quite a fun weekend of investigation... not sure 'i' will survive many more of these =P. a bunch of notes; i lay them out here both to potentially help others and to ask for pointers.
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Wrong Approaches (wrong view?)- a tendency to want to 'be' actually free, so that 'i' am unable to be affected by the world. but it's not that - it's that whatever might be perturbed (or be the perturbation) is impossible to arise.
- i want to be close to af and to just go away or to just be 'done', not to know and/or be free... wrong approach!
- i hated any sign that i wasn't done because it meant more work... wrong approach!
- i was afraid to explore everything equally and really look at everything, because what if i find that something i like is something that will 'go away'? wrong approach!
- tendency to want to dim the faculties and not investigate at 100%, so that i can seem done... a wanting to accept that the current experience is good enough. not useful! although it's also not useful to believe it isn't good enough... just have to continue to be attentive + such
- want to wait and finally be done and then i can look at everything non-stop with never-ending amazement... wrong approach!
- naivete is important. wanted sensations in head to go away. so any manifestation of them (what i deemed 'more') i was averse to... but, letting it run, and paying attention, it manifested a certain way , kept manifesting, it felt bad, but then the feeling that it was 'bad' was looked at, the realization that the good/badness of it was arbitrary arose, so it was no longer seen as bad, then it formed in a particular way, it lessened in a way that would have seemed painful before+, and then that way of it arising seems to have stopped.
+ interestingly, as a whole formation it was decreasing in 'real size' (non-actual size), like getting smaller like a dot. but it got to feeling really painful, or rather, painful-seeming, though a very diminished incredible-pain.. so it was bearable pain, but felt like if it was larger in 'real size' it would have hurt a lot. so i thought i was suppressing it unnaturally or something, "hiding" it in a way.. but it might just have been unraveling.
after these were seen and dropped, it certainly got a lot easier and more fun to investigate...
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Change of Lineage?on friday, after a day of feeling quite nice, with little perceptual disturbances/flickering, basically a nice EE most of the time, i sat upon the toilet, and started at the wall. the edges of my field of vision came inward with blackness, and flickered a few times - a fruition. and slightly after it was perhaps a shift.. and after the shift i felt pretty different. the immediate impression was that it was much easier to stay close to the actual.. it feels like 'i' flipped over in a way, and now the actual is more 'normal' than the normal, in a way...
i am wondering if it was 10-fetter anagami. what immediately arose is restlessness - lots and lots of restlessness. or rather it was already there before, but now with less stuff clouding it, it was felt as more... i still performed actions that i might have done before out of restlessness - like scarf down some food very unmindfully - but it was like the sensual-desire aspect of eating (in that case) wasn't there. it tasted great, but there wasn't any (or nearly as much) clinging to the taste. but it was happening out of the restlessness (which has diminished a lot now).
the 10-fetter model might have just been laid out to help point out to practitioners what is left.. there is no need to have any fetter besides 'ignorance', since once that is gone all the others are, too - so why mention a particular one like 'restlessness'? perhaps just to point out what might be left, or to help as an indicator - if feeling restless, find out why, it's one of the fetters!
about ill will - i feel like there is almost no ill will left toward others. however there is still ill will towards myself ('sorrow'), although greatly diminished..
in any case it is nice. and came with a lot less pomp + circumstance than other times i thought i had a path-moment.
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insight arising shortly after shift: emotions are backwards/past-facing or forwards/future-facing. excitement is forward-facing - does nothing but 'be' suffering in the moment. pride is backward-facing - does nothing but make you suffer in the moment.
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no ill will means no shame any more, just wonder + knowing. can look at everything now!
