Derya:
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.