2.3. Dual Experiences

All experiences have a dual aspect, the experience coming from the sense itself and the mental interpretation and response. In the beginning, this is difficult to differentiate, but becomes easier with practice.

Don't underestimate how your ability to perceive minute details of experience can radically improve with practice; not just a small increase, but an exponential increase in the ability to differentiate ever more subtle phenomena and clearly analyse those.

Pain

Let's take a very common example that occurs for most meditators while sitting: pain in the feet or legs caused by the sitting posture. It's common to think, "My leg hurts."

But let's go deeper into that experience.

The information coming from the body is physical in nature—pressure, tightness, heat, tingling, numbness. It is also located in a specific area of the body, one can delimit a shape in which the sensation exists—a strip or patch or a circle. It also changes over time—pulsing, throbbing, expanding, contracting. That's the physical aspect.

The unpleasantness of that physical sensation is a mental experience. The resistance to that physical sensation is a mental experience. The desire to move is a mental experience. Whatever stories you create around the pain are mental experiences. All of those aspects of experience come through the mind channel.

This might be difficult to see immediately, but with repeated practice, the dual aspects of pain become very clear.

Emotion

It might be surprising to learn that there is not a single word in the vast collection of Buddha's discourses that corresponds directly to the English word 'emotion'. Sometimes the word vedanā is rendered as 'emotion', but it is an awful mistranslation. Vedanā describes an entirely different concept which we shall look at soon, but suffice to say, it's a much simpler thing than the complexity of love or anger.

If we dissect something like anger according to saḷāyatana, it becomes obvious that there are two aspects to it: one is the mental experience of angry churning thoughts, a story in the mind of why you are right to be angry—completely justified, in fact!—and all the barbed words you are going to say to the other person. The other aspect is the physical experience of heat, heart racing, tension and adrenaline arousal in the body.

Almost always, what we call an emotion in English is a mental experience which also has a physical counterpart. Think of someone you love, notice the pleasant feeling in the mind and the physical sensations in the chest. Once again, two different types of experience, one mental and the other physical, both happening simultaneously.

It's like the physical and mental experiences create a feedback loop with each other. Emotions tend to create benign or vicious feedback loops, where the mental aspect creates a physical response, and the physical aspect reinforces the mental response. Next time you have any emotional reaction, please pay attention to both sides of the equation, and distinguish clearly between them.

Reading

The mental / physical duality applies to all five sense experiences. Take a simple example of reading these words. What is coming from the eyes is just a mass of raw visual information, there are no words, just colours, shapes, light and dark. Only when processed by the mind do these become actual words in the mind and 'make sense'.

As you are reading, pause for a moment to really look at this text. See what is coming in on the visual channel. It may help to blur your eyes slightly, or look at the text through your peripheral vision. With unknown foreign scripts, there is only the physical aspect and no corresponding mental understanding.

𑀫𑀦𑁄𑀧𑀼𑀩𑁆𑀩𑀗𑁆𑀕𑀫𑀸 𑀥𑀫𑁆𑀫𑀸, 𑀫𑀦𑁄𑀲𑁂𑀝𑁆𑀞𑀸 𑀫𑀦𑁄𑀫𑀬𑀸, 𑀫𑀦𑀲𑀸 𑀘𑁂 𑀧𑀤𑀼𑀝𑁆𑀞𑁂𑀦, 𑀪𑀸𑀲𑀢𑀺 𑀯𑀸 𑀓𑀭𑁄𑀢𑀺 𑀯𑀸, 𑀢𑀢𑁄 𑀦𑀁 𑀤𑀼𑀓𑁆𑀔𑀫𑀦𑁆𑀯𑁂𑀢𑀺, 𑀘𑀓𑁆𑀓𑀁𑀯 𑀯𑀳𑀢𑁄 𑀧𑀤𑀁.

Now, look normally again. As you read, say these words slowly and loudly in your mind. Silently, pronounce all these words. Now say them in a French accent. Very clearly, this is a mental experience.

Take a few moments to flip back and forth between seeing words with the eyes and understanding words in the mind to make a clear differentiation between the two.

Naming

Even the simplest act of naming an experience reveals the physical / mental dichotomy. Stop for a moment and listen to all the sounds in your environment. Pick one to analyse.

1. Do you like the sound?

2. What is that sound?

3. Is there something you want to do about the sound?

4. Are you still aware of the sound?

Your answer to all four of these questions was a mental experience.

In Buddhist terms, the pleasantness or unpleasantness of the sound is called vedanā, recognizing the sound and being able to name it is called saññā, your volitional responses to sounds are called saṅkhārā, and the knowing itself is viññāṇa.

Here's a conceptual diagram of the relationship between the six sense fields and the five aggregates. Think of saḷāyatana as a matrix of experience, and pañcakhandā as a matrix of how we take experience to be a self.

Meditation on dual experiences

Let's take a practical look at the physical and mental aspects of experience.

As you continue your meditation today, pay special attention to the dual aspect of every experience. Continue with this exercise for the rest of the day, alternating with open awareness.

Q&A

Q: Do you have any questions or doubts at this point?