[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Michael,

In this practice it is your intention to keep the breath in the center of your attention. It will probably move to something else quite frequently. Your only job is to notice when this happens and redirect your attention back to the breath in a gentle way. Your attention may move to something else hundreds of times during a meditation session, and that is perfectly alright. You don’t have to make a huge effort or struggle to keep the breath in the center. It is a repeated intention to direct the attention where you want it and to sustain it there. With practice it will happen more frequently. If you maintain peripheral awareness while your attention is on the breath, then you will notice when your attention moves, and you can correct it earlier.

I hope this helps,

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher in Training.

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Kurt,

You are welcome. I am glad some of the suggestions have been helpful.

It is helpful to know that expanding your attention to the entire body helps smooth the energy flow. I would recommend working with the Whole Body Jhana described on page 231. Please be aware that it is easy to grasp and try to make the Jhana happen. Let go of that desire as best you are able, and just be with the pleasant sensations in the body.

I hope this is helpful.

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher in Training

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi John,

There is not any specific focus point for the eyes. You should generally look a comfortable distance in front of yourself. In Stage One of walking meditation, You will allow your visual attention to move as it will. Visual objects become just another part of exploring the present moment.

There are other exercises in higher stages where you will investigate visual objects.

If you are practicing in some of the higher stages, I think a soft gaze will be fine.

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher in Training

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Dear Kurt,

At our teacher training class today, we discussed some of your questions with Culadasa and the entire group. There were some good ideas for things that you might want to try. We wanted to reiterate slowing down on your meditation to stabilize your energy and proceeding at a pace that is more comfortable to you. On page 272,311, and 315 in Culadasa’s book he has a discussion on “Distraction Due to Strange Sensations” and “Unusual Sensations”. This may help you understand what is going on.

There is also a good discussion on page 324 called “Getting Stuck” that may help. Related to this you might try some Loving-Kindness meditations discussed in the appendix.

Culadasa said that some of his students have had good luck with Qigong practices that move the energy around the body in a circle. If you can find a qualified Qigong teacher it may help.

On the following site a yoga teacher has much good information about Kundalini and energy movements including advice and practices for dealing with it.

http://www.aypsite.org/

One thing that has helped me is when I start to get the movements is to step back and feel the entire body, and have the intention to notice any sensations that are prior to the movements. I tend to notice subtle energy currents, and this tends to calm the jerky involuntary movements.

Another teacher mentioned being gentle towards yourself, and self love and self compassion. It really helps to accept these strange sensations as best your able. If you fight them it only tends to make them stronger.

A technique called Somatic Experiencing could also be worthwhile if you can find a teacher to work with.

Please let us know how things are going.

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher in Training

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Kurt,

It does appear that we lost some forum messages. I am trying to do some research to see what happened. Did you see my post about ways to slow down the energy and get grounded? If you did, did you try any of the techniques. If not, I will repeat it below.

In my experience the energy movements have never caused harm, although they do produce some rather violent muscle contractions at times. They can be uncomfortable.

I am not sure you are actually entering Jhanas, since you are bouncing out so quickly, but getting absorbed in the piti can lead to the pleasure Jhanas.

Hope this Helps,

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher in Training.

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Original message
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Hi Kurt,

I totally understand the types of energy sensations that you are experiencing. This happens to some people earlier than would be predicted in Culadasa’s book. For example, you may have stability of attention at Stage 3, but you are getting piti and energy sensations that don’t typically occur until Stage 7 or 8. It might help to read these chapters in the book. Culadasa feels that this occurs when the mind is partially unified, but not completely.

I have been working with premature piti throughout most of my meditation practice.

It sounds like you may be experiencing more energy than is comfortable at this time. I would recommend backing off of your practice a bit to stabilize the energy flow. Some people are just more sensitive to meditation than others and may need to build up their time much more slowly. I also recommend engaging in activities that are more grounding like walking in nature, and physical exercise. Yoga and Thai Chi can also help.

