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RE: Richard's insight practice

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
4/6/14 12:27 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
My practice now doesn't even resemble a practice because the 7 factors are quite good and I'm starting to analyze why when my eyes are closed it's easier to pop into light jhanas but harder to do with the eyes open. Understanding perception and letting go needs to go deeper to allow relief with the eyes open.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
4/6/14 8:40 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
My equanimity is getting stronger. I still feel pangs of anxiety when there's persona non grata tactics at work. It just doesn't hurt as much anymore because I'm letting go of needing to be successful. This is a big step for me because it's probably my longest running attachment.

I can see that one manager in particular has glib psychopath tendencies. When she does a faux pas she likes to look at my facial expressions like she needs to know what empaths feel because she can't understand empathy. She constantly talks about how she has no feelings etc like it's a badge of honor. She says she likes Harry Potter but really she's more like Voldemort in ostracism tactics and talking behind people's backs. In the past I used to be scared of these people. Now I find them comical/tragic/stupid/retarded/deranged. By giving Metta to them it's strange like trying to pet Godzilla. "Poor Godzilla..." It works but it also highlights how random, chaotic, and arbitrary pursuing success can be.

We recently had a "Positive Outlook" seminar where she and most of the finance department attended. It was quite good and pretty much listed all the Buddhist understandings (including perception) and Christian views. Despite that you can tell the hypocrisy and how little people will actually do the practice. If Mahasi retreats have a 50% success rate in getting stream-entry then a seminar must be nil. Most of the staff probably wanted this as secret teachings to help them dominate.

By letting go of wanting success you can still pursue excellence but you have to be not expecting anything. Paying attention to the benefits of actions is good enough.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
4/8/14 6:37 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Well after eavesdropping on Daniel's recommendation of "Clarifying the Natural State", I'm reading it and I'm already getting benefits from it.

This morning was quite good in that just letting the thoughts go where they want (something Daniel harps on a lot) it's starting to really work. By the end of the day old mental habits arose but it's clear that I have to switch interrupting the thoughts less and just let them be and die away so that meditation is not used to block the thoughts but to resist adding to them. So right effort now is more like just dropping the addition to habitual thoughts so they just fall away. No blocking or clinging. They fall away on their own and thinking can be freed. Just ordering a sandwich and a coffee and I was in bliss. All kinds of thoughts I normally block arose and just left own their own. It's a normalized kind of bliss very different from jhanas. My chest got a bit of fear and bliss at the same time but I just let it be.

Last night I got a hint of this after some reading and I was brushing my teeth and letting the habitual thoughts be as they are and pass away. I got a glimpse of a "self" that was trying to block this stuff. The mental habits broke through it and it was like the Bahiya Sutta where thinking was just thinking and it never was a self. Thoughts now are more integrated with everything else. It's more like a "suchness" now. That book is razor sharp and I'll be interested what else I can glean from it.

I'm still very aware that I can feel emotionally hurt and feel vulnerable but it's more like stuff happening and lots of equanimity with this. I'm feeling very grateful right now.

The goal now is to see how much I can let go.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
4/9/14 5:47 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Nothing much to say, just that your thread is a good read and I'm getting some help with your insights. Keep going and thanks for sharing!

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
4/9/14 7:21 PM as a reply to Jean B..
I hope it shows that if you stick with it there are some goodies that come along.

Today was quite good and the effect from yesterday is still there and it appears to be a new baseline but very normalized. The wow is gone but the relief remains. From experience I know that the old bad habits will continue and there will be consequences to unskillful actions that will cause pain but resisting adding to the impulses and just watching it fall makes it come under control without the aversion to try and block it.

The pain of reactivity to perception is not a problem because there's no clinging to extend it. The head seems to get a nudge or small pressure then subsides because I'm not adding anything to it. Concentration is more like keeping with being, as opposed to stopping anything or pushing anything. I've had experiences like this in the past but I'm not forgetting it like in the past.

The rest of the book just takes those great subtle insights and continues advising to let go of all desires which I think Daniel has mentioned most people won't do all the way. People tend to stop at 2nd path from what I remember he said.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
4/15/14 8:11 AM as a reply to Richard Zen.
I'm bouncing back and forth between no-self and and self but it's getting clearer that I still have a subtle problem with dualism. The following talk is describing my experience really well. Just walking around in my experience there's an understanding that my senses are creating experience and there's a fragility and fakeness about them. It's hard to explain but when you don't block thinking and don't ruminate the freedom there can reveal a more subtle situation that can veer between waking up in the morning and feeling that things are real and by the end of the day with mindfulness a kind of nihilism where things are built up and fabricated. It's yo-yo-ing back and forth. Not manipulating experience also can highlight impermanence really well.

