Someone asked: why, while sitting in meditation until the body disappears, do I still see an image of a flooded road that I've never actually seen before? What does this mean?

The disappearance of the body sensation suggests that, at that point, the practitioner's backdrop has reached a certain degree of refinement — but even at that level of refinement, the unwholesome side can still interfere. It isn't yet possible to say for certain whether the image that appeared belongs to the wholesome or unwholesome side, because the contest over which nature "possesses" the mind can happen at any moment. Once the body sensation disappears, the refinement has reached a level where light can begin to appear — meaning the defilement that obscures and blocks the elements has thinned somewhat — but what appears is still only a mental image, one that either the wholesome or the unwholesome side may be presenting, and we cannot yet determine which.

To see the genuine reality requires the eyes of a subtler body — the eyes of the celestial body, the refined celestial body, the brahma body, the refined brahma body, or the Dhamma body. But as long as we have not yet attained those bodies, whatever we see remains only a mental image, because seeing always occurs through the eyes of one of the eighteen bodies — whichever body we have attained, we see through that body's eyes. If we have not yet reached that level of refinement, what we see arises from the brightness of the mind at whatever level allows something to be seen, forming an image, a mental construction inserted by whichever nature currently holds the position of "resident." When any one of the three natures possesses the mind as its resident, there is a contest over that position, and the thinking of that resident nature appears within our own thoughts and feelings. With a certain degree of light, we see with a certain degree of clarity; with greater brightness, it may appear as moving images, like video — but all of it remains the thinking of whichever resident nature has taken hold.

When such an image appears during meditation, simply wait and observe without elaborating on it or believing it outright, because everything must have a clear point behind it. If it comes from the wholesome side, there will be a clear point and a clear principle behind whatever it intends to demonstrate. But if it comes from the unwholesome side, it will merely keep guiding and drawing us along further and further, without any such clarity.