Minimal noting terminology

As has been mentioned many times on this forum, noting is a wickedly effective tool for first gear practice. For some.

For me, I am still struggling, and part of the issue is terminology. In Kenneth's "Yogi Toolbox" discussion on Buddhist Geeks ( www.buddhistgeeks.com/2010/03/the-yogi-t...vestigating-reality/ ), a multi-layered approach is presented. And in that approach, by far the most challenging for noting-challenged practitioners is the "thought" layer, closely followed by the "mind state" layer. And I would suggest that most of the challenge lies in terminology. One stumbles over the words to use when noting, even when we know that getting the exact or correct term is not required.

So, my question is this: is the effectiveness of noting, specifically its ability to disembed you from a particular mental layer, affected by the terminology? In other words, is it important to identify "planning thoughts", "performance thoughts", "investigating thoughts", "remembering thoughts", "imagery", etc., distinct from one another, or would it be equally effective to drastically reduce the set of terms?

In the "feeling tone" layer mentioned in the article, it is sufficient to use "pleasant", "unpleasant", or "neutral". Can the thought layer be similarly reduced (and I stress again, without reducing its effectiveness)? For example, can it be as simple as "memory" (or "past"), "planning" (or "future"), "picture" (or "image"), and "story"?

If it cannot be reduced without compromising its effectiveness, fine, and I'll soldier on. But if the expert wisdom is that a very small noting "dictionary" is sufficient, then I propose we spend some time nailing it down to remove this as an obstacle.

I'm very curious about what others will say, because I find myself in a similar situation as you described in your practice thread... essentially, sometimes doubting how can making these simple noting statements make any difference. Part of that relates to your question about how to describe what's happening, how nuanced the vocabulary should be etc. etc.

Last night I kinda took a step back and realized I didn't know how how to describe what I was feeling and I found myself saying "hard to see, don't know, struggling, unclear, awkward, dumb, blind, stupid, dumb, avoiding, no focus" which is how I thought and felt, and also I noted "changing, moving, stopped, don't know, blurring" which I saw. It was actually more honest and it put the experience much more in my face. ...and then, of course, it changed some more. But it really seemed to help experience the experience of just being outright confounded!

I don't claim noting expertise. For that I would defer to Kenneth. That said, I never practiced noting by using words. I paid attention to the flow of experience by having a mental "recognition" of whatever was occurring at any given moment. This could, I found, be done very fast but the speed was less important than the fact that I was attuned to the flow of experience and doing this as consistently as possible for extended periods -- as measured in minutes, not hours.

Not sure if that helps you or if it complicates things for you.

"
I paid attention to the flow of experience by having a mental "recognition" of whatever was occurring at any given moment. This could, I found, be done very fast but the speed was less important than the fact that I was attuned to the flow of experience and doing this as consistently as possible for extended periods -- as measured in minutes, not hours.

"

Clearly since Chris is so far along what he did works. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than it takes to get it done.
I'm beginning to think that with practice we can begin to really tell when we are penetrating experience/objects at the right amount to be effectively doing vipassana. For some that may be doing a practice like Chris, for others going through all the techniques in the tool box (feeling tone, etc), and everything in between. This could always be changing too, right?
The important thing is to figure out a way to be "attuned to the flow of experience" in just the right way.
For me right now it is becoming just slightly more involved than Chris' method. When I sit as soon as someting comes up -- sensation, vibration, itch, tickle, thought, image, -- I want to register that I see it by noting "there" or "next" or "that" or just that slight mental "hit" that Greco talks about (and that I think i remember getting flamed about by someone) while at the same time working pretty hard at staying at just that without going off into thoughts or analysis or commentary about what I am doing or perceiving ("there's no time to think about it"). Because, really, it is only when one is noting however they are noting that they are doing vipassana -- the reflection, etc. doesn't seem to be it at all -- until it is noted.
And, apparently once a second is fast enough -- but when you think about it that takes a pretty consistent serious practice attitude to pull off.

(

"
I don't claim noting expertise. For that I would defer to Kenneth. That said, I never practiced noting by using words. I paid attention to the flow of experience by having a mental "recognition" of whatever was occurring at any given moment. This could, I found, be done very fast but the speed was less important than the fact that I was attuned to the flow of experience and doing this as consistently as possible for extended periods -- as measured in minutes, not hours.

Not sure if that helps you or if it complicates things for you.

