PCE/Direct Mode and Nirodha Samapatti

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Villum (redacted), modified 12 Years ago at 5/8/11 6:05 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 5/8/11 6:05 PM

PCE/Direct Mode and Nirodha Samapatti

Posts: 60 Join Date: 3/24/11 Recent Posts
Now, i'm going to claim that there is some sort of link between kenneth folk's direct mode/the PCE and the flashlight-in-the-head method of attaining nirodha samapatti. I'm not sure about this, but my experiments seem to point in that direction, and since it would be interesting and possibly useful if true, i decided to make a post about about it.

After experimenting with the "sunspot" method of going into direct mode, where you rest your attention on a disruption in the "energy body", i was able to get into some sort of direct mode, being much more in the world, with no, or nearly no emotions present. This happens with the fading of the "energy body" into a directly physical sense of the body

However, in this state, i discovered that there was another source of emotions and disruptions in the shape of the physical body, located in the middle of the skull, and connected to the pressure i feel in the third eye.
I have been able to make these fade away as well, by resting my attention on the outside of the body at the third eye, in the same way as i did for direct mode step 1.

Now, today i discovered that i can find the "power-down" buttons on the inside of the body that some people use to get Nirodha Samapatti. This is not a claim of actual Nirodha Samapatti. I get a very clear powering down, but i can't get all the way yet, and might need some further attainment before i'm able to.

However, the powering-down process i experienced seemed to have some strange resemblance to the falling-into-the-physical-world i experience when i do the extra direct mode practice and make the emotion-sensations inside the head fade.

Thus interested, i experimented further. It now seems to me that the places inside the skull that lead to powering-down will lead into direct mode and perhaps PCE if you focus on the outside of the skull. Comparison also seemed to confirm that the processes whereby some things power down/fade away are similar.

IF i'm right, there might be some interesting avenues of experimentation, and some interesting possible conclusions. Of course, i could also be totally wrong. It's been known to happen ;)

Seeing it for yourself:
If you can find one of the "power-down buttons" for NS, try to focus on the outside of the body instead. I suggest focusing in a gentle way, in a spirit of renunciation, but that might just be me.
If you can use the sunspot method to get into direct mode, try to focus your attention on the same spots, but from the inside of the body. This led me to power-down (i had success with both a spot in the neck, and a spot near the heart).

Further experiments
Focusing both on the inside and the outside of the skull at one of these points seem to do something strange, but i'm not sure what.

Guessing at what this could mean
First, that Direct mode/PCE and cessation/nirodha samapatti somehow are two sides of the same coin. This appeals to me for reasons of elegance, and might help figure out new tricks.
There might be some link between being able to get a proper PCE, and being able to get nirodha samapatti.

Resources:
Kenneth folk. Direct mode - text video
Flashlight method for NS - couldn't find link.
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Villum (redacted), modified 12 Years ago at 5/9/11 7:02 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 5/9/11 7:02 AM

RE: PCE/Direct Mode and Nirodha Samapatti

Posts: 60 Join Date: 3/24/11 Recent Posts
Having read something on the lack of a sense of "reality" in PCE, i do not currently believe i have gone there - thus, i wanted extending this to the PCE is speculation on my part. A result of my concepts taking over my thinking, i guess (papancasanna-sankha, as discussed in the excellent Concept and Reality in Early Buddhist Thought, which i'm currently reading. But that's another digression).

Anyways - am i just imagining things here? is there some similarity, and does there seem to be the kind of non-accidental similarity that actually makes this observation useful as something to work with?

Metta
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Nikolai , modified 12 Years ago at 5/9/11 7:17 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 5/9/11 7:09 AM

RE: PCE/Direct Mode and Nirodha Samapatti

Posts: 1677 Join Date: 1/23/10 Recent Posts
Villum (redacted):
Having read something on the lack of a sense of "reality" in PCE, i do not currently believe i have gone there - thus, i wanted extending this to the PCE is speculation on my part. A result of my concepts taking over my thinking, i guess (papancasanna-sankha, as discussed in the excellent Concept and Reality in Early Buddhist Thought, which i'm currently reading. But that's another digression).

