| | # To Martin: I can't see anything wrong with kicking around some memorable quotables that raise the spirits. Richard certainly has plenty. Or to even repeat something in your mind to really attempt to grasp/understand/realize/actualize all the angles of it. I asked Richard something similar about this years ago actually:
*****RESPONDENT: Richard, in regards to the actualist method, is ‘... the only moment I’m ever alive’ phrase helpful after asking the ‘how am I experiencing ...’ question? Are there benefits to saying that statement along with the question? Or is ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ sufficient enough to become actually free? RICHARD: The reason why I draw attention to the fact that this moment is the only moment one is ever alive when responding to queries about the actualism method – asking oneself, each moment again, how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive) until it becomes a non-verbal attitude/a wordless approach to life – is so as to provide for an undivided attention or exclusive focus upon what is currently occurring ... this moment being the very place, so to speak, where not only everything happens but where radical change can, and does, occur. If there be not this salient comprehension (that this moment is the only moment one is ever alive) then tacking that phrase onto the actualism question – until it too becomes a non-verbal attitude/a wordless approach to life – would, presumably, be helpful in gaining that understanding.***** [emphasis added] http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedcorrespondence/sc-method2.htm
# The idea or goal is all this becomes a "non-verbal attitude/a wordless approach to life."
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---------------- STEPHANIE: One could use the phrase, "How Am I Experiencing This Moment of Being Alive."
# Just so as to set the record straight and limit confusion due to discrepancies: *****RESPONDENT: I’ve been asking the HAIETMOBA throughout my day. I have a hard time seeing how this will eventually lead to self immolation, but I’m giving it a go anyways. RICHARD: Perhaps this may be of assistance: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘You say be aware of what you are experiencing. • : ‘What I say is nothing other than a report of what worked for the parasitical identity ... who asked, until it became a non-verbal attitude to life, a wordless approach each moment again, the following question: how am I experiencing this moment of being alive? After all, this moment is the only moment one is ever alive, and such exquisite attentiveness as this attitude/approach engenders makes short-shrift of anything not conducive to peace and harmony. So much so that an inevitability sets in. RESPONDENT: I was wondering if the question could ever be shortened to ‘how am I experiencing’ or ‘what am I experiencing’ sometimes. RICHARD: As the ‘how’ refers to the way or manner this moment of being alive is being experienced the word ‘what’ does not equate ... and to only ask oneself how one is experiencing, without nominating what it is that is being experienced, makes the question so amorphous as to be ineffective. And I say this because the main reason for asking oneself how one is experiencing this moment of being alive is to be attentive to the way or manner in which one is experiencing the only moment one is ever alive ... although the past was actual when it was happening, it is not actual now; although the future will be actual when it happens, it is not actual now; only this moment is actual. RESPONDENT: The whole phrase seems like a lot when I’m doing something at times. RICHARD: It is a question, not a phrase to be memorised and repeated slogan-like (or as if chanting a mantra for instance), and it soon becomes a non-verbal attitude to life ... a wordless approach each moment again whereupon one cannot be anything else but aware of one’s every instinctual impulse/affective feeling, and thus self-centred thought, as it is happening.http://actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listafcorrespondence/listaf68.htm [emphasis added]
# And for those thinking they need a background in spiritual or meditative practices as a prerequisite for any of this: ***RESPONDENT: I think I have found perhaps why some struggle with this method. 1) unless like Vineeto and Peter you have a history of training of the attention (i.e. meditation, passive awareness, mindfulness, self observation) your control over your attention will likely not be stable enough to usefully examine feelings and beliefs. RICHARD: There is, of course, a major flaw in your thought ... to wit: the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body, back in 1981, had no history whatsoever of attention-training (as in meditation, passive awareness, mindfulness, self observation). Vis.: • : ‘... I have never followed anyone; I have never been part of any religious, spiritual, mystical or metaphysical group; I have never done any disciplines, practices or exercises at all; I have never done any meditation, any yoga, any chanting of mantras, any tai chi, any breathing exercises, any praying, any fasting, any flagellations, any ... any of those ‘Tried and True’ inanities; nor did I endlessly analyse my childhood for ever and a day; nor did I do never-ending therapies wherein one expresses oneself again and again ... and again and again’. RESPONDENT: One could benefit in practicing attentiveness sitting down with a simple focus like the darkness you see when you close your eyes. RICHARD: Or, alternatively, one could ask oneself, each moment again, how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive) whilst going about one’s normal everyday life. RESPONDENT: After you gain some control over your attention you could start practicing attentiveness to a not to changed belief before you move on to bigger stuff. RICHARD: Or, alternatively, one could be attentive to whatever felicity/ innocuity one is currently experiencing because, with practise, even the slightest diminishment of that happiness/harmlessness is then unavoidably noticed, and thus attended to forthwith, so as to recommence feeling felicitous/innocuous sooner rather than later. RESPONDENT: After you get good at this you could work on attaining a degree of apperceptiveness. RICHARD: Hmm ... in a manner somewhat similar to being partly pregnant, perchance?*** [emphasis added] http://actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listafcorrespondence/listaf68d.htm
# Also, where I bolded, note the INTENT of being attentive through the asking of the question. |