Daniel J. practice

I am not a doctor, but I do suffer from fibromyalgia, and it might help to look it up on the internet and see if there are any exercises that you might do. I am not trying to give medical advice, only point out that some kind of targeted gentle stretches on a routine basis (as in daily) might make a difference. In my case, if I don't do it just about every day I feel noticeably worse pretty darn soon. For example, after my recent surgery I broke away from my routine, and wham! symptoms came back.

For awhile I went to yoga classes, but yoga used as a form of workout is bad for me (I'd reach a certain level of competence and then throw my back out). Most exercise classes tend not to be tailored to individual needs, and people try to keep up and then get slammed. In any case, I hope you find a solution. Not having health insurance makes things extremely difficult.

"Oh, but if it were so simple that there were either itching or not itching, sound or not sound... but sometimes it just seems as though there may be itching or not itching, or maybe neither or maybe not any of the above, or maybe it's all just confusion? "

Yeah, I noticed Kenneth lists that as one of his notes. Maybe others who have used his method can explain. I have met him several times and know him socially, but haven't used his specific list of notes. I think from your reply that maybe the confusion is simply about the noting practice itself. Like when that one-second mark comes along you kind of go "oh ****, okay, gotta note something. what should I note?" It is a learned skill. Can someone else here who has used Kenneth's noting make a suggestion? When I did noting, I used a fixed list (sound (anything heard), image (anything seen), feel (any skin/muscle sensation) and so forth - there were only six words to choose from, one for each sense organ. The key is to note just the one thing that is foremost in your attention, not look around at all the different sensations and try to pick one. And the way I did it, if nothing else jumped out as the dominant thing, I'd say "breath". Is that helpful at all? It shouldn't be quite so much of a struggle, so perhaps some advice from the peanut gallery can help fine tune the practice. Maybe someone experienced (or Kenneth or one of his recommended teachers) could do a skype session with you to practice it together, which can help. Wishing you well!

hmmm.... fibromyalgia symptoms sound somewhat similar. Interesting. No known cause, not much treatment, other than medication, and general health advice, no known prevention.

It's interesting that other people don't experience a ton of pain like this. I had pretty much just decided that if there was pain, well... oh well, just keep going. I'm still not sure what more I could do about it that I don't do already, other than medication.

Are you in pain 24/7, or only when you meditate?

Giragirasol -
Thanks for the comments. Often times, I note confusion when I don't know what else to note, as you mentioned. I think that was what Kenneth suggested to me, when he was teaching me.

I guess I would be up for a skype session with a teacher, but it didn't work out with Kenneth, and I guess I'm a little hesitant to go through that again. And, I don't really have the money to be shopping around for teachers right now anyway.

I should say, that my practice keeps progressing. It is very difficult, haphazard, painful, and slow (when compared with other yogis here). But, it keeps progressing. And, so I just keep doing my best and making that slow and steady progress. If there is something that will help, I'm all ears.

At any rate, I'll do the Mahamudra noting tonight and report back on my experience.

Post #47 is really good. I think you are doing fine.

Kenneth's approach to noting is for the yogi to come up with their own labels. This is different than Shinzen's approach, for example, which is to categorize sensations and thoughts into pre-determined categorys of experience.

The whole point of noting is to get you to look closely at sensations as they arise. If you label something you are experiencing on every breath (which works out to about once every 12 seconds), or both on the in breath and out breath (6 seconds) , or every second, then chances are you are paying attention this current moment. (And every 30 minute sit will give you several hundred chances to practice noting, so you'll get better quickly.) If there are long gaps between noting, chances are you are day dreaming. No big deal, start again.

It's important to really look very closely at the sensations you are experiencing. Pain can be hot, cold, prickly, vibrating, sharp, dull, achey, deep, shallow, light, heavy, big, small, etc. etc. The more specific you are labeling, the more you are aware of the sensations of the moment... and the more awake you are becoming!

What are you experiencing now? How do emotions feel, how do thoughts feel, how does the body feel, how does the breath feel? Just groove on being an explorer of these sensations and describe them as simply as possible. Anger can be hot, alert, tense. Sadness can be dull, sleepy, achy. How specifically can you see sensations, how would you describe them? Have fun with it!

Don't worry about perfection, just say what word comes to mind . Really experience the current moment and describe it as best you can. That's it. That's meditation using noting as a technique. It's simple to understand, but takes a while to get used to. It works. It puts you very in touch with the current moment, which is where the big insights happen.

