I have some questions about noting daily life or off the cushion practice in general.

1. On the cushion, the object is our breath. Of everything I've read, I don't remember any specific object for insight practice in daily life. My question is, was there any object or group of objects that you felt more consistently brought you into a longer lasting or deeper awareness than others? For example, sometimes I find that noting intentions of where I'm looking appears to feel closer to "me" than other things, which makes me wonder if paying special attention to that long term would lead to deeper states than walking or typing for example. If I just pay attention to my entire experience and nothing in particular for different activities, it *feels* like I'm predominantly reinforcing "me" rather than gaining insight about anything since the attention in that case feels quite shallow.

2. Are there any "hooks" that worked well for you? Such as "every time I shower or wash the dishes, gain in mindfulness."

3. Awareness of thoughts appears to be particularly hard. I'm a programmer, so for work I have to think critically for the majority of the day. Being aware of that feels more challenging than other senses. As in, when I become aware of my thinking, it stops, and if I try to continue, it feels kind of stunted. Any tips? Just keep trying?

4. Noting things that you shouldn't be doing according to Dhamma, namely sexual acts, drinking alcohol, and killing bugs. The answer is probably "yeah just note it like everything else", but I'm curious if you find anything different about your relationship with that sort of thing.

Any input is appreciated

Those are good questions. I think there a lot of different good answers. I'll give the a go, off the top of my head.

1. In mindfulness meditation, we use the breath as an anchor that we can keep returning to, which (by way of several different mechanisms) makes it easier to see all the other things that the mind is doing. We can use it that way off the cushion too. I used to do that quite a bit. The breath is always there, so it's an easy thing to use. In walking meditation, we often use the feeling of our soles touching the ground. That's easy to use off the cushion as well. I sometimes use that when I am running. These are ways of bringing mindfulness meditation techniques into off the cushion life. 

But there is a second issue in your question which I understand to be, "What should we do with attention off the cushion?" My answer to that question would be, "Exactly what you are doing." You are noticing that attention is a thing and that it is involved in the sensation of "me." Keep it up. You have already noticed some good things. If you notice a pattern, you can give the different types of attention names, like "looking" or "entire experience" or whatever, the specific labels are not important. This can make it possible to notice more patterns. The goal of insight meditation is to learn how the mind works, and there is a lot of ground to be covered. 

2. My teacher used to recommend checking in with mindfulness when I brushed my teeth but I found driving most useful for mindfulness. Sometimes my car feels like a second cushion. 

3. Mindfulness of thoughts is, indeed, one of the hardest ones to get, because thoughts are often sticky. Noticing that it is hard while continuing to try from time to time is a great start. 

4. Sila (sometimes translated as ethics of morality) is a useful touchstone. (BTW, for non-monastics, the training precepts only suggest not engaging in sex that is likely to hurt someone else, so it's not the case that we should not be having any sex). If you notice that the mind feels a certain way, or does certain things, when you are killing bugs, taking things that are not freely given, cheating on your partner, telling lies, or getting a buzz on, or after you have done these things, or when you remember having done these things in the past, then that might help you to learn something about how the mind works. 

Mikey, how long have you been meditating, and what is your predominant method? I ask because until we know your practice, we can't effectively suggest cogent help to you.

Thanks.

Noting the breath is often taught, but you can note anything on the cushion as well as in daily life. Using the breath can be a good way to quiet the mind or to go through the jhanas, you can cultivate both samatha and vipassana with the breath. When the mind is quiet you can note other things. Shinzen Young doesn't put the breath above other types of noting. There is a free ebook on his method:

A Guide to Unified Mindfulness by Julianna Raye
https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Unified-Mindfulness-Happiness-Anywhere-ebook/dp/B092HMTFZW


I recommend focusing mostly on the activity of the mind, notice thoughts, emotions, impulses, sensory experiences and the sense of self and noself, particularly noticing when dukkha arises or fades. Doing this one sees how the ego is involved in dukkha so also noticing the rising and fading of egoic feelings is helpful. Noticing the sensations in the body that accompany emotions is helpful in noticing dukkha. Noting dukkha is good to do in daily life because that is where the dukkha is.

https://inquiringmind.com/article/2701_w_kornfield-enlightenments/


I find it helpful to prepare for vipassana by doing relaxing meditation.