Anyways - am i just imagining things here? is there some similarity, and does there seem to be the kind of non-accidental similarity that actually makes this observation useful as something to work with?

Metta


In my own experience of what the pragma dharma crowd call NS, Kenneth Folk's direct mode (dead man switch) and full blown real PCEs, they are all different. Are you sure you had a PCE, or was it more like a high grade EE(Excellent Experience, the closest one can get to PCE mode without affective feelings going into abeyance)? I have mistaken them for PCEs many times. But a full blown PCE is unique in that there is absolutely no affective feeling present and thus no sense of being or presence or inner world. Just objects coming in contact with the sense doors with unfiltered clarity.

The after affects of NS leave the mind all floaty and a sense of wellbeing can really be the theme. And i can see how one could mistake it for a PCE. KF's Direct Mode is not the same as PCEs in my experience. But DM might lead to a PCE. And the after affects of NS may be conducive to cultivating felicitous feelings in order to trigger PCEs.
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Villum (redacted), modified 12 Years ago at 5/9/11 7:19 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 5/9/11 7:19 AM

RE: PCE/Direct Mode and Nirodha Samapatti

Posts: 60 Join Date: 3/24/11 Recent Posts
Oops, i must have expressed myself vaguely. I meant to say that i do *not* think i have had a PCE. Nor do i think i have had full "button-style" NS. The point of the second post was to correct myself, as to not give the impression that i have had a PCE.

I have, through the deadman-switch method, used in multiple times in various places on head and body, gone to a place where there seemed to be no affective part to smiling. However, as you say, this might also be an effect of the mind being floaty and slow after having tried to power down, button-NS style.

However, there did seem to be the following similarity between the power-down and the process of going into direct mode: The same spots can be used for both, if you apply attention either from the inside of the body (for NS), or from the outside of the body (for DM).
Can anyone reproduce this effect?
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Nikolai , modified 12 Years ago at 5/9/11 7:48 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 5/9/11 7:48 AM

RE: PCE/Direct Mode and Nirodha Samapatti

Posts: 1677 Join Date: 1/23/10 Recent Posts
Villum (redacted):

I have, through the deadman-switch method, used in multiple times in various places on head and body, gone to a place where there seemed to be no affective part to smiling. However, as you say, this might also be an effect of the mind being floaty and slow after having tried to power down, button-NS style.

However, there did seem to be the following similarity between the power-down and the process of going into direct mode: The same spots can be used for both, if you apply attention either from the inside of the body (for NS), or from the outside of the body (for DM).
Can anyone reproduce this effect?



Perhaps get a "feel" for a sense of presence, inner world or sense of being. Ask yourself now, does it feel like there is this presence emanating from this body or as this body and mind in this world? If there is, then there is IMO an affective filter in place conditioning that sense of presence.

When you get a feel for that sense of presence, then you can ask the same question in any state at any moment to see if you are in PCE mode or not. If there is a sense of presence/being/I AM/inner world which evaluates and creates a dualistic relationship with objects coming in contact with the sense doors, then you aren't in PCE mode.

Next time you are in those places where you sense no affect, ask the presence question. Some affective feelings are very sublte and give off the "feeling" that there is no affective feeling.

Direct mode , in my own experience, is just anchoring the mind on sensations within the body at all times. One maintains awarenss of the entrie physical body in order to stop the glomming of the mind with its mentla reactions towards the sensations to form an emotion. THis is the idea behind it. One keeps their attention on the sensations as a dead man switch. Take your hand off the dead man switch (sensations) and this then allows the mental reactions to occur creating a full blown emotion . The sensations that seem to condition the emotions still arise. Kenneth calls these sensations, proto-emotions. Like embryos. In a PCE these "embryos" don't even arise. They still do in DMode thus the need to keep the hand on the "dead man switch". The deadman switch sensations could be within or on the surface of the body so i am not sure what you mean by DM occuring from "the outside of the body". Can you elaborate there?

:-)
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Villum (redacted), modified 12 Years ago at 5/9/11 8:18 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 5/9/11 8:17 AM

RE: PCE/Direct Mode and Nirodha Samapatti

Posts: 60 Join Date: 3/24/11 Recent Posts
Nicolai:
Perhaps get a "feel" for a sense of presence, inner world or sense of being. Ask yourself now, does it feel like there is this presence emanating from this body or as this body and mind in this world? If there is, then there is IMO an affective filter in place conditioning that sense of presence.


