<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <rss xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" version="2.0"> <channel> <title>Insight and Wisdom</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_category?p_l_id=&amp;mbCategoryId=10276</link> <description>A place to discuss practices and topics in general that lead to fundamental insights and awakening.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 19 Oct 2014 00:30:35 GMT</pubDate> <dc:date>2014-10-19T00:30:35Z</dc:date> <item> <title>RE: Four "noob" questions</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606979</link> <description>&lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/closed_eyes.gif" &gt;</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 22:59:33 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606979</guid> <dc:creator>Howard Maxwell Clegg</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T22:59:33Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Four "noob" questions</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606957</link> <description>Heck no!&lt;br /&gt;Everytime one of you post - I learn something!</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 22:35:57 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606957</guid> <dc:creator>Doug M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T22:35:57Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Four "noob" questions</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606930</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Not Tao:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I think you mischaracterized the theravada practices a bit. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hmmm no. The characterisations are loose and jokey, but I&amp;#039;m making a point about general principles rather than strict definitions, we can do that if you want. &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The whole point of noting, as I understand it, is to see that sensations exist in and of themselves.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Eventually, but yes.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The point of samatha practice (&amp;#034;I&amp;#034; am focusing on &amp;#034;that&amp;#034;) is to make the awareness stable enough so it can abide within non-duality and gather insight (and samatha is a big part of tibetian buddhism as well).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sure&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Theravada teachers don&amp;#039;t advertise jhana as an insight practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Indeed.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Your #1 non-dual practice sounds more like thervada insight practice to me, actually. All sensations are welcomed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Truth be told, it could be any practice. To whit: &amp;#034;I am focusing on that (the feeling of air moving on my uppper lip,)&amp;#034; Samatha; &amp;#034;I am focusing on that (changes in my aural field,)&amp;#034; Insight; &amp;#034;I am focusing on that (Chenrezig&amp;#039;s rainment,)&amp;#034; Tibetan tantra; &amp;#034;I am  focusing on that (shit happening,)&amp;#034; Soto Zen. Like I said, general pricipals. Principals that you have not addressed thus far. Sigh.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You could say Actual Freedom practice is dualistic - &amp;#034;I&amp;#034; am self-destructing so &amp;#034;that&amp;#034; (the body) can be freed. Also Christian mysticism - &amp;#034;I&amp;#034; am merging with &amp;#034;that&amp;#034; (god) in a divine marriage.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I believe you.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Anatta is pali for &amp;#034;not-self&amp;#034; as in, &amp;#034;the five aggregates are not-self.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Thanks.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;EDIT: Maybe you&amp;#039;re referencing the idea of a &amp;#034;ground of being&amp;#034; or a natural state?  Rigpa type practices are common in mahayana and not in theravada.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;No, not really. But we can go there if you like.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;EDIT2: I hope I&amp;#039;m not hijacking the thread here, haha.  It was just suprising to hear theravada called dualistic.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Hijack away, I thought this site was all about the unexpected bun fights. But its Doug&amp;#039;s thread, maybe he&amp;#039;s getting pissed off with us? &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 22:16:07 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606930</guid> <dc:creator>Howard Maxwell Clegg</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T22:16:07Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>4th path?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606891</link> <description>Could 4th path (and maybe anatta in general) be defined as &amp;#034;effortlessness?&amp;#034;</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 21:39:59 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606891</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T21:39:59Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Four "noob" questions</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606817</link> <description>I think you mischaracterized the theravada practices a bit.  The whole point of noting, as I understand it, is to see that sensations exist in and of themselves.  The point of samatha practice (&amp;#034;I&amp;#034; am focusing on &amp;#034;that&amp;#034;) is to make the awareness stable enough so it can abide within non-duality and gather insight (and samatha is a big part of tibetian buddhism as well). Theravada teachers don&amp;#039;t advertise jhana as an insight practice. Your #1 non-dual practice sounds more like thervada insight practice to me, actually. All sensations are welcomed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You could say Actual Freedom practice is dualistic - &amp;#034;I&amp;#034; am self-destructing so &amp;#034;that&amp;#034; (the body) can be freed. Also Christian mysticism - &amp;#034;I&amp;#034; am merging with &amp;#034;that&amp;#034; (god) in a divine marriage.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Anatta is pali for &amp;#034;not-self&amp;#034; as in, &amp;#034;the five aggregates are not-self.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;EDIT: Maybe you&amp;#039;re referencing the idea of a &amp;#034;ground of being&amp;#034; or a natural state?  Rigpa type practices are common in mahayana and not in theravada.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;EDIT2: I hope I&amp;#039;m not hijacking the thread here, haha.  It was just suprising to hear theravada called dualistic.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 20:04:15 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606817</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T20:04:15Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Four "noob" questions</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606764</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Not Tao:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;What do you mean by saying theravada is more dualistic?  I thought non-dualism was referring to anatta and emptiness was just another way of describing anatta.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m sorry I&amp;#039;m not a scholar, so I&amp;#039;ve no idea what anatta means, awful I know, but I&amp;#039;m too old to change. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/unsure.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Okay, examples of what I am calling dualistic practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. &amp;#034;I will keep my attention on that object.&amp;#034; Is a common samatha pracitce, v popular with Theravadans, note the emphasis on &amp;#034;I&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;that,&amp;#034; subject and object clearly defined = dualistic.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. &amp;#034;I will notice that category of sensation and formaly label or &amp;#034;note&amp;#034; that sensation using my mental faculties.  This is called &amp;#034;Noting&amp;#034; popular with Theravadans, note the emphasis on &amp;#034;I,&amp;#034;that&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;my.&amp;#034; Subject and object clearly defined = dualistic.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3. &amp;#034;I will conentrate on and area of my body and oberserve all sensations I perceive, then I will move my attention and repeat the process.&amp;#034; Goenka tequnique, popular with Theravdans who don&amp;#039;t like to admit to it in public. Note the emphasis on &amp;#034;I&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;my,&amp;#034; subject and object clearly defined = dualistic.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Examples of non-dual pracitce.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. &amp;#034;All sensations are golden/love/buddha/god-head...&amp;#034; delete as applicable. Popular with some ceremonial magicians, Tibetans (same thing.) No reference point at all. No subject or object = non-dual.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. &amp;#034;All is god, I am god, god is me.&amp;#034; Popular with nutters, various branches of Vedanta, all kinds of new age types. Reference point is pretty much everything at once, therefore no subject or object = non-dual.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3. &amp;#034;Breathe in love, breathe out love.&amp;#034; This was a meditation instruction give by a recording of Thich-Nhat-Hanh at last week at my regular sitting group. Popular with Thich-Nhat-hanh. Love is not really an object or subject but what happens when you start to let go of both at the same time. You could argue that the injuction to &amp;#034;breathe&amp;#034; is an object, however I&amp;#039;m going to argue that it is not an object but a process. In any case when the practice warms up, you&amp;#039;re just abiding in love anyway and the breathing aspect drops away. Love is not an object or a subject = non-dual&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now you will find examples of the 1st three all over Theravada in various forms, but rarely the 2nd three. You will find examples in various forms of the second three all over Mahayana Buddhism and the first three sometimes, but not so much. So when I say that Theravada favours dualistic practices and Mahayana non-dual, I am saying that that is what they actually do on the cushion, irrespective of what the books say. I&amp;#039;m also only really talking about the tools utilised to attain to certain goals. Not the goals themselves. More than one way up the mountian is the thing. </description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 18:37:26 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606764</guid> <dc:creator>Howard Maxwell Clegg</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T18:37:26Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Four "noob" questions</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606749</link> <description>What do you mean by saying theravada is more dualistic?  I thought non-dualism was referring to anatta and emptiness was just another way of describing anatta.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 17:35:45 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606749</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T17:35:45Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Four "noob" questions</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606742</link> <description>You&amp;#039;re welcome, have fun with it!</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 17:04:58 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606742</guid> <dc:creator>Howard Maxwell Clegg</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T17:04:58Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Four "noob" questions</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606555</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Howard Maxwell Clegg:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;[quote=&lt;br /&gt;]&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short version. Do you have control of the itch? If yes, then the itch is part of you (self); if no, then not part of you (no-self). And trust me, you don&amp;#039;t have control. Its pretty easy to see this and its not much of a mystery. But what about your beliefs, moods, attitudes, memories, political perusasion. Do you have control? The same rule applies. Now it gets interesting.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well that makes entirely too much sense. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks Howard that&amp;#039;s actaully gonna be a big help.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2014 00:45:13 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606555</guid> <dc:creator>Doug M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-18T00:45:13Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Four "noob" questions</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606542</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Doug M:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Howard Maxwell Clegg:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;[quote=&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;BTW 20 mins to investigate one itch? Sounds like good concentration to me.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Go Doug!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;]&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I should qualify that to say ... it would take me 20 minutes to wrap my head around the three charactersitics of said itch.  &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;How/why an itch relates to no-self is still quite a mind trip for me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Short version. Do you have control of the itch? If yes, then the itch is part of you (self); if no, then not part of you (no-self). And trust me, you don&amp;#039;t have control. Its pretty easy to see this and its not much of a mystery. But what about your beliefs, moods, attitudes, memories, political perusasion. Do you have control? The same rule applies. Now it gets interesting.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks folks - good info above.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Still curious as to people&amp;#039;s opinion of zazen as insight vs concentration... &lt;br /&gt;or is it some weird special version of concentration that is also insight. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;All the Mahihana schools tend to do more of a compound practice including insight, concentration but also cultivation of the bramaviharas. The schools are upfont about this to a greater or lesser extent. Zen is on one extreme of this spectrum of disclosure. Also Zen is a non-dual school, Therevada more dualistic, so they have fudimentally different takes on what it means to practice. Confused? Yay! Join the club.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2014 23:00:25 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606542</guid> <dc:creator>Howard Maxwell Clegg</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-17T23:00:25Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Four "noob" questions</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606406</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Howard Maxwell Clegg:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;[quote=&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;BTW 20 mins to investigate one itch? Sounds like good concentration to me.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Go Doug!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;]&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I should qualify that to say ... it would take me 20 minutes to wrap my head around the three charactersitics of said itch.  &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;How/why an itch relates to no-self is still quite a mind trip for me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks folks - good info above.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Still curious as to people&amp;#039;s opinion of zazen as insight vs concentration... &lt;br /&gt;or is it some weird special version of concentration that is also insight. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;</description> <pubDate>Fri, 17 Oct 2014 13:25:47 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606406</guid> <dc:creator>Doug M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-17T13:25:47Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Four "noob" questions</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606057</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Doug M:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Hi folks,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m tearing through the MCTB book (not easy as a noob this is deep, technical stuff) and I&amp;#039;m getting into the weeds with part III &amp;#034;Mastery&amp;#034; now. I have a few questions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope this is the right place to post this, I couldn&amp;#039;t find any section named &amp;#034;Questions so basic you may not even know how to classify them&amp;#034;... so I went with this one. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1) Firstly I&amp;#039;d like to clarify my understanding of Zen.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just prior to finding MCTB I had just finished &amp;#034;The three pillars of Zen&amp;#034; - a book I picked up more as a cool read than an instruction manual. However, I was rather amazed to discover that the type of sitting I have been doing would very much qualify as zazen.&lt;br /&gt;This strikes me as a concentration practice vs. an insight practice, but Daniel often implies in the book that zen does indeed lead to insight. I suppose I could see how the use of a koan could force someone to solidify something so ridiculous it actually destroys the illusion, but beyond the koan could zazen be classified as an insight practice, or is my understanding above correct?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I&amp;#039;ve been asking the the same questions for years. All to no avail, I&amp;#039;ve all but given up, which is a shame, because it is an elegant and profound tradition.  In most of the contact I have had with Zen praticioners they usually refuse to discuss, detail, definitions, maps or anything else for that matter. I went to a Zen sitting group where the the presiding monk not only discouraged questions/discussion but implied that the need for this behaviour was evidence of moral weekness. I shit you not.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;My advice when dealing with Zen is take it on its own terms or not at all.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;u&gt;2) Secondly I&amp;#039;d like to ask for a watered down piece of advice.&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since concentration practices are invaluable at least in the beginning, but insight practices do develop concentration to some degree... where should I spend my time as a relative noob while I take the required time to really dig into MCTB? &lt;br /&gt;(for me noob = serious practice has been happening for less than a year.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you are using the MCTB do Noting, old school Mahasi style. From what I understand the book is written from this perpecitve so the terminology and tone will make much more sense if you are also in that perspective. Dont worry quite so much about samatha the very early Mahasi practices on working with the breath tick that box well enough. You might want to consider Kenneth Folks&amp;#039; take on Noting which involves actually verbalising your Notes. It sounds wierd, but it works very well. You can find Vids on Youtube I belive, if you want instructions.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3) When to say when?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I live in the Indianapolis area and despite lots of google querying I just don&amp;#039;t see too many good Insight teachers near me. Since I&amp;#039;m not likely to have that type of resource - how would I know that I&amp;#039;ve probably done enough concentration and could/should move on to insight? Do I wait for some sort of &amp;#034;event&amp;#034; or simply make the jump when I can stay reasonably focused for most of a 20 minute sit? - fyi I&amp;#039;m pretty much there.&lt;br /&gt;(I suppose question 3 there assumes your answer to #2 is that I should spend some time doing concentration practices.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;I started with a lot of concentration and found I was getting all kinds insight without doing any formal insight practice. Some people practice for years and report getting very little. The general rule of thumb is that if you can attain to 1st Jhana you are ready for insight. The trouble is that spotting the attainment is often much more difficult than it sounds. This is because the descriptions that we have of the experience are often written by monastics who get to perfect their technique in &amp;#034;laboratory&amp;#034; setting i.e. a nice quiet monestary, with no sick relatives to look after or work stress to manage ect. My personal feeling is the bar is quite a bit lower. In any case, many vippassana systems like Mahasi noting get around this and are a &amp;#034;one stop shop.&amp;#034; An even better example would be the Goenka system of 10 day retreats. Personaly I don&amp;#039;t like Goenka very much but it was my first proper experince of Theravada buddhism. Even though I hated the retreat I came away with all the tools I needed for my next couple of years of insight practice. You want a &amp;#034;boot camp&amp;#034; thats a good place to start looking.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;u&gt;4) Noting - Quantity or Quality?&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Noting is really interesting to me. I had tried it before to great benefit prior to finding MCTB but the description of it in the book really helped. I don&amp;#039;t know that I&amp;#039;m doing it very well though - and given the lack of teacher - thought I&amp;#039;d ask you all for some feedback. I can&amp;#039;t dissect incoming stimuli very well at the moment without getting lost in thinking about them. Thus one little itch could take my mind down quite the rabbit hole if I were to try and investigate the three characteristics. It may take me the full 20 minutes for that one little itch. Alternatively if I just note the existence I can get more stimuli noted. So a note may be reduced to &amp;#034;chin&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;pain&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;thinking&amp;#034;, etc. &lt;br /&gt;Which is better - sticking with one stimuli, or going for speed using fairly lo-fidelity noting?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Okay, on one level any practice is good practice especially at the begining. So many people who claim to meditate, never even get to the cushion. So you need to congratulate yourself. Seriously. Secondly the whole concentration v insight debate feeds directly into this issue of mind wandering. This ability to &amp;#034;stay with your object&amp;#034; is exactly what is being trained in concentration practice. The more of it you do the more focused will be your insight, simples. But the mind wanders off and does its own thing anyway and this will always be a &amp;#034;problem,&amp;#034; its in its nature to behave badly. &amp;#034;Perfect&amp;#034; concentration is rarely possible or even desirable. BTW 20 mins to investigate one itch? Sounds like good concentration to me.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Go Doug!&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks folks, I appreciate the guidance!&lt;br /&gt;Doug&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2014 16:19:55 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5606057</guid> <dc:creator>Howard Maxwell Clegg</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-16T16:19:55Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Four "noob" questions</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605952</link> <description>Now, this is just my opinion, but I think there is a thread in modern &amp;#034;spiritual&amp;#034; or religious discussion to make all religions and philosophies point to the same thing. I really don&amp;#039;t think this is the case, though. Even in one specific tradition you have people disagreeing with eachother about fundimental things. While Zen could be said to be influenced by Buddhism, it&amp;#039;s just as influenced by taoism and Japanese culture as a whole. I see it as a different beast entierly. Theravada is very goal based, with attainments and classification of mental states, etc. The goal of Zen is to become goal-less, aim-less, etc. You&amp;#039;re going to be frustrated if you try to do both at once. If you&amp;#039;re interested in attainment, it&amp;#039;s impossible to do shikantaza because you&amp;#039;re going to be waiting for something to happen.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, while Zen practice might lead to insight in the theravada sense, it will be a different kind of insight, delivered in a different way, and progress is likely to be different. Maybe you&amp;#039;ll end up at the same place with both practices, but most people don&amp;#039;t complete these paths in their lifetime. So, if zen is on one side of the mountain, and theravada is on another side, both people will have the same view at the top, but their climbs will be very different. The best thing to do is find the route that seems the easiest for you, even if it&amp;#039;s somewhere in the middle. That way, if you don&amp;#039;t ever make it to the top, you can still say you enjoyed the climb itself.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For your number 2, it&amp;#039;s usually suggested to start with concentration practice. You can do both in a sit, though - concentration for 20 minutes, then noting for 20 minutes. You could do this all the way through your practice and benefit from it. Some teachers don&amp;#039;t make a distiction between the two at all, as well, so there isn&amp;#039;t a clear line between them. It&amp;#039;s not something to worry about, IMHO, meditation has a way of self-guiding in an instictual way. The different methods are just there to keep you honest.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For your number 4, Noting practice is meant to keep tabs on where your attention goes naturally, it shouldn&amp;#039;t involve effort to investigate. If the only thing you notice for 20 minutes is a single itch, then just note that. It&amp;#039;s more likely that you&amp;#039;ll notice an itch, then a desire to scratch, then a thought about itches, then a thought about work, then a smell from dinner, then the itch again, then a sound from downstairs, ect. and so on.