Meditation Skill 05

Your meditation is the same as Meditation Skill 04, except you now develop mindfulness of the experience of the natural flow of each in-breath and out-breath within your body. Control will appear as effort or strain within your breathing. Softening of control is done by letting a slow breath out through your nose, as in Meditation Skill 02: Mind Relaxation, to relax the mental effort that supports the desire to control your breathing. If you relax and wait at the end of that out-breath, your breathing will reset to natural, uncontrolled breathing by itself. 

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• Set a countdown timer on your phone (set to DND) and place it behind you.
• Meditation Length: Meditate for 30 min to develop calm & insight.
• Progression: When you understand and can calm Habitual Control.

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Simple Instructions:

Develop the foundation of Meditation Skills 01-04 in Steps 1 to 3:

1. Prepare: Sit in meditation and reflect gratefully for this opportunity > 
2. Mindful Presence: Establish Mindful Presence by developing Skills 01-03 >
3. Joyful Presence: Establish a Joyful Presence as in Skill 04 >
4. Natural Breathing: Be mindful of the natural flow of breathing in your body >
5. Enjoy It: Incline your awareness to the natural pleasure in each breath.
6. GOSS: Apply the GOSS Formula when attention wanders. 

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Detailed Explanation:

Step 1: Prepare your body & mind for meditation.

• To begin meditation, find a comfortable place to sit on a chair or the floor. Place your palms beneath your belly button and gently close your eyelids.
• Always begin your meditation by sweetening your mind by reflecting on simple things in your life for which you can be grateful, including this opportunity to meditate.
• To arouse mindfulness, spend a few minutes listening to the flow of sounds around you, feeling the touch of your clothing on your body, and the heaviness of your body as it rests on the chair or the floor.

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Step 2: Meditation Skills 01-03: Develop Mindful Presence.

• Establish Mindful Presence by developing Meditation Skills 01-03. 

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Step 3: Meditation Skill 04: Joyful Presence.

• Establish a Joyful Presence as in Meditation Skill 04.

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Meditation Skill 05 Additions:

Step 4: Experience natural breathing throughout your body.

• As Joyful Presence grows you will find enjoyment and contentment with the experience of your body as you meditate. As enjoyment and presence develop, you will become aware of the natural flow of breathing throughout your body. This transition to awareness of your breathing is a natural progression of mindfulness, relaxation and quietening of your mind. 
• Bring a bare awareness to your breathing experience as it flows within your body, being careful not to control or change it in any way. It is helpful to increase the awareness of your breathing by increasing your sensitivity to it in different parts of your body: shoulders > chest > upper back > belly > lower back > legs > arms > head.

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Step 5: Find enjoyment in each in & out-breath.

• While keeping a peripheral awareness of the flow of breathing throughout your body, allow your attention to Feel the gentle stretch as the breath draws in, and then relax as the breath goes out. 
• Being more aware of the subtle pleasure of each breath as it moves through your body, and how nice each gentle stretch and relaxation feels will train your mind to ground your attention more easily in the breath experience.
• Bringing your Meditative Joy to your breathing by smiling into it with your eyes as you would towards a loved one, letting them know how much you care will increase the pleasure found within each natural in and out-breath.

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Step 6: Apply the GOSS formula whenever you notice your attention wanders.

1. Take advantage of any wandering of your attention away from this grounding point to cultivate your perception of the anatta (not-self) autonomous nature of your mind.
2. If you notice the tightness of control in your breathing, take a slow, gentle out-breath through your nose, relax, and allow the breathing to draw back in by itself. This will reset natural breathing (more information).

Adjust Your GOSS Formula

At this stage of meditation, make a simple adjustment to your GOSS Formula.

GOSS: Ground --> Observe --> Soften --> Smile.

1. Ground: Be aware of the experience of your body's natural breathing.
2. Observe: Notice whenever you become distracted from it.
3. Soften: Gently soften/relax effort in your body & mind, noticing how nice it feels.
4. Smile: Smile with your eyes into the pleasure of relaxation in your body, mind and breathing.

Progression Map for Mindfulness of Breathing.

Progression in mindfulness of breathing can be accurately tracked by observing your ability to access the 12 Meditation Markers. This can be done by developing insight into and calming the conditions supporting the associated Meditative Hindrance.

Meditative Hindrances.                      Meditation Markers.

                                                              01: Body Relaxation.

                                                              02: Mind Relaxation.

