Hi again,

I've recently swtiched to mahasi noting style practice after 5-6 years concentration based practices, (with couple of years yoga before that to give full history).

Whether it is coincidental or an effect of the change in practice, I have noticed a loss of the kind of the mental/emotional stability I had been accustomed to over recent years.  My moods have been fairly up and down, and a higher level of impulsiveness has been observed.  This manifests itself in anger, appetite, 'lustfulness', (to use an archaic term!) but also energy to do more constructive projects too.

Any ideas??  Just normal human life or a common experience from the practice?

Thanks in advance

Concentration just blocks thinking.  When you allow thoughts in you'll see what your conditioning is.  With noting you'll have to be more consistent to get much out of it.  When there's awareness of experiences there's no clinging but if you let go of that awareness then the old conditioning can arise and affect your actions quite easily.  

When the practice is done right there should be withdrawal symptoms because we are addicted to the neurotransmitters released based on our thinking.  The main thing to notice is if there's greed, hatred or delusion present.  When they aren't there then that's some success right there. Build off of that.  It's important to learn about dependent origination and to see it in your practice.

http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/210/talk/9553/

thank you for the answer, and for the link.  

With regards to needing to be 'more consistent' with noting, do you mean maintaining the practice off the cushion, or just being regular with it or more applying it to each experience which arises?  EG to use my own recent experience, just note things like anger, despondency, giddyness etc??

howdy hugh,
instability is associated with different phases along the progress of insight and tends to stand out if you're used to the very stabilizing sensations and mind states of concentration. i always try to see it as progress.

to see whether its practice related or not requires a longer view than just a sit or two.  a practice log can help see the long term trends and a retreat will compress those swings into a tighter timeframe possibly unveiling certain patterns.

tom