Question about how exactly to spend the split seconds during Samatha

Iulian Doroftei, modified 10 Years ago at 2/18/14 8:04 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 2/18/14 8:04 AM

Question about how exactly to spend the split seconds during Samatha

Posts: 15 Join Date: 11/27/13 Recent Posts
I have been meditating daily for about 5 months (started with 0.5 hours a day and increased to almost 2 hrs). My goal is to develop my concentration skills so as to be able to get well to insight.
I've read MCTB and the most important threads on this forum and I guess I've attained reasonable periods of access concentration and even some unstable 1st Jhanna moments.

Still, I think I haven't fully understood the moment-by-moment Samatha technology. I suspect what solidifying the sensation of breath means, but I cannot link the general concept with my actual practice. What should I focus on? I think I've understood what Daniel Ingram said about feeling the pleasure of breathing (like doing it within a flower garden), but I simply don't know what to do with my focus within passing seconds. Of course, I can follow my breath moment by moment: how it starts, rises, peaks, descends, stops and so on. But this technique - as I understood - is part of Vipassana practice, it's not Samatha. If I should just "go with it", then I don't know exactly with what should I go?

Of course, there are these fantastic moments when I feel I don't exist anymore outside my breath, and manage to go with this state for 3, 5, 10, maybe even 30 breath cycles; and of course there are those short states of physical bliss when all my body becomes very heavy and very light at the same time and I feel myself surrounded in light (which I suspect is a hint of the 1st Jhanna). But what about the rest of the sitting time? I want to high the quality of my sittings as much as possible and enter the access concentration as many times and as long as possible. This still seems a room with no doors most of the time, because I haven't fully understood the immediate, practical procedure to follow.

So, please, let me know how do I do Samatha practice, as opposed to insight, on a split second basis and aside of their general differentiating principles? What do I focus on exactly when I choose the breath as an object? Breath is a complex thing. It's not a disc or a candle light, but it has it's stages, lots of them, it's like I would been given the task to concentrate on a poem or a short story. How can one focus on a complex thing?

Please be tolerant with my ignorance and sorry to ask such stupidly basic questions, even after so much study. Thank you!
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Dream Walker, modified 10 Years ago at 2/18/14 11:24 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 2/18/14 11:24 AM

RE: Question about how exactly to spend the split seconds during Samatha

Posts: 1657 Join Date: 1/18/12 Recent Posts
Iulian Doroftei:
I can follow my breath moment by moment: how it starts, rises, peaks, descends, stops and so on. But this technique - as I understood - is part of Vipassana practice, it's not Samatha. If I should just "go with it", then I don't know exactly with what should I go?
I haven't fully understood the immediate, practical procedure to follow.

So, please, let me know how do I do Samatha practice, as opposed to insight, on a split second basis and aside of their general differentiating principles? What do I focus on exactly when I choose the breath as an object? Breath is a complex thing. It's not a disc or a candle light, but it has it's stages, lots of them, it's like I would been given the task to concentrate on a poem or a short story. How can one focus on a complex thing?

Well the easiest thing would to stop deconstructing the breath. Add words/mantra to it...in/out. say it slow. iiiiiiiiiiinnnnn, ooooooooooooouuuuuuuut. If you are sampling reality so quickly I'd move to a candlelight or Kasina for a while and see what happens. Of course if your being so successful doing insite with accuracy and diligence naturally...why are you screwing with it? Self sabotage? Ask yourself what is your goal and how are you getting nearer to it? Why do you "need" more than where you are at?
Good luck,
~D
John Smith, modified 10 Years ago at 2/19/14 2:16 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 2/19/14 2:09 AM

RE: Question about how exactly to spend the split seconds during Samatha

Posts: 2 Join Date: 2/19/14 Recent Posts
Hello, Iulian!
I myself used to ask this question - how exactly mindfulness meditation (e.g., anapanasati) builds up access concentration. I believe i have found the answer in some of the articles I will cite below.

1. PRELIMINARY INSTRUCTIONS FOR ANAPANASATI & WALKING MEDITATION (Transcription of a Dhammatalk delivered on 8/12/95 by Ven. Brahmavamso);
http://www.metta.lk/english/anapana.htm
This one gives a marvelous practical definition of access concentration:
"The way the Buddha taught Anapanasati is that to begin with you just notice whether the breath which is going in is long, or you notice whether the breath that is going in is short, whether breath going out is long or the breath going out is short. This is just a means to gain some interest in watching the in-and-out-breath. Just watching the in-and-out breaths for some meditators is not sufficient, it does not attract the mind, there 's not enough to do there to keep the mind's attention. So, in order to know long or short, it just needs that extra piece of mindfulness. However, many of you will know that the way I teach Anapanasati is instead of necessarily noticing whether the breath is long or short, just to know that the breath is going in and just to know that the breath is going out. The most important part of this stage in the meditation is to be able to sustain that knowledge over many successive breaths, not just one or two breaths in succession, but literally hundreds of breaths in succession. So you know every in-breath, out-breath, in-breath, out-breath, one after the other, not missing one.
That brings me on to the point which is very important in order to understand what we are actually doing here, and that is the meaning of the Buddhist word 'samadhi'. You may have read many definitions of that term. I think you might find the most practical definition, the one which you can use and gain good results from, is to understand samadhi as the ability of the mind to sustain its attention on the chosen object. And the most important word is sustaining the attention. Anyone can watch a breath, an in-breath and out-breath, just once, but it takes a skilful meditator to be able to watch, say, a hundred or two hundred breaths, one after the other, without missing any. It is only when one can achieve that sustained attention on one chosen object that that quality of mind deserves to be called samadhi. "

