Breath becoming faint

[charlesanattaMember]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if the breath becoming faint is the shift in perception of the meditation object that occurs around Stage 6. I heard also that it becomes more difficult to tell the in-breath from the out-breath, is this correct? If not, then what does it actually feel like when one has mastered Stage 6 and the meditation object is being perceived differently?

One thing I can say is that I’m finding it very difficult to make progress. When I experience the whole body with the breath I feel as if I’m not doing it properly, most likely because I’m expecting some immediate results from it. This is definitely a true challenge for me, but I’m not gonna give up.

With Metta,

Charles

[B ArnoldMember]

Hey Charles,

I don’t think it is necessarily faintness per se – but rather a less conceptualized experience of the breath, which can manifest perceptually in a variety of different ways.

I have experienced the loss of the in/out breath concepts you described, but it wasn’t because the breath was so subtle that the inhale/exhale couldn’t be distinguished – the breath perceptions are very vivid, but the mental overlay of the in/out concept is just gone. It is kind of bizarre, to say the least. There is just this perception of raw breath sensations in awareness, almost like one impossibly long inhale, or one impossibly long exhale – it could be either. I experienced this much later though – but I’m sure experience varies.

I also perceive the breath as near frigid in temperature frequently, and out-of-whack spatially in terms with where I think my nose is. Also, I frequently perceive a smoky luminosity that seems associated with it. But – I don’t think any of these perceptions are *required* to finish stage six. I believe the text reads that basically there is this tendency for concepts that typically wrap the breath to start stripping away, yielding an altered (more refined?) perception of the breath.

I read this as a gradual process that starts in stage six, but continues throughout subsequent stages. Others may correct me, but if all you notice is increased vividness of physical sensations, then I would guess that is fine for stage six. More important at this stage, it seems to me, is the quality of exclusive focus.

Metta,

Bobby

[charlesanattaMember]

Hey Bobby,

Thanks for the info! It did help me understand things better.

“There is just this perception of raw breath sensations in awareness, almost like one impossibly long inhale, or one impossibly long exhale – it could be either. I experienced this much later though – but I’m sure experience varies.”

Ah yes, I had that same experience recently. To be honest I’ve been trying to get back there, but we all know how helpful craving is… (the very thing we’re trying to eradicate after all). I need to cultivate more dispassion. The funny thing is that the time I got that far in my meditation I sat with no expectations, watching the breath in a more relaxed way than I usually do.

I also perceive the breathing spot becoming cold rather often, and other chilly sensations that manifest throughout the body. Also electricity, heat, etc. I believe these are all signs of piti which has not yet fully matured. They feel pleasant (especially the chilly and electric ones) but are short-lasting. Culadasa rightly says to basically ignore them until one has mastered Stage 6. Only then can they be used to access the pleasure jhanas.

“More important at this stage, it seems to me, is the quality of exclusive focus.”

Yeah, that’s the impression I get as well. By the way, I have one question regarding the method for obtaining that: After experiencing the whole body with the breath and returning the attention to the object of meditation at the nose do you still keep the body and external sounds in peripheral awareness or do you try to become fully absorbed in the breath?

With Metta,

Charles

[B ArnoldMember]

Hey Charles,

In my opinion, body sensations and sounds can still be in peripheral awareness while successfully maintaining exclusive focus. The key is that subtle distractions do not occur, because you have developed sufficient introspective awareness, and can refresh the intention to contact and sustain attention on the breath when needed.

I wouldn’t expect at this point to be able to completely tune out sounds and sensations. That, to me, would be a sign of sense pacification, which though that might start at this point, it certainly isn’t completed yet.

Whole body breath awareness practice does help pacify the discriminating mind, and as a result, thoughts are attenuated and/or relegated to peripheral awareness – the felt sense in my experience is that they are kind of wispy and distant, and often not complete thoughts – as if you are vaguely overhearing a distant but passing conversation.

Since the mind loves to glom onto thoughts and follow them wherever they go, this thinning out of thought is clearly helpful when cultivating exclusive focus. Body sensations and sounds are much less seductive by comparison. It follows then that exclusive focus is even easier when thoughts are entirely absent, with the pacification of the discriminating mind – but I don’t think that occurs until the end of stage seven (I think – don’t have my book in front of me 🙂

Metta,
Bobby

[charlesanattaMember]

Hi again Bobby,

You’re right, and thanks for taking the time to explain it all in such a clear and concise way.

