TJ Broccoli:
hi Nick,
that's great news that you're onto a new stretch of practice now! it makes sense that coming from the same retreat background, similar methods would work for us for pursuing the same goal. once you can separate actual sensing from the affective, as you're doing with the jhanas, then there is no longer such a thing as "180 degrees opposite", and you can use just about any healthy activity to help steer your actualism practice, whether it's yoga, painting, or swimming. and of all the different possible activities, the ones that demand the most concentration like (jhana practice) ought to be very effective. why not?
I'm in agreement here 100%. The only thing I think AF is 180 degrees in the opposite direction to is the flow of becoming or the flow of "being". It aims to end that flow. Any teaching that has as its aim to only refine states of "being" or becoming is 180 degrees in the opposite direction to this goal. In fact the original buddhdhamma in the pali canon is full of sutta after sutta expressing the same goal. The Buddha taught utilising mostly the jhanas as refined modes of "being" in order to dismantle and end the flow of all modes of "being" by seeing through the attachment to their actual aspects by the I AM obsession (which i would equate to the sense of "being". See the
Khemaka sutta for more info).
The I AM obsession does not end at MCTB 4th path, which I think is wrongly called the arahat. The Buddha taught that the end of becoming was the end of suffering. Same as AF. He just taught it mostly via the jhana route. In my current opinion, any practice that, in a sense, "actualizes" the sensations being overlayed with the sense of being/feeling "me"/inner world/presence/feeling self/ the I AM obsession is a practice that could potentially lead to AF.
"A few months ago I would have said that jhanas were in the complete opposite direction of AF as well. I never had control over jhana shifts, never mastered any, was uninterested in exploring them, plus over the years, I found the occasional accidental jhanic occurrences increasingly subtle and rare. I attributed all this to the fact that my life was approaching the PCE more and more. Last week or so Tarin was explaining to me what each jhana was (as I never had their characteristics ordered into eight neat compartments in my head), and I found that they were all available here and now. As soon as he told me what counted as x jhana, all I had to do was pay attention to that characteristic of experience and go "oh, ok, that's what it is?" without having to "concentrate" or "meditate" or "go into" any sort of absorption or altered mind state. It seems that the act of "doing jhana" or any "mindstate-altering" is absurd and N/A because all jhanic characteristics (the actual, sensate ones) are already lived out and contained in every moment of a PCE, and "getting" a certain jhana is almost as easy as switching the eye focus from this keyboard to that chair across the room. So I can see how certain ways of saying (or ways of hearing) "no jhana in PCE or AF" could result in a total misconception of what actually happens. While phrases like "no absorption practice possible" or "no more going into jhanas" or "no altering of current mind state possible" are true, they are true only because every jhanic characteristic is already available right here as a part of actual experience, except for any emotional bliss stuff. I can't get any sort of hard jhana, in any sense of the word "get"--those ones where you can't hear a loud startling sound, when the senses are totally blocked off/hypnotized, etc, but I never did in the past, never tried, and still haven't tried after this new thing." [having never learned to do hard jhana before, i see no loss in not being able to do it now]
I just spent a good 45 minutes or so actualizing each jhana from 1st to 8th. It seems much easier to do in the arupa jhanas as their actual aspects seem much more juxtaposed to the aspect that is being read as a sense of "being". In the form realm jhanas, "being" seems to have less juxtaposition and it takes a little investigating and focusing on actual sensations to actualise the sense of "being" so that it drops away. 1st to 4th jhana seem to lose much more of what makes them absorptions when the sense of "being" drops away.
In the arupa jhanas the sensations of space, consciousness (sensations within the head), the sensations giving off the impression of "no-thingness" (all around the head within and all around the surface) and the weirdness happening at the third eye spot in the 8th jhana (sensations at third eye spot) are all easier to observe as actual, and the grosser sensations elsewhere, maybe at the chakra spots (heart, throat, solar plexus, etc) are much more obvious. "Being" seems easier to separate, see through and actualize (make drop away).
