J C:
Just out of curiosity, could you be more specific about how and what exactly might lead to woe? Are you saying that if I accept a discontinuity as "real" it could get in the way of life?
The discontinuity that you are experiencing may just be an artifact of your current mode of perception. And if you believe that that experience of discontinuity is a fundamental truth, you may be encouraging yourself to stick with that mode of perception. And you yourself said that you hoped to deal with some depression that you were facing, so perhaps the mode of perception that you have now, which includes feeling depressed more often than you'd like, is one that you'd do better to experience with a very light touch, not holding on to it any more tightly than you have to.
The teachers I know of who talk about fundamental discontinuities often seem to be talking about a really fine level of analysis...something that happens at the level of a millionth of a second or more, at the very least. Probably not what you're experiencing.
None of this "gesture of recognition" stuff is in any way obvious to me! But it's incredibly intriguing to me. Are there other discussion threads, links, or books on this concept? It's sounding like a cryptic riddle. I haven't really read much about this as far as I can tell and I'd like more information.
The way I describe it comes from my experience practicing along the lines that MCTB describes, so I doubt there are too many references to it,
when described in this way, in the outside world. That could be an indication that thinking about it in this way isn't profitable (unless you're steeped in this sort of tradition already).
As a beginner, every moment you spend thinking about this and searching for more information would more profitably be spent meditating, I promise.
How relaxed do you get? What do you think you could do to relax more?
I get distracted by thoughts a lot. I'm not sure what else I could do, other than keep practicing.
Think about other times in your life when you've been more relaxed. What kind of attitude did you have then? What kind of attitude do you have when you meditate? How were you using your attention then? How do you use it when you meditate? Maybe you can learn something from those experiences that you can apply to meditation.
Otherwise, you can just think of it this way: "I'm piloting a wacky alien hovercraft but don't really get how to do it well! What if I try this button? What if I try that lever? Are these things getting me closer to doing what I want to do, or not?" You can try different attitudes, different ways of approaching the basic task (following your breath), and see what happens, with an eye towards figuring out just what you would have to do to be able to be more relaxed than you already are (without messing up your clarity of mind).
Are you suggesting that noting technique might have something to do with how relaxed I am, or that changing or stopping noting might relax me more?
No need to search for a subtext here.

No one can tell you precisely how to relax your own mind. We can give some advice or some techniques, but a lot of the work is just figuring out how to apply those things in a helpful way. That's all.
Yeah, I may not be able to understand now, but this is exactly what I'm interested in understanding. I take it you're hinting at the idea that recognition is a form of dualistic thinking? Are you referring to having a more non-dualistic experience? I confess to not being sure exactly what I mean by that.
If there's any way you could elaborate further on what the "recognition" experience is, even if I can't follow most of it, I'd be curious.
If you're not sure what you mean, then if I said "yes" or "no" to it, would we even be communicating? I don't see that talking about it would help, sorry. But if you investigate it for yourself, maybe you'll see for yourself, and then you won't need to ask anyone.
How do I have an experience without that mental gesture? How would I know that I see, say, the color red, without being able to recognize it?
1) That's a nice koan you've got for yourself there. It sounds like this question is really burning you up. You know, there are traditions in which you would just sit with a question like this and your perplexity towards it, as your whole meditation practice, until something happens. "How to experience without a mental gesture? How? How?"
2) Relax more, that's how.
3) Here's a take on how, from a very different tradition. But don't read it through the lens of MCTB or you won't do it justice. Read it on its own terms, as if you never read anything about meditation before. http://www.shambhalasun.com/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=3490
It seems to me that the process of recognition requires turning focus away from sensory perception, creating a mental picture or abstraction of the sensory perception, then relating that to a whole host of other concepts in my mind about the self and the world and what's out there. Is that accurate? Is there a specific part of that process that you're referring to?
Sounds like a good start on your insight practice.
So would you say I should focus on concentration meditation for a while, say until I can hold focus for X length of time, then once I have that ability, start further looking into the 3Cs as I do?
Everyone has to make an educated guess about how much they should focus on concentration and how much they should focus on insight for themselves. When I got serious about meditation, I focused 100% on insight, and I got good results from that. But that wouldn't suit everyone. Some people are inclined to different things, and might not make good progress that way.
What I would suggest is, if you're worried about whether insight work is going to make you feel worse, then focus on concentration, but measure your success by your ability to relax with alertness (which should give you the ability to hold focus for a certain length of time automatically). And keep in mind that you might need to do some pure insight work in order to get better at relaxing, depending on the strengths and weaknesses you bring to the table.
I found that aggressive noting was a great way to hold focus and not get distracted. And if you aggressively note your way to Equanimity nana, you'll be really chilled out in a way that you probably never would have expected. So there are no hard-and-fast rules, and I recommend taking a pragmatic view about all of this, where you think of your meditation practice as an experiment that gets you some data on how your mind runs, and you look at the data you have at any particular point and make an educated guess about what would be best to emphasize in that practice. (It's easier to think this way if you have a cerebral temperament, and it might be a bad idea if you have a totally different temperament, but I assume that if you read MCTB and liked it, this way of thinking is natural enough for you, as long as you don't go overboard with it.)