Hellp Stephen, Thank you very much for the instructions of MIDL 10, very good video! While it clarifies a lot of questions I had it also did bring up a lot of new/other questions. I’m very confused because some instructions sounds contradictory to me (of course because I don’t understand them not because they are wrong). Could you clarify the following points? Do I observe the breath as „from a distance“ for the WHOLE training10/52 or just INITIALLY? For example: After I notice the spot were the experience of the breath ist most clear to me should I still be aware of the experience of the breath „as from a distance“ or should I „zoom in“ on this spot while I observe the breathing? You said that for MIDL training 10 one should perceive the in-breath and out-breath as one breath by focusing on the middle of the in-breath and the middle of the out-breath. Later in the video you said one should be continuously aware of the many sensations of the breath as it passes the spot were the breath is most clear to you. (1) Does this two descriptions mean the same thing? (2) If so, how can I just be aware of the middle of the breath when I should be aware of all the sensations along the breath „from the beginning to the middle to the end“… Thats very confusing/contradictory for me. Thank you very much in advance!
Hi Bjoern, "...Do I observe the breath as „from a distance“ for the WHOLE training10/52 or just INITIALLY?..." Observing from a distance means to experience the breath flowing within the experience of your whole body as it sits. You maintain awareness of your whole body, while aware of the natural flow of breath within it. Avoid focusing in on the breath, this will occur naturally as mindfulness stabilises and concentration naturally develops. Your only task is to keep the full length of each breath in mind, continuously remembering it. It is the remembering what you are experiencing now that is most important. "...For example: After I notice the spot where the experience of the breath is most clear to me should I still be aware of the experience of the breath „as from a distance“ or should I „zoom in“ on this spot while I observe the breathing?..." I think the confusion is in regards to peripheral awareness. Hold your hand at a distance from your face. Notice the different lines on your hand, the details. Keep your attention on one point on your hand. This is the centre of your attention. While maintaining the centre of your attention open your awareness to the room around your hand. This is your peripheral awareness. Notice how you can maintain the centre of your attention on your hand, while still seeing the room around the outside of it. In the same way you place the centre of your attention on one point where the breath is most clear to you. Don't follow the breath. And then open your peripheral awareness to take in your whole body around it. Notice how you can experience the breath at one point, while still aware of your whole body. As concentration grows, awareness will naturally focus in on the centre point. In this case as it does, the sensate quality at that one point will clarify, if the mindfulness and concentration support it. "...You said that for MIDL training 10 one should perceive the in-breath and out-breath as one breath by focusing on the middle of the in-breath and the middle of the out-breath...." This is one method for developing concentration, there others. It is useful to perceive the in-breath and out-breath as one continuous breath. It is important not to give too much thought to the idea of the 'middle'. By middle I mean, do not clarify the beginning and end of each breath, instead perceiving the breath as one, continuous object for attention. If this method does not work for you, then there is no need to learn it. There are many other methods for developing attention. "....Later in the video you said one should be continuously aware of the many sensations of the breath as it passes the spot were the breath is most clear to you. (1) Does this two descriptions mean the same thing? (2) If so, how can I just be aware of the middle of the breath when I should be aware of all the sensations along the breath „from the beginning to the middle to the end“… " The development of mindfulness of the length of each breath has two stages of development: 1. Being continuously mindful of the breath length/depth. 2. Being continuously mindful of the sensations within the breath. In each case you are aware of just one point, the most commonly used are the tip of the nose, or abdomen. You do not follow the breath in an out of your body, but rather are aware of the breath as it passes that one point. Like a carpenter cutting a piece of wood with a saw. The carpenter does not follow the saw with their eyes. They watch the point where the saw contacts the wood. As it passes that one point. The saw is the breath. The point where the saw contacts the wood, in the case of the nose, is the point where the breath touches the tip of the nostril. You don't follow the breath in and out of your body, you just are aware of the breath as it passes that point. First in terms of breath length/depth. The second is the sensations that arise at that point.
@@midlinsightmeditation Thank you very much Stephen, that was very helpful! The part in your response regarding peripheral awareness was especially helpful! Sometimes I do get lost in the details of varies topics...
Hi Stephen , Just a clarification we only initially focus on the general sensations of the breath of the whole body breathing, post the preparatory stages of sound ( awareness held wide) , grounding in body ....... and then shift to the length of the breath at the nose ? which is sensations at the nose( coolness , pressure , warmth).....after the preparatory stages yes? Am I right ? Or do we have to keep peripheral awareness of breath sensations also ?
The sensate quality of our body as it sits in meditation is used as an initial grounding point for awareness. As samadhi (unification of attention) narrows, attention naturally focusses in on the sensate quality of the breath, and awareness of the whole body may or may not disappear. Once attention aligns with and stabilises on breath sensation, it gradually rests on one point, and awareness of breath length also dissolves. At this point we reopen peripheral awareness to the experience of our whole body as it responds to breathing, while keeping one point of breath sensation within the centre of our attention. Once attention stabilises on this one point the peripheral awareness of the whole body will fade again. Attention will unify and access concentration will establish.
Hi Stephen. Thanks for the video, just one point confuses me a bit: Is it necessary to perceive the whole breath as one thing to observe the experience of breathing(when we skip from just knowing whether it is in or out to sensations) or can we still have the conceptual perception of in and out? Asking this because I didn’t fully understood the point about perceiving the middles, and TMI(the mind illuminated by Culadasa, which is a system very similar to what you teach) doesn’t mention this perceiving breathing as one unit (which would require the dropping of the concept of in breath and out breath) in novice stages as a requisite for observing the sensations of breath. Thank you.