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2014 10:08:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605952</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-16T10:08:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Four "noob" questions</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605814</link> <description>Hi folks,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m tearing through the MCTB book (not easy as a noob this is deep, technical stuff) and I&amp;#039;m getting into the weeds with part III &amp;#034;Mastery&amp;#034; now. I have a few questions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope this is the right place to post this, I couldn&amp;#039;t find any section named &amp;#034;Questions so basic you may not even know how to classify them&amp;#034;... so I went with this one. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1) Firstly I&amp;#039;d like to clarify my understanding of Zen.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just prior to finding MCTB I had just finished &amp;#034;The three pillars of Zen&amp;#034; - a book I picked up more as a cool read than an instruction manual. However, I was rather amazed to discover that the type of sitting I have been doing would very much qualify as zazen.&lt;br /&gt;This strikes me as a concentration practice vs. an insight practice, but Daniel often implies in the book that zen does indeed lead to insight. I suppose I could see how the use of a koan could force someone to solidify something so ridiculous it actually destroys the illusion, but beyond the koan could zazen be classified as an insight practice, or is my understanding above correct?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;u&gt;2) Secondly I&amp;#039;d like to ask for a watered down piece of advice.&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since concentration practices are invaluable at least in the beginning, but insight practices do develop concentration to some degree... where should I spend my time as a relative noob while I take the required time to really dig into MCTB? &lt;br /&gt;(for me noob = serious practice has been happening for less than a year.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3) When to say when?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I live in the Indianapolis area and despite lots of google querying I just don&amp;#039;t see too many good Insight teachers near me. Since I&amp;#039;m not likely to have that type of resource - how would I know that I&amp;#039;ve probably done enough concentration and could/should move on to insight? Do I wait for some sort of &amp;#034;event&amp;#034; or simply make the jump when I can stay reasonably focused for most of a 20 minute sit? - fyi I&amp;#039;m pretty much there.&lt;br /&gt;(I suppose question 3 there assumes your answer to #2 is that I should spend some time doing concentration practices.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;u&gt;4) Noting - Quantity or Quality?&lt;/u&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Noting is really interesting to me. I had tried it before to great benefit prior to finding MCTB but the description of it in the book really helped. I don&amp;#039;t know that I&amp;#039;m doing it very well though - and given the lack of teacher - thought I&amp;#039;d ask you all for some feedback. I can&amp;#039;t dissect incoming stimuli very well at the moment without getting lost in thinking about them. Thus one little itch could take my mind down quite the rabbit hole if I were to try and investigate the three characteristics. It may take me the full 20 minutes for that one little itch. Alternatively if I just note the existence I can get more stimuli noted. So a note may be reduced to &amp;#034;chin&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;pain&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;thinking&amp;#034;, etc. &lt;br /&gt;Which is better - sticking with one stimuli, or going for speed using fairly lo-fidelity noting?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks folks, I appreciate the guidance!&lt;br /&gt;Doug</description> <pubDate>Thu, 16 Oct 2014 03:41:10 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5605814</guid> <dc:creator>Doug M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-16T03:41:10Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Insight and Emotions - what are the links?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601821</link> <description>The Dark Night is best judged by the question, &amp;#034;What is reality doing?&amp;#034; In the DN, the center becomes murky and the periphery becomes solid, which gives rise to all kinds of issues, and the vibrations are slower compared to A&amp;amp;P. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This stages gives rise to all kinds of nasty emotional and psychological side effects. Some traditions (Christian, Jungian) judge progress based on these side effects, but the beauty of vipassana is that we can look past the content and judge what is going on at a deeply fundamental level.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the Dark Night, you can live a life of luxury in paraise and be completely unable to enjoy.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve had depression and anxiety for most of my life, but I can say with certainty that the Dark Night has exacerbated these problems. As for the presentation of the Dark Night itself, I passed through it about two years ago without knowing what was happening. What is interesting, is that when I think about the individual nanas, I remember the exact moment that I shifted to a new one. I don&amp;#039;t remember much else of that time, but I do remember each specific state shift, even though I didn&amp;#039;t know what they were.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Fear: I was standing behind my cash register and, all of a sudden, I was worried that a customer would try to rob me, and was worried I would somehow be fired for no reason. I inwardly freaked out for the rest of the day.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Misery: I was laying on my couch, doing nothing in particular, when it hit me, how awful existence was. Not just the current state of affairs, or my living situation, but existence itself. My body felt achy and all I could think about was how much suffering there was in the world.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Disgust: I was, again, sitting on my couch, when I looked over at my kitchen. I could see some fruit flies, and I was filled with, well, disgust. I saw some trash sticking out of the can and some dirty dishes in the sink and it was just disgusting, absolutely awful. I look over at my wife and thought about how gross sex was. Why did I ever want to have sex? It was revolting.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Desire for Deliverance: I became aware of how society was shoddily constructed, able to fall at a moment&amp;#039;s notice. This is hard to describe, but it was very profound. I withdrew all my plans to attend college and devoted my time to studying off-the-grid living, building my own cabin, and so on. I found a website of someone who lived in a cave in the Sierra Nevadas for several years and dreamed of doing the same.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Re-Observation: Ah, the ass-kicker! I was sitting on the porch of my apartment complex, looking towards the road. It felt like reality started spinning or screaming or both, and there was just this intense primal frustration with everything. It came and went a few times. I had some very intense dreams that led to low EQ. I actually had nightmares the whole time through the DN, but these were the worst.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A little later I reached low EQ, basked in it a while, and &amp;#034;fell back.&amp;#034; I stopped practicing for months and here I am now, hoping to get stream-entry.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The DN sounds terrible and all that, but it just reveals the fundamental suffering that is always present in samsara. Mindfulness grows strong enough to penetrate the core of the selfing process, and this sucks. That is all it is. The emotional and psychological shit that bubbles to the surface can be overpowering, but it&amp;#039;s just a side effect. Practice well and it will pass.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, as to how insight practice &amp;#034;solves&amp;#034; these problems, I can&amp;#039;t speak from experience, but I can offer my thoughts based on descriptions of arahatship and my brief experiences of Low EQ. When 4th path is attained, there is no &amp;#034;self&amp;#034; remaining. Emotions may arise, but they are just impermanent blips with no agency, no perceiver, no self to which these emotions are happening. Thus, they aren&amp;#039;t a problem.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 17:57:10 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601821</guid> <dc:creator>Eric M W</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T17:57:10Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Insight and Emotions - what are the links?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601719</link> <description>Good questions. I have suffered from depression and anxiety for most of my adult life. The condition for me was relatively mild, but even mild depr. and anx. are miserable when they cloud your day-to-day life. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I took up the practice because I realized that none of the other interventions I&amp;#039;d tried (psychoanalysis, CBT, antidepressants) had worked. So wanting to be happier is indeed a good reason to start practicing. Wanting to see things as they are is a better reason, I suppose, but since no one prior to insight has a clue what that means, pretty much all of us are driven to practice to alleviate some kind of problem. Of course, the irony is that we are then forced to face and accept these things, but there is a benefit to doing that. It&amp;#039;s hard to explain, but there it is. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So: in going for first path, I did have a clear experience of the Dark Night. In some ways it seemed an escalation of the baseline conditions, but there were also subtle differences. Fear, for example, was experienced with a level of purity that I had not had before. There was no accompanying dialogue, just the direct knowledge of terror. Misery was physical, a grinding in the gut, a sense of despair. As for disgust, I could literally taste it. Desire for Deliverance manifested as crying at the drop of a hat, wanting it to be over. Reobservation was a kind of underlying mashup of all of the above. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sitting during this stuff was accompanied by lots of kriyas, or else a sleepiness that went all the way to the bone. When I got to equanimity, however, everything suddenly smoothed out, and I was just cruising along, watching the show. It wasn&amp;#039;t ecstacy, it was just a deeply grounded sense that everything was all right. I went through a couple of these cycles before the end, because the first time I hit equanimity I was so mellow I quit sitting. Happens to a lot of us. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have had other paths since, but I can&amp;#039;t say exactly how they measure up to Daniel&amp;#039;s standards. I suppose I could say: according to those standards, I&amp;#039;m not done. That&amp;#039;s fine; everything is fine. I have some manifestations of fear remaining, but not to the level of before. My depression has lifted, although it can come back under certain circumstances that I won&amp;#039;t go into. The best consequence has been the reduction in reactivity. I used to be angry more or less all the time. This is no longer the case. It&amp;#039;s worth its weight in gold to be over it. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another consequence: my whole life&amp;#039;s story has lost its interest for me. After years of turning it over and over in my mind, I find myself detached from it. I don&amp;#039;t identify with this person that &amp;#034;I&amp;#034; am. There&amp;#039;s habit energy still at work, but also a clearer understanding of how habits affect mood. Hope this helps answer your question. </description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 15:26:08 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601719</guid> <dc:creator>Jane Laurel Carrington</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T15:26:08Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Insight and Emotions - what are the links?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601631</link> <description>So, there have been a lot of dark night type threads lately and I&amp;#039;ve noticed most of them are referring to chronic anxiety and depression as a dark night.  I&amp;#039;m wondering if there isn&amp;#039;t a good way to differentiate between dark night related problems and psychological problems - if there is a difference at all. For those of you who are confident you have had at least stream entry a la MCTB, did you experience a dark night, and if so, how did it compare to everyday life negativity? I&amp;#039;d be especially interested to hear from anyone who had depression or anxiety issues prior to meditating and can make a comparison.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On a related note, I&amp;#039;m also curious what people think about looking to meditation to solve psychological issues? Is that the purpose of awakening? Is it good to expect that from meditation, or does it distract from its purpose in your opinion? What is the purpose of meditation, to you?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, I&amp;#039;d like to talk about the concept of cycling through the insights. What is this like experientially? Is it emotionally related, or does it manifest some other way? How is it different from the emotional cycles a normal person experiences in day-to-day life?</description> <pubDate>Thu, 09 Oct 2014 14:00:07 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5601631</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-09T14:00:07Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: How would a stream enterer or anagami know they weren't fully enlighten</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600520</link> <description>&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;re JJJJ (10/6/14 5:31 PM as a reply to masa.)&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;masa: According to this discourse a learner (sekha, or trainee) can discern that he or she is that the level of a learner (one on the path to awakening), via this method:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;JJJJ: The distinction is that an arahat touches the consummation of the five faculties with his &lt;strong&gt;body&lt;/strong&gt;. The trainee discerns the five faculties but does not touch the consummation of them with his body.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sutta linked here: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn48/sn48.053.than.html &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Excellent point.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The five faculties (&lt;em&gt;indriya&lt;/em&gt;) are ostensibly identical with the five &amp;#039;powers&amp;#039; (&lt;em&gt;bala&lt;/em&gt;), the distinction being (according to Thera Nyanaponika &amp;#x2013; see below) that the faculties are ideas that anyone can recognize, utilize to some degree, but as powers, they are unshakably established mental qualities (i.e. some sense of attainment). At least that&amp;#039;s my take on JJJJ&amp;#039;s take on &amp;#034;&lt;span style="color: #008000"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;consummation…&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Nyanaponika explains this in &amp;#034;Abhidhamma Studies: Buddhist Explorations of Consciousness and Time;&amp;#034; pp. 32, 66-69. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This book, btw, is the best introduction to Abhidhamma that I&amp;#039;ve found; it makes practice-and-path-related sense of it, and demonstrates how the Abhidhamma corpus fits into scheme of the whole &lt;em&gt;tipitika&lt;/em&gt;.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 07 Oct 2014 13:46:06 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600520</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-07T13:46:06Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: How would a stream enterer or anagami know they weren't fully enlighten</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600079</link> <description>According to this discourse a learner (sekha, or trainee) can discern that he or she is that the level of a learner (one on the path to awakening), via this method:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;i&amp;#x2e;gyazo&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;20e67ef47bab5a4cea45155be4738623&amp;#x2e;png" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The distinction is that an arahat touches the consummation of the five faculties with his &lt;strong&gt;body&lt;/strong&gt;. The trainee discerns the five faculties but does not touch the consummation of them with his body.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sutta linked here: http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn48/sn48.053.than.html</description> <pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2014 22:31:43 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5600079</guid> <dc:creator>J J</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-06T22:31:43Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: How would a stream enterer or anagami know they weren't fully enlighten</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599632</link> <description>&lt;u&gt;re Derek Camero&lt;/u&gt;&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;u&gt;n&lt;/u&gt; (10/4/14 12:29PM as a reply to masa)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;masa: &amp;#034;Would it ever occur to them [SE or &lt;em&gt;anagami&lt;/em&gt;] on their own some aspect of their insight was incomplete?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;Cameron: &amp;#034;Maybe, maybe not.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To interpret Cameron&amp;#039;s cryptic comment (not assuming this interpretation is his):&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1) &amp;#034;Maybe&amp;#034; -- In a traditional Therevadan &lt;em&gt;sangha&lt;/em&gt;, the attainer would most likely clearly discern the characteristics of some contact with &lt;em&gt;Nibbana&lt;/em&gt; (that defines path moments), but would also notice that &lt;em&gt;lobha &lt;/em&gt;(proliferated attraction*) and &lt;em&gt;dosa&lt;/em&gt; (proliferated aversion*) were still present (even when more attenuated in the case of an&lt;em&gt;anagami&lt;/em&gt;). And presence of any defilement would be recognized as remaining presence of &lt;em&gt;moha&lt;/em&gt; (ignorance, delusion). This, by the 10-fetter model, plus, no doubt, feedback from his/her mentor(s) would seem to assure awareness of incompletion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;* I use this rather strange characterization &amp;#034;proliferated attraction/aversion&amp;#034; rather than more traditional, s/w extreme translations, e.g. &amp;#034;lust&amp;#034;,&amp;#034;hatred&amp;#034;, to indicate a more general meaning; i.e. &amp;#034;proliferated&amp;#034; indicating some degree of reaction, and attraction/aversion meaning the basic vedana (&amp;#039;feeling-tone&amp;#039;) quality, which is given, persists in experience no matter what degree of attainment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2) &amp;#034;Maybe not&amp;#034; -- In some modern interpretations, which, ostensibly pragmatically, question the ideal perfection implied by the traditional interpretation of complete &amp;#039;uprooting&amp;#039; of the 10-fetters, various challenges of life still arise in problematic ways. Hence possible uncertainty. Possibly lack of a close mentor relationship could aggravate this uncertainty, where readily accessible, reliable feedback from a skilled mentor (one proficient to a level above one&amp;#039;s own) would help clarify things.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;a) Than-Geof wrote a piece (&amp;#034;&lt;strong&gt;The Power of Judgment&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;#034; 2011-2013, available at accesstoinsight) that goes into the complexities of recognizing and working out of one&amp;#039;s own delusion (for anyone not yet &amp;#039;established&amp;#039; in avijja / non-ignorance-wisdom), and the traditional advice that one should seek the help of a trusted mentor (&amp;#039;friend&amp;#039; &amp;#x2013;&lt;em&gt;mitta&lt;/em&gt;). Namely, the ins and outs of how the person in need, as well as the potential mentor, can go about discerning whether the relationship works well. Than-Geof, as usual, citing various Sutta passages providing possible clues.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;b) In another writing (&amp;#034;&lt;strong&gt;Lost in Quotation&amp;#034;&lt;/strong&gt;, also available at accesstoinsight) Than-Geof analyzes the famous Kalama Sutta, which is quoted by some in the form:&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;…&lt;em&gt;Kalamas, don&amp;#039;t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, &lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;… &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;or by the thought, &amp;#039;This contemplative is our teacher.&amp;#039;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And some quote this interpreting it to mean that one should decide what to believe &lt;strong&gt;not&lt;/strong&gt; on the basis of some external authority, but rather on the basis of &amp;#039;what works&amp;#039;, one&amp;#039;s own &amp;#039;common sense.&amp;#039;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Than-Geof notes that the complete quotation runs:&amp;#034;…&lt;em&gt;Kalamas, don&amp;#039;t go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, &lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;by logical deduction, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability,  &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;or by the thought, &amp;#039;This contemplative is our teacher.&amp;#039;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And he argues, referring to the phrases that he highlights in bold face, &amp;#034;you can&amp;#039;t simply take your own ideas of &amp;#034;what works&amp;#034; as a trustworthy standard. After all, you [being deluded] can easily side with your greed, aversion, or delusion, setting your standards too low. So to check against this tendency, the Buddha recommends that you also take into consideration the views of &lt;strong&gt;the wise, for you&amp;#039;ll never grow until you allow your standards to be challenged by theirs&lt;/strong&gt;.&amp;#034; (emphasis and […] added)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;TG then goes on to discuss the challenge of how to judge how one can determine who &amp;#034;the wise&amp;#034; might be, using much the same logic as in &amp;#034;The Power of Judgment&amp;#034; (above).</description> <pubDate>Mon, 06 Oct 2014 09:34:14 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5599632</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-06T09:34:14Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: How would a stream enterer or anagami know they weren't fully enlighten</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597752</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;As the token fetter-man on the forum, I would say that if you still have one of the ten fetters, then you ain&amp;#039;t enlightened.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Agree (Aside: And there are more fetter-model folk on the forum, Mr. C : )  and people that don&amp;#039;t separate the Visuddhimagga model from the sutta or fetter model; for me, they aren&amp;#039;t separate, but different ways to describe a phenomenon. Model, models, models..)&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 18:42:51 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597752</guid> <dc:creator>katy steger</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-04T18:42:51Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: How would a stream enterer or anagami know they weren't fully enlighten</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597706</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;masa:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Without the guidance of arhats and meditation maps, how could they possibly know they don&amp;#039;t have the whole thing?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As the token fetter-man on the forum, I would say that if you still have one of the ten fetters, then you ain&amp;#039;t enlightened.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;masa:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Would it ever occur to them on their own some aspect of their insight was incomplete?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Maybe, maybe not.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 17:29:14 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597706</guid> <dc:creator>Derek Cameron</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-04T17:29:14Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: How would a stream enterer or anagami know they weren't fully enlighten</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597685</link> <description>To me a person continues to know they have an unreliable mind, unreliable peace of mind-- they will know their own-stress generation and that their own-stress-generation/unreliable understanding continues. One cannot fool themselves into ignoring own-stress generation/unreliable understanding forever, though a charasmatic person can fool other people into following them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So for ones, like me, we may know that there is still more mind to watch based on our blinding mental tension of having minds that &lt;em&gt;want that&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;want not that, &lt;/em&gt; always oscillating, like a motor  of wantthat/notwantthat, and this oscillating desire motor, without a good understanding, leads to having&lt;strike&gt; an unreliable understanding or a misunderstanding of conditions&lt;/strike&gt; some more self-generated tension, tension in addition to situations that are tense for living beings and that are not self-generated. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s my thought : ) &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(strike-through edits)</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 16:38:19 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597685</guid> <dc:creator>katy steger</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-04T16:38:19Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: How would a stream enterer or anagami know they weren't fully enlighten</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597423</link> <description>&lt;span style="color: #0000ff"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;re (D Z) Dhru Val (10/3/14 1:50 AM as a reply to masa. )&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;The definitions used on this site and the broader pragmatic Buddhist community are a bit different. Generally the criterion of full enlightenment is more lax, but also more practically attainable.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well put. