I’ll go in reverse order (by the way, please sign your posts. Comments on other people’s posts are signed automatically):
Trac (October 12) asks about the distinction in Ex. 2 between layers that are dominant and layers that are supportive. This is something that varies over time. For instance, and to the point, usually the layer of ‘content’ is dominant, in the sense that this is where most of our attention goes. We are experimenting with making other layers dominant. If you accept that all the layers are going on at once, then ‘supportive’ just means ‘whatever isn’t dominant’. Take a look at Christopher’s post of 10/14, too. It seems to me to speak to this point.
Bruce asks again, as others did in the phone call, whether it is even possible to be aware of what is ‘not-content’. That is, doesn’t awareness always have content, so if we switch to (for example) bodily sensations, that becomes the content?
That is just what we are exploring. My suggestion is that there are parts of experience that we can be aware of without making them content. A mood is the easiest example, or perhaps a headache that persists as we go about our activities. Bruce’s example of “circles of concern” is another example. I suppose the point (or one point) is that when you become sensitive to these various ‘supportive’ layers, so that they become dominant even though they are not necessarily ‘content’, new possibilities open up. This seems to be what Bruce found.
Christopher, your experience (and delight!) goes to the key distinction. I wonder, though: when you say that “it seemed to me that the emotionality . . . still depended on the matrix,” what is the knowledge that lets you make this statement.
More in a second post.
Jack
Universal Knowledge and Layers of Mind. I had a thought that I might not be able to do the exercise while in a certain state of mind, for example, dullness. But since the practice has started to become a habit, I found myself doing it without consciously making the effort. I noticed that I was doing the practice, then realized that his state of mind can itself become a subject or field of exploration.
While in a state of dullness, the thought that accompanies it is that there is no way out. My body sensation is lethargy, which further supports the notion of no way out. Upon examining this thought, its grip weakens, and a little bit wider vision opens up. If I tend to slip back into dullness, perhaps seeking the comfort of familiarity and the usual way of being, my energy begins to decrease however my awareness of the dynamic prevents me from dropping all the way back to the previous dullness. The seeing becomes a kind of knowledge. Upon seeing this seeing, I am amused and energized. My mind has a mind of its own. Tracy