VAJRA BROTHERS AND SISTERS HAVE A SAY

By Ven. Paula Chichester, who has spent most of the past 18 years doing various retreats, including a four-year Great Retreat, wrote this advice for the 100 people who participated in the three-month Vajrasattva retreat at Land of Medicine Buddha, Soquel, California, February-April.

The condition of lung – pronounced loong, and which is Tibetan and means wind or air – refers to a particular type of stress on the nervous system that comes from meditating too intensively, thereby causing an imbalance in the subtle winds (according to the tantric explanations, the mind rides on the winds). Lung can also be translated as prana or chi. I know people who have given up on retreats because their experience with lung was so unpleasant they never wanted to try again. I’d like to offer a little knowledge I have learned over the last 18 years that may spare people this malady so that they will have a blissful retreat. I am definitely no expert meditator, but I have had a lot of experience with lung!

For me, lung comes from trying too hard. The kind of mental attention that produced good results on exams in school is what leads to lung. People who aren’t meditators also get lung, and it comes from intensive mental concentration. Concentrating too hard, wanting to get the visualization perfectly correct, keeping the mind on the mantra as hard as you can for as long as you can, all lead to lung. In the beginning of the retreat you think you are doing great, but soon, with this type of practice, to even think at all hurts your head. Saying the mantra too fast is another sure way to get lung. You don’t notice at first, but after a week or so, to say the mantra gives you an intense pain in your chest.

So what are the symptoms of lung? They can be one, a few or all of these: extreme sensitivity, crying at the slightest provocation, irritability, pain in the heart, pain in the head, backache, hair-trigger anger, intense mental scattering, negative mind towards the practice or the teacher or the Dharma, negative mind towards anything, insomnia, nervousness, jumpy mind.

So how do you avoid getting lung? It’s pretty difficult not to get a little lung when you are working with visualizations and mantras, because a beginner doesn’t really know what is concentrating too hard or saying the mantra too fast. You just have to experiment. But general guidelines are: never say the mantra as fast as you can, and never hold the visualization as clear as you can for very long.

Lama Yeshe told us at the Six Yogas of Naropa course at Vajrapani Institute in California in 1983, “Visualization is like this: if you close your eyes you know that the person next to you is there, you don’t have to reach out and touch her.” Also, Lama Tsongkhapa says that just to get a blurry sensation that the deity is there is good enough. Just know the visualization is there. Also, in the beginning, the main practice is divine pride – just know you are emptiness manifesting as the deity. Feeling it is good enough.

Keep your mind very relaxed, open and spacious, and recite the mantra and visualize in that space. Never get too focused on one thing, remember the spaciousness of your being all the time; remember the hollow body radiating crystal light – that is the deity. Concentrate within that context. Relax and relax some more. Go slow in the beginning and the mantra will begin to go faster by itself.

Study the calm abiding section of the lam-rim and watch in your meditations how you are applying remembrance or mindfulness (how you hold the object of meditation), and awareness or vigilance (the part of your mind that is always checking to see if you are still holding the object). Lung often arises from forcing the mindfulness or holding the object too tightly. Being too vigilant also causes lung. You have to find a balance between too loose (which makes you go to sleep), and too tight (which gives you lung). Don’t push and you won’t get lung! Samatha Meditation by Gen Lamrimpa is a very helpful, user-friendly book on meditation.

In find it helpful to practice concentration in short sessions. Every ten minutes or fifteen minutes of the hour, let go of your concentration or your attempts at concentration and just let your mind go for two or five minutes, still staying the mantra, but letting go of your mind. Then visualize again and you won’t get so tired.

Some sessions you just can’t concentrate al all (usually after you’ve had a good session), so just relax and do tong-len (the practice of giving away all your happiness and taking on the suffering of another) – think you are taking on everyone else’s lack of attention and be patient with yourself.

Anyway, if you motivate very strongly at the beginning and dedicate very strongly at the end, and do your best, that is definitely good enough! It has to be! Lama Yeshe used to always say, “Be easy-going. Take care of your body. Don’t put yourself in the concentration camp mind, dear!”

So knowing you are bound to get a little lung anyway, what can you do to alleviate it? The main thing I know to do is chi-gong. If you do chi-gong exercises everyday, you probably won’t get lung. The main focus is to move the chi around your body, especially your hips and back. Even if lung is not a concern, chi-gong will keep the chi flowing freely in you body so you’ll have no backaches or sore knees. Chi-going really helps the bliss flow in the body/mind. The exercises called the Five Tibetans (found in Peter Kelder’s book The Fountain of Youth) are also great for retreat.

Go for walks, if that makes you happy; get some long view, play a little, don’t read a lot in the breaks, don’t eat sweets very much. Don’t talk a lot. If you do get lung, eating meat is very helpful. Lung means air, remember, so meat is very grounding. Sugars can be very airy so they tend to promote lung. Other good foods for lung are whole grains, enough protein, yams (very good for the spleen, which is weakened by thinking too intensively or eating sweets), toast with butter and honey and nutmeg, peanut butter, and butter. Singing cures my lung!

The main thing is to enjoy yourself in retreat. Make it fun. Don’t push yourself; find something enjoyable to do in the breaks. Rest if you need to. One great yogi said that on retreat, you should treat yourself like you are convalescing from a long sickness, that is, take it easy, do little activity other than retreat. Keep yourself inspired however you can. Keep the three principles of the path (seeking to end your endless cycling in samsara, attaining enlightenment for all sentient beings, and recognizing the emptiness of all phenomena, particularly the self) in your heart and mind as much as you can. And then, when lung comes, just rejoice that you can endure the hardships to purify your karmas so you can become enlightened for everyone.