MIDL Meditation System

The MIDL Meditation System is a traditional Buddhist insight meditation practice (Satipatthana Vipassana), based on the Satipatthana Sutta, which is designed for meditating in daily life. MIDL is founded on 8 Meditation Masteries, that are fulfilled in 11 Skillsets, and the development of 52 Meditation Skills.  

MIDL meditative training can be separated into these six simple steps:

             Step 1: Choose Your Meditation Path

             Step 2: Daily Mindfulness of Breathing

             Step 3: Develop Insight Into Reality

             Step 4: Decondition Habitual Patterns

             Step 5: Condition Wholesome Qualities

             Step 6: Disentangle Your Awareness

This free online meditation classroom is supported by weekly meditation classes that you can attend either online using zoom, or in person if you live in or visit, Sydney, Australia. You then have the opportunity to listen to and share meditative experiences, with the worldwide MIDL community. You can also join the MIDL Community on the MIDL Subreddit:  Mindfulness in Daily Life (MIDL) (reddit.com)

You can also email me directly here.

enjoy your journey,

Stephen Procter

Your first step is to choose a meditation path that suits you.

Because MIDL is concerned with meditating within daily life, it contains two different paths of entry, based on your life situation. The difference whether you practice jhana (absorption) first, or insight first.

1. Meditation Path 1 is suitable if you have a busy life, such as work, children, obligations, and can only allocate 30min-2hrs daily seated meditation per day. 
2. Meditation Path 2 is suitable if you live a simple life, and can withdraw from daily life for periods of time. For this path, it helpful to have the opportunity to meditate for long periods (3+ hours per day).

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Your second step is to develop your skill in mindfulness of breathing. 

The foundation for the MIDL Meditation System is mindfulness of breathing. Mindfulness of breathing refers to using the experience of your breath, as it naturally flows through your body, as a way of training your attention. 

     This is a sequential training in meditative skill, with each meditation skill creating a foundation for the next. Once you have reached Meditation Skill 13, you can start to use the 12 Experiential Markers as a guide, instead of the guided meditations that are provided. This allows you to self guide your meditation practice and overcome the 16 Meditative Hindrances, one step at a time.

MASTERY 1: ACCESS CONCENTRATION

Skillset 1: Develop Skill in Softening

• Meditation Skill 01: Retrain Your Breathing
• Meditation Skill 02: Learn How to Soften
• Meditation Skill 03: Skill of Softening Into

Skillset 2: Develop Skill in Flexible Attention

• Meditation Skill 04: Ground Your Awareness*
• Meditation Skill 05: Focus Your Awareness**
• Meditation Skill 06: Overcome Habitual Forgetting**
• Meditation Skill 07: Overcome Habitual Wandering**
• Meditation Skill 08: Overcome Habitual Control**
• * = foundation for mindfulness of breathing.
• ** = optional meditation training.

Skillset 3: Develop Skill in Access Concentration

• Meditation Skill 09: Remember Each Breath
• Meditation Skill 10: Experience Each Breath
• Meditation Skill 11: Experience Breath Sensation
• Meditation Skill 12: Stabilise Your Attention
• Meditation Skill 13: Access Concentration

*Note: Once you have reached Meditation Skill 13 you know all the stages of mindfulness of breathing. Move from these Meditation Skills to the 12 Experiential Markers, practicing freeform meditation, without guidance.

*Note: If following Path 1, your task is to develop insight on the 16 Meditative Hindrances as they arise during mindfulness of breathing. Learn to recognise each hindrance, how it arises, and how it ceases. Then decondition them by softening into your relationship towards them. If following Path 2, your task is not to develop insight, but rather to calm the meditative hindrances to develop access concentration, and then use it as a basis to develop the four meditative jhana.

MASTERY 2: SUKHA-VEDANA JHANA

Skillset 4: Develop Skill in Jhana

• Meditation Skill 14: Sukha-Vedana Jhana***
• *** = advanced Meditation Skill.

*Note: If following Path 1, you should only develop jhana once you have deconditioned the 16 Meditative Hindrances by completing up to Mastery 5.

*Note: If following Path 2 and you have previous experience in the first four jhana, (pleasure or nimitta), then there is specific instructions for you in that section.

