Meditation Skill 03

You now introduce your ability to relax and soften, learned in Meditation Skills 01 and 02, to find enjoyment and contentment with the growing presence within your body. The key is to take your time being mindfully aware and to develop contentment with each of these stages.

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• Set a countdown timer on your phone (set to Do Not Disturb) and place it behind you.
• Meditation Length:  Meditate for 30 min to develop calm & insight.
• Benefits: This Meditation Skill will teach you how to stay present in your body throughout the day and become more aware of your mental habits, allowing you to change them gradually by developing mindful nonparticipation with slow, softening breaths.

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Meditation Instructions:

• YouTube: Video Instructions.
• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.

Step 1: Meditation Skills 01-02.

Sit for meditation and develop Meditation Skills 01 and 02 as you have in previous meditations, except you now add the below Steps 2-4 as new additions to your meditation. 

Your Meditation So Far:

Sit in meditation.

Reflect gratefully.

Listen to sounds.

Clothing on your body.

Marker 01: Body Relaxation.

Marker 02: Mind Relaxation.

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Additions for developing Mindful Presence in Skill 03: 

Step 2: Mindful Presence in your Body. 

• As the enjoyment of relaxation in your body and mind increases in Skill 02, a feeling of being mindful and present in your body will develop by itself. Mindful Presence naturally occurs whenever we relax both body and mind while clearly being aware of what it feels like to relax in our body and mind and enjoy that feeling.

Step 3: Develop Contentment with this Presence.

• As mindfulness and presence in your body grow, notice and begin to gently soften any tendency of your mind to look forward to a future result or to dwell on what just happened. Looking forward and back can develop discontent and hinder your mind from finding enjoyment in meditation, or by dwelling on what has just happened. It is helpful at this stage of meditation to be curious about finding enjoyment and contentment with the simplicity of resting in your body at this time. Nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to be; how nice is this? Is there a need to add something else to this experience?

Step 4: Introduce the GOSS Formula. 

How to develop insight and let go.

1. Ground.
2. Observe.
3. Soften.
4. Smile.
5. Repeat if needed.

Ground = Develop mindful presence by intentionally softening and relaxing your body and mind.

Observe = Notice whenever you lose awareness of your body and become distracted.

Soften = Relax your body and mind with gentle breaths to let go of distractions and return your awareness to your body.

Smile = Enjoy the feeling of pleasantness that you can feel as you let go, and mindful presence returns to your body to reward your mind for letting go.

How to apply GOSS during meditation.

Once you have developed mindfulness of your body in Skill 03, you can use the presence of your body as a reference point for developing insight into the anatta (autonomous) nature of your mind's habits and teach your mind to let them go. Allocate the end of each meditation session to practice this formula on any distraction that comes up, like mind wandering and thinking, to refine your skill.

The trick is to use the feeling of mindful presence in your body as a grounding (reference) point, resting your attention on the touch of your thumbs, and play a game by allowing your mind to wander. When you do, your attention will shift to a thought or memory, and gradually, you will get lost in it. When you notice this has happened, you can apply the GOSS Formula below to begin your insight game again. Enjoying the pleasant experience of contentment with the presence of your body will gradually weaken habitual mind wandering and forgetting.

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Progression in mindfulness of breathing can be accurately tracked by observing your ability to access the Meditation Markers. This can be done by developing insight into their associated Meditative Hindrances and changing the conditions that support them.

Insight: Insight is developed at this stage of mindfulness of breathing by being curious about creating conditions that support Marker 03: Sleepiness & Dullness, thereby weakening the conditions that support Hindrance 03: Physical Restlessness.

Progression Map for Mindfulness of Breathing

Meditative Hindrances.                      Meditation Markers.

(Hindrances to calm).                         (Signs of deepening calm).

                                                               00: Diaphragm Breathing.

                                                               01: Body Relaxation.

                                                               02: Mind Relaxation.

03: Sleepiness & Dullness.     →      03: Mindful Presence.

04: Habitual Forgetting.                     04: Content & Happy.

05: Habitual Control.                          05: Natural Breathing.

06: Mind Wandering.                          06: Length of Each Breath.

07: Gross Dullness.                            07: Breath Sensations.

08: Subtle Dullness.                           08: One Point of Sensation.

09: Subtle Wandering.                       09: Sustained Attention.

10: Sensory Stimulation.                  10: Whole-Body Breathing.

11: Anticipation of Pleasure.           11: Sustained Awareness.

12: Fear of Letting Go.                      12: Access Concentration.

Meditative Hindrance.

Sleepiness & Dullness (03).

Loss of clarity of body sensations and a sleepy, dull feeling in your mind.

Sleepiness and Dullness refer to a state of relaxation during meditation where you feel sleepy, and your mind drifts and floats, causing you to lose clarity of the elemental qualities of your body as you sit in meditation. This happens because your skill in relaxing your body and mind is improving; however, your skill in mindfully and clearly comprehending your present experience is still weak and needs to be strengthened to bring balance back to your mind.

