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Practice Logs

How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment

So I decided to start a practice log. A couple of reasons. One is that it gives me an excuse to be attention seeking and have an outlet for shitting and pissing. It also means I can have an answer to the "do you even meditate/have a practice log" question, which sometimes gets used against me when I piss people off enough. Another reason is that despite my best efforts I seem to like this place, despite complaining it about all the time. If you can't beat em', join em'. And I appreciate a good practice log. A recent inspiring one was Adam's, which was full of lots of neurotic stuff which I could relate to, which made me think, hey, I could do that!

A further reason is that I stopped working with a meditation teacher recently, and since then my practice has taken a nose dive. So I figure keeping a log may work to maintain motivation and momentum. Practice wise, I am in the "dark night" (so they say) pre-path and my daily practice has dropped off (in the last three weeks). But now due to the entire internet reading my practice log and the associated pressure and expectation, my practice will become super sold again. We shall see (and see how this log keeping goes). If you want to join in, please don't hesitate! It makes it all a lot more fun and interesting and you might help me to become enlightened quicker.

Note re title: I like to use the word "enlightenment" in scare quotes (like just then) and see it as a dirty word. Yet here I am.

Goals: These seem to change on a daily basis. Recently they were to reach equanimity (and one step up beyond), and build up concentration to allow return access to jhana land.

Recently (like, last few days, or longer?), my goal appears to live life more fully, whatever that means. So that means living in the face of fear and judgement. Perhaps what I am angling for what vajrayana and tantra is all about (cf David Chapman's argument that it is the ideal practice for the modern world). So this involves not just recognising my bombu nature more fully, but accepting it. So living more fully means living more boldly, being more open to failure. So not being ashamed of shame. To embrace embarrassment and the foolishness that is my nature. And as John Wilde suggested, "integrate the prick". Now one big pay off is how this makes me relate to others. The less strongly I judge myself, the less strongly I judge others, and the more I appreciate them. And in my experience, this works, and is a huge reward. But all this is hard, as a part of me is crying out not to put up a practice log, and I seeing all this as just narcissistic masturbation and a misuse of my energies. But then I also feel I should put my money where my mouth is. And it feels like confronting that aspect that of me which feels that this is stupid, I am stupid, and everyone on this forum is stupid, goes to the heart of what "practice" is all about, which is in (part) reducing some of kind of distance between "myself" and my experience.

Practice log
Answer
3/15/14 9:30 AM as a reply to sawfoot _.
A meditation report
- morning sit 30 minutes at home
- Normally I do 40 minutes and thinking about this again reminds me that longer periods would be more productive

First ten minutes was just settling down, relaxing, trying to induce some positive states of mind, but not in an disciplined or consistent way (in other times I might be more disciplined about this). Then ten minutes of breath counting, i.e. anapasanti, with a focus on anapasanti spot on nostrils, which is a practice that has worked well in the past. Right now (in the dark night) concentration is difficult, and often I lack the strength of will to keep the counting up, though today at least, there was a sense that given more time things could have "developed". Some dreaminess brought on by slightly fantastical mind wandering. Then 10 minutes of outloud noting (a la Kenneth Folk style). Started off mainly rupa, but more mind states later on, and more distraction later on. Some thought trains about "judging" relating to stuff discussed above. Throughout, there was a sense of latent energy in a disordered state, which I associate with "dark nightness", in that there was "wetness" (by that I meant the potential to access piti and sukha, AKA "energy") but in the face of disordered and fractured thinking which breaks up the possibility of riding anything very far. Still, it does give the sense of something round the corner. Often when this happens in real time I note "anticipation, anticipation", but right now that anticipation doesn't go anywhere.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/15/14 10:16 AM as a reply to sawfoot _.
[NOT BEING SARCASTIC, IN FACT BEING COMPLETELY HONEST MODE ON]
This is the greatest thing ever.
[NOT BEING SARCASTIC, IN FACT BEING COMPLETELY HONEST MODE OFF]

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/15/14 11:04 AM as a reply to sawfoot _.
Wow, I'm actually delighted to hear this. I was sort of relating to your troll-like behaviour before as I've had experiences where I've socialized online in circles where I didn't quite fit in and ended up identifying as the outsider and sort of thrashing about and exacerbating my position. That doesn't end well. But with this forum and from my perspective it seemed especially tragic as it was almost like you were karmically drawn to awakening but lacked the qualities to exploit the wonderful opportunity that had arisen. So this turnaround is great news IMO, and starting a practice log sounds like a great idea.

