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Practices Inspired by Actualism

A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom

Hi guys,

I haven't been on here in a while.  I left a while back because I realized I wasn't adding much to the forum, but I'd like to rejoin the community and try to make some useful posts since I've found so many on here over the past year.

Something I've noticed about Actualism is that there isn't a great variety in the way it's presented, and this is, maybe, what leads to so much confusion about it.  I've spent a lot of time over at the AFT website recently looking things up as I encounter them, and I've really come to enjoy how lucid and simple a lot of it is.  My hope for this post is that I can help more people benefit from the ideas, and maybe give any practicing actualists a new set of ideas to work with.

Anyway, the way I've come to see Actualism is that it is a set of tips, ideas, and practices aimed at dismantling the "guard", or the habitual reactionary process that happens when we experience things.  This guarding, or tension, is both physical and mental, and it's always related to self-protection.  As we go about our day, there is an alertness sitting at the back of our minds that is actively scanning for dangers, and a person's personality is, essentially, the result of how many things they see as dangerous, and the way they've come to protect themselves agaisnt these things.  An anxious person sees danger in saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing, making mistakes, etc, and protects himself by avoiding and running away from situations that might present these things.  An angry person sees danger in having their ideas, authority, or power challenged, and deals with the danger by making himself large and loud to scare off the threats.

Actualism, then, works in a two fold manner to disable the guard in the short term, and then remove the triggers that cause the guard to appear.  After a bit of practice, the ongoing question in the mind of an actualist is whether or not they see danger in anything in their experience.  When something is encountered that trigers this guarding mechanism, it is examined until it is seen that this thing doesn't need to be taken seriously, and the emotional negativity is resolved.  This weakens the reactivity each time it's done until the reaction simply doesn't happen anymore.

This often turns into a philosophical and ethical examination, and this is where the PCE is important.  After either having or remembering a PCE, a person will realize that the very core of human nature, when it's been stripped of all defense mechanisms, is a mind that is both benevolent and content.  This benevolence is born from contentment, so it's effortless and needs no "guard" (or morality) to persist, and the contentment is so perfectly satisfying that it is known, viscerally, that the mind truely needs nothing.

All moral or ethical guards, like guilt and shame, are seen as pointless because the mind can actually FEEL a perfect kindness towards all things without effort.  Guilt and shame also have negative side effects, like resentment leading to harmfulness, whereas the "check" on our malevolence in the PCE is the contentment that comes from needing nothing at all.  It's only logical to conclude that there's no reason to take guilt and shame seriously.

Anger is seen as pointless because, not only does it feel bad compared to the PCE, but it destroys interpersonal relationships and tends to prevent us from living well with other people.  There is also no need for it because, as seen in the PCE, we don't really need anything to be content - there are truely no threats to protect against.

An interesting realization for me, personally, was how useless anxiety is.  I was laying in bed worried about money, and I had thoughts about how, tomorrow, I would work harder to finish my project so I could become more prolific and maybe scrape by.  These kinds of thoughts were looping in my head when I suddenly realized I had spent most of the day thinking about the same things rather than working.  The irony of the situation was so ridiculous I lost the anxiety completely.  If we were to spend all our time in a PCE, we'd easilly be able to work 12 hour days no-problem, and we'd enjoy the work!

So, at it's core, Actualism is the process of learning to trust spontenaity.  It's about going through your problems, piece by piece, and realizing that none of them are actually serious or important.

But what about the good emotions?  This is something a little harder to understand, I think, but emotions like love and compassion are also reactionary and defensive.  There's a self absorption that is intrinsic to emotions (and I mean that in the normal way, not in the buddist "self" way).  When we experience love, it is a tension, both physical and mental, and it causes us to take possetion of another person.  Most importantly, it causes us to guard against anything that might hurt the feeling.  Compassion is a defense mechanism where the mind learns to enjoy sadness.  In fact, most positive emotions have a negative counterpoint, which is why the emotional experience can be so volitile and confusing.

This way of talking about positive emotions can be very confusing, though, because the PCE is often described in emotional terms like "delight", "wonder", "felicity", etc.  I've found it's best not to be too involved in questioning whether or not I'm experiencing an emotion in particular, though, and instead focus on whether there's any part of my experience that is unpleasant.  This allows the mind more freedom in what it examines, because there's no lable like "love" to skim over.  What I've often found is that, once the negative aspects of a positive experience like love are skimmed away (jealosy, fear of loss, desire to be closer, desire to possess), you're left with the simple benevolent contentment of the PCE anyway.  The love isn't gone so much as transcended.  A good analogy to this is that, because everything is perfect in the PCE, art loses all it's meaning.  That's not because the art-object has dulled, but rather because everything else has increased in beauty to meet it.  Even the idea of beauty is transcended.  The art and the wall behind it are both perfect.  As an artist, I have to say that I think the PCE is where our idea of beauty actually comes from.

