<p>There is obviously not a continuous stream of sensations otherwise the mind could remember every sensation, similar to how every frame in reel of movie film can be viewed. In other words, the sensation experienced one second ago has disappeared, forever. To believe there is a continuous stream of sensation is to only observe arising &amp; to not observe passing/disappearance. Its like a person given a box of delicious chocolates that hungrily can only see the next chocolate to be eaten, never realising each chocolate is disappearing &amp; soon there will be no chocolates left, which eventually brings despair when the chocolates (similar to life) run out</p>

<p>Regardless, what Daniel is writing about, such as observing 40 sensations per second, is not found in the reported teachings of the Buddha, although it may possibly be found in later philosophy called Abhidhamma. To me, what Daniel is writing about is unimportant for clear insight, because objects must be very discrete to experience abrupt disappearance (rather than a blur of oscillating sensations the mind becomes infatuated with; like becoming infatuated with the oscillations or vibrations of a girl dancing on a cliff; rather than watching the girl fall off the cliff, to her death).</p>

<p>The Buddhist scriptures refer to observing the coming-to-be &amp; then disappearance of a single in-breath, then an out-breath (MN 118) then, on a more advanced level, the arising, persisting &amp; disappearing of a feeling, perception or thought (<a href="http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.041.than.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">AN 4.41</a>). This is more than enough for the purpose of vipassana. For example, merely observing a single breath, until it disappears; then observing the next breath, until it disappears, is enough to get started on seeing the true nature of life phenomena.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p><em>We are typically quite sloppy about what are physical sensations and what are mental sensations (memories, mental images, and mental
  impressions of other sensations). These two kinds of sensations
  actually oscillate back and forth, a back and forth interplay, one
  arising and passing and then the other arising and passing, in a
  somewhat quick but quite penetrable fashion. Being clear about exactly
  when the physical sensations are there will begin to clarify their
  slippery counterpart that helps create the illusion of continuity or
  solidity: flickering mental impressions.</em></p>
  
  <p><em>If you can perceive one sensation per second, try for two. If you can perceive two unique sensations per second, try to perceive four. Keep
  increasing your perceptual threshold in this way until the illusion of
  continuity that binds you on the wheel of suffering shatters. In
  short, when doing insight practices, constantly work to perceive
  sensations arise and pass as quickly and accurately as you possibly
  can</em></p>
  
  <p><em>How fast are things vibrating? How many sensations arise and
  vanish each second? This is exactly what you are trying to experience,
  but some very general guidelines can provide faith that it can be done
  and perhaps point the way as well. Begin by assuming that we are talking
  about one to ten times per second in the beginning. This is not actually
  that fast. Try tapping five to ten times per second on a table or
  something. It might take two hands, but it's manageable, isn't it? You
  could obviously experience that, couldn't you? That's the spirit!
  There are faster and slower vibrations that may show up, some very
  fast (<strong>maybe up to forty times per second</strong>) and some very slow (that are
  actually made up of faster vibrations), but let's just say that one to ten
  times per second can sometimes be a useful guideline in the beginning.</em></p>
  
  <p><a href="https://static.squarespace.com/static/5037f52d84ae1e87f694cfda/t/5055915f84aedaeee9181119/1347785055665/" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><em>Page 20</em></a></p>
  
  <p><em>Since I just used this dangerous phrase “the mind,” I should quickly mention that it cannot be found. I’m certainly not talking about the
  brain, which we have never experienced, as the standard for insight
  practices is what we can directly experience. As an old Zen monk once
  said to us in his extremely thick Japanese accent, “Some people say
  there is mind. I say there is no mind, but never mind. Heh, heh,
  heh!”</em></p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-06T00:50:31.907Z
2017-10-06T10:59:28.070Z
2017-10-06T10:59:28.070Z
Dhamma Dhatu
<p>You could try to understand this by your own meditation experience, or you could trust science (for now).</p>

<p>From this <a href="https://qz.com/663729/new-research-suggests-that-consciousness-is-developed-in-two-stages/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">April 2016 article in Quartz</a> based on <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002433" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this research paper</a>:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>First, the authors argue, we unconsciously process visual stimuli
  continuously, and are oblivious to this stage. <strong>We only then become
  consciously aware of the information once it has been transferred to
  conscious perception, which happens in discrete moments, or “time
  slices.”</strong></p>
  
  <p>Michael Herzog, a professor at the École polytechnique fédérale de
  Lausanne’s Brain Mind Institute in Switzerland, and Frank Scharnowski,
  a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Zurich, argue that
  we’re unaware of the gaps in our consciousness. <strong>They say there can be
  a 400-milisecond lag between unconsciously receiving stimuli and
  transferring it to conscious perception.</strong></p>
  
  <p>“We perceive time as continuous just as we perceive a line as
  continuous even though its ink is of discrete atomic nature,” the
  authors write in their paper.</p>
  
  <p>But our perception of conscious does not align with reality.
  “According to our model, the output of unconscious processing is
  discrete, meaningful, and rendered conscious at once. Large parts of
  unconscious processing will never reach consciousness,” the
  researchers say.</p>
  
