Paul Anthony:
Hi folks,
everything has a frame-by-frame quality but there's also this perception that this is a quality of 'me' that's affecting my perceptions. Have I missed something fundamental about noting practice or is this more a matter of philosophical perspective on what or who is doing the vibrating?
Thanks as always, paul
i am interested in this also, i am pretty novice and have had a feeling like 'i' am making it up when things speed up.
ill just wade in with some philosophical ideas which may be way off but may be of interest
i am reading a book about the the mind and free will at the moment... (called
The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force)
it covers a wide area, the physical brain, free will, quantum physics, buddism etc. I find it interesting because it links things together philosophically and scientifically and gives an sense of the mechanics of things theoretically.
a lot of it resonates with insight practice and buddhist thought. Apparently, (this might be a bit jumble, i am writing fast at work) according to some interpretations of how quantum physics works, (which i assume can be understood more properly through direct experience) physical things only really come into a definate state of being when they are conciously observed, (the rest of the time they are waves) and the state of the brain itself to be concious of of what it is observing too kind of collapses into the focus of attention. (like everything else falls away)
so in terms of insight meditation, to me at the moment it makes some kind of sense that it wouldnt be so much like the processes are there vibrating away and you just have to notice and experience them as they do there thing, and more that as the process of observation, directing attention, and being concious of things is inherent to what we experince, (as what we dont focus on falls away) then there must be a you, a concious observer, who runs the show. (or a part of the show.. the mechanical processes that are conciously bubbling up are presenting us with all kind of compulsions, free will would appear to sit above the physical processes and just have to power to conciously say yes or no, defy or focus on a compulsion, or simply be aware of a mechanical process without neccessarily acting on it)
ie it is your concious will to notice the processes that is the key, and i think that would give the sensation that 'you' are affecting you sensations.
in that sense it seems like a very fast cycle of coming concious of things again and again that is the main thing, no matter what the physical processes themselves are doing,.. so you are probaby experiencing things as it should be, if what i have written and understand of it theoretically has some sense to it. without the active 'i' it would be purely mechanistic, it is very much the interplay between the 2.
it would be interesting to know what anyone else thinks about that...