[RicardoMember]

Hi Dennis,

In the personal meditation retreats section of the website (https://dharmatreasure.org/personal-meditation-retreats/) says “The Dharma Treasure Retreat Center is currently being reorganized, and we are NOT taking retreat bookings at this time. Please check back after September 15th.”

I guess they will be taking a decision about the reorganisation around that date.

[RicardoMember]

Hi lemmefly,

Yes, I’ve noticed something similar. In the book The Mind Illuminated it is advised that one should position their eyes as if you were reading a book. This has helped me. However, sometimes by putting the breath sensations in the centre I feel cross-eyed and that leads to a bit of discomfort. When that happens, I try to relax my eyes by keeping the breath sensations as alive as possible. That’s been my experience so far but I’m not sure I’m going in the right direction here.

Hope you get some good replies from more advanced meditators and thanks for bringing up this topic. I’ve been curious about it for some time 🙂

[RicardoMember]

I get what you mean Laura by not hitting the happy medium. I’ve been there many times. When I get too serious at the beginning of the sit then I fail to tune in to the good feels of being present. I would say, do not worry too much just now about being in a “lower energy state”. If I understand correctly, that lower energy state is related to dullness and that’s an issue that is properly addressed in stage 5. However, subtle dullness is your friend and ally before stage 5. Use it to your advantage. The type of effort required here is “just” setting the intention again and again. The right attitude is, I believe, that of gentle diligence and playfulness, with energy but not too wrapped up in the outcome. It’s cool to win and it’s ok to lose because playing is fun.

If I may ask, would you share with us what is your motivation when you do the 6-step prep?

[RicardoMember]

Hi Laura. Congrats on your progress so far, you have a really solid practice in terms of consistency and time! Also it is a great achievement that you are able to catch a distraction in peripheral awareness before it catches your attention!

What I believe has been useful to me to make mind wandering shorter and shorter is that I’ve developed a kind of reflex by which every time I come back to the breath I feel that a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. Then joy comes naturally with this feeling of ease. This all took a long time to develop. However, it is hard for me to tell how long it took because at the beginning my practice wasn’t consistent.

I think this reflex developed by being grateful to the part of my mind that senses the wandering mind and also thanks to appreaciating the quality of the mind when I’m on the breath. It just feels nice to be present and I purposely try to keep that nice feeling in the background (ie in peripheral awareness) while I’m on the breath. I do this not only during formal practice but also in daily life. Specially when I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed, coming back to the breath feels increadibly nice even if it is just for a few moments.

Other tips I can give you: try fitting a mindful review (appendix e) in your daily practice, be it by taking some time off your current practice time or by adding it if possible. Try that for 3 weeks and see if that helps. The more mindful you are during your daily life, the more mindful you’ll be while sitting.

Perhaps also try changing one of your sitting practices every 3 days by either a walking meditation (appendix a) or a loving-kindness meditation (appendix c). Choose one at random every three days and go with that. Or that day you do 20 minutes less of your shamata-vipassana sit and dedicate those 20 minutes to either walking or loving-kindness. Or, if you have the time, add those meditations to your routine. See if that helps. These ancilliary practices can have a powerful impact sometimes.

Wishing you the best in overcoming this obstacle!

[RicardoMember]

Valparaiso added.

[RicardoMember]

Hi, today I logged in for the first time and firefox notified me of this security issue. Let me know if I can be of any help in this matter.

Cheers,
Ricardo

• This reply was modified 4 years, 10 months ago by  Ricardo.

[RicardoMember]

Hello everyone, this is my first post here in this forum.

That’s a great idea! I just filled the survey. Will you tell us here the results of the survey?

Cheers

[Author]

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