Chakras and Insight Practice

I wonder what the relationship is between chakras and insight practice. Does an individual who does insight practice a la Folk or Ingram have experiences akin to chakra awakenings? I ask this because there does not seem to be explicit focus on chakras in these practices. Ingram does say to mind the breathing in the belly or at the tip of the nose, which would energize the 2nd and 3rd or 1st chakra respectively based on Kundalini Yoga (I'm not familiar yet with the method Folk recommends.). Are these chakras awakened during these practices?

My short answer would also be Yes.

The relationship is a tricky one. About a year into my Mahasi-style vipassana practice, I experienced a ridiculous amount of energetic activity, which would get jammed-up in some of the classical chakra zones, or at least in their superficial locations in the front of the body. It took a lot of practice to get things thoroughly rooted out, so to speak.

Kenneth Folk once referred to Goenki vipassana (body sweeping) as a type of kundalini yoga, and I think he's right. One's view always seems to color how things appear. If one is looking for chakras, that's probably what they'll find. If they're looking for subtle vibration in the body, they'll find that. As concentration gets refined, and energy is aroused, there are all kinds of things to notice. We are often quite limited by our conceptual models. It seems like the more we're open to, the more we'll see.

@Chris: Thanks! I'll take a look around.

One's view always seems to color how things appear. If one is looking for chakras, that's probably what they'll find. If they're looking for subtle vibration in the body, they'll find that. As concentration gets refined, and energy is aroused, there are all kinds of things to notice. We are often quite limited by our conceptual models. It seems like the more we're open to, the more we'll see.

-awouldbehipster

Thanks for your response Jackson. I experienced this just the other day. I was visiting my parents and was looking for the trash bags under the sink. I was looking for the orange box that the trash bags come in, but didn't see it. So I asked my mother where the trash bags were. "Under the sink." So I expanded my catalog of what I was looking for and lo and behold there was the roll of trash bags with no box, clear as day, right under my nose. I immediately saw the parallel. We really only do find very specifically what we are looking for. If it's different than we conceptualized, it's not there.

I think it might depend a little on how much a person's chakras are awake at the beginning of their insight practice.
For me, before my more recent intense practice of vipassana, I'd noticed things happening in my crown, at the top of my head, in the center of my forehead, in my throat area, in my navel, groin and bottom of my spine --- off and on for years.

Then when I started doing just strict noting/noticing I'd have varying periods of pretty intense activity in those places, especially crown, middle forehead, and bottom of spine. The middle of my forehead and the top of my head tend to vibrate at least slightly if I just think about those spots -- so they are kind of waking up right now just by writing this post.

I have no idea what all that means and I wonder if in all the recent scientific studies of meditation/awakening, if anyone has done any work on figuring out what chakras really are. Maybe real facts about them have been available for a while and I've just missed it.

I have no idea what all that means and I wonder if in all the recent scientific studies of meditation/awakening, if anyone has done any work on figuring out what chakras really are. Maybe real facts about them have been available for a while and I've just missed it.

-michaelmonson

Motoyama has done some work in this area but I don't believe he has definitively proven according to science what the chakras are. He developed what he calls a chakra machine in the 1980s which detected emitted photons from the chakras. I believe a description of this experiment can be found in Science and the Evolution of Consciousness. Based on the results of experiment as well as his own perception of chakras, Motoyama believes that chakras are centers where energy is transformed among the three bodies. So psi-energy is transformed into more-physical ki-energy at the chakras. He also states that the chakras are where karma is stored and that once one has advanced beyond the 4th (samatha) jnana, one no longer has chakras as one no longer has a body. Motoyama also did some very fascinating research into the psychology of the chakras. He found that there is a relationship between the meridians that are in an abnormal state (i.e. either deficient or in excess) and a person's dominant chakra. In this case, he determined the dominant chakra through clairvoyance and the condition of the meridians through his AMI machine. I was read by the AMI machine a few years back and it determined I was heart-chakra dominant. I had a psychic independently verify this via clairvoyance. Knowing this has been helpful to me.

