How to savor in see hear feel meditation technique

[Ayham]

i am really confused on how to do it, shinzen says "focus on the sensation", while leo says "take it in the present moment" 

the problem is that i can focus on it but it doesn't work well compared to savoring .

savoring is hard to do since i don't how to take it in, i rarely feel like im doing it right, but when i do, it's amazing and results are immediate in my sensory clarity and equanimity. 

the question is: How do i take a sensation in?? 

[Danioover9000]

@Ayham

On 15/06/2022 at 10:34 PM, Ayham said:

i am really confused on how to do it, shinzen says "focus on the sensation", while leo says "take it in the present moment" 

the problem is that i can focus on it but it doesn't work well compared to savoring .

savoring is hard to do since i don't how to take it in, i rarely feel like im doing it right, but when i do, it's amazing and results are immediate in my sensory clarity and equanimity. 

the question is: How do i take a sensation in?? 

   It's very similar to the do nothing technique, when a thought happens, like a thought of a pleasant experience, it pulls you in a bit more, so allow yourself to be pulled in more by the sensation.

    You like cheese, wines, steak? Let's assume cheese for now. When you see it, smell it, and finally taste it, the 'savoury' flavour of the cheese is that good it makes you chew slower, to 'savour' the flavours. So like with cheese, and maybe wine or steak, when you're doing the mindfulness practices, take whatever sensation is demanding more of your attention, place it, note it and re-label it as that sense label, and let your attention linget on that inner or outer sensation, just like you allow yourself to slow down and 'savour' the cheese.

[Ayham]

@Danioover9000 i get what you mean, like without stressing on capturing its details and  becoming perfectionist about it (because that's what i am doing ahahaha) 

got it, effortless turning of attention and letting it engage you, that will probably change a lot in the way i am doing it. 

[Danioover9000]

@Ayham

16 minutes ago, Ayham said:

@Danioover9000 i get what you mean, like without stressing on capturing its details and  becoming perfectionist about it (because that's what i am doing ahahaha) 

got it, effortless turning of attention and letting it engage you, that will probably change a lot in the way i am doing it. 

   I've also assumed in the first post that you're just starting mindfulness practices within a week to month, and I've found that before the practices and the mental steps become habituated first, the main difficulty is in the juggling of getting used to the steps plus getting used to the meditation posture plus placing attention ect. It'll take some time to run the mental steps, but eventually it becomes much easier that you'll start to naturally feel more at ease getting in the flow and want to focus more on the awareness place and less about the steps themselves. Eventually, you'll get so good that you just go straight to that awareness point and sit with high concentration in minutes to seconds.

[Ayham]

I've been doing it for some long time now but my mind has gotten perfectionist about doing the technique right that i focused more on doing it right than doing it. 

[Leo Gura]

Just focus on a sensation for 10 seconds. Then switch to another.

Don't overthink it.

[Ayham]

thanks, will do. 

i needed to hear that, i am really overthinking it. 

[ardacigin]

Develop awareness of sensations and the knowing of where attention is while doing this technique. Keep everything open and inclusive. Eventually you want to inquire towards the self who is looking and experiencing WHILE doing this process. Then it will be really powerful and 'good' experience.

[Ayham]

@ardacigin hey, it is you! I love the dedication I see in your posts (along with @Consilience)

Quote

Develop awareness of sensations and the knowing of where attention is while doing this technique

this seems useful to do.

also I have some questions if you will.

I have been meditating for 7 months right now, I have missed very few days, at first 20 minutes was hard, now I can do 35 minutes (a bit hard).

since the first session, I started seeing effects like: Super vivid colors, tingling in my body , hand shaking, laughing for no reason, feeling calm, other people telling me my face looks brighter (idk if this is related lol), and when I started I did Shinzen Young noting technique, and continued with it.

these effects continued to get stronger for 4 months, until they disappeared? I am trying to not be attached to these states, but my practice has clearly went downhill, 25 minutes got hard to do.

1. I continued increasing, and struggling to sit the whole duration,  And now I am struggling with 35 minutes, I find it hard to sit the whole time without moving, how do I increase the time effectively in your experience?

2.  two weeks ago, I decided to switch from Shinzen to TMI, because I think I need to develop my focus doing focus technique first, even though currently I can focus during noting, so my plan is to continue with TMI, and whenever I reach access concentration during my session, I switch to Shinzen noting, so how do I know when I reach access concentration?

3. In TMI book, it says that you can go through the stages with Shinzen young system, does this work in your experience? since noting is a vipassana technique.

Quote

"Even though the breath has many benefits, the methods presented in the Ten Stages can also be used with a visualized object, a mantra, or in loving-kindness practices. All the same principles can be employed in conjunction with the noting technique of the Mahasi-style vipassanā method, the breath concentration and body-scanning techniques of the U Ba Khin/Goenka vipassanā method, or the uniquely systematic vipassanā of Shinzen Young. In each of these, you face the same problems of mind-wandering, distraction, and dullness, which the techniques here are designed to address. That said, not every meditation object leads to the final Stages as surely as do the sensations of the breath"

4. the effects I used to get from meditation rarely happen now, or when they happen they are weak, what is the reason for this?

 

 

[gettoefl]

mindfulness is the dance between see hear feel and breathing

meditation is the dance between thinking and breathing

what is new that you see or hear or feel you hold onto for ten seconds back to breathing

sitting in a chair you feel discomfort you move position, you look around you for ten seconds, back to breathing

when there is change in world body mind hold it notice it savor it back to breathing

eventually with mindfulness and meditation breathing becomes default

[Ayham]

@gettoefl I do not do labeling when i get distracted from the breath, i do it with no anchor, like without the breath, do you recommend doing it with the breath, why so?

 

[Ayham]

.

 

 

Edited June 24, 2022 by Ayham

[gettoefl]

7 hours ago, Ayham said:

@gettoefl I do not do labeling when i get distracted from the breath, i do it with no anchor, like without the breath, do you recommend doing it with the breath, why so?

 

strongly recommend breath anchor, it's what buddha taught ... study this vid and all the vids on the channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giDJNVPs014

 

[Ayham]

seems like a great channel, will watch it and try tomorrow.

[ZzzleepingBear]

I think Eckhart Tolle put it really well by describing the following. "Feel the aliveness sensation in your hands. And if you close your eyes, how do you know that your hands are stil there? By feeling the alivness in them despite you not looking at them"

A great little spiritual excersice to do from time to time imo.

[gettoefl]

reason breathing is a good anchor is as follows:

are you breathing right now? yes; how do you know you are breathing? i can feel it either at my nostrils or at my stomach

hold onto that physical feeling - no matter what else you are doing

this is how buddha taught awareness

[Ayham]

@ZzzleepingBear ah the good ol` Eckhart Tolle, it really is a great exercise.

@gettoefl yeah I see, it is also always there, thank you.