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Antidote.

Developing your skill in developing presence in your body creates the conditions for Marker 03, and is the antidote for the Hindrance of Sleepiness and Dullness. Sleepiness and Dullness occur at this stage of meditation, as you become more skilled at physically and mentally relaxing and you over-relax your mind and slip into a sleepy, drifty state. Strangely, this is a sign of progression in meditation, which means you are becoming skilled in relaxation. Developing intimacy with the first two Meditation Markers: Body & Mind Relaxation, will increase your mindfulness and prevent your mind from falling into a sleepy and dull state. Bringing more detail into your meditation, such as being aware of the elemental qualities of your body, like warmth, heaviness, and touch, plus how nice it feels to relax, will increase your mindfulness and clarity of comprehension.

Tip: It is important to note that although your focus is on settling the Hindrance of Sleepiness & Dullness at this stage of meditation, all the other Hindrances listed below it may also be present. It is essential to settle each Hindrance in the order presented in the above Map for Mindfulness of Breathing, as each Marker is the antidote for its associated Hindrance. 

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Doubt: A regular visitor until Stream Entry.

Stream Entry (Sotapanna) is the first of four main insights in Buddhist Insight Meditation that permanently removes the conditions that support doubt. Until Stream Entry, it is normal for insight meditators to be visited by doubts about our practice at different times. If we get stuck in doubt, it will paralyse our practice; if we use it skillfully as a motivation for curiosity, doubt will deepen our insight.

Doubt is not on the list of hindrances in MIDL because doubt can occur anytime during your meditation until you complete the first insight path at Sotapanna: Stream Entry. Until Sotapanna-Insight, it is normal for doubts about your ability to meditate, the meditation method, or your meditation teacher to arise within your mind. It is important to understand that until the First Path Insight, Sotapanna (which uproots doubt), the purpose of your meditation practice is to reveal, understand, and significantly weaken doubt within your mind. This means being intentionally aware of the negative background commentary within your mind, as it constantly judges and offers words of wisdom. Learning to see any doubt in your mind simply as a defensive mechanism trying to protect you from the danger of not getting it right. 

It also means seeing that the background doubtful commentator uses unpleasant feelings (vedana) and convincing arguments to encourage you to fall back into old habits and ways of doing things. Insight into doubt is developed by seeing the feedback loop of doubt within your mind and realising that it never leads anywhere good. See if you can notice how doubt creates its problems and then try to solve them. When you gently soften your interest in doubt, you may notice that when doubt is not present in your mind, there never was a problem in the first place, and everything is just as it is meant to be. 

When you start to see doubt in this way, that it just leads to complication and never leads anywhere good, you will become disenchanted with the mental habit of doubt. As disenchantment grows, and your mind turns away from it, doubt not being practised or fed, will begin to weaken and fade, and saddha, as verified faith, trust and confidence, based on your own experience, will grow and create the conditions for Stream Entry, and the uprooting of doubt.

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These MIDL techniques you are learning naturally integrate into daily life. The first three Meditation Skills have now created a foundation for the GOSS Formula in daily life. GOSS will transform how you meditate in daily life, and as your skill develops, it will refine into a natural way of being.

Meditation Skills 01-04 are designed to develop the MIDL GOSS Formula. Once you understand GOSS, it will transform your insight meditation in both seated meditation and daily life. Even though the Smile part of the GOSS Formula is learnt in Skill 04, you can begin to integrate GOSS into your life in Skill 03 because you are now familiar with developing mindfulness of your body by relaxing your body and mind.

GOSS: Ground > Observe > Soften > Smile.

Meditation always begins by developing a grounding or reference point from which you can create both calm & insight.

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Below is a simple instruction on how the GOSS Formula works. 

GOSS Formula: How to Let Go.

1. Ground.
2. Observe.
3. Soften.
4. Smile.
5. Repeat if needed.

Ground = develop mindfulness of your body to create a reference point to the present.

Observe = notice whenever you become distracted from this reference point.

Soften = relax effort in your body and mind to let go of the distraction.

Smile = enjoy the pleasantness of relaxing and letting go to reward your mind.

How this works in daily life.

Ground: 

• In daily life, check in on yourself a few times per day and notice if you have lost awareness of your body. By simply relaxing your body & mind while enjoying it, as in Meditation Skills 01-02, your awareness will withdraw from your mind and become grounded within your body.

Observe: 

• Once awareness is grounded in your body, you can go about your day. Check in every so often and relax your body and mind whenever mindfulness of your body fades. At some point during the day, you will likely notice that you have become lost within your mind and forgotten to be mindful of your body. This forgetting is perfectly normal and an opportunity for insight into anatta, the autonomous nature of your mind.

Soften: 

• Once you notice you have lost mindfulness of your body, you take some softening breaths to soften, relax, and let go within your body and mind, allowing awareness to ground naturally within your body again. 

Smile: 

• The mind responds better to reward than criticism. Suppose you smile with your eyes, acknowledging the pleasant feeling that arises from softening, relaxing, and letting go. In that case, the reward that your mind receives for letting go will gradually develop mindfulness of your body as the natural dwelling place of your awareness.

