I’ve enjoyed returning to this inquiry into the nature of thought. Here’s my phenomenological report so far:
This morning, watching thinking as it arose, I noticed that “thought” most often shows up for me in two forms: either as an interior commentary that is actually more “felt” than “heard” (as a quick, very subtle, skittering play across the muscles involved in the articulation of speech, like little nerve impulses in the tongue, mouth, lips, and throat, that don’t cause actual movement but feel like the “points” that speech movement would proceed from if I allowed my thoughts to emerge into full speech), and as a subtle play of fleeting images, usually visual, but sometimes also auditory or felt/emotional. The running “commentary” form of my thought is not exactly audible, in the way that some imagined sounds occasionally clearly manifest, but the play across the muscles of articulation gives a “felt-sense” of the sound of speech, of my “voice.”Â
As I watched thinking, I noticed I was both watching thinking and thinking about thinking at the same time, or nearly the same time, in an interesting little moebius loop — maybe a very quick flipping back and forth between types of noticing and “engagement.” Paying attention to the “commentary” part of my thought by slowing it down, and following that subtle play of pre-articulation, I was surprised at one point by a sudden feeling of “clearing” — thinking “vanished” for a moment and there was a flashing feeling of fresh clarity. A little later I noticed thinking more in the form of arising images. For instance, seeing a fence, I was reminded of watching that fence a couple years ago while doing a similar exercise, and I saw a brief image of a photo I had associated with that practice overlaid on top of it. I also noticed a brief sequence of images at one point that moved quickly, telling a story more compactly, than the “commentary” form of thinking could: I noticed my “position” along the course I usually follow when walking, I associated that immediately with the time, and an image of a cup of yoghurt I planned to eat before the end of my break came to mind, and knew I had to pick up the pace if I really wanted to do that! There was little or no verbal thought involved, just a quick series of fleeting images that carried a whole story and impelled a decision (walk faster!).
Walking back, I tried visualizing the orange ball Jack mentioned. I’ve done visualization work before, so it was pretty easy to call an image to mind. I noticed that as soon as I did so, it began setting off all sorts of echoes of association: Davidu and his ING ball came to mind, various images of bindus (on the foreheads of Nisargadatta Maharaj, Hariprasad Chaurasia, my wife’s puja statue), my son’s basketball, a brilliant sun radiating solar flares. These associations flickered at the edges of the orange circle, which itself was “superimposed” in my mind’s eye over the scene of the parking lot where I was walking, and sometimes they momentarily eclipsed it (catching me up in their own content). There was a subtle difference between the present, sustained “thinking out” of the orange ball and the “thoughts” that arose automatically in leaps of association, and David Bohm’s distinction between (lively) thinking and (past-based, recording-like) thoughts, between feeling and felts, seemed a useful one to me. I’m not sure I fully understand what the difference is, though. Thinking seems “light” and connected to a creative sense of subjective presence, whereas thought seems like something I am “subject to.”
I apologize for the length of this. It’s my first post in awhile, so I guess I went on and on. I’ll try to be a little briefer in future postings. :-)
Best wishes,
Bruce
Hi, Davidu, Tina, thank you for your comments!
David, I like your addition of “heartfelt” to invitation — I can feel that and think it will be useful to play with.
Tina, don’t worry about visualization being crazy and unmanageable at first. I could completely relate to your image of “pieces” of the desired image appearing erratically all over the place, or just in little glimpses. That’s what I used to experience too, when I first started, and it still happens sometimes. I’m not sure if you’ve seen it before, but I recall that Rinpoche has an excellent description of visualization practice in his (non-TSK) book, Gesture of Balance. I recommend checking that out, if you haven’t read it before.
Much love,
Bruce
Hey Bruce! I miss you much…I’ve been keeping up with you on your Intgral forum! I LOVE you. This is from another forum, but I thought I would post it here…
I wanted to comment on my experiences concerning this particular exercise so far.
