I would say yes, but there may be more to it than just that.SDC wrote: And this would be the 'indirect' approach, correct? Seeing the impermanence of the determination as opposed to 'dealing' with the determined thing itself?
It would seem to me that the hierarchy of generality Ven. Ñanavira refers to in footnote b in his Shorter Note on Dhamma would generate a horizon (cf. Ven. Ñanananda's 'vortex') in which layers of consciousness (or presence) would align vertically as each particular supports the universal above it. In his preface to Notes on Dhamma he refers to the need for a vertical view, straight down into the 'abyss' of one's own personal existence to apprehend the Buddha's Teaching, a view most find too vertiginous to sustain. I think he might be alluding to this aspect of such a structure in some marginalia that he left in his copy of Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript pointing out the need for samatha bhāvana:
[If God were to reveal himself in human form and grant a direct relationship, by giving Himself, for example, the figure of a man six yards tall, then our hypothetical society man and captain of the hunt would doubtless have his attention aroused. But the spiritual relationship to God in truth, when God refuses to deceive, requires precisely that there be nothing remarkable about the figure, so that the society man would have to say: 'There is nothing whatever to see'. When God has nothing obviously remarkable about Him, the society man is perhaps deceived by not having his attention at all aroused. But this is not God's fault, and the actuality of such a deception is at the same time the constant possibility of the truth. But if God had anything obviously remarkable, He deceives men because they have their attention called to what is untrue, and this direction of attention is at the same time the impossibility of the truth. In paganism, the direct relationship is idolatry; in Christendom, everyone knows that God cannot so reveal Himself. But this knowledge is by no means inwardness, and in Christendom it may well happen to one who knows everything by rote that he is left altogether 'without God in the world', in a sense impossible in paganism, which did have the untrue relationship of paganism. Idolatry is indeed a sorry substitute, but that the item God should be entirely omitted is still worse.]: Here, when applied to the Buddha's Teaching, is what or where the position of samatha bhavanā comes in. It is ONLY with the initiation and development of samatha bh. that a puthujjana can even develop any anulomikāya khantiyā samannāgato (see SN, SAKKĀYA ). With the increase of samatha bh. towards the samādhi degree these paṭisotagāmi vertiginous views of the nature of existence can be developed and held longer and steadier finally with the possibility of culmination at first jhāna, that is if anulomikāya khantiyā samannāgato has been developed. Without it samādhi guarantees nothing as far as attainment. It is only the necessary 'allower' for the mind to have such views if it wants. In short, ONLY samatha bh. allows anulomikāya khantiyā samannāgato ; only samādhi allows the ambiguity to subside once for all, tout court.