Simple question.  Seems like the very nature of imaginative thought is unconsciousness, so how do you allow thought to continue without becoming lost within it?

EDIT: Ah, the moment I ask, I figure it out, haha.  The key seems to be aiming at a one-pointed concentration during meditation.  Afterwards, the awareness revealed by this concentration is much easier to find behind the stream of thoughts and disruptive emotions. Actually, this experience is probably just an awareness that is moving less rapidly, so it seems to be more restful in spite of thinking.

When you notice that you wandered in thoughts you are already back. Notice when you're deep in thought and a loud noise occurs. The consciousness receives this automatically so you are never completely lost in thoughts. You need to let go of aversion to thinking because it's just more aversion. It's been shown in studies (Daniel Kahneman Thinking Fast and Slow) that when you do high processing thinking the brain has less processing power to notice the environment. If you are using this processing power to do something useful there isn't a problem. The problem is if you go "unh!" with aversion every time you catch yourself wandering.

It's more important to say "empty" and let go of clinging and obsessive thinking towards desires and frustrations that interrupt your goals and move your intention to pay attention to some other object more worth your time. Notice habitual intentions to pay attention versus the same thing under your vivid presence. Automatic intentions move so quickly they are practically the same as the action and for ultimate purposes they don't inherently exist and are not separate.

Another way to look at thoughts is not to look at them as separate from mind. The noting practice unfortunately can reduce thinking too much in daily life so a bare awareness of the thinking is better and when the mind is caught up and you notice this, then you are already back. Instead of having aversion "Buddhists don't have wandering minds" you can direct your intentions on something else. This allows the self-sense to be used in skillful ways and if you need more prescence you can add that. But trying to be mindful uninterrupted all day has to include passion, interest, wonder, etc or else it's a thoughtless zombie-like experience.

http://www.dharmaseed.org/talks/audio_player/20/18515.html
8:47 especially

EDIT:

This too:
http://www.dharmaseed.org/talks/audio_player/210/10835.html

When I notice I am lost in thought, that moment of noticing is accompanied by a realization of where I am, what I'm doing, and an interruption in the imagination.  As an experiment, see if you can imagine a tree and still be aware of yourself.  In that moment of imagination, the awareness loses touch with understanding that it is aware in my experience, like entering a dream state.

EDIT: Please note my original post doesn't indicate an aversion towards thoughts or a desire to suppress them.  I would, instead, like to know a good way to remain self-aware while they are happening.

Normally we're wrapped up in what thoughts mean, rather than what they're made of. Shifting a little attention away from the meaning of a thought toward the composition / 'substance' of thought is one way to do what you're asking. That way you can actively or passively go on thinking, yet still maintain awareness of thought as thought. (Otherwise, it's as you said, like entering a dream state and being carried along by the content alone, and being unaware that this has happened).

So, what is thought 'made of'? What is the insubstantial 'substance' that comprises it? What is the 'medium' in which it arises, and into which it subsides? If you contemplate thought as a kind of awareness (made of nothing other than awareness), rather than a usurper of awareness, it solves two problems: you're neither carried away unwittingly by the content of thought, nor trying to induce a thought-free state in order to be more aware or more present.

I don't know if there is a good way to maintain awareness while thinking if this suggests that the thoughts are playing themselves out and you are aware of it. In my experience prplongued conceptual thinking only occurs when I am dissasociated from thoughts in their immediacy. In being with the immediacy of thoughts they reveal themselves as explosions of energy, and quickly die. If a thought has been going on and attention inclines to looking directly at the thought it seems to vanish. Most of the dullness in my experience anymore comes from moments where there is just some habitual, neutral thinking going on at a low hum below the surface.

Mahamhudra practice regarding thoughts involves looking at thoughts from a place of emptiness as though looking at the surface of a still pond and watching for a ripple to appear in a very intense way. Conversely there is the practice of relaxing the focus and allowing the thoughts to do whatever they may as though watching from sidelines in appreciation of the wild, energetic nature of thinking. The analogy that is given is like watching children play from the side without interfering.

