[AndreuMember]

Hello Nick,
that’s very helpful thanks. I’ll keep it in mind when I work through Stage 5, I like the breakdown of Stage 5 in two different stages, that makes it very clear what are the standards and all the recommendation to work through it with the strong Piti.

After learning to manage the strong Piti with your first recommendations I was able to work on Stage 5 for a few days, the Piti stopped being an issue even though it remained strong. Afterwards some Stage 4 purifications and body pain issues came up and I’m working through those now, just working through the recommendations on the TMI book and some of your equanimity recommendations are also helpful to deal with this. I think it will be just some time to let the purifications bubble up and get my body accustomed to staying long period with a straight back, it seems I was bending the back without realizing it until now and I have to fix that too.

Thanks for all the help! This is exactly what I needed to clarify how to adapt the teachings of the book to my own circumstances.

[AndreuMember]

Thanks Nick, that’s very helpful!

Regarding your point 1) I’ve tried to set the intention to let go any resistance and be equanimous as soon as I feel that the Piti starts producing restlessness. That together with the close following that I indicated in my post seem to help a lot and make it very easy to sit for the whole hour and have a pleasant session instead of growing restlessness and having to apply constant willpower to remain meditating. The crazy Piti still remains in the in the background or slips occasionally to the foreground but doesn’t affect the quality of my experience as much. So this makes things much easier going forward with my practice.

About point 2) I was already doing something similar, it was pretty much impossible to try to “fish” the breath sensations out of the Piti or filter them out so instead I try to concentrate in whatever zone the air flow is clear whether this is the skin on my nose or how it affects the Piti surrounding that zone.

I have also tried your recommendations from point 3), I don’t have the mindfulness or mental power to keep the metacognitive introspective awareness going on for the whole session, but I have managed for some brief moments to experience the meditation object and background Piti in that detached “TV screen”-like way you described. I’ll try to keep working on making this more stable and durable. Seems like a great way to improve my mental power and mindfulness in preparation for the next stages.

Do you have any recommendations regarding the Stage 5 body scan? In the TMI book it seems that the body scan is used for increasing mindfulness but also for judging the vividness of the meditation object to detect subtle dullness. Even with all the Piti I can detect some dullness at times, but using the body scan to judge the vividness of the breath doesn’t work so well as it also increases the Piti. I can also make the breath more vivid by re-energizing myself from the Piti so that part doesn’t seem so important. Would you recommend to use the body scan to judge vividness? Or would you use it as a separated tool just for increasing mindfulness and let the Piti take care of the dullness?

Thanks for sharing your experience!

[Author]

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