The Spiritual Roller Coaster: Kundalini and Other Side Effects

This is Chapter 9 of the Kornfield book.

The sections in this chapter are:

(1)  Atitudes Toward Altered States–Certain spiritual paths insist that we need to attain profoundly altered states of consciousness in order to discovery a “transcendent” vision of life, to open beyond our body and mind and realize the divine taste of liberation. [Other schools]’s teachings say that liberation and transcendence must be discovered here and now, for if not here in the present, where else can it be found?  Instead of seeking to transcend, the perspective of the “immanent” school teaches reality, enlightenment, or the divine must shine through every moment or it is not genuine. (p. 120)

(2)  Some Common Altered States–When we begin a spiritual practice, we struggle with the pains of our body and the armoring we have forged for it over the years, we face emotional storms, and we encounter a procession of five common hinderances.  But as we continue spiritual practice, and become more familiar and compassionate with our deepest difficulties, even the most ingrained pattens of holding and fear will gradually lose their power over us.  We develop a spirit of calm and steadiness, whatever our means of practice. (p. 122)

(a)  Raptures–rapture is a broad term used to cover the many kinds of chills, movements, lights, floating, vibrations, delight, and more that open with deep concentration, as well as the enormous pleasure they can bring to meditation.  (p. 122)…Deep concentration can lead to all kinds of visions and visionary experiences.  Floods of memories, images of past lives, scenes of foreign lands, pictures of heavens and hells, the energies of all the great archetypes, can open before our eyes.  (p. 125)…(this has happened to me:  “…we can experience a release of the strongest kinds of emotions, from sorrow and despair to delight and ecstasy.  Meditation may feel like an emotional roller coaster as we allow ourselves to be plunged into unconscious emotions.” p. 126)

(b)  Chakras–This section describes the chakras and the openings of the energy body and the experience as our inner energy tries to move and free itself in the body

(3)  Skillful Means of Working with the Energetic and Emotional Openings–we need a teacher who has personally encountered and understood these dimensions of the psyche

(a)  All Experiences are Side Effects–In the Buddhist tradition, the Buddha often reminded students that the purpose of his teaching was not the accumulation of special good deeds and good karma or rapture or insight or bliss, but only the sure heart’s release–a true liberation of our being in every realm.  This freedom and awakening, and this alone, is the purpose of any genuine spiritual path. (p. 129)

(b)  Finding the Brake—very cool and interesting section!  The most important thing, however, is:  it is necessary to find a guide, someone who has touched their own madness, grief, and loss of boundaries, who can gradually and fearlessly direct us back to the ground of our own true nature.  (p. 132)

(c)  Awareness of the Dance–the practitioner’s primary responsibility is to open to the experience with a full awareness, observing and sensing it as a part of the dance of our human life. (p. 133)

(4)  Meditation:  Reflecting on Your Attitude Toward Altered States

Naming the Demons

This is Chapter 7 of the Kornfield book.

This chapter is broken up into the following outline:

Title: Naming the Demons

(1) How to Begin Naming

(a) Grasping and Wanting/ (i) Naming the Wanting Mind–“Painful desire involves greed, grasping, inadequacy, and longing. Skillful desire is born of this same Will to Do but directed by love, vitality, compassion, creativity, and wisdom.” (Kornfield 88)

(b) Anger/ (i) Naming the Anger–“Its force can grow from annoyance to deep fear, to hatred and rage. It can be experienced toward someone or something that is present with us now or that is far away in time or place. We sometimes experience great anger over past events that are long over and about which we can do nothing. We can even get furious about something that has not happened but that we only imagine might happen.” (Kornfield 89)

“We become angry either when we are hurt and in pain or when we are afraid. Pay attention to your own life and see if this is true. The next time anger and irritation spring up, see if just before they arose you felt fear or hurt. If you pay attention to the fear or pain first, does the anger even appear?” (Kornfield 90)

(c) Fear/ (i) Naming Fear

(d) Boredom/ (i) Naming Boredom–“…busy ourselves constantly in an attempt to escape our loneliness, our emptiness, our boredom. When we are without awareness, it has a great power over us and we can never be at rest…Boredom comes from a lack of attention. With it we also find restlessness, discouragement, and judgment. We get bored because we don’t like what is happening or because we feel empty or lost. In naming it, we can acknowledge boredom and let it be a state to explore.” (Kornfield 92).

