That sense of clarity appears to be a characteristic of direct experience. However, I have a feeling that whatever I would write here would only distort/misrepresent this sense of clarity. The closest guess might be a lack of identification or lack of separation, but even those descriptions sound like a story…
On the flip side, I'm even less certain about what happens when I lack this sense of clarity. I would label it “ being lost in thought" (though this label is already a story) when clarity is absent. However, it seems impossible to replicate the experience of "being lost in thought" within direct experience because, by then, clarity has already returned. Could it be that the absence of clarity is just imagination?
1) During the next day: Take many short moments during the normal activities and relaxations of the day, where you let go of trying to understand anything or achieve anything or change anything, and just notice what is there pre-verbally. Just for a short moment, like even a split second, no trying to prolong or maintain anything. In those moments rest in this preverbal clarity.
What is there is the experience of the moment (seeing, hearing etc.) and nothing else.
2) Exercise: Sit still with closed eyes, relax and let go of activity, then at certain points choose a number (here is me doing it a few times: (14, 77,12, 14). Each time "you choose a number" look to: where did it come from, what decided it, how, was there a self? After each number let go and relax and be still before again "choosing" a number. Try it also one time where you write down each number that comes up. Write me some numbers and observations what is seen doing this.
Some numbers that came up: 8, 32,72, 94
-Numbers come up unpredictably at random times. The appearance is binary, so the full number shows up; there’s no granularity (rendering time) in the appearance of the individual numbers.
-I don’t see any self deciding, and I don’t see any decision-making process either. There are just the results (numbers). Numbers appear out of nowhere and disappear as quickly as they showed up (to nowhere).
Good stuff. Just don't hold on to any complex idea about what you see here. What we are looking here is very simple and needs no words. Which brings me to the most important line in your sharing:
"there's a sense of clarity even without reflection"
That is KEY. What is that clarity and is that clarity ever not there? Just be curious about that. For the next day:
1) During the next day: Take many short moments during the normal activities and relaxations of the day, where you let go of trying to understand anything or achieve anything or change anything, and just notice what is there pre-verbally. Just for a short moment, like even a split second, no trying to prolong or maintain anything. In those moments rest in this preverbal clarity.
2) Exercise: Sit still with closed eyes, relax and let go of activity, then at certain points choose a number (here is me doing it a few times: (14, 77,12, 14). Each time "you choose a number" look to: where did it come from, what decided it, how, was there a self? After each number let go and relax and be still before again "choosing" a number.
Try it also one time where you write down each number that comes up.
Write me some numbers and observations what is seen doing this.
