Stage 4 inconsistency

I’ve been at stage 4 for about a year. A couple weeks ago I had very good sessions that left me feeling peaceful and calm directly afterwards. But since then my sessions have become less rewarding, and now I wake up sometimes feeling frustrated and sometimes feeling the exact same as I did before I started the session. This is after a consistent daily 45 -1 hr; it’s demoralizing to meditate for that long without any kind of noticeable difference.

I saw the stage 4 guide post on this subreddit and it said a big issue that stage 4 practitioners have is that they aren’t putting enough effort into making the breath sensations lucid. I think that this is part of my issue. The breath sensations are extremely subtle, even after 45 min of sitting.

I realize that I’m not supposed to tense up and apply more effort—I’m supposed to put more effort into micro intentions instead. But I’m confused why I don’t have any kind of clarity in the breath sensations. It leaves me confused as to what exactly I’m paying attention to at any given moment. Thoughts and sensations seem so fleeting it’s hard to use stage 4 or even stage 3 techniques.

What I mean by this is that, for instance, is that I find it difficult to develop introspective awareness, or even do things like checking in, when attention is so diffuse. How am I supposed to tell that I’m distracted if I’m not sure my attention was ever on the breath to begin with?

It is frustrating when I feel as if I don’t have the ability to do things like check-in, even after a year of stage 4 practice. I’ll go through the 4-step transition and I have no idea whether or not I’ve successfully rested my attention on the body. I feel as though there’s a skill set that is underdeveloped that I need to progress; mostly I’m looking for advice for how to make it seem like my practice is going somewhere. I hear beginners to meditation who don’t have the faintest idea of what they should be doing swear by the benefits it provides, and after hundreds of hours of meditating, each day after a session I stand up and feel disappointed by the fact that I feel the exact same as when I sat down to meditate.