Those are good, also taking a walk or bicycling. Don't forget to note traffic so you don't cause and accident by becoming too focused on something else.


It can be hard to notice the stream of consciousness because when you try to notice it, you are using the mind to observe and that gives the mind something to do (focuses the mind) and that interrupts the stream of consciousness. To overcome that it can help to just intentionally jabber to your self about anything that comes to mind until you get used to it, and forget yourself, and find you are observing the stream of consciousness naturally.



When I took the precepts we were told the purpose was to avoid activities that would cause mental turbulence and interfere with meditation. So it was avoid sexual misconduct and avoid intoxicating that interfere with attention (meditation or mindfulness) or induce bad behavior. The idea is that breaking the precepts would create complications in life and maybe feelings of guilt that would create mental turbulence and interfere with meditation.

So sex isn't necessarily prohibited and one drink (for example) isn't necessarily prohibited. Each person has to figure out what is harmful for them. I know of a case where a Zen master had a bunch of sick people living at the Zen Center one winter and he wanted them to have chicken soup so he killed the chicken himself and took on the bad karma that entailed. So there are exceptions to killing also. The Zen center also didn't serve caffinated beverages they would have herb tea instead - which makes sense if you understand the meaning and intent of the precepts.

When I first started practicing, I thought I had to pay attention to my "entire experience" by stretching my awareness to fit the whole of perception. Or by hiding away my attention so it shrinks into zero. But there's no need to do that. I don't recommend trying to pay attention to the "entire experience," because that's really just a fabrication. Simply let your awareness go, again and again, to whatever is predominant in that moment. It's always changing, one moment to the next. Your awareness should be on a particular thing — whatever is predominant in that moment — rather than "nothing in particular." If this feels slippery, noting whatever is predominant can help. There's no need for a fixed anchor object.

My broader advice would be to not worry about hunting down "me" sensations. The goal with vipassana is not to feel some elusive sensation we've never felt before—that's not going to cure you. Rather, the goal is to relax ourselves into non-duality. All this effortful practice is ultimately in the name of relaxation. There's nothing to find, nothing to capture, nothing to break open. By coming back to this present moment again and again, you'll learn how to relax, how to not cling, how to not fabricate.

I've never been able to do effortful practice while engaging in cognitive heavy lifting. But eventually my mindfulness seeped into even those moments, such that all my work does itself. A good work practice: try to not control or create things. 

Yup, note all parts of yourself, even the parts you reject—indeed, especially the parts you reject. There's lots of clinging hiding out there. 

Good point. Mikey has a log, which covers these questions. 

https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/28870191

Thank you guys, I will read the responses a few more times and respond later.

As far as my practice, about ~7 years ago I was getting stuck in sleep paralysis on a daily basis and developed an unhealthy relationship with sleep. That led to alot of research, which eventually led to reading about a monk that meditated under a tree for 9 months or something. For some reason I was very drawn to that specifically, and I was determined to figure out what the monks were doing and why. This was still in non-meditation world, so learning about it without knowing the right keywords took weeks of research. At first those weeks led me to Goenka retreats, and I did not know much about them, but I was desperate so I went to my first 10 day retreat in Joshua Tree California. On the first day I saw flashing lights, I experienced what I'd now say is probably rapture, but I stuggled with focusing and instead was trying to piece together how meditation works. I thought of many theories, and it was clear that most people there didn't really understand why we were doing what we were doing, and the teachers wouldn't entertain my theoretical questions.

After that retreat was over, I went home and continued researching. I had some good stints, but ultimately I probably didn't meditate that much after that retreat. Eventually my desperation led me to find a blog that spoke of meditation stages, and soon after that I was able to find MCTB2, which I read in a couple days as I very quickly felt like this is what I was looking for my entire life.

Shortly after reading MCTB2, I signed up for a month long retreat at Tathagata Meditation Center (TMC) in San Jose California. Leading into the retreat I may have been doing an hour a day for a couple weeks but I can't be sure.

