So it is more frequent at the moment - this sense of this body been a corpse - I feel the bones in the body - sometimes it makes me sick sometimes its terrifying.  As more people I know die I often get the sense of waiting for soemthing - like I feel death everywhere in soem sense - what is this?  I know this is a practice - perhaps I should do that - what is this?

Add to this when I used to practice Vipassana I got this all the time - and could see it in the teachers - its like a death practice for me really - its almost too horryfing to look at - does anyone know what I mean?  as its hard to describe.

Dukkha nanas?

Primitive fears of death arise during vipassana practice at certain stages. 

What is a dukka nana btw?

I've googled it - yes - you are right - thanks

That's really good stuff Nickol.  Realising the true nature of the body helps to cast off identification of the self with the body.  At first it may seem disgusting, but later it just part of the frame of reference.  So this sense of death/bones/anmiated bag of glop filled with obscene goo that you are feeling is an opportunity.  It allows you to practice mindfulness of the body at any time, for any period, even while doing other things.

Here is an extract from Thanissario's tranlsation of the relevant part of the Sattipathana Sutta.

"Furthermore, as if he were to see a corpse cast away in a charnel ground — one day, two days, three days dead — bloated, livid, & festering, he applies it to this very body, 'This body, too: Such is its nature, such is its future, such its unavoidable fate'..."Or again, as if he were to see a corpse cast away in a charnel ground, picked at by crows, vultures, & hawks, by dogs, hyenas, & various other creatures... a skeleton smeared with flesh & blood, connected with tendons... a fleshless skeleton smeared with blood, connected with tendons... a skeleton without flesh or blood, connected with tendons... bones detached from their tendons, scattered in all directions — here a hand bone, there a foot bone, here a shin bone, there a thigh bone, here a hip bone, there a back bone, here a rib, there a breast bone, here a shoulder bone, there a neck bone, here a jaw bone, there a tooth, here a skull... the bones whitened, somewhat like the color of shells... piled up, more than a year old... decomposed into a powder: He applies it to this very body, 'This body, too: Such is its nature, such is its future, such its unavoidable fate."

Edit:  If you want to formalise this, google The Nine Cemetary Contemplations.

Thanks Curious....  Not to rush things on but I do look forward to the body becoming no more than a frame of reference.  I'm not there yet with coming to terms with the biology of it all...  and yet having said that there is something disgusting and wonderous about it, in the way it gives me this embodied life, so to speak...  

Thanks for the text - it sounds like you have pushed on through this....     

Yeah, enjoy the journey!    I think the nice thing about your experience is that you now have first hand knowledge of how mindfulness of the body can arise and continue - and how intersting the associated contemplations can be. You should be able to be apply the same kind of close mindfulness and occasional contemplation to other things that arise during practice.

Interestingly, I tended to practice a lot of mindfulness of sensations rather than rapid-Mahasi style noting, but I found that after a while (with a bit of help from the DhO owner) they merged into a common practice.