This is good to know about the final end result of AF. The jhanas are still accessed. They just have no "being" aspect there. Is this correct, Jill, Trent, Tarin, any other AFer?
looking back, i must have automatically used certain jhanic qualities of attention(developed as a result of vipassana) as a tool for progress, but i just never thought of it as "practicing jhana" because in my sits, state shifts were usually either irregular, vague, or not distinguished as being meaningful. but in both the pce and in the arupa jhanas alike, there seems to be some kind of recognition of all things being equal in value, whether big or small, near or far, gross or subtle, me or not. or maybe it's the stopping of judging things as not-equal?
Yes, there seems to be certain sensations being given the status of "sense of being" and each jhana has sensations that may be attached with this "sense of being". When this judgment ceases, and no "sense of being" is overlayed onto such sensations, then I am apperceiving those sensations. "Being's" lifeline is cut. This lifeline seems to be the clinging to certain sensations, like the one pointed sensations of the 1st, the rapturous sensations of the 2nd, blissful sensations of the 3rd, even equanimous sensations of the 4th, then the formless jhanas that give off the sense of space in the 5th, the sensations of infinite consciousness in the 6th, sensations that give off the impression of "no-thingness" in the 7th and even sensations of neither perception nor non perception in the 8th (this one is hard to describe). When this this clinging ceases, the sense of "being" drops away and just the actual aspects of those jhanas remain in my current experience.
Nick, since you have more experience with jhanas, do you think there's something valuable in looking at the shifts, or are you looking at all characteristics of the arupa jhanas in general?
do you see ways of fusing the actual sensate qualities of different jhanas together?
when you say you're "merging" and "mashing" the gross with the actual, are you doing it while sitting with closed eyes, or are you coupling the qualities or arupa jhanas with daily living (when there is panoramic seeing, hearing, touch)?
Yes, there is much value in looking at the shifts. It shows this mind/body organism what is not "being" in sequential order. For example, the sensations of space are not "being", not self, not "I AM", the sensations of infinite consciousness are not "being" , self, I AM etc. One can see all the aspects of the jhanas as not "being" quite easily. This leaves little to no more room for "being" to attach to. And it seems to have made the sense of "being" even subtler. There is still "being" attaching to actual experience though, so still working on it. But it seems to be working. I am seemingly right on the edge of EE and PCE territory all the time. And it's hard to tell if there is a sense of "being" at times.
I am looking at all aspects of the arupa jhanas to see what is actual and what is not. There seems to always be a gross sensations emanating from one of the chakra spots which seems to be overlayed with a sense of "being". From there is seems to spread out and cause the sense of something having a location or presence in the world.
JILL: do you see ways of fusing the actual sensate qualities of different jhanas together?
Hmmmm, possibly. Do you mean combining sensations of space for example with sensations of "infinite consciousness"? When i do this it feels more like the 7th arupa jhana then. Could you elaborate on this question, Jill?
when you say you're "merging" and "mashing" the gross with the actual, are you doing it while sitting with closed eyes, or are you coupling the qualities or arupa jhanas with daily living (when there is panoramic seeing, hearing, touch)?
I do it in both situations. I can do it while walking with eyes open. The visual field also gets included in the actual aspect. With eyes closed, the eyes and the visual field still seem to play a part. When "being" is arising, the back of the eyelids are seen through this filter. When "being" drops away, the back of the eyelids are seen with crisp clear clarity, with no "inner world" filter.
I am doing both practices coupled with felicity practice (which seems not to be too necessary nowadays as the new default mode is EE territory). When I go for a walk, I usually hang out as the 5th jhana and focus on the actual aspects of sensations of space and the way the eye sight becomes unfiltered and focusing on the space outside and around the body i.e. the landscape. The gross sensations overlayed with a sense of "being" are included within the awareness of actuality and the sense of "being" drops away.
When it arises, I either repeat the process, or I take the angle of observing dispassionately "what has become" i.e. sense of being, and "know" that it will drop away with no fuel given to it. It then does drop away and I'm back in PCE mode or the EE gets even more refined.
:-)
Nick