During that retreat I had some momentum, and would get to bed every night with my center of gravity flinging around the room, my vision was getting brighter and brighter despite the room being dark, my eyelids constantly throbbing, etc. However at that time I was struggling a lot with fear, so I would curb any experience that felt like it was reaching a climax. I very much regret one moment in particular, where it was getting quite intense, I was alone in my room, and I did not let whatever was going to happen happen. I turned on the lights and went outside to look for someone to talk to. After that, I lost momentum and it was a very difficult struggle. My dreams became very vivid and I had the worst and most clear nightmare of my life. Waking up from that kind of thing made me wonder, how can I ever face this? For the rest of the retreat, I got some rapture a few times where I felt like I could happily sit there forever, but that didn't lead to jhana or anything. If I remember correctly I stopped early at day 23 and went home.

After that, practice dissipated. Since that first TMC retreat, I would often wake up in the middle of the night feeling very deeply, almost physically, that my existence and the possibility of death makes no sense at all. It's hard to explain the feeling but the word incalculable comes to mind.

Anyways, ~2 years later, I went on another month long retreat at TMC. This time, it really felt like a battle to balance between effort, acceptance, and faith. I struggled the entire time, feeling my failure to be mindful over and over and over again. When I did gain in mindfulness, it felt slowly accumulated, costing so much effort and time, and each day it felt like I was starting over from zero with less and less gas in the tank. It was very frustrating.

Half way through the retreat there was one day where I left the meditation hall to sit outside by myself. I was having many sexual thoughts, but I started to notice them arising before they happened. As in, I noticed that a sexual thought was coming, but it didn't come yet, and I stopped it. After doing that for a while, I eventually noticed that thoughts were coming, but they were not sexual yet, my mind was just preparing to think. So I stopped that. Eventually, it stopped altogether, it was just me in my body, with no thoughts, aware of everything that I was doing. Walking around, listening to the Dhamma talk which was normally difficult for me to focus on, looking around, I felt so present. I much preferred that feeling over my center of gravity flinging around the room on the previous retreat or the blissful rapture. It felt like I was doing what I actually came for, to become aware, not to marvel at crazy shit happening to me.

But after that day, I once again woke up starting at zero and did not climb back up again. At that point I had also read Wisdom Wide and Deep by Shaila Catherine where I believe she describes being able to sense beings far away, or if I remember correctly even in different realms. I was also reading Manual of Insight by Mahasi Sayadaw during the retreat which eventually started describing hell, and if you have read that you know that it is quite horrible, and that really affected my practice at the time. The logic goes, this tradition which feels so close to me, and which has described experiences that I have verified with my own experience, also describes hell as if it were really true. Whether I wanted to believe it or not was irrelevant, my body believes it. The sense of urgency from that skyrocketed to a point where my practice did not have any lightheartedness.

I finished that retreat fully, unlike the previous time, and went home feeling pretty burnt out. That was a few years ago, and I have not meditated much since then.

At that time I was single, unemployed, and stayed at home all day. Now I have a great job, I'm in countries I love, surfing with my girlfriend. With the advent actually enjoying my life now and not only living for myself, the stress from fear of dying became difficult to bear. Every positive thought was accompanied by an equally negative thought. As a result of that reawakened urgency, a couple months ago I started to practice again, but when I sit there is no momentum behind it. Which is why I thought that I should try to gain some momentum from practice off the cushion, otherwise I'm not sure I'll ever get anywhere with this.

I remember now that during the second retreat, I felt completely incapable of achieving this goal. Whether it be streamentry or even just feeling like I'm becoming more aware or concentrated in general, I lost faith in my ability to accomplish it. It feels like I'm grasping at straws. With anything else in life, there has always been a clear progression for me. I could always devise some process to get myself to the next level quickly. Yet with meditation, despite all that I have invested, I still fail. Not just back to the previous level, it feels like I'm worse than when I started 7 years ago. Not that I had a consistent practice for that time, so maybe I'm just being frail.

I guess what's left is determination and a sliver of hope. I have little faith, but I will keep going because in some way it feels like I was born to see this through.

Anyways, sorry for the long response but that should be pretty much all there is about my practice.

 Hm... You talk about reading Mahasi Sayadaw and Daniel Ingram and yet your inital post asks about objects for daily noting. 

This is not to be negative, I really do not want to put you down in any way, it is something that I think is rather common, and that thing is not being very clear about "I have read that book".