Hope this helps,
Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher in Training

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi John,

Are you trying for a very deep level of relaxation during the six point preparation? Twenty five minutes sounds a little long, but if that is what you feel your practice needs at this point then it might be OK. Do you carry a great deal of tension? What is the total length of your sit?

When your attention is not moving freely, what are you aware of? Is your attention staying one one thing the entire time? In my experience, attention will move on its own if that is your intention. If it stays on one thing for seconds or minutes, that is perfectly fine. However, I would be a little surprised if there was not at least some quick movements of attention. Please remember that any time something stands out from peripheral awareness (becomes clear) then attention has moved to it even if it is very brief.

Hope this helps,
Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher in training

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi John,

There is a third way. When you direct your attention to the breath and a thought arises, as soon as you notice that your attention has moved from the breath to the thought, just redirect your attention back to the sensations of the breath with an intention to sustain it there.

At this point you have let go of the thought. You don’t want to try to force it to go away. You simply let it continue to do what it will in the background with your attention directed and sustained on the breath. The attention might move to the thought again in 2 seconds, and you simply redirect it back to the breath. You may end up repeating this same basic process dozens of times during a meditation session.

When you have a thought of annoyance about thinking, that is just another thought. Redirect you attention back to breath.

You are basically ignoring thoughts at this stage. As you continue to ignore them, then they tend to decrease in frequency. But again, we are not trying to make them go away.

If an emotionally charged thought continues to reappear over and over and becomes impossible to ignore, then you may want to switch and make the thought the object of attention. You want to observe the thought without getting lost in the content. For example, does the thought manifest as an image or talk. Is it continuous or discontinuous? Is it interspersed with other thoughts? Does it produce emotions that you can feel in your body? When it dissipates, then redirect your attention back to the breath.

As you progress through the stages you will work on developing introspective awareness which will allow you to be continuously aware of what the mind is doing. This will allow you to be mindful of thoughts. You will also learn how your attention alternates between thoughts and the meditation object.

Good luck with your practice,

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher in Training.

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for sharing the information from Reddit. It is good to hear that The Mind Illuminated is receiving positive publicity on that site. I think word of mouth is very important.

Thanks,
Blake

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Tord,

It sounds like you are experiencing a deep level of samadhi with Shinzen’s technique, and I think you will be able to experience the same deep level using Culadasa’s technique once you master the practices. Going back to your original question, I think your mental skills are developed enough to productively practice the “Do Nothing” practice. If you maintain introspective awareness while doing this practice you should know how much subtle dullness is present.

Gook luck with your practice and thanks for sharing your experiences with us.

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher in Training

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Tord,

I am familiar with Shinzen’s technique, and I have sat three retreats with him. I am curious to learn more about your statement “I am not going so deep into samadhi than what I would practicing Shinzen’s medthod.” What factors are you using to judge the depth of your samadhi? Different practices tend to have different effects on different people, and I agree that that there is a learning curve with any new practice.

Thanks,

Blake – Dharma Treaasure Teacher in Training

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi John,

Peripheral awareness and attention tend to happen simultaneously if your attention is not focused so closely on an object that you lose peripheral awareness. When you have the intention to be in the present you will soon notice that objects (typically sounds or body sensations) tend to stand out from peripheral awareness and become objects of attention.

Think of focused vision (attention) and peripheral vision (peripheral awareness). When we focus our vision on an object we are also aware of things in our peripheral vision. They are not clear, but there is still an awareness that they are there. The same thing happens with all of our other senses. If something moves in peripheral vision, our eye will often focus on it, and it will become the new object of attention.

In step 1 you just have the intention to let attention move freely from one object to another in the present. You do not need to intentional focus attention. Things will just stand out of peripheral awareness and become objects of attention. You don’t need to try to control attention. Attention may stay on an object for 1/4 second or 5 seconds. It doesn’t really matter. It is almost like you are riding the flow of attention as it moves from one thing to another.

In this system when we have thoughts of the past or the future, we do not deliberately focus attention on them. We just ignore them, and gently direct attention back to something in the present moment.

