Here are two things I've been thinking about / working on over the past few months. I'm very confident that they're true, as far as own my experience goes. It would be good to hear other people's opinions on them based on their own experience.


1) For body-oriented practice: negative stuff like desire, "unsafe-feeling", unsteadiness, restlessness, anxiety, etc. are experienced in various areas in the body along the mid-line which are often associated with chakras, but there are many places in the body in which other, different kinds of negative stuff happens, which have little or nothing to do with the mid-line / chakras. These other places could be sense-organ-specific (eyes, ears, nose, tongue) or sort of arbitrary-seeming (inside of upper leg) or quite generalized (patches of skin / skin as a whole). Phenomena in these other places become more obvious and seem much more problematic once the negative experiences down the mid-line are basically subdued, due to there no longer being a worse problem to attend to which makes them look unimportant by contrast. The tingling often experienced on the surface of the body is a prime example: it seems innocuous when the mid-line experiences are acting up, but when they're not, it can seem like a kind of full-body burning which is extremely important to address in practice.

2) There is some mental process which inhibits the production of consciously-recognized thoughts, not with the goal of suppressing inappropriate content, but with the goal of but suppressing inappropriate thought prevalence / rapidity or something like that. Inhibiting this process leads to an enormous profusion of thoughts of various levels of subtlety, which at first may seem to be a net negative for meditation (as it seems like one is generating an enormous amount of pointless mental clutter), but which, upon further observation, turns out to be beneficial, as either the thoughts were previously there anyway in some form or other without conscious recognition, or some other, larger, grosser kind of clutter or dullness was there instead. (Observing all these thoughts disinterestedly and clearly, along with everything else, can lead to profound concentration.) Inhibiting this process is the goal of the Drunken Vipassana Fist technique I described in the past on KFD; what's old is new again! But, it can be inhibited in other ways, such as simply by inclining towards seeing the profuse thoughts (once there is enough familiarity with the intended mental state), or by (approximately) intending to be mindful of thinking by allowing thoughts to present themselves without attempting to look for them or hold them back.

(*I believe Liam speculated about the existence of such a process, about a year ago, in a discussion with me about what would need to happen for the Drunken Vipassana Fist technique to be useful.)


I think 1) is something that will be echoed in other people's experience, whereas 2) may be, but could also well be limited to certain kinds of minds (i.e. kinds naturally leaning towards rapid thinking, mental agitation, etc.). But it would be good to hear what people have found or would find either way.

As to 2), I have been working towards 24/7 noting in the last few days as part of retreat preparation. This has included moment-to-moment resolutions to not direct attention wherever possible, as part of an approach to cultivate equanimity and surrender - as I phase out various non-essential pursuits in order to simply note, the nature of the content/occupation becomes more arbitrary. Particularly when reclining and especially as bodily awareness begins to wane during reclining, the result is rapid noting of mental proliferation, a free-associative type in particular, which causes fast movement up through the vipassana jhanas. I had wondered whether this was in particular the prime manifestation of the Cause & Effect nana before reading your post, EiS. This can be compared to retreat experiences of the dukkha nanas: being very lost in content, there were rapidly repeating loops of negative thoughts that the mind wanted to 'solve'; and to very fast passes through the dukkha nanas in which noting of rapidly changing physical sensations left little chance for any such proliferation to be observed, but achieved similar results in terms of progress up the jhanic arc.

In all cases this has had a precondition of inclining the mind towards not repressing any thoughts. In the past, I have done so in practice for various reasons: finding mind-loops or free association boring or unpleasant; not wanting to lose contact with the body; attempting to avoid spacing out into content or dullness; or a belief that a novel kind of content containing the key to further insight needed to arise. I think the continuing habit of actively putting attention elsewhere could be a a blanket psychological protective measure against rumination on anxiety-inducing subjects or possibly against such a rapidity of thoughts that it becomes disorientating in daily life (given my rapid-fire, worrier mindset). Greater equanimity and willingness to investigate mental objects has shown these worries to be self-referencing non-issues anyway in the main. 'Larger, grosser, duller' patterns of thought such as daydream, which are present when mindfulness is low, superficially seem to cause less suffering but are a maladaptive avoidance strategy.

In fact, this (relatively small amount of) free association is not being experienced as disorientating during or after practice- I actually feel my attention is sharper and more present-focused as I write this, though you've warned yourself, EiS, that intensive practice in this manner can have side-effects. This is a lesson around avoidance/aversion and examination of process rather than content, in itself. Noting free associations is also an enjoyable (and possibly psychoanalytic) practice, compared to, say, watching pain in the knees. An experimental surrender to this kind of mental proliferation for an entire sit would be interesting, to examine the process that fuels this proliferation and see what exhausts it if anything.

