For the past months, I haven't been very active on the DhO. There wasn't anything I felt confident to say, and I didn't want to participate in practice discussions for the same reason. Integrating the
perceptual reconfiguration of last summer into my interaction with family, friends, co-workers, and online acquaintances took up almost all of my free time, and it's an ongoing thing.
Still, a few things have become more evident over time, which I'll share here, feedback welcome! Keep in mind that these are my opinions regarding what is really going on, and not the real on-going thing.
Mental tape-loops and Emotions.Certain situations will trigger certain mental tape-loops - those rambling, persistent trains of thought, complete with imaginary discussions where I mentally act out or simulate both sides. The imagined opponent may have a counterpart in reality. While these tape-loops are clearly perceived to be completely empty - the arguments of the imagined opponent are not the corresponding real person's argument, and my side is not owned or invested in by myself - they commonly lead to almost physical reactions, emotions, moods and so on.
Previously, I'd enter, to some degree, into these imaginary events, participate and take positions and so on. This happens rarely any more, and when it does, it's not sustainable, that is, sustaining the illusion of participants in an imaginary argument quickly becomes overwhelmingly pointless. What was surprising initially was that even without identification kicking in, these tape-loops are annoying. It's a bit like having next-door neighbors who loudly argue all the time. This secondary annoyance seems to be what gives rise to more fully-fledged emotions and mood-swings. This feed-back loop from seconday discomfort to primary emotions is currently my main interest. It is something that's puzzling to me, for all that it's clearly seen.
Memory and Conceptializing ExperienceThat first moment months ago, of the on-going recognition of how experience isn't owned or suitable for identification or for safe-keeping of identity, is preserved in my memory. What I've noticed is a tendency to revisit that memory as if it was something other than a memory. You see, all evidence for the perceptual reconfiguration is present in perception, always available - but that memory has at various times become almost something of a badge of achievement or a trophy, which is strange, since the moment is gone forever, and the memory is not the moment, and the ongoing experience validates it whenever I care to look.
Another aspect of this revisiting tendency is conceptualization of experience, which always builds on memories and can never occur real-time. Thus, expressing truth (for lack of a better word) is close to impossible, and re-telling memories instead is second-rate to the extent of not being the truth at all. I've joked to some friends that there seems to be something built into reality which instantly renders any conceptualization of truth as gibberish (suspecting that I've picked up this particular joke somewhere - but I can't seem to find the source).
Not-Self, Purpose, Roles, and FunctionsThe sense of playing a role, of role-playing, is all-pervasive. I get my cues, I respond accordingly. If I don't follow the script, people get upset, annoyed, or offended, implying that to them the roles have some fundamental aspect, or purpose, rather than being the conventions around the functions being fulfilled. Written down this way, it reads like a very robotic mode of operation instead of the living, breathing, perceiving experience it is to me. On the contrary: holding the pale conceptual flicker of
purpose to be as bright as or even eclipsing the very processes and functions constantly playing out to the fullest, seems like a very upside-down way of living.
Traditions, and Teaching, and Deciding What's Best for PeopleThis was the biggest surprise of them all! Basically it's no longer fun to ignore the huge, gaping, abyssal ... disconnect between what the traditions teach, and what I've found to be the case. And this goes on at every level of every tradition I've looked at, ancient and modern. I'm not saying the traditions are wrong or corrupt or anything. They just don't seem to be about what I experience, or rather, not about my experience to a larger degree than, for example, eating cake and drinking coffee. Those traditions that teach methods - such as Theravada - are full of poetic or even mythical allusions when it comes to the results. Daniel has at it in
MCTB Models of the Stages of Enlightenment, and he's right, but I can honestly say that I didn't understand what he was saying, that looking back there was the same utter disconnect when I used to read it.
In a way, I can sympathise with the crowd who claim that there's nothing to gain that wasn't there all along - but that's not only useless as a method, it also displays the same complete disconnect, so that's really qualifying the "sympathize" bit.
The thing is, by teaching methods or other ways to get it done, the one doing the teaching is not acting in the interest of the one being taught (always assuming the one taught will buckle down and actually apply the technique or whatever it is). They're not acting against them either, it's just that there is this huge disconnect between what the student thinks they're in for and what they're actually in for.
The situation is not unlike where the student really wants something other than the teacher can give them, but the teacher decides to give it to them anyway, since they asked. It is deeply weird, and while I'm grateful to each and every person who helped me along and taught me, and I'm also giving out advice here and there when asked in private at the moment, it is also the case that there is something subversive to it. The traditions all seem to address it from an ethical angle ("it's okay to subvert the student, because the teacher acts from an ethically superior position"), but that's simply warped, and in addition it creates all kinds of expectations that will not be fulfilled.
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All of the above I'm currently trying to meet with all the sincerity and honesty I'm able to muster. It is very, very enticing to scurry away into some transcendent perspective where these are just seen as parts of the whole. I can't begin to express how off the mark that turns out to be each and every time I do it, and how thoroughly unappealing it is to watch in other people, as well.
Finally, while what I wrote above will look to be critical of the DhO and similar endeavours, I'll again say that this is a bunch of opinions I'm holding at this time, regarding what I've been experiencing for the past six months, which I could not have been making but for DhO and similar resources.
Cheers,
Florian