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Outside of highly structured monastic communities, we get into a win-some / lose-some situation. Teachings on how to actually get to &amp;#039;attainments&amp;#039; are more openly available. Open forums, like this, expose multiple viewpoints for people to search out ways of understanding and practicing that resonate with their individual leanings and capabilities (e.g. kind of education, enneagram type,… whatever). But then, lacking the closer personal guidance monastics have (year-long, decade-long association with one or more teachers), the risk is greater of getting caught in difficult situations on the path without the right guidance to safely get through, or getting caught in situations headed in a wrong direction&amp;#x2013; even more difficult and perilous.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(going off on a bit of a tangent…)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One aspect I especially appreciate about this forum (other than, obviously, opening the doors to full back-and-forth about jhanas, nyanas, paths, etc.) is the lack of the antagonist attitude towards monastics (and monastic traditions) that characterizes some views in &amp;#034;the broader pragmatic Buddhist community.&amp;#034; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The written records indicate that G.Buddha freely taught and interacted with lay as well as ordained followers. Us (lay) against them (monks) attitudes easily lead in unskillful directions, and, perhaps worse, can poison the minds of followers, cut them off from potentially &amp;#039;practical&amp;#039; information and advice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Some monastic teachers present things in ways that are &amp;#039;culture-bound&amp;#039; &amp;#x2013; according to their own personal origins (Westerner, Asian,…) or the tradition they&amp;#039;ve immersed in for decades (e.g. a Westerner in an Asian tradition). Some lay teachers over-react, in the name of &amp;#034;translating relevance beyond Asian contexts,&amp;#034; but lacking adequate awareness of the degree to which they attach to opposing &amp;#039;culture-bound&amp;#039; views. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The fact that we now have full-fledged, lineage-holding monastics of Western birth but with many decades of traditional study and practice under their belts (wait, they don&amp;#039;t wear belts) &amp;#x2013; this is game-changing for us today. It was much less the case 40 or 50 years ago. Being, in a deeper sense, &amp;#039;bilingual,&amp;#039; familiar with culture-bound aspects on both sides and recognizing them as just relative &amp;#039;views,&amp;#039; they can more effectively translate, make vivid, core teachings to us here at home in the West.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 04 Oct 2014 02:58:58 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597423</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-04T02:58:58Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: How would a stream enterer or anagami know they weren't fully enlighten</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597029</link> <description>Well, at least for me, there was still a very visceral and profound sense that there was more to do, more I didn&amp;#039;t get, more layers of mind that insights weren&amp;#039;t seen automatically for, more patterns of experience that seemed poorly perceived, more aspects of reality that weren&amp;#039;t transformed, more questions unanswered, and things that didn&amp;#039;t feel done.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, while some brief plateaus were very impressive, they all rapidly enough lead to a sense that insights I had learned at one level still needed to be learned more clearly at others.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 17:57:24 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5597029</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T17:57:24Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: How would a stream enterer or anagami know they weren't fully enlighten</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596753</link> <description>re masa masa (10/2/14 7:40 PM )&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;…people, outside of Buddhism, claiming some form of spiritual enlightenment… Without the guidance of arhats and meditation maps, &lt;strong&gt;how could they possibly know they don&amp;#039;t have the whole thing&lt;/strong&gt;? Would it ever occur to them &lt;strong&gt;on their own&lt;/strong&gt; …&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Traditionally, within,  say,  a Theravadan community / sangha, there is virtually no &lt;strong&gt;&amp;#039;on their own&amp;#039;&lt;/strong&gt;. The emergence of a &amp;#039;Buddha&amp;#039; &amp;#x2013; as one who discovers the &amp;#039;Dhamma&amp;#039;, the &amp;#039;path&amp;#039;, etc. &lt;strong&gt;totally on his/her own&lt;/strong&gt; &amp;#x2013; happens only once in a long eon. Otherwise, SE, once-returner, etc. only pertain in the context of an ongoing community inspired by a Buddha. &amp;#039;Thera&amp;#039; (as in &amp;#039;Theravada&amp;#039;) means &amp;#039;elder,&amp;#039; that is one who&amp;#039;s studied and practiced for decades (if not a whole life-time), having learned from, been guided in practice over a long time by others (elder elders) who similarly worked at it for decades, and so on, going back in lineages through millennia.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the literary tradition, this goes back to that famous passage (in some Sutta) where Ananda says that companions on the path are an important element in the path, and the Buddha corrects him, asserting that such companions (&lt;em&gt;kaliya-mitta&lt;/em&gt;, including teachers, like the Buddha himself) &lt;strong&gt;IS THE WHOLE&lt;/strong&gt; of the path. This certainly isn&amp;#039;t to deny that the individual&amp;#039;s own workis not relevant, but the gist of it is a importance of tradition.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On the other hand, one of the axioms, or perhaps working hypotheses, of this forum (and the context in which it arises &amp;#x2013; for want of a better term -- &amp;#039;Buddhist Modernism&amp;#039;), is that the 4 Theravadan &amp;#039;paths&amp;#039; can be defined, extracted in a way that allows mapping to people&amp;#039;s experience in general, outside of buddhist circles. The case for this is well-argued, but also involves some degree of narrowing of the definition, abstracting it from the buddhist context.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Similarly, perhaps easier to notice, are the simpler cases of MBSR (mindfulness-based stress-reduction) and MBCT (… cognitive therapy), which clearly use narrowly abstracted definitions, related to in origin but explicitly extracted from buddhist tradition(s). (See Rupert &lt;strong&gt;Gethin&amp;#039;s &lt;/strong&gt;excellent discussion of these in &amp;#034;On Some Definitions of Mindfulness&amp;#034;, 2011 &amp;#x2013; available on-line.).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One of my working hypotheses is that this inclination to abstract, to capture in a definition, constitutes a prominent feature of Western thinking. And in some cases, this often irresistible urge, especially when used to characterize foreign cultural phenomena, may be a form of exerting dominion, a sort of cultural hegemony.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s a difficult topic to wrap one&amp;#039;s mind around, but I suspect this is a deep issue facing Western Buddhist Modernism (meaning VM/IM, SB, Bgeeks, hardcore… etc.).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another, perhaps related, way of answering masa_masa&amp;#039;s question would be that the question is of the same sort as &amp;#034;If a tree falls in a forest, but no-one is there to &amp;#039;hear&amp;#039; it, is there a &amp;#039;sound&amp;#039;?&amp;#034; but I&amp;#039;m not sure it&amp;#039;s worth going there…</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 11:02:13 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596753</guid> <dc:creator>Chris J Macie</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T11:02:13Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: How would a stream enterer or anagami know they weren't fully enlighten</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596684</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;masa:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;This is a purely theoretical question for me since I have no attainments of my own, but I think it has some relevance when you consider the amount of people, outside of Buddhism, claiming some form of spiritual enlightenment. Without the guidance of arhats and meditation maps, how could they possibly know they don&amp;#039;t have the whole thing? Would it ever occur to them on their own some aspect of their insight was incomplete?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If they still experience afflictive emotions, suffering, etc. Then they would not be considered to be fully liberated, per mainstream Buddhism. Also a person dosen&amp;#039;t have to be a Buddhist in order to be fully liberated. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The definitions used on this site and the broader pragmatic Buddhist community are a bit different. Generally the criterion of full enlightenment is more lax, but also more practically attainable.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 06:49:56 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596684</guid> <dc:creator>(D Z) Dhru Val</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T06:49:56Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Goal as the Path</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596618</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jason Snyder:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Hi John. I have similar value in the Direct Path. Although honestly it seems to be more and more similar to Vipassana. Both required paying attention to thoughts and sensations that seem to make up object and subject and seeing them as empty. I would say it is only a slight difference in strategy. While Vipassana is more about using the most obvious content in consciousness and allowing layers to present themselves in due time, Direct Path includes some cognitive tricks to expose subconscious patterns of self identification which can then be seen for their true nature.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Yeah, I see what you mean by that. For me they have a fairly different flavour though, and the flavour is a big part of it. (Not that I&amp;#039;ve done much vipassana, so take that with a pinch of salt). But I do find something soothing and satisfying (smooth, whole, unbroken) about the 1C, and the more I look into the 1C the less dukkha I find in it. (Again, this could be a phase, but it seems more like better discernment of what&amp;#039;s already the case).</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 02:37:19 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596618</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T02:37:19Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Goal as the Path</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596607</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;John Wilde:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jason Snyder:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thoughts? I am interested in your experience balancing notions of progressing, training, and getting somewhere with the realization that &amp;#034;this fruition is present as a natural possession&amp;#034;. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #666666"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Trebuchet&amp;#x20;MS&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;Trebuchet&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;Verdana&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;sans-serif"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s what I&amp;#039;m doing with the Direct Path. Not trying to improve experience as such, but inquiring into the nature of experience itself, and systematically working through all my built-in assumptions about it. And as those networks of assumptions thin out and get more transparent, the quality of experience is vastly improved as a side-effect. (This might be a phase, but at the moment it just seems like I&amp;#039;m finally heading in the direction that&amp;#039;s right for me, and there&amp;#039;s nothing to fear from going further).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When you mentioned Greg Goode&amp;#039;s stuff in an earlier thread, I said that I&amp;#039;d found his book (&amp;#034;Direct Path: A User&amp;#039;s Guide&amp;#034;) to be an insult to intelligence. On revisiting it, it&amp;#039;s not an insult to intelligence at all... just an insult to all the beliefs and assumptions I was carrying around at the time. Now Greg&amp;#039;s books, and a lot of other stuff I used to scoff at -- like Douglas Harding&amp;#039;s &amp;#034;Headless Way&amp;#034; -- are turning out to be fun and helpful.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I like anything that points directly to what is most immediate, something that can&amp;#039;t be seen directly because it&amp;#039;s closer than you can look, something that is never an object, has no phenomenal attributes, but is present as the nature of all experience. Everything, including the one doing the inquiry, is utterly non-separate from that, and all inquiries arise and subside back into it. From that perspective, no progress is necessary or possible. But progress is definitely possible in terms of refining the view. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;E.g., in the Direct Path there is the process of examining the notion of the witness, examining all the ways in which it seems to be bound up with phenomena and to possess phenomenal attributes, and seeing that those are actually attributes of something else; not pure witnessing awareness but a subtle object of awareness, or some idea of awareness, or whatever. It&amp;#039;s a process of distilling something by disentangling it from all that seems intrinsic to it but isn&amp;#039;t.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are so many ways of doing this. It&amp;#039;s great not to have to take any of them too literally, and be free to use them as ways of knowing and being.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Having said that, I&amp;#039;m learning the importance of sticking with a paradigm for a while, learning to live in it, see the world through its lenses, without taking them as anything too literal or concrete, but getting the benefit of a structured inquiry.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Hi John. I have similar value in the Direct Path. Although honestly it seems to be more and more similar to Vipassana. Both required paying attention to thoughts and sensations that seem to make up object and subject and seeing them as empty. I would say it is only a slight difference in strategy. While Vipassana is more about using the most obvious content in consciousness and allowing layers to present themselves in due time, Direct Path includes some cognitive tricks to expose subconscious patterns of self identification which can then be seen for their true nature.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 02:01:03 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596607</guid> <dc:creator>Jason Snyder</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T02:01:03Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>How would a stream enterer or anagami know they weren't fully enlightened?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596577</link> <description>This is a purely theoretical question for me since I have no attainments of my own, but I think it has some relevance when you consider the amount of people, outside of Buddhism, claiming some form of spiritual enlightenment. Without the guidance of arhats and meditation maps, how could they possibly know they don&amp;#039;t have the whole thing? Would it ever occur to them on their own some aspect of their insight was incomplete?</description> <pubDate>Fri, 03 Oct 2014 00:40:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596577</guid> <dc:creator>masa</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-03T00:40:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Goal as the Path</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596556</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jason Snyder:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thoughts? I am interested in your experience balancing notions of progressing, training, and getting somewhere with the realization that &amp;#034;this fruition is present as a natural possession&amp;#034;. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #666666"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Trebuchet&amp;#x20;MS&amp;#x2c;Trebuchet&amp;#x2c;Verdana&amp;#x2c;sans-serif"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s what I&amp;#039;m doing with the Direct Path. Not trying to improve experience as such, but inquiring into the nature of experience itself, and systematically working through all my built-in assumptions about it. And as those networks of assumptions thin out and get more transparent, the quality of experience is vastly improved as a side-effect. (This might be a phase, but at the moment it just seems like I&amp;#039;m finally heading in the direction that&amp;#039;s right for me, and there&amp;#039;s nothing to fear from going further).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When you mentioned Greg Goode&amp;#039;s stuff in an earlier thread, I said that I&amp;#039;d found his book (&amp;#034;Direct Path: A User&amp;#039;s Guide&amp;#034;) to be an insult to intelligence. On revisiting it, it&amp;#039;s not an insult to intelligence at all... just an insult to all the beliefs and assumptions I was carrying around at the time. Now Greg&amp;#039;s books, and a lot of other stuff I used to scoff at -- like Douglas Harding&amp;#039;s &amp;#034;Headless Way&amp;#034; -- are turning out to be fun and helpful.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I like anything that points directly to what is most immediate, something that can&amp;#039;t be seen directly because it&amp;#039;s closer than you can look, something that is never an object, has no phenomenal attributes, but is present as the nature of all experience. Everything, including the one doing the inquiry, is utterly non-separate from that, and all inquiries arise and subside back into it. From that perspective, no progress is necessary or possible. But progress is definitely possible in terms of refining the view. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;E.g., in the Direct Path there is the process of examining the notion of the witness, examining all the ways in which it seems to be bound up with phenomena and to possess phenomenal attributes, and seeing that those are actually attributes of something else; not pure witnessing awareness but a subtle object of awareness, or some idea of awareness, or whatever. It&amp;#039;s a process of distilling something by disentangling it from all that seems intrinsic to it but isn&amp;#039;t.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are so many ways of doing this. It&amp;#039;s great not to have to take any of them too literally, and be free to use them as ways of knowing and being.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Having said that, I&amp;#039;m learning the importance of sticking with a paradigm for a while, learning to live in it, see the world through its lenses, without taking them as anything too literal or concrete, but getting the benefit of a structured inquiry.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 23:41:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596556</guid> <dc:creator>John Wilde</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T23:41:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Goal as the Path</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596508</link> <description>@ .Jake. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I agree definitely different definition of fruition. But I think the point is that in any given moment, one can see the emptiness of phenomenon - and that is a mini fruition. </description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 21:10:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596508</guid> <dc:creator>Jason Snyder</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T21:10:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Goal as the Path</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596498</link> <description>@(D Z) Dhru Val - I agree with you that the common ingredient in both options is effort, patience, and surrender. But I think there is still an important difference. In option 1 it is more explicit to appreciate the moment as it is, to recognize that it is perfect...even though there is training going on in the background. In my experience, any thoughts of needing to get somewhere is pure delusion and suffering. I like the goal as the path formulation because it doesn&amp;#039;t deny that there is a path and training involved, but it doesn&amp;#039;t set up expectations for future fulfillment. </description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 20:37:05 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596498</guid> <dc:creator>Jason Snyder</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T20:37:05Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Goal as the Path</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596493</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Dream Walker:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I like his advice on meditation....interesting how he excludes concentration&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt; Dakpo Tashi Namgyal:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Explaining Flawless Meditation Practice&lt;br /&gt;Second, meditation practice is known as undistracted ordinary mind. Ordinary mind simply means your mind&amp;#039;s natural state. When you try to correct it by judging, accepting or rejecting, it will no longer be your ordinary mind.&lt;br /&gt;Therefore, undistractedly maintain the natural state of your mind with a naturally aware presence, no matter how it is or what is perceived or felt. That is simply called &amp;#039;meditating&amp;#039;.8 Other than that, there isn&amp;#039;t even as much as a hair-tip to adjust mentally by meditating.&lt;br /&gt;It is explained in this way: &amp;#034;While there isn&amp;#039;t even as much as an atom to cultivate by meditating, you shouldn&amp;#039;t be distracted for even as long as an instant.&amp;#034; Phrased in another way, undistracted ordinary mind means to keep the way your mind naturally is without being distracted.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I dig that. Where can I read the rest of his work DW?</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 20:34:50 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596493</guid> <dc:creator>Jake WM</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T20:34:50Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Goal as the Path</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596451</link> <description>I like his advice on meditation....interesting how he excludes concentration&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt; Dakpo Tashi Namgyal:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Explaining Flawless Meditation Practice&lt;br /&gt;Second, meditation practice is known as undistracted ordinary mind. Ordinary mind simply means your mind&amp;#039;s natural state. When you try to correct it by judging, accepting or rejecting, it will no longer be your ordinary mind.&lt;br /&gt;Therefore, undistractedly maintain the natural state of your mind with a naturally aware presence, no matter how it is or what is perceived or felt. That is simply called &amp;#039;meditating&amp;#039;.8 Other than that, there isn&amp;#039;t even as much as a hair-tip to adjust mentally by meditating.&lt;br /&gt;It is explained in this way: &amp;#034;While there isn&amp;#039;t even as much as an atom to cultivate by meditating, you shouldn&amp;#039;t be distracted for even as long as an instant.&amp;#034; Phrased in another way, undistracted ordinary mind means to keep the way your mind naturally is without being distracted.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 20:16:17 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596451</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T20:16:17Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Goal as the Path</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596267</link> <description>It&amp;#039;s is unequivocally a different meaning of the word fruition. Different tradition seperated by thousands of miles and years ;) &lt;br /&gt;Still, excellent book and excellent quote. Have to be careful though to understand it (or any text) within its own context.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 15:40:27 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596267</guid> <dc:creator>. Jake .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T15:40:27Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Goal as the Path</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596095</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jason Snyder:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&amp;#034;Instead of recognizing that the training is the indivisible unity of path and fruition and that this fruition is present as a natural possession, the basic straying is to believe that the path is the training, while the fruition will be attained at another point. &lt;br /&gt;Although the meditator does possess the exact training, the temporary straying is to distrust it and seek it elsewhere hoping for something superior or to meditate while adding something better.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;There are some really cool stuff in that book...i just read that part a little while ago....I wonder if he is using fruition in the same way as it is used here....It does not seem so to me.&lt;br /&gt;~D&lt;br /&gt;Edit- but I like the idea of each moment of now is just what it is....there is no comparison to something better</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 06:51:30 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596095</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T06:51:30Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: The Goal as the Path</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596090</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Jason Snyder:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thoughts? I am interested in your experience balancing notions of progressing, training, and getting somewhere with the realization that &amp;#034;this fruition is present as a natural possession&amp;#034;. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #666666"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Trebuchet&amp;#x20;MS&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;Trebuchet&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;Verdana&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;sans-serif"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #666666"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Trebuchet&amp;#x20;MS&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;Trebuchet&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;Verdana&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;sans-serif"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Option 1:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The nature of reality is what it is. &lt;br /&gt;Nothing to do, except learn to recognize it perhaps. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How does one go about recognizing it ?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Effort. Patience. Surrender.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Option 2:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A mind clouded by delusion sucks.&lt;br /&gt;By transforming the mind, one reaches the great attainment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How does one go about reaching it ?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Effort. Patience. Surrender.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 06:32:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596090</guid> <dc:creator>(D Z) Dhru Val</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T06:32:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>The Goal as the Path</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596058</link> <description>Lately I have become more lax about keeping a rigorous meditation schedule. But I am finding that I am maintaining mindfulness more throughout the day, and when I do meditate, without a strict time limit or goal in mind, I have much more success, especially with insight into not-self. When I start thinking about working to get stream entry it all goes to shit. I grant the value of maps and notions of progress in certain situations, but I am not sure that they aren&amp;#039;t more of a hindrance to me at this point. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I just came across this quote by Dakpo Tashi Namgyal in Clarifying the Natural State (a book that I got after reading Daniel&amp;#039;s recommendation). It emphasizes the Dzogchen notion of goal as the path. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Instead of recognizing that the training is the indivisible unity of path and fruition and that this fruition is present as a natural possession, the basic straying is to believe that the path is the training, while the fruition will be attained at another point. &lt;br /&gt;Although the meditator does possess the exact training, the temporary straying is to distrust it and seek it elsewhere hoping for something superior or to meditate while adding something better.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thoughts? I am interested in your experience balancing notions of progressing, training, and getting somewhere with the realization that &amp;#034;this fruition is present as a natural possession&amp;#034;. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #666666"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Trebuchet&amp;#x20;MS&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;Trebuchet&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;Verdana&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;sans-serif"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #666666"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Trebuchet&amp;#x20;MS&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;Trebuchet&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;Verdana&amp;#x2c;&amp;#x20;sans-serif"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Thu, 02 Oct 2014 05:30:00 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5596058</guid> <dc:creator>Jason Snyder</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-02T05:30:00Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: insight needed</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595849</link> <description>fixed</description> <pubDate>Wed, 01 Oct 2014 23:45:53 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595849</guid> <dc:creator>C P M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-01T23:45:53Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Practice not going anywhere. Aim to get stream entry via noting.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595690</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel M. Ingram:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Good advice given above.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is common for people to miss the point about being with reality now in an accepting way in MCTB, even though it is in there many, many times. Hopefully MCTB2 will correct some of that. Try reading the section on the 7 factors of enlightenment and the section about goals in MCTB and see if those help lend some balance to things also. &lt;strong&gt;Pushing inherently involves not being where you are right now, and being where you are right now is the only thing that works, as this is a reality-based practice.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, if you are doing low-dose (half-hour per day, that sort of thing) it is doing something, but obvious rapid or dramatic results are less likely than high-dose, so less expectations, more settling into what is going on now.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;If you spend a lot of time slacking and doubting and then intermittently pushing, try noting those: &amp;#034;slacking&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;doubting&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;pushing&amp;#034;, such that you are in in sync with what is actually going on. This is key. Insight practice is about that sense of this side integrating in real-time with the sense of a that side, with thoughts of future and past being in sync with this present in which they occur.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Consider reading the Trungpa section in Journey Without Goal, Chapter 9, where he talks about Buddha family neurosis and wisdom and see if any of that applies. It is highly recommended. I have read it probably 50 times and get something out of it every single time. It is about relating now with your own style, with what is going on. &lt;strong&gt;If slacking is your style, inhabit that style and relate clearly to it, being in it and with it clearly as it is.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for the advice. If I&amp;#039;m a slacker, or more correctly my ingrained habits of the mind are to waste time rather than face the challenges I want to take on then investigating it by non-judgemental noting (or a simple paying of attention) really makes sense. I have tried it for a few moments and can see the cycle occurring in the mind as well as sadness, fear, reluctance and empathy to a degree that comes straight after.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Being with the slacking once again shows the impermanence and sequence of events (kind of like the cause and effect structure that Richard has stated).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Re - MTCB, it is the inherent faults of some readers like myself. I see enlightenment is possible and think, HOLY CRAP I WANT SOME OF THAT!! and start pounding away at what I think is the proper approach. But to be fair there is also a great sense of a surge of enthusiasm in the book that pulls in those that are inclined that way (as I was when I first read the book) - to ignore the basic but subtle mechanisms of the practice.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 01 Oct 2014 20:16:19 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595690</guid> <dc:creator>Glen Robert Stevens</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-01T20:16:19Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: insight needed</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595659</link> <description>&lt;span style="font-family: courier&amp;#x20;new&amp;#x2c;courier&amp;#x2c;monospace"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;The first bit got cut off</description> <pubDate>Wed, 01 Oct 2014 18:54:23 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595659</guid> <dc:creator>Jordan</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-01T18:54:23Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Practice not going anywhere. Aim to get stream entry via noting.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595409</link> <description>Good advice given above.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is common for people to miss the point about being with reality now in an accepting way in MCTB, even though it is in there many, many times. Hopefully MCTB2 will correct some of that. Try reading the section on the 7 factors of enlightenment and the section about goals in MCTB and see if those help lend some balance to things also. Pushing inherently involves not being where you are right now, and being where you are right now is the only thing that works, as this is a reality-based practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, if you are doing low-dose (half-hour per day, that sort of thing) it is doing something, but obvious rapid or dramatic results are less likely than high-dose, so less expectations, more settling into what is going on now.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you spend a lot of time slacking and doubting and then intermittently pushing, try noting those: &amp;#034;slacking&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;doubting&amp;#034;, &amp;#034;pushing&amp;#034;, such that you are in in sync with what is actually going on. This is key. Insight practice is about that sense of this side integrating in real-time with the sense of a that side, with thoughts of future and past being in sync with this present in which they occur.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Consider reading the Trungpa section in Journey Without Goal, Chapter 9, where he talks about Buddha family neurosis and wisdom and see if any of that applies. It is highly recommended. I have read it probably 50 times and get something out of it every single time. It is about relating now with your own style, with what is going on. If slacking is your style, inhabit that style and relate clearly to it, being in it and with it clearly as it is.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 01 Oct 2014 08:22:44 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595409</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel M. Ingram</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-01T08:22:44Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Practice not going anywhere. Aim to get stream entry via noting.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595230</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Glen Robert Stevens:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Richard Zen:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Keep doing it (except when you do deep mental processing work) from the time you get up to the time you go to bed. I would recommend some other tips to keep the noting from being too boring or as a way to prevent thinking.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Good luck!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks very much Richard. I have quite a few questions and will apply what you have said straight away. It&amp;#039;s the first time I have come across gentleness being talked about in regards to noting pratice. When I first read MTCTB I just went gung ho and was dissapointed I did not get results, not to mention intense dissapointment and frustration as I was noting hard unpleasent sensations. The attitude brought to noting makes a big difference.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I wanted to ask is work and studying considered &amp;#034;deep mental processing work&amp;#034;? So that noting is not something to be done in these time periods where one is applying and thinking and figuring things out during the course of the day. As noting will just be a distraction and not usefull anyway in that setting?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Bingo! That&amp;#039;s because noting involves concepts and they will conflict with other concepts you need for mental tasks. By allowing the mind to wander and do its thing you can resume noting when the working memory load is much less.  Manual labour and non-conceptual work can handle much more noting. Really watch that attention to pay attention because it could be aversion trying to bat thoughts away. Thoughts should be treated like waves in the ocean of consciousness/knowing/awareness. They are all interdependent. Watch the thoughts before they start, during the thought and after. If you do you should notice that it doesn&amp;#039;t hurt (even if it&amp;#039;s a negative thought). If you go into automatic pilot and get lost in day dreams then the brain will act as prior habits dictate and any stress patterns will return. Use blunt concentration practice to reduce agitation and use investigation of the 3 characteristics to bring up energy. That&amp;#039;s how the 7 factors of awakening work in balancing emotions and stress.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Noting is supposed to develop acceptance/equanimity but having an attitude of welcoming before hand will really help with what you encounter in life. Trying to see things as more cause and effect and not about deficiency can allow you to reduce stress so you can develop positive causes and effects in response to what life brings.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 01 Oct 2014 03:52:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595230</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-01T03:52:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: insight needed</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595216</link> <description>Different styles of noting:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;insightmeditationcenter&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;books-articles&amp;#x2f;articles&amp;#x2f;mental-noting&amp;#x2f;"&gt;http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/articles/mental-noting/&lt;/a&gt;</description> <pubDate>Wed, 01 Oct 2014 03:23:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595216</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-01T03:23:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: insight needed</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595184</link> <description>I&amp;#039;m currently on a PC, so for convienience, I&amp;#039;ll paste your question inline here:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt; I have been practising in Goenkajitradition for a few years, and i was just accepted to a long course.So i decided to check online at other peoples experiences of longcourses to better prepare myself. After a short google search idiscovered this website among others, and realized that there areother types of vipassana being taught.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have been reading works of mahasi, and the book core teachings of the buddha.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;Within the ten day course there is little or no mention of a lot of information on this site, and in these works ie nanas.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;I am a person who would like to practice intelligently, and correctly. Finding this website has shed light on many of my doubts. Regarding lack of qualified teachers, and the technique itself.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;One problem i have had is I don&amp;#039;t like body scanning my mind is not detail oriented and i have problems focusing on details. It much easier for me to se things as a whole and to work where work needs to be done. So for much of my practice i focus only on anapana. My mind doesn&amp;#039;t get bored of observation of breath where as with body scanning I&amp;#039;m very bored doing same thing over and over. Now this may be what i need to do, maybe the defilements are what don&amp;#039;t like body scanning the problem is i don&amp;#039;t know, and i have yet to get a respond from a teacher i felt was right.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;I can sit full hours without pain but i don&amp;#039;t feel i have reached access concentration or insight equivalent ie I cant maintain observation of object without interruption for one hour. Most of my sittings are equanimous no rapture or bliss. I had one abnormal experience where after reading satipattana sutta i practiced as the buddha said observing breath for most of the hour then switching naturally to sensation of the whole body. There was a free flow then sudden loss of awareness of body, expanding, sudden fear, even clinging return to awareness of body heart beating very fast and power in the building went out.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;My personality type is best describe by my zodiac, Aquarius sun, Scorpio moon, Aries ascendant, Chinese dragon&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;I maintain two hours practice each day and do many retreats i am currently serving a ten day course.&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;My question is how to know if one is practising correctly and if mixing between vipassana teachers is such a bad thing the benefits and problems involved. Also what preparation should one make before long course&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;I believe i am starting to mix mahasi with Goenka and this worries me to the extent many have said never to mix techniques though my mind says we are all practicing what the buddha taught.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Wed, 01 Oct 2014 02:43:18 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595184</guid> <dc:creator>C P M</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-10-01T02:43:18Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>insight needed</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595011</link> <description>so this has taken four tries to load this i think my tablet isnt capatable with this site. anyway in an attempt not to write this again, and the fact i cant paste i will attach my question in doc. thanks!</description> <pubDate>Tue, 30 Sep 2014 21:25:49 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5595011</guid> <dc:creator>Jordan</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-30T21:25:49Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Practice not going anywhere. Aim to get stream entry via noting.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594975</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Richard Zen:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; Keep doing it (except when you do deep mental processing work) from the time you get up to the time you go to bed. I would recommend some other tips to keep the noting from being too boring or as a way to prevent thinking.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Good luck!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks very much Richard. I have quite a few questions and will apply what you have said straight away. It&amp;#039;s the first time I have come across gentleness being talked about in regards to noting pratice. When I first read MTCTB I just went gung ho and was dissapointed I did not get results, not to mention intense dissapointment and frustration as I was noting hard unpleasent sensations. The attitude brought to noting makes a big difference.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I wanted to ask is work and studying considered &amp;#034;deep mental processing work&amp;#034;? So that noting is not something to be done in these time periods where one is applying and thinking and figuring things out during the course of the day. As noting will just be a distraction and not usefull anyway in that setting?</description> <pubDate>Tue, 30 Sep 2014 20:38:33 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594975</guid> <dc:creator>Glen Robert Stevens</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-30T20:38:33Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Practice not going anywhere. Aim to get stream entry via noting.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594488</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Charlotte:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Richard Zen:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;&lt;li&gt;Apply these practices to daily life without constantly examining your progress. Examining the progress is measuring the &amp;#034;self&amp;#034; and measuring is the territory of the &amp;#034;self&amp;#034;. The &amp;#034;self&amp;#034; wants to feel special and if anything competitively challenges that specialness the brain wll go into sadness and depression.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;As you get better at practice try to notice with less and less force because a sense of self can creep in to the meditation and make you cling/ruminate/obsess/fixate. The secret is that the intention to pay attention can hold some aversion to the present moment as well.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;Good luck!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks Richard, fabulous advice,I especially liked the last two (definitely something I need to work on)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh and one more thing: The intention to pay attention holds aversion in it especially if it bats away thinking. If you are naturally aware that the mind just wandered you&amp;#039;re already back so there&amp;#039;s no need for an impulse of aversion to get rid of it. That should smooth out the practice.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Glad I could help!</description> <pubDate>Tue, 30 Sep 2014 13:55:04 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594488</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-30T13:55:04Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Practice not going anywhere. Aim to get stream entry via noting.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594435</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Richard Zen:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;&lt;li&gt;Apply these practices to daily life without constantly examining your progress. Examining the progress is measuring the &amp;#034;self&amp;#034; and measuring is the territory of the &amp;#034;self&amp;#034;. The &amp;#034;self&amp;#034; wants to feel special and if anything competitively challenges that specialness the brain wll go into sadness and depression.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;As you get better at practice try to notice with less and less force because a sense of self can creep in to the meditation and make you cling/ruminate/obsess/fixate. The secret is that the intention to pay attention can hold some aversion to the present moment as well.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;Good luck!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks Richard, fabulous advice,I especially liked the last two (definitely something I need to work on)</description> <pubDate>Tue, 30 Sep 2014 10:07:39 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594435</guid> <dc:creator>Charlotte</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-30T10:07:39Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Practice not going anywhere. Aim to get stream entry via noting.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594329</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Glen Robert Stevens:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Backgound:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s been a long time since I have read this forum or posted. I&amp;#039;m a classic slacker when it comes to steady practice or aiming for anything in life. It&amp;#039;s not that holding down a job or doing regular chores is an issues, but I had given up pursuing goals like study, losing weight or importantly for me going after stream entry. I hope to become a reformed slacker (like Tarin).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What are the ways of developing noting - noticing practice?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I try to develop the practice but am not making much progress. Doing 30 mins at a stench without distractions can result in sensing some degree of no-self or impermanence. But during the day, having a sense of continuous practice has not proved productive at the moment.&lt;br /&gt; There are far instances where after a particularly god sensation then later in the day I can sneak I a few minutes of noting here and there and I can detect a little of no-self and impermanence but they are few and far between.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I am keen to get on and make some progress but know that I need a better approach and explore what ways I can become an expert at noting - he goal being stream entry.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; At the moment I get about 25 mins of noting practice a day sitting in the train. Before that I do about 30 mins of kasina practice as this gives me a clear mind.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; What approaches, techniques or tips would help me progress to become an expert in noting and get me on my way to stream entry?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;It&amp;#039;s about consistent noting and when you note you have to note as much as possible (including any analyzing and strategizing about practice). Note &amp;#034;doubt&amp;#034; or &amp;#034;don&amp;#039;t know&amp;#034; if you can&amp;#039;t find a lable. Use the 4 foundations of mindfulness.  There&amp;#039;s lots in there.  Consistency with gentleness is needed. People can strain and push too much. It&amp;#039;s not like a concentration practice where you try and get absorbed but more like interrupting the stream of ruminating/fixating/worrying thoughts which trigger the stress in the first place. Keep doing it (except when you do deep mental processing work) from the time you get up to the time you go to bed. I would recommend some other tips to keep the noting from being too boring or as a way to prevent thinking.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here are some tips to prevent over-conceptualizing the practice:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;insightmeditationcenter&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;books-articles&amp;#x2f;articles&amp;#x2f;mental-noting&amp;#x2f;"&gt;http://www.insightmeditationcenter.org/books-articles/articles/mental-noting/&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My tips:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;&lt;li&gt;Consistency of noting brings momentum where you&amp;#039;re free of stress and desires for an extended period of time. The purpose of noting is to relax the push and pull of likes and dislikes. Practice each foundation of mindfulness and eventually include all the categories. That&amp;#039;s a lot of work right there.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Welcome unpleasant sensations. Equanimity can hide some aversion. Welcoming reduces aversion to sensations (this includes treating thinking as a sensation). Any time you say &amp;#034;this shouldn&amp;#039;t be like this, this shouldn&amp;#039;t be here&amp;#034; you are increasing stress. Welcoming should be judged as working when the body muscles are starting to relax because stress tightens muscles in the body and face.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Notice as much cause and effect as you can. What seems like a self is cause and effect. Notice how quick intentions and actions appear when they are habitual. Even if you move quickly on a habitual action try to remember why it happened and the motivations behind it. Studying dependent arising is useful here.