MASTERY 3: DELIBERATE LIVING

Skillset 5: Develop Skill in Daily Life

• Meditation Skill 15: Meditate While Standing
• Meditation Skill 16: Mindfully Change Postures
• Meditation Skill 16a: Walking Meditation (coming soon).

*Note: Incorporate these meditations with seated meditation practice to accelerate the development of mindfulness and samadhi (unification).

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Your third step is to use mindfulness of breathing to develop insight. 

In the mindfulness of breathing section, you developed skill in establishing access concentration (unified, stable attention free from meditative hindrances). Once your attention is stable (no longer wandering or distracted), you then deliberately develop insight by inclining your mind towards the below investigations.

MASTERY 4: INSIGHT INTO REALITY

Skillset 6: Develop Insight Into Reality

• Meditation Skill 17: Observe the Four Elements
• Meditation Skill 18: Observe Borders of Perception
• Meditation Skill 19: Observe Attention Move 1
• Meditation Skill 20: Observe Attention Move 2
• Meditation Skill 21: Observe Attention Flicker
• Meditation Skill 22: Observe Thinking Processes
• Meditation Skill 23: Observe Thinking Patterns
• Meditation Skill 24: Observe Past and Future
• Meditation Skill 25: Observe Pleasant Feeling
• Meditation Skill 26: Observe Unpleasant Feeling
• Meditation Skill 27: Observe the Five Aggregates
• (Meditation Skills 25-27, coming soon).

*Note: If you are following Path 1, investigations are done after first establishing access concentration. If you are following Path 2, investigations are done after emerging from fourth jhana.

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Your fourth step is to decondition habitual patterns.

Once insight has been developed and habitual tendencies revealed, you then develop skills to intentionally decondition these from your mind. By intentionally turning your mind towards painful memories or desires, and softening/relaxing your relationship towards them, you will decondition these patterns as they arise. Part of this process includes exposing yourself to situations in daily life that are uncomfortable (within the boundaries of morality), in order to trigger responses and decondition them.

MASTERY 5: INCLINATION TO ABANDON

Skillset 7:  Develop Skill in Deconditioning

• Meditation Skill 28: Learn to Abandon Intention
• Meditation Skill 29: Learn to Re-engage Diaphragm
• Meditation Skill 30: Learn to Lengthen Out-breath
• Meditation Skill 31: Learn to Relax the Eyelids
• Meditation Skill 32: Learn to Relax Frontal Lobes
• Meditation Skill 33: Learn to Decondition Mind
• Meditation Skill 34: Decondition Emotional Charge

Skillset 8: Develop Skill in Abandoning

• Meditation Skill 35: Abandon With Breathing
• Meditation Skill 36: Abandon Within Body
• Meditation Skill 37: Abandon Within Mind
• Meditation Skill 38: Abandon all Participation

*Note: if you are following Path 1, you are ready to develop the four meditative jhana at this point following the instructions in Meditation Skill 14.

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Your fifth step is to cultivate wholesome qualities that are weak in you.

Once defensive tendencies are weak in you (experienced as a natural fading), you then bring these defensive tendencies to an end, by conditioning wholesome qualities such as loving kindness, compassion, generosity, gratitude etc, that are revealed as being weak in you.

MASTERY 6: UNIFICATION OF HEART

Skillset 9: Develop Skill in Cultivating

• Meditation Skill 39: Loving Kindness: Loved One
• Meditation Skill 40: Loving Kindness: Difficult Person
• Meditation Skill 41: Loving Kindness: Pervasive
• Meditation Skill 42: Cultivate Skill in Forgiveness
• Meditation Skill 43: Cultivate Skill in Gratitude

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Your sixth step is to disentangle awareness from the six sensory fields.

Once harmony has been created, then you focus on nirvikalpa samadhi (objectless unification) as your main practice. Your aim is to train awareness to disentangle from the six sensory fields by observing the habitual 'going out' of your attention towards the sensory fields and softening/relaxing that engagement.

