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Claims to Attainments

curious about this mapping

curious about this mapping
Answer
2/20/12 1:18 PM
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RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/11/11 4:49 PM as a reply to oscoreo crawfordio.
steven brent cundiff:
Where would you map this....


As your terminology is radically different from ours, you will likely have to provide more specific information in terms that we are familiar with.

Have you read MCTB? If so, where do you think all this maps to? Something in MCTB? Beyond it? Perpendicular to it?

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/11/11 4:56 PM as a reply to End in Sight.
The first step would be to read MCTB so as to understand our terminology, and then (given your understanding of MCTB and our terminology) hazard a guess.

Briefly, to try to place you on the MCTB enlightenment / AF continuum...are you free of all experiences of fear, misery, unhappiness, existential angst, or emotional suffering of any kind? If not, to what extent to do you have these experiences? Do you have them but feel untouched by them (as if they pass over you without affecting you)?

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/11/11 5:00 PM as a reply to End in Sight.
Is every moment of your experience absolute perfection?

If so, describe it specifically.

If someone broke into your home, intending to kill you, how would you react / feel?

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/11/11 5:10 PM as a reply to End in Sight.
Can you visualize such a situation?

In any case, predict what might happen and let us know. Surely you are able to make predictions about ways that events might unfold.

EDIT: For clarity, you may take the situation to be that someone breaks into your house and is in the process of bludgeoning you to death. What kind of reaction might you have? What would you think, do, or feel?

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/11/11 5:15 PM as a reply to End in Sight.
What else do you think is left for you to do in terms of practice? Why have you asked us to map your experiences to what we are familiar with?

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/11/11 5:17 PM as a reply to oscoreo crawfordio.
Welcome, steven,

A few questions for you:

1) Why did you do all of that, that you described? What made you find the "still unmoving center" in the first place?

2) How do you define suffering?

3) Is there any suffering in your experience?

4) How has the experience of suffering changed over the course of the past 13 years?

5) Read a precis of actual freedom - what do you think of the words there?

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/11/11 5:39 PM as a reply to End in Sight.
what practices did you use to get to perfection? I'm always interested in what people have used to end suffering so that i can use it or at least learn from their perspective.

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/11/11 5:35 PM as a reply to End in Sight.
If there is nothing you want, and you judge yourself to be experiencing constant perfection, I am curious why you haven't assumed that you are completely liberated, and asked us what "completely liberated" means to us, rather than asking us to map your attainment in words that might be assumed to be quite imprecise to us.

Just curious, is all.

In any case, I am still looking forward to hearing a precise description of your experience. What is this moment for you like right now? In what way can it be said to be perfect?

Can you visualize things?

If you read MCTB concerning "vibrations", what is your experience of this phenomenon like?

Share some phenomenological details with us. Go beyond what I've asked and tell us about your experience.

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/11/11 5:53 PM as a reply to Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem.
Hi Steven,

Welcome to the DhO.

Do you have, gross or subtle, any mentally felt sense of: self / self-obsessing chatter / being / location in the world / subject to objects / duality / inner world / me-ness / instinctual passions / any affectively felt mind state / moods / being of any kind / being the absolute / being one with everything / being one with anything / being connected to everything / being space / being infinite consciousness / being no-thing-ness / being the void / being anything / imagination / the flow of time / existing / craving of any subtle and gross kinds?

Nick

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/11/11 6:57 PM as a reply to josh r s.
As you appear to claim to be completely liberated, it is not my place to judge your attainment. Perhaps you can find someone else on the DhO who will.

If your descriptions are accurate, it may well be that you are completely liberated.

We would surely be interested in specific, concrete practice advice if you have any to share. How do you think you could have made the path go more quickly for you, if you were able to advise yourself in the past?

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/11/11 7:53 PM as a reply to Nikolai ..
steven cundiff:
Nikolai .:
Hi Steven,

Welcome to the DhO.

Do you have, gross or subtle, any mentally felt sense of: self / self-obsessing chatter / being / location in the world / subject to objects / duality / inner world / me-ness / instinctual passions / any affectively felt mind state / moods / being of any kind / being the absolute / being one with everything / being one with anything / being connected to everything / being space / being infinite consciousness / being no-thing-ness / being the void / being anything / imagination / the flow of time / existing / craving of any subtle and gross kinds?

Nick


There was a time when this body/mind became still, and then beingness in oneness was observed....but in the last act of surrender of the self this oneness and still silent beingness was let go...now there is the unbeing being....beyond oneness...the unwitnessing witness....unwitnessing Becuase there is no witnessing or witnesser.

Neither being nor nonbeing....nor not being or not nonbeing.


Hi steven,

Thanks for the reply. Is that last line of neither being nor nonbeing etc an experience or is it an attempt at describing something indescribable for you? Is there any affect to that experience? Does it feel like there is 'presence' to that non-being nor being? Do you experience any emotions whatsoever subtle or gross?

Thanks.

