Mental noting, or labeling, is a method used in mindfulness meditation that can help us recognize what’s happening without becoming lost in the experience. It’s an important technique you’ll hear me using in guided meditations, and is commonly offered by many insight meditation teachers.
I’ll cover the basics of noting, its origins, why it can be useful, some potential difficulties, and when to use it in daily life. If you have any questions, please contact me and I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.
What is Mental Noting in Meditation?
Mental noting is a tool used in meditation to help support mindfulness. The basic practice is simple: to label whatever is arising in your experience. It is a practice in recognizing what is present. We can use it in mindfulness-based practices, concentration meditation when the mind wanders, or any type of meditation. Noting helps us remain present as a technique, and is not the end-goal.
So let’s say you are doing an open awareness meditation. As you sit and rest in openness, you notice a thought about work arising. You might note “thinking” or “planning” while the thought is present. Then a tension in the shoulder arises and you note “feeling,” “shoulder,” or “tension.” You also might note the feeling tone of the experience, noting something like “shoulder, tension, unpleasant.”
We’ll talk in the next section about why this practice can be beneficial, but the simple point here is the noting can help us stay on track and aware of what is present. Whatever is arising, we label it. We also can label the mental response. If you have a tension in your shoulder that is unpleasant you might note aversion in the mind, a desire to adjust the posture, or frustration. This is a practice we generally use in mindfulness or insight meditation, but can be useful as well when the mind wanders off from the breath or whatever object of awareness.
Mahasi Sayadaw and Noting
During the late 19th century, a movement took hold in Burma known as the New Burmese Method. Popularized by Mahasi Sayadaw, this was a movement toward making insight meditation more accessible to laypeople. The popularity of noting in the West and general vipassana communities largely comes from this movement and Mahasi Sayadaw. Mahasi learned it from his own teacher, U Narada, and then adapted it into what is now known as Mahasi-style noting. I covered this in more detail on my podcast. We did a series called How They Meditate, covering various influential monks and meditation teachers. The episode on Mahasi Sayadaw and his noting practice is below.
How Much Detail Should We Note?
In Mahasi’s own teachings, he goes quite in depth with the noting. His recommendation is to notice the actual contents of thoughts, rather than just the act of thinking itself. And to note every experience you can. When first starting with noting, this can be a little intense in my experience. I recommend noting at a gentle pace and without straining to start. You don’t need to note every single little thing that arises to the point you’re creating tension or stress in your practice. As you continue with noting, a deepening will naturally happen.
How Mental Noting Can Support Practice
So, we know what noting is, but why do this? There are many benefits to noting. Whether we use it as our main practice or implement it with other meditation techniques, mental noting can help support mindfulness in several ways.
Knowing What’s Present
This practice of mentally noting can help us really recognize what’s present. At times in meditation (and in daily life), we aren’t really aware of what’s arising. Once we get in the flow of noting, it can help us know what is happening. Whether the attention is drawn to the body, sounds, or the thinking mind, the labels help us identify what is going on with some clarity.
Difficulty Focusing
When there’s some struggle to focus during meditation, noting can be very useful. With noting, we invite anything that arises into our awareness as part of the practice. If a sound arises and we find ourselves distracted, we note that process. If the mind is off planning or analyzing your to-do list, you note that. We talked about working with distraction in our Thursday Morning Meditation recently, and I think this practice of noting what’s happening is a great tool to use.
Creating Space
When we are mentally labeling experience, it puts a little bit of space between awareness and the object. This extra space can help us observe with more equanimity. We don’t get carried off by thoughts or sounds quite as easily when we’re noting them. This little bit of extra space can make a big difference in training the mind to simply observe experience rather than identify with it.
Working with Thoughts
I have many students who report noting to be especially useful in observing thoughts. When the mind is going, noting can help us identify the processes with clarity. We absolutely don’t have to clear the mind to meditate; mentally labeling activity of the mind can help us build understanding and awareness of how the mind works. The thoughts become a part of the practice rather than a distraction from practice.
Developing Insight
Labeling experience can help us deepen our practice and develop insight. As we note what is happening, we see the flow of experience and how one sound leads to a feeling tone, which leads to a mental reaction, and so on. This gives us an understanding of the Three Characteristics, and directly supports the development of insight.
How to Practice Noting
There are many ways to practice noting, and many types of meditation we can use it in. I’m going to offer some simple, open awareness based instructions for this practice. This is how I noted for many years, and is essentially an adaptation of Mahasi Sayadaw’s noting practice.
Settling - I generally begin my practice with a few minutes of settling. For me, this is generally some time with metta or loving-kindness phrases. Whatever you decide to do to settle, allow yourself some space to arrive into your practice.
Establish Awareness of the Breath - I use the breath as my anchor in this practice. You can pick one spot in the body where you can feel the breath, and bring your attention there. To start the noting process, you can note “in” and “out” with each breath. You also can use “rise” and “fall” if feels more useful.
Open the Awareness - You might open your awareness one sense-door at a time, or completely all at once. As you rest with the breath and the noting of each inhalation and exhalation, note what else arises in your experience. So in your head, it may sound something like this: “in… out… planning… in… out… hearing…”
Staying with the breath throughout this practice can help us remain anchored to present-time awareness. And rather than note every single little experience to start, we can just note one thing between each breath. As time goes on and awareness develops, we absolutely can leave the breath or note more things between each breath.
