Insight Meditation 13

CAUTION: Development of skill in this technique involves intentionally triggering unpleasant feeling tone, in this way meditation can become very real. Be cautious and only do this with guidance from a skilled teacher and/or appropriate training in softening, samadhi and insight.

The MIDL method of Re-engaging the Diaphragm is a softening skill for interrupting the habitual stress response in order to decondition habitual defensive patterns from the mind. This is part of the MIDL skill of deconditioning.

Once this skill of 'abandoning' through the re-engaging of the diaphragm has been developed, it can be used in seated meditation for calming the meditative hindrances and in daily life as a way of deconditioning harmful habitual patterns of reaction.

Sit comfortably for your meditation.

Step 1: Place fingers just below belly button, on the V shaped abdominal muscle. Press in slightly on this V shaped abdominal muscle to feel the movement.

Step 2: Slowly extend your lower abdominal muscles out-wards to draw breath in through your nose. Slowly lower your lower abdominal muscles back in-wards again to expel the breath out through your nose.

Step 3: Intentionally slow down your out-breath (avoiding strain) to re-engage your diaphragm. Do this for 5 in and out breaths.

Step 4: Remove your fingers, sit back, relax, and observe your mind and body. It takes around 10 seconds to observe the effect.

After breathing as above observe these stages:

• 1: A feeling of mental clarity, spaciousness, mental fogginess fades.

• 2: Next notice how your body relaxes, a feeling of contentment arises.

• 3: Place your awareness between your eyes and notice an overall feeling of mental calmness and how thinking has settled down or may have even stopped.

• 4: Become aware of the small movement of your diaphragm in your lower belly, and how each out-breath naturally calms you. 

Caution: 

Step 5: Now bring up an unpleasant thought or memory, holding the memory gently in your mind. Notice any changes in your belly, chest, throat such as tension, any underlying feeling of unpleasantness or unease.

Step 6: Repeat Steps 1-3 and observe the stages in Step 4.

During this training you will be intentionally triggering a stress reaction by bringing an unpleasant memory to mind. Be curious in regard to the relationship between mental resistance and the stress response.

Take interest in regard to any physical or mental changes that you experience when you are stress breathing such as:

• Mental fogginess, light headedness, difficulty in focusing.
• Physical tension, particularly in shoulders, chest and throat.
• Increased thinking and mental restlessness.
• Tightening and disengagement of diaphragm

Interrupting Worldly & Spiritual Stress Reactions

Stress reactions can be interrupted by learning the skill of re-engaging the diaphragm with 5 slow diaphragm breaths. If you have not learnt this in earlier MIDL training, you need to learn it now in order to decondition all habitual defensive patterns from your mind.

Learning to reengage the diaphragm in respiration is essential as it will increase your sensitivity to the precursors of stress reactions and give you the ability to turn them off by manipulating the respiration aspect of the stress response.

• By placing your fingertips just below your belly button and taking 5 slow diaphragmatic breaths in and out, the experience of anxiousness completely goes away due to the re-engagement of the diaphragm and rebalancing of CO2 levels.

• In some cases, however, due to the severity of the stress reaction, the experience of adrenaline and cortisol may still be felt within your body. If this is the case, it is nothing to be concerned about and it generally takes 30–50 minutes for the adrenaline and cortisol to disperse.

Exercise such as fast walking if in intensive meditation or physical exercise if in daily life will speed up this process. Softening into the dukkha feeling is also beneficial to fulfill the goal of the meditator as this is not based on aversion towards dukkha feeling and instead uses it to develop nibidda (disenchantment) within the mind.

Instructions for Application

**Best way to learn is using the recording.

1. Take your meditation posture.
2. Take some slow diaphragm breathes to soften awareness into your body.
3. Caution: Now bring up an unpleasant thought or memory. Hold the memory gently in your mind.
4. Notice any changes in your belly, chest, throat such as tension.
5. Notice any underlying feeling of unpleasantness or unease.
6. Place fingers just below belly button, on the V shaped abdominal muscle. 
7. Slowly extend your lower abdominal muscles out-wards to draw breath in through your nose.  
8. Slowly lower your lower abdominal muscles back in-wards again to expel the breath out through your nose.
9.  Intentionally slow down your out-breath (avoiding strain) to re-engage your diaphragm. Do this for 5 in and out breaths. 
10. Now remove your fingers, sit back, relax, and observe your mind and body. It takes around 10 seconds to observe the effect.

You are ready to progress to Insight 14: Lengthening Out-breath when:

• You understand the relationship between your diaphragm, its re-engagement, the stress response and the experience of your mind & body.

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer App: Guided Meditation.