HI Jason -



For myself, it is understanding that my human brain has perception of its perception and, in this, it may have a steady stream of thoughts. If the thoughts are apt they are used, if they are not apt, they pass through without becoming a belief, a worry, an actionable trigger.

So if a white bear goes comes up in thoughts, there is no need to pay attention to it.

What do you think?

Caveat: I experienced actual freedom in June and am now using/reading buddhist techniques to develop concentration; this is the reverse direction of what I have seen in AFers tarin, trent and stefanie - who all had advanced dharma practice.

I would appreciate clarification, and a detailed report of your experiences. I always thought actual freedom would remove the monkey mind.

Hi Bruno -

My experience is that thoughts which are not apt seem to be occurring in diminishing quantities. Like feelings, thoughts appear and disappear. I am a hominid with probable ape origins, thus "monkey" mind (circulating perception of perception) does not bother.

[Feelings: as an aside, potent feelings with several years history still present in physical ways, albeit lessening. For example, if previously a particular thought would cause sadness/anger/stress for hours and consume me in plans to ameliorate the stressor and somehow improve "me" from that feeling, now "I" lately experience (around such a habit) throat tightening and cloud of passion passing through in about 5 seconds, or it may last the entire duration (i.e., a particular conversation about a topic that was historically hard for me, i.e., something "confrontational", or appropriately defensive). While there is a habit lessening, there are still these signs of whence "I" come. Perhaps this is like amending a habitual proprioceptive action in jogging that has been determined to be harmful (i.e., flat footed) through research/experience for a different proprioceptive action that has been determined to be beneficial (i.e., ball of foot movement). The old way of doing something may occur: it occurs, it releases, but it seems to me that there is an organic element in the changes of habit and that is human-scale experiencing (over "time", if you will), like building muscle or ending stutter. It is not bothersome, although it can cause challenges (just as it did when governing nonsensically, unquestionably believed].

As a human I continue to maintain basic needs. This is done often through work-pay exchange. As such, there is a need now to improve sustained concentration. If my work-pay exchange was now trapeze flyer, then I would probably take yoga classes to improve flexibility and strength as needed.

Ah, OK, so the change is that you now experience all your feelings as body sensations, yes? This is a known possibility (and this shift has been reported by other practitioners, e.g. Kenneth Folk), but not actual freedom. Is there any reason to use the term out of place?

Feelings have sensation.


Do you mean use of the term "actual freedom" is out of place?

What is out of place in use of the term?

Jason - do you want this dialogue broken out from your thread?

That you simultaneously claim 1 and 2 below:


But, in an actual freedom the instinctual passions are completely absent, and these things do not occur at all. E.g.:



If you have experienced a temporary absence of the passions, this is called a PCE. The permanent seeing of feelings as mere bodily sensations is a stage considered in other maps (e.g. Kenneth's).

I don't mind. However if my query isn't resolved then after all my and Nad A's thinking I'm guessing actualism doesn't work for your average person.

Meticulously observing yourself while cultivating a fondness for life's infinite variety would help anyone.

Indeed, I seldom used the AFT site.

Perhaps you would frame the following ongoing experience:
[indent]
- what is actual is the only terrain for pure experience

- actuality actually has different "flavors" as bodies and perceptions are actually different (i.e., color blindness, inconstant chemistry, macro gender chemistries, variable neurologies)

- thus, actuality is entirely unique to the individual

- this human body has actual constant and inconstant conditions (it constantly breathes air not water; it breathes according to exertion, stress, rest, other changing conditions)

- it is a human body and has human actuality (i.e., empathy occurs and can occur without affective reactivity, it can be responsive without affectation)

- feelings arise and may be apt and actionable (i.e., fatigue under fluorescent light leading to a move for the sunshine), and feelings may arise and not be apt (i.e., door slam on finger - aversion simultaneous to receptive, sensate perception)

- what is actual is ever-expanding through trial and error (aka: testing possibilities): i.e., lunar landing, or treating disease with smell stimulus (versus actual medicine (see lupus))

- the entirety of what is actual is unknown (infinity)

- a mental realm of possibilities is actual (i.e., any thinking) and can be an actual way to live well (gurus leading followers; mathematicians conceiving vector spaces; preventing starvation via observation, planning and implementation)
[/indent]

Regardless, in neither holding nor releasing any constancy-seeking selfhood, there is perception of perception (i.e., knowing "water" in touch and sight), and there exists no perception of perception concurrent with perception of perception. Using words, these are something like stillness, imperturbability. However, perturbation has physical pathways in the human body and its arrival (even without personification, i.e., without "I am perturbed") points to prior strong habits. Those pathways wither; it is not something to which to cling (i.e, speeding up that withering, nor searching for any next perturbation). Without clinging there;s no release, without clinging or release there is what is now.

The mode of experience you describe is what we here call (MCTB ) 4th path.

With regards to the original thread:



In my experience:
[1] the best way to suppress thoughts is not by thinking about thought ("trying not to think"), it is by being mindful of thinking.
[2-5] is not at all my experience, quite the contrary. It does take perseverance.

and [6] I speculate that if you are attempting to stay in a PCE, then you have already appeared (it is not the attempting that causes 'you' to occur, but the other way around, or simultaneously, or something like that)

[7] The way I understand it is that by completely purifying the various "impurities" of the mind, the obsessive stream of thinking and feeling ceases. I think the paradox you are suggesting is only apparent. There could be so much noise in your mind stream that it makes it seem that you get sad when you want to be happy; actually what could be happening is that by deciding you want to be happy, you are shown the underlying sadness that is preventing it. Then, paying attention to that sadness will eventually lead it to dissipate. This is a quite healthy function of the mind, and not at all paradoxical.

[8] It probably depends on the person. I think some people have gotten AF with no prior meditation experience. What is the price of being happy and harmless?

That's useful. I may report back when/if feelings (shutters of varying duration) cease entirely.

Regardless, adding/fostering any element of selfhood in conjunction with those sensations is jarring-to-nauseating. Similar to physical harm brought on willfully. Versus sensational.

Yet unbound laughter continues to be delightful; unbound empathy (i.e., seeing an entity recognize its own suffering) continues to be empathy with amelioration effort or no-doing if no-doing is what is useful; cleaning the floor is cleaning the floor; study is study; identifying and elaborating on a ongoing faulty process is identifying and elaborating an ongoing faulty process (i.e., leaky faucet not repaired by repair; bullying, working), etc).

Those examples can be experienced in the convolution of selfhood (shame, misery, pride, anxiety, grasping, longing) and those can occur with symptoms of habitual selfhood (i.e., tremors, headache, sweat, automatic smile), and, it appears those symptoms lessen over experience.

katy, you might like to read this thread. excerpts (emphasis mine):

tarin:

I had forgotten about this dopamine overload theory. This is also useful to consider. When I add a high amount of folic acid (synthetic folate (caution: high folic acid intake has some adverse long term associations)) and other b-suite vitamins, sensations even-out particularly. I took high levels of vitamin-b in May and early June, but not since. I smile thinking how I work to design a complementary diet for a relative with parkinson's disease (which symptoms benefits from high folate intake presumably due to reduction in homocysteine accrual), not seeing the same diet/supplementing has benefitted my well-being. Interesting!

[edited]

Going to the AFT, richard also has has this to say:
I concur there has been no landing for craving/addiction, tho admit pacing has been rather high. In the time since posting even minutes ago, a super-b vitamin has already resulted in settling. There may be something to excess dopamine.


