Stage 6 Questions

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This topic contains 4 replies, has 2 voices, and was last updated by  charlesanatta 7 years, 10 months ago.

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  • #562

    Hi everyone, since this is my first post here, I’d like to start by thanking Culadasa most of all for his contributions to meditation discussion and creating this community. Also I’d like to thank the other teachers and advanced students in the forum for the amazingly detailed explanations they provide. You people are truly awesome!

    I’m currently at stage 6 and I really need help understanding a couple of things:

    1. After having cultivated so much awareness in the previous stage, I’m at a point where my focus is on the breath and I’m both aware of the body (including the flow of energy, etc.) and subtle distractions that never pull me away from the breath or diminish my mindfulness. Is it the goal to basically continue to ignore the subtle distractions and just stay with the breath+body awareness until said distractions disappear? Does one have to cultivate a feeling of relief (like physically smiling) when there are no distractions happening? How does one actually condition the mind to make it so that it stops generating subtle distractions?

    2. A technique that is mentioned at this stage is “experiencing the whole body with the breath”. Is this just what I’m doing currently by focusing on the breath but keeping body awareness? Or is it something like trying to sense the whole body breathing through the pores, etc.? Please include as many details as you can.

    3. It is also said that during this stage the meditation object “becomes relatively non-conceptual”. Please explain this process as much as possible and how it feels.

    4. Lastly, I heard that once a person masters this stage they can practice the Jhanas (as described in the Suttas, not the Visuddhimagga ones). If this is true, then could it be said that Stage 6 (once mastered) is what people who practice the Sutta Jhanas define as Access Concentration?

    That’s all, hopefully someone who has mastered this stage can help me.

    With Metta,

    Charles

    #565

    Michael Dunn
    Member

    Hello Charles,

    Thanks for asking these questions, Stage 6 is an important stage for many reasons; achieving exclusive attention on the meditation object, developing of metacognitive introspective awareness, and from these achievements you will develop the factors for entering the jhanas – directed and sustained attention, unification of the mind, with joy and pleasure – then you can be in a state of Access Concentration.

    I will humbly try to answer your 4 questions below:

    1) Yes, ignoring the subtle distractions at this stage is how you train the conscious mind to not pay attention to them. Subtle distractions are present, and the unconscious sub-minds are projecting these subtle distractions into consciousness, however, through the power of intention that unify the sub-minds, you can train the conscious mind to not pay attention to these subtle distractions, and yes, they will disappear as you progress through this stage. Not forever, you will still have to apply effort so that they don’t return, removing them entirely occurs at a later stage.

    You do not need to positively reinforce the mind with smiling or the like, as you did in previous stages. From what you describe, stay with the practice of experiencing the whole body with the breath, and ignore the subtle distractions. You should see progressively fewer and fewer subtle distractions, and a change in your conscious experience to respond to them. Be sure to keep developing metacognitive introspective awareness in conjunction with this.

    2) The practice of experiencing the whole body with the breath is to engage the mind to find sensations caused by the breath throughout the body, doing so in a very methodical manner by changing the scope of your attention while maintaining exclusive attention. This will help you to ignore the subtle distractions you mention above. You may feel the breath through your pores, but your pores are not the object of the meditation.

    I’d rather not repeat the whole process of this practice here. This and other details can be found in much clearer language in Chapter Six of the book.

    3) The mind creates concepts or labels based on raw sense-percepts and the habit of the mind is to react to these, not the original sense-percepts. For example, I react to the concept of pain in my knee while sitting (discomfort, fear of damaging it etc.), not the raw sense-percept of pain (a unique sensation). The term non-conceptual here refers to the ability, through pacifying the mind at this stage, to have an insight into your mind actually doing this with the meditation object. As a result, your meditation object of the sensation of the breath will not have a label such as “cold/warm” nor on the “arm/ nose”; it will be a raw sensation devoid of such labels, and hence non-conceptual.

    4) Yes, mastery of Stage 6 develops in one the skills to be able to access the jhanas. Culadasa describes some techniques for entering the whole body jhana in Chapter Six, if you are ready to do so. It is great to explore and play with.

