This reminds me of Richard's "out from control" (or whatever) whereupon one give's up control and let life live them. Two questions:

1. When you are feeling low, to what extent does being naive in such way help? By giving up control, thankfully I stop fighting with myself and cease exacerbating the condition, but - short of time and fate - I can't quickly come back to feeling good. Is this the expected result of being naive when feeling low?

2. "I" certain seem to have some control. Although "I" don't control involuntary movements like the ones you mentioned above, "I" seem to be the initiator of voluntary actions. For example, as I am sitting and writing things, a feeling of thirst (which is involuntary) makes "me" to intend to get up and get a glass water.

oo another one: take a walk, without knowing where you will go. literally. just let your body start walking. pay attention to it for little cues. like, i'll notice my body start to turn, and then it's easier to follow the turn.

found some really cool stuff this way. like i was just walking around an oval, i suddenly turned to the left into what i thought was just grass.. and there was a little cobblestone path there! great fun =).

i figure i'll just put stuff here that i find useful, so i renamed the thread

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too many thoughts?

simple: pay more attention to the senses.

seems like there are always a few levels of sensory clarity: 'easy baseline', then 'easy stretch', then 'tough stretch', and always 'distracted' on the left end and PCE on the right end. as the mind gets more + more used to sensousness (as the mind gets more + more concentrated?), these levels will shift - easy stretch --> easy baseline, tough stretch --> easy stretch, etc., gradually approaching PCE as baseline.

since 'easy baseline' becomes what 'tough stretch' used to be, there is a tendency to relax, since the senses are where you'd have wanted them to be earlier by focusing a lot. by relaxing that way, though, you are freeing up mental energy, and without applying it to more attentiveness/sensuousness, thoughts will start coming in, even though as soon as you notice that, the senses are at a far superior level than they were earlier when you had to be focusing.

at first i was trying to just watch the thoughts, and if they arose, to stop 'em. but without focusing on the senses, they kept arising + arising + arising. it seems to work better to watch the senses and, once you notice a thought arising, just put more effort into being sensuous.

hmm i notice how touching upon certain topics brings about a visceral fear/resistance response. like when thinking "what exactly did that last shift in my practice do?" there's immediate resistance to looking 'there'.

so: why am i scared of full understanding?

full understanding has always brought release and freedom

what brings pain is not the process leading to full understanding, but the resistance to the process. the resistance is ignorance. the process doesn't hurt - 'i' hurt. every time there was more understanding, there was less pain. so how much longer does that have to happen until 'i' actualize[1] the fact that understanding doesn't hurt? =P. (

[1] "Generally speaking a realisation is an understanding of something previously not cognised and an actualisation is the putting of that comprehension into action ... as in acting upon that cognisance so that it is experiential and not only intellectual." [link]

there are infinite reasons not to do this, but none of them would make any sense

the only thing that makes sense is the actual

reason it’s ok to be honest: being will die anyway with physical death. when being dies, all the parts of it that are ‘bad’ will go with it. anything ‘bad’ will go with it. so if there is something bad now, and you admit to it, you might feel ‘bad’. but it is the first step towards having it disappear. whether you know about it or not, it will go away with the rest of being, so you might as well know about it until then since it will be necessary if you want being to die before the body.

--

ah ‘i’ can’t eliminate ‘myself’… ‘i’ don thave to! whew! what a relief! all that energy freed up for being happy + harmless instead

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‘i’ dont have to do anything!

I DONT HAVE TO D OANYTHING!

just have to let this happen by itself

oh but i dont wanna do that - i want to be useful!

ah HA!

have to be ok with everything taking care of itself from now on. because there is no ‘doer’. because ‘i’ am not in control in that fashion

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woa .. ‘i’ am ‘actual freedom’ as a concept, as a thing-to-become… the concept of the thing.. is ‘me’…

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(note added just now): i realized i was a closet-annihliationist.

[link]

oops, hehe.. thence the burning 'i' that wants to get rid of itself, which can't happen anyway... so when i mean 'everything taking care of itself', i might have before had the image of just stuff moving without volition, like being possessed in a way.. but that's not quite it.

--

there is the real world. that of imagined people, events, ideas, of time passing, of yesterday and tomorrow and desire, etc... there is what is actual - sensory input, volition, consciousness, perception. how to get it done? pay attention to the actual. every moment, pay attention to what is being experienced, and discern whether it is actual or real. focus on what is known to be actual - that which was there in a PCE.

every single moment, be i desiring or calm or relaxed or wondering what that flicker just was or seeing something pretty or something aversive or typing or chatting or thinking or moving boxes or just enjoying life as it is - every moment, just pay attention. be attentive, be sensuous, incline towards what is actual, and what is actual becomes more + more evident the closer one gets.

now i know that what is actual is always there, and there is this pasting over experience of the 'real' world. so any moment, as outlined previously, pay attention to that, to what is 'real' and what is actual. and since it is obviously much more preferable to not have the pasting-over (usually - some things still 'snag'), the act of noticing + inclining is enough for the 'real' to subside.

pure intent: a non-affective preference for the actual.

also, 'be' the jhana - excellent advice

before i thought of and experienced and practice jhana as something like.. either a means to an end (get to here so i can vipassanize it and get fruitions), or when i did try to use it to calm down, it was like just experiencing something nice and letting the niceness rub off on 'me' so that 'i' would calm down. kind of like taking a drug - just getting doses of it. but there was still a 'me' at the center feeling it all, with all the passions and such there.

however, when 'being' the jhana, that very 'me' at the center, with all the passions - that very 'me' transforms. the passions dissipate, all of 'being' (or whatever amount you can get) transforms into the jhana. it's basically a more sublime way of existing.. it was quite amazing (and it seems very easy to cling to it, so luckily i know it's not the goal, hehe)

quite a fun weekend of investigation... not sure 'i' will survive many more of these =P. a bunch of notes; i lay them out here both to potentially help others and to ask for pointers.

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Wrong Approaches (wrong view?)

• a tendency to want to 'be' actually free, so that 'i' am unable to be affected by the world. but it's not that - it's that whatever might be perturbed (or be the perturbation) is impossible to arise.
• i want to be close to af and to just go away or to just be 'done', not to know and/or be free... wrong approach!
• i hated any sign that i wasn't done because it meant more work... wrong approach!
• i was afraid to explore everything equally and really look at everything, because what if i find that something i like is something that will 'go away'? wrong approach!
• tendency to want to dim the faculties and not investigate at 100%, so that i can seem done... a wanting to accept that the current experience is good enough. not useful! although it's also not useful to believe it isn't good enough... just have to continue to be attentive + such
• want to wait and finally be done and then i can look at everything non-stop with never-ending amazement... wrong approach!
• naivete is important. wanted sensations in head to go away. so any manifestation of them (what i deemed 'more') i was averse to... but, letting it run, and paying attention, it manifested a certain way , kept manifesting, it felt bad, but then the feeling that it was 'bad' was looked at, the realization that the good/badness of it was arbitrary arose, so it was no longer seen as bad, then it formed in a particular way, it lessened in a way that would have seemed painful before+, and then that way of it arising seems to have stopped.
  
  + interestingly, as a whole formation it was decreasing in 'real size' (non-actual size), like getting smaller like a dot. but it got to feeling really painful, or rather, painful-seeming, though a very diminished incredible-pain.. so it was bearable pain, but felt like if it was larger in 'real size' it would have hurt a lot. so i thought i was suppressing it unnaturally or something, "hiding" it in a way.. but it might just have been unraveling.

after these were seen and dropped, it certainly got a lot easier and more fun to investigate...

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Change of Lineage?

on friday, after a day of feeling quite nice, with little perceptual disturbances/flickering, basically a nice EE most of the time, i sat upon the toilet, and started at the wall. the edges of my field of vision came inward with blackness, and flickered a few times - a fruition. and slightly after it was perhaps a shift.. and after the shift i felt pretty different. the immediate impression was that it was much easier to stay close to the actual.. it feels like 'i' flipped over in a way, and now the actual is more 'normal' than the normal, in a way...

i am wondering if it was 10-fetter anagami. what immediately arose is restlessness - lots and lots of restlessness. or rather it was already there before, but now with less stuff clouding it, it was felt as more... i still performed actions that i might have done before out of restlessness - like scarf down some food very unmindfully - but it was like the sensual-desire aspect of eating (in that case) wasn't there. it tasted great, but there wasn't any (or nearly as much) clinging to the taste. but it was happening out of the restlessness (which has diminished a lot now).

the 10-fetter model might have just been laid out to help point out to practitioners what is left.. there is no need to have any fetter besides 'ignorance', since once that is gone all the others are, too - so why mention a particular one like 'restlessness'? perhaps just to point out what might be left, or to help as an indicator - if feeling restless, find out why, it's one of the fetters!

about ill will - i feel like there is almost no ill will left toward others. however there is still ill will towards myself ('sorrow'), although greatly diminished..

in any case it is nice. and came with a lot less pomp + circumstance than other times i thought i had a path-moment.

