The four foundations and traditional noting practice.

Hello, everyone!
Would appreciate some feedback should you care to give some!
Ihave been trying to follow the sequential approach to noting, as in first, bodily sensations, then pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, followed by emotion (I believe mind states?) and finally thought.
As opposed to the way I earlier understood Mahasi Sayadaw's instructions, I understand that in each "segment" you only note sensations belonging to each category and exclude the others?
I notice that this gets me frustrated, and I don't note "frustration" unless I am in the emotion-part...

Have I got this part wrong.
I know that it's easy to obsess about technique, but any advice would be great.

I have basically done something like devoting part time to going through the four foundations, the bystander, and then just general noting. Sometimes I just notice without noting for a while (a little like how I used to do it before I found this place, but now with the foundation of having done the other parts first).

Hi Meekan.
Seems to me that the challenge, if you're going to isolate which segment you want to focus on, is that often what is predominant in awareness will be something from one of the other segments--i.e. you're trying to focus on body sensations only, but thoughts are popping up and becoming predominant in your awareness and perhaps causing distractions. Another possible challenge would be that certain sensations might seem difficult to classify and cause you to pause and think about which segment that sensation belongs to.
Are these the sources of your frustration?
I can see the value of trying to isolate in the way that you're doing--you might identify subtler aspects of what is going on. Much of the Goenka method, for example, seems to be about isolating body sensations to an extreme degree of precision/thoroughness. Hmmm...

Hi, that's it spot on!
Both that all "other segment stuff" comes in and I "can't" note them. And also I fall into a trap of trying to even out the different types of content.
If I only note "unpleasant" 20 times, my mind rushes in and tries to find "neutral" or "pleasant".

Maybe I am understanding it wrong?
Thanks for discussing with me!

"Hi, that's it spot on!
Both that all "other segment stuff" comes in and I "can't" note them. And also I fall into a trap of trying to even out the different types of content.
If I only note "unpleasant" 20 times, my mind rushes in and tries to find "neutral" or "pleasant".

Maybe I am understanding it wrong?
Thanks for discussing with me!
"

When the mind rushes in to "try and find something" note that as maybe "searching" , "investigating" , "curiosity". Note WHATEVER is centre stage. Even those mind states that trick you into thinking you're not doing it right. They are taking centre stage over the unpleasantness or whatever you were noting before, so now note that, then when something else takes centre stage, note that and so on. WHATEVER is centre stage is what you should be noting....even thoughts and sensations of "I" when they arise. Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

Ahh, so maybe I was to rough on the "exclusion of all other" mode.
The way I understand what you're saying is in the manner of "returning to the rising and falling of breath", I may focus on one foundation, as in "body sensations", and then do as you suggest when mind wanders...

Thanks for helping me interpret and investigate the ways of doing this!

I have been watching this thread like a hawk. I've got my fingers crossed that someone writes an essay on noting practice as it relates to the four foundations of Mindfulness.

Hi there are a number of good articles around which may help

check out www.buddhanet.net/xmedfile.htm

www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/mahasit1.pdf

www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/allkunda.pdf

"Hi there are a number of good articles around which may help

check out www.buddhanet.net/xmedfile.htm

www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/mahasit1.pdf

www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/allkunda.pdf "

Also, see this DhO thread (URL below) for a couple of attachments--new and very clear translations from Mahasi Sayadaw's "Manual of Insight," 1945. You'll have to scroll down a bit in the thread to find them.

tiny.cc/2orvh

Sounds like you might benefit from paying close attention to the difference between "looking for" and "looking at"--a distinction that seems pretty important, although, as Nikolai points out, you can always just note everything related to the act of investigating or searching.
With neutral sensations, for example, it would almost seem that you would have to "look for" these a bit, as pleasant or unpleasant sensations would be so much more likely to pop into your awareness in a more noticeable way...

And I liked this quote from Clayton (sorry to hijack!)

"Dis-embed. But make sure you understand what you are dis-embeding from. I found *for me* what was more important than noting quickly was thoroughly seeing the 3 characteristics in everything I noted and then naturally dis-embedding... "