Meditation Skill 12

Your meditation is the same as Meditation Skill 11, except you now focus on establishing access concentration on the experience of piti (pleasurable body feeling) within your body and sukha (joyful-happiness) within your heart & mind.

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• Meditation Length: 60 min. To give your mind time to absorb into piti.
• Attention and Awareness: Allow your awareness and attention to unify in the foreground on the pleasurable experience of piti within your body and the joyful-happiness of sukha to rest in the background, peripheral awareness.
• Progression: Are comfortable developing and establishing access concentration and the pleasurable feeling of piti, accompanied by joyful-happiness (sukha) fills and becomes stable within your awareness.

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Simple Instructions:

Your meditation remains the same, Step 2 is a new addition to your meditation.

1. Meditation Skills 01-11: Develop intimacy with the experience of piti-sukha throughout your whole body as you did in Skills 01-11. Once you experience piti-sukh as your foreground experience and awareness sustains, you can add Step 2 to develop access concentration in preparation for the First Pleasure Jhana.
2. Access Concentration: Once awareness of the piti is unified and stable for a period of time, without any effort or distraction, free from all Meditative Hindrances, you are said to have developed access concentration (upacara samadhi).

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Detailed Explanation:

Step 1: Meditation Skills 01-11.

Your meditation remains the same as in Meditation Skills 01-11, except you now add Step 2 as a new addition to your meditation.

Your Meditation So Far:

Sit in meditation (thumbs touching).

Reflect gratefully.

Listen to sounds.

Clothing on your body.

Marker 01: Body Relaxation.

Marker 02: Mind Relaxation.

Marker 03: Mindful Presence.

Marker 04: Content Happiness.

Marker 05: Natural Breathing.

Marker 06: Length of Each Breath.

Marker 07: Breath Sensations.

Marker 08: One Point of Breath Sensation.

Marker 09: Sustained Attention.

Marker 10: Whole Body Breathing.

Marker 11: Sustained Awareness.

Additions for developing mindfulness of whole body breathing in Skill 12: 

Step 3: Access Concentration.

• As you continue to increase your intimacy with the pleasurable sensation of the piti, allow awareness to experience it from within and do this until peripheral awareness enters into an autonomous flow with the pleasantness of the experience.
• Once awareness of the piti is unified and stable for a period of time, without any effort or distraction, free from all Meditative Hindrances, you are said to have developed access concentration (upacara samadhi).

Note: If tranquility and letting go mature, piti will be calm and unexcited with sukha dominant. If tranquility and letting go are immature, then piti may arise as quite strong waves of blissful pleasant feeling that disturb tranquility and at times are unpleasurable.

More detailed information on access concentration below.

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.

Your twelfth step in meditation is to develop Marker 12: Access Concentration (right column) to calm Hindrance 12: Fear of Letting Go (left column).

Progression Map for Mindfulness of Breathing

Meditative Hindrances.                       Meditation Markers.

                                                               01: Body Relaxation.

                                                               02: Mind Relaxation.

                                                               03: Mindful Presence.

                                                               04: Content Happiness.

                                                               05: Natural Breathing.

                                                               06: Length of Each Breath.

                                                               07: Breath Sensations.

                                                               08: One Point of Sensation.

                                                               09: Sustained Attention.

                                                               10: Whole-Body Breathing.

                                                               11: Sustained Awareness.

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

13: Unstable Samadhi.                       13: First Pleasure Jhana.

Other Hindrances: It is important to note that although your focus is on settling the Hindrance of Fear of Letting Go at this stage of meditation, all the other Hindrances listed above 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.

As your mind's intimacy with the blissful pleasant feeling (piti) grows, it will begin to fill the whole of your awareness, and the joyful-happiness (sukha) will grow. With this wholesome quality as the object of awareness, all fear of letting go of control will vanish, and your awareness will incline into and rest in this piti sukha.

Progression: As your mind is secluded from the sense fields and the final hindrance, awareness is now undisturbed and is experienced as steady, firm, free from distraction, free from hindrances and filled with the pleasurable experience of piti. Once you understand how to develop access concentration and can sustain it for a period of time, and the experience of piti becomes clearly present, you are ready to access the First Pleasure Jhana.

Meditative Hindrances are signs of an imbalance in either your effort or the structure of your attention and are seen as an opportunity for insight into your mind.

Meditative Hindrances.

01: Physical Restlessness.

02: Mental Restlessness.

03: Sleepiness & Drifting.

04: Habitual Forgetting.

05: Habitual Control.

06: Mind Wandering.

07: Gross Dullness.

08: Subtle Dullness.

09: Subtle Wandering.

10: Subtle Distraction.

11: Anticipation of Pleasure.

12: Fear of Letting Go.

