Meditation Question - Thoughts vs Insight

[Meditationdude]

I’m having trouble lately in my sits distinguishing thoughts vs insight. I’m constantly questioning what’s real and what’s just delusion, like I don’t trust myself anymore. It’s confusing. 

I used to be so vigilant on what was thoughts and what was insight but I seem to be in a rut (even though my practice is just as strong if not stronger than it’s ever been). 

Im reading Mastering the core teachings of the Buddha right now and it says there’s a stage on the meditation path that almost feels like you’ve regressed, can’t meditate well and lost all your concentration powers. Maybe it’s something like that going on.

anyone else experience this or have any advice on ways to get back on track with my insight meditation practice? 

 

For reference: I’m meditating daily ( last 4 yrs) 1-1.5 hours a day w binaural beats. 

[Gili Trawangan]

My two cents: drop all concepts, including thought and insight. Don't sit with the goal of getting insights, that's just perpetuating the ego. Just sit, no goals, there's nothing to do. Let go.

[Leo Gura]

@Meditationdude When you sit, what is your intention? What are you trying to understand or get?

Sits are usually not nearly as effective without a clear intention. It's very important to become clear about what you want out of this work. And there are many things you could be working on / developing / realizing.

If you want to just sit and done nothing, without any objective or goal. Fine. But then make that your intention and be clear about it: "I will just sit here like a cat and be in the present moment."

Sometimes that's effective.

Other times it's more effective to have some existential question you're working on, like "What am I?" or "What is reality?" or "What is Love?" or "What is Truth?", etc.

But understand this: there is way more to this work than merely sitting like a cat. Nothing wrong with sitting like a cat. But if you really want to understand reality, life, and self -- that won't be enough. You need to probe various aspects of life to crack its secrets.

Or you could be working on building concentration skill.

[joeyi99]

@Leo Gura Is'nt sitting like a cat a method of probing into life? 

 

[Meditationdude]

@Leo Gura when I sit my intention is to focus on my object of concentration (electrical hum in the ears) and just see what comes up. Is that what you mean by sitting like a cat? 

Normally this method has been beneficial for me and produced great insight and depth of understanding but not as of late. And like I said I’m practicing more lately then I have in the past so it’s confusing. I’m not expecting linear growth as I understand the journey but I was just wondering why all of a sudden the insights just kinda ceased and it’s really hard to tell what’s mind chatter vs truth.