I mentioned exploring the overlay of images on top of immediate perception.

An overlay of images, and thoughts mimicking the other sense fields, on top of perception. Interpreting it. Asking questions about. And essential for our human self to function in the world.

It can be quite interesting - and helpful - to explore this overlay. First, through dedicated sessions. Then, as it happens in daily life.

Some of the things I find so far…

My world is made up of these images. If I recognize them as images, they become a guideline for actions. If I take them as real and substantial, I act as if they are real and substantial. I act as if what they tell me about the world is true. (As if innocent questions are statements, and these statements are true.)

Any drama happens among these images. More specifically, between the images making up a sense of “I” and other images it relates to. And it happens to the extent that these images, and the relationships among them (interpreted and represented by more images), are taken as substantial and real.

Many practices work on healing these images, such as prayer, tong len, the first ngöndro practice (visualizing all beings taking refuge in the Buddha), well wishing, and so on. And as these images heal, my world changes. Or rather, the world and atmosphere this human self functions within changes. (Easily coexisting with the more conventional and consensus reality images, still used as practical guidelines in the world.)

The mental field overlay, and all of the sense fields, are awakeness itself. They are empty. Awake. Form. One appearing in each of those ways, depending on how the mental field filters it.

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Our world is imaginary. Again, it is simple but there is still a lot to explore there.

My world is imaginary. The world I relate to and function within is imaginary. It is my mental field creation.

There are sense impressions - sound, sight, smell, taste, sensation and even thought itself - and then a mental field overlay of images. Interpretations. Questions. Stories.

It is essential for our human self to function in the world. And it is - quite literally - the world my human self functions within.

If these overlays are taken as real and substantial, there is stress and drama. And when they are recognized as overlays, as they happen, they are revealed as simple tools. The drama falls away.

It is simple. And there is also no end to the complexity I find when I explore it in more detail.  

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I have enjoyed watching Terry Jones‘ (yes, the Monty Python guy) documentaries about the Crusades, Medieval Lives, and the Barbarians. They are all very well done, and give a different perspective than the traditional historical view, for instance pointing out that the way we see barbarians today is largely Roman propaganda, still effective 1500 years later.

(Watch the Crusades, Medieval Lives and the Barbarians online.)

Another excellent documentary is When the Moors Ruled in Europe, showing how the Renaissance - and what we know as modern European culture - was born out of the Islamic Golden Age. (Watch it here.) Islam and Islamic culture has traditionally been seen as an enemy in Europe, and this is a good antidote to Islamophobia and a way to nuance the picture somewhat.

We all know that history is “often what people want us to think happened” as Terry Jones says. History is constructed by those in power, often to protect their own interest.

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One view of how the mind/brain works imagines something like a little person inside the head looking at screens and pulling levels, as if in a control room or operating a space ship.

It may sound funny, but when I look at it for myself, I see where the idea comes from. It is a mirror of what is going on right here.

There is content of experience, awareness and then someone being aware of content of experience. There is doing, awareness, and a doer. Thinking, awareness, and a thinker. Choosing, awareness, and a chooser.

Something is happening within and as awareness, and then there is a sense of a middle man mediating between the two.

If I explore this from Big Mind, I see that the middle man - obviously - is part of content of awareness. There is no “I” inherent in the middle man, no more than in anything else.

And if I explore it through the sense fields, I get to see the dynamics of it more in detail. I notice how the middle man - the observer, doer, thinker, chooser - is a mental field creation. It comes from a mental field overlay on top of the other sense fields.

There is a thought arising within and as awareness, and then an imagined thinker placed on top of it. An action of this human self in the world - arising within and as awareness - and then a mental field overlay of a doer. (This mental field creation - for me at least - visual. Taking the form of an outline of this human self, center-periphery, and so on.)

So no wonder the control room analogy came up in our minds. It is a direct representation of what is really going on, here now. It reflects direct experience when this experience is filtered through this mental field overlay - and it is not recognized as just a mental field creation.

It is a discredited theory in science. What happens when I explore it for myself, here now? What happens if I take the middle man as real? What happens if I see it as a mental field creation?

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Time is a mental field creation, so no wonder our experience of time changes.

When I look at my own experience of time, I find a few different aspects…

First, a sense of infinite time between now and something that happened in the past. It seems very far away, even if it happened recently in conventional (clock) terms. For instance, between now and when I got up - which is only a couple of hours ago - it feels like a very, almost infinitely, long time. It feels like centuries or millenia may have past, although I of course know that is not the case. Right now, this experience is relatively stably in the middle or foreground in daily life.

Then, a sense of collapsed time. Of the time between now and a particular memory from the past - or scenario about the future - as nonexistent. It feels like no time between now and particulars in the past and future. No time between my birth and now. No time between now and my death. There is a sense of immediacy here. This experience comes into the foreground when I look at it, but it otherwise more in the background.

I can also access conventional clock & calendar time of hours, days, months and so on. I can easily funciton within this framework, although my experience of it is more along the lines of the other ones mentioned here. This one is available as needed.

And finally, a sense of timelessness. Of everything - including my mental field creations of time, memories and scenarios - as happening within and as timelessness, this timeless now. Everything happens within and as timeless awakeness. This is the context of all of the other ones, independent of how they show up. And it is in the background or foreground of experience depending on where attention goes.

Trigger: Sometimes surprising myself in realizing that something that feels like it happened a very long time ago, really happened just a few hours earlier or the day before.

As with just about everything here, this too is just life 101. But there is still a draw to write it down to clarify it a little for myself, and also so I can move on and don’t feel I have to remember it.

Thoughts function as an interface, and so also in a spiritual or practice context.

They serve as a pointer for attention, such as bringing attention to the breath, the different sense fields, what comes up when I ask a question of myself (The Work), and so on.

They serve as an invitation for a shift, for instance into allowing experience and into one of the voices in the Big Mind process.

And they serve as a guide for exploration, when I explore sense fields, they dynamics around a belief, or what happens when an experience is resisted or allowed.

In these ways, thoughts serve as a pointer beyond themselves. They initiate something that goes far beyond thoughts, the cognitive or any mental field activity.

Thoughts also serve as an interface in the other direction. The mental field filters, interprets and put words (or images) on what happens outside of the mental field.

So while The Work, the Big Mind process or headless experiments from the outside may appear to happen mainly within the mental field, as soon as we actually try either of them, we find that their effects go far beyond the mental field, and also that the mental field reports what occurs far beyond itself.

One obvious example is how The Work sometimes brings energetic shifts, and also an experience of not recognizing oneself afterwards. It is as if the whole human self has shifted and is different, in a very direct and immediate way. Another example is how what we are notices itself in a direct way through shifting into Big Mind and headlessness. And how we can shift into Big Heart, and hold our human self and any other beings within Big Heart, through the Big Mind process and other practices and explorations.

Trigger: A few instances where someone describes The Work as mainly a cognitive process. I tend to be surprised by this since the main shifts in The Work happens outside of the mental field, but I can also understand how it may appear mainly cognitive when seen from from the outside.

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