Hi all,

In the spirit of further exploration, the ending of suffering and not resting my laurels, I am in the process of cementing the direction I wish to go. That is AF. So begins the dismantling of "Nick". I have started a blog where I will record my practice and welcome any AFers or others to offer advice and suggestions either here in this thread or on the blog.

http://nickdowntherabbithole.blogspot.com/



Nick

have fun! don't worry too much about looking foolish - there's no one to judge you as being foolish, that too is just 'you' =). about this post:



this force to help other people is something that's definitely gotta be investigated (i still have it too). it might help to keep in mind that when 'you' want to help 'someone' (in the sense of feeling the need to educate them), you really seek to help the mental image you have of them, so you really seek to help 'you'... so you might ask why it is that part of you needs helping. since you can get into PCEs quite easily, probably just investigating this urge while in a PCE will shed lots of light on the matter.

Awesome, sounds like you got it easy. Get confident lol and stay in pce all day.

Yeh, I'm really enjoying this dismantling process. I always new there were things I hid from view, that were just further supports for a sense of "me". It is truly a happy occasion to unravel the knots and throw out the garbage that has plagued me for a lifetime.

Off with my head!

These exercises are designed to eradicate - or at least shrink - the self, which is what you want. They involve subjugation, humiliation, 'turning the other cheek', etc. and they definitely work, no doubts there. I'm not ready for a lot of this type of thing, but you may be.

http://www.endlesssearch.co.uk/exercises_selfimportance.htm

As humility of any kind is really not the point of the actualism method, such exercises would prove counter-productive.

Here is a paragraph copied ipsis-verbis from this link.

This is an interesting and important topic, Bruno, and for once I'd say that I can fully understand what Richard is saying here.

I'm not necessarily saying those exercises are helpful, but I do know that they shrink your sense of self. Everyone has been humiliated or embarrassed at some point in his life. One might say of such an experience: "I felt like I didn't exist" or "I felt about 2 inches tall". The self has been shrunk, albeit against the will in most cases.

How one responds to this is more important. The ego can look at the self-imposed, (or other-imposed) humiliation and be proud of the fact. "Look how humble I am!", "Look what I can endure in the name of Buddhism!". That is just the ego trying to recover from the insult, as Richard points out.

But what Richard misses is that the same insult can be handled in an entirely different way that allows the ego to be diminished. You can notice where that humiliation is felt in the body, and you can notice how the internal dialogue starts up and goes into overdrive, replaying the incident, "what a bastard so and so is", what you should have said, etc. To be able to witness those moments without 1). reacting, or 2). indulging in ego defense mechanisms, is what's required. He only talks about ego defense mechanisms, which is a fraction of the possibilities available to an individual.

Enormous power can be accessed by shrinking the self. I know that much from personal experience. And I'm not talking about harnessing the anger that emerges, no. That's just the ego bouncing back, because anger is its most powerful tool for self-preservation. Something emerges that is very powerful, and has no anger in it.

Being a person who has for a long time been prone to self-deprecation, I entirely agree It's good to finally be getting rid of my insecurities, and doing away with the need for self-esteem (which is just an unreliable antidote to insecurity).



Ah, but it hasn't been shrunk at all! This is an important point to grasp about what Richard is talking about (both in the text quoted above, and in other similar pieces): feeling like I don't exist, i.e., feeling humiliated, abashed, ashamed, humbled, etc, is completely self-preserving, self-sustaining, self-serving, etc. Although it might not appear that way.

To wit: feeling very small, feeling that one doesn't exist, is feeling "me" as "non-existent/small/humble," rather than not feeling me at all. They can be distinguished because the former is very uncomfortable, and the latter is not (in fact, coupled with sensory perception, being out of the way is very delightful).



Now do you see that Richard actually means that self-humiliation, regardless of one explicitly feeling proud of the fact, is ego-centric? It is ego-centric in itself, irrespective of whether one secretly brags about it or not.



