After 5 months of meditation I am still stuck as a beginner!

[lordomar7]

I have been doing vipassana for about 5 months now. My practice started after reading "Mindfulness in plain English" by Bhante Gunaratnama, which is a beginners guide but I have supplemented my knowledge with some online reading and research. The following are the problems I am facing DURING MEDITATION:

1. When thoughts/visions arise I do not feel any emotion towards it, whereas in a normal state I would have some kind of reaction towards such thoughts or visions.

2. I am able to concentrate solely on the breathe and reach a state where I cannot feel the breath anymore, however, I still find myself unable to meditate for more than 30 minutes.

3 Are you supposed to see/feel something right before you reach the state of tranquility like a flash/lights or maybe visions?

Answers to these questions will be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Goofaholix]

1. What's the problem?  If you are have less emotional reaction then that's good, however if you are becoming numb to your emotions that's not good.

2. What prompts you to stop at 30 minutes?

3. I've been meditating for 20 years and haven't seen flashing lights or similar.  If you want to experience the jhanas then generally they are a step towards that however if you are doing vipassana meditation the objects are constantly changing which doesn't lend itself towards jhanas.

Have you done an intensive residential retreat yet? That's the best way to get established in your practice.

[Matthew]

1. Was it like this from day one or has this been a result of practice?

2. Getting to a state where you do not feel bodily sensations due to breathing sounds to me as if your meditation is forced and a form of self-hypnosis, probably due to:

3. Seeking tranquility and mediating with expectations.

Better not to seek but create the right conditions and it will come. If my sense in 2. & 3. above is correct the remedy is to stop trying to force calm on your mind, pay full and close attention to bodily sensations created by breathing throughout (these you can feel, the breath you can not) and notice when thoughts arise without clinging to them.

Kindly,

Matthew

[lordomar7]

1. Firstly, normally I am slightly less sensitive than most people. During meditation I don't get any sort of emotional reaction from anything that I see or feel. To make matters clear last week, during my meditation I saw a beautiful rose and then dead body. My reaction to both were minimal and the reactions could not be differentiated. Seeing the rose I din't feel delight and seeing the dead body I didn't feel uncomfortable or scared. It is as it I was in a state where perceptions of good or bad are not YET formed.

2. Rarely, I can only meditate for longer periods when I feel peace and tranquiliy. At other times I just meditate without the tranquil state and can't sit for more than 30 min. I feel like that't enough I have sat for long enough.

3.  Goofaholix, can you please elaborate as to what you mean by objects constantly changing?

[Goofaholix]

3.  Goofaholix, can you please elaborate as to what you mean by objects constantly changing?

You mentioned sometimes you meditate with a tranquil state, sometimes not, that's an example of a changing object.  The breath is constantly changing, in then out, body sensations, thoughts and emotions arising and passing away. 

The practice is to observe these objectively, tranquillity is a nice side effect but is not the objective of this practice.

If you find you are ending the session earlier than you want then probably one of the hinderences has prompted you to do this, maybe restlessness, sleepiness, boredom etc.  If you can notice this when it first arises you will be better able to work with it. The best way to increase your sitting times though is to sit with the support of a group of people.