Interestingly (though not surprisingly) there's an actual neural correlate to the experience: an observable reversal of signal flow in the brain when moving between mental imagery and visual perception. So, no surprise that the two appear mutually exclusive in terms of lived experience.

For my part I reckon abiding in stillness helps to rewire the brain, slowly addressing and relieving habits of rumination, self-reference, and fundamental misperception. But there's also something to be said for having become distracted in the first place, especially the in-the-moment contrast that coming back provides. It's like reality raps itself on the forehead.

Here is my experience: If I simply aim to accept everything, the imagination (the hologram in my head) will become less and less active until it shuts off completely.  This feels like becoming less distracted.  I can accomplish the same thing much faster by simply turning off that function directly.  It doesn't take any real effort or strain to do, I just "get in touch" with where I am and what I'm doing, and the "here and now" has this tangible delightful quality that is easy to remain in.

Now, I've also tried examining the nature or "substance" of thoughts, but this, essentially, diffuses them to the point where they stop coming.  Thoughts don't have substance, so they just collapse if you try to pay any real attention to them.  I don't continue having thoughts and yet feel uninvolved in them, they just go away.  Actually, sometime as I'm doing this, there is a very obvious opening of awareness where thoughts just stop completely and a big wave of relaxation and stillness descends.  I can continue having verbal thoughts, like disembodied sounds, while remaining aware of what's happening, but as soon as I go into the mind I immeditately lose touch with that awareness, and it only reappears when the imagination switches off again.

The hindu tradition says, directly, that liberation is freedom from thoughts, and that concentration on the "I am" awareness will eventually stop them altogether.  Buddhism talks about seeing the empty nature of thought, though, especially mahamudra where awareness is maintained both internally and externally and the mind rests because of this.  How is this internal awareness supposed to work though?  The only time I've felt like I am resting in awareness is when the awareness has stopped going into the imagination.

Not Tao,

        What do you mean by internal or external awareness?
        You may find Gary Weber interesting. He doesn't appeal to me, but that's probably just a matter of temperament and not objective value.

Bill

Pawel, your response here is both rude and useless.

The manifestation of imagination or any other phenomenon is not seperate from consciouseness / awareness etc. 

Words like consciousness / awareness are kind of loaded with subject / object connotations. So my perfered term is "luminosity".

As a lamp illuminating a dark room allows us to see, consiousness at its core can be conceived of in a similar manner.

Without this basic luminosity it is impossible to to have any sort of conscious experience or manifestation of phenomenon at all.

The basic luminosity itself has no properties other than the experience that is being manifest, and experience manifest is all possible because of this luminosity.

So in this sense the luminosity literally is the experience. And experience is luminosity. 

-------

The normitive state of mind is one that is distracted from this core luminosity of experience. Lost in permutations of expereince, and inferential cognition.

The manifestation of imagination has its core the same sort of basic luminosity.

But if one is bedazzled by the various permuations of imagination then that luminosity has lost touch with itself.

@D Z: I'm asking how to remain undistracted while thinking with inner pictures generated by the mind.

The more detailed the picture the less processing power available to notice anything else. Don't try to "clean the mirror" of consciousness because it has no shape, colour, location or time. Thinking deeply is just as empty (and known by consciousness) as sitting with calm abiding. A sense of self can go from a tantrum down to subject, object and time.

Try something harder. Try and do a math problem and stay in the present moment with the same clarity as developing a jhana.

Actually maybe you shouldn't because you might hurt yourself. Daniel Kahneman did test after test and he could see people's pupils widening until they solved the math problem or gave up. Your will power will get drained eventually and you're not going to be able to be mindful perfectly in all thinking situations. If you could imagine and think deeply with 100% presence and no stress you would be smarter than a genius. Even a genius will burn out if they do too much work. The great thing about insight though is that you don't have to add extra stress on top of what is already natural and that's what can free up energy for thinking that would otherwise be used for rumination/papanca. If the brain finally stops believing in inherent existence then the overall papanca would reduce further allowing more energy for useful thinking.

