doing that first - it could bring up a lot of issues that block you from generating metta and dealing with the heart center more naturally. I used to think bodywork was fluffy stuff for yoga practitioners, but its effectiveness and the nuclear intensity of what it dredges up have really surprised me. Here's a good DhO thread about bodywork: www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discu...ards/message/5201846

Apparently non-Buddhist therapists who champion this stuff sometimes issue dire warnings that too large a dose of bodywork "will bring chaos into your life", but in meditation that's a sign you're making real progress.

every3rdthought wrote: I've found mantra work to be useful in this regard, if the mantra is one that has an emotional meaning for you. Also, arousing a devotional feeling - personally I never had a 'natural feeling' with Buddhist metta but devotional practices worked for me better in terms of feeling like they were right for me , and arousing those emotions. I did these with Gods or deities, but if that doesn't work for you I think it could work in the same way with a figure you admire or who's central to practice tradition e.g. the Buddha. There can be a nice surrender quality to these practices too, which acted on my experience that a lot of work I'd done with negative emotions, it was hard to get to a deep level of seeing how much there was a feeling that my agency could alter my experience of them and that that's what I was trying to do.

Devotional stuff is definitely something I am attracted to and I have no issues with the Gods or deities. Shinzen turned me onto sweat lodges for that side of things, but haven't been able to attend for awhile. I'de be interested in hearing more about your practice, as I haven't been exposed to many devotional stuff.

Matthew Horn wrote: About four months ago as a supplement to my regular vipassana/choiceless awareness practice, I did a bunch of Reggie Ray's bodhicitta meditation that I learned on retreat last winter: basically sitting in the upright shikantaza posture he teaches (I can find instructions for the posture if you like), breathing directly into the heart center, and feeling the sensations there. Reggie said that one of his students mistook the feeling of opening the heart center for the onset of a heart attack, but since the instructions were so basic, I was skeptical that breathing into the center of my chest would do anything special.

My regular vipassana practice had caused some gnarly emotional upheaval and physical discomfort (nausea, heart pounding, sweating, chills) which the heart breathing seemed to intensify. After about a week of doing the bodhicitta practice during sitting and throughout the day, a blockage released around the heart center in probably the most intense experience I've had since first A&P. I took a break from meditating for a month to let things calm down. I haven't resumed heart breathing since the process was so uncomfortable and I didn't feel that I was truly prepared to undergo it.

Instead I took up the ten points practice ( www.dharmaocean.org/meditation/learn-to-...ndational-practices/ ) to clear out some more emotional and energetic blockages. If you haven't done any type of bodywork yet I recommend doing that first - it could bring up a lot of issues that block you from generating metta and dealing with the heart center more naturally. I used to think bodywork was fluffy stuff for yoga practitioners, but its effectiveness and the nuclear intensity of what it dredges up have really surprised me. Here's a good DhO thread about bodywork: www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discu...ards/message/5201846

Apparently non-Buddhist therapists who champion this stuff sometimes issue dire warnings that too large a dose of bodywork "will bring chaos into your life", but in meditation that's a sign you're making real progress.

I've heard a lot about Reggie Ray, have any links to his Bodhicitta practice? Simple is nice to me.

I also happen to be a licensed bodyworker in LA and do trades bi-weekly. Definitely going to check out the ten points practice. Thanks.

One Buddhist form of deity practice that worked wonders for me is the 5 element work. This work is definitely about going INTO reactivity and fully experiencing it, where you intentionally destabilize experience and get used to it. The result is a purification and a greater resiliency. It's described briefly on this page:

awakenetwork.org/magazine/shargrol/253

p.s. Sometimes I think heart-opening practices are a bit of practical magick that leads directly to A&P type openings... and the post A&P crash that follows. Good overall with the right understanding, but almost literally playing with fire. Five element work could have this same effect.

p.p.s. EDIT: One reason I started doing 5 element work was life was destabilizing my experience anyway (work related chaos) so I figured it would be a good time to go in that direction. As a result, I got plenty of practices because all of that reactivity was a feature of my life at that time. The nice thing was it was during a time when my practice was pretty solid and the destabilization was somewhat external. Of course the practice intentionally made it internal... but the point is there was a sense of refuge/space if I needed to calm things down. It's good to have a way of turning down the intensity in any practice but especially energetic ones. Too often people think these practices will "fix" them and push harder than they can really handle and it becomes difficult to integrate any benefit of the practice since were so emotionally and psychologically ragged. Okay enough disclaimers!

For doing metta and dealing with the nastier side of my emotions, I've been doing Bhanta Vimalarasi's Tranquil Wisdom Insight Meditation. The results have been very transformative

I think his method is incredibly powerful, and easy, for these reasons:
1. Transits though the jhanas while building insight (pleasurable, easy to practice)
2. Incorporates a more relaxed, open focus than is often recommended by most "concentration" practices, which can often be exhausting. TWIM is almost always (for me) energizing and refreshing.
3. Uses metta as the object of concentration (TWIM actually can use many things as its object, but BV recommends metta to beginners). This is also very pleasurable, which makes jhana entry easier, longer sits possible, and makes me more excited to sit again.
4. Near continuous smiling (which I haven't found straining at all, but very welcome. I smile much easier off the cushion now.)
5. Trains meditator to notice muscular tension in the head which corresponds with craving, and to tranquilize it on contact.

TWIM for me takes out many birds with one stone - metta, samadhi, insight. I've been able to simplify and consolidate practices this way (where I used to do several to these ends, I can just do this one). It's made me a SIGNIFICANTLY happier, more creative, and loving person since I've been practicing it.

Learning a new style of any meditation takes time and can be frustrating to find the groove. TWIM could be applicable to your situation in that it deals directly (physical and mental tranquilizing) with difficult emotions/urges that arise, without that gritted-teeth "be-equanimous-be-equanimous-i'm-being-equanimous" thing I find myself doing in vipassana.

The instructions for this technique can be found in the short book Breath of Love, by Bhante Vimalarasi. He's also made a pdf available which is simply to google. Or you can message me.
I realize this reply looks a little like an infomercial...yick, sorry.
Good luck!

Oh wow, cool, I hadn't read that, but I will now. Thre instructional book I was referring to is Breath of Love:
library.dhammasukha.org/uploads/1/2/8/6/...0/breath-of-love.pdf