(e) Judgment/ (i) Naming Judgment–“To understand the judging mind, we need to touch it with a forgiving heart.” (Kornfield 93).

(f) Sleepiness/ (i) Naming Sleepiness–“This arises as laziness, tiredness, lack of vitality, and fogginess. Our clarity and wakefulness fade when the mind is overcome with sleep, and our life or our meditation become unwieldy and cloudy…We experience laziness or reluctance in the face of difficult tasks.” (Kornfield 94).

“We are rarely lazy–we are simply afraid. The demon of sloth and torpor follows the strategy of the ostrich, thinking, “What I don’t look at won’t hurt me.” When sleepiness arises and our body is not actually tired, it is often a sign of resistance….Many times we will discover an important fear or difficulty just underneath it. States of loneliness, sorrow, emptiness, and loss of control of some aspect of our life are common ones that we fall asleep to avoid. When we recognize this, our whole practice can open up to a new level.” (Kornfield 95).

(g) Restlessness/ (i) Naming Restlessness–“With restlessness, we feel agitation, nervousness, anxiety, and worry.” (Kornfield 96).

(h) Doubt/ (i) Naming Doubt–“All kinds of doubt can assail us; doubts about ourselves and our capacities; doubts about our teachers; doubts about the meditation itself…We might doubt that the path we have chosen is the right path practice for us.” (Kornfield 97).

“Along with naming, doubt can also be dissolved by developing faith.” (Kornfield 98).

(2) Meditations on Making the Demons Part of the Path

(3) Meditation on the Impulses that Move our Life

Grasping and Wanting:

“Grasping and wanting are two names for the most painful aspects of desire.”

“There are beneficial desires such as the desire for the well being of others, the desire for awakening, the creative desires that express the positive aspects of passion and beauty. There are painful aspects of desire–the desires of addiction, greed, blind ambition, or unending inner hunger. Through meditative awareness we can bring an attention that can sort out and know the many forms of desire.

Necessary Healing

This is Chapter 4 of the Kornfield book.  I’m so happy today! I got the A Path with Heart on CD today!  So I’ll now have the opportunity to listen to the readings then browse the chapters for what I want to share here.  

This chapter is on “healing.”  I really think that Kornfield’s notion of healing can be likened to the Christian notion of  forgiveness.  It’s incredible because the Bible post on Wednesday is on forgiveness, and tomorrow’s Saturday post is also on forgiveness.  

On p. 41, Kornfield explains:  “Wise spiritual practice requires that we actively address the pain and conflict of our life in order to come to inner integration and harmony.  Through the guidance of a skillful teacher, meditation can help bring this healing.  Without including the essential step of healing, students will find that they are blocked from deeper levels of meditation or are unable to integrate them into their lives.”

The chapter goes through physical feelings, tightness, contraction, blending it with aversion, action, “I hope this goes away soon,” “Life is always painful,”  to heal we must become aware of all these layers.  This next quote speaks to me because it references diet, which impacts my life in a huge way.

“Brining systematic attention to our body can change our whole relationship to our physical life. We can notice more clearly the rhythms and needs of our bodies. Without mindfully attending to our bodies, we may become so busy in our daily lives that we lose touch with a sense of appropriate diet, movement, and physical enjoyment. Meditation can help us find out in what ways we are neglecting the physical aspects of our lives and what our body asks of us.” (Kornfield 45)

I found a forgiveness quote!

“In truly listening to our most painful songs, we can learn the divine art of forgiveness. While there is a whole systematic practice of forgiveness that can be cultivated, both forgiveness and compassion arise spontaneously with the opening of the heart. Somehow, in feeling our own pain and sorrow, our own ocean of tears, we come to know that ours is a shared pain and that the mystery and beauty and pain of life cannot be separated. This universal pain, too, is part of our connection with one another, and in the face of it we cannot withhold our love any longer.” (Kornfield 47)