RE: New to Forum/Newbie Question - Discussion
Tonya G:
Hi. I've got a few questions that I hope someone will be so kind as to answer 
. I am new to insight meditation...only a week of daily practice. I have been doing zazen for about a year. I am using the noting method and am sitting for 30 minutes at a time. The first sit I noticed tingling in my lips, so I focused/noted those sensations....The next sit same thing except I started having twitches in my lips which have now spread to my whole lower face. The twitches are happening at every sit and are very pronounced and sometimes distracting and worrisome. I note those thoughts as well .
Questions: Are these twitches the vibrations talked about in the book? Are they common? Sometimes they are too fast to really count...but do I continue to actually try and count them? Will they eventually resolve/go away?
. I am new to insight meditation...only a week of daily practice. I have been doing zazen for about a year. I am using the noting method and am sitting for 30 minutes at a time. The first sit I noticed tingling in my lips, so I focused/noted those sensations....The next sit same thing except I started having twitches in my lips which have now spread to my whole lower face. The twitches are happening at every sit and are very pronounced and sometimes distracting and worrisome. I note those thoughts as well . Questions: Are these twitches the vibrations talked about in the book? Are they common? Sometimes they are too fast to really count...but do I continue to actually try and count them? Will they eventually resolve/go away?
welcome to the dho.
you write that you are using the noting method; can you elaborate a little on this? which formulation of noting instructions are you using: the one found in practical insight meditation, the one found in MCTB, or another? do you have a primary object - a default which you note consistently or to which your attention adverts when nothing else in particular attracts it (such as the rise and fall of the abdomen, or the breath at the nose, or the sensations of sitting and contact with the floor)?
as for the twitching and vibrations: any repetitive sensation or steady oscillation between sensations can be regarded as vibrations (there is no clear-cut line between what is a vibration and what is not, as from one perspective all sensations are vibrations anyway); there is no need to count them; they are resolving/going away all the time (they arise to pass away).
tarin
