Hi Tarin
As always many thanks for your reply and I hope this message finds you well.
then see by gazing very intently, hear by listening very closely, feel by being very sensitive. your feelings will lead the way to knowing your body. your sense of delicate harmony will lead the way to knowing your ear. your fascination in vision will lead the way to knowing your eye. knowing your eye will be the means by which you discern freshness and ephemerality. knowing your ear will be the means by which you discern stillness and resonance. knowing your body will be the means by which you discern organic sensation and aliveness. knowing your senses in such a direct way will open the way to apprehending the mind's apprehension (an example of which would be seeing that the eye sees).
apprehending the mind's apprehension will be the way by which you approximate (that is, bring together) reason. approximating (that is, bringing together) reason is the way by which you discern, and determine, appropriate judgement. discerning, and determining, appropriate judgement is the way by which you know how to act and what to do, and so how to proceed in your path (the means you employ, which methods to employ when and where, etc).
My 'model' at the moment (using seeing as an example) is that there are visual stimuli out there, these stimuli [via the sense contact and brain[ get interpreted as objects, colours, movement, brightness, contrast etc etc. and give rise to the world of objects. Using the brain slightly differently there have been moments when the discrimination into objects has dropped momentarily as this is an 'add-on'. Of course dropping the 'thought overlay' results in just experiencing the colours, movements, objects etc.
Beyond this I wouldn't know what your intriguing paragraph means, so would be good to know if there are any overlaps in models?
the point of this is to get the mind involved in the mu'ing to release at the same time the mind involved in breathing tends to release. do you understand?
Yes, we are working to 'release' the mind from all object/subject relations. Mu seems to just be the object to ball the rest (of objectivity) up with- hence becoming mu we lose the self/other....
The reason I am having trouble with this is that the Zen and Theravadan models have not been compared and contrasted as far as I can see in a useful way.
In my Zen school we are just pushing for the 'big' kensho - many of the Zen folks I know/'know of' aren't particularly mindful/careful/responsible, just focussed on that big kensho. The Theravadan models give the moral basis for practice and life, expounds on levels of insight and from my experience gives gradual and useful results. Now I know I overgeneralised on the Zen faults but the practice of mu, counting breaths and following the breath just don't seem to give me the 'happy abiding' on a daily basis that the Chah and Vimalaramsi schools do (at least). Given we do not know our lifespan I would rather a practice that leads towards enlightenment but each day provides some benefits for myself and those around me in terms of serenity, happiness, right action/responsibility etc.
vimalaramsi's method of jhana instruction is excellent. i particularly like the emphasis on using bodily feelings to incline into absorption, and using the tranquillising effect of natural breathing to facilitate this. if you would find it helpful to communicate with another person who understands that approach to jhana, ian and is someone around here who can likely guide you well. another person perhaps worth contacting is chuck kasmire, who used to be a regular poster but hasn't been around for a while; look for him in the list of members.
Thank you. I will do

what may be worth also understanding is the similarity his method of jhana induction has with the method of mu breathing. both aim to foster conditions in common; both are intended to (eventually) produce the condition of tranquil yet alert, open-ended yet hyper-focused, one-pointedness. this one-pointedness has been demonstrated to bring jhana to fruition.
Aha. some overlap between the two models. Many Zen folk (from different schools) that I have spoken to dismiss Theravadan Jhanas and Zen kenshos as entirely different. My own feeling was that this was probably not the case. My own validated experience (by Zen men) seems to be very much like one of the 'higher' jhana descriptions- awareness with no object/no self- nothing but pure awakeness [the self had a major panic on its return]. I would like to hear more on the similarities/differences from your perspective if and when you have time.
if you can do that relentlessly and see the instances of moving towards/away from (the cravings and aversions) as they occur in your mind on a moment-to-moment, second-by-second, sub-second-by-sub-second basis, without faltering to the occasional discouragement or confusion you may experience owing to the bewilderingly sheer breadth of territory you will likely encounter in the process of this practice, you will be on a very straight path to liberating insight.
I think, if we are talking sub-second change, then I am still on the grosser levels of big chunk craving/aversion. Still this is having results and by and by I guess the fine distinctions will start to appear?
Cheers, Tarin. All the best
Rich