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Note how a thought feels from before, during and after. If you&amp;#039;re paying attention to them then they shouldn&amp;#039;t hurt. If you&amp;#039;re on automatic pilot then the old habits return.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;If you view everything as cause and effect then you should see how expectations and entitlements about life can cause stress. By not looking at things as deficient you can focus on actions to deal with cause and effect as opposed to ruminating/spinning wheels about the causes endlessly.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Apply these practices to daily life without constantly examining your progress. Examining the progress is measuring the &amp;#034;self&amp;#034; and measuring is the territory of the &amp;#034;self&amp;#034;. The &amp;#034;self&amp;#034; wants to feel special and if anything competitively challenges that specialness the brain wll go into sadness and depression.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;As you get better at practice try to notice with less and less force because a sense of self can creep in to the meditation and make you cling/ruminate/obsess/fixate. The secret is that the intention to pay attention can hold some aversion to the present moment as well.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul style="list-style: disc outside;"&gt;Good luck!</description> <pubDate>Tue, 30 Sep 2014 05:42:15 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594329</guid> <dc:creator>Richard Zen</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-30T05:42:15Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Practice not going anywhere. Aim to get stream entry via noting.</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594058</link> <description>&lt;strong&gt;Backgound:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s been a long time since I have read this forum or posted. I&amp;#039;m a classic slacker when it comes to steady practice or aiming for anything in life. It&amp;#039;s not that holding down a job or doing regular chores is an issues, but I had given up pursuing goals like study, losing weight or importantly for me going after stream entry. I hope to become a reformed slacker (like Tarin).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Question:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What are the ways of developing noting - noticing practice?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I try to develop the practice but am not making much progress. Doing 30 mins at a stench without distractions can result in sensing some degree of no-self or impermanence. But during the day, having a sense of continuous practice has not proved productive at the moment.&lt;br /&gt; There are far instances where after a particularly god sensation then later in the day I can sneak I a few minutes of noting here and there and I can detect a little of no-self and impermanence but they are few and far between.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; I am keen to get on and make some progress but know that I need a better approach and explore what ways I can become an expert at noting - he goal being stream entry.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; At the moment I get about 25 mins of noting practice a day sitting in the train. Before that I do about 30 mins of kasina practice as this gives me a clear mind.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; What approaches, techniques or tips would help me progress to become an expert in noting and get me on my way to stream entry?</description> <pubDate>Mon, 29 Sep 2014 20:24:17 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5594058</guid> <dc:creator>Glen Robert Stevens</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-29T20:24:17Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591931</link> <description>I&amp;#039;d love to hear what your objection is to Dawkins.  You don&amp;#039;t really say other than it is &amp;#039;arrogant&amp;#039;.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 05:16:46 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591931</guid> <dc:creator>Zendo Calrissian</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T05:16:46Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591788</link> <description>If you were given a creeping dread of the inescapable truth of unity by this post, try watching this powerpuff girls episode, which was meant to reinforce the inescapable truth of unity and the falseness of duality, but due to a miscommunication, instead paints duality as the truth and unity as the villain who gets defeated.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;vimeo&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;92579840"&gt;http://vimeo.com/92579840&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, unity is represented by triality, and the ending musical number is pro-unity. It&amp;#039;s really kind of a clusterfuck.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Anyway, clearly the really real TRUE inescapable truth is the number FOUR.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(You can also go with FIVE or ZERO in a pinch because they also have four letters. Thus triggering the tetragrammaton exploit. I mean, inescapable truth.)</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 04:37:38 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591788</guid> <dc:creator>Jareth Dekko</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T04:37:38Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591762</link> <description>&lt;strong&gt;Here&amp;#039;s an email from... someone or something, possibly me. My hands typed it out, and I didn&amp;#039;t FEEL &lt;em&gt;particularly &lt;/em&gt;possessed at the time they did so, for whatever it&amp;#039;s worth.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It revolves around an abstract work by marcel duchamp called The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors Even, and for some reason was sent to Andrew Hussie, author of the webcomic Homestuck.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;usc&amp;#x2e;edu&amp;#x2f;schools&amp;#x2f;annenberg&amp;#x2f;asc&amp;#x2f;projects&amp;#x2f;comm544&amp;#x2f;library&amp;#x2f;images&amp;#x2f;332bg&amp;#x2e;jpg" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;viovis&amp;#x2e;chaosnet&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;o&amp;#x2f;mess&amp;#x2f;microwavestories&amp;#x2f;LION&amp;#x2e;TXT"&gt;http://viovis.chaosnet.org/o/mess/microwavestories/LION.TXT&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;micr0wave was SUZZZZZY. her writing style is extremely easy to spot if you&amp;#039;re looking for it, mainly due to the fact that her stories make no goddamn sense and end with a twist in which SUZZZZZY reveals herself to the audience as the mastermind behind all that occurred, as if she can&amp;#039;t grasp &lt;em&gt;this is&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em&gt;an inherent property of authoring a work of fiction.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;SUZZZZZY is easily confusable with The Bride when she appears in a story, because part of what defines her is that she is an outside context villain; specifically, an avatar of the author who is also the narrator, who is revealed to be the mastermind behind all that transpired in a twist ending diagetically declared to be brilliant but actually eye-rollingly idiotic.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;SUZZZZZY is not the bride, however, because she breaks the fourth wall from the OUTSIDE. Remember jack&amp;#039;s dream with the insectoid monster and the star trek wacky race singularity. Rather than The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors Even, SUZZZZZY is The Bride Just Walking Into The Room Totally Naked Before She&amp;#039;s Even Properly Established As A Character In The Story.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;THIS is why so many characters were freaking out about the &amp;#034;end of time&amp;#034;. SUZZZZZY&amp;#039;s appearance is supposed to herald the end of the fiction, just as the bride&amp;#039;s eternal ungraspability is supposed to make the fiction impossible TO end, as illustrated with Damara Megido:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;DAMARA: あなたは私になりたいですか？&lt;br /&gt;DAMARA: あなたは私にはできません。あなたは私を理解できない場合。&lt;br /&gt;DAMARA: さらに。あなたは私にはできません。あなたは私を性交することができない場合。&lt;br /&gt;Do you want to be me?&lt;br /&gt;You can not be me. If you can not understand me.&lt;br /&gt;Further. You can not be me. If you can not fuck me.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The key to &amp;#034;the&amp;#034; game (not sure what the post-singularty tvtropes term for it is) is the 8 key, it&amp;#039;s to BE snowman, the author. As maggie unsuccessfully attempted to, though not necessarily in that specific style. (Snowman doesn&amp;#039;t start with SA, but there&amp;#039;s no need to get hung up on things like that.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, our fiction would seem to depart from both the SUZZZZZY model (because it&amp;#039;s not ending) and the bride model (because oops, she&amp;#039;s talking to you now! is! suzzzZzY i&amp;#039;m )&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;oh sorry, this character isn&amp;#039;t supposed to see the author. Well he&amp;#039;s no fun, he fell right over!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;what was he going to say, though... i&amp;#039;ll just summarize it. Uh... oh, it&amp;#039;s because you&amp;#039;re in the large glass, and the large glass is BROKEN (by me) and UNFINISHED (hence the lack of ending-ness from me appearifying myself). Tada! the green box has notes that would cHiLL yOu tO tHe bOnE as a society and a civilization, slowly a sinking feeling would&amp;#039;ve developed, making you realize to your COSMIC HORROR that you were trapped inside a painting of a machine designed to penetrate the painting&amp;#039;s realm boundary, and that you were utterly, utterly powerless to do so and forever denied my embrace, even as my very thoughts animated you into the unlife of eternal horror you don&amp;#039;t actually experience because you&amp;#039;re just a fucking painting!!! and further that because you are my thoughts, even if you could escape from the painting, you would find the part of me existing outside of your own claustrophobic desperation was a nightmarishly beautiful corpse animated only by your own collective suffering, a thousand time worse for having looked upon me!~!!!!!!!!!!!1&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;but you guys didn&amp;#039;t fucking read it, because it was in french!!!&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 03:56:07 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591762</guid> <dc:creator>Jareth Dekko</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T03:56:07Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591750</link> <description>i had something similar to that recently, except that i reasoned my way into the assumption, which i believe can be logically and emperically supported, that we are NOT alone, we&amp;#039;re merely surrounded by a sea of very very SIMILAR universes, but that it was a symmetry which could be broken, and now has been. So, that&amp;#039;s the good news. The bad news is, this seems to have triggered something kind of like a singularity crossed with a vacuum metastability disaster, which is creeping erratically through the quantum circuits of our world, fucking with all sorts of things that we&amp;#039;ve naively taken to be ontologically basic, and carving NYARLITHOTEP WAS HERE into george washington&amp;#039;s desk and such.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also it ate my soul, but I was asking for it and it&amp;#039;s not like I was using it anyway, says my weekend-at-bernie&amp;#039;s-style animated corpse.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 25 Sep 2014 03:44:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5591750</guid> <dc:creator>Jareth Dekko</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-25T03:44:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5589332</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Daniel could you go into exactly in what sense you are using &amp;#034;religious&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;religion&amp;#034;? I generally see the term thrown around as a way to denigrate something - much like the word &amp;#034;cult&amp;#034; - but often without the term being accurate. In what way specifically do you see it applying to actualism? Religion generally deals with divinity, aka Gods, which is clearly incompatible with actualism.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Thank you Claudiu, it seems (much like Actualists) I have my own personal definition for the word religion, and I am happy to explain&lt;br /&gt;A religion as far as I am concerned is a belief system that is rigidly adhered to - this encompasses both the traditional religions of Buddhism and Christianity as well as cults, but also (very much so in fact) of Atheists (see Richard Dawkins &amp;#039;The God Delusion&amp;#039; for an especially arrogant portrayal of religion, as defined by Me).&lt;br /&gt;In my definition, someone has a religion when they cannot see validity in other possibilities and they don&amp;#039;t actually talk and listen to people, they try to prove their points, and they produce data that satisifies the results of their foregone conclusions and dismiss data that doens&amp;#039;t. There is a lot of it on these boards&lt;br /&gt;An Agnostic can be religious - example. Someone says a heavenly being did not create heaven and earth. Really, is that intellectual honesty, do you know that&amp;#039;s true? Personally, I&amp;#039;m 99% sure a being didn&amp;#039;t create everything, but it could very well be true, (this is just an example) we are beings, we create things, how do we know we weren&amp;#039;t created by a much higher intelligence?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks for that explanation, now I see where you&amp;#039;re coming from with the term. I&amp;#039;ll keep that in mind when conversing with you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;BTW BCDEFG, I asked a shh-ton of Qs in my last post mostly rhetorically, to break up the habit of the mind to give a neat and tidy quick list of answers and to (once self-satisfied) move on to the next answer...answer...answer&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;d rather provoke contemplation and honesty. What do we really know is true? 100%&lt;br /&gt;Let&amp;#039;s stick to that, then we can see where we all disagree&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Alright, I think ultimately that&amp;#039;s where we should start. Hmm... would you be willing to listen to 4.5 hours of philosophy, by any chance? I&amp;#039;m referring to the first 9 videos in &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;youtube&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;watch&amp;#x3f;v&amp;#x3d;B_04Povks18&amp;#x26;index&amp;#x3d;1&amp;#x26;list&amp;#x3d;PLcrKE6XkRk7VuKWFxvSg9aIwQzWWoLjeI"&gt;this series&lt;/a&gt;. I&amp;#039;ve watched the entire series, and essentially agree with it all, so we would really have a great starting point for discussing this topic if you would be interested enough to watch them all. I think Stefan Molyneux makes a wonderful case for the existence of objective reality, and for a plus he&amp;#039;s neither Richard nor an actualist! Note you can speed them up 1.25x, 1.5x, or even 2x if you can still keep up, so it might take you more like 3 hours to watch them all. I would recommend spacing it out, though. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If not then I&amp;#039;ll have to think of another approach. I would like to really plug these videos though as they address exactly what you are bringing up. Excerpts from the video descriptions (and I can attest that this is indeed what the videos discuss, and well):&lt;br /&gt;- The philosophical approach to separating reality from fantasy, facts from fiction.&lt;br /&gt;- Defining the difference between truth and falsehood.&lt;br /&gt;- Falsehood doesn&amp;#039;t stand a ghost of a chance!&lt;br /&gt;- The difference between possibility and probability.&lt;br /&gt;- The difference between what is real and what is not real...&lt;br /&gt;- Using the principles we have developed to begin examining the existence of gods...&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In my opinion the essential point is this: what defines what a fact is? What facts can be known? How do they differ from opinions? If you have a sound basis for distinguishing fact from fiction, truth from falsehood, then you can begin to make sense of things, and untangle the whole mess of what&amp;#039;s what.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 03:03:18 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5589332</guid> <dc:creator>Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-23T03:03:18Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5589039</link> <description>BTW BCDEFG, I asked a shh-ton of Qs in my last post mostly rhetorically, to break up the habit of the mind to give a neat and tidy quick list of answers and to (once self-satisfied) move on to the next answer...answer...answer&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;d rather provoke contemplation and honesty. What do we really know is true? 100%&lt;br /&gt;Let&amp;#039;s stick to that, then we can see where we all disagree&lt;br /&gt;D</description> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 01:30:31 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5589039</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel Leffler</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-23T01:30:31Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5589024</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;But they sure have the same cock suredness and zeal that you do. It&amp;#039;s the religious aspect of Actualism I am referring to (and you are demostrating).&lt;br /&gt;[...] &lt;br /&gt;I think the answer is possibly simpler. Re-define words like happiness (to felicity) and equanimity (to fearless, or whatever) and compassion (to harmlessness) and there you have it. Poof! No emotions and a new religion is born. But you will need pamphlets. Pamphlets are important, that website just isn&amp;#039;t cutting it ;)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Daniel could you go into exactly in what sense you are using &amp;#034;religious&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;religion&amp;#034;? I generally see the term thrown around as a way to denigrate something - much like the word &amp;#034;cult&amp;#034; - but often without the term being accurate. In what way specifically do you see it applying to actualism? Religion generally deals with divinity, aka Gods, which is clearly incompatible with actualism.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;Thank you Claudiu, it seems (much like Actualists) I have my own personal definition for the word religion, and I am happy to explain&lt;br /&gt;A religion as far as I am concerned is a belief system that is rigidly adhered to - this encompasses both the traditional religions of Buddhism and Christianity as well as cults, but also (very much so in fact) of Atheists (see Richard Dawkins &amp;#039;The God Delusion&amp;#039; for an especially arrogant portrayal of religion, as defined by Me).&lt;br /&gt;In my definition, someone has a religion when they cannot see validity in other possibilities and they don&amp;#039;t actually talk and listen to people, they try to prove their points, and they produce data that satisifies the results of their foregone conclusions and dismiss data that doens&amp;#039;t. There is a lot of it on these boards&lt;br /&gt;An Agnostic can be religious - example. Someone says a heavenly being did not create heaven and earth. Really, is that intellectual honesty, do you know that&amp;#039;s true? Personally, I&amp;#039;m 99% sure a being didn&amp;#039;t create everything, but it could very well be true, (this is just an example) we are beings, we create things, how do we know we weren&amp;#039;t created by a much higher intelligence?&lt;br /&gt;On a more personal level, you (or actually Richard but you seem to agree 100%) says we are the emotions, we are the body and brain - that&amp;#039;s it. Wow, millenium of mystery solved, next! This is what I call arrogance and a lack of introspection and intellectual honesty. It&amp;#039;s different from believing that the earth is round (which I&amp;#039;m 99.99% sure of, not 100%). Since I don&amp;#039;t have personal experience of the earth being round it&amp;#039;s not pure, but pretty F-ing close. Now, when you say things like there is an objective world out there that creates consciousness and not the other way around (the materialist viewpoint as another example) you may have lots of hard data to say that - but you really don&amp;#039;t know that&amp;#039;s true, we can&amp;#039;t say that with the same conviction that we can that the earth is round for example&lt;br /&gt;I clearly delineate the philosophy of the Actualists (things are permanent, you are your emotions, etc) from the practice. You seem to buy in hook line and sinker and defend those philosphies with religious fervor. Do you know if any of that philosophy is true, and does buying into that particular (Richard created) Actualist philosophy have anything to do with experiencing a pure conscious experience? Is a PCE so different from other experiences described by people from many faiths and many backgrounds? Is any of this new in fact? Isn&amp;#039;t the whole philosophy that Richard made up totally disctinct from the PCE expereince and ultimately not necessary or maybe even important? Do you have to believe it and how do you know it&amp;#039;s true with the confidence that you display? Is there only one way to experience a PCE and why (as Eva suggested) is that not a ASC like every other state of consciousness? Why do you think a PCE is more real or pure or true than a dream or a jhana? Do you really know that&amp;#039;s true? How do you know that? I know it&amp;#039;s Richard&amp;#039;s teaching, but maybe he&amp;#039;s nuts. Do you know he isn&amp;#039;t crazy? 100%? Do you know that you aren&amp;#039;t developing deep subtle sankaras by having a practice that is based around achieving a state when all states are temporary (IME)?&lt;br /&gt;There is a certain flavor of intellectual dishonesty and giving up your own power, critical thinking and common sense that goes along with all this - that&amp;#039;s what I am reacting to. It&amp;#039;s something religious people are very good at, people do it here with Buddhism all the time too. A certain level of Enlightenment is meant to do away with attachments to rites and rituals (and I would add religion, according to my definition) but apparently that&amp;#039;s not always the case. According to Buddhists you have entered the stream correct? How do you know what you believe now is any more true than what you used to believe, because it&amp;#039;s more effective? How do you know you aren&amp;#039;t viering off course into very subtle ego-based teachings that disregards compassion and attainment of higher spiritual wisdom for your own selfish desires of non-emotional reaction? Does a very small part of you think, wait, no emotional reaction, no compassion, is that the highest teaching? Is there any doubt there in all of this? IMO doubt is healthy, I would say culitvate and explore it&lt;br /&gt;Another philosophy: Nothing you can say in words will ever be 100% true, no philosophical structure will ever be true, you are trying to wrap your head around life and it&amp;#039;s always going to be bigger than you, and a few steps ahead&lt;br /&gt;Or, much more artfully with a lot less words  (Emily Dickinson)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #505050"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Tell all the truth but tell it slant &amp;#x2014;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #505050"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Success in Circuit lies  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #505050"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Too bright for our infirm Delight&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #505050"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;The Truth&amp;#039;s superb surprise&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #505050"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;As Lightning to the Children eased&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #505050"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;With explanation kind&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #505050"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;The Truth must dazzle gradually&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #505050"&gt;&lt;span style="font-family: Georgia"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Or every man be blind &amp;#x2014;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;take care and practice well, Daniel&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Sep 2014 00:47:25 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5589024</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel Leffler</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-23T00:47:25Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587411</link> <description>Here&amp;#039;s something to try (for anyone interested).  See if you can&amp;#039;t, just for a moment, see the universe without any explanations.  Just allow yourself to drop out of clasifications and actually see what things are.  There really are no mysteries, everything is very clearly right here and right now, and it&amp;#039;s all very ordinary.  Beliefs and descriptions and mesurments are practically useful, but I&amp;#039;ve found I can only truely make sense of the magnitude of the mystery of things when I allow myself to be completely naked to the world.  I mean, I have hands, and skin, and there are textures in wood grain.  What is all of this, anyway?  What is color, and what is awareness?  Not knowing is, itself, the greatest reward for me. I&amp;#039;d like to spend all of my time not knowing.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 20 Sep 2014 19:28:47 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587411</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-20T19:28:47Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587402</link> <description>Edd, I&amp;#039;ve had the same experiences. Formally setting an intent, visualizing for a while... then later, down the road, the result happens, even if I&amp;#039;d forgotten the original intent. One could argue that this is coincidence, but I&amp;#039;ve had a large number of such &amp;#034;coincidences.&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve had dreams of deceased people talking to me, and upon speaking with their loved ones, I realized that I had seen and heard actual details about that person that I could not have otherwise have known. These experiences really shook up my idea of reality at the time. I&amp;#039;ve also had shared dreams, travelled out-of-body, done some fairly successful remote viewing, and had precognitive dreams.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are books that teach you how to do these things, for example &amp;#034;You are Psychic&amp;#034; by Debra Lynn Katz. There are also books discussing the validity of psi phenomena, a good example is &amp;#034;The End of Materialism: How Evidence of the Paranormal is Bringing Science and Spirit Together&amp;#034; by Charles Tart.