"Post #47 is really good. I think you are doing fine."

Do you care to expand on what you mean about post #47? I think I'm doing fine, too. But, I'm ok with doing better.

Not sure if this will apply to your practice or not, Daniel, but when noting I found in my practice that I would be noting things coming up in my experience, but I was only sort of catching them with part of my attention, not really getting fully absorbed with the object. Or I'd be noting rising / falling, knowing vaguely in the back of my mind that was what the breath was doing, but being partially distracted and not synced with it.

I found what was key to me making fast progress, was to make sure that my noting was really syncing with the sensation exactly in the moment as it arose, and that I was making contact with the sensation(s) / object.

For example, I use the breath as object, and when I follow the breath, it's as though I am resting my attention gently on the abdomen, and holding it firmly but gently there against the sensations making up the breath. Some teachers might say you're rubbing the object with attention, others might say you're face-to-face with sensations.

This was key for me. If this makes sense to you or helps in practice, great. If it just seems confusing or doesn't help in practice, then feel free to disregard or ask specific questions to clarify.

metta!

Justin

"Do you care to expand on what you mean about post #47? I think I'm doing fine, too. But, I'm ok with doing better."

Sure, the level of detail is pretty good and you are picking up on tingles, itches, and restlessness, jumpiness -- sensations that have movement or flow as part of their nature. Plus you are reporting that "Noting was strong and precise with the phenomena as they arise." for at least part of the sit. That's pretty good!

Hope that helps!

"I found what was key to me making fast progress, was to make sure that my noting was really syncing with the sensation exactly in the moment as it arose, and that I was making contact with the sensation(s) / object. "

Yeah, thanks for that Justin. This is much of what I have been working on. Easier said than done, however. I find it very tricky to get the mind to synch with the sensations exactly in the moment as it arose. I think I find it trickier to synch like that when using the outloud noting technique, too. But, I think I've found some other benefits to that technique in some situations.

1/27/12
Sit/recline: 1 hour '“ evening
Practice: Tried to do Mahamudra noting (outloud), ala the instructions here:
www.buddhistgeeks.com/2011/07/mahamudra-noting/
For about the first ten minutes, I did the listening (to distant ships) technique and used 'listening' as my primary object. Then, I did more of the mahamudra noting without trying to listen, but every once and a while, I would give the listening another shot, and try to do it. It was very difficult to listen for distant ships and caused pain in my head. For noting, I tried to note any pleasant mindstate or sensation. At first, I was also deliberately trying to 'transmute' unpleasant experiences, by responding to them with something that feels good, and then noting that pleasant experience. After about a half hour, this became very difficult to do the transmuting, so I just noticed what was going on, and kept trying to do a transmutation, or a listening, and every once in a while, something pleasant would come up and I would note that outloud. I still noted lots of things, somewhat automatically almost, but not outloud. I only made outloud notes for the things which were positive (or sometimes for things that were neutral, like 'hearing'). I found the practice difficult, but kept trying to do it. I had some sense that all along there was something positive happening that I just wasn't noticing, but I couldn't find it much of the time.
(continued....)

Phenomena: Started calm, and enjoyed the listening exercise. So, enjoyment, and calm, and happiness, etc. There was some flickering images around the eyes in the beginning (as is usually the case when I sit to meditate after being in a higher stimulation environment during the day). I noted 'listening, listening'. Then, occasionally, unpleasant mindstates or thoughts or pains, etc would arise [three characteristics nyana?], and I would respond with 'acceptance, equanimity, calmness, allowing, welcoming, appreciation, enjoyment, amusement...' This went on for about ten or fifteen minutes or so. I kept going back to the listening and noting positive stuff. I had a short experience of softness and love that led to what seemed like very subtle bliss that lasted for a very short time, not even long enough to note 'bliss.' [maybe crossing the A&P event? - though it really wasn't anything to write home about]

Then, there started to become gaps where I wasn't aware of anything positive [dissolution?], so I would just watch stuff arise and pass and then try to 'transmute', but no 'transmuting' would happen, so I'd just keep watching stuff arise and pass, and then every once in a while a positive thing would come and I would note it. My mind wasn't wandering much during this time, as I was fairly aware of what was happening, and even noting things mentally through much of it. At some point, I saw an unpleasant mindstate arise, and then went to 'transmute' it and realized that it was already long gone and I had no idea what the mindstate was or how to 'transmute' it. At that point it became clear that things were passing away too quickly for me to 'transmute' any of them. So, I sat and watched stuff.
(continued...)