13. Unstable Samadhi.

Meditative Hindrance: 

Fear of Letting Go (12):

Fear of giving up all control.  

Fear of Letting Go refers to the deeply seated fear of giving up control to the momentum of letting go within your mind. Like a child on a slide, even though previously excited, once they gain momentum, fear arises within their mind, and they hang on. In the same way, the meditator's mind, feeling the uncontrollable nature of entering the flow state that is the doorway to jhana, tenses in fear and hangs onto the sensory world.  

Antidote:

Developing Saddha: Faith, confidence, and trust in the Buddha, your teacher, and your meditation community is the key to completely letting go. Reflecting: You are not the first, others have walked this path before you.

1. Trust in the Buddha, your teacher, your community and the Dhamma + 
2. Maturing contentment + 
3. Repeated exposure to the growing blissful pleasant feeling until your mind develops disenchantment towards this blissful pleasant feeling so that all anticipation and fear drops away.

Congratulations, you have finished Cultivation 04.

You are ready to progress to Cultivating Skill in Jhana when you:

• Are comfortable developing and establishing access concentration and the blissful pleasant feeling of piti, accompanied by joyful-happiness (sukha) fills and becomes stable within your awareness.

Tip: You should also focus on developing the speed at which you can reach access concentration in mindfulness of breathing, based on a momentum of letting go, not effort, so that more time can be spent on insight and/or jhana.

• SoundCloud: Guided Meditation.
• Insight Timer: Guided Meditation.

At some stage during mindfulness of breathing you will experience a meditation when everything comes together in harmony. it will feel effortless, free from distraction and free from all Meditative Hindrances. it is at this stage you are said to have reached access concentration. 

Access concentration arises by inclining your mind:

1. Away from sensory pleasure.
2. Towards sila: morality, harmony.
3. Towards the Enlightenment Factors.

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Access Concentration is Made up of Six Characteristics

1. Your mind will enter a flow state.

When your mind first enters this flow state, it may catch you unaware. Suddenly, your awareness will become clear, your attention still, and all 16 Meditative Hindrances will be clearly absent. you attention will seem to rest on one point of breath sensation by itself becoming steady, firm, and unmoving. A gap has now been created in habitual delusion, and the mind is experienced as clear, still, and undisturbed. This gap will remain, and the 12 Meditative Hindrances will be suppressed as long as this structure of attention (samadhi) is sustained.  

Due to the absence of the Meditative Hindrances, a pleasant feeling (sukha) and some mild pleasant physical sensations (piti) will arise within your mind. This is a very clear marker of access concentration. As unification of your attention develops a light may appear in your visual field, like someone has opened the curtains and letting light into the room. You may even see flickering lights in front of your eyes. As exciting as these seem they are simply a sign of the development of samadhi and nothing to pay attention to.  

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2. It will have no interest in sensory pleasure.

You need to abandon all interest in experiencing things in the outside world. While this can be achieved through suppression, it is more skillful to observe the fleeting, and unsatisfactory nature of sensory experience, thoughts and fantasies. This does not mean, not enjoying them, just knowing they can never satisfy.

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3. Your attention and awareness will feel unified, steady and firm.

For unification to be classed as access concentration, it must be effortless, stable, unmoving, and free from thoughts or wandering. When this occurs, there is a distinct dropping away of effort as attention sustains by itself. 

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4. There will be no hindrances present within your mind.

If the five hindrances have not yet been deconditioned from your mind, then the level of unification must be enough to suppress them temporarily. The arising of thoughts, excitement, or doubt is a sign that the unification of attention is not yet stable enough to suppress the five hindrances.

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5. Your mind will switch from applied to sustained attention.

This refers to calming the effort to apply attention to your meditation object. Once calmed, attention becomes autonomous as the mind takes over application. In this way, attention is stable due to sustained attention being dominant. The experience of this is one of effortless, and stable attention. 

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6. These will be an absence any desire to do within your mind.

Absence of doing is experienced as effortlessness, desireless-ness. This arises by abandoning (through softening) any expectation or excitement towards pleasure or fear of giving up control. 

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7. There will be initial physical pleasant sensations and enjoyment.

Once the five hindrances are suppressed and seclusion from the senses complete, the initial piti will be experienced as subtle, pleasant bodily sensation. It may arise around your face, chest or hands, anywhere.

"Withdrawn From Unwholesome Qualities".

Sometimes the mind does not want to withdraw from the sensory world or unwholesome qualities, it is scared to let go. There are a number of common imbalances that you can address habitual clinging.

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When Attention Does Not Completely Stabilise.