                                                              03: Mindful Presence.

                                                              04: Joyful Presence.

05: Habitual Control.              →      05: Natural Breathing.

06: Distracted Mind.                          06: Breathing Presence.

07: Gross Dullness.                            07: Breath Sensations.

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

09: Subtle Wandering.                       09: Sustained Attention.

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

11: Anticipation of Pleasure.            11: Sustained Awareness.

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

Your fifth step in meditation is to develop Marker 05: Natural Breathing (right column) to calm Hindrance 05: Habitual Control (left column). As you develop Joyful Presence and become more aware of the natural flow of breathing throughout your body, old habits of seeking pleasure may slip in and manifest as your mind controls and tightens your breathing. Seeing your mind's tendency to control something that does not need to be controlled, your breathing is a fantastic opportunity for insight into how to be aware of experiences and also let them be as they are.

Once you weaken the habit of habitually controlling your breathing and can experience a continuous knowing of the length of each in and out-breath as it naturally flows within your body, free from control, you are ready to develop Marker 06: Breathing Presence.

Meditative Hindrances are signs of an imbalance in either your effort or the structure of your attention. It is skillful to view them as an opportunity for insight into your mind rather than something to overcome.

 Meditative Hindrances

01: Physical Restlessness.

02: Mental Restlessness.

03: Sleepiness & Dullness.

04: Habitual Forgetting.

05: Habitual Control.

06: Distracted Mind.

07: Gross Dullness.

08: Subtle Dullness.

09: Subtle Wandering.

10: Sensory Distraction.

11: Anticipation of Pleasure.

12: Fear of Letting Go.

Meditative Hindrance

Habitual Control (05).

Your mind habitually controlling your breathing. 

Habitual control refers to the mental habit of controlling things within our lives that do not need to be controlled. The flow of breathing as it moves within our body is one of these. As calm develops and you become aware of the flow of breathing moving through your body, you may start to notice a tendency in your mind to hang onto each breath. This grasping of the mind to control the breath appears as tightness, tension and unease. As long as your mind has a habit of controlling your breath, your ability to develop deeper calm and tranquility will be hindered. 

Antidote

Let a slow, gentle out-breath through your nose, then relax and allow the breathing to draw back in by itself. This will reset natural breathing.

Support Meditation: Habitually controlling your breathing.

You are ready to progress to Meditation Skill 06: Breathing Presence when:

• As a natural progression of relaxing & letting go, you find enjoyment in the experience of your breathing as it flows in and out of your body, free from any desire for you to control it.

Control: If you have difficulty being aware of your breathing without your mind habitually controlling it, Meditation: Skill in Allowing will help you weaken this control.

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer: Guided Meditation.
• You Tube: Video Instructions.

From the foundation of mindfulness of your body, as you learned in Meditation Skill 01, you can start to observe how the experience of your body changes throughout the day as a direct reflection of your state of mind.

What is meant by 'direct reflection of your mind' is that your current state of mind can be observed by your body's reaction to it. 

• Tightness and tension will appear in your body if your mind is resisting something.
• Feelings of longing will appear in your body if your mind is wanting something.

Emotions and feelings of pleasantness and unpleasantness you experience in your body are reflections of your state of mind. 

It is helpful to observe these reflections know clearly how you are relating to things within your life.

Applying your GOSS: ground --> observe --> soften --> smile formula will help to relax any of these resistances and gradually weaken them over time.

From your foundation of GOSS, you can begin to train attention skills learnt in seated meditation, into your daily life.

Meditation 05 in Daily Life:

1. Gently soften awareness into your body until it feels grounded, present, now. 
2. Relax your effort to be aware of your body, allow it to shift to the background.
3. During quiet time, learn to tune into the flow of breathing within your body.
4. Smile into the pleasure of each letting go that occurs with each natural breath.

Question: From marker 05 "natural breathing", do we need to have the sensation of stretch/relaxation in peripheral awareness?

Stephen: As we prepare for mindfulness of breathing in Meditations 01-03 we develop an overall sensitivity to the whole of our body as we sit in meditation.

While there may be background sounds or thoughts our awareness of the experience of our body as it sits is in the foreground.

In Meditation 03: Mindful Presence we have a clear peripheral awareness of the elemental qualities of our body such as warmth, coolness, pressure, touch, heaviness etc. as an overall experience of our body.

Our attention at this stage is focused on and rests on the border of our body. With the main focus of our peripheral awareness and attention focused on our body, this is referred to as being grounded.