The PCE, then, finally happens when the guard is down long enough for the mind to become thoroughly fascinated by the senses.  This fascination takes the mind completely out of the guarding mechanism, and this gives the PCE a "now" and "here" feeling.  It's perfectly possible to think, but the thoughts aren't coming out of that danger-seeking alertness, so even the most inflamatory ideas and events no longer carry emotional weight.  The mind is finally at ease.

I see the PCE, rather than "Actual Freedom", as the goal of the practice.  The reason for this is because the whole purpose of the thing is to let go of that tendancy to watch experience like a hawk.  I've been launched right out of PCEs by trying to figure out why they happened.  I've also wasted a lot of time rehersing negative feelings and trying to stop having them.  It can be helpful to know that there are Actually Free people in the world if you're going through a difficult time and need inspiration, but it's always better, as a practice, to look for freedom now rather than in the future.

I hope this is helpful to people and maybe serves to displace some of the misconceptions there are.  A few of the misconceptions I've had are:

- Actual Freedom is about becoming emotionless.
While it's true that the PCE is emotionless, it's not because the person experiencing it tried to get rid of their emotions in some way.  Anyone who is experiencing a PCE has temporarily let go of their defenses, which is the opposite of suppression.  I used to call it "acceptance" except you aren't accepting the negative emotions, you're accepting that there's nothing you really need to worry about, thus erasing negative emotions.

- PCEs are caused by paying attention - i.e. bare awareness.
I spent a lot of time doing a kind of zazen earlier this year, and while just sitting CAN lead to a PCE, it isn't because of deep concentration but rather deep appreciation.  Concentration is always going to be an exercise in suppresion, and that isn't going to make any deep changes to habitual patterns.  Eventually, even the most concentrated bliss becomes unsatisfyting, whereas the PCE is, itself, satisfaction.

- I must pay close attention to how I feel.
This one is a particular problem for anyone practicing any kind of mental development.  There's no bigger trap than ruminating about feelings.  I've been there a lot in my life, so I understand it.  The actualism method can often sound like rumination, as well.  We're supposed to examine our feelings, no?  But that's why I like to make the particular distiction that actualism is about letting down the guard.  It's impossible to ruminate about that, and it points directly to the problem - which is rumination itself.  By examining emotions dispassionately, we can sort out the the triggers that cause them, but searching wildly for some cause of a negative emotion in the moment is just a waste of time.  It is expressing the negativity to panic and look for a cause.  A better response is to neither express nor suppress the emotion - which is letting down the defenses.  I've found the best thing to do if you're ruminating about something is to distract yourself.  Do something physical or go be social for a while.  Come back to the problem later when you aren't so embedded in it.

I think that's it.  I'm on my tablet right now, so I probably have a lot of spelling errors and typos.  Hopefully that doesn't grate on anyone too much. :3

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-12 下午2:06 回复Not Tao。
I like your take on it....I tend to agree with your interperetation. Can emotions be vipassanaized by investigation?

There seems to be a dukkha/stress/fight or flight center in the brain. There seems to be many many "things" that are wired to it. I am leaning towards the idea that you can Vipassanize just about anything that is wired to this center and rewire it so that sensations no longer have to meet the stress threshold to get to conscious awareness. It seems you can rewire by seeing the "thing" clearly or rerouting the signals thru the love center of the brain. There are lots of techniques out there to choose from and some will work better/faster than others for some people.
~D

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-12 下午2:14 回复Not Tao。
thanks, i like this summary.

it is indeed about dropping the guard (a phrase which I think occurs somewhere in the official AFT writings) in my experience. Often it seems like that dropping is something that I can't predict or cause and it just naturally comes out of circumstances when not resisted, and those experiences are wonderful. getting it to happen through intention is a very counterintuitive thing.

sometimes it happens after intense experiences where some aspect of a fascade or a layer of identity can no longer be upheld because it is simply too difficult. other times it happens when circumstances come together very nicely and the world just seems very safe.

often the idea of actual freedom can actually appeal to the "guard" because it can seem like a way to make "me" independent and powerful... but this is a misinterpretation that consistently leads to suffering and confusion.

genuinely dropping the guard in an intentional way requires a willingness to lose everything I think. when I come close to that (but resist it) I often feel like an astronaught whose tether to a spacecraft was lost... floating lost and alone. or I feel like I will become an outcast in society and a failure. the guard only persists because we think it is useful in these ways and I guess investigation is about uncovering those false assumptions. when I don't resist the lowering of the guard though, there is no question that I have moved into a fresher, clearer, easier way of being.

