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Trouble focusing on the inner visual feild

So today with the help of my meditation teacher Vincent Horn, I realized that I actually have been going into the formless jhanas for a while now without realizing it. It's nice to finally put names and descriptions to those states.

However, my samatha practice has been limited in the following way. I would really like to be able to do concentration practice using inner visual objects like kasinas, symbols, archetypes, etc. Most of my meditation practice in both insight and concentration has be based on body sensations (combo of touch, proprioception, and muscle tension sensations). However, I seem to have a lot of difficulty consciously accessing my inner visual field. When I try to visualize stuff I get a very detailed feeling picture, but this picture has no or minimal visuals.

For example, today after coming out of 8th jhana on another object, I tried to visualize a white kasina. Right away, I felt my body sensations respond as though I was standing in front of a big white light, but I didn't actually see anything. I can't quite explain how I knew it was white without seeing it, but I did. It's like the feeling in my body was the feeling I would get if I were looking at something white, yet I couldn't actually see the whiteness or anything in my inner visual field. For some reason, it's like I can't tune into direct experience of the visual dimension of my mind or put another way, visual mental sensations are automatically translated into body sensations. I have no problem going into jhana's 1-4 with an external visual object, but then my eye muscles get tired and sore after about 20 minutes from being held fixed.

The other thing I should add is that I do sometimes get momentary vivid visual experiences, but only when I'm in a hypnogogic state in which I'm relinquishing conscious control. As soon as I try to focus on such images and affect them more consciously, the whole inner visual field vanishes.

Has anybody had this problem and do you know of any strategies to solve it?

RE: Trouble focusing on the inner visual feild
Answer
3/6/14 1:42 AM as a reply to Avi Craimer.
Avi Craimer:
So today with the help of my meditation teacher Vincent Horn, I realized that I actually have been going into the formless jhanas for a while now without realizing it. It's nice to finally put names and descriptions to those states.

However, my samatha practice has been limited in the following way. I would really like to be able to do concentration practice using inner visual objects like kasinas, symbols, archetypes, etc. Most of my meditation practice in both insight and concentration has be based on body sensations (combo of touch, proprioception, and muscle tension sensations). However, I seem to have a lot of difficulty consciously accessing my inner visual field. When I try to visualize stuff I get a very detailed feeling picture, but this picture has no or minimal visuals.

For example, today after coming out of 8th jhana on another object, I tried to visualize a white kasina. Right away, I felt my body sensations respond as though I was standing in front of a big white light, but I didn't actually see anything. I can't quite explain how I knew it was white without seeing it, but I did. It's like the feeling in my body was the feeling I would get if I were looking at something white, yet I couldn't actually see the whiteness or anything in my inner visual field. For some reason, it's like I can't tune into direct experience of the visual dimension of my mind or put another way, visual mental sensations are automatically translated into body sensations. I have no problem going into jhana's 1-4 with an external visual object, but then my eye muscles get tired and sore after about 20 minutes from being held fixed.

The other thing I should add is that I do sometimes get momentary vivid visual experiences, but only when I'm in a hypnogogic state in which I'm relinquishing conscious control. As soon as I try to focus on such images and affect them more consciously, the whole inner visual field vanishes.

Has anybody had this problem and do you know of any strategies to solve it?

Have you tried the shamanic approach to it?
Avi Craimer:
One key factor is that unlike samadhi visualization, you don't create the images. You visualize an induction where you travel down or up through a tree or something similar, in order to enter the upper world of the lower world, but then in the shamanic world, you see what's there not what you choose to see. This isn't to say your mind can't interfere and start intentionally visualizing things if it wants to, but then you aren't seeing the spirit world any more. Of course, you do interact with the images, usually you see yourself in some kind of body, and you can move it around and talk and do stuff just like in the physical world (well not just like the physical world, the world is more like a dream or a fantasy adventure).
Have you tried to enter the upper world and create a stable place to meditate? You may wish to do so and create your
Kasina object there. From what I understand you can create a permanent place to work from including a healing location and a meditation location. I would be interested in your results.
Good Luck,
~D

RE: Trouble focusing on the inner visual feild
Answer
3/6/14 12:14 PM as a reply to Dream Walker.
Dream walker, not a bad idea. I've tried that before and it had a bit of success. I guess I think that I should be able to visualize stuff without travelling to the Otherworld, but maybe that's just my judgement coming into it. It would be nice to be able to just close my eyes and start visualizing. Shamanic journeying is more involved, takes more time and energy. Still, your point is well taken and I should certainly try it. Maybe once I can establish the white kasina in the shamanic space it will be easier to access in the middle world as well.

That said, if anybody has any other thoughts about more direct approaches I'd love to hear them.

RE: Trouble focusing on the inner visual feild
Answer
3/9/14 3:46 PM as a reply to Avi Craimer.
I'm quite bad at visualizing, thought not completely unable to do so; my best suggestion is to try to think about something in auditory mode, and by doing that you will probably notice that some kind of visual follows (for me things like the sound of a wood fire burning immedialy creates the visual image of the fire, you might have to experiment and find what works for you), and then you develop the skill from that with repetition.
Another thing: I noticed visuals come much better with my eyes open... maybe it's going to be the case for you as well.

