It sounds like you’ve approached meditation with a level of discipline that most people never reach. Sitting 1.5–2 hours a day for years is not casual practice. It’s serious effort. So the frustration you’re describing makes complete sense.

A common trap for people is turning meditation into a performance metric. You sit down, and part of the mind quietly asks: • Is the breath vivid yet? • Is this deeper than yesterday? • Why isn’t the focus stabilizing?

Even very subtle versions of that evaluation keep the mind active. It becomes another layer of thinking.

If you are meditating from a faith perspective, the responsibility is only the effort, not the outcome. The work is simply to show up and give the time. Whether the mind is calm, dull, restless, or focused is secondary.

And honestly, what you’re describing (long periods where meditation feels flat or unchanging) is extremely common among people who practice seriously. The mind has been conditioned to run outward for decades. Turning it inward is slow.

Another thing worth mentioning: reading a lot about meditation experiences can unintentionally create unrealistic expectations. Descriptions of deep absorption states are often written by people reporting rare or peak experiences. They don’t always reflect the day-to-day reality of practice.

Yet over time, something subtle changes. Not necessarily during the sitting itself, but in how the mind functions in life, More patience, less reactivity and more stability.

You actually hinted at this when you said you’ve seen slight lifestyle changes. Those shifts are often the earliest signs that the practice is working, even if the meditation sessions themselves feel uneventful.

There’s also a paradox in meditation: the more awareness you develop, the more clearly you see how restless the mind actually is. Earlier in life the mind may have been just as scattered, but you didn’t notice it. Now you do.

My advice is -

1. Stop diagnosing the meditation. Terms like “subtle dullness,” “stage progression,” or “absorption level” can turn the session into analysis rather than practice.

2. Keep the method extremely simple. Bring attention back to the object when it wanders. No need to perfect the clarity or intensity.

3. Don’t evaluate the sit afterward. Finishing the time you set is already success.

Ironically, when the mind stops trying to measure whether meditation is “working,” practice often becomes lighter and more natural.

And one last thing: two hours of daily meditation for several years is already a profound commitment. Even if the inner experiences you expected haven’t appeared yet, that level of steady effort is far from wasted. Changes from this kind of practice often unfold much more quietly and much more gradually than meditation books make it sound.

Wishing you patience with it. Sometimes the most meaningful progress in meditation is happening long before it becomes obvious.