"A better response is to neither express nor suppress the emotion - which is letting down the defenses."
would you mind sharing exactly what this means in practice for you? for me it basically means feeling the emotion in the body without thinking about it.

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-12 下午6:58 回复Adam . .。
Dream Walker:
Can emotions be vipassanaized by investigation?


Is vipassana investigation, though? From how I've seen it explained, noting practice, or "noticing" practice, is passive observation of any sensation, and the goal is to see that sensation as being "empty" or selfless or impermanent. This is eventually supposed to lead to the realization that all things are empty and impermanent. Actual Freedom practice is very simple, it just posits that all unpleasantness is caused directly by a belief or an idea about the world, and that by changing those views the unpleasantness will no longer happen. Richard talks about "self" a lot, but this isn't the Buddhist concept of a self. He's simply referring to the idea that there is something that needs to be protected from the outside world. In the PCE, there is no sense of identity, and therefore nothing to protect, but there is very definitely a self in the Buddhist sense. Vipassana doesn't seem to have much to do with emotions at all if you consider the descriptions of the various levels of attainment in the pragmatic dharma circles. It's about how the world is experienced (self vs. no-self).

Conversely, If you're investigating emotions, looking at what caused them and how to change those causes, you probably aren't practicing vipassana.

This is only my understanding of it though.

Dream Walker:
There seems to be a dukkha/stress/fight or flight center in the brain. There seems to be many many "things" that are wired to it. I am leaning towards the idea that you can Vipassanize just about anything that is wired to this center and rewire it so that sensations no longer have to meet the stress threshold to get to conscious awareness. It seems you can rewire by seeing the "thing" clearly or rerouting the signals thru the love center of the brain. There are lots of techniques out there to choose from and some will work better/faster than others for some people.
~D


I've seen that said a number of times here, but I'm not quite sure what it means. If you're "seeing the thing clearly", to me that would mean you are seeing the conceptual trigger - a thought, concept, or belief - and you are seeing how that trigger is not important, not valuable in your experience. Actualism practice hasn't ever been about anything particularly mystical in my experience. It's very obvious why certain problems that I used to have no longer bother me. I simply made the effort to disabuse myself of trigger. An example might be, I used to be afraid of spiders, so I spent some time looking at pictures of spiders and being around living spiders in my house. Now spiders no longer bother me. This might sound stupidly straightforward, but if that fear can change, why can't all fear, and hate, and anger, and boredom, etc. It really does work, it just takes a bit of time and effort - and a bit of persistence. There aren't that many things in our lives that really bother us, we just spin around the same old troubles endlessly. So dramatic changes seem to happen with every harmful belief you get rid of, even if the belief itself is something small.

Adam . .:
"A better response is to neither express nor suppress the emotion - which is letting down the defenses."
would you mind sharing exactly what this means in practice for you? for me it basically means feeling the emotion in the body without thinking about it.


This is something I ask myself a lot, haha. It can be hard to pin down, though. Feeling it in the body without thinking about it... I think that is probably a kind of suppression (if I'm interpreting what you're saying correctly). If you consider the PCE, one of its most striking characteristics is how the mind simply isn't bothered by the things it normally would be. It's a true freedom because there's no need to avoid anything or run away from any thoughts. I think this is actually a good pointer to why the state happens. It's counter-intuitive to think you might get there by tuning out a sensation. If you were to suddenly think about the sensation again, you'd lose the PCE instantly. Not that I haven't tried what you're proposing. During a particularly dark period a while back, I was doing a practice where, whenever I felt negativity, I'd simply ignore the emotional qualities and come back to the senses. It became almost automatic to "physicalize" the emotions, or turn off the internal sense of being connected to them. I started falling into these unsettling states where the body seemed to be expressing emotional qualities and feelings, but they didn't have any emotional feeling connected to them. It almost felt like painful muscle spasms. I stopped that practice because it didn't seem to be going anywhere promising. If you're doing something different from this, though, and want to know if it will get you to the PCE, just ask yourself if the practice itself is related to what happens in the PCE. Things like effortlessness, openness, spontaneity, and fearless curiosity lead towards the PCE because they are aspects of the PCE.

