Janusz Welin:
So, here is my 'question:'
Shinzen's version of noting arisings and passings is actually to really nail arisings in every sense gate and then just note passings. He calls it 'Just Note Gone,' and he speaks about getting a sense of the 'flavor' of Gone (passing), to find it in everything and to follow that all the way to stream entry.
So what's the issue? I find that as I do this, I can create this giant field of "Gone" throughout my whole experience. In fact, arising itself seems to hold a tear-drop of passing within it even form when I fist perceive it. Ok... fine. No issue there. But at some point, emotion seems to kind of, stand in the way of everything being Gone (cessation)...
First of all stop "I can create this giant field of "Gone"....stop creating anything.Notice what is already happening. Notice that everything/sensation has a distinct starting point of when you first notice them, then they get slightly clearer before they pass away and the next sensation starts. The whole point of this is that they are NOT
Permanent. Have you been creating a perminate gone? Well stop it if so. Between each moment of the fading of one sensation and the start of the next is the place you will find the cessation....you can't create it. You will attend with dilligence and focus and see the moments after the fading and into the gone and then BAM.
Janusz Welin:
Another Shinzen technical note: he has pointed out that emotion in response to the current experience of the world tends to take place on the surface of the body and has a Jhanic flow/ quality. (My theory is that current emotion rides Jhanic energy like a surfboard...) However, old emotions (current emotions from the past that we suppressed and which have accumulated) tend to be experienced deeper in the body, they tend to hold a consistent location. They tend to organize around the central meridian of the body and at first, they tend to have a contractive quality, like a charlie-horse.
So, when I refer to emotions seeming to stand in the way, it's old contractive emotion.
"So just note it's arising and passing" you say... Well, first, it does not seem to operate by the same vibratory rules that most senses seem to go by where you can detect the frequency of the perception of arising and passing.
But, being familiar with the "flavor" of Gone, I am able to detect their quality of passing, even if it is below conscious awareness. If I do this consistently enough, the experience of the contrastive emotion seems to become lighter and lighter until the old emotion feels like it has slowly become feather light and paper thin, like a very light shell of the shape of the old emotion... Yet these strands also seem to restrain this broad downward movement somehow...
Anyway, I'm aware that this is the zone where confusion reigns, so I'm happy to hear if I should ignore this and move in a different direction or just keep going or whatever.
I suppose my broader question is for another section of DhO, but Daniel described two different axes of insight, one along the perceptual path (vibrational perception etc.) and one that he is more recently working on along the affective axis. Is there a discussion about the similarities and differences between these two courses?
This emotional stuff is very interesting and it sounds like you are experiencing some interesting stuff. On the body vs. in the body for depth of emotion, vibratory rules, lightening the emotions, movement of emotions etc. I think it's fantastic...is it helping you in any way? I hope so as I too would like to find an emotional practice to add to my metta practice especially how to deal with negative emotions beside just stop feeding them of course.
Here is the link to
Daniels experiments with Actual Freedom If you have not found it so far.
I would say that Insite/vipassana practice and emotional/affect practises are on different axis of development. They of course touch in places and affect each other as with anything in the mind. I would recommend that you seperate the two practices and work on Insite clearly and cleanly. I would also work on the
Brahma Viharas Get your ability to love/kindness/happiness to increase in size, speed, volume, throughput etc.
Good luck
~D