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Cessation of Perception and Feelingshortly after said shift, i entered + remained in a state that fits the description "cessation of perception and feeling" quite literally... in that there was no perception (no sensory discernment) and no feeling (no vedana - no positive/negative/neutral). and there was also no 'being' - just pure consciousness, i suppose, with naught much else.
i wish i knew better what exactly caused it to happen, as it seems really useful to be able to repeat, but i've already started clinging to the attainment and claiming it as 'mine'... will have to figure that out.
the approach: sitting with open-eyes. i was wondering how exactly 'i' investigate things... it seems like thoughts are a constant part of my contemplations, so i wondered if it was actually useful.. then i wondered if it was actually not the volitional thinking that was doing anything, but rather, that thoughts arose when in a skillful absorption (perhaps as a side-effect and not the main event), and that i mistook cause + effect and started fostering thoughts whenever i meditate, perhaps to trigger the skillful absorption. maybe that's why i always have trouble quieting the monkey mind - cause of attachment to thoughts.
anyway i started wondering if i entered a kind of thinking-jhana.. this led to contemplation on the 7 factors of enlightenment, more below. but anyway i was sitting with that in mind, and i suppose i started getting into arupa jhanas.
at some point something started happening that has before - the visual field got a bit weird. perception diminished, but not entirely - visual field was blurry-ish, not really well-perceived. perhaps 8th jhana. then certain aspects of the visual field started patterning themselves - this happened before, too - in this case, the pattern of the wooden hardwood floor started appearing everywhere. however, this time, some conditions were different, and the process was able to keep happening. it soon came that the entire visual field, which i could see crisply + clearly - as in not faded or dimmed or wobbly - was just a repeating pattern of piece-of-hardwood-floor. quite surreal indeed. then (and this might be out-of-order): a bit of a weird slip where all 6 senses integrated - might have been 'being' leaving - the disappearance of all vedana, along with coarse-rough ever-present touch sensations in my head, and then even that visual perception, along with any auditory or tactile perception, stopped happening. it was really clear, incredibly incredibly relaxing - and if being was indeed absent, then this state is a true refuge, so that makes sense.
i dont know how long the lack of being part lasted, though i somehow got the impression it wasn't long.
interesting thing was that, firsrt the state was entered, then there was a 'pang' of becoming in the 'middle' of it (but not really 'middle'). normally it would be associated with the center of my head, but that wasn't being felt, so it was really just somewhere out of space. then the pang faded. a very similar pattern occurs all the time - i associate it with releasing some clinging, though not sure if that's true. then the pang was totally gone, back into the pure absorption, then that, too, faded.
i had formed some ideas about the state previously - namely that there could be no being in it due to lack of vedana. this seems to have been confirmed. i also had the idea that, exiting the attainment mindfully, being could be eliminated... so 'i' really focused to see exactly how the re-arising of vedana corresponded with the arising of being. and it was really a very interesting few moments. being arose, and it was like each fragment of being was formed by having a chain of vedana - pleasant, unpleasant, neutral - arise, perhaps 3-5 moments in a row, and then that chain would somehow start manifesting more, and perpetuate - perhaps that's the clinging. it felt like seeing dependent origination in real-time...
it was quite amazing.. and cultivating that state seems really useful... now if only i knew how it happened.. =P.
EDIT: in terms of the senses, the visual messed-up-perception was what i noticed most. i did notice, before/after the state, though , that the auditory field was basically completely filled up with ringing , completely obscuring any outside noises..
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an observation about it: existence would be totally OK in a perma-ns.. there was no one there to be bored or to desire or to feel 'bad' (or 'good').. if it would be OK there, of course i'd be ok with full mental faculties... no?
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Clinging to the Aggregateswe think that when 'i' go that i will die, taking consciousness, actual will, and memories with me. but 'i' don't die.. 'i' never was. one THINKS that becoming is what-i-am, identifying with becoming (with itself), and don't want it to stop. yet it's just a trick deluding the mind.. nothing bad happens when becoming stops, as evidenced in full PCEs, or in NS. tarin's post is relevant here:
tarin:
'you' think 'you' can control this process by controlling attentiveness to physical sensations. but 'you' don't have control in that process - 'you' don't even exist in that capacity, in actuality.
the actual world is not 'i'. the actual will is not 'i'. intelligence is not 'i'. consciousness is not 'i'. memory is not 'i'. discernment is not 'i'. intention is not 'i'. motor function is not 'i'. controlling is not 'i'. attentiveness is not 'i'. physical sensations are not 'i'. this process is not 'i'.
further, 'the actual world is not 'mine.' the actual will is not 'mine'. intelligence is not 'mine'. consciousness is not 'mine'. memory is not 'mine'. discernment is not 'mine'. intention is not 'mine'. motor function is not 'mine'. controlling is not 'mine'. attentiveness is not 'mine'. physical sensations are not 'mine'. this process is not 'mine'.
one who realises that none of these things are 'i', or 'mine', realises 'my' time is up.
