Just a bit of a technical questions, I do approximately one hour, once a day and twice if I've the time.

Even though that restlessness is gone from my practice I still tend to want to open my eyes after a half hour or so.

I have no issue staying sitting, and i try hard to find tension that seems to indicate that I want to get up but I can say it's definitely not an issue anymore, but despite that I still like to open the eyes.

What do you think? Not sure if it's helping or making me lose concentration on the rest of my sense experience.

What happens it you pay attention to the arising/passing impulse of "like to open the eyes" once it arises? Perhaps do this for a week and report on that. What do you think? This will, in part, show a transition of broad mental attention from the senses to the narrow volitional arising of mind "want to...".

Then, perhaps you can have another practice later in the day, say 30 minutes in a pleasant natural setting, that is sensate and eyes always open for that sit. If you are doing a practice of placing the mind on the senses faculties and sense objects, then sitting with eyes open would allow that faculty to be a part. In my experience, this kind of sitting is very useful, particularly when something like anapanasati is somewhat aversive/not naturally hosted at the moment.

Unless you want to start using Vajrayana practices later on where it is recommended to meditate with eyes partially open, I think it would be better if you keep your eyes closed.

[Aman - an aside to this thread: have you started a thread about Vajrayana practices and you? I think I have seen one other post by you on this and I am curious about its stroke (here, "stroke" makes use of a swimming analogy and the stream of "stream entry"). I have no bias - of which I know - regarding Mahayan and Theravadan practices, and am curious what you are learning and how it cultivates your mind. I did study the Lam Rim Chen Mo years ago in a large class with the Dalai Lama, but ended that period with ostensibly Theravadan practices].

I think I was perhaps getting a bit too overconfident, I would get into very deep states very quickly and then open my eyes with a somewhat "done" feeling. Despite the effort I was putting in to pay attention to every bit of tension/sensation arising I was just assuming that the eyes were opening faster than any of that to arise. But Ive decided to apply much more discipline since starting this thread, and its working wonders, now I try hard to watch whats arising for "eyes to open", and already Im seeing less and less resistence.


While this is good advice, I think dont Im advanced enough for this, Im not sure I want to go playing around and expirementing , given the fact that what Im doing is working very well at the moment.

Also, I know my ability to focus, and its current limits, and with eyes open the attention seems to be nearly ALL on what Im looking at, and I nearly get distracted.

Thanks for the help

Thanks Aman, yep Im going to keep it simple for now.