Adam . .:
EiS, would you agree that all 'mental things' are in some way related to a sense door? like there is no mental thing other than 'subjective'/'inner' sound/sight/feel/taste/smell? or is there really some '6th' sense of thought?
Regarding a "pure" mental sense, check out this video, beginning at 1:45:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd1gywPOibg
The pure mental sense allows this guy to know that the shapes he's seeing are numbers, and the shape that conforms to the negative space between the two multiplicands is the particular number that solves the multiplication problem. Without a mental sense, it would just be a visualization of shapes (which is how people who aren't this guy perceive things), and there wouldn't be any insight into the problem...he doesn't find the answer by manipulating shapes, but by manipulating shapes that have an synaesthetically attached number (idea / thought), and we can easily see that more is required to solve the problem than seeing.
Analogous things hold for "normal" experience. Not sure how relevant this is to practice, though.
Relatedly, the "I"-thought I talked about in a recent post is a pretty good example of something that seems like a purely mental experience as well, though I can't be certain yet. I did notice a distinct visual impression associated with it, but I assume that it was incidental.
on another note i would say that the inner 'sensations' which always correspond to different sense doors provide meaning for the vibratory sensations in the body. i.e. if you are hungry there might be some vibratory sensations in the mouth along with a mental thing that might be a subtle fleeting image of a hamburger along with a subtle fleeting taste of salty or something like that. so the 'mental' provides direction and the physical provides impetus.
I see the vibratory sensations as colors, shapes, etc. as well as vibratory, so this way of dividing stuff up (visual
vs. vibratory) never occurred to me; I'll have to think about it.
another question what is the mechanism for 'subduing' the negative vibratory experience down the 'midline?' paying attention to the experiences as they arise and pass? deconstructing the subject which causes a sense of affliction and reactivity?
Temporarily: concentration.
Permanently: I dunno, you think I've been holding back some secret method? I recommend any of the stuff I've talked about, as well as stuff that other people have talked about that worked for them. There's a skill to figuring out what's most effective when, but the main thing is to find something that works and
keep doing it.
The baseline for me now is sort of like: sometimes the midline stuff seems suppressed below some special threshold (and then other stuff is more bothersome), other times there's some midline stuff, but it can still sometimes be curiously hard to pin down for some reason. Some other people have said they no longer experience "attention bounce" and I wonder if they're referring to one of these two things...when midline experience is sedate enough, the mind doesn't seem to get dragged around by it in so overt a way anymore, so the metaphor of "bouncing" between midline points stops being apt.
It's good, but there's no special method I used to get there; I just keep paying attention as best as I can, concentrating as best as I can, and hoping everything works itself out over time (which it has so far).