"The technique of mental noting ( naming experience as it unfolds ) is particularly useful in maintaining continuity of mindfulness throughout an activity and during shifts in activities. It keeps the attention focused on present experience while you are showering or making a bed. Or while you're going from taking a shower to making the bed to sitting down to resting the attention in the breath.
People sometimes hesitate to use mental noting because it seems odd to them. It is odd. But it's very helpful. It tends to keep the mind clear and unconfused. Whatever you are doing now, keep track of your experience. Tracking starts out as a technique. But it ends up a habit.
In the early days of my practice, I felt tremendous resistance to doing mental noting especially in the periods of going from one activity to another... mental noting often seemed an extra burden. I would consider doing it and then decide, 'Naah, this doesn't make sense.' At some point or other, I took the instruction seriously and said to myself, 'Go for it---just do it. Don't think about it. Don't evaluate it, don't figure it out, just do it.'
When I did, everything changed. At first, I felt I was talking to myself. 'Stepping, stepping, stepping, stepping, reaching, touching, turning, pulling.' Then suddenly, I was present to myself. My experience changed from lifting my arm and saying, 'lifting, lifting, lifting' to, all of a sudden, knowing lifting. I knew it in a different way than I'd known it before.
Mental noting is not mindfulness. Mental noting is naming experience. Naming experience, bringing unwavering attention attention to experience, leads to mindfulness. Experiencing mindfulness feels different from talking about mindfulness.
A moment of mindfulness can feel ecstatic. I remember being amazed when I first began to discover the difference between to talking about an experience and being the experience. The discovery of the rapture of mindfulness blew me away. Walking in a careful way, very present, I thought, 'Talk about bizarre. This is bizarre. I'm totally thrilled about putting my foot down and knowing I'm putting my foot down.' Putting a foot down is not normally the sort of thing we think of as thrilling. But it is thrilling. Mindfulness is thrilling."
People sometimes hesitate to use mental noting because it seems odd to them. It is odd. But it's very helpful. It tends to keep the mind clear and unconfused. Whatever you are doing now, keep track of your experience. Tracking starts out as a technique. But it ends up a habit.
In the early days of my practice, I felt tremendous resistance to doing mental noting especially in the periods of going from one activity to another... mental noting often seemed an extra burden. I would consider doing it and then decide, 'Naah, this doesn't make sense.' At some point or other, I took the instruction seriously and said to myself, 'Go for it---just do it. Don't think about it. Don't evaluate it, don't figure it out, just do it.'
When I did, everything changed. At first, I felt I was talking to myself. 'Stepping, stepping, stepping, stepping, reaching, touching, turning, pulling.' Then suddenly, I was present to myself. My experience changed from lifting my arm and saying, 'lifting, lifting, lifting' to, all of a sudden, knowing lifting. I knew it in a different way than I'd known it before.
Mental noting is not mindfulness. Mental noting is naming experience. Naming experience, bringing unwavering attention attention to experience, leads to mindfulness. Experiencing mindfulness feels different from talking about mindfulness.
A moment of mindfulness can feel ecstatic. I remember being amazed when I first began to discover the difference between to talking about an experience and being the experience. The discovery of the rapture of mindfulness blew me away. Walking in a careful way, very present, I thought, 'Talk about bizarre. This is bizarre. I'm totally thrilled about putting my foot down and knowing I'm putting my foot down.' Putting a foot down is not normally the sort of thing we think of as thrilling. But it is thrilling. Mindfulness is thrilling."