The Wisdom of Non-duality

Having a view that things are real or not real is another dualism. Trying to "stay" in non-dualism conceals a little bit of aversion.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
4/19/14 6:47 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
With getting projects done I'm finding that the cognitive therapy methods of reminding yourself of the benefits is working. This is especially true when one repeats the reminder again and again while doing the activity. "I will really enjoy it when the floor is clean". "I really like it when the dishes are clean", "I'll be so happy when the microwave is clean", etc.

In between tasks there's an aversion to go to the next task so meditation comes in handy at this point. You let go of all thinking and just sit down and wait until the aversion is completely gone and then pay attention to the benefits of what things will be like when the task is completed. Then off you go and do something else. Savour the results.

The harsh aversion in the skull needs to be a warning sign that it's already affecting you and it's already making choices for you. Just sit down and relax until you feel better. When you feel better you're more functional and can do more tasks. Rinse and repeat.

Right effort hits the nail on the head and is quite similar to CBT. We have to let go of unwholesome thinking, prevent unwholesome thinking from arising, cultivate wholesome qualities, and then to strengthen the wholesome qualites after they have arisen. It's like the mind gets some success but quickly wants to dip back down to negativity.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
4/20/14 1:40 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Richard Zen:

I get the impression that this is a talk I'll revisit again and again -- very profound and more than a little challenging. Thanks for sharing.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
4/20/14 5:52 PM as a reply to John M..
Development doesn't really stop. Realization is one thing but habits/conditioning takes longer to deal with.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
4/21/14 8:42 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
So this Burbea talk on Nagarjuna and noticing the affect of dualities of any kind (Wisdom of non-duality) has thrown me for a loop today. Basically I start letting go much sooner than before and I can now see how subtle dualities "this is better than that" is affecting me. This morning the letting go created a slight "unbearable lightness of being" feeling that eventually subsided. Other than that today has been incredibly smooth like never before. Doing things is now less painful. The Advaita Vedanta "rest in consciousness", "don't do anything" etc is now seen through as masking more subtle clinging and laziness. By noticing the smallest possible aversion it can be let go sooner and doing tasks is now becoming more effortless. There's still tiredness but the real kind as opposed to aversion masking as tiredness.

When you mix what is learned from the "Clarifying the natural state" book of not repressing anything but also not adding rumination, plus adding the 7 factors of awakening, and then noticing how quick the perception is with dualities of experience things are normal but even more smooth. Notice dualities in liking something vs. not liking something. Notice posting in this forum vs. not posting LOL!. Especially notice doing something with enjoyment as a short-term relief vs. doing something more constructive.

Notice blocking unpleasant sensations vs. allowing them. Notice blocking a wandering mind vs. noticing you're already back. Notice wanting your life to be a certain way vs. accepting all the flaws. Notice disliking what is happening vs. accepting it. Notice being concentrated vs. not being concentrated. Notice disliking the effort in concentration practice vs. not meditating. Notice excluding something from experience vs. including all things in experience. Notice not welcoming experience vs. welcoming all experience. Notice disliking people vs. liking people. Notice over-analysis vs. doing. Notice not accepting the doing vs. accepting the doing. It just goes on and on.

Eg. When driving home I knew I needed to get some milk. The conditioning quickly thought 'na I can just go home and do without it." "I have to pick up some gas, oh I did a wrong turn so maybe I should do that later?" I felt the aversion in that thinking/clinging and quickly let go. I went and got the milk and gas (even if I had to drive a longer way) and felt totally normal and quite bright and relaxed with no clinging. The above description is much slower than how it actually happened. It's more like a minuscule tightening in the head that is let go of right away. This is making the Energy factor of awakening smoother since maintaining this result seems to require only a subtle effort. Forcing with too much concentration could just be more aversion to what's there. There's a quick subtle question underlying things and that is "do I really need this?" "Is that really important?" This question is non-conceptual in that it's more like feeling pain and letting things drop without adding more content. Then you go and non-chalantly do what's needed instead.

I can now see more clinging than I have ever seen before and I think this is probably my new best day. I can see how this can work with internet, home habits etc. I can also see how this can blindside people into thinking they are enlightened. As far as I'm concerned a fully enlightenment person may not entirely exist. It's a gradation between full blown addiction habits on one hand and complete liberation of habits on the other. Ultimately debating this or much of anything has to be done with skill or else it's another clinging. LOL!