Whatever their physiological mechanism, chakras and energy movements seem to function more or less as described in the traditions that describe them. I don't know anyone who hasn't had this "kundalini energy" start to wake up spontaneously during meditation practice, even if they weren't interested in it and didn't pay any particular attention to it. It seems to be a natural side effect brought on by the changes to the brain that happen when people meditate for long periods.

I've rarely worked with this energy or the chakras in a very structured way, mostly because I don't have a huge fondness for complicated systems (aka I'm too lazy to be bothered).

It seems to be a natural side effect brought on by the changes to the brain that happen when people meditate for long periods.

-ona

What changes?

I've not read any books about it, but participated in a study where they did MRIs on long-time meditators to map how the blood flow (which relates to electrical activity patterns) changes. It was run by doctors who were originally studying how meditation could help addicts in recovery, so they were studying addicts brains before and after a course of meditation. Later they decided to compare that data with other meditators and when I did it they were focusing on people who were more experienced meditators, to grow their pool of data. I don't think they've published anything yet.

(ETA: thus I presume they are finding something to measure, otherwise why would they bother spending all that time and money on the research)

@Ona: Oh okay. I thought there may be specific changes that you felt were directly related to kundalini awakening and/or movement. I've also come across studies showing that meditator brains potentially differ from non-meditator brains and that the adult brain is much more plastic than previously thought.



As a result of your practice, have you ever experienced what seems to be described as a chakra awakening? There seem to be very specific attributes to the awakening of each chakra, including emotional changes and the appearence of specific siddhis. I read a post Jackson wrote on KFDh last may where he said that the chakras became of much less importance as he moved on from the 2nd Path.

Unless there's a definition of it I'm not aware of I seem to have experienced something like that spontaneously over the course of several years of meditation. Like I said I don't really work with it deliberately very often, nor have I read much about it.

Do you do specific practices for this? How does it feel for you?

(edited for clarity)

I follow the practice Motoyama delineates in Theories of the Chakras: Bridge to Higher Consciousness. These practices are very closely derived from Swami Saraswati's recommended practices in his brand of Kundalini Yoga. Motoyama/Saraswati recommend that the practitioner awaken the ajnacakra first because they say an awakened ajna can counteract any nasty karma that may arise in awakening lower chakras. This is one reason why the ajna is called the "command chakra." The practice for awakening the ajna in Theories is to 1) for 5 - 10 minutes tense and relax the perineum while focusing between the eyebrows; 2) then, tense and relax the perineum in rhythm with the breath for a count of 50 - be mindful of both during this process; and 3) then envision taking in prana at the ajna cakra on the in breath and sending out prana into the universe on the out breath for at least 30 min. I deviate from this prescription by not visualizing. I have tried visualizing before but it heats up my head too much. It also creates tension in my body. I don't know if I try too hard or what. But I feel much more relaxed and comfortable simply placing my attention in between my eyebrows and letting my energy gently rise.

The first two parts of this practice are meant to energize the root chakra which M & S recommend be awakened in consort with the ajna, I think because it is the origin of kundalini.

It feels fine. Sometimes I have a much greater sense of space between my eyebrows then others. I think this is when my concentration is the strongest. I've also had instances where the boundaries on my body tend to blur and it's tough to find any of it. That maybe happens 5% of the time.

I have noticed quite recently that up until now I had a tendency to believe that awakening was something that would be revealed to me, that it was something special beyond me. I got a sense today that awakening is right in front of my face. Before I was turning away from this. In fact, I used to find the 2nd part of this practice "boring." Today, I investigated this feeling and found anxiety underneath it. This is a dimension of practice that is tied into the mindfulness often advocated on this board that was not part of my practice before. I look forward to investigating this further.

My mind tends to run a lot of thoughts. If I try to focus harder on my ajna to minimize wandering and thoughts, the focus is much stronger, but it's too much. My head feels dizzy afterward and its uncomfortable. So I just live with the thoughts and expect them to slowly dissipate over time. But I do think part of the wandering was the expectation that some magical experience was going to happen. Still looking into all this.

“I deviate from this prescription by not visualizing. I have tried visualizing before but it heats up my head too much. It also creates tension in my body. I don't know if I try too hard or what. But I feel much more relaxed and comfortable simply placing my attention in between my eyebrows and letting my energy gently rise.” –Jake Y.



