Thinh

One time in my retreat, I was experiencing the pain in my body which come out of nowhere and as I experienced that I'm like the flashlight which I can control. I can widen the light to feel the sensations in my body, or I can focus that light in one spot. Am I experience the true Self?? Thank you

@Martin123 It seems like you've gone through some tough time dealing with emotional challenge (I do read your post about emotional healing), if you don't mind, can you share more about your challenge?

@Martin123 My meditation teacher always said that if you try to awaken your kundalini when your capability is not enough, it would be very dangerous thing. I've seen one in my retreat, who was opened his chakra by another teacher (not by himself) and in the retreat he was like a body with no soul, he just walking around and not talked to anybody.

@Vipassana Exactly what I've learned in my Vipassana retreat. @rorghee I think the breath is one of the important subjects to concentrate on because your breath is the connection between your mind and your body. If you are angry, sad,... your breaths will change and also if your body has problems like if you're sick, your breaths will change. So learn to focus on your breath will not only help with your meditation but also your everyday life.

@d0ornokey I think Leo means delibrately practice. As I notice, when I practice it's not me the body is the one who learns but it's like there a creature (I think it's awareness). It's very hard to describe. And in my opinion it's hard to be conscious of this learning unless you have high consciousness.

I want to introduce a little bit about the place which I went to It’s a Vipassana center in Nam Cat Tien National Park in Vietnam. My teacher was a student of Master Goenka and she has graduated from that system. From what I know, the Vipassana retreat in here is a little different from the one from dharma.org. The different is that in all sessions we have to meditate with others in the big meditation room (I guess this is easy for beginners and people to follow the schedule). The retreat have three parts: 1. 1st part is 3.5 days. In this part we were guided to practice concentration meditation. The subject we use to train our focus is breath and the we have to focus on the nose area to feel the sensation of the air come through your nose. There are many ways to train your concentration but this is the reason why we need to focus on our breath. First, the breath is the one that connect your body and your mind (subconscious mind). For example, if you have emotions rise up (any emotions), your breaths will change (the only thing is that are you concentrate enough to notice this). The more subtle the emotions the more focus you need to notice it through your breaths. Second, when using your breath you are able to sharpen your focus, it’s like you use a lens to focus all of the light into a spot (or a laser beam). Imagine you have a light in you and now you’re learning to control that light, in here you need to focus all of its energy, its light to penetrate yourself to discover the deep of you. As you practice more, you’re able to narrow the area that you can feel the sensation and you’re able to feel the one which is subtle. 2. 2nd part is 5.5 days. In this part we were guided to use what we’ve trained in the 1st part to scan our body for sensations. The reason why we need to use sensations is that they’re expresstions of emotions. There are two ways which you feel a sensations: from outside (when you touch things) and from inside (your emotions). Your sensations is also a connection of your body and your mind (subconscious mind). And because your mind don’t have any form or shape so you need to rely on your body to hack your mind. 3. 3rd part is 1 day (aka Metta Day). In this part, we were guided to express unconditional love to others. This part depends a lot in two parts that we’ve done before. If you do the last two parts right and have as much result as possible, your energetic field will be big, powerful and the practice will be more effective. One of the thing with this practice is that if you do in a group of people, the effect will be big. It’s like in each person, there’s a light, depends on the power of each light the ability to shine will be different. I'll add more about my experience and my insights in the future.

@Joyboy Wow, I'm from Vietnam too, nice to know.

When we feel the contraction is weaker or completely disappear does it mean I have destroyed that seed ?

@Gabriel Antonio It seem very true to me, as I notice and as I observe people I realize that the true master is the one who can bring his mastery into his mundane, day to day life. And I really like this mindset.

@Afonso So you mean thoughts come from resistance (stuck emotions) ?

@Afonso One of the important factor in this is that your quality of your concentration will determine the deep of your awareness of the sensations, the more you concentrate the subtle of the sensations it gets. And one of the thing that make me curious is that if the emotions that is too subtle, that we are not aware of, are they gonna dissolve or they will remain in our body?

Thank you @Afonso a lot. This is basically what you will be doing all the time in a vipassana retreat, I've been in a retreat once and from the time I wake up in the morning till I go to bed, all I have to do is this. This seem easy when you hear about it but when you practice it, it's fucking hard. I have to say it's really really powerful, I've doing it for about 6 months and I've feel small results in myself, imagine how it would be like if I can keep doing it for 5 years @@. Btw, in your model "Energy in Motion => Resistance (Contraction) => Thoughts" I think it is a two way connection <=> because when you have a thought it also generate emotions in you.

Thank you @Gabriel Antonio for your post, really good insights from practicing yoga. And this is my opinion on meditation and yoga: I think yoga is like dynamic form of meditation and meditation is the static form of meditation. It's really interesting. Because there is a strong connection between your body and your mind so when you do yoga or meditation it affects on one side of the equation. The best balance is based on you so only you can know what is good.

@AilinKyung Yeah, he definitely read it, I was blocked once and I had to send him a message in the forum and in the technical report. Then he reopened my account.

I think the only thing you can do is send message to Leo :). I think the system is crazy sometimes and Leo will find way to fix it.