So I have been experimenting with the way mind overlays phenomena. I seem to have gotten pretty good at the ability to create positive/negative/non overlays. I am capable of looking around at everything (all senses) as if they were quite wonderful, fascinating, enjoyable etc. as well as looking at them in a really bare direct way which creates just equanimity... can't take it all the way to no affect though.
I am basically trying to figure out which of these paths to take. On the one hand my interactions with people while doing pleasant-overlay are better, more open, more humorous, more outgoing vs. equanimity-overlay i just kind of listen chill etc.
Some other stuff - when doing pleasant-overlay I seem to have less motivation for sitting meditation and less motivation towards breaking down the instinctual things like desire for food or sex but more motivation towards breaking down social things like anxiety or whatever.
One comparison which seems like it should be obvious but I really cant figure out is which one is more pleasant... The pleasant overlay is perhaps more enjoyable at least at first, but i have something of a direct-mode-instinct by which i automatically mess around with the way bodily affect is perceived, which often turns the full-body felicity particularly in the concentrated areas in the chest painful. If I don't focus on the physical feelings of felicity but instead attend to the perception of pleasantness which is a sort of vague object in mental space, it stays more pleasant. It still seems a bit more effortful and unstable though.
I recall a couple references to people clearly understanding these two different paths, but didn't really get what they were talking about. For example i remember this thread (I have a weird memory for random threads) in which someone asked for practice advice and discussed with trent.
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/1566439Trent .:
richard weeden:
Is it always necessary to travel to the PCE through the felicitous feelings stage?
no.
richard weeden:
Sometimes for example I don't seem to be expriencing any negative stuff, but don't feel the positivity of the felicitoous feeling stage - should I just persist with sensuous attention, or try and find more felicity and wonder in my experience?
try those approaches exclusively and try blending them too. discern the cause and effect in those situations ... observe what works and then do that.
...
richard weeden:
Should felicitous feelings just be allowed complete freedom to express and fulfil themselves so they naturally tend to the PCE and then simply disappear when the PCE happens?
try to neither express nor repress any feeling-- felicitous or otherwise. instead, be attentive of them while cultivating sensuousness-- that will allow for the magic of apperceptive awareness (the pce) to become one's experience.
Ok so trent says try both.. but which one do i do!!?!
sticking with pleasant for now since i havent done it as much.
