[SanjeevMember]

I am not able to post on the forum. So, I am posting my question here:
I am wondering about the use of continuous noting within the TMI system. I understand the efficacy of labelling the mind wandering and returning attention back to breath as per TMI instructions. But, I wonder why we are not doing checking in and labelling continuously at stage 3 and in the higher stages as well? This is how a vipashyana practice would progress, I think. I suppose the continuous introspective awareness in stage 4 will make this unnecessary in TMI approach. But, I wonder why I am not constantly labelling a gross distraction in stage 4? Also, why I am not doing mindfulness of emotions, thoughts etc. at this stage. Where these wonderful practices enter in TMI scheme?

[SanjeevMember]

Dear Ted Lemon,

Thanks for the reply.

“Beware of confusing gross distraction with forgetting.” I learned this difference in a hard way and now I enjoy the transition from forgetting (stage 3) to gross distractions (stage 4) [Earlier, I was mistakingly writing stage 3 when I meant stage 4. I edited my question to correct this.]

I cannot have such a clarity between gross distractions (stage 4) and subtle distractions (stage 6). Hence, the question.

What I learned from your answer is the following:
1. My problem is not dealing with subtle distractions yet. I need to work with subtle dullness first.
2. The distinction between gross and subtle distractions is not master at stage 6. It needs to be mastered at stage 4 where you prevent potential subtle distractions from growing into gross distractions.

Your lesson is well taken:

“The inflection point is identifying (automatically, not with attention) when a subtle distraction has the potential to become a gross distraction, and renewing the intention to stay on the breath. If this isn’t happening automatically, then just enjoy practicing with it for a while until it becomes more automatic, and then go back to stage five practices and see if things have changed.”

So, with the new light you threw into the situation, let me rephrase my question: How do you detect the inflection point when a subtle distraction becomes a gross distraction? Is it timing (a distraction longer than on breath) or is it content of distraction (as T Sparby pointed out in his reply)? This is the point where I am confused.

(Let me clarify that I am mostly doing the stage 5 practice. But often, I go back to stages 4 and experience gross distractions and strong dullness. I never ever have master stage 5: there are just a few minutes doing the stage 5 practice when the mindfulness is strong and subtle dullness is overcome. Sometimes, I feel the actual discrete physical sensations instead of mental generalisations like in-breath and out-breath. I can feel the breath in my hands in those moments and I also feel sensations of small/pleasant energy currents in my head. So, I level these moments as crossing stage 5 momentarily and getting a glimpse of stage 6. That’s the peak I can touch till now in my meditation.)

• This reply was modified 7 years, 6 months ago by  Sanjeev.

[SanjeevMember]

Now, I can reach stage 4 and 5 with both breath and mantra as meditation object. Yet, when I work with distractions, gross or subtle, I feel that breath is a better option because I can apply following and connecting to it. Can’ anyone using chanting a mantra as meditation object point various ways how can I use the techniques of following and connecting to mantra as the meditation object?

[SanjeevMember]

Dear Blake,
Thanks for reminding the subtle difference between peripheral awareness and alternating attention to distractions. I will read the interlude again.

[SanjeevMember]

Dear Blake,
I read this link as well as other posts by Upasana Culadasa. They cleared many confusions. I am wondering what I am calling peripheral awareness might be just alternating attention on most of the occasions.

As I am writing this mail, I am peripherally aware of the ambient sounds in the background and my bodily sensations as well. Same thing happens during many other works and in meditation. When this doesn’t happen, when I am holding attention without peripheral awareness, I feel irritated at every distraction and get tossed away. This happens for tasks demanding too much attention like solving a complicated problem. Then, I loose all peripheral awareness.

Is this description correct. Or, I am misidentifying alternating attention as peripheral awareness?

[SanjeevMember]

Yes, we can have selective auditory attention and it improves if a same sound is selected again and again. This is what science says, “when attention is sustained on one auditory object within a complex scene, attentional selectivity improves over time”. Thanks.

[SanjeevMember]

Thanks for sharing. I cannot say that I can make a distinction between a sound in foreground and other sounds in background as for as listening sensation is considered. Both sounds appear at the same place. Unlike the breath felt at nose and other sensations felt in rest of the body- we can focus on breath and be aware of other. But how can I focus on the sound of breath and be aware of other sounds? Hearing sense is not helping me to make distraction here.

