Hello Daniel

So where have your experiments led you?

I guess it did lead you out of spirituality a bit at least for a while, right? And probably Richard himself provided the help needed for many people (including yourself?) to get out of hardcore Actualism?

Which path are you going to take now: spiritualism, actualism, or a combination of these? What are you aiming for now? Do you still think that end of suffering is possible? Is being free of malice and sorrow going to be your path? What methods are you going to use on any path that you choose now?

Aman

As I posted somewhere else, I agree with Tarin that good practice is good practice, and I have gone for the moment back to first principles and fundamentals, meaning in my particular case at this time:

Bare, straightforward, careful, thorough, direct sensate awareness of everything possible.

It would seem hard to go wrong with this, as the essential principle that better data leads to better conclusions makes good sense to me.

How about you? What are you up to?

Daniel

Better data collection sounds good to me.

I am still with vajrayana practice which lets me collect data from the subconscious mind as well with an aim towards open awareness and increasing flexibility that makes it easy to shift between concentration and open awareness.

Interesting. Details about this practice?

After having gained some experience in renunciation, bodhicitta, and emptiness, I started with deity visualization which is what I do these days apart from some physical exercises which are very basic. A little earlier, I had done somewhat more advanced physical practices which were more related to energy practices. Not doing these advanced physical practices nowadays as they might be too much to handle for myself.

For some reason I find your answer unsatisfactory (haha). Care to elaborate, Daniel?

which aspect of my answer causes that sense of unsatisfactoriness?

too long?
too short?
too simple?
too profound?
too straightforward?
too obtuse?
too what?

d

Daniel-

I am guessing based on your first post that you have stopped the actualism method. Is this correct?

If so, what caused you to stop practicing it? I know in another thread you expressed some reservation about it due to what would be lost upon attaining AF such as the shamatha jhanas and maybe lucid dreaming. One the other hand in the HRD's I remember Tarin saying something along the lines of "actual freedom is so good, the loss of such things doesn't matter." I got the sense from the Hurricane Ranch Discussions that you were well on your way to Actual Freedom; ie having 50+ hour PCE's, so I am just wondering what caused you to stop the method once (I assume) you were experiencing its benefits.

Just throwing my two cents in on this one from my own experience, I had a five day long PCE but wasn't using the AFT methodology exclusively in the lead up to it. In fact, I mentioned in a few of my own practice threads that I thought I had gone through the whole virtual freedom → out from control virtual freedom stages in the month or so prior to what I mistakenly called "AF", but my practices at that time were mainly based around the same practices I'd been doing before ever having heard of AF i.e. vipassana.

Richard has made it quite clear that what we all thought was AF is not what he considers to be AF, this makes me think that it would be worth dropping the entire AF framework and examining the outcome of applying constant attention to the point of sense contact, observing the Three Characteristics and what sort of developments that leads to. Whatever it is, it's not an "actual freedom" as defined by Richard and the AFT since only him and Vineeto are "actually free", according to him.

Oh yea? What's the story behind that one? And who's the source? and why i am always the last to know these things? lol on that last one.

Check the AFT site with their most recent update, Richard has made it clear that he doesn't think Tarin is AF, even though he confirmed he was previously (I stand to be corrected on this point), and doesn't have the ability to confirm that anyone else is AF either. He then goes on to say, amongst other claims, that only him and Vineeto are really AF as he describes it, which may or may not be the case, and that those who claim to have attained the same as what Tarin claimed are wrong because, according to Richard, only he can ever say who is AF and who is not.


Richard.

The reason I phrased it as "Whatever it is, it's not an "actual freedom"...etc." is down to Richard saying what he's said so far. Clearly there's something useful to be found in paying attention to the sense doors as continually as possible while seeing how suffering is created in real-time, there's a marked difference in stress levels and general wellbeing when doing this as many of us have found already.

To be honest, I'm really not up for getting into a discussion about what "AF" is or isn't any longer. The Chronicles of L. Ron Richard and The Ship of Actual Fools (well, Vineeto and whoever else he's shagging right now...) are becoming more and more ludicrous by the day so I'd rather just stick to the same Buddhist based practices I've been pursuing and enjoy the result that's brought so far. Sorry if that sounds a bit arsey, I don't mean it in that way but there's plenty of people better qualified to talk more about it that I am.

not arsey at all. i want to know what went down and everyone's side. why wouldn't i? it somewhat relevant to practice but it's mostly just interesting...in the same way irony and farce are interesting: an unusual and noteworth juxtaposition.