MASTERY 7: DISENTANGLED AWARENESS

Skillset 10: Develop Skill in Disentangling

• Meditation Skill 44: Remember Awareness
• Meditation Skill 45: Mindfulness of Seeing
• Meditation Skill 46: Mindfulness of Hearing
• Meditation Skill 47: Mindfulness of Smelling
• Meditation Skill 48: Mindfulness of Tasting
• Meditation Skill 49: Mindfulness of Touching
• Meditation Skill 50: Mindfulness of Knowing 1
• Meditation Skill 51: Mindfulness of Knowing 2

MASTERY 8: THE DECONDITIONED MIND

Skillset 11: Develop Skill in Disentangling Awareness

• Meditation Skill 52: Calming all Mental Activity

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INSTRUCTIONS FOR PATH 1

SUMMARY 

Path 1 is suitable if you have a busy life, such as work, children, obligations, and can only allocate 30min-2hrs daily seated meditation per day. On Path 1, your focus is on first understanding, then weakening the 16 Meditative Hindrances, before developing samatha (tranquility of mind).

**Print this section to use as your meditation map** 

SIMPLE INSTRUCTIONS

1. Learn Mindfulness of Breathing: Meditation Skills 01-13.
2. Meditate without guidance using the 12 Experiential Markers.
3. Investigate and weaken the 16 Meditative Hindrances.
4. Become proficient in reaching access concentration.
5. From access concentration develop insight: Meditation Skills 17-27.
6. Decondition all defensive habitual patterns: Meditation Skills 28-38.
7. Develop skill in the four meditative jhana: Meditation Skill 14.
8. Cultivate wholesome qualities that are weak: Meditation Skills 39-43.
9. Disentangle awareness from the six senses: Meditation Skills 44-52.

DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS

Household Life and the Meditative Hindrances

Generally, for the householder entangled in life, seated meditation periods are short, (1hr or less), which is not enough time to completely settle the meditative hindrances. This in itself creates an erratic development of samadhi (unification of attention), due to the hindrances being pre-stirred up throughout the day. 

     In regards to daily meditation, 2hrs per day = 1hr morning, 1hr evening, is optimum for Path 1. Please don't let this discourage you if it does not suit your lifestyle. 1hr daily meditation or less, does not mean that you won't progress, just that the path will take longer to mature, due to the slower development of samadhi. The benefit of short periods of meditation, verses no meditation, still make meditating for short periods worth it. 

     If your daily life is busy, then during seated meditation you will experience periods when samadhi develops progressively, and other periods when there is a complete collapse of your attention for up to 1-2 weeks. This is normal for the meditator developing samatha (tranquility of mind) in daily life. Because of these conditions, the emphasis on Path 1 is not towards developing jhana, but rather using the meditative hindrances to cultivate insight, and deconditioning them from the mind through intentional targeted softening.

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MINDFULNESS OF BREATHING SECTION

Mastery 1: Access Concentration

      Skillsets 1-3

• Meditation Skills 01-06
• Meditation Skills 07-12
• Meditation Skill 13

STEP 1: Your first step if you have chosen Path1, is to create a foundation for mindfulness of breathing, by following the instructions in Meditation Skills 01-08.  Below you will find links to the various meditations on this website. Follow each meditation in the order listed below, starting with Meditation Skill 01, before moving onto the next.

• Meditation Skills 01-03 develop initial skill in softening resistance. This addresses meditative hindrances related to stress/anxiety, as well as developing the ability to soften into the meditative hindrances (don't skip softening).
• Meditation Skills 04-08 create a foundation for mindfulness of breathing, by addressing any habitual imbalances in your attention. Balanced attention is flexible and pliable, allowing you to adjust its focus to manage imbalances in energy that arise, due to meditative hindrances.

STEP 2: Once you have created a foundation, you begin mindfulness of breathing by following the instructions found in Meditation Skills 09-13.

• Meditation Skills 09-13 offer instruction on how to develop samadhi (unification of attention), up to the level of access concentration (stable, unified attention, free from all hindrances). This is trained in three tiers: Tier 1 follows instruction given in Meditation Skill 09-13, Tier 2 uses the 12 Experiential Markers to develop access concentration, and Tier 3 develops insight into the 16 Meditative Hindrances, by using them as a meditative path. 

