At first the verbal quality of the notes themselves might be relatively primary in awareness. It's a new task where we have to focus on the words and choose them, and it may take some time to learn to label experience effortlessly. The underlying goal is to pay attention to what is happening, and there can be more than one thing happening at once. Just try to label what is more or less predominate, and understand that not everything will get formally noticed. Try to notice what you can.
As you become familiar with the practice and you've learned a decent palette of notes, it should become as easy as picking out the color red on a palette of primary colors. As it gets even easier, the goal is to put most of your attention on the objects themselves, the actual experiencing of seeing, hearing, feeling, and very little on the mental/verbal note. Perhaps something like 5% of your attention might be on the note itself. Noting is a tool, but the goal is to be continuously mindful of the primary objects, the actual seeing, hearing, and feeling. Almost your full attention should be on the objects, moving from one object to the next, maintaining continuity of mindfulness like stepping from one lily pad to the next, keeping continuously aware, relaxed, open and non-conceptual.
Notes should typically be kept simple - one word, straight to the point. We're not trying to go into long descriptions, stories, or concepts, in fact we're trying to avoid that. All we need is a simple pointer, a placeholder, a check mark to see that we're doing the main job of mindfulness. Although we are using a tiny bit of conceptualization in the form of the note, as long as we keep it simple and are well practiced, there is very little conceptual processing, and it can become second nature.
We can also see noting as a process of breaking our experience down into its component parts, seeing what we are made of. There are a lot of ways to break down our experience, one concept is that it all comes back to the 6 sense doors - the 5 basic senses plus thought. Everything can be labeled as seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling, and thinking. While you are meditating, forget your ideas and assumptions about a body or your life, what the room looks like, or what is outside. Just keep dissecting your experience into little bits, the basic building blocks of your experience.
It is helpful to view all experience, the objects of awareness, as processes happening in the present, here and now. To that end, notes are often verbs ending in "-ing", the present participle in grammar. Even when they are not, it is implied, as everything is a process. For example if we note pressure or angst or relaxation, what we are really noticing is feeling pressure or feeling angst or feeling relaxation.
Absolutely everything can be noted, everything can be put into the note-o-matic experience processor. If you are having trouble coming up with a note you can always relax and note "this" or "don't know" or "blank" as a catch-all, but in such an instance maybe you could also look a bit deeper, perhaps noting "searching" or "wondering" or perhaps because of that struggle there may be "anxiety" or "frustration" or "grasping", and maybe even "resistance" to that frustration. Don't go crazy searching for the right note, but understand that over time you can become aware of more of what you are experiencing. Certain relaxed spaces may seem at first to be empty of gross sensation and thought but might be noted as relaxation, peace, tranquility, etc.
Next: Getting In Touch With Emotions
Table of Contents for How to Meditate
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