Wich sounds absurd, but often people read books, sort of mentally check the box of "my eyes moved over every word", but don't retain most of the very compressed info that is in a book. MCTB is 600 plus pages of very condensed information. You will likely discover a LOT of things if you read it again that you'll be surprised where in there all the time, they just didn't stick the first time through the text. And you'll likely have that very same experience when you read it a third time. Wich, hopefully, will bring you to be less certain of "having read a book." Again, might sound absurd or banal, but I think it is actually a very criticial point that many people gloss over because it would hurt their self image as rational people (not saying that's you, but it seems to be true of a number of posters here...).

We usually don't get taught how to retain details of texts, we usually don't get notified of our tendencies to produce our little, grossly distorted summaries of texts and we ususally never get urged to compare our summaries to the words in the book ever again. Hence our mental summaries are often wildy off, and it is somewhat of a mark of an untrained mind to be unaware of this. And so we often sleepwalk in wildly inaccurate fantasies about the contents of a text and our wildly inaccurate fantasies about our critical thinking abilities. And no one points that out to us because it could land the wrong way.

​​​​​​​Not very helpful, I think. 

Because that's all pretty normal, nothing to beat yourself up about. Just a matter of training. But something that, if you start to see it in yourself, will make you a better and more careful thinker. "Have I really checked whether these often recommended books really don't adress my questions? Chances are, I overlooked some stuff, because it is a very human thing to do."

Cultivating that ability, the ability to compare "what I took from that" with the sentences in a text again, can be a looong and VERY fruitful practice. 


Take MCTB2 off the shelf, and read the chapter about the Three Characteristics again. A lot of things you ask about in your intital post are answered in that chapter alone, I'd say. 

You ask about noting everything at once. Bandwidth of attention, the ability to both go broad and still be clear about details, is, for most people, something that they have to train their attention to be able to do, wich is why many traditions start out with easier and narrower focus tasks. Vipassana jhana theory outlines how the shape of attention, the bandwidth and detail resolution, progresses through training - also something that gets discussed in great detail in MCTB2.  If you go broad too quickly, you kinda doze off, because your attention can't as yet be simultaneously very clear and very broad, so you'll sacrifice clarity for the sake of breadth. As you have noticed in your practice. 

You talk about the breath being our object on the cushion. If you read Mahasi again, you'll discover that that is a starting point for practice, and that verbal noting, too, is a starting point. If your attention get's better, you go to noticing sensations, and only go back to verbal labels and rising and falling if you find that you can't notice sensations in a given area of experience. 

Again:
5. The Three Characteristics – MCTB.org

Awareness of thoughts. I'm reminded of a sentence in Kenneth Folk's Contemplative Fitness: "Once thoughts no longer slip under the radar, High Equanimity naturally arises". I always took that to mean that it takes the high bandwidth, high clarity mode of attention that'll arise in practice only after having put in the work and having gone through all the stages leading up to High EQ, that this will actually be easy for a practitioner to do. Especially off the cushion. And if you land 1st path, it'll likely be difficult again, especially off the cushion. If you read the descriptions of 3rd path that Daniel Ingram gives, it is only after you get to the third shift in perception that the tendency to be contracted into thoughts generally lessens even off the cushion. It's a generalisation, but it seems to be like that for many practitioners. So don't sweat keeping track of thoughts. If you can pull it of, great, but it'll likely happen in time that your attention starts to be able to do that in certain phases, then it'll recede, come back, and then at some point it'll get easier generally. 

Again, three charateristics, six sense doors. Read up on that and experiment with how you can include that in daily practice. I think that is what you seem to be asking about or a big chunk of it. Did you choose to hear that sound? Or did it arise, is already gone, and didn't satisfy? Could you in any way influence all the bodily feelings of walking through the room? Are they still here? Did they satisfy? Can you choose not to read this? Or that the screen is blueish and the letters black? 

A word about dukkha, because I always wonder about sentences like in one of the responses to your post, where someone talks about "waiting for dukkha to arise" or something like that. The basic theravada insight practice assumption is that EVERY phenomenon, every sensation and concoction of sensations displays the three characteristics. Every little shiver or pixel of even the most intense rapture is ultimately unsatisfactory. As a manifestation, it is, pretty much by definition, micro agitating. As Shinzen Young says "Compared to Nirvana, everything hurts." So the "waiting for dukhha to arise" is itself comprised of sensations displaying the three characteristics. Wich  - I think - should be a very, very obvious point, at least in theory, after reading the relevant texts. Again, unterstanding texts as a skill to honed over time and seeing that there IS a skill that needs to be honed. Very useful. 