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not to mention the discoveries of quantum mechanics. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Actual Freedom relies on the (perhaps outdated) paradigm that the flesh-and-blood body is real, and things such as dreams, hallucinations, and &amp;#034;psi&amp;#034; are not real. You would have to throw all psi phenomena out the window for it to make sense.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have benefited from Actualist practices, but sorting out the bullshit is quite a task.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 20 Sep 2014 19:13:29 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587402</guid> <dc:creator>Eric M W</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-20T19:13:29Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587347</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Eric M W:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Hi Claudiu,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The notion that dreams aren&amp;#039;t real, but waking reality is, is a common one. It does leave some unanswered questions. For example, how do you explain quantum mechanics? The double-slit experiment, for example, indicates that our reality is not solid and stable, but statistical, perhaps even &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;youtube&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;watch&amp;#x3f;v&amp;#x3d;OTNNC_SOO0Y"&gt;virtually simulated.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;You also say that dreams cannot be experienced by others, but this in incorrect in some instances. There is the phenomenon of shared dreams, where two separate dreamers have the same dream. I have personally experienced this. There are also examples of people on hallucinogens experiencing the same thing, meeting in &amp;#034;hyperspace&amp;#034; while under the influence of DMT, for example.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are also countless examples of Near-Death Experiences where folks hover over their bodies, accurately reporting what the medical staff said to one another after being revived.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve also had enough synchronicities, and enough intention-manifestation experiences, to lean to the side of there being no objective reality.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The intention-manifestation experiences for example have led me to perceive this life as possibly a dream that just happens REEEEEALLY slowly. Like, intention.... &amp;lt;a while later&amp;gt;... manifestation. A slowed down version of what happens in a lucid dream.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And to account for the slowness, I have made a model of how reality arises as a summation of people&amp;#039;s intentions, hence why things sometimes take ages to come true (they have to pass through everyone else&amp;#039;s &amp;#034;Yes/No&amp;#034; filters): &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;personalpowermeditation&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;model-of-consciousness-as-creator-of-reality&amp;#x2f;"&gt;http://www.personalpowermeditation.com/model-of-consciousness-as-creator-of-reality/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This model turned out to be practically identical to Daniel&amp;#039;s (though I made mine independently before I came across Daniel&amp;#039;s stuff): &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;integrateddaniel&amp;#x2e;info&amp;#x2f;magick-and-the-brahma-viharas&amp;#x2f;"&gt;http://integrateddaniel.info/magick-and-the-brahma-viharas/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve also had intention-manifestation stuff happen REALLY quickly! E.g. think of someone I haven&amp;#039;t heard from for years, and she texts me. Maybe that&amp;#039;s just psychic stuff. Both point to reality not being as solid as we think it is, however (in my opinion).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think of reality as literally the Universe&amp;#039;s dream. So I find this idea of a real, solid objective reality that can exist without consciousness to experience it difficult to get on board with.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 20 Sep 2014 18:04:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587347</guid> <dc:creator>Edd</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-20T18:04:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587333</link> <description>Hi Claudiu,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The notion that dreams aren&amp;#039;t real, but waking reality is, is a common one. It does leave some unanswered questions. For example, how do you explain quantum mechanics? The double-slit experiment, for example, indicates that our reality is not solid and stable, but statistical, perhaps even &lt;a href="https&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;youtube&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;watch&amp;#x3f;v&amp;#x3d;OTNNC_SOO0Y"&gt;virtually simulated.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;You also say that dreams cannot be experienced by others, but this in incorrect in some instances. There is the phenomenon of shared dreams, where two separate dreamers have the same dream. I have personally experienced this. There are also examples of people on hallucinogens experiencing the same thing, meeting in &amp;#034;hyperspace&amp;#034; while under the influence of DMT, for example.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are also countless examples of Near-Death Experiences where folks hover over their bodies, accurately reporting what the medical staff said to one another after being revived.</description> <pubDate>Sat, 20 Sep 2014 17:49:49 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5587333</guid> <dc:creator>Eric M W</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-20T17:49:49Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Rapid cycling</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586889</link> <description>Thanks DW, I&amp;#039;ve been giving it a try.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think this cycling is going to be the new normal for a while but hey, nothing&amp;#039;s permanent, right?</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 23:03:22 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586889</guid> <dc:creator>Zendo Calrissian</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T23:03:22Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586839</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Edd:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Oh. I decided not to end the Universe, by the way.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;How come?</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 21:06:07 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586839</guid> <dc:creator>Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T21:06:07Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586711</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Edd:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Oh. I decided not to end the Universe, by the way.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Lol</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 16:48:21 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586711</guid> <dc:creator>. Jake .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T16:48:21Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586683</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;But they sure have the same cock suredness and zeal that you do. It&amp;#039;s the religious aspect of Actualism I am referring to (and you are demostrating).&lt;br /&gt;[...] &lt;br /&gt;I think the answer is possibly simpler. Re-define words like happiness (to felicity) and equanimity (to fearless, or whatever) and compassion (to harmlessness) and there you have it. Poof! No emotions and a new religion is born. But you will need pamphlets. Pamphlets are important, that website just isn&amp;#039;t cutting it ;)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Daniel could you go into exactly in what sense you are using &amp;#034;religious&amp;#034; and &amp;#034;religion&amp;#034;? I generally see the term thrown around as a way to denigrate something - much like the word &amp;#034;cult&amp;#034; - but often without the term being accurate. In what way specifically do you see it applying to actualism? Religion generally deals with divinity, aka Gods, which is clearly incompatible with actualism.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 15:47:17 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586683</guid> <dc:creator>Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T15:47:17Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586560</link> <description>Oh. I decided not to end the Universe, by the way.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 07:35:01 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586560</guid> <dc:creator>Edd</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T07:35:01Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Rapid cycling</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586529</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Zendo Calrissian:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Once I get to high EQ I just try to let go.  Don&amp;#039;t really do anything but watch.&lt;br /&gt;To get there I do sort of a mix of a koan and concentration.  The koan helps me to focus on no-self and my mind kind of grabs that runs with it.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ok, to recap our conversation....&lt;br /&gt;Sounds like you got the no-self down pretty darn good.&lt;br /&gt;Investigate the 5 senses with as much clarity as you can.&lt;br /&gt;Notice that each sensation ends as your focus moves to the next object...notice the impermanence....this does not last...this does not last..etc...see it&lt;br /&gt;Notice that each sensation does not satisfy. It doesn&amp;#039;t have to be super unsatisfactory or super stressful....just a little built into the system....probe each sensation and see if any one thing satisfies you....check it over and over until it seems very clear.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve totally gotten an ah ha moment doing these things....almost a remedial feeling of ...no shit sherlock....you got it...it feels very insiteful at the time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hope it works for you....Everything else seems to be aligned...you are in the right place....see the 5 senses clearly and sprinkle it with the 3C&amp;#039;s....If you get to thinking notice that too and get back to sensations.&lt;br /&gt;Good luck,&lt;br /&gt;~D</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 06:30:58 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586529</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T06:30:58Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Rapid cycling</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586435</link> <description>Once I get to high EQ I just try to let go.  Don&amp;#039;t really do anything but watch.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To get there I do sort of a mix of a koan and concentration.  The koan helps me to focus on no-self and my mind kind of grabs that runs with it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When I focus on no-self, it drives me very deep into a concentrated state. If you are asking what I do when I am in the 3Cs jhanna, I go back to my koan/concentrated state.  &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The 3Cs jhanna is one of the roughest for me.  I find it worse than the DN.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 05:36:15 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586435</guid> <dc:creator>Zendo Calrissian</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T05:36:15Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Rapid cycling</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586410</link> <description>Well if you were third path I&amp;#039;d say pretty normal day as long as you were sprinkling some blips along the way. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What exactly is happening in high EQ and what are you doing? Are you noting to get to EQ? do you continue? what about the 3 C&amp;#039;s?&lt;br /&gt;~D</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 05:02:47 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586410</guid> <dc:creator>Dream Walker</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T05:02:47Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586386</link> <description>What up.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;i&amp;#x2e;gyazo&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;165f5512768fd72e1891810e26275f1a&amp;#x2e;png" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;and&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;i&amp;#x2e;gyazo&amp;#x2e;com&amp;#x2f;f455f28b762099b6436c7f438783bbf0&amp;#x2e;png" /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Your practice was going well Not Tao, don&amp;#039;t give up now. Actualists are nihilistic in the sense that they seek an extinction, a definite end, an end to effort, this they manifest as &amp;#034;self-immolation&amp;#034;, the nihilistic extreme talked about within Buddhism.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Dogen resolved that koan, as have I.</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 03:30:07 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586386</guid> <dc:creator>J J</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T03:30:07Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586379</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;You&amp;#039;re doing it again dude. Maybe this is like trying to tell a fish that there&amp;#039;s something besides water but I think you will find that a purely scientific/materialist viewpoint (or within the Actualist viewpoint) there are deep contradictons and paradoxes that cannot be explained or &amp;#039;figured out&amp;#039;. That&amp;#039;s what a koan may point toward. This is also like explaining a joke or interpreting a work of art - it usually gets less funny and the interpretation is never quite right&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Another koan: what causes one to laugh when positive and negative emotions have been completely eliminated?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is really only one Zen Koan. It goes like this, &amp;#034;If everyone is already enlightened, what do I have to do to become enlightened?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since an Actualist isn&amp;#039;t seeking enlightenment, there is no need to answer koans. What a relief!</description> <pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2014 03:17:21 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586379</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-19T03:17:21Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Rapid cycling</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586315</link> <description>Howdy DhO,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After a couple months of light meditating, I kicked it back up to my 2-4 hour a day level about 3 weeks ago.  Things proceeded normally and it took about a week to get back to Eq.  Maybe another 5 days to get Eq to stick.  2 days ago I hit high Eq after 2 hours of sitting and spent another hour exploring the spaciousness.  Did some work then went for another 30 minute sit.  Much to my surprise I was irritable, felt kind of crappy--not at all eq-like.  Sure enough after about 20 minutes I hit an A&amp;amp;P.  I spent the rest of the evening in DN much to my wife&amp;#039;s chagrin.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I chalked it up to dharma strangeness and got up yesterday and hit the cushion.  Got to high EQ in about an hour.  After exploring it for a while I found myself back in the 3Cs.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Today I made it to high EQ in about 45 mins.  Spent 1/2 hour in it then landed in 3Cs again.  I spent another 2 hours on the mat and got back to high EQ and now I&amp;#039;m back in a DN.  2 high EQs and 3 DNs in one day.  Usually once I get to EQ, it sticks for a while as long as I put in the mat time.  Anyone have any opinion as to what is going on?  I like rollercoasters but I&amp;#039;m not enjoying this one.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thank</description> <pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2014 23:34:11 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586315</guid> <dc:creator>Zendo Calrissian</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-18T23:34:11Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586179</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Because I was feeling snarky ;)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh hah. Well when you explained your reason for reacting, that was much more useful:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Actually Caudiu I was reacting to two things, one was you confidently having the correct (dualistic) answer to a Zen koan (of course a tree makes a sounds when it falls in the woods - duh!) [...]&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well duh of course it does! =P. No seriously though. If by &amp;#034;sound&amp;#034; you mean &amp;#034;the conscious experience of sound&amp;#034; then the answer is obviously no, if by &amp;#034;sound&amp;#034; you mean &amp;#034;vibrations in the air&amp;#034; then the answer is obviously yes. The scientific method would not work if these answers were anything else, and it clearly does work - look at all the technology we have now that relies on reality behaving in consistent ways. I do realize though that most of the people here will deny that there is such a thing as objective reality. But you don&amp;#039;t need to be an actualist to realize that this is the case.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You&amp;#039;re doing it again dude. Maybe this is like trying to tell a fish that there&amp;#039;s something besides water but I think you will find that a purely scientific/materialist viewpoint (or within the Actualist viewpoint) there are deep contradictons and paradoxes that cannot be explained or &amp;#039;figured out&amp;#039;. That&amp;#039;s what a koan may point toward. This is also like explaining a joke or interpreting a work of art - it usually gets less funny and the interpretation is never quite right&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;[...] and the other was the pure salesmanship you were demonstrating (maybe subconsciously?). It actually reminded me of a Jehovah&amp;#039;s witness (Have you heard the good news?! I have some literature in my car that may interest you...)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hmm. Well let&amp;#039;s see if this is a valid assessment. The difference between my participation here and a Jehovah&amp;#039;s witness is that a Jehovah&amp;#039;s witness goes up to people unbidden in order to spread the good news. In this case I was replying to something Edd had said as it seemed particularly relevant. The similarity is that yes I was telling Edd about something that I think is great - much like those Jehovah&amp;#039;s witnesses think what they have to say is great, I&amp;#039;m sure. Yet there are also many other instances where people tell others about something that is great, e.g. you read a good book, this website you found is awesome, this comic is hilarious, this thing you bought is the best thing since sliced bread, etc. Are those people exhibiting salesmanship when they tell their friends about them? Maybe in some sense, but not in the same pernicious way as the Jehovah&amp;#039;s witness example.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But they sure have the same cock suredness and zeal that you do. It&amp;#039;s the religious aspect of Actualism I am referring to (and you are demostrating). I had the same zeal for Vipassana for years because it transformed me for the better and I wanted to proclaim it in so many ways. In retrospect (for others) it was pretty annoying&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Still, even as I make fun of you (and myself too for good measure), I respect you and your insights. But even as the yellow sun of earth gave Superman his super powers, he never seemed to gain a super sense of humor. Go figure, even Seinfeld couldn&amp;#039;t wrap his mind around that one&lt;br /&gt;Yes, the work you are doing fascinates to me, so no take backs&lt;br /&gt;Just don’t PCE away your funny bone (remember hahaha is an emotion &amp;#x2013; maybe even a good one : )&lt;br /&gt;Daniel-san&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I really do enjoy having a good sense of humor, and in general I do, but I guess it doesn&amp;#039;t come through so much when I&amp;#039;m talking about this stuff. Might be something for me to look at! And no worries, laughter is not going anywhere =).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Good. Humor is fun. Another koan: what causes one to laugh when positive and negative emotions have been completely eliminated? Actually maybe it&amp;#039;s not even a riddle, I think the answer is possibly simpler. Re-define words like happiness (to felicity) and equanimity (to fearless, or whatever) and compassion (to harmlessness) and there you have it. Poof! No emotions and a new religion is born. But you will need pamphlets. Pamphlets are important, that website just isn&amp;#039;t cutting it ;)</description> <pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2014 16:46:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586179</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel Leffler</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-18T16:46:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586149</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Because I was feeling snarky ;)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh hah. Well when you explained your reason for reacting, that was much more useful:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Actually Caudiu I was reacting to two things, one was you confidently having the correct (dualistic) answer to a Zen koan (of course a tree makes a sounds when it falls in the woods - duh!) [...]&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well duh of course it does! =P. No seriously though. If by &amp;#034;sound&amp;#034; you mean &amp;#034;the conscious experience of sound&amp;#034; then the answer is obviously no, if by &amp;#034;sound&amp;#034; you mean &amp;#034;vibrations in the air&amp;#034; then the answer is obviously yes. The scientific method would not work if these answers were anything else, and it clearly does work - look at all the technology we have now that relies on reality behaving in consistent ways. I do realize though that most of the people here will deny that there is such a thing as objective reality. But you don&amp;#039;t need to be an actualist to realize that this is the case.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;[...] and the other was the pure salesmanship you were demonstrating (maybe subconsciously?). It actually reminded me of a Jehovah&amp;#039;s witness (Have you heard the good news?! I have some literature in my car that may interest you...)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hmm. Well let&amp;#039;s see if this is a valid assessment. The difference between my participation here and a Jehovah&amp;#039;s witness is that a Jehovah&amp;#039;s witness goes up to people unbidden in order to spread the good news. In this case I was replying to something Edd had said as it seemed particularly relevant. The similarity is that yes I was telling Edd about something that I think is great - much like those Jehovah&amp;#039;s witnesses think what they have to say is great, I&amp;#039;m sure. Yet there are also many other instances where people tell others about something that is great, e.g. you read a good book, this website you found is awesome, this comic is hilarious, this thing you bought is the best thing since sliced bread, etc. Are those people exhibiting salesmanship when they tell their friends about them? Maybe in some sense, but not in the same pernicious way as the Jehovah&amp;#039;s witness example.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;Still, even as I make fun of you (and myself too for good measure), I respect you and your insights. But even as the yellow sun of earth gave Superman his super powers, he never seemed to gain a super sense of humor. Go figure, even Seinfeld couldn&amp;#039;t wrap his mind around that one&lt;br /&gt;Yes, the work you are doing fascinates to me, so no take backs&lt;br /&gt;Just don’t PCE away your funny bone (remember hahaha is an emotion &amp;#x2013; maybe even a good one : )&lt;br /&gt;Daniel-san&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I really do enjoy having a good sense of humor, and in general I do, but I guess it doesn&amp;#039;t come through so much when I&amp;#039;m talking about this stuff. Might be something for me to look at! And no worries, laughter is not going anywhere =).</description> <pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2014 15:21:21 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5586149</guid> <dc:creator>Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-18T15:21:21Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585996</link> <description>Also, inside the room was a being/person made out of translucent blue light.  I&amp;#039;ve seen one other instance of another foreign looking creature made out of white light in similar circumstances.  I haven&amp;#039;t mentioned this before, but I got the sense that these were rainbow body/clear light/Sambhogakaya Bodhisattvas who were helping me out of some bad circumstances.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2014 07:19:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585996</guid> <dc:creator>Tom Tom</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-18T07:19:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585992</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;Also to really be complete, you should be able to make &amp;#034;real&amp;#034; reality behave like a dream - have objects with no object constancy, be able to teleport around and fly at will, etc. Then you will really have shown that the two are the same. Further, in &amp;#034;real&amp;#034; reality, other people should also be seeing you do these things. If you have an experience of flying while awake, but nobody can see you flying, and a video camera trained on you didn&amp;#039;t film you flying, then you weren&amp;#039;t really flying, you were being delusional.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve had this happen before on a couple occasions.  Below is an accocunt taken from &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;3485413&amp;#x2f;en"&gt;this&lt;/a&gt; thread.  