5:45 am 45 minutes seated noting. First whispered, then silent. When I awoke, I felt an unpleasant physical-emotional state that is typical for me upon waking. Seemed especially remarkable today how quickly that dissipated upon beginning to meditate. At first I noted a lot of unpleasant sensations and mental states, but those quickly faded, and, remarkably, for the first half of the meditation I noted almost nothing unpleasant at all, and my mental state was neutral/calm. Hearing, expansion, breeze, pressure, pulsing, contact, release, hearing, thinking. I was noting very quickly, almost twice per second. It felt natural and not forced, but in the spirit of trying to be as relaxed as possible, after about 20 minutes I slowed to about 1x per second. After slowing, sensations seemed more unpleasant, and I began noting things like nausea. Is this because I wasn't breaking sensations down as finely, so they glommed together into concepts? In the middle of the meditation I got up to use the bathroom, noting the whole way. Unpleasant sensations (pressures inside the body) and mental states arose and continued after I got back in bed (anger, fear, sadness, and sometimes something unnamable). After the end of the meditation (now), I feel pulsing, nausea, sadness, anger.
Continued noting throughout getting ready for work, taking Penny to her walking group, commute to work, listening to lab meeting. Was easy; had good mindfulness and little distractibility. Was astonished to notice high level of awareness while listening to Penny -- it was only a year or two ago that, when listening to another, I was completely unable to maintain awareness of the subtleties of my own mental states or the subtle sensations inside my own body. During bus ride to work, noticed that even though I was noting diligently, tension was accumulating in response to the repeated jolting motion of the bus. I switched to self-metta until I got off the bus, then back to noting. Noted a lot of sadness. Sometimes seemed like a sadness at letting go of an old way of being.
11:00 Ten minutes of seated silent noting.
6:45 Forty minutes of seated meditation at SIMS. First, some self-metta. Then, some silent noting. Then, some dozing.
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