Every sensation arises on its own, and disappears completely. No sensation is self, or the property of a self. No sensation is satisfactory, so holding on doesn't result in satisfaction. 

"Things come and go, they don't satsify, and they ain't you."  - MCTB2

Should you read (or listen to) MCTB2 again, pay attention to passages where the three characteristics get mentioned, where the six sense doors are described, etc. See if you don't discover an entirely new book there. I often rejoice upon such discoveries (and sometimes it's a kick in the balls to my pride), because I have found an opaque spot in my conception of this pixelcloud. Learning means to have your constructs challenged.

So challenge yourself a little. There is a LOT of benefit in useful (!) doses of hormetic stress of our language/thinking/learning abilities. 

Also, look into Shinzen Young's pdf An Outline of Practice (I think that's the one I mean, it's been a while). He talks about thinking about your day in advance, and planing out what kind of practice might be applied where, and of doing micro hits of noting/noticing several times over the course of a day. And trying to to do a bigger chunk of sitting every other week, like sitting for four accumulated hours one day once a month. Not carved in stone, but a lot of useful suggestions for home practice. 

Edit: ​​​​​​​Organizing Your Practice ~ SHINZEN YOUNG  

​​​​​​​Thank you. I liked your entire comment, but this, in particular, is something many practitioners seem to miss or avoid. Everything you experience includes some amount of suffering (aka unsatisfactoriness). It is unavoidable. It's built into being human. If you miss this one thing, ignore it, never see it, never feel it deep in your bones, you will never get IT. Your awakening depends on this.

Ah, very nice, Chris. Thank you for putting it so clearly. When I talk to people in these circles, I think they accept that every sensation is unsatisfactory, but they fail to make the further observation that every sensation is some degree of suffering. It doesn't matter if the seperate self drops away — this is just a fact of how we perceive the world. 

For me, this realization brought a powerful disenchantment. There is nowhere to go, nothing to do. The fullest enjoyment possible, the highest gratification, is available right here, right now, without moving an inch. There's no special pleasure that the outside world can offer you. Nothing out there will fix you. Your solution is now.

I enjoyed your story, Mikey.



The Buddha leaves no room for regret. You don't have the power to let experiences happen, or to not let experiences happen. Everything is happening on its own. This is our saving grace. Early on, it was really a struggle to stay with uncomfortable experiences, because I was "forcing" myself to stay with them. But there's no way to control your behavior at all. So all I was doing was fabricating these weird struggling-twisting-straining sensations in my cranium. And once I stopped, the experience got easier.

It's a huge relief to realize that you don't need to decide when to stick with discomfort and when to retreat. You're free from that responsibility, from that drama. Things simply unfold no matter what we do. When the mind has reached its limit, it'll rest. No matter what you say. If you trust in that natural intelligence, eventually you'll find that the mind takes care of itself. It seeks out difficult sensations on its own, and once it's exhausted itself, it knows when to rest.



What do you mean by "fail[ing] to be mindful"?

The dukkha ñanas often make our mind vague and murky and uncontrollable in a frustrating way. There's no way to bring crystal clarity to these experiences. Rather, the goal is to simply know them exactly as they are. Having an idea of what an experience "should" look like is a huge hindrance in all levels of practice, as well as in life. Watch out for that.


Did you stop it?


What would momentum look like? What are you seeking?


I agree, that sounds like the case to me.



I remember there being some genuine ambiguity in the book about when anchor objects are needed in noting, particularly in daily life. It's something I puzzled over.

Thank you everyone for your very helpful answers! This really helped give me some direction and excitement.

@pixelcloud: My posting here is more an act of engaging with a community. As I mentioned I feel desperate. I normally prefer to figure things out without involving other people, however in this case I think that tying myself to this practice through a community could be another variable that makes it finally stick. I think that was the right choice, as was the case with your response; your advice of reading that chapter and the act of linking it was extremely poignant. This entire time I was not actively looking for any of the three characteristics at all, and left to my own devices I would not have been inspired to read MCTB again for a while.

In fact I specifically asked about this on retreat, both to the monks and maybe staff as well. I guess in their style, the 3 characteristics are supposed to show themselves with access concentration + observation, and you need not specifically look for them.

