There is a definite path to this continued day practice overtime. One thing is that it can become as energetic/sensation based as visual. There’s a much stronger body awareness that arises, which is good because in the light of awareness, you can see that these emotions aren’t inherently linked to the mental pictures that they co-occur with, but it is only by habit. ENERGY IS FREE. Sometimes I locate a replacement thought in the area of sensation to dissolve and move it towards the crown as a type of letting go, and ultimately, this is what everything moves towards, IT’S ALL ABOUT SURRENDER.
To start with I had a number of pictures that could inspire certain emotions and energies, and then the pictures aren’t needed as much, it’s just the sensation. There is a kind of ‘thusness’ to something, an underlying spirit that is formless, like abundance or health or anything else. I’m less and less attached to the actual individual pictures. I know all my intentions are represented by my central symbol, which is just a simple enso, and I can use this more and more. It leads into something I’ll explain further in a moment, but becoming less and less attached to what my senses are perceiving, my mind is reigned and my emotions freed.
Then as soon as I want something I have it, and what I really wanted was a state, not a picture or a perception, and my energy is free, independent and under will more and more. All the details of practice and this picture and that feeling, over time, lessen somewhat to simple Nembutsu. I want this and that shiny thing, … to feel this state, so I abide in the state now and only hold the simple, single picture representing my awakening and divine nature with a sense of surrender, trust and letting go.
I can also do it with a worry or problem, I can formulate solutions and hold contrary mental images with joy, and it’s good, but over time it’s becoming more and more a simple surrender. I don’t worry so much, I simply know that’s taken care of when I rest in peace. All the details, manifesting themes and techniques will dissolve into the simple image of your awakening that is a symbol of your surrender. The last instruction is to be still and know that you are divine, the image you are holding in your mind is truth, and the answer to everything and when you are holding it with the mind still and you are joyful it is done and you have everything and every answer has manifested and you are done, over and finished. That is all.
Joy itself can be a replacement thought, which is then a pure replacement state rather than a picture. Just the image of you jumping up and down and feeling ecstasy, that it is all done and solved and it’s all happened, you are awake, abundant and free. Also, momento mori, the fact that I will die, i.e. I will lose my access to this realm that my physical senses can perceive, and be only in the realm of my mind as a terrestrial reality like here except it’s a universe of my disciplined and intentional creating, a true Pure Land. I know this is the case because I have woken up and existed there during meditations; I have been to the Pure Land, it exists now and I am there now and when my body expires I will always be there, and so this world is really dead to me.