Jason, your white bears have been overshadowed. Did Bruno's advice help?

Florian - is it possible to break this thread off from my post on "7/21/11 8:25 AM as a reply to Bruno Loff"?

Bruno, Beoman, DhO members,

Would it be useful to apply your knowledge in both traditions (dharma methods, actualism) to an experience of yesterday? From my perspective, I feel no further need to look for anything, and there seems to be no real selfhood here, but for a living being with its changing attributes, its name, its family [i.e., its local conditions wherein katy has a local history and relations]. I am aware that people get to a stage in dharma practice where they think they are "done" - i.e., the doing becomes what's apt ("apt" as per perception). I do not know the equivalent in actualism as I would not describe this state as "excellent", but "actual".

The experience: yesterday I received news that an associate is freely walking again after receiving an aid I sent by mail. In reading the news I experienced pleasantness of their pleasantness and "remarkable" sudden mobility. A pang of "relief" followed within a second. That pang caused almost simultaneous head pressure which lasted hours, such was the affectively-originating charge, something like inflammation. The feeling had a physical host, but not apparent selfhood. Yet, it is pleasing to know someone has their mobility and appreciates that feeling. It is the same pleasantness to put clean water in the bird baths, to listen to nano-plastics explanation by an enthusiast. [similarly, seeing something deliberately harmful is known as unpleasant - which is clearly the experience of aversion, yet without recoil - more "can something be done to leave/remove this harm (from self/others)?"]

Without your input, I would continue as is. The ongoing experience seems to be ideal. I have benefitted from reading many posts, so maybe this continuation would benefit.

[Edit: some added comments in brackets; typo corrections]

it's not for me to judge whether you're actually free or not.. but what i've bolded above sounds like affect, albeit experienced differently ('selfless' affect). what do you mean by 'affectively-originating charge'?

whether selfhood is apparent to you or not doesn't mean there is no self... 4th pathers have said things such as:
[link]
before taking up actualism. upon practicing PCEs and taking up actualism, the 'self' re-appears...
[link]

where'd the new 'Nick' come from? he/it was always there. there's a similar pattern you can find in [url=http://kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/4145141/Owen's+Practice+Journal,+Part+II]Owen's practice journal.

it sounds like you might have gotten enlightened. maybe reading the actualism stuff on soul might help? if you'd like maybe you could post about the events surrounding the moment this change happened for you, what led up to it, what immediately resulted, how it 'stabilized' (if at all), etc.

a simple way to test: have you had full-blown PCEs? if yes, is your experience currently like that within a PCE, only purer? if no, then you might have more to go.

another question to ask: could those pangs and pleasantness arise in a PCE? if not, then you aren't experiencing life as uninterrupted apperception, which is the goal as i see it.

The answer is pretty simple. Previous to taking up AF practices, I did not consider that "I" was my feelings and my feelings were "me". I saw no "self" in any compounded phenomena. It was/is seen as all illusory. Thus there was/is seen that there is no Nick that should have a stake in it. Yet, sometimes, there is a "feeling" of having a stake in it. Just no self is seen in that compounded feeling of having a stake in it.

Post AF practices, I then considered that "I" am my feelings and my feelings are "me". This was not to say that I saw a "self" in the phenomena previously seen as not having one. But rather, there was the further recognition that there was a continuing flow of becoming/being/affect/sankhara which behaved as though it was a seperate identity, even though none was seen in it all. The flow of sewerage that was previously thought of as "self" was/is still flowing and it is recognised as still more illusion to see through and eliminate, as the Buddha instructed in the Pali canon. "I" as feelings still flow. Such an unneccessary conditioned mess.

That is not a concern. We're looking at something to see what is happening and to determine if what is happening has any categorization (i.e., 4th path/actual freedom) in terms of this site. This site seems intended to make use of experience and its placement within descriptive categories, so we're doing this.

I was not meditating in any classic sense, although I was very intent on here and now and actuality via the senses (i.e., zen, actualism). I did not read the AFT much, because the instructions are very simple (actuality with felicity, extirpation of self), and guidance on the DhO was easier to read and timely.

I did report to two persons in private messages in April and May that the visual field was getting wonky. One person said this is reported in fourth path. (There was a lot of pixilation and instability.) I felt no interest to look into that and found actuality 'just right'. The visual field is not a constant field (it has steadiness and flux), and it causes no extra interest.

[Edit: the back of the neck became very hot after there had been a week of some head pressure.]

From the page you linked:
My own experience is that cognitive perception is second. My chief emotion was anxiety and seems to have developed after cognitive understanding is 'defied' (i.e., designing a water intake system well within the runoff of an ash pile and golf course). Today, it is still a wonder that such design is paid for and adopted, but it is what it is if it cannot be re-designed for whatever reason. As a child the examples were different, but same concept: anxiety in response to harmful illogic (i.e., my observing animals, then seeing animals needlessly destroyed by another person to satisfy what appeared to be their "sense of humour" (but which may have been some other motivation, I do not know) and resulted in my anxiety, sadness, defeat).

I have no belief or interest that there is a soul. If there is one, then it will be apparent in some continuity upon death. What is useful is to be active and capable in the changing attributes of this being.


If anything clarifies this discussion, it may be this, Beoman. A person often needs to hold ideas in head for a purpose (i.e., train schedule). Thus, I would say there is something that holds information. There is something that is organizing information (and better without anxiety), learns processes, and experiences new information occurring as a result of learned information (i.e., so-called new/unexpected/creative design).

it seems to me, yes. I had an activity to do last week and it is still vivid if I deliberately recall it. In the activity, there was perception of the shaking in this body, the difficulty speaking, and the relaxed body posture, the heavy body feeling (relaxed), the brain visualizing information, the recollection of facts as needed. There was no ability to perceive the experience as "I am doing this wrong" or "I am doing this right" - there was what was being done with physical symptoms of anxiety without selfhood anxiety. And, it was less presentation of anxiety that I have routinely experienced before.

It is my habit to take concepts out of categories, but I see the value in having categories/stages.

less doesn't sound like totally absent.. was there any trace of anxiety at all?

can you visualize what happened in the past? can you imagine what the future would be like? can you run a tune through your head? can you imagine something you haven't seen before, form it in your mind's eye? do you still dream? i hear none of these are possible once actually free (or at least they stop being possible quite rapidly):


[link]

I can run a tune through my head....and I am thinking of one now....yes, found one.

I can definitely recall/envisage photos and images.

I think you've cleared this up. I have not experienced actual freedom as set forth here.

Thanks, team.

Beoman,

In response to your other questions:

there was observing the presentation of anxiety without feeling it.

I can recall the past very clearly - this has always been something of an automatic feature to this brain (visual replays of prior experience), but theses are no longer happening while I sleep. Formerly, I dreamt very intensely and replays of former experience would wake me up with head pressure and anxiety. [now, sleep is sleep. I think I had a dream a few nights ago.]

I cannot imagine the future [actually, I can imagine any number of things, but I am not sure why I would do that unless my day-to-day needs revolved around future-imagining; I can and do think about re-design where it's relevant], but I do take reasonable actions for a future (i.e., spending/saving moderately, planting a veggie/berry/nut garden). I clean more now.