Most of the time, letting down the defenses is the simplest and easiest thing you can consider doing with your experience. I mean that literally. Like, if you consider your experience as it is right now, and ask yourself how you can be the least involved in controlling it, that's neither suppressing nor expressing. If the emotion is very bad, it can feel like giving up and giving in completely. All the little tricks and strategies fail one by one until you finally give in and acknowledge that "yes, here I am, feeling like crap", and then it finally stops. You realize at that point that the whole reason it sucked in the first place was because you were fighting against some event or thing in your life. It's the grand reveal, in a way. Our emotions are trying to tell us something, and as long as we're trying to make them go away we're ignoring their purpose. It's like an alarm is going off in our head, and all we need to do to turn it off is read the message and correct the malfunction, but instead we throw things at the speaker, or muffle it with pillows or something. The actualist trains himself to listen to the alarm and read the message as quickly as possible so he can make repairs and move on.

Haha, this post seems to betray my recent star trek marathon...

Adam . .:
often the idea of actual freedom can actually appeal to the "guard" because it can seem like a way to make "me" independent and powerful... but this is a misinterpretation that consistently leads to suffering and confusion.


I can relate to this, definitely! I think it's a bit of a phase, though. After a while you just want to go back to feeling good again, you know? The whole concept of being "freer than thou" or maybe even "free to do what I want!" is so counter to the PCE, that it starts to feel like a direct obstacle.

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-12 下午6:36 回复Adam . .。
I like your emphasis on the causes and consequences of guardedness. It gives you a practical handle on current reactive tendencies, and it seems like a pretty good entry point for deeper inquiry into the causes. I'll be interested to read about your results over time. (I'd suggest you look at both the self-defensive and self-assertive tendencies as different expressions of guardedness).

On a more pragmatic and political note, if it were me, I'd avoid using any AF terminology unless/until this thing actually leads to an actual freedom from the human condition exactly as Richard describes it. If that happens, great, you've devised an innovative and demonstrably effective path to the same place, and it'd be wonderful to have a different presentation and a different path. But if your experience at some point diverges from AF, you will not have inadvertently misrepresented their (AFT) message, and will have not muddied the waters for others. I say this because it's happened before, and the likelihood of it happening again is high.

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-12 下午6:54 回复John Wilde。
Haha, I realized the risk when I took the plunge. We'll see what the dragon emu has to say about my interpretation.

Really, though, it would be against the message to talk about "lowering the guard" for a whole post and then add disclaimers about non-affiliation to the AFT at the end, don't you think. :3

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-12 下午7:30 回复Not Tao。
Not Tao:

Really, though, it would be against the message to talk about "lowering the guard" for a whole post and then add disclaimers about non-affiliation to the AFT at the end, don't you think. :3

No, not at all. There's a difference between blind affective guardedness versus a pragmatic concern for not repeating history in ways that aren't beneficial to anyone. (Speaking personally, I've been present through all the controversies and have had exposure to all flavours of AF/'actualism' so it makes no personal difference to me; it was just a suggestion based on what has happened in the past).

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-12 下午10:08 回复Not Tao。
Best AF thread I've read in quite a long time.

A sincere question to you all, how this practice differenciates with focusing in the Buddhist's 2nd Characteristic, Dukkha? As a point of comparison, what I do is be aware of both attraction and aversion of body sensations, thoughts and emotions, not trying to modify them in any way (2nd C)  but surf the whole wave from arising till passing (1st C), plus resting in the (body's, mind's and emotions') emptyness in the in-between moments/space (3rd C) until another thing pops up.

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-12 下午11:46 回复Not Tao。
Hey Not Tao,

What you have explained is basically what I have always taken to be Right Mindfulness, and/or Bare Attention, or some call Pure Mindfulness/ Pure Awareness.   Also, same technique applied to use the escape hatch in Dependent Origination where one stops the process just before the craving initiates.  Have you ever read The Heart of Buddhist Meditation by Nyanaponika Thera?  Or listened to Dhamma Talks by the late Ayya Khema?  Or read The Magic of the  Mind by Nyanananda Thera ?  If you haven't you would probably enjoy them, as it touches upon what you are describing.  

Anyway good post.

Psi Phi

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-13 上午3:25 回复Pablo . P。
Pablo . P:
Best AF thread I've read in quite a long time.

