breath gets cut off durring meditation

[Kubba]

Hello

 

I experienced this cutting off my breath durring meditation a couple of times. These nimittas comes but Usually I freak out cause of the lack of breath. I understand it and that there is no posibbility to die, but when it come to experiencig it I react as if being suffocated and I jump out of it.

 

Anybody any advice to overcome it?

 

I don't have a lot of experiences with meditation, but A lot of times I came to this moment, each time is easier, but this thing bothers me

Edited December 17, 2014 by Kubba

[Chang]

My own experience is that as the meditation becomes deeper so does the breath lessen, finally ceasing completely. This is known as "the breathless state." I have always been completely comfortable with this and it has never been a problem for me.

 

You will probably need to describe the type of meditation you practice so as to receive advice.

[Kubba]

Breath meditation.

 

Watching my breath. First when there is a lot of thinking I just repeat some mantra and after a while stop the mantra and start observing my breath. After a while there is this light and bliss and at the same moment when it comes the breath gets cut off so I panick and look for my breath and that takes me out of meditation.

[Chang]

I am sure that a fellow practitioner of meditating on the breath will be able to offer advice and/or relate their experiences in this practice.

 

In my own meditation the ceasation of breathing is a gradual and pleasant experience which causes no anxiety.

[joeblast]

breath gets cut off? someone sneaking up and putting something around your neck? if not,

 

[ChiDragon]

Hello

 

I experienced this cutting off my breath durring meditation a couple of times. These nimittas comes but Usually I freak out cause of the lack of breath. I understand it and that there is no posibbility to die, but when it come to experiencig it I react as if being suffocated and I jump out of it.

 

Anybody any advice to overcome it?

 

I don't have a lot of experiences with meditation, but A lot of times I came to this moment, each time is easier, but this thing bothers me

 

May I ask how long have you been practicing your meditation....???

How deep is your breath when you inhale during your meditation.....???

[4bsolute]

Hello

 

I experienced this cutting off my breath durring meditation a couple of times. These nimittas comes but Usually I freak out cause of the lack of breath. I understand it and that there is no posibbility to die, but when it come to experiencig it I react as if being suffocated and I jump out of it.

 

Anybody any advice to overcome it?

 

I don't have a lot of experiences with meditation, but A lot of times I came to this moment, each time is easier, but this thing bothers me

 

You say you freak out - who is that you, you speak of? First solve that

[Tibetan_Ice]

First off, congratulations Kubba! Your are entering the realm of nirvikalpa samadhi, the breathless samadhi.

 

I have found that the very bright lights usually appear during a regular breath meditation, consistently after about 45 minutes of breath meditation. The very bright lights, at this point only last for a few minutes. If I include a mantra, such as Buddho matching the in and out breaths, sometimes the lights (nimittas) appear sooner and can last up to ten minutes or more.

Beautiful lights, strange formations, un-worldly colors...

 

During some states of samadhi, I can no longer sense the body so I can't tell if it is breathing or not.

 

However, during a few of my gazing meditations, where I focus on the fresh awareness in the eyes, with fixed eyes, I have

experienced the connection between the active outer breath cutting itself off and the strange sensation of an 'internal' breathing continuing without any volition on my part whatsoever. At first it felt like there was no more connection to the lower abdomen which was doing the breathing. The first time, it freaked me out and blew my meditation.

 

You have to keep doing what you are doing until you are no longer surprised, fearful or swayed. Become so familiar with the process that you can see it through. You are standing on the precipice of a significant milestone on your journey.

 

Good for you!

Edited December 18, 2014 by Tibetan_Ice

[joeblast]

the disambiguation really only starts once your hands are catchers mitts and the diaphragm a giant sheet pulled in a medium breeze. shut those signals off (via habit energy)

[sillybearhappyhoneyeater]

i'm so lazy and don't read all the posts, so sue me.

 

 

Daoists believe that your breath should only be audible at the beginning of practice.

Once you get deeper, the feeling should change.

it ought to start feeling as though it is circulating by itself and that the energy of the body is opening and closing with it.

if your breath is really getting cut off, it might mean that you are breathing incorrectly.

you should make sure to keep your attention on the body and not lose it.

if you practice dantian breathing, you should always move the mind more deeply into the dantian.

if you practice something else, you should make sure never to lose the feeling of being in a body.

if you think the breath is moving in and out too slowly or there is too little, this is an illness of too much yin energy.

it can be resolved by using the "yi" or intention mind to guide the feeling back to the breath.

if the breath becomes too strong, then there is too much yang and you can soften your intention.

 

if you feel like your breathing is stopping, then simply bring the mind back to breathing.

no matter what they say, not breathing is not a sign of successful practice.

