Dhamma Wheel Buddhist Forum

retrofuturist wrote:One moment of consciousness conditions the next.

Guy wrote:Ajahn Brahm has used the metaphor of sand on a beach to describe consciousness. At a distance when you look at a beach it looks like it is a solid surface but up close when you look at each grain of sand individually you see that there are gaps between the sand. In a similar way, our ordinary experience of consciousness is that it is an ongoing process with no gaps or spaces, but when the mind is clear (after deep meditation) we can see that there are instances/moments of consciousness that arise and pass away, with gaps in between.

EOD wrote: how can you see gaps between moments of consciousness?

4. Knowledge of Arising and Passing Away
...
His knowledge consisting in insight, here called "noticing," will be likewise keen, strong, and lucid. Consequently, he will discern clearly and in separate forms all the bodily and mental processes noticed, as if cutting to pieces a bamboo sprout with a well-sharpened knife. Therefore the meditator then believes: "There is no body-and-mind process that cannot be noticed." When examining the characteristics of impermanence, etc., or other aspects of reality, he understands everything quite clearly and at once, and he believes it to be the knowledge derived from direct experience.

5. Knowledge of Dissolution

Noticing the bodily and mental processes as they arise, he sees them part by part, link by link, piece by piece, fraction by fraction: "Just now it arises, just now it dissolves." When that knowledge of arising and passing away becomes mature, keen and strong, it will arise easily and proceed uninterruptedly as if borne onward of itself; also the bodily and mental processes will be easily discernible. When keen knowledge thus carries on and formations are easily discernible, then neither the arising of each bodily and mental process, nor its middle phase called "presence," nor the continuity of bodily and mental processes called "occurrence as unbroken flux" is apparent to him; nor are the shape of the hand, the foot, the face, the body, and so on, apparent to him. But what is apparent to him is only the ceasing of bodily and mental processes, called "vanishing," or "passing away," or "dissolution."

mikeenz66 wrote:

EOD wrote:how can you see gaps between moments of consciousness?

This perception is described in the Progress of Insight outlined in the Commentaries and Visuddhimagga. Here is Mahasi Sayadaw's explanation:

http://aimwell.org/Books/Mahasi/Progres" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; ... ml#Arising

4. Knowledge of Arising and Passing Away
...
His knowledge consisting in insight, here called "noticing," will be likewise keen, strong, and lucid. Consequently, he will discern clearly and in separate forms all the bodily and mental processes noticed, as if cutting to pieces a bamboo sprout with a well-sharpened knife. Therefore the meditator then believes: "There is no body-and-mind process that cannot be noticed." When examining the characteristics of impermanence, etc., or other aspects of reality, he understands everything quite clearly and at once, and he believes it to be the knowledge derived from direct experience.

mikenz66 wrote:With enough calm and mindfulness it is possible to notice discontinuities.