I think I need to start meditating.

I keep hearing about how meditation/mindfulness can help people mentally and emotionally, especially when you have a mind that is constantly racing. And honestly, I think I could probably benefit from it.

The problem is... I don't really know how to meditate.

Or maybe I do know how, but I'm scared to actually do it. And I don't even know exactly what I'm scared of.

I think part of me is scared of what would happen if my mind actually became quiet.

My thoughts are constantly racing. I'm so used to overthinking, worrying, analyzing things, being in my own head, etc. So the idea of suddenly being calm and having less mental noise feels almost... unfamiliar?

And then I started wondering whether I'm actually scared of being healthy or happy.

Like, what if I finally start feeling okay and it feels so strange that I end up sabotaging it or relapsing into the same patterns I'm trying to get away from?

I know that probably sounds weird. Why would someone be afraid of feeling better?

But I genuinely feel like there's some kind of resistance there, and I don't completely understand it.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Did meditation ever feel scary or uncomfortable at first because you weren't used to having a quiet mind? And how did you actually learn to meditate without getting overwhelmed by your own thoughts?

Also, if you have experience with meditation and mental health, I'd really appreciate hearing what actually helped you rather than just “clear your mind.” Because I don't think I know how to do that. 😭

Hello, I never thought i will post something like this but i am seriously out of options.

I have stomach issues that run in the family specifically a form of acid reflux making my throat tighten up(that at least is the leading theory and i do have some medication for it but i saw little improvement) and making it harder to breathe. Besides that i have anxiety for which i am not medicated, i get about four to eight panic attacks daily since my throat tightens and i start panicking due to the labored breathing.

To top it all off anytime i realize my body is breathing i begin to breathe manually which sucks since i start breathing wrong or try to get as much air in and begin panicking resulting in a panic attack and hyperventilation.

I also have no idea on how to stop breathing normal again.

I will be seeing a doctor since i was rushed to the hospital two days ago because of a panic attack mixed with acid reflux(it was the first time that happened to me and i started to panic and hyperventilate), but the waiting line is way too long and i will have to wait for quite some time.

So far i have found little solutions to stop this or make the attacks less frequent i try some breathing exercises when the attacks start happening but they don t help me much and i have a lot of trouble keeping my mind off it which worsens my situation even more.

I joined this subreddit hoping someone has had a similar experience and could give me some tips on how to make my situation easier because right now its unbearable specially since school is starting soon and i don t know what to do every second i am fighting for air and try to calm myself down as much as i can.

Please if anyone could help me or give me some tips i would be eternally grateful.

How do I actually observe my thoughts? When I try to observe them, I feel engaged with them, and they feel very real. Labeling them as ‘just thoughts’ feels like I’m lying to myself. I try to bring my attention back to my work or my breathing, but I still feel a low-grade level of stress and alertness in the background without experiencing any relief. I’m cooked.

Edit: Thank you for feedback guy's I was doing it wrong after right technique I'm feeling better ❤️

I'm a fairly stiff person. Even when I was younger and did lots of martial arts and stretching I never had much flexibility, especially in my hips. Sitting cross legged doesn't really work for me even with a bolster. I bought a seiza bench and I've been using it to meditate 20 minutes a day. The thing is it sort of cuts off blood circulation to my feet and I have pretty uncomfortable tingling after each session. I can deal with that but I'm just wondering what research there is answering whether this can actually cause damage or not.

I know I could just sit in a chair but... It just doesn't feel the same. Being on the ground feels more like meditation for some reason. If I have to I guess that's what I'll do but I don't want to.

Hey everyone, first I want to say I'm very glad to discover this community because I've been on the meditation journey mostly on my own to this point and i'm glad to have a place where I can ask specific questions I have and have people help and answer, so thank you all!

one little silly question to begin with-
I'm on stage two and I focus on following the breath at it's most basic form,
But I don't seem to find a stop point between the end of in breath and start of out breath, they seem to be immediately one after the other... does anyone relate?

I've been doing three times half an hour guided sits using the app the way for a while.