Map: 1. Body sitting > 2. in & out-breaths > 3. whole of each breath > 4. sensations in each breath > 5. one point of breath sensation > 6. sustained attention > " Is it necessary to perceive the whole breath as one thing to observe the experience of breathing (when we skip from just knowing whether it is in or out to sensations) or can we still have the conceptual perception of in and out?" We still clearly perceive that the breath is coming in and out in stages 2-4 (see map above). The perception of in & out-breaths only ceases in stage 5 when we become so present with the experience of breathing at the tip of our nose, that time, and the idea of in & out-breaths, cease. "Asking this because I didn’t fully understand the point about perceiving the middle..." It is easy to understand sitting here now that you can know that our breathing is either coming in or going out. If you pay attention to this in & out-breathing you may start to notice that each breath has length: this means that each in-breath happens over a period of time, and each out-breath happens over a period of time. It is being aware of each in & out-breath over a period of time from when it starts to when it ends that is known as the length or whole of each breath. The middle of the breath simply refers to experienced middle point between when the breath starts and when it ends. If you therefore pay continuous attention to a in or out-breath you will begin to notice that it has a beginning, middle and end. "TMI doesn’t mention this perceiving breathing as one unit (which would require the dropping of the concept of in breath and out breath) in novice stages as a requisite for observing the sensations of breath." As mentioned above, the perception of in-out-breaths continues up to one point of breath sensations (see map above). The process of moving from: (2) in & out-breaths to (5) one point of breath sensation is a gradual increasing of the application of our attention towards our meditation object. Just knowing if the breath is coming in takes one application of attention, knowing if the breath is coming out takes another. In total knowing an in and out-breath takes two applications of attention.
As we pay closer attention, we begin to notice that we can notice the moment a breath begins, that it has a middle, and an end. If we know these three stages of each breath, then each in and out-breath cycle contains six applications of attention. If we continue to pay even closer attention to the length of each in & out-breath the application of our attention significantly increases, lowering the gap for mind created distraction. In this way transitioning to experiencing the sensations within the length of each breath increases the application of our attention so that it is so continuous that there is no gap for distraction or even the perception of time. It is at this point that tranquility begins to arise and the idea: breathing in or breathing out falls away until all that is left is the experience of one point of breath sensation. "...perceiving breathing as one unit..." I think this is referring to perceiving in & out-breathing as one continuous breath that changes direction. It is important to understand that this is simply a technique that increases the application of attention and brings calm to the mind because of the continuity of the meditation object. To develop this, you simply pay no interest in the beginning or end of each breath but rather pay attention to each breath's length. This technique significantly increases the application of attention to the breath while providing access to the pleasure of breathing itself. If you find this helpful then use it, if not then it is not necessary to developing stable attention, it is simply a technique like counting, labelling, experiencing breath sensation. The important part is that you develop stability of attention not though effort but rather through accessing the pleasure of letting go.
@midlmindfulnessmeditation Thank you Stephen, now I understand th purpose behind this particular technique. And in the map you give above, the awareness of breath length or whole of the breath(stage 3) precedes the awareness of sensations(stage 4), so do you advise not paying attention to sensations till we develop continous knowing of each in and out breath & are aware of the length/whole of the breath, or should we or can we also pay attention to breath sensations during these stages(stages 2-3)?
@@ahmetumutergen9927 Simply be aware of your breathing however it presents itself to you. If you experience changing sensations within your breathing from the early stages, then pay attention to the flow of changing sensations. The important aspects are three things: 1. Develop intimate attention with the experience of your breath through relaxing/letting go with clear comprehension, rather than through effort. 2. Learn to tune into the pleasure of the relaxing/letting go and find pleasure within the experience of breathing. 3. As the focus of your attention becomes more intimate with breath sensation maintain some background peripheral awareness of your whole body.
hi stephen , Been training my attention , focusing my attention of the nose area, a problem i am encountering is gross distraction and domination of the breath in other areas of the body , like the chest and stomach constantly ,while I am still aware of the outbreath from the nistril clearly, I keep losing focus and clarity of perception in the nose , there is also some shaking and movements , near the 40 -45 min mark in meditation. Could you please recommend and advise me further.? This is causing aversion to the breath appearing more dominantly in other parts of the body Regards Rohan
Hi Rohan, When meditating we are dealing with two aspects: Attention and awareness. Attention can be considered the central focus of awareness. That centre point on which your attention rests, in this case the breath at the tip of your nose. Around this you have peripheral awareness. This is the awareness of all other sensoury experience around that central attention point. By widening your focus the peripheral experience will shift to the foreground, and centre of your attention to the background, and by narrowing your focus the centre of your attention will shift back to the foreground, and peripheral experience to the background. When developing samadhi it is important to develop a balance between attention and peripheral awareness, or we could put it another way: between the 'doing' of attention and the 'knowing' of awareness. If you put too much power into your attention, energy will build. And this building of energy will leak into and overpower the knowing function of awareness. this means that peripheral experiences, empowered by attention will start to leak into and dominate your attention. What you need to do is from the beginning balance knowing and doing, in order to manage the energy that comes from attending to one object. In this case your effort should be towards softening and abandoning effort, while increasing the knowing function of awareness. This means to keep some peripheral awareness of all sensoury experience, while developing exclusive attention on one point. A simple exercise to develop a feel for this can be found on my website: midlmeditation.com/tier-3#582ed1ea-6733-4ccf-a048-e0138534bb96
