Varying the Space of Thought

For some reason, I am continuing to feel some resistance to modifying my phenomenological experience — which is unusual for me, since in the past this has come fairly easily and usually has been enjoyable and illuminating.  The “resistance” isn’t conscious; I start the variation practice with interest.  But soon I find that my mind is sluggish and subtly resistant to allowing much experimental variation (at least on the phenomenal / sensory level).  This is interesting and will be a subject for further inquiry for me.

Regarding this week’s variation:  I’ve explored the “no distance” insight in the past, but did not have much luck this week with exploring it on the level of my sensory experience.  However, I did find it more fruitful to explore “distancing” at the level of mind — thinker / thought.  The experiences and insights were brief but interesting for me.  It was clear and easy to see the “thinker” as given together with the thought — as a co-arising construct along with the thought.  This showed up really as a subtle area of identification and “intensity” in the area of my eyes and also as a kind of mental posture, which had the “feeling” of being a director or agent in the process of thinking.  But seeing the thinker and thought as part of the same field, there was a relaxation and letting go that was surprising in its immediate physical effects: a sense of rising, blissful energy out of the crown of my head, a pleasant opening and expansion in my lower back, and a sort of “balancing” of thought into a more equanimous mode.

I recognize that a possible part of the resistance I’ve felt is related to a niggling thought that it might be a mistake to regard my phenomenal experience — or any shifts in phenomenal experience I might initiate — as giving me any reliable information about reality (beyond the reality of “how I organize my world”).  But even if that is the case, it doesn’t seem to matter, since the shifts in experience nevertheless do have beneficial-seeming effects.