Your Goal: Aware of whole breath, free from directed thinking & doubt.
As wandering settles down, you become aware of the whole of each in-breath and the whole of each out-breath, calming your mind and focusing your attention.
As relaxation and unification deepen, you will naturally transition from awareness of each in and out breath to awareness of the whole length of each breath. Being aware of the whole length of each breath means being aware of each in or out-breath from the moment it begins to the moment it ends.
At this stage, avoid clarifying the beginning or end of each breath, as the perception of impermanence will develop and disturb your mind. When meditating for calm and tranquility (samatha), your task is to gradually develop the perception of permanence, stability, and the pleasure of these two.
Experiencing each in and out-breath as one continuous breath that changes direction develops this perception. Allow awareness to gently rub the length of each breath as it draws in and out of your body.
Like a swing transitioning from one direction to the next fed by one flow of energy, you follow each breath in one continuous flow of energy, taking no interest in the gap between. Increasing the application of your attention in this way lowers your mind's ability to become distracted.
It is important to note that awareness of the whole breath occurs as a result of the development of calm and tranquility through tuning into the subtle pleasure of letting go, not through increasing your effort in attention.
Your meditation is the same as Meditation 05, except you now develop mindfulness of the whole length of each breath as it flows within your body as one continuous breath awareness.
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Meditation Structure:
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Meditation Instructions:
Step 1: Sit down for meditation on a chair or the floor and gently close your eyes. Develop mindfulness of your body & joyful presence as in Meditations 03 & 04.
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Step 2: Develop mindfulness of breathing as it flows within your body as in Meditation 05.
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Meditation 06 Additions:
Step 3: As relaxation and samadhi deepen, you will naturally become aware of the whole of each breath.
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Step 4: Continue to smile into and find pleasure in your breathing to keep gross dullness at bay.
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Step 5: Apply the GOSS formula whenever you notice your attention wander.
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Adjust Your GOSS Formula
GOSS: Ground --> Observe --> Soften --> Smile.
The sixth marker of mindfulness of breathing, awareness of the whole of each breath, naturally arises due to finding pleasure within your experience of breathing.
Experiential Markers:
Support Article: 12 Experiential Markers
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
Meditative Hindrance:
Directed Thinking (06), Wandering (07), Gross Dullness (08).
Antidote:
Directed Thinking (06):
When directed thinking is present, use increased curiosity + apply the GOSS formula to your interest in thinking.
Bringing joy to your mind through smiling into the pleasure of letting go will bring all thinking about the past & future to an end.
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Wandering (07):
When random wandering is present, do not concern yourself with this. Wandering is not a pattern of mind to bring to an end but rather a natural scanning of the sense fields as the mind looks for pleasure or danger.
As samadhi develops and the pleasure of letting go increases, wandering will end as your mind inclines towards calm & tranquility.
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Gross Dullness (08) (initial):
As your skill in relaxing and calming increases, you need to pay attention to dullness. It is easy to over-calm the ability of your awareness to know an experience when you become skilled in relaxing and letting go.
Maintain two things from the very beginning of each meditation session to prevent Gross Dullness from establishing:
Support Article: 16 Meditative Hindrances.
Congratulations, you have finished Cultivation 02.
You are ready to progress to Cultivation 03: Meditative Joy & Tranquility when:
Important Note:
Gross dullness is one of the biggest hurdles for meditators and possibly the hardest because of its association with doubt. If you are stuck, I recommend working with a teacher and attending weekly classes to feel supported by a community.
In this simple map you can observe that when practicing Meditation 06 (blue line) the main hindrances to your meditation will be Directed Thinking, Wandering and initial Gross Dullness.
The Experiential Marker: awareness of the Whole of Each Breath, developed by Meditation 06 is the method you should use to calm/weaken the present hindrance.
During quiet times you can bring this simple skill of being mindful of your breathing into your daily life to relax your body and refresh your mind.
From your foundation of GOSS, you can begin to train attention skills learnt in seated meditation, into your daily life.
Meditation Skill 06 in Daily Life:
Questions can be submitted at: MIDL Community Reddit Forums.
Question: Is it also ok to observe the length of the breath directly at the tip of the nose?
I'm asking because during the natural transition from Meditation Skill 05 (Natural Breathing) to Meditation Skill 06 (Whole of Each Breath), I am naturally drawn towards the nose.
I'm not forcing it, but I have a natural inclination to focus on the tip of the nose (I’m having a TMI background).
Stephen: Because of your training in TMI your mind is naturally inclining towards the top your nose.
There is no problem moving from the natural breath in your body to the tip of your nose if the transition:
Question: I would appreciate a brief explanation of why I should continue to observe the breath within the body during Meditation Skill 06.
Stephen: The main purpose of this training is to teach the mind to habitually maintain a peripheral awareness of your body in the background (grounded), not just during mindfulness of breathing but also in daily life.
This habituation of a peripheral background awareness as the abiding place or home for awareness (kaya-gata sati) is the foundation for transferring insight meditation into daily life and creating a grounding point for observing the anatta nature of the mind (GOSS).
If we practice 'attention heavy' during mindfulness of breathing, peripheral awareness will become weak, this transference will not occur.
This being said, if you maintain the 20% background peripheral awareness the natural transference of your attention to the tip of your nose at this stage will not affect this.
Question: I’m working on MIDL6 at the moment. I’ve noticed that I tend to spend the vast majority of my sessions doing GOSS - on recurring anxious tension in my throat or on distracting thoughts - rather than on following the breath.
Each GOSS round takes between 5-20seconds. I’ll go back to the breath, but within a couple of inhales and exhales I’m back to GOSS again. Is this ok?
Stephen: Distraction only refers to when your attention is completely drawn away from your body / breathing and you forget it as your object of meditation.
In this case you should use GOSS to observe the anatta, autonomous nature of this distraction and to reward your mind for returning to mindfulness by tuning into the pleasure of letting go.
If tension in your throat or thinking is present but you remain aware of your body / breathing then there is no need to give them any attention.
Simply acknowledge that they are there in the background and return to finding the pleasure of letting go in your body and breathing, allowing these other experiences to be in the background like being aware of a child playing with toys in another part of the room.
Question: For reference, my experience of GOSS: I feel a distracting tension or thought. Notice that “I” didn’t create it or put it there. I let go of it (like a physical and mental muscle relaxing), which sometimes can happen quickly or can take a few seconds or attempts.
I smile into the enjoyable sensations of release. Sometimes I follow these sensations for a little while. I return to the breath.
Stephen: Perfect.
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