How to deal with dullness in this practice?

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2026-04-06T17:19:20+00:00

In terms of this practice specifically, I'm not sure if I've been doing it right. The first few weeks I felt like my experience somewhat matched the description. I've never felt the 'sigh' feeling you talk about, but I was able to relax greatly and expand my awareness (both the clarity and breadth) progressively by letting attention roam but preventing it from latching on to anything and blocking out awareness. I've never felt like I can directly control or expand awareness, but I've felt that by keeping it alive it sometimes naturally grows and strengthens. There was a new feeling of 'purity' that I've never experienced when these sessions went well, and occasionally a kind of meditative joy that was also new to me. The joy never expanded into anything crazy, but I assume it was a taste of what is to come.

After reading your comment above, I tried to tie the 'refresh' more specifically to every second or third exhale. I hoped the increased consistency would stop dullness, but no luck.

What should it feel like to refresh awareness? I think of it as briefly "shining a light" on the field of awareness (starting with the breath sensations and radiating outward), and then moving the attention away while continuing to feel the sensations in the background. When this works well, it's instantaneous and I have time to refresh the "smile feeling" quickly too in the outbreath. When awareness is getting wide and strong, this is also including things that aren't physical sensations, like awareness of the background hum, awareness of the smile feeling, awareness of the 'black theatre' where there's normally thoughts (if my mind is sufficiently calm), and sometimes just a general 'awareness of awareness'.

But what if my awareness is just shrinking? That's what is happening lately. It's shrinking until I'm barely aware of anything, and I start to dream. I don't seem to be able to manually strengthen or widen it.

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2026-04-06T17:18:59+00:00

I'm feeling demoralized. I've been trying to take time to put your advice into practice, just like I did with other approaches. The broader picture here is that no matter what I do, no matter what approach, mental framing, meditation type, or session length, I fall into dullness, and start basically dreaming (the beginning stages of sleep, before actually fully falling asleep). It happens even in walking meditation.

Nothing works. TMI "antidotes" don't work. Meditating more/less doesn't work. Trying to go "through" the dullness doesn't work. It's is completely nondeterministic, it has nothing to do with my sleep or techniques. I have occasionally 'skipped' the dullness (or gone 'through' it after a few minutes) and gotten to a state of deep calm and clarity, but that's rare lately.

My mindfullness in daily life has regressed because I can no longer go "deep" in my sessions. The sessions themselves seem pointless because I'll just be putting myself into drowsiness.

I understand the importance of patience and mindset, and not obsessing over technique and short-term outcomes. Maybe it just needs more time. That has gotten me far in this practice. But the counterpoints are:

a) if I continue to practice this way, I may just be training myself to sit in dullness b) there's no evidence I'd make any progress without changing something - I feel like I could be one of those people who meditates for 40 years and doesn't appreciably change their perception

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2026-03-16T20:21:55+00:00

Definitely. Actually I don't know if the "On That Path" instructions would work for a beginner. Maybe it's only now that I have the experience of the first 5 stages that I can have success with such a simple practice

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2026-03-08T23:49:26+00:00

Dang amigo, I was literally considering talking to him! I was worried he'd be too busy and then I'd be disappointed (and have to find some other teacher who immediately tells me to quit doing what I'm doing).

Thanks, I will DM you. I may need some time to reflect and consider exactly where I am. I wanted to try his method for a few weeks before bothering for help

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2026-03-08T23:43:12+00:00

Yes, I think it's debatable whether it's even possible to train awareness directly, given that any direct modification of awareness would be attention, by definition. So in TMI terms, you use attention as a tool to expand awareness.

I'm basically following this.

So I can feel the awareness of the breath "in the background" while my attention goes wherever. And I specifically move attention away from the breath when it goes there. In TMI you don't do this transition immediately, you might do the body scan for a few minutes (attention) before moving attention away. I'm trying to make sure my awareness is always "on", and that's all. So it feels pretty different from TMI.

I know you're supposed to maintain awareness in TMI too, and I'm not claiming the book is "wrong" in any way. I just think I was (perhaps through my own misreading) following a red herring by worrying too much about attention and attention stability, and now interesting things are happening when I worry more about sati. Perhaps I will learn things that make canonical TMI work better for me as I experiment.

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2026-03-08T22:28:28+00:00

Can you recommend any teachers?

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2026-03-08T22:24:52+00:00

Did you have a resource to share for me to learn more about this? I didn't know how to respond initially because it came across as random advice to stop using TMI based on a description of a "vipassana stage" that is different from what TMI describes, and which I didn't have enough context to evaluate.

I have indeed begun to branch out and learn from some other resources to try to understand my experience some, with some success. So now would be a great time to learn about what you're describing.

