recording and learning

tried all kinds of stuff this morning, about 2-3 hours of experiments, 50 min of which was out loud first F noting, and after all that said and done the *only* thing that brought any peace at all was quads, and it only took a few of them to do it. Amazing. I guess Kenneth was right about that cognitive load thing, and seeing all 4F's is crucial, apparently. More later.

This is an ignorant question, but by quads do you mean every time you note you find a 1st F, followed immediately by finding a 2nd F, up to 4, so that every pass at noting takes maybe 4 seconds?

Yes - likely longer right now for me. Mind stuff extremely sticky and hard to see so many times out loud I am saying 'tension/unpleasant/.... unknown/images' or something after a few seconds.

Friday I was in a mode where I felt lighter, the mind was missing something in its process that allowed lots of extra experience in and there was this faint undercurrent of bliss or excitement underlying the sensations in the body as well as seeing many more thoughts as thinking as they occured, not me, not a problem.
- yesterday and today Its like I've never meditated at all before, no feeling of being able to focus, no clear nanas or anything, kind of like I woke up and I was 100% ego again, with all my old stuff firmly stuck to awareness.

42 more minutes noting doubles triples and quads out loud, ultra low gear...
Mindstates very hard to see as well as thoughts, but a few were nailed and resulted in some strong rushes of tingling, intense coursing through the body and head. Next time I try triples and quads I will do some anapana beforehand.

Ankylosing pain this morning lying in bed - must have ate something I shouldnt have but got the chance to lie there pain/pulsing/pain/aversion/self pity, etc...

did 35 min anapana and then 45 min noting, almost all out loud, 4f's with lots of triples and quads. Seeing repeating mental patterns, like images of worthlessness, desire to succeed, aversion to failure, self pity, old memories of being judged or punished unfairly, etc - seeing these over and over, near the end noting calm and stillness as the petterns started to fade. Interesting mental formations because they aren't verbal thoughts exactly, its like they are quick, vague images that arise before I can see them clearly and its like there is a dense layer of fog in front of them - I can see the same thing arise and notice its effects on the body a hundred times before the thought pattern is seen a bit more clearly, but its worth the effort!

10 min anapana, 45 min noting silent 4F's - some tensions and small pains, vague thoughts to begin, a few episodes of intense rushing tingles in the head and body, lots of crawling, mildly pleasant stuff in the front of the head, some pressure and pushing out 3rd eye, calm for a bit, settled in feelings of nausea and then pain for a while, shifting back and forth, the nausea moving up and then a grimace in the mouth as the tension moved up the front of the face, more pains and intense tingling sensations flavor of pain, some periods of calm, thinking never really got very clear this time, sort of a fog covering that sense...

noticing how a lighter touch works better with mental noting...

woke up again with intense pain in the body, arthritis again.

55 minutes - tried to do concentration first but was unable to, started focusing on pain and noting it, pain/unpleasant/aversion, desire to escape, self pity, pain, pain, etc - just kept noting like this, at one point felt like the whole body was vibrating at a very fast, fine freq and then later most sensations seemed to collect up into the head, although the pain never changed much, came and went a few times, was so intense in the end I felt nauseous although its hard to tell whats causing what.

45 min @ lunch, 10 breath to begin.
Breath felt ok, got somewhat continuous, felt like a touch of access, unable to feel pleasant sensations right now though.
Started out with random tingles and vibrations, then lots of crawly intense stuff in the head, some pulsing and wild intense vortexy stuff in the head, then what seemed plain for a bit, faded into extreme lazy, fuzzy feeling, drifting, then somehow went right into mild nausea and judgemental thoughts, frustration until the end, quit early, been having lots of it all day, anger, frustration, things I havent yet disembedded from so it seems like now is the time it wants to get worked on...

65 minutes, 25? on the breath he rest noting out loud, 4F's choiceless, though only noting objects that seem to be 'me' -
morning so concentration wasn't great although it seems to me that its better than it was a few weeks ago, although for some reason I get the feeling now that I need more solid concentration to see anything in body and mind lately.
not a whole lot going on at first, sensations in chest, rising, falling, tensions and tingling in face, head, legs, - had about 3-4 episodes, of decreasing intensity, where I could see the tensions in the head that immediately trigger a self image thought, pulling them apart and a rush of tingles and sensations in the head and body, touch of centerlessness, went through this and a patch of calm a few times, then noting was getting a bit better, tension, tension, neutral, observer thoughts, a few inadequacy thoughts, random stuff but was noted pretty well, noted a sense of space a number of times and had a few moments where all sensations including observer were 'over there', then arising mild confusion, the mind looking for a foothold, noting grasping, desire to stop sitting, lazyness a few times, then the bell.

