| | i think trent's advice above is excellent, but i want to chime in as well, and in response to the original post:
if you can kep your attention on task (that is, on any sensations, one by one as they occur), then there is no need to either note or not note, and no need to go back to the sensations of the breath.
however, if your mind wanders, then try changing a variable to see what that does. try going back to the breath. try noting. try not noting. try feeling your butt's contact on the ground. try feeling your whole body 'at once' for a moment and taking that to be one note/one sensation. different things will work for different people, and different things will work for the same person at different times. it is worth playing with, just to get to know yourself and your own habits.
i personally advocate 'hitting with the mind', rather than verbal noting, and doing it as fast as you can. both noting and 'hitting' share this same quality of suddenly and immediately bringing attention to a sensation as soon as it occurs, but the advantage of 'hitting', i find, is that you wont stumble over the possible awkwardness of how using a verbal note can make you hesitate or think too much about the 'what' of the note (which is sometimes useful! but not generally). i think of this 'hitting' as 'transparent noting' in that it retains this quality of directing attention to the fact of its own movement but doesnt 'cloud' the view of what attention is moving onto (the sensation that beckons it).
that you're even exploring this territory at all is a good sign, and one that reads.. continue!
tarin |