During sitting meditation:

Do you pay preferential attention to the subtle sensations or the gross?

If when noting gross sensation do you note then move on or continue noting until it passes away?

If when noting subtle sensations do you note then move on or note until the sensation passes away?

If there are multiple sensations is it better in the beginning when noting to note rapidly moving between sensations (gross or subtle) or to note and only move when the sensation passes away?

Should a beginner at noting note and reflect on arising and passing away only or even at the early stage reflect also on Anatta and Dukha?


I hope these questions are clear and I will appreciate any advice that people can give.

What is the difference between the two? - could you define the two terms? Whatever is there while observing a specific object should be noted, whatever the definition or texture of it is.



Sensations are constantly arising and passing away, there is never a need to wait until they pass away as they do that of their own accord all the time. You can move your attention to other sensations than the ones being observed if you wish to do so. (ie. I generally start out with the movement of my abdomen, then depending on what I want to do I move to a different body part, stay there, leave my attention to move freely,... This can be very intuitive or highly regimented, up to you to find out what works best. Whenever my attention wanders I return it to the movement of the abdomen.)



What you are trying to achieve is to pay clear, accurate, concise and preferably quick attention to your moment-to-moment experience. You always have the option of moving your attention, changing your object, or changing the focus of your attention (zooming in/zooming out, concentrating on the beginning/end of sensations, observing the in-between stage,...).



It appears to me that the reflection occurs of its own accord, nothing necessary apart from carrying on the noting regardless of what arises. A certain understanding of what is implied by impermanence, no-self and suffering occurs regardless of whether you reflect on it actively or not (ie. the three characteristics are implicit to your actual moment-to-moment experience).

Thank you for your help. I hope I can clarify my thinking further.

By gross sensation I mean an area of pressure or heaviness or pain etc, by subtle I mean vibrations or tingling - a sense of effervescence where individual points are not always clear.

So in my sitting I may have a dense / tight area encompassing most of my calf muscle (gross) and tingling vibrations in my fingertips (subtle).

The gross sensation may last 20 minutes or more before changing and thus demonstrating A&P. I picked up an assumption somewhere that 'deconstructing' sensations through observation into ever finer sensations was 'the way to go'. However I also would not wish to neglect the 'vibrations' already present.

I agree sensations arise and pass away of their own accord all the time but I assumed I needed to train my mind to observe this process (especially as many are often outside of our untrained capacity to be aware of them) and to increase the speed with which I do so.

Okay, previous reply deleted as I have completely misunderstood what you wrote. (very very tired, probably should have waited before I wrote a reply).

I have no idea whether it is a better idea to go for the easy sensations or for the hard ones. Let me know when you find out.

I tended early on to go for the subtle aspects of the strongest sensations, meaning, I would try to see the strongest sensations or clearest sensations vibrating, arising and vanishing, and notice things about them like the oscillation between sensations of images of the thing, the physical aspects of the thing, the mental echoes of the perceptions of the bare physical sensations, and the like.

Helpful?

Very Helpful - thank you