In what i regard as basic direct mode, there is indeed a sense of presence. And it seems to me that this is indeed a further affective filter, or actually, there seems to be more than one - i get the sense that there are multiple "vortexes" of subtle affect which maintain this sense of presence. I seem to have made some of these pass away using a technique like direct mode, but have not gone all the way, except perhaps for a second or two.

Nicolai:
When you get a feel for that sense of presence, then you can ask the same question in any state at any moment to see if you are in PCE mode or not. If there is a sense of presence/being/I AM/inner world which evaluates and creates a dualistic relationship with objects coming in contact with the sense doors, then you aren't in PCE mode.


I seem to have come very close, but with some very subtle vortex of affect (in the crown, and there might be more i haven't seen yet) still maintaining a sense of presence, even while the inner world and I AM seemed to have faded away.

Nicolai:
Next time you are in those places where you sense no affect, ask the presence question. Some affective feelings are very sublte and give off the "feeling" that there is no affective feeling.


That sounds like a good test! I will keep that in mind emoticon

Nicolai:
Direct mode , in my own experience, is just anchoring the mind on sensations within the body at all times. One maintains awarenss of the entrie physical body in order to stop the glomming of the mind with its mentla reactions towards the sensations to form an emotion. THis is the idea behind it. One keeps their attention on the sensations as a dead man switch. Take your hand off the dead man switch (sensations) and this then allows the mental reactions to occur creating a full blown emotion . The sensations that seem to condition the emotions still arise. Kenneth calls these sensations, proto-emotions. Like embryos. In a PCE these "embryos" don't even arise. They still do in DMode thus the need to keep the hand on the "dead man switch". The deadman switch sensations could be within or on the surface of the body so i am not sure what you mean by DM occuring from "the outside of the body". Can you elaborate there?


What i mean is that i have only been able to get (my understanding of the technique) to work with a specific sort of attention, resting just on the surface of the skin. If my attention pierced the skin, it didn't work. To do the technique i use, i need to rest the attention there very gently, with a specific intention - a spirit of renunciation - and allowing these things to pass away. Sometimes i need to hold the "feelings" sort of "in" the body for a short while, and then "breathe them out, very slowly and gently", but this additional trick seems to come from not having enough practice with "just" allowing things to pass away.

Sometimes, after that, when there still seems to be subtle affect left, i can repeat the technique at the places where it seems located - usually the third eye, the actual physical eyes, the back of the head, and the heart.

Does that help? Does it sound what you do?

Nicolai:
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Nikolai , modified 12 Years ago at 5/9/11 8:23 AM
Created 12 Years ago at 5/9/11 8:23 AM

RE: PCE/Direct Mode and Nirodha Samapatti

Posts: 1677 Join Date: 1/23/10 Recent Posts
What i mean is that i have only been able to get (my understanding of the technique) to work with a specific sort of attention, resting just on the surface of the skin. If my attention pierced the skin, it didn't work. To do the technique i use, i need to rest the attention there very gently, with a specific intention - a spirit of renunciation - and allowing these things to pass away. Sometimes i need to hold the "feelings" sort of "in" the body for a short while, and then "breathe them out, very slowly and gently", but this additional trick seems to come from not having enough practice with "just" allowing things to pass away.

Sometimes, after that, when there still seems to be subtle affect left, i can repeat the technique at the places where it seems located - usually the third eye, the actual physical eyes, the back of the head, and the heart.

Does that help? Does it sound what you do?


Sounds like direct mode to me. I don't practice direct more anymore. But it can be helpful.

Nick :-)
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Villum (redacted), modified 12 Years ago at 5/9/11 4:13 PM
Created 12 Years ago at 5/9/11 4:13 PM

RE: PCE/Direct Mode and Nirodha Samapatti

Posts: 60 Join Date: 3/24/11 Recent Posts
It might of course be the case that i misidentified the power-down button for Nirodha, but that effect seems pretty clear, and feels as objective as such things can be. So even with these clarifications, there still seems to be some relation to the deadman switch/sunspot method of DM

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