Very appreciative!

Metta to all who've provided good information to me FOR FREE! This is what makes this website great. The pointless debates are a waste of time. Oh wait! Is that another duality? As long as I'm not clinging it's okay. The carefulness can't stop.

EDIT: Also notice clinging to the present moment. emoticon

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
4/22/14 6:58 AM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Richard Zen:
Also notice clinging to the present moment. emoticon


What is the "present moment"? Isn't clinging to something just the effect of not having realized the inherent non-existence of the clung-to? If so, which contemplation will lead you to a place of less clinging? The miniscule observation of the cause and effect relationship between object and reactive pattern or the destruction of the view which underlies the reactive pattern?

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
4/22/14 7:51 AM as a reply to Superkatze one.
Superkatze one:
Richard Zen:
Also notice clinging to the present moment. emoticon


What is the "present moment"? Isn't clinging to something just the effect of not having realized the inherent non-existence of the clung-to? If so, which contemplation will lead you to a place of less clinging? The miniscule observation of the cause and effect relationship between object and reactive pattern or the destruction of the view which underlies the reactive pattern?


Clinging to the present moment has to do with the context in Rob Burbea's talk above "Wisdom of Non-duality". He'll explain it much better than I can.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
4/23/14 8:07 AM as a reply to Richard Zen.
More measurements and dualities to relax:

Maya and Nirvana (Beyond Measure of Mind)

A world of "this and that". "Where movements of mind and perceptions of form are cut off this is where the unfabricated is".

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
4/26/14 10:28 AM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Well I think the practice is yielding more fruits. I'm starting to care less about whether career happens or not. I'm in a "stressful" period where I may have to move to another community and a new job with different people but I'm strangely serene about it. I think it has to do with the fact that happiness to me is not the external things anymore. Things can be good and interesting and should be sought after but they don't have to arrive or stay. The vantage point from the death-bed (like from Viktor Frankl) cures you of that blindness of a belief in immortality.

I'm very confident now that treating people with respect and kindness is an okay track I'm on and it has yielded benefits that are intangible but I can tell a lot of people like me more. This has created ire amongst some in management and I'm being replaced by someone who's more "suitable" which probably means they are more conformist and can be like pals in serotonin domination fetishes. I got very little training at this temporary assignment but this person replacing me got a HUGE amount in a short-period and you can see the unfairness that shows up. Yet I don't see their happiness at all and it does look like delusion. Being rejected still feels unpleasant in the gut but it is so much less than it used to be. The rejection in the past used to be closer to ulcers or irritable bowel syndrome. That's not happening anymore.

The new job I'm interviewing for is a DREAM job with the type of work I want and yet if I don't get it then that's okay too. Ten years ago I never would have been this way. I would be ruminating constantly about "what if this happens or that happens". I feel now that I'm actually lucky to have experienced the suffering I did because if I didn't I wouldn't have seeked Buddhism and I would have gone on with ridiculous habits of excess pride and self-measurement. Those bad habits lead to depression and in some cases suicide.

Mental sanity and physical health are now my favourite hobbies. Co-workers even say that I don't look my age.

I'm at the point now that if I bag groceries for a living that it wouldn't be so bad. I'm not kidding. As long as I have a job that gives me the basic necessities I'm very okay. Ultimately this body will die and that won't be any different no matter what status you develop or not. This gives me a power that is so different. I feel somewhat rebellious by nature and I will continue treating people equally (INFPs) even if it bothers hierarchy types (ESTJs, ISTJs). They are not happy because I can see their complaining and I've already seen workaholics who ignore their spouses and children. They could be smarter than I am but they are not wiser. They are stuck in a rut. Family, love, positive relationships, and environments that support that are a better happiness. It's all about memories. If you cultivate good experiences that create good memories that's what you want on your death-bed. You won't remember the hours of overtime and sacrifice to bosses. If you have some sense of love and higher calling along with the overtime then you'll probably remember that more because it'll include more people. I'm not against working hard but it has to include the right attitude as a foundation or it's pointless like chasing your tail.

Being rejected by cults of personality are blessings in disguise. emoticon

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
5/7/14 5:33 AM as a reply to Richard Zen.
Richard Zen - 2014-04-29 01:01:06 - RE: Richard's insight practice

Recent practice has got me to understand the analyzing and strategizing better.  There's also futurizing and remembering.  Just by watching it arise and pass away it feels like a self at first and then when it passes away it doesn't.  Trying to see this is just another "trying/attention to pay attention" and it starts leaving no room for a "self".  There was a slight tension that relaxed further than before and now there's a small dark night again.