I agree with Christian that this moment of being alive is no matter what, it. Adding extra to now is bizarre, adding feeling to it is bizarre. Yet, laughter arises. Protective action arises [this may be said also as well-being orientation: no longer subjecting this self to harmful situations on the basis of "being patient" or otherwise]. etc

[edit: several brackets and strike-through]

the fact that it presents means you are already feeling it, or rather, are it - 'i' am 'my' feelings and 'my' feelings are 'me'. whether you recognize it as such is up to you, but i find recognizing it as such makes it easier to understand it

EDIT: actually, right, that might be easier for you now, since it seems like there is no more 'feeler' as a separate entity, for now - it's just the feelings (which are 'being' manifested). i think nick's paragraph here is apt..


what do you think of those words?

Hey Jason L

It seems that for me the actualism method is extremely poor at producing the desired results. I mean it must work for some people but the one reoccurring criticism I see is that it's not possible to change what you're feeling directly. So as a method it doesn't seem to work that well for most of the people who are interested in it.

Now I think actualism is part of the same family as Stoicism and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, they all use questioning beliefs to attempt to change affect. It's just actualism is far worse at laying out how to do this than either the Stoic texts or CBT texts.

In the aforementioned methods you look at why you're feeling what you are currently feeling and what the beliefs are behind that. (No attempt to actively see them as silly ((well some in CBT)). Then if there is sufficient understanding of how things actually work some of your beliefs will naturally seem silly because they are wrong. The whole process is easy and painless, no attempt to change anything needed at all, things just change. (you can tell when a belief is wrong because it doesn't work in actuality, just in theory, for example the belief that you can change your emotional state is wrong if you can't actually change it)

Is this how actualism works? It's hard to tell because I find the AFT website a mess. Certainly some people who have reached AF do think that it makes sense, at least to them, to reach fourth path first and presumably therefore have the requisite mental control to change affect at will.

Maybe the method really does work, just that the current instructions for how to do it are inadequate for your average person to understand and implement. Right now I am playing around with seeing events and triggers as 'not actual now', e.g. when I get up from the computer I will recall being at the computer and say, 'that's not actual now'. Maybe later I will start seeing feelings as silly as they arise.

So far, there has been no resistance within my mind. Could be because what is past or future is factually not 'actual now'. However, I'm expecting to feel resistance to the practicing itself at some point, as in 'let's take a break!'.

I doubt that. All these years of everyone interpreting the method differently, with various people describing it and trying it in various ways. It's far more likely that the method doesn't work for 'normal' people.

Should not come as a surprise as actual freedom would have been discovered and spread a very long time ago if such a simple method worked for everyone.

1. Be happy 2. when you're not happy, be happy. 3. Profit!

So where should your average person, who can't recall a PCE, start in regards to getting the AF method (as described by Richard) to work (some day), other than meditating?

Just a quick question, Jason and Nad:
Would you say that your experience of life has gotten better / more enjoyable / less moody or something else since you started practicing actualism in any way whatsoever?

When the physical symptoms of affectation occur, it is similar to seeing leaves moving, except that the body now has a physical churning/agitation, an introduction of rigidity/churning. At that moment there is "awareness", a separated condition with at least two facets: placidity observing agitation. That is my experience, anyway.

Placid observer is an affectation-less formation whose key attribute is separation (aka: observer, witness, watcher, awareness) - separate from immediate now, separate from others, a perception mode (dispassionate perception), an "added-to" condition). It occurs to me now that this is also what is meant by "being", versus pce. [this being/observer/watcher/etc is affective if affectation includes in the definition any addition/surfeit applied to the immediate now/pce]

This placid observer paired with an affective, formed state can definitely support harm (like watching a fire start in a barn, and not getting water), and I have to say I am not sure it is a good place for insight since this dispassionate observer has no inherent motivations to intimately engage anything and yet the agitation (formed selfhood) is occurring and acting. The observer has to access another form of discrimination to cause a will (i.e., engage in putting out fire - which will is about something other than putting out fire, so it will be less effective than pce-putting out fire). Lacking intimacy, the observer does not further the dissolution of extant selfhood presenting in physical sensations (i.e., churning/agitation). I think it is the discomfort in the body that causes the body to 'correct' the extant selfhood, orient to pce. Hence, my sense that atrophy of sensation (atrophy of selfhood) is happening.

Yes, this is clear: there is not (i have not) actual freedom and extirpation of self. There is PCE happening and happening more than not but which is broken by affectation (which causes sensations which are basically a mental or physical churning/nausea/inflammation which are actual selfhood (mine) dually paired with a dispassionate 'awareness' (described above)). The dissolution back into PCE is prompt - no lingering to analyze the break from PCE. This no-lingering-to-analyze/return to pce is coming from an in-breathe. I saw it happen last night on a few occasions and realized the body is taking care of itself, but there are still upwellings of self breaching this ease.

On one hand the no-lingering to analyze what is happening is useful, yet could possibly result in incompletion, or the allowance of many needless formations/actions. Here observers/guides' comments are helpful (like this thread).

[all that said, there appears to be nothing to change in terms of actualism, "practice". It is somewhat useful to parse through this.]


[Edit: strike-through, edits for clarity, more edits for clarity, brackets]

Not sure if you're asking me but I have no idea anyway. I do recall a PCE and the method still goes nowhere.

Overall no better, worse if anything.

I assume worse because there´s an added frustration of 'not getting it'?

This is only a guess from my own perspective but I imagine it would be useful to employ different techniques* then... ones that may set a better starting point for actualism practice.
Practices which further your understanding of the way emotions and thoughts present themselves in your body and mind.
By strenghtening that understanding you might be better able to
a) be aware/attentive when those states occur
b) gain insight into their dependencies and inner workings

and subsequently have a better capability to improve your well-being. Without that basic level of well-being it is - again in my experience - almost useless to try to engage in the cultivation of sensousness and/or felicity because you are too preoccupied with (stressfull) mind/body states.

I also do not share Richard´s statement of "When you feel bad, you know you are no longer on the path to actual freedom." (VERY roughly paraphrasing from memory here), as especially in the beginning and if your base level of happiness is rather low there´s a (sometimes) overwhelming amount of (emotional) stuff to look at. Which process can in itself be somewhat frightening, sad or frustrating. Dealing with one problem just clears the view for x more which haven´t been clearly seen prior. It can take quite a while before one can see the light at the end of the tunnel and start feeling lighter/better. At that point sensuousness and felicity may have a better chance of (lasting) success.

Why Richard presupposes everyone is able to succed at the actualism practice the way he described without any earlier experience/knowledge?
Probably because that´s the way it worked for him and the people he talked to.
Does it mean that´s the way it works for everybody?
Surely not, he´s neither all-knowing nor infallible and he might have a flawed understanding/recollection of what he himself or others insights/practices/experiences were at the time he/they started HAIETMOBA.

If anything I´m writing here is in contradiction to someone else´s practice, feel free to correct me/point it out.

*these could be mental/physical (or a mixture of both) practices, such as concentration/insight meditation, tai chi, (self-)hypnosis, progressive muscle relaxation etc.

Paying intense attention to now, over and over again, is a form of meditation. The actualism method is a set of mental exercises and activities much like any meditation practice (and there are several).

Do you have any negative feelings or beliefs that lead you to NOT wanting to meditate? Any resistance to trying it out?

Really, are you going to do anything less than whatever it takes in order to become happy and harmless?

I personally found it was helpful to see that "being" is affective (generally neutral), and more fundamentally that experiences aren't affective because they resemble emotions, but because, at bottom, they're obscuring / distorting the immediate now, which is why "being" (or the separate observer) is equally as much an affect as anything else.