Bringing this somewhat back to practice, with a bunch of my personal opinion thrown in for good measure:

In response to the question about what I was up to, I don't see any large and obvious divergences from what I am doing and AF stuff, or whatever we are calling those things these days:

I am still give emotions more attention than I was before. (notice I avoided the proprietary word "feelings", in keeping with the current fad).
I am still paying a lot of attention in general to the sensate world. (notice I avoided the word "sensual", again, owing to current fashion).
I am still appreciating pleasant mind states. (notice I avoided the word "felicitous", again, as is the recent trend)

You can call it what you like, it still is interesting for me personally, and again, all seems hard to argue with.

I did have this major divergence at my birthday party, however, and not to go too far off topic, but I will bring it back shortly, and it is about practice and personal experience, yeah!...

So, I am dancing, and pretty into it, as I am a pretty intense dancer, and suddenly this other space becomes available, and the mind, either by habit, attraction, or whatever, takes it as object, and there suddenly is a radical shift, and the bodily space becomes very black, and green flaming energy pours off my hands that I can both see and feel trailing out into space perhaps a few feet before it diffuses into that space, and the sense of truly awesome POWER! that generally accompanies those sorts of things really kicks in, and this lasts maybe a minute or so, and afterwards I feel wholly deflated, like the worst post-siddhi hangover I have had in quite a while, and the effect lasts for perhaps 2 days or so, just lifted this evening. Those who have actually managed to draw blue flaming pentagrams in space will likely draw close parallels...

It convinced me, rightly or wrongly, of the following things:

1) While the powers are fascinating and they can be lots of fun, they are not without cost. I have learned this before countless times and this was just a refresher.

2) For reasons that I suspect related to going into that Titan-like territory (this being Buddhist 5th of 6th realm terminology for those not familiar with those things), my dreams, which continue to be extremely vivid and detailed and lengthy, have gone back to a mode I am very familiar with, and it involves massive struggles involving graphic violence, life-or-death struggles and the heavy application of powers of various sorts. I am not a fan of this mode as interesting as some aspects can be, and hope it returns to more recent forms, which seemed more gently allegorical.

3) While both Tarin and Trent have encouraged me to do jhanic stuff fused with the Practice Formally Known as Prince Actualism on the DhO, I actually don't think it fits for what is going on for me at all at this particularly time (subject to change, obviously...) as it just feels like the wrong direction in some way, like having what I will loosely refer to as inner space vanishing is more the current trend, and any jhana seems to be doing something that one way or the other involves some inner space in some way, however refined or subtle, at least it seems to me: I suspect EIS, if he reads this, will consider commenting here, and I still think he and I should talk for a while sometime, such as Wednesday...

4) There is something to be said for working in a particular paradigm for a while and adopting the worldview of that paradigm while doing so, and kudos to my Chaos Magician phase for that useful perspective, and a similar point was reiterated by Tarin in a recent conversation, in this I read his meaning as feeling like he was trying to fuse the Actualism and more Buddhistic paradigms to some to something useful, and he seemed to be having some further reflections on the various successes and failures of that, but perhaps he will comment, as I easily could have misinterpreted what he said to some subtle or gross degree even with my quite vague rendering of that here, and acknowledging the trend among Actualists and former-Actualists to detail their thoughts in with a degree of hyper-meticulous precision that would make contract lawyers gawk in wide-eyed wonder and admiration and makes simple doctors like myself glaze in seconds, but I digress...

I also had a great conversation with Stef Dunning recently, whose perspective I really appreciate, and her general advice was, and I am summarizing and slightly paraphrasing, "Realize that there is no problem!", and, "Everybody needs to quit it with caring about the personalities and just figure this out for themselves!" (akin to her message in her posting recently on this forum).

What she said.

Daniel

Ha! Christ on a bike, it's been a while since I had that feeling...most unpleasant indeed, having your entire body wracked with weird hangover/comedown stuff while feeling as though you've been burnt out completely. Wunderbar.


And this is just plain hilarious.

Hi Dan,
It sounds similar to shamanistic type practices that use dancing to mobilise emotional energy with intent or thru ecstatic release opening up the channels in the body and experiencing new levels of consciousness

Daniel - now that you've unsheathed your spectacular energy powers, please go work on this. For the good of Earth. Thank you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzLXb1LMdxo&feature=related

Ha! Nice video.

As goofy or whatever as it sounds, it was actually very much like what you might imagine the warm up to something like that feels like, just not with the flying and I would guess less intense.

Practical value? Very hard to say any beyond just the wide range of what practice can sometimes lead to in terms of interesting experiences.

Do you think the buddha would recommend developing these powers?

Simple question, but quite loaded.