Good luck!

There are different approaches. But one is to recognize the luminosity within thought and then practice it over and over till stablized.

To regonize luminosity in thought you can consider the following:

When and where does a thought arise ? When and where does it abide ? And when and where dose it dissapate ?

With this investigation it is clear that the linear sort of conception of thought as happening over time is not accurate.

 For visual imagination, further consider that at visual scene on its own without cognitive imputation is basically just colors. This can help remove some of the facination with the content of the imagination.

Also important to note that, at the level of basic sensory perception, visual imagination is not different from other visual phenomenon. We designate it as imagination, due to further cognition and processing.

So you're saying to break the stream of thoughts and simply stay with the thought that is currently happening without connecting it to earlier thoughts?

Nope.

What is thought at a sensory level ? Consider a simple auditory thoughts for example "My name is Not Tao"

Generally it is conceived of as a sentance happening over time.

A sentence is something that has a beginning a middle and an end. In this case "My" at the start, and "Not Tao" at the end.

But is this how thought is really experienced ?

What if you consider the experience of a sentence in the present moment ? Is it something that has a beginning a middle and an end ?

There is the experience of the sounds of the thought, the imputation of meaning,  and imputation of a chrononlogical order, etc, as self-luminous phenomenon.

The experential realization you would be aiming for is something like the thought seeing itself as thought. Rather than some sort of seperate awareness.

That monkey though....

For me, thoughts present as me talking to myself. It's the same process that occurs when I freely and loosely talk to someone else about what's on my mind, but it's in my head. Sometimes what I'll do is to listen to the thoughts as though they were someone else's voice, and just "watch" (well, listen actually) the words and sounds go by. Just as I would if, say, the radio were on, or if someone else was talking out loud.

You mention "inner pictures" - I never think in pictures and have very low visualization abilities, but I imagine it would be a similar process. Basically, just notice the thoughts and disidentify/detach your "self" from them by paying close attention as though they came from outside your head, instead of inside.

I actually found it really helpful, though there is some nuance and emotion confusion due to the language barrier.

I've read this whole thread several times and there's a lot of wisdom here.

As I see it, Pawel's pointing out that you have these discrete categories you seem to be calling "awareness" and "thought" that you are observing, but actually everything you're experiencing is just something in your head, with an undercurrent of awareness behind it. That is,

"Ooh I feel really aware of my surroundings" and

"Wow I was just lost in thought" and

"Now I feel a touch on my leg. Now I see the blue sky. Now I feel an itch" and

"Hmm, wonder how they made that cup... wonder if it was cast out of a mold... what if I made one a little bigger [or whatever random thoughts you're having]"

are all just impermanent empty experiences/thoughts/sensations,

So rather than divide up your experience into awareness and thought, just notice it all, however you're experiencing it.

Oh, and you may find this thread useful (you posted on it a while back):

http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/view_message/5568883#_19_message_5620154

For what it's worth NT, in my experience it's totally possible to be aware (wide awake aware) of the imaginal and sensate at the same time. In fact, they seem to have a deep relationship in some sense. My experience is something like this:

Sensations arise at all six sense doors and perception responds by projecting 'meaning' onto the raw patterns of sensation. "Computer screen' for instance is projected onto colors and shapes (sensations). "Judy talking" gets projected onto those sounds at the ear door. Thus imagination (in the broad sense) mixes with sensations all the time to give things their familiar meanings.

These perceptual concepts implicate whole mnemonic systems of meaning about what computer screens and Judys are, what talking is, what the internet is, what my role at work and it's relation to Judy's role is, etc. All that stuff comes along built-in as it were to the basic percepts, the basic recognitions (literally re-cognitions).