Thinking now feels more like a small pinching or tension in the skull that subsides quickly.  You can see the System 1 acting automatically and the System 2 pushing to see sensations.  Very interesting.

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Richard Zen - 2014-05-01 03:22:10 - RE: Richard's insight practice

I know that mindfulness is the anchor of the 7 factors of awakening but I feel that Energy is just as much important.  It banishes the hindrances and starts to change habits.  Mindfulness by itself is good because it can diminish reactivity to perceptions but the overall habits are slow to change.  With energy you can feel the resistance at the beginning when you're activating it and how you have to abandon the wrong thinking multiple times before the hindrance gives way.  Then you prevent it from coming back by not feeding more negative thinking.  After that you cultivate what is useful and more importantly you make effort to sustain it.  

It reminds me of Bhante G's description of throwing a rock in the air and seeing it lose energy and fall.  Everything in our body is like physics so the constant relinquishing, cultivating and sustaining is needed or the efforts lose energy and old habits return.  It reminds me of impermanence.  It's also a good practice to prove causes and conditions for certain factors.  With practice you can see negative thoughts be replaced by positive mind states in ridiculously short time spans.

Doing this the brightness that I've experienced in the past returns and can be sustained for longer periods of time.  Instead of a brief wondrous A & P you can get a longer duration but it has to be constantly cultivated or it wanes.  Walking around town with this glow it's like there's a lamp in your head.  When getting up in the morning it's the perfect time to start it up again.  Sometimes there's a little too much strain and concentration has to be developed by watching the breath to soothe the excess energy and if there's laziness more investigation and energy is needed.  Trial and error can make it more subtle.

The most fun part of this practice is that you can see the actions you take when you follow the 7 factors compared to cultivating only concentration or open mindfulness.  More skillful actions occur.  Without this effort I can't see any way forward.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
5/10/14 11:12 AM as a reply to Richard Zen.
I'm practicing with Time to compare how objects and self appear with it.  As I look at the unfindable present moment, all I get is short-term memory in the form of passing sensations.  The time increases in strength when I start looking at objects for their meaning to how it will help or hinder the self.  The sense of time increases and the reality and clarity of perceptions increases.  

When I relax the push and pull of clinging along with searching for the present moment the senses start fading.  My vision when I briefly open my eyes is more faded and the colours are also faded.

Clinging happens very quickly so now I'm able to see this because the quick vibrating is happening while a "solid" self is complaining about some such object or situation to pan out.  The self feels solid but the space doesn't.  It's almost like an empty struggle against impermanent phenomenon.  There is new pain I can see with every conceptualization and objectification.

By not clinging to my job interview, when I didn't get the job, there was less suffering.  Making jobs have a meaning for "my life" to have value and importance is setting up clinging dependencies.

http://buddhism.vipassati.ch/ebooks/paticcasamuppada/4-suffering-in-dependent-origination-always-depends-on-attachment

Suffering in the operation of Paticcasamuppada must always depend on attachment. Take a farmer who works out in the open, exposed to wind and sun, transplanting the young rice plants : he thinks "Oh! I'm so hot!" If no clinging arises in the sense of "I'm so hot!" there is merely suffering of a natural kind and not of the kind associated with Dependent Origination. Suffering according to the law of Paticcasamuppada must have clinging to the point of agitation about the "I" concept. So it happens that the farmer becomes irritated and dissatisfied with being born a farmer. He thinks it's his fate, his karma, that he must bathe in his own sweat. When one thinks this way, suffering according to the Law of Dependent Origination arises.If one is hot and has a backache but nothing more, if one simply feels and knows that he is hot without any clinging to the "I" concept as above, then the suffering of Dependent Origination has not arisen. Please observe this carefully and make clear the distinction between these two kinds of suffering. If there is clinging, it is suffering according to Dependent Origination. Suppose you cut your hand with a sharp knife or razor blade and the blood gushes out. If you simply feel the pain but don't cling to anything, then your suffering is natural and not according to Dependent Origination.Don't confuse the two. Suffering according to Dependent Origination must always follow upon ignorance, formations, consciousness, mentality/materiality, sense bases, contact, feeling, craving, attachment, becoming and birth. It must be complete this way in order to be called Dependently Originated suffering.Now we can put the whole matter briefly.

