Hi Liam.
Just read through your latest posts and here are some things that stood out for me. (Bear in mind I just took some codeine, so my coherency and clarity might degrade towards the end of this post

)
*puts his teacher-cap on*
You know how I hate to be seen as lecturing, so let me say that these are my opinions based on a very idiosyncratic (or so I like to believe) set of beliefs and you may do whatever you wish with them, including using them to crack the nut!

Enjoy the reede (get it? Read/ride?)
[quote=Liam O'Sullivan]On the cushion things are more mixed. Doing the morning samatha sit yesterday my concentration was utterly shot in a very Dissolution-like way and I switched to noting to experiment. I found myself noting 'not-noting' and 'confusion' and 'grasping for a note' as well as 'frustration' and 'sighing', these being interleaved with 'recalling' and 'aversion to sitting' notes.
At no point did I stop meditating or leave the cushion (see, power of resolutions, innit).
This bolded part; what does it feel like to (seemingly) be in control like that? Does it have a certain flavor?
[quote=Liam O'Sullivan]A lot of grasping for notes, holding onto the meditation (...)
Is this related to the above?
[quote=Liam O'Sullivan](...) the first time I read Bhante G's book, in which I scoffed a bit at the 'just relax, just let go, take it gently' advice
Is this related to the above? Don't take this lightly. Really try to remember if there was a certain flavor to this.
[quote=Liam O'Sullivan]That advice helped immensely; word-label noting was consistent at three notes per second with no breaks between the notes. There was a pleasant steadiness of concentration that was very palpable as a calm, strong, almost solid sensation in the mind (Edit: There was no sense of straining to hold onto the experience, which usually occurs when my noting is good enough that phenomena seem to line up to present themselves to my attention as in previous A&P sits, which is unique. I attribute this to better concentration and less neuroticism about achievement). This may not be the fastest I can note, but the notes themselves came with little sense of effort and felt very spontaneous- I wouldn't say without a sense of agency, but with their arising and passing in and out of 'nothing' being evident too. The actual labels were very quiet in the mind and the experience of the phenomenon very 'forward', so there was no sense of the noting being false or obscuring the fullest awareness of the phenomenon that was possible. I began attempting to be aware of the beginnings and ends of the sensations as noting began to fall away into noticing, and the calm sent me dozing off a tad in the last five minutes - though the mind continued to note into and out of these momentary slumps.
There's so much good stuff in this quote I'm gonna have to break it up. You might find this controversial, but I believe you might have been at the verge of fruition here.
I really, especially, most importantly want to point out this part:
[quote=Liam O'Sullivan]There was no sense of straining to hold onto the experience, which usually occurs when my noting is good enough that phenomena seem to line up to present themselves to my attention
(...)
The notes themselves came with little sense of effort and felt very spontaneous- I wouldn't say without a sense of agency, but with their arising and passing in and out of 'nothing' being evident too.
Do you remember our conversation about flow? Does connecting this experience with that conversation make anything click for you?
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland:
You need the speed of flow coupled with the right "direction of mind".
[quote=Liam O'Sullivan]I began attempting to be aware of the beginnings and ends of the sensations as noting began to fall away into noticing (...)
You had the speed of flow, and the above quote suggests to me that you just about had the right "direction of mind". I'd like to put it to you that
you very much
did not "being attempting to be aware of the beginning and ends of the sensations" - that happened all "by it self" and as a natural effect of being in Mid-High Equanimity with the speed of flow.
[quote=Liam O'Sullivan](...) there was no sense of the noting being false or obscuring the fullest awareness of the phenomenon
Again with the control-thing, but this time the opposite. The incessant conundrum, questioning, doubt, skepticism - the flaw finder - went away for a brief moment, and I very highly recommend you start being more aware of those moments. This is the state of mind that will get you wet.
[quote=Liam O'Sullivan](...) They would be harmlessly noted if
I was performing vipassana instead, but I'm continuing with the samatha in the mornings as I'm convinced it is greatly helping in terms of my ability to pay attention, whether by creating good habits of patient mindfulness or greater concentration.
The bolded part, how does it relate to the control-thing?
Of course samatha is helpful to you in your current situation. It helps to soften your sharp, pointy "I AM PRESENT!!!"-ness, aka. the flaw finder, the thing that controls - the thing that needs to go away at least temporarily for you to jump into the water.
Here's a little excerpt from recent notes:
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland:
(...) One only realizes that one was in flow retrospectively. One never realizes that one is flowing, while one is flowing. This is a very, very big hint. To put it plainly: the absence of the "thing" that would have been monitoring your experience for you to know that you were flowing; that absence is what allows flow. The fact that you cannot know that you are in flow, when you are in flow, is what allows flow.