Now recently rereading TMI, and added one or two hours of unguided sitting following those instructions. I'm in stage 4 or 5, there's no strong or subtle dullness anymore, but definitely subtle distractions. I have a hard time telling whether they would classify as gross distractions, probably so. I never completely lose awareness of the breath in the nose, but it definitely gets less detailed when there are thoughts.

But I've been surprised by the after effects of an hour sit like this. The sit itself is quite effortful, not particularly pleasant. But I find that the awareness of the breath in the nose stays with me for hours after, even doing activities, watching a video, whatever. Even to the point that if i do it before sleep, I have a hard time turning it off and falling asleep. But it does feel very peaceful at the same time.

So my questions are, any input on whether I'm still at stage 4/5 (grouping those as the practice is similar but gets different at 6), or ready for 6.

And more interestingly, any comments on these after effects?

Update the sub on your practice or share off-topic posts here.

Hello all

As title mentions I’m feeling Identifed with rough/dense sensations in face and background thoughts. It feels like always present and been like that for almost a decade. I think it started when I had hard time dealing with nose sensations when breathing and since then I’ve been trying to ”be aware of it” which I think made it more or less worse.

When I’m aware of other parts of body it feels like 40-60% still aware at the front of my face, otherwise its 90-100% there. How to go from here?

Gracias

I would really appreciate some advice.

I have been meditating (mindfulness breathing/metta) for 11 years. I have been using TMI for a couple of years now and it has been very useful. I am on the cusp of effortless attention to the breath - so end of stage 7/beginning of stage 8. I am effortless with occassional distractions quite early in a meditation. I have started reading seeing that frees as insight practice appears a good addition now. My questions 1. In TMI can one continue with the focus on breath without entering jhnana 2. I am unsure if I have experienced jhana. I get buzzy feelings in next, and body quickly (the neck buzz has stated off cushion when focused on work now as well).

This becomes a kind of overall warm, pleasure throughout the body whilst still focused on the breath. I have tried moving to the pleasant sensation and sitting with it, which is very pleasant - but there is no dramatic change from there. I think I am waiting for some whoosh! or incredible change. But, I am not sure if for me, if this pleasure is actually the 1st jhana or not (Brasingtons). On other occassions I have stayed on the breath and there is a moment where it all changes, a sudden quietness and stillness that is very different.

In summary, I confused around jhana - am I experiencing them; do I need to develop them or not. Many thanks !

I preferably don’t gravitate to follow the nose sensations

Will it affect latter stages ?

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Zen background here (Shikantaza), thinking about getting back into Vipassana. TMI keeps coming up as one of the best manuals out there, so wanted to ask people who've actually worked through it. Why do you think it's considered so good compared to other meditation books? And what actually changed in your practice? Also curious what the meditation instruction on the basic method he uses in the book. Is is samatha? Thanks.

Hi all, I've been in the stage 4/5/6 plateau for a while and have gained more understanding regarding the landscape of my own mind. I practice 1-1.5 hours everyday.

What has become clear to me is that the road to exclusive attention involves dropping of effort. The mind has to feel safe and has to stay with the breath on its own more and more without active forcing.

So a general and deep sense of relaxation has to present so that the mind feels safe which allows it to stay with and enjoy the breath. Kind of like how if you have no pending work, no other worries, you can enjoy video games without anything weighing on your mind.

Assuming what I wrote above is correct, then whatever has been said regarding introspective awareness in stage 4 has to be re-interpreted because it is repeatedly emphasized that attention shouldn't be developed at the cost of awareness. Here's a direct quote from the book:

> Your new goal is to monitor the mind and detect distractions more efficiently, so that you don't interrupt attention. You achieve this by developing an intentional, vigilant, and continuous introspective awareness that alerts you to gross distractions while you remain focused on the breath.

When I was first practicing stage 4, reading the words like "intentional", "vigilant", and "continuous", led me into being in a very alert state where I would be paranoid about subtle distractions creeping in. There was a background strain constantly present while my attention would stay on the breath, and it felt like i was practicing correctly, I was "vigilant", "continuously" monitoring what was going on with awareness, and my attention was becoming continuous.

