Ello, I'm trying to really figure out what exactly my practice should look like. I started out with just doing jhana meditation and trying to have mindfulness throughout the day, considering the three characteristics and also following right speech + action. After coming to this website and hearing about AF I started out trying to not ever ask HAIETMOBA, thinking it was just a cult, particularly after seeing the website. Today I decided I would just experiment, practice actualism diligently for one day. I was really happy. I came home and had probably the best meditation I've ever had. So I think I'm just going to try to basically do both.

Here is what my plan for practice is: follow the 8 precepts and 8fold path, meditate jhana about 2 hrs. per day. The rest of the day just live with HAIETMOBA. What I really wanted to know is whether the practices will compliment each other or take away from each other, I have reasons to like each one over the other, they are pretty much tied for me so I really want to do both. So, will doing both be counter-productive? anyone tried it? should I do noting meditation instead of jhana?

thanks adam

You ask why "I" stopped meditating and started practicing actualism back when. There is a post, "my" first post here, under another handle "S Kyle" that answers this question [[BEONOTE: Available here]]. "I" was also skeptical of actualism when I first encountered it. Then "I" listened to Dan and Tarin's Hurricane Ranch discussion [[BEONOTE: Available here]]. At some point in there "I" also had a PCE (I cannot now remember if the PCE was before or after "I" listened to the Hurricane Rance discussion). If you haven't listened to it, I suggest maybe doing so.

A month or so before "I" found the DhO, and Daniel's book, "I'd" completed a 10-day Vipassana course (my fourth). "I'd" had some fairly significant experiences and insight there and returned home quite changed. Yet despite a tremendous decrease in suffering, there was still some undercurrent there, something left undone. "I" was fortunate enough to have time and space and freedom to spend many hours in meditation. If you have ever sat a Goenka course, you will know that much is not explained there in terms of jhanas and other states one might experience if one meditates a lot; "I" ended up looking around to be able to understand some of what "I" was experiencing. This is how "I" found Daniel's book and the DhO.

Then, "I" read the threads on actualism, read (some of) the site, and listened to the previously mentioned discussion. When "I" decided to practice actualism it wasn't out of a rejection of Buddhism per se. It was an open, speculative, adventurous endeavor. "I" had a PCE, so "I" kept cultivating them. So this is how "I" came to it. At first, "I" tried to keep up with my twice or thrice daily sits; but soon, as the PCE became a more common feature of the day, the mechanism for moving awareness through the body was often in abeyance (as I was in a PCE most of the time), so meditation didn't happen in the way "I" had previously understood it. So "I" stopped meditating.

If you could experience a PCE, then you could compare it to your usual experience and make a determination about whether or not actualism might be something you'd want to pursue and from there undertake a thorough engagement and examination of it. During the time that "I" was skeptical about actualism, "I" just thought "I'll try this PCE thing and if it doesn't work out, go right back to the cushion." But the PCE thing worked out really well.

LOL funny story, same thing happened to me a few minutes ago, I read Trent's essay on wonder, sat there for five minutes and had a PCE, no more Buddhism for me