TIER 1:

• Tier 1 of mindfulness of breathing, is focused on the development of samatha (tranquility of mind), rather than insight, by learning the stages of mindfulness of breathing taught in Meditation Skills 09-13. You follow these skills until you can self guide mindfulness of breathing, and can also develop stable and unified attention, free from distraction, on one point of breath sensation. Insight arises in Tier 1, by developing your skill in recognising the 16 Meditative Hindrances, and your ability to rebalance any energy imbalances caused by them.

TIER 2:

• Tier 2 of mindfulness of breathing, transitions from 'doing' the stages of meditation, to allowing each stage to reveal itself, as a direct reflection of the development of samadhi. To do this, you switch from using Meditation Skills 09-13 to guide mindfulness of breathing, to mapping samadhi development, by observing the 12 Experiential Markers as they arise. Following them until you become adept at developing access concentration. Once adept, you should then increase the clarity of each individual Marker, by stabilising your attention on it before moving onto the next. As clarity increases, you can then lower the time it takes to reach each Marker, until you can establish access concentration in a short period of time. Insight arises in Tier 2, by observing how the meditative hindrances arise, and learning how they cease; pacifying them with samadhi development. Insight should also be developed, by observing the anatta (not-self) nature of the 16 Meditative Hindrances, as well as habitual attention.

TIER 3: At this point Path 2 transitions from Path 1

From this point, Path 2 transitions to the development of jhana, before moving onto insight. Path 1 however, continues to develop insight into the meditative hindrances, with the intention of deconditioning these tendencies.

• Tier 3 of mindfulness of breathing is focused on deconditioning any habitual tendencies towards the meditative hindrances, from your mind. You continue to practice mindfulness of breathing up to access concentration in the same way, but the emphasis is now on observing the absence, fading, and presence of the meditative hindrances. It is listed here as absence, fading, and presence, because this is how they appear as they are deconditioned from gross to subtle (1-16). Insight in Tier 3, is developed by investigating, and coming to understand the conditions that the meditative hindrances need to arise. Wisdom is applied, by changing those conditions through intentional, direct softening. This is done by observing the meditative hindrances presence, experiencing it in your body and mind, then softening your participation with it. The process of observe, feel, soften, leads to a fading of the hindrances, and eventually to their non-arising. Your progress from this point is dependent on the 16 meditative hindrances. Once they are weak or no longer arising, and you are adept at developing access concentration, it is time to move onto deeper insight.

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INSIGHT INTO REALITY SECTION

Mastery 4: Insight Into Reality

      Skillset 6

• Meditation Skills 17-18
• Meditation Skills 19-24
• Meditation Skills 25-27

STEP 3: Once you have mastered skill in access concentration, you then use this purity of mind, to develop insight.

• Meditation Skills 17-27 are used at the end of each meditation, after developing access concentration, you deliberately develop insight by inclining your mind towards specific investigations into the four satipatthana's. This may require a 'loosening up' of attention to release the structure persisting after access concentration. Investigations should be in regards to perceiving the characteristics of anicca and anatta (impermanence, not-self) in bodily sensations, feeling tone, mind and conditioned processes.

DECONDITION HABITUAL PATTERNS SECTION

Mastery 5: Inclination to Abandon

      Skillsets 7-8

• Meditation Skills 28-30
• Meditation Skills 31-36
• Meditation Skills 37-38

STEP 4: Once insight has been developed and habitual tendencies revealed, you then develop skills to intentionally decondition these from your mind.

• Meditation Skills 28-38 offer final refinement in your ability to soften resistance, allowing you to intentionally turn your mind towards painful memories or desires, and decondition these patterns as they arise. Part of this process includes exposing yourself to situations in daily life that are uncomfortable (within the boundaries of morality), in order to trigger responses and decondition them.

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MEDITATIVE JHANA SECTION

Mastery 2: Sukha-Vedana Jhana

      Skillset 4

• Meditation Skill 14

STEP 5: With the meditative hindrances now weak in you, you can return to access concentration and start developing the four sukha-vedana jhana.

• Meditation Skill 14 develops the four sukha-vedana jhana (jhana entered through piti/sukha: pleasant feeling) up to equanimity. Once you can access all four jhana, you should then develop skill in entering, sustaining, and transitioning between them, until you can do it at will. As mentioned earlier, the development of jhana requires very specific conditions, ie: a weakening of the desire for sensual pleasure in daily life, and 3+hours of formal seated meditation per day. This should also be supported by refinement of stimulation/drama in daily life, by following harmonising principals like sila (morality: lit: non-harm).