When to Practice Noting
Although this practice of mental noting is generally done as an insight practice through open awareness meditation, it can be useful in any type of practice. Whenever the mind is experiencing monkey mind, noting can help. Whether you’re doing a heart practice, mindfulness practice, or concentration practice, you can always note what is arising in your experience!
Common Difficulties with Noting
Many of my mindfulness coaching students use some form of noting in their practice. I’ve seen a few difficulties come up more often than others.
Getting Stuck on the Label
When labeling, we shouldn’t give too much attention to the actual label. The attention should primarily be on the experience, with the noting just an auxiliary support. Furthermore, I don’t believe we need to think too hard to find the “correct” label. Use whatever label feels true for you, and remember the experience should be the primary object of awareness.
Suppressing Thoughts
When we begin to notice thoughts and label them, a subtle resistance to thinking can arise. We get this feeling that by noting the thought, we can get rid of it. It’s important to remember noting is a tool in recognizing experience, not controlling it. If you do notice some desire to be free from thoughts, note that!
Feelings of Disconnect
Repeating labels can sometimes cause some disconnect with our practice. It becomes mechanical or we feel like we know what’s happening but aren’t really engaged. This is generally an issue of lending too much attention to the labels. Remember that the practice is to just use the labels to recognize the sensations, feelings, qualities of mind, etc. Return your focus to the actual experience, and let the noting take the back seat.
Overwhelm or Exhaustion
Finally, noting can feel like a lot in some moments. For some people, the noting really makes the amount of different stimuli apparent. It can be hard to keep up with each experience, and we tire ourselves out. If you find this happening, try to invite in some softening. Look for tension in the mind and body, and see what happens if you soften a bit and slow down.
Potential Downsides to Noting
Noting has many benefits, and it’s become a popular method for good reason. But there are a few downsides worth mentioning. The first one, in my opinion, is a focus on objects. As we note, we often keep our attention on objects such as sounds, feelings in the body, or even thoughts. Suffering happens in the mind, and we need to investigate the mind at some point. I don’t think noting is incompatible with this, but it does often lead people to focus on objects rather than the mind itself.
Second, noting can be quite compatible with craving and measuring our practice. Although we cultivate mindfulness, we also are playing into this drive to meditate “correctly” or “well.” For some people, a more relaxed and open style of sitting can be beneficial to train the mind into not craving or clinging.
And finally, there’s the issue of meditation becoming mechanical. With noting, it can really become a task or chore. We can absolutely work with this, recognize the feeling, and cultivate some investigation in practice. But for many people, noting ends up being rather rote after some time. This can be a big hurdle for some people, while others are able to work with that feeling with relative ease.
Noting in Daily Life
Outside of meditation, we can use noting to practice mindfulness in everyday life. Mahasi Sayadaw actually teaches noting in this way. It’s not just for formal sitting meditation. In line with what the Buddha said, we should aim to be mindful at all points during the day.
Mindfulness Reminders
Mindfulness reminders, or awareness triggers, are one of my favorite ways to begin practicing mindfulness in everyday life. You can pick something that happens regularly during your day, such as changing the posture (going from seated to standing), hearing a phone ring, or taking a sip of water. When your trigger or reminder happens, pause and note for a moment! You might stop and do a little micro-meditation, or just continue what you’re doing while incorporating noting.
While Walking
The other place I frequently use noting in my life is when I’m walking. You can do a formal walking meditation any time you’re walking around during the day, or you can just incorporate some noting. You might note the feelings in the body as it moves through space, the focus on the mind of getting to where you’re going, or anything else that arises.
My Experience With Noting
I talk about this in the Mahasi Sayadaw episode of the podcast I mentioned earlier, but I just want to offer a bit about my experience with noting. I first really took to noting back around 2010. I had been introduced to the practice at various meditation centers, and began to investigate Mahasi Sayadaw’s actual teachings.
Although I incorporated other practices, noting was really my primary mindfulness practice for many years. I used this technique at home, on several longer retreats, in groups I taught, etc. I found that the noting with the breath as the anchor really supported the development of samadhi and wisdom. At first, the structure was enough to help keep me on track. As time went on, the noting became less prominent in the mind as the mind became trained in seeing the present-time experience.
In around 2023 (13 years later), I began to dig in more deeply to the teachings of Sayadaw U Tejaniya. I had been introduced to his teaching style many years before, but had not really investigated it deeply. I was looking for a practice and style that was more compatible with daily-life practice. Although I think noting is, it can make us rather awkward as it takes up a fair amount of mental energy.
Since then, I’ve largely left the noting in my own practice in favor of the more relaxed, mind-focused practice style of Sayadaw U Tejaniya. However, I still use noting quite a bit. I use it when the mind has a lot of energy and I’m not finding much focus. It can help me collect the attention well. I also use it when the mind wanders off in samatha practice. I note what type of thought it is, and what the reaction of the mind is.
I mention all this to make a few points. First, noting is incredibly useful, and can be for a long time. I used it almost exclusively for 13+ years. And second, this may not be the right style for everyone in every moment. But even if strict noting isn’t your path right now, we can still use this technique to support other practices.