My only advice would be to focus ruthlessly on what is really going to make a difference in the end, i.e. stream entry. No matter how tempting it might be to operate at the level of more superficial issues and pursuing multiple strands of self-improvement: I wrote a diary for years filled with detailed descriptions of that kind of stuff. E.g. "I managed to avoid wasting time on the internet for three days in a row, but unfortunately I started again today. I'm such an idiot, why I do these things to myself? Tomorrow I'm going to shoot for four days in a row. And start getting up earlier in the morning. And exercising more." Yada, yada, yada. It all amounted to next to nothing compared to awakening. Though having said this I realize there are multiple strands (of the 8-fold path) to be pursued to attain awakening and before you're getting jhana consistently there could be months if not years where your practice has basically yet to take off and progress could be characterized as embarrassingly slow. Even still always be wary of getting mired in superficial issues.

Good luck, practice seriously and well. And who knows, maybe MCTB stream entry really is the monumental achievement the Buddha describes and you're literally saving yourself from millenia of further wandering in samsara. From what I've read of experienced out-of-body travellers like Luis Minero and Jurgen Ziewe, their experiences would seem to lend credence to the basic form of Buddhist cosmology. Possibly something to read up on in your spare time.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/15/14 12:43 PM as a reply to B B.
Thanks Zendo for the LOL

And cheers BB. Good advice. As Daniel keeps on saying, this is the method, do the experiment. I have a pluralist inclination but I agree that focusing on a specific goal and using tried-and-tested techniques are most likely the best use of my time. And I will try to keep that in mind and focus on technical aspects of meditation rather than wallowing in the self-improvement crap and ego games. That said, I am kinda hoping that the superficial issues can work as a consistent wake up call, by trying to use that neurotic energy, both by doing something constructive with it and for awakening. For example, being inspired by Trek-chod practice -

http://aroencyclopaedia.org/shared/text/e/emotions_ar_eng.php

Here is a nice quote:

The practice of meditation in the context of embracing emotions as the path gives us another option. This option is one in which we neither repress, express nor dissipate our emotional energy. But one in which we let go of the conceptual scaffolding and wordlessly gaze into the physical sensation of the emotion. This is what we describe as ‘staring into the face of arising emotions in order to realise their empty nature’. This is where meditation becomes an essential aspect of our method of discovery. The form of meditation we will discuss here comes from the system known as Trek-chod, which means ‘exploding the horizon of conventional reality’. Trek-chod involves finding the presence of awareness in the dimension of the sensation of the emotion we are experiencing. Simply speaking we locate the physical location of the emotion within the body (it may be localised or pervasive). This is where we feel the emotion as a physical sensation. We then allow that sensation to expand and pervade us. We become the emotion. We cease to be observers of our emotions. We stare into the face of the arising emotion with such completeness that all sense of division between ‘experience’ and ‘experiencer’ dissolve. In this way we open ourselves to glimpses of what we actually are. We start to become transparent to ourselves. Through this staring, the distorted energy of our emotions liberates itself. In the language of trek-chod it is said: ‘of itself – it liberates itself’, and ‘it enters into its own condition’. In order to use meditation in this way, we need to have developed the experience of letting go of obsessive attachment to the intellectual/conceptual process as the crucial reference point on which our sense of being relies. In short, we need to be able to dwell in our own experiential space without manipulating whatever arises to referential ends. We need to experience mind, free conceptual activity – yet qualified by the effulgence of pure and total presence.
Through the practice of meditation, we discover that we can make direct contact with the unconditioned essence of our spectrum of liberated energy. We can embrace our emotions and realise the unending vividness of what we are.


Getting rid of my obsessive-compulsive attachment to the intellectual/conceptual process seems like a tricky one, particularly for this mind.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/15/14 2:26 PM as a reply to sawfoot _.
sawfoot _:

Getting rid of my obsessive-compulsive attachment to the intellectual/conceptual process seems like a tricky one, particularly for this mind.


Out of curiosity, do you know your MBTI and/or socionics and/or enneagram type?

In MBTI terms I'm an INTP, meaning I have a dominant Introverted Thinking function. I also have trouble with obsessive conceptualization. I suspect you either have dominant or auxiliary Ti or Te.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/15/14 7:15 PM as a reply to sawfoot _.
sawfoot _:

Getting rid of my obsessive-compulsive attachment to the intellectual/conceptual process seems like a tricky one, particularly for this mind.


What's conceptual adroitness worth without a basic existential clarity?

Unless you think experiential clarity is inherently deluded or dependent on delusion, it makes sense to strive for that first, and then, if you're that way inclined, be as rigorous as hell in figuring out its nature and significance.

I share a lot of your doubts about so-called enlightenment. Some people derive experiential clarity from beliefs that are implausible and ridiculous; others are utterly and demonstrably deluded in their views but feel entirely clear in their being; so there's no direct correspondence between experiential clarity and truth. And, like you, I baulk at experiential clarity at the price of a locked-in delusory mode of consciousness and/or fantastical world view.