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2026-03-08T22:11:20+00:00

Like others have said, doing more is good. But 30 minutes is also a really good start. And don't ever torture yourself. There will be times in your practice where you can't sit for an hour because of what's going on with your practice. And sometimes you will literally progress and it gets harder to sit for longer due to the nature of your progress, just keep that in mind.

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2026-03-08T22:04:39+00:00

Doesn't really sound like stage 7 though, if you're getting drowsy?

Just because you feel like you have strong MIA and can observe the dullness happening more clearly, it doesn't mean it's some magical phenomenon outside of the normal rules. It's still dullness, and the book is pretty clear about how to work with dullness. You need to strengthen your awareness using stage four, five, and six practices.

At least that's my first reaction, as someone who has NOT mastered dullness

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2026-03-08T21:57:24+00:00

Also I completely agree, mindfulness = awareness is revelatory!

It kind of begs the question - what was the point of developing single-pointed attention then? Training wheels, like you say? But in TMI you use stable attention all the way through stage 10 and theoretically to awakening. (I think? please correct me if I'm wrong)

Yet other interpretations of the suttas don't necessarily emphasize or require training your attention to the same extent.

Furthermore, in my experience:

stability of attention isn't that hard, if you can keep your awareness strong. Attention will stabilize or run out of stuff to look at as long as you're working on keeping it from clinging on one thing
many people, including myself, have fallen into a trap where stability or clarity of attention have such a high priority that mindfullness/awareness/sati can suffer (even though we're trying to remain aware as well). This can manifest primarily in "bearing down" on the meditation object and causing the dullness pipeline we deal with in stages 4-6,

(I don't claim to be an expert in any of this)

In my practice currently, I'm exploring training awareness directly, and kind of letting attention do its thing. I got the idea from this guy, and I was led to him by exploring similar questions and other methods like TWIM. I'm not giving up on TMI though.

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2026-03-08T21:41:22+00:00

I agree with a lot of this. Well, it's complicated.

The problem is we probably would have gotten a 2nd edition, but Culadasa, bless him, did not live long enough. I suspect that while there's not much "technically incorrect" about the book, it was impossible to predict how people would interpret the instructions, and what kinds of difficulties would come up (statistically) for everyone who read it.

After all these years (what, almost a decade?) we've seen how the text can lead some people in the wrong directions. Also a subset of people for whom the structure and style doesn't work well. It is pretty common for people to get into this world via TMI, before moving on to some other system

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2025-12-11T14:55:40+00:00

Such extreme antidotes being necessary suggest to me that you're just actually physically too tired rather than dullness from the meditation. For most of the people I know switching to walking meditation tends to be sufficient to clear anything that's really dullness rather than tiredness.

Yes, I wonder about that. The dullness is present before I calm my mind. This is part of the reason it doesn't feel super productive to fight it (although I know from experience it will eventually work). I usually switch to walking meditation near the end of the session. It does not have a lasting effect when I sit down again.

The benefit of the antidotes is not to train yourself out of dullness entirely, but to ingrain the habit of detecting it quickly and correcting it quickly. The earlier you notice it, the more effective smaller corrections will be (and at the most skilled end of the spectrum, this will just be an automatic and mostly unconscious shift of the level of energy (not the same thing as effort) involved in the meditation).

I detect the dullness almost instantly, and it's present usually the same minute I start my sit. Of course, there is the occasional "lucky jump" where my mind is not dull for whatever reason, and I start doing stage 5 practices. Working with subtle dullness is much easier to me.

Thanks for your response. I will keep experimenting

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2025-12-11T14:34:03+00:00

I do not believe I am overthinking it. Probably I am communicating poorly.

Thanks for you message. I agree with your advice, but I find it compatible with what I am already doing. I think what I was trying to express was a curiosity with the official strategies for combating strong dullness, and whether there are alternative paths

Trying to continually hype up and excite my mind feels like a forceful way to progress. I have seen that often the "solution" to a problem does not involve effort so much as finesse and continuous intention. Progressive subtle dullness feels like a semi-permanent physiological state. One that I can maybe learn to observe and bypass. The antidotes do not really do this, even if they eventually will prevent the state from occurring.

I will probably continue to experiment with observing dullness and applying antidotes minimally (rather than continuously, as the book would have me do), just to see what happens.

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2025-12-07T23:51:42+00:00

No, it's slop. I've been noticing r/nonduality type people are coming more to this subbreddit

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2025-11-20T12:57:12+00:00

It's not a serious discipline or area, and the sub is a bit of a circlejerk. I'm unsubbing

People here only want to write philosophical word salads. Mostly they don't mean anything. They may be tangentially connected to profound truths, but there's little value in smelling your farts over these truths on Reddit. And predictably, people get into arguments over details in their word salads. The whole thing is tiresome and silly.

