Am posting here to make sure I am on the right track, as I am just beginning concentration exercises.

A bit of info. I have been pointed to the truth of no self on Ruthless Truth, that was about 6 months ago. It changed a lot of things for me, but theres still a lot of shit, a lot of rage, and I want to deepen my understanding of things. Going outside and just sitting and looking at things seemed to help deepen, but I have realised that theres a lot more to it, and a lot more I can do.

From reading here it seems like I can train my concentration, and/or train my insight, I decided to improve my concentration first, so have been sitting with eyes closed focusing on the breath, and being aware of each breath I take. I have only been doing it for 3 days, first day for 10 minutes, not much happened. Yesterday I sat for 20 minutes, which extended to 40 minutes. Today I sat for 40 minutes. After about 30 minutes I did start to feel warm and tingly, sometimes like there was a 1 cm layer of fuzz all around my body, it was nice, wouldnt say really pleasureable though. on both days, after about another 5 or 10 minutes, my right calf and foot started twitching or spasming occasionally, same foot on both days.

With regard to concentration, how do I know if I am doing it right? I notice that my mind tends to wander, but I usually manage to avoid following any trains of thought and bring focus back to the breath. I am just trying to be aware of every breath I take, its usually the sound of my in breath that I notice most, or the movement of my chest. Does this sound correct?

thanks for any feedback
neil

I also noticed in the last couple of days, that if my breath stops when I have been focusing for a while then 1) I dont feel the need to breathe straight away, and 2) I notice the silence and spaciousness in my body. When I start breathing again( which can be quite a few seconds later), breathing seems a lot easier and more natural, although I am still focused on it, its quieter, smoother, more even. There is sometimes a sense of space and quietness.

If you're getting fuzz or fizzy stuff stuff and it's not overtly pleasurable, you're pursuing more of an insight-oriented practice than you realize.

For more concentration, watch your breath carefully, but (this is the important part) relax. And relax like you mean it.

Interesting. I am not intentionally pursuing insight meditation, I guess they go hand in hand somewhat.

When you say watch your breath carefully, what do you mean exactly? Be aware of the breath? All I am doing at the moment is being aware of each in and out breath ( sometimes I try counting breaths, from 1 to 10, then back to 1 and so on). Maybe I end up not focusing narrowly enough on the breath. also, when you say relax, what do you mean? Relax all muscles?

thanks

1) Don't focus narrowly; don't push anything out of your awareness, while being aware of each breath. If the act of being aware of each breath is actively pushing things out of awareness (as if you were in a narrow tunnel with the breath at the center), try being aware of each breath in a different way.
2) Relax your muscles, relax your mind, relax all effort..and yet, continue to be aware of each breath.

The harder of the two is the latter.

Decided to do 2 sessions today. First one done, was a bit dissapointing, but interesting to do nevertheless

Seemed to get distracted easier today than I have before. Lots of thoughts, lots of thoughts about thoughts, lots of thoughts composing posts to this forum, lots of thoughts about what I am doing and how I am doing it. Also a lot of noises from outside, which I dont usually get as my other sessions have been late at night.
No feelings of pleasure or joy though, not much happened really. I dont think I am concentrating in the right way. I tried relaxing, but I think I ended up concentrating on concentrating, rather than concentrating on my breath. I noticed that there was a tightness to the front of my head, as if all the activity was there. Although I was aware of my breath a lot of the time, Im not sure that I was focused on it in the way that will lead to improvements.

So im a bit confused about how to progress, but will have another go later tonight. I should probably forget about "progressing" all together, as its part of the distraction, but I do need to know that I am using the correct technique.

2nd session seemed to go a bit better, less distracted. I did 40 minutes and seemed to stay with the breath for most of that time, in that I was counting 1->10 and back down again and didnt lose count very often. There were brief flashes of what might be pleasure, but not sure. Is it physical pleasure I am looking for, or some sensation in my head?

I tried not concentrating so hard, but relaxing and trying to let my awareness just sit with the breath, and that seemed to be a bit better. I think part of the problem is of "letting go" and just letting things happen as they will. When I focus on my breathing, I end up tending to "do" my breathing, ie it will be deliberate and rhythmic, not natural and on its own. I know there is no me to let go, and no me doing anything, but there is something that feels that its in control and must "do" everything. Its a problem Ive noticed before when doing stuff, I try to make myself do it better, or think that I can just think harder and I will do it better, I dunno. So maybe I need to work on letting go as well.

Avoid this like the plague.



Letting go is important to this practice...not operating your breathing, but allowing it to happen, can be surprisingly hard at first, but eventually you get better at it.

I'm not sure you mentioned what precisely your practice goal is. Just concentration? Just "deepening"? Something from MCTB? The kinds of stuff I talked about in the thread "Duel on liberation"? Some mix?

Hi, End in sight, thanks for all your comments in this thread.

