Support Material for MIDL
Mindfulness of breathing lists and tables
Below are support list and tables to support the development of your meditation practice. Feel free to contact me with any questions of feedback.
Stephen Procter
Menu:
MIDL Meditation System
Understanding the structure of meditation training
The MIDL Meditation System, contains eight Masteries of meditative skill. Maturity of these Masteries culminates in the fulfillment of the Noble Eightfold Path. Within each Meditation Mastery, there are a series of meditative skills, called Skillsets. It is these skills that you will develop, by following daily structured meditation.
The Eight Meditation Masteries
Within the MIDL Meditation System, there are eight Meditation Masteries. When developed, these Masteries lead to the maturity of the Noble Eightfold Path, in daily life:
Mastery 1: Access Concentration.
Mastery 2: Sukha-Vedana Jhana.
Mastery 3: Deliberate Living.
Mastery 4: Insight Into Reality.
Mastery 5: Inclination to Abandon.
Mastery 6: Unification of Heart.
Mastery 7: Disentangled Awareness.
Mastery 8: The Deconditioned Mind.
Fulfilling each meditation mastery
Within each Mastery, there are a series of meditation Skillsets. These Skillsets create the foundation for successful meditation. Your task as a Satipatthana meditator, is to bring each Mastery to maturity, by practicing the Skillsets found within them.
For example, Mastery 1 contains these three Skillsets:
Mastery 1: Access Concentration.
Skillset 1: Develop Skill in Softening.
Skillset 2: Develop Skill in Flexible Attention.
Skillset 3: Develop Skill in Access Concentration.
Fulfilling each meditation skillset
Within each Skillset, there are specific meditation skills for you to practice that when developed, fulfill the purpose of that Skillset. These take the form of structured meditations, that include guidance for your daily practice. Below is a complete menu including all 52 Meditation Skills.
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.
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.
Mastery 2: Sukha Vedana Jhana
Skillset 4: Develop Skill in Jhana.
Meditation Skill 14: Sukha-Vedana Jhana.
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.
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.
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.
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: Loved One: Pervasive.
Meditation Skill 42: Cultivate Skill in Forgiveness.
Meditation Skill 43: Cultivate Skill in Gratitude.
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.
The 12 Experiential Markers
Understanding the structure of your training
Experiential Markers are an advanced way of the tracking of the development of samadhi during mindfulness of breathing. Once you have learnt a Meditation Skill, you replace it with its inherent Markers, as a way of tracking development in mindfulness of breathing. These Markers arise sequentially, as a natural reflection of the development of samadhi. In this way, when the first Marker from the next Meditation Skill arises, you know it is time to transition to the next level of mindfulness of breathing.
Example:
(4) Bodily sensations and points of touch
to
(5) The natural flow of breath in your body.
= Transition from Meditation Skill 04 to Meditation Skill 05.
The Six Mindfulness of Breathing Meditation Skills
Experiential Markers
1. The touch of your thumbs.
2. The experience of sitting in the room.
3. Your whole body as it sits.
4. Bodily sensations and points of touch.
Hindrances: forgetting, gross wandering, directed thinking.
Antidote: using Meditation Skill 4, develop skill in grounding and softening.
Progression: forgetting can be calmed with samadhi.
Maturity: forgetting no longer arises, gross wandering has calmed.
Experiential Markers
5. The natural flow of breath in your body.
6. Knowing in and out breaths (nose or abdomen).
Hindrances: wandering, directed thinking, doubt.
Antidote: using Meditation Skill 9, observe attention wander, gently bring it back.
Progression: wandering and directed thinking can be calmed with samadhi.
Maturity: wandering and directed thinking have faded and rarely arise.
Experiential Marker
7. Knowing the full length of each breath (nose or abdomen).
Hindrances: gross dullness, gross restlessness, doubt.
Antidote: using Meditation Skill 10, increase sensitivity to energy imbalances.
Progression: gross dullness, restlessness, doubt can be calmed with samadhi.
Maturity: gross dullness, restlessness and doubt have faded and no longer arise.
Experiential Markers
8. Knowing breath sensation (nose or abdomen).
9. Knowing fine breath sensation until breath becomes very subtle.
Hindrances: subtle dullness, subtle wandering, subtle restlessness.
Antidote: using Meditation Skill 11, increase the stability of attention.
Progression: subtle dullness and wandering can be calmed with samadhi.
Maturity: subtle dullness and subtle wandering have faded and no longer arise.
Experiential Markers
10. Opening peripheral awareness to whole body breathing, while maintaining breath sensation in the centre of attention.
11. Stabilising attention, making it firm within breath sensation.
Hindrances: subtle restlessness, subtle instability.
Antidote: using Meditation Skill 12, increase the stability of attention.
Progression: subtle restlessness and instability can be calmed with samadhi.
Maturity: subtle restlessness and instability have faded and no longer arise.