CONDITION WHOLESOME QUALITIES SECTION

Mastery 6: Unification of Heart

      Skillset 9

• Meditation Skills 39-42
• Meditation Skill 43

STEP 6: Once defensive tendencies are weak in you (experienced as a natural fading), you then bring these defensive tendencies to an end, by cultivating wholesome/skillful tendencies that are revealed as being weak in you.

• Meditation Skills 39-43 are focused on intentionally cultivating and embedding wholesome/skillful tendencies, by cultivating them in seated meditation, and daily life. In seated you should cultivate metta (loving kindness), by developing access concentration and jhana on the metta-vedana, so that the tendency towards metta embeds. In daily life you should create and follow different intentions towards wholesome/skillful, qualities, regardless of how you may feel at the time. It is important to note, that wholesome/skillful qualities will not naturally arise, if they are not already your natural way of being. This is part of the unrooting and conditioning process that is necessary to instill social harmony.

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DISENTANGLE AWARENESS SECTION

Mastery 7: Disentangled Awareness

      Skillset 10

• Meditation Skills 44-48
• Meditation Skills 49-51

Mastery 8: Deconditioned Mind 

      Skillset 11

• Meditation Skill 52

Step 7: Once harmony has been created, then you focus on nirvikalpa samadhi (objectless unification) as your main practice. Your aim is to train awareness to disentangle from the six sensory fields. 

• Meditation Skills 44-52 develop higher levels of nirvikalpa samadhi, until at will, you can disentangle awareness from itself, to bring cessation to all sensory fields. This practice is tied in with what the Buddha called indriya-samvara (calming of the going-out of awareness to the senses). This whole process is done through gradual relaxing of all sensory engagement, until this tendency for awareness to engage, ceases. It is important to note, that this final stage requires significant fading and uprooting of the meditative hindrances, especially in regards to habitual attraction and aversion towards vedana (pleasant and unpleasant feeling tone). Therefore, a basis in samadhi, insight and softening are required.

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INSTRUCTIONS FOR PATH 2

SUMMARY

Path 2 is suitable for MIDL meditators with little disturbance within their daily life. For this path, it helpful to have the opportunity to meditate for long periods (3+ hours per day), and a natural tendency towards samatha (tranquility of mind). On Path 2, your focus is on developing samatha first, to suppress the 16 Meditative Hindrances, before uprooting them through insight.

 
**Print this section to use as your meditation map** 

 SIMPLE INSTRUCTIONS

1. Learn Mindfulness of Breathing: Meditation Skills 01-13.
2. Meditate without guidance using the 12 Experiential Markers.
3. Become proficient in reaching access concentration.
4. Develop skill in the four meditative jhana: Meditation Skill 14.
5. Emerging from fourth jhana develop insight: Meditation Skills 17-27.
6. Decondition all defensive habitual patterns: Meditation Skills 28-38.
7. Cultivate wholesome qualities that are weak: Meditation Skills 39-43.
8. Disentangle awareness from the six senses: Meditation Skills 44-52.

DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS

MINDFULNESS OF BREATHING SECTION

Mastery 1: Access Concentration      

   Skillsets 1-3

• Meditation Skills 01-06
• Meditation Skills 07-12
• Meditation Skill 13

STEP 1: Your first step if you have chosen Path 2, is to create a foundation for mindfulness of breathing, by following the instructions in Meditation Skills 01-08. Below you will find links to the various meditations on this website. Follow each meditation in the order listed below, starting with Meditation Skill 01, before moving onto the next.  

• Meditation Skills 01-03 develop initial skill in softening resistance. This addresses hindrances related to stress/anxiety, as well as developing the ability to soften into the meditative hindrances (don't skip softening).
• Meditation Skills 04-08 create a foundation for mindfulness of breathing, by addressing any habitual imbalances in your attention. Balanced attention is flexible and pliable, allowing you to adjust its focus to manage imbalances in energy that arise, due to meditative hindrances.

STEP 2: Once you have created a foundation, you begin mindfulness of breathing by following the instructions found in Meditation Skills 09-13.

