knowledge of seeing

My practice has taken an interesting, engaging, curious turn the last couple months, after reading Aldous Huxley's book 'The art of seeing'. I started reading it because I've been having trouble with my vision, then quickly found how the book can be applied to insight as well. I've been practicing some of the eye exercises (taken from the Bates method), and the effects on vipassana have been surprisingly positive.

The exercises help one break habits which are detrimental to healthy vision, two important ones being straining and staring. The tendency is to be unconscious of the act of seeing, so the process of re-educating the eyes is basically one of making vision a conscious experience. It's certainly been true for me that my vision has been just about entirely unconscious. This is changing, and now it is becoming more automatic to be aware of the process of seeing. It's been very cool, very fun, and very freeing. At this stage just moving around feels at times like being in a live ultra-HD video game. Motion is very apparent. There's a pce-esque quality to the world, and sometimes it seems I am some kind of probe, moving about on the earth, registering all this visual input. Who or what force is turning my head, directing my eyes this way and that, collecting the data - can't answer that.

(cont).
The exercises encourage one to become 'blink conscious', and to become aware of breathing, as when one unconsciously stares, or fixates on something, breath tends to become constricted and shallow. So this is direct progress in vipassana. And working on breaking the habit of unconscious staring is very freeing to the faculty of attention, which has become noticeably more nimble and mobile. So now, whenever my eyes are open, it's much easier to note seeing, which in turn makes it easier to note the body or thoughts or whatever. I've been finding myself noting these things at times I would not had the wherewithall to note previously, during a sudden conversation with a person I'm attracted to for example.

Whether the Bates method actually improves eyesight or not is controversial, and I have my doubts, but will find out, as I took an eye exam right before I started these eye exercises, and will take another one later this year. In any case, my appreciation of vision has increased significantly, and the habits of straining and staring are steadily diminishing. Being relaxed is an important aspect to the method, and is a direct result of the exercises as well - this is always a welcome thing in my book.

One cool fact (according to one book): the retinas are actually outgrowths of the brain, and seem to contain their own intelligence. The strong sense of 'I' in the eye area comes to mind regarding this. Richard mentions something similar, that the eyes are extensions of the brain, connected by stalks. This really feels to be the case. I'm just starting with this, but there seems to be much more to it. The eyes and vision are such a big part of consciousness. (One book said vision is 80% of brain activity.)

ps - if anyone has experience with the Bates method, I would be very interested in other good books to check out.

pps - this was posted on DhO as well

"The eyes and vision are such a big part of consciousness. (One book said vision is 80% of brain activity.)
"

And 90% of statistics are made up on the spot....Ha!

Sounds very much like AF-style practice to me. If doing vipassana correctly then we should be noting "staring" or "straining" anyway, there's no emphasis on any one mode of perception as it's all sensation regardless of the door it's walking through. I've done similar exercises in the past but found that too much emphasis ends up being placed on the visual aspects rather than the whole sense-field which, regardless of brain activity, is what makes up reality as it is.

Interesting topic. I try and investigate seeing to understand how it manifests. The Buddhist texts seem to indicate that for an object to arise you need both a sense object and a sense organ, and from the meeting of the two consciousness arises.

But, what I can't figure out is how does it work when we are asleep and "seeing" something in a dream? Both the sense object and the sense organ are out of the equation yet somehow seeing still seems to happen.

I usually try and investigate things for myself, but as it stands I don't have much confidence that I can practice insight meditation during a dream and figure it out directly. So yeah, a question for anyone who can: if we need a sense object and a sense organ to see, then how is it that we "see" in our dreams when neither are present?

"... how does it work when we are asleep and "seeing" something in a dream?"

Your brain is a sense organ. How else would you sense thoughts? A thought can be words, sounds, or an image -- as in a dream.

Yes, basically the brain paralyzes the skeletal muscles and closes a gate between the processing centers (for the senses) and the actual sense apparatus. The processing centers continue to function, so we have the experience of sensing things. There is like a buffer zone of processes between the gate and the senses which monitor for signals in the environment that are unexpected, like a fire alarm or someone whispering our name. Perhaps the buffer system and the outer senses have there own consciousnesses while "we" are withdrawn behind the gate, dreaming :=0.