55 min @ lunch, 10 breathing to start. Concentration not as solid as earlier,
started noting and had some small tensions and thoughts, a few shivering and tingling rushes, intense worming twisting stuff in the head, then the head getting a bit fuzzy, then lots of tiredness, lazy mindstate, desire to stop early x10, checking, rising and falling, Bell.

55 min anapana on breath entry to mouth. Was fairly on the object the whole time, sometimes mind was throwing energy elsewhere and sometimes not... What I could sense is that there is a clear shift where more of the mind is drawn into the sensation of breathing than not, some sort of line that is crossed where the mind gets calm and excited by the focus at the same time, I've had this before of course but I dont think I ever saw as clearly how it is related to what % of mental activity is not on the object - if I am solid on the object yet there is energy directed elsewhere then it doesnt happen but if I try to draw myself in more to the focus the scattered energy collects and then there is the shift to pleasantness and calm focus.

10 breath, 45 noting, no time to go into details, lots of tensions, pressure, mostly vedana negative, been angry at *everything* all day, ended with lots of lazy mindstate , tiredness feelings, heavyness...

55 min this AM, a few minutes breath but that wasn't happening, switched to noting
played with the eyes a bit then just let them do whatever, started out with pretty clear splitting off of the mind, some tension a few minutes later, a few small episodes of energy tingles rushing/bursting, seemed quick and subtle, perhaps calm after that and did notice a few minutes later things getting less calm, more jittery, then about a minute of feeling mild nausea, some odd shaking and instability, then just here, birds chirping, striving thoughts, rising and falling. Mapping thoughts like 'not sure Im even making any progess here' and 'did I fall off the maps or what?', evaluation thoughts, noting seemed difficult, tired mind today. Any shifts I have had the last few weeks since that odd peaceful shift that occured at the end of feeling the pulsing sensations have been hard to detect, like things getting smoother and smoother - feels like either energy has worked its way out and is quieter or mind need to be more concentrated to go deeper. Not sure which.

55 min @ lunch, ~10 min breath, getting somewhat closer to pure sensations of the breath, watching the mind pulling its tendrils out and launching them into the other senses or thinking while still on the object and pulling the strands back in to the sensations of the breath at the mouth entry. I can see one benefit of this is the mind learning how to perceive an object directly, clearly.

Noting started off plain, felt normal, rising and falling, tensions and thoughts, some rushing tingles after a while and calm, then some jittery and harsh stuff that was hard to see clearly and a few episodes of disjointed shaking, like awareness itself was shaking. As it wore on I could see how the noting had become a bit robotic and nudged it a bit in the direction of first perceiving an object clearly and then deciding what the object was and slapping the note on it - this seemed to wreak havok on the attachment to sensations inside the head, where I would observe a tension inside the head somewhere, note 'tension', then immediately I could see a self image arise off the sensation, noting 'self image' - this resulted in some very strong energetic releases, including one where the back of the neck and middle back of the head were wildly, intensely tingling, as if someone had hooked those areas up to electricity, vedana was neutral but intense and a few times 'annata' was noted as it was seen that nowhere in the sense field inside the head or thinking was there indeed a 'self' - just sensations and thoughts, no object of a self - there was a strongly disorienting feeling a few times when this was seen.

'knowledge of flu'

did 3x30 yesterday, first two samatha, last noting, did ~30 more min noting after the last sit, then about 1.5 hours samatha and some noting lying around with a fever...

yesterday wasn't completely lost, getting over sickness, noticing that following the breath is easy, simple, calming, takes little energy - noting wasn't really something I had the energy to do yesterday, probably did about an hour or so of following the breath.
more rest today...

