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Claims to Attainments

Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...

Hello, Dharma Overground,

after dropping hints here and there, it's only proper to own up and claim that, after engaging in various practices to various degrees of intensity over the past few years, encouraged by the people here on the Overground and other good friends, the sense that the self is part of experience, or can be experienced, or can own experience, has completely gone away a couple of weeks ago, and so far has not returned.

It left behind nothing but a profound sense of relief, and clear knowledge of what is the case with regards to itself, so to speak.

Of course, in the spirit of the DhO, I'll keep this thread updated with any further developments - even if it should turn out that this realization did not hold up.

I don't want to write a long-winded account here, but I'll happily answer any questions.

Cheers!
Florian

P.S. in case you're wondering about the title: monkeymind was my login on the old DhO, and in some other places around the net.

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
Answer
7/16/11 4:06 AM as a reply to Florian Weps.
Nice!emoticon Can you explain what practice(s)/insight put the final nail in the coffin? What is your experience now, similar/same as AF?

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/16/11 11:06 AM as a reply to Pål S..
Hi Paul,

What practices/insights put the final nail in the coffin? I'm very tempted to say that I can't say this had anything to do with practice or insight - only that would be a bit coy.

So I'll say that after reading Ciaran's piece "The Thunder and the Sunshine" (linked in the initial "Hardcore Direct Pointing" post), I decided to have a good, hard, honest look, vipassana style, at what I considered my self, and when I was done with that, that was that. There was no fruition or anything, just a moment of embarrassment almost, and the kind of relief you get when it becomes pointless to keep telling an elaborate lie.

My experience now certainly is not that of an Actual Freedom from the Human Condition. There is the centerlessness, but there also arise and pass emotions and passions (without snagging on anything that could be "me", though). There is a huge array of habits whirring away, which seems a bit overwhelming at times: they are so autonomous, and while they don't have the power to entangle "me" any more, they are still doing their thing, which is often not particularly skilful and often outright harmful. Imagine a kitchen full of pots over-boiling. It's a funny situation actually, but it's also a massive mess, and sooner or later, someone will get scalded by the steam or spraying drops if left untended like that.

It was definitely worth all the effort (even if the effort was directed at something that wasn't there all along, and thus ultimately misguided).

Cheers,
Florian

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/16/11 8:29 AM as a reply to Florian Weps.
Congrats Florian!

So where do you think you will go from here?

:-)
Nick

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/16/11 1:50 PM as a reply to Florian Weps.
Congratulations, Florian! Massive body rush of mudita happening here.

I too am curious where you go from here, and what practice looks like for you now. How does this change fit in in terms of your path/enlightenment models?

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/16/11 3:25 PM as a reply to Florian Weps.
Hey florian, I am curious about your practice until this point, specifically where you felt you were on the mctb 4 path model.

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/16/11 7:22 PM as a reply to Florian Weps.
Congratulations!!!!
I'd also be Very interested to hear what practices got you where you are today.

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/17/11 4:36 AM as a reply to Brian Eleven.
Congratulations from me as well.

I had experiences where I felt I had done it, that everything was centerless and selfless and perceived where it was, about 25-30 times or so over some 6 years before I finally landed something that held up through the next A&P/Dark Night, which until that point would dash my dreams of having finished that thing up on the hard rocks of deep insight, so I hope that this thing you have done stands the test of time and careful attention.

Daniel

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/17/11 6:09 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Thanks, Daniel.

I'm very curious how this will hold up as well. I've had a few stretches of the sense of being done in the past few months, only to have it go under again. I'll keep this thread updated of any developments or increased clarity, as promised.

Cheers,
Florian

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/17/11 6:30 AM as a reply to Brian Eleven.
List of practices - ask, and I'll supply details:

  • formal noting practice: from 2007 onward
  • jhana practice - 2009 onward (initial coaching by Kenneth Folk)
  • divination (I-Ching) - 2008 onward
  • Repeating a meditation word throughout the day - 2009 onward
  • HAIETMOBA - 2010 onward
  • Magickal operation of "scrying the enochian aethyrs" - 2010/2011 onward
  • discussing the Dharma online - 2007 onward
  • Reading the Sutta Pitaka cover-to-cover - 2006 - 2010 (the four major Nikayas, some of the Khuddaka Nikaya)
  • Mindfulness of Death - 2009 onwards sporadically, in bursts of a few weeks at a time, inspired by Jed McKenna
  • Listening to talks / audio books - 2007 onward
  • 1-2 day self-led retreats - 2010 (three in total)


So my practice so far was a multi-tradition mix: mainly (Theravada) Buddhist, a fair portion of Western Mystery Tradition ("Magick"), a bit of Actualism.