  <p>The authors note that the debate over how consciousness works has a
  long history. <strong>In the third century BC, the Abhidharma Buddhist school
  put forward the theory that consciousness is made up of discrete
  moments.</strong> There are numerous more recent papers arguing for just such a
  conclusion. Meanwhile, experiments show that when two stimuli are
  presented in rapid succession, they’re perceived simultaneously, while
  discrete perception is thought to explain various visual tricks, such
  as the optical illusion that often makes spoked wheels look as though
  they’re moving in reverse, and flash lag illusion, where a flash that
  occurs in the same place as a moving object is perceived to be in a
  different location.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>This <a href="https://www.sciencealert.com/consciousness-occurs-in-time-slices-lasting-only-milliseconds-study-suggests" rel="nofollow noreferrer">April 2016 Science Alert article</a> adds:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>In other words, while we're taking the world in, we're not actually
  consciously perceiving it. <strong>Instead, we're just mutely using our senses
  to record data for up to 400 ms at a time. Then, in what could be
  called a moment of clarity, we consciously perceive the stimuli that
  our senses have detected.</strong></p>
  
  <p><strong>The team thinks this presentation of information to our consciousness
  lasts for about 50 milliseconds, during which we also stop taking new
  sensory information in. And then repeat.</strong></p>
  
  <p>Our senses start taking new information in from whatever stimuli are
  around us, before handing it off to our consciousness to perceive and
  enjoy – back and forth, and so on, and so on.</p>
  
  <p>The team says each window of recording and playback would last for a
  different amount of time, depending on the kind of information being
  processed.</p>
  
  <p><strong>While the constant to-and-fro suggests consciousness is anything but a
  seamless experience, if the researchers are correct, our brains
  somehow manage to stitch everything together so it feels like a
  continuous flow of events with no interruptions.</strong></p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-06T15:50:20.147Z
2017-10-06T15:56:45.890Z
2017-10-06T15:56:45.890Z
ruben2020
<p>You have to do this by stages while practicing Satipathana.
Just practice breath meditation first.
Then practice some walking meditation.
It is gradual training.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-06T00:19:43.427Z
2017-10-06T00:19:43.427Z
SarathW
<p>I'm currently reading the book "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha" by Daniel Ingram, and he insists over and over that the continuity of sensations is an illusion, and that sensations actually come to us in a sort of flickering.  I've done some meditation and have started to feel what he is talking about.  But if we can detect the gaps in between the sensations, isn't the detection of the gaps itself a sensation?  How do we know that the experience of flickering isn't the illusion, and that the reality is a continuous stream of sensations?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-05T22:34:33.863Z
See also [Awareness of two things](https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/10716/254)
ChrisW
CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-06T00:21:50.830Z
Daniel posts here: https://www.dharmaoverground.org/
Dhamma Dhatu
<meditation><meditation-effects>
How can we know that we experience sensations as a series of discrete sensations?
# How can we know that we experience sensations as a series of discrete sensations?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2017-10-05)

I'm currently reading the book "Mastering the Core Teachings of the Buddha" by Daniel Ingram, and he insists over and over that the continuity of sensations is an illusion, and that sensations actually come to us in a sort of flickering. I've done some meditation and have started to feel what he is talking about. But if we can detect the gaps in between the sensations, isn't the detection of the gaps itself a sensation? How do we know that the experience of flickering isn't the illusion, and that the reality is a continuous stream of sensations?

**Tags:** meditation, meditation-effects

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: See also [Awareness of two things](https://buddhism.stackexchange.com/q/10716/254)  
> **username_2**: Daniel posts here: https://www.dharmaoverground.org/  

---

## 3 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2017-10-06. Score: 3

There is obviously not a continuous stream of sensations otherwise the mind could remember every sensation, similar to how every frame in reel of movie film can be viewed. In other words, the sensation experienced one second ago has disappeared, forever. To believe there is a continuous stream of sensation is to only observe arising & to not observe passing/disappearance. Its like a person given a box of delicious chocolates that hungrily can only see the next chocolate to be eaten, never realising each chocolate is disappearing & soon there will be no chocolates left, which eventually brings despair when the chocolates (similar to life) run out

Regardless, what Daniel is writing about, such as observing 40 sensations per second, is not found in the reported teachings of the Buddha, although it may possibly be found in later philosophy called Abhidhamma. To me, what Daniel is writing about is unimportant for clear insight, because objects must be very discrete to experience abrupt disappearance (rather than a blur of oscillating sensations the mind becomes infatuated with; like becoming infatuated with the oscillations or vibrations of a girl dancing on a cliff; rather than watching the girl fall off the cliff, to her death).

The Buddhist scriptures refer to observing the coming-to-be & then disappearance of a single in-breath, then an out-breath (MN 118) then, on a more advanced level, the arising, persisting & disappearing of a feeling, perception or thought ([AN 4.41](http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an04/an04.041.than.html)). This is more than enough for the purpose of vipassana. For example, merely observing a single breath, until it disappears; then observing the next breath, until it disappears, is enough to get started on seeing the true nature of life phenomena.

