Second time noting

I'm grateful that you are here, even if just to read. Said this , i've been able to bring out some self discipline and began a regular noting practice since a few days ago. I have three questions (connected).

1) i don't understand if you're supposed to mentally speak the words, or not. Example: if *pain* arises do i have to play "p-a-i-n" in my head?

2) stuff arises with much more speed that i can note with the previous method. for example, if pain arises, by the time it took to identify and note it another three or something phenomena have aroused and dissolved, unnoted.

3) the whole act of identifying a sensation, picking up the name, speaking it etc. would take a few notes by itself lol.

Could you correct me in these things? if instead it is best that i answer these questions by myself, no problem.

Thank you! Very very lucky to be here. o_o

I am a relative newbie but here is my take:

1.) Yes mentally speak the words or even try noting out loud. Whatever arises just say it. If you have an itch, just say 'itching', if you have a thought, just categorize it and say 'imaging thought' or 'remembering thought', an emotion, say 'anxious', and you can pair them with feeling tones like: pleasant, neutral or unpleasant.
2.) Need to know more about your practice to tell you what to do here. If you are new. Noting will be clunky like that, sometime you 'forget' to note something and realize later that it happened. If you are much more advanced, noting can get in the way though too. Just do your best and it will start to flow.
3.) Again. Simplify. itch = itching, rising of the breath = rising. I think you are complicating it. Its really easier than you think. I think people assume they are doing it wrong when they start because it seems kind of like "Thats it?, really?" Make your own vocabulary. I have weird ones that make sense to me but I might have to explain to someone else.

1) Ok. I must say that D.I. on MCTB gives the advice to note or notice every kind of sensation as fast as you can. But this method is not the same thing, right? Another thing about pairing stuff with its feeling-tone: it is an absolute mess and doesn't make sense... i suppose this is normal.

2) I'm new to practice, and more or less i do what KF says in this website, with the exception of breath: i don't like to say "riiiiiiisee" and "faaaaallllll" continuosly; if a sensation of rising or falling arises, i note "su" or "giù" fast. If somebody has objections on this, i'm glad to hear! I still don't understand how can it be possible to spell words at a greater speed than one or two per second though. Does practice improve the mental spelling speed?

3) Can i ask you how much large is your vocabulary? (and only if you have a doc file ready, as i have, if you can upload it on google docs so to have an idea of which psychological phenomena you have included, and which you don't make a distinction between. If it is too cryptic i'm curious to see a couple of someone else.)

Sorry for being hard-headed. I'm extremely grateful...

How about you label whatever it is that is most prominent and don't label another object until attention naturally moves to another object. This way you are tracking the movements of attention in a non-volitional way. For example I note seeing and eventually find sound grabs my attention then I note hearing (I don't intentionally go all crazy trying to note every little component of my experience in a controlling way).

The movements of attention will follow the descriptions of the nanas much more closely if you do it that way (at some point you can see the movement of attention away from the current object to the new one, while at another you will only notice the attention moving away, etc.).

On your #2 in your second post. Are you saying that you are mentally spelling the words? If that is the case, that is not how it is done. Just say the word. When I notice the breath rising I note 'rising', when I notice breath falling, i note falling. Sometimes I note it differently depending on where or what sensation my concentration lands on. So 'rising' might be 'coolness' on the inside of my nostril instead. Understand? Just note what comes up when you notice it like mumuwu said. I feel like what Daniel describes will come much later in your practice. Your noting will be slow and clunky right now until you practice more.

"On your #2 in your second post. Are you saying that you are mentally spelling the words? If that is the case, that is not how it is done. Just say the word. When I notice the breath rising I note 'rising', when I notice breath falling, i note falling. Sometimes I note it differently depending on where or what sensation my concentration lands on. So 'rising' might be 'coolness' on the inside of my nostril instead. Understand? Just note what comes up when you notice it like mumuwu said. I feel like what Daniel describes will come much later in your practice. Your noting will be slow and clunky right now until you practice more."

If pain arises, i mentally say "pain", like here: dictionary.cambridge.org/media/british/u...p/pai/pain_/pain.mp3

just as i were talking to a friend.

I think "pain" can take around half a second. "Coolness" might a full second. I used the word "spell" just to underline that it is the actual word with all of its letters you are mentally producing, and not just an hyper-fast passing consciousness of it without any verbal production. I specified this because, there would be this other way as when we sometimes do while reading very very fast, not being able to mentally verbalize anything, but still getting significant pieces of information from the text.

Is what i'm trying to communicate to you clear?

Thank you. Still curious about the width and composition of your vocaboularies (i've made a 79-words one, just to say.) Fore the rest i'll be back in a week, to make sure not to waste mumuwu's and anyone else's time, while my practice is still so unripe.

Good. For a second there I thought you were actually spelling your notes. You are doing it right. But if you note pain and then no other sensation comes up other than pain again. Note it again, until you notice that something else comes up. It can be as discombobulated as: itching, unpleasant, itching, itching, anxious, imaging thought, itching, tingling, hearing, remembering thought, self-concious, rising, itching, falling, tension, and so on. No need to make up your vocabulary now, just think of the first word that comes to your head and go with that. You don't want to incline to use some set vocabulary. What someone may call 'vibrating', i may call 'tingling'. It may feel exactly the same but we call it different things. Its about noticing sensations, noting them and thats all. Don't control or script the situation.