My main online groups are the DhO and the loose group which gravitates around Alan Chapman and Duncan Barford's "Baptists Head" website.

Cheers,
Florian

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/17/11 8:03 AM as a reply to Florian Weps.
Thanks for the list! I'm curious about the meditation word, I occasionally use Buddho on the breath if my concentration is weak.
This question may be a little broad, but I'm curious how jhana practice helps a yogi progress through the stages. I'm teacher less so I don't really know one jhana from another, so I'm wondering what I'm missing. Thanks in advance for answering, feel free to just point me to readings.

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/17/11 8:20 AM as a reply to Brian Eleven.
Hi Brian

Keeping a meditation word in mind throughout the day is mindfulness practice.

If you use a meditation word in formal meditation, you can use it as the object for concentration practice, in addition to keeping you reminded of what you're doing (which is basically what mindfulness is about).

If you wish to practice jhana, there's an entire section here on the DhO devoted to it and related subjects - Concentration - with lots of tips and good, detailed reports.

Cheers,
Florian

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/17/11 9:37 PM as a reply to Florian Weps.
Florian, I have a few questions, if you don't mind.

Which of the methods mentioned seemed more/less useful in achieving your new state? Do you believe it a matter of having certain teachers/methods for certain stages of awakening? Did you find any methods/teachers of no use at all?

Could you tell me if you had any luck with the whole enoch business of magick? In what direction? Money, relationships, work, power?

Jed McKenna (whoever he is - mystery man) writes about final awakening as a gut wrenching and terrifying process. Did you have any of that?

Thanks/

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/17/11 11:35 PM as a reply to C C C.
C C C:
Which of the methods mentioned seemed more/less useful in achieving your new state? Do you believe it a matter of having certain teachers/methods for certain stages of awakening? Did you find any methods/teachers of no use at all?


Like I wrote, it's tempting to say that the methods don't really correspond with the result, but that would be oversimplifying things.

Those methods which kept me going, which kept me alert to the lack of clarity, which kept the intensity of my application to this process high, those were the useful methods.

Apart from a couple of weeks of jhana-coaching by Kenneth, when he originally appeared on the old DhO, I didn't work formally with any teachers (and Kenneth had not set himself up as a formal teacher back then). I had a few mail and chat conversations, mainly with Tarin and Duncan Barford, but also a few others.

I didn't list those methods which I found no use at all. emoticon

Could you tell me if you had any luck with the whole enoch business of magick? In what direction? Money, relationships, work, power?


Enochian Magick seems to be a huge topic - I only did the "aethyr scrying" operation: in the course of about 10 months, going from 30 to 1, like Crowley did in "The Vision and the Voice". It was also a very minimalistic rendering, more meditation than ceremony. My intention with this was that this operation should guide me through the "Anagami Fractal" by the shortest possible route. In that regard, it was successful. Improvements in my money/work situation coincided with the operation, now that you mention it, but that was the direct result of me changing jobs a year ago, before I started with this.

Magick tends to be content-heavy, so it's important not to get lost in the content. After each working, I spent a lot of time examining what had came up, in order to see it clearly for what it was, and gain insight from the frankly whacky results. I guess that's how many vajrayana practices work as well.

Jed McKenna (whoever he is - mystery man) writes about final awakening as a gut wrenching and terrifying process. Did you have any of that?/


I did have a few bad dark nights during the past few years; and they seemed to be getting worse toward the end, but this kind of stuff is hard to measure, of course. Like MCTB, Jed's books describe the process in a broad spectrum of detail. Not everyone who does Vipassana will experience every detail of the kind of dark night described in MCTB. Also, having been a dark-nighter for most of my life prior to stream entry (I'm convinced that I crossed the A&P pre-teen-age), there wasn't that much unexpected terror to be met any more.

Have you read all three of Jed's books?