Bye!

RE: Trouble focusing on the inner visual feild
Answer
3/10/14 11:48 AM as a reply to Avi Craimer.
imho you go in right direction with this linkage of visuals and feeling as it is imho exactly the key to unlock powerful visualization abilities

now you don't really know, see or feel this link between senses because it is mostly blocked but you can unlock it by investigating how you really feel sensations by which I mean that senses have their main presentation which for eg. touch is sense of pressure but also touch have its visual presentation and vice versa vision have its touch presentation and also sound, taste, smell, etc. Simply asking yourself if you see vision when feeling something eg. hand, do you hear sound when feeling it or seeing something (especially blinking), etc will in time enable you to perceive all sensations with all senses

obviously it will greatly help with visualization

BTW. locate where you imagine things in your mind during day and try to use your touch based visualization there

RE: Trouble focusing on the inner visual feild
Answer
3/10/14 1:02 PM as a reply to Paweł K.
Thanks Pawel, that's a very interesting idea about the senses all showing up in all the other senses as well. That's something I've suspected for a long time based on the way the different sense modalities seem at least partly interchangable during insight practice. It also fits well with some ideas of my favorite philosopher Merleau-Ponty who said something very similar about inter-modal perception.

A couple of questions. Do you know of any writings/teachings on this link you spoke of between the senses? Where did you learn about it? Also, can you clarify what you mean when you say, "locate where you imagine things in your mind during day". I have trouble doing this. It sometimes seems to be at a spatial location roughly in my head, but other times it doesn't seem related to a place in my body at all. I know that it's really a mind-place not strictly related to the body, so I guess my whole problem is how do I tune into this place.

An update since I made the original post. I've been working on investigating the 3 characteristics of the jhanas and formless realms. This seems to be helping with my visualization. As I become less attached to jhanic states I seem to be able to better able to direct my attention to mental imagery. I think it might also have to do with the fact that consciously creating and interacting with mental imagery takes a very stable and concentrated mind since the lest bit of mental shakiness disperses the images or sends attention away from them.

But please do keep the suggestions coming, this subject is so fascinating to me and it's surprising hard to find clear instructions about it.

RE: Trouble focusing on the inner visual feild
Answer
3/10/14 3:42 PM as a reply to Avi Craimer.
Avi Craimer:
Also, can you clarify what you mean when you say, "locate where you imagine things in your mind during day". I have trouble doing this. It sometimes seems to be at a spatial location roughly in my head, but other times it doesn't seem related to a place in my body at all. I know that it's really a mind-place not strictly related to the body, so I guess my whole problem is how do I tune into this place.


Much confusion is caused by the term "visualization" itself. Visualization is just imagining: Creating a mental image, very ordinary, nothing special about it. You can find the place where mental images are created by imagining something simple, say a triangle or a square, and build up from there. (Maybe this is also what Pawel meant.)

Also it might help to clarify the relation between mental imagery and body sensations. I have played around for some time with this by trying to distinguish clearly between actual visual sensations and subtle tactile sensations around the eyes. These two often get mixed togehter, so that what you see is subtly influenced by sensations of your facial muscles. Although this is more of a vipassana approach, once you learn to clearly separate the two, you can focus on the pure visual aspect without the subtle somatic stuff mixed in and it might be easyer to stabilize the mental imagery.

RE: Trouble focusing on the inner visual feild
Answer
3/12/14 1:10 AM as a reply to Christian B.
Thanks for the reply Christian.

Much confusion is caused by the term "visualization" itself. Visualization is just imagining: Creating a mental image, very ordinary, nothing special about it. You can find the place where mental images are created by imagining something simple, say a triangle or a square, and build up from there.


I understand that visualization is just imagining. The trouble is that when I try to lock onto the place where visual images appear, they just disappear completely. I'll see a brief flash of the visual object and then it's just gone, not even replaced by other visual stuff, the whole inner visual field disappears from view. Sometimes I can get it back, but other times it just stays dark.

I like your idea of carefully investigating the difference between somatic sensations around the eyes and visual sensations, but again, I'd need to have some visual sensations that stick around to be able to investigate this.

One thing I've started doing is trying to do vipassana with eyes open taking the external visual field as my object. This has been good, and I sometimes get more imaginary imagery with my eyes open than I do with them closed. It reminds me of a technique they use in parapsychology called the ganzfeld. Basically, telepathic "receivers" have half ping pong balls put over their eyes with a red light shining on them so that their visual field with eyes open is a just uniform red. In this state, vivid visual imagery sets in rapidly. I should try that sometime, all I need is a ping pong ball and a red light.

Keep the ideas flowing!

RE: Trouble focusing on the inner visual feild
Answer
3/12/14 2:15 AM as a reply to Avi Craimer.
Avi Craimer:
It reminds me of a technique they use in parapsychology called the ganzfeld. Basically, telepathic "receivers" have half ping pong balls put over their eyes with a red light shining on them so that their visual field with eyes open is a just uniform red. In this state, vivid visual imagery sets in rapidly. I should try that sometime, all I need is a ping pong ball and a red light.


