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Makyō, Nimittas and Synesthesia

By Bernie Clark, August 1, 2022

 

“I got the sense of energy flowing through me”; “I noticed colors swirling around me”; “I see a form morphing through colors of blue and green”; “I felt energy, like tingling, at first in my hands but then through my whole body”; “I could sense the person beside me swaying wildly.”

These are just some of the reports I have been given by students after meditation or a yin yoga practice. Sometimes the student is a bit frightened by the experience and at other times they wonder if the experience signifies something important about themselves or their practice. What is going on?

Makyō

Sitting in silence or being still in a yoga posture for a long time, which is a hallmark of the yin yoga style of practice, can still the fluctuations in the mind (as noted in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra1). In the resulting calm, the mind can experience strange and inexplicable sensations. In the Zen tradition, after 3 or 4 days of concentrated practice, such as during a sesshin retreat for example, makyō may arise. Makyō are sensory distortions, fantasies or hallucinations; the word can be translated into “devil’s world”.2

Who wants to inhabit a devil’s world? The name gives you some understanding for the response of Zen teachers to their student’s makyō: “They are not helpful! Please ignore them and return to your practice.” While the appearance of makyō may indicate that progress is being made, because your mind is reaching a calm state, the content of makyō is a distraction to further progress.3 When these illusions arise, the advice is to let them go, do not try to analyse them or wonder about their meanings or portent, but instead return your awareness to your chosen anchor.

Zen master Phillip Kapleau reports that makyō can range from psychological states, like euphoria, resentment, envy, discouragement, depression, and crying, which he says is the most frequent form, to hallucinations, such as seeing faces or animals on the floor or wall in front of you, to losing all visual input completely and seeing nothing.4 Some people hallucinate sounds or tactile sensations, like insects crawling on their skin. Regardless, whatever the illusion, the event is downplayed. The recommendation is to not be distracted by whatever is arising and continue the practice.

Nimittas

In other Buddhist traditions, what the Zen teachers dismiss as makyō, is parsed more carefully. They may be defined as nimittas, which translates as “signs”. These signs can arise as visual, auditory or kinesthetic feelings and when they are experienced as either neutral or positive, they can be signs of progress in the practice. (If they are negative in valence, they are not nimittas.) They only arise when the mind reaches a state of calmness. So, the student is doing something right when nimittas occur. However, Bodhipaksa, a long time Western meditation teacher in the Buddhist tradition, believes that nimittas should not be dwelt upon.5 In his words, “Nimittas are useful, but they don’t mean anything.”6

Bodhipaksa distinguishes nimittas from illusions or hallucinations. Nimittas arise when the mind is calm and the student is no longer distracted by normal, daily thoughts and sensation. Illusions, on the other hand, may arise when the mind is deprived of sensory input. In other words, nimittas are not dreams and do not have the dream-like qualities that some forms of makyō can present. Indeed, in deepening meditation as taught in most Buddhist traditions, the student becomes more and more aware of sensations. The mind is not blank, even though thoughts may be fewer and fewer, but rather the mind is fully awake and aware of experiences. In this deepening inner quiet, the mind is more likely to become aware of subtle sensations that were drowned out during normal daily life. If these sensations become a distraction to the student, then the nimittas are obstacles. However, if the student can simply note the arising of nimittas and continue to deepen her awareness, the nimittas become merely signs along the road.

 

Illusions

Hallucinations are of a different ilk. These are not nimitta and are more like Zen makyō or Vedanta’s Maya.7 When we fall asleep, the mind no longer senses the outer world, but the mind still likes to chatter. Without outside stimuli, the mind creates its own tapestry of images, sounds and feelings: we dream. And these dreams, upon waking and remembering them, seem surreal and rarely make any sense. No one worries that we hallucinate during dreams, but if we start to see and hear things that make no sense while we are awake, that does cause concern. During meditation and even during the stillness of a yoga class, stimulation to the mind is reduced. Indeed, in many yoga practices, pratyahara is suggested, which is a deliberate closing of the sense doors.8 Or maybe we are invited to narrow our focus onto one anchor, such as the breath or a particular sensation. For some students, this reduction in sensory input can result in the mind entering a light dream-state. It is not uncommon in float-tanks, where we deliberately seek a reduction in sensory stimulation, for participants to hallucinate even though they are awake.9 Thus, it is really not surprising that some students report very strange scenes during meditation or even yoga practices. The brain is wired to wander when we reduce sensory stimulation. As some researchers claim, these states of mind are “entirely safe at short duration”.10

