Atharva Karandikar:
I've recently been encountering heavy sloth and torpor in my practice, I have heard that metta can help to dispel dullness of mind? I have also heard something about establishing mindfulness before beginning breath meditation. Can someone tell me what the correct course of action would be?
Hi,
Well, as you know, it is you who make the effort and you will be the one testing what works for you (which could be different on different days), but for me, yes, metta was a strong way through mental dullness and helped me develop mental stabilization and then mental stillness for mindfulness-attention during the practice arena of deliberate meditation.
Note: when I feel I need sleep though, I generally take sleep.
Back to metta, I think in around 2012 to brighten the mind during retreat...
If there were negative thoughts or bodily pains, then:
--> I would take thoughts/sensations arising in the beginning of meditation and sort of imagine my mind as a hospital. I would take these thoughts and literally imagine them being cared for very nicely, very sweetly by an ideal nurse taking care of these thoughts; and
If there were not negative thoughts but just overwhelming dullness, then:
--> I would often imagine the laughter of friends and family-- you know, the really sweet giggling everyone has when they are laughing to the point tears. This, too, would brighten my mind.
So those were two ways I was brightening the mind and physically wake up, too, as well as reduce or prevent the effect of body aches (to a degree, nothing super-human here).
One I was alert and my mind was actually brightened, I would let go of the narrative structures used to brighten the mind and wake up physically, and I would turn attention to the breath and/or the brightness of mind (first and second jhanas). If I slid back into dullness, I would re-brighten the mind.
Eventually, the mind itself slides into sukkha (3rd mental concentration in the ānāpānasati suite) from the 2nd jhana and then one knows what is 3rd jhana and can keep oriented to sukkha versus sliding back into dullness and re-brightening. For me, third jhana
is begins with/can be recognised as starting by the detection of body boundaries going away and the body sensation becomes one big, very comfortable energy 'blob".
In this area mindfulness can train very pleasantly, because there's a natural affinity to check this out, this very pleasant sensation. Then later the mind will naturally be willing and truly engaged to have "sati" even when it is not in sukkha investigating sukkha.
So then one has tools for a distinct meditational training practice,
which practice in turn can be applied to other areas of life, bringing them into the fold of willing, natural attention, a more complicated challenged helped again by diet, exercise and sleep.
Best wishes. I hope everyone's own practice sharing may help you develop your own training.
_________
Edit: In purple
