Hello. I'm here to ask a few questions. Here's a brief history:
About two years ago I was reading MCTB and going really hard core about it, and after getting up from a meditation sitting I had what I believe was an PCE. I walked out of my room and, without even realizing that the state was being entered, suddenly I was amazed at the walls by my stairwell. To me and according to my memories it seemed like I could go so far as to say there was no 'space' in the normal sense of the word. Everything was here and immediate and the colors seemed like colors I'd never even seen before although it was just plain white walls that I saw every day! I remember the awe and the wonder and I continued to feel these effects as I snapped out of the state. It occurred to me that as a little child I continuously experienced something similar to this. It was very profound, and I knew it was deep and important. I truely wish that I had someone to tell me what it was. But the experience was so 'unlike anything I've ever experienced before' that I never got around to explaining it to people and I assumed it was just a ASC (something I was experiencing a lot of around that time due to hardcore vipassana practice).
About a year later not long before I got stream entry (about May 2009) I had another experience in an all day meditation class I was taking. I remember as I went into it my mind was sort of shifting back and forth from two different internal things (I couldn't say what exactly) when suddenly I was in the state. My eyes were closed and the most prominent thing was the sound of buzzing from an open window. I hadn't even internally registered that I was hearing the sound until I was in the state, but it was so clear and the noise seemed to be happening in the location of my spine, as in the noise which I know as logically outside the window was suddenly in the center of the boundlessness and that was all I experienced with no one to experience it.
Sometime between these two events I read about PCEs on this forum, back while most people disagreed with AF. Somehow, and I'll never be able to explain how, but I knew that when people used the phrase PCE they were talking about that first experience and I wanted more than anything to know more about it because I knew it was important. It was also the first and only place where I heard such an experience described, so it was a nice uplifting validation for my personal experience. Unfortunately, my coarse thick thoughts still convinced myself that it was just an ASC, which my deeper feelings disagreed with, and I also never received a link to the AF website, so I never got very much in depth information, or properly understood what was the 'big picture' was in AF terms.
I got stream entry in December 2009. The cycles and the fruition were proof. I got second and third path relatively quickly, then went thru a very long and hard dark night. I now place myself at the peaceful stages at the end of the Anagami stage. I have a sort of confidence now that is based in the 'background' that everything seems to come out of and absorb back into.
Two other noteworthy events: On two weekend retreats I had a kind of deformed PCE. The first one was looking at someone while I was trying to see out the 5 senses perfectly clearly. I tapped into a state that wasn't quite clear enough to know if it was a PCE. It was of a similar category but not quite. It happened after 2 days of perfect peaceful, comfortable wonder, which might indicate that it had a relationship to PCE (heck, it might have been one, I'm just not going to fool myself my saying I know it was for sure. It was too fast, like 3-4 seconds).
The second event is as follows: I was on a retreat and doing really well, feeling good and comfortable and safe in ways that I very rarely do. I was talking with the mediation teacher in a group discussion and I believe I had a moment of "transference", where I tapped into his state of being'. When I got out of it I thought it was a PCE, but I thought it couldn't possibly be. I was very much aware of a me looking at him during the experience, but there was also a such clarity there. To be completely honest, I'm marking it down as the deformed state of PCE that one gets later on the the AF path. It really, truly felt like that, so I feel like I'm kind of lucky that I got to know what that was like.
Over the past week I've finally gathered up the courage and intent to follow the AF path, which seems like the most sincere and true way to go, not to mention that people who report having PCEs tend to get arhatship relatively quickly (a strange coincidence, no?). I've gone days just following that tiny, delicate, yet somehow wide, stable thread of intention that allows a wide boundless awareness and a subtle sense of awe in physical sensation. I'm assuming this is right although I never feel a strong sense of awe, which I expected at first. It seems to me that this 'pure intent' that af talks about is simply remembering the portion of your mind that knew a PCE and staying on it. I've not had another PCE yet, although I hungrily await it.
So anyways, those are my landmark experiences. Here's a couple of notes on my daily life:
Whenever I'm around people I occasionally get this strange paranoia. It tends to be focused on a single person, but I get all tense. I'm also generally afraid of my own personal instincts(the id?) and of pissing people off. I'm far from disfunctional, but I guess you could say that people is one of my weak points. I'm clearminded enough that I can see clearly that I would be happier without these stressors. Apart from seeking out the objective state which I describe in a few paragraphs, any guidance would be nice.
It also has occured to me that other people don't have emotions; and what I mean by this is that they really are just like little angelic shells that I project my own feelings on. I can clarify if you like later, but it revealed that people are actually harmless to me, and what emotions they feel are actually my projections, always. It was a huge relief to recognize this and I'm never seriously worried when I'm with people, just a detached sense of that paranoia I described above.
I also succumb to hunger by eating a lot of candy. I also try to go to the opposite extreme and fast occasionally. I really have an unstable diet and it frustrates me alot. In fact, i can tell that it is hard to even talk about it without emotions getting in the way. I can be really mindful and only eat as much as I need, but then I really want to eat later and I end up succumbing to the desires.
!- Interestingly though, I've broken some major barriers here, and I want to share my insight: any kind of lust or desiring is based upon an image of what you want- an internal image. This image does not correlate with how the world actually is. It is internally generated, so by dissembling the image one frees up whatever feeling-tone-desire that was behind it. Its simple right? Just disassemble whatever image you have in your mind that comes with the desire, and you can literally feel the whole mental structure just fall apart. It's much easier to do this than try to deal with the actual feeling-tone of desire, which I've never had any luck beating head on. Thoughts and comments welcome.
Now for the objective state of being I mentioned earlier: It seems that I can tap into an 'objective state of being' when I am able to find the connection between my root chakra and the third eye chakra- it's like all of the emotions happen between these two points, and the only real 'objective seeing' and thus 'burning away of the defilement'/insight/'resolving internal issues' seems to happen thru some connection between these two points. I can focus somewhere around the third eye and I automatically become aware of my lower abdomen. It seems like a direct connection that I cant force but simply exists. Also, there seems to be a well spring of energy and objectivity in what is becoming know here as the 'sincerity center' just above the sex center. It helps me tap into that emotionless objective state for short periods of time ( I experience it for a second or two then have to repeat the process again, sometimes it lasts a lot longer.)
So I know this has been questioned here before, but is there an energetic (in the chakras sense) process going on to accomplish AF, or can I just use what energitic processes I know and have in order to help my af practice?
Its quite a relief to 'feel' objective and emotionless (a huge relief, and it's very desirable.), but it is still a far, far cry from what I know a PCE is.
I would appreciate any comments on dealing with this strange paranoia I described or with the eating problem. I'll gladly answer any more questions. I will acknowledge there is some degree of emotion in this post (as there would be with anyone not AF or in a PCE), so I deeply apologize if I something is not exact or literal enough or not elaborated enough or etc. I'm looking here for honesty and sincere involvement and movement towards a greater truth and wholeness. Peace to all!
Jeff
(made minor edits for clarity, also- feel free to Private Message me or use the chat function if I'm on!)