• Meditation Skills 09-13 offer instruction on how to develop samadhi (unification of attention), up to the level of access concentration (stable, unified attention, free from all hindrances). This is trained in two tiers: Tier 1 follows instruction given in Meditation Skill 09-13; Tier 2 uses the 12 Experiential Markers to develop access concentration.

TIER 1:

• Tier 1 of mindfulness of breathing, is focused on the development of samatha (tranquility of mind), rather than insight, by learning the stages of mindfulness of breathing taught in Meditation Skills 09-13. You follow these skills until you can self guide mindfulness of breathing, and can also develop stable and unified attention, free from distraction, on one point of breath sensation. Insight arises in Tier 1, by developing your skill in recognising the 16 Meditative Hindrances, and your ability to rebalance any energy imbalances caused by them.

TIER 2:

• Tier 2 of mindfulness of breathing, transitions from 'doing' the stages of meditation, to allowing each stage to reveal itself, as a direct reflection of the development of samadhi. To do this, you switch from using Meditation Skills 09-13 to guide mindfulness of breathing, to mapping samadhi development, by observing the 12 Experiential Markers as they arise. Following them until you become adept at developing access concentration. Once adept, you should then increase the clarity of each individual Marker, by stabilising your attention on it before moving onto the next. As clarity increases, you can then lower the time it takes to reach each Marker, until you can establish access concentration in a short period of time. Insight arises in Tier 2, by observing how the meditative hindrances arise, and learning how they cease; pacifying them with samadhi development. Insight should also be developed, by observing the anatta (not-self) nature of the meditative hindrances, as well as habitual attention.

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MEDITATIVE JHANA SECTION

Mastery 2: Sukha-Vedana Jhana

      Skillset 4

• Meditation Skill 14

STEP 3: Once you are adept at developing access concentration through calming of the hindrances, it is time to develop the four sukha-vedana jhana.

• Meditation Skill 14 develops the four sukha-vedana jhana (absorption entered through piti/sukha: pleasant feeling) up to equanimity. Once you can access all four jhana, you should then develop skill in entering, sustaining, and transitioning between them, until you can do it at will. As mentioned earlier, the development of jhana requires very specific conditions, ie: a weakening of the desire for sensual pleasure in daily life, and 3+hours of formal seated meditation per day. This should also be supported by refinement of stimulation/drama in daily life, by following harmonising principals like sila (morality: lit: non-harm).

FOR MEDITATORS WTH PREVIOUS JHANA EXPERIENCE

If you have previous experience in a samatha-vipassana system such as TMI, and have previous experience in the first four jhana, (pleasure or nimitta), up to equanimity, then follow the below instructions, before developing insight.

PREPARING FOR INSIGHT

Since you have trained in a different meditation system, it is helpful to understand some aspects of skill in MIDL, that may not yet be developed. In MIDL, the practice of Samatha-Vipassana has three distinct areas of skill:

1. Samadhi
2. Softening
3. Abandoning

ATTENTION STRUCTURE AND INSIGHT

To develop insight, you need to allow the habitual mind to engage the six sense fields, autonomously. Since fixed samadhi, as developed in jhana, suppresses the habitual functions of the mind, you need to change the structure of your attention to momentary samadhi, to allow the habitual mind to re-arise. This is done as a way of loosening up your attention after emerging from jhana, so that the samadhi can swap to khanika samadhi (momentary unification). 

There are two aspects that you should now focus on before moving onto the development of insight.

1. Develop skill in initial softening: Meditation Skills 01-03.
2. Develop skill in flexible attention: Meditation Skill 04.

IN REGARDS TO SOFTENING

Softening is your abandonment skill, it is used to relax your relationship towards any experience that arises within the six sense fields. This stops the habitual mind from feeding the process. Softening is first applied in formal seated meditation, and then during self-observation in daily life. 

     In regards to Meditation Skill 01, you may no longer experience the meditative hindrance of stress/anxiety, since you fluent in the first four jhana. Yet it will still be helpful for you to learn Meditation Skill 01, in order to become familiar with diaphragmatic breathing as a basis for softening. This will then create a foundation for physical, then mental softening in the face of habitual attraction or aversion.

