Confused by a statement of my Vipassana teacher

[Tistepiste]

So I went on a 10 day Vipassana retreat.

There was one conversation with my teacher that kind of keeps on bugging me in the back of my mind since I can't fully grasp what he meant andd since it is about the practifce I am doing I can't seem to let go.

Basically, during deep meditation, I experience a state where almost no active thoughts come to the surface, and where I am fully emerged in focused awareness of the present moment (in the case of Vipassana: being aware of bodily sensations).

My teacher said, the mind is just like a sense organ. Like hearing; tasting, smelling,... It's always there, it's always on. Thoughts are always coming up, and passing away. 
He said, it might be, when very deep in focus, those thoughts are pushed to the background and it seems like they are not there.

This is where I am confused. If I don't experience an 'active thought' (with this I mean a thought taken on a form of a word for example), I experience this as the absence of it, with clarity of mind and a strong focus. 
But what he is insinuating is that the thoughts are still coming up but that I am not aware of those; since I am so caught up in experiencing a deeper state of consciousness (in this case experiencing bodily sensations in the unconscious mind).

While I am writing this down, I understand that whatever the answer is and whatever happens it doesn't really matter because it doesn't impact the meditation itself, it's just that I am confused and my mind likes an answer.

PS: I am not saying having thoughts during deep focus is a bad thing btw, as long as you stay present and don't get caught up in them and keeping the mind balanced, then it is just as fine.

 

Edited July 12 by Tistepiste

[Hojo]

Your kidneys are talking to you right now but you arent hearing or feeling them. Like that but with thoughts. Where are you tuning in is where you will experience.

Edited July 13 by Hojo

[Paradoxed]

Think of it like a river you could step back and look away from. The river still sorta flows in the background, even when you choose to focus elsewhere. Your teacher probably wants you to realize that your goal isn't to stop your thoughts, but to stop identifying with your thoughts.

The goal isn't to stop the river but to not get carried away in it. Its a trap to have the goal be to stop your thoughts.

[Tistepiste]

1 hour ago, Paradoxed said:

Think of it like a river you could step back and look away from. The river still sorta flows in the background, even when you choose to focus elsewhere. Your teacher probably wants you to realize that your goal isn't to stop your thoughts, but to stop identifying with your thoughts.

The goal isn't to stop the river but to not get carried away in it. Its a trap to have the goal be to stop your thoughts.

But when the space between your thoughts becomes bigger and bigger because of less monkey mind and more focussed mind. The thought frequency decreases right?

So this confuses me.

I know it is not to try to stop the thoughts but stop identifying with them, but the byproduct of this is that thoughts appear less frequently I thought (haha)

But now it is like saying there are still as many as there were before but you just don't realize it?

Or is it not as black and white as I'm making it out to be

 

1) Over long term meditation, thought frequency decreases as monkey mind gets cancelled out gradually and since you're not reacting to it you have a calmer mind, less busy, so less thoughts since you're not chasing them with more thoughts 

2) During current meditation these monkey mind thoughts still appear but since you're focussed on something else you're not chasing them so it seems as if they are not there but you're just not aware they're appearing since your focus else where 

Am I understanding this correctly?

[Salvijus]

Your mind is a sense organ. That means it always receives information on the mental plane. If somebody is thinking about you on the other side of the planet. Some deep part of your mind picks up on it. Your concious mind may not pick up on it, but if you become aware enough, you can sense these things. If fact you can sense mental activity of every human on the planet because it's the same collective mind. 

Edited July 13 by Salvijus

[Salvijus]

20 minutes ago, Tistepiste said:

But when the space between your thoughts becomes bigger and bigger because of less monkey mind and more focussed mind. The thought frequency decreases right?

So this confuses me.

I know it is not to try to stop the thoughts but stop identifying with them, but the byproduct of this is that thoughts appear less frequently I thought (haha)

But now it is like saying there are still as many as there were before but you just don't realize it?

Or is it not as black and white as I'm making it out to be

They become more subtle. Mind activity is happening on many levels. When the space between the thoughts becomes bigger, all kinds of sankaras will manifest from the past in that space. You'll start seeing a tsunami of past impressions, memories, images, mental sounds, smells, cravings, visions, colors etc. 

In fact every sensation on the body is related to mental activity. Because the activity of the mind is reflected in the body. So if there's a sensation on the body, there has to be a mental activity associated with that sensation. That should give a hint of how subtle and multilayered mind can be. 

Edited July 13 by Salvijus

[Tistepiste]

6 hours ago, Salvijus said:

Your mind is a sense organ. That means it always receives information on the mental plane. If somebody is thinking about you on the other side of the planet. Some deep part of your mind picks up on it. Your concious mind may not pick up on it, but if you become aware enough, you can sense these things. If fact you can sense mental activity of every human on the planet because it's the same collective mind. 

So there's a distinction between the mind being a sense organ, receiving information (perception)

And a thought coming up, which is perceived, but not perception in itself

 

But what if there's an empty space (gap) of like 5 minutes in between thoughts.

What would you define that space as then?

Are those filled with more subtle thoughts that your mind isn't sharp enough to perceive yet?

Or just wordless thoughts that are there?

Or pure awareness?

For now I conclude it is the absence of gross thoughts, which opens up a space for more subtle thoughts to arise. But the mind has to be sharp enough to perceive those.

The confusion from my part lies in the fact that the teacher could've insinuated that the gross 'big' thoughts are also still there but that you're so focussed on something else that it seems they're not there.

Maybe it's all of the above.

A big 'gross' thought comes up, but you're letting it pass by, this opens space for more subtle thoughts. And more focussed awareness. Another big one comes up and you're letting it pass by.

