Hi all,

I have been had a body-scanning practice for about 2.5 years but have recently tried to switch to noting to see if I can progress more by doing so. I also appreciate that I find it a little easier to focus on the reality of the present moment more since I am not putting a lot of effort into the actual process of scanning, which I can't seem to avoid in my scanning practice. 

I have read Mahasi Sayadaw's Practical Insight Meditation and have been working according to these instructions, but I still have a couple of questions regarding technique, perhaps someone here can help clarify them for me:

When I am body scanning, as soon as I notice that my mind has wandered from breath or bodily sensations, I return to scanning.  However, in the Mahasi book he instructs to note imagining, thinking, reflecting, etc and to note each occurence until it passes away. My question is, should I let thoughts play out and keep noting the thought? (This seems precarious as I tend to get lost in thought) or as soon as I note, "thinking, planning anticipating" or whatever should I immediately return to the rising and falling of the abdomen until another sensation arises?

Secondly, as a beginner I find myself noting things after other noting events have occured,  so my question is, is it better to note as many things as possible, even though some may be in retrospect, or to note less total things but to note what is occuring presently?

Lastly (for now), I find that with noting sometimes it feels like I am noting many sensations simultaneously, but in MCTB Dan mentions that no 2 sensations can be observed simultaneously, but also that he and others experienced success with noting very quickly...so should I try to very distinctly note one sensation at a time or as many as quickly as possible, or a combo of the two?

Am I just being neurotic?

With metta,
D

Noting took me a while to get the hang of. I don't think there is any one right way to do it: you pretty much have to try a few different ways and see what works. At first noting seems impossible but after a little practice you can do it easily.

Getting lost in thought is not very helpful. Once you note "thinking" you can return to whatever the object of meditation is (such as the breath, but it can be anything). Or, you can take the choiceless awareness approach and just let whatever comes up next come up.

I personally found it helpful to note whatever I could, even if it was a few seconds or more ago. As you practice you'll decrease the recognition time.

I had the same problem as far as simultaneous sensations. If you practice and watch closely, you'll see that they're not actually simultaneous, but your attention bounces from one to the other. Try to catch the bouncing if you can. There are a couple good exercises in MCTB about this: one involves putting your index fingers on your knees and watching your attention bounce back and forth between left and right index finger. Just note quickly, whatever you can, and pay close attention- pretty soon it will seem less "foggy." Remember to note the Three Characteristics in everything.

All this stuff makes more sense as you practice more. There are some studies on perception time for meditators that show how meditation practice changes the brain so you can notice things that last for shorter intervals of time with more clarity. You have to keep trying until you decrease your perception time enough.

One other thing that might be helpful is finding notes that work for you. I use the following:

Rising: when breathing in

Falling: when breathing out

Thinking about X: when I catch myself getting lost in thought, I always note what I was thinking about. It helps to sum it all up with a word or two like "Thinking about mapping" or "Thinking about work"

Touching: when I'm aware of my body touching clothes, the bed, or itself

also sometimes I use hearing, smelling, wanting, intending

Keep it simple. So most of the time I'm just noting "rising touching touching rising touching falling touching touching falling rising touching" and so on. The majority of my notes are "touching."

• Keep noting whatever arises next whatever it is. Sometimes thoughts are the predominate thing. Other times it is noises. Play around. Keep noting fast enough to capture whatever it is. Going back to the sensations that make up the  breath each time is also a popular way to do it. Try it both ways for a week and see what result you get and then choose.
• Speed up the noting if you need to keep up. If you can't get the right word and you're thinking a lot about what word to use then simplify - Thinking, hearing, feeling seeing, smelling, tasting. I meditate with eyes closed and rarely smell or taste. That leaves 4 - thinking, hearing, feeling seeing the blackness behind my eyes. Try just using those four words as quickly as you can until is becomes second nature and fast...you can go faster by just saying "dat" or some other quick nonsense word for each thing that arises too.
• Stay with the one thing that is predominate at a time. Memory plays tricks of trying to combine multiple things together these are usually thoughts of multiple things... note thinking. Play with your speed and accuracy until you find what works for you at each sit and during each sit....modify based off of your results.

