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 just how radically your ability to perceive minute details of experience can 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 legs. It's common to say, "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, contacting. That's the physical aspect.

The unpleasantness of that physical sensation is experienced in the mind. The resistance to that physical sensation is experienced in the mind. The desire to move is experienced in the mind. Whatever stories you create around the pain are experienced in the mind. That's the mental aspect of the experience. 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.

Emotions tend to create benign or vicious circles, where the mental aspect creates a physical response, and the physical aspect creates a 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 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.

Now, look normally again. As you read, say these word slowly and loudly in your mind. Silently, pronounce all these words 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.

Do you like the sound?
What is that sound?
Is there something you want to do about the sound?
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, recognising the sound and being able to name it is called saññā, your volitional response to the sound is called saṅkhāra, and the knowing itself is viññāṇa.

Eating

Another everyday experience that can be broken apart into different sense fields is eating. This is truly a multi-sense affair.

Seeing the food in front of you is eye channel.

Deciding what you are going to eat next is mind channel.

Physically moving the food from your bowl to your mouth is body channel.

As the food gets close to your lips, the smell becomes apparent, that's nose channel.

Placing the food inside the mouth, chewing it with the teeth, moving it around with the tongue, mixing it with saliva are all body channel.

The sound of the teeth chewing, and food and saliva moving around in your mouth is ear channel.

The flavour is tongue channel.

The smell coming from the chewed food inside your mouth is nose channel.

The enjoyment is mind channel.

The sensation of swallowing is body channel.

And so on with the next mouthful.

One area to make a clear distinction is between smells and flavours. For example, pineapple does not actually taste like pineapple, it smells like pineapple and tastes sweet and sour.

To isolate the sense of taste from the sense of smell, you can stop breathing for a moment, or pinch your nose closed. How food tastes when your nose is blocked is the actual taste. Nobody enjoys food when they have a cold because the nose is blocked and there is no smell, but it is common to hear, "The food has no taste!"

Another thing way to differentiate between smell and taste is, when food is in the mouth, note the difference in smell when inhaling and exhaling. When is the smell more pr

Meditation on dual experiences

As you continue your meditation, pay special attention to the dual aspect of every experience.

When engaged in multisensory activities, try and pick apart the various channels of experience.

Q&A

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