 

Synesthesia

There may be yet another reason some students sense weirdness when they climb inside their gold minds.11 Synesthesia is defined as “… a condition in which stimulation of one sensory modality causes unusual experiences in a second, unstimulated modality.”12 In other words, sometimes your wires get crossed and you smell a sight and see a touch. Many people are synesthetes and do not even know it.13 Do sounds have smells? Does time feel solid? Does pain have color?14 If so, you probably are a synesthete! The prevalence of synesthesia is debated: Wikipedia cites frequencies from 1 person in 4 to 1 person in 100,000!15 I personal believe it is fairly common, and it seems logical to assume that many people may be borderline synesthetes. Synesthesia may only become apparent when you slow down, calm the mind and pay attention—conditions that arise during meditation or yoga.

The colors that many students report during meditation or a yin yoga practice may be due to synesthesia, as might the smells, tingling, energy flows, sounds and abstract shapes floating in their visual fields. When the mind quiets, the synesthete may be more likely to detect this cross-talk between their senses. Many of the incidences of makyō and nimittas may also be due to synesthesia.

As meditation teachers suggest, these occurrences are not remarkable, do not indicate any special psychic powers and should be simply noted and passed by. At best they may indicate that your mind has calmed down sufficiently to allow you to notice these incidences of synesthesia. But beyond this indicator that you have become calmer, quieter and still, don’t pay them any mind. Continue with your practice. If that is not possible and these weird scenes inside your gold mine concern you, then do talk to your teacher. If these images and feelings arise at other times outside of your practice, your teacher may suggest professional counselling to help you unwrap the mystery more fully.

 

[1] Yoga citta vritti nirodha” is the second line of Patanjali Yoga Sutra, and can be interpreted in a number of ways. One common interpretation is “yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind.”

[2] Phillip Kapleau, in his work, The Three Pillars of Zen, quotes his teacher, Yashutani Roshi, as defining makyō as “ma” or devil (the figure Mara is often equated with the devil in Buddhism and the Buddha often experienced makyō) and “kyō” which is the objective world. Kapleau warns, “Never be tempted into thinking that these phenomena are real or that the visions themselves have any meanings.” See The Three Pillars of Zen by Phillip Kapleau, Anchor, 1989, pages 45-48.

[3] Phillip Kapleau, in his other major work, Dawn in the West published by Doubleday in 1980, states “makyō usually do not come either when one’s concentration is low or when one is in a samadhi-like state, so they mark a midway point in one’s practice.” Page 97.

[4] Ibid.

[5] To learn more about Bodhipaksa, visit his website.

[6] See “Unusual” meditation experiences, sensory deprivation, and synesthesia by Bodhipaksa, May 2, 2019. Exploration of his website will uncover several articles on this topic.

[7] Maya in Advaita Vedanta is the veils of illusion that prevent us from seeing the reality that all is Brahman. Shankara, a 7th century developer of Vedanta, cited the story of a rope and a snake to illustrate this illusory nature. A man in the evening walks down a path and is frightened to see a snake on the ground before him. However, upon closer examination, he discovers the snake is simply coiled up rope, and he is no longer afraid. Knowledge has set him free from the illusion.

[8] Pratyahara is the fifth limb of the famous 8-limbed Ashtanga as described in the Patanjali Yoga Sutra.

[9] Daniel C, Lovatt A, Mason OJ. Psychotic-like experiences and their cognitive appraisal under short-term sensory deprivation. Front Psychiatry. 2014 Aug 15;5:106. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2014.00106. PMID: 25177302; PMCID: PMC4133754.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Sorry for that horrific pun. As a child of the 60’s, while writing this I couldn’t get the album by the Doors out of my mind: Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine. So many times I listened to those lyrics and I guess they are stuck in my mine.

[12] Hubbard EM, Ramachandran VS. Neurocognitive mechanisms of synesthesia. Neuron. 2005 Nov 3;48(3):509-20. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2005.10.012. PMID: 16269367.

[13] A synesthetes is someone who experiences synesthesia.

[14] My daughter tells me that numbers have colors. If she thinks of a number, it has a particular color. She is a synesthete.

[15] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia