AF notes on beliefs, solitude, attentiveness, and just doing it

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Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem, modified 12 Years ago at 4/3/11 3:58 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 4/3/11 3:31 PM

AF notes on beliefs, solitude, attentiveness, and just doing it

Posts: 2227 Join Date: 10/27/10 Recent Posts
Any question one asks of someone else, one really asks of one's self (of one's image of them). by taking what the external actual person says and then re-interpreting it through that image and just accepting it, beliefs are formed. the more importance that image is given, the more havoc it causes (i.e. feelings, emotions). furthermore, by not realizing that belief is 'you', any stray word or aleatory event (especially from or involving a person whose image has given you lots of beliefs) can impact the image/belief which then impacts other parts of you, all out of your control. e.g. 'someone' 'you' respect insults you - the respected image previously liked 'you', now that image doesn't (as a result of external, actual sensory input related to by the self, in particular that image), now 'you' feel bad. e.g. the 'upheaval' dan caused when he started doing AF, and kenneth caused when he re-did his model of enlightenment.

have you ever noticed when talking to somebody that you aren't really talking to them? there are two flesh&blood bodies, and each has an identity within, which contains an image of the other person. when you ask somebody a question, you really ask the image the question. by not realizing the image is 'you', you don't seek the answer yourself, yet wait for somebody to fill it in for you. when you have an urge to tell somebody something, you really want to tell yourself (i.e. the image) that, and by waiting for its reaction you form beliefs on whether that thing was cool or not (or maybe form a belief about whether that image is cool or not) instead of evaluating the sensibility or silliness of whatever it is you wanted to say. if you're best friends or lovers with someone your images can be pretty well aligned to the point where you can finish each other's sentences.

likewise, humanity is all in your head, and so is reality, your concept of the world and how it works, etc.

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solitude is great because it forces you to sit with yourself and figure out all the answers yourself. prolonged solitude is great since the first few days one might still be wandering around and flailing against one's images of the world, but as it becomes apparent no one else is there (if one is sincere) it seems like they would lose their grip.

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everything i’ve been doing is like carefully crafting a house of cards - do this, do that, understand this point, try figuring out that point, etc. especially MCTB/vipassana stuff - a really radical re-arrangement of the cards for the purpose of getting them in a better shape to eliminate them, which seems to work yet is rather indirect. it's all quite insubstantial, though, and it can easily collapse (e.g. an emotion makes me feel bad) and throw me off-track, then requiring a re-building of the house, a re-iteration of previously 'understood' points to 'assure myself' that 'i know what it means'. i've been kicking&screaming the whole time, setting these cards up against 'my' will (or some part of 'me'), in the process getting some paths & forming an intellectual understanding of AF with a belief system overlaid on top of it to fill in the gaps (e.g. not having an experience of actuality to remember).

what's important is not these words, nor how the 'self' understands them, but the experience of apperception and the actual understanding. what's important is not figuring it out, but uninterrupted attentiveness. that means moment-to-moment, if possible, or every other moment if not, or every three moments if not, or once a minute if that's the most you can do (but you can do better than that).

there's just this - it's very simple. yet why is it so hard to see? because moment-to-moment the self recognizes, processes, identifies and identifies with the sensory input. if you are attentive once every 5 moments - then 80% of the time you leave open the possibility of an emotion arising and throwing you off-track. yet at least within the space of a few seconds (if you maintain the level of attentiveness consistently, which is hard when in the grip of an emotion) you catch it. the sooner you catch it, the easier it is to see what exactly caused it. e.g. im attentive, looking around my room, then i think of some event this morning.. using attentiveness to realize i wasn't being attentive, i then figure out it's because i saw a cupcake given as a thank-you resulting from said event. if i were less attentive i could have gone from this morning's events to last nights, then perhaps to some other time, then start thinking about some beliefs, then wonder about how to be an actualist, then try to figure out what to do, etc. yet all that's needed is the attentiveness (and sensuousness when no particular feeling, emotion or belief is apparent). it's pretty simple, it just takes some mental habituation. even as the self gets more and more rarified, such attentiveness is vital - and maybe even more vital as the self gets quite thin.

