| | Hi Daniel, thanks for that. I've been away on a short solitary, which inspired some feelings of vulnerability re that post i sent. Felt a bit exposing and perhaps, even arrogant, confused even. Any way i decide to keep taking the plunge, can only be useful to expose any potential confusions to the cool air of wisdom. Some bits to add, as having re re read and read again all descriptions of experiences, paths, etc etc in your book, and other places too, i am still unclear at times at any correlations. Anyway, what i do know is
a/ i never ever felt so clear about what the dharma was/is about, as i do since these two and half years ago, experiences/s b/ it felt/feels pretty absurdly ordinary, and its stupid i missed it.....but i still miss it at times.( many times actually, unless i remind myself about possible story lines i may be caught in.)
c/ fairly often....ie maybe 5 times over two years,(at least recognizable by me), if i put my mind to it i have repeated the same technique of entering? if i did indeed enter? an understanding of Awareness and non duality, i.e a technique such as 'if there's nothing outside awareness and nothing as it were inside awareness, then all is awareness....all.... literally everything, .....'oh yes !' Awareness type insight practice...which then produces laughter at the absurdity of not 'seeing this' simple perspective before. My concentration levels have never dipped to what i believe, although its hard to remember, they could be a few years ago.
d/ at the time i remember feeling the most over whelming and joy filled, yet grounded gratitude i have ever felt to all beings that had been trying to shout at me through dharma, words, life to get me to wake up. Not in a religious, doe eyed way, but in a profound oh god, how do you lot even be bothered when we are so stupid, blind, ignorant, confused, bemused, confounded and literalistic.
e/ I equate, equanimity especially with the third eye chakra sensations i have, as this seems to fit with how i perceive phenomena when that's occurring, i.e not particular about ant thing, but fully engaged and alive to whats occurring, in and out of sitting. This has been fairly consistent over the two and a half years , and recently i notice that generally i can get concentrated to this if i turn attention to it, something i am only now trying to do since reading your stuff, hadn't even occurred this is a valuable way to go, although i have known that certain bringing to mind always did help me enter those states, its not a training at all i was applying. So hence its a bit new for me to comment clearly that oh yes i can go here, there , thither etc etc....as my technique is a bit limited through lack of specific training like that, or so i suspect.
f/ i had some experiences / or not, where it felt time, ian ness, separateness had stood still/gone, but i was still ....what ...having some sense of being alive but alive where everything was flowing through me, no not through, was/is me, but that me was all that too, so God knows.....which about sums it up, i tend to go with the view it's as if God/Awareness/Being, flows, just flows and Ian ness is flowed through, it's coming out the very pores and Ian is no different than that tree, but just God experiencing God through Ian ness, but all these words express such a separate sense, how can water in water be separated...what would a bubble rising up in the ocean ....if that bubble were filled with ocean water....be, Ocean....emm analogies are crap as usual. that's as close as i can ever get so far in words....was that it.... seems yes, but a no might help clarify???? I struggle to know if 'hey, am i just voicing something in hindsight', or am i confusing this with just a mysterious experience. But what i do know is that life has never ever gone back to such a confused belief in Ian story as it had been. g/ my tendencies to moods, negativity, cynicism, depression, anger etc.....are definitely lessened in effect and time they take to be let go of. Flashes in pans rather than taking up squatters rights for a week or two as they did before. I just need to pose the question is this story real, is this a new thought/emotion, or really really a sign of an inherent Ian existing once again, and they tend to dissipate fairly quickly
Any way, thats longer than i expected, too much solitary time i suspect. I will i hope chat with Kenneth on Skype which I hope will also be useful. It's exposing this stuff isn't it, exposes my lack of clarity a lot and my lack of training in specific mind observing, but hey that's leaving me lots to learn. Thanks again. Ian |