Struggling on Concentrative Meditation

[Hugo Ferraro]

Hello, people. So... I´ve been doing mindfullness meditation, contemplative meditation and mindfullness stretching for a while, but not consistently, except for stretching, which I do every day for the last few months. But I was not satisfied with the awareness and focus that this types of meditation was cultivating. So I researched a bit about concentration: I´ve watched Leo´s video("Concentration x Meditation") and I´ve been reading this book "A Million Thoughts", which indicates that the most "powerful" meditation is the Concentrative Meditation. This meditation consist that you focus singularly on a perception, and the book I just mentioned enfasizes the essentiality of that tradicional cross-legged/erect spine posture, and man... That posture its so hard to maintain while you´re trying to concentrate on a third thing. Firstly because there is, right away, pain in my backs and legs to mantain it. Also, I need to keep some alertness effort to keep steadiness of my body. However, that´s not really the real problem. Maintaining its hard, but I can get through it. The real problem, though, is that I can´t really fucking concentrate. I´ve been using a metronome as object of focus. But even when I´m at the most high level of focus to it´s repetitive sound, I feel like I´m half concentrated. Somehow, my concentration won´t connect fully to the raw perception that is there. It´s like a hugely slippery concentration, always. Getting eventually connected to the metronome, then, almost in an instant, falling back to my mind activity. And that´s the resume of my concentrative meditation: a full time effort to concentrate on the metronome, but, somehow, failing. So, I feel frustrated, because I can´t see how this tiny eventual moments of "real" focus on my meditations will lead to any progress. Can you, guys, give me any tips? Thankss for reading  

[Forestluv]

@Hugo Ferraro

I used to force my body to endure painful meditation postures, yet no more. I find it counter-productive. Yet, I avoid adjusting a lot to get comfortable. I’m now ok being still in moderate discomfort.

Concentration practice was ineffective for me until I reached gaps between thoughts that lasted several seconds. Then a few thoughts might enter and let go of. Then several seconds without thought and so on. It took me a long time to reach that point and when I did, concentration practice clicked and I began going several minutes of focused thoughtless beingness in the moment. Even thoughts aren’t really thoughts anymore. They are like a creaky floor sound that gets tuned out and has no power. For me, complete detachment and disidentification from stray thoughts is essential for concentration practice. We are concentrating all awareness into one single point and all other points are distractions - wether it is a dog barking, thunder, an aching back or thoughts.

For concentration, I try to have a quiet space without being obsessive. Light background noise like birds and cars are fine. 

One of my practices is setting up a certain type of candle. There is hardly any flicker to it. I position it a certain distance and height from my meditation cushion so that my breathing causes slight motions in the candle. I sit and breath normally and draw my attention on the inter-relationship between the candle and my breath. The two become one and this settles my mind. Without thought, my breathe depth and pace may change slightly as the candle pattern changes. They become synchronized in a way and I go deeper and deeper. Awareness of the breath dissolves and I may stop breathing at times. I don’t know. Awareness of my body, the room and surroundings dissolve. Awareness of thoughts dissolve. Awareness becomes concentrated into the candle flame. There is only one thing that exists - that flame. There is no other awareness. The internal and external Universe is that candle flame. Then things get interesting. . . 

 

 

[ZZZZ]

22 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

@Hugo Ferraro

I used to force my body to endure painful meditation postures, yet no more. I find it counter-productive. Yet, I avoid adjusting a lot to get comfortable. I’m now ok being still in moderate discomfort.

Concentration practice was ineffective for me until I reached gaps between thoughts that lasted several seconds. Then a few thoughts might enter and let go of. Then several seconds without thought and so on. It took me a long time to reach that point and when I did, concentration practice clicked and I began going several minutes of focused thoughtless beingness in the moment. Even thoughts aren’t really thoughts anymore. They are like a creaky floor sound that gets tuned out and has no power. For me, complete detachment and disidentification from stray thoughts is essential for concentration practice. We are concentrating all awareness into one single point and all other points are distractions - wether it is a dog barking, thunder, an aching back or thoughts.

For concentration, I try to have a quiet space without being obsessive. Light background noise like birds and cars are fine. 

One of my practices is setting up a certain type of candle. There is hardly any flicker to it. I position it a certain distance and height from my meditation cushion so that my breathing causes slight motions in the candle. I sit and breath normally and draw my attention on the inter-relationship between the candle and my breath. The two become one and this settles my mind. Without thought, my breathe depth and pace may change slightly as the candle pattern changes. They become synchronized in a way and I go deeper and deeper. Awareness of the breath dissolves and I may stop breathing at times. I don’t know. Awareness of my body, the room and surroundings dissolve. Awareness of thoughts dissolve. Awareness becomes concentrated into the candle flame. There is only one thing that exists - that flame. There is no other awareness. The internal and external Universe is that candle flame. Then things get interesting. . . 

 

 

Mesmerizing description. Might have to give this a try sometime.

[Hugo Ferraro]

11 hours ago, Serotoninluv said:

@Hugo Ferraro

I used to force my body to endure painful meditation postures, yet no more. I find it counter-productive. Yet, I avoid adjusting a lot to get comfortable. I’m now ok being still in moderate discomfort.

Concentration practice was ineffective for me until I reached gaps between thoughts that lasted several seconds. Then a few thoughts might enter and let go of. Then several seconds without thought and so on. It took me a long time to reach that point and when I did, concentration practice clicked and I began going several minutes of focused thoughtless beingness in the moment. Even thoughts aren’t really thoughts anymore. They are like a creaky floor sound that gets tuned out and has no power. For me, complete detachment and disidentification from stray thoughts is essential for concentration practice. We are concentrating all awareness into one single point and all other points are distractions - wether it is a dog barking, thunder, an aching back or thoughts.

For concentration, I try to have a quiet space without being obsessive. Light background noise like birds and cars are fine. 

One of my practices is setting up a certain type of candle. There is hardly any flicker to it. I position it a certain distance and height from my meditation cushion so that my breathing causes slight motions in the candle. I sit and breath normally and draw my attention on the inter-relationship between the candle and my breath. The two become one and this settles my mind. Without thought, my breathe depth and pace may change slightly as the candle pattern changes. They become synchronized in a way and I go deeper and deeper. Awareness of the breath dissolves and I may stop breathing at times. I don’t know. Awareness of my body, the room and surroundings dissolve. Awareness of thoughts dissolve. Awareness becomes concentrated into the candle flame. There is only one thing that exists - that flame. There is no other awareness. The internal and external Universe is that candle flame. Then things get interesting. . . 

 

 

Ohhh... that fucking barking dog... lol

Wow, that interaction between breath and candle is so intelligent, I will definetely try it out. Really loved the idea.

But, what practice(s) did you do to cultivate that gaps between thoughts?