GOSS is a circular process of insight and pleasure reward that gradually deconditions defensive, unwholesome, and unskillful patterns of mind and heart.

The first Meditation Skills you will learn in the MIDL Insight Meditation Course will teach you how to let go and allow things to be as they are by using the GOSS Formula while sitting in meditation and in your daily life.

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In Meditation Skill 01 & 02: 

• You will learn how to let go physically and mentally. This relates to the Soften part of the GOSS Formula: Ground --> Observe --> Soften --> Smile.

In Meditation Skill 03: 

• You will learn how to cultivate mindfulness of your body, allowing your awareness to become grounded within it. This relates to the Ground part of the GOSS Formula: Ground --> Observe --> Soften --> Smile.

In Meditation Skill 04:

• You will learn how to reward your mind by finding enjoyment in being mindful of your body and in letting go of distractions. This relates to the Smile part of the GOSS Formula: Ground --> Observe --> Soften --> Smile.

You will then have all the tools you need to train your attention and weaken hindrances such as thinking and habitual wandering.

How to begin GOSS in your daily life.

The GOSS Formula is a circle, with each part of the formula feeding into the next. Whichever part of the formula you begin in, whether it is observing, softening or smiling, your aim is always to return to the samatha (calm) state of mindfulness of your body to ground awareness.

Understanding this, we can see that GOSS initially begins with:

1. Soften
2. Smile

When you soften and relax effort in your body and mind, smiling as you enjoy that relaxation, your awareness will withdraw from your intellectual mind and Ground within your body.

1. Ground.
2. Observe.
3. Soften.
4. Smile.
5. Repeat if needed.

At this stage of meditation, bring an investigation into your daily life as to the circular nature of GOSS. When you begin Meditation Skill 04 to develop contentment and happiness, you will learn how to fully enjoy and smile into the subtle pleasantness of relaxing and letting go in all aspects of your life.

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Congratulations, you have finished Cultivation 01.

You are ready to progress to Meditation Skill 04: Content & Happy in Cultivation 02 when:

• You feel contented sitting in meditation, mindful of your body, and have developed the skill of balancing energy while relaxing both your body and mind, thereby removing sleepiness and dullness. An increased sense of aware presence in your body will accompany this, reflected in a heightened sense of contentment.

To notice the gaps between attention and habitual inattention, you need to create a reference point. Without a reference point, it is easy to become lost in the mind's habitual patterns. A reference point is an experience that is always available, here and now, as part of your present experience. Once you have a reference point, you need to become very familiar with it so that when your mind habitually wanders from that reference point, you will notice. This is the point of seated meditation: to develop familiarity with a reference point such as your body, touch, breath, image or whatever the meditation object is—becoming so familiar with it that it is obvious when your mind forgets it.  

In MIDL, the reference point is the awareness of our whole body's mindful presence, whether we are sitting in meditation or daily life. Our body is the perfect reference point because it knows nothing of the past or future. Have you considered that your body is always present, making it an excellent reference point for insight? Even better, your body can sense pleasant feelings every time you relax and let go of your interest in being stimulated by the world or your mind. This subtle pleasantness within the body, which comes from relaxing effort, makes awareness of your body attractive to your mind. As we train our minds to perceive the subtle pleasantness of relaxing and letting go, the subtle pleasantness of our bodies increases in clarity. It generates joy, making it enchanting to the mind.  

Once you have your reference point, you can now observe your mind. For this next step, so that you can observe the anatta (autonomous) nature of your attention, you have to let go of control of it. This means learning to rest in the background (peripheral), be aware of the presence of your body, and allow your attention to rest on the touch of your thumbs in the foreground without controlling it. This has the feeling of relaxing back on a bicycle seat and letting go of the handlebars, allowing the bicycle to steer itself.

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Once you rest in the presence of your body, you can have fun by allowing your mind to wander freely. At first, it may not play the game. If it doesn't, then relax your interest in the meditation more, and it will come out to play like a playful dog. Your attention is like a dog,. When it is distracted, it will hop up from your lap, bark through the fence, chew on its favourite toy, and fall asleep under a chair. Wherever your attention (dog) wanders, observe its anatta nature and call it back by softening using the GOSS Formula. Feeling your body fill with presence as you soften and relax. Smile with your eyes to bring up the pleasant feeling of letting go, enjoying it, to reward your mind for returning to presence. 

To add curiosity, take an interest in the gaps between meditative attention, inattention, and the return of mindfulness. Once you have noticed this wandering, particularly that it happened by itself (anatta), gently relax your awareness back into your chosen reference point to start again. It is by observing these gaps that you will begin to see the gaps between thoughts. As samadhi (unification of mind/collectedness) develops, your mind will try to pull away from your reference point habitually but will only partially do so. Because of this, you will notice the stillness, a thought arising, its pull on your attention, and then see it cease without losing awareness of your reference point.

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