The exception might be an emotionally charged thought that comes up over and over during a meditation that is impossible to ignore. In this case you would turn attention towards that thought or emotion and examine it.

Hope this is helpful,

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher in Training

• This reply was modified 9 years, 4 months ago by  Blake Barton.

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi John,

It is definitely normal not to understand the difference between peripheral awareness and attention at first. It takes practice to learn the difference. You might want to look at the “Stage 3 Questions” topic in this forum. There is a pretty detailed discussion about the differences.

You don’t have to “take in everything at once” in the first step. Your attention will rotate between objects in the present moment. For example, it might go from a sound, to a body sensation to a thought, or it might notice 3 or 4 sounds in a row. Just let attention go where it will as long as it is something in the present moment. If a thought of past or the future comes up, just let it go and intend for attention to notice something in the present moment. It should be a natural easy process.

If you have an intention to maintain peripheral awareness, you will notice other things in the background as your attention focuses on one thing or another in the foreground. The things in the background are typically not very clear.

You are noticing “everything that is going on in your senses”, but just not all at once. Attention will move sequentially.

It is perfectly fine to spend as much time as you need on the preparation. It will tend to shorten over time.

I hope this helps,

Blake – Dharma Treasure teacher in training

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Louis,

Welcome to the forum. Are you counting breaths for the entire meditation period or just until you have successfully counted 10 breaths in a row? Culadasa generally recommends only counting until 10 consecutive breaths have been counted.

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher in Training

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Patrick,

Think of checking in like having a still camera set up at an intersection that takes a picture every 2 or 3 minutes. Sometimes it will capture something of interest, sometimes it will capture something that is not of interest, and sometimes it will capture nothing.

You will have roughly the same experience with checking in with your mind. Sometimes you will notice a recurring gross distraction. Sometimes you will notice a “trivial memory” and sometimes you will not notice much of anything. All of this is OK. As Michael said “Checking-in is the tool to develop the long term goal of developing awareness of everything going on in the mind in the present moment”. It doesn’t really matter what is occurring in the mind during the check in.

I remember discussing this with Culadasa. Sometimes when we turn our attention towards thoughts they immediately stop. He said you are really want to take a snapshot of what had been happening in your mind in the moments just before you check in. They are still in short term memory.

I hope this is helpful.

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher in Training

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Patrick,

It sounds like you are making some progress in understanding the difference between alternating attention and awareness. You state the following: “as soon as I zoom in to confirm my perception, i.e., to pick out the noises from the background, well, then the awareness is gone.” That is actually an insight, because that is exactly one of the purposes of attention. It zooms in and analyzes things in more depth.

Another way of looking at this is to de-focus or soft focus your eyes so you see numerous things at once, but you are not really focused on anything. You are aware of numerous things in your visual field, but none of them are clearly focused. This is an example of awareness, and often our attention will shift to one of the objects and it will come into focus and you can see it clearly.

To answer your question #1. Please remember that the labeling practice is only done when your mind wanders and you forget the breath. So it doesn’t really go on simultaneously with the other practices. The checking in with the mind is only done every six or so breaths (no need to count) and it should only take a moment or two. So most of your time will be spent with your attention on the breath with an intention to also maintain peripheral awareness.

Question #2. The way the breath sensations feel depends on where you watch the breath. When I watch the breath at the nostrils I feel a series on tingling sensations. When I watch the breath at the abdomen I feel sensations that are related to expansion and contraction. Sort of like a balloon being filled and released. Try to let go of any preconceived notion of what the breath should feel like, and examine what you actually feel. Pretend like you are a child feeling the breath for the first time.

The sensations of the breath will probably be mixed in with concepts about the breath. For example, the mind labels one series of sensations as the inhale, and another as the exhale. Inhales and exhales are concepts that the mind places on the sensations associated with breathing. As you progress you start to get more in touch with the sensations without as much conceptual overlay.

Good Luck with your explorations,

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher in Training

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