---

insight arising shortly after shift: emotions are backwards/past-facing or forwards/future-facing. excitement is forward-facing - does nothing but 'be' suffering in the moment. pride is backward-facing - does nothing but make you suffer in the moment.

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no ill will means no shame any more, just wonder + knowing. can look at everything now!

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Cessation of Perception and Feeling

shortly after said shift, i entered + remained in a state that fits the description "cessation of perception and feeling" quite literally... in that there was no perception (no sensory discernment) and no feeling (no vedana - no positive/negative/neutral). and there was also no 'being' - just pure consciousness, i suppose, with naught much else.

i wish i knew better what exactly caused it to happen, as it seems really useful to be able to repeat, but i've already started clinging to the attainment and claiming it as 'mine'... will have to figure that out.

the approach: sitting with open-eyes. i was wondering how exactly 'i' investigate things... it seems like thoughts are a constant part of my contemplations, so i wondered if it was actually useful.. then i wondered if it was actually not the volitional thinking that was doing anything, but rather, that thoughts arose when in a skillful absorption (perhaps as a side-effect and not the main event), and that i mistook cause + effect and started fostering thoughts whenever i meditate, perhaps to trigger the skillful absorption. maybe that's why i always have trouble quieting the monkey mind - cause of attachment to thoughts.

anyway i started wondering if i entered a kind of thinking-jhana.. this led to contemplation on the 7 factors of enlightenment, more below. but anyway i was sitting with that in mind, and i suppose i started getting into arupa jhanas.

at some point something started happening that has before - the visual field got a bit weird. perception diminished, but not entirely - visual field was blurry-ish, not really well-perceived. perhaps 8th jhana. then certain aspects of the visual field started patterning themselves - this happened before, too - in this case, the pattern of the wooden hardwood floor started appearing everywhere. however, this time, some conditions were different, and the process was able to keep happening. it soon came that the entire visual field, which i could see crisply + clearly - as in not faded or dimmed or wobbly - was just a repeating pattern of piece-of-hardwood-floor. quite surreal indeed. then (and this might be out-of-order): a bit of a weird slip where all 6 senses integrated - might have been 'being' leaving - the disappearance of all vedana, along with coarse-rough ever-present touch sensations in my head, and then even that visual perception, along with any auditory or tactile perception, stopped happening. it was really clear, incredibly incredibly relaxing - and if being was indeed absent, then this state is a true refuge, so that makes sense.

i dont know how long the lack of being part lasted, though i somehow got the impression it wasn't long.

interesting thing was that, firsrt the state was entered, then there was a 'pang' of becoming in the 'middle' of it (but not really 'middle'). normally it would be associated with the center of my head, but that wasn't being felt, so it was really just somewhere out of space. then the pang faded. a very similar pattern occurs all the time - i associate it with releasing some clinging, though not sure if that's true. then the pang was totally gone, back into the pure absorption, then that, too, faded.

i had formed some ideas about the state previously - namely that there could be no being in it due to lack of vedana. this seems to have been confirmed. i also had the idea that, exiting the attainment mindfully, being could be eliminated... so 'i' really focused to see exactly how the re-arising of vedana corresponded with the arising of being. and it was really a very interesting few moments. being arose, and it was like each fragment of being was formed by having a chain of vedana - pleasant, unpleasant, neutral - arise, perhaps 3-5 moments in a row, and then that chain would somehow start manifesting more, and perpetuate - perhaps that's the clinging. it felt like seeing dependent origination in real-time...

it was quite amazing.. and cultivating that state seems really useful... now if only i knew how it happened.. =P.

EDIT: in terms of the senses, the visual messed-up-perception was what i noticed most. i did notice, before/after the state, though , that the auditory field was basically completely filled up with ringing , completely obscuring any outside noises..

---

an observation about it: existence would be totally OK in a perma-ns.. there was no one there to be bored or to desire or to feel 'bad' (or 'good').. if it would be OK there, of course i'd be ok with full mental faculties... no?

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Clinging to the Aggregates

we think that when 'i' go that i will die, taking consciousness, actual will, and memories with me. but 'i' don't die.. 'i' never was. one THINKS that becoming is what-i-am, identifying with becoming (with itself), and don't want it to stop. yet it's just a trick deluding the mind.. nothing bad happens when becoming stops, as evidenced in full PCEs, or in NS. tarin's post is relevant here:



---

generally it seems like all 'being' does is imitate what is actual. one wonders why the **** it is there in the first place =P. one way i thought about it is in terms of the 5 aggregates, affective pasting over of each one

• senses - the dimness of the senses when not in a PCE is the affective overlay. not to mention the 'grasping' to them, like only looking at one particular thing, etc. that doesn't go away - the actual senses become apparent in their full glory.
• vedana - emotions, perhaps? not sure about this. in the clear parts of the clear PCE i had everything was nice.. i tried grabbing onto a rough tree trunk to see how pain would feel, and it wasn't unpleasant in the same way.. but emotions arising might be just a huge making-a-mountain-out-of-a-molehill with vedana.
• perception - the fact that everything can get wobbly by staring at a cup, indicates that that perception is something that is not actual.
• volition - what i said earlier, how you can imagine moving but not actually move. emotions have something to do with this, as well (perhaps that is what is meant when people say things like it is, strictly speaking, 'my' choice how to experience this moment of being alive.
• consciousness - not sure here. the feeling of being , perhaps.. or perhaps, there is a feeling of not quite seeing everything, when not in a PCE. like there are momentary lapses. so even though i'm not actively not-being-conscious of what's in front of me, it fades in + out.

the point of listing it is - don't worry! no need to cling to them. when they are gone, the actual will be left, and the actual is the 'good stuff' anyway.

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it makes no sense to cling to something just because it's there. yet that's what clinging to becoming is.. (or that's what becoming is - clinging)

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Factors of Enlightenment PCEs

i've been paying attention more + more to the factors of enlightenment. it seems like another way to classify what attentiveness + sensuousness point to - perhaps a more precise way? each factor, in a PCE, is absent, because it is entirely redundant - apperception reveals the actual quality of each, while the factors themselves for a feeling-being are just skillful ways of becoming, or forms of affect. i wonder if each one could be a potential entrance in a PCE, but it seems their real power (both explicative and practical) comes in balancing + cultivating them as a self-reflexive system (more equanimity/tranquility/concentration requires more energy/joy-rapture/insight requires more equanimity/tranquility/concentration, etc, all with mindfulness to top it off).

potential interpretations linking to actualist method: happy (rapture/joy), harmless (equanimity, tranquility), attentiveness (mindfulness, concentration, equanimity), delight (joy), sensuousness (rapture/joy (ardency?), concentration)

so i wonder, when i sit and contemplate, or meditate, even though thoughts do arise a lot, i wonder if it's not just an automatic adjustment of the factors.

the interesting thing here also is that you don't have to 'do' anything. all 'you' 'do' is balance the factors.. and when the factors are balanced, clinging is released.

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About 'Being'

it seems that what 'being' does is latch onto/abrogate each of the aggregates. e.g. the senses/perception: there's the constant sense of touch being messed with around my head and neck area. it seems to be being attaching to the touch-sense.. and when i took salvia it attached to the visual and auditory sense as well. nothing 'changed' per se, it was just manifesting differently.

that's why you cant ever 'find' 'being'... it's not at any of those places, it just manifests that way.

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being comes in little loops (volitional formations?). what seems to happen, per culadasa's comment (which i can't find) is that (paraphrasing) clinging/craving is slowly replaced by equanimity and insight. riffing on that comment (that's all i rememberd):

mix in equanimity + insight into each little loop. eventually, with enough of both, it 'liberates', as in, stop forming. however, all that 'work' that you did to put equanimity + insight into it, is suddenly not useful anymore, per se, since that loop is gone. this might partly explain why, once you find something that 'works', it stops working soon.. cause the thing it worked on no longer arises - it did work - but now you have to find another loop to mix equanimity + insight into. a constantly shifting thing.. though the premise is the same: balance your factors of enlightenment! (that is to say, not only equanimity + insight are useful/necessary, but all of them are).

it seems almost like you take a volitional-formation-loop that happens on-its-own and mix in some skillful volitional-formations to slowly unwind it (on-its-own, of course..)