But the idea that experiential/existential clarity is inherently delusory is itself nuts. So thinking of practice in those terms doesn't require a sacrifice of critical thinking, but puts it to a better use than trying to suss everything out in advance from a position of basic existential confusion and dissatisfaction.

My way of rationalising having made the same choice ;-)

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/15/14 7:32 PM as a reply to sawfoot _.
Hi SF,

Nice!

I haven't thought of your comments here ever as "trolling". Sometimes I have seen them as "testy", but "testy" can be related to "testing", as in "how these people react to my provocations may tell me if their so-called practice is worth boo".

.e. anapasanti,

Yes.

Personally, I relate to some of what I call your testiness and a) I'm glad you're practicing on your own now (sans teacher, but don't take this comment as against teachers absolutely or even a little; there's just a ton of reasons to practice on one's own at some points) and b) I hope you give anapanasati your sincere interest, and self-gentleness in developing attention in the breath.

And yes, I'm going to link Daniel Goleman's breathing buddies link here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scqFHGI_nZE.

Anapanasati. This is very simple. Just attend the breath (and the pali "sabbakhaya" can mean the breath is followed at the nostril area, or it can be translated as Ven. Bodhi does, body-wide) Chris G's new log, new last line about actually thanking the mind that's trying is, to me, very sound and useful practice..

Good luck.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/15/14 7:50 PM as a reply to sawfoot _.
sawfoot _:
Getting rid of my obsessive-compulsive attachment to the intellectual/conceptual process seems like a tricky one, particularly for this mind.


That's normal. I have an intellectual bent and it can be difficult sometimes. Note "strategizing", "analyzing", "rehearsing" etc. It's the thinking pretending to control what's happening. Some of this is perfectly okay when you are doing complex work but it's the habit of self-evaluation that needs to be deconditioned.

I like to empty my mind of all thoughts and wait long enough for relief. To do this and enjoy the relief will help the brain see the benefit of a clear mind. It'll start inclining towards a relaxed mind. There will always be some thoughts in it but the clinging (complaining about why you dislike something) makes the body react and act on the craving/aversion. When you empty the mind of as many thoughts as possible and feel relief it's easier to put in thoughts you always wanted to develop in it's place to start developing new mental habits of your choosing.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/15/14 9:07 PM as a reply to Droll Dedekind.
Droll Dedekind:
sawfoot _:

Getting rid of my obsessive-compulsive attachment to the intellectual/conceptual process seems like a tricky one, particularly for this mind.


Out of curiosity, do you know your MBTI and/or socionics and/or enneagram type?

In MBTI terms I'm an INTP, meaning I have a dominant Introverted Thinking function. I also have trouble with obsessive conceptualization. I suspect you either have dominant or auxiliary Ti or Te.


I haven't been properly tested, and haven't really bought into it, but yes, INTP would resonate the most, along with Ti.

Have you ever tried the Highly Sensitive Person test? I found it quite interesting when I looked at it ages back, as I scored pretty darned high. I think there is a strong correlation with HSP's and IN TP/INTJ's. And I expect there is a high correlation between these things and spiritual seekers i.e. DhOers.

I was sort of thinking about this earlier, while in a night club.There I was, dancing away, having lots fun, yet at the same time I was engaging in this line of reasoning above, quite disconnected from my bodily experience. And I was thinking, oh, the curse of being an INTP (or similar). And thinking that "enlightenment" is the cure - living in the now, in the present, being connected to the present rather than separate from it. And also thinking how difficult it would be to fix that lifetime of habitual disconnection. But then I also noticed how everyone else was drunk. And it seems that the point of getting drunk is to reduce that distance, so its probably not just a INTP curse. Of course, when I say curse, it is also what makes us uniquely human (in my understanding of the nature of animal consciousness). And do I really want to live in the present fully, like some kind of animal?!?!

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/15/14 10:00 PM as a reply to katy steger.
katy steger:
Hi SF,

Nice!

I haven't thought of your comments here ever as "trolling". Sometimes I have seen them as "testy", but "testy" can be related to "testing", as in "how these people react to my provocations may tell me if their so-called practice is worth boo".

.e. anapasanti,

Yes.

Personally, I relate to some of what I call your testiness and a) I'm glad you're practicing on your own now (sans teacher, but don't take this comment as against teachers absolutely or even a little; there's just a ton of reasons to practice on one's own at some points) and b) I hope you give anapanasati your sincere interest, and self-gentleness in developing attention in the breath.

And yes, I'm going to link Daniel Goleman's breathing buddies link here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scqFHGI_nZE.

Anapanasati. This is very simple. Just attend the breath (and the pali "sabbakhaya" can mean the breath is followed at the nostril area, or it can be translated as Ven. Bodhi does, body-wide) Chris G's new log, new last line about actually thanking the mind that's trying is, to me, very sound and useful practice..

Good luck.


