[Blake BartonKeymaster]

When we pay attention to thoughts, they often stop for a while, and this is what you are experiencing when you check in. You actually want to pay attention to a snapshot of what was happening in the mind a few moments before you shifted attention. This information may still be lingering in working memory. If you don’t notice any mental activity or thoughts that is fine. This exercise is designed to train peripheral awareness to notice the activities of your mind.

You might want to try a meditation using thoughts as the object. After your mind settles a bit on the breath, switch to thoughts as your object. Thoughts will appear as either self talk, or images arising on your mental screen. Noting can help with this practice, because thoughts can be so slippery. If self talk arises use the silent mental label ‘hear’ (because you are hearing the thought), and if an image arises use the mental label ‘see’. Let sounds, body sensations etc. be in the background. This exercise will help you get more accustomed to noticing thoughts.

Blake

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Sheldon,

I have quite a bit of experience with rather violent spontaneous movements. I can experience these movements doing any sort of practice, samatha, vipassana, choiceless awareness etc. I feel that this is part of the piti process, and they don’t only arise in samatha practice.

I had a conversation with an advanced teacher who had mastered all the stages of samatha, and did a longer Mahasi style vipassana retreat. He had very strong contractions in his stomach muscles. At first he thought that his mind had gotten very sharp and sensitive and he was interpreting normal sensations this way. After reflection, he decided that it was actually piti.

You might take a look at the following thread for ways to work with these energies and movements. And, there are some other threads as well.
Those blind spots in your face and head could be causing energy blockages.

My current preferred method of working with the movements is to start each sit with about 5 minutes of spinal breathing pranayama (detailed in the post above). While meditating, I maintain a very slight contraction in the perineum area (called Mula Bandha in the yoga tradition). This seems to keep the energy moving up.

This combination seems to stop most of the movements. If I start to feel energy that might turn into spontaneous movements, I might switch my meditation object to be the inner energy body for a while, and then come back to my other practice.

http://dharmatreasurecommunity.org/forums/topic/time-to-switch-to-other-practices

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher

• This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by  Blake Barton.

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Peter,

You say that you enter a state that is “relatively deep in silence, like I fell into a pocket of silence.” This could be a state of dullness. Do you still notice the breath sensations very clearly? How many sensations do you notice on the inhale and exhale. Do you still have clear peripheral awareness? Do you have exclusive attention on the meditation object, for the most part?

Even though we can fall into certain states, we generally want to continue the practices for the stage in which we are practicing. You can just let this silence be in peripheral awareness. This will give you the best chance of developing insight.

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Prashant

In the earlier stages of practice, often, the way you are going to know peripheral awareness is when an object stands out and becomes an object of attention, and this is just fine. As your mind gets sharper and your attention gets more stable, you will start to be conscious of more things through awareness only without your attention actually alternating. In the earlier stages your attention may alternate to something, and you have a realization that it was in peripheral awareness before it became an object of attention. You might also have the experience of redirecting your attention back to your breath and realizing that the previous distraction is still in awareness.

For the second part of your question. Awareness can trigger an action without involving attention. Have you ever knocked something off of a shelf or counter and caught it before you even realized that you knocked it off. Attention would be much too slow to catch it in time.

These topics should become more clear as you progress through the stages, since they will become direct experiences and not just intellectual understanding. The mind model interludes become considerably more detailed as the book progresses, and they are more understandable as your practice progresses.

Blake

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Prashant,

In the moments of consciouness model, presented in the fourth interlude, a moment of consciousness is either a moment of attention or a moment of awareness. These moments of attention and awareness can either be external (extrospective), consisting of sights, sounds, or body sensations, or internal to the mind (introspective) consisting of thoughts or activities of the mind.

When you notice a distraction, that means that you have had at least one moment of attention with that distraction as an object. If you also have introspective awareness, you will have a moment of introspective awareness that knows that your attention moved from the breath to the distraction. Once you know that your attention has shifted, you can direct it back to the meditation object. Please remember that the difference between a subtle distraction and a gross distractions is how many mind moments of attention are directed to the distraction versus how many are directed to the meditation object.

Blake

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Prashant,

If you were to pay visual attention to a certain bird in a tree, the following happens in order for the bird to become an object of attention. The sub-mind that processes visual stimuli notices the bird. This image of the bird then becomes an object of extrospective awareness. It then stands out from extrospective awareness, and becomes an object of attention.

At first you notice activities of mind through checking in with attention. You are showing the sub-minds that activities of the mind are important to notice. After a while you start to have awareness of the activities of the mind while your attention is on the breath. This introspective awareness of the mind allows you to know when attention is starting to move to a distraction.

The following statement is a bit difficult to decipher, because I am not exactly sure if you are using attention in the way it is defined in TMI.

“But, If I also pay attention to the fact that a gross distraction is present, then when the submind sees the gross distraction it will alert my attention to it in the future.”

As you gain more introspective awareness you will become aware of gross distractions sooner, before they lead to forgetting, and you can redirect your attention back to your meditation object.