IN REGARDS TO FLEXIBLE ATTENTION

Flexible attention is the skill of creating a grounding point for attention (bodily sensation or touch), and then allowing your attention to habitually wander from this point, to develop insight. Since you are trained in fixed samadhi, this is going to take a loosening up, or softening of your attention, since it’s habitual tendency will be towards stability rather then wandering.

      Once you are familiar with these two skills then I recommend intentional investigations into the four satipatthana’s, Meditations Skills 17-27 offer structure for this. These investigations should be done with the intention of clarifying anatta (the not-self characteristic). This is why you need to change your attention structure and allow the habitual (autonomous mind) to arise, because it is in this autonomy that anatta is most clearly perceived.

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INSIGHT INTO REALITY SECTION

Mastery 4: Insight Into Reality

      Skillset 6

• Meditation Skills 17-18
• Meditation Skills 19-24
• Meditation Skills 25-27

STEP 4: Once you have mastered skill to the fourth sukha-vedana jhana, you then use this purity of mind, to develop insight.

• Meditation Skills 17-27 are used at the end of each meditation, after emerging from the fourth jhana, to deliberately develop insight by inclining your mind towards specific investigations into the four satipatthana's. This is done after emerging from fourth jhana, by observing the rearising of the interaction of the mind with the six sense fields. Once the mind has re-engaged, you then apply the tranquility present to a specific investigation, from one of the above Meditation Skills. This may at first require a 'loosening up' of attention to release the structure persisting after jhana. Investigations should also include developing perception towards the characteristics of anicca and anatta (impermanence, not-self) in bodily sensations, feeling tone, mind and conditioned processes.

DECONDITION HABITUAL PATTERNS SECTION

Mastery 5: Inclination to Abandon

      Skillsets 7-8

• Meditation Skills 28-30
• Meditation Skills 31-36
• Meditation Skills 37-38

STEP 5: Once insight has been developed and habitual tendencies revealed, you then develop skills to intentionally decondition these from your mind.

• Meditation Skills 28-38  offer final refinement in your ability to soften resistance, allowing you to intentionally turn your mind towards painful memories or desires, and decondition these patterns as they arise. Part of this process includes exposing yourself to situations in daily life that are uncomfortable (within the boundaries of morality), in order to trigger responses and decondition them.

Back to the top

CONDITION WHOLESOME QUALITIES SECTION

Mastery 6: Unification of Heart

      Skillset 9

• Meditation Skills 39-42
• Meditation Skill 43

STEP 6: Once defensive tendencies are weak in you (experienced as a natural fading), you then bring these defensive tendencies to an end, by cultivating wholesome/skillful tendencies that are revealed as being weak in you.

• Meditation Skills 39-43 are focused on intentionally cultivating and embedding wholesome/skillful tendencies, by cultivating them in seated meditation, and daily life. In seated you should cultivate metta (loving kindness), by developing access concentration and jhana on the metta-vedana, so that the tendency towards metta embeds. In daily life you should create and follow different intentions towards wholesome/skillful, qualities, regardless of how you may feel at the time. It is important to note, that wholesome/skillful qualities will not naturally arise, if they are not already your natural way of being. This is part of the unrooting and conditioning process that is necessary to instill social harmony. 

Back to the top

DISENTANGLE AWARENESS SECTION

Mastery 7: Disentangled Awareness

      Skillset 10

• Meditation Skills 44-48
• Meditation Skills 49-51

Mastery 8: Deconditioned Mind

       Skillset 11

• Meditation Skill 52

Step 7: Once harmony has been created, then you focus on nirvikalpa samadhi (objectless unification) as your main practice. Your aim is to train awareness to disentangle from the six sensory fields.

• Meditation Skills 44-52 develop higher levels of nirvikalap samadhi, until at will, you can disentangle awareness from itself, to bring cessation to all sensory fields. This practice is tied in with what the Buddha called indriya-samvara (calming of the going-out of awareness to the senses). This whole process is done through gradual relaxing of all sensory engagement, until this tendency for awareness to engage, ceases. It is important to note, that this final stage requires significant fading and uprooting of the meditative hindrances, especially in regards to habitual attraction and aversion towards vedana (pleasant and unpleasant feeling tone). Therefore, a basis in samadhi, insight and softening are required.

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