55 min noting this AM - started with out loud mahasi and shifted to choiceless, trying to up speed a bit which takes more energy but seems to get some sort of ball rolling - had a few rushing energy releases along with seeing the sensations in the head as 'not me', thoughts of trying to grab onto something, resistance, and a few regulars, some inadequacy thoughts and remorse/failure thoughts. I notice over time that what gets noted loses power - these things used to really trigger lots of body sensation and looping, now very much less.

30anapana 30 noting with a metronome at 60 bpm...
Tiredness setting in during the concentration, almost fell alsleep a few times.
The metronome is cool. Seems like a good way to train the mind to note at a constant rate. I have figured out how to run the app on my phone along with the meditation timer so I will start doing my sits this way. Its hard to note mindstates at that speed yet although I can notice them a bit more as the session goes on. Seemed to hit tension all over, then itches, tingling and some shaking and energy rushing with pleasant tone a few times then calm, then settled in a state where much of the body sensation was nausea, in stomach, sometimes moving up to chest, was in the throat for a while then seemed to be all over a bit.

30 min noting this morning, with 60 bpm metronome. Dont think I like the way the noting tuens out with it, usually I am noting a bit slower than that, I see more mind stuff and notice lots of small things that occur much quicker than the noting - with the metronome I dont see that stuff. If I incline the mind towards a more mahamudra type of noting that seems to feel right, adds space to everything, around everything. I will try that more next time (I usually try to incline the mind in that direction in a small way just to see thinking more clearly) - in this noting session got some tensions and tingling/pleasant stuff, hard to see thoughts and subtle sensations.

I'm curious how your metronome experiment goes. I'm finding I can't really use it with my eyes closed, but it's really useful while driving. (I use a standalone metronome so I can change the speed by touch alone.) Lately, I'll note with it for a while, then note without it. When I switch it off, I find that my noticing seems to run in bursts more than not.

I've also found that if I'm noticing more phenomena than I'm noting, I need to crank up the speed. In the mornings, I start with 50, and bump it up whenever my mind wanders. I end up around 90 a half-hour later. On the drive home, I start at a faster tempo, and sometimes end up around 120+ by time I get home.

I will probably try it again but this morning it seemed to get in the way for some reason...

55 min at lunch - 10 concentration on the breath, the rest was out loud 4F's. Immediately got into intense pleasant tingling/creeping in the head at the start of noting (mind had split off during concentration as usual), had a bit of this for a while, some intense movment of sensation inside the middle of the head, a ball of it forming and moving up the neck through the head and then fading, after a while it just got normal, mostly calm, again noticing sensations in the head and the thoughts that stick to them, thoughts of a centerpoint, observer thoughts, implications of an object of an observer that cannot be seen. Feels to me like concentration needs to be stronger to rip those apart.

55 min noting at lunch - went from some minor pleasant tingling to calm and then a deep swamp of tiredness, daydreams, lazy mindtstates, desire to stop, pretty much that kind of stuff around and around the whole time - opened eyes for a a while to keep from nodding off.

WIll make an observation - in practice during the day sometimes I see the C's more readily than on the cushion, seems like the lighter effort and adhd-like attention jumping all over the place, not looking at one thing for more than a few notes at most *might* make a difference there. Not sure how/why, but if it works I should keep doing it

25min concentration, 35 min noting out loud this AM.
Mind still having difficulty staying on an object due to physical problems and big issue at work, succeeded somewhat after a while and switched to noting, started silent but daydreaming and drifting started to occor, noted them and turned on the out loud noter. Very little going on, calm, small tensions, vibrations, tingles, some failure thinking, self pity, work thoughts, just plain old body sensations and environment.

40 min noting at lunch, started with some breath but mind was all over, noting, random tensions and thoughts, had to go slower as the mind seems to be slow right now, takes a second to focus on a new sensation for some reason, could be the not getting veryt much sleep for days thing due to autoimmune rampage (which I just fixed so it should go away again)...near the end did get into rushing tingles in the head, seeing the mind switching back and forth from object to thought of observer and noting each... More later.

25 concentration and 20 noting, concentration was better, very still and mildly pleasant, mind split off a few times, then noting got fairly quickly into some energetic rushing, then calm, some indistinct unpleasant stuff that went by so quick I couldnt really see what it was clearly and then just here, tired, daydreams a bit, had a few moments of seeing stuff that is usually on 'this side' being all 'over there'. Processes implying an observer not being on 'this side' for a few seconds or so.