Hello everybody.
I speak French so I hope my english is OK enough for you.
I'm meeting a step in anapanasati where I find it hard to know what's going on and where to move next.
First let me introduce what is and has been my practice for the last 2 years. My first daily practice was deep meditation as teached on
AYPsite, which consists on focusing the attention on the mantra AYAM for 20 min twice a day.
After 2 months of it, I took the initiation to Kriya Yoga, but after one year I decided to quit because I experienced lot of pressure in the forehead, it was very strong and annoying, but the master who taught me gave me no real advice to deal with it, so I decided to continue on my own.
I then got back to AYP deep meditation, which after a few months of practice helped me to deal with these pressures. It was a good teaching and I discovered a lot about how to concentrate, what is too much or too less effort in focus, etc.
Then for some reason, after a bit more than a year of deep meditation practice, I began to wonder if AYP method was the real deal, and it leads me to search about other meditations practice. On AYP forums I read about Daniel Ingram and read MCTB, which was really a revelation: such clear and abundant information was all I need.
So I switched to Anapanasati and it's been one month now that I'm practicing it, for 30 min to 1.5 hour a day (depends if my 1.5 year old son would let me end my session!)
It was quite difficult at first but now I begin to really feel what it's like to get the attention focused on the breath. I concentrate on the breathing at the tip of the nose and already had great results. One of my first sessions lead me to a state of bliss, clarity and light beyond what I've experienced so far. But now I feel a bit stuck and don't know if I'm doing good, so maybe you could help me on this one.
Here is the approximative timing of an average session :
- 0 to 5 min : couting expiration from 1 to 10, then start again. The mind is quite focused and I feel I'm gaining quickly some momentum (body and head feel lighter, some subtle pleasure spread in the body)
- 5 to 15 min : narrow focusing on the tip of the nose. Again the focus is good, I don't get lost in thoughts, I can see them but it won't disturb my attention which keeps focused on the tip of the nose.
- 15 to 30 min : little sudden shifts in my body perception, which gets lighter and lighter, sometimes it's stuck then feels suddenly lighter than before. My mind seems delighted and I feel I'm getting a bit lost in the spaceness of it.
- 30 min to 60 min : I'm getting lost and lost and lost again in my thoughts. Even if I declare to myself a strong intention to keep focused on the breath, I lose it after 2 or 3 expirations. I keep continuously to notice the fact that I've been wandering, and continuously get back to the breath at the tip of the nose. The feeling at the tip of the nose seems strong anchored, but it doesn't last. I can't help but feeling irritated by all this wandering, but try to step back, gain some perspective and welcome this fact with equanimity.
- 60 min to 90 min : I just observe the wandering and getting back to the breath, with as much equanimity as I can. I'm a bit bored, don't know what to do next. Nothing seems to lead nowhere: no success with strong focus on breath, no success with focus on the subtle bliss pervading the body, no success with letting go. I'm stuck. And my foot hurts like hell.
Immediately after, I feel a bit sleepy, as waking up from a nap.
Maybe it's good enough and I just need to be patient and wait, and it will progress naturally. But maybe I'm missing something so that's why I prefer asking here. I feel I need some reassurance and/or advice.
Besides Anapanasati, I try to practice bare attention whenever I can.
Thank you for any insight, and thanks to Dho forum which has already been of tremendous help.