Upvote:0
What you said is all normal and nothing wrong.
"During meditation I focus on breath and when mind wanders I bring it gently back to breath"
This is exactly what you have to do, completely right.
"Sometimes I notice that I enter a more calm state where the mind doesn't seem to wander as much and it feels nice, kind of relieving"
This is the state your concentration improved up to a new nana stage.
"I'm not sure what I should do once I get there?"
Once you get at that point, just before another sitting meditation, make strong wish to get to a higher nana stage you never been before especially dedicated to or in front of your esteemed meditation master.
"Sometimes usually towards the end of the hour(I have a timer), I start to get this really awful feeling like a mixture of restlessness, impatience, boredom, and anticipation. I just want it to end so badly"
This is also you achieving certain nana stage what you have to pass through Dharma is impermanence, and you wish to control it, actually you cannot and must not. Another advice at this stage is you just increase your sitting meditation time not stopping at that point and paying more attention what is going on but with a mind of letting go. You will surely achieve a higher nana stage towards nirvana.
Everything we do, think and speak, if it is done with good will, it will have good result. Without strong and fervent wish, one cannot attain nirvana. Buddha exemplified just like making fire out of rubbing wood or stick, you think about it. Once you reduce your effort, you cannot make fire out of rubbing. Only with ardent and zealous wish, one will work hard putting constant effort and will get enlightened. Rounds of birth passed through without any nana, future life with uncertainty, even then less effort will not work. Like that encourage oneself and go on towards nirvana without any disappointment.
Upvote:1
All of your problems - the issues that you have listed will go away, the day you begin to walk this Noble Eight-fold Path. I say this because if a person go about practising meditation in an orderly manner he/she can acquire the results that can be obtained from meditating. It is because Dhamma is alive - not sterile. Suddhamma has the quality of βAkalikaβ (not belonging to time). There are some things that can be done mechanically but not meditation. Meditation is something that has to arise within oneself. So firstly one has to have the confidence, and has to come to the conviction that it has to be done in an orderly manner. The person who has a strong belief that the path to Nibbana exists in this Dhamma, meditates carefully. What is meant by carefully is that s/he will dedicate the entire life for it. It takes a long time to do something carefully and in an orderly manner, not just a few years. Then there is a sense of calmness that prevails in you. The negative effects of hurrying will subside and a quiet calm and wakefulness arise in its place. Only a person who has unflinching belief in this Path and the Dhamma will develop this trait.