---

these seem to arise in four steps: the grossest/most deluded is when 'i' am following a belief or clinging to something in an uncontrolled way, happening by default. unrestrained delusion. after a bit of work, 'i' can stop clinging to it, but only if i focus. if i stop focusing it happens on its own. after this stage, it's there on its own, and if 'i' don't follow it, it doesn't manifest, but it also isn't going away by itself. a lot of stuff seems 'held at bay' like this. finally, when enough of the factors arise with the loop, it starts diminishing on its own, without doing anything, and all 'i' have to do here is not re-cling to it before it's gone.

---

in other words: being doesn't arise in a vacuum.. it arises with the rest of the qualities of the totality of experience that a particular individual is experiencing that moment... if being arises with the proper conditions then insight into being will penetrate it and a little bit (or a lottle bit) of clinging will be dropped.

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i mention all the above because thats what i felt was happening, after a period of practicing uninterrupted for sufficiently long enough. it felt like i could feel the enlightenment-factors mixing in with the becoming and causing it to dissipate... not yet sure if it was delusion or an accurate insight.

this also seems the 'head on' approach - it doesn't seem like it would result in PCE... i'm not yet sure by which process 'being' can go into abeyance to result in a PCE, vs. aspects of 'being' being eliminated entirely via clear-seeing. PCE seems more about aligning conditions such that being doesn't arise, for a spell, whereas what i was doing was more allowing being to arise, but doing so with (hopefully) sufficient insight+equanimity+such so that it can be seen clearly and be dropped.

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there were a few instances where it felt like a knot just broke apart, and after that, there were tons of unpleasant sensations over the body, but each one separately was easily/automatically looked at + dissipated. so the knotting was like a way to hide all of those, but made it harder to look at them..

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'cycling' as a way of being - i hardly notice cycling at all, anymore, but sometimes (usually after smoking) i'll notice the stages of insight coming up again. and it's pretty.. comical i guess! more surreal than anything. it's like 'oh, these again?' it seems they were just more ways for 'being' to manifest...

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it's funny how in pulp fiction, marcellus wallace has a band-aid on the back of his neck cause that's where the devil drew his soul from.. funny cause the back of the neck is where it feels like the soul is! perceptive people...

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staying in a 'fruition'?

here by 'fruition' i refer to a noticeably distinct state i enter into sometimes, though seems like i only distinguish it with any confidence when high. basically it feels like there's a shift into it, perhaps with a discontinuity (fruition-like cessation). the senses are different - visually, for example, i often notice that light appears dimmer than usual. what's weird is that being is still there, except it's much, much less sticky - it seems like everything is slippery and just slipping away on its own. it seems like a great state from which to contemplate from. it requires some effort to maintain, not in terms of doing anything, but in terms of not doing something to exit from it. i haven't really observed the exit from it very carefully so i'm not sure what ends it.

i mention it because it seems different from an EE, having a noticeable shift into it, different from a PCE, as there is being, but seems to have some qualities of PCE... perhaps it is the fruition-attainment as ayya khema describes.

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Miscellany

i've felt bad about enjoying myself unless somebody else approves. and i also feel bad cause i have felt that what others want to do is necessary, and it HAS to be done, and i feel bad if i don't do that. but having my own preferences is NOT bad.

--

the past and future are not actual now.. so there is tons + tons of room for volitional formations to arise about those. in the what's-happening-now there is the darned actual world right there, so it's harder for delusion to take hold, especially with focus.

--

what 'actual world'? i don't see it! it's just the senses. or 'actual freedom' - what's that? i don't see it anywhere. but it's funny cause you have to put a word to things to describe it to others.. but as soon as you do, when talking to a feeling-being, automatically concepts start being formed about it. but it seems to work out eventually as one sees for ones self.

--

EDIT: balls... typing restlessly leads to restlessness... who would've thought?

hmm feels like another shift... no fruition or discontinuity or blip or anything to this one.. maybe some faint tingling at the top of the head. happened while i was concentrating and letting the mass of sensations in my head slowly unravel (mass is all over, and little bubbles burst all over it).

i was thinking about a snippet from a self-proclaimed arahat (forgot name/where i read it) who wrote how he can still cry tears, but it doesn't mean he isn't free from all the fetters, cause they don't affect the immaculate mind, and how he can cry tears of joy at how perfect it is (paraphrasing, something along those lines). the important part was my take on it, which is that he was enlightened but not actually free.. so it was funny, cause it's like 'he' created something which 'he' then rejoiced over so much that he could cry... i thought 'this truly is delusion...' and then the shift happened.

lots of attempts to label it arose immediately, but instead of listing those i'll just list my immediate impressions:

* seemed completely obvious that 'i' am not doing the thing that is unraveling the sensations.. and that 'i' actually don't have control over it in that way.
* volitional formations seem less of a problem. like there would be formations to try to increase a factor of enlightenment, but it was like a false start - it arose, then was seen as unnecessary, then fell away
* the impression was that no new ignorance/delusion could be formed. i don't think that's true now but capacity for delusion might have diminished... or maybe that's just delusion, which would be sweetly ironic =P.
* anatta seems more apparent perhaps

well, back to it

hmm dnno about the shift anymore. might not have been a shift but an insight or something. though i think anatta is more apparent.... suffice to say that things seem to be moving quickly..

what was funny was that the thing about 'no more delusion being able to be formed' wasn't really correct at all, since as long as 'being' is around, 'new' delusion is being formed every moment.. by 'new delusion' i meant new beliefs or what-not (so old beliefs might still perpetuate but would eventually die down) but that doesn't seem correct either...

this somehow (along with steph's link, an interesting chat, contemplation of ignorance and other things) led me to try contemplating dependent origination. what i did is, using my memory of what the links were, i started at the end (decay/old age/death/this mass of suffering), really contemplated it, not only intellectually, but really sought to feel it as it was arising in that moment. what happened was that my entire experience seemed to condense down to focusing on just that part of the cycle of d-o - e.g. all the little clingy things in my head disappeared, and my experience was replaced by what seemed to just be the fading away (and associated suffering with that) of birth... then i sought to see what caused it, and i used my memory of what the link was called to see what to look for. it's kind of like i entered an absorptive state for each one. here's what each felt like and my impressions of each

DISCLAIMER: not sure if they are 'correct' or it's just projection but that's what was there and what insight (or 'insight') i drew from it. i will probably have to contemplate this more to get a better idea of it...

• decay/mass of suffering - lots of unpleasant fading away of things.. basically seeing 'birth' die. what causes decay of a birth?
• birth - this one was interesting... this state basically pointed to kind of a self-perpetuating chain being formed. the insights arose: each emotion is a birth; each train of thought pursued mindlessly is a birth; basically any chain which starts going on its own is a birth. what causes birth?
• becoming - this one seemed to just be the step before birth. i think it is what people might be pointing to when they talk about proto-emotions and stuff, and perhaps this is where Direct Mode stops - it prevents new births but becoming is still going on in the background. not sure how to explain it, though the experience was something distinct... it's like the stuff emotions are made of before they form. what causes becoming?
• craving/clinging #1 - i actually realize i swapped craving and clinging here when i named them in my head. i'm not sure if that means that i went in the correct order, but named it incorrectly, or if the name pointed to the right thing and i went out of order. the same thing happened when reviewing insight stages when i still didn't know the names properly... i suspect it's the former. i'll just call it craving/clinging #1 and craving/clinging #2. this one seemed to be like a seeking-out of stuff.. with unpleasant things, there was a searching for away around it, basically an avoidance, and with pleasant stuff, there was a searching for a way to get back to it, basically an attachment. both painful (dukkha) of course...
  