This can be linked to my attempt to do the Vipassana Drunken Fist practice; there was a lot of holding back from that kind of full-steam-ahead mind state, I think mainly out of concern about possibly becoming mentally destabilised, but also out of an unwillingness to relinquish any control of the process. As an aside, I also attempted to do the practice by noting the visual field rapidly as you suggested, something which I have difficulty doing in the first place, compared to noting swift vibrations in the body or thoughts.

[quote=Liam O'Sullivan]As to 2), I have been working towards 24/7 noting in the last few days as part of retreat preparation. This has included moment-to-moment resolutions to not direct attention wherever possible, as part of an approach to cultivate equanimity and surrender - as I phase out various non-essential pursuits in order to simply note, the nature of the content/occupation becomes more arbitrary. Particularly when reclining and especially as bodily awareness begins to wane during reclining, the result is rapid noting of mental proliferation, a free-associative type in particular, which causes fast movement up through the vipassana jhanas. I had wondered whether this was in particular the prime manifestation of the Cause & Effect nana before reading your post, EiS. This can be compared to retreat experiences of the dukkha nanas: being very lost in content, there were rapidly repeating loops of negative thoughts that the mind wanted to 'solve'; and to very fast passes through the dukkha nanas in which noting of rapidly changing physical sensations left little chance for any such proliferation to be observed, but achieved similar results in terms of progress up the jhanic arc.

Interesting how the two cases mirror each other in a way. (If thoughts have a vibratory component, the two cases could become quite similar!)



I also used to tune out thoughts at many times in my practice because I found that paying them too much attention led to daydreaming or sleepiness. Now I see that cases in which I paid attention to them but experienced daydreaming etc. were cases in which I didn't pay enough attention...seeing thoughts waft by gracefully was part-vipassana, part-daydream / sleepiness, even though it didn't appear that way at the time, and that could easily evolve into full-on daydreaming. Without the daydream / sleepiness, my thoughts move extremely rapidly. If I inclining towards seeing them extremely rapidly and do it successfully, the daydream / sleepiness removes itself.



All things considered, at this point I would have to say that the side-effects I experienced and envisioned befalling others when practicing VDF have to do with building enough tension to try to disable the mental process which inhibits thoughts. The tension causes the side-effects. Without the tension (if you can just inhibit the process by willing it to be inhibited), I suspect there would only be generic vipassana side effects. And, as I've found that this is a good method to use to concentrate, anyone who finds the same might not even experience those.



Let me know how it goes if you try it. I'm especially interested in hearing whether you can experience thoughts as more prolific than rapid free-association. I have found it's quite possible to get to 20-50 mental "things" per second without any special circumstances...the "things" aren't full-formed thoughts (if you think in language, it's analogous to making sounds instead of sentences), though. I don't know if this is because there's yet more of the inhibitory process that you can turn off, or because of some idiosyncratic feature of my mind that generates this much mental stuff.

Can you talk more about the nature of theese mental "things"? Quite interested about it...

When I try to repeat a mantra very quickly, around 2 times per second my mind seems just unable to repeat that more quickly; it kind of stops, there is a moment of quiet dullness and than the one word mantra keep going once per second...

Probably that's because my very first understanding of vipassana was that I had to stop thinking, and surprisingly enought I menaged to almost completely stop the process in my daily life at will; however, this for sure had some relevant consequence on my thinking process, to the point that it's hard for me to observe thoughts, since the very act of paying attention seems to inhibit their arising.

Sometimes, if I try to observe thoughts, the only thing I notice are random words/letters, like if there was no content or meaning at all in what I'm thinking, wich is kind of disturbing...

First, start with sentences: "I like dogs", "The first thing I think we should do is dance", "Whoa, that's a great idea!", "Broccoli florets, wtf?"

Then, imagine smaller cogntive "bits" instead of sentences: "What?", "Hmm", "Well...", "Argh", "Pssst", "Yow!"

The sentences express complex thoughts. The cognitive bits express quite a lot, but not things that are easy to put into language: more like, attitudes, dispositions, reactions. The "bits" don't express thoughts in the same way as sentences do.

Then, imagine you could go from "bits" to something else (something simpler), like little mental movements, just like the progression from sentences to "bits". That's what I mean by "things".

