What I do is to pay attention to some part of my body, say my abdomen, and usually I am not able to note more than 2 sensations per second, and sometimes not even 1 sensation, so I try to speed up the process by cycling between the touch points, i.e. starting with my attention to the touch sensation of my buttock sitting on the cushion for a fraction of a second, then quickly switch my attention to the touch sensation of my knee touching the cushion, and then quickly switch to another touch point............etc.  
I also try to fix my attention on one spot of my body, then note the sensation of that spot for a fraction of a second, then try to "Switch Off my Attention" for a split second, and then quickly note that same spot again, and then find the 'change' between the first noting and the second noting.
I am aware that I may not have the capability yet so I cannot see those fast changes, however, if I just keep my attention there at the same spot, I just find the sensation does not change, and I don't think just keep on noting in such 'non-dynamic' way is the right way to do that.
I don't think any of the above is the correct method, can some body kindly advise? Thanks!

Hi Alex, welcome to DhO!

One note per second is ok. If your breath cycle lasts say 6-8 seconds, you can divide it in 6 sections: starting inbreath, middle inbreath, ending inbreath, starting outbreath, middle outbreath, ending outbreath. Try to sense each one in your belly. After some minutes, you may notice sensations in between those sections. The easiest is the gap between ending outbreath and starting inbreath. Soon you'll be able to percieve another sensation in between each section, and so double your noting speed. If not, you can do some kind of "compound-noting", that is for each section notice if the sensation cool or warm, tensed or relaxed, focused or spread, or other binary differenciation you can notice. So for each section you can notice 3 or 4 qualities.

Other option is body scanning, which I haven't done much, so I cannot comment.

​​​​​​​Hope this helps 

Well if your method gives results I think you shall continue like that. However if your curious to try another method, I think you can do that through making a decision to sit with that method for the whole sitting. Starting to jump around in various techniques just makes the mind illusionary fragmented, we don't want that. If the mind gets fragmented by nature, that's ok.

So, if you can count or estimate the number of your sensations or not, doesn't matter, it is a way to explain this stuff. What matters is that you are aware of observing them/noting them and if you can do that with a subtle concentration it is verry good! Otherwise just note that; if it occurs to you that you have difficult to concentrate.

You can notice that your mind gets more mindful of sensations without counting.

​​​​​​​The sensations does allways change, if you think they are not, you are looking for something you imagine to happen. It is only reality happening, so just expand your awareness of that. If you think the sensations does not change, note that; "I think the sensations does not change".

Peace!

What I do is that Im simply aware of my breath. And if my thoughts wanders off, I go back to observing the breath as soon as I notice the mind is wandering. I train to concentrate on the breath.

Then I just let go of concentration, and just being aware, noticing all sensation. It can be done in one spot of the body, or the whole field of sensations, or moving the attention through the body. So this is called insight practice "vipassana".

Also concentration practice and insight practice can be done as one and the same practice, could be argued about... What I mean is: Simply just sit and be aware. Letting your thoughts go away.

There is so many ways to point to reality. Do what you can trust!

Thanks Pepe and Jonas ☺️
Yes I think I forgot the main task is to note whatever is happening in the moment, and that includes the fact that I cannot note very fast and so cannot see any changes. I was trying to make things happen instead of just noting.

And also, I was confused because when the term momentary concentration is used, I thought it was like blinking of the eye, like I need to close my eye and then open it again (I thought attention only lasts for an instant and then needs to be restarted again, I thought there is no continuous attention lasting for a long time ) so I just felt letting my attention staying at a spot for some relatively long time didn't seem right. But now I am more clear, thanks for both of your advice.
Also please excuse me if my English may sometimes seems odd as I learn English as a second language.

Momentary concentration involves permitting attention to be pulled by the most dominant experience and then

1. Landing it on that experience, precisely and accurately
2. Knowing what that experience is - knowing sound, car horn, loud, high pitched .... versus knowing body sensation, in flesh, contains warmth
3. Then staying with that sensation till it ends, completely (this is the concentration part)
4. Then permitting the next dominant experience to pull attention (this is the momentary) part

This precision, sticking to the object, knowing it clearly .... done over and over and over again trains perception to become sensitive, and then in the grossness of a sound or body sensations you start catching components that last as long as the gross object, or are shorter in duration. When the individual object is shorter in duration the next target of concentration is taken by the mind faster and thus speed of momentary concentration naturally increases - you dont need to do anything at all.

​​​​​​​just be deeply curious and exceptionally precise.

Thanks very much Adi 

Now I can summarize the reasons causing my misunderstanding:

Every time after I have noted a sensation at a spot, if I keep my attention at that spot, given my current level of ability/clarity, I cannot tell whether I am still sensing the unchanging same sensation, or actually I have mistaken the memory of that sensation as my continuous sensing of that same sensation.

-And thinking that I was required to increase the speed of noting, that was why the first thing I tried was to switch my attention from one spot to another spot to increase noting speed.

-Or if I chose to stay on the same spot, I thought I need to sort of “switch off” my attention and then re-establish my attention again to catch the new sensations, preventing myself from mistaking the memory of the last sensation as my continuous sensing.

Your advice “…..and then in the grossness of a sound or body sensations you start catching components that last as long as the gross object, or are shorter in duration. When the individual object is shorter in duration the next target of concentration is taken by the mind faster and thus speed of momentary concentration naturally increases” really helped me. Thanks!

Hi Alex

Very happy to be of help.

A thought that I had and felt that I might share with you.

In meditation, of any kind really, there's a lot of learning of the technique that happens iteratively. We work with some instructions in order to get started, we apply ourselves and we discover that we don't fully understand the instructions, we seek advice from fellow practitioners and we take that advice to the cushion held lightly as a hypothesis to be tested. This is iterated a few times initially.

Then our personal experience starts to accumulate and the conceptual explanation of what the meditation is, and what we are supposed to do becomes much clearer.

During this process and pretty much up to the finish line, its really good to stay in touch with a sangha / group of fellow practitioners and ask for tips, pointers, clarifications. DhO is wonderful sangha with lots of highly experienced yogis.

I suggest to you that you keep a log here. with the first entry being the instruction set written in a crisp, but clear way. Following that a brief log of each sit (ideally) and any confusion and lack of clarity you may have.

May you be wildly successful

Hi Adi,
You are so right! Even though I have read many books on the Theravada’s stream of insight meditation, I found that I don’t really understand the stuff when put into my practice. I definitely need a group of fellow practitioners to ask for tips.

​​​​​​​I live in Hong Kong where most of the people think Buddhism = Worship of the Buddha, and for those who do practise meditation, they usually practise concentration meditation. Some people have heard of Theravada, but most of them don’t know about the Theravada’s insight meditation, so virtually there is no body to ask for and feel so lonely.

This platform is really a life saver for me!