“Whole body breath awareness practice does help pacify the discriminating mind, and as a result, thoughts are attenuated and/or relegated to peripheral awareness – the felt sense in my experience is that they are kind of wispy and distant, and often not complete thoughts – as if you are vaguely overhearing a distant but passing conversation.”

This has been my experience as well whenever I’m actually employing the method properly, that is without trying to rush through the technique (which is a tendency I’m working on correcting).

One very last thing I was wondering: In order to access and keep the whole body jhanas going does one have to maintain the focus on breathing with the whole body instead of placing attention back on the breath at the nose? If you have any advice from personal experience for entering and stabilizing these jhanas that would also help a lot!

With Metta,

Charles

• This reply was modified 7 years, 7 months ago by  charlesanatta.

[B ArnoldMember]

Hey Charles!

> In order to access and keep the whole body jhanas going does one have to maintain the focus on breathing with the whole body instead of placing attention back on the breath at the nose?

Yes, that is my understanding. The jhana is accessed by widening the field of attention (and sustaining it) on breath sensations in the whole body. I have spent some time with this practice, but probably not enough (I am with you on the needing to not rush things!)

The degree of absorption in this practice seems rather subtle, and I have a hard time differentiating it from just really solid access concentration. As the book says, all the factors that are present in access are also present in first whole body jhana, but it has this “flow” or “groove” quality. The thing is, I often feel like I have this “groove” state in access! Perhaps I haven’t tapped into it.

I tried it this morning, and what did surprise me about it was how effective the widened attentional field was at tuning out sounds, even from perpheral awareness. When I noticed this, my attention started to wobble around, as if to sort of scan the field of awareness for activity. Suddenly all kinds of background noise came rushing in – like the volume knob suddenly being cranked up.

I am unsure though how much to gauge the quality of the absorption on auditory noise in peripheral awareness. There was also virtually no discursive thought, but this has become a consistent trait of my daily practice. There was also waves of physical pleasure and a subtle sense of joy regarding the whole process. Is that “the flow” Culadasa is pointing to? I’m not entirely sure.

I will try practicing some more with this technique and get back and compare notes with you!

Metta,
Bobby

[B ArnoldMember]

…and I would just add, Charles: before I went into this state where auditory sounds were absent – I very explicitly set the conscious intention to enter the first whole body jhana. Explicit in that I internally verbalized the intention several times – each time on the inhale, then returned to breath sensations on the exhale. It’s always seemed strange to me that this should work, but it did seem to catalyze a deeper concentrated state.

When I “surfaced”, I just focused again on whole body breath sensations, then declared the intention again, and once again I seemed to go deeper. I’m going to continue to experiment with this process in my sits and I’ll follow-up as I gain more clarity and familiarity with it.

Metta,

Bobby

[charlesanattaMember]

Hey Bobby,

“The jhana is accessed by widening the field of attention (and sustaining it) on breath sensations in the whole body. I have spent some time with this practice, but probably not enough (I am with you on the needing to not rush things!)”

I see, and yeah, we need to remember a wise saying from Ajahn Brahm: “Careful patience is the fastest way!”

“I tried it this morning, and what did surprise me about it was how effective the widened attentional field was at tuning out sounds, even from perpheral awareness. When I noticed this, my attention started to wobble around, as if to sort of scan the field of awareness for activity. Suddenly all kinds of background noise came rushing in – like the volume knob suddenly being cranked up.

I am unsure though how much to gauge the quality of the absorption on auditory noise in peripheral awareness. There was also virtually no discursive thought, but this has become a consistent trait of my daily practice. There was also waves of physical pleasure and a subtle sense of joy regarding the whole process. Is that “the flow” Culadasa is pointing to? I’m not entirely sure.”

That sounds (no pun intended) like a cool experience. The whole joy & pleasure aspect, which I also perceive but only in a subtle way like you describe, has to do with the mind becoming more unified. It does constitute a state of flow as described by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue…) and I do believe Culadasa is talking about the same thing when he mentions that term, because I remember him quoting Csikszentmihalyi’s book when discussing the flow state on some talk he gave.