This whole process is 'imaginal' in part. Basic physical perceptions are partially imaginal! That's one basis of Buddhist Tantra. Practicing to imagine oneself a buddha in a pure land full of other buddhas is something that's hard to sustain at all times. But we can start to notice that all the rest of the time, we are (partially) imagining our 'mundane' reality. But the assumption that there is something absolutely real 'out there' beyond this feedback loop with our own (partially imaginal) processing is itself problematic. Assuming conversely that it is just 'me' in my own bubble of experience is also clearly problematic, because we are relating to others all the time. Just experiencing things in an open-ended way without reducing experience to an interpretation is challenging but rewarding. We can learn to see how much freedom and creativity there is in the nature of mind.

So long story short i would suggest that if you conduct the experiment as to whether you can imagine being a tree and also have physical sense clarity in your immediate environment at the same time, and your experience is that you can't, then maybe you are just imagining that you can't ha!
Because I definitely can, so therefore it is possible, eh?

It's like the old abhidharma dogma that mind can only experience 'one thing/thought' at a time and if we seem to be experiencing 'two things/thoughts' simultaneously then we must actually be experiencing them serially switching back and forth rapidly, more rapidly than attention can register, generating the illusion of experiencing two things/thoughts at once. That may have an element of experiential truth to it but it's also true that we can zoom out and have a total clarity of this moment of experience (including all sensing, perceiving, feeling, imagining, intending, etc) as an open-ended singularity in which every'thing' in the whole open-ended field is equal.

J C, I don't think in pictures really either, but my vision is definately obscured when lost in thought.  If I turn off the inner impressions associated with thoughts, the thoughts present as sounds, only, and are no longer a problem in terms of emotional involvement or distraction.

Are you saying that you always have a perfectly clear visual link to the present moment, or do you find yourself walking around blind, sometimes, while lost in your thinking. If the latter is true, your visual processing is tied up in something, no? The pictures for me are more like impressions. I only realize they're scenes if I am watching closely and trying to understand what they are, and it's usually in retrospect that I understand they were visual impressions, since while they are happening I am completely distracted.

J C, can't you see the contradiction in saying "instead of dividing your experience into thoughts and awareness, just notice it all"?  The noticing is what I'm talking about.  It seems impossible to notice imaginative thoughts while having them - the imagination is, itself, a lack of noticing - a lack of awareness.

Jake, do you make a distiction between being "lost in thought" and being "aware of thought"?  If so, what's the difference?

When I'm driving while lost in thought, I still manage to get to my destination. So it's not that my visual processing is tied up in something: it's still working as normal, that's just not where my focus is. My focus is on the thoughts.

I find the teaching of the six sense doors helpful here. What you're calling imagination and a lack of awareness is the sixth sense door - thought. It's not a lack of noticing, it's a switch of your attention and focus from sensory perception (external) to thought (internal).

Now with any of the sense doors, you can be more or less attentive. For sight, it's the difference between looking closely at every little detail vs. skimming a visual panorama. For thought, it's the difference between carefully noticing how your thoughts present vs. being lost in them. This continuum of awareness applies just as well to the internal realm as it does to the external - it's just easier to be attentive to your senses and easier to get lost in your thoughts.

What happens when you pay close attention to the inner impressions of your thoughts?

You keep renaming awareness. Here, you called it focus.  So, in the context of your last post, there, my original question is, "how do you maintain focus on those internal impressions?"  When I focus on internal impressions (what I called the imagination - or mental pictures), I am no longer self-aware.  Which is to say, I am lost in thought as opposed to focused on thought.  Put another way, I am not aware of the fact that I am aware of thoughts.  The exact opposite is true if I stop imagining anything.  I am aware of the fact that I am aware of where I am and what I'm doing.

Another way to say this is, when I am using internal impressions to think, I am no longer conscious.  If I come out of this way of being, I have some vague memories of what happened, but I was not actually there to witness it.  It's very similar to waking up in the morning and comparing the dreaming awareness with the waking awareness.

TBH, I'm a bit frustrated with this thread.  You guys don't seem to understand what I'm talking about.