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generally it seems like all 'being' does is imitate what is actual. one wonders why the **** it is there in the first place =P. one way i thought about it is in terms of the 5 aggregates, affective pasting over of each one
- senses - the dimness of the senses when not in a PCE is the affective overlay. not to mention the 'grasping' to them, like only looking at one particular thing, etc. that doesn't go away - the actual senses become apparent in their full glory.
- vedana - emotions, perhaps? not sure about this. in the clear parts of the clear PCE i had everything was nice.. i tried grabbing onto a rough tree trunk to see how pain would feel, and it wasn't unpleasant in the same way.. but emotions arising might be just a huge making-a-mountain-out-of-a-molehill with vedana.
- perception - the fact that everything can get wobbly by staring at a cup, indicates that that perception is something that is not actual.
- volition - what i said earlier, how you can imagine moving but not actually move. emotions have something to do with this, as well (perhaps that is what is meant when people say things like it is, strictly speaking, 'my' choice how to experience this moment of being alive.
- consciousness - not sure here. the feeling of being , perhaps.. or perhaps, there is a feeling of not quite seeing everything, when not in a PCE. like there are momentary lapses. so even though i'm not actively not-being-conscious of what's in front of me, it fades in + out.
the point of listing it is - don't worry! no need to cling to them. when they are gone, the actual will be left, and the actual is the 'good stuff' anyway.
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it makes no sense to cling to something just because it's there. yet that's what clinging to becoming is.. (or that's what becoming is - clinging)
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Factors of Enlightenment PCEsi've been paying attention more + more to the factors of enlightenment. it seems like another way to classify what attentiveness + sensuousness point to - perhaps a more precise way? each factor, in a PCE, is absent, because it is entirely redundant - apperception reveals the actual quality of each, while the factors themselves for a feeling-being are just skillful ways of becoming, or forms of affect. i wonder if each one could be a potential entrance in a PCE, but it seems their real power (both explicative and practical) comes in balancing + cultivating them as a self-reflexive system (more equanimity/tranquility/concentration requires more energy/joy-rapture/insight requires more equanimity/tranquility/concentration, etc, all with mindfulness to top it off).
potential interpretations linking to actualist method: happy (rapture/joy), harmless (equanimity, tranquility), attentiveness (mindfulness, concentration, equanimity), delight (joy), sensuousness (rapture/joy (ardency?), concentration)
so i wonder, when i sit and contemplate, or meditate, even though thoughts do arise a lot, i wonder if it's not just an automatic adjustment of the factors.
the interesting thing here also is that you don't have to 'do' anything. all 'you' 'do' is balance the factors.. and when the factors are balanced, clinging is released.
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About 'Being'it seems that what 'being' does is latch onto/abrogate each of the aggregates. e.g. the senses/perception: there's the constant sense of touch being messed with around my head and neck area. it seems to be being attaching to the touch-sense.. and when i took salvia it attached to the visual and auditory sense as well. nothing 'changed' per se, it was just manifesting differently.
that's why you cant ever 'find' 'being'... it's not at any of those places, it just manifests that way.
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being comes in little loops (volitional formations?). what seems to happen, per culadasa's comment (which i can't find) is that (paraphrasing) clinging/craving is slowly replaced by equanimity and insight. riffing on that comment (that's all i rememberd):
mix in equanimity + insight into each little loop. eventually, with enough of both, it 'liberates', as in, stop forming. however, all that 'work' that you did to put equanimity + insight into it, is suddenly not useful anymore, per se, since that loop is gone. this might partly explain why, once you find something that 'works', it stops working soon.. cause the thing it worked on no longer arises - it did work - but now you have to find another loop to mix equanimity + insight into. a constantly shifting thing.. though the premise is the same: balance your factors of enlightenment! (that is to say, not only equanimity + insight are useful/necessary, but all of them are).
it seems almost like you take a volitional-formation-loop that happens on-its-own and mix in some skillful volitional-formations to slowly unwind it (on-its-own, of course..)
