It is time for a new chapter in my own beginners practice, and I am thinking about how I might most effectively combine insight and concentration practice.

Let me offer a little background. I have only been at this for a year or so, having started with a Goenka retreat, which went well for me. Although at that time I didn’t have the benefit of a well-defined framework with which to interpret my experience, I feel I did cover some good ground on that retreat. After the first several days, concentrating on Samadhi, I managed several sittings where my attention left the breath-object for more than one full breath only a once or twice during an hour-long sitting, and very few sittings where “mindlessness” prevailed for significantly long periods, of say more than a minute or two. Later in the training, after the focus was shifted to vipassana and body scanning, I experienced a number of quite striking results, which now I regard as probable A&P phenomena. It all felt good and beneficial.

My primary interest is insight, working toward stream entry and beyond. Although this may eventually be attainable through my home practice, I won’t be upset if that waits at least until my next extended retreat, which will not be possible for perhaps nine more months. Meanwhile, I am looking to continue to build a strong base and make whatever progress I can. Although I have child, spouse, job and home obligations, I maintain a single 60 minute sitting each morning, although more recently I have been trying two, at around 50 / 30 minutes, morning / evening.

Naturally, returning from my first retreat to more modest home practice schedule, the response was not the same. After a month or two, and with the benefit of much more reading (including MCTB; greatly illuminating!), I concluded that I would benefit from a period of emphasis on concentration practice only, to give me a firmer base before returning to insight work.

This I have done for the past six or seven months, to the point that now I have concentration first jhana experiences at least once or twice a week, sometimes deep and long-lasting, other times shallower and shorter. Only around once a week will I have a sitting where discursive thoughts are persistent to the point that the breath-object is dropped for any length of time or with serious frequency. (I have continued to use the breath only for now; it feels good for me.)

I have now reached a point where I believe my concentration abilities will provide good support for recommencing insight work, and indeed, suspect now that insight work will also help advance my concentration practice. Although I enjoyed Goenka body scanning, and expect I may work with it again in the future, for now I would like to start working with Mahasi style noting, and have read several instructional texts as preparation.

[enough background. my questions in following post]

I am now wondering: how shall I combine these two? I have several specific questions in my mind at this point.

Although basic noting practice does involve concentration on an object (such as the rising and falling of the abdomen), the key difference seems to be not concentrating on the mind’s synthetic construction of a unified and continuous whole, but instead, discerning and noting individual units of perception, with increasing granularity and frequency as one’s skill develops.

One thing I experimented with before I began focusing on concentration only, is playing it by ear, that is, changing the course of a given sitting in midstream, depending on how things are going. I found that I don’t really like doing this; I prefer to start a session with a clear plan, and stick to it, persevering if I meet any challenges or resistance along the way. Otherwise, I find I can fall into a trap of “thinking about my thinking”, or over-analyzing while I should just be sticking to the programme.

When noting is the central activity of a given sitting, is it useful start off with a bit of pure concentration practice and then kick in with noting, or better to simply conduct the entire sitting with noting throughout?

Aside from the question of how I might conduct an individual sitting, what about a given day with multiple sittings, or a given week or month? Can it be helpful to alternate and mix-and-match the two types of practice in some way, or is one more likely to make progress just doing noting/insight work alone for a period of time?

I rather suspect there will be few hard and fast rules for these sort of questions, and that in fact different approaches will work out well for different people, at different times along their individual journey. Still, I would be grateful to hear some advice or commentary about what others more experienced and accomplished than I have learned regarding this topic.

Thanks and metta.

I suspect you will get a wide range of advice, and, in truth, none of us can be sure we are telling you what can be guaranteed to be the exact combination of practice advice that is perfectly optimized for you.

Thus, I'll just give my take and you can take it or leave it. I found that in daily life in general practice was hard and I shouldn't expect much, but I found that practicing noting helped for when I got to retreat, so I would probably just go with straight noting, and would probably also give some time to walking meditation with noting as well (works well in the morning before a sit, helps get the energy up and builds durable insight skills).

However, some people really like the feel of a more concentrated mind and how that makes the body feel, and some need that to feel good about meditation and keep them doing it and liking it, so that may be helpful also.

Experiment and see what works for you.

thank you for your advice Daniel. I do hope that this thread attracts a few more posts, because as you say, it will vary by the individual, and personal experimentation will be important. If I am able to read several different views on this subject it will give me more ideas for things I can experiment with for myself.

Meanwhile, though I don't want to sidetrack my own thread here, I am wondering about your comment:


Are you saying that for you daily practice has not really contributed that much to your attainments, only retreats ? If so, I wonder if that is regarded as generally true for most people, or not necessarily so.

In my own case, it will probably be some time before I can realistically arrange the time for another proper 10-20 day retreat, meanwhile 1-2 hours each day is the best I can do. For now, then, I must find ways to get the absolute most benefit I can from such a practice regimen. At the same time, I have also been thinking about DIY mini-retreats at home, of say 1, 2, or 3 days. I believe my family (also all meditators) would support and assist me in doing these, one every month or so. I may try one soon just to see how it goes, but I do want to get a little exposure to noting work through daily sits before trying a mini-retreat focused on noting.

meanwhile, thanks again for the views on noting versus concentration. I will try some pure noting for a week or two, and then also experiment with a few mixing approaches.w