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so.. just gotta do it! re-read this and really stay with each sentence. most English sentences are much fluff and little substance, yet that does not apply to most of the sentences in that article. e.g. when i first read this:
Richard:
Attentiveness is not sentimental susceptibility for it does not get involved with affection or empathy or get hung up on mercurial imaginations and capricious intuitions or ephemeral auguries

i initially understood
Claudiu:
Attentiveness is not susceptible for it does not get involved with affection or empathy or blah blah yep got it

whereas what i now understand is
Attentive Claudiu:
Attentiveness is not sentimental susceptibility [hmm why?] for it does not get involved with affection [ah right, loving others, nurture] or empathy [feeling bad when someone feels bad - just attentiveness, not feeling] or get hung up on mercurial imaginations [hey imagination is mercurial! it jumps from place to place haphazardly and in a disconnected fashion] and capricious intuitions [intuition really is capricious. you feel this is wrong.. then you feel its right.. then you feel its confusing.. then you dont know what to feel] or ephemeral auguries [hmm not sure. i guess you have a hunch that something might happen, yet that hunch doesn't really exist anywhere. usually hunches seem to not be ephemeral, as in passing quickly..] [ah so attentiveness is really just being attentive, no more or less, no need to follow what you were attentive of and make sure its correct, wonder how it relates to everything else you know, check it again to make sure it was right, etc...]
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Nikolai , modified 12 Years ago at 4/3/11 6:11 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 4/3/11 3:56 PM

RE: AF notes on beliefs, solitude, attentiveness, and just doing it

Posts: 1677 Join Date: 1/23/10 Recent Posts
Hey Claudiu,
Nice post! I'm in the process of dispelling some longheld beliefs, psychic binds, mental blocks and views myself. I'm gonna now cement the direction I'm going.

http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2011/03/down-rabbit-hole-paradoxically-screwed.html
http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2011/04/down-rabbit-hole-to-be-or-not-to-be.html
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Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem, modified 12 Years ago at 4/3/11 4:23 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 4/3/11 4:23 PM

RE: AF notes on beliefs, solitude, attentiveness, and just doing it

Posts: 2227 Join Date: 10/27/10 Recent Posts
'my' biggest obstacle , or at least a large part of what currently makes up 'me', seems to be the seeker.

the seeker does not want to find. it likes seeking, and finding little tid-bits here&there as evidence for success. yet as something is understood it is quickly glossed over and more things to be read are sought. evidenced by when i understood many times before that attentiveness is key... yet i did not proceed to cultivate that attentiveness. it also loves telling other people about it, as evidenced by last night. and it loves talking about the hope for humanity and how i'm doing this to save the world and this is the way to live life etc.

'i' love all that, and 'i' get frustrated when 'i' don't find, yet 'i' dont actually want to find! mm that dont sound like pure intent to me
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Nikolai , modified 12 Years ago at 4/3/11 4:27 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 4/3/11 4:25 PM

RE: AF notes on beliefs, solitude, attentiveness, and just doing it

Posts: 1677 Join Date: 1/23/10 Recent Posts
Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem:
'my' biggest obstacle , or at least a large part of what currently makes up 'me', seems to be the seeker.

the seeker does not want to find. it likes seeking, and finding little tid-bits here&there as evidence for success. yet as something is understood it is quickly glossed over and more things to be read are sought. evidenced by when i understood many times before that attentiveness is key... yet i did not proceed to cultivate that attentiveness. it also loves telling other people about it, as evidenced by last night. and it loves talking about the hope for humanity and how i'm doing this to save the world and this is the way to live life etc.

'i' love all that, and 'i' get frustrated when 'i' don't find, yet 'i' dont actually want to find! mm that dont sound like pure intent to me


Seeking gets dealt with at 4th path. At least that incessant urge to get soemthing done goes away. PCEs are much easier to trigger as well. Prolonged apperception is much easier , me thinks, to maintain. I often read about people's troubles trying to get into PCE and stay there. But I've not had such troubles. What i am working on is getting the mental blocks out of the way, such as subtle fears about group acceptance etc. Are you 4th path yet?

Nick
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Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem, modified 12 Years ago at 4/3/11 4:31 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 4/3/11 4:31 PM

RE: AF notes on beliefs, solitude, attentiveness, and just doing it

Posts: 2227 Join Date: 10/27/10 Recent Posts
Nikolai *:
Hey Claudiu,
Nice post! I'm in the process of dispelling some longheld beliefs, psychic binds, mental blocks and views myself. I'm gonna now cement the direction I'm going.

http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2011/03/down-rabbit-hole-paradoxically-screwed.html
http://thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2011/04/down-rabbit-hole-to-be-or-not-to-be.html

awesome articles! i liked the bit about how you want to keep existing.. i think i do too. tho i think a large part of holding me back was that some of the best ive felt in my life was when rolling and i had some deep sense that rolling was wrong.. so i actually thought feeling too good was wrong! what our selves get up to, eh? i liked your series of questions to help investigate the cause of a feeling:

Nikolai:
Why are you arising? What is the meaning behind this? What are you made up of? Who are you benefiting? How trivial is this? Does this interfere with being happy and harmless? Who really benefits? What is the root cause of this? And in particular, what are you covering up and filtering?
...
There is a compounding of physical and mental phenomena and this is seen. But why is there this tendency to compound phenomena and get angry or sad or agitated? Is what that person said to me really something worth getting agitated over? Who is getting agitated? What benefits from getting agitated? Do you have a purpose other than to make this body and mind “suffer”? What is your purpose? Why are you necessary? Are you necessary? What does this feeling of agitation cover up?
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Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem, modified 12 Years ago at 4/3/11 4:35 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 4/3/11 4:35 PM

RE: AF notes on beliefs, solitude, attentiveness, and just doing it

Posts: 2227 Join Date: 10/27/10 Recent Posts
Nikolai *:
Seeking gets dealt with at 4th path. At least that incessant urge to get soemthing done goes away. PCEs are much easier to trigger as well. Prolonged apperception is much easier , me thinks, to maintain. I often read about people's troubles trying to get into PCE and stay there. But I've not had such troubles. What i am working on is getting the mental blocks out of the way, such as subtle fears about group acceptance etc. Are you 4th path yet?


not yet. 4th path definitely seems like a huge help for PCEing. however the approach i was taking to get to 4th path was causing lots of suffering so i've dropped it. the approach i like most (Chuck's instructions for 3rd pathers) seems pretty similar to cultivating PCEs - stay with gentle awareness at the senses while walking in wide-open spaces - so i'm just gonna do PCE practice (i.e. non-stop attentiveness for the reasons i've outlined above) directly, and having a clear PCE seems to help for getting 4th path anyway. i'll try to deal with the seeking directly until then - i think realizing how useless it is (it doesn't want to find) has just made it take a big hit
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tom moylan, modified 12 Years ago at 4/5/11 10:42 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 4/5/11 10:42 AM

RE: AF notes on beliefs, solitude, attentiveness, and just doing it

Posts: 896 Join Date: 3/7/11 Recent Posts
Hi Guys,
really an excellent post...it touches on some things i feel i own too...attachment to collecting more facts as opposed to experienced wisdom...

i am currently investigating AF but am nowhere as far along on the insight path as i believe you (plural) are, but my question is this. is it important to stick with insight training as an aid to AF?
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Shashank Dixit, modified 12 Years ago at 4/5/11 11:30 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 4/5/11 11:30 AM

RE: AF notes on beliefs, solitude, attentiveness, and just doing it

Posts: 282 Join Date: 9/11/10 Recent Posts
tom moylan:
Hi Guys,
really an excellent post...it touches on some things i feel i own too...attachment to collecting more facts as opposed to experienced wisdom...

i am currently investigating AF but am nowhere as far along on the insight path as i believe you (plural) are, but my question is this. is it important to stick with insight training as an aid to AF?


Richard himself says that he never did any meditation as a practise.
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Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem, modified 12 Years ago at 4/5/11 11:39 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 4/5/11 11:38 AM

RE: AF notes on beliefs, solitude, attentiveness, and just doing it

Posts: 2227 Join Date: 10/27/10 Recent Posts
tom moylan:
i am currently investigating AF but am nowhere as far along on the insight path as i believe you (plural) are, but my question is this. is it important to stick with insight training as an aid to AF?

while 4th path (the end of the insight path described in MCTB ) seems helpful for AF, i don't know if you're starting from scratch whether it's best to pursue the insight path or do only AF. insight as we do it here is really painful (Dark Nights), brings up a lot of suffering that seems out of your control, and seems to cause some problems that non-path attainers don't seem to have so much (e.g. see this thread, intuition seemed to be the issue, and intuition gets a lot more powerful after stream entry). on the other hand getting stream entry does show you that a mutation of consciousness is possible, and has some neat benefits. but i don't know enough to say.

it's definitely not necessary. i think trent's friend got it from no meditation or spiritual practice to AF within a year, not going thru any of the insight paths along the way. and peter&vineeto did it as well without any insight like we do here.

id stick with pure AF; it seems a lot less painful.
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Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem, modified 12 Years ago at 4/5/11 11:39 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 4/5/11 11:39 AM

RE: AF notes on beliefs, solitude, attentiveness, and just doing it

Posts: 2227 Join Date: 10/27/10 Recent Posts
Shashank Dixit:
Richard himself says that he never did any meditation as a practise.
ya but don't forget he was enlightened =P.

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