 

laozi said 谷神不死，是謂玄牝。玄牝之門，是謂天地根。綿綿若存，用之不勤。

the mountain spirit doesn't die, this is because of the mystery female. the mystery female gate is from where the root of the world comes. continually conserving, its use is not forced.

 

in this case, the mountain can be viewed as something supporting, so the meaning can be read as "the cultivated/supported spirit never dies, this is because of the mystery of the feminine. the mystery of the femine is the gate which is responsible for the root of creation. it naturally conserves itself forever without having to be forced."

 

that is how breathing should work in meditation.

Always recycling itself softly and naturally without stop, but never with the use of strength.

 

hope that helped.

[Kubba]

Okay, it becomes better and better. My control freakness has to do with it and it brings me back to follow my breath, I guess. Thats the main hindrance.

I don't really know how these nimitta intensive should be but first appears after 5 - 10 minutes of meditation. SOmetimes they are so intensive that it is like being taken by it and the strong ones has also blissful feeling.

Once, my eyes start to move like while dreaming.

But durring it I never loose contact wtih hearing or feeling of breath. I'm always aware of body, even if not paying attention. I can only be so deep that I don't really know if I breath in or out and can't really think or being attached to anything, but I hear and there is body there too.

 

I notticed that I can have "small" nimittas durring the day. It is a kind of pleasure to put mind into this state.
I can't think of anything else durring the day, than meditation. It's dangerous

It reminds me of moments when I was a child and sometimes before falling asleep I had these nimittas but they were just sound. I could follow it just doing nothing and it increassed by itself, Once I did not cut it of and follow but then it was moment when I was kind of sucked into it and did not "feel" my senses. I thought I was dying and it was even hard to move my attention to go back int my body. Since that moment I was alwasys afraid of these sound phenomena when falling asleep

Edited December 19, 2014 by Kubba

[Tibetan_Ice]

From Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond -Ajahn Brahm

 

When the nimitta is radiant and stable, then its energy builds up moment by moment. It is like adding peace upon peace upon peace, until the peace becomes huge! As the peace becomes huge, the pītisukha becomes huge, and the nimitta grows in luminosity. If one can maintain the one-pointedness here by keeping ones focus on the very center of the nimitta, the power will reach a critical level. One will feel as if the knower is being drawn into the nimitta, that one is falling into the most glorious bliss. Alternatively, one may feel that the nimitta approaches until it envelops the knower, swallowing one up in cosmic ecstasy. One is entering jhāna.

[Seeker of Wisdom]

... you should make sure never to lose the feeling of being in a body.

if you think the breath is moving in and out too slowly or there is too little, this is an illness of too much yin energy.

it can be resolved by using the "yi" or intention mind to guide the feeling back to the breath.

if the breath becomes too strong, then there is too much yang and you can soften your intention.

 

if you feel like your breathing is stopping, then simply bring the mind back to breathing.

no matter what they say, not breathing is not a sign of successful practice...

You seem to know Taoist practice inside out.

 

But I don't think what you're saying here applies to shamatha practices - I'm not at this level in shamatha yet myself though, so I may well be wrong.

 

My understanding is that the body should be allowed to breath however, including seemingly not breathing at all, and that awareness of the body can be lost in deep concentration, the formless jhanas being the obvious examples.

[Kubba]

First off, congratulations Kubba! Your are entering the realm of nirvikalpa samadhi, the breathless samadhi.

 

I have found that the very bright lights usually appear during a regular breath meditation, consistently after about 45 minutes of breath meditation. The very bright lights, at this point only last for a few minutes. If I include a mantra, such as Buddho matching the in and out breaths, sometimes the lights (nimittas) appear sooner and can last up to ten minutes or more.

Beautiful lights, strange formations, un-worldly colors...

 

During some states of samadhi, I can no longer sense the body so I can't tell if it is breathing or not.

 

 

Do you stop the mantra after lights appear?

 

The more I focus, the more I let go trying to do anything the "bigger" nimitta become, It grows in "stages"

Edited December 20, 2014 by Kubba

[Tibetan_Ice]

Do you stop the mantra after lights appear?

 

The more I focus, the more I let go trying to do anything the "bigger" nimitta become, It grows in "stages"

You don't need the mantra (matched with the breathing) to see the nimittas. However, the mantra makes it easier to stay focused on the breathing and get to a deeper state of calm faster and then the effect lasts longer. It is the state of calm that reveals the nimitta.

 

The instructions that I have found say to ignore the nimitta until it is so bright and round that you can no longer ignore it, then you drop everything else and switch focus to the center of the nimitta. At that point the nimitta looks like moon or a sun but it is so bright it is like looking at a plasma torch.