This is good to notice, Jake. Some are more prone to clear visualization than others. There are those whose concentration brings more visual signs, and those whose signs are more tactile. With that in mind, you can always drop in the thought, “sending energy out into the whole universe,” and the feel it happening, rather than trying to see it happening. I wonder if that would add anything beneficial to the practice. If not, forget about it.

“I think this is when my concentration is the strongest. I've also had instances where the boundaries on my body tend to blur and it's tough to find any of it. That maybe happens 5% of the time.” –Jake Y.

Another good observation. Our minds seem to adapt to our habitual baseline mode of experience, and develop a body-schema, which is how we know what is “me” and “mine,” as well as what is not. Strong concentration can lead to absorption of attention, which may cause consciousness to lose track of the body, and thus, the body-schema, which is really quite fluid. This is more good evidence for emptiness of inherent self, since the mind so easily changes what it considers to be “me” or “mine.”

“I have noticed quite recently that up until now I had a tendency to believe that awakening was something that would be revealed to me, that it was something special beyond me. I got a sense today that awakening is right in front of my face. Before I was turning away from this. In fact, I used to find the 2nd part of this practice "boring." Today, I investigated this feeling and found anxiety underneath it. This is a dimension of practice that is tied into the mindfulness often advocated on this board that was not part of my practice before. I look forward to investigating this further.” –Jake Y.

I think I have a sense of what you’re writing about, here – and if so, I know it all too well. Looking into boredom can be quite revealing. It shows us what is unimportant to us, and why. I think it’s an expression of aversion in some ways, in that being bored means you don’t want your experience. It’s also grasping in cognito, for in not wanting your experience, it’s implied that you’re wanting something you think is better.



All of this is worth looking into, though not by just thinking about it. If the feeling of boredom is there, see if you can notice different characteristics of your experience, from different frames of reference, such as: body (tightness, relaxed, warm, cool, present, absent, hard, soft, vivid, dull), thoughts (labeling, evaluating, images), feelings (pleasant, unpleasant, neutral; and/or more complex emotions like anger, sadness, desiring, etc.), and what you’re doing in response (grasping, pushing away, ignoring). All kinds of stuff comes up when I do this, and it’s not the same stuff that comes up when I just think about things. Actually, I wrote a blog post about this a while back, which goes a bit more in-depth on the process: http://dharmarefugees.wordpress.com/2010/12/06/vipassana-meditation-more-than-just-%e2%80%9cnoting%e2%80%9d/

“My mind tends to run a lot of thoughts. If I try to focus harder on my ajna to minimize wandering and thoughts, the focus is much stronger, but it's too much. My head feels dizzy afterward and its uncomfortable. So I just live with the thoughts and expect them to slowly dissipate over time.” –Jake Y.

Focusing too intently on one point restricts and contracts your attention, which can actually make thoughts MORE disturbing to your mental state. It seems paradoxical to some extent, but it’s true. The Buddha is said to have taught the benefits of cultivating a vast, expansive mind. The metaphor used is that of a spoonful of salt in a glass of water, compared to the same amount of salt in a vast river of fresh water. You’ll taste the salt if you drink from the glass, but you probably won’t notice the salt if you drink from the river. Similarly, when the mind is vast, thoughts are noticed less.

Perhaps you could try this (if you want to): after arousing energy at the ajna, to the point where it’s noticeable and pleasant, see if you can relax your attention and allow that sense of pleasurable energy to spread throughout your entire body, from head to toe. Breath the energy in and out of the whole body; feel it moving through every pore of your skin. I’m willing to guess that if you can expand the energy, your attention will expand as well. When this happens, little blips of thought are much less of a disturbance, much like the salt is less noticeable or bothersome in the large, freshwater river.

“But I do think part of the wandering was the expectation that some magical experience was going to happen. Still looking into all this.” –Jake Y.

