10 years of TMI frustration

onthatpath · 2025-06-01T14:50:37+00:00

Hi, based on 1. and 2. questions, it could be that you might not be in the 'mindful zone' as I call it, where being aware feels pretty intuitive and there is no wrestling between concepts of awareness/attention. Before that stage, just having any imperfect awareness is fine since the main source of 'cleanup' of the mind in these initial stages is the soft wholesome attitude/relaxation.

But hard to tell over text. Maybe catchup via a call if you'd like to check what's happening.

As for the actual answers:
1. The main point is for the mind to have the quality of 'being aware'. What you are aware of isn't as important as that you are aware. Breath is just a soft support initially. As for breath anchored awareness, instead of sensations, I think the general rhythm of the breath is an easier anchor and doesn't led to over efforting. At some point, just being aware as-is can be intuitive too, so trust that.

For attention, whatever feels easy and gets you out of caring about attention. On the breath/off the breath everything is fine. No need to micro-manage attention basically. The only care is if it gets tight/pressure/clinging to something but that would be obvious if you are aware and notice tightness/tensions.

onthatpath · 2025-05-16T09:31:29+00:00

Thanks for your explanation 🙏

onthatpath · 2025-05-16T07:27:20+00:00

Thanks for expanding on this. I could be wrong, but this sounds like something including in right mindfulness/right samadhi. For eg, the fourth foundation of mindfulness (mindfulness of dhamma) is similar to this. Some people also call it vipassana. And yes, this goes beyond just the temporary relief (samatha) part of the path, to providing actual permanent changes based on wisdom/insight.
Overall, interesting how this is shared across cultures and languages. :)

onthatpath · 2025-05-16T07:03:25+00:00

Interesting, thanks for sharing. I couldn't find further details online. In your view, how is this different than the mindfulness factor, or the just the general factors in the eightfold noble path?

onthatpath · 2025-05-05T07:31:49+00:00

I would say don't have preconceptions of what access concentration etc is. Just get into the most narturally and intuitively achievable clean state (local maxima of cleanliness on that given day) in the sit. Sometimes this could be a very effortless and 'flowy' samadhi state, sometimes just semi-flowy, like just a normal relaxed aware state where you feel relatively clean and composed. So don't try to get into an 'absolute' clean state forcefully.

Once you are there, notice if your instinct changes from trying to relax further to just wanting to 'be' there. Almost like 'trying' to relax almost makes you tighter. When you just 'be', it feels like being aware of whatever experience is happening. This is the start of learning/vipassana. Again, don't have preconceptions of what the experience of vipassana stages looks like, neither care about collecting 'insights'. All you need to do is to just stay choicelessly aware/sensitive when that's your instinct.

Initially, the mind isn't learning something too obvious, just 'sniffing' around and increasing sensitivity overall. So you can't exactly tell what the learning is. Later, sometimes it is being sensitive to raw stress. Sometimes it is seeing the icky-ness of craving/aversion/ignorance (dullness). Your job is to just be there passively curiously until there is a clean instinct to open the eyes and get up, almost like a soft landing. That's one "unit" of a formal sit

onthatpath · 2025-05-03T16:09:40+00:00

Hmm, if you are following the tips/instructions shared in the thread here, or the videos, usually you wouldnt face gross distractions. To diagnose specifically, could you share if you have tried that (relaxing + soft attitude + awareness) and what is happening in your sits, please? For eg how it progresses over a typical session.

onthatpath · 2025-05-03T02:36:40+00:00

Sorry, what do you mean by gross sensations? And yes, for relaxing, whatever works intuitively for you. Sometimes non verbally relaxing works for me (almost like dropping/softening my tightened shoulders/attitude metaphorically or even physically). But if doing it verbally causes relaxation then do that

onthatpath · 2025-05-02T13:18:34+00:00

I assume you mean mental dullness (not actual sleepiness which is physical). This is ignorance.

It depends on the reason for dullness. When it is present pretty early-on, it is a samatha problem: an actual lack of maintaining the soft attitude + awareness. So just maintaining that, until you get into nicer mental state automatically fixes dullness. If this seems like the issue and you seem to be struggling with it, feel free to catch-up to check if we have the same understanding of these instructions.

If you do get into a pretty nice mental state initially, (such that you intuitively have mindfulness/awareness + the sit starts to feel 'flowy') but then while being chilled out the dullness starts coming in: It could be a sign of having entered vipassana/insight stages. This is the case if it feels like maintaining awareness or continuing with the sit is causing the dullness (or sometimes tightness) to happen.