The Buddha was all over the place on the topic

Check out what he said of Maha Moggallana

I'm just really interested to see what the heavy-hitting concentration dudes on here can do. I've never even gotten past 4th jhana in sitting samatha practice, save for the one time i tried it while tripping on acid. The veracity of that particular session was dubious indeed. But I know there are guys on here that just blow that stuff out of the water. WHY NOT? Let's have fun.

When you say you are interested in what heavy hitters here can do, the list is pretty long in general, and if you add what they have done on retreat or what they can do with some time to warm up, that list gets even longer.

What's on your mind? What are you interested in doing?

Daniel

previously used mostly breath for concentration object. got decent results often. recently started using candle flame and apparently found a holy grail of sorts (could change at a later date, but is really working right now). those inclined towards finding aesthetics/nature/color/trippy stuff interesting, might find it useful to develop with this object. mentioning cuz you say you tripped on acid, so gathering you're into the aesthetics/nature/color/trippy sort of thing.

I second the candle flame thing.

With a few notable exceptions, the most wild, crazy, repeatable, seriously out there stuff I ever got into was after getting my concentration really strong on candle flame stuff.

When in the old texts is says "a mind made malleable", get your concentration strong enough and basically everything and anything you ever heard of doing with strong concentration is suddenly right there, just waiting for you to ask for it, like getting into a true sports car, the power is just there on demand with a tap of the pedal and it is a question of what you are up for way more than it is anything about the limits of the car...

Do a few days of it, all day long for as long as you can possibly stand to.

Get a really comfortable seating position and follow the MCTB instructions.

Stare at the flame, feel a shift, close eyes, see the afterimage, stabilize on that, turn it into the red dot, stabilize and perfect that, see the spinning star in it, shift to the black disk eventually, see the out of phase stuff around that, expand that out wide, really wide, then figure out how to shift to the 4th jhana stuff, which is anything you want it to be if you get this good.

Whenever you lose it entirely, re-open your eyes and stare at the flame and repeat and go as high as you can.

Do this again and again and again.

When you simply have to get up and move, do good mindful walking practice just until you feel you can sit down again, and when you sit, keep at it until you simply have to move.

Use no clock. Go all day long with the shortest breaks you can take. Go from morning to as late at night as you can do it. Eat when you finally have to. Make sure to stay hydrated, however.

No computer, no phone, no conversation. Nothing but practice on its own in its own rhythm.

The colors are everything: give them all the attention you possibly can.

Sleep just until you wake up and do it again.

A few days of that and most people will be into some seriously powerful concentration territory.

A week or two of that and if you have any concentration skills at all you will be able to get into really wild stuff, and if your skills are strong, anything you turn your mind to at that point it will just do, like the old books say. It is truly, truly amazing to take concentration to that level, as worlds of stuff open up that are just there for the asking, and when you get there, you really can play in amazing ways: jump out of body straight off the cushion, duplicate yourself, hear things far away, see whatever you wish, feel and see the energy channels, see "past lives" (in quotes as the validity of those in some absolute sense is unknown, but the experiences sure can feel like that), true formless realms, feel metta flowing through you like a firehose, whatever: it will all be there if you get it strong enough, just like that, full blown, more real than "real", with that vibrant hyper-intensity that only that level of territory has.

Have you seen Chronicle? It is just like the kid who really gets it and things just happen when he wishes it. Strong concentration, really strong, is just like that, at least in that way of effortless and natural control and responsiveness.

Then turn it on insight: see attraction and aversion just as they are, see ignorance just as it is, see suffering and its causes, see everything just as pure natural effortless sensations, see what is utterly unrelated to cycles or stages or anything.

This is a really great way to play the game. Find your imagination limiting: just ask it for a surprise and see what happens! No need to even know what you want!

Daniel

Daniel that's a very inspiring account!

Might be a good time to broach the subject of realms, deities and unworldly beings. Do you or anyone else have any experiences of these?

I don't see much posted on here about such stuff so have tentatively put that in the "superstition/religion" basket but you do read plenty about it in buddhist texts...

Cool bananas, Daniel.

Sounds like I have my weekend cut out for me! haha

Daniel - from what you've tried, is it better to have the lighting in the room dark, dim, or normal? I'm thinking probably dimmer for the dark/light color contrast to get it going... but once eyes are closed, who knows... maybe some extra light in the room to seep in through the eyelids might help the image stick around longer/get more vibrant.

I will send you a PM when I have a better idea about when I'm free to talk.

Until then, consider any perception of inner space that you have as a failure to stay with your object (since the perception of inner space will only arise in a moment of failing to pay exclusive attention to the object of concentration, no matter how fractional that moment may be). Most likely, the perception of inner space will manifest as a flicker or gap in your perception of your object.