You might try ping pong noting with a partner too.
Good luck,
~D

How do you note touching or tactile sensations?

I note Feeling.

Oh cool, I was thinking Feeling was for emotions. Do you use Feeling for both?

[quote=J C]
I had the same problem as far as simultaneous sensations. If you practice and watch closely, you'll see that they're not actually simultaneous, but your attention bounces from one to the other. Try to catch the bouncing if you can. There are a couple good exercises in MCTB about this: one involves putting your index fingers on your knees and watching your attention bounce back and forth between left and right index finger. Just note quickly, whatever you can, and pay close attention- pretty soon it will seem less "foggy." Remember to note the Three Characteristics in everything.




Thanks for the response, all very helpful! I especially liked the way you described the sensations as "bouncing back and forth," which resonates with me more than trying to observe each individual sensation.

When noting the three characteristics, I mainly notice that things are arising and passing quickly (impermanence) on their own, and I seem to have no control over them (no self), and I don't always directly note suffering but it seems like it pops up here and there. 

I am still feeling uncertain about noting because with body scanning I am able to systematically move through the body, so I feel that I am observing sensations throughout the body, but with noting I feel like I am just jumping to whatever arises, which I am afraid will make me miss the subtler sensations on other parts of the body. Do you feel that this is not the case?

Hi again,

Maybe my noting isn't quite precise enough, but I find that emotions are a combination of physical bodily sensations with thoughts, so for example I would note, "chest tightness, thoughts about worrying, shoulders tensing," and all those notes would be what I describe as the emotion, "anxiety."  This kind of goes a long with what is described above with using just the 4 notes, feeling thinking seeing hearing.

[quote=Dream Walker]

• Keep noting whatever arises next whatever it is. Sometimes thoughts are the predominate thing. Other times it is noises. Play around. Keep noting fast enough to capture whatever it is. Going back to the sensations that make up the  breath each time is also a popular way to do it. Try it both ways for a week and see what result you get and then choose.

Thanks for the detailed response. Just to clarify, when you say "try it both ways," the 2 ways you are referring to are

1.noting whatever is predominant
2. Noting the sensations of the breath.

I have been doing a combo of the 2: noticing the breath sensations until something else pops up, and when that other thing (or things) pass away I return to the breath. Is that correct?

Thanks again,
Derya

I have done all three over time. I like to do your combo approach to increase concentration and insite at the same time. Once concentrated enough I usually move to what is predominate, then stop noting with words and just notice whatever I can. This took me some practice to do each one. It also depends on which stage of insite I am on too. Sometimes I can not stay on target and content/thinking arises so much I just stay with the combo approach and never get past that. There are so many options on how to do this stuff and different things work at different stages and during the dark night nothing seems to be working. I am pragmatic in my approach and try to find the tool that works for the moment....but you have to spend time on each tool to get familiar enough to apply it well when needed. It's like a rock, a hammer and a nail gun will do the same job, but sometimes you have no air from the compressor, your hammer seems broken and the rock is too heavy....then I use my forehead....
Good luck,
~D

The approach of practicing different methods and then figuring out what works best is indeed pragmatic, and I will try to trust my intuition a little more from now on.

I think I have been getting caught up with trying to find the "one right way" to meditate but I am finding that it doesn't matter so much where the focus is but it does matter that I have faith in my practice; I think I was losing some faith, but it is an important tool! Now I am practicing noting but if I am really tired I default back to body-scanning since I already have that down pretty well. After some practice though I do think that noting is more of a "fast track" to attainment (stream entry is my goal right now) because the three characteristics are much more apparent when I note vs when I body scan. 

Thanks again for the responses and watch out for those nails.

I look at this way, you are hacking your brain and when you do only body scanning you are limiting the centers in the brain that are being rewired. Being inclusive of the 6 senses allows the whole enchilada to be rewired. Working on the awareness center of the brain with concentration works to make it bigger and more predominate connections.
Reread MCTB and check out http://contemplativefitnessbook.com/
Good luck,
~D

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