Hi Katy,

Just to say, I appreciated your comment on the past lives thread. As a student of the DhO, I had previously come across that thread where you displayed some "testy" behaviour.

When I got some recent "troll" accusations, I actually looked up what trolling means. And it can mean a lot of things, but I had the impression that it can often be used (i.e. against me) as a sort of catch-all for forum behaviour that is not liked in some way. I thought antagonistic was a better description in most cases, but perhaps testiness instead. It's complicated in that motivation for testiness can be complicated and multi-faceted, which in means some cases the term trolling does become a complementary description. But yes, I like testiness...

Re: practicing on own vs. teacher. There is a lot I could say here, with lots of pros and cons, but one big pro is that motivation aspect. Which I guess is what a sangha can help supplant (e.g. this thread).

I know you are a big fan of anapanasati. And I suppose I am too, as in I have been persuaded interpretations of the sutra as a complete path to liberation, and all that jazz.

But here is the thing, in terms of "technical meditation". It doesn't seem to make much difference in what I do technique wise. Instead, depending on where I am in the stages of insight (and other external) factors, it seems like I am "on" or "off". This may be a misconception or an exaggeration, but it does like a lot of progress seems out of control. I have the sense that if I went on retreat it wouldn't take that long to become "on" again, but techniques (e.g. self kindness and so on) probably wouldn't affect how long it took me for that off switch to flick.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/16/14 12:19 AM as a reply to sawfoot _.
If you fit this description then you probably match INTP most accurately ("are an INTP") http://www.wikisocion.org/en/index.php?title=LII

It's not necessary to "buy into" something in order to find it useful. I just consider MBTI/Socionics/Enneagram more models to learn from and discard as needed. They're pragmatic tools with dubious correspondence to reality (if you would like to posit such a thing). If you know of (or create) a useful, more rigorous model for classifying personality, behavior, and subjective experience I'm all ears. Now, one fun result of entertaining classifications of personality is statistics http://oddlydevelopedtypes.com/INTP

And, I've had similar thoughts along the lines of "I don't want to be foolishly stuck in the moment like an animal!" I've come to realize humans create a false dichotomy between the human world and the rest of nature. There are many unique parts of being human, surely, but still our existence is little more than that of a graduated animal. To humbly realize one's place in the universe as an aggregate of countless universally-interconnected processes occurring in the eternal moment allows one to live a more fulfilling human life.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/16/14 2:42 AM as a reply to sawfoot _.
Hiya,
This may be a misconception or an exaggeration, but it does like a lot of progress seems out of control. I have the sense that if I went on retreat it wouldn't take that long to become "on" again, but techniques (e.g. self kindness and so on) probably wouldn't affect how long it took me for that off switch to flick.
I used to think this, and in some ways I still do. However, I'd have to admit that what I do that works is I just show up for the practice and do it gently, no conceit, no expectation but to train on attention and the probably of dealing with torpor if I'm distracted or have just eaten.

I tend to loath hearing advice, "Try to practice at the same time every day", but that can help me organize my life around the practice similar to how I am dedicated to making time for eating. When I can't show up at the same time every day, then some time every day. This is the control I do have in the practice.

Otherwise, I feel the "out of control" part of meditation is like any repetitive hobby: some "gains" just come out of blue. I used to play piano a lot. I can remember how some days it just impressed me what the body seemed to play best surprisingly and without my deliberation. I think this state came to be called "flow". So I think anapanasati (and other techniques) has this too: we/I show up and repeat an effort, we/I actively develop a skill through effort and rest, effort and rest, then let one day, one moment, it does itself something insightful-flowy happens, pause, take break, then resume hobby, effort and rest, effort and rest. Anyway.

I like what you said about teacher and personal motivation.


Okay, sow what you want to see grow.
.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/16/14 10:54 AM as a reply to katy steger.
Katy,

Yeah, as Woody Allen said, 80% of the success in life is just showing up. So useful reminders, thanks.

And when we disconnect the technique from the religious context (which Daniel and Kenneth, even more so, have done), and you are disavowed of the idea that meditation can give us insights into "Ultimate Reality", then what you are left with is a self-improvement hobby. And taking this perspective is often useful, as it is at least humbling, reminding us that practice is just a practice.

Droll,

"Not buy into" could mean not using embracing and using for myself, but you are picking up on my scientific-sceptical hat meaning, and you are right to say this is missing the point, in that the point is that these systems is their pragmatic component. On googling I stumbled on a whole world of forums of people discussing these systems and their application to life (e.g. if I am an X displaying behaviour Y, and Z is an P, displaying behavour T, then how do I resolve conflict...). Still, just to add, I think the reason that I personally have never not got into it is partly based on the assumption that computational problem of managing social relations is incredibly hard (which is why we won't have AI any time soon) And most of our knowledge that we employ is developed over a lifetime of social interaction is probably not the kind of knowledge that can be conceptualised, and discussed. And humans do have a strong need to fit into social identities and find a sense of belonging that comes with that, though I often fight against that.

