Experiential Markers are a way of tracking your progression in mindfulness of breathing.
There are 12 sequential experiences that can be observed during mindfulness of breathing that reflect your depth of relaxation, calm & letting go, these are known as the 12 Experiential Markers and are used to track both the development of calm & insight.
There are 12 Experiential Markers (markers of experience) that you will observe as a direct reflection of the development of relaxation & calm during mindfulness of breathing.
All of these are experiences that you can use to accurately track the development of calm and tranquility during mindfulness of breathing up to access concentration.
As you relax in meditation, the experience of your body, mind, and breathing will change. Your body will become heavier, your mind will slow down, and the flow of your breathing will become calm and smooth.
All of these are experiences that you can use to accurately track the development of calm and tranquility during mindfulness of breathing up to access concentration.
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Following the instructions in Meditations 01-12, you will sequentially develop each of these below Experiential Markers.
Each Meditation Skill has an Experiential Marker that relates to it. Meditation 01: Body Relaxation = Experiential Marker 01: Body Relaxation.
In this way, each Meditation name states the Experiential Marker you are developing.
12 Experiential Markers:
Notice that each of the descriptions of these Markers creates a map for the development of mindfulness of breathing.
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Like ski poles marking a path
It is helpful to think of Experiential Markers as ski poles in the snow when you cross-country ski. Even though the poles mark the way, you must let go of the previous one to move to the next.
The 12 Experiential Markers are natural stages of letting go, from the grossness of experiencing the world around you to developing intimacy with sensations within each breath during meditation.
Just as a series of signposts offer direction and certainty on a path, the 12 Experiential Markers offer them during mindfulness of breathing.
You may have noticed that Experiential Markers 01-03 are also present within Cultivation 01.
MARKER 01: Body Relaxation.
Marker 01 is concerned with establishing an awareness of the pleasure of relaxing and letting go throughout your body to develop kaya-gata sati (mindfulness immersed within your body).
As awareness immerses within your body through this relaxation, and your mind enjoys the pleasure of the growing relaxation, your attention will naturally rest within your body (grounded).
The grounding of awareness within your body withdraws energy from wandering attention and creates a reference point for insight.
Grounding awareness also settles physical restlessness from an over-stimulated mind: Hindrance 01: Stress Reactions.
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MARKER 02: Mind Relaxation.
Marker 02 is concerned with cultivating a feeling of calmness and ease to settle down the intellectual function of your mind still present after relaxing your body in Marker 01.
By tuning into the subtle pleasure of relaxing effort within different parts of your body, a feeling of calmness and ease will develop in your mind.
It is awareness of relaxation and ease within your body, combined with the softening of effort within your mind, that brings about the mental calmness of Marker 02.
As Marker 02 establishes, it also settles any feeling of mental agitation that may come from your mind being over-stimulated during the day: Hindrance 02: Physical Restlessness.
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MARKER 03: Mindful Presence.
Marker 03 is concerned with establishing a posture of mindful presence (sati-parimukham) by bringing mindfulness to the forefront of the mind and immersing it within your body.
Mindful presence is established when the pleasure of physical and mental relaxation matures. It's experienced as a content, abiding presence throughout your body, free from any interest in the past or future.
As Marker 03 establishes, your mind will lose interest in the past and future and settle down, creating the conditions for Hindrance 03: Mental Restlessness to calm.
Experiential Markers 04-06 are found within Cultivation 02.
MARKER 04: Joyful Presence.
Marker 04 is concerned with cultivating happiness, joy, and contentment within your mind to balance restlessness and dullness. It also inclines your mind towards a momentum of letting go.
By smiling with your eyes into the pleasure of mindful presence, the joy of letting go will grow within your mind.
An increased clarity of awareness, the turning on of a light, surrounded by a warm, comforting blanket of safety, is the experience of the joy of letting go.
It is important to note that meditative joy is sensitive attraction & aversion and can only be present when your mind is inclined towards letting go.
If there is grasping, trying, and achieving within your mind, your mind will become dry, and meditative joy will be absent and inaccessible.
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MARKER 05: Natural Breathing:
Marker 05 is concerned with mindfulness of the pleasure of natural breathing as it flows throughout your body, free from intentional or habitual control.
To find pleasure in your breathing, apply joyful presence and smile into the simple flow of breathing within your body.
The natural stretch of your body as the breath comes in, the natural relaxation of your body as the breath goes out.
Tuning into how nice it feels.
By learning to tune into how nice this gentle stretch and relaxation feel, the pleasure of your body breathing will become clear.
When you access the pleasure within your breathing, aligned with the joy and happiness of letting go, you will become very aware of each in and out-breath, and Marker 05 will establish.
Once established, Marker 05 will calm Hindrances 04 & 05: Habitual Forgetting & Gross Wandering of your attention.
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MARKER 06: Whole of Each Breath:
Marker 06 is concerned with cultivating the ability to be continuously aware of the whole length of each to increase the application of your attention.
Continuous awareness of each breath increases the momentum of letting go and further withdraws the mind from habitual thinking and scanning of the sense fields.
