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Vassa 1993 - Specific characteristics of consciousness

When you are experiencing the rising or falling movement with very deep concentration, the movement is very subtle. You are not conscious of the form of the abdomen or the body. What you are realizing is just movement, a series of movement going outwards and coming inwards. You see it very clearly, one after another. Later on after one hour of sitting you are not conscious of the movement. You lose the sense of the movements but you know there is no movement at all. Just knowing. Knowing of the absence of the movement. It means that you have no material phenomena that knows the absence of the movements. Then there is only one thing you find there, that is the consciousness which cognizes the absence of the object. Then you have to note 'knowing, knowing..'. This consciousness knows the absence of the object. This consciousness notes it, 'knowing, knowing..'. At that moment the specific characteristics of consciousness which is just cognizing is very evident to your mind. It can only be experienced either at the sixth stage of insight knowledge, or higher, for example the eleventh stage.

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