> *We are typically quite sloppy about what are physical sensations and what are mental sensations (memories, mental images, and mental
> impressions of other sensations). These two kinds of sensations
> actually oscillate back and forth, a back and forth interplay, one
> arising and passing and then the other arising and passing, in a
> somewhat quick but quite penetrable fashion. Being clear about exactly
> when the physical sensations are there will begin to clarify their
> slippery counterpart that helps create the illusion of continuity or
> solidity: flickering mental impressions.*
>
> *If you can perceive one sensation per second, try for two. If you can perceive two unique sensations per second, try to perceive four. Keep
> increasing your perceptual threshold in this way until the illusion of
> continuity that binds you on the wheel of suffering shatters. In
> short, when doing insight practices, constantly work to perceive
> sensations arise and pass as quickly and accurately as you possibly
> can*
>
> *How fast are things vibrating? How many sensations arise and
> vanish each second? This is exactly what you are trying to experience,
> but some very general guidelines can provide faith that it can be done
> and perhaps point the way as well. Begin by assuming that we are talking
> about one to ten times per second in the beginning. This is not actually
> that fast. Try tapping five to ten times per second on a table or
> something. It might take two hands, but it's manageable, isn't it? You
> could obviously experience that, couldn't you? That's the spirit!
> There are faster and slower vibrations that may show up, some very
> fast (**maybe up to forty times per second**) and some very slow (that are
> actually made up of faster vibrations), but let's just say that one to ten
> times per second can sometimes be a useful guideline in the beginning.*
>
> [*Page 20*](https://static.squarespace.com/static/5037f52d84ae1e87f694cfda/t/5055915f84aedaeee9181119/1347785055665/)
>
> *Since I just used this dangerous phrase “the mind,” I should quickly mention that it cannot be found. I’m certainly not talking about the
> brain, which we have never experienced, as the standard for insight
> practices is what we can directly experience. As an old Zen monk once
> said to us in his extremely thick Japanese accent, “Some people say
> there is mind. I say there is no mind, but never mind. Heh, heh,
> heh!”*


---

### Answer by username_3 on 2017-10-06. Score: 2

You could try to understand this by your own meditation experience, or you could trust science (for now).

From this [April 2016 article in Quartz](https://qz.com/663729/new-research-suggests-that-consciousness-is-developed-in-two-stages/) based on [this research paper](http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1002433):

> First, the authors argue, we unconsciously process visual stimuli
> continuously, and are oblivious to this stage. **We only then become
> consciously aware of the information once it has been transferred to
> conscious perception, which happens in discrete moments, or “time
> slices.”**
>
> Michael Herzog, a professor at the École polytechnique fédérale de
> Lausanne’s Brain Mind Institute in Switzerland, and Frank Scharnowski,
> a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of Zurich, argue that
> we’re unaware of the gaps in our consciousness. **They say there can be
> a 400-milisecond lag between unconsciously receiving stimuli and
> transferring it to conscious perception.**
>
> “We perceive time as continuous just as we perceive a line as
> continuous even though its ink is of discrete atomic nature,” the
> authors write in their paper.
>
> But our perception of conscious does not align with reality.
> “According to our model, the output of unconscious processing is
> discrete, meaningful, and rendered conscious at once. Large parts of
> unconscious processing will never reach consciousness,” the
> researchers say.
>
> The authors note that the debate over how consciousness works has a
> long history. **In the third century BC, the Abhidharma Buddhist school
> put forward the theory that consciousness is made up of discrete
> moments.** There are numerous more recent papers arguing for just such a
> conclusion. Meanwhile, experiments show that when two stimuli are
> presented in rapid succession, they’re perceived simultaneously, while
> discrete perception is thought to explain various visual tricks, such
> as the optical illusion that often makes spoked wheels look as though
> they’re moving in reverse, and flash lag illusion, where a flash that
> occurs in the same place as a moving object is perceived to be in a
> different location.

This [April 2016 Science Alert article](https://www.sciencealert.com/consciousness-occurs-in-time-slices-lasting-only-milliseconds-study-suggests) adds:

> In other words, while we're taking the world in, we're not actually
> consciously perceiving it. **Instead, we're just mutely using our senses
> to record data for up to 400 ms at a time. Then, in what could be
> called a moment of clarity, we consciously perceive the stimuli that
> our senses have detected.**
>
> **The team thinks this presentation of information to our consciousness
> lasts for about 50 milliseconds, during which we also stop taking new
> sensory information in. And then repeat.**
>
> Our senses start taking new information in from whatever stimuli are
> around us, before handing it off to our consciousness to perceive and
> enjoy – back and forth, and so on, and so on.
>
> The team says each window of recording and playback would last for a
> different amount of time, depending on the kind of information being
> processed.
>
> **While the constant to-and-fro suggests consciousness is anything but a
> seamless experience, if the researchers are correct, our brains
> somehow manage to stitch everything together so it feels like a
> continuous flow of events with no interruptions.**


---

### Answer by username_4 on 2017-10-06. Score: -4

You have to do this by stages while practicing Satipathana.
Just practice breath meditation first.
Then practice some walking meditation.
It is gradual training.


---

