I have been practicing mindfulness without mental noting and focusing on the sensations, thoughts, etc.
For me, it's easier to be mindful this way.
What's your opinion on this?
How many times do I have to answer this one?
Nobody wants to note.
Nobody wants to put words in your head, right?
Why?
Because it's difficult.
All I can say is you have to ask yourself, what is the purpose of meditation?
Is the purpose of meditation to make things easy?
Or is the purpose in meditation to overcome what is difficult?
The reason why, from my point of view, people make this observation that it's more difficult to what I call, and my teachers call, recognizing the object for what it is, in terms of using what we might understand as being a mantra,
is because it forces you to see impermanence, suffering and non-self.
It forces you to see that things are not as you would like them.
It forces you to see your mind's inclination to control things without being able to control them.
Because of the regimented
nature of the practice, you're not able to have this continuous what you would call mindfulness, what I would just call concentration.
The word mindfulness is a bit meaningless because it's not even a really good translation of the word sati.
I just finished
redoing this talk I gave on the comprehensive practice.
I had to totally redo it because the video talk was not very good.
But I had one part
particularly where I finally put down in writing some of my thoughts on this, that mindfulness is a poor translation for the word sati.
The word sati means specifically the recognition of something as it is.
It's caused by something called tira-sanya, which is sanya, the recognition of something.
This is this, this is that.
That is tira, which means firm, strong, fortified.
So the word is fortifying the recognition of the object for what it is.
That's the meaning of the word sati and that's why we use the noting.
The problem is it's not how we would like it.
This breaks up the continuity and breaks up the inclinations of the mind, the stream of habitual clinging to the ideas of self,
to conceit, to craving.
The whole idea that something is more easy for me, it surely implies a preference and possibly even a identification with the experience that it's me
It's me meditating.
It's me being mindful.
This is all broken up through the practice of noting.
And as a result, one feels like one is forcing the experience.
One feels like the experience is jarring.
chaotic jarring chaotic and uncontrollable which it is which is the actual reality of it and This sort of practice is forcing you to see it.
It's not the noting itself.
That is uncomfortable it's our it's the the discord between the way we would like things to be and the way things really are and
Once you can come to see things as they are, which is moment to moment experiences that don't carry on from one moment to the next, then noting becomes a very easy thing to do.
Catching things up in your attention one by one by one becomes...
natural, because you're finally able to see and accept that that's the way things are, that there are no continuous entities.
There are only moment-to-moment realities.
Until that time, what you're expecting to find is something that continues from moment to moment to moment.
Because the mind doesn't get that, it becomes quite distraught and disturbed by what is actually a simple task of just reminding yourself of the nature of the object.
And instead of doing that, it controls, it forces, and it feels like this sort of practice is causing it to force, which actually it's not.
So from my point of view, it's not really mindfulness without the noting.
Why?
Because the word mindful actually means to remind yourself.
The word's not mindful that we use, or mindfulness is not what's important in Satipatthana practice.
It's recognition and remembrance and reminding yourself of the object for what it is.
As the Buddha said, gacchanto va gacchamiti bhajanati.
When walking, one knows, I am walking, gacchami, which is just a Pali word that means walking, in the sense that it's me walking, but without emphasizing the I or the me.
And so it really is the simplest way to focus one's attention on the object.
It's also a very traditional way.
The whole idea of a mantra, the reason I use the word mantra is because actually it's a word that we already know.
It's a word that we should be very familiar with.
And the fact that using the mantra on things that are impermanent suffering and non-self forces you to experience impermanent suffering and non-self is a sign that it's working.
The fact that it's uncomfortable is a sign that it's forcing you out of your comfort zone and forcing you to look at things in a new way.
from our point of view, forcing you to look at things objectively.
Now, of course, people disagree with this, and there's many people who would listen to me and just doesn't know what he's talking about.
But to each their own, and you've asked me, so that's my answer.
Hopefully it helps.
If you're interested in this practice, I can only recommend that you go back to the actual noting of the objects.
If you prefer something more peaceful,
calming and soothing, then you have to look elsewhere.
Okay.