For your final side note, I would say it like this. The sensory sub-mind projects an object into peripheral awareness. These moments of peripheral awareness carry an intention for the objects to become objects of attention. If the associated intention is strong enough, attention will spontaneously shift to the object.

Blake

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Prashant,

With the checking in process you are using introspective attention to check in on the activities and state of the mind. If we continually pay attention to certain things the sub-minds are more likely to project them into awareness and then into attention in the future. For example, if we continually pay attention to birds the mind system is given the feedback that birds are important, and it makes it more likely that birds will become objects of awareness and then of attention in the future. Please remember that anytime anything stands out from awareness it means that our attention has actually alternated to it.

We use introspective attention to indicate to our sub-minds that knowing the activities and state of our mind is important. As we continue to do this, the activities of mind will be more likely to be projected into awareness. In this case, we call it introspective peripheral awareness. At first, these objects in awareness will probably also become objects of attention. As you progress in your practice they will start to stay in awareness more, and not necessarily become objects of attention.

Yes, I think you could say that strengthening introspective awareness means that you will have more moments of consciousness directed towards introspective awareness.

I hope this helps,

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Richard,

I have done the “settling the mind in its natural state” practice, and I enjoyed working with it. One of the purposes of meditation is to study and understand the nature of mind, and it certainly sounds like you are doing this. I think you are on the right track. Enjoy your explorations.

Blake

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Samuel,

I really am not very familiar with Dzogchen, but are you saying that the goal is not awakening to the true nature of reality?

Blake

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Richard,

I am assuming that you have read the descriptions of the Luminous Jhanas in stage 8 and in the appendix.

I have read Alan’s book, and Culadasa and I both attended a weekend retreat with him a number of years ago. Alan describes samatha as an extremely rare attainment even in long retreat. Culadasa did not feel that this resonated with his own experience and those of his students.

The Mind Illuminated recommends staying with the breath all the way through stage 10, unless you are explicitly working on another practice like the Jhanas. Perhaps Alan’s recommendation to shift to the nimitta earlier in the stages could contribute to the rarity of samatha, but who knows.

I recommend experimenting in various ways with the nimitta to see where it leads. Maybe it will be a way for you to get to Stage 10. It sounds like you are maintaining enough awareness to notice subtle distractions, so that is good.

Please keep us informed.

Blake

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Richard,

Thanks for the follow-up. The fact that you are still experiencing subtle and sometimes gross distractions would make me say that it is not quite the 1st luminous Jhana, because it is characterized by exclusive, single-pointed attention. It is generally a Stage 8 practice. I guess there is the possibility that you are coming out of the jhana for brief periods of time. It depends how often and long you have subtle distractions.

I think you do want to work on scope of attention at least part of the time, so that when you are focused on the breath and your attention starts to shift or merge with the nimitta, that you bring it back to the breath.

I am not sure if you mention this explicitly, but what happens if you come back to the breath after being “absorbed” in the nimitta? Does it help overcome subtle distractions at least for a time?

I recommend appreciating any joy that arises during and after your meditations, which can really improve motivation.

Blake – DT Teacher

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Samuel,

Thanks for the follow up. It may help someone else down the road. I am glad you found a practice that is working for you, and you are welcome for any assistance that we provided. Best of luck.

Blake

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Richard,

My first recommendation for the illumination phenomena would be to just let it be in the background (peripheral awareness) and redirect your attention to the sensations of the breath. Since you said that it only stabilizes occasionally, it is probably not suitable as a meditation object yet. If it gets so persistent that you cannot ignore it, you could try switching over and making the illumination your meditation object, and see what happens.

One skill we are developing is controlling the scope of attention. Generally you want to use your intention to determine this. If breath is your object, you want to redirect to the breath when your scope of attention expands to include the illumination, however the illumination will still be present in peripheral awareness, and your attention will likely alternate to it periodically as a distraction.

However, if the merging is not under your intentional control, then you could use the merged breath and illumination as your object.

The distorted bodily/spatial perceptions are pretty common as your attention stabilizes and your mind unifies. I recommend trying to have equanimity with these sensations, and to generally ignore them. However, they could be an opportunity for insight. It sounds like they may have caused you to see the world a little differently, and this may have been what caused your anxiety.

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Samuel,

The sensations prior to movement can be quite subtle. I usually have to shift my attention away from the breath to a spacious body awareness to feel them. Continuing with the body scanning will give you more sensitivity to subtle sensations. This sounds like this could be a good practice for you.

I concur with Matthew that if I have more spaciousness around the breath the movements are lessened.

Blake

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Samuel,

Thanks for the additional information. Have you noticed any difference in movements between TMI and Dzogchen practice?

One thing that you might try is when you start to have involuntary movements see if you can notice any subtle body sensations prior to the movement. You can switch and make this your object for awhile.

I have found this practice helpful. It seems that if I am aware of these pre-movement sensations the actual movement is less likely to occur. They seem to be energy currents.

Of course, if you do this practice to try to make the movements go away it will probably make them less likely to go away. You want to try to have equanimity and a sense of exploration.

You could also try the body scanning practices introduced in stage 5 to see what effect it has on your practice.

Please keep us informed of what you learn.

Blake – DT Teacher

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