[lemmeflyMember]

Thanks for your answers guys.

In one of the other threads, Blake Barton gave a reply to a slightly different question, which could also be applied here. He said to keep the attention in the same spot and keep looking for even the slightest tingle or movement of air, even if it feels like there is nothing there. I guess I’m just not able yet to detect these really subtle sensations.
Hopefully I will get there just by applying myself diligently and that at some point my attention will also stop wandering to the lips all the time.

Getting rid of abstractions like inbreath, outbreath, pause etc. is something I believe will come by itself once the practice has matured, not something which can be forced, at least not at the stage I’m currently at.

[lemmeflyMember]

@Wiley Fox
That sounds like a good idea, although I won’t be able to do an official “out of house” retreat in the near future due to my work schedule. However, I plan on doing something along the lines of a 10-week meditation challenge, where I try to keep up a good amount of meditation (say 2-3hrs) every day.

I have done a more intensive (basically all-day) home retreat for a week in the past, and I can certainly attest to the incredible fatigue and sleepiness that crept in every day, escpecially in the early afternoon.
I agree that after a nap the mind oftentimes just feels in a somewhat “better” state. For instance, sometimes when I wake up to a song on the radio, the music sounds much more clear and beautiful than usual (even old songs that I’ve known for a long time). That effect never lasts more than a few seconds or minutes though.

@Kurt S
To be honest, I never attributed the tension in the face and eye area to the movement (or blockage) of some spiritual energy. I basically see it as a sign of not being able to really let go, and instead being dragged around way too much by thought. I try to check my face (and also chest area) every couple of minutes during meditation for tension, and basically I am tensed up every single time I look for it.
Usually I will try to relax and let it go, but it’s almost certain to be back again the next time I check a few minutes later.

@Rob LaMorgese
Thanks for the book advice, I will certainly look into it! Posture is another of those areas in meditation where I don’t really feel quite confident. I always have the feeling like my body is a little asymmetric or leaning/twisting a little bit to one side. Also, I have to always hold one of my legs in a slight tension in order to stay somewhat stable not go too far to one side (I usually sit in a cross-legged or half lotus style).

In all honesty, I am pretty convinced that the soft and relaxed approach is the most (and only?) skillful way to go with meditation, but when it comes to “special effects”, so far I had the more interesting experiences using really hard tension. For instance, one time I sat for half an hour basically tensing up all of my muscles (legs, hands, face, eyes..) and really forcing myself not to let go of the breath. That actually seemed to help the mind from wandering, and after about 25 minutes a shift seemed to happen. It was as if the “mind-space” (the felt sense of spaciousness around the center of my head with closed eyes) had gotten a lot bigger and I could really “feel it out” in all directions. It actually felt kind of nice, but getting there was obviously really exhausting and I also had a slight headache afterwards. Using the really soft approach of always trying to relax as much as possible, I never had anything like that happen. I guess as a meditator you can’t help wishing for at least something interesting or extraordinary to happen from time to time, at least thats the case for me.

[lemmeflyMember]

Thanks for your input, guys. It all seems to point in the same direction, namely that the effort should only be in the constant remembering and bringing back of the attention to the meditation object until even that gets sort of automatic.

In the beginning, some kind of physical tension will probably be unavoidable (I’m thinking especially around the face/eye region), but after a while maybe that will fade as well (I’m not that far yet).

I will try to let go of any intentional striving and let go (in the body) as well as I can, let’s just see how that develops 🙂

[lemmeflyMember]

Hi Kurt,
thanks for your reply!

It sounds to me like you are also suggesting a very soft and relaxed approach with just the slightest bit of effort (until even that fades away).
That just makes me wonder why Culadasa chose to explicitly put in the fire as a symbol for effort in the “stages of meditation” images in the book. Is it there just to symbolize the small difference between “little effort” and “no effort at all”?

Of course I could just go experimenting and trying to find out just the right amount of effort/relaxation, but in my experience so far, these kinds of little tweaks don’t necessarily show any clear effect at once, but need weeks or sometimes months to be seen as useful or dead ends. Having to work this out by myself just seems like a frustrating process that could take an unnecessarily long time to find the right calibration.

I guess I will just be going with the more passive and subtle approach and not worry too much about using effort. Intuitively this also feels like the right way to go (for now).

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