And yep, I agree that seeing our smallness and unspecialness in the vastness of the cosmos is humbling and oh so important, and really the point of spirituality, seeing and managing the relationship between the finite and the infinite that we find ourselves in.

Richard

I have this instinctive reaction against the notion of non-thinking (despite how nice this sometimes sounds), because I can see all sorts of arguments as to why such thinking is useful, even those self-evaluative thoughts. I suppose I see the (more proximal) goal as reducing the power that self-evaluative thoughts have in motivating behaviour (and their "stickiness"?), rather than getting rid of them. But then I can also have some appreciation for the clever tricks of the ego in fighting its relinquishment.

"thinking pretending to control what's happening" is interesting, and not at all straightforward, as it links to all sort of things about free will, consciousness and the mind. I have an inkling that a better experiential understanding of that gets to the heart of what all this is about.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/16/14 12:00 PM as a reply to John Wilde.
John Wilde:
sawfoot _:

Getting rid of my obsessive-compulsive attachment to the intellectual/conceptual process seems like a tricky one, particularly for this mind.


What's conceptual adroitness worth without a basic existential clarity?

Unless you think experiential clarity is inherently deluded or dependent on delusion, it makes sense to strive for that first, and then, if you're that way inclined, be as rigorous as hell in figuring out its nature and significance.

I share a lot of your doubts about so-called enlightenment. Some people derive experiential clarity from beliefs that are implausible and ridiculous; others are utterly and demonstrably deluded in their views but feel entirely clear in their being; so there's no direct correspondence between experiential clarity and truth. And, like you, I baulk at experiential clarity at the price of a locked-in delusory mode of consciousness and/or fantastical world view.

But the idea that experiential/existential clarity is inherently delusory is itself nuts. So thinking of practice in those terms doesn't require a sacrifice of critical thinking, but puts it to a better use than trying to suss everything out in advance from a position of basic existential confusion and dissatisfaction.

My way of rationalising having made the same choice ;-)


So in my quest for experiential clarity I have trampled over whole spheres of perspective space sufficiently that it has become inconceivable that certain kinds of "enlightenments" would be really be all that "enlightening" for me (e.g. altered/non-dual states of consciousness telling me something new about the universe and my place in it).

This is a case of trying to suss out everything in advance from a state of dissatisfaction. Yet it doesn't feel that I am working from a basic existential confusion (which is potentially what makes it arrogant), and there doesn't have to a correlation between dissatisfaction and confusion. And one man's existential confusion is another man's existential clarity. I am aware, though, that shifting this locked in belief might be the problem to be solved (or the problem to be "not-solved").

It also depends on what existential clarity is inherently delusional about (not that I fully understand what you mean by the term existential clarity). So in terms of being inherently delusional about the world out there, the noumena, then yes. It is a fabrication. But then its non-sensiscal to say that it is delusionary about states of the brain, since I see experience as direct phenomenal access to states of the brain, and as such, doesn't have a truth value.

Pragmatically, though, I suppose I am looking for a reduction in obsessive-compulsive behaviour, but reading it back, that sentence feels like my saying what I am supposed to think the goal is.

Practically speaking, awakening (whether linear or non-linear) could involve 3 things (see also Richard's comment, and likely to all be important) - a reduction in the amount of self-evaluative thinking, an increased ability (in both frequency and speed) in seeing that kind of thinking, and an increased ability to reduce the impact of that thinking on behaviour. That latter one feels like really what I want right now, but perhaps this is really just willpower - the ability to counteract our tendencies to engage in behaviours that privilege short term over long term reward/costs. And the happier and more stable we are, the better we are at engaging in more sane behaviours.

Thanks, as always, John, I super appreciate your comments even though they always get me stuck in fully in the intellectual/conceptual processing that I supposed to be ridding myself of. Arrghh! what an affliction.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/16/14 2:24 PM as a reply to sawfoot _.
sawfoot _:
I have an inkling that a better experiential understanding of that gets to the heart of what all this is about.


How about meditating as a way to watch the mental talk and watch how it makes you feel and how you feel makes you act in certain ways?

Are there mental habits that you would like to decondition? Are there mental habits you want to condition? When the mind is busy does it hurt? When it's less busy does it hurt less? What about reading and studying? If the mind wanders is it harder to remember the material? When the mind is completely focused on the material does it absorb it better?

When self-referencing decreased markedly for me it wasn't with a bang but with a whimper. The thought habit was useless and in fact impeded motivation. I was angry that it ate up so much of my life. Self-referencing for most people is mostly negative, and that extra cortisol does not make one more functional. Negative self-evaluation doesn't seem to help because it's so concerned with status and self-worth that it becomes overly negative and too much pride and puffed up behaviour in the opposite extreme is conceited.