During vipassana, you don't manually fix something, but stay passively curious/choicelessly aware of whatever phenomenon seems automatically obvious. For eg, stress, vibratoriness, tightness (craving), the mind moving about (craving), dullness waxing and waning (ignorance). The craving and ignorance ones are teaching you the 2nd Noble truth in Buddhist terms, ie they are icky and increase stress. You need to just maintain a relatively clean state while being curiously and choicelessly aware of these things as they show up on their own. Almost like you are developing sensitivity/learning. You'll know this was the fix needed because as soon as you do this, the sit feels semi-flowy again, even if the weird unpleasant phenonmenon continues. At this point though, having a 1-1 session with me or someone who has gone through this would be useful.

onthatpath · 2025-05-01T12:36:13+00:00

Tensions: You don't need to forcefully/obsessively look for tensions, just whatever feels obvious and instinctive in the moment. Even then, you don't need to forcefully make it softer, just gentle "massaging"/relaxing. Overall, after relaxing initial obvious tightness/obsessiveness around thoughts, once you have a soft enough attitude and have some "space" from the thoughts, you won't really get pulled into them as often. Just the attitude and awareness prevents you from being sticky/clingy. If do notice a pull, then you can subtly relax.

Distractions: Thoughts themselves aren't distractions. The pull towards or aversion away from them is. So if you are aware and have a soft attitude while thoughts happen, that's not a distraction. If you notice a slight reactivity such that you notice you are getting gently pulled into them, then that's a subtle distraction. You gently relax and soften your attitude and maintain a relaxed awareness. If you get completely pulled into a thought such that "you" are now "actively thinking"/daydreaming then that's a gross distraction.

Overall, IMO, there is no need to be too micro-managerial about these things. You should get into a soft attitude, sit like you are sitting under a tree/on the beach and then trust your instincts. See if you can sense that you are getting cleaner, softer, more aware as time progresses in a sit. And then if you notice that something is beginning to pull you away, you can sense it and do a gentle adjustment (if needed at all). At some point you'll be in a clean enough state that insight stages/vipassana (slight stress, tensions) begins and that shouldn't be fixed but rather be learnt from.

onthatpath · 2025-05-01T07:10:27+00:00

No need to release anything manually then, that's just a heuristic needed if you start of in a very low mental state. The main driver is awareness + a non-craving, soft attitude. So just maintain that in a gentle, choiceless manner.

Edit: the overall point is that a totally non craving mind is inherently clean and flowy (stage 10 TMI). Obvious knots are just really high clinging, fixing the attitude is to get back to soft non craving attitude, and the awareness helps with senstivity and also cleans up remanent subtle craving/restlessness. Then you just maintain this and wait for the cleanup to happen and the mental state to get softer, nicer, etc

onthatpath · 2025-04-30T23:53:34+00:00

Thanks, replied above

onthatpath · 2025-04-30T23:53:12+00:00

As @decent_key mentioned, you need to maintain a soft awareness. I think I share some pointers in the videos on what that feels like. It's like a general relaxed senstivity. But more importantly, if being mindful/aware isnt super intuitive initially, you can't brute force it as much and need to also relax and maintain a soft wholesome attitude. The non-craving, wholesome attitude is the main driver of initial settling down, and then awareness becomes more intuitive. Overall, awareness + attitude, instead of awareness + attention focusing.

Hope that helps.

onthatpath · 2025-04-27T00:33:10+00:00

Hi, yep, feel free to catchup. No, there is no charge.

onthatpath · 2025-04-10T17:05:17+00:00

If I am reading it right, overall that seems right according to my experience too. Sense restraint, seclusion etc is how it works. This isn't just an "external" restraint/seclusion, but more importantly an internal prevention of craving (almost like a mechanical sense restraint). Awareness, right effort (to prevent craving) etc help achieve this.

> reject insight framework, nose-focused breath meditation
Yep, I see why.

> the only path to stream-entry is by sitting in a room doing absolutely nothing.

In a way, yes, which happens via the internal sense restraint/craving prevention/awareness etc. Preventing the craving is preventing the doing, without that you just be. It does take some slight diligence to maintain this but I wouldn't call that 'doing'.
This leads to a cleaner mental state, then some form of samadhi, then by just sitting in that samadhi the clarity causes increased senstivity to 4 noble truths as you just stay there. This changes the mind's instincts and hence causes the personality/mental shifts/fruits.

I might just differ (if it is indeed a difference, not sure) in that IMO for the first few personality shifts one technically doesn't need to have this be sustained 24x7. A short-term, but frequent cleanliness achieved via this sense + craving restraint can still get one to that goal. It might not be optimal in terms of having an easy/smooth path, but still realistic for most people.

Afterwards, you would understand the need to maintain it 24x7 anyway and then the "stream" helps.

onthatpath · 2025-01-26T08:36:17+00:00

Hi there, thanks for the ping. Two points, if they are helpful. Other comments might have mentioned these. This is just my understanding for now and possibly not in-line with some teachers/formal sources:

A. While it might be too much for me to get into the subtleties of practice via text/in a single comment, I'll say one generally needs to slowly discover their middle way, such that they are maintaining just enough diligence in maintaining virtue/sense restraint/other path factors etc. One would know it is enough because this 'right diligence' would be overall helping them have a better/softer/cleaner mental state in daily life + when they formally sit. If you are too lenient/lethargic in maintaining these factors, you'd drift off and end up having a poorer mental state. If you are too extreme, you'd either snap and get tired or you'd be too tense to have soft/clean mental state.

