Hi,

Inspired by MCTB, the DhO and, most recently, my discussion with Tarin, I started practicing noting - well, at least I hope that's what I'm doing! In many of the threads I've read on the subject, people recommend mentally repeating a word for each note. I find that awkward for several reasons. Perhaps most important, things just seem to happen too fast for words to keep up. By the time I mentally utter the word 'rising', I have already experienced many other sensations as well (itching, hearing, sitting, aching, thinking). Instead of using words, I just try to recognize (conceptually 'stamp') every individual sensation as it happens, so that I could, if necessary, describe it with a word or several if I had the time to do that before it disappears and the next sensation arrives. ;) I try to do this as quickly as I can.

Does this sound ok? Although many people have recommended verbal notes, others have seemed to advocate something that could be what I'm doing ("hitting with the mind", Tarin called it here). I noticed that Mahasi Sayadaw says on page 4 of Practical Insight Meditation: "Never verbally repeat the words rising, falling, and do not think of rising and falling as words. Be aware only of the actual process of the rising and falling movement of the abdomen. ... Just be totally aware of the movements of rising and falling as they occur in the course of normal breathing." I realize that there are several threads about this topic, but even having read them I still feel a bit uncertain about whether "I'm doing it right" or if there's some reason why I should be using words even if it feels unintuitive to me right now.

Whatever I'm doing, it seems to be working better than my old practice of following the breath; I feel much more present and engaged in my practice than I did previously. I get distracted less frequently and for much briefer periods of time. I've noticed that I can fairly consistently attain (or at least approach) a state that I suspect is access concentration. I'll try to describe it in a later post.

KN, you're right, the actual "noting" is that "hitting with the mind," it isn't the action of saying the word.

That said, the action of "hitting with the mind" and following that by an actual description of what was hit ("using words") has quite some advantages to silent noting. First, if done well it forces you to keep honest (sometimes it seems that you "could, if necessary, describe it with a word," but you actually can't, or you can't do it with enough precision). Second, it allows you to stay on track, rather than space out somewhere else.

I suggest that you do verbal noting when you begin meditation, and then switch to non-verbal noting when you have enough mental momentum; and that you revert back to verbal noting if you find yourself spaced-out, distracted, sleepy, or having a lot of mental noise, or dealing with fear, or in any other kind of mental 'rough-spot'. This got me as far as stream entry, and when I added some concentration practice to the mix, as far as second path.

More experienced practitioners may have better advice.

What Bruno said.

I would just add that verbal noting feels awkward at first, gets less so with time, then feels awkward again. That awkwardness and effort is sometimes exactly what is called for (to perk you up out of comfort zones). Just note the awkwardness.

Sometimes, especially when starting out or when needing to check just how "honest" you are, noting verbally out loud can be extremely helpful in terms of being aware of how much spacing out goes on. Try it, it's very awkward, but you adjust.

No, you can't keep up with everything verbally, but you can note that ("feeling rushed" or whatever).

It's helpful to think of noting as "adding salt to the soup." Sometimes you need to add more, sometimes less. The goal is not to make the soup salty, but to enhance the taste--ie: awareness.

Regards,
the other Bruno

Thanks; now that I think about it, that's more or less what I've done. If I'm feeling distracted, sleepy or confused, I may try to ground myself by actually repeating words mentally. At that point my noting is in any case slow and vague enough that the words don't slow me down, but rather help me focus. Once my concentration deepens and my perception 'speeds up', however, the words sort of fade into the background. When I feel the sensation of my abdomen rising, the word 'rising' (perhaps even in more than one language) probably does in some sense flash in my mind, as it's a part of my understanding of the concept of 'rising', but it's much faster than actually saying 'rising' could ever be. It's actually quite similar to how I read: I can read much faster than I could ever speak the words that I read, yet I still take in every word. If I'm feeling very distracted, I may actually read each word aloud mentally to try to keep myself from drifting off, but this drops away once my concentration improves.

I've noticed that noting (verbal or otherwise) is actually a pretty powerful tool for many kinds of distractions. If I feel confused and find it hard to concentrate while practicing, I can just gently turn my attention to that very feeling of confusion (it usually feels like fog in my consciousness), and hey presto, usually it will subside enough to allow some measure of concentration. I've been practicing more since I started noting in part because it seems to give me energy to deal with the fatigue and confusion that so often permeate a computer science PhD student's life. ;)

As I was writing my reply to Bruno Loff, I realized that a part of my confusion regarding the use of words in noting is that I can think of at least two ways of using words to note: the first is to actually say the word aloud in my mind, which requires as much time as saying the word aloud would; the second is to somehow just 'think' the word, which is pretty much instantaneous when it happens spontaneously. I don't know how to describe the latter, but that's what my verbal thinking in daily life usually is. When I'm practicing, I do tend to note verbally in the second sense, because words naturally pop up when I'm actively trying to decide what it is that I'm experiencing.

So when you recommend verbal noting, do you mean it in the first or second sense?

Incidentally, many of my distractions while practicing have actually involved practice itself: I suddenly find that I've stopped noting and have instead been daydreaming about how to frame a question about noting on the vipassana board here. ;) Usually when that happens, I spontaneously note "Oh, I'm thinking about that again" - again, words, but different from actually speaking them aloud in my mind, and much faster than saying even just 'thinking' to myself.



Well, whatever I've been doing has certainly significantly enhanced the taste of my soup.

"So when you recommend verbal noting, do you mean it in the first or second sense?"