In Meditation 04: Joyful Presence you enjoy this mindful presence, finding the simple pleasure/ease within it, and the experience of being grounded within your body matures.

This is known in MIDL as our Viewing Platform.

In Meditation 05: Natural Breathing you will, without effort, become aware of breathing within your body. This movement appears as a natural stretch and relax movement within our body.

At this stage while you maintain a peripheral awareness of your whole body in the background, the focus of your attention moves from the borders of your body to the movement of breathing as it occurs.

Question: Do we need to have the sensation of stretch/relaxation in peripheral attention?

Stephen: No. The experience of stretch and relax refers to how we experience Markers 05: Natural Breathing & 06: Whole of Each Breath. It is an object of attention and not an object of peripheral awareness during these early stages of mindfulness of breathing.

Question: Do we keep the center of attention the various successive markers "Whole of each breath", then "Sensations in breathing", then "One point of sensation"?

Stephen: From this stage of as mindfulness of breathing develops, your attention will gradually become narrower in focus: body breathing (body) > breath length (body) > breath sensation (nose) > one point of sensation (nose), while in the background you will maintain a peripheral awareness of your body.

As this happens the focus of attention on the experience of your breathing will come more into the foreground, and awareness of your body more into the background.

In percentages we can think of it as this:

It is important to note that these aren't accurate and more to give you a feel about what is happening.

*Peripheral Awareness (PA) = in the background.
* Attention (A) = focused on in the foreground.

• 03: = (PA) - 80% - foreground. (A) - 20% - background. (Mindful Presence)
• 04: = (PA) - 90% - foreground. (A) - 10% - background. (Joyful Presence)
• 05: = (PA) - 50% - even. (A) - 50% - even. (Natural Breathing)
• 06: = (PA) - 40% - background. (A) - 60% - foreground. (Whole of Each Breath)
• 07: = (PA) - 30% - background. (A) - 70% - foreground. (Sensations in Breathing)
• 08: = (PA) - 20% - background. (A) - 80% - foreground. (One Point of Sensation)
• 09: = (PA) - 10% - background. (A) - 90% - foreground. (Sustained Attention)
• 10: = (PA) - 90% - foreground. (A) - 10% - background. (Whole Body Breathing)
• 11: = (PA) - 100% - foreground. (A) - 0% - background. (Sustained Awareness)
• 12: = (PA) + (A) unified 100% - foreground. (Access Concentration)

Question: I would really appreciate if you could say anything about what it actually means when attention has a very low percentage (zero in M11!), this seems a bit strange to me as I've always associated "little/no attention" with dullness. 

Obviously, we don't have dullness in M11, so clearly, I've been making some sort of conceptual mistake there? So, what does it actually mean in MIDL for attention to be "non-existent" (0%, as in M11) or nearly so (10%, as in M04, M10, etc), without any presence of dullness? 

Stephen: In Meditation 09 attention is sustained and there is no potential for gross or subtle dullness. Gross Dullness was overcome in Meditation 07 and subtle dullness in Meditation 08.

Sustained attention means that the focus of attention is stable, unmoving and flowing with the object of meditation - by itself.

Once attention is sustained it no longer wanders and also has no interest in secondary objects within background peripheral awareness.

At this stage we can let go of attention, as our mind is doing it itself, and instead bring all experiences within peripheral awareness to the foreground.

In Meditation 10 we still have some background awareness of attention resting on its object, but we narrow 90% of the energy of peripheral awareness into the experience of our whole body as it breathes.

This withdraws energy from the six sense fields and narrows it down to this experience to close down awareness of the six sense fields.

In Meditation 11 we become so absorbed in the pleasure of peripheral awareness of the body that awareness of the sustained attention fades, that why 100% peripheral awareness is mentioned.

As the body sense fades all that is left is 100% awareness of piti sukha (pleasure in the body, joy/happiness within the mind), as the mind narrows down from sensory experience to just this pure experience, free from hindrances, as it reaches access concentration.

Question: Attention isn't really controlled or considered at all during M04 (as long as it's not doing anything which is interfering with the ability to maintain mindfulness of each joyful presence focus in peripheral awareness) ... and, for that reason, we say that M04 is 90% peripheral awareness and only 10% attention? Is that a correct understanding of what the percentage breakdown means, in this case? 

Stephen: Yes, that's right. Attention is not deliberately trained until M05 as we begin mindfulness of breathing. That is why from M05 to M09 when attention is sustained, attention gradually becomes more dominant.