Yes, the distracting sounds used to bother me in the beginning. But, they stopped bothering me later. Then, I could avoid paying attention to the distracting sounds in another sense. My ears were hearing both sounds equally but my mind would not be paying attention to other sounds. It’s like not paying attention to your friend’s words when you are lost in thinking.

Your ears hear them but mind doesn’t pay attention closely.

But, then similar thing would happen with mantra. Mind would not pay attention to it keeping it in periphery with other sounds and engage in a gross distraction. And, I would not know that attention has shifted from mantra to a distraction- I can still hear it in the peripheral awareness. Sometimes, for whole session, I would not be able to return my attention to mantra and keep it in peripheral awareness. Why? Because I didn’t feel the difference. If I asked myself was I listening to the mantra, I would say, yes, i can hear it as good as I can hear all other sounds. Or, it would be something like a very broad scope of attention. In stage 3 and 4, Culadasa answers such concerns for breath. But, I cannot answer them fully for sound.

I don’t know I made me clear. Let me try a brief attempt again: I would be paying attention to mantra and a thought simultaneously by increasing the scope of attention or alternating between the two.

I felt the sound allows you to do this.

I have been chanting this way on and off for 15 years and I was still struck at stage 2 with occasional glimpses of stage 3.

When I read Culadasa, I immediately recognised what the problem was. So instead of fixing the problem with my chanting, I thought to learn the method for breathing. It was so systematically explained in the book that the whole roadmap became clear to me. Just in few days, I could reach stage 3 and 4.

Today, I did the chanting meditation instead of the breathing one inspired by your answer. I wasn’t able to say whether my attention stayed constantly on mantra for the entire 45 minuets. I can say that for breath in my best sessions. I fear I was engaging with the mantra as well as my thoughts simultaneously. No thought could become a gross distraction but I clearly remember what I was thinking. It means I was paying attention to them along with mantra. Did this happen to you? And, thanks for your reply.

[SanjeevMember]

Thanks Becky for the compliment. But I cannot maintain continuous peripheral awareness during the day. It’s like stage one of the meditation. Even worse than that. It’s like having a peripheral awareness of breath for few moments following by long periods of mind wandering and attention moving constantly from one distraction to another. When a task need my full attention, even this little peripheral awareness is gone. Yet, good thing is that it is a very still and peaceful often and I want to engage with it more. But, then it leads to the loss of attention to the main task. Another good thing is that it arises spontaneously. This happened before I started consistent sitting practice. I was following a teaching of Eckhart Tolle for many years before that where he advises to remain aware of your body sensations or at least a hand and return to breath many times a day even just for few seconds. That was my only meditation practice.

And, yes. I also should do more of walking meditation as this is more closer to life than sitting.

[SanjeevMember]

I understand mindfulness as the “optimal interaction of attention and awareness in a given situation.”

“During daily life, we set intentions all day long. Are those intentions followed? Or do we quickly degrade into mind wandering?”

– Great point and I am adopting it into my practice. Thanks! I was maintaining peripheral awareness without setting clear intentions to anchor my attention on the tasks at hand.

“The balance may have shifted a bit too much into awareness”

– Yes, that is the problem. Sometimes, the task at hand simply disappears from the attention and I am aware of my body sensations, sounds, and other perceptions. Then, I miss something, make a mistake, or something bad happens where I was attending. I react and the peripheral awareness is lost as well. A great mess.

I was doing the similar mistake in the meditation practice before reading Culadasa. I would start by paying attention to the meditation object, keeping awareness of sense perceptions and body sensations, etc. Soon, my meditation object would slip to the peripheral awareness to join with other sense perceptions while my attention used to wander from one thought to another.

I corrected this and many other mistakes in my meditation practice after reading the book. Yet, I am still understanding how all this applies to the daily life. Your answer helped to identify one such mistake I was making. The lesson – when maintaining the peripheral awareness, remember to hold attention fixed on something: either the task at hand, or the breath, or whatever you intended to consciously.

Yes, it is a very broad topic and perhaps someone will write an epic book on this – The Life Illuminated!

