The Mind Illuminated: A Complete Meditation Guide Integrating Buddhist Wisdom and Brain Science for Greater Mindfulness

by Culadasa (John Yates)

STAGE FOUR: CONTINUOUS ATTENTION AND OVERCOMING GROSS DISTRACTION AND STRONG DULLNESS You can stay focused on the breath more or less continuously, but attention still shifts rapidly back and forth between the breath and various distractions. Whenever a distraction becomes the primary focus of your attention, it pushes the meditation object into the background. This is called gross distraction. But when the mind grows calm, there tends to be another problem, strong dullness. To deal with both of these challenges, you develop continuous introspective awareness to alert you to their presence. Goal: Overcome gross distraction and strong dullness. Obstacles: Distractions, pain and discomfort, intellectual insights, emotionally charged visions and memories. Skills: Developing continuous introspective awareness allows you to make corrections before subtle distractions become gross distractions, and before subtle dullness becomes strong dullness. Learning to work with pain. Purifying the mind of past trauma and unwholesome conditioning. Mastery: Gross distractions no longer push the breath into the background, and breath sensations don’t fade