"

What you claim, and what others further down the awakening pole see, are very different. As Mike says "you did what works". I specifically am targeting the likes of you, Kenneth, and a few others to find out what works. Mahasi-style noting, taken very very literally, seems really cumbersome. I am a hacker at heart (and in practice, I suppose), and I want to deconstruct things to find out how/why they work, and then take away all the fluff that just gets in the way.

So, it helps a lot, and does not complicate.

To take your, and Mike's, comment, I have also considered the body sensations being noted as *where* they are, not *what*, so that an itch, burn, or numbness in the leg is simply "leg", "leg", "leg". No thought involved, just recognition.

"What you claim, and what others further down the awakening pole see, are very different. As Mike says "you did what works". I specifically am targeting the likes of you, Kenneth, and a few others to find out what works. Mahasi-style noting, taken very very literally, seems really cumbersome. I am a hacker at heart (and in practice, I suppose), and I want to deconstruct things to find out how/why they work, and then take away all the fluff that just gets in the way.

So, it helps a lot, and does not complicate.

To take your, and Mike's, comment, I have also considered the body sensations being noted as *where* they are, not *what*, so that an itch, burn, or numbness in the leg is simply "leg", "leg", "leg". No thought involved, just recognition."

I do the location noting as well.

I think my noting basically consists of: 'imagining' which is when I 'see' images in my mind, 'hearing' when I hear a sound or when I hear internal vocal chatter, 'craving' when I see a craving for something arise, aversion, 'intention to X' when I see intention arise, 'searching' when I see a searching for something to note arise, and all kinds of body sensations (itching, pain, etc), and all kinds of thoughts (future, past, etc).

I feel that when I really see the object well and it passes, if I got the noting right thats cool, if I didnt I can see an intention arises to try to figure out how to name it so I see that but I don't get involved and just continue to the next object.

I actually find that noting really helps me, as opposed to bare noticing, but I guess its really up to a meditator to try both approaches and see what works..

I don't know if we're in a position to get definitive answers to questions like these, but we can take good guesses based on collective experience and reasoning.

Based on my own experience, my hunch (in agreement with Chris) is that the core thing of importance is "mental recognition of the flow of experience," or as Alan Chapman put it in a recent interview, "paying attention to experience as it is." This is a kind of mental tracking (recognizing, attending, noting) of what is going on in awareness. Let's call that "mindfulness."

Mindfulness can be maintained without verbal labels. In my experience, noting does have some utility though. It's simple to do. It helps maintain continuity of mindfulness over time. It's good for monitoring your practice in the sense that it's easier to tell if you're noting than it is to tell if you're being mindful. I think the main thing about it, though, is that in order to label the contents of experience, you need to know what they are. In order to note you need to be mindful, and so noting is kind of a simple, automatic way of enforcing mindfulness.

If that way of thinking is right, then the precision of noting should only be as important as the precision of mindfulness. In general if you are being more precise in your mindfulness then in general you're less likely to be fooling yourself into thinking you're being mindful, or to go off mind-wandering. Also, I would guess that the more precise you are, the less likely you are to miss some of the subtler contents of experience. But great precision is also probably sometimes helpful but not necessary; e.g. Shinzen Young's system uses something like 14 labels total.

(con't)

In my experience there can also sometimes be downsides to noting, which include overexertion, getting too hung up on finding the right label, or finding that verbal labeling is too coarse, slow, or clunky to keep up the flow of experience. I also sometimes find myself mindlessly parroting labels, which suggests that noting is a useful but not foolproof way to guarantee that you're being mindful.

So, like many other things, I would guess that there isn't necessarily a right or wrong way to do this. There are different techniques that have different pluses and minuses. If we can agree about what the core mechanism of importance is, it would help add clarity to what aspects of practice are features that are often useful and to be advised (but can be tweaked to suit the individual and circumstance), and what aspects are really indispensable.

For me noting was important for getting a hook into the object, building momentary concentration and investigating the 3C's in saying that I found no need to get hung up on the terminology as it was just a tool to be used. I should add that I didn't always use words or syllables but a sought of mental stop when contact with the object was made.