A sincere question to you all, how this practice differenciates with focusing in the Buddhist's 2nd Characteristic, Dukkha? As a point of comparison, what I do is be aware of both attraction and aversion of body sensations, thoughts and emotions, not trying to modify them in any way (2nd C)  but surf the whole wave from arising till passing (1st C), plus resting in the (body's, mind's and emotions') emptyness in the in-between moments/space (3rd C) until another thing pops up.


The main difference is that letting down the guard is used specifically to stop the negative emotion as quickly as possible and reveal the source of the emotion so it doesn't have to be felt in the future. As I've come to see it, mindfulness as discussed on the dho is the study of sensations, and the partcular goal of mindfulness is to delegitimize sensation by seeing it as an everchanging and impersonal field of awareness.

Here's an analogy that might illustrate the difference:
An Actualist and a Theravadan are sitting in boats on a lake. Strong waves are rocking the boats. The Theravadan uses acceptance to aclimitize his body to the sensations of rocking back and forth, and after a cycling period of sea-sickness, he gains his sea legs. The Actualist rides the waves, searching for the calmest waters. He eventually finds land and is never bothered by waves again.

The Theravadan may make arguments like, "Seventy percent of earth is covered by water, and I have drifted over all of it and seen the world!" But the actualist would respond with, "Sure, but all I ever wanted was to stop being sea sick. Humans are meant to live on land, not water."


@Psi Phi: I watched a number of Ayya Khema's talks back when I was going through the jhanas every day. I really liked her back then, but I don't really meditate anymore. Anyway, maybe the above illustrates the difference between bare awareness and Actualism? The Actualist is not a passive observer, they are always steering towards shore. Bare awareness also strikes me as "paying attention" which is the "guard" itself. The Actualist is trying to stop that sort of thing and simply enjoy themself.

Maybe it's important to point out that if the negative ruminations don't end, then the guard is still there. The guard is, itself, the origin of the problem, and letting go of the seriousness attached to whatever caused a negative emotion is specifically what makes it end. There is success and failure in the application of the Actualist method (though, I wouldn't focus too heavily on tallying success and failure, as that is, itself, a rumination). Bare awareness allows an emotion to go on until it ends on its own - there's no way to fail, you just watch whatever happens.

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-13 下午1:54 回复Not Tao。
Not Tao:
Pablo . P:
Best AF thread I've read in quite a long time.

A sincere question to you all, how this practice differenciates with focusing in the Buddhist's 2nd Characteristic, Dukkha? As a point of comparison, what I do is be aware of both attraction and aversion of body sensations, thoughts and emotions, not trying to modify them in any way (2nd C)  but surf the whole wave from arising till passing (1st C), plus resting in the (body's, mind's and emotions') emptyness in the in-between moments/space (3rd C) until another thing pops up.


The main difference is that letting down the guard is used specifically to stop the negative emotion as quickly as possible and reveal the source of the emotion so it doesn't have to be felt in the future. As I've come to see it, mindfulness as discussed on the dho is the study of sensations, and the partcular goal of mindfulness is to delegitimize sensation by seeing it as an everchanging and impersonal field of awareness.

Here's an analogy that might illustrate the difference:
An Actualist and a Theravadan are sitting in boats on a lake. Strong waves are rocking the boats. The Theravadan uses acceptance to aclimitize his body to the sensations of rocking back and forth, and after a cycling period of sea-sickness, he gains his sea legs. The Actualist rides the waves, searching for the calmest waters. He eventually finds land and is never bothered by waves again.

The Theravadan may make arguments like, "Seventy percent of earth is covered by water, and I have drifted over all of it and seen the world!" But the actualist would respond with, "Sure, but all I ever wanted was to stop being sea sick. Humans are meant to live on land, not water."


@Psi Phi: I watched a number of Ayya Khema's talks back when I was going through the jhanas every day. I really liked her back then, but I don't really meditate anymore. Anyway, maybe the above illustrates the difference between bare awareness and Actualism? The Actualist is not a passive observer, they are always steering towards shore. Bare awareness also strikes me as "paying attention" which is the "guard" itself. The Actualist is trying to stop that sort of thing and simply enjoy themself.

Maybe it's important to point out that if the negative ruminations don't end, then the guard is still there. The guard is, itself, the origin of the problem, and letting go of the seriousness attached to whatever caused a negative emotion is specifically what makes it end. There is success and failure in the application of the Actualist method (though, I wouldn't focus too heavily on tallying success and failure, as that is, itself, a rumination). Bare awareness allows an emotion to go on until it ends on its own - there's no way to fail, you just watch whatever happens.

