Bruno Loff:
As Daniel pointed out today, we need to be careful about terminology and phrasing etc if we are to have a discussion regarding the AF techniques and outcomes, as well as Tarin's Perfection, which could or could not be the same thing.
i do think so, as does richard of the af trust site (with whom i have spoken about this), and while it is possible that we are both mistaken about the matter, it is unlikely.
Bruno Loff:
Also Daniel mentioned, in a thread a while back "
perfect sensate directness," which in the end could also be the same thing, or not.
daniel was referring to the 'perfect sensate directness' in this context:
Daniel M. Ingram:
Most interesting thing to me these days: subtle distinctions of when there is a subtle attention wave, like a slight phase problem, and when there is just perfect sensate directness...
from what i have been able to gather, from conversations with daniel and from my own experiences that line up well with what he describes, the 'perfect sensate directness' he refers to here is, more or less, what i am experiencing.. sans the 'subtle attention wave'.
though, there is also the matter of the 'perfect sensate directness' taking on additional qualities when it becomes permanent (and is no longer proximate to, and so contrasted against, the other modal possibilities that existed due to the 'slight phase problem').
Bruno Loff:
I think it would be interesting to find out whether these achievements are the same, or not. Also interesting would be to find if traditions such as "dzogchen" (which translates as
the great perfection), "mahamudra," etc aim at the same states. It is interesting that a brief glance at the "completion practices" of mahamudra seems to reveal similarities with Tarin's Perfection
flowchart.
i have never been trained in dzogchen or mahamudra, nor have i sought either practice independently, and so lack the experience to discern, firsthand, just what their aims are. however, if i am presented with sufficiently descriptive accounts of their results, i ought to be able to determine whether there is identity or not between those states and the condition of an actual freedom.
Bruno Loff:
Also, Tarin, your description of the state you are in leaves me very curious. It is very hard to imagine living without affective feeling, and while I would usually pass it off as undesirable, I know that I have once had the same impression about the whole meditative path altogether. Meanwhile, I understood that many of the things I thought "living without an ego" meant, where really a misunderstanding of what the ego actually is, when used in the context of meditation. This is the "technical" ego vs the "common-language" ego issue.
The same thing could happen with affectivity. That there is an affectivity in the technical sense, which disappears. That its role is merely a distortion of experience, and that the important aspects (behavior and performance, to use two very unaffectionate words) are really utterly unrelated with the arising, or otherwise, of the "feeling".
make no mistake, the complete disappearance of affectivity in the technical sense (as a distortion of experience) effects the disappearance of affectivity in toto (it is the complete disappearance of feelings). this isn't merely a semantic difference, this is an entirely different mode of experience (distinctly absent of an affective quality or aspect).
Bruno Loff:
However, although I can entertain this matter intellectually (which might not surprise you Tarin), the idea of getting rid of the "feeling of love," for instance, seems frankly horrible.
why?
Bruno Loff:
Although it isn't clear to me if that actually happens, nor is it clear what the consequences of that would be.
to make it as clear as possible, i will state outright that i neither experience a sense of separation from the world nor a sense of unity with it. as such, i do not experience either a longing of love (love in the condition of separation) or a feeling of identification with love (love in the condition of unity). all that was only ever a fervently imaginative play of feelings.. which play is over.
Bruno Loff:
So I have a few questions for Tarin. Some behaviour-perception questions are:
1) You say you have no affectivity. Still you have friends, interact with them (apparently with an improved rapport, somehow), and so on. Let's take the feeling of love, say. Do you not feel love for your friends? If that is the case, then why do you remain friends with them? In general the question is: how is action and motivation guided without feeling?
no, i feel no love for my friends.. i have not found it necessary to feel love, or anything at all, in order to appreciate and value the company of other people in this world, the manner of which (appreciation and valuation) are directly dependent on how they themselves operate and behave, in general, in this world, and, in particular, toward me.
action and motivation are guided very clearly and easily without feeling, as will (which is innately bodily) and desire (which is affective) are not at all the same thing.
Bruno Loff:
2) If you where to hurt someone accidentally or misguidedly, would this not cause any upset? What prevents you, without feeling, from, say, mutilating a child? Or killing yourself right now?
no, that would not cause any upset at all.. the desire to inflict harm upon anyone has been totally voided, as has been any potential for shame or remorse.
i see no benefit to either mutilating a child or killing myself right now; it is not so much a matter of something which prevents me from doing so, but that there is no reason to do either.
Bruno Loff:
3) You mention that things can be "entertaining." How is something "more" entertaining than something else, without feeling? I'm guessing you feel pleasure, or some form of bliss? (if so, how is that "not a feeling," or, "less of a feeling" than love, say?)
without affect (without feeling), what i enjoy paying attention to, say, visually, is wholly dependent on my aesthetic preferences - as they relate to the forms and colours and compositions which are naturally pleasing to my eye - and which are, to some extent, likely idiosyncratic to the very structure of my body. in short, it is a purely a matter of taste.
Bruno Loff:
Some questions regarding the function of the nervous system are:
4) Have you tried to do energy practices such as Tai Chi or Yoga, and if so what is this experience like? I ask this because I know that these practices can really work on the blockages in one's nervous system, and I wonder how that would be like for you.
i haven't actually, no. but i can tell you that when i sit still these days, i don't experience any build-up of energy.. it's just an opportunity to appreciate the sensate clarity that abounds here in the actual universe.
Bruno Loff:
5) Is your concentration perfect? I.e. can you effortlessly sustain attention on any chosen object for any amount of time?
if required, i can do this, more or less, as without a sense of time's movement, there is no urgency or impatience to get in the way of doing so (for example, while looking at a knife glittering in an overhead light, i remember commenting to someone, 'i could look at this forever').
while sustaining attention is, in this way, effortless, eventually my attention will move to other things (such as other sights or sounds around me which gain prominence), and trying to keep it fixed on one object to the exclusion of others will result in mental fatigue (much the same way that when doing push-ups, for example, it is possible to keep going up to a point where your arms will suddenly and rather unexpectedly collapse).. as would trying to pay attention to things all day and all night long (i need to sleep).
Bruno Loff:
6) Various feelings DO have specific physiological effects, such as releasing hormones and so on. Do you think that your body works without these? When and how would you guess they are produced?
i speculate that the hormonal load my body regularly produces is probably different now from how it was before i attained actual freedom. curiously, my resting pulse is now about 5-10 bpm lower than it was before, and that may be related to hormonal differences.
Bruno Loff:
Finally:
7) Suppose that you decide, right now, that you want to experience a specific affection. Such as one would feel love if one did metta meditation. Would you be able to do it?
no. the attempt to either generate an affective response, much less to project it, does nothing whatsoever.
Bruno Loff:
8) Given that feeling seems not to arise in you, how would you describe, having been with and without, the nature of feeling in the perceptual mechanism? (e.g. vibration in specific parts, etc)
i'm not sure i understand this question. can you re-phrase it?
tarin