I did read this whole thread once with the intention of adding to it, but I was distracted. Now, given the bump of it, I have at least read the last post and here are some thoughts about it.
Tommy M:
The stripping back of experience to the point of sense contact seems to be essential to emptying the aggregates, without the 'bounce' of attention it's possible to go really deep into the perceptual process and break down those fundamental assumptions about the nature of experience which remain unquestioned.
Can you tell me more about this
bounce and specifically how and why it is no longer present?
Tommy M:
(…) fabrications are impermanent in the same way as anything else is, but watching how your own mental models - which are built from those same fabrications and supported by them in this weird self-perpetuating loop - change, and (…)
I know you're interested in communication and learning to present your thoughts as best as possible so I thought to chime in and say that this particular passage "smells of Tommy's mind" to me, if you know what I mean. I hope you get that the right way, I don't intend any harm in saying that, in fact, this is how I talk about my own communication with others. I admit that it could be a lack of clear understanding (as opposed to lack of clear expression).
Tommy M:
(…) especially the way in which your use and understanding of language changes as you progress, for me at least, revealed something incredible about the emptiness of language itself.
Dude, tell me 'bout it. It's freakin' amazing. Language is transparent, fractal and kaleidoscopic. It makes me wonder if there are other, more 'natural' ways of communicating that we as a race might not have discovered yet.
Given that I consider your progress more advanced and because you wrote...
Tommy M:
I could say more about the details of this but I'm struggling to phrase it clearly enough to avoid any confusion, it's really easy to mix this up with less subtle aspects of experience
… but I recognize what you're writing about here…
Tommy M:
(…) the process of recognition and the way that information is parsed is entirely mental. "Bodily sensations" are just sensations, the "bodily" part is still overlay, it's still a fabrication which implies a false dichotomy between those sensations and any other sensations. Those sensations themselves don't imply an independently existing object called "a body", and in themselves contain no information which implies either internal or external, it's pure imputation and is supported by no more than an assumption.
… then I'd like to ask about this

Is what you're describing here the same as this:
Stian Gudmundsen Høiland:
I became aware of some sensations of progressively relaxing muscles in my arms. Suddenly I realize that those sensations (in a lack of better words) 'taste' or 'looks' or 'smells' or 'feels' exactly like vision when I'm in a PCE. There's a quality, a quality of selflessness, that was suddenly realized. The sensations of the muscles in my arms 'feels' the same way the sight of a spotted banana peel feels - not mine.
The point being that an overlay or addition to the sensations of the muscles fell away and the sensations became 'one with the soup'. The sensations which I would normally call "my arm" were suddenly floating in characterless space - not beholden to anyone or belonging to anything (like, say, an arm or a body).
Another thought strikes me: I remember we were dabbling in something like this before, on Skype: I was questioning what was being called the smallest modalities of experience, like
heat and
pressure, and suggesting that even these modalities can be broken up into parts. This was considered not possible and the likes of
hardness and
volume were stated to be the atomic (indivisible) units of 'all this', and I wonder if you're still of the same conviction.
Tommy M:
(...) the 'upper-part' of the visual field are seen effortlessly and look so high, vast and almost cartoon-like in their liveliness and luminosity.
Care to elaborate on what
upper-part means?
Tommy M:
It's incredible, I've stopped in the middle of a busy street, totally taken aback by how amazing the world looks and standing there in total wonderment as people walk by, unaware of this mundane perfection.
This is something that I experience, too. I find myself being completely fulfilled by the most normal of perceptions, like blue, distance, reflections on cars, even the sensations suggesting closed/narrow spaces! In an attempt to understand this, can you tell me more about your experience of this? How it comes about, how it stays and how it fades?
Contrary to you, I'm quite sure I'm experiencing affection. It's mixed in there. I'm usually well aware of it, but it's nice and seems
almost taint-free, even though it's not.
Which bring me to the part of your post that actually prompted me to reply:
Tommy M:
(…) the ever-present spacious, luminous amazingness of experience makes emotion seem dirty or tainted; This is well worth whatever it takes to get 'here' and any fears of how no affective overlay might be a bad thing seem utterly ridiculous.
Right now, this is so spot on for me. Screw noble truths, marks of existence and instinctual passions - this get's right to the heart of it for me.
(No, really, those are all nice ideals/concepts/scaffolding/Truths.)
(Hoho.)
EDIT:
To elaborate on that last reply-to-quote: the juxtaposition of clear, pure, clean "amazingness" with dirty and tainted "emotion"; that just says it all for me.