You seem to get it, but don't seem to get it in Theravadan terms, which is okay, but kind of a mystery.  You are describing,minddfulness and perhaps clear comprehension, and also describing the practical use of understanding dependent origination, i.e. (the cutting off at the root before craving initiates) and by repeating this process each and every time the root is weakened and finally extirpate.

It is a pretty funny viewpoint that Theravadans, are practicing the same meditation skill level as that of a frog, i.e. (frog sits still on a log while the waves go up and down)  As comapared to your view of Actual Freedom , where one gets up and walks across the water like Jesus on a cool summer night.  That is just an incorrect viewpoint, that is based upon mis-understanding.

You said that Bare Awareness allows emotions to go on until it ends on its own.  This is not true, with Bare Awareness, the emotional stage does not get it's chance to arise, i.e. Bare Attention allows the cessation of encountered phenomenon to be known as it is BEFORE one starts to get emotional ( Not wanting (anger/aversion)  and wanting (greed/attachment).  This should also coupled with Clear Comprehension.


Anyway, I am happy for you, despite whatever definitions or vocabulary you want to use.  I am stopping here, trying to keep my posts shorter.

May you maintain Pure Consciousness, 

Psi Phi

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-13 下午2:31 回复Psi Phi。
We ultimately are always limited by our own understanding and perception of our experience. Every non-conceptual experience in being talked about is changed into a product of our own cognitive processing. To that end, what I say is entirely irrelevant or relevant to your experience.
 
Love and compassion are not self-referential emotions, and to the extent that we are describing emotions as subjective reactions, they can not accurately be described as emotions. Love exists because there is. It is not for something else or from something or somebody. 
Those who would describe it in such tepid terms have not yet experienced or recognized love, and are describing the heights of affection. Love shits on your shallow displays.

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-13 下午3:54 回复William Golden Finch。

Love and compassion are not self-referential emotions, and to the extent that we are describing emotions as subjective reactions, they can not accurately be described as emotions. Love exists because there is. It is not for something else or from something or somebody. 
Those who would describe it in such tepid terms have not yet experienced or recognized love, and are describing the heights of affection. Love shits on your shallow displays.
A lot of it comes down to definition.  The term 'love' as commonly used in society seems to denote a clingy wanting possessive kind of emotion where you typically expect things in return or are hurt and angry if you don't get them.  Compassion often denotes a thing where you feel bad because the other person feels bad.  If you are going to use a definition that is not the common societal use, then don't be surprised if others are confused and don't understand you!  ;-)  That's probably why other terms like 'unconditional love,' 'agape,' and 'understanding' often come into use in such circumstances. 

Anyway, on the general subject, I suspect that a lot of the process of enlightenment has to do with dealing with the things/habits we have that are getting in the way.  Deal with those issues and it clears the path for our inner nature to shine.  I don't think there is just one and only one way to do that which is best for everyone.  One potential way is to look directly for the things in the way and use various methods to try to deal with them,  a nonjudgemental dispassionate approach seems to be a common suggestion as part of that process and I do agree that not all ways of looking seem as efficient as others. 
IMO, you need to be willing to look at all things about self especially including the unflattering ones but not to get all sucked into that negative feedback loop. 

Another general method I see is to try to see directly to our true nature without spending so much time on that which might be obscuring, for instance by looking at the 3 characteristics, with the assumption that the stuff in the way will become less relevant if we can do that.  And while everyone seems to have their emphasis one way or another, I haven't really seen anyone that does purely and completely one way without ever ever doing any aspects of the other way ever.  Maybe the two ways are complimentary to each other.  ;-)
-Eva 

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-13 下午4:17 回复Psi Phi。
Psi Phi:

You seem to get it, but don't seem to get it in Theravadan terms, which is okay, but kind of a mystery.  You are describing,minddfulness and perhaps clear comprehension, and also describing the practical use of understanding dependent origination, i.e. (the cutting off at the root before craving initiates) and by repeating this process each and every time the root is weakened and finally extirpate.

It is a pretty funny viewpoint that Theravadans, are practicing the same meditation skill level as that of a frog, i.e. (frog sits still on a log while the waves go up and down)  As comapared to your view of Actual Freedom , where one gets up and walks across the water like Jesus on a cool summer night.  That is just an incorrect viewpoint, that is based upon mis-understanding.

You said that Bare Awareness allows emotions to go on until it ends on its own.  This is not true, with Bare Awareness, the emotional stage does not get it's chance to arise, i.e. Bare Attention allows the cessation of encountered phenomenon to be known as it is BEFORE one starts to get emotional ( Not wanting (anger/aversion)  and wanting (greed/attachment).  This should also coupled with Clear Comprehension.


