Chris O.:
...what is meant by rapid or speedy noting?
Here's a perspective on this topic from Buddhist Theravada practice and theory, in particular
Abhdhamma and its interpretation by modern Burmese traditions – e.g. of the Pa Auk Sayadaw and the Mahasi Sayadaw.
First, the "noting" technique, in the teaching the Mahasi Sayadaw, refers to
vipassana "knowing" of every sensate phenomena (to use MCTB language). Attaching verbal labels is sort of using bicycle training wheels attached, a crutch taught at the very beginning, but to be abandoned as soon as possible. (Mahasi is very clear about this; and the beginning instructions, say, at Tatagatha Meditation Center, San Jose, from Burmese monks are to drop the verbal labels as soon as possible.) The purpose, as mentioned in posts above, is to break the pattern of the mind wandering around in its own random fabrications, and get it to watch, study the sensation+mental perception apparatus that's going on all the time, even when the mind is off elsewhere. When highly developed, it is a true "
gnosis", or penetrating and full experiential understanding of what's "really" going on in conscious life. (Note, so to speak, that the words "note", "know", "notice", etc. all go back to the Greek words and roots as in "
gnosis".)
The issue of how fast, how often to experience a "knowing" moment has to do with first gaining proficiency with the skill, but then, more essentially, with using it to approach, and eventually match the speed at which the mind itself is functioning. From
abhidhamma deconstruction of the microstructure mental process, as well as contemporary neuro-science, the quantum of mental experience is somewhat in the range of milleseconds. It's known (in current scientific estimation) that neurological events happen in chunks of a couple of ms, and as
abdhidhamma (and Mahasi teachers, among others note), each bare sensate moment (sort of like contact, or impingement – in
abdhidhamma terms, a "cognitive series", or "cognitive process") consists of a series of such minimal events, and is immediately followed by a mental moment-series that mirrors, interprets, or "knows" the bare sensation series. The (
vipassana) experiential quantum consists of two cognitive series. So a single cognitive series, having ca. 10-17 micro moments, takes place in, say, 30-40 ms, and the double series – contact and"knowing" – in the range of say 60-80 ms; that would be about 15 times / second each double series, or 30 times per individual series.
Daniel Ingram, in MTCB (or maybe it was in the sketches for MCTB-2 aired here last year) has written that the "vibrations", or "pulsations" of phenomena can be experienced, slowly at first, but then with practice, at say 10-15 hz (cycles per second) and more, and even up to about 40 hz. That is effectively a "sampling rate" in the same range as the (above) anaylsis.
(My numbers, all from memory here, maybe slightly off, but I think in the ballpark.)
So, if the (conscious) mind is working at the rate of (to use a middle figure) 30 events/second, the end-goal rate of
vipassana "knowing" (think of it as "noting", if you will, or "noticing", or "seeing") would be to exactly see and know what the mind does, "in real time" (to borrow a word from computerdom), namely at the same rate as the mind's own working. When the mind is known in this ultimate detail, then "cultivation" can work with it, alter it at the level of "ultimate reality".
By this interpretation then, the rate of "noting" is not a matter of a speed contest, or virtuosity, but rather tracking, "knowing" what is going on up to the same rate as it's actually happening.
This all may or may not pertain to various "pragmatic" interpretations or uses of "noting', but I believe that much of pragmatic theory goes back to Mahasi training, and
Abhidhamma &
Visuddhimagga traditions. It does provide a well-fitting rationale for, at least, what I've seen of Daniel's system.
btw. In, say, the
Visuddhimagga, and teachings of the Pa Auk Sayadaw, there are mentions of astronomical numbers of mental events – millions, even billions per second. One may recognize this in the assertions of some critics who cite these numbers to ridicule the traditional sources. But:
1) It's not often noted that it was common practice, in ancient texts (here Pali, and I know also in Chinese urtexts) to use mythically large numbers as a way of expressing simply large quantities – not to be taken, as the modern scientific (and historically naïve) mind might, literally.
2) It's also known (again, current neuro-science*) that, in addition to the single focal consciousness focus on the present object, there are hundreds of other neurological processes going on at the same time, at various distances further or nearer to the "surface" of the conscious focal point. And also it's conceivable that the
abhidhamma analysts / authorswere able to detect some sense of that going on. (Various scientific studies have confirmed that "yogis" and other adept types are capable of achieving mental and physiological perception and control of areas of the "autonomic nervous system", i.e. neurological processes thought to be totally "unconscious".)
Taking numbers as above – i.e. microcycles in a few ms, series in 10s of ms, etc. – and multiplying by hundreds of parallel "subconscious" events in the same time frames, it's possible to postulate that the human mind (in its "association" with the neurological events in the brain) is capable of at least 100,000s of events per second.
* The "neuro-science" I refer to comes largely from Antonio Damasio (e.g. "
Self Comes to
Mind: Constructing the Conscious Brain", 2010), but is confirmed in other sources as well.