Since this thread began I've been thinking a lot about all the hours of sitting I've done in the past year or so. And, within all those hours how much was spent actually practicing rather than thinking, planning, analysis, reflecting, figuring it all out, etc.
And I really think the actually practice time is really really low. Really low.
Which is why so much of my focus right now is on just getting the ability to be practicing rather than reflecting. (I swear -- as SOON as I get in the groove I automatically stop and think to myself how I'm in the groove and what it feels like and what it might mean and on and on and on -- it is a serious habit)

"I've been thinking a lot about all the hours of sitting I've done in the past year or so. And, within all those hours how much was spent actually practicing rather than thinking, planning, analysis, reflecting, figuring it all out, etc.
And I really think the actually practice time is really really low. Really low.
"

Exactly!!! We are here to do something, to get somewhere. There is this four-mile walk to town, and you can damn well be sure that we are *never* going to get there if we spend the entire first mile sitting on a rock by the side of the road picking our noses. For all its simplicity, this practice is hard to do correctly, and if we can simplify it even a little bit by agreeing what level of noting is necessary and sufficient, I would be a happy camper.

You are noting, paying attention to the flow of experience, so that you can have insight about what's really going on between sensory contact and the resulting mind effects. You do not need to be able to focus on that flow all the time you're sitting. You do need to be able to focus it in snippets and be able to do so consistently enough that you can observe it and draw some conclusions. In my experience once you start to see what's going on and develop some insight about it you will be in better shape. Before that the process is confusing and problematic and mysterious.

So my humble suggestion is that you try to observe the flow of experience with an eye toward watching exactly what happens as objects go from sensory contact to being cognized to being named to .... whatever they do in the mind - they become images, lead to thoughts and comparisons and so on. Then do it over again, and over again, and over again. The point of this is insight. Insight, insight, insight. What is your experience of the world like? How is it built, and from what? You will have insights develop from that and they will be Aha! moments. You will be able to build on those Aha! moments and have others, and others.

"Exactly!!! We are here to do something, to get somewhere. There is this four-mile walk to town, and you can damn well be sure that we are *never* going to get there if we spend the entire first mile sitting on a rock by the side of the road picking our noses. For all its simplicity, this practice is hard to do correctly, and if we can simplify it even a little bit by agreeing what level of noting is necessary and sufficient, I would be a happy camper."

I wrote something and posted it and then read what Chris said.
I think I'll just go with what Chris said.

I just noted primarily with these words up until 1st path.

Image, seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting, thinking, and anticipation, boredom, lost, confused, wandering, spacing out, investigating.

That was about it. Oh and at times when I just couldn't think fast enough I would use the word "noted". And like Chris, I would also have periods of just being aware of everything without noting. It worked.

One more quick point -- I found it more useful to focus on one object, pretty much as Daniel Ingram describes in MCTB. That changed as time went on but at first it was far, far more fruitful. The feeling in the area between my nose and mouth was number one, followed closely by the "buzzy" feeling in my hands. At some point sounds became critical, and then slowly the entire world map that was built in mind became the object, as odd as that sounds. Trying to follow everything as it flowed by was, at first, almost impossible for me.

Again, I am not an expert on noting as practiced by world class Mahasi-style noters, only on what worked for me

The key to noting, as I understand it, is to help frame the experience so that it can be known as it is. I think Chris' suggestion to really pay attention to the nature of changing phenomena itself is helpful. I'd also add that using a variety of notes can be extremely crucial for some. For instance, there may be a thought pattern arising wherein you are having images and auditory thoughts related to a past retreat or a past sit. Well, if you were to just note "past" you may miss out on the fact that this type of thinking could just be a very simple "remembering" or it could actually be "comparing". One is a neutral remembering of experience, the other is a judgmental comparing of one to the other. In my experience those two different notes actually change the way that the phenomena is known, such that a good specific note sometimes helps to unstick the mind from an aspect of experience which was previously unknown (i.e. I was embedded within) and therefore helped in developing liberating insight.

Of course, if you are obsessing over your terminology then it either a) isn't helpful or b) you're dark nighting and spewing a bit of that conceptual BS onto the forum. Either way, I wish you luck with your practice and encourage you to find what works, trusting your own sense of inner wisdom and guidance. Everyone who has responded here is pretty much just flapping their jaws (including me). ;-D

"... find what works, trusting your own sense of inner wisdom and guidance."

That really is the best advice of all, IMHO.

.... "Then do it over again, and over again, and over again. The point of this is insight. Insight, insight," insight. (-))

This is such an excellent and helpful thread to me, thank you all for the detailed advice.