Yes, keeping the mind focused on some future event distracts you from doing something in the present to feel more happy and free. It’s another paradox, you know? Sometimes we think that if we focus on happiness here-and-now, we’ll be selling ourselves short for some big prize up ahead. But it doesn’t really work that way. Happiness, and realization/awakening/enlightenment/etc., come about when the proper causes are in place. Learning to work with your experience in the here-and-now, to feel happy and peaceful and content, lays the groundwork for future happiness by cultivating the proper causes. So, when you think about it, if you really want a supreme happiness in the future, you have to let go of the future and work with what you have in the now.

Jake, thank you for sharing this with us. I think you’re doing great! Be encouraged!



Keep up the good work.

-Jackson

Jackson, I had not read that post.

This brought a tear to my eye:

"Acceptance is saying, “Yes, this too. This too.” It is diving head first into the experience and allowing it to be, without resistance. As resistance to experience is removed from the equation, one is that much closer to experiencing genuine freedom."

I think that's a really nice article. I sent it to some friends.

Thank you, Ona. That's kind of you to say.

Jackson,

Thanks so much for the input. I don't think I have ever received such detailed feedback on my practice observations. But then again, I never relayed my experiences in such detail to anyone. Another reason why I am thankful for the opportunity to do so on this board.

"With that in mind, you can always drop in the thought, “sending energy out into the whole universe,” and the feel it happening, rather than trying to see it happening." - Jackson



I will try this and see what happens. It's paradoxical that I experience unpleasant sensations when visualization because I am a strongly visual person. So it shouldn't be difficult for me and in fact, daydreaming is very easy. I think there is a tendency for me to try too hard and "perfect" the visualization. Simply "feeling" the visualization is more simple and might add a nice dimension. Robert Bruce in his book Energy Work calls this "tactile imaging" and advocates this over more complex visualization methods. I would certainly like to follow Motoyama's instructions more closely, because he says that visualization practice provides more rapid entry into the astral world (It will not take you beyond the astral world however.).



"Strong concentration can lead to absorption of attention, which may cause consciousness to lose track of the body, and thus, the body-schema, which is really quite fluid."



Something else similar to this experience use to happen to me as a child and sometimes still does today off-the-cushion. I suddently have this sense that everything is very far away. Like if I reach out my hand it seems twice to three times as far away as it normally would seem. If I close my eyes in this state, space around me seems much more expansive. I once told my teacher about this and he said there is an imbalance in my autonomic nervous system. Maybe. I do tend to be nervous and this experience might occur if my parasympathetic nervous system takes control (i.e. I relax). The experience as a child did tend to occur while I was in bed.



"After arousing energy at the ajna, to the point where it’s noticeable and pleasant, see if you can relax your attention and allow that sense of pleasurable energy to spread throughout your entire body, from head to toe. Breath the energy in and out of the whole body; feel it moving through every pore of your skin."



I'll to try this as well. It sounds like it could be very pleasant. One thing I always have to watch is a problem I've had with irregularity. This seems to be my canary in the coal mine. When I was read by Motoyama's AMI, it indicated that my energy was disproportionately distributed to the lower half of my body. This contributed to a depressed state as well as my GI issue. Bringing my energy gently upward by concentrating on the ajna relieves both of these problems; however, if I do something that throws this off balance, like concentrating too hard, visualizing, or as I find now, practicing too much EFT, then my irregularity returns. So I always have to be mindful of this when trying new approaches. Before I knew how to relieve it, this problem caused me great frustration. Now, I consider it a godsend because it keeps me from straying from a otherwise healthy practice.



Thanks again for your feedback. Greatly appreciative.



Jake2

I'm enjoying this discussion. I don't have much experience with these kinds of practices, but the reality/usefulness of chakras became apparent to me some time around 2nd path. I've been interested in exploring this route more since, and spent a couple of weeks with Robert Bruce's New Energy Ways, which was interesting... but not enough to keep it up. I'm going to check out the book you mentioned, Jake.

@nadav: What kind of experiences did/do you have in relation to chakras?

Well, I started to get pressure in the 3rd eye area pretty early on, but I'm not sure that counts. I think what made me think "damn, chakras are real!" was noticing how placing my attention at different spots in the body would color my experience, and that these effects were similar to what other people were reporting.

If I look at my body, there are spots that have more activity. Right now it's the top of the head (roughly in the middle), in the forehead (a little bit inwards), the throat, higher in the chest (heart center), in the middle of the torso (solar plexus), below the belly. The root chakra has been less clear thus far.