When I first began trying to imagine a big orange ball, it was just crazy! I mean, I continually got ‘lost’ in the irractic patterns of my thinking. One thought seemed to lead to another, and then there was just this ‘blankness’ where I seemed to get lost beneath awareness, and then thoughts that did not relate to each other at all which seemed to come out of nowhere. I began noticing the incessant buzz of thinking, and found it impossible to visualize an image of an orange ball! I also found it difficult to focus on such a directive. My mind would wonder, who knows for how long, when I would suddenly remember that I was suppose to be trying to conjur up this orange ball…LOL…it was hilarious really, but I kept trying.
The second time I tried to do this, it seemed a little easier. I began seeing flickers of orange, but they were dancing all over the blackness of my imagination, and I still for the life of me could not make them stable. There were a few small oranges that were darting in and out of the darkness, and I could not make them larger, or hold them in place. There was also an orange horizon, so the color was coming in much stronger this time. I was reminded that as part of the practice, that this might be what Jack was trying to get us to notice: how difficult it is to establish anything solid within our imagination, and also, how difficult it was to focus on such a thing for any length of time.
By the third time I practiced this, there were flashes of itty bitty orange spurts all over the place, but again, they would not be still! It also seemed as if the orange was coming in just to tease me, as if to say: “HA” you have no control and I do!!! It was dancing all over the place still, but showing up more often, and then…bam! There it was, if only for a fleeting less than a moment…a large planet like object that darted in, a dull orange as if to taunt me concerning my ability to make it otherwise…but as soon as it was visable, it was not, and at that moment it was like what was visualized moved in such a way that blew my mind, as if the gravity of awareness was outside of it’s normal self, if that makes any sense at all…LOL
My friend Bruce, who is a pro at visualizing (b/c it has been a practice of his) and a student of tsk now for more than a decade, made me jealous when he shared on our CCI forum that he was able to visualize this large orange sun-like ball, not only with his eyes closed, but while walking with his eyes wide open for long periods of time! YIKES…gol…I aint there yet…
I did notice however, that this practice has opened up in amazing ways. I am more relaxed, I am more aware, more creative, and more repondant and receptive to this knowing that is outside the box of the interpretations we ordinarily put it in. So, my adventure of the mind continues…I just wanted to share it with all of you that have so graciously contributed to this thread and my opening journey. I hope that it has opened you as well…much love*
This was a great description Bruce!
Reading it, you reminded me of some similar experiences, like the overlapping of images, and getting caught up or carried along, by one of them while losing focus on what was physically in front of me. I much prefer your use of “invite the image” than my own practice of “heartfelt intent”. Intent seems to carry a subtle “doing” aspect while a heartfelt invitation suggests a more relaxed opening to, or welcoming, an arising to come forth.
Thanks for posting this.
David
Hi, Tina! Thank you for your comment — it’s nice to “see” you again too. I know I’ve been pretty scarce, in the TSK online world, since the retreat. About visualization, I used to struggle with it, too, and sometimes my mind also doesn’t want to cooperate. But what I’ve found works well is similar to what Michael described (trying NOT to think of the object). In the way I’ve approached it, I “invite” the image to come, rather than try to “construct” it. When I relax from the invitation and move into waiting, it often just shows up, sometimes in forms which are more complex and vivid than I could have deliberately constructed. I’ve found this works well also with feeling parts of my body that are normally outside of awareness – say, my little toe. If I’m doing a “sweep” of the body with awareness, some places don’t show up clearly, and I can’t force it, but if I “invite” it, it comes “online” and I can sense it more clearly.
Looking forward to this class and exploring TSK with you!
B.
YIKES, part of my post disappeared!
please don’t be brief…gol…I enjoyed reading this and am jealous that it appears to come so easily to you…gol. I still cannot get an image yet, dzogchen dream work from Norbu’s book; it was difficult to do that as well, but after some practice I was able to call up the white symbol he was trying to get me to imagine. I was living in a more secluded way then, and I think that has a lot to do with quieting the mind. At first I had to use something to look at before being able to do even that, I think it was a white klenex or something…lol, and now I can’t even remember what the symbol was…it is on the tip of my imagination, but I would have to go and check my book to be sure…oh well, back to imagining an orange sun…I was able to get an all over the place glimpse of that…
good to hear from you Bruce, hope you are well, always, *