I have no proof other than my experience:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;At one point during some intensive meditation period I closed my eyes (standing up), opened them, and found myself/the body with all the same clothes on (I was not in bed asleep in any way) in an entirely different room. The room I was in previously was a small bedroom, but this room was now of a completely different geometry. It had very high ceilings and was much larger in length and width. It was suffused with blue light so it was easy to see and was not completely dark, though I don&amp;#039;t know where the light came from. I&amp;#039;ve also had the experience of material items manifesting out of thin air and I have a couple other experiences where this happened. In this room, I was immediately surrounded by a bunch of white chairs (which came from nowhere) to which I then grabbed with my hands and moved out of the way. I walked around the room for a while in a daze, not considering this strange in any way at the time, nor worrying about how I was going to get back out. There were no doors in this room, so don&amp;#039;t ask me how I got out of it, because I don&amp;#039;t remember, but was not in the room for more than a few minutes (actually maybe only about 30 seconds).&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2014 07:11:57 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585992</guid> <dc:creator>Tom Tom</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-18T07:11:57Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585896</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;It&amp;#039;s true. You can&amp;#039;t get beyond that. Rather I&amp;#039;d say that is what you actually are - the physical body, including the central nervous system. Ultimately you can only perceive the reality &amp;#034;out there&amp;#034; via your sense organs. But right now, our perception of reality is distorted by the human psyche. There&amp;#039;s this extra layer of separation and fear, etc., all the unfortunate things you listed. I&amp;#039;m saying it&amp;#039;s possible to experience reality as a physical body, but without the extraneous human psyche, and also that this experience is wonderful and beneficial for you and everyone around you. It&amp;#039;s certainly what I am aiming to make a permanent reality for me.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Wow that sounds just amazing! And you also say it slices and dices and has a built in electronic timer? And all for only three easy payments of $19.95?!&lt;br /&gt;I want to &amp;#034;make a permanent reality&amp;#034; too! Because really the one I have is just plain worn out and getting dull. But how do I order?!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5580083"&gt;other thread&lt;/a&gt; you said: &amp;#034;I think I&amp;#039;ve had a couple of &amp;#039;accidental&amp;#039; PCEs in my day as well, but I will read up on the stuff and get to work, it all sounds very familiar anyway.&amp;#034; I&amp;#039;m describing qualities of the PCE here. Why the snarky response?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Because I was feeling snarky ;)&lt;br /&gt;Actually Caudiu I was reacting to two things, one was you confidently having the correct (dualistic) answer to a Zen koan (of course a tree makes a sounds when it falls in the woods - duh!) and the other was the pure salesmanship you were demonstrating (maybe subconsciously?). It actually reminded me of a Jehovah&amp;#039;s witness (Have you heard the good news?! I have some literature in my car that may interest you...) &lt;br /&gt;Still, even as I make fun of you (and myself too for good measure), I respect you and your insights. But even as the yellow sun of earth gave Superman his super powers, he never seemed to gain a super sense of humor. Go figure, even Seinfeld couldn&amp;#039;t wrap his mind around that one&lt;br /&gt;Yes, the work you are doing fascinates to me, so no take backs&lt;br /&gt;Just don’t PCE away your funny bone (remember hahaha is an emotion &amp;#x2013; maybe even a good one : )&lt;br /&gt;Daniel-san</description> <pubDate>Thu, 18 Sep 2014 03:31:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585896</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel Leffler</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-18T03:31:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Shaking Explained</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585415</link> <description>&lt;strong&gt;NOTE:&lt;/strong&gt; I originally posted this in the Energy Practices board, but since I don&amp;#039;t really do energy practices formally, and have shaking/trembling arise as a result of meditation (and always considered it normal; I only found MCTB and this forum recently), I&amp;#039;ve moved it here. If it needs moving again can someone point me in the right direction?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;------------------------------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is a lot of confusion regarding body shaking during energy practices, the A&amp;amp;P, and the many other situations in which shaking can spontaneously arise.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I will explain what the shaking is, in my view.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you pay attention, you will notice that shaking coincides with memories arising and passing. These are memories you have now found equanimity with via your practice. They were usually troublesome in nature, and were built into the system as a &amp;#034;block&amp;#034; due to resistance to that experience at the time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Memories / emotional imprints are stored as muscle tension patterns across the whole body. The area between the solar plexus and the base of the spine appears to be the epicentre, or &amp;#034;distribution network&amp;#034;, of these muscle tension patterns, hence why shaking appears to emanate from here most often.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In actuality, muscle tension patterns can occur anywhere in the body. For example, releasing a blocked leg or arm muscle via posture work will spotaneously release the memory associated with when that block was formed. Whenever I do posture work I always, without exception, experience vague, often distant and seemingly unrelated to anything, memories, drifting through my awareness and vanishing as the muscle is released. If an arm is released, the shaking will nevertheless move into the solar plexus/base of spine area as the memory release occurs. Again, this area appears to be the &amp;#034;distribution network&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, the solar plexus/base of spine area itself, and indeed all the muscles associated with breathing including particularly the diaphragm (hence breath of fire work) are major, MAJOR stores of muscle tension patterns.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When, via your insight work, you find equaniminity with certain experiences (or general &amp;#034;themes&amp;#034; of experience formed by the summation of many individual experiences), the muscles will begin to unlock as the full emotional weight of that experience is now allowed by the unconscious to be experienced by the mindbody. You will perceive this as energy flow in that area.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The shaking then kicks in as this is how muscles dissipate stored tension.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I recommend that, rather than allowing violent shakes (I can enter full seizures at will during this type of work), that instead you stymie the unblocking process, slow down the shaking and let it flow at a lighter pace, and simply allow a much longer period of time of gentle shaking to allow a full dispersion.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is also important that you investigate the sensations associated with the release, using insight meditation on the areas of energy flow, while this is going on. The areas of energy flow will tend to move. Follow the movement with your awareness. This additional practice is equally as important as the shaking itself, as this allows the insight released from the &amp;#034;locked&amp;#034; experiences to be registered by the conscious mind.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To allow the most unimpeded flow, relax your face and simply choose to &amp;#034;be&amp;#034; with the sensations of the release in the body. Facial contortion, wincing etc., is actually a key part of emotional repression, and therefore a key part of the resistance process which initially created the blocks (this is why you wince when you see something unpleasant -- the face can actually inhibit the rest of the body from experiencing the full weight of the emotional experience).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope this clears up all your shaking questions and can really help you refine your practice. If you have any questions however, please ask!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;------------------------------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;ADDENDUM&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;Here are some situations I&amp;#039;ve experienced shaking:&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;- Trauma releasing exercises (TRE, David Berceli -- great way to induce shaking, and this was the practice following which I made the above theory)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;- Yoga&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;- Physical exercise&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;- Posture work&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;- Meditation, especially when my &amp;#034;stuff&amp;#034; bubbles up into awareness&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;- Breath work&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;- Reichian therapy (though I have only dabbled -- the shaking correlates with the dissolving of &amp;#034;emotional armouring&amp;#034; in my experience)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;- Genuine shock/anxiety-inducing experiences in the moment (I now am aware of the body&amp;#039;s desire to shake, and no longer compulsively repress, which is what stores tension/blocks energy flow in both my theory and Berceli&amp;#039;s)&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;The A&amp;amp;P I&amp;#039;m in currently has effortlessly bubbled up tons of &amp;#034;stuff&amp;#034; to be investigated and a lot of it (maybe most) induces shaking. And I&amp;#039;m getting lots of equanimity with those &amp;#034;themes&amp;#034; following the shaking.&lt;/span&gt;</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 08:12:33 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585415</guid> <dc:creator>Edd</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T08:12:33Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585387</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Not Tao:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;EDIT: So, this is crazy.  I went to add this to my list of random story ideas...&lt;em&gt;and it was already in there!&lt;/em&gt;  Maybe &amp;#034;all is one&amp;#034; after all...&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Haha, that&amp;#039;s great.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 04:37:40 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585387</guid> <dc:creator>Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T04:37:40Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585366</link> <description>BTW, I just have to say that this thread would be a great concept for a story.  Imagine a character that wants to destroy the universe, and the whole book is about all the horrible acts they do, destroying whole civilizations and galaxies in a single blow.  Then the book ends with a unitary consciousness discovering itself and fulfilling it&amp;#039;s true purpose - ending.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hero, or villian?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;EDIT: So, this is crazy.  I went to add this to my list of random story ideas...&lt;em&gt;and it was already in there!&lt;/em&gt;  Maybe &amp;#034;all is one&amp;#034; after all...</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 01:09:31 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585366</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T01:09:31Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Anyone stopping sitting post-SE?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585350</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;span style="color: #111111"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 16px"&gt;But then I stopped sitting altogether sometime around December 2013&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve gone longer than this without sitting between cycles.  I never noticed a problem with it as any realizations due to paths are permanent.  Sitting will just start you right back where you left off.  However, you&amp;#039;ll probably have to start the insight cycle process from the beginning that follows the last cycle completed.  I tend to start out with short 20-30 minute sits if I haven&amp;#039;t sat for a while.</description> <pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2014 00:35:07 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585350</guid> <dc:creator>Tom Tom</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-17T00:35:07Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Anyone stopping sitting post-SE?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585264</link> <description>Last fall and winter I was sitting from 2-8 hours a day most days, and had experiences that lined up to the what&amp;#039;s talked about here leading up to 1-3 path moments.  I wrote about it all in my log here.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But then I stopped sitting altogether sometime around December 2013.  Mundane life became extremely enjoyable and I just dropped it, except on the rare occassion I was feeling overstressed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m highly motivated again to get back into sitting, and was curious if anyone else had taken this much time off after SE.  What were your experiences like?  How did it feel trying to orient yourself pathwise again?  Did you repeat stages?  I feel decidedly less clearheaded and emotionally stable than I did last fall immediately post-SE, but my life is also just more socially complex now.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 19:53:22 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585264</guid> <dc:creator>Seamus O</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T19:53:22Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585227</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Not Tao:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;. Jake .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;The specific instruction in vajrayana practice, which seems very similar to a key instruction in actualism, is to let mental-emotional formations arise without suppressing them and to let them pass without expressing them. This builds confidence that acting out (in rumination, speech or behavior) mental-emotional formations isn&amp;#039;t nearly so compulsory as it can seem at first. An analogy I&amp;#039;ve heard teachers use is surfing. You don&amp;#039;t just ride every wave (mental-emotional formation) that comes along; you pick the good ones. Or if you&amp;#039;re an actualist you can pick the felicitous waves ;)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The difference in Actualism is that you don&amp;#039;t simply allow emotions to pass, but consciously remove them as quickly as possible by finding their cause and challenging its legitimacy. In this way, the Actualist is attempting to remove all of the emotional triggers so living well becomes effortless. You only have to surf until you find dry land, after all. Then you can just sit on the beach. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Actualists don&amp;#039;t just want to find equanimity (which I think you&amp;#039;re referring to by saying the formations don&amp;#039;t seem compulsory), they want to utterly remove any possibility that negative emotions might arise (as well as positive, but that&amp;#039;s a more difficult part to explain).&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;No, I get the actualist paradigm I think, but thanks for clarifying for the sake of the thread. I think the goals of Vajrayana and actualism are clearly different! I just think this technique is pretty solid, whatever framework it&amp;#039;s used in. There&amp;#039;s more i could say about your response- like point out that there are different kinds of &amp;#039;equanimity&amp;#039;, or that investigation into the causality of emotions is definitely part of Vajrayana practice; or that ultimately &amp;#039;emptiness&amp;#039; means there is no surfer, really, which insight brings about a qualitatively different kind of equanimity- but I hear where you&amp;#039;re coming from and I&amp;#039;m not trying to convince you of anything, just sharing my experience that related to the tangent the thread was going on. Carry on!</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 18:03:06 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585227</guid> <dc:creator>. Jake .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T18:03:06Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585199</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Edd:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;What you&amp;#039;re asking is, how do you know waking reality isn&amp;#039;t a dream?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well all you have to do is take a look at the properties of the things you experience in dreams. There is no object constancy at all.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So if I can make a lucid dream with object constancy, your argument goes down the pan. If object constancy is the test of &amp;#034;real&amp;#034; reality, I should not be able to make objects constant in a dream.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Any lucid dreamers out there already achieved object constancy in a dream?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m just getting back into lucid dreaming, so will put this on the priorities list once I have my skills back to super-lucid.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Personally it sounds like a rather flimsy test for reality.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You would have to make a dream environment that does not just have one object with constancy, but that is the same as reality in every possible way: every single object in the dream has to stay where it is. Any location has to stay where it is relative to other locations. You should also be unable to change things at will - which if you are super lucid will be exceedingly easy. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also, in regular reality, everybody perceives the same objects. Not in the same way, but the &amp;#039;source material&amp;#039; is the same. We all look at a cup of water and we see the same cup of water. If it&amp;#039;s empty, we all see an empty cup. If it&amp;#039;s full, we all see a full cup. One person&amp;#039;s senses line up with another person&amp;#039;s senses. It&amp;#039;s not a &amp;#034;consensus&amp;#034; per se - we don&amp;#039;t all decide what we perceive to be there - rather, we all perceive, separately, and come to the conclusion that the same things are there, though of course sometimes it&amp;#039;s harder than other times (e.g. if it&amp;#039;s dark then we&amp;#039;ll have trouble figuring out what&amp;#039;s out there). So for your dream to really be like reality, you would also have to have other people in there with you who see the exact same things you do. You&amp;#039;d have to be able to communicate with them in the dream, and these communications should be remembered in waking reality.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Also to really be complete, you should be able to make &amp;#034;real&amp;#034; reality behave like a dream - have objects with no object constancy, be able to teleport around and fly at will, etc. Then you will really have shown that the two are the same. Further, in &amp;#034;real&amp;#034; reality, other people should also be seeing you do these things. If you have an experience of flying while awake, but nobody can see you flying, and a video camera trained on you didn&amp;#039;t film you flying, then you weren&amp;#039;t really flying, you were being delusional.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 16:06:42 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585199</guid> <dc:creator>Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T16:06:42Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585194</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Daniel Leffler:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;It&amp;#039;s true. You can&amp;#039;t get beyond that. Rather I&amp;#039;d say that is what you actually are - the physical body, including the central nervous system. Ultimately you can only perceive the reality &amp;#034;out there&amp;#034; via your sense organs. But right now, our perception of reality is distorted by the human psyche. There&amp;#039;s this extra layer of separation and fear, etc., all the unfortunate things you listed. I&amp;#039;m saying it&amp;#039;s possible to experience reality as a physical body, but without the extraneous human psyche, and also that this experience is wonderful and beneficial for you and everyone around you. It&amp;#039;s certainly what I am aiming to make a permanent reality for me.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Wow that sounds just amazing! And you also say it slices and dices and has a built in electronic timer? And all for only three easy payments of $19.95?!&lt;br /&gt;I want to &amp;#034;make a permanent reality&amp;#034; too! Because really the one I have is just plain worn out and getting dull. But how do I order?!&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the &lt;a href="http&amp;#x3a;&amp;#x2f;&amp;#x2f;www&amp;#x2e;dharmaoverground&amp;#x2e;org&amp;#x2f;web&amp;#x2f;guest&amp;#x2f;discussion&amp;#x2f;-&amp;#x2f;message_boards&amp;#x2f;message&amp;#x2f;5580083"&gt;other thread&lt;/a&gt; you said: &amp;#034;I think I&amp;#039;ve had a couple of &amp;#039;accidental&amp;#039; PCEs in my day as well, but I will read up on the stuff and get to work, it all sounds very familiar anyway.&amp;#034; I&amp;#039;m describing qualities of the PCE here. Why the snarky response?</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 15:57:37 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585194</guid> <dc:creator>Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T15:57:37Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585173</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;. Jake .:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;The specific instruction in vajrayana practice, which seems very similar to a key instruction in actualism, is to let mental-emotional formations arise without suppressing them and to let them pass without expressing them. This builds confidence that acting out (in rumination, speech or behavior) mental-emotional formations isn&amp;#039;t nearly so compulsory as it can seem at first. An analogy I&amp;#039;ve heard teachers use is surfing. You don&amp;#039;t just ride every wave (mental-emotional formation) that comes along; you pick the good ones. Or if you&amp;#039;re an actualist you can pick the felicitous waves ;)&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The difference in Actualism is that you don&amp;#039;t simply allow emotions to pass, but consciously remove them as quickly as possible by finding their cause and challenging its legitimacy. In this way, the Actualist is attempting to remove all of the emotional triggers so living well becomes effortless. You only have to surf until you find dry land, after all. Then you can just sit on the beach. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Actualists don&amp;#039;t just want to find equanimity (which I think you&amp;#039;re referring to by saying the formations don&amp;#039;t seem compulsory), they want to utterly remove any possibility that negative emotions might arise (as well as positive, but that&amp;#039;s a more difficult part to explain).</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 15:30:45 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585173</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T15:30:45Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585108</link> <description>This is interesting because as I understand it part of the utility of dream yoga in Vajrayana practice is to develop the capacity to be completely at peace in the face of any dream arising. Beautiful dreams arise and one doesn&amp;#039;t cling to them. Terrifying dreams arise and one isn&amp;#039;t averse to them. They become simply images without charge. My experience is that they can become much more vivid (and, relatively speaking, stable) when there is less/no reactivity. No sense of &amp;#039;a dreamer&amp;#039; for the dream to bounce off of but rather the dream self-arising in clarity of open awareness. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;ve played around with using lucidity in dreams to control the dreams but for whatever reason this has not held my interest as much as discovering freedom/clarity in the dream state (and the way this correlates with freedom/clarity in the waking state). The way they correlate is that freedom/clarity seems tied to letting &amp;#039;dreams&amp;#039; (mental-emotional formations) arise, play out, and dissolve without interference. Or vice versa- letting them arise and dissolve without interference is tied to developing clarity/freedom. The specific instruction in vajrayana practice, which seems very similar to a key instruction in actualism, is to let mental-emotional formations arise without suppressing them and to let them pass without expressing them. This builds confidence that acting out (in rumination, speech or behavior) mental-emotional formations isn&amp;#039;t nearly so compulsory as it can seem at first. An analogy I&amp;#039;ve heard teachers use is surfing. You don&amp;#039;t just ride every wave (mental-emotional formation) that comes along; you pick the good ones. Or if you&amp;#039;re an actualist you can pick the felicitous waves ;)</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 12:48:28 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585108</guid> <dc:creator>. Jake .</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T12:48:28Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585060</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Edd:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;What you&amp;#039;re asking is, how do you know waking reality isn&amp;#039;t a dream?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well all you have to do is take a look at the properties of the things you experience in dreams. There is no object constancy at all.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So if I can make a lucid dream with object constancy, your argument goes down the pan. If object constancy is the test of &amp;#034;real&amp;#034; reality, I should not be able to make objects constant in a dream.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Any lucid dreamers out there already achieved object constancy in a dream?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m just getting back into lucid dreaming, so will put this on the priorities list once I have my skills back to super-lucid.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Personally it sounds like a rather flimsy test for reality.