| | Hello everyone,
It's me, Stef D.
Please do not mistake my absence from these forums as abandonment. Most of the time, I respond to direct email. However the pedagogical talent as it relates to dharma, and to actualist methods, is, in my opinion, sometimes best left to others with a talent for it. Not every enlightened person can write as Daniel does or convey how to practice in such clear, useful terms. That doesn't mean they are less attained; only that their talents lie elsewhere.
Also, I've been busy.
And, my thoughts about the practice of the actualism method, and the many questions I've answered about it publicly and privately, run along the following lines. Everything I needed to know, in order to practice, was freely available on the AF trust website and the DhO provided a resource for further understanding and investigation into the method. I never read anything on that site that wasn't directly related to my practice unless I was pointed to a particular article and asked to read it. In fact, some long time practitioners of AF used to be surprised at my lack of knowledge of Richard and AF history! It was only in discussions of Richard on these forums that I learned personal (and insignificant) details about his habits, such as smoking or whatever, because all I really wanted to know--as a practitioner--was how to do the PCE and how to become virtually free (as I didn't think AF was going to come for a long time).
It is true that I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Tarin before becoming AF, but if anyone thinks that some magic bullet was administered, that something new was said or done, they are sorely mistaken. Tarin only said in person the things he'd written on the DhO; if anything, what the in person interaction enabled was for me to observe what it is like to be free, but as it is metaphorized in Buddhism, that is like the hand pointing at the moon; the act of observation reveals not the object, but the act of looking. Pointing at the moon does not reveal the moon; it simply enacts pointing. You have to practice on your own, do your own thing, find your own way, relentlessly apply your chosen method, and open yourself to being free, rather than contract and criticize and look for the worse possible thing everywhere. While you sit around attempting to imprison people in your grammatical notions of propriety, Tarin is off being free writing as he will. It is incredibly inane, and silly, and a waste of space, to insist upon such regulations to someone who willfully chooses to harmlessly flaunt such regulation; furthermore, such regulation in this place and context is unnecessary and utterly harmless. As an English professor, I can tell you a few things about grammarians...they (typically) are no portrait of free thinking or free being. Some of the most free thinkers of our age are usually dyslexic any way (Einstein, Virginia Woolf, etc) which renders grammar a limited language, useful only for bolstering the egos of those who think they have "mastered" it. But actually, it is the grammar, and all that it implies ideologically and otherwise, that has mastered them. But I digress.
If anyone would like to practice the actualism method, I invite them to read the articles instructing them how to do so on the AF Trust website. Feel free to ignore all else. Or you can go through the archives on this site and read about how to get into a PCE, how to work with yourself to develop felicity, and so on. But no, this state that myself, Tarin, Trent, and Christian are in is not "bollocks." I've had time to interact and talk to with all the aforementioned people extensively and I can tell you it is not bollocks. What is bollocks, however, is the need to invest in one individual faith, belief, hope, etc., rather than simply investigate on your own.
Best, Stefanie |