However my experience with trying this in practice so far has been that actively looking for impermanence is a much more engaging experience than simply looking and labeling. It really forces you to first locate exactly where a sensation is, and then to really focus on how it feels, which is a very different process than simply noting, where it feels like you're just becoming aware of the interplay between the senses.

On retreat, I had a very intense pressure in the center of my forehead for a week give or take. Now I realize that I should have been spending most of my time with that, because it was so prominent, and rather than just stare at it I should have been actively looking for the three characteristics. I suppose that's what the noting is supposed to turn into, but that never happened for me. It was always "pressure, pressure, pressure, pressure", but never really trying to look deeply and see the impermanence. Instead, when the pressure stopped building or moving, I would try to return to the breath.

That chapter did give some noting examples for daily life, but most of them are while idling. I think many of us spend a significant portion of the day doing activities that aren't idle, like talking to someone, devising daily plans, writing forum posts, or thinking critically about other things. I see now that during idle activities I should be looking for imperminance in whatever is most prominent. However, during more dynamic activities, it seems like the best I can do right now is to just be "there".

I also find that the breath is difficult for me to break down into separate sensations. However, when there are itches it does seem like I can get some idea of when they're on/off. I feel like now I also understand what Daniel meant by "mental impressions". One session, the more I stared at an itch and tried to perceive its impermanence, the more I realized that the itch was actually not "on" anymore, and that the lasting feeling was my mind's fake reinterpretation of the itch, and that the real irritation of the itch happened during the mental impression of it and not during the actual itch itself. It seemed like the itch was "on" only every few seconds. I'm not sure whether I was really perceiving the impermanence, meaning if the time I noticed it was "on" was not actually a flicker but a set of many flickers that appeared to me as one flicker, but regardless, reading that chapter intently in isolation led to some interesting and inspiring stuff. Thank you very much I'll probably try to make time for the whole book now.

Also, for daily noting it is interesting because it changes the relationship with negative emotions. For example, if I was just noting as I normally would, I might feel something bad and notice that I feel bad. That sometimes feels like it even worsens the situation. But trying to see the impermanence forces me to locate the sensations, then try to perceive their nature, which is no longer feeling bad, it is locating and perceiving sensations. This is very different than loosely observing the bad feelings since that can often feel like I'm just sitting with bad feelings. Which is more constructive than avoiding them, but actively inquiring about a specific property of the sensations seems even more constructive. I think I like this idea a lot because it is very well defined, it is something specific to do which is hard to misinterpret. Even the advice of just being curious about sensations and the mind is a bit too open ended for me given how long it can take to see their properties.

I will say that it seems like Goenka's method is more suitable for seeing impermanence, on top of being pretty engaging as well. I wonder if it's useful to include that in the sitting practice.

@martin thank you for the suggestions, I will try those. The soles one is interesting to me because it limits the scope well without having to adjust the manner of walking. And now that I am trying specifically to see impermanence, that type of thing feels fitting. I also didn't think much about noticing the shape of attention itself which is really interesting. And your reassurance regarding sila makes me feel more lighthearted about it.

@jim I will check out the ebook and the relaxing meditation. I usually try to relax for 10 breaths at the beginning but it often feels like I should do more. I remember reading a book by Alan Wallace where the main technique was to relax for a very long time before introducing anything else which was interesting to me. Your description of noticing thoughts is exactly how it feels. I think I'll try and see if public transport is a suitable time for focusing on mental activity and intentional jabbering. The additional thoughts on the precepts are helpful as well

@john Thanks for reading my story "stretching my awareness to fit the whole of perception" is pretty much how I felt. It sounds like you're saying to notice what is predominant and look more deeply into it, rather than be pulled in many different directions? And trying not to create things during work sounds interesting, but I'm not clear on the meaning.

"The dukkha ñanas often make our mind vague and murky and uncontrollable in a frustrating way."

I tend to think I didn't even make it to A&P.

"Did you stop it?", "What would momentum look like? What are you seeking?", "You don't have the power to let experiences happen, or to not let experiences happen."

I agree conceptually. But in practice, this very website exists for people who are seeking something. Everything may happen on its own, and I can see that at a logical level, but there is clearly something here that still believes otherwise. I have to work with that, so I don't feel relieved to know that things simply unfold no matter what we do. If I felt that in my bones as @chris mentioned, then it might be relieving. Until then, thinking about it or striving to see it doesn't seem to bear any fruit, at least initially.