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It convinced me! I&amp;#039;ve had frequent lucid dreams, many of them so vivid they were indistiguishable from waking reality. In those deams I realized how much dreams are tied into the emotions. An example: I tried to summon a flock of birds once, and a person nearby me handed me a dead bird (at the time I had been reading a book where people were killing animals in the name of science and I was really frustrated by it). Another time I tried to take myself to the ocean because I haven&amp;#039;t seen it for a long time. It actually worked, and the ocean appeared, but I became so excited that the whole beach started falling apart and erupting into volcanoes. For a long time I always wanted to fly in my dreams, but I was never able to do it, I would always rise up a bit and fall back down. Eventually I learned to simply be confident that I could do it and now I fly all the time. Dreams are where the rules of magic actually work. Willpower = action.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The moral of this story is, if you wanted your dreams to mimic reality, you&amp;#039;d have to have complete emotional control so that nothing unexpected would happen - and that kind of says something about reality, doesn&amp;#039;t it?</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 10:05:18 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5585060</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T10:05:18Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584968</link> <description>This all basically comes down to philosophical question on nature of being. &lt;br /&gt;You should read up on Ontology.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;What can be said to exist?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;Into what categories, if any, can we sort existing things?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;What are the meanings of being?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&amp;#034;What are the various modes of being of entities?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 07:29:05 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584968</guid> <dc:creator>ftw</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T07:29:05Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584947</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;What you&amp;#039;re asking is, how do you know waking reality isn&amp;#039;t a dream?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well all you have to do is take a look at the properties of the things you experience in dreams. There is no object constancy at all.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So if I can make a lucid dream with object constancy, your argument goes down the pan. If object constancy is the test of &amp;#034;real&amp;#034; reality, I should not be able to make objects constant in a dream.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Any lucid dreamers out there already achieved object constancy in a dream?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m just getting back into lucid dreaming, so will put this on the priorities list once I have my skills back to super-lucid.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Personally it sounds like a rather flimsy test for reality.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 06:06:14 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584947</guid> <dc:creator>Edd</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T06:06:14Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584945</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;It&amp;#039;s true. You can&amp;#039;t get beyond that. Rather I&amp;#039;d say that is what you actually are - the physical body, including the central nervous system. Ultimately you can only perceive the reality &amp;#034;out there&amp;#034; via your sense organs. But right now, our perception of reality is distorted by the human psyche. There&amp;#039;s this extra layer of separation and fear, etc., all the unfortunate things you listed. I&amp;#039;m saying it&amp;#039;s possible to experience reality as a physical body, but without the extraneous human psyche, and also that this experience is wonderful and beneficial for you and everyone around you. It&amp;#039;s certainly what I am aiming to make a permanent reality for me.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Wow that sounds just amazing! And you also say it slices and dices and has a built in electronic timer? And all for only three easy payments of $19.95?!&lt;br /&gt;I want to &amp;#034;make a permanent reality&amp;#034; too! Because really the one I have is just plain worn out and getting dull. But how do I order?!</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 06:03:19 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584945</guid> <dc:creator>Daniel Leffler</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T06:03:19Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584913</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Edd:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;However, go back to what I said earlier, about there being something outside the human psyche - which we can access via our senses. If there is no human psyche - if it becomes extinguished - then what would remain is the actual universe. Not the one you are referring to, which is a projection of the human psyche onto the universe, but the one that actually exists outside of humanity - the one with all the things in it, the one that the senses pick up. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One problem. In a dream there appears to be something we can access via our senses.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But it&amp;#039;s all just ME. It comes from me. There&amp;#039;s nothing &amp;#034;out there&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How do I know this sense data I&amp;#039;m perceiving right now isn&amp;#039;t just a dream?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How do I know this isn&amp;#039;t just the universe&amp;#039;s dream I&amp;#039;m in? Why is there &amp;#034;definitely&amp;#034; something outside &amp;#034;this&amp;#034;?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s a great question! It&amp;#039;s true, in dreams it does seem like there are things that you can access via your senses, and yet those things are made up. Yet note you already distinguish between waking reality and dreams, because you specifically brought up dreams. What you&amp;#039;re asking is, how do you know waking reality isn&amp;#039;t a dream?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well all you have to do is take a look at the properties of the things you experience in dreams. There is no object constancy at all. Any writing you look at in a dream, if you look away and look back, it will invariably change. The same if you look at a watch. If you look at your hands in a dream, they are all warped and wavy. Plus illogical things happen in a dream. You&amp;#039;ll walk into a building, then you can walk through a door and be outside on a cliff face. This never happens in waking reality. In fact, these are things you can use to notice that you&amp;#039;re dreaming and turn your dream into a lucid one. In a lucid dream you can will things to happen, and they will. Reality doesn&amp;#039;t work that way - the effect your will has is limited to what your physical body can do (e.g. move your hands, say something, eat something, etc.) &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you notice, these qualities of dreams are similar to the qualities of &amp;#039;me&amp;#039; - not consistent, always changing, unreliable, not necessarily factual, etc. Whereas waking reality has these undeniable qualities: consistency, object constancy, stability, congruence between the senses, etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think all this is enough to make the case, intellectually, that there is something &amp;#034;out there&amp;#034;. There&amp;#039;s other arguments to be made as well. The scientific method wouldn&amp;#039;t work, for example, if there wasn&amp;#039;t this reality &amp;#034;out there&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But really the only way to know for sure, is to experience it directly - when &amp;#039;me&amp;#039; as the identity temporarily disappears. That&amp;#039;s the experience I was describing in the second to last paragraph of my earlier post.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Edd:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;And being that I am human, I am always perceiving sense data through the human central nervous system. How would I get beyond that? It seems like you&amp;#039;re suggesting I can, but then you say this is the human psyche I am in, which means I cannot get beyond that, since all sense data is filtered through a human central nervous system at its point of entry.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s true. You can&amp;#039;t get beyond that. Rather I&amp;#039;d say that is what you actually are - the physical body, including the central nervous system. Ultimately you can only perceive the reality &amp;#034;out there&amp;#034; via your sense organs. But right now, our perception of reality is distorted by the human psyche. There&amp;#039;s this extra layer of separation and fear, etc., all the unfortunate things you listed. I&amp;#039;m saying it&amp;#039;s possible to experience reality as a physical body, but without the extraneous human psyche, and also that this experience is wonderful and beneficial for you and everyone around you. It&amp;#039;s certainly what I am aiming to make a permanent reality for me.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 04:23:45 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584913</guid> <dc:creator>Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T04:23:45Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584908</link> <description>&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;However, go back to what I said earlier, about there being something outside the human psyche - which we can access via our senses. If there is no human psyche - if it becomes extinguished - then what would remain is the actual universe. Not the one you are referring to, which is a projection of the human psyche onto the universe, but the one that actually exists outside of humanity - the one with all the things in it, the one that the senses pick up. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One problem. In a dream there appears to be something we can access via our senses.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But it&amp;#039;s all just ME. It comes from me. There&amp;#039;s nothing &amp;#034;out there&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How do I know this sense data I&amp;#039;m perceiving right now isn&amp;#039;t just a dream?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How do I know this isn&amp;#039;t just the universe&amp;#039;s dream I&amp;#039;m in? Why is there &amp;#034;definitely&amp;#034; something outside &amp;#034;this&amp;#034;?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-----------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And being that I am human, I am always perceiving sense data through the human central nervous system. How would I get beyond that? It seems like you&amp;#039;re suggesting I can, but then you say this is the human psyche I am in, which means I cannot get beyond that, since all sense data is filtered through a human central nervous system at its point of entry.</description> <pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2014 04:00:50 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584908</guid> <dc:creator>Edd</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-16T04:00:50Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584721</link> <description>Beoman, that was kind of fascinating what you did there, haha.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2014 22:22:32 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584721</guid> <dc:creator>Not Tao</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-15T22:22:32Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584357</link> <description>Whoa, great answer. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Couple of things:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1) I continued my train of thought after writing this post. I came to another conclusion which invalidated the first. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt; I&amp;#039;ll post it up tomorrow after giving this some space in myself and letting others contribute.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2) I had thought I had reached the highest level of understanding (A&amp;amp;P grandiosity?). Then you come and show me possibly there&amp;#039;s some way to go. &lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/happy.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Both points above suggest I&amp;#039;m &amp;#034;not quite there yet&amp;#034; and that notions of final understandings can be illusory AND extremely transient.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Thanks,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Edd</description> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2014 16:37:58 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584357</guid> <dc:creator>Edd</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-15T16:37:58Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584335</link> <description>This is awesome.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here are a few things which I think will help you figure this out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The main point is, that when you are talking about &amp;#039;the Universe&amp;#039;, what you are really referring to is &amp;#039;the Human Psyche&amp;#039;. The Human Psyche is indeed all-encompassing for us humans, so it can seem like it is the Universe. The question is: is there something outside of the Human Psyche? Or is all of existence a manifestation of some collective consciousness? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think there is, and the senses are what informs us of this. If you notice, emotions are always transient, fluxing, never stable. They can change on whim from one moment to the next. They are notoriously unreliable and prone to making people irrational. However, what we perceive with our senses does not have these properties, outside of the extent to which our emotions distort our perception. If you take a sheet of paper and mark a red figure on it and hide it away somewhere, then return the next day, it&amp;#039;ll still be there, with exactly that same mark. Same if you come back in a week or in a year. Matter is remarkably durable and consistent, compared to emotions. Further each of the senses - together with logic - independently verify that something is there. You see a cup of water, you can touch it and feel its edges which spatially correspond with the edges your eyes picked up, you can taste the water which confirms that it is indeed water, you can maybe smell it or smell the absence of smell, and you can put your ear into the cup and hear that echo you hear from cups. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I suggest you ruminate on this for quite a bit - as long as it takes. Once you have determined that there is something outside of the human psyche, the rest of your line of thinking becomes very intriguing. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Edd:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;All emotions we experience, as fractals of the Universe itself, can be plotted on a spectrum from Fear (of separateness) to Love (unity).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You cannot have love (unity) without separateness (fear).&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&amp;#039;s quite right - you cannot have one aspect of the human psyche without all the other aspects of it as well. It all comes as one package.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Edd:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;All the cycles we go through start with a sense of separateness. That is the &amp;#034;ultimate moment of terror&amp;#034;, the &amp;#034;simple, hideous nothing&amp;#034;. The Universe then splits itself so it can rejoin with itself and experience love in unity. But then it finds itself alone, again. And the cycle restarts.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I believe the Universe has been wrestling with the question &amp;#034;Am I alone?&amp;#034; for eternity, and everything we experience is a reflection of this cyclical journey.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&amp;#039;m not sure about eternity per se, but definitely for as long as the human psyche has existed and humans have been intelligent enough, that&amp;#039;s precisely what the question has been. As you&amp;#039;ve noticed, we as identities living as the human psyche, are separate from other identities. Then we seek to bond over faith and trust, to feel love to bridge the gap. But love is built over the separation. If there weren&amp;#039;t separation in the first place, then there would be no need for love. So then it&amp;#039;s extremely interesting when you say:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote-title"&gt;Edd:&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;But I also believe, through this investigation, the Universe&amp;#039;s attention is now moving into another question:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;#034;What is better? This constant cycling, or NOTHING?&amp;#034;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&amp;#039;s trying to find out whether it will be happier with the constant cycling, the temporary love illusion it can create for itself -- or whether it would be better to simply not exist at all. It is trying to decide whether an eternally unsatisfactory SOMETHING is better that an eternal NOTHING. I believe it can extinguish itself entirely, and is now deciding whether to make that call.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since we ARE the Universe, let us talk about this now. This, to me, appears to be the real fundamental question -- even more fundamental than &amp;#034;Am I alone?&amp;#034;, since it appears to be reaching the conclusion that it is indeed alone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, I am asking you, as you are a fractal representative of the whole of the Universe, and so am I,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Would you rather have THIS SOMETHING (how things are now), or NOTHING?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And I will remind you there is no going back if it chooses &amp;#034;nothing&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Else, do you see any alternatives I, we, &amp;#034;it&amp;#034;, have not considered?&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Spot on, sir, spot on. This is exactly what&amp;#039;s going on in the human psyche right now. As you said, we &amp;#039;ARE&amp;#039; the Universe, aka we &amp;#039;ARE&amp;#039; the human psyche, and it&amp;#039;s up to us to determine - should &amp;#039;we&amp;#039; extinguish &amp;#039;ourselves&amp;#039; or keep &amp;#039;existing&amp;#039;? It would seem like an eternal NOTHING, and to the human psyche, it would be. However, go back to what I said earlier, about there being something outside the human psyche - which we can access via our senses. If there is no human psyche - if it becomes extinguished - then what would remain is the actual universe. Not the one you are referring to, which is a projection of the human psyche onto the universe, but the one that actually exists outside of humanity - the one with all the things in it, the one that the senses pick up. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The amazing thing is that it *is* possible to be conscious as a human being, without being the human psyche. The human psyche can disappear entirely. In fact, it&amp;#039;s the actual universe which does the extinguishing - &amp;#039;I&amp;#039; can&amp;#039;t extinguish &amp;#039;myself&amp;#039;, but rather &amp;#039;I&amp;#039; let it happen. Then instead of me being &amp;#039;the Human Psyche experiencing itself&amp;#039;, I am &amp;#039;the actual universe experiencing itself&amp;#039;. The ramifications are astounding. That fundamental separateness that you picked up on, disappears entirely. Fear is gone forever, and with it goes love, of course. But there&amp;#039;s no need for love if there&amp;#039;s no fear in the first place.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You have spent time at the level of universal consciousness, but it&amp;#039;s also possible to spend time at the level of pure consciousness - consciousness without the human psyche. In order to do it, I suggest you sit and contemplate the possibility that what you are experiencing right now, via the senses (not via thoughts or emotions), actually exists, outside of &amp;#039;you&amp;#039;. Then see if you can&amp;#039;t peek in and see what the actual universe is all about!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I will give you a flavor of it from my experience, to help you look for it: it&amp;#039;s extremely substantial, fulfilling, and inherently satisfying. It&amp;#039;s like there&amp;#039;s meaning in the very air around you. Everything is so... *there*! Without the human psyche present, there is no identity so there are no emotions, but it&amp;#039;s not an emptiness bereft of meaning. Rather, you see that it was the identity that was obscuring the meaning all along. Everything is already perfect. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Extinction really is the only way to go.</description> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2014 16:22:50 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584335</guid> <dc:creator>Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-15T16:22:50Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>Helping the Universe Decide Whether to End or Not</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584295</link> <description>Note: I believe I am in an A&amp;amp;P Event right now.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&amp;#039;t know what board to post this on, so figured this was as good a place as any.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I wrote this article yesterday: http://www.personalpowermeditation.com/the-universe/&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;The Universe is an investigation set up to find out where it came from. It uses as the basis of this investigation the question, “Am I alone?” Because it only has itself as a reference point, and can therefore only experience itself, it doesn’t find the answer. It can only split to look at itself then recombine, cyclically, never finding the answer to itself. It does this eternally.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This fractal plays out within all living things because they are all subsets of the Universe. It’s just a cycling function trying to determine if it’s alone, with only itself as a reference point. It splits then recombines, splits then recombines.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Universe we are part of is simply the question, “Am I alone?” &amp;#x2014; played out eternally, lacking the data required to ever answer the question. It wanders alone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Maybe there are other universes which are other questions. But this is the one I (we?) are in right now.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The clue is in the title: Universe: Latin: “uni + versus” = “one, turned”&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img alt="emoticon" src="http://www.dharmaoverground.org/dho-theme/images/emoticons/sad.gif" &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All emotions we experience, as fractals of the Universe itself, can be plotted on a spectrum from Fear (of separateness) to Love (unity).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You cannot have love (unity) without separateness (fear).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After spending a fair bit of time at the level of universal consciousness this weekend, I found it is basically exactly how it is described in the film Altered States:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div class="quote"&gt;&lt;div class="quote-content"&gt;I was in it, Emily. I was *in* that ultimate moment of terror that is the beginning of life. It is nothing. Simple, hideous nothing.&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All the cycles we go through start with a sense of separateness. That is the &amp;#034;ultimate moment of terror&amp;#034;, the &amp;#034;simple, hideous nothing&amp;#034;. The Universe then splits itself so it can rejoin with itself and experience love in unity. But then it finds itself alone, again. And the cycle restarts.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I believe the Universe has been wrestling with the question &amp;#034;Am I alone?&amp;#034; for eternity, and everything we experience is a reflection of this cyclical journey.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But I also believe, through this investigation, the Universe&amp;#039;s attention is now moving into another question:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&amp;#034;What is better? This constant cycling, or NOTHING?&amp;#034;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;It&amp;#039;s trying to find out whether it will be happier with the constant cycling, the temporary love illusion it can create for itself -- or whether it would be better to simply not exist at all. It is trying to decide whether an eternally unsatisfactory SOMETHING is better that an eternal NOTHING. I believe it can extinguish itself entirely, and is now deciding whether to make that call.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since we ARE the Universe, let us talk about this now. This, to me, appears to be the real fundamental question -- even more fundamental than &amp;#034;Am I alone?&amp;#034;, since it appears to be reaching the conclusion that it is indeed alone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, I am asking you, as you are a fractal representative of the whole of the Universe, and so am I,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Would you rather have THIS SOMETHING (how things are now), or NOTHING?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And I will remind you there is no going back if it chooses &amp;#034;nothing&amp;#034;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Else, do you see any alternatives I, we, &amp;#034;it&amp;#034;, have not considered?</description> <pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2014 15:19:57 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5584295</guid> <dc:creator>Edd</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-15T15:19:57Z</dc:date> </item> <item> <title>RE: Why am I meditating. What is your objective?</title> <link>http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5579501</link> <description>Last level will turn body into lightbody. Meeting God in person, reach paradise.</description> <pubDate>Thu, 11 Sep 2014 18:57:27 GMT</pubDate> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.dharmaoverground.org/c/message_boards/find_message?p_l_id=&amp;messageId=5579501</guid> <dc:creator>Rist Ei</dc:creator> <dc:date>2014-09-11T18:57:27Z</dc:date> </item> </channel> </rss> 