You have mastered Stage Seven when you can consistently achieve effortlessness. The restless tendency of attention to follow objects in peripheral awareness has been tamed. When you first sit down, you still need to go through a “settling in” process—you’ll count your breaths, sharpen your attention and awareness, and diligently ignore everything, until the mind is pacified and competing intentions disappear. Then you can let go and cruise. When you can consistently achieve effortlessness and stay there for all or most of the sit, you have become an adept practitioner. You have reached the
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