At this point, I had been fidgeting quite a bit, even opening my eyes at a couple points, and I started to lie down. Then, I was lying down for most of the rest of the sit, and moving fairly often to adjust posture.

I watched stuff arise and pass, and thought to myself that it wasn't really that bad, and so there must be some positive thing happening. And, so I looked for equanimity, but I couldn't find any equanimity anywhere. At one point, I found an 'okness,' so I noted that. At some points, there was amusement at how difficult this practice was, so I noted that. And, at times equanimity was there, and calm, and quiet, and relaxation. But, mostly it was those sort of arising and passing blur of sensations, pain, confusion, blankness, etc. which I was simply noticing without noting outloud.

Toward the end of the hour, there was some strong restlessness, [reobservation?] and my eyes opened, and I was sorta fidgeting around and just kinda moving around and stuff. Then, I just sorta coasted to the end of the hour, but don't remember what I was noting, but I think I got a few more mahamudra notes in before time was up.

When the bell rang, I was calm and didn't feel any hurry to get up, but still in a lot of pain, etc.

Nighttime: I woke up in the middle of the night, and meditated. I decided to go back to a more freestyle practice: 'It's all just sensations.' I was just watching everything as sensations. Lots of insights.

1/27/12
Sit: 1 hour '“ morning
Phenomena: Thoughts, agitation, calm, confusion, frustration, seeing, looking, investigating, planning, discussing/commentary, surprise, interest, hope, despair, jumble, scattered, stuff, things, this, pain, restlessness, insights, imaging thoughts, theorizing, hearing, itching, tingling, pressure, relaxing, tensing, releasing tension, tightness, anger, trying, struggling, trying to figure it out, instructing thoughts, waiting, gladness
Practice: I mostly was going freestyle trying to just notice what is happening and notice each experience as sensations from moment to moment. I was noting throughout most of the sit. The practice seemed to go well. It seemed like a good and productive effort.

1/27/12
Sit: 1 hour '“ evening
Phenomena: Thoughts a lot at first, and tension and pain in head. Some clear noting. Embarrasment. Then, about 20 minutes in... a deeper calm and tranquility. Some grasping at the tranquility. Then, mind wandered a bunch, then around the last ten minutes, very sleepy and still wandering mind. Through most of the sit, I could feel the tingling on my face, especially the upper lip, and often was aware of the breath coming in and going out. There was tension in the head, around the eyes which relaxed some.
Practice: My head hurt after all sorts of thinking and discussing meditation. So, I knew that I had to sorta relax this part of my mind/face/head. I was mostly relaxing and trying to see what would happen.
Self-Evaluation: I don't know if this was good practice or not. It seemed at least, to be less stressful than the other sits.

1/28/12
Sit/walk: 1 hour '“ evening
Phenomena: Thoughts. Mind wandered fairly often. Lots of tingling on face throughout sit. Calmness, lots of relaxation and releasing tension. Pleasant, joyful. Last twenty minutes, very very sleepy. Some walking, still sleepy and in pain.
Practice: Noting, but still with a freestyle approach. Appear to be gaining momentum with practice, more skillful noting, and insights into practice. Yet, still so much confusion (about the practice).

1/29/12
Sit: 90 minutes at Dharma Punx group in Santa Cruz '“ evening
Phenomena: Before ariving, meditation in car, tingles across face, vivid sounds. Relaxed. Enjoying the moment. During sit, more relaxed, tingles, enjoying moment, some drifting thoughts. During dharma talk, more relaxed, tingles, enjoying moment, many thoughts about the dharma talk, critiquing thoughts, analysis thoughts, etc.
Practice: More freestyle. Not sure what I'm doing. Mindfulness, being aware of what's happening as things arise.

1/30/12
Sit: 60 minutes '“ morning
Phenomena: Relaxed, calm, enjoying this moment of being alive. Tingles, prickles mostly around head. Light buzz/tension patterns across face and body. Some love/longing from time to time. Listening, hearing. Some drifting thoughts here and there. Some pressure/tension/pain in head '“ more toward the beginning of sit, lessing after about 30-40 minutes. At about 45 minutes in, discomfort in legs, and pain. At 50 minutes, adjust legs. At 56 minutes, stand and walk for the last 4 minutes, mind wandering.
Practice: More freestyle. Not sure what I'm doing or what I'm practicing. Mindfulness, being aware of what's happening as things arise. Some noting.