Visualisation and Vipassana?

This is a question about Vipassana practice generally, but specifically with regard to Goenka/Ledi/U Ba Kin body scanning. I'd be very grateful if as many yogis as possible could give their two cents (whether they have done Goenka practice or not), as this has potentially big implications for how and what exactly I practice.

Yesterday, I finished my first ten day Goenka retreat. I really put a lot of effort into mastering the body scanning technique and was practicing formally for 10-11 hours each day, and sitting through 11 out of the 15 sits where you are encouraged not to open your legs, arms or eyes. I was able to feel sensations on every part of the body, after working hard at hazy areas like the ears, scalp and belly. I was able to get '˜free flow' regularly down the arms and up the back, and got pretty good and distinguishing between toes with no movement. On three occasions, I was able to sweep from the top of the head to the toes of the feet, as the gross sensations dissolved into subtle vibrations and a cool flow of energy went throughout the body. On the evening of the ninth day, I experienced this sweeping/flowing for about three minutes, and tried my best to remain totally equanimous and unfazed by what was a fairly impressive fireworks display. I was able to dissolve pain, into unpleasant and then just hot/prickling/fiery/throbbing sensations, and sit through stuff that would've previously turfed me off the cushion. So I thought I was doing fairly well.

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But in the final discourse, Goenka warned students not to visualise while they were doing the body scanning practice, and my heart sank. I had been visualising all week. Not deliberately, not in an artificial way, but simply because that is how my mind works and I cannot even conceive of feeling a sensation without the visual faculties of my consciousness exploiting that experience in order to spatially orientate myself. It's not that I am deliberately imagining something, it's just that my own proprioception is extremely visual.

I went to ask the assistant teacher what I should do. His solution was that I should realise when I am visualising, relax my eyes, make sure my head is straight and then continue. I have since tried to do this, but doing it rigorously would mean that I would need to do it after every single felt sensation. But the teacher said that if I continued to visualise I would miss the truth of Vipassana practice, and also strain my eyes. And it's certainly true that after retreats, I almost always have a strong throbbing or ache somewhere in the centre of my head (the bottom of the nose, the centre of the skull, this time it was the middle of the brows and bridge of the nose). I have also tried ignoring the images, and plunging deep into sensations, but the images are still there.

I felt a bit annoyed that this wasn't made clearer at the start of the retreat. In fact, it was the opposite. Goenka talks of '˜observing' sensations and of '˜blind' and '˜blank' areas where you can't feel sensations, and the assistant teacher compared the free flow experience to '˜a CAT scan' or even '˜painting' sensations onto the body. All these are hugely visual terms. Even the idea of '˜moving' or '˜placing' your attention has connotations of spatiality, which surely involves the visual part of the brain.

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So, my questions are:
- Is it true that I will miss the truth of Vipassana practice by continuing to visualise, even in the non-deliberate manner that I am currently doing?
- If so, how do I drop visualising? (At the moment, it feels a bit like asking a birth-blind person to imagine what colour is)
- Is visualising compatible with other forms of Vipassana, such as Mahasi noting? Noting was my main practice before the retreat, and although I was visualising occasionally, because noting is free form, the mind wasn't able to create such a comprehensive picture from sensations, because attention is pulled from one part of the body to the other as sensations arise and pass away. And anyway, I could always note 'imaging thought' if a very well formed picture popped into my mind's eye. In fact, this was my most frequently used label relating to thoughts.

(I might cross-post this at the DhO for maximum yogi response)

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I've notice that sometimes - like you are looking at the place you feel something (as if you could see it, even if it's inside your body!). Must be a natural tendency of the mind, maybe particularly for visual people. I seriously doubt it's going to destroy your practice. Personally I wouldn't get tied in a knot about it. Now that you are aware of it, you can note that also. Whatever's going on in the body and mind is good fodder for noting, in my opinion.

"Is it true that I will miss the truth of Vipassana practice by continuing to visualise, even in the non-deliberate manner that I am currently doing?"

Here's my answer: you are supposed to be exploring the nature of perception when you are meditating. Visualizing phenomena is part of that process. Your mind is constantly and very rapidly visualizing everything you experience, so you must get familiar with that process. Investigating that process is called "vipassana." So, you need to pay attention to when you are visualizing and how that fits into the stream of your experience. If you cannot visualize an object what's that like? Or can you even do that? Do you ever need to do that? Why, or why not?

Experiment! Investigate this -- if you hear a unique sound (car horn for example) what happens in your mind? Can you trace the steps? What is REALLY happening???

Make sense?