  i stayed at this one for a bit as it seemed like things were being released. it seems like at each step things from that level were being released. about the chain itself, it seems not like a straight chain, but one in which there is a connection from every link to any other link. or if not that much, then at least between certain links. e.g. you can cling to a birth, or to becoming, or to formation, or to consciousness, etc., and that perpetuates more. quite the messy tangle! so what causes craving/clinging #1?
• craving/clinging #2 - this was like the step right before craving/clinging #1. there wasn't a searching-out quality, but more of just a judgement of each thing that arose: this is desirable, this is not, this is neutral. but it wasn't just at the level of vedana, that judgement was taken, and then there was (craving/clinging #2) to each one. it hadn't formed fully into the searching-out, but it almost did. sticking around here also seemed quite beneficial. moving on, what causes craving/clinging #2?
• feeling/vedana - here was the bare judgement of pleasant/unpleasant/neutral, which was still dukkha, but without added clinging to it. but it was seen how, from here, craving/clinging #2 could arise. going down the chain each bit is a little more 'relaxing'. what causes feeling/vedana?
• contact/perception <- six sense media <- name-and-form - i didn't perceive these very distinctly and kind of floundered around here. around here i think (though not sure) that there was just the contact/perception of the objects, but without the vedana-judgement on top of it. it was not actual, though, not pure being-less contact/perception, so i suspect it was some kind of affective distortion of contact/perception... going down to a kind of an affective distortion of the sensory input itself. what causes that affective distortion?
• consciousness - here i got to a thing which was certainly not the pure consciousness of a PCE/inside conscious-NS, but (what seemed like) an affective imitation of consciousness. a 'feeling of being' perhaps.. like some intuitive, vague-ish conception/imitation of consciousness. it was seen how each type of this consciousness would abrogate any sensory contact and distort it in the way which would allow the rest of the chain of d-o to form. what causes this consciousness?
• formations/fabrications - ahh isn't that interesting.. volitional formations cause it! they form themselves, if unchecked, into the consciousness i was talking about. i only really got a good idea of what they were when considering what caused them...
• ignorance - sitting at this part of the chain was quite fascinating. i couldn't see a way to go earlier (maybe cause the chain ends here as buddha laid out). what seems to be the case is that there are things that arise, outside of our control. we misunderstand the cause and effect, the karma - we simply don't know where they arose for or 'what they mean'. that is unsatisfying to 'me' though, and we really do want to know what it's about... so what do we do? we create a formation related to that ignorance. if we want something to be true, there's a formation of assuming something to be true.. if we want to know how something arose but don't, there's a formation of assuming how it arose. formations to avoid things, formations to cling to things... formations, as a response to ignorance. this linked well with an earlier insight i had that 'i' am a volitional formation...
  
  edit: this also might explain into why intuition and visualization are entirely absent for a released person... formations simply cannot be created anymore, due to the elimination of ignorance.

while contemplating ignorance, i wondered, in what way would ignorance cease? then it was clear - oh! pure intent! attentiveness! vipassana... clear-seeing... all of these techniques aim to eliminate ignorance... i later made the connection: that must be why naivete is so damn potent when used properly... because, when naive, the formations simply won't arise, because, even if there is ignorance, there's just a letting-be of it, a lack of a need to do anything about it.. and with that tendency diminished it's easier to temporarily break the chain and enter a PCE.

that last part was the most valuable part of the whole exercise, i think... as a single concept, 'pure intent' seems to be the most potent to combat ignorance... and attentiveness combined with sensuousness a potent way to apply that pure intent, as you are simply observing what is there with no beliefs/assumptions(formations), instead of chasing around things in your head/mentally proliferating about things that aren't there...

i'm still not sure what exactly eliminates ignorance once-and-for-all, not in terms of knowing everything, but in terms of never again assuming anything/forming a formation... guess i will find out!

well that's three of the noble truths right there - there is suffering... this is the origin of suffering... this is the path to the cessation of suffering... implied there was that with ignorance ceasing, the rest would also cease (3rd noble truth), but i went back up the chain anyways: i said, let's assume ignorance has ceased... with no ignorance there would be no formations.. with no formations there would be no consciousness (of the type i talked about).. with no consciousness, no contact of that sort, etc etc. leading up to the top. so there's the cessation of suffering.

interestingly after going forward + back through it a few times , in a directed manner, i kind of let go a bit, and then i noticed, roughly, the cycle repeating itself, taking a few seconds each time through... in the cessation-order: from ignorance to formation to ... to becoming to birth to decay/death, and then all the way to ignorance again, repeating, forever and ever, this indeed is samsara. it reminded me of insight-stage cycling in a way, just with no fruition...



fun stuff... so, all of those links in the chain are 'me' in a sense. best do away with all of them..

physical restlessness. "it seems that if my physical body does not move at all, then any urges to twitch or move or fidget are affective in nature. being affective, they are impermanent and subject to cessation. being impermanent and subject to cessation, they can cause me no harm whatsoever... so why am i afraid of them?" so i make my body sit still. incredible restlessness arises... and then as dispassion arises to the desire to fidget, it diminishes, diminishes...

mental restlessness. "it seems that if i incline my mind to be still, then any urges to move my mind one way or another, to think about this or that, to chase this passion or run away from this other one, are affective in nature. being affective, they are impermanent and subject to cessation. being impermanent and subject to cessation, they can cause me no harm whatsoever... so why am i afraid of them?" so i incline my mind to be still. incredible restlessness arises... and then as dispassion arises to the desire to move the mind one way or another, it diminishes, diminishes...

not moving this way or that physically, not moving this way or that mentally, equanimity arose... and the qualities of nothingness (7th jhana) became apparent.

-------------------

hehe, it is fun to write in that style...

but yes, i realized that all the sensations in the center of my head and of energy moving in the body and other weird happenings, imply a sense of space or location. a 'real' sense of space... as in 'oh they are happening over here'. when seen this way, i know that they are not actual, and knowing that, i am dispassionate towards them.. and when i am dispassionate towards them, there is no clinging, and they start fading on their own. what was incredibly trippy is how it lost its sense of absoluteness... normally i think ah, there is something in front of the head, and it is compressing against something in the back of the head, which is the 'base'... so 'i' am being moved and it is unpleasant. but in that sit i realized, that back of the head, is not absolute, but also relative, also not-actual... so the entire thing is just a motion against nothing, clinging for no reason whatsoever.

they also imply a 'real' sense of time, as in, oh it's happening right 'now'... more dispassion!

-------------------

felicity hasn't been very high lately.. i feel like i'm making progress, but general mood hasn't been happy, but kind of a slogging-through-it.. even as affect fades more and more. so i tried cultivating good will - seeing the intrinsic benevolence/benignity of the universe - and appreciation - simply delighting in being alive - and man they are quite potent.

more and more i'm moving away from thinking about what is actual and actually looking at what's around me, instead.. far more delightful.

more and more i realize that this is something 'i' actually want to do! i've had trouble in my life with doing things that 'i' want.. 'i' always put 'myself' last, because 'i' figured, it's all the same to 'me', so 'i' might as well do what 'others' want, because that way 'they' are happy and 'i' will be ok either way... this is the persona 'i' have cultivated, of being ok with everything.. but this causes lots of resentment when 'i' wanted to do something and others didn't and 'i' gave in...

but yes! this is actually incredibly sensible.

and so much easier with felicity...

there is still a fear/aversion to feeling good... like feeling good would mean less progress... (ah - counter-intuitive eh?), like it isn't 'legit' to feel good... (though also there is dissatisfaction with not-feeling-good... and i do think that i am close, now, which prompt restlessness and an aggressive-searching reminiscent of my following-the-mctb-path-days... seems to not be useful at all) a few points came up:

• sensations happening. incline the mind to seeing the pleasantness in all the sensations - everything becomes pleasant! feeling good! incline the mind to seeing the unpleasantness in all the sensations - everything becomes unpleasant! mood starts to slip. back + forth a few times and... it seems like the same stuff is happening, just that in one variant i feel a lot better! i don't really seem to be missing all that much by feeling good, and i don't seem to gain all that much by feeling bad...
• intrinsic way of existing as a feeling-being: suffering, borne from ignorance. every step in any direction is potential to suffer more. intrinsic way of existing as an actually free flesh+blood body: apperception, benignity, benevolence, stillness, delight, appreciation. every step in any direction is the experiencing of the (joy of) the doing of this moment of being alive. so 'i' can choose to 'be', or 'i' can choose to allow a process to occur that will result in not-being...
• there seem to be a few intrinsic qualities inherent to experiencing the universe in its actuality: benevolence/benignity... delight/joy/appreciation/wonder... stillness... thus if one is not currently experiencing benevolence, benignity, appreciation, wonder, or stillness, there is affect present. lack of stillness, lack of wonder, etc., imply affect, imply something to look for... and hey, when those are not lacking, one is felicitous! thus feeling felicitous is simply the way to be on the path.
• part of it seems to be a taking-too-seriously of emotions.. like there are 'legit' ones (the negative ones that arise when 'i' don't incline in any particular way), but if i cultivate felicity that's not 'legit' cause it happened cause of some effort... but really they're both emotions.. and really the cultivation of felicity is quite equivalent to the cultivation of concentration, equanimity, joy, energy, etc., as factors of enlightenment... they have the same exact purpose.