Someone who has studied the dhamma may understand that the internal sense base (e.g., the eye) comes into contact with the external sense base (e.g., the form) which has a value or meaning and which then becomes the base of ignorance. For example, take your eye. Look about you. You see a variety of things: trees, stones, or whatever. But there is not any suffering because nothing of what you see has any value or meaning for you. But if you see a tiger or a woman, or something that has meaning, it's not the same. One kind of sight has meaning and another kind has no meaning. If, for example, a dog sees a pretty woman, it means nothing to the dog. But if a young man sees a lovely woman, it has a lot of meaning. Seeing a pretty woman has meaning for a man. The dog's seeing is not a matter of Dependent Origination. The young man's vision is a matter of Dependent Origination.
We are speaking about people: people in the act of seeing. Whenever we look about we naturally see whatever is there and, if there is no meaning, it has nothing to do with Paticcasamuppada. We see, perhaps, trees, grass and stones, none of which, normally, have meaning. But maybe there's a diamond or a sacred stone or a tree that will have meaning; there will be mental events occurring and Dependent Origination will become operative. And so it is that we distinguish the internal sense bases (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind) from the external sense bases (form, sound, smell, taste, tactile sensation, and mental objects), and these latter must be meaningful things. In this way they become the base for ignorance or stupidity or delusion. At this point of contact between the internal and external sense bases, sense consciousness arises. The consciousness arises instantaneously and gives rise to mental concocting a kind of power to cause further compounding or brewing up. That is, it brews up mentality/materiality, body and mind of the sort that is crazily stupid because it is prone to suffering.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
5/12/14 7:49 AM as a reply to Richard Zen.
http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/20/talk/20798/
Awareness watching Awareness

The above talk has been helpful to describe what it's like to release control of experience.  The no-self aspect increases. 

The next goal is to do work with this awareness to watch the reactivity as it is.

http://www.dharmaseed.org/talks/audio_player/175/23263.html
Am I dreaming?

EDIT: Welcoming what is in experience (especially what you can't change) is another way of increasing equanimity.

http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/210/talk/9813/
Guided Meditation

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
5/12/14 10:49 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/210/talk/11929/
Time and the emptiness of Time

It's pretty clear now that clinging is all over the place.  Just searching for the present moment and finding just vibrations and perceptions gets the brain to let go of thinking about the future or past and there's plenty of resistance to that.  Concentration and jhanas can come quickly doing this practice but that resistance shows how much letting go really still needs to happen.  I like this better than chasing "gone"s but ultimately it's the same practice.  What I like about it is that it brings to light how much actual thinking is still operating in consciousness and how consciousness is all about clinging to some object right at the beginning.  It's leaning to reach out to objects right away.  There is relief in letting awareness be awareness but there's a danger that without the Energy Factor it's a slide back to the same habits.  Welcoming does work with letting go so I'm still using this and finding it helpful.

This is disconcerting but there is potential freedom here to wean the consciousness further.  I'm looking at basic consciousness very differently now.  It's not a quiet placcid mirror.  It has plenty of disturbances going on.  I'm going to continue to let go but also not repress.  The speed of this clinging is daunting.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
5/30/14 7:33 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
I'm reading Nagarjuna and find a lot in there to meditate with.  By noticing how the amygdala treates objects as inherently existing you can notice the difference just by looking for vibrations and impermanence in all experiences (including thinking).  When getting irritated at work with something monotonous you can just look at objects with MORE DETAIL to find less solidity and less to be distracted about. (Eg. just by noticing the impermanence of touch in particular to rid the mind of the belief that the object being touched is "out there and permanently real" is a reminder that the brain may be noticing something "out there" but it's really just the brain reconstructing experience in a simplified way and then attaching to it in a simplified way.  This is fun to do with all sensations like when eating something really delicious.

Some blunt quotes that are interesting in how he weaves in the middle path.  All concepts (including a self-concept) can feel separated more than they actually are:
...space is neither an entity, the abscence of an entity, an entity with characteristics, nor indeed the characteristics themselves.  The remaining four elements - earth, water, fire, and air - are to be treated like space.

Identifying the cause with the effect is not appropriate.  But not identifying the cause with the effect is also not appropriate.

Those of little intelligence, who see in terms of the "is-ness" and "not-is-ness" of entities, do not perceive the peaceful stilling of what can be seen.

RE: Richard's insight practice
Answer
6/24/14 11:48 PM as a reply to Richard Zen.
A little video that's describing how I feel when I follow Right Energy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXBZRJO5_OU