"Rawness" vs. "backgroundness" of perceptions: differences between paths? - Discussion
I am not sure how much what I am going to write is going to make sense. It is a bit tricky to explain, but I will try.
____________________________
What I mean by "backgroundness".
Daniel's "Hierarchy of Vipassana Practice"
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/1978584
was a pretty good map of my progress during my last path, through each whole cycle of insight, 1st nana to fruition. The higher steps of the hierarchy had a more or less precise correspondence with the traditional nanas, with
- Level (7) corresponding to the knowledges between A&P II and the Dark Night;
- Levels (8-9) corresponding roughly low and hi EQ
- Level 10 = Fruition.
I was even able to experience repeat fruitions which, with more detailed inspection, turned out to be either of the Dukkha or Anicca type. I may have got close to achieving Anatta fruitions, but never really managed to make it "click".
Within each single cycle of insight, the progression seemed to be mostly from foreground sensations to background sensations. During the lower nanas the more evident perceptual events that I noticed were the breath, physical sensations and sounds (foreground). Then the feelings and emotional components became more evident during the DN, with the interplay between thought, physical sensations and emotions (not as much foreground). Then, from low EQ and its formless realms aspect, I started noting the feelings of time, space, self, and how those flickered in and out of existence and all that (background). High EQ was marked by a synaesthetic synchronisation of those sensations (formations, incorporating both foreground and background), and then fruition.
____________________________
What I mean by "rawness".
However, since my last cycle of insight, a different "mode" of perceiving / set of sensations has become available to my noting practice. I can either access the "old set" of perceptions described above, or something that I would describe as more raw sensations. What do I mean by this?
Although I dropped verbal labels during an "old" cycle of insight, for several reasons:
- I was noting too fast to have time to label each sensation
- in any case, from High EQ, after the senses synchronised and I was experiencing formations, I was noting synaesthetic "balls" of sensations for which labels would have been inappropriate (except for maybe "formation", "formation", "formation", "...")
However, up to at least the synaesthetic phase, each of the sensations noted had some kind of intelligibility, be it "elbow", "pain", "spatial location"... you name it. And, even with formations, those were made up of individually labellable sensations.
The sensations I am able to access at the moment, on the other hand, seem to be raw. By raw, I mean that it's like... I get this primordial events of perception which are like crude data before my brain interprets those events as "this physical perception of a body part" or "this specific sound coming from outside". They certainly cannot be labelled, because I cannot really understand what they are in the first place.
An appropriate metaphor would be: it's like, you try to open a file on your computer, and the OS needs to understand what kind of file it is (probably from the extension, or by looking at the first handful of bytes in the file); then call the appropriate application/process to open it; then open it... here:
- the "raw sensations" are the file,
- the OS/CPU is the "interpreting process" in the brain, and
- whatever is displayed on the monitor or comes out of the speaker, are the sensations I would be noting during one of my "old cycles".
Or, another metaphor: if you have watched The Matrix (who hasn't??), a bit like when Neo sees the ideograms that make up the Matrix' code:
http://www.popgunchaos.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/the-matrix.jpg
____________________________
Now the questions:
Does this make sense to anyone here? Is it familiar to anyone?
It is hard to work with that level of sensations and a bit confusing. It gives me kind of a headache and it is very disorienting. It feels that I would have to try and go from this:
to this:
or maybe "see" how the first image becomes the second. But it seems very hard to do. Does anybody have any advice on how to go about this?
Mahamudra seems to have a way to work with this, in which you have to see an object before the brain interpretes it as a specific object, but it is a bit different here. Any advice on how to work on this using Mahasi noting?
And, most of all: Is it useful, or do you think this is a "wrong turn"?
____________________________
What I mean by "backgroundness".
Daniel's "Hierarchy of Vipassana Practice"
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/1978584
was a pretty good map of my progress during my last path, through each whole cycle of insight, 1st nana to fruition. The higher steps of the hierarchy had a more or less precise correspondence with the traditional nanas, with
- Level (7) corresponding to the knowledges between A&P II and the Dark Night;
- Levels (8-9) corresponding roughly low and hi EQ
- Level 10 = Fruition.
I was even able to experience repeat fruitions which, with more detailed inspection, turned out to be either of the Dukkha or Anicca type. I may have got close to achieving Anatta fruitions, but never really managed to make it "click".
Within each single cycle of insight, the progression seemed to be mostly from foreground sensations to background sensations. During the lower nanas the more evident perceptual events that I noticed were the breath, physical sensations and sounds (foreground). Then the feelings and emotional components became more evident during the DN, with the interplay between thought, physical sensations and emotions (not as much foreground). Then, from low EQ and its formless realms aspect, I started noting the feelings of time, space, self, and how those flickered in and out of existence and all that (background). High EQ was marked by a synaesthetic synchronisation of those sensations (formations, incorporating both foreground and background), and then fruition.
____________________________
What I mean by "rawness".
However, since my last cycle of insight, a different "mode" of perceiving / set of sensations has become available to my noting practice. I can either access the "old set" of perceptions described above, or something that I would describe as more raw sensations. What do I mean by this?
Although I dropped verbal labels during an "old" cycle of insight, for several reasons:
- I was noting too fast to have time to label each sensation
- in any case, from High EQ, after the senses synchronised and I was experiencing formations, I was noting synaesthetic "balls" of sensations for which labels would have been inappropriate (except for maybe "formation", "formation", "formation", "...")
However, up to at least the synaesthetic phase, each of the sensations noted had some kind of intelligibility, be it "elbow", "pain", "spatial location"... you name it. And, even with formations, those were made up of individually labellable sensations.
The sensations I am able to access at the moment, on the other hand, seem to be raw. By raw, I mean that it's like... I get this primordial events of perception which are like crude data before my brain interprets those events as "this physical perception of a body part" or "this specific sound coming from outside". They certainly cannot be labelled, because I cannot really understand what they are in the first place.
An appropriate metaphor would be: it's like, you try to open a file on your computer, and the OS needs to understand what kind of file it is (probably from the extension, or by looking at the first handful of bytes in the file); then call the appropriate application/process to open it; then open it... here:
- the "raw sensations" are the file,
- the OS/CPU is the "interpreting process" in the brain, and
- whatever is displayed on the monitor or comes out of the speaker, are the sensations I would be noting during one of my "old cycles".
Or, another metaphor: if you have watched The Matrix (who hasn't??), a bit like when Neo sees the ideograms that make up the Matrix' code:
http://www.popgunchaos.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/the-matrix.jpg
____________________________
Now the questions:
Does this make sense to anyone here? Is it familiar to anyone?
It is hard to work with that level of sensations and a bit confusing. It gives me kind of a headache and it is very disorienting. It feels that I would have to try and go from this:
to this:
or maybe "see" how the first image becomes the second. But it seems very hard to do. Does anybody have any advice on how to go about this?
Mahamudra seems to have a way to work with this, in which you have to see an object before the brain interpretes it as a specific object, but it is a bit different here. Any advice on how to work on this using Mahasi noting?
And, most of all: Is it useful, or do you think this is a "wrong turn"?
Paweł K:
[...] or eg. enable perception of music on other senses giving it depth, mass, taste, kinestetic, imagery, etc.
If you are still reading this, kudos to you, Paweł