The changes in percentages occur because peripheral awareness and the focal point of attention both draw their energy from the same energy pool. So as one increases the other weakens.

Interestingly it is understanding of this relationship between peripheral awareness and attention that allows insight meditation to transfer into daily life. Hence the GOSS Formula is taking advantage of this.

Question: It would be great if Stephen could explain the place of such practices (asanas, pranayamas, qigong, tai chi) in the MIDL system, how they interact in the terminology of MIDL, 

Stephen: Instead of focusing of the terminology of these practices, we should clarify the importance of framework and intention because it drives the way that our mind perceives what it is we are doing.

And hence way that the path unfolds for us when we practice them.

I can practice my qi gong form with the intention and framework taught to me by my qi gong teacher, and I see the flow of qi in everything, my health and longevity improve, my ability to heal, spontaneous qi movements, psychic powers and one with the universe.

I can practice my qi gong form with the intention and framework taught to me by my meditation teacher, and I see impermanence in my body and mind experience, suffering when my mind clings, and freedom from suffering that comes from surrendering to its autonomous nature.

With this second intention, my focus is not on qi, healing, longevity etc. it is on weakening and uprooting the unwholesome/unskillful and cultivating and establishing the wholesome/skillful as a natural way of being. It is to bring the suffering of samsara to an end.

Two different frameworks & intentions that lead to two different perceptions and therefore unfolding of path, yet the same set of physical movements and human mind.

My intention towards what I am cultivating, what I see as important and not important, and how 

I am perceiving experiences completely changes the unfolding of the path in any activity I do be it yoga, tai chi, the gym or even sitting in meditation. Intention and framework change the way experience unfolds.

Question: Could you explain the place of such practices in the MIDL system, ............ and how this correlates with the Seven Enlightenment Factors and the Noble Eightfold Path. 

Stephen: 

To do this we need to stick with the Buddhas framework.

1. Four Noble Truths.
2. Noble Eightfold Path.
3. Seven Enlightenment Factors.
4. Five Hindrances.
5. Three Characteristics.
6. Nibanna.

Our intention is towards:

1. Increasing clarity of mind by developing samadhi.
2. Using this clarity for insight that develops wisdom.
3. Applying wisdom in a way that results in letting go and refinement of morality.
4. Thereby creating the conditions for deepening samadhi in a circle.

This is done by:

1. Clearly defining peripheral awareness from the focus of attention in formal, seated meditation.
2. Applying accurate, precise attention training in both stability & flexibility in formal, seated meditation.
3. Training our mind to clearly perceive anicca, dukkha and anatta as primary and people and things as secondary.

This is expressed in asanas, pranayamas, qigong, tai chi by:

1. Establishing peripheral awareness in our body as mindful presence; enlightenment factors 1-3.
2. Finding enjoyment in mindful presence to the 4th enlightenment factor: joy.
3. Bring this established joyful presence towards remembering the experience of movement into the above practices. This is where slow, defined, deliberate movement-based practices have an advantage over faster movements such as running, sports etc. Actually, the slow flow is the best to align awareness with the characteristics.
4. Notice whenever we forget this experience and relax back into joyful presence.
5. Taking interest in: pleasantness, unpleasantness, impermanence and autonomy.
6. Taking interest in and softening our relationship of attraction, aversion indifference towards the experience of practicing and inclining our mind towards contentment with it.

Question: Could provide general recommendations on preferred physical practices (asanas, pranayamas, Tai Chi, Qigong) and ways to integrate them into MIDL into a coherent structure?

Stephen: From the very first Meditation Skill in MIDL training we are focused on defining and cultivating sensitivity to dwelling within peripheral awareness of our body: kayagata sati.

In Meditation 03 we learn to ground both prethermal awareness and attention in our body through relaxing, letting go and skill in observing when attention wanders.

During this training, from Meditations 01-04 we develop the GOSS Formula, a way of skillfully changing habitual behaviour of our mind through an insight and reward system.

From Meditations 05 onwards we begin to isolate and train attention while maintaining peripheral awareness of our body. Attention and peripheral awareness become clearly defined as two separate things that are intimately connected all the way up to access concentration.

From Meditation 04 onwards, with the establishment of skill int he GOSS Formula, we have all the tools we need to bring our practice into any activity in our daily life by following the same intention and structure trained in Meditations 01-04.