"I agree, that sounds like the case to me."

​​​​​​​Thank you

Mikey, 

a couple of thoughts after reading your paragraphs. Some very nice observations there, btw.

Again, nothing here written in stone, just some dude's ramblings, discard if not useful. 

Bill Hamilton talks of vipassana as lowering the perceptual threshold, meaning, for many beginners, sensations are kind of hard to make out because they are below said perceptual threshold. Labeling/noting seems to help people into starting to perceive momentary sensations. Maybe it's helpful to know that the perceptual threshold WILL lower with training. Just a matter of keeping at it and finding what works for you. 

I like how Daniel Ingram writes about trying to be clear about one sensation per second in the beginning. I'd say, maybe try to be clear about one sensation, then about the next, without a time frame. The sense modalities jump around all the time. In one moment you're feeling your left big toe, in the next you're aware of hearing the clothes move on your body, maybe you feel your shirt on your shoulder (notice a visual mental image of a part of shoulder with a part of shirt?) then there is seeing this, then there is the inner speech of reading this, then there is a micro instant of feeling your eyelids move as you read this... Try to be clear about whatever jumps out as clear-ish. Hey, there was the sound of inbreath. Hey, there was a visual impression of monitor.

Just try to "see" what sense modality presents as the dominant one in this moment. You'll seem to miss plenty. Most of it, maybe. And it'll maybe feel like some clunky step by step thing that should be much faster. That's fine. Try to be precise about one sensation, then another. Go step by step, and when you get good at that clunky step by step practice precision pace, it'll naturally speed up by itself because there will be free capacity to be clear about more sensations that fell by the wayside before. If it seems like you couldn't be clear about the details, there was just a knot of stuff and all you caught clearly was, say, some sensation of "feel of foot" and then it's on to the next sense door presenting something that stands out, some sound you're suddenly aware of, or whatever, go with that. Go with what you CAN catch and pinpoint. Greater precision and clarity and greater inclusivity (catching more of it) come with practice. If you wanna get to playing piano fast and effortlessly, practice slowly and get good at the basics, work on clean execution, then speed up the metronome. 

I got jhana first, and after a jhana sit, perception was easy to see as pixelated, but fluxing WAY too fast for me to be precise about. So I caught (or tried to) one sensation every one or two seconds, got into thinking about it, mindwandering, got back to trying to catch some sensations... Hey, there was an instant of foot on floor. There was an instant of hearing. There one of wettness in mouth. Seeing. Elbow. Hearing. Seeing. Eylid. Thought. Kneecap. Etc. None of it will stand out as super precise, cut cleanly from the flux in the beginning. Clarity is just not a habit we trained before. 

You are building a better microscope. In the beginning, it will be blurry and not have much resolving power and what you see there will not be very familiar. But before you started practicing you didn't have much of a microscope at all. So that's already progress. 

Sometimes there seems to be a focus on impermanence as the easiest of the three characteristics. In fact, I just heard a recent Sam Harris interview where he said that, and I thought that was such a weird misconception for a person that has his own meditation app and that is widely considered to be smart and eloquent... But that's another story. ;) )

That sound of your inbreath, it just arose. You can construct a causal chain of "why" it did (good luck with finding a first cause...), but if you think about it, it still arose as neccessary and inevitable part of that inbreath. Meaning, that sensory sensation of the sound(s) of that one inbreath, they arose without self, and without having been the property of "you". And that cascade of sensations is gone now, and these small pixellettes can't satisfy. Or do you feel like your life is complete now? So there is a way to see all three characteristics. That thought that just popped up upon reading this, that just popped up, right? No-self again. Rub your hands. Those sounds and tactile sensations, they just arose. Try rubbing your hands without feeling sensations in the hands, without having visual after images popping up somewhere in the area of your head, without a cascade of small sounds making up "the sound" of that action. They just arise and do their thing, don't they? No-self again. By the way, your thoughts and intentions of "I'ma try this" also just arose. Can you stop thoughts, tactile sensations, the sounds on the street, seeing colors, etc.? No-self. 