I like what vjhorn said. Seems to me that just by reading and trying to intellectually understand the extensive, possible set of noting terminology alone seems to help me during practice to have greater sensitivity towards different aspects of experience I might not have been aware of before.

e.g. maybe before in my limited vocab I might just thought it was "wandering", when now I have a more accurate appreciation, perhaps "slight unpleasant frustration". That's not to mean that we have to use these words during each note, but some how I seem to have better granuality of what to look out for and the internal conceptualization of each noting is more accurate.

So I found Kenneth's earlier advice to me helpful - that it is okay to continue to closely observe the experience wordlessly, but once I lost that or wander, switching back to wordy noting brings me back in line. Sounds like changing gears within 1st gear to me. Does that make sense or am I BS-ing

"it is okay to continue to closely observe the experience wordlessly, but once I lost that or wander, switching back to wordy noting brings me back in line. Sounds like changing gears within 1st gear."-chuanose

Yes! That is the program, exactly. Use the mental noting to keep yourself on track. When everything is great and "the goose is hanging high," you do not have to note. But when you begin to wonder whether you are doing it right, or your mind begins to wander, or you are dull, sleepy, embedded... it's time to note! You can always note, and it is always beneficial, no matter what. If you are dull, no problem... note "dullness." If you aren't sure what you should be doing, no problem... note "uncertainty." Noting is your ultimate safety net; you are never wasting your time if you are noting. In other words, noting is the antidote for doubt. And doubt is the most crippling of the afflictions for beginning and intermediate yogis. All you have to do is note "doubt," and you are instantly bulletproof.

Yes, we know without a shadow of a doubt that people can attain full enlightenment without mental noting; there are many traditions that do not include mental noting and yet are able to produce enlightened yogis. But that does not negate the value of noting, and it does not mean that those of you who are not yet arahats should not note. Even after enlightenment, I predict that you will find immeasurable value in noting as a way to further deepen your practice and integrate your insight with your daily life.

Think of noting as you would think of practicing piano; you don't practice piano in order to get to the point where you can stop. You practice piano in order to master piano so you can continue to play beautiful music throughout your life!

You will never outgrow noting. You will just get better at it. And the more you do it, the more you will appreciate it.

Seeking the most efficient way to get enlightened is not the same as seeking a free lunch. There is no free lunch. Getting enlightened requires an enormous amount of focus and dedication, and an enormous amount of skill. That skill is built over a period of years in which you continue to refine and master your technique. Take the long view of progress, continue to note, continue to cultivate your concentration, continue to inquire into the knower of this experience, continue to surrender to the awareness that knows all of manifestation and is not other than manifestation. In this way, you will realize the happiness that is not dependent upon conditions.

I once heard of a cello teacher who taught high school musicians. Every year, all of her students qualified to go to "nationals" (the national competition that only the best musicians in the country qualify for). The teacher expected this; from her point of view, it was natural that any student of hers would advance to that level of proficiency.

I feel the same way about my students. I expect you all to succeed. I give you the tools to succeed. I will not accept your failure. I have told you how to practice and I will continue to clarify those instructions. You have no excuses. Do the practice as I have explained it and you will succeed. Contact me directly if you need clarification.

May you awaken in this lifetime,

Kenneth

Thanks Kenneth! That is incredibly clear and motivating.

Two quotes from Mahasi Sayadaw that compliment and reinforce Kenneth's teaching:

"In vipassana meditation what you name or say doesn't matter. What really matters is to know or perceive."
and
"There must be no gaps, but continuity between a preceeding act of noting and a suceeding one, between a preceeding state of concentration and a suceeding one, between a preceding act of intelligence and a suceeding one. Only then will there be successive and ascending stages of maturity in the meditator's understanding. Knowledge of the path and its fruition are attained only when there is this kind of accumulated momentum"

"Two quotes from Mahasi Sayadaw that compliment and reinforce Kenneth's teaching:

"In vipassana meditation what you name or say doesn't matter. What really matters is to know or perceive."
and
"There must be no gaps, but continuity between a preceeding act of noting and a suceeding one, between a preceeding state of concentration and a suceeding one, between a preceding act of intelligence and a suceeding one. Only then will there be successive and ascending stages of maturity in the meditator's understanding. Knowledge of the path and its fruition are attained only when there is this kind of accumulated momentum""

Yes! Someone else on here was talking about how they were noting "beep" for different sensations rather than trying to come up with the right words. I found that very helpful when my mind was dull the other day. I could move the attention to sensations but naming them was distracting so I just "beeped" them.