Helpful?

Yeah, that's helpful.

It seems to me that for every thought I have, there is a physical sensation, and that sensation is what gives "meaning" to the mental bits; maybe the even more simple things you are talking about are theese small sensations with no words/mental images associated?

But, strange thing, thoose sensations I'm referring to seems to me to be something physical, not mental... mmm...am I understanding correctly what you are pointing to?

In general, the mental "things" I'm talking about all seem to be associated with something physical (meaning: something vibratory, something with heft; they're not just little gossamer specks floating around my mind), so we're probably on the same page there.

When you say that the sensation gives meaning to the mental bits, do you mean "the physical sensation is how I know the mental bit is about whatever it's about", or something else?

Yeah, that's it; basically, if I would experience only that physical sensation, I would be albe to say what mental bit is associated with it.
Sometimes it feels like there is only that part of the thing, so there is a physical moment of "meaning", without any obvious mental component; in thoose cases, there is a moment where I can be aware of that, and the next moment that physical sensation is completely gone, and there is no way I can remember what that psysical sensation was about; however, if there is a mental bit and the physical sensation I can remember it afterwards, because I can remember the mental bit; if there is only the mental bit without the psysical sensation, in that case the thought is really just that, not different at all from, let's say, any other thing in the field of awareness.

By the way, thoose physical sensations are often located in the third eye region, and they seems to be associated with sati; so, for example, I can walk and just be aware of the sensations of foots/legs, or I can walk knowing that I am walking, in wich case there are thoose physical sensations associated -wich also mean that the thought "I am walking" is optional in order to know that I am walking, so, by the way, while noting I realized many times that there was the label but I wasn't really aware of what I was doing, though the sensations building what I was doing were cognized-.

God, that was messy...

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?

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.

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?

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.



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.



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).

maybe it is because i have been spending weeks reading kant about synthetic a priori knowledge but i am having a hard time figuring out what your saying. the direction this is taking me has a lot to do with math and the nature of concepts and stuff which is pretty irrelevant to the ending of suffering but to condense my argument i'd say that the idea of the numbers themselves are not actually part of conscious experience except as 'subjective'/imagined sense impressions. whether it be the sounds of the numbers or the images of them or the images of a landscape of shapes...



I really can't seem to experience this except as either a feeling in the body, an image, or the sound of the word "i".



maybe!?!?!

I wasn't actually thinking about methods here, more about the way vibrations work. like i noticed recently that my throat chakra has been pleasantly comfortable for months, whereas it used to ache whenever i had certain thoughts. my chest on the other hand has become more prominent, due to less throat stuff. i don't think i paid more attention to my throat or anything like that, and i was kind of just wondering how vibrations in specific parts of the body related to progress. like why the midline shuts down before the random stuff throughout the body? like maybe it is that you pay attention to an area of the body and it gets subdued somehow... or you disidentify with a part of the body or something... I dont know

To clarify my argument: between the synaesthete in that video and you or me, what difference in seeing / hearing / smelling / tasting / touching is there that accounts for his ability to put two shapes together and get a solution to a multiplication problem (and not just another shape), which we don't share? If there's something additional happening in one of those modalities for him which we don't share, you're right (though I would ask you what that thing would be). If you think there isn't, then what possibility remains besides there being a difference in pure thought between him and us?



As I said, it seemed to require a lot of concentration to see. It's not even clear to me right now. It doesn't manifest in the "normal" way (feelings in the body, images, etc.). And it isn't a normal sense of "I" akin to those other things at all.

Ramana Maharshi said that "I AM" manifests as "being still", or something like that. Maybe that will help somehow.



It's possible that people could experience changes in different orders, depending on how they practice. I'm not sure.

Sometimes I've noticed that vibrations that go away seem to go away in response to sustained attention, whereas other times I've noticed that what goes away happens at a surprising moment and in a surprising location (not that I never paid attention to the thing that went away, but it wasn't a major focus, or even a focus at all). So I'm not sure if there's a simple relationship between what you pay attention to and what changes. I haven't found one.

The really big changes for me haven't involved individual vibrations going away or becoming reduced, but are experience-wide reductions.

Overall, I would guess that the midline gets quiet before everything else, just because the midline experiences are more "fundamental" in some way, related to more "basic" desires and aversions than the miscellaneous stuff elsewhere.

I would investigate whether the sensations you experience in the third eye are mindfulness itself, or whether they're incidental to mindfulness, or caused by mindfulness but perhaps unnecessary or even distracting.