Cheers,
Florian

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/17/11 11:41 PM as a reply to Florian Weps.
I've read the first book - Darndest Thing, which I liked for its humour and flowing style. And will read the third - Spiritual Warfare - at some point. His way of writing really pulls you in bashes you around a bit, which is nice. But it was his writing, and some of Castaneda's (very similar), that made me decide awakening is not really what I want at the moment. It seems too big and too daunting. And the price of awakening... I'm not ready to pay that price, yet. I don't want to lose everything of myself just now, even if I was close to the cliff's edge (and I may well not be).

I do like Kenneth's description of how to access jhana. Only problem is i can't make it work. Jhana is my only real interest at the moment. And magick. I like reading Adyashanti - helps with my internal dialogue.

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/23/11 2:40 AM as a reply to C C C.
Finished Warfare this weekend.

In the first chapter, Jed recounts his story of having his life threatened and having no fear, but instead a feeling of amusement and interest. I know it's (mostly) fiction but I've always suspected that a state of no-self would imply that the prospect of bodily death was no longer of any concern.

Do you fear death florian? If the cop in Jed's story threatened to point the gun at you and pull the trigger, what would you feel?

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/23/11 8:02 AM as a reply to C C C.
Hi C,

The constant, low-key fear of death / concern about death disappeared over a year ago, even before the event I associate with stream entry.

Apart from that, there's really no point in speculating how I'd react in fictitious situations. Talking in my head to people who aren't there about situations that are not happening has, really, lost all of its appeal and gripping fascination.

I was on a very high, long foot-bridge recently, and while I felt vertigo, I wasn't caught up in imagined scenarios of falling off. That's the closest I can offer to Jed's cop hunt at the moment.

BTW, in the last chapters if Warfare, Jed gives quite practical (for his standards) instructions for Mindfulness of Death. That alone makes the book worth reading. Death is that one clear glimpse of certain truth (with a T) most easily accessible to everybody. Funny how much time and effort is spent obscuring that clarity, or even outright denying it.

Cheers,
Florian

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/28/11 11:57 AM as a reply to Florian Weps.
Did you feel very equanimous for a period of time before the insight?
How long was that going for before the final shift (weeks, months?)?
Did you experience many periods of enlonged cessations (nirodha samappati)?
If so, did you train yourself to do them or were they spontaneous?

Thanks in advance!
Oliver

Edit:
Another question, do you feel that you are able to identify with your emotions now and wield them in anyway?
Is identifying with the emotions like that easier now that you have the teflon mind (I'm asssuming you do)?
Do you think that having a (at least semi-)teflon mind is required before you can shift the identity to these feeling-emotions?
Any other thoughts on these last few questions?

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
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7/28/11 4:08 PM as a reply to Oliver Myth.
Olyver Mith:
Did you feel very equanimous for a period of time before the insight?

I was cycling (still am), but in an unpleasant way; I felt stuck in the cycles. The equanimity bits of the cycles were equanimous, of course.

How long was that going for before the final shift (weeks, months?)?

The equanimity? weeks, max.

Did you experience many periods of enlonged cessations (nirodha samappati)?

No. I get jhanas and fruitions.

If so, did you train yourself to do them or were they spontaneous?

Thanks in advance!
Oliver

Edit:
Another question, do you feel that you are able to identify with your emotions now and wield them in anyway?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "identifying with my emotions". They have their dynamics which make them emotions, just like a thought has its significance while it's being run through.

What do you mean by "wielding emotions"?

Is identifying with the emotions like that easier now that you have the teflon mind (I'm asssuming you do)?
Do you think that having a (at least semi-)teflon mind is required before you can shift the identity to these feeling-emotions?
Any other thoughts on these last few questions?


Are you referring to "I am my feelings and my feelings are me"? The sense of being, the feeling being? That's still there; if I understand it correctly, it's not about the sense of a separate self or self-reference (which is gone), but about the sense of being or existing which is quite strong and un-obscured, now that the weird perceptual contortionist habit of referring everything to the self is gone.

Cheers,
Florian

RE: Monkey Mind squirmed in embarrassment for a moment...
Answer
7/28/11 5:26 PM as a reply to Florian Weps.
Florian,
I am working on the jhanas and trying to sort out the first jhana using the breath as my object.
For a long time I've been focusing my attention entirely on the breath. But now I have started to include a calm feeling in my physical body once I get to a calm place with the breath. It's not "blissful" but it is calm.
Is this how you started your first jhana? How important do you think the "calmness" or "bliss" is to reaching the first jhana?

Gerry