[SanjeevMember]

Hi Darlene T,

“The work is in placing attention on the OBJECT in your case the mantra, and just noticing when peripheral awareness fades”

Paying attention to the sound of the Mantra, what does that mean? I understand that it means paying attention to the sound of the mantra. The question is what about other sounds? What does it mean to be peripherally aware of them? I responded on this point to Mimi and copying my response here again. Have a look:

“All other sounds will be there but dimmer and in the background.”

-This bothers me most and was one of the main problems highlighted in my question. I can understand what a dimmer peripheral vision is and why it is dimmer. (Answer lies in the anatomy of eyes. There is a very small area on our retina that gives focused vision. Outer peripheral areas have blurred vision.) I can understand this distinction for focused attention and peripheral awareness (different parts of the brain and different cognitive process are behind these two different mechanisms, as explained by Culadasa.) But, what do we mean by a sound in the foreground and in the background? Our hearing sense has no such distinction, as far as I have understood it. Our hearing perception – verbal interpretation does have such distinction: we can focus on one sound to understand it and keep others in the background. That how we can listen to our friend in a noisy crowd! But, when we say that we have to pay attention to the sound of mantra, I think we are not supposed to think about it or try to analyze it- it is not like listening to our friend in the noisy crowd.

I have one hint that can help here. Maybe sounds that are strong or non-interesting, can move to the periphery automatically. Maybe, if a sound is very faint or distant (like a small river flowing far away from us in a jungle) need our focused listening. But I do not know how it really all works.

[SanjeevMember]

Thanks, Mimi.

“I use vedic mantras which have three notes(a tonic, a higher and a lower note) and I note the distinctions between the vibrations of each of the notes and when they happen in the mantra.”

– Excellent suggestion. I had stumbled on it but was not consistent. Bored with one tone, I would change the tone. I had also thought about following the sensations in my lips and throat as chanting sound is produced. Have you tried this one?

“Try counting at the end of each mantra and if that is not enough, try connecting to the parts of the mantra.”

– Never thought of it and will use it to start my practice for 10 counts or so, as recommended by Culadasa in case of breath. I missed a simple generalization!

“All other sounds will be there but dimmer and in the background.”

-This bothers me most and was one of the main problems highlighted in my question. I can understand what a dimmer peripheral vision is and why it is dimmer. (Answer lies in the anatomy of eyes. There is a very small area on our retina that gives focus vision. Outer peripheral areas have blurred vision.) I can understand this distinction for focused attention and peripheral awareness (different parts of the brain and different cognitive process are behind these two different mechanisms, as explained by Culadasa.) But, what do we mean by a sound in the foreground and in the background? Our hearing sense has no such distinction, as far as I have understood it. Our hearing perception – verbal interpretation does have such distinction: we can focus on one sound to understand it and keep others in the background. That how we can listen to our friend in a noisy crowd! But, when we say that we have to pay attention to the sound of mantra, I think we are not supposed to think about it or try to analyze it- it is not like listening to our friend in the noisy crowd.

I have one hint that can help here. Maybe sounds that are strong or non-interesting, can move to the periphery automatically. Maybe, if a sound is very faint or distant (like a small river flowing far away from us in a jungle) need our focused listening. But I do not know how it really all works.

“I find in my practice that doing both following a breath object sometimes and following a mantra as an object sometimes is a very helpful way of seeing the similarities between the types of meditation practices and getting nice benefits from both.”

Very true!

[SanjeevMember]

I was experiencing the dullness and feeling sleepy for many consecutive meditation sessions. I was having a little less sleep than usual and a little more work. So, I took a precautionary step: before meditating today morning, I took five deep breaths – in through the nose, out through the mouth. It worked! But, I felt like I have taken a walking pill! It felt a little unnatural, a little uneasy inside me. Of course, one has to take pills when one is ill, but a pill can be too strong and have side effects. So, the question is, “Can strong and deep breathing be unwholesome in this sense – like a too strong dose of caffeine?”

[SanjeevMember]

“So yes, in theory, by Stage Eight, you should have enough conscious power to multi-task with mindfulness.” Even if this is true, we should not wait for this to happen and procrastinate meanwhile. And, the theory itself says that loss of mindfulness happens because of multitasking. There are multitasking situations where it is absolutely compulsory to respond, and we will have to wait for the conscious power to develop. But, in most of the procrastination situations, we can help ourselves by blocking distraction. Of course, that needs a clear intension.

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