Yes, earlier in the evening I couldn't describe what is "being" in brief period in which I tried: it literally felt like a blank spot (nothing could come up when asking myself to describe being) - I couldn't exit from PCE to see and express this (at this exact moment it is also not "in view"). As a guest a few hours later I watched for any pangs and when two came up it was clear what was happening [what I was/am doing]: upwelling-attachment with simultaneous neutral awareness*, breathe and back into pce.

[Edit: *and so this is what I expressed in up-post this morning]
[Edit: brackets]

Tsongkhapa (chapter "Not negating enough", Vol.III, p201 LamRim Chenmo, 1st edition, translatedHopkins Cutler by committee ) simplifies it as:


There is a key board, there is window, there is screen, there is breathe, there are 11 people logged in to DhO right now. There is no using awareness of selflessness to end selfness. Only entering actuality (pce, there is a tree in field of view, there is shirt touching skin, there is lesson learning...) "resolves".


[edit:strike through regarding translation]

obviously not an actual freedom, yet obviously doing very well. how good is this life, both on its own merits as well as compared to a year ago? and this is the whole point: that it is possible to live/be lived this peacefully, this happily, this harmlessly - that it is entirely humanly possible. this is the fruit of a practice which, vitalised by pure intent, has become autonomous. and yet, this is far from a stopping point... if anything, the clarity only makes the forward draw inevitable and so it is only a matter of time (and stillness).

tarin

I have tried breathing meditation and meditating on "I am", but I don't really know if it helps achieve a PCE.

I've never recalled a PCE so I don't feel an irresistable draw toward it. I could achieve happiness in other ways. Harmlessness doesn't inspire that much because I'm basically still your average person with no PCE experience.

Better, yes. Because of actualism? Probably not. Because of meditating? Yes

hmmm.... seems my current experience seems somewhat similar to yours, katy.

it is entirely possible i stumbled upon what is referred to here as mctb 4th path, via actualism practice.

qualities of this experience that have been occurring consistently for the past few weeks:

-no central reference point whatsoever, which there formally was a very strong sense of in the head area - via the faculties of thought, imagination and other mental movements. to clarify further since this is relatively abstract: sensations are felt to happen at the location which they actually occur and are not conceptualized/perceived to arise from some other "source".

-and on that note, not sensing a causer/controller/be'er of any sense that happens.

-sensations are simply felt as sensations. no judgement of sensations being good, bad, this, that or the other thing. just exactly what they are.

-not feeling pulled in any direction in particular.

-panoramic perception - possibly a more patient attention span and cast out more "widely"... effortless
ability to pay attention to multiple data input and sensory doors at once without "brain fry" or confusion.

-for the most part, relaxedness, non-reactive. pretty much unflappable even when others around me have noted they are "stressed", "pissed off", "totally excited", etc.

this is where nick's notes about the sewage of being would come in helpful with more clarification. as this continuity of experience is still pretty new - there has been confusion about - well, if there's not self here and its just sensations - what aspect of this experience is being? when there's not seen to be anything inherently "wrong" with any sensation, what's to get rid of? challenging to pinpoint at the moment.

I think this is what a lot of 4th pathers have struggled with, and why AF, or a more literal reading of the pali suttas, or whatever, took so long to make inroads. "Where is self? I don't see anything!"

Was there a particular moment when this new perspective dawned on you?

Thanks katy, this is really good, and helpful for me to hear also.

it seems like the shift in the continuity of things was gradually comprehended to be an overall perspective shift, rather than a state, after an experience that occurred a few weeks ago. upon feeling a bit of fear, i was checking into the sensations of fear. having recently seen some of the direct pointing threads, decided to directly point at the fear. in illona c's exchanges with rin mayu, she suggested he look behind fear, so remembering that - i decided to give it a try. i used the advice rather literally on a sensate level, to look at what exactly was physically behind the fear - locationally. there was then perceived to be just the sensations of fear. there was no depth behind, in front of, above, below, or anywhere else. i previously had assumed fear to be the end of some line - like the last stop on the train - as if there was nothing deeper than it, or nothing past it. certainly putting one feeling on a pedestal of all everlasting power, eh? there were sensations following fear, then stillness - a pce. it was directly comprehended that beyond fear, and all sensations for that matter, is stillness - which is sourceless - comes from nowhere and goes nowhere. having that fear fall flat on its face, following days and weeks was just a more thorough seeing of the scope of all this (and i'm sure there's more to be revealed with passage of yet more days). there are no longer boxes or frames around series of sensations to be turned into something further. there is just ongoing whatever's happening. it's entirely possible this is something else and not mctb 4th path, virtual freedom, or any other label of overall experience - but whatever it is, is refreshing and sparkling clear, to say the least.

Bruno: This, to me, is the sum of culmination into dispassionate awareness - not confusable with dissociation, personified depression - just born of full revulsion and seeing how "I" produces the inane for its own consumption. Cessation of this fictional enthrallment: dispassion via selfhood that is aware of its productions and consumptions.

In buddhist psychology, from dispassion one gains a view of liberation. Just a view - there still needs to be a final advance into complete unbinding, freedom, liberation ("...Through dispassion [his mind] is liberated."). This dispassionate "I" is bound to see - if it is truly dispassionate - that dispassion is a form of its own satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

Unbound: immediate now(-stream) with neither accepting nor not accepting, neither altering nor not altering, embodied distinctness in solvation.

What is the experience of not producing a mind from the past to influence/control now ("...Birth is destroyed...")?

What is the experience of not consuming the immediate now-stream with affective additives ("the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done")?

This is actuality "There is no more coming to any state of being." .

Freedom is exactly always now, perfectly uncloaked.



____
italics are mn22.

[Edit: strike through]

Kasina-like practice/feedback for exits from PCE:
1hr clipped in on cycle rollers, right eye closed, left eye attending to light on cycle tire and seams in floor just ahead of tire;
each time a gripped thought arises: some sort of pressure/sensation in head,
any gripped thought of a few seconds (feeling) causes weaving, occasionally near-calamity

Notable absence of counting (previously routinely counting 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4... during cycling), calm, higher mph.

About the right/left eye: being right-eye dominate, a feature of wakeful PCE has been both eyes alert, perception of equal sightedness. Closing right-eye changes how often logical thinking arises (when it is not needed). [Edit: I had noticed several months ago how left eye closes a little when there is a surge of logical thought [as affectation outside of pce, as well as other affective thoughts], have known for a long time that reading often occurred in the right eye mostly; I am not sure, but checking to see if eye-equanimity is an AF/pce biometric]

Eating: opened a cronometer account 7/19 to see if calorie reduction was a feature of AF (what is actually steady pce pierced by dispassionate being and/or affective jolts): with 1hr hour of vigorous exercise per day, energy consumption averages 1367cal.

Just sayin'.


[edit: brackets]

Jason, Nad, Alexander... I think I've gone through just about exactly what you guys have and are still going through, and I think I've sort of figured out what it was that was holding me back, and I'm really much better now. We share in common the fact that we don't have any of the MCTB 'paths' and I think this is the source of our trouble. It may very well be that no matter what I post here your situation won't change, although I hope at least you will lose that 'hopeless' aspect of your suffering. Probably no specific combination of words could help you, and it takes an understanding in your own terms and arrived at by your own thinking to actually make a difference, but here goes...