As Marker 06 matures, you will naturally transition from awareness of each in and out breath to one continuous breath that changes direction.
Maintaining continuous attention to breath experience doesn't come from effort but rather by enchanting your mind with the available pleasure in natural breathing.
Once established, Marker 06 will calm Hindrance 06: Directed Thinking: concern with past and future.
Experiential Markers 07-09 are found within Cultivation 03.
MARKER 07: Sensations in Breathing:
Marker 07 is concerned with cultivating exclusive attention to a more refined meditation object, the changing sensation at the tip of the nose as the breath draws in and out.
It arises by intentionally calming excess effort within your body, breathing, and mind.
As effort within your body & breathing are relaxed and effort in your mind calmed, awareness will naturally gravitate towards the tip of your nose, and sensations within each breath will naturally appear.
Tuning into these sensations, plus generating joy & happiness in the growing calm & tranquility, will develop exclusive, intimate attention.
Once established, Marker 07, accompanied by growing meditative joy & tranquility, will calm Hindrances: 08, 09 & 10: Doubt, Gross Dullness, and Gross Restlessness.
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MARKER 08: One Point of Sensation:
Marker 08 is concerned with cultivating stabile attention on one point of breath sensation at the tip of the nose by accessing the pleasure of growing tranquility.
It arises when tranquility matures and gross 'doing' within the mind has been calmed due to growing intimacy with breath experience.
Once established, Marker 08, accompanied with maturing tranquility, will calm Hindrance 11: Subtle Dullness.
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MARKER 09: Sustained Attention:
Marker 09 is concerned with sustaining attention on one point of breath sensation at the tip of the nose while enjoying the joy & tranquility of the seclusion from the intellectual mind.
When your attention sustains it will become effortless, stable, with little wandering, and joy & tranquility develop to maturity.
Sustained attention develops through cultivating the pleasure of letting go in your body & mind, not through holding your attention to one point.
While it is possible to sustain attention through effort and sheer willpower, you will, due to habituation, habituate this tendency within your mind.
The tendency towards effort & control will become natural in daily life.
If you develop stable attention by inclining your mind towards the pleasure of letting go, you will habituate a tendency within your mind to let go in daily life.
It is the momentum of letting go in calm, insight, and morality that is the energy that turns the Wheel of Dhamma in the mind of the meditator.
Once established, Marker 09, accompanied by stable, unified attention, will calm Hindrance 12: Subtle Wandering.
Experiential Markers 10-12 are found within Cultivation 04.
MARKER 10: Whole-Body Breathing:
Marker 10 is concerned with developing intimacy with the background peripheral experience of your whole body as it breathes.
Developed intimacy withdraws peripheral awareness from impinging sensory objects as a gradual closing down of the five sense doors.
Even though attention is sustained, peripheral awareness still contains sensory input and has opportunities for habitual distraction.
By opening peripheral awareness to the subtle movement of your whole body as it breathes, intimacy develops, and the sense fields calm.
With maturity your body will become one ball of breath-sensation-awareness, with attention sustained in the middle.
Once established, Marker 10, accompanied by intimacy, will calm Hindrance 13: Subtle Restlessness.
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Marker 11: Sustained Awareness:
Marker 11 is concerned with developing exclusive intimate awareness of the experience of the pleasure of your whole body breathing.
Awareness will completely withdraw from the sensory fields as intimacy matures (sound may still be present as very distant).
Marker 11 only arises once attention and peripheral awareness are both sustained.
As your awareness sustains, sensations within your body will become very subtle due to the calming of sensory awareness.
Since your body is also a sense organ, your ability to experience bodily sensations from the world will calm, and breath sensation will fade.
As awareness sustains, sensations will be replaced by subtle pleasurable feelings (vedana) as the early stages of piti start to arise.
With this pleasurable feeling in your body, peripheral awareness will sustain as a solid, stable, unmoving awareness, with strong sukha (joy/happiness) within the mind and piti (pleasurable sensation filling the body).
Once established, Marker 11, accompanied by subtle piti in your body and sukha in your mind, will calm Hindrance 14: Subtle Instability.
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Marker 12: Access Concentration:
Marker 12 is concerned with establishing access concentration as a platform to cultivate and enter jhana (absorption).
Access concentration only arises once attention and awareness have been sustained and unified.
It requires an absence of: anticipation of pleasure and fear of giving up control.
With complete giving up of control, this natural process will shift into a flow-like state, a flow of piti (as pleasure)-sukha (as joy, happiness).
At this stage, you have established the conditions for access concentration: unified, stable attention, free from the 16 meditative hindrances, accompanied by piti and sukha that arise from this intimate seclusion.
Once established, Marker 12 calms the final two Hindrances 11 & 12: Anticipation (of pleasure) and Fear (of giving up control).
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--> Complete letting go of effort gives rise to --> Jhana: four levels of meditative absorption that develop equanimity.
To experience a momentum of letting go during mindfulness of breathing, it is necessary to give up control during your daily seated meditations, learning to take advantage of the natural inclinations of your mind.
