Giulio B. practice journal

About to do 20 lying + 10 stretching + 20 lying noting.

How has your noting been going?

"TravisGM":399tdwms wrote: How has your noting been going?[/quote:399tdwms]
Hello, thank you. If I tried to answer your question I would get crazy for a couple of hours and then eventually give up. I really don't know how my noting is going, this is why I don't say anything about it. I can sort of grasp that the objective would be to "catch" all mental phenomena, the one going on right now for example. Though this seems to be a natural process, non do-able, Noting would be a means to trick the brain into putting itself in that mode. I know that mental things are sticky and have a sort of grabbing and dragging power, suffering activates intensely there. In very rare times they get recognized at their beginning stage of life though, and the grabbing power either does not activate or it dissolves. In that case the associated suffering also dissolves (to re-emerge a split of second later with another phenomena), and there is suddenly excitement. Though I can't voluntarily activate this thing. Also motivation fluctuates greatly.

What would have you answered at my place?

(about to do noting right now).

Missed yesterday. About to note for 20 minutes in the lying position, 10 minutes stretching, and another 20 minutes lying. Tomorrow morning is the first day of compulsory getting up by 7:59:59 am. If that is missed, I can't practice for that day.

I have done two concentration sessions the previous two days in substitution for the noting. I couldn't do the noting because I didn't get up on time (8 a.m.), but at 9, and this is the rule I set. No noting until I wake up on time. I have experimented on concentrating on a touching sensation on the forehead, because i have some difficulties with breath-following (counting). It was a half-success I'd say. Tomorrow morning I'll get up in time, no doubt.

Staggering success: got up before 8 a.m. for two days in a row. That's just because the construction workers came here at 7:30, but it's valid for the sake of counting nonetheless. Yesterday i missed the meditation appointment. Today I'm going to do the double in one session: 20 min + 10 min +20 min + 10 min + 20 min + 10 min + 20 min of noting, where the 20's are lying on the gym mat and the 10's are stretching/light exercising. Start in 25 minutes.

Getting-up time still good. The final objective is to be able to get up at 7 every morning. I'm at 8-9 right now.
About to start noting (5 minutes late).

About to do the noting session. I decided that the "practice only if you can get up from bed by 8 a.m." rule is cancelled, because there's no more traction. Now the priority is shifted at maintaining a steady and qualitatively high practice.

About to do 50 min. of noting. "Doubling the dose" started today.

Edit: done 10 minutes of "texting" just to play around. 74 words in total.

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Edit: about to do 50 min. of noting. (7 minutes late)

Update: done about 45 minutes of noting this morning, about to do 45 minutes of noting right now (38 minutes late)

45 minutes of noting starting right now (6 minutes late).

Update: 45 minutes of noting starting now (30 minutes late)

Update: 45 minutes of noting starting now, in time.

Update: 45 minutes of noting starting now (38 minutes late). Being late is destructive.

It is 1.10 a.m., missed meditation because I went to sleep in the afternoon and woke up at 10 p.m. I'm going to do it right now. This time I'll have a notebook beside me, so I can write down some notes or facts I don't want to forget.

A couple of days ago I stated: "doubling the dose starts today..." alluding at a second period of meditation in the morning. Couldn't do it more than once. It is Okay for me now just perfecting the practice at 1 time/day. Furthermore, I feel the practice has stabilized in the sense that I do not need anymore social pressure to push me doing it. So I won't need any more announcements like "About to do 45 minutes of...".

I'll use a new format for posting from now on, to give a sense of order. It is the one below.

---

Practice journal of Saturday 28/12/2013

Current schedule: Choiceless noting 1/day, 45 minutes, starting at 21:30 p.m.

Done: yes, late

Considerations: A few periods of daydreaming, lasting 30-60 seconds I think. For the rest nothing relevant. Although I'm not sure, I think I would need more concentration for this to work out.

---

Practice journal of Sunday 29/12/2013

Current schedule: Choiceless noting 1/day, 45 minutes, starting at 21:30 p.m.

Done: yes, late

Considerations: none.

Practice journal of Monday 30/12/2013

Current schedule: Choiceless noting 1/day, 45 minutes, starting at 21:30 p.m.

Done: yes, late

Considerations: great deal of self-criticism, comments about personal inefficacy, and general rumination. I am currently ruminating.

Practice journal of Tuesday 31/12/2013

Current schedule: Choiceless noting 1/day, 45 minutes, starting at 21:30 p.m.

Done: yes, late

Considerations: periods of bombardments by feelings of futility and ineffectiveness concerning the practice, intervalled by periords of satisfaction and self-efficacy, always in relation to practice.

Practice journal of Wednesday 1/1/2014

Current schedule: Choiceless noting 1/day, 45 minutes, starting at 21:30 p.m.

Done: yes, punctual

Considerations: none

I didn't post anything since 10 days ago. My practice has stepped up significantly in quantity, now I do 2 40-minutes flame kasina sessions and 2 45-minutes noting sessions daily, for a total of 4 periods. The sequence is: kasina+noting before dinner, and kasina+noting after dinner. I am trying to make the dinner a noting period too, so to make a continuus. This upstep in the practice thing started because I began seeing Kenneth again on popexpert, and I want to get this started. I have told him I have 8 free months and said i wanted to get access concentration and in the nana territory by the end. He said stream entry and the first four jhana, and I agreed.

There are good days and bad days, generally 1:1, somewhat alternating. Today is bad day. Anxiety and stress were high for reasons that I don't even know, and the whole thing crashed during the first kasina session (right at the beginning), i gave up. Exasperation I think was the thing... I'm going to do and complete the other part of today schedule at any cost, starting now.

Giulio,

Sorry for the delayed response, I thought that the site became inactive completely but obvious is not!

Does Kenneth advise you to do this kind of meditation? And what is your total meditation time everyday?

This site is not disabled, but new registrations are. (Due to a large amount of spam registrations) This forum is eventually moving to awakenetwork.org as Chris mentioned in another thread. If you want, you can register there as it is currently much more active. However, if you keep posting here, the posts will eventually get moved there as well.

"TravisGM":2a63b23z wrote: Giulio,

Sorry for the delayed response, I thought that the site became inactive completely but obvious is not!

Does Kenneth advise you to do this kind of meditation? And what is your total meditation time everyday?[/quote:2a63b23z]
Hello Travis, thank you for asking. I've moved this thread to awakenetwork where I've pointed out the answers. Thanks again.