Not sure what to "do" after my breath fades away

[Anonymous]

Greetings all! Just looking for a little advice.

When I first started meditating, I learned to follow the breath until I ended my hour-long sessions. I’d just sit, “getting to know” and following the breath.

With more practice, my body would grow very calm and breath would grow very faint toward the end of my hour-long sessions.

With even more practice, my breath would ostensibly “disappear” toward the end. It’d become so subtle I couldn’t notice it anymore.

Now, after only 5 or 10 minutes, this bright light turns on like a flashlight on my face, and after only 10 or 15 minutes of meditation, my breath disappears—it’s so faint it’s imperceptible.

My question is what I’m supposed to be doing after this happens—after my breath “disappears.” If my object of meditation (my breath) leaves me after 10 or 15 minutes, what am I suppose to be focusing on for the remaining 45 or 50 minutes of my session?

I’ve found that if I smile and concentrate on that, I get into this “blissed out” state where I’m basking in warm, intense bright light. Sometimes it’s amazing and feels so good; other times it’s very intense and uncomfortable.

Besides getting “blissed out,” what should I be doing—where should I point the concentration that following the breath left me with?

I’ve also tried focussing on the still, quiet emptiness instead of the bliss. I try being as motionless as humanly possible and start feeling very light-weight. My body then makes weird twitches or I feel a wave-like rhythm emanating out of my chest through my arms. Sometimes I think it’s my heartbeat but the pulsing waves seem too fast for that.

Is this what I should be doing—just trying to be as motionless and mindful as possible, then wait and see what happens next?

Thanks for any advice!

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Chris,

The breath sensations can get more faint during a meditation session. However, in this system, the goal is to continue to observe breath sensations even when they are faint or “non-existent”.

Perhaps you are slipping into subtle dullness which causes you to lose clarity with the breath sensations. Are you doing the “following the breath” practice describe on page 85, and 98 of TMI?

Are you maintaining peripheral awareness while focusing the breath? This can energize the mind?

Have you tried the connecting practice described on page 100?

You could also try the body scanning technique described in stage 5. These are techniques that can sharpen perception. Stage 5 also describes subtle dullness in detail.

If you are following the breath sensations at the nostrils, and you are not feeling anything, then you can try just leaving attention there just seeing what you notice. Some times we have expectations of the way the breath should feel, and when the sensations get more subtle we don’t think we are feeling the breath sensations. If you feel one little tingle or flowing sensation at the nostrils or upper lip you are feeling breath sensations.

The illumination and strange body sensations are signs that your attention is stabilizing. You can read more about this in the sixth interlude of TMI.

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher in Training

[Anonymous]

Thanks for your reply, Blake!

I don’t think I did a good job of describing “losing” my breath. This progression has taken months and I learned to “follow” the breath and sustain exclusive attention long ago. 🙂

It’s more like I’m “seeing through” the breath. After it fades away, I can “find it” if I choose to, but feel more like the breath has done its job and I should move deeper inward. My breath and body have become so calm that it’s like I’m not even in my body anymore. All my senses have grown mute and all that’s left is my mind. My body is far off and distant; paying attention to bodily sensations feels too crude, like a step backward in concentration.

(Mind you, this isn’t my experience every time I sit, but at least how it feels about half the days I sit now.)

I’m thumbing through around Stages 8 and 9 and found relevant info on page 317 and 318+ about the “Still Point.” Think I’ll read these two chapters. I just got the book recently and haven’t started reading it yet.

Thanks again!

[B ArnoldMember]

How stable is the light nimitta? Have you experimented with the luminous jhana exercises in stage 8?

[Anonymous]

The first few times I noticed the light, it’d flicker or flash for a bit and sometimes go away. But I learned that when I ignored it as it grew, it would get brighter. Now, for the last couple months, it’s always there, every time I meditate. If I look at it, it doesn’t flash or flicker or go away—it now stays.

It turns on around 5 or 10 minutes in, like someone turning up a dimmer switch in a pitch dark room. It starts as a diffuse warm orange glow, and by 15 minutes in, it’s at full white brightness everywhere in my closed-eyes field of vision. It stays that way until I open my eyes when I’m done meditating.