For most people who are intellectual they will find the 7 factors of awakening just what they need. The new Analayo book describes it in better detail than I read before. Instead of being a thoughtless zombie you'll be more choosy of the thought habits you want to create and notice how much happiness is actually missed when unnecessary distraction takes over.

The more diligent with mindfulness of mind-states I'm getting the more examples of useless affect is appearing. The actual useful and purposeful thought I experience is probably 5% of the total thoughts I experience. Many of the thoughts are deep and interesting but lack purpose and value. For example my father got into a huge argument with a guy at work over how airports should be run. It may have been an interesting debate but ultimately was a waste of time. The stress was useless and none of them run airports or have any major influence so what's the point?

I feel this way about a lot of politics now. I have opinions but the identification with views and attachments is useless stress. With politics I want to vote and then just see what actually happens as opposed to following every media scrap and tete-a-tete, and then attaching to arguments and getting stressed when I have so little influence. So little of these views are a major part of my life and I want to reclaim that mental real-estate. It's valuable.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/17/14 4:47 AM as a reply to sawfoot _.
sawfoot _:

Getting rid of my obsessive-compulsive attachment to the intellectual/conceptual process seems like a tricky one, particularly for this mind.


Thanks, as always, John, I super appreciate your comments even though they always get me stuck in fully in the intellectual/conceptual processing that I supposed to be ridding myself of. Arrghh! what an affliction.


Perhaps rather than assigning the notion that such intellectual/conceptual processing is some thing to get rid of (which in my own experience leads to frustration and to quote you "arrggh"), you could approach such reoccurring phenomena with curiosity.
Get curious about the little gaps that occur in and of themselves when intellectual/conceptual processing drops of its own accord. There are gaps all the time. Get curious about them, not wanting them to occur (as the notion of 'getting rid of' may re-enforce), but simply be curious, gently curious. Replace the notion that there is something to get rid of with gentle curiosity and the 'aarggh' loses it's trigger/support.

It's like the practice of watching for the next thought like a cat at a mouse hole. But rather than the next thought, you just want to notice momentary gaps or rather the momentary cessation of such phenomena. Strip such phenomena of the mental weight of being some 'thing' to get rid of by being curious about such phenomena's (in and of itself) arising and passing. Paying attention like so can trigger lots of insight into the whys of such arisings and passings. And knowing the whys experientially in real time seems to lead more so to more cessation rather than arising in my own experience. Desiring cessation doesn't.

Rather than impose a desired outcome to any phenomena(which gives it more shape, name and status/weight in my experience), see in real time the whys via recognition, acceptance and curiosity.

My 2 cents

Nick

RE: Practice log
Answer
3/17/14 4:32 AM as a reply to sawfoot _.
# 2014-3-16
- 30 minutes morning sit
- lacking sleep and hung over so didn't have too much expectations
- first settled into experience without too much willing, just trying to let things naturally settle down
- rather than breath counting I just tried to connect with pleasurable sensations of the breath passing nostrils. This went reasonably well, and at one point I had a bit of piti stirring but it dissipated as soon as I got attached to it. Eventually realised after a while that I was spinning wheels with cognitive thought trains and switched to aloud noting for rest of sit. Most commonly noted "sitting/touching", and at one point got into the flow with a degree of momentary concentration
- ended abruptly, making I think I should set timer for 40 minutes. Seems like a good sign though, in that speed of sit passing vs. resistance and wanting it to end is a good marker of where I am practice wise. Equanimity round the corner? A good motivator for longer/more sits.

# 2014-3-17
- 40 minutes morning sit
- had been reading a dzogchen book so tried to do instructions of just sitting and "letting go"
- difficult! Kept on wanted to introduce methods from my arsenal of techniques, and got stuck with the technique of no-technique. Still, experienced some periods of openness and expansion. At one felt a constriction and warmth around cheeks, and relatively strong sukkha
- in last ten minutes did quite consistent out noting to avoid preponderance of thinking, and distractions which were quite visual (e.g. visual fantasy). Early one was pleasant and some brief stirring of piti and noted "expansion", "pleasure". Some noting of "indecision". Later on discomfort at buttocks become more pronounced and noted "irritation" and "impatience".
- despite my attraction to dzogchen, reaffirms what I ready think which is that I am not quite ready for it as a formal sit, and something to explore more post-path. In the meantime, a more jhana approach orientated from a concentration practice is probably the best entry to some of these non-dual states. I suppose this is one what attracts me to pragmatic dharma, in that while I see something like zen or dzogchen as the goal, and am attracted to the philosophy and outlook (especially wrt to everyday life), pragmatic dharma probably is going to get me there quicker.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/17/14 1:20 PM as a reply to Nikolai ..
Richard zen: How about meditating as a way to watch the mental talk and watch how it makes you feel and how you feel makes you act in certain ways?