Has anything ever happened to you that was the end all and be all of sensations? The sensation to end all sensations? They're small packets of positive manifestation, as such they are micro agitation. Not lastingly satisfying. Even if in the beginning your whole elbow may appear as "a sensation". Clarity and resolving power come with practice. Still, sensation "elbow" doesn't satisfy. Just a series of micro agitation, small portions of sensate... "energy".

And now that you know that this can be a way to think about dukkha, rub your hands together once more. See? A cascade of all sorts of tactile, auditory, visual and mental sensations that each where like small electrical charges that didn't satisfy. That also arose causally, no way to prevent them, control them, etc. And gone the instant they arose, just cascading. Three C's, all there. Again, may seem vague in the beginning, like you lack the high resolution instrument to really perceive all that clearly and like you didn't "really" catch most of it. That's ok. Point is, a pixel on the sensation screen is a micro instant of agitation, a mini bzzz. Dukkha. 

So the "just arising due to causes and conditions" (No-self) is already baked into the "arising and passing" (Impermanence). Same with the dissatisfactoriness bzzz (Suffering). Three aspects of every phenomenon. It's just a question of what aspect you "look for" in the instant with that sensation. Some people practice just trying perceive one of the three in a given session, but you can also just see what aspect of a given sensation that stood out from the flux in this moment of practice presents itself to you.

The "just arising on its own/ being its own thing" aspect, the transitory aspect, or the "manifestation equals micro electrical charge" aspect? 

Don't sweat not being mindful all through the day. That will just be hugely frustrating. Check that Shinzen video. Micro hits, planning out practice sessions, etc. If you can be with every sensate arising, cool (and wow dude), but if not, as you indicate, be tactical as to when and how to work with what you got. The formal practice will likely be the main training ground for a while. I tried to be playful about the daily life practice. That way, you'll have successes, not constant failures. 

Btw, no one said this can't or mustn't be fun. You're absolutely allowed to enjoy trying to be clear about one sensation, and then the next one, and the next one. You're honing a skill. Laugh about the blunders, nod to yourself when it worked, and repeat, repeat, repeat. 

All right, enough online rambling for the day.

If you simply notice what's already predominant, if let your attention move on its own, if you let it lead the way—then you're going to end up traveling in many different directions. That's excellent practice, because you're gaining insight into what the mind is actually like. It's always on the move. Vipassana can be summarized as simply watching the mind… ultimately, you watch the mind until no one is watching. So, notice what is predominant, and accordingly, let yourself be pulled in many directions.

You simply need to notice the sensation. In my personal practice, I thought that noticing the sensation wasn't enough, and that I had to somehow crack open the sensation and rummage through it and find deeper knowledge somewhere in there. But that never happened. Indeed, trying to "look more deeply" into a sensation can actually prevent you from being present, because at that point you're trying to grasp onto something ungraspable. The initial sensation is long gone, and something new is in its place. Trying to analyze the old may prevent you from discovering the new.

If simply noticing sensations feels too bare, too easy, too precarious, then you can give yourself another foothold on top of the noticing. E.g. via noting, self-inquiry, the three characteristics. 



As a yogi develops, more and more mental phenomena happen on their own. The body moves on its own, thoughts appear on their own, and in the end, life takes care of itself. But for a phenomena to happen on its own, first the yogi must stop trying to create the phenomena. For thoughts to appear on their own, the yogi must stop trying to create thoughts. For productivity to appear on its own, the yogi must stop trying to create productivity. 

This stuff is really a huge relief. Maybe it's not available to you yet, but try it out. Stop trying to get your work done, and see whether it starts doing itself. Stop trying to focus—see if the mind focuses itself. Baby steps.



You've got about two months of retreat time under your belt, and you've experienced flashing lights, rapture, desperation, frenetic consumption of the dharma, body schema flinging around the room, intense fear, continuous nightmares, equanimity, a haunting fear of death, and a feeling of relentless urgency in practice. Definitely a dark night yogi! 

With that in mind, take a look at what Daniel says about perception being murky and vague and frustrating in the dark night. Make peace with the murk. Acceptance is the way through, as it always is. 


Edit: 
​​​​​​​Yup, great insight. This was a big lesson for me: don't resist the flow state! The flow state is perfectly fine. It actually feels quite great. Just let it be. The mind is learning from the flow state, even if there's no effortful investigation in the flow state. That's another big insight: vipassana progress doesn't always depend on effortful investigation.