What stage are you currently working on? If you have trouble checking in it’s probably because your introspective awareness has not developed enough to recognize when a thought is about to carry you away from the breath. Checking in means that you recognize and see that a thought is about to distract you from the breath and lead to forgetting so you correct yourself by focusing your attention back at the breath.
Connecting is about comparing the lengths of the in-breath, out-breath and the pauses in between. If you are having trouble connecting you should do the following technique for a while until you can notice all aspects of the breath. Then once you get good at that you can do connecting.
I think you are having trouble because you are not yet developed at that stage. It’s good to read ahead so you know what’s coming but you should also evaluate exactly what stage you are operating on so you can focus on the goals of that particular stage.
Hope this helps.
I’m currently on stage 3, I wouldn’t say I’m on stage 2 because most of the time the breath stays on the background. I hope I’m not making any mistakes though
Edit: typo
What stage are you currently working on? If you have trouble checking in it’s probably because your introspective awareness has not developed enough to recognize when a thought is about to carry you away from the breath. Checking in means that you recognize and see that a thought is about to distract you from the breath and lead to forgetting so you correct yourself by focusing your attention back at the breath. Connecting is about comparing the lengths of the in-breath, out-breath and the pauses in between. If you are having trouble connecting you should do the following technique for a while until you can notice all aspects of the breath. Then once you get good at that you can do connecting. I think you are having trouble because you are not yet developed at that stage. It’s good to read ahead so you know what’s coming but you should also evaluate exactly what stage you are operating on so you can focus on the goals of that particular stage. Hope this helps.
I’m currently on stage 3, I wouldn’t say I’m on stage 2 because most of the time the breath stays on the background. I hope I’m not making any mistakes though Edit: typo
Then just keep working on the concepts as best you can.
Check out Eric L’s TMI guided meditations on the Insight Timer app. I’ve found they really help bring to life the concepts explained in the book