deconstructing sensory experience

A simple lens on meditative insight progress, from Michael Taft:

Start with some sensory object - the sight of a tree, or the felt sensation of the breath. We may try to keep our focus on the object, but this is not a map of concentration, just a map of our awareness as we attend to the object.

1. The first level is conceptual awareness of the object as an object. We see the tree as a tree. Under the hood, our mind is simplifying, abstracting, summarizing our sensory experience into a simple conceptual label 'tree'.
2. The second level is phenomenal awareness, the sensory experience of the object. We notice the shapes and textures of the leaves, the way the light and shadow plays through the canopy, the fractal branching, the texture of the bark, and so on. This takes effort and energy because our brain isn't built to sustain awareness of all of these things together at once. As we practice, we literally build neural connections and our sensory clarity increases.
3. The third level is flow - the many details we notice about the object coalesce somehow into vibrating, flowing energy.
4. The fourth level is pure awareness, where the content of the object itself vanishes.

These stages can be experienced in order or out of order, at very different levels on different days or with different objects. So this is not a rigid scheme but just one lens through which to understand meditative experiences.

I don't think I fully understand or appreciate the later stages yet, but the discussion of sensory clarity seems helpful to me. Part of what I'm doing in my concentration practice is to be deeply aware and curious about the sensations of the breath, and it's useful to know that this is both an important part of the insight path, and also a limited part, insofar as feeling the breath clearly doesn't necessarily imply, e.g., seeing or hearing with the same level of clarity.

I can somewhat see how this description connects to the idea of fixation: in trying to develop sensory clarity, we need to be open to all sense data as it comes in, not fixated on the previous thing in order to process or conceptualize it. In order to fully experience the present moment we also need to fully let go of the present sensory experience so that we can fully experience the next moment.