Frequencies of Feelings

I just finished a short sweeping breath meditation. My focus was on a song I used to listen to as a teenager. I had focused on this song before. In fact, I thought I had swept away all the attachments that I had for the song (and the song had for me). To my surprise, however, the song kept resurfacing in my mind. Things that resurface in your mind are great indicators that there are lots of attachments there.

Deep in the Gut

I couldn't understand it but I could not deny it. The song kept coming back to me. Then tonight, as I did the sweeping breath work with this song, I found it: it was like a whole different frequency of feelings that I had not noticed. Another way to put it is this: I found the feelings in an entirely different part of my body. In this case, I found the feelings in my gut. They were deep, deep feelings in my gut associated with the song.

Not Sad, but Deep

I was quite surprised because they were not feelings I expected in any way. The song in question was quite light and happy, but my feelings were deep - not sad, not heavy, but deep, and they had a lot more strength and attachment than I expected. They were also hard to notice at first. Hard to notice, but once you noticed them, these feelings were impossible to deny or ignore.

Continual Practice

This is quite a bit different from my experiences up to this point with the sweeping breath. It is, in a sense, unfolding just the way I expected it to. What I mean is the sweeping breath is a technique that needs continual practice. With practise the technique grows and evolves and becomes something quite different from what it was at the start. That is why I can clear out feelings and memories now, that were basically un-reachable by me three years ago. That is why this is such a slow technique.

Body Scanning is Useful!

As I explore the memories and feelings, I am becoming aware of the need to do a body scan to look for other areas of my body where the feeling is connected. The different areas are almost like different frequencies of feelings. It is very easy to miss them if you don’t actively scan the body looking for them. The sweeping breath technique is really deep and very interesting.