Dharma Treasure Community

Hi! I’m new to this forum and would like see if here’s someone who knows about the problems I’ve been through and going through.

I’ve been ‘following’ my breath (without peripheral awareness) for years on and off but it has only led me to dull states and recently it started to get really heavy and strong. I’ve been able to follow the breath for some periods of time, sometimes 20-40 minutes but this has always led me to dullness which I thought was the beginning of access concentration or something. But recently it became strong dullness after only minutes of following the breath.

Culadasa’s method addresses just this issue and I’m now trying his way. I have already run into some questions though and maybe someone here can clear things up for me?

1. Since following the breath without peripheral awareness for so long that I’ve done this has become a strong habit and I haven’t yet been able to break it. What I’ve done is not going so ‘deep’ as watching the breath at the nostrils but instead just knowing it going in and out at the nose, chest and stomach area’s and then also trying to ‘know/scan’ as much as possible in the peripheral awareness.
Is this ok? Is this something I can do and expect progress or is this not doing anything.

2. In the dharma talk ‘Sit, Breathe, Wake up!’, Culadasa make the example of a flagpole and the clouds in the sky on how to understand attention and awareness which I like as an example. But I would like to know more in detail for someone who start from the absolute beginning of stage 2.
How many percent is my ‘focus’ preferably going to be at the flagpole/attention vs the clouds/peripheral awareness. I don’t ask for an exact number but an approximate. I understand that this may change as you progress but for a absolute beginner of stage 2. Knowing this would help me a lot when I try to adjust my zoom which is all the time it feels like.

I think what I need is ‘reset point settings’ that I can use as a constant reminder after coming back from mind wandering and a ‘check in’ every now and then so that I know I’m doing what I’m supposed to and doing it right.

I’m very cautious of zooming in too much on the breath because of the dullness that can suck me right in to a void where there is almost no awareness or attention so it would be nice to have a ballpark where I can move in confidence where I know that I ain’t doing it too much nor too little.

Grateful for any help!

Thanks