[Henk de WitMember]

Hi Alea,

I’m not sure if this can help you but I’ll give it a shot anyway.

My practice is currently at the end of Stage 3 and I have trained my introspective attention to become more continuous by doing the following for quite a number of sits: holding the intention to invoke introspective attention as frequently as possible (for me this was after 3 breaths checking in).
The results have been as follows: my mind automatically labels (and checks in) images, emotions (connected to mental objects), etc. In other words: introspective attention turns slowly but surely into introspective awareness by simply holding the intention to invoke this kind of introspective attention as frequently as possible.

I hope this helps in your practice.

Greetings,

Henk

[Henk de WitMember]

Thank you for that answer, Tod! It’s really appreciated and definitely helpful.
I’ve indeed noticed that since some weeks my attentions is stable longer than before. What I as a result interpret as a sign of progress after months of mind-wandering and forgetting.

Again, thanks very much and good luck with your own practice.

[Henk de WitMember]

Thanks to all of you for your responses. They will definitely be of help to me.

In reply to Judith:
”I can’t tell from what you’ve written so far if this is a simple issue of misunderstanding or if you’re facing obstacles in moving your attention from focusing on sensations of the breath to conscious knowledge of thoughts arising in the mind.”
-I think I’m facing obstacles in moving my attention from e.g. sensations of the breath to conscious knowledge of thoughts.
When meditating I can quite easily switch to sounds/bodily sensations when focusing on the breath but ‘turning my mind inward’ causes my ‘attention’/mind not to know where to actually turn.

”For myself at this stage there was quite a bit of grasping on to getting beyond this stage quickly. I had to relax quite a bit and give up expectations of how fast I might learn and move beyond this stage.”
-I think the same goes for me as my mind is very active (also I have been diagnosed with ADD. Generally I tell myself that it will take as long as it takes and not to rush but rather stick to and follow the clear instructions for this Stage. Although I would like to progress faster I am aware that forcing myself will backfire on me.

”Are you concerned, maybe even worried, that you’re not doing something correctly?”
-Sometimes I’m worried as to how I handle dullness. About a month ago I was struggling with strong dullness and a lot sinking.
Thanks to some help here and re-reading the book I am now better able to keep strong dullness/sinking at bay. However subtle dullness seems to be present for the better part of all my sits. Working with strong intentions is helpful because it seldom occurs that subtle dullness progresses into strong dullness. But at the same time I know that even subtle dullness is not beneficial to one’s practice/progress. What would you make of this situation? It seems to me that I can either be happy that strong dullness rarely arises and just continue with following/connecting/checking-in. Or I can beat myself up endlessly about the fact that I am still struggling with dullness and also that I have a hard time checking-in.

I would like to know how other people on this forum perceive my situation.

Thanks!

[Henk de WitMember]

Thank you all very much for the wonderful advice and suggested links.
Last night I listened to and summarized the audio that is being referred to. It contains some very useful tips on how to deal with dullness. To show my appreciation to all of you, I will include the summary in this post. Please find it below.

• Dullness is when there’s an increase in non-perceiving moments and a decrease in perceiving moments
-A decrease in mental energy is involved too

• It is the intention in one moment of consciousness that influences the quality and the nature of the next moment in consciousness
-What leads to more non-perceiving moments (and thus possibly dullness) is a diminished content of intention within the perceiving moments of consciousness

• Anything that you do to increase the intention moment by moment is going to increase the energy level of the mind
-This results in more perceiving moments and less non-perceiving moments

• Solution to beginning/subtle dullness: when you notice the slightest form of dullness all you have to is to set the intention to perceive with greater clarity and precision (e.g. the breath)
-This will have an energizing effect on the dullness
>One of the other members posted that the way he overcame dullness completely is to recognize it before it becomes too strong to resist it (regardless of the antidote applied)

• Whenever you have dullness it is important to use an antidote that is strong enough to bring you out of it completely, i.e. the dullness does not come back for several minutes
-Mild antidotes:
>set the intention to perceive with more clarity and precision
>take a few deep breaths and breath out slowly with resistance
>expand awareness/ shift focus from meditation object to expanding awareness
>tense all your muscles a couple of times until you start shaking
-Strong antidotes:
>Stand up and meditate while standing
>Go to the sink and pour some cold water over your face

• NEVER SURRENDER TO DULLNESS
-You can train your mind either in of dullness or out of dullness

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