My experience of these became clearer with 3rd path, when I suddenly got access to what Kenneth Folk calls the pureland jhanas. Two of them bring out the chakras pretty clearly.

I've noticed some relation between insight stages (nanas) and chakras. For instance, the equanimity nana is usually accompanied by an emphasis on the crown. But, this is more stuff I've figured out later on. When I was initially working my way through these stages, I wasn't aware of any chakra stuff (other than the constant 3rd eye pressure through 2nd path).

After a few days of working through New Energy Ways, my experience of the hara became very concerete and constant. I've also found that "breathing" into each chakra (for me this is basically focusing on them while being aware of the breath), one at a time, makes them more active, leads to absorption, and is pretty damn pleasant. I have very little experience with this though.

Not sure if that ramble was helpful at all. As I said, I've been interested in exploring "energetic" practices for a while now but haven't done anything systematic or consistent yet. However, in regards to your original question, "Are these chakras awakened during these practices?" the answer for me seems to be yes.

@nadav: Very interesting. Can you "see" any of the chakras when you look inward?

No, there isn't really a visual component. I can just feel them. And of course, that could very well be because I'm looking for them.

This is a big topic. Here are some ways I experience "chakras" although I've never set out to do so:

1) just having feelings-- subtle qualities like peace, love etc or coarse qualities like anxiety, numbness, etc-- in the physical locations (belly, solar plexus, chest, throat, head).

2) vividly clear tactile imaging (both components strong) in which the rest of my body seems very translucent, almost transparent, and the chakras and energetic pathways throughout the body are vivid luminous and tactile

3) heavier, almost magnetic sensations at those areas and between them. no imaging, just strong sensations

Basically I don't pay too much attention to any of these manifestations, although they are interesting. The different modes seem to arise during different phases, coming and going, and maybe this is influenced by different modes of practice at different times.

One other thing I've noticed is that prior and after significant shifts in baseline sense of identity, there is generally some "re-wiring" going on. It feels like the energetic body prepares for certain shifts, or adapts to other ones. It's very complex though and I hesitate to speak too much about it since I really don't know what any of it means

I also suspect that, in many ways, this is another incredibly unique thing for every practitioner and whatever universalities may or may not be there are kind of beside the point from a practical standpoint (it doesn't seem necessary to believe in any particular model of the subtle body in order to have experiences along these lines; the multiple different models in different esoteric systems suggests there are many ways to encounter and work with this dimension; and I have no reason to believe that those many models and systems aren't themselves abstractions and generalizations and that there may be quite a broad variety of 'energetic temperaments' which unique individuals have, many of which may not really resonate with any particular traditional model).

...
One other thing I've noticed is that prior and after significant shifts in baseline sense of identity, there is generally some "re-wiring" going on. It feels like the energetic body prepares for certain shifts, or adapts to other ones. It's very complex though and I hesitate to speak too much about it since I really don't know what any of it means
I also suspect that, in many ways, this is another incredibly unique thing for every practitioner and whatever universalities may or may not be there are kind of beside the point from a practical standpoint (it doesn't seem necessary to believe in any particular model of the subtle body in order to have experiences along these lines; the multiple different models in different esoteric systems suggests there are many ways to encounter and work with this dimension; and I have no reason to believe that those many models and systems aren't themselves abstractions and generalizations and that there may be quite a broad variety of 'energetic temperaments' which unique individuals have, many of which may not really resonate with any particular traditional model).


-jake

Your specific experiences of how you feel chakras are not terribly similar to mine (perhaps I've never looked quite so closely at how they feel?), but the above two paragraphs and your point of view resonates absolutely with my perspection and experiences.

From talking to people I gather my specific experiences of pretty much everything are a bit eccentric

But, yeah. It just occurred to me that this sense of re-wiring may well not be what it seems. For instance, it could be going on all the time and just surface in consciousness around these shifts without any causal relation. But then again I've been astounding myself lately at how unnecessary "knowing" and "understanding" are for wisdom/clarity to be present. Things happen. The less "I" try to interfere or manipulate experience, the more intelligence can shine through.