D Z, I noticed that my thoughts simply arise complete in and of themselves, and the words or impressions that form around them with a sense of time attached, like a sentence in my head or an imagined scene, aren't actually needed to have a complete thought. For example, if I cut off my verbal thoughts mid-sentence, I realize that I've already had the thought, and I'm actually just repeating it. Does this relate to what you're saying here in any way?

I understand exactly what you're talking about. I've experienced it many times. Awareness is a spectrum, ranging from what you consider lost in thought and no longer conscious all the way to being very aware. By practicing bringing awareness to your mental pictures, that is, by noticing the contents of your imagination, you will become more aware of them as they occur. It is a gradual process.

I understand that it's hard to catch the mental pictures because they seem to go away when you bring your awareness to them, so it seems like the two states of awareness and imagination are mutually exclusive, but with practice it gets easier. This is something I actively do as well. The thoughts/pictures just run on their own, and you forget to notice them, and then when you do it's like "whoa, what was that"... and then the next time you're a little more aware of your thoughts running.

OK, great question. A few years ago I definitely would have unhesitatingly made this distinction. It is probably inevitable to make this distinction at a certain stage. What I can tell you is I don't see it as so cut and dried anymore.

At that time the distinction was very clear. That's because I was trying to 'practice'. I was trying to effort 'being aware'. Naturally any such attempt is empty and impermanent so there is then an oscillation between the effort of being 'aware of thought' and then being 'lost in thought'.

The fact is, awareness is built in to all experiences. Each experience arises as its own clarity just like that. Thoughts, sights, sounds, touch, etc just arise as their own clarity. There's really nothing getting in the way. However, to a mind that deeply clings to a view of being a solid seperate self it definitely feels like "I" must "do" something to 'be aware' or else "I" am 'lost in thought'.

So OK, Jake, if this is so than wtf is 'being lost in thought' damn it all?? Haha..
OK, I suggest you temporarily adopt a provisional, pragmatic view that there is a difference between 'awareness' and 'attention'. Attention moves between the six senses focusing on one or another or a combination in any given moment. Attention also has qualities like depth, clarity, stability, openness/inclusiveness, and their opposites. In contrast 'awareness' just IS; it just is the basic quality of knowingness that is the same in any act of attention AND in any primal experience (sight, sound, thought, touch, smell, taste).

OK so that is a provisional distinction. Then with this model I explain the illusion of being 'lost in thought' as arising dependant on the following conditions. 1) awareness and attention are not differentiated 2) attention becomes absorbed in an act of objectifying one or moer of the senses (in a percept, in other words).

Attention so absorbed, when there is no experiential understanding of the distinction between awareness and attention, results in the feeling of being 'lost in thought'. It ALSO results in the feeling of being in a concentration state (when attention is stabily absorbed where 'you' want it to be.)

Habitually attention is absorbed in the 'six realms', the mooded experience of these emotional landscapes of reactivity from positive to negative, from pride to rage. With practice attention can become absorbed in higher realms: the form and formless realms, or the bramhaviharas, etc.. All these realms (samsara) are fabricated by attention becoming so absorbed in objectifications/subjectifications. They don't actually inherantly exist, but they do appear.

So currently for me when I sit for example I may experience a lot of stillness and openness or a lot of daydreaming. If I just SIT and have no agenda what will typically happen is there will be an oscillation between states of relative calm and states of thoughts flowing. If i don't interfere with this each time the calm arises it is more complete, light and effortless. Each time the 'distraction' arises it is more translucent to the calm. Whereas in the past I would alternatively identify with a succesful and unsucsessful meditator-self as evidenced by being calm or being distracted, now these movements are just seen as natural functions of mind. It's just like a mountain sitting there while clouds come and go, clear sky comes and goes, there is no problem either way because it's all IT.

hope this helps. Sorry you are feeling frustrated by the conversation.

