I’m curious what everyone thinks about this topic. As a newbie I believed that in order to rise through the stages of insight one had to note or otherwise be mindful at tracking hits on all the sense doors, or most, as ignoring smelling and tasting seems to work out fine, and is likely another discussion.

Today I sat and mostly did half-assed noting but instead work through ideas on suffering. How everyone suffers, and are fearful and are stressed and as such lean on addictions, etc. AND STILL, I rose through the jhanas rather easily to EQ, just by thinking through, what i believed, to be important stuff for overall off the cushion progression.

So what gives? When do we minfully think, strategize, etc.? When do we note like a demon on crack?

Shon the Sufferer

Will that keep working, do you think?

I don’t know, i will keep investigating.

Oh, and to be clearer, I wasn’t even remotely alluding, in my mind, to the Gradual vs Direct insight debate. (which i don’t really want to touch with a ten jhana pole on a ten year old dharma board).

Was making an observation really about feeling a constant pull of meditation and of stages cycling, or trying poorly to do so in my case, when just doing mundane living.

Hope that clears up some.
or if not and you feel like subjecting yourself to a pre-stream entry log.... ;) it’s easy to find.