When that self-monitoring (ie. self-consciousness) goes away, when you "lose yourself" - that's it. Can you get a good, proper, thorough feel for this? When I get a good feel for it - when it is somehow present and clear in my mind what it means to flow - I can sit down, direct/incline my mind towards it and fruitions occur.
[quote=Liam O'Sullivan]Speaking of attention, this morning's informal noting is dropping into watching, simply noticing the three characteristics in a direct way. The actual sensation is very unimportant, and instead there is a focus on how they appear and vanish into and out of nothing, very much out of my control. There is acting on intention and there is effort being expended, but both have a sense of being 'encapsulated' as discrete events, somehow. Practicing this way seems to make cause and effect less explicit than if I were to note
If you put what you call 'noting' (it's use exemplified by the very last word in this quote), on one end of a continuum and 'watching' as you call it here on the other end: what, phenomenologically speaking, happens as you incline towards 'watching' (or 'noticing' as you've also called it)?
Also, I find that trying to make phenomenological descriptions is exactly something you should not be doing or will feel disinclined to do when you're directing your mind this way. See my quote above re: retrospectiveness for why. This is what "bare awareness" means, at least as used by Tommy in his latest reply here.
[quote=Liam O'Sullivan]I finally gave myself permission to drop word-label noting on the cushion, despite ongoing worries that this would mean not fully focusing on sensations as they went by. I also suspected that it was contributing to grasping for notes.
(...) the notes are more focused on internal experience and are not contributed to chiefly by repetitive predictable vibrations, which always felt a bit like cheating.
I suspect that either I'm just practicing better in terms of allowing the analysing and controlling mind to take a back seat (...)
Are you starting to notice the pattern here? "Gave myself permission"... to relax the flaw finder. Not feeling like you're cheating... because you relaxed the flaw finder.
The analysing and controlling mind. Can you get a good feel for it and gain skill in 'disabling' it?
[quote=Liam O'Sullivan](stuff about breath, concentration, pleasurable sensations) Somehow 'relaxing' into this pleasurable sensation and allowing it to arise, whilst keeping attention on the breath, intensifies it.
Did this "relaxing" also entail a diminishing in self-consciousness (here defined as
TEH FLAW FINDER)?
[quote=Liam O'Sullivan]Something is telling me to go with my intuitions, drop any attempt at strong concentration states, and to do some long vipassana sits today, resolving to sit through the unpleasantness that will no doubt arise.
What's that something that told you to do this? Did it feel like lack of control, a "carpet drawn out from under your feet"-kind of thing? Very subtly, so? "Whoops, loosing my control, better get a grip!" <- it's staring you right in the face!
[quote=Liam O'Sullivan]Noting became faster the more I relaxed, above five word-labels per second at points. There was much mind-chatter, but I used it as a source of notes, including noting the wish to have a still mind
That thing or place where the "five word-label per second"-analysis comes from... Is that it? The flaw finder?
[quote=Liam O'Sullivan]Very fast and precise noting upon going to bed last night, after resolving to note the sounds coming from multiple noises that I had told myself were 'too fast/complicated to note'. Don't believe everything you think, eh? Probably helped that I was expecting nothing from such an informal practice, too.
Probably helped that you were not engaging the hyper vigilant flaw finder because you had already accepted "defeat".
[quote=Liam O'Sullivan]It seems that there is a pattern: a greater level of intense unpleasant content as I note faster and harder, then there is a fight to 'win' in various ways, there is eventual surrender for whatever reason and then the idea grows that something fixed has been achieved and I my practice changes to a very analytical, expectant, almost complacent kind of noting. Then there is another big dump of unpleasantness and the same pattern reoccurs.
Bingo, bingo! Use the above quotes to pin-point that nasty kind of noting and root it out. Replace it with flow

Tommy M.:
(...) be aware of how those sensations are not you, how simply by observing them in the first place they can't be what's observing, and how they're noticed then they're gone and replaced with a completely different moment of experiencing.
(...) try to stay at the level of bare awareness as much as possible. Really experience those sensations in the moment they arise, or whenever you notice they're occurring (...)
Don't worry about fully "noting" the sensation, as long as you're right there with it and experiencing it clearly, even without the conceptual labeling (...)
I don't want to be putting words in other peoples mouths, but I'd like to point out the level of
engagement that is being emphasized here. To me it sounds like one is supposed to be so absorbed in the investigation, to be so utterly close to sensations, in a trance-like, groovy-relaxed way that one cannot make a thought
about what is happening. Sounds like flow.
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The above is all connected by an overarching theme (can you spot it?). I hope it makes a compelling case.
I'm not commenting on your last 4 posts, because I am so dead exhausted right now.
Hope this helps!
Below are some more general notes.