As for what you say about intention. I’ve heard from Tina Rasmussen, that it can help to internally verbalize your intention firmly, and it is a powerful practice. Here’s an example of this, it happened to me 5 years ago. I wanted to try astral traveling one early morning during the weekend, so I repeated the following intention in my head: “the mind will stay awake while the body falls asleep”. As I was losing consciousness and drifting off I suddenly regained a tiny amount of subtle awareness which seemed totally different from normal waking consciousness, it had a distinctive quality of deep equanimity. I sensed the whole body being paralyzed, then strong vibrations happening and growing in intensity, finally I heard a weirdly distorted (almost muffled) popping sound in my ears, and had the sense of being absorbed inside my own skull. Then absolute blackness and no perception of the body or any of the 5 senses. After a bit I felt my “astral body” separating and had a typical astral travel experience. However what amazed me the most was how powerful intentions can be. I repeated this a number of times but later abandoned the whole astral travel thing because, like Thanissaro Bhikkhu explains, you can actually get stuck there.

I will also start using the technique of verbalizing intention mentally from now on in my meditation. But something tells me it will really play a much more important role when we start to practice the deep jhanas (probably not anytime soon…) Still let me know if you make any progress!

With Metta,

Charles

[Anonymous]

You are getting entirely too WOO-WOO about anapana. What you are supposed to have figured out for yourselves by now is that there are two identifiable sources of breath perceptions. Your subconscious mind has a continuous mental model of the breathing process, which it uses to regulate the body movements required for the numerous phases of continuously operating the breath. When you CONSCIOUSLY sit down and notice your breath, you are feeling the actual physical sensations of air moving across your lip and nostrils. When your breath becomes very quiet and very shallow, you are no longer feeling physical sensations, but rather you are PARTIALLY experiencing the MENTAL model of your breathing. Your locus of attention has moved into the subconscious. What you are then experiencing is not your breath, but the subconscious model of your breath, which puts your locus of attention subject to previously subconscious and unnoticeable mental experiences.

Your ‘thoughts’ at this point are sparse and light. You can notice them arising, and even cancel these thoughts upon noticing them. You have a strong experience of what is ‘object of attention’ versus ‘peripheral consciousness’. Playing extensively in this arena is good practice!

But some mental influences are too strong, and these invade, and then you get strange experiences that are STRICTLY MENTAL. Thannisaro knows nothing about “astral travel”, which is only your subconscious garbage affecting your PROPRIOCEPTION (look it up). Thannisaro categorically criticizes “deep jhanas” which he also knows nothing about, since it is not in the omniscient Pali Canon. Know your sources. Brahmavamso is very misleading unless you are actually practicing his regime.

You are doing great, but knock off the WOO-WOO before you start believing your own ****. It is not what you experience, but how you interpret what you experience. That is why TMI is so monumentally important.

[charlesanattaMember]

Hi Wiley,

Thanks for all the info!

I actually agree with you, astral travel is all strictly mental phenomena. But I’ve heard about the dangers that can come from engaging in said practice, like basically going into a coma… so I believe Thanissaro Bhikkhu is right when he warns people.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu criticizes the deep jhanas, in the same way Ajahn Brahm criticizes lighter jhanas. However, I understand why they interpret things differently. They belong to different orders of the forest tradition and had different teachers. Personally I’ve never found Ajahn Brahm to be misleading, he’s been one of the greatest inspirations in getting me to practice consistently. I can say the same thing about Thanissaro Bhikkhu, just by listening to him expound the Dhamma I often get insights.

At the same time, I’m very glad people like Culadasa and Leigh Brasington are around teaching that all types of jhanic absorption are valid and useful, this happens to be my personal view about the jhanas. Also you’re definitely right, the way Culadasa has formulated the path is monumentally important. He’s truly an exceptional teacher as well, I can sense the compassion he has for his students when I listen to his talks. He’s always so kind and patient with everybody. I bet if all of us follow his example more closely we will start making more progress.

With Metta,

Charles

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