Conceptual and Non-Conceptual

[rowyourboat]

eye+visual object (both rupa)--> eye consciousness--> phassa/contact (nama/mental)-->vedana/feeling (nama)-->sanna/labels-->sankhara/mental fabrications

I think concepts start with and after that sanna/lables stage.

with vipassana we peel away from the sankhara backwards along this process so that we get to the phassa/contact level when there is 'bare awareness' (sight, sound, colour) perhaps even without the accompanying label (cat, car, flower).

(Vipassana) samadhi must grow for this to happen as it dampens the process of perception and stops proliferation and dispersion of the mind into sankhara/mental fabrication.

with metta

[orangemod]

Mike:
Thanks so much for the access to the book. I just started reading it and it is the perfect place for a beginner to start !!!
I have found it very easy to read & understand....because reading some of the posts here seems like reading a foreign language.
Meaning that the members here are so far more advanced than myself, I have to start somewhere to get familiar enough to comprehend well enough to try to follow.
Thank you and thanks to all here.
Cheers, Dave

[rowyourboat]

Hi Dave

Sorry if my above post put you off! That was not my intention but simply adding something that might be of use to someone. I did not have the time to explain it all in detail, and besides it was not of great consequence. Best wishes on your path!

with metta

RYB

[orangemod]

Hi Dave

Sorry if my above post put you off! That was not my intention but simply adding something that might be of use to someone. I did not have the time to explain it all in detail, and besides it was not of great consequence. Best wishes on your path!

with metta

RYB

Oh no RYB, I am not put off in any way at all.
Actually, the advanced members words' like yourself just give me something to study towards. Meaning that when I read something I cant follow...I know if I study eventually I will.
Keep it comin' y'all.
I'm impressed by what y'all have attained. I am humbled by all the things I never knew in my life thus far.
But, I'll keep studying and I'm sure it will become more clear.
Have a great week-end.
Cheers, Dave

[orangemod]

BTW, I just researched the salutation "Metta"
I was pleased to learn that it meant so many friendly things.
Best wishes or warmest regards are nice salutations....but "Metta" is like a dozen of these in one simple word.
Is that KOOL, or what !!!?

Metta

Dave

[Ben]

Hi all
Venerable Analayo has some interesting things to say on concept and reality with regards to satipatthana practice. I transcribed the attached extract from his book Satipatthana: the direct path to realization for a friend a few days ago, in part as the result of this discussion. Anyway, I hope you find it as useful as I did.
metta

Ben

[Slow Learner]

Just so, when practicing morality, the first and most
fundamental training in spirituality, content is everything, or at least as
far as training in morality can take you. You can’t be a mass murderer
and rationalize this by thinking, “Well, they were all impermanent,
unsatisfactory and empty, so why not kill ’em?” This just won’t fly
either, and so content and spirituality get quite connected. This is good
to a point: see the chapter called Right Thought and The Aegean
Stables.

Sorry if this takes things off track but I was just reading through this thread and wondered about the connection between insight practice and dealing with the daily reactions of aversion/craving/delusion that arise. Obviously impermanence isn't a justification for immoral actions, but can insight practice be a valid approach to dealing with feelings like anger, as in watching the sensations that make up the experience of anger with the awareness that they are impermanent, not-self, and suffering, with a view to diminishing the attachment to them? Or is this a confusion of different categories?

[mikenz66]

Hi Slow Learner,

It's not actually my quote, it's Daniel Ingrams and of course it's oversimplified to make some particular points. Clearly being aware that things are impermanence, etc, can be helpful in dealing with stuff, as you say. On the other hand, that is a conceptual awareness of impermanence.

I think that one of the key points is that thinking about impermanence is not the same as having real insight into it, though presumably the former is helpful to developing the latter...

Metta
Mike

[Slow Learner]

Hi Slow Learner,

It's not actually my quote, it's Daniel Ingrams and of course it's oversimplified to make some particular points. Clearly being aware that things are impermanence, etc, can be helpful in dealing with stuff, as you say. On the other hand, that is a conceptual awareness of impermanence.

I think that one of the key points is that thinking about impermanence is not the same as having real insight into it, though presumably the former is helpful to developing the latter...

Metta
Mike

Oops, missed that attribution in the quote - sorry! It's been corrected above.

[catmoon]

Hi Slow Learner,


I think that one of the key points is that thinking about impermanence is not the same as having real insight into it, though presumably the former is helpful to developing the latter...

Metta
Mike

This seems correct to me. Thus, if you want to build intellectual understanding as a platform for understanding something, that is good. But discussion of the non-conceptual won't work, simply because it is impossible. A discussion is composed of concepts you see. To open one's mouth and speak is to conceptualize.

So having built an intellectual basis for understanding, it then becomes necessary to pursue the thing experientially.

[Fruitzilla]

Hi Slow Learner,


I think that one of the key points is that thinking about impermanence is not the same as having real insight into it, though presumably the former is helpful to developing the latter...

Metta
Mike

This seems correct to me. Thus, if you want to build intellectual understanding as a platform for understanding something, that is good. But discussion of the non-conceptual won't work, simply because it is impossible. A discussion is composed of concepts you see. To open one's mouth and speak is to conceptualize.

So having built an intellectual basis for understanding, it then becomes necessary to pursue the thing experientially.

I've heard a buddhist teacher say there's 3 stages to understanding things like impermanence...
The first one is intellectual, the second emotional and the third experential.

My own experience seems to agree with this.