Sometimes the mind does not want to withdraw from the sensory world. There are a number of common imbalances that you can address. If piti and sukha do not arise, it will be due to there still being some instability in your attention. This instability will create minute gaps as attention continues to apply, allowing the five hindrances to arise. You may notice this as background commentary, about the experience itself. Some doubt may also be present:

“Is this it, am I doing this right, where is this pleasant feeling they talk about?”

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What About Mental Dryness, Boredom & Frustration?

Mental dryness, boredom or frustration can arise when unifying attention in samadhi. All these shows that the Meditative Hindrances are rearising due to the unification of attention (samadhi) not being stable enough to suppress them at this time. Use them as signs of instability rather than problems. Observe what Enlightenment Factors are absent within your mind. For a start if dryness, boredom or frustration is present I can guarantee that that the factor of joy (enjoyment) is not present within your mind.

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Since the Awakening Factors are balanced attention, observe:

• Is mindfulness in regard to the Awakening Factors present?
• Is curiosity in regard to attention structure and energy present?
• Is balance present in regard to attention structure and energy?
• Is the subtle spiritual pleasantness of letting go present?
• Is tranquility as a calming of all 'doing' present?
• Is samadhi present and stable?

It is beneficial to check in reverse order.

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Why in reverse order?

Because each factors creates the conditions for the next. If the previous factor is weak then the one that follow will fade.

How to Balance Unstable Samadhi

Unstable samadhi is overcome in this final stage in three parts:

• Progressive clarity: By progressively increasing clarity of the 12 Experiential Markers during the development of samadhi. Not rushing through each marker, instead developing stable attention on it, relaxing effort, allowing each Marker to reveal itself naturally, as a direct reflection of the development of mindfulness and concentration.  Finding Enjoyment: By finding enjoyment in the simplicity experienced within each Marker. To do this, it is important to have the correct mental attitude when you sit down to meditate. Not one is based on striving or expectation, but rather on the enjoyment of not having to do or be anywhere. 
• This can be enhanced by gently smiling with your eyes. Another way to prepare your state of mind is with gratitude or loving kindness.
• Softening Effort (letting go): By learning to transition through the 12 Markers by softening physical and mental effort rather than by 'doing' the attending. 

The Non-linear Development of Samadhi

 While the 12 Markers are presented as a linear progression, they do not necessarily unfold this way for everyone.

• Natural Pleasantness: For some meditators, these stages unfold naturally, as their mind inclines towards jhana. The development of samadhi for these meditators tends to be pleasant, with feelings of sukha and piti arising, even during their first meditation. 
• Absence of pleasantness: For other meditators feelings of pleasantness are never present during meditation, their mind rebels against any attempt to structure attention. From their first meditation, restlessness, mind wandering, and unpleasant feelings arise. 

These may persist all the way to unification of attention. Even with unification, their mind can feel dry, with a background feeling of unpleasantness/unease filling their body. 

When developing samadhi to establish access concentration, what always needs to be taken into account is anatta (not-self): you are not in control of your mind. It is important to understand this. If you fall into the second group, don’t let this concern you. 

Many meditators attention develops in this way, as a series of progressions, and collapses. One day you will feel like you have got it, that you now understand the path to unification. And the next day your attention has collapsed, and you feel like you have no understanding of how to meditate. If this sounds like you, it is important to understand that all of this is normal, and all of this is how it should be.

How the path unfolds for you, is not necessarily how it will unfold for someone else; it is all based on previous conditioning. You have come to meditation with unique conditioned tendencies, it is these that govern how the meditative path unfolds for you. It is important not fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others. Instead observe your mind and allow it to reveal to you what is the correct path of development to take.

What is important is not to try to control your mind, but rather develop understanding in regard to the conditions that make it the way that it is.

"When this is, that is.

When this is not, that is not.

With the arising of this, comes the arising of that.

With the ceasing of this, comes the ceasing of that."

If your samadhi is not developing and mind will not let go of the meditative hindrances, then it is this way because the conditions are right for it to be. There are Six Awakening Factors present in the mind at access concentration, look at the conditions they need to arise and establish:

1. Mindfulness
2. Curiosity
3. Balanced Effort
4. Meditative Joy
5. Tranquility
6. Samadhi

Do these six factors describe your meditative attention?

Mindfulness in daily life is based on samadhi-gata sati.

Ground (in samadhi) --> Observe --> Soften --> Smile. 

Applying in Daily Life:

1. Structure your meditative samadhi by arousing mindfulness, curiosity, effort & softening, joy, tranquility, unification.
2. Gently soften this samadhi into your body until it feels grounded, present, now.
3. Tune into the arising pleasantness of returning to unification & letting go.
4. Use awareness of this samadhi to observe your citta (heart/mind) during the day.
5. When you notice a change, soften into your body-breathing to unify the samadhi again.
6. Experience the pleasantness of this samadhi in terms of enjoying it and the tranquility of letting go.