I've scanned the threads and have seen topics related to this but can't find the direct answer, so please forgive the newb question.

Am new to noting, and am experiencing periods in practice where the verbal notes seem to 'naturally' subside.  The attentiveness to the experience remains, but the mind just stops the using words to accompany them.  It feels pleasant, FWIW, and the noting generally then starts up again some time later as the mind starts getting more active again.

Is this a natural/common phenomenon? Or is it just a sign of getting lazy during practice?  

Thanks in advance.

Noting is just a feedback loop to keep you noticing.  The old habits always slip in when there isn't mindfulness.  To avoid it being mechanical you need to use bare awareness to notice what's going on and then use the verbal label afterwards to keep the mind doing it.  The actual experience must precede the conceptual note.  It's easy for the brain to space out into old habits when you stop verbally noting, because these habits of clinging are developed over years and decades.  The mind also slips into old habits when we stop noting because we haven't developed enough disenchantment because we haven't noted enough detail.

You ultimately want to note without verbal labels but at the beginning this isn't as wise.  As you get better you can note more detail you haven't noticed before and drop the noting for the easy to notice experiences.  When you haven't really experienced perception/recognition of objects in a meditative way it helps to keep noting until the next level of detail is noticed.  

The most important thing beyond consistency is to label objects that go through the 3 characteristics (impermanence/stress/not-self) and see more and more into dependent arising (your entire experience).

I would try and detect one experience at a time and watch it's impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and how anything that is impermanent cannot be a self or owned by a self.  Use the 4 foundations of mindfulness for examples of what to target for investigation.

http://www.arrowriver.ca/dhamma/founMind.html

These are different angles to prove to the brain that what it thinks is a self is really just those experiences and aggregates.  The 7 factors of awakening are a guide in how to balance the mind while it's doing this investigation.  

You need to look at dependent arising and see how stress appears in the mind by cause and effect.  These are a lot of lists but they are there to simplify the practice and at the same time not to sacrifice detail.  Anything you are noting you're not ruminating/clinging over.  That's a small sample of freedom each time you don't cling.  Clinging is a habit you want to decondition.  As you see impermanence you develop disenchantment which helps you to let go of clinging permanently.

The anatta/not-self realization happens when you keep looking for a self but all you find is "thinking", "strategizing", "unpleasant feeling", "wanting", "body sensation" etc.  Everything breaks down into smaller experiences and with modern physics we are now at a Higgs Boson and it may breakdown further.  That is what is meant by no-self.  It's not that you don't have an personality but that it breaks down in to habits, and cause and effect.  

What also helped me a lot was trying to notice how a lot of my problems in life were shared by so many people and how I wasn't so hyper individual that I couldn't relate.  A lot of mental patterns and behaviours are shared by many people.  We're all stuck ruminating on how we can make the conceptual self feel permanently happy but the brain cannot release all those pleasant neurotransmitters all the time (boredom) and life cannot give us all we want (stress).  Ultimately this body will die and all that we attached to were just memories.  The self concept is only that, a concept.  

By seeing how we make ourselves into objects that are separate from the world and react to this concept by releasing pleasant or unpleasant chemicals based on our status in life it can become clear that this process is extremely draining and exhausting.  Coritsol is released in excess amounts if you're depressed and have constant negative thinking habits.  So much of this clinging is not necessary but simply a very strong habit from prior conditioning.  

The likeable and unlikeable chemicals (vedana/feeling tone of pleasantness, neutral or unpleasantness) condition our habits (which are simply addictions/operant conditioning) so that we often repeat the same behaviours over and over again.  Dependent arising is a list of how each bit of stress is conditioned by other conditions that allow it to happen.  The dependent arising list looks like a bunch of separate "things" but that is more because of communication being conceptual.  Concepts always have to reduce (reductionism) complex material into something simple like "seeing", "legs", "chair".    These conditions are already leaning on each other and pushing in that direction.  Ultimately all "things" are interdependent so that thingness becomes less accurate.  Things appear to be inherently real meaning that they don't have a cause and effect and are completely separate like a cookie-cutter result.  In reality it's more like waves and ripples of experience that move extremely quickly affecting everything in an unfathomable speed.  Everything is interdependent.  Eventually you can see this in your thinking patterns and even down into consciousness which should eventually eliminate all places for a permanent "self" to exist in.  The consciousness/knowing/awareness is already leaning on old habits as we speak.  The enlightenment is eventually seeing how interdependent your consciousness is to objects and how consciousness can only be conscious towards an object (including thinking objects).  If you are interdependent towards other objects which go through the 3 characteristics then all of you goes through the 3 characteristics.

So as I listed above there's tons of places to investigate and lots of things to note and the more things you get disenchanted with the less stress hormones will be released when those things show their impermanence.  People get stuck in noting when they run out of detail to note so I would note "confusion" when you're stuck for a label.  The more experiences you can label and disidentify from the more freedom you have.  Another tip, don't cling to the concept of Buddhism or make the "self" into a "meditator".  Strategizing or analyzing in Buddhism is just more thinking.  Start simple and as you get better with simple things to note then add more and more detail.

Some tips on good noting:

http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/articles/mental-noting/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrpGNjggB1U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgBAIHoc69s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-44VxPiQtVg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0B_Jdu8k-OE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvXij9B5xoQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-58IoZMNss

Once noting becomes a habit then freedom is a habit.

This is a lot of detail but read it slowly and practice it methodically.  When you react less to "thingness" and "things" because objects aren't really that separate as they appear then life should be normal as before but with a great reduction of stress.

Richard

In my experience that is perfectly fine as long as you are still attentive. Noting is meant as an aid to mindfullness, not the other way around. If one is locked in I think eventually noting *should* be dropped, as it tends to filter raw experience. 

flippin' 'eck Richard, that was one hell of a post!!

Thank you to both of you for your response, and for the links.  Much appreciated.

I will log back on and write a more intelligent reply when I have a sec....