| | this is a message to the practising actualists and those interested in the actualism method, who, despite having made sincere (as far as they can tell) efforts, have not experienced much, if any, success with it. this thread is for the people who just can't seem to figure it out.
if you are asking yourself, 'how am i experiencing this moment of being alive?' and you are:
1- not getting into a pce, even briefly; 2- not getting oriented toward the pce in a way that you recognise; 3- not getting the idea that you can enjoy this moment of being alive (and that such enjoyment is worth it); or 4- are not even feeling very well (and are, rather, feeling stuck feeling grim or glum day in and day out)
..perhaps you could use a little more fun in your life; deeper fun than that which petty appetites and desires can bring.. the sort the actual freedom trust homepage warns about (and quite rightly, potentially).. the sort that you can cultivate and maintain. i am here talking about bliss - the 'good' feelings - the sort you learn how to access by learning how to enter jhana.
learning how to enter, and dwell in, jhana sharpens your perceptual abilities. the skill-set you develop from this endeavour will be applicable to your actualist pursuits.
further, if you have had tastes of bliss, but do not know how to experience it on command, chances are you want it and want to (whether you know it or not/admit it or not). the appetite for bliss is a deeply-ingrained desire fueled by instinctual passions which, so long as they are extant, are running the show (whether you know it or not/admit it or not).
never mind that chasing bliss, or sitting around in it, are, in and of themselves, dead-ends (they do not lead conclusively to freedom from malice and sorrow), and never mind that bliss' cultivation's advocates frequently address this unavoidable dilemma by encouraging its cultivators to eventually transcend even bliss for that measure of non-dualistic freedom which changes nothing (but dissociates from everything). go and learn how to cultivate bliss. go and learn how to concentrate.
if you do this well, here are some of the benefits you will derive: - you will develop a faculty for paying attention to your moment-to-moment experience; - you will learn how to make your mode of experience malleable; - you will learn to harness affective energy effectively; - you will not sit around here intellectualising and arguing with others who can do nothing for you except point out that what you've been doing so far obviously isn't working too well; - you will learn how genuinely useless narratives, explanations, and other such fabrications generally are when you are driven by malice and sorrow, and so - you will stop being entangled in your thoughts (and so become able to explore the feelings which lay under your surface, and which you may only barely know exist) and/or - you will get a handle on how you are overwhelmed by your feelings when they bull rush you into making up all sorts of stories about why it is a good idea to keep being unhappy (and so you may better learn how to cease being overwhelmed by those feelings' occurrence).
the list probably goes on but i will stop here.
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if you wish to take my advice on this matter, there are people who read (and sometimes post) on the dharma overground whose posts and methodologies i have scrutinised and observed to be useful and instructive for getting a jhana practice off the ground, and so are people i can recommend you seek instruction from. some of these people are:
ian and chuck kasmire trent h florian weps triplethink daniel ingram
start your own practice thread stating what you would like to learn or accomplish. if you have seen tips on previous threads that appeal to you which were given by any of the people listed above (or any others, for that matter), ask for their help explicitly and by name.
if you would like an offline approach, find a teacher proximate to your location; else, take a meditation retreat if you can take the time and think you can handle its demands. i do not recommend going it on your own; figuring out jhana can be tricky until you know what you are looking for, and if you have not figured out how to get the actualism method to work for you, i do not think it is likely that you are sufficiently skilled at working independently to make the kind of initial progress that can be made with the guidance of an experienced teacher or helping friend.
however you do it, consider learning to get into jhanas, learning to sharpen your perceptual abilities, learning to feel blissful until you spot its defects, and learning how malleable this 'reality' stuff is. then, come back to the actualism method (if you wish) and figure out once and for all how 'you' can be 'your' own best friend and bring 'yourself', malice, and sorrow to an end. maybe learn about how truly bizarre the human condition can be along the way.
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if you are making good use of the actualism method and are doing fine with it already, or if you have had experience doing well with it in the past but are currently just going through a rough spot, you are not the audience for this message and i advise you to ignore it.
consider well whether or not you are its audience, letting neither pride nor self-loathing skew your assessment; your answer ought be determined by how well you have gotten the actualism method to work for you, having given it your sincerest, best efforts.
tarin |