 

Here is some insight from Shaila Catherine, from her book called Focused and Fearless

 

The deepening of samadhi involves this distinctive shift from the physicality of breath sensations as the object of concentration to what is called the counterpart sign or nimitta. The nimitta often appears as a vibrating pearly bright light resonating with the in- and out-breath, or a soft luminous perception likened to cotton wool.

 

Please dont jump to the conclusion that the first appearance of light in the mind is the nimitta. The mind progressively brightens long before the breath nimitta appears. Many meditators stall their progress by following after false nimittaschanging colors, changing images, flashes, motley fields of light, or visual impressions of light that remove the focus of attention from the breath-point to another location (most commonly above the eyes, or in the head). The breath nimitta usually appears as a stable, smooth, white radiance associated with the focus on the breath. It is a mental reflection of the breath and includes no physical aspect; the light and breath may appear to have merged into a single mental experience of breath. The counterpart sign arises as a result of the concentration and serves as the first landmark of a state conducive to absorption. By learning to notice when this sign arises, you will be able to retrace your steps in the future and attain jhana when desired.

 

Discerning the nimitta is the first step in stabilizing this refined object for concentration. From this point forward, there is no attention to coarse physicality. The term nimitta, or counterpart sign, will refer to the object of breath when the breath is known as a stable, luminous, mental focus without sensation. A skilled meditator should have the capacity to direct the attention at any time either back to the physicality of the sensation of breath or to the mental experience of the counterpart sign. If the meditator decides to remain attentive to physical sensations, rapture will still arise, but it will be known as physical delight. If you accept the subtler luminous mental sign as the object for concentration, this shift to the subtler mental perception will lead to absorption.

 

To attain access to jhana, you would choose the perception of pleasant, radiant light as the new nimitta and allow the attention to remain steadily focused on the luminous perception that is known by directing attention to the upper lip area. But to confirm that you do have the option, it is helpful to sometimes choose the physicality. There is a choice: stay with physical sensations or shift to the counterpart sign. The momentum of samadhi naturally inclines toward the subtler experience of mental brightness, but skillfulness always includes options. Concentration can be very strong. The mind should never be propelled through this system nor sucked into a vortex of concentration. A wise practitioner will moderate the pace, fully developing the meditative skills, before moving to the next stage. By valuing both the release into a profound depth of experience and the insight that arises with dynamic proximity to the senses, you can explore the intertwined trainings of concentration and insightsimultaneously exploring how attention connects with both physical and mental objects of perception.

 

Edited December 20, 2014 by Tibetan_Ice

[Kubba]

You don't need the mantra (matched with the breathing) to see the nimittas. However, the mantra makes it easier to stay focused on the breathing and get to a deeper state of calm faster and then the effect lasts longer. It is the state of calm that reveals the nimitta.

 

The instructions that I have found say to ignore the nimitta until it is so bright and round that you can no longer ignore it, then you drop everything else and switch focus to the center of the nimitta. At that point the nimitta looks like moon or a sun but it is so bright it is like looking at a plasma torch.

 

Here is some insight from Shaila Catherine, from her book called Focused and Fearless

 

Thank you.

 

This is helpfull. Sometimes I follow the wrong ones, and they just last, but don't grow, other lead me to dream like state, and sometimes I did follow other sensations in my head like pulsation between my eyebrows, like she said it this quote.

Today I noticed something new. After about 40 minutes of breath meditation I've started to have strong lights, tried to stabilize them and after a while my body and sense of will become paralyzed. Something like Sleep paralysis. I was aware of everything around but withouth moving or control of my body. There were even fireworks explosions near and it was like nothing. I could not move, and could not have will to move. But it was okay.

 

 

The good nimittas just explode, I'm just not familliar with it yet, and I stop it cause of fear, but each time I go further. Funy thing - when I did not know what good nimita is I had more of them, now, when I know, they are harder to reach

Edited December 20, 2014 by Kubba

[Tibetan_Ice]

Thank you.

 

This is helpfull. Sometimes I follow the wrong ones, and they just last, but don't grow, other lead me to dream like state, and sometimes I did follow other sensations in my head like pulsation between my eyebrows, like she said it this quote.

Today I noticed something new. After about 40 minutes of breath meditation I've started to have strong lights, tried to stabilize them and after a while my body and sense of will become paralyzed. Something like Sleep paralysis. I was aware of everything around but withouth moving or control of my body. There were even fireworks explosions near and it was like nothing. I could not move, and could not have will to move. But it was okay.

 

 

The good nimittas just explode, I'm just not familliar with it yet, and I stop it cause of fear, but each time I go further. Funy thing - when I did not know what good nimita is I had more of them, now, when I know, they are harder to reach

Yes, there is kind of a wave that arises after about 40 or 45 minutes that is easy to sense after having done many meditations. It is the wave which dissociates the physical body from the senses. After the wave comes, it feels like you have lost connection to the physical body, a kind of sleep paralysis if you will.