It is a very good practice to become aware of how "feeling insulted" can lead to internal dialogue and other imaginative pursuits. It is an even better practice, as you suggest, not to feel insulted in the first place. If you feel insulted, the ego has already happened, and you are left to deal with the consequences.



Yep, I agree that self-humiliation can be very powerful. It is no surprise that mystics from all over the world in all times in history made use of self-flagelation in their mystical practices.

But the point here (which I am repeating over and over to be clear) is that: self-humiliation does not actually shrink the self, quite the opposite. The proof that the self is still there, that it is enourmously there, is that "enourmous power can be accessed by [self-humiliation]" (for who would want "enourmous power"?).

If one is worthy of despise, one is somehow not "just another human being." Self-humiliation is a delusion of anti-grandeur.

Nice explanation there brune.

I feel like the power that is available when the self is 'insulted' (lets say 'insulted' rather than 'shrunk') is of a spiritual nature. Maybe this is a kind of protective dissociation, similar to what happens under moments of extreme psychological duress - it's quite a comfortable place, not painful, and full of potential and power. If it's comfortable, and yet the self has been insulted, how could the self be involved? Maybe the identity gets momentarily shifted into 'no-self', and that is it's potential as a spiritual practice. Not that dissociation is an ideal scenario, but it gives you a taste of no-self. That's my take on it. What do you reckon?

Seems like those practices, while they may damage the ego, empower the affective 'soul' - which is also the 'self'. After all, what on earth does 'spiritual' mean if not 'emotional'?

Hello Nick

I would like to place an order for the PCE pills, hope you start shiping them soon . . . .



Thanks for your blogs and posts
Sanjay

Could be, my only experience of being "comfortable" while going through unpleasant experiences is having it happen through a sort of dissociation, like you mention. But I really dislike dissociation, it seems to be somehow the opposite of intimacy. I've practiced dissociation a bit when experimenting with the no-dog technique, but quickly gave that up, because the "detached" feel of it was not to my liking.

But once again, dissociation happens through the means of and in full support of the feeling process ("the self"). It seems to work like this:

(1) Part of the feeling process is in pain;
(2) So the feeling process splits into two parts, Part A having the pain, and a newly dissociated Part B;
(3) One identifies with Part B --- "you" feel like "you" are "Part B";
(4) The transmission of signal from Part A to Part B is blocked or attenuated, so that the terrible pain Part A is going through seems to happen "over there", from a distance, numb, diminished, etc. "you" feel like "you" are not "Part A."

So it might seem that "you" are not in pain, because by identifying with Part B and against Part A this makes it seem that the pain isn't really happening "to you." But actually "you" are both Part A and B ("you" are the feeling process, "you" are your feelings and your feelings are "you"). But now you are actually worst off, because of the added delusion that this is not the case, and hence in a position where you are not so likely to see things clearly.

For instance, you might find that although "you" are dissociated from being "insulted," "you" might still act aggressively towards those who "insulted you" (maybe in subtle ways that just seem "reasonable and justified" rather than "feeling based" as they actually are). If you are dissociated, because the feeling of insult has been made so numb, you might misunderstand the motives that actually cause you to act, and be in a worst position to change these root causes.

Now, the real bummer is this: the feeling process thrives on dissociation. There not only one massive dissociation happening in pretty much everyone (my feelings happen 'to me', rather than my feelings 'are me'), but there are a lot of small and not-so-small sub-disassociations, which prevent the feeling process from being whole and make it really murky and hard to investigate. For instance you might feel insulted because "they hurt your feelings," when actually you are just hurting yourself.

Suffices to say: often the real reasons that cause us to have this or that behavior or habit are very hard to discern, even when subject to persistent investigation; this can happen as a result of disassociation.

It'd be great to have some of those PCE pills

Thanks Bruno, I accept that and have changed my view on that topic.

Following on, would you say that formal vipassana practice is akin to insulting the ego (in the same way that those humiliating exercises were)? And if so, wouldn't it be likely to cause dissociation rather than something good?

You're welcome The way I've practiced vipassana it is more like persistently looking at what is happening, again and again, with the aim to see it as clearly as one possibly can. This causes resistance often to the point of pain, and frequently precipitates bouts of reactivity (aka Dark Night, which like everything else needs to be seen clearly), so it can be a very relentless practice. But it pays off in terms of having a clear understanding of your own mental processes.

There are some other practices which are more dissociative. I suspect that vipassana, when coupled with the insistence on "equanimity" instead of "clear seeing," can cause one to dissociate.

If you hear or read the old spiritual adage "You are not your body," you can be certain there's severe disassociation going on.

Hi CCC,

I think that would be just a painfully purposeless excercise in my own case. I don't wish to shrink anything, but totally dismantle it completely. Full honest exposure is kind of humiliating or rather that is the automatic mental reaction I got from posting those jhana pics on my blog. Hehe! The reason is more for not hiding anything because when they are being hid from view, those egoic tendencies to put a "me" on a pedestal and maintain its reign on the throne, they seem to cause more hinderances to the dismantling process and triggering PCEs than when they are exposed to the world. Less power to those tendencies!

Thanks for making this thread interesting though!



Nick

Hi Nick,
i salute your courage and fortitude in striking out on the AF path without reservation. i am very new to both this site and the concept of AF and despite having a VERY strong attraction to AF, i am in the process of reconciling this desire with some of the more doctrinaire buddhist teachings. so my question:

do you feel that you are losing / giving up anything by commiting to AF or do you see it as an adjunct to these practices?

you seem to fall lightly into PCEs, do you attribute this to anything in particular, events or practices?

so good luck, good work, and i might be right on your heels.

tom

Hi Tom,



Thanks! It has taken awhile to face some of the obstacles that were in my way. I feel like I'm back on the saddle to explore further into the end of suffering.



Are you pre-1st path or post- path? I know people say AF can be got without path but since I'm not one of those people, I'd say reconcile your urges towards Dharma by getting at least 1st path if those urges still persist. Then worry about AF post-path. Are you pre-4th nana or a dark nighter already? Might be easier to just get 1st path out of the way first if you are a dark nighter. Post-4th path, it is even easier to do if the pure intent is there.



The path of Dharma was all about loss in my opinion, the loss of what I thought to be a concrete entity called Nick. A lot has dropped away. As far as I'm concerned AF is just continuing that dropping away of "stuff". It feels like a continuation of insight into cause and effect and freedom from suffering. All seemingly Buddhist concepts. I also am currently not a fan of equating MCTB 4th path with what the Buddha may have meant by arahat. Keeping an open mind but also aiming to end suffering for this Nick and to be harmless to those around me. That is why I got into Dharma in the first place. I don't want to be a buddhist just for the sake of being a buddhist. I got in it to end suffering.



4th path. The mind/brain is extremely malleable, fleixible, easy to tune in, tune out and direct as it is not the sticky mess it once was anymore. All the usual practices for PCEs are just easier post 4th path due to these changes.



Goodluck to you too!

Thanks for the detailed answer nick. I won't hijack your thread but I'm pre path, 4th nana...maybe more...i suspect dark night.
tom

Hey Nick,
Is this a "new direction" or a "nude erection"? (sorry, I just couldn't resist the joke... credit: Ross Jeffries and "speed seduction")



- Daniel

Haha! Could be read as both. Off with my clothes....ahem.

Misfire:

Wanted to post some images I made up to convey my current understanding but it seems to have caused wires to get crossed. now the DhO is all green and sky blue. Im looking for any feedback. Feel free to critique the hell out of them as i'd like to make them clearer if i can.


http://nickdowntherabbithole.blogspot.com/2011/04/pure-intent.html#more

hmm - doesnt that mean that the sense of being is in fact caused by a very very subtle aversion since it collapses when you generate the opposite towards it?

Hi Bill,


Where did you get that idea from?

I don't think I singled out just aversion. Any affective feeling, pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral seems to be caused by the same process.

:-)


Nick

I was just reviewing the af site yesterday and was looking over this diagram for a while. I find it very useful (though I don't know how scientifically accurate it is)... It seems like it may relate to what you were trying to diagram.