Are there mental habits that you would like to decondition? Are there mental habits you want to condition? When the mind is busy does it hurt? When it's less busy does it hurt less?


+ response to to Nikolai

So in meditation at least, I can get to the point of being equanimous of the emergence of thinking mind. Observing the gaps has been very instructive in formal sitting, though right now I am still in a distractible phase, but that should settle down.

The thing about gentle curiosity that while it is an awesome state of mind, my deliberate attempts to encourage it in everyday life didn't get very far. I have, for example, HAIETMOBA flashing up on monitor on a regular basis, and various other bells, alarms and whistles to encourage such states of mind, but I think what stops it being effective is underlying emotional currents that give rise to conditioned behaviours and associated avoidance strategies.

I think, in hindsight, the heart of the "intellectual problem" is trying to use the conceptual mind to figure it all out (obviously), which ultimately (so I have been told) is a dead end - and the addiction to thinking (as a conditioned habit) makes it almost avoidable to stop doing it (and to be writing posts like this, which I know is a substitute for "real" practice).

But underlying this is the problem of avoidance of life as it is, which is a result of my/our conditioned habits and strategies I/we adopt in managing emotions. And when I examine that avoidance closely enough, it always seems to be fear as the base, though it is often very hard to appreciate that fully (as a murky undercurrent of experience).

So that leads me to two quotes, from an aro book I have been reading and I resonating with me right now:

Spectrum of Ecstasy: Embracing the Five Wisdom Emotions of Vajrayana Buddhism by Khandro Dechen, Ngakpa Chogyam
(reading this and having also had a peek at some audio talks by Ngakpa Chogyam he has very quickly jumped up into my favourite buddhist teacher list. I am starting to see to really appreciate David Chapman's arguments that Tantra is the ideal vehicle for the modern world).

Regarding the practice of trek-chod:

So: first you familiarise yourself with the view. Then second, you internalise the view through experience. Third, you prepare to ‘catch yourself out’ in the act of conforming to pre-set emotional patterns. Fourth, you stare into the face of the arising emotion. In order to do this it is necessary to relinquish intellectual analysis. You have to abandon intellect as soon as you recognise the emotional pattern. It is enough to recognise the pattern; there is no need to dwell on intellectual analysis once that faculty has performed its useful task. The intellect is valuable within the sphere of intellect. But outside that, it becomes increasingly useless. Intellect is a valuable tool; but unless we learn when to use it and when not to use it, the view with which we have familiarised ourselves will just become another unhelpful addition to the giddying whirlpool of our conditioned responses. To relinquish analysis allows you to stare directly into the face of an emotion. You can accomplish this by focusing on the physical sensation of the emotion as the subject/object of meditation. Your whole field of attention needs to be immersed in the wordless sensation of the emotion as it manifests in the body. If the emotion you are trying to embrace is one of sorrow, you will tend to feel this as a very real and uncomfortable sensation just beneath the rib-cage. This is what is commonly known as ‘heartache’. But if you are able to surrender the words – the conceptual scaffolding – then the sensation ceases to manifest as pain. If you can then maintain the presence of your wordless gaze, the emotion becomes a free energy. At first, thoughts seem to be thrown up by the centrifugal force of the sensation; but, if these thoughts are allowed to fly past and disappear into space you will discover that it is the cyclic nature of thoughts rather than the sensation itself that is the cause of your ‘dis-ease’. When you can simply be with the sensation of your emotion and experience it fully at the non-conceptual level, you will notice a dynamic reversal taking place. The spinning energy that seemed to be generating rivulets of words and ideas has a vast still centre; like the eye of a hurricane. From that experience of stillness it is possible to perceive that the obsessive spinning is not caused by the emotional sensation, but that it is in fact the cause of it. When you realise the empty nature of the sensation of emotional pain, the pain dissolves into an ecstatic sensation of presence and awareness.


So this. Using the intellect up to a point, and then letting it go. And the practice of looking at bodily responses to emotions is a pretty standard one in various forms of buddhism. It seems to make sense. And I suppose there is a good reason why "Feel the fear and do it anyway" is one of best selling self help books ever.

And another quote, about strategies we adopt in response to our perception of our enlightened state:

Q    You said that duality wants to watch itself becoming enlightened, that it wants to get as close to the enlightened state as possible without surrendering its dualistic position. Why is this?

Ngak’chang Rinpoche    Because the enlightened state is terminally seductive.