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these seem to arise in four steps: the grossest/most deluded is when 'i' am following a belief or clinging to something in an uncontrolled way, happening by default. unrestrained delusion. after a bit of work, 'i' can stop clinging to it, but only if i focus. if i stop focusing it happens on its own. after this stage, it's there on its own, and if 'i' don't follow it, it doesn't manifest, but it also isn't going away by itself. a lot of stuff seems 'held at bay' like this. finally, when enough of the factors arise with the loop, it starts diminishing on its own, without doing anything, and all 'i' have to do here is not re-cling to it before it's gone.
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in other words: being doesn't arise in a vacuum.. it arises with the rest of the qualities of the totality of experience that a particular individual is experiencing that moment... if being arises with the proper conditions then insight into being will penetrate it and a little bit (or a lottle bit) of clinging will be dropped.
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i mention all the above because thats what i felt was happening, after a period of practicing uninterrupted for sufficiently long enough. it felt like i could feel the enlightenment-factors mixing in with the becoming and causing it to dissipate... not yet sure if it was delusion or an accurate insight.
this also seems the 'head on' approach - it doesn't seem like it would result in PCE... i'm not yet sure by which process 'being' can go into abeyance to result in a PCE, vs. aspects of 'being' being eliminated entirely via clear-seeing. PCE seems more about aligning conditions such that being doesn't arise, for a spell, whereas what i was doing was more allowing being to arise, but doing so with (hopefully) sufficient insight+equanimity+such so that it can be seen clearly and be dropped.
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there were a few instances where it felt like a knot just broke apart, and after that, there were tons of unpleasant sensations over the body, but each one separately was easily/automatically looked at + dissipated. so the knotting was like a way to hide all of those, but made it harder to look at them..
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'cycling' as a way of being - i hardly notice cycling at all, anymore, but sometimes (usually after smoking) i'll notice the stages of insight coming up again. and it's pretty.. comical i guess! more surreal than anything. it's like 'oh, these again?' it seems they were just more ways for 'being' to manifest...
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it's funny how in pulp fiction, marcellus wallace has a band-aid on the back of his neck cause that's where the devil drew his soul from.. funny cause the back of the neck is where it feels like the soul is! perceptive people...
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staying in a 'fruition'?here by 'fruition' i refer to a noticeably distinct state i enter into sometimes, though seems like i only distinguish it with any confidence when high. basically it feels like there's a shift into it, perhaps with a discontinuity (fruition-like cessation). the senses are different - visually, for example, i often notice that light appears dimmer than usual. what's weird is that being is still there, except it's much, much less sticky - it seems like everything is slippery and just slipping away on its own. it seems like a great state from which to contemplate from. it requires some effort to maintain, not in terms of doing anything, but in terms of not doing something to exit from it. i haven't really observed the exit from it very carefully so i'm not sure what ends it.
i mention it because it seems different from an EE, having a noticeable shift into it, different from a PCE, as there is being, but seems to have some qualities of PCE... perhaps it is the fruition-attainment as ayya khema describes.
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Miscellanyi've felt bad about enjoying myself unless somebody else approves. and i also feel bad cause i have felt that what others want to do is necessary, and it HAS to be done, and i feel bad if i don't do that. but having my own preferences is NOT bad.
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the past and future are not actual now.. so there is tons + tons of room for volitional formations to arise about those. in the what's-happening-now there is the darned actual world right there, so it's harder for delusion to take hold, especially with focus.
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what 'actual world'? i don't see it! it's just the senses. or 'actual freedom' - what's that? i don't see it anywhere. but it's funny cause you have to put a word to things to describe it to others.. but as soon as you do, when talking to a feeling-being, automatically concepts start being formed about it. but it seems to work out eventually as one sees for ones self.
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EDIT: balls... typing restlessly leads to restlessness... who would've thought?