Experiential Markers
12. Calming any 'going out' of attention with each out-breath, until attention sustains (vicara) and subtle body piti arises (pleasant bodily sensations).
Hindrances: anticipation of pleasure, fear of giving up control.
Antidote: using Meditation Skill 13, calm/relax your effort ‘to do’ the meditation.
Progression: anticipation and fear can be calmed with samadhi.
Maturity: anticipation and fear have faded and no longer arise.
Tiers of Mindfulness of Breathing
Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3 Explanation
When practicing samatha (tranquility of mind) for insight, the are three Tiers of meditative skill that are developed, during mindfulness of breathing. Below I have separated out these Tiers, to help you navigate your practice. At the bottom of this section is also a printable PDF Map for Mindfulness of Breathing, that will help you to guide your progress. Using the table below you can accurately determine your progression, and what you need to do at this time.
Tier 1: Beginning Meditators should use Meditation Skills
If you are new to mindfulness of breathing, you should start by following the instructions given in Meditation Skills 01-13, above. Once familiar with an individual Meditation Skill, you should then swap it out with its corresponding Experiential Markers (in the pdf below). Your focus should be on learning the various stages of mindfulness of breathing, for with meditative guidance, then without. To do this, skill must be developed in calming the meditative hindrances, though softening your participation in them, until you can stabilise attention in access concentration.
Tier 2: Skilled Meditators should use Experiential Markers
A skilled MIDL meditator no longer follows the instructions given in the Meditation Skills, instead they develop access concentration by following the 12 Experiential Markers (listed below). If you have reached this stage, then your aim should be to allow these Markers to unfold naturally, as a reflection of the development of samadhi. Once comfortable, you should increase the speed at which you can move through these Markers, without samadhi collapsing. Your focus in regards to the meditative hindrances, should be on calming through the development of samadhi, up to access concentration. Once this skill is developed, then you need to choose your meditative path:
PATH 1: Insight first, Tranquility second.
PATH 2: Tranquility first, Insight second.
Tier 3: Advanced Meditators should use the Meditative Hindrances
Once advanced in mindfulness of breathing, you should use the meditative hindrances as your experienced path, with the intention of deconditioning them from your mind. he advanced meditator no longer follows the 12 Experiential Markers, but instead creates a posture of samadhi, and intentionally deconditions any hindrances that arises in the development of access concentration. This is done through observing the present hindrance as it arises, and softening into your participation with it.
Literally relaxing the effort to do in order to enter into mindful non-participation. An advanced meditator uses the non-arising, partial fading, and dominant hindrances present, as a path that reflects the development of samadhi. This can be done due to the direct relationship between the structure of attention, and the meditative hindrance's present. This path is repeated until all meditative hindrances are deconditioned from the mind and no longer arise, until the path to access concentration unimpeded, not through suppression but through uprooting.
The 16 Meditative Hindrances
Understanding the purpose of your training
These 16 meditative hindrances have the potential to arise during mindfulness of breathing. They arise and are overcome in the below order as a sign of progression in samadhi (unification) and insight.
- Stress reactions: habituated stress/anxiety reactions of the mind.
- Physical restlessness: unable to experience physical comfort.
- Mental restlessness: unable to experience mental comfort.
- Forgetting: habitually forgetting your meditation object.
- Gross Wandering: attention habitually scanning the six senses.
- Directed Thinking: thinking regarding past and future events.
- Wandering: random, meaningless thoughts, images and fantasies.
- Doubt: losing trust in your meditation practice.
- Gross Dullness: complete collapse of clarity of awareness.
- Gross Restlessness: restlessness towards your meditation session.
- Subtle Dullness: loss of clarity of meditation object (sensations).
- Subtle Wandering: random, brief background thoughts.
- Subtle Restlessness: shaking due to effort in applied attention.
- Subtle Instability: shaking due to desire to control.
- Anticipation: desire for pleasurable states.
- Fear: fear of giving up all control.
*PDF MAP of the Meditative Hindrances and Mindfulness of Breathing below.
Tracking Meditation Through the Hindrances
Regardless of what Meditation Skill you are training in, the hindrances that are present always give a true reflection of where you should be in your meditation. This is due to the relationship between the presence of each hindrance, and the strength of the samadhi that has been developed.
As samadhi develops, it suppresses these hindrances from gross to subtle (1-16), and creates the conditions for the next one to arise. Because of this it is a reliable way of tracking how much samadhi is present. Always work with the meditation skill that reflects the dominant hindrance that you are experiencing. This will provide you with the optimum conditions for overcoming that hindrance in your meditation practice.
I Appreciate Your Support
Your support enables me to continue to offer MIDL Mindfulness Meditation to everyone who is open to receiving it.
Copyright © 2022 Meditation in The Shire - All rights reserved.
Using Material? Please link back to this website and give credit to author Stephen Procter.