In metta practise people use certain phrases such as 'may I be happy, may I be well, may all beings be peaceful' to generate loving-kindness. Is there any benefit in repeating felicitous phrases to yourself to attain AF? Did the AF people think positively to themselves as they went for a walk, for example thinking about how marvellous it is to be here? Sometimes after I've read some of the AF website I'll have various phrases from the passages going around my head such as "one walks through the world in a state of wide-eyed wonder and amazement – simply marvelling at the magnificence that this physical universe actually is" and this obviously affects my experience. Often the best way for me to feel good is to read one of Richard's descriptions about enjoying being here now, and how much fun it is to be here.

So my first question is would it be correct to think of and treat actualism almost like a brahma viharas practise, using positive phrases to build felicity? (Of course metta is sort of blissful in a way that will grow stronger and diffuse the body expanding into jhana, while felicity is light and more an enjoyment being here) or would this be a superifical / wrong way of looking at it?

My second question is, if this is a good idea shall we all come up with some pithy phrases we can repeat to ourselves to generate a good, fun mood? (this is starting to sound like positive thinking and affirmations which i used to hate, but maybe there's something in it )

Of course, the felicity needs to be connected to external sensory scenery or it becomes too jhana-esque, but I find feeling good has to come first, because something has to counteract the tension (or other stuff like flatness and dullness) that may arise in the focusing on external things, then I may become aware of things without there being any 'focus' (in that 'connected-to-the-tensing-in-the-head' sort of way). After all, a fair amount of the time external sights aren't aesthetically pleasing.


Thoughts?
- Martin

Hi Martin,



Though I haven't any particular thoughts about thoughts fostering felicity, I feel compelled to write. That what you wrote there resonates here. I think I get all of it, that is, all of the part I quoted. I probably wouldn't have gotten any of it, three weeks ago. It's now been almost two weeks ago that I experienced being with less focus. The thing was basically triggered by cleaning up my room and from the good feelings that came from having my room clean. Then walking outside in perfect weather and beautiful surroundings did the rest.

When you experience that stuff, are you close to apperceptive awareness? I can sortof see how you can loose yourself in the experience and become the experience, and it seemed to me at the time that that transition was slowly taking place.

Thanks

Martin Potter asks:

So my first question is would it be correct to think of and treat actualism almost like a brahma viharas practise, using positive phrases to build felicity? (Of course metta is sort of blissful in a way that will grow stronger and diffuse the body expanding into jhana, while felicity is light and more an enjoyment being here) or would this be a superifical / wrong way of looking at it?

My second question is, if this is a good idea shall we all come up with some pithy phrases we can repeat to ourselves to generate a good, fun mood?

***

One could use the phrase, "How Am I Experiencing This Moment of Being Alive." Please note in the passage below the relationship between this phrase, the PCE, and felicity.

"There is a wide and wondrous path to actual freedom: One asks oneself, each moment again, ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive’?

This can give rise to apperception. Apperception is the outcome of the exclusive attention paid to being alive right here just now. Apperception is to be the senses as a bare awareness, a pure consciousness experience (PCE) of the world as-it-is, which happens when the mind becomes aware of itself. Apperception is an awareness of consciousness. It is not ‘I’ being aware of ‘me’ being conscious; it is the mind’s awareness of itself. Which means that attentiveness and sensuousness will facilitate what the wide and wondrous path to an actual freedom is on about: a virtual freedom wherein the ‘good’ feelings – the affectionate and desirable emotions and passions (those that are loving and trusting) are minimised along with the ‘bad’ feelings – the hostile and invidious emotions and passions (those that are hateful and fearful) – so that one is free to feel well, feel happy and feel perfect for 99% of the time. If one deactivates the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings and activates the felicitous feelings (happiness, delight, joie de vivre, bonhomie and so on) with this freed-up affective energy, in conjunction with sensuousness (delectation, enjoyment, appreciation, relish, zest, gusto and so on), then the ensuing sense of amazement, marvel and wonder can result in apperceptiveness (unmediated perception).

Now, delight is what is humanly possible, given sufficient pure intent obtained from the felicity born of the pure consciousness experience, and from the position of delight, one can vitalise one’s joie de vivre by the amazement at the fun of it all ... and then one can – with sufficient abandon – become over-joyed and move into marvelling at being here and doing this business called being alive now. Then one is no longer intuitively making sense of life ... the delicious wonder of it all drives any such instinctive meaning away. Such luscious wonder fosters the innate condition of naiveté – the nourishing of which is essential if fascination in it all is to occur – and the charm of life itself easily engages dedication to peace-on-earth. Then, as one gazes intently at the world about by glancing lightly with sensuously caressing eyes, out of the corner of one’s eye comes – sweetly – the magical fairy-tale-like paradise that this verdant earth actually is ... and one is the experiencing of what is happening.

