Been meditating for about 4 - 6 weeks. Usually 45 mins in am with 30 min additional sessions 3-4 time per week. I have been trying various aspects of attending to the breath, most of the time focusing on the feel of breath at the nostrils. Have had issues with torpor (or spacing out) this seems to be better since I noticed it happens when the breath goes absent.

I occasionally 'see the light' as a field, rarely as a point and over the last few sessions it seems as if something is about to kick up a notch when my alarm goes and the session is over. Today I shortened my session hoping I would get a clearer idea about how long I was maintaining my concentration without distraction (it seems too short but its hard to judge) it seemed no better than when I do 45 mins.

So... Help!

Should I extend my session and see what happens?

Am I trying for length rather than quality and should I shorten my sessions to 30 mins or less?

Am I getting to hooked on time?

Is the point of light to be preferred to the field?

Am I getting my underwear in a knot?

Is this an appropriate use of the forum?

Thank you for your attention

Bill

Hm, obviously some doubt is arising, I'd just note off all that and go back to the breath and generally relax about all these issues. Somewhere it was said that meditation is a very much self corrective process and a long one too.

A very thorough and comprehensible treatment to all these questions and many more gives Henepola Gunaratana in his "Mindfulness in Plain English".


Good Luck!

I had considered the likelihood that I was getting a bit worked up and needed to relax but I hadn't spotted the element of doubt your insight has been appreciated. Thanks

Bill

Again thanks. I have downloaded the book and am getting on with it. I think patience and consistency in practice for a while- too much effort. Thanks again for taking the time and effort to reply.

Bill

Yes, and you've been doing it your whole life. (The rest of us too.)

Now's the time to start something completely different. The long, beautiful process of untying the underwear knot.

Essentially, the light is a sign of some developing concentration, and tends to arise in early A&P territory, or it could arise before that.

Regardless, the advice is the same: If you want to make progress in insight, focus on the Three Characteristics of what arises, their moment to moment impermanence, suffering and no-self.

If you do this for the breath or the light or anything else and perceive all the little sensations that make up those things, this is the path of insight.

If you stabilize on any of these things and perceive them as apparently continuous entities, this is the path of concentration.

If you get your underwear in a knot, this is will not help you, as it can chafe.

Helpful?

Daniel

The clarification of the 'two' paths - insight & concentration - in my practice is helpful but the question of concentration first then insight practice OR insight practice (with the concentration naturally improving) does give me a source for vacillation. I wonder if the doubt about which approach to commit to is limiting my progress. I am due to go on a Goenka retreat in three weeks and hope for some clarity in goal / focus but ...

What underwear should one take on retreat?

if it's an issue at all, the answer is probably just do insight practice, as those who benefit most from trying to build concentration first are less likely to struggle or have doubt about this matter in the first place, and those who frequently have doubts and questions are more like to be oriented toward insight, as i surmise that you are. i also gather, from one of your earlier posts, that you have already been over the a&p, which means, according to the visuddhimagga, that you understand what is path and what is not-path, and from here (so long as you continue to follow the instructions for insight), can hardly go wrong.

when you go on the goenka retreat, spend the first three days observing your breath and the sensations around your nostrils/above your upper lip in an insight (moment to moment) way. then on the fourth day, when the technique changes to observing bodily sensations, switch to observing sensations and make sure to continue doing that in an insight way, which is what you will then be explicitly instructed to do (by the emphasis goenka places on observing impermanence, anicca).

tl; dr: just do insight practice.

tarin

I found your post helpful and I have begun to focus on insight as suggested. I am not sure how 'helpful' experiencing the A&P is having dawdled near the path for the subsequent 28 years.

I understand that I was focusing more heavily on concentration because I was thirsting for the 1st Jhana, for the reassurance it would provide - of being on the right path (and the wasted years recovered) and for proof of progress and for some taste of honey (pita). Perhaps 'more speed less haste' or 'softly softly catchee monkey' or 'its a marathon not a sprint' would be useful guiding aphorisms.

Anyway I become verbose.