” I have a feeling that your attention is alternating between the breath and thoughts, analysis, and judgment about the meditation process. This may not allow much awareness of anything else. I went through a similar phase in my practice.”

This is pretty spot on. If peripheral awareness fades, it’s usually thoughts that are there, and…[Read more]

In relation to labelling I spend a short amount of time working out if the label is correct eg am I thinking or planning? With see/hear/feel perhaps the labelling is more neutral so we’ll see how that goes. It’s probably another example of my overthinking TMI.

If I don’t renew my intention to keep peripheral awareness ‘bright’ it…[Read more]

@Tjansen I’ll go back and read the relevant sections, thanks.

@BlakeBarton Thanks for your response. At present when I label, it’s ‘thinking, planning or memory’. I’ve been reading about see/hear/feel – could I try that? Sometimes I feel that labelling generates thoughts. I do feel…[Read more]

Based on those descriptions, I’d say most of my meditations are concerned with forgetting rather than distractions. I have on a couple of occasions encountered the subtle distractions you mention, but only rarely. I don’t have a sense of attending to the breath in the background, nor have continious…[Read more]

I appreciate we shouldn’t seek progress but I feel I am permanently stuck
in stages 2 and 3. I have had glimpes at 4 but they
were fleeting. For a lot of my sits I…[Read more]