    I hope this helps,

    Regards
    Michael

    #566

    Hi Michael,

    Thanks! Your answers did help indeed. Let me see if I understand this correctly:

    Basically by sustaining the focus on the breath (and keeping awareness of the body), the mind gets used to ignoring the subtle distractions and there is no need for any positive reinforcement like in previous stages. I guess the reason is having to smile in stage 6 actually disturbs one’s concentration. Instead one should just plainly ignore the subtle distractions at this point, in order to achieve exclusive attention on the meditation object.

    “The practice of experiencing the whole body with the breath is to engage the mind to find sensations caused by the breath throughout the body, doing so in a very methodical manner by changing the scope of your attention while maintaining exclusive attention.”

    Ah yes, I believe you’re referring to the Body Scan technique? I found that one essential to master the previous stage. I thought it meant something different.

    “The mind creates concepts or labels based on raw sense-percepts and the habit of the mind is to react to these, not the original sense-percepts. For example, I react to the concept of pain in my knee while sitting (discomfort, fear of damaging it etc.), not the raw sense-percept of pain (a unique sensation). The term non-conceptual here refers to the ability, through pacifying the mind at this stage, to have an insight into your mind actually doing this with the meditation object. As a result, your meditation object of the sensation of the breath will not have a label such as “cold/warm” nor on the “arm/ nose”; it will be a raw sensation devoid of such labels, and hence non-conceptual.”

    When I get very focused on the breath, it becomes very faint and like it’s almost about to disappear (I used to think this was actually Access Concentration) but so far I don’t think I ever had the experience you mention. Maybe the breath becomes non-conceptual once all subtle distractions are 100% effectively ignored? If that is the case, would this be the signal then for shifting the focus from the breath to a pleasant sensation in order to enter the Jhanas?

    Thanks again for your time, by the way I don’t have the book since certain imported goods are rather complicated to obtain in my country.

    With Metta,

    Charles

    #571

    Michael Dunn
    Member

    Hello Charles,

    I didn’t realize that you didn’t have Culadasa’s book, so my references to sections of it couldn’t be followed. So here is a more long-winded reply to your initial questions re: stage 6 practices.

    First, to be clear, let’s not confuse 2 practices. There is the practice of “body scanning” which is introduced to increase the power of mindfulness, in Stage 5. Then there is the practice of “experiencing the whole body with the breath” which is introduced to develop exclusive attention, in Stage 6. Your previous question was referencing this latter technique, and as you say here, you used the former for master stage 5. So let’s talk about the stage 6 practice which will help your mind to ignore subtle distractions.

    In summary, first move your attention to the sensations of the breath at the abdomen. While keeping these sensations in peripheral awareness, intentionally shift your attention to a different body part, say your left hand. In this practice you will clearly define the scope of attention, and at this point it is the left hand, and then only the breath sensations in the left hand. Ignore all other sensations – though they will remain in peripheral awareness.

    Next move to any other part of your body, clearly define the scope of attention and intend to focus your attention only on the breath sensations within that scope. Move to larger areas, then alternate with smaller areas, until you have dexterity of moving your scope of attention while exclusively focusing on breath sensations within that defined scope.

    Finally expand the scope of attention to include the whole body, when this happens “you are so fully engaged that there is no attention to spare for distractions” and subtle distractions are temporarily subdued.

    After a while you can then return your attention back to the breath sensations at the nose, and witness if you have increased your exclusive attention to this object. Hold this for as long as you can, then if exclusive attention fades, return to the first steps of this practice and do it again, and again… If you get very good at this, you don’t have to go through the whole body step by step, but can simply return to the place where you had exclusive attention to the whole body. Then back to the area of the nose again and you’ll see you can hold exclusive attention there longer and longer.

    This summarizes the stage 6 practice, and hopefully will help you in becoming an Adept Meditator and the goals of this stage.

    Regards,
    Michael

    #573

    Hi and thanks again, Michael.

    Now I see there are 2 different practices, one for each stage (5 & 6), involving body awareness in Culadasa’s meditation scheme. In the “Body Scan” technique which I use, I only focus on the breath energy sensations 1 part (or 1 section) of the body at a time, this only has the effect of removing dullness for me, subtle distractions still persist. What you’re talking about is definitely something more involved, like a step further, and it only makes sense in order to master this next stage.

    I have faith this is the sort of technique I’ve been lacking in my practice. Something tells me this will be a long process… but without a doubt worth it, that’s for sure.

    With Metta,

    Charles

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