ed c:
Jill, (Nick?)
As I mentioned earlier, I’m trying to practice now in advance of the class. I want to make sure I understand something.
When I practice staying in this exact moment over and over each second, I notice a feeling of boredom or fear arising, but I don’t investigate it. I don’t attempt to find out the story behind it, nor try to get back to feeling felicitous or anything else. I just notice it and keep trying to pay attention to everything else around me and stay right here. I’m essentially trying not to think/ponder, judge or produce a feeling. Is this how I should be practicing in preparation for the retreat?
hi Ed,
you're doing the right thing: just noticing everything arising in the present without analyzing, judging, evaluating, compounding the feelings, or assuming what anything is. but i suspect you're using the word "investigate" differently from how it's used in insight meditation circles as well as on the DhO, which could be a source of confusion. the definition we use is exactly what you're doing--just noticing and being aware of stuff. it doesn't mean to intellectually analyze, rationalize, or philosophize. and to "not investigate" would mean to hang out absorbed in some peaceful state, just maintaining the stillness and relaxation without noticing things arising and passing.
ed c:
I’m also spending most of my time noticing what is around me rather than sensations in my body. I only turn attention to the body when a noticeable feeling or sensation arises. I’m wondering if the body attention should be more primary?
if you can, then yes. simply feeling the breath every moment is a nice and easy anchor. i'd say that at this point in your practice, continuity is much more important than intensity--being able to keep track of your breathing almost all day long is better than being aware of tons of sensations simultaneously at different sense doors for only a few minutes a day.
if you can be (more and more) present with sights and sounds around you as raw sense data--not as who-what-when-where-why, but as shapes, shadows, tones, colors, brightness, loudness, textures, with childlike wonder and curiosity, then it is very helpful (and it will help you observe body sensations with the right attitude when you're forced to do it all day long in the course), but i feel that body attention is like the fast lane to confronting your emotional knots and untangling them, especially the stuff that is hard or impossible to figure out through rational analysis. this is because when some craving or aversion--some problem of the identity arises--there arises some physical sensation on the body that corresponds or relates somehow to the problem, and even if you don't know exactly which body sensations correspond with what problems, just having your attention on body sensations in observe-only mode drives the de-conditioning process because
-observing overwrites the habit of avoidance. when you analyze things at the intellectual level, you are most likely sorting through thoughts with the same old patterns of avoidance, but when you observe body sensations, not knowing which sensations are linked to what problems, your pattern of avoidance becomes void.
-for objective (naive) observation of physical sensations to be possible at all, there has to be some degree of non-reactivity, so trying to apply this objective awareness refines your equanimity.
ed c:
Staying present without investigation nor attempting to actively cultivate felicity is counter to what I typically do. I will typically spent a fair amount of time thinking about my beliefs, current feelings and the story behind them, AF principles (naivety, wonder) and past high felicity moments, in an attempt to find perfection in this moment. I have no issue putting aside my normal practice to focus on simply staying present, but at this stage the two practices for me aren’t totally complementary so I want to clarify if I am doing this right.
they might start feeling more complementary when your AF processing becomes simpler and simpler, more sensate and less thought-analysis based. maybe the vipassana will help make it so.
ed c:
I’m making the assumption the goal is to practice this enough that staying present with a constant awareness becomes so natural it eventually happens in the back ground with little to no effort. This will then help me overall to stay present while allowing me to notice in the background AND think in the foreground to change things and use it as a tool for aiming toward felicity and the PCE.
you have the right idea. thoughts are not a problem in of themselves, and when attention and equanimity become full enough, thought and sensate experience can happen together with no conflict at all. but as long as there isn't enough attention and equanimity for both at once, the thoughts, which drag feelings around with them, need to be turned down so that bare attention can be exercised and strengthened.
jill