| | First, take it as a working assumption that everything is arising and vanishing completely in each moment, including all sights, sounds, physical sensations, space, memory, excerpts or whatever you want to call them. Next, assume that all mental phenomena (including excerpts) and physical phenomena, are all just sensations, and thus they all arise and vanish every moment, and even during their arising and vanishing, they are also transient, meaning they are impermanent the way particles are and also impermanent the way waves are, meaning they have digital and analog aspects, the absolute nature of their transience is key. Thus, each moment is something new, something fresh, and so to hold on to something is to notice a pattern of similarity across completely fresh sensations, but the sensations, regardless of what they are, are just as fresh, perceived clearly, "held onto", or otherwise. Thus, you cannot hang on to excerpts or anything, but it can appear so by repeating again and again in a completely transient way if the impermanence part is overlooked and ignored. Concentration practice involves reality crafting itself to be more stable in some way, and the notion of continuity and stability is just pattern recognition at a basic level. All excerpts are experiences, as is everything else. Noticing excerpts and everything else arise and vanish on its own produces insights. That is simple, straightforward, and a very practical way to look at it. All sensations that seem to make up self, observer, watcher, doer, all are just sensations, and they are utterly transient and empty. All sensations that seem to make up other, object, observed, all are just sensations, and they are utterly transient and empty. These things are always true regardless of whether or not that is clearly perceived. Noticing all things arise and vanish produces insights: Buddha's last instructions. Helpful?
Daniel |