My practice goal is in the short term to reach 1st jhana, which will indicate that my concentration has improved. Long term goal is stream entry I guess, although there is a lot of resistance and fear when I think about that. I have read MCTB and found it useful in mapping out and understanding the process of attaining stream entry. I picked concentration meditation first because he mentions that 1st jhana is minimum level before doing insight meditation, and because I know how scattered and unfocused I can be, so thought it would be a good idea to improve that first. I am aiming for some of the things you talked about in the Duel on liberation thread at some point, yes.

Do you not think you attained MCTB stream entry (or something like it) using the direct pointing method? That (whether direct pointing leads to MCTB attainments) is an unresolved question here...

It might also be helpful for you to describe what you got out of the direct pointing method, just so we know where you personally stand.

There is a lot of misunderstanding concerning what Dan Ingram meant when he said one needs 1st jhana before pursuing insight...without going into that, if you were able to perceive fizzy stuff on your body just by paying attention to your breath, you have already met that standard (at least).

Also, keep in mind that what I talked about on that thread is not identical with what MCTB leads to.

Hi,
No I dont think I achieved stream entry, mainly because there is still identification, patterns of behaviour are still there, I can still get angry or annoyed. There has been a large change for me since seeing it, dont get me wrong. Basically, I see how there is no "I" thinking thoughts, they just happen due to stimuli received from the senses, processed through the information and beliefs stored in the brain. I also see how thoughts are just that, thoughts, nothing special, no need to identify with them, or give them greater significance. That past and future are just concepts, and thoughts about them are just thoughts about concepts. In fact, pretty much everything is just a concept, good, bad, happy, sad, handsome, ugly, they dont really exist, there just is what there is, everything else is just labels we put on things. Suffering comes from desires and wants, because we think that the things we desire or want will make us happy, but nothing makes you happy for ever, when you get what you wanted, you start looking for something else, or realise that you didnt actually really want it anyway. Suffering also comes from the difference between how you see things, or how you want things to be, and how things actually are. this can be a good thing in that you can try and improve things to change how things are, but in the end, failure to achieve your goals leaves you feeling disatisfied. The way to end suffering is to get the clearest possible picture of how things really are, and accept that fully and without conditions.

Even seeing all this though, I can still get upset when for example thoughts of "They dont like me" appear, or if I take a bad beat at poker, I can get quite angry.

I think that direct pointing may lead directly to stream entry for some, but I dont think it did for me.

Progress report on last 2 days . Yesterday I wasnt feeling well, had a headache, so after 25 minutes or so of 40 minute session, I gave up as just couldnt concentrate at all. Today was wanting to get back to it properly, but was quite tired, and found my mind wandering away often. Would start off counting 1 to 10 and back on each out breath, and then at some point would find myself having stopped counting, and off on some random sidetrack , almost half asleep, following some wierd chain of thought. I didnt even notice the points where I got sidetracked, would suddenly just go, "oh wait, wasnt I supposed to be meditating". I guess its a good pointer to how easily my mind can get distracted. I was aware that its not a good idea to keep giving myself excuses to end early, so I tried to continue on, but kept nearly falling asleep a number of times , so gave up in the end. Will get back to it tomorrow when Im fresh. I am also thinking of giving it a few more days of focusing on the breath, and if I dont feel Im getting anywhere, to switch to using a physical object of some kind, a plate or something, to see if that is any better. Its been nearly a week now and I have got absolutely nowhere, except to find out how hard it is to stay focused and keep concentration.

Todays session. For the first 30 minutes or so, I was wondering what the hell i was doing, what I thought I was achieving, since I seemed to be doing nothing of any usefulness. I was getting easily distracted, almost half asleep at one point, didnt even seem capable of focusing on the breath. In fact, I am wondering if I actually understand what that means. I am so used to living in thought that maybe I have never concentrated on my breathing, but have always concentrated on the concept of me breathing. I also noticed that when counting breaths, I was aware of the anticipation of the next number, rather than the sensations of the next breath, so I stopped counting and simply tried to focus on the breath itself. That seemed to help a bit but it still felt like a lot of effort to keep focused. then at about 35 minutes or so( I am guessing, as I had my eyes closed) there was a sudden sensation of relaxation of something, I dont know what relaxed as it wasnt necessarily my body. It was like my head cleared, like when you see a camera zoom in, there seemed to be sensation of wider field of view. Thoughts also seemed quieter, more distant. I found it hard to stay focused on the breath, instead I started getting distracted by thoughts about what was happening (" is this 1st Jhana" etc), so after a short period of time, probably a minute or two, the feeling of relaxation and wideness of view dropped away somewhat, and thoughts became louder again. I also didnt notice any definite pleasure feelings, although it did generally feel nice.