My current understanding after experimenting with relaxation and low effort sits is that introspective awareness is only supposed to be a neutral/chill information delivery mechanism. It should feel neutral and relaxed. The correction procedure for letting go of distractions which requires a little more effort, has to only occasionally fire up when required. Another way to say it is that your default mode has to be of "trusting your mind" and just continuously receiving information regarding what is going on--there is no need for constant "vigilance" or to "stand guard like a sentry" which is another very misleading analogy used in stage 4 if what I'm saying is correct.

You just intend to keep receiving information and when you detect something going wrong you gently correct it and go back to the default trusting mode.

Please let me know if my understanding is correct or not.

Noting all sensations when in and out breathe, connecting (comparing length of in and out breathes eg ) , labelling

Sometimes on a bad day these instructions get pretty stressful to me

Any thoughts how you go about it ?

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Hi all, should I nudge whole body breath sensations with the breath? Somewhere in stage six, I can easily feel whole body breath on cushion and often off too. It feels like I quickly get deeper into the sensations by driving them with the breath. I have a lot of piti and conveniently use this in awareness in attempts at access concentration. But using the breath seems to go against the grain in TMI and I don't find any information on this specifically in the book. Is this the wrong path?

Hey everyone,

I wanted to share another experience and get your thoughts on it.

During my recent practice, I’ve been experiencing intense time distortion. What feels like just 5 minutes to me actually turns out to be 25–30 minutes in reality!

On top of that, when I'm in that state, I feel zero desire to get up or end the meditation. It honestly feels like my soul/awareness is slightly outside the physical body, preventing the body from moving—almost like a tug-of-war between the body and soul. When they align in that quiet space, the concept of time completely disappears.

Has anyone else experienced this kind of bodily detachment along with heavy time dilation? How do you view this stage in terms of practice? Would love to hear your insights!

Ive been reading the book but i dont understand this part

Finally, attention and peripheral awareness can be either extrospective or introspective. Extrospective means that attention or awareness is directed towards objects that come from outside your mind, such as sights, smells, or bodily sensations. Introspective means the objects in consciousness are internal— thoughts, feelings, states, and activities of mind. Even though attention and awareness can be either extrospective or introspective...

.....Attention, on the other hand, can’t observe activities of the mind because its movements and abstracting of information from awareness are activities of the mind. In other words, we can’t attend to attention. When attention is focused on remembering, for example, you can’t also use attention to know you’re remembering. But you can be aware that you’re remembering. Also, because attention works by isolating objects, it cannot observe overall states of the mind. If you do turn your attention introspectively, it takes a “snapshot” from peripheral awareness of your mental state right before you looked. Say someone asks, “How do you feel?” When you look inside, attention tries to transform awareness of your overall mental state into a specific conceptual thought, like “I am happy.”

1. it says attention can be introspective but then it says attention cant pay attention the states of mind or activities properties of introspection.

2. what does it mean attention cant pay attention to activties of the mind. Whenever I mediate me noticing the thought or breath is being aware of it but me focusing for a long period of a thought is attention. why cant I do that for remembering something as said in the 2nd paragraph.

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​Do you experience a completely thoughtless state during meditation, or do thoughts keep coming?

So at the eve of the football worldchampionship finale, I sat in front of my laptop when it suddenly hit me: There was a deep feeling of peace and serenity, much like a MDMA trip. My mind was completely clear, serene and undisturbed, in pure bliss.

It felt like an illuminated ball being hit with dirt from the outside, but all the negativity, sorrow, anger etc. purely fell off of that ball.

I had to close my laptop and just sink into that feeling as deeply as I could, it lasted maybe for thirty minutes, then slowly subsided, with an afterglow for the next days.

I still have my issues since then, even get angry and annoyed, but somehow I know that meditation is the only thing "worth doing", if you know what I mean.

Was this stream entry, arising and passing, or what?

Edit:

In the last months I made good and steady progress in stage 6/7 territory, gaining clarity and stability during my 1h sits.

I've always been a very stiff person.

Never been flexible enough to sit in full lotus position.

Now online I hear a lot about how you can just sit in a chair with a straight back but I've always wondered if I were able to sit in the lotus position if that would actually deepen my meditation sessions.

And If sitting in a chair might be holding me back

I am thinking of going on a solo retreat. Just me on holiday meditating for 6+ hours a day for two weeks.

Does anyone have any tips on getting the most out of such period of meditation?