My #1 problem, one that I still struggle with was a sense of frustration that I wasn't doing something right, a feeling that I "needed" to make progress down this path without any reason behind it. The problem with this is that it's not really backed up by any underlying intent so it can't "compete" with the other desires that make up your suffering. In fact it is just the same kind of desire, it is a "just because" desire. You want to survive "just because" you want to have power "just because" you want to achieve AF "just because." When this is how your practice works you can't find your suffering silly because your purpose is not a higher purpose than the purpose which that suffering pretends to serve. But there is a higher purpose for you to tap into, the purpose of being happy and harmless, when this is your motivation your intent stops being "just because" and becomes rational.

Of course it doesn't make sense to hurt this body via affect and others through controlling this body. Why would I want to do that? The affective answer to that is "just because" this is what can be seen to be silly. It's obviously silly to go around hurting things all the time, it's basically putting in constant effort for no reason, this is how I truly began seeing things as silly, and just like Richard said the problems went away with that perception. That original affect was simply the product of a perception that something needed to be done, the removal of that perception changes the affect to felicity.

Seeing these things as silly constantly will constantly keep you felicitous, if "you" really, truly believe them to be silly they cease to become a legitimate reason to hurt yourself or others. I'm living in this near constant felicity, and am certainly making progress, seeing something to be silly only takes seconds, sensuousness feels natural like this, I've had a few PCEs. Like I said you may have to figure this out yourself, and what I said has been posted before in different forms, but I just wanted to remind you that a "real" person without any MCTB path or anything to set him apart from "everyone else" can find success. The only thing that governs your affect is your perception.

I'm having a hard time understanding what you're saying here. I went back and looked at your other posts about this but it didn't help much. I don't see where you explain the way one can start truly seeing the silliness, or how you tap into that higher purpose of being happy and harmless.

Hi Nad -

Martin M


Nad A


So, keeping in mind (or not) that I am presently not AF, would you describe here what is worse?

Just by contemplating the facts of the matter. Sincerely contemplate the fact that you don't have any reason to hurt anything including your own body, contemplate the fact that this is in fact all "you" do. Look at the specific situation and try to get a sincere answer to whether this pain you are causing is really getting anything of value. For me when the answer becomes obvious that i don't need to hurt anymore and the pain i'm causing is getting me nowhere (for this specific situation, after going through the chain of thinking) I stop hurting myself and others.

You have to realize that "you" are your feelings, you're doing them, it's a matter of not doing them. What causes you to do them is the perception that there is a problem that needs to be rectified, when that perception goes they go. The perception is based on observation and thinking, counter it with more thinking, happiness has rationality on its side, the hurting feelings are irrational, you have no reason to hurt. I feel like I'm saying the same old things though, and I guess it's something you have to get to yourself.

I think I see what you mean fred. I have to rationalise that being happy and harmless makes the most sense. Would you say that being harmless is the more primary concern? If I only try to be happy, it would seem my instinctual passions can compete against it because their goal is happiness too. If yes, is it happiness through being harmless?

Are you also saying that when you have the pure intent to be happy and harmless then attentiveness and sensuousness is a default mode of living?

exactly, seeing what is really silly and sensible is the only change in perception necessary.



Being harmless to others as well as to one's own body (not hurting it via affect) is basically the same thing as happiness and harmlessness, those are just the terms I think of it in. It's easier when I separate this body and the self. Seeing that 'I' as a self am hurting this body for no rational reason at all makes finding myself silly easy.



Yes, it is the lack of this suffering for this body via the self becoming harmless. This body is no more special than any other, and there is no "stake" to be had in its welfare or lack thereof.



In my experience the loss of all non-pure intent is PCE. So if you manage to see what is truly silly and sensible then a PCE will occur. When your intellect's perception of what is silly shifts to every single agenda that "you" as a self have, they go away, your not killing them, just not forcing them to live. The more silly you see these agendas to be the more felicitous your attitude, the more felicitous you are the more natural sensuousness is. There are times when strong emotions seem to be totally sensible, "of course I should be mad at him" "of course I should be sad about that" figuring out why you believe these agendas to be sensible and then finding the argument against that perception is all that's necessary for felicity.

Here are the arguments I usually use.

1. As it is always here and now, and my affect is telling me to change something there and then, it is always silly to have that affect. The affect is in every single case telling me to do something that is impossible for me to do right now. Even tf it's fear telling me to turn the wheel of my car, in that moment of the fear arising, it was telling me to do something which would take time, and as it is always right now it is never possible to do anything that takes time. You can only do each little step from instant to instant if the self truly wanted something to be done that was possible here and now it wouldn't need the affect, affect is always telling you to do something there and then. Sorry if this one isn't clear I can try and explain it again if it doesn't make sense.

2. Because this body (or any body) is not-self I shouldn't have a stake in what happens with them. Any affect is simply letting your body know about the stake the self thinks it has in whatever situation, but this stake is always imagined. Since nothing actual is self, I have no stake in anything, so trying to influence things is silly.

3. This affect is ultimately aimed at survival and reproduction of the human species, but humans don't actually need this affect, the intellect and body can operate fine without it, so why do it. (this argument takes the memory of a PCE because you need to prove to yourself that it is in fact true that this body can operate independently.)

If I think of some others I'll post them. The second one is usually what I use now because for whatever reason it's so obvious to me all the time, it only takes seconds to apply this argument for me and my perception immediately changes of what is silly/sensible.

Keep convincing yourself that your agendas are silly and felicity will prevail keep this up and you should unravel the social identity which will cause fewer agendas to exist at all.

Did I make sense here? skimming over what I wrote it looks like some bits may be tough to understand for anyone who hasn't lived in my head... ask for clarification if needed please I'm glad to have a chance to explain my new insights on the method, it helps me organize my thoughts.

How do I approach this without any knowledge that there are more pleasant states, and without feeling like there is a problem or something to do, while simultaneously intending to be happy/harmless? Isn't that contradictory?

Isn't the fact of the matter that there is a problem, and that something does need to be done? Why should I and how could I lose the perception of this fact?

What would you say was the real reason why this started picking up for you, was it realizing that "you" are your feelings, you're doing them, it's a matter of not doing them, was it being rid of the perception that there is a problem that needs to be rectified or was it contemplating the fact that you don't have any reason to hurt anything including your own body? I've realised and understood [edit: two of] those points before, it's interesting that all three points would start making sense and 'working' simultaneously.

Also, could you have a go at re-phrasing your argument #1 for me please?

Just that I was a lot happier going with the grain of the human condition, like when I was a passionate progressive/humanist. Having seen the problems of things like that, I'm left emptier and more prone to depressed moods and boredom.

Yay, I understand

The #1 argument I probably can't use because I don't have that strong of a sense of nowness
The #3 argument I can't use since I haven't had a PCE
The #2 argument I might be able to use at least some of the time

Thank you fred

Nad, do you notice that the moment you try to be happy/try to not be unhappy, you immediately engage in a tug-of-war. By trying to be happy/trying not to be unhappy do you notice the pushing and pulling implied? Knowing this, can the joy of being alive run in parallel with struggling? Can life be enjoyed even if it doesn't make you happy?

Nad, you're experiencing what we here call "dark night." The disenchantment is very typical. I suggest you meditate it away (get stream-entry), like I did.

What inspired you to leave this grain? Why leave it?

Yesterday I was in woods overlooking the river, wondering at the pointy and scooped leaf edges of nearby oak, how such shape collects light and allows other leaves to collect light, the breeze was running through everything, and then a tremendous yearning/passion for this my habitat filled up.