When you sit down to meditate, your intention should always be towards developing calm & tranquility during mindfulness of breathing.
This intention creates a reference point for insight into any experience that hinders your ability to develop calm and tranquility.
While practicing mindfulness of breathing, you may experience restlessness, sleepiness, dullness, thinking, frustration, doubt, etc.
These are simply experiences that your mind may produce to protect you when it feels challenged (known as hindrances).
See these hindrances as opportunities for insight rather than problems to solve.
Observe their autonomous, impersonal nature by breaking them into separate experiential parts.
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Hindrances & GOSS
When any hindrances (disturbances to relaxation & calm) are present, apply the GOSS Formula.
Example: Frustration.
If you feel frustrated, bring your awareness straight to your body (Ground).
Notice responses within your body like tightness and tension from that frustration, plus its overall feeling of unpleasantness/unease (Observe).
Gently soften/relax the effort behind the frustration of "I don't like" or "I don't want" feeling the pleasure of letting go (Soften).
Gently smile with your eyes into the subtle pleasure, letting go of your resistance towards what is happening or what you are experiencing (Smile).
In the physical world, effort gives results.
It is easy to think: "If I am not getting results, then it is obvious that I am not doing it right" or "I am not applying enough effort."
This makes sense in the physical world with the laws of physics. However, it makes no sense in the experiential world with the laws of the heart and mind.
The world of the heart & mind, the experienced world, works on different laws to the physical world.
The heart & mind abide by the law of gaining momentum by letting go, calming effort, and giving up control.
These laws are opposite to the physical world.
We can see this quite clearly in expressions of heart in our daily lives. Kindness, love, gentleness, compassion, generosity, and gratitude are strongest when we are relaxed, calm, and let go of control.
As insight meditators, we develop an understanding of this and follow the natural laws of the heart & mind.
Not through striving, getting, and achieving, but rather through accessing the pleasure and happiness of letting go.
When we can find the balance between letting go and increased clarity of awareness, we are abiding by the Middle Way.
To find the middle way requires curiosity in that direction.
When you sit for your daily meditation, check-in and realign your mind with your present experience, observing softening any desire to be anywhere other than where you are now.
To experience momentum in letting go within your mind, it is necessary to give up control during your daily seated meditations.
Giving up control does not mean giving up the structure of your meditation, but rather giving up your desire to control your experience and experiencing.
Giving up control over what happens and what you are experiencing in meditation brings an understanding of the saying:
"There is no such thing as a bad meditation, just opportunities to learn and grow."
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How to Structure Your Meditation:
As a MIDL meditator, your intention when you meditate is always the development of samatha (calm & tranquility) during mindfulness of breathing.
Anything that interrupts the development of calm & tranquility is seen not as a hindrance but as an opportunity for insight into its autonomous (anatta) nature.
Understanding the autonomous nature of your mind means letting it choose whether your meditation period focuses on cultivating calm, insight, or letting go, not you.
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When to meditate for calm:
Samatha phase.
When you sit in meditation and your mind naturally inclines towards calm, you take advantage of this and practice mindfulness of breathing for calm and tranquility.
Your mind will naturally enter a samatha-calm phase when sila: morality has refined in your daily life. Because of this, your mind is inclined towards letting go of control.
During a samatha phase, you aim to develop access concentration and jhana to increase the clarity of your awareness and incline your mind towards letting go.
You can encourage this process by adapting your GOSS Formula towards accessing the pleasure of relaxation & letting go.
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When to meditate for insight:
Vipassana phase.
When you sit in meditation, and find that your mind inclines towards disturbance, you take advantage of this by grounding awareness in your body.
From this foundation, you develop insight into the impermanent (anicca) and autonomous (anatta) nature of your mind & body.
Your mind will naturally enter a vipassana-insight phase due to a stressful situation in your daily life or increased clarity of anicca (impermanence) and anatta (autonomy) during samatha.
During a vipassana phase, meditative pleasure and joy will be inaccessible.
You aim to allow your mind to experience the out-of-controll-ness of the 'mind-mess' to develop disenchantment towards its autonomous nature.
You can encourage this process by adapting your GOSS Formula towards accessing the pleasure of letting go of any aversion within your mind.
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When to meditate for letting go:
Sila phase.
When you sit in meditation and your mind inclines towards letting go of all objects, you take advantage of this tendency by practicing nirvikalpa samadhi (stillness meditation) and refining morality in your daily life.
Your mind will naturally enter a sila-letting go phase due to the maturity of disenchantment during the vipassana phase.
During a sila phase, you may not feel like sitting as much and become sensitive to everything you think, say, and do.
Take advantage of this tendency to let go, by allowing your mind to follow habitual patterns, and doing so with a clear comprehension of the process.
When the pattern has ended notice how you feel within yourself for following that pattern, the feeling of unpleasantness, unsatisfaction, and lowered trust within yourself.
Also, take advantage of this and decondition this pattern by softening into how you feel while experiencing the pleasure of letting go to train your mind to let go.
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