I mean try noting verbally by speaking out loud. Sounds crazy/awful, but it's helpful. There's a lot of vagueness to become aware of.

"Incidentally, many of my distractions while practicing have actually involved practice itself: I suddenly find that I've stopped noting and have instead been daydreaming about how to frame a question about noting on the vipassana board here. ;) Usually when that happens, I spontaneously note "Oh, I'm thinking about that again" - again, words, but different from actually speaking them aloud in my mind, and much faster than saying even just 'thinking' to myself."

Short hand for these recurring tapes is helpful. ie: "practice thought", or whatever.

But try keep it speedy and not think too much about what word you use to note. Make it specific to keep you alert and present. The gist of it is to "increase your cognitive load" as Kenneth Folk would say, so that you keep your mind busy and present and not nosing around in the bushes off like a dog off it's leash.

Hmm. So how do you choose what to note when many sensations appear in quick succession or simultaneously? Do you follow your primary object, such as the breath, and only note other things when they are prominent enough to distract you from your primary object? With nonverbal notes I haven't had to worry about this, as I can note as fast as I can become aware of a sensation clearly enough to be able to label it, which is much faster than I can speak.

Having chosen what to note, what do you do about the sensations that you don't have time to (or choose not to) note?

Sorry about the barrage of questions!

when sensations appear in quick succession so quickly that you cannot keep up in verbally noting them silently (as thoughts of words), let alone in noting them aloud, i recommend either noting with repetitions of one syllable (such as 'dat) or 'hitting with the mind' (letting it make whatever 'sound' it makes, if it makes any). how many things (or pulses) can you note in one second? how fast does it get? 4 things a second? 6? 10? if you want to go this route, keep at the edge of your seat. here, the instruction to not miss a second becomes passe; the instruction is now to not miss a split-second. note as quickly and continuously as is possible, and even faster and more continuously than that if you can, even if the objects are no longer distinct (and you have no idea what you're noting anymore). now you're really shootin' aliens. if you have either time or mental resources to stop to think about it, you're not doing it right. just blast away after indistinct mind-objects with your mind and vibrations that happen on their own will eventually show up (or show up more and more).



if you notice that they're there, you have time to note them.

tarin

Hmm, from my perspective, sensations usually don't appear as discrete pulses that I could count. Noting practice instructions that I have encountered usually sound as if experience were a sequence of pointlike sensations evolving in time: the practice instruction is to label each point as it goes by. My sensations appear more like (segments of) continuous lines, and I usually perceive many of them at any given moment unless I explicitly force my mind to focus on only one of them (eg., the breath). I haven't explicitly tried to focus on any single sensation to the exclusion of others because I thought I wasn't supposed to while practicing vipassana (as opposed to doing concentration practices). Now that I think about it, perhaps I was wrong - perhaps I should focus on only one sensation and study it as intensely as possible, only noting other sensations when they distract me from my chosen object?

What I've done lately is more like trying to be as intensely aware as I can of everything that I'm experiencing, which usually involves many different 'lines' occurring simultaneously, or at least alternating so fast that they appear simultaneous. Occasionally one 'line' will dominate for at least a moment (for example, if I suddenly hear a loud sound), but usually I will at least feel some bodily sensations and the breath at the same time. This seems to work well at least in the sense that I can do this without being distracted from my practice (as in daydreaming) for long periods of time. I just noticed today that I can easily do this while walking outside, perhaps even easier than sitting down, as there are so many more sensations to try to perceive (and hence even less time and space to get distracted by content). Does that qualify as the walking meditation you recommended that I incorporate into my sitting practice, or should walking meditation be performed in a more controlled environment (eg., walking back and forth in my flat)?

I think I may also have experienced some faint vibrations while practicing (on the cushion) like this the other night. Unfortunately my memory is a bit vague, as I didn't have a chance to write any details down before now, but I remember experiencing faint fluctuations in my breath and some other bodily sensations. The fluctuations were quite slow, perhaps around 2 Hz or so. As I tried to perceive more and more of everything, I felt a very subtle nausea and a kind of pressure in my head, as if I was going to have a migraine if I continued. (Fortunately, I didn't!)

I said above that sensations appear like fairly continuous objects, by which I meant that they seem to have infinite detail: I can just zoom in further and see more detail, but it's still continuous rather than discrete pulses. While writing this post just now, I tried to attend carefully to my breath to see if I could at least give you an estimate of "how many details per second" I can perceive or something like that. I noticed that there does seem to be a very subtle fluctuation in the continuity of the breath. The fluctuation has a frequency of about 2-3 Hz. The sensation still seemed continuous, but - maybe it's just my imagination, and I'm seeing what I want to see (or, erm, feeling what I want to feel) - but for a moment it did seem made up of short sensations, each with a beginning and an end, but overlapping to create the appearance of a single continuous but fluctuating.

So how does this sound? Should I do what I've been doing lately, trying to perceive as much of everything as I can, or should I try to focus on one sensation and 'dissect' it as carefully as possible? (Or is either approach fine?) Or something completely different?

Kristian

I have time to note them nonverbally, but not necessarily verbally, as that takes some time (enough to say the word, whether aloud or to myself). So if I'm noting verbally, should I try to simultaneously note nonverbally any sensations (or nuances of sensations) that I don't have time to note verbally? Sorry for all the questions - it's strange that a practice that seems to be so simple for others can be so difficult for me to understand.

yes, possibly; engage your full attention however possible.