First my question so it doesn't get lost at the bottom: How do you note when you're walking around in daily life? Or doing things like washing the dishes? I've tried to be present and "mindful" whenever I walk in daily life. My first experience with noting was so much more intense than my usual sit that I'm not sure how to do it while walking down the street. It also seems like if I'm walking there's too much movement to pick up an individual sensation. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I've been doing "vipassana" meditation on and off for the past 2 or 3 years. I've gotten a lot more into it the past couple months. I would start a sitting by finding the breath and then moving to "choiceless awareness" and just trying to pay attention to whatever happened to come up.

I may have missed part of the instructions though...I had been just noticing the breath, sounds, or thoughts but hadn't been looking for any vibrations. I think I may have actually in fact been solidifying the sensations. I'm not really sure, but I know that nothing much happened in the time I practiced this way except I would occasionally feel very calm and spacious. Another possible problem may have been lack of effort/energy, perhaps from getting mixed up about what it means to "let things be."

I found MCTB this weekend and immediately devoured it in a couple days. I decided to try noting practice for the first time tonight. I started with the breath and tried to stick with it for awhile. At first I was having trouble finding the vibrations, I noted maybe 3 parts of the rising and falling but I may have been somewhat forcing it to split up. Something I noticed was I immediately (within a minute of starting the sitting) dropped into the calm/spacious feeling I would get before..where thoughts were also reduced.

Whenever I drop into that space, I often feel tingling sensations running up and down my skin. Like waves of goosebumps running over my body, especially the back of my neck. This happened again in this sit, and I decided to note them although they were hard to split into smaller vibrations.

I remembered Daniel's emphasis on fast noting at some point and tried to speed it up. I've been used to expanding from just the breath to a wider field so at some point I stopped focusing completely on the breath. This is where I entered new territory...all of a sudden in felt like sensations were popping up everywhere. It was rise-hear-rise-twitch-tingle-rise-hear in rapid fire succession. An image that comes to mind is sitting at a huge control board with hundreds of lights, and all of a sudden the lights started lighting up randomly all over the place. My face was (or felt like) it was twitching uncontrollably. Sometimes it felt like I was getting bounced around like a pinball machine.

At some point I came back to breath and could feel it rising with about 5-8 rapid sensations, and then falling the same way. This was incredibly fascinating! I have never felt anything like that before. I think this was by far the most intense sit I've ever had. I sat longer than I usually do (60 minutes instead of 40), and thoughts of boredom only came up once or twice (they're usually a lot more prevalent).

re: getting more into it...

perhaps its just about time you are reaching A&P soon & your momentum is gaining strength w/ your continuity!!


re: noting in daily life..

based on my experience (though not that long), it could sorta get in the way with other things, make you look robotic & your social skills may also get awkward and it can be habit forming, . I got close to some pretty weird behavior, subconsciously doing noting while talking to my boss, eye-movement and eye-contact totally gone but staring blankly like in a daze hehehe
however continuity of practice is the secret of success! i would go for it, but be conscious of not offtending people
as im thinking social gestures, social cues are an important part of everyday interaction built into our subconscious that doing noting disrupts. (but just a minor precaution hehe)


re: 60 minute intense sit..

way to go! thanks for sharing! I remember the time I first encountered this and the Joy of that time in my life. You will also be able to see where you are on the Map on the little 2 page Guide that Daniel I. wrote. Its on his interactivebuddha.org site.