I think you missed the key difference I pointed to. The idea behind bare awareness is that we can "hack the system" by focusing our experience into a certain level and tuning out the rest. This has nothing to do with trying to understand the content of an emotion, it's more like a form of selective awareness and concentration. The Actualist want's to see the emotion clearly so he can figure out what's causing it, and this is why he neither suppresses nor expresses the emotion. Bare awareness actually gets in the way of this because it tries to short circuit the process itself and disconnect the emotional part of the mind from awareness.

In my experience, the PCE isn't a bare awareness, but rather a complete contentment that allows for the enjoyment of the senses. I think these really are two different states of mind. I was practicing something a while back that might be called bare awareness, and it had a very jhanic feel - a kind of expanded mind hyper-sensitivity. The PCE, on the other hand, has a very ordinary quality, you are just here, and it is just now, and everything is perfect. I know these things can sound the same, but I don't think they are. The PCE is like Christmas morning or a sunny fall day. Bare awareness seemed more like being on mushrooms or watching high definition TV. I think this is why Richard spends a lot of time saying a PCE isn't an altered state of consciousness. It doesn't take any kind of concentration to create or maintain a PCE, it just requires you to let down your defenses completely.

I think there is something to be said for the way Richard describes his "Actual World" as a fairytale dreamland. Before I encountered Actualism, I was calling the PCE "elf mind". In short, it makes me feel like I am an elf wandering in the woods. Everything is just lovely and magical - but not in a dramatic way. The fact that it's so ordinary is part of what makes it so magical.

I'm sorry if I offended you somehow with my analogy. I thought it was actually a pretty good comparison, myself... You should note I'm using Pragmatic Dharma's interpretation of Theravada, where one continues to cycle through dark nights (the waves in my analogy) after reaching the end of the practice.

William Golden Finch:
We ultimately are always limited by our own understanding and perception of our experience. Every non-conceptual experience in being talked about is changed into a product of our own cognitive processing. To that end, what I say is entirely irrelevant or relevant to your experience.

Love and compassion are not self-referential emotions, and to the extent that we are describing emotions as subjective reactions, they can not accurately be described as emotions. Love exists because there is. It is not for something else or from something or somebody.
Those who would describe it in such tepid terms have not yet experienced or recognized love, and are describing the heights of affection. Love shits on your shallow displays.


I always have a hard time explaining why emotionlessness tops positive emotions for me. If you're really interested in why I might feel this way, though, you'll need to read what follows with the idea that I'm not trying to insult you or your feelings, and I'm not trying to subtly insinuate that my range of experience is somehow superior to yours. I can only say, as you pointed out, what is in my experience, and try to be as lucid as possible about it.

Now, I think the purity of the kindness experienced in the PCE is only possible because it has no emotional component. Kindness, perhaps, sounds like an emotional component, but it's only kindness as an afterthought if you compare it to the emotional mind. Love, as an experience, is self-referential simply because it is an experience. Love happens somewhere in the body as a physical manifestation of pleasure - probably in the heart. This means that "I feel good about that". I am seeing this pleasure inside myself, and because I am consumed by the pleasure, I have a more favorably view of whatever has attracted my love. So I am "looking within myself" so to speak. My attention is on myself and my feeling of love. This isn't to say people who are in love are self-centered, in the traditional meaning of the word, it means they are self-focused, or maybe self-aware.

In comparison, the PCE happens specifically when there is no identity left to capture the awareness. The identity, being the sum of all emotional judgements, is temporarily forgotten and all that's left is a tension-free sensate experience - the experience of being without inhibitions or worries. This experience is pure contentment with everything, and thus there is a benevolence towards everything. So, in this way, the indifference itself is what makes the kindness altruistic in the PCE. There is no emotional connection to any object, so the objects themselves are as free as the mind experiencing them. The most important part of my argument here is that NOTHING has an emotional attachment. With the normal mind, if we have no attachment to something, our other attachments make it invisible to us. We either ignore it completely or find it boring. In the PCE, because there is no emotional drive to steer the awareness, the mind is at rest wherever it lands. So the relationship between the the person experiencing the PCE, and the people interacting with him is completely different. He sees them restfully, and because of that, the experience is kind and benevolent no matter what that other person might say or do.