Hi Jake,

You are still making a distinction between "good" awareness and "bad" awareness here.  In this case, you are using the word "clarity."  I don't actually have much problem with being lost in thought - most of the meditation I've done involves acceptance as the base - the problem I'm having is understanding these texts that say the natural awareness is always present.  I think what actually happens is that meditators lose touch with what being lost in thought actually means for a "normal" person.

Consider what awareness means.  It's a knowing quality.  So while you are lost in thought, you don't actually know what you are looking at in front of you.  You aren't aware of it, your brain is just sorting through it automatically.  I'm making a further distinction that I don't actualy know what I'm seeing in my head either.  You said, yourself, that you don't visualize very well, but is this true?  In my case, it isn't that I don't visualize well, it's that I'm actually unaware of what is happening internally.  If I make a concerted effort to remember what I was just thinking about, I can see that I was actually embedded in a very complex imaginative scene, but my memory of it is very fragmented - just like trying to remember a dream.  There are complex images and even sounds, but all I'm really aware of is an emotional feeling and a stream of verbal repetition.

So it isn't a matter of "being" so much as the awareness itself.  The various texts I'm reading say to examine the nature of thoughts and to rest in the awareness OF the thoughts.  It isn't subject and object, but actual consciousness of what's happening.  Being lost in thought and coming out of it are two very different levels of consciousness.  I don't feel lost in thought when it's happening, I realize I have been lost in thought when I suddenly re-appear, and this re-appearance tries to understand what's been happening and simply can't.

You said that as you just sit, the states of "distraction" become more translucent to the calm.  This is my experience as well, but it seems to be that the imaginative faculties are actually going offline, and the thoughts are presenting less as involved scenes and more as complete ideas without any imagination attached to them.  This is not the same as being lost in thoughts, it's a completely different mode of awareness in relation to thoughts - a completely different way of thinking - so I've been assuming I'm missing something.

To get to the level where you know that the natural awareness is always present, you have to practice. For a "normal" person, natural awareness is clouded by all the things going on in the head.

I agree, saying "the natural awareness is always present" is misleading.



I would rephrase and say "You aren't very aware of it." You are still slightly aware of it - for instance, hearing or seeing something surprising can make you become more aware. If you weren't at all aware, that would not occur.



Compare those two descriptions closely. So at first, you have fragmented dreamlike memories of what occur, which you afterwards fill in with a complex imaginative scene. After sitting more, you state that your awareness is the same, but the fragmented memories are gone.

I think your use of the word "imagination" here is confusing - to me the term suggests being aware of visualizing something, whereas you're talking about lack of awareness. I don't think it's that what you're calling "the imaginative faculties" went offline and the involved scenes disappeared - I think they were never there in the first place, they're just dreamlike artifacts of your brain trying to reconstruct and fill in the lack of awareness. Maybe that's why you (and I - I have the same exact experience) can't seem to "grasp" them.

So do you think my problem is less related to doing something improperly, and more related to taking the texts at face value?

I do see a very distinct difference between distraction and non-distraction.  It isn't that thinking goes away so much as changes form.  When I am in what I would call the "most aware" state, there is still thinking, but the thinking happens simultaneously with the present moment awareness of the senses.  Sometimes there is the impression that thinking has stopped completely, but it isn't a lack of thought so much as a lack of internal verbalization or imagination giving some kind of form to the thoughts.  They just exist as a kind of mind ripple.

So what is the difference between the clouded natural awareness, and the clear natural awareness? Is it that those things going on in the head clear away? Is it that those things are simply known with a clear consciousness individualy as they each arise in turn? What is it that is cloudy, and how do you practice to make it less cloudy?

Yes, those things that are going on in the head clear away. Mostly it is thinking that is cloudy and the way to make it less cloudy is through insight that you gain when you see that most of the thoughts don't lead you anywhere and mostly they are repetitions of the same sort.

I'm not sure what specific texts you are talking about.

I'm also not sure what the "problem" is here: you seem to be closely examining thinking and awareness, and you're describing the different ways that thought appears depending on how distracted or aware you are.

Is the problem that your observations don't seem to match some theory?