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woke up this morning with extreme stomach pains. lots of aversion to it.. cramping up.. holding it in but pain arises at each moment.. 'crap this sucks!'. i tried just letting go, letting it happen... and at first the pain increased, but then lots of stuff started happening all over the stomach. it could have been interpreted as pain, and it wasn't pleasant, but with the letting it go, there was no more "unease... unease... sharp pain!... unease... unease...", it's like a process was allowed to happen. it felt like the stomach was stitching itself together in some way. i felt some movements so i re-located to the toilet... allowed it to happen again.. and the pain/process ended almost completely within a minute.

seems like that letting go approach is exactly what i should apply to any sensation that is perceived to be bothersome...

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EDIT: walking around.. reflecting on this... senses become clearer, space becomes more apparent.. a calmness settles in. 'being' is there but not a problem in the way it was.. it's just - the actual world is so peaceful! seems really all i have to do is stay close to it...

be your own best friend! like yourself no matter what!

a new take on all this: what am 'i'? 'i' am a set of beliefs, in part. that means that i should like my beliefs. but aren't they something to be gotten rid of? yes, but, if you like your beliefs.. you see them differently. instead of an opponent to vanquish, it's just something that 'i' decided to do for whatever reason at some point a while ago. maybe silly and irrational, but there was some reason behind it. liking the belief means taking its side ('my' side), and just seeing - why did it arise? what did it help with? once that is seen clearly, then it is sooo much easier to see why that is no longer necessary, and it can be dropped... all while feeling good in the mean-time!

a large part of the last hour or two spent thinking in the form of: "Why do i believe X?"

started with incredibly tense and agitated sensations. and why tense? cause 'i' had to do something! but: why do i believe there is an 'i' that is feeling these tense sensations? i was looking right at them. they absolutely and incredibly urgently implied an 'i', and that something had to be done... but why do 'i' believe that? lookin at it its like the 'i' of the sensations was slowly worked off - or should i say the urgency of them. the importance, so to speak. it doesn't seem to be a perceptual matter, just a matter of a belief that there is a permanent 'me' that is feeling those things. (i wonder if only doing this for a while is what leads to KFD 7th stage).

same with any feeling though - why do i believe there is a 'me' in the form of that feeling? why do i believe 'i' have to do anything to feel good or to get rid of it? why do i believe i have to get rid of it? why do i believe i have to be free?

lots of beliefs...

i wonder if i have/had some type of attention deficit disorder or something... a few things i noticed (after drinkin some coffee late at night which was a bad idea as it made me stay up for a few hours..) could be some disorder, could be just standard way attention moves but a little accented in some direction. the reason i ask is if anybody has experience with these, if they found particular things to do, then sharing them mite be helpful. or hey if these things just happen.. no need to label them.

a) i really like getting into things and pouring all my attention into it: coding, posting, meditating, browsing forums, reading whatever, watching episodes, etc. i kind of get in a zone where i don't want to stop.. like a fixation. this'll happen when i'll just be at work, for example, start following a train of thought/meditation, then i'll do nothing but think/meditate in that way for a good 5/10/15 minutes.. and really hyper-focused in those minutes too
b) i really don't like doing thing when i don't have that focus.. something i don't want to do and just don't get into, is very hard/distracting for me to just do it. i'll start a little then just stop + get distracted. this is funny with meditating, where at work, i'll be fixed and staring at a point without moving and without any problem for like 30 mins, but when i get home to do a more formal sit, i'll be restless and not know what to do with myself. that element of hyper-focus missing...

c) so i figured oh! i should just channel that exact hyper-focus whenever i meditate! and this seemed really easy to do with the boost of caffeine and being unable to fall asleep. so i did.. concentrated my arse off. got some really deep absorptions. had some awesome stages of insight... inside a huge black empty sphere, with faint blue 'stuff' all around it, then really scary faces form from the stuff... they turn into miserable faces.. etc.

d) so it was really easy to put all of my being into meditating in this way... however... what i noticed was that there was a huuuuuge huuuge source of ... compelling, i'd say ... around the brain stem area. this is what i was focusing on when 'concentrating'... but it seems just focusing on it didn't do much, and i had to focus on top of that to do anything.. like focusing on the breath (which causes breath to get intermingled with compelling-sensations), or a particular set of sensations, etc... so it's like a source of object-less concentration (the object being the compelling-group, if any, but not being penetrated)..

d.2) and i wondered whether it was a good thing, or whether this meditating was making it worse and creating a pattern which i'll have to un-do later... (eventually i figure, well, more awareness of the 3 chars of all sensations can't be too bad... and that'll be the way to undo the compelling if it actually is a problem)

e) basically i'd lie on one side, have this compelled absorption for 10/20/30 minutes, then decide to move.. but i noticed when deciding to move, i really didn't want to.. i wanted to stay fixated. and if i hovered around the deciding to move but not actually moving area, i would get really agitated, like something quite uncomfortable was happening
f) the same thing seems to be the case for music. almost allllllllllways have a song going through my head, even now... and it seems like an obsession. like if i put in little conscious mind-moments to stop, it feels like a push-push-push towards it going back. same quality seems to be from the compelling-matrix in the back of the head

g) and i remember when i was a kid, i'd have eye ticks.. once in a while i just felt that it would feel really good to blink my eyes or screw them up or close them and roll them around. it started happening more + more but i decided at some point (when still young) that it wasn't good to cultivate that and i guess i stopped doing it.
h) but there were other ticks, too. i had a pattern - left right right left, right left left right, right left left right, left right right left - which i kept repeating with steps, or clicking the sides of my mouth in that pattern. and i'ts an infinite pattern - notice the start of each group of four is L R R L, which is also the first group. then it goes in reverse twice, then back to the original. that is one larger cycle. the next larger cycle would be RLLRLRRLLRRLRLLR, then RLLRLRRLLRRLRLLR, then LRRLRLLRRLLRLRRL, and that's an even larger one, and it could keep going, though i never took it that far. also manifested with clicking teeth at 4 corners of the mouth: UR BR BL UL , BR BL UL UR, BL UL UR BR, UL UR BR BL, etc...

h.2) and when meditating last night, maybe it was the caffeine or something, but i like felt that compelling coming back again. like a flashback almost...

i) and it seems like i always always have to focus on something. mostly before it was constant constant trains of thought all the time - i wonder if that is why i like conceptualizing so much - or its like a song going thru my head, or one of those ticks (why i haven't been doing for a few years , at least not that i've noticed), or meditating now...

j) and i wonder if that's why i like weed for meditating.. because even a little bit, it automatically gets me into the fixation-mode, which makes it so much easier - even though thoughts are going, still fixated.

so yea ive just been trying to observe the sensations that make up the compelling - what is the compelling, what is this i that is compelling / that is compelled , what is the tension in these sensations (which must be observed equanimously lest i get pulled this way and that), etc... i wonder if it's actually a core component of how i concentrate - focus on that area in the head - and i wonder what will happen when it's gone... and i dont think it is actual, because if i just sit still i have this gigantic urge to put attention this way or that, and the reason im looking at is cause i think to myself, ya know, life would be a lot more peaceful without that anymore...

any thoughts?

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k) oh this makes so much more sense now.. how i felt i could concentrate pretty easily and intently and intensely, but i had no idea what i was concentrating on.. seems i was just entering this fixated state

l) and how i keep going back to posts minutes after i've written them to fix them up more - fixation not done

m) and how i'll get 'stuck' in an unproductive train of meditation, but i won't want to stop + restart i'll just want a little more to see where it goes. then if a friend interrupts me for a few minutes the fixation completely breaks, then when i get back to it, start another train.. much better..

n) i don't mean to make this into a new 'identity' but i already see clinging/aversion to keeping/removing it, about past events...

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o) ah: easy to fixate.. but once in the fixation, hard to direct it... it manifests mostly as relentless thoughts, song going in my head, and a feeling of super-intense to mild restlessness/agitation. it's easy to be in the state, and it seems to help concentration in some way, but hard to focus on one particular thing... ah well, training should help with that.. managed to make it here OK =P.

p) or can i just not concentrate too well and am making excuses?

