Four Foundations of Mindfulness Contemplative Practice Questions and Answers 12

Question: During meditation, I feel a bloated sensation of gas in my stomach that can neither be expelled nor dissolved. What should I do? 

Answer: Meditation can regulate the body; the garbage, waste, and toxins in the body will be expelled through gas. If you feel the need to pass gas but cannot expel it, that is because there are still blockages in the body—perhaps some dampness is obstructing things. Eat some high-calorie food or drink hot water or ginger water to warm the body and dispel the cold, and the gas will be expelled. 

Question: When I have been sitting in meditation for about forty minutes, both eyes shed tears, flowing all the way to the corners of my mouth. Previously only one eye would shed tears. What should be done about this? 

Answer: The eyes are closely connected to the liver. Tears flowing from the eyes are either a phenomenon of expelling liver disease, or the qi channels pass through the supreme faculty at the back of the head and expel diseases of the eyes. If there is eye discharge, it means liver fire has been expelled. You can apply remedies according to the specific situation, or you can simply ignore it and intensify your sitting meditation, letting the qi channels run naturally to expel all disease obstructions. 

Question: While sitting, the joints where bones connect feel like melting ice, or I feel the melted ice water slowly flowing from one place, and I cannot tell whether it is a cool sensation or something else—it is actually quite comfortable. What is going on? 

Answer: This is the natural reaction of qi and blood passing through the joints to regulate the body. Originally, the joints may have had cold-dampness stagnation or waste blockages. When the qi and blood circulate to those places, they carry away some cold-damp qi and waste, and the joints become unblocked, so you feel more comfortable, while at the same time it is mixed with the discomfort brought by diseased qi. Your body is relatively healthy, and your disease obstructions are not serious; if they were serious, you would feel pain and might even be unable to sit cross-legged.