Hi Luisa,
Ok, here is what I got.
but what about sensations which do not come from the five senses?
Does this sentence make any sense to you?
I know it sounds nonsensical, but what I mean is "internal" sensations- like the pleasure that arises while meditating, or let's say hunger. I'm just curious as to what part of my experience this belongs to. It's a sensation, yes, but it doesn't seem to come from seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting or touching. And it doesn't seem to be a thought, either.
Try this:
Play a song or it a food, smell a sent that is connected to your emotions somehow.
Listen, taste or smell. Report what is happening there. What is raw experience (AE) and what is imagination.
Ok, I played a song that is strongly connected to my childhood. There is the raw experience of hearing. The tones, rhythms, etc. I hear the sounds of a piano, but I don't
know that I'm hearing a piano in AE. I know that it's a piano after, once I form the concept of a piano being played, and of my hearing it. Same goes for all the other components of the song. Then there is the feeling of nostalgia, that works like this: song is playing, I am hearing. I hear music, I hear words. The words cause concepts to form, thoughts of things being mentioned. Then at once, out of nowhere there is a pang. A strong sensation in the stomach and a flash of a memory. Riding in the car with my parents and this song is on, when I'm a child. This part is imagination. The piano I picture is imagination. AE is just the hearing of the sounds. I have a question, just to help clarify our terminology and make it easier to communicate- I understand raw sensory data being AE, while the memory of being in the car is imagination. But if there is a "sixth sense" which is thinking, knowing, then isn't the memory, which is a thought, also part of AE, since I am experiencing the thought? Or do we say the five senses are AE and imagination is not? Just want to be clear on how to communicate these things to you.
Pleasant, unpleasant, good, bad, cold, hot, what are all these words? Are them anything but concepts, words, letters put together?!
Can the letters do anything else but be seen? Can the words by themselves provoke sensations?
These words are just concepts, just a group of letters that when I see them, trigger a thought in my head. In AE: I read hot, I see the letters; then I imagine what heat feels like. There are the letters, which are just letters, then the imagined feeling of heat on my hand. At no point is there real heat in AE. The words by themselves cannot provoke sensations, only the hollow imagining of sensation, which is nothing like actual sensation.
Can pleasantness be localized? If so where exactly?
Not really. Sometimes when meditating it will seem to be originating in my stomach, for example. But when I try to locate what exactly this means, I fail to find anything. I look in AE and try to see what it means for a feeling to be "in my stomach" but I can't really find an answer; it seems to be just another concept my mind has assigned.
You are using your imagination here, stop doing it!! This is a very realistic process to dismantle our believes, to see the stories that the self creates to get protected, to see where we are deceiving ourselves. There is not anything magical to discover here, all there is is what is, you won't find the "trick" as there is no trick is very simple, basic, natural.
Please write about the feelings that rise after reading the last paragraph.
This is the part I was referring to earlier when I said I felt something changing, and that it was getting harder to think about things. I meant that in a good way, though. As I read this last paragraph and pay attention to experience, I notice a feeling of whirling somehow, thoughts or feelings swirling up, it feels like a "self." A feeling of self-consciousness- "listen to Luisa, pay attention, try to get this right." But as I get to the end, where you discuss there being no "trick," I feel that start to die down, I pay attention only to what is, right now, and it all feels empty of anything in the center. The whirling dies down, there is only the exact experience of right now. The sights that are seen, the sounds that are heard, the feelings felt. The thoughts themselves seem distant now. A thought arises, but it feels like I had nothing to do with it. I didn't "think" the thought- it just appeared and then disappeared. I read your last paragraph several times and had this experience each time. And it is starting to carry over into the rest of my life a bit- I'm working, and I notice I'm thinking, and all at once the thoughts seem distant again. I start to feel like I don't know what I'm looking for again, because what else could there be, other than what there is, right now.
I hope that makes sense, it's getting more and more difficult to explain as we go further in.
Thanks for your patience,
Dan
