During the writing of our previous dialogue, we briefly mentioned the idea of "flow state at a higher level", and I wanted to talk about that today.

Once again, we are hampered by the problem of translation. When I wrote that, I was using the term "flow state" to refer to the Daoist concept of wuwei (無為), but the English term "flow state" is actually closer to the Daoist concept of mushin (無心). We already discussed wuwei last time. Are you familiar with the concept of mushin?

I had not heard the name previously, but a bit of Googling suggests it's similar to the "no-mind" that Miyamoto Musashi discusses in his Book of Five Rings. I've studied that text a fair bit as well, and feel fairly confident in my ability to speak about no-mind.

Yes. Mu (無) means "no" and shin (心) means "mind". Mushin is no-mind.

"No-mind" has served as a useful guidepost for me, acting as an ideal end-state for any skill I'm practicing. If I can use a skill without paying attention and still get acceptable results, my ability to hoard my energy reserves increases dramatically.

Interesting choice of words. I think you have it completely backward. Mushin is all about paying attention to the present moment!

My original interpretation of no-mind was being able to use skills by reflex rather than spending seconds thinking about each step of a process. I had discovered that it was possible to do something like write code on auto-pilot (which is closer to flow-state) and still generate code that worked, albeit if I adjusted my thought processing.

Essentially, you became a state machine who had a "right" response to any input you received.

Being able to use skills by reflex rather than spending seconds thinking about each step of a process is called mastery. Performing an action on auto-pilot is called auto-pilot. Mushin is something else.

Here is a report by someone who stumbled on mushin with no background knowledge. H0bert entered mushin by accident while trying to do something else. At the time of writing, he didn't even know the word "mushin".

I stopped thinking for a while

Hello, I would like to share an experience and ask for some guidance. I have been meditating for a year doing Anapanasati. A week ago while meditating, I felt my thoughts in the back of my head but didn't think them. I just sat there and perceived without thinking. I have never experienced anything like this before.

I was able to create this experience again while walking. The world felt remarkably silent. I was on a busy street, but nevertheless it felt like not much was happening. I hope I am making sense here. I was quite entranced by the experience.

It takes mental effort to create and maintain this state, so it's not an automatic process. As soon as I relax too much, I start thinking my thoughts again.

Could someone please put this experience into the context of the meditation maps? Does this correspond to any Anapanasati or TMI stage?

Could it be that I am just suppressing my thoughts? That would not be a skillful thing to do I suppose.

Thank you very much!

That sounds like more of a disconnected state than I was picturing. Thoughts being perceived but not thought (verb) is not what I would expect to see.

It's not disconnection because there's no thoughts to disconnect from.

So he was noticing the potential for thoughts, but not acting upon that potential?

Closer. He was paying attention to the present moment, which is why (basically) no thoughts arose.

He doesn't write this part, but in a mushin state, you're not just not paying attention to your thoughts. There's also a lot fewer discursive thoughts.

That reminds me of a state I've been studying, the liminal state. The "world" that you interact with shrinks from our usual model of "kind of everything" to only what you directly perceive and a bit of predictive modelling from there. Does that sound closer to the right direction?

Bingo. That "what you directly perceive" is the present moment you are paying attention to in a mushin state. Minimal predictive modelling.