 

Here is some more about your exploding nimittas or counterpoint signs, from Ajahn Brahm's Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond..

Another type of nimitta is the point nimitta, a simple and powerful light but ever so small, which persists many seconds. This nimitta can be very useful. It shows that one-pointedness is excellent, calm is sufficient, but pīti-sukha is still a bit lacking. All one needs to do is gently look deeper into the point nimitta, letting mindfulness zero in. Then it appears as if ones awareness comes closer to this nimitta and its size starts to increase. As it expands a little, one should keep ones focus on the center, not on the edges or beyond the edges. By maintaining the minds focus sharply on the center of the point nimitta, it increases in power and grows in pīti-sukha. Soon the point nimitta unfolds into the best nimitta of all.

 

The best nimitta, the one most suitable for jhāna, begins by resembling the full moon at midnight in a sky free of clouds. It rises unhurried when the beautiful breath softly disappears. It takes three or four seconds to establish its presence and settle down, remaining still and very beautiful before the minds eye. As it remains without effort it grows brighter, more luminous. Soon it appears brighter than the sun at midday, radiating bliss. It becomes by far the most beautiful thing one has ever seen. Its beauty and power will often feel unbearable. One wonders whether one can take so much bliss of such extreme power. But one can. Theres no limit to the bliss one can feel. Then the nimitta explodes, drowning one in even more bliss, or one dives into the center of the radiating ecstasy. If one remains there, it is jhāna.

 

And yes, when you first learn about theses things, the conceptual mind wants to get into the meditations even more and this hinders the meditations. It wants to analyze, discriminate, assess and evaluate. This of course is a distraction and is interfering with relaxed concentration. The key is to persist, become familiar and keep the assessments of the nimittas to momentary assessments, not allowing the conceptual mind to gain control and proliferate a series of thoughts.

 

Sounds like you are doing very well in your practice

Edited December 20, 2014 by Tibetan_Ice

[Mark Foote]

From my reading of the four principal Nikayas, the cessation of in-breathing and out-breathing associated by Gautama the Buddha with the fourth rupa jhana concerns the cessation of the exercise of volition in the body affecting in-breathing and out-breathing, or the cessation of habitual activity connected with in-breathing and out-breathing, not an actual cessation of the movement of breath.

 

There is a place in the Nikayas where Gautama speaks of actually cutting off his breath, and of an intense pain in his head associated with the experience which he said nevertheless never impinged on his mind; he mentions it among the list of ascetic practices he gave up.

 

There's this:

 

 

“You must strive with all your might to bite through here and cut off conditioned habits of mind. Be like a person who has died the great death: after your breath is cut off, then you come back to life. Only then do you realize that it is as open as empty space. Only then do you reach the point where your feet are walking on the ground of reality.”

(Zen Letters, translated by J.C. and Thomas Cleary, pg 84)

Here's an explanation I gave in my writing "Letting Go in Action: the Practice of Zazen":

Yuanwu made a connection between "biting through here" and the ability to “cut off conditioned habits of mind”, where to “cut off conditioned habits of mind” meant to cease any voluntary activity of thought or direction of the body, just as though one were letting go of life itself. Yuanwu stated that as a matter of course, such a cessation of habitual activity results in a feeling that the activity of breath in the body has been cut off, and causes a person to come to their senses as though returned to life from the dead. Returned to one’s senses, the location of awareness shifts in three-dimensional space without restriction, as in empty space; activity in the body is engendered by virtue of the location of awareness and the nerve impulses generated by ligaments and fascia as they stretch in response to the relaxed necessity of breath, without volition.

A practice that has been very helpful to me in coming to my senses would be:

 

 

"...the placement of the little fingers against the lower abdomen in the posture of (zazen) provides a direct sense of the geometry of support for the lower spine initiated through reciprocal innervation. In particular, ...if the little fingers leave the abdomen, awareness of the forward and backward motion wherever consciousness takes place and relaxation of the activity of the body in awareness can restore the little fingers to the abdomen. Similarly, ...if the elbows lose their angle from the body, awareness of the side-to-side motion wherever consciousness takes place and relaxation of the activity of the body in awareness can restore the angle. Likewise, ...if the shoulders lose their roundedness, awareness of (the rotation) left and right wherever consciousness takes place and relaxation of the activity of the body in awareness can help restore the round to the shoulders."

 

 

That I came up with in 2005, and was the basis for my website "The Mudra of Zen". Still seem to attend to the location of awareness in space from time to time, as necessary to the movement of breath.

Edited December 24, 2014 by Mark Foote