The confusion probably lies within stopping thoughts vs less busy mind.

Of course the frequency of these gross thoughts decreases as you're not caught up in them and joining the think train but letting them pass by .

But occasionally they still pass by, certainly in this stage still.

It is about letting them pass, and then space arises between each arising and passing.

Within this space, there is still a mind perceiving information. Still active. You just don't perceive these are usual thoughts but could be formless thought or Sankaras, space of pure awareness, or whatever 

That's how I understand it for now

 

6 hours ago, Salvijus said:

They become more subtle. Mind activity is happening on many levels. When the space between the thoughts becomes bigger, all kinds of sankaras will manifest from the past in that space. You'll start seeing a tsunami of past impressions, memories, images, mental sounds, smells, cravings, visions, colors etc. 

In fact every sensation on the body is related to mental activity. Because the activity of the mind is reflected in the body. So if there's a sensation on the body, there has to be a mental activity associated with that sensation. That should give a hint of how subtle and multilayered mind can be. 

Interesting. This is in line with the experience of one of the co-meditators. Where forgotten memories from childhood past came up.

Edited July 13 by Tistepiste

[Salvijus]

@Tistepiste you've answered your own question basicly lol. 

Yes that space between thoughts is actually filled with subtle mental activity. Usually in a form of past impressions. So it can feel like flipbook of past impressions are just arising and dissolving at the very rapid speed.

Eventually if you go deeper you enter a state where your mind starts to produce dream like visions. You will be experiencing dreams and visions that are related to your past sankaras but you will be in meditation and still aware. 

If you go even deeper you will enter cessation, where there is nothing happening anymore. No experience at all. Just awareness. Of nothing. No time or space left. That will be a true taste of no mind then. 

Edited July 13 by Salvijus

[Salvijus]

2 hours ago, Tistepiste said:

The confusion from my part lies in the fact that the teacher could've insinuated that the gross 'big' thoughts are also still there but that you're so focussed on something else that it seems they're not there.

There could be some truth to this in some cases imo. 

[An young being]

18 hours ago, Tistepiste said:

My teacher said, the mind is just like a sense organ. Like hearing; tasting, smelling,... It's always there, it's always on. Thoughts are always coming up, and passing away. 
He said, it might be, when very deep in focus, those thoughts are pushed to the background and it seems like they are not there.

The bigger thoughts are reactive in nature, which means it's not necessary for them to exist if those reactive tendencies itself disappear due to activities such as meditation. It's similar to an eye seeing a black screen, you won't see the colours because they are not received in the first place. But subtle thoughts may be different, and difficult to notice even if they are present, I mostly believe your teacher referred to these thoughts, which are active all the time and still not being noticed.

[Tistepiste]

5 hours ago, Salvijus said:

There could be some truth to this in some cases imo. 

Yes.

I just realized while driving the car.
 

I thought I was focussing on driving but without realizing I was caught up in tought / thoughts arised.
When you focus on one thing intensely it sometimes seems like you're all there but actually thoughts are running through your head but you're not always aware of those.

So you're like semi-aware.

 

[Salvijus]

👍

[BipolarGrowth]

He is saying that discursive thought is not all thought. Your mind might calm down your discursive thinking, but your mind is still active. One of the five aggregates recognized in Buddhism is known as formations and sometimes called mental formations. This aggregate covers all types of thought and ways that the mind might move as well as some other sensations. Having an intention to tap your foot to the beat of a song is a type of thought. You don’t need to think with a voice in your head “wow, I really like this song. As an expression of that fact, I will now initiate foot tapping.” You simply recognize that you enjoy the music and can even mostly unconsciously begin tapping your foot. Thought is still at play here. 
 

Mental formations even follow physical sensations and reify them beyond their physical signal’s existence. After you feel a mostly predictable physical sensation such as what it feels like to feel a cup in your hand, your mind will fill in gaps between the physical sensations of holding the cup to make it feel even more so that you’re holding a real physical object although sometimes you’re holding more mental sensations of holding a cup than actual physical sensations of holding a cup. Oftentimes our perception of the physical world is filled with more mental sensations acting as placeholders for physical sensations than actual physical sensations. 
 

A last example, next time you have a headache or other bodily pain, you can apply intense awareness to this area. You can likely see that there are pulses in the painful sensation. There are small moments where the pain signal is actually felt versus small moments where the physical pain is absent. If you are not very mindful in that moment, it’s common for you to fill the gaps in physical pain sensations with mental replicas of the pain sensations which in turn make it seem like your headache or other pain is constant when it is actually only intermittent. 

[Leo Gura]

What he said is technically false. You can be in a state of no thoughts. It's just difficult for most people to do it.

Just enjoy your no-thought state if you attain it. Stop overthinking it.

Edited July 14 by Leo Gura

[Tistepiste]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

What he said is technically false. You can be in a state of no thoughts. It's just difficult for most people to do it.

Just enjoy your no-thought state if you attain it. Stop overthinking it.

Thank you <3

Yeah. I have a tendency to overthink... When something doesn't feel logic to me, I have this compulsion to find an explanation

[NoN-RaTiOnAL]

who the hell knows what he truly meant.. 
trying to understand that is just speculation. you just stay true to your experience and it will be the best you can do. keep training consistently and find out for yourself what happens. 

[Tistepiste]

9 minutes ago, NoN-RaTiOnAL said:

who the hell knows what he truly meant.. 
trying to understand that is just speculation. you just stay true to your experience and it will be the best you can do. keep training consistently and find out for yourself what happens. 

Yes... Trusting my own direct experience.