Eva M Nie:
Another general method I see is to try to see directly to our true nature without spending so much time on that which might be obscuring, for instance by looking at the 3 characteristics, with the assumption that the stuff in the way will become less relevant if we can do that. And while everyone seems to have their emphasis one way or another, I haven't really seen anyone that does purely and completely one way without ever ever doing any aspects of the other way ever. Maybe the two ways are complimentary to each other. ;-)
-Eva


Speaking personally, I don't think the three characteristics have much to do with our true nature, and I don't see them as particularly helpful in self-improvement. I'm not sure that any part of my practice these days is related to an inward quest like this. Maybe I'm a bit cynical, but I just don't think there's a quick fix or shortcut anymore.

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-13 下午4:07 回复Not Tao。
I think it would have been impossible to not have read what I wrote as a critique to you. It was triggered by a runnin theme I have come across in pragmatic dharma circles, which is the conflation of "love" with "affection". I was responding to that idea in your post, not you per se. I liked most of what you wrote.

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-13 下午4:16 回复Eva M Nie。
I think we should disband with the ";)" emoticon as it is generally in my experience a way to try to covertly make a passive agressive comment. I think communication would be more effective if we did not use that. Then again...who am I?

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-13 下午4:16 回复Eva M Nie。
Compassion is derived from the Greek: "Com" with and "passion" feeling, or "suffering", depending on whom you ask. So this is to feel "with". Separation is gone. Me feeling bad for you is pity. If that is a common misunderstanding then good that I correct the errors of the common man (or woman). Then again...who am I?

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-13 下午4:41 回复Not Tao。
Well, maybe what I thought of as Theravadan may be different than your interpretation, I thought Theravadan was "School of the Elders"  and used the Pali-Canon, the suttas.  Anyway, was pretty sure I understood the state of being you were describing and was happy for you, terminology and verbal formations being set aside.  On that note, I will now slip back into my non-craving state as best as can be expected, and get some excercise and sunshine.  Gotta go outside and Play!!  Woop woop!!

Bye

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-13 下午4:54 回复Not Tao。
Not Tao:

I think you missed the key difference I pointed to. The idea behind bare awareness is that we can "hack the system" by focusing our experience into a certain level and tuning out the rest. This has nothing to do with trying to understand the content of an emotion, it's more like a form of selective awareness and concentration. The Actualist want's to see the emotion clearly so he can figure out what's causing it, and this is why he neither suppresses nor expresses the emotion. Bare awareness actually gets in the way of this because it tries to short circuit the process itself and disconnect the emotional part of the mind from awareness.

In my experience, the PCE isn't a bare awareness, but rather a complete contentment that allows for the enjoyment of the senses. I think these really are two different states of mind. I was practicing something a while back that might be called bare awareness, and it had a very jhanic feel - a kind of expanded mind hyper-sensitivity. The PCE, on the other hand, has a very ordinary quality, you are just here, and it is just now, and everything is perfect. I know these things can sound the same, but I don't think they are. The PCE is like Christmas morning or a sunny fall day. Bare awareness seemed more like being on mushrooms or watching high definition TV. I think this is why Richard spends a lot of time saying a PCE isn't an altered state of consciousness. It doesn't take any kind of concentration to create or maintain a PCE, it just requires you to let down your defenses completely.


Now that you clearly do understand the difference, it'll be really interesting to see whether your technique of "letting down your defenses completely" delivers the right results. Please keep us posted!

RE: A different way of thinking about Actual Freedom
答复
14-9-13 下午5:57 回复Not Tao。
Okay,  don't use the ego to read this, it will save alot of dukkha,  I went over to the AF website and read the definition for PCE, and here is my take.  This is Buddhism with a funny twist and unreal adverbs, like "the magic fairy tale like paradise the earth actually is", "glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes" "the delicious wonder of it all".  

But anyway, it is, in my opinion, teaching Anatta, which is seeing while seeing, washing dishes while washing dishes, this is NOT new, as self-proclaimed by the author, it even describes the six sense bases, and experiencing the world with self and no-self.  I am sorry, this is not new and earth ain't no fairy tale, By the Gods the fairies are back!

But, sure the techniques probably work , there are probably different ways to "awakening", to various levels of "awakening".

I just don't see anything new here, from my experience, "knowing by direct experience, unmoderated by any self whatsoever", to quote from website, this sounds  like a form of Buddhism.....

Psi Phi

p.s. not trying to blasphemy any new religion or anything, it's just that if something is borrowed or brought over one should give credit where credit is due, If the AF originator was from an island and never encountered Buddhism I can understand, so If he is and didn't know I apologize in advance.  

P.s.s.  I will look into this more, for maybe I mis-stated some things, or judged too fast, or too harshly,  But I feel everyone has the right to investigate everything.