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q) hmm seems to have not been there under the influence of a cannibanoid... it was actually really easy to cultivate all the factors of enlightenment... went through 1st - 4th jhanas very clearly. got into an incredibly piercing mind-state, which was easy to direct to anything that warranted investigation...

but i wanted to investigate the fixation! was it there? and soon after that it seems like it started... just a process that was looping in on itself. at first it was really subtle, but the same-feeling-tone sensations kept building up without the older ones fading, making it tighter + tighter. i couldn't get it to stop, though i don't remember if i tired or if i wanted to see how it developed...

anyway, soon after that, mind started wandering more + more. whereas before i called it in, it would have been effortless to apply more mindfulness or what-not and eliminate the distractions, that inclination of the mind was not working as well anymore, and it felt like losing a battle.

and around there... anxiety kicked in! anxious about things, starting to compulsively obsess over random things, and this is where i got the feeling that the ticks would come in if i still did them...

so - progression from clean slate to compulsive anxiety...

i realized that it comes + goes during the day, isn't always on.. maybe was more pronounced earlier on as i remember i usually literally had no idea what was going on around me.. i thought i was absent-minded but i wonder if it was this thing..

then i saw that i really really really disliked this part of myself - the distracted part... this not being a dislike that came up after labeling it, but something that was there still, only brought out now.

then i realized 'i' am the 'fixation'... and that reduced a ton of the resentment and such

so now here i am.. it's funny, it really changes the way i look at how to use my mind.. also funny that this was going on without me realizing it at all..

--

r) hmm i think it's just OCD... funnily enough... caused by social anxiety. obsessing over what others think about me.. how to tell them.. etc.. probably caused in elementary school years from being bullied... thought-only OCD (i notice thoughts constantly repeating + not getting anywhere), i don't seem to do any physical actions as a result of it

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s) term 'ocd' is a red herring.. the main point is that there is lots of uncontrollable anxiety.. 'ocd' just fancy name for it hehe

ah i feel like... this is what i should have been doing this entire time

things make more and more sense, on a common-sense level... 'i' wondered for a while how 'i' could be more insightful.. and 'i' tried to think my way through insight.. but much simpler to simply observe =)

fascinating one: i see now the role joy/rapture/piti/felicity has... without it, things are very sharp and jarring. compulsions tie in around themselves more. emotions proliferate. etc. a lack of dopamine/serotonin.. makes you crazy! when you take ecstasy or weed or cultivate the first 3 jhanas or do tai chi or cultivate felicity or enjoy life or tap into delight, etc.... dopamine/serotonin are released... they act quite literally as a lubricant for all those harsh emotions/compulsions. having those chemicals being released in your brain really takes the edge off of them... give them some space. stops them from proliferating... etc.

i see what the compulsions do now. at least for the tourette's/ticks thing... theres a huge compulsion to do something. then you do it - e.g. blink eyes repeatedly. this releases dopamine (dopamine is released when you click buttons too, for example). this lessens the compulsion. but then you get compelled to do that again, for the soothing effect - and if you don't do it, more anxiety arises. my o my.

on E, i felt like all the negative stuff in me lost its 'evil' edge.

i have often noticed that when getting up from meditating , i'd have sharp jab of anxiety. or i would rub my body all over for 2-3 minutes to get rid of excess energy. seems like its cause there was lots of piti when meditating, and i was dealing quite intensely with anxiety-related stuff, and when the piti suddenly stopped... it clamped right down.

to all you other actualists out there, consider this: if you assume you will be successful (which is a reasonable assumption to make), then literally, everything 'you' do, from now until the moment 'you' are no more, is, in essence, 'you' doing 'your' very best to allow 'yourself' to be whittled down, bit by bit... how long it takes and how effectively the process is allowed to happen is up to 'you'.

it might be tough cause you don't yet realize what's important.. what is ok to be dropped. 'that seems important! can't let it fall away...' general guidelines: past not important, future not important, things worth a lot not important, relationships not important... sensuousness important, apperception important.. essentially, whatever will drop away by itself, is not important, hehe..

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seem to be 2 ways of xp the world:

1) lots of attentiveness. let all of 'being' unfurl. tons of 'real' sensations everywhere in the body. vibrating, clinging, unsticking, bursting, whatever... i even do this still with closed-eye meditation sits. it seems to provide progress on the path to actual freedom.
2) the fruits of the work from #1... walk around and just enjoy. this is getting easier and easier, and more and more pleasant.

with #1, it feels like i have far to go, although it also feels like i'm making rapid progress, so intellectually it seems like it will be done sooner or later

with #2, it feels like i'm almost there, and all i need is a little twitch to be done with it

it might be that #2 is the way it always happens, with #1-type things just making it far more likely to happen the more they develop. totally exponential growth (from fully 'normal' to now to beyond)

hm well yesterday 'felt' like didn't make as much progress. felt like i got lost a bit.

a main issue still seems to be a tightening in my head. it's like an obsessive thing that i can't' unfocus on. the anxiety seems to have diminished a lot, but head-tightening still happens.

sometimes i can meditate and things dissolve. other times, thing just harden + harden and i get in a worse mood. last night was one of the latter times.

it's tough cause... you have to be naive. there's no way to know, ahead of time, what the sensations fading-away will feel like. when something starts happening, it might feel like it's wrong, but sticking with it, it resolves itself.

so i don't always know when to stop cause it's the wrong approach, or when to keep going cause it's the right one.

one thing was clear though - cultivating delight helps soooooo much. in a period of stuckness, i just started cultivating delight - mental delight (joy) and sensual delight (rapture). the latter i evoked using the idea of 'richness'. the world getting richer - colors more vibrant. i actually start getting really really pleasing sensations around my eyes.. it feels very sublime. like tingly bits of superior sublime pleasurable richness that is thoroughly soaking my eyes. and, with that richness, things just seem to start getting pierced without any effort. (i wonder if such richness in the eyes is related to the compulsion/fixation, which seems to be related to tourette's in a way... i notice if i stand still, sometimes, i feel uncomfortable. and when i move it feels ok. thus fidgeting. this can particularly happen with the head area - i feel uncomfortable, and blinking my eyes reduces some of it. it seems the compulsion might literally be an addiction to dopamine or something - cause it seems blinking the eye releases a chemical, which causes the compulsion to abate, before it picks right up again, wanting more. i experimented with blinking on purpose to lessen it - and it does work, i can actually focus better if my eyelids are flickering like crazy, for a bit - but when i stop there is the withdrawal and the desire to do it again.

so maybe the cause is the eye-blinking releasing the chemical? and if they didn't, the body would soon learn not to do that since it wouldn't help. so i wonder if the potential for them doing that leads to the sublime feeling or richness right in the eyeballs - anyone else have experience with this?

--

literally, the antidote to feeling bad or stuck is - feel good, instead. it's just hard to start doing that sometimes when feeling bad. but that literally is the defense mechanism. just have to rewire the brain. when threatened - fear arises. that is the automatic response. you want, when feeling bad - pleasure/delight arises. that should become the automatic response. and it will be well worth your time cultivating it!

--

but anyway, this morning, woke up in bad mood, but on way to work, focused on sensuousness and... the world is just so vivid and pristine! it calmed me down quite well. the fixation of the head stopped - as in , stopped getting worse, remained static - and then was fading, not in a tingly piercing way but in a, simply fading away way.

so i wonder if i should just relaaaaaaaaaaaaax. and do that more. and stop chasing after piercing of sensations. i am a bit reluctant because it has been working. and it still works if i can align the conditions right. i wonder if it is getting harder, because there is less that can be pierced that way, cause what is left to be pierced is the desire to pierce..

desire to 'be' free. as in, to 'exist' but be actually free. watching true blood was funny - there were people with powers. and a vampire said - before, my world was thiiiis tiny, but now -- it's endless! i'm fast, my vision is perfect, etc... and i'm like - ya know, that's kinda what i'm doing now. i want an endless world in which i can learn forever, enjoy forever, etc... but 'i' cannot have it. 'i' have to go away to let it become apparent.

so 'i' simply might be mistaking the world becoming brighter as 'my' doing. the ability to have the world become crisper by calming down as 'my' ability.

how to go out of control? i want to go out of control. but i don't want to think i am going out of control but instead to be perpetuating sorrow + malice + not fading away.

a guide to meditating for video game players:

you are playing a real-time strategy game (meditating). while you are playing the game, you are focused on playing the game (concentration). you use the delight in playing the game to keep your focus (joy/rapture). you are aware of your goal the entire time (mindfulness). you use what you have already learned in the game to help you play (accumulated insight) and learn how to play the game better + better as you play it more (gaining new insight).

at first, perhaps you can only keep one thing in mind. a more experienced opponent defeats you. but as you play more and more, it becomes more+more effortless. you are able to keep 2, 3, 5 tasks in your head all at once, attending to each appropriately, cultivating each facet of your play to result in the best outcome that is allowed to you by the conditions.

when a problem comes up in your game (suffering), you attend to it promptly. you do not let it get out of hand. the plan of action springs into your mind. you do the best you can knowing what you know. while attending to the problem you are aware of attending to the problem (mindfulness). you are focused on attending to the problem (concentration).

etc...

