I have been finding this passage to be of inspiration of late.
[Anuruddha & Sariputta discuss meditation]
Anuruddha: “Brother Sariputta with the divine eye, which is clarified and supernormal, I am able to perceive a thousandfold world system. My energy is strong and inflexible; my remembrance is alert and unforgetful; my body is calmed and unexcited; my mind is collected and unified. Yet my mind is still not freed, without clinging, from the defiling taints (asava).”
Thereupon Sariputta replied: “When you think, brother Anuruddha, that with your divine eye you can perceive a thousandfold world system, that is self-conceit in you. When you think of your strenuous energy, your alert mindfulness, your calmed body and your concentrated mind, that is agitation in you. When you think that your mind is still not liberated from the cankers, that makes for scruples in you. It will be good if the revered Anuruddha would discard these three things, would not pay attention to them and would instead direct his mind towards the Deathless-element (Nibbana).”
Having heard Sariputta’s advice, Anuruddha again resorted to solitude and earnestly applied himself to the removal of those three obstructions within his mind (AN 3:128), more: Wheel 262, BPS.
And have been exploring ways to go about it.
One way is to see how there is a force or habitual movement of mind to move and at the same time create shapes and form for aspects of experience, like a sensation in the chest, a thought/s, an image, an object to desire, and object to avert from. It's like the field of experience is a one of these

and the mind moves and when it moves it gives shape and this at the same time creates some 'thing', that is purely mental and overlays the field of experience which would simply be a flat bed of nails without that movement. So I observe this movement to create and give shape to 'objects' of mind. And when this is done, they lose some aspect of their continuance, something about the looking at zaps the movement of momentum. And that bed of nails will exhibit sublter movements that don't give full shape to some 'thing'. Like a half 'object' that as soon as it arises sinks back down and the nail bed is flat again.
When doing this, I will recall the cessations of the senses (the infamous blip) although the middle of the blip , I really don't remember what it is like cos the whole harddrive shuts down for that blip. But for some reason just recalling how it was a moment of shutdown sort of inclines the mind away from those mental movements even more and thenthe mind stops, though it is not a shutdown of the senses. It is simply the mind not making 'objects'.
Does this make any sense? I thought I had a question, I really don't. I think I'm just going with the flow or rather there are fingers typing bythemslves on the keyboard and this interaction may trigger something useful for me, you or someone elese. Who knows? This practice has been makign it very obvious that those movements of mind are very habitual, and seem to come from some eternal pit of past habitual movements building upon eachother. And yet, it's so nice to incline away from it all.
Anwhoo,
I'm rambling, or rather my two fingered typing is rambling. This current baseline although seen as normal these days by myself, alccimatised, would perhaps be perceived as being on LSD by someone just borrowing it for a few moments.
Nick, there ya go.
A question just arose: How do you relate to the notion of 'inclining towards the deathless' in your own practice? PM me if this is too sensitive for public discussion.
triple think:
hi Nick,
Good ramble, for this thread any-who.
Yeah, I got a lot of comments like that before I studied what actors do more carefully, via the abundant source materials.
Now I think I can 'represent' more appropriately. If I understand correctly you are a teacher and have effectively been studying the same sort of skill sets in another way.
So, yeah, be-ing useful is work, and not always completely successful but we do what we can right?
Indeed.
I've had a rough road, so if anyone feels they are an arahant when they are actually a stream entrant or what have you then consider my story a "don't let this happen to you story" and make every effort to get to a solid 3 on the scale. That takes you to a 'very magical place' if my experience is representative of that. If I am, as seems more likely, a 2.5-3 then I don't have much work to do to be a 3, with some adjustment and should not have to do it in this realm in any case, so this then is more or less my last chance to put this all on the record for the benefit of others.
I emphatically deny being an 'arahant' as I don't feel the urge to run with the idea that I'm 'done' with the flow of becoming (outflows and inflows) . As I don't think i am. And I feel not claiming this and that helps practice wise as it leaves the field of experience unshaped by terminolgies that can actually shape it...oh, I'm this and I'm that, thus the nail bed gets pushed up and a 'thing' is born. I'm on a path, that is for sure.
Yeah, I got a lot of "Hey Smiley" comments or "Does he ever come down" comments and so on, a lot of friction because of indefatigable joy and love pouring out of me a lot of the time. Also, focus was always close to 100 percent for me, so jhana is something I avoid because it pumps up the 'majic for me' big time.
My conditioning inclines this mind/body organism to have much curiosity for the 'majic time' though it would appear I have little urge to follow through on it and would rather it just happen in and of itself without an attempt for it to happen. We ad an email exchange about this awhile back and I just can't seem to gather momentum and motivation to do something about the curiosity for it all. Meh! More inclined towards a flat nail bed.
So I keep the mix on the dry side, if possible. But I get a lot of psychic/psychedelic bleed through non-the-less, and I pick up on a lot that people in general miss.
Lucky you!
Lets do an inclining towards the deathless thread Nick, if you are game, you begin and I will follow your lead on it.
Done!
For starters, I simply take the 'sign' after the 'blip' and off I go....
So that is whatever is perceived during the 'bliss wave' immediately after the blip. I like "Void Logos" for bliss wave.
Not sure why it appears, suspect that the 'body' 'witnesses' the absence of the 'consciously percipient mind'.
Thots?
Added:
In the first approach to Daniel I attempted to describe the sign to Daniel as sukkha and unchanging and mistook it for the void.
Since then I have only been able to come closer to agreement with him that it is not the Void but rather the bodies response to the Void.
So I would say the Logos, of the body, for me is as said, Pure Sukkha and Pure Permanence. The actual void, is.....
Who the heck could know? Game over?______________________________________________
thots?
Cool. In think it is the bdoy's respones aswell. But there is soemthing about inclining towards it without the blip pccuring that does something to the movements I have been talking about.
My current set up:
1/ recognise the movements of mind cutting up and segregating, sectioning out bringing forward aspects of experiences and ignoring other aspects, and recgnise that there are gaps in between where the nail bed flattens.
2/ incline towards cessation by simply deciding, "I incline towards cessation" while at the same time paying attention to the entire field of experience as a flat bed of nails which will then lose that flatness when the mind moves to take or give shape to an 'object' to then react towards (by flatness I mean lose their unrippled, unsegregated and uncut entirety of experience, the entire field of it-all the senses at once). If any desire crops up for cessation, i recognise it as simply another nail bed movement taking the shape of a localised area of passionate sensations in the chest, coupled with a slight thought of want of oblivion, more nail bed shapes, that when seen for what they are, fall back down.
3/ I also remind the mind to simply 'ignore' the objects being created and taken up by those nailbed movements and move towards cessation y simply inclining but at times also by , and this part is very hard to describe without it not describing it well, that middle of the blip, the void perhaps, is the objectless object. Hmmmm, maybe, maybe not. I'll let that be the explanation for now. it may change later.
Anyway, when i do this long enough, eventually it all stops, and it feels like it unravels a little bit more of this bundle of habitual lunging.
open to critiques, ideas, queries and whatnot..
Nick