It was a bit "love-lost" feeling: "". Kindly perception was also there, so there was feeling a huge love-lost and something like grandmotherly kindliness watching (not viraga (dispassionate awareness)) the heart pounding of this feeling being.

I watched Geoffrey West on TED review his 0.75 rule for biological systems (including corporations, the "economy of scale") - the sigmoid crash - and his 1.5x rule for social systems. Here began the feeling of revulsion for what is now that moves towards such a future, for gobbling up lands, fish, engineering life...and self-ish appreciation for the amount of creativity that also arises from such human crowding. Revulsion-affinity: that I as a female may give birth today and expect low infant-mother mortalities could be perceived as a personal benediction or an affliction of exponential growth.

A few nights ago I watched Cave of Forgotten Dreams and marveled that this cromagnon brain has done so much in 35,000 years, has developed animism, shamanism, deism and even extirpation of selfhood, that which conceives the aforementioned. A researcher in the documentary says, "[We are not Homo sapiens - man who knows, rather for the actions that separated us from contemporary neanderthals - literal and abstract painting, venus figures - we should have been named Homo spiritualis.]"

How to live your life?

What inspired you to leave this grain? Why leave it?

My day or night to die (speaking nonmetaphorically) is unknown to me. If I allow that occurrence to remain unknown to me, then each day and night I am here until such biological cessation. Until then how do I live or be lived or aim to live?

I am perfectly ok with having this coloring (raga) of the love-lost passion arising now only because of the presence of viraga. For me passions that flowed one after another was not effective. The emotionalism was interfering. The result of actualism/zen practice creates an engaged being of this person: I can engage patiently or /decisively. Basically, I am willing to engage now. In here now without a lot of katy-raga, effective care seems to arise more, just as tidying up. This way of being renders this being more deliberate about others' well-being, without a sense of sacrifice or loss.

If, for you, a having a grain of the human condition is effective and satisfactory, then why leave that? You and I are 99.5% the same genetically, are similar in calories consumed re: body mass, breathes and heart beat per minute - what would separate us would be passions and their triage, divergent spiritualis. That's ok, that is part of the human condition.

I am not leading up to "oneness" here. I am only saying at present you have life, you have the conditions of a human (brain that fires, regulates, may dysregulates, shapes environment) - how can you chose to be here in this jumble of change and be willing, so-described happy, amid or actually with others?

Therefore, why leave the grain of the human condition that rendered you progressive/humanist? What attraction draws you here and may draw you back again?



[edit: format and last two words, strike through, typos, clarifications galore, strike through so much grafitti]

[Where is the blog design that builds into its words and views decay? Every screen click, the characters are broken up a little more and a little more, shifting, disappearing?]

What happens if you just look around and appreciate the current-moment sensory input? When I first started meditating, way back when, I really had no idea what I was doing, I was sitting maybe 5-10 minutes a day watching my breath, no paths or attainments or whatever, but I was in a mood to enjoy life, I had recently seen that sensory clarity was possible cause I had taken E (but i didn't know if it was possible when sober, too - and i really didn't expect baseline visual input to change at all), but when totally sober, after meditating for a few days/a month, I just started observing my surroundings a lot more, and visual clarity simply increased.. much to my surprise and delight, without much effort at all. I was just looking around at what was there and things became prettier... so what happens if you walk around and just tune into the prettiness?


no problem. just walk around, and tune into the prettiness. you ask 'why'? i say 'why not?' what better thing do you have to do while on this walk?

I'll try and make myself a little more clear.

To address your first question, if you don't feel like suffering is a problem then I don't see why you'd even need this practice. To me purposeless pain feels like a problem all the time... is that what you meant? that it doesn't feel like there is a problem? to me any affect at all is the definition of feeling like there is a problem. anger is feeling that a threat needs to be neutralized, fear is feeling like a threat needs to be avoided etc. as for the contradiction, those problems, the ones manifesting as affective feelings, aren't really problems, this practice is just recognizing that fact. believing they are problems is silly and that is what the intellect recognizes which changes the six-sense data, the input, your self has to work with, this in turn changes the affect, the output.

This sort of brings me to your next question because what changed for me is that my intellect realized that I am my feelings. I realized that I was constantly sending these irrational messages to my body and i realized I had no reason to.

Those arguments are just what my intellect calls forth which cause it to realize the silliness of the feelings. The practice is really being 'done' by my intellect not by me, 'my' intellect keeps correcting me on being silly. the intellect doesn't really have an agenda though, it just recognizes this stuff.

so pure intent for me is just the realization that the harm i cause is silly which changes my intent to being harmless. it isn't harmless out of compassion, but just because i need to cause no harm.

ok, argument one - take two.

Because this moment has no duration, nothing is really happening in it. Each individual moment is basically a physical snapshot of the universe. if you examine any given bit of affect you'll see that it is giving you a message to do something right now, as it is being felt. but that thing it is telling you to do is always something that takes time and thus can never be completed here and now. affect is always a message about there and then but it is always here and now... so in this sense affect is always silly because even if its aim was legitimate it is telling you to do something impossible.

for example if someone cut me off and I felt fear it would be telling me to avoid a threat, but its telling me to do it now, in this instant. I can't do it in this instant, i can only do it over a period of time, so that's the mode in which I do it, over time. if it was possible to do something this instant here and now then you wouldn't need the affect to influence your body, you'd just control it. everything you want is always there and then, but everything that you can get right now is here and now, so you are essentially powerless all the time wishing to be all powerful. this is very silly.

in a PCE you're always doing what is happening right now, you're never doing a task, doing a task is an imagined concept, it exists over time, never in a single moment, it can only really be imagined through feeling. often going into PCE i stop feeling as if I'm doing something and shift into just here and now, my body might be making the same motions but I stop imagining that somehow the past and future are existing just as the present is. the present instant is always totally still.

eh, that still seems unclear, hopefully you can figure out what I'm saying.

Thanks for the VF links, Steph. Today I see them as useful descriptions of the changes in experience. Previously, I simply had a hard time reading such words:
This common sense perception was very stable until a short hike yesterday (the love-lost feeling). [EDIT: dispassionate perception resonates with common sense, however dispassion is "cleaner", more "bare bones". This "bare bones" aspect to dispassionate perception may simply be as a result of the often affective invocation of "common sense".]

Today was much more of:
Dispassionate perception certainly interferes with the above. I am surprised now that I did not clearly see the shifting between PCE and dispassionate perception over the past several weeks.. Tho I have recently taken an interest in what previously would have been difficult matters, there is a notable spring in the step/leap into [Edit: this is overstated, perhaps by contrast, but there is a notable interest in being here] these past days since dispassionate being was discussed here [During what is clearly happening outside of PCE].

Particularly, it becomes clearer that only a "next moment" always contains biological cessation, the moment at hand is the inherently living moment and is as far forward or backward as one can truly go without engaging affectation.

Anyway, there is not much more to report.
[edit: lastly, at 15m onwards, go well]

Paul, yes I do notice the struggle. I don't see how the joy of being alive can run in parallel with struggling and I don't see how life can be enjoyed even if it doesn't make me happy. I don't understand where you're going with that.

Bruno, thanks for the suggestion.

Katy, I think it was because the passions involved came to seem far more hollow than I'd believed. So they naturally got weaker. As with all explanations of these big changes, it could actually be that they got weaker first and the rationalization came after-the-fact. I'm still technically a 'progressive' and 'secular-humanist' but without the fiery passion which lit up all corners of my life with a live-to-serve-others happiness.

