Before you start, you should consider some practical aspects. You enter the stage with stable attention, attention, joy, tranquility and effortless equanimity. Advancing from phase three to fourth can take a long time, but progress from phase four to phase five is usually faster, and so on. Stage Three Establish your intention to attract introspective attention frequently, before you've forgotten to breathe or have fallen asleep, and make corrections as soon as you notice distractions or inattention.
The more clearly you understand the stages of meditation and why they occur in the order in which they occur, the faster and more enjoyable you will walk the path to happiness and freedom. You'll take advantage of these initial skills throughout the next three stages of meditation to become a truly skilled meditator. You have mastered this stage of meditation when the qualities of samatha persist for many hours after you get up from the cushion. Stages Eight to Ten Your intention is simply to continue practicing, using skills that are now completely easy.
Each of the ten stages of the path to becoming an expert meditator is defined in terms of certain skills you must master. Even if you're a novice meditator like me, understanding the ten stages helps you see your current meditation challenges more clearly and helps you prepare for future obstacles as your practice develops. Only when you master the skills of a particular stage of meditation can you master the next stage. Just as you have to learn to walk before you can run, you must move through the stages in order, without skipping any of them.
When you have mastered the final stage of meditation, the many positive mental qualities you experience during meditation are very present even between meditation sessions, so your daily life is imbued with effortless attention, mindfulness, joy, tranquility and equanimity. Losing a job, the death of a spouse, or a health problem can cause even an advanced meditator to return to the early stages of meditation. However, although the stages of meditation are presented as a linear path of progress, the practice is not actually developed in such a simple way. You've completed the transition from being a skilled meditator to an expert meditator at this point in your journey through the stages of meditation.
However, when you reach Stage Eight and your meditations are completely simple, it will be clear.
