You Do Not Lack the Capacity

Aha! Ok, so generally, people either progress quickly from stage 1-4 or from stages 4-7. Generally, if you’re quick in one batch, you’ll be slow in the other! So that might be your issue here.

Intentions are the core building block of mindfulness. Mindfulness is about connecting your aims with what you’re currently doing. Say, you want to make a milkshake, then reaching to put in the ketchup would be bad for this goal. And say, this happens to you IRL; you’d notice that you’ve got ketchup in your hands, and stop the motions putting it closer to the blender! Same with the breath; your intention is to observe it at a set point. This is your aim. So what actions support this aim? Generally speaking, remaining alert, minimizing distractions, and concentrating on the sensations as they arise and dissipate. So, when you lose focus of the breath, you bring it back to observing the breath. And when you see a distraction popping up to grab attention, you swat it away!

YOU DO NOT LACK THE CAPACITY FOR MEDITATION. If you could write this post on Reddit, you know what intentions are. Nobody has properly explained to you what mindfulness is in a plain English pragmatic way. It’s not some magical Buddha quality that you get after thousands of hours of meditation. You have it. You had an intention to write, and you avoided the actions that made you not write the OP, and you emphasised the actions that led you to write the post. That was mindfulness in action. You were mindful of how your actions related to the goal at hand. You know what intentions are! Most intentions just happen to be set by us automatically, so in meditation, it requires you to be a little more conscious. But take heart with the fact that you can do it, you’ve been doing it for ages, and you can expand this skill further!

You realise that you’re distracted. You accept it (as it’s your current reality), and return to the task at hand. Simple really. That’s the essence of TMI basically. Realise you are distracted, accept, and realign your actions to the goal. Notice a potential distraction, accept it in the field of awareness, and realign your observation to the breath. Returning to the breath should be simple. Find a place that you can observe it. It’s not hiding from you. You have tonnes of sensory neurons there. Start out observing the breath in some big area, like the entire inside of the nostrils and work from there. Start breathing harder and more labourously if you need to, in order to bring out the sensations to the foreground of attention. Don’t be shy to also make your attention a little more active in searching for breath sensations. You can look for it, look around the nose. Scan the nose. Try and hone into an area.

As for confusion. It happens. I get confused all the time and I’ve been meditating for ages. Confusion is a gift and full of insights that teach us about how life works:

• You’ll never really know how life works. It’s always changing.
• You’ll never have “the answer” to it all. Because the questions are always changing!
• Nothing will ever be “it”, there will never be a resting point for you to say “ok I’m satisfied now!” because everything is constantly moving in life, changing, etc… Today you’re hungry, so food is the answer. Tomorrow you think you’re overweight, so less food is the answer. And so it goes…
• Confusion is the realisation that we haven’t realised the fundamental characteristics of our sensory experience yet. Don’t worry, you will. You’re learning the lesson right now.

And I think a good dose of humility is worthwhile here. Overthinking is the mental manifestation of the “controlling/overbearing” personality style. You need to map out every possibility, investigate every nook and cranny for a counterfactual, analyse all future potentialities. Keep it simple. Realise that it’s just your mind chattering to itself, it’s been your mind all along. If you’re thinking these thoughts, and it’s all in your mind, the situation is basically talking to yourself. You know the answer already, you have that knowledge already — it’s in your mind, right? You’re just repeating it to yourself… Why? What assumed psychological need are you comforting right now by repeating/overthinking/chattering away with these thoughts? What is your mind obsessed with and chattering about. Really be humble here. You’re human, we all need to feel safe. Find out why your mind is moving the way it does.

I hope some of this advice helps. Feel free to reach out via DMs here on Reddit, and I’d be happy to give you some more advice, clarify, or whatever! Happy travels, be well! :)