[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Please start with the following exercise. Hold one of your fingers in front of your face, and with your eyes open, put your visual attention on the end of your finger. Hold your visual attention there for 10 seconds. Now recall if you were aware of anything else in your visual field during that 10 seconds? Was it clear or fuzzy?

The same process happens with our other senses. Now rest your attention of the sensations of breath at the nostrils for about 2 or 3 breaths. Afterwards, recall what else you were aware of during that time. Were you aware of any sounds, other body sensations, or thoughts during that time? Were they clear or fuzzy. If something else became clear during that time it probably means that your attention alternated which is natural. If things were sort of fuzzy in the background (like peripheral vision above) then they were in peripheral awareness.

If you did not notice anything other that breath sensations during that time, you were holding your attention too tightly on the breath. Try having the intention to be a little more spacious. Like stepping back a little bit from the breath.

Just as you don’t have to try to notice things in peripheral vision, you don’t have to try to notice other sense impressions in your peripheral awareness. You merely need the intention, and some periodic recollection. If you try to see if you have peripheral vision while your attention is on the breath then this will cause an alternation of attention. This will result in your following statement “when I try the TMI method I end up shifting back and forth between the two until both are lost and I just end up confused on what my goal is”

Another way to thing of it is that your breath will be the center of your attention and everything else will be in the background. If something else moves to the foreground, then that means your attention alternated, and you just gently move it back to the sensations caused by breathing while letting everything else be in the background.

I recommend trying the following guided meditation by Culadasa.

https://soundcloud.com/culadasa/sit-breath-wake-up-2?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Culadasa+%28Culadasa%2C+Dr.+John+Yates%29&utm_content=FeedBurner

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

I think you may be too hard on yourself. Please remember that attention is going to move at this stage in your development. The fact that it doesn’t move for 2-3 breaths makes it pretty stable. You are not trying to avoid movements of attention, you just want to notice them when they happen and gently bring your attention back to the breath.

I recommend that you read the section titled “How Forgetting Happens” in the Stage Three chapter for more information about movements of attention.

You also want to notice boredom when it arises. We are putting our attention on the breath, but our true goal is to study how the mind works.

Blake

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Yes, the three to four sensations will all be in or around the nostrils. As your mind gets sharper you will notice a few different vibratory sensations during the inhale and the same during the exhale. If you try to check to see if you are noticing that many you will move attention and not notice the next sensation. At first you might need to reflect after the breath to recall what you noticed.

Please don’t try too hard to notice more sensations than you can. This will only give you a headache.

Blake

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi B. Lejon,

Please remember that connecting is an optional practice in stage three. You only need it if following gets very easy, and it does not sufficiently engage your mind.

In the case where you don’t notice any pauses, I recommend just comparing in and out breaths, or comparing the current in or out breath to the previous one.

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi B. Lejon,

The subtle sensations that you feel between breaths may not necessarily be caused by the breath. When we rest attention on a body part we often feel sensations there that are not caused by an external stimulus.

If you are noticing the distinctions in the breath sensations throughout the breath cycle, I would say you are doing the practice very well. The purpose of this practice is to keep you fully engaged with the breath sensations. You do not necessarily need to feel no sensation during the pauses.

You want to be interested in what you are actually feeling versus what you think you should be feeling.

Hope this helps,
Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Ollie,

Energy flows (piti) that arise in meditation can sometimes feel quite a bit like anxiety. For example, think about how drinking too much coffee can make you feel jittery or anxious. The piti can sometimes feel like drinking too much coffee. These sensations can carry over into daily life.

Are you experiencing any other sensations or symptoms of piti? You might want to take a look at the Sixth Interlude in the The Mind Illuminated for more information.

You said you have been meditating a lot recently. Have you significantly increased your meditation time or frequency? Sometimes this can cause energy overloads. It might be helpful to scale back your practice time a little bit to see if it makes a difference. You want to find a level of practice that does not cause overwhelm or strong disruptions in your daily life.

Another option is that this is truly anxiety, and it is a result of purification coming up from your unconscious mind. In this case you want to apply mindfulness to the sensations of anxiety and any thoughts that might accompany them.

Please let us know if you have additional questions or issues.

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Micro,

In this practice you generally want to have one object on which you rest attention, and let everything else be in the background. You want to have a clear intention about what your meditation object is. For example, you would either choose the inner sound or the vibratory sensations at the nose. I recommend picking one object at the beginning of your meditation session and sticking with that for the duration of the session. Inner sound is a valid meditation object. If you are focusing on the sensations caused by the breath or inner sound, I recommend letting any visual phenomena be the background of awareness.