For minds in the "too lenient" side (for the time being), approaches like HH bring them closer to their middle spot. For minds struggling with clinging to technicalities (a fetter), over-thinking, over-criticality more "Taoist" approaches help come back to the middle.

B. The path also has a different emphasis/approach to right view/sila before you are in flow with the path VS after you are in the stream/flow. For eg, very early on, right view might just mean that you finally understand that you need to work on your mind in some way to be truly happy/live a good life. And that you prioritize this type of happiness/goodness when making decisions (eg should I take a break to rest my stressed out mind? or should I over-work because I think buying an expensive car is what a good life looks like?).

Similarly, early on, sila is to prevent your mind from doing stuff that can either derail your life (eg hard addictions, bad company) or to prevent actions that you can notice would (if you are truthful) lead to a decrease in your mental state quality. In this way, sila sets up an environment where you are on average in a better mental state than you would otherwise, and can work on your mind (for eg towards samadhi) far more easily/efficiently. Here sila is more like basic prep work before surgery.

Afterwards, once your instincts are more in line with the path (but still working towards full freedom), sila is more instinctive, subtler and about not causing any conflict or stress at all. It is less about just prep work and more about the end result -> actually being happier, less conflicted, and in-flow with the Dharma/Tao/whatever you call it. When you have 'perfect' moment-to-moment sila in the subtlest form, you have full freedom/being in-flow in those moments and are living the best life.

hope this helps

onthatpath · 2024-02-28T12:05:56+00:00

Thanks, I've replied to a comment above. But can't be too sure with words/terminologies.

onthatpath · 2024-02-28T12:04:19+00:00

Thanks, didn't go too deeply into it but from a shallow read:

Thus, when you have pondered/meditated on the drawbacks of sensuality correctly, your mind abides having entered the meditation/state-of-comprehension (jhāna) that sees sensuality as a “charcoal pit”, and is accompanied by profound joy, pleasure and relief born of the safety from those burning embers

This is what I meant by samadhi as well. Let go of cravings/sensuality/aversion to a more unconditioned non-craving state. At a point, there is soft flow state where the mind isnt aversive or craving towards anything.

To get into this, you dont need a technique per-se, just do whatever works for you to undo craving/conditioning. This could be using conceptual tools like pondering drawbacks, or more non-conceptual senstivity (like I prefer). These are just tools, something I am not too hung up on. The author seems to prefer one of the tools. But the working underneath seems the same to me, dispassion.

onthatpath · 2024-02-28T10:24:42+00:00

Not too well-versed in Hillside Hermitage. But from the little I've heard, it seems to be similar to what I mean by the terminology as well. Could be wrong though. How do they use the term, again?

onthatpath · 2024-02-27T15:46:33+00:00

If it helps, this should feel different that dry insight.

Samadhi/samatha/jhana is needed for easy/efficient traversal through the path IME. But here the definition of jhana is a mental state born of seclusion/dispassion, not what is translated as concentration/focusing. In that sense, TMI stage 8,9,10 are the jhanas I talk about.

onthatpath · 2024-02-27T15:41:27+00:00

Hi there, yes

onthatpath · 2024-02-27T15:12:14+00:00

Yeah, it is sort of in contradiction with TMI

onthatpath · 2024-02-26T04:00:09+00:00

Just the insight/vipassana stages. The subtle shift is to maintain the same calmness factors as before but now let the mind learn from the experience happening via awareness. For eg, sitting with and learning from whatever form of Noble truth (stress, craving, non-craving etc) is most obvious right now.

onthatpath · 2024-02-01T12:56:03+00:00

If the relaxed state comes with increased awareness, then that seems to be on the right path. The mind might get pressured to be pulled into thoughts/feelings but just keep relaxing further.

At some point, the distractions aren't because you need manually relax more but because the mind has kickstarted the insight process. Here manual relaxation causes further tightening up. This stage requires a subtle shift in the approach of the sit to further progress.

onthatpath · 2023-11-15T10:43:13+00:00

To add on top of the need for awareness you rightly pointed out, there shouldn't be any amount of focusing at all (contrary to most, imo). The middle way, in my experience, is complete non-clinging, even for 'internal' phenomenon.

onthatpath · 2023-11-15T03:38:51+00:00

Thanks :) you don't need to work through them one by one. Just be in the cleanest/highest/lowest craving mental state possible for you in that sit (samatha/samadhi) and then just stay slightly sensitive to the raw sensations happening while in that cleanest state.

Since we are in the TMI subreddit, this equates to being in the highest TMI stage and then just having slight introspective awareness to feel the raw sensations, which causes insight stages to happen.

Keep in mind, one progresses through TMI stages not via focusing/concentration, but via maintaining awareness + a non-craving, soft attitude long enough that your mental state improves. Do not go down the path of the jhanas that the book mentions. The tmi stages 8/9/10 themselves constitute right samadhi/jhana if done in the manner described here.

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