Sometime it’s hard to ignore and draws my attention away from the breath. When it does, and I focus on it, I see a deep blue-white (think propane torch flame) blob pulsing at its core, but it moves around and expands and contracts like plasma, while the diffuse white light continues to completely fill in the visual field around the core. When it’s that way, I feel awash in intense, euphoric bliss.

I’ve heard that this may be a doorway into Jhana. I’m glad you asked and mentioned this because now I’m definitely going to check out the “luminous jhana exercises in stage 8”!

[charlesanattaMember]

Hey Chris,

To me it sounds like you’re making progress! I have a couple of questions, if you don’t mind…

For how many months have you been meditating daily? How long each session? Have you done any intensive retreat practice? What sort of mindfulness technique you employ off the cushion throughout the day?

With Metta,

Charles

[Anonymous]

Thanks! All it takes is just one monkey-mind sit to feel like we’ve gotten nowhere though! Haha! 🙂

I picked up meditating starting in May with <= 5 minutes, two or three times a day. By the end of May, I was able to do 20 or 25 minutes a couple times a day, usually. By the end of June, I was able to do 30 – 45 minutes per sit, usually twice each day, with an occasional one-hour sit once or twice a week on a good day. The last month I’ve been doing 45 minute – 1 hr 15 min sits, two times a day. (These are approximations though; I haven’t imposed any strict schedule or rules.)

According to my Insight Timer meditation-logging app, the first time I experienced the radiating light phenomena (the first signs of nimitta?) was after I had accumulated 30 hours of practice. Right now I’m approaching 100 hours of total practice.

My first retreat will be in Nov., for four days. I also signed up for a free 10-day Goenka Vipassana retreat in Jan. but not sure I’m ready for that intensity yet (10 hours a day of sitting meditation), so having second thoughts.

From my limited experience, keeping continuity of mindfulness throughout the day is more important than the length of time one sits. In other words, if someone can’t meditate for very long, I’d tell them to just do whatever that length of time is, but do it as frequently as possible—multiple times a day.

Besides that (more frequency), what has helped me keep this continuity/momentum going has been to: 1) turn off the radio in the car and watch my breath instead; 2) spend a minute or two a couple times a day putting attention on the breath while I’m at my office desk; 3) watch my breath any time I’m sitting or waiting for prolonged periods of time (e.g. a work meeting, watching a movie). When I say “watch my breath,” I’m talking about keeping it in my field of awareness.

Lastly, I found “labeling” super helpful for being mindful. Anytime I’m on a thought train while doing anything, and suddenly realize it, I label what my mind was doing. Like I’ll suddenly realize I’m thinking about something in the past and say “remembering” in my mind, and the thoughts cease to return. Or I’ll realize I’m planning or strategizing something, and think “imagining,” which puts the thoughts to bed. I label what my mind was doing, and this helps me remember that I was “unconscious” or “asleep,” so to speak.

Your mileage may vary! I’m trying to glue this whole meditation and mindfulness thing together by taking scraps (suggestions) out of all these different sources I run across. Really hoping now that I have TMI, I’ll really have a better idea of how this all works. Just trying to figure out whether to jump around the book or read from the start. We’ll see.

Cheers!

[charlesanattaMember]

Thanks for the detailed response!

Funny thing is I also started meditating daily in May as well. I quit listening to music, watching movies, etc. and started trying to cultivate as much mindfulness as possible. I keep my breath in the field of awareness all day, because it helps me to stay present and also to strengthen peripheral awareness.

If I were you I’d start practicing the pleasure jhanas in one of your daily sessions. They will help you make further progress by stabilizing your effortlessness, which will aid in gaining mastery of stage 7.

Also I definitely suggest you make it a priority of reading the whole book (TMI). You will save yourself a lot of trouble if you follow Culadasa’s advice. I made some mistakes early on which slowed my progress, such as cultivating concentration with dullness. At this point I’m trying to overcome some restlessness (not mind-wandering btw, just bodily anxiety) which comes about as a result of striving too hard and generating too much energy when meditating. Basically just dealing with stage 6 and finding one-pointedness very difficult and stressful to sustain. But here’s one thing I read the other day by Culadasa which gave me hope:

“When one first achieves one-pointedness, it requires constant effort and vigilance to maintain, and is easily lost. In my case there was a long and tedious period of practice at this level.”

So yeah, he had to go through the same ordeal…

You seem to be doing great so just keep at it! Best wishes for your practice!

With Metta,

Charles

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