Nick

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/12/11 2:12 AM as a reply to End in Sight.
What you said about mind is making me think about turiya/ Nirvikalpa sahaja samadhi?
Do you recognize your experience in this talk?
http://www.well.com/user/jct/Talk.htm

just curious emoticon
Meggo

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/12/11 9:09 PM as a reply to End in Sight.
steven cundiff:
I would have told myself that liberation is not something you find or aquire...its something you uncover....liberation comes in surrender, not searching...searching and great effort is needed to get you to the gate, but it will never get you through...."you" cannot pass through this gate...only by letting go of you can you enter without entering.

through right practice once you have found the essential stillness that is you and let this stillness go in complete surrender you are enlightened....there is nothing more than this....I spent close to 13 years searching for something more than this after I found it, 19 years in total...I would spend a part of everyday nonbeing, surrendered away into nonbeingness...and then I would come back and continue searching for something more than this...finally I gave up the search Becuase I could not continue...I had no more left in me, I had utterly lost hope and gave up...I thought to myself that I will surrender into nonbeing this last time and "be" and search no more...and so i did....in that moment the whole universe opened up before me as if my awareness was rolling out across all existance...I could see everything...including the fact that there was nothing more to find or uncover than what I had already uncovered or surrendered into...I saw that for many years now the only thing that kept me enslaved was my own searching, I was the searching, the observing and there was nothing else, so i let it go, and with that came liberation.

Great effort and great searching is needed, but these things will never set you free....effort is needed but effort is not enough....effort will get the fruit ripe, but will not make it drop from the tree.

The only way you can know for certain that it is time to give up effort is that you cannot go on...at the time where effort becomes hopelessness and you absolutely cannot continue, then it is time to let effort go.

This is what i would have told myself....


Do you think that you literally could have attained your current state at any point beginning 13 years ago by allowing your mind to incline in a certain direction? Was all your progress between then and now merely "psychological", eventually allowing you simply to surrender when you ran out of things to aim at? I (being skeptical of this claim) assume there must have been some fundamental developmental progress going on...in fact, I assume an enormous amount of such progress.

If you assert that this is true, how would you have explained to yourself what it was that you would have needed to do or not-do? (In other words: how to do or not-do it?)

Have you ever experienced something similar or identical to your current state in the past, even if momentarily?

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/12/11 11:40 PM as a reply to End in Sight.
The question I was interesting in hearing your thoughts on was how you could have made the process go more quickly (if you could have), and what you would have told yourself in order to make that happen. Is your claim that you could not have made it go faster in any way you know of?

Also, I am still interested in your answer to my other question:

Have you ever experienced something similar or identical to your current state in the past, even if momentarily?

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/13/11 9:48 AM as a reply to End in Sight.
I would like to respond to this in more depth, but (as I do not have time now) I merely want to highlight your claim that there is no difference between the deepest samadhi, and the state of perfection you claim now.

Are you familiar with the terminology of the Pali suttas? Can you describe this using terminology related to jhana? Is the deepest samadhi 'awareness-release'?

I have claimed that the practice of jhana does not have to be about producing "becoming" (= deluded self-experience), and speculated that in the deepest form of it, there would be no "becoming" (thus, a foretaste of full liberation). Others appear not to agree. It appears you may be able to confirm this in your own experience, which is interesting with respect to showing the value of jhana.

Can you still enter samadhi? If so, how is it the same or different?

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/13/11 3:01 PM as a reply to End in Sight.
steven cundiff:
At the eighth jhana there is choiceless still awareness without form or identity that is the unwitnessing witness...in the ninth jhana there is no jhana...there is the cessation of still formless awareness...one could say this is entered without entering by awareness release, or surrender of the Brahma, it is like a death really...you enter without entering Becuase the enterer is let go...


1) Can you still experience the jhanas now?
2) Can you describe the 9th jhana in more detail? How does one enter/not-enter? Is there still awareness left? Anything perceived? Consciousness?

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/13/11 3:26 PM as a reply to End in Sight.
[Affectively tinged opinion alert - Seasoning required due to excessive subjectivity]

Hey Steven,

Going by the words you use, the way you describe this and, what is admittedly a subjective impression based on a handful of forum posts on a screen, I think you're either the "real deal" or an extraordinarily good liar which, as you know, would be a complete waste anyway. You're giving some good practical advice, as far as I can see, and your use of the Sufi quote pricked up my ears straight away.

I like the way you mention the process as one of doing and undoing, this sits well with my current practice and experience so far. Good to hear your take on the thing, hopefully you'll stick around and be able to help others along the way.

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/13/11 6:38 PM as a reply to Nikolai ..
Nikolai .:
Do you have, gross or subtle, any mentally felt sense of: self / self-obsessing chatter / being / location in the world / subject to objects / duality / inner world / me-ness / instinctual passions / any affectively felt mind state / moods / being of any kind / being the absolute / being one with everything / being one with anything / being connected to everything / being space / being infinite consciousness / being no-thing-ness / being the void / being anything / imagination / the flow of time / existing / craving of any subtle and gross kinds?

Nick


I think Steven answered this question in his first post:

"Now I am am openess of death/unbeing/void that flows through openly in a continuous whole"

RE: curious about this mapping
Answer
10/13/11 6:42 PM as a reply to Daniel Johnson.
Daniel Johnson:
Nikolai .:
Do you have, gross or subtle, any mentally felt sense of: self / self-obsessing chatter / being / location in the world / subject to objects / duality / inner world / me-ness / instinctual passions / any affectively felt mind state / moods / being of any kind / being the absolute / being one with everything / being one with anything / being connected to everything / being space / being infinite consciousness / being no-thing-ness / being the void / being anything / imagination / the flow of time / existing / craving of any subtle and gross kinds?

Nick


I think Steven answered this question in his first post:

"Now I am am openess of death/unbeing/void that flows through openly in a continuous whole"


Are they mentally felt?