Conclusion 1: what you are supposed to be doing is - striving to sustain uninterrupted attention over many breath cycles - 150-200. It tells you where to apply effort. For example, I know that I can watch 30 cycles with no interruptions relatively easily; so what I will be trying to do is direct my effort in a way that will let me watch 40 or 50 cycles before my mind finally gets distracted.

2. Search inside yourself, Chade-Meng Tan
"If meditation is about mental training, then what mental faculties does mindfulness train? Mindfulness trains two important faculties, attention and meta-attention. Attention is something we all understand. William James has a very nice definition for it: “taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form.” Meta-attention is attention of attention, the ability to pay attention to attention itself. Huh? Simply put, meta-attention is the ability to know that your attention has wandered away. Let’s say you are paying attention to an object, and eventually your attention wanders away to something else. After a while, there is something in your mind that “clicks” to let you know, hey, your attention has wandered. That faculty is meta-attention. Meta-attention is also the secret to concentration. The analogy is riding a bicycle. The way you keep a bicycle balanced is with a lot of micro-recoveries. When the bike tilts a little to the left, you recover by adjusting it slightly to the right, and when it tilts a little to the right, you adjust it slightly to the left. By performing micro-recoveries quickly and often, you create the effect of continuous upright balance. It is the same with attention. When your meta-attention becomes strong, you will be able to recover a wandering attention quickly and often, and if you recover attention quickly and often enough, you create the effect of continuous attention, which is concentration."

3. Attention regulation and monitoring in meditation,
Antoine Lutz, Heleen A. Slagter, John D. Dunne and Richard J. Davidson
Focused attention meditation drill:
1) Directing and sustaining attention on a selected object (e.g. breath sensation)
2) Detecting mind wandering and distractors (e.g. thoughts)
3) Disengagement of attention from distractors and shifting of attention back to the selected object
4) Cognitive reappraisal of distractor (e.g. ‘just a thought’, ‘it is okay to be distracted’)

Conclusion 2: attention training is not enough to develop mindfulness. Just as important is to train meta-attention. This emphasizes the importance of detecting when your mind wanders off of the meditation object and bringing it back.

These 2 conclusions are what got me from blindly following formal incomprehensible instructions "just watch every in and out breath" to actually understanding the mechanics behind the mental training which is mindfulness meditation. I hope this was helpful, best of luck with your practice!
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Mind over easy, modified 10 Years ago at 2/20/14 12:13 AM
Created 10 Years ago at 2/20/14 12:07 AM

RE: Question about how exactly to spend the split seconds during Samatha

Posts: 285 Join Date: 4/28/12 Recent Posts
For what it's worth, I think that if you're trying to strictly access concentration states, you shouldn't focus on "split seconds". In insight practice, you try to refresh your awareness often, not letting attention rest anywhere, always keeping it on new sensations as they come. But in strict concentration practice, you act as though your object of meditation, usually the breath, is one, continuous, stable thing. The breath is actually a myriad of sensations, not just a singular object. In vipassana, you want to break the breath down and see as many individual motions, sensations, and movements, as quickly as possible, at the quickest rate possible. But if using the breath as a concentration object, don't look at the motion, don't look at the change in breath, don't try to compare one moment of breath to another moment of breath.

Think of a river. In vipassana, your goal is to watch the motion, to see that it is never the same river from moment to moment, there are a million drops of water in constant motion and never remaining in the same place or configuration for even a second. It doesn't matter if the water is turbulent, calm, fast or slow (making an analogy, the river as breath). Contrast this to strict concentration practice, where all you want to see is the whole of the river. You tune into the calm flow. To be fair, the vipassana perspective (ever changing from moment to moment, not a breath but a constant flux of individual, changing sensations) is the truest nature of the breath, which means that even if you're trying to practice strict concentration, it's very easy to tune into the motion and flux/change of the sensations of breath.

But to access pure concentration states, you have to let go of the notion of investigating or scrutinizing or analyzing. No analysis in concentration. Your goal is to simply place yourself in the breath and stay there.