Since the sensations at the nose and lip are in such close proximity you may feel both at the same time as a field of sensation, and this is fine. You can have the intention to focus on one or the other in the foreground, but it is OK if you also notice the other one.

I would argue that if you were feeling vibrations at the nostrils or upper lip that this was probably caused by the breath. At first the breath is very conceptual, but as your practice progresses, it becomes the noticing of increasingly subtle vibratory sensations.

It seems that you may have lacked clarity during portions of your retreat. You may be been overemphasizing stabilizing attention at the expense of developing peripheral awareness. I would recommend reading the First Interlude in The Mind Illuminated.

Breath sensations tend to get more subtle as the practice progresses, particularly on retreat. In order to increase your clarity you might try experimenting with the Body Scanning practice presented in Stage Five of The Mind Illuminated.

Please let me know if you have follow-up questions

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Micro,

Can you provide some more information about your practice, so that we can better help you?

What exactly do you mean by the following? “I don’t remember what was my technique – my practice was chaotic”

Are you following the techniques in The Mind Illuminated (TMI). If so, did you work with the breath before you switched to internal sound? What was going on in your meditation practice when you followed the breath?

The general approach in TMI is to focus you attention on one object and let everything else be in the background in your peripheral awareness.

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Alex,

The teacher training classes are typically fixed at 10:00 AM US Arizona time on the weekends. I just checked and this would be 6:00 PM in London. Arizona does not participate in daylight savings time, so 1/2 of the year we are on Pacific standard time, and the other half it’s Mountain standard time.

There are typically more applicants than available slots in the teacher training classes, so meditation and retreat background will be considered in the admission process.

I spoke to with Culadasa this morning and they are planning to roll out an additional teacher training class soon. Please look on DharmaTreasure.org for details.

We are also in the process of creating a new TMI Dedicated Practitioner Program which will be a prerequisite for all future teacher training classes (after the next one). It is expected that this class will be easier to get into than the teacher training program, because it will be open to more participants.

Blake – DT Teacher

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Michael,

Thanks for your clarification. It seems we are using different models of causality and Karma. I have been strongly influenced by Culadasa’s views on Karma, as described in the article above, because they seem to resonate with me.

I don’t believe Culadasa’s model requires any sort of external storage system outside of each individual’s mind, and the physical universe. For example, if we harm someone the person or a friend or relative might seek retribution.

Blake

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Andrew,

Culadasa describes his views on consciousness in the interludes of his book, particularly in the fifth interlude. However, he may not get into the “how and why of phenomenal experiences” that you may be looking for.

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

I spoke with Culadasa about the possibility of a survey, and he thought it was a good idea, but he did not feel that he had time to be involved. Co-authors Matthew and Jeremy were also in the meeting, and had a few concerns. They felt the goals of the survey would need to be very clearly defined. Since people would choose whether or not to participate this could skew the validity of the data.

If someone wants to take the lead on this project, we would help to support it.

Thanks,
Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi Michael,

I do not quite understand the following statement “Causality says that all things are caused and these causes need to be stored somewhere or else everything would all happen simultaneously.”

I could see this being true if you are talking about causality from one life to the next, but if we are talking about causality in this life is a storage system necessary?

The following essay by Culadasa and Matthew might be helpful for this conversation.

https://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/02/karma-its-not-about-what-we-do/

Thanks,
Blake

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hi JimiSommer,

Even though we tend to view ourselves as separate, we are actually part of a vast interconnected system. A good analogy might be waves on the ocean. We think of ourselves as separate “waves”, but in actuality we are part of the same ocean. As you awaken in this life, the system is becoming a little more awakened. There is also the positive benefit that awakened beings can have on others and the system. Just think of the impact the Buddha has had on the world. So the effort is not wasted when “you” die.

Our natural tendency is to want our efforts to benefit this eternal self. This is one way that the idea of reincarnation can solidify the sense of self.

Hope this helps,

Blake – Dharma Treasure Teacher

[Blake BartonKeymaster]

Hello Nelson, Jevan, and Julian,

I should be meeting with Culadasa tomorrow, so I can discuss with him. I am certainly willing to support and participate in developing this survey, but I don’t feel that I have the time to take the lead. I think a project such as this will need one or two leaders who are really committed to the project.

Jevan your background sounds great for this project.

Julian, thanks for sharing the article. I read parts of it and it contains some very good information. I think we would definitely want to include some questions about negative side effects of this practice.

Thanks,
Blake

[Author]

Posts