I am wondering how I can know if I am focusing on the breath, rather than focusing on the concept of breath. I have noticed this sort of problem in other areas of life. for example, if I pick up something new, or return to something I havent done for a while, say golf, then I notice a sort of carefree relaxedness in what I am doing. The more often I play golf after that though, the carefree enjoyment goes away, and more and more there is analysis of what I am doing, my performance, how I can improve things. I am guessing that at the start, I am just experiencing golf as it is, and afterwards, i am getting more caught up in concept of golf, if that makes sense. The same with meditation, when I started a week ago, I had certain ideas of what might happen from having read MCTB, but I basically just sat, tried to focus on breath, and waited to see what would happen. Now that I have been doing it nearly every day for a week, there is analysis and effort to do things better, as if I can somehow will myself to be able to do things well. This is obviously untrue, the only way to improve is by practice( although analyis obviously has its place too).

2nd session of the day. This is getting a bit discouraging now. Sat for 45 minutes, focused on breath, mind wandered,brought focus back to breath, mind wandered, brought focus back to breath, mind wandered while still keeping some focus on breath, mind wandered, bring focus back and so on and so on. I dont know what I am doing or what I am supposed to be looking for,

How are you observing the breath exactly? Run me through it.

Nick

sit down, close my eyes, try and relax, and then just be aware of the breath going in and out, without trying to operate the breath or force the breathing in any way. I am generally aware of my chest rising and falling.

I see. You could try to follow the sequence of instructions given in the anapanasati sutta.




You could try observing the incoming and outgoing breath as well as discern at the very same time the length of the breath. Once you are able to do this relatively well without too much distraction, you could move onto the next instruction of becoming sensitive to the entire body at the same time as observing the incoming and outgoing breath. You are directing thought towards discerning whether the breath is long , longer than before, short, shorter than before, becoming sensitive to the whole body etc etc. Having this secondary object/objective will take up more of the brain's capacity so there will be less space to wander.

This relates to something Tarin has written about before. You engage the mind's proliferating tendency by giving it more things to pay attention to as opposed to just the breath:




Continuing on with the sequence of instruction, the Buddha gives more secondary objects/objectives along with the incoming and outgoing breath once one has mastered the previous instructions. This will deal with the mind's proliferating tendency (which leads to wandering) as well as develop and cultivate the very factors which will subdue the hindrances and give rise to the 1st jhana's factors.

ok thanks I will try this.

todays 45 minute session. I tried your suggestion of additional focus on the length of breath, as well as awareness of the breath. It did seem to help a little in focusing the mind more, in using up some of the capability of mind , and so lessen the wandering. My mind did wander occasionally, but it didnt seem as often, although that could be due to other factors. I also started to notice how nice it was to be relaxed, and how I wasnt totally relaxed, there was tension around the shoulders. there were also occasional waves of what might be pleasure which spread from the chest area on some in and out breaths. It was almost like a rush of blood, as I could also feel pressure on my eardrums. Trying to focus on these did not help increase these sensations though, and I just ended up getting distracted from my breathing.
There were also a couple of times when I felt like I was almost falling asleep, my mind had wandered and the content of thought was gibberish and random, seemingly not related to any chain of thought.
I think I am just going to have to accept that my mind is unfocused, thoughts are very active, and its going to take me a lot of practice, not a couple of weeks, as Id hoped, to be able to make any improvements.

If you keep at it with this type of effort and energy:





you will see tangible positive life changing results. You already have seen a slight improvement in very little time. What improvements could result from such energy and effort?

Nick

You are right, I am not going for it as if my life depended on it

Ha, well, after my first attempt fizzled out a few months ago, I am back aiming to make meditation a daily thing

I would like to say that I have no goals in doing this, other than to investigate reality closer, but probably achieving any jhana is also a goal for me.

So, did a ~40 minute session today, heres a few things I noticed

It is very difficult for me to stay focused. Am I supposed to stay stuck to the breath like glue, or is it more of having the main attention on the breath, while still noticing everything else that arises?
I am not even sure that I know what "focus your attention on the breath" actually means. What is attention, and how do you focus it?
I am focusing on the sensations just below the nose, of breathing in and out. The sensations are very subtle and I often miss them, should I change to a more noticable object, like the lifting and falling of the chest?
When I am focussing on the sensations just below the nose, each breath, and attempt to focus on the sensations, seems to bring with it a mental picture, usually a picture of the actual area of the face, like the roundedness of the nostrils, or the slope of the upper lip. Sometimes its like I am almost looking at them from outside, from an angle to the right of my face. I end up seeing this picture, rather than focussing fully on the sensations. I almost dont know how to just experience what is happening, without getting lost in mental pictures. I cannot differentiate the initial inputs, the actual sensations. Or maybe this is all more mind blabber and I actually do, but dont notice it.

Anyway, trying not to set too many goals, and enter into it with prospect of enjoyment, interest, fun, and investigation, any thoughts would be appreciated