Beo, I can look around but I don't appreciate the sensory input, normally. Not much prettiness here.



No, my first question was just specifically about your suggestion to come at the practice without any knowledge that there are more pleasant states. Happiness/harmlessness is a more pleasant state. To have intent for happiness, don't I need to have knowledge of happiness?



You seemed to say that the crucial thing that changed for you was shifting your intent from achieving to being happy/harmless. You also said that your #1 problem, which would presumably have to also be the crucial thing that changed, was "a sense of frustration that I wasn't doing something right". Are you noticing these three different things you are attributing your newfound success to? Are they, in some way, all one and the same thing? Could they be after-the-fact rationalizations and what really changed is unknown?



Just to be clear, are you saying there is more than one individual moment or just phrasing it that way for convenience?



It's a little clearer but I don't think I'm personally familiar with how feelings impel one to do something right now and only right now. Perhaps if you explained the difference between a cognitive thought that "I need to go and do this" and an affect which implies you need to do something. Why is it silly when a feeling directs you to do something but not when a thought does?

Ilona cited this bbc video in rin's direct pointing thread. It is a sampling of current efforts to understand/demonstrate/locate/tweak i and consciousness. It may be a useful pairing with people's interests shared on the DhO. Does Sautoy's flash of insight staring out the train window come from a moment of consciousness or no consciousness or something else? When does the human stop maltreating itself and others and why must suffering in others be proven before stopped? Etc.

I mean simply that you should focus on not harming your body/others instead of trying to achieve happiness. You never have to strain to *not* do something, being in a PCE is simply not harming this body as opposed to "getting" happiness.



I guess the main thing was to shift from trying to achieve or do something to not doing certain things. So instead of straining for some state of experience i simply look at what I'm doing and find parts of it silly, usually because that part takes effort but has no legitimate reason behind it. This is really all that HAIETMOBA is. Before I looked at it as trying to get happy now I look at it as trying to not suffer, because to do so is always silly for the reasons given in my "arguments."



convenience



Just to be clear YOU are compelling this body. You aren't being impelled by affect. I'm just pointing this out because it might be a crucial error in the way you think about this stuff, "you" are compelling this body which isn't "yours."

Just examine an emotion, to me it always seems like that emotion is giving me a message to do something right exactly now. If I'm angry I have to go hurt that person now. If I'm afraid I have to get away right now. If I desire I have to get my object right now. But, if what I'm compelling this body to do can't happen right exactly now (and it can't) then I'm always whipping this poor body to do impossible things, which don't need to be done, which don't concern me as everything is not-self, and which the body can do itself without the whipping.

As for that cognitive vs. affective question, if you are thinking about something non-affectively then your thinking is really just pure problem-solving, the thought that something is needed doesn't seem to arise at all in PCE. It's just that the mind is making certain choices. That feeling of need again is a part of the self. In PCE you're not really "doing" tasks like I was saying before. What you're doing is whatever is happening right now, as opposed to a task that takes time. The affect has a need and then your intellect works to solve the problem that is presented to it, this might be what you're thinking of. In that case, the thought isn't a problem, it's just the mind solving problems that the affect forces it to take on.

So the intellect isn't directing you, it's being enslaved by "you" to solve "your" problems.

I keep seeing these errors in the way you think about it, maybe it's just because of you writing it down, but it might show a place where your thinking goes wrong. "You" are merely this instinctual and social identity, not this body and intellect. You are compelling this body and intellect to serve your ends. Once this clicks, and your intellect recognizes that your compelling is silly, "you" will be influenced by this new information and you will stop doing that compelling. You will stop being aggression/fear/desire/nurture and start being felicity.

You have no stake in what this body experiences, or what others experience. You don't need to work to gratify this or other bodies, you don't actually even "need" to stop hurting those bodies, but it is silly to do so, and once this is fully recognized, I doubt you'll keep hurting your body and other's bodies. (sorrow and malice)

I really think your issue may be that problem in your thinking, thinking that this body, this mind, even this consciousness is you and the feelings are somehow an outside force motivating you. This could have been caused by aversion to your feelings and suppression of them due to how long you've spent practicing.

This conversation has really helped me to understand what changed for me, I stopped caring about what this body experienced, including its experience of affect. The feeling of that affect isn't a problem, there is no problem, it's just that creation of this affect by me is silly. This led me to becoming basically indifferent about what this body experienced, being truly indifferent about what this body experiences is pure consciousness experience because without caring about this body's experience you have no reason to influence it with affect, so you don't. This is equanimity except it is also the realization that I am my feelings and that I control what I am here and now.

This sort of very intellectual method of practice is probably not used much by people who already have MCTB paths, but I found it to be really useful.

Sorry that was so long, I just kept thinking of new ways to explain things and new ways to frame all my different insights. It can basically be summed up like this though: You are your feelings, you are not your mind or body. There is no reason for you to influence anything, so it is silly to do so.

Ok



Passions/feelings evolved to be a simple, persistent impulse until satisfaction. They evolved before concepts of time could be understood by the brain. I don't see why you interpret feelings as messages with a right-now-and-only-right-now condition. I think these passions are just simple compulsions, which remain 'on' until they get what they want, I don't detect a time condition.



As to compelling this body being silly: In what way do I hurt my body? Should I be looking through research papers on the negative effects of stress on the health of the body or is there something a bit stronger and more substantive to draw from?

I seem to have a stake in what this body experiences because when this body is ill, 'I' am misery, resentment etc... which doesn't feel good.



It was caused by being born human as surely we all grow up naturally thinking/feeling that feelings are happening to us. Wasn't this your problem too?



'I' have been 'my feelings' for my whole life, but feelings have always been equally hard to control. If the crucial part is realizing that I am my feelings, then I guess it's the realization that needs to be written about. How do I realize that I am my feelings?

Fred -
Very interesting posts. Thank you.

I’m trying to understand where “control” or “decision making” comes into play in your experience. You seem to have identified four parts of “fred”.
Body (not you)
Intellect (not you)
Feelings (you)
Beliefs (you) This was not exactly called out; but I’m assuming this is your experience.

If we stick with just these (4), here is my oversimplified experience of an event. Body sees something, intellect makes sense of it, intellect checks beliefs for what response to take and then feelings are generated.

This is all well and good (essentially a habit, automatic, happens very fast), but where/how does the decision get made to try and change the habit response (feelings)? What is deciding that “you feelings” should be changed? You said “intellect” recognizes “you-feelings”, but what decides to ask “you-feelings” to change from fear to felicity? Can a feeling (thought/sensation) make decisions to change itself? Where is the volition/intention coming from?

That decision maker is perceived to “me” but that does not seem to be the case for you . The decision maker is the key to me feeling like “I” am essentially “everything Ed” because it implies enough control over parts of the body/mind that the whole thing just seems like “me”. “I’m” the captain and responsible for the ship/crew.

The central issue here, is do “I” have any control over determining course or not? If “I” do, “I” must be more than beliefs and feelings, because neither of those can make decisions and if this is true then I feel like the captain and everything is essentially “me”. If “I” can’t make decisions, then there is nothing “I” can do. Further, “I” don’t decide when “I” go away and “I” am not even making the choice to follow an AF practice to make that happen.

