Mi'sen

a template of their own _preferred_ interpretation on top of the raw sensory data; which has both the property of biasing the perception towards what the programs desire to perceive, and also creating a desire for things to be different. Shinzen's book talked about getting into

contact with a raw, primordial chaotic state of perception, like an infant's; uninterpreted perception that's allowed to just be as it is, without those conceptual subprograms trying to mold it into any known shape. I very tentatively suspect that the act of the subprograms

trying to impose order upon chaos generates a low-level tension, as the raw perceptions never quite match the conceptual templates. And there may be frequent desire to take actions so as to reduce that tension. I'm confused about the exact relation of this and 'craving', though -

the naive explanation would be "the desire to take actions to change the experience is craving", but 'craving' as I think of it is intrinsically unpleasant, whereas IME choiceless awareness practice lets me take actions without experiencing discomfort; craving feels more like a

second-order desire than a first-order one. Or something. I feel like I have really no idea of what I'm talking about again and will feel like an idiot if I reread this thread in six months' time. :-)

Thank you for this response, Kaj. Really interesting! Lots to reflect on.

I think the way in which you're talking re: subprograms imposing a _preferred_ order, thus creating biased perception, desire for things to be different, and a subtle tension, probably has a lot of truth in it, so to speak.

prapancha is something like a 'hidden assumption of order'. Insight uncovers these assumptions and allows us to see how that preferred order - the assumption - not only creates tension, but also distorts the way in which we perceive. So we perceive fluids as solid, metaphorically