No need for red light, I've read that a ping pong ball + white noise coming from a detuned radio works just as fine.

RE: Trouble focusing on the inner visual feild
Answer
3/12/14 11:26 AM as a reply to Avi Craimer.
Avi Craimer:

The trouble is that when I try to lock onto the place where visual images appear, they just disappear completely. I'll see a brief flash of the visual object and then it's just gone, not even replaced by other visual stuff, the whole inner visual field disappears from view. Sometimes I can get it back, but other times it just stays dark.


A few more questions and ideas:

When the internal visual object disappears, do you also lose track of the "place" in the field of awareness where the visuals were? When you say "other times it just stays dark", is there actual darkness? If so, you could focus on that. If not, and if you actually lose the place of the inner visual field, where does your attention go?

Have you tried quieting down internal talk before attempting to stabilize on the visual field? I find that when internal talk shuts down, internal visuals get more intense. I suspect that there is some standard amount of internal fabrication that happens in various modes, and if one mode is blocked, it will go to others. You could investigate if you find something similar.

Have you tried the traditiona candle-flame kasina approach? Also, the section in MCTB on this method is very interesting.

Good luck!
Christian

RE: Trouble focusing on the inner visual feild
Answer
3/12/14 12:23 PM as a reply to Christian B.
Christian B:

When the internal visual object disappears, do you also lose track of the "place" in the field of awareness where the visuals were? When you say "other times it just stays dark", is there actual darkness? If so, you could focus on that. If not, and if you actually lose the place of the inner visual field, where does your attention go?


After the visual image disappeers my attention is on somatic sensations. I've meditated so much with my eyes closed on somatic sensations, that I think my mental activity is shunted through there. There's minimal verbal talk when I meditate, automatic thoughts and intentions are expressed as somatic feelings or a mental sense of movement or space. I think I might just need to go in with stronger intention/effort to disregard somatic sensations and focus the mind on the visual space. At this stage in my practice I'm doing a lot of choiceless awareness (non-doing), so I tend not to bring much strong effort most of the time. However, to crack this nut, I may need to reintroduce it.

Christian B:
Have you tried the traditiona candle-flame kasina approach? Also, the section in MCTB on this method is very interesting.


I have read the section, but I haven't tried it yet. Maybe I'll give it a chance.

RE: Trouble focusing on the inner visual feild
Answer
3/12/14 12:45 PM as a reply to Avi Craimer.
Avi Craimer:

After the visual image disappeers my attention is on somatic sensations. I've meditated so much with my eyes closed on somatic sensations, that I think my mental activity is shunted through there.


Another thing you could try is focusing on the subtle visual aspect of your somatic self-image (if something like that presents in your experience). When I try to take the (whole) body as object, what I get is composed of two things: On the one hand there are raw tactile sensations from the skin and muscles themselves. These are sensations of pressure, vibration, flow, prickling, warm and cold streams etc. which have only vague locations and shapes. On the other hand there are subtle visual elements - fleeting, but noticable mental images of the body or body part I'm focusing on - that act as a kind of framework or map onto which the raw tactile stuff is projected. I would say that proprioception is what happens when these two aspects interact. Maybe, if you find something similar in your experience, you could focus on the visual aspects of that.

RE: Trouble focusing on the inner visual feild
Answer
3/13/14 4:56 AM as a reply to Avi Craimer.
Avi Craimer:
A couple of questions. Do you know of any writings/teachings on this link you spoke of between the senses? Where did you learn about it?

I haven't found any books about synesthesia and meditation and am self taught in that specific area of interest.
There is nice article which someone suggested to me to read http://www.drrogerwalsh.com/wp-content/ploads/2011/06Can-Synaethesia-Be-Cultivated_Walsh.pdf which summarizes it could be possible to 'get it' through meditation. There doesn't seem to be many people on DhO with synesthesia and that either mean they do not have it at all or it is there but weak and below bliss trigger level for them so it doesn't seem interesting topic ...

anyhow by doing inquiry about inner senses communication will loosen some barriers, they should start to dissolve and after some time you might as well know what to do to actualize your hidden potential in more direct fashion cause you will feel need to do this. In my case all I had to do was to 'open' stuff with most important being eyes, not physical but mental ones. Knowledge what to open and how to do it comes obviously only with practice.

Also, can you clarify what you mean when you say, "locate where you imagine things in your mind during day". I have trouble doing this. It sometimes seems to be at a spatial location roughly in my head, but other times it doesn't seem related to a place in my body at all. I know that it's really a mind-place not strictly related to the body, so I guess my whole problem is how do I tune into this place.

its 'mind place', it doesn't exist physically but dwelling in there can reveal it is in some kind of organic place, this place is in mental body. It is beneficial imho to be able to differentiate subtle bodies from physical body and to be able to interact with them. It generally helps with visualizations to be able to do so not to mention that generally knowing oneself mind better is value on its own