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also: pairing of factors.

energy pairs with tranquility - you want tranquil energy, not buzzy energy or sleepy tranquility
rapture pairs with concentration - you want to use the rapture to boost the concentration, and vice versa, you don't want 'dry' concentration (too harsh, unpleasant) or dull rapture (feeling good and swimming around in it)
insight pairs with equanimity - need equanimity to the insights or you go crazy, and if you are really equanimous, then you are ripe for more insight

mindfulness holds them all together

was befriended by a confident person. friendship formed. peer pressure led to trying drinking in high school. friendship and change of mentality caused drunkness in college. feeling bad about a girl at a party leads to trying weed. trying weed leads to more trying weed leads to regular smoking. old friendship with another and curiosity and their conditions leads to the trying of MDMA but a few days after starting to meditate. the trying of MDMA leads to intent leads to continued meditation. interesting experiences leads to posting on thetaobums. posting on thetaobums leads to link to MCTB. reading MCTB aligns intent and causes posting on DhO. conditions precipitate stream entry. hanging out on DhO leads to interest in actual freedom - actual freedom only being a topic here due to the efforts of one very intent-driven and dedicated seeker.

etc. etc. etc.

how many things had to line up just right for me to have this opportunity to be free?

did 'i' have any say in this at all? the universe is conspiring to end 'me'... =P

going to sleep last night: gathered up a ton of intent. so i kept meditating. i'm not sure how long i slept - i think i kept waking up + nodding off. but i had some of the most amazing experiences while curled up with my eyes closed. i moved the blanket across my body and its like every tingling sensation of touch was scintillating and amazing. i moved my hand up + down my body, as if it was moving on its own, and the touch was cool refreshing + stunning. i ran my finger along the mattress, it's rough surface, and it was like - yes, yes! that exact sensation, right there - amazing! amazing...

woke up a bit stuffy-headed. started doing attentiveness on way to work and anxiety started coming up. a bit of worry.. why is that happening? but then i tuned into delight and.. had quite the amazing commute. very intimate interaction w/ a shopkeeper.. it's like look - i'm giving him the credit card.. he gives me the receipt to sign.. it's two humans interacting! amazing in its simplicity

yet .. later in the day.... at work... terrible terrible terrible. simply can't focus. so i sitting there + meditating (which seems to have replaced spacing out of my youth, if my ADD hypothesis stands...).. and im like ok, have to work. so i start looking at the work. and anxiety comes. and more anxiety. and i can't focus. so i go back to meditating. thn i get annoyed. so back to work. anxiety. screw it ill plow through this. and i look at what i have to do and i start doing it and i simply cannot canNOT focus on it. and so thoughts of me having ADD comes into my head. read some sites about symptoms and i match those. basically it's like.. i feel everything i do could be so much better.. and i realyl do want to do a good job and put all my effort into it.. and i know that if i could do that i would get good results. but i can't cause... i can't focus! and causes terrible anxiety. and this exact pattern has been happening ever since i started job. and it's torturing me so. and then its like WTF, i can experience such delight and yet still this bothers me.. and i realie i really hate this part of me.. self-loathing.. so i figure well i'll go to starbucks and get a highly caffeinated drink.. and i chug that, back to work.. and i can actually sit still after drinking it. instead of feeling anxious when sitting still (which happens sometimes). though it did cause some hyperactivity as seen by this post... but i still don't want to do the work.. so.. i dnno. screw this 'real world' and 'me' stuff... there's no reason to keep perpetuating this... yet it's HARD to STOP.

hmm - might be a simple matter of low levels of serotonin! taking 5-htp seems to generally put me in a better mood.. i will try stopping to smoke completely (since smoking seems to lower serotonin levels) and take buttloads of 5-htp and see what happens.

at this point it really seems all i have to do is be in a good mood for long enough.. for this to finish itself off without too much issue.

thinking of it as a chemical imbalance, once again, put it in a much better perspective.. it's not 'my' fault i can't cultivate delight or joy, not 'my' fault this damned thing in my head is incessantly cringing.. it's just a simple lack of serotonin. causes + conditions. so that put the mood completely differently. now it's a matter of - how can i deal with this 'bad' mood most effectively, to minimize its harm, until my brain gets restored to a more salubrious condition

it's all just causes + conditions. but i take it way too personally sometimes.

this is interesting... what i used to take as being the slimy incredibly unpleasant thing, i realized (a bit ago) was 'being' (in the head, in particular, but in other places manifested differently). i used to want to avoid it cause it caused great panic. now it seems that attentiveness is exactly this - noticing that slimy unpleasant thing, but noticing it is neither slimy nor unpleasant, just there, and something to be let go of.

the issue earlier was i would latch onto the thing and ignorantly (unknowingly) start making it worse. now, when being attentive, it is noticed, and the tendency is far less to exacerbate it. this means it is easier to look at and be sensuous at the same time and thus drop it

seems all i have to do is be absolutely attentive all the time, now, and seems now that i am able to (or soon will be able to) do it without fear 100% in every direction

attentiveness to attentiveness... reminds me when i was playing around with the 7 factors, how if i boosted up mindfulness a ton, the mind became really clear, bright, and a 'me' factor really came into it - like ah yes, this is 'me'! the same thing seems to be happening now

it turns out harboring deep resentment and/or ill-will might make the acutalism process more difficult!

was feeling quite sleepy on sunday, so i decided to do tai chi to wake myself up. after i did the form i just decided to stand there. this usually causes energy to start goin around all over the body, and identifies blockages pretty well.. and turns out there was an enormous set of anxious-neutral (as in big blobs)-clinging-pained feeling all over the chest area. i could hardly stand there.. lots of anxiety and resentment came up.. and turns out it was something like an intense dislike of myself, and i was wondering why? and then feelings came up of like just wanting to do well, but being f-ed over by the world basically, hah.. particularly with a girl during college - had a crush, but i didn't do anything due to anxiety, but i harbored it for a few years, and it made life a lot more painful than it had to be, and i blamed myself for letting it happen, harboring it, and not doing anything about it..

so then i turned to thoughts of benevolence and good will and turned to the part of 'my' nature that just wanted good things to happen. and it's like oh - that's ok! no need to resent anymore.. and just like gigantic chunks of stuff started releasing, all over my head and chest area. after this i sat down, contemplated it more, reflected on the benevolence of the universe, how things always trend for the best when in good moods, and for non-human stuff (like plants growing towards the sun, for example), etc.. just reflected the hell out of it.. also that 'my' nature of being benevolent is not actually necessary, since it happens automatically, so even that can be dropped.. and more huge chunks came off. my head really felt like it decompressed a lot.

went out for a haircut + food and realized it was easier + easier to tune into the actual aspects of 5th-7th jhanas: good will/space, delight, and stillness/nothingness. there are two modes - 'floundering', as in, not focusing on anything actual too well (not sensuous), and 'solid', like, there is a distinct noticing of one of those aspects, and its like 'i' am not there (though 'i' still am). i get the impression that i really spent a lot of my youth in states like the latter one.. they are very familiar anyway.

came back home and contemplated that, the only reason apperception seems to not happen is from a reluctance to look.. so i decided to look as hard as i could. basically concentrating my ass off + looking as hard as i could, for an hour or two, both open-eyed and closed. this had a good amount of restlessness, though less than before, since i had done a lot of tai chi and had worked on patience, and also dropping that resentment probably helped.

but it was interesting. there would be a period of intense looking and not fully being able to grasp certain things, and then really nice fruitions which corresponded with dropping a good amount of stuff. there was a huge one where the whole visual field, which had turned white + teeming, simply dropped away and revealed blackness, and it felt like the half front of my face fell off.