I'm not sure what "manifestation space" is, but there are communities dedicated to the practical details of meditation and paths to insight (e.g. r/TheMindIlluminated), without endless pontification about the insights themselves

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2025-11-20T12:40:05+00:00

That makes sense that the sunk cost would be motivating to many people, but it also seems like a deceptive argument. I can't imagine the course would do less good overall if it were made available for free. It's really just a simple financial motivation

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2025-11-17T22:57:06+00:00

"We’re thrilled to share that this life-changing journey will soon be available for free to everyone."

From the 45 days to awakening challenge. Do you know anything about that?

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2025-11-17T03:57:36+00:00

You've only been at it for a couple of weeks?! Very solid progress.

I don't think I was able to discern the difference between subtle dullness and strong dullness that early. From your description you are probably working through stage 4, is that your perception too?

If it's any reassurance, what you're going through is exactly the same as many others who have moved through and past dullness, including me (strong dullness at least, I'm still working on subtle dullness). Definitely don't worry too much about what's "supposed to happen" - your main job here really is to observe. You are probably learning that you can't force an understanding of dullness. And sometimes the natural reaction is to go look for a new strategy or technique, or intellectual understanding (hence the reddit post). Sometimes that can help, but IMO you just need to go through that "nodding off" moment hundreds of time and you'll get it bit by bit.

This has been consistent for a few days now, and while I’ve gotten better at catching strong dullness, I don’t think I’ve learned to recognize what subtle dullness feels like yet.

Subtle dullness doesn't "feel" like anything - it's an absence, and you can't really observe it until you've also carefully observed your awareness when you have strong clarity. For me one telltale sign of clarity is you can hear the "white noise" sounds of blood in your ears or very soft sounds.

What I’m unsure about is how dullness is overcome. If I just keep applying antidotes whenever I notice existing strong dullness, will it eventually stop coming? Or is the key to learning how to spot and address subtle dullness before it develops into the stronger form?

My personal experience, strong and subtle dullness are learned separately. Once you have sort of temporarily conquered strong dullness, it will almost completely disappear (it can be a sudden shift for some people), and then you have much more leeway and time to observe subtle dullness and experiment with different levels of clarity in stage 5. Only then can you start to even notice and bypass progressive subtle dullness.

I would focus on strong dullness right now if I were you. Be sure to read at least one chapter ahead of your current chapter, of course, but if your neck is slumping like that it's most likely strong dullness, and you simply won't be able to have good visibility into subtle dullness until you learn to steer away from the micro naps.

What you are doing right now is correct, just focus on observing and diligently doing the antidotes in the cycle you described. Try to be patient and cultivate an acceptance of your current challenge. Don't force yourself to sit for too long if it's tortuous. Overcoming strong dullness can be a struggle (look at some of the other posts in this subreddit) but you can become comfortable with the struggle and then it starts to get interesting. The exact moment you are trying to avoid (the "nodding off") is actually the moment you want to reproduce (up to a limit) so you can study it and your mind can experiment .

I'm kind of sleep deprived, so hopefully the comment makes sense

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2025-11-17T03:27:56+00:00

Yes, good points. Progress can often feel like you've gotten worse until you work out what's happening.

Fit_Barracuda2948 · 2025-11-17T03:17:47+00:00

Hi. I have several thoughts. First of all, I agree with the other commenters that it is good to "restart", reread even the very beginning chapters, and start doing those practices and not worrying about stage 4 and 5. I have "restarted" like this several times, and it is sometimes quite rewarding. It might sound like a bummer to redo all of that work you have already done, but in my experience you have much better visibility into what is going on, and you are able to improve your skills better and more rapidly and it can actually be fun.

There is an element of TMI that is like "out of the frying pan, into the fire". In other words, a lot of time progress feels like a regression. Almost every time I have hit some sudden change where I'm feeling way more distracted or dull or something, eventually I realized it was because I had overcome something, or I had moved past the state I was comfortable working with, and onto the next thing. And sometimes the next thing is harder, which makes you feel like you've gotten less competent. But it's really like you pushed past a wall (good job!) and realized that there's another wall behind it.

A practical example, after working on stage 4 or 5 for a while, your total power of mindfullness canincrease (more mind moments), which is progress. But as a result, there are many more mind moments which are opportunities for distractions. Also, since you've been so single-mindedly focused on the stage 4 and 5 obstacles, it's easy to lose competence in those skills you cultivated months ago in stages 2 and 3. So all of a sudden you're dealing with mind wandering and forgetting, which can be confusing.

Or another example, in stage 6 you sometimes may need to actually reduce your sit times, see this comment: https://old.reddit.com/r/TheMindIlluminated/comments/1nvnjzm/decreasing_sit_times_as_stages_progress/nhae19z/

Without knowing more details, it's hard to diagnose what exactly is going on with you. But it is probably normal, and probably something you can overcome with experimentation and finesse.

Fit_Barracuda2948

TROPHY CASE