You also have to be very calm and resigned to do concentration. Don't expect, don't wonder where it should go, don't try to make the states arise, as they arise of their own accord when the conditions are correct. Your job is just to set up those conditions. Pretend your breath is getting a massage, and your focus on the breath is the massage. Let your awareness be comfortable and calm, with enough effort to stay focused, but not so much that it feels tight or strained or unpleasant. It's about getting into a really comfortable mindset. Think of the feeling of sinking into a nice bath (this is from MCTemoticon, or sinking into a relaxing sofa after a hard day's work. Get yourself into the mindset of "ahhhh.... yeahhh.... this is nice".

Still, I think I haven't fully understood the moment-by-moment Samatha technology. I suspect what solidifying the sensation of breath means, but I cannot link the general concept with my actual practice. What should I focus on? I think I've understood what Daniel Ingram said about feeling the pleasure of breathing (like doing it within a flower garden), but I simply don't know what to do with my focus within passing seconds. Of course, I can follow my breath moment by moment: how it starts, rises, peaks, descends, stops and so on. But this technique - as I understood - is part of Vipassana practice, it's not Samatha. If I should just "go with it", then I don't know exactly with what should I go?


Again, don't focus on moment to moment if you're doing concentration practice. From moment to moment, you have an ever-changing set of sensations. Try to put that aside. Personally, I only focused on the start, rise, peak, descent, and stopping of breath in order to train myself to focus on the breath and not tune out to la-la land and lose focus. But if you're able to follow it on that level, maybe try to just see that there is breath in some form or another. Don't focus on one spot, just feel that you are breathing. You can be aware of it without stopping to say, "okay, now it's rising, now it's falling". Try to just see it as breath, no matter what phase the breath is at. It's still breathing when it's going in and when it's going out.


On a side note, I tried practicing concentration states before trying insight practice. I don't think I really ever hit any jhanas, and most of the time, I was just floundering. But after practicing vipassana, I was able to access jhanas. I suspect that it's due to the fact that in vipassana, you have to accept the frustration, the confusion, the uncertainty, the distractions, all as valid things to watch. If you can keep that perspective in mind when doing pure concentration practice, you can "let go" of distracting thoughts and sensations with less resistance.

Good luck! This is just what worked for me, it seems that the methods for entering concentration states can vary just as much as the way the concentration states are experienced. All that matters is finding out what works for you, even if it isn't perfectly in line with someone's particular method. Keep experimenting!

For me, it can look like this:
-Just starting, distracted, thoughts pull my attention away, various unpleasant feelings in the body (soreness, itches, impulse to adjust posture, etc)
-Focusing on the breath, disregarding distractions, not being upset when distractions happen
-Able to stay with breathing and not get distracted
-Perceiving the breath as pleasant, enjoying it, the enjoying of it makes it easier to stay focused on it (breathing can be neutral, but convince/fake yourself of the pleasantness and it will be real. Just like how you can make yourself smile artificially but it still gives you the feeling of happiness)
-Focusing on the pleasantness of the breath, steeping in it, immersing myself in it
-Pleasantness of the breath spreads through the whole body, like bathing in it. Sometimes it happens on its own and other times you kind of "extend" the pleasantness to the boundaries of the breath, extending it through the body.
-The whole body feels extremely pleasant, almost like some sort of high. (1st jhana)
-The pleasantness makes me not only physically happy, but mentally as well! Tuning into the mental aspect, the happiness/joy/mental positivity
-The happiness/joy begins to grow, and can really explode! Steeping in this joy, letting it expand till you're filled with immense joy (2nd jhana)
-After awhile, the intense joy wears off, and I'm left with a calm, pleasant, simple and quiet happiness. I let the intensity naturally drop away, as it's actually hard to sustain that intensity for long. It's usually the easiest transition.
-Things are quiet, the mind feels satisfied and the body feels so comfortable, there is a simple, silent and extremely calming happiness pervading the whole field (3rd jhana)
-After I've had enough, I see that even the simple happiness can be "dropped". Everything can be dropped, really. You enjoy it so you naturally stay with it, but you can indeed drop the happiness, let it go, let it pass. If concentration is high enough, then I enter into...
-A state where even emotional happiness drops away, and all there is is silent, wide, and all encompassing peace. (4th jhana) Don't mistake the happiness of 3rd jhana for this peace, because it's absent in the 4th. It's wide open, even more silent than 3rd, panoramic, spacious, completely unconcerned, completely un-involved, and extremely aware. Here, awareness touches things but doesn't get involved in them at all, like watching a basketball game that you have no stake in, whereas before you had preference for a team, preference for players on the court, etc.

I am not really qualified or experienced enough in formless realms to go on, but a strong 4th jhana is the base for continuing to higher jhanas.


I hope this wasn't too much info! Let me know if any of that needs clarification.

Edit: Most importantly, HAVE FUN! emoticon It should feel fun and comfortable and pleasant, never unpleasant or confusing or doubtful! Treat it like such!

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