after that huge one, i realized i was restless... and decided to simply calm myself down any way i could, which i tried by counting breaths, and taking deep ones. and after about the 2nd-3rd round of 10, the restlessness dropped away, in a pretty noticeable, sudden way.

and after that.. it's like the natural state is the 2nd one i talked about - being pretty into actuality, but with 'being' around. but 'floundering' seems to happen less, or maybe, not at all. it seems a lot harder to get emotional about anything, right now - it's like i just don't feel like it anymore. i was wondering if i got AF and just had some things that would resolve themselves, but i still felt being around.. i tried exciting some passions, like fantasizing sexually, and though it had some physical effects, the entire circuit of lust arising, slight aversion to it but enjoyment of it, then it looping around, feeding itself, getting harder + harder to control, etc., didn't happen at all.

i lay in bed and started laughing as i realized what i had been doing - basically, my approach would be to really press myself hard occasionally, and then give up after a bit, cause it was too much effort.. and the giving up would feel bad, and the pressing hard would feel bad, but i really want to get AF, so i wanted to keep pressing. marijuana use really didn't help at all, cause i was using it as periods of more intense practice, so instead of having a continuous day, it would be divided into not-high and high, which really doesn't do well for eliminating the sense of time passing.

so basically i was suffering in order to be free.. and i just started laughing. that's silly! much better to have consistent on-going practice. though i think by this point the insight had already happened (with the tranquility-relaxing) and i was just parsing it out in my brain.

i think part of it was that, i actually used to be a pretty chill dude.. i don't think i had such intense suffering/anxiety in high school, for example.. still social anxiety would come up, but it wouldn't be a constant thing. my motto and way of living was basically: don't worry, be happy.. which is like exactly what i should be doing now. so what happened? i think that, that was my motto, and i tried living like that, but there were things that kept coming up that i couldn't deal with, like social anxiety.. and as i did try not to worry and be happy, i did it by ignoring the issue. and during college, it just spiked more and more.. so basically 'i' lost it, that not-worrying, gradually getting worse, over these past 4-5 years (and exacerbated now by meditating since it revealed the issue, though i tried to ignore it until recently).. so perhaps i had an aversion to doing it that way, because 'i' tried it before and it led to quite painful things. but now it's different.. now there is less ignorance.. now 'i' have the tools 'i' need to actually not worry and be happy, if only 'i' would actually do that instead of worrying so much!

so the thing-to-do seems to be to keep the goal-orientedness, but to keep it on a moment-to-moment basis, and not a future-looking basis. thus, in this moment, be as happy and harmless as possible, see as clearly as possible, etc. pure intent, basically. i have had that realization before.. maybe now i can actually take it to heart.

what's fun is tuning into nothingness/stillness when in the car, or on the subway, or walking around. it's like, normally i'd think of this as moving - me being bounced around, the vehicle moving, tons of noise (especially on a particularly bumpy subway ride), except, it's like nothing is moving at all! it's surreal and wonderful at the same time.

hmm bruno said in his thread:


need to follow this advice... i'm going to try (and trying it now) to treat 'me' as i would a lost puppy.. very cute, tender, adorable, but has no clue where he is or where he's going or even what is good to eat or not, what is dangerous or not, etc., and he needs gentle caring to figure it out (and he does want to figure it out) and also he likes you, hah.

EDIT: or maybe not.. if puppy gets mad you might get upset, for instance, or start doing bad things to it 'for its own good', heh... maybe just treat myself like a fellow human being - if feeling sad, then do the best to figure out why, cheer them up[1], etc. if feeling good, then hang out and have a fun time. i am a human being after all!

[1] this might be why i get so stuck in bad moods so often. i hate it when i'm feeling bad and people try to cheer me up or figure out why. it just makes me feel worse. maybe i should figure out why..[2]

[2] ah it's shame, right! i keep forgetting that one..

hmm well tried smoking again last night to see what'd happen, after having not done it. was quite the interesting sit...

- immediately felt affective-vibrations much more. directing them towards the stomach/groin area was quite relaxing.
- seems like when i focus on the back of the neck, things get clipped there, or it feels that way, and my eyes start fluttering. wonder what the connection is
- visual field really jerking around like flashing lights, like the whole field will light up for .5 seconds, then change color again abruptly, then again, then again, etc
- got a really good grasp on formations, it seems. got into really attentively-focused 8th jhana, and the whole head-complex (and everything else) was strobing in+out about 2-3 times/second. it was really obvious it was 'me'.
- interestingly, the way 'i' hold the visual field (also a formation) seems related to the way the head pressure is manifesting. i got a clear picture of holding the whole affectively-tainted visual at once. i could see the black edges of it, and it was like 'i' could control it directly.. and it seemed shaped similarly (in an analogous way) to the head pressure.
- worked on dropping a few things. for a few things, there were moments were they would fade, then come back. so i focused on the fading and managed to drop a good amount of stuff that way, it seems

overall it felt productive. however, this morning, same anxiety-compelling-crushing thing in the head, which hadn't been there the mornings before when i didn't smoke the night before. took a bit to wear off. i really focused on calming down, finding naivete spot, standing still and i could feel it being chipped away.. but i wonder if it was something old being chipped, or just something new as a result of last night that formed, which i then took back down to how it was before.

seems like it is caused by meditating in that state. i don't think it is worth it anymore, so now i shall no longer do it, at least for a few weeks - perhaps again then after smoother progress is made.

well.. off to a tropical island for vacation for 5 days.. should help me relax!

hmmm... not sure where im at...

so during the vacation and on a day since then, had some really nice EE experiences that would be really stable + clean + clear. but they did not last. and in between them there are large bouts of anxiety and passion and sorrow and listlessness. often in the same day - saturday morning with a slight hangover, i felt just wonderful, calm, relaxed, hanging out with friends. but after friends left and i was in my room and decided to 'practice' (i was doing that before, too, and enjoying, but now i guess i was 'focusing more'), it quickly led to being stuck in anxiety, which continued thru sunday. this morning i felt a decompressino a bit - like the accumulated anxiety of the past 1.5 days was slowly leaving me, along with leaving lots of stomach pain. so that felt like progress, but i've got no clue whether it was overall progress or jsut un-doing the past few days (though during the anxiety-thing, i still felt tings releasing.. its just that anxiety grew as things were being released, until it became temporarily really hard to get out of)

so this seems to be where it's at:
* feel like have the ability to have very good concentration, can really tune into sensuousness and high-quality Es
* but still lots of identity around
* still lots of passion around
* no consistent felicity
* lots of resentment about suffering. i really dont wanna suffer no more.
* might just be covering stuff up

lack of consistency, lack of consistency.. i dont like it

lol.. pure intent!

i've started taking 400mg 5-htp before i go to bed, and it's proven interesting.

at some point in the night i'll wake up and feel amazingly delighted. anything i touch will sing with delight - that very touch, right there, where it is. i get the intense sense that this is just the universe experiencing itself. my cat comes over, and i pet her, and it's like the universe is petting itself.

in this state it's amazingly easy to drop things. i felt some 'soft' pressure over my head, and just had the sensible idea - hey, i bet i can drop this! so i let it manifest, and with an act of intention that would be more accurately described as it happening on its own, there was a very noticeable discontinuity (fruition) and it was gone.

also have fascinatingly vivid and lucid dreams. clearer than i've remembered 'em. i woke up at 530am, went to sleep, and had a sequence of connected dreams that made it seem as if the entire weekend had already passed. woke back up and it was 730am. it was pretty fun to meditate during these dreams.. i seem to enter a state where i am meditating, and not sure if entirely sleeping or not.. but fun things happen. like some whiteness in my visual field will shrink and become wisps of smoke, which i thought was my 'self', and i felt like i could almost just do away with it right there, though it wouldn't pass. that happened both in a dream and right out of sleep, i think.

and my mood seems a bit better.

so i say this not entirely facetiously, but practicing by taking 5-htp and sleeping seems quite effective. there is something about that state when you've just woken up and are drifting between being awake and asleep... and 5-htp seems to enhance it or make it more reliably happen (though it has happened to me without, i think)

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owen on KFD mentioned having very vivid, fun, and lucid dreams, shortly after his latest shift (which seems like it might be AF... though will have to wait till it settles down to see for sure). i wonder if it's cause the brain is figuring out how to produce more serotonin.