But refrain from possessing it and making it your own ... or else ‘twill vanish as softly as it appeared."

http://actualfreedom.com.au/richard/default.htm

# To Martin: I can't see anything wrong with kicking around some memorable quotables that raise the spirits. Richard certainly has plenty. Or to even repeat something in your mind to really attempt to grasp/understand/realize/actualize all the angles of it. I asked Richard something similar about this years ago actually:

*****RESPONDENT: Richard, in regards to the actualist method, is ‘... the only moment I’m ever alive’ phrase helpful after asking the ‘how am I experiencing ...’ question? Are there benefits to saying that statement along with the question? Or is ‘how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?’ sufficient enough to become actually free?
RICHARD: The reason why I draw attention to the fact that this moment is the only moment one is ever alive when responding to queries about the actualism method – asking oneself, each moment again, how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive) until it becomes a non-verbal attitude/a wordless approach to life – is so as to provide for an undivided attention or exclusive focus upon what is currently occurring ... this moment being the very place, so to speak, where not only everything happens but where radical change can, and does, occur.
If there be not this salient comprehension (that this moment is the only moment one is ever alive) then tacking that phrase onto the actualism question – until it too becomes a non-verbal attitude/a wordless approach to life – would, presumably, be helpful in gaining that understanding.***** [emphasis added] http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedcorrespondence/sc-method2.htm

# The idea or goal is all this becomes a "non-verbal attitude/a wordless approach to life."




*

----------------
STEPHANIE: One could use the phrase, "How Am I Experiencing This Moment of Being Alive."

# Just so as to set the record straight and limit confusion due to discrepancies:
*****RESPONDENT: I’ve been asking the HAIETMOBA throughout my day. I have a hard time seeing how this will eventually lead to self immolation, but I’m giving it a go anyways.
RICHARD: Perhaps this may be of assistance:
• [Co-Respondent]: ‘You say be aware of what you are experiencing.
• [Richard]: ‘What I say is nothing other than a report of what worked for the parasitical identity ... who asked, until it became a non-verbal attitude to life, a wordless approach each moment again, the following question: how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?
After all, this moment is the only moment one is ever alive, and such exquisite attentiveness as this attitude/approach engenders makes short-shrift of anything not conducive to peace and harmony.
So much so that an inevitability sets in.
RESPONDENT: I was wondering if the question could ever be shortened to ‘how am I experiencing’ or ‘what am I experiencing’ sometimes.
RICHARD: As the ‘how’ refers to the way or manner this moment of being alive is being experienced the word ‘what’ does not equate ... and to only ask oneself how one is experiencing, without nominating what it is that is being experienced, makes the question so amorphous as to be ineffective.
And I say this because the main reason for asking oneself how one is experiencing this moment of being alive is to be attentive to the way or manner in which one is experiencing the only moment one is ever alive ... although the past was actual when it was happening, it is not actual now; although the future will be actual when it happens, it is not actual now; only this moment is actual.
RESPONDENT: The whole phrase seems like a lot when I’m doing something at times.
RICHARD: It is a question, not a phrase to be memorised and repeated slogan-like (or as if chanting a mantra for instance), and it soon becomes a non-verbal attitude to life ... a wordless approach each moment again whereupon one cannot be anything else but aware of one’s every instinctual impulse/affective feeling, and thus self-centred thought, as it is happening.http://actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listafcorrespondence/listaf68.htm [emphasis added]

# And for those thinking they need a background in spiritual or meditative practices as a prerequisite for any of this:
***RESPONDENT: I think I have found perhaps why some struggle with this method. 1) unless like Vineeto and Peter you have a history of training of the attention (i.e. meditation, passive awareness, mindfulness, self observation) your control over your attention will likely not be stable enough to usefully examine feelings and beliefs.
RICHARD: There is, of course, a major flaw in your thought ... to wit: the identity inhabiting this flesh and blood body, back in 1981, had no history whatsoever of attention-training (as in meditation, passive awareness, mindfulness, self observation). Vis.:
• [Richard]: ‘... I have never followed anyone; I have never been part of any religious, spiritual, mystical or metaphysical group; I have never done any disciplines, practices or exercises at all; I have never done any meditation, any yoga, any chanting of mantras, any tai chi, any breathing exercises, any praying, any fasting, any flagellations, any ... any of those ‘Tried and True’ inanities; nor did I endlessly analyse my childhood for ever and a day; nor did I do never-ending therapies wherein one expresses oneself again and again ... and again and again’.
RESPONDENT: One could benefit in practicing attentiveness sitting down with a simple focus like the darkness you see when you close your eyes.
RICHARD: Or, alternatively, one could ask oneself, each moment again, how one is experiencing this moment of being alive (the only moment one is ever alive) whilst going about one’s normal everyday life.
RESPONDENT: After you gain some control over your attention you could start practicing attentiveness to a not to changed belief before you move on to bigger stuff.
RICHARD: Or, alternatively, one could be attentive to whatever felicity/ innocuity one is currently experiencing because, with practise, even the slightest diminishment of that happiness/harmlessness is then unavoidably noticed, and thus attended to forthwith, so as to recommence feeling felicitous/innocuous sooner rather than later.
RESPONDENT: After you get good at this you could work on attaining a degree of apperceptiveness.
RICHARD: Hmm ... in a manner somewhat similar to being partly pregnant, perchance?*** [emphasis added] http://actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listafcorrespondence/listaf68d.htm

# Also, where I bolded, note the INTENT of being attentive through the asking of the question.