But it feels like “me” deciding to pursue AF so therefore I feel like the captain and as the captain, “I” can’t perceive myself as separate from body and mind.
Thoughts? Take care.
Ed

The volition is essentially inherent in the intellect's nature, the intellect recognizes an action as silly automatically, something is silly when effort is being put in for no reason, when this new information gathered by the intellect, just like by any of the five senses, it is presented to the self which causes the self to change. When it becomes obvious via the intellect's reasoning that anger/fear etc. is silly the self changes into felicity, when absolutely all affect is shown to be silly then the self goes into abeyance because it's previous reasons to be have shown to be invalid.



No I think I too am the decision maker. It's just that I don't do any of my own work. My five senses and intellect gather my information and my body then acts. The senses are the input, I make the decision, my body acts. That input changing is the basis for decisions changing. (when I'm talking about "decisions" I'm including the decision to release chemicals into the body to coerce it into acting)





This is seemingly going back to the determinism vs. free will argument, but it actually seems sort of relevant. I think the solution here is "compatibilism." Your sensory input and intellectual input are out of the control of "you" but they are the basis on which every decision you make is made. That step of decision making however does depend on your beliefs and instincts as well as sensory input.

I think the idea of "following" the "actualism practice" might be something that should be avoided, I think when properly done you aren't following any path, merely based on new understanding your intellect is inputting different, and now accurate, information into your self which spits out different behavior. (again in behavior I'm including the "behavior" of releasing chemicals, affect itself)

So perhaps "you" are pursuing AF, but perhaps this isn't a good thing. My practice now is sort of just sensory awareness and then the intellect finding things as silly/sensible, which changes my behavior about them. The difference between now and pre-actualism is simply new understandings or new awarenesses which change my intellect's input into "i."

The lack of a time condition is the same thing as wanting something to happen now. There is a "time condition" in the actual happening of anything, everything takes time to happen, although the complete "happening" of an action doesn't exist anywhere but in the mind. Nowhere in the compulsion is there the message that it's ok if this thing just happens when it it happens, there's just the message "do it" but certainly you feel that "do it" in the present (obviously there is no other time to feel it) and if your feeling that "do it" right now your feeling the desire to do something impossible because that "do it" can't be done right now.



Well you answered your question in the next part of your reply, you hurt your body via that feeling of emotion. That consciousness is not you. You aren't the awareness of the physical sensation caused by the release of chemicals, you are the instincts and beliefs that cause the release of those chemicals.You hurt your body by showering it in a cocktail of painful chemicals that it picks up as pain. But you have no reason to change this behavior, not out of compassion for this body, "you" have no stake in whether this body feels pain or pleasure so it is simply silly for you to hurt it. That is all. The stake you are seeming to have results from the belief that this consciousness is yours, it isn't. Just think of it as consciousness that is "occurring" here, as part of the universe, the universe experiencing itself. When you accept this consciousness as just the universe experiencing itself and not yours then you may find that you no longer have any sensible reason to influence this body via affect.

When I say it is silly to hurt this body, that has nothing to do with me "feeling bad" about hurting it, it's just the recognition that I have no stake in this body, it's experience or anything at all so I need not influence it, thus it is silly to do so.



Oh yes, I guess that was my problem too.



I'd say just keep noticing the fact that you being at all is silly. I have to go, I wrote out a bunch of this but rushed my responses to the last two quotes, I'll try to elaborate when i come back.

What you wrote makes sense, however, being able to use it is another matter because it's extremely easy for 'me' to claim consciousness is 'me'. Same thing with the body. Maybe I'm just not getting it logically yet?

I guess this will just not be an argument I can use myself. To me, that seems like a intellectual trick, to redefine a feeling as asking for something impossible when there's no need to define it as such.



I thought the body doesn't feel emotions, though. Only 'I' feel them? How is the body hurt by those chemicals?



That seems to be in the wrong order. Noticing that me-being is silly before noticing what that 'me' is and isn't? Surely it would have to be the other way round. Otherwise what am I taking myself to be, such that my existence is silly?

Why is me 'being' silly?

No I think getting it logically is the easiest part depending on what we mean by "getting it logically," just keep working on thinking of that consciousness differently. But I agree that it often takes more convincing than just that sort of logical thinking, try contemplating how the entire universe is just a bunch of physical stuff, this body is that stuff too, consciousness is just a result of that stuff existing. In none of it are "you" actual, you are just some beliefs and instincts imagined by this consciousness. Contemplating it all, relating it back to the sensuous self-less experience of the moment trying to just totally convince yourself that this body and mind aren't yours. Try and change your thinking so that they are just this body and this mind. "You" have no legitimate reason to influence the events of this actual universe which includes this body and mind, furthermore your attempt at influence is always unnecessary, this body is fine without it.

That's really all I can say, just keep trying to do that, but also use anything else you can to make affect seem silly. Whether you are telling yourself this affect is unnecessary or the thing it wants is unnecessary, you can change your perception so that your "problem" is no longer a problem.

Like I said in my first post it may be that no combination of words coming from an outside source can help you truly see the silliness of various instincts/beliefs/emotions etc. you may just have to prove it to yourself, hopefully though this line of thinking, none of which is really new, just restated, can be a good jumping off point in getting to that change in seeing the thing as sensible to seeing it as silly.

Hmm, maybe I'm just perceiving my affect differently, it always seems to be asking for things now that it can't have now. Thus asking for impossible things. I don't really care if it's a trick to be honest though, it certainly has the power to make me feel better. Maybe I'll use an example.

I'm in a car, I want to get home

Affect: Go home, body, damn you, car in front of me, go faster... damn you, light, turn green...
Intellect: Actually, this body can't go home right now, stop asking it to go home, it can't, there's no reason to attempt to strain towards going home in this instant when it's obvious that going home won't happen until at least a few minutes from now.


"i" is just an imagined psychological phenomenon, it doesn't have senses, I don't think it is the thing feeling those feelings. It causes the body to create the chemicals which result in the body feeling the affective pain and being compelled by it though... I think.

Maybe this isn't quite the same as the argument I tried to explain, I don't know... maybe this is sort of a combination of the "body being fine without affect" and "affect asking for things that can only come in the future" right now arguments. But this is one of the ways I make affect seems silly.



sorry I pretty much didn't even read this, I was in a big hurry when I was finishing up my reply to your last question, I probably should have just said I'd respond later instead of giving a third-assed answer (even worse than a half-assed one). As for your question of why me 'being' is silly, I guess it's just because all 'I' do is whip this anonymous body and mind into getting things to keep it surviving, that it was already able to get without that 'whipping.'

All of my supposed influence on this universe is superfluous, and furthermore none of this universe is me or mine so it's silly to care about what happens with it.

As for your question about how to realize that "I" am my feelings, I don't know really, there was no big moment where I REALIZED! or anything like that. Maybe you are in the "dark night" stage of mind, in which case I really have no experience and can't help you. Maybe you should just do vipassana or whatever and get first path and come back and try again. It really seems like after so much time and so few results that you may simply need something additional to help you get somewhere with this practice. You've thought about this stuff just as much as I have, I'm sure you're just as smart if not smarter (I can barely explain a single point I'm trying to make accurately here ) but perhaps you somehow tripped into whatever the "dark night" stage is... I really don't know much about it. Certainly though the evidence is undeniable that first path helps.

All I've ever been able to do with my abilities, first-jhana access, is basically to think about things. There is a lot of stuff on this forum that I don't understand, all I can do is 1. think rationally, 2. pay