You mention a distinct difference between distraction and non-distraction, which makes me think that what's going on has something to do with identification - that is, seeing the thoughts as you vs. something outside yourself. When you don't identify with the thoughts, you're able to see them from the outside and be aware of their formlessness. When you identify with them, you get lost and distracted in them.

Hi, I don't want to interrupt the discussion with my own point of view, but I've read the thread of a few times, and JC's last post and this keeps popping up: 

I've really had a hard time understanding that word "identify". To identify with thoughts. When I "identify" with thoughts, what am I doing? I may have a thought and be immersed in it, in the way Not Tau is describing, then after a few moments step back with more 'awareness' of what just happened, recognize that I was 'lost in thought', and then say something like "I identified with that thought". Does that mean that... I thought I was literally experiencing that thing in that moment? I was literally at that place in the past with that person and I actually believed that at that moment? THAT'S what I would call "identifying with a thought" -- to literally believe something fantastic to be the case. But of course when I step back and realize I was 'lost in thought', I know I didn't really believe that to be happening. I was simply immersed in it; my awareness was "cloudy" or whatever. (So that's a first question of mine: What does "identifying with a thought" mean in the Buddhist sense? It seems like this is a really important question). 

Instead I have found myself thinking for some time that getting lost in thought is intentional in a way, meaning it's preceded by an intention. I want to remember this time I had with my girlfriend because I want to feel a certain way. I want to imagine this time I didn't say what I wanted to say because I want to feel a certain way. I want to imagine how I'm progressing in my practice by writing on this forum because I want to feel a certain way. I may have thoughts here and there that seem involuntary, of course, meaning I catch them as they are arising, or shortly after they have arisen. But then I latch onto them, even if only softly, and build something more out of them. I "allow" a scenario to be built. The imagery almost constructs itself and the feeling path seems to widen similarly to encompass what I want to (read: intended) to feel.

Edit: In fact, on this last point I will say that I have only been able to reach what I called '4th jhana' when I find myself realizing in some given moment that I am constructing the inner imagery appearing before me, or that I am augmenting it or restricting it in some way based on suble intentions (i.e. desires) to see a certain something or feel a certain something or see a certain inner visual/sound/touch/whatever texture/impression arising.

Hi Heath, 

You asked a question about what identification with thought is in the Buddhist sense.  I can share my understanding from my experience with this concept.  When identification has occured in this experience with any phenomena (e.g. sensation....or feeling, seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, thought) there is an absense of a mindful awareness or observation of the particular phenomena occuring.  Identification, as I understand it, is synonomous with the becoming process of interdependent origination and begins with ignorance of the three characteristics of the phenomena that is arising in the moment. You made the point that there is an intentional process to identify and I think that may be acurate as following ignorance in the process of becoming/interdependent origination is volitional formations. I often think of intention as the identification with the arising of desire.  It is as if awareness has misunderstood the arising of the experience and begun the selfing process.  Like jumping on the train of becoming and then once there is mindful observation applied to the becoming process in experience, its as if you have jumped off that train of becoming.  Thoughts are often described as conceptual proliferation, from my understanding, or making an impermanent sensate experienctial process into object/concept which is misunderstanding the impermanence and no separate permenant self of the process and in this sense is delusional or not seeing clearly what is arising.  I hope this is helpful. 

metta,

Drew

Something that's common to read is that buddhism is not about changing the nature of your experience, it's about seeing the inherent emptiness of experience.  This is why I asked how a person could examine the imagination and thoughts.  The very nature of the imagination is unconscious, so it seems impossible to examine it or rest awareness within it.  Changing the nature of thinking, though, has a large impact on how strongly the thoughts effect me, and the way I change their nature is to simply pay attention to them.  This changes the way they work, though, so, subjectively, it feels like I am changing my experience rather than looking at it objectively.

There is a connection to simple concentration practices, too, seems like.  I've just recently started started concentration meditation again, and there is something that happens when looking squarely at a thought or emotion.  I can't say what it is though.