Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Take notes!
conradcook
Veteran
Do you guys take notes on your meditation?
I encourage you to. I find it's useful, first, to look back later and figure out where you are. And, second, they may be very useful when aggregated with other people's notes, to find out what forms of practice are useful, to interpret events and experiences as benchmarks, for troubleshoothing purposes, and so forth.
Buddha bless,
Conrad.
I encourage you to. I find it's useful, first, to look back later and figure out where you are. And, second, they may be very useful when aggregated with other people's notes, to find out what forms of practice are useful, to interpret events and experiences as benchmarks, for troubleshoothing purposes, and so forth.
Buddha bless,
Conrad.
0
Comments
I'm not against taking notes, just sketching my experience.
No, I don't.
I find its best just to relax and let go of concepts altogether...
kind regards,
D
.
our thoughts are repetitive and useless.
I mean, that's true of any dimension of your practice.
But what I'm saying is different from this. There is a relationship between meditation, and what you do in meditation, and where you end up. For example, when you become more able to let go of your attachments, that's not random. It's a consequence of something you've been doing.
Reading your journal isn't meant to recapture prior states of mind. Rather, it allows you to survey them quickly.
This is useful, in my experience, because when I review my notes I'm able to see, "Ah, this state of mind that I'm working with lately is similar to this other one I was working with a few months ago."
Then I look for similarities and differences in my practice and circumstances. And, more often than not, find them.
It's just a way of showing up your patterns of thinking. If nothing else, it may help make clear where your attachments lay.
Buddha bless,
Conrad.
If you do take notes, it's always possible that someone could photocopy it and try to use its contents against you. I mean, a petty roommate or someone with a grudge, or someone who wants to lead you to a bad space for any reason.
--Which is funny, to me. I guess when people are heavily deluded they imagine it's easy to delude others.
Buddha Bless,
Conrad.
ps - Anyone want a copy of my journal?
Allan Ginsberg once attended a meditation retreat, and had next to him, his notebook and pen. Throughout the Meditation retreat, he would interrupt his sitting, and write a little something in the notebook beside him.
One evening, when all students and the Guru Master were relaxing around an open air fire, just quietly discussing matters in general, the Guru Master, sitting next to Allan Ginsberg, asked him what he had been writing.
"Oh, just little thought bubbles that have come to me in the sessions...." he replied.
The Master asked if he might be allowed to look. Allan Ginsberg handed him the book.
The Guru Master promptly threw it into the flames of the fire.
"Bubbles burst!" he declared. "Bubbles appear on the stream, and then disappear. What use are bubbles? No substance, no form...just contained air and then nothing!"
Just an anecdote I thought might be useful.
Sounds like a good teacher.
Oh, you said it was Ginsburg.
Never got much out of him, myself. I know he was big.
In any case, I have said what I have said, and I have not said what I have not said.
Buddha bless,
Conrad.
The what, how and why, are what counts.
I speak on it once week. talk about how my weeks is going and my practice.
(now and again i might upload if something specific happens. X
Although I suppose one could meditate while taking notes.
Conrad.
Meditation has no purpose or aim - to exist in the moment, in my mind, goes against the principle of note taking and analysis for sake of posterity - if you have purpose then perhaps taking notes will assist you in achieving that - there comes a point however where notes and analysis serve no purpose.
If your goal is to "exist in the moment," that's fine. Implicit in that is that you sometimes exist in the moment more than at other times -- perhaps when you're distracted by other stuff.
Then, during a week when you are more in the moment than normal for you, the question is what has caused that? If you are experimenting with different forms of meditation, and if you are taking notes, you can look back to see what you've been doing differently for that week or two leading up to this.
Not being emotionally attached to what you're doing does not mean you should not be paying attention to it. Taking notes allows to to pay attention to cause and effect in a practical way.
In my mind still, all of that has limits - existing in the moment is not quantifiable so I dont see there being more or less of it - I dont see that there is deviation from it either - it sounds like a sound practical method you've described but at some point you'll have to come to terms with letting it go! As long as it works for you then keep it but one day, notes and analysis cease to have meaning - the joyful participation in the moment is in itself a form of note taking... your aim will then be to cease taking notes there also...
In terms of learning, have good study habits. In terms of meditation, take notes. They will help you, and perhaps help others too.
The analogy you use infers a predilection to a linear path - i.e. that you learn, study, take the test and then its the main event where you put into practice - rinse and repeat until the main event goes more the way you studied for.
That analogy only goes so far.
A better analogy in my mind is a painting - you can study and work and practice but the painting is the painting - you can make notes on various of your actions both before and after and they may assist in your capturing the moment in a different way in your mind but the moment and the painting are unchanged by that - you may learn to express yourself in a way that makes sense to yourself more but again the paintnig no matter how unskillful is still the painting.
In my mind, the notes only take you so far - eventually, you will resolve doubt and live it more without the need for analysis - some may say that the Buddhist teachings themselves become irrelevant as they only deal with a finite degree of the awakening...
I’d encourage anyone to just do the meditation and to trust their practice.
Or in other words: practice for the sake of practice. When the period of meditation is over, you’re finished with it.
It's no good forcing it.
Although, poetry is cool.
Now I get into habbit of writting a full notebook, reading it and burning it.
It's very cathartic
I view my meditation practice right now as a way to improve my every day experiences. Any insights I encounter in meditation I apply to daily life, and then these might work their way into what I journal for the day, for my own private eyes.
But I'm not sure that I think recording in words is necessary. So much of the changes and the progress can't be rendered in words.
Like someone else who said this above, I do appreciate that the timer I use gives me a journaling option if I should chose this in the future. For now, though, my writing and journaling is a part of my every day life. Meditation enhances this, and affects it of course, but I do not see the need to journal each meditation practice personally.
I would never discredit anyone who felt the need to do so, though!