Khandro Déchen    Because we are beginninglessly enlightened, so our enlightened nature will continually sparkle through our neurotic condition

NR    That is unavoidable. Absolutely unavoidable . . . even though we may be hell bent on maintaining duality. When our enlightened nature sparkles through, there are three possible responses: attraction, aversion, or indifference. It’s the attraction aspect of our neurotic state that wants to get close to the enlightened state, because we have the idea that it just might be the most fabulous reference point7 in the universe. But it’s also the enlightened state itself, the fact that we could be continually teetering on the edge of self-liberation, that actually provides the pull or draw. The aversion aspect of our neurotic state also wants to get close to enlightenment, but it wants to get close in terms of its inherent suicidal tendency. With indifference either option seems fraught, so we retract and hope that we will not remember the possibility that presented itself. It’s very tricky stuff. It’s incredibly sneaky – duality is alarmingly clever. Aversion wants to stay alive – which is also why it wants to commit suicide in enlightenment. Enlightenment beckons like some tremendous height from which we might fall. There’s a sense of vertigo. We’re hypnotised by the interplay of mortality and immortality – of existence and non-existence. Attraction wants to dissolve into a subtle objectification of the enlightened state, in order to achieve immortality. Unfortunately, as soon as you start to engage with a dualistic approach to non-duality, the discussion becomes a trifle psychotic. KD    There’s no way out of this paradoxical language problem, apart from abandoning the approach of obsessive form-orientated intellect. Silent sitting meditation is actually the only answer


So part of the reason I am conflicted in beliefs about before/after notion of "enlightenment" is my experience of the sparkling through. Particularly in my experience of the A&P, what I found was very intense and simultaneous experience of the attraction (great desire) and aversion (great fear) and their culmination. And in everyday life, particularly when practice is going "well" (i.e. pleasurable and/or spacious sits), I feel that bubbling undercurrent of the enlightened state. And that bubbling undercurrent has an emotional dimension, which leads to the conflicted sense of desire and aversion which leads to semi-deliberate indifference.

So I have been trying to experience that more directly recently by relaxing into it and attempting to experience the non-conceptual texture of the desire and fear and manifested in my bodily felt sense, and that underlying sense of potential for an ecstatic sensation of presence and awareness grows. There is vibrancy and alertness.

It also made me realise, having been down these roads before and where I am in relation to recent experiences, that equanimity is probably about right now (or rather, peeks into it), though I seem to have got there through engaging in content rather than good concentration/insight (despite all Daniel's advice in MCTemoticon. Whether that is true or not, dwelling on it and over thinking it (as I am want to do) is probably best avoided, as it becomes just another avoidance strategy.

RE: How Sawfoot Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Enlightenment
Answer
3/17/14 5:53 PM as a reply to sawfoot _.
sawfoot _:

The thing about gentle curiosity that while it is an awesome state of mind, my deliberate attempts to encourage it in everyday life didn't get very far. (...) but I think what stops it being effective is underlying emotional currents that give rise to conditioned behaviours and associated avoidance strategies.


I can't overstate how difficult it's been for me to learn this, but it's a game changer in some way.

Just to step back from that a sec...

When those underlying emotional currents (and the cognitive ripples downstream) fall still for a while, what's it like? Does the universe seem uninteresting or unintelligible? Do you have the intellect of a cow? Are you unable to think about past or future? Are you unresponsive to people and situations? Or is it more like, ahhh, that's better... now I can ?

What I meant by a basic existential clarity, experiential clarity, is something perfectly ordinary but quite wonderful: a way of being right here in this world with all faculties working without obstruction, and without any basic existential confusion or distress. For me, the goal of all this practice is not about gaining any particular knowledge, but about having a better basis for knowing and experiencing, a better state or condition to operate out of. Not specific knowledge, but a better kind of knowingness. And if the universe remains a fascinating mystery (good chance of that), that's fine by me. I certainly won't be in a worse position to learn about it.

No amount of thinking has ever brought me to that basic existential clarity and non-conditional satisfaction. But it's always there in the background, and there's nothing preventing it being manifest, apart from what I'm adding to the situation.

So that's what practice is ultimately about for me. Seeing how and why that's happening. From that perspective, there's no better thing to be gently curious about than "underlying emotional currents that give rise to conditioned behaviours and associated avoidance strategies", which prevent you from being gently curious ;-)

That said, I might be projecting too much of my own aims onto you. The basic existential clarity above is my goal, and the "E" word is basically a placeholder for that. I understand that for other people it means something quite different.

*

I'm only a beginner when it comes to sitting, so take this with a pinch of salt.

You wrote in your practice log...

sawfoot _:

- had been reading a dzogchen book so tried to do instructions of just sitting and "letting go"
- difficult! Kept on wanted to introduce methods from my arsenal of techniques, and got stuck with the technique of no-technique.


If "letting go" doesn't do it for you as an instruction, how about "don't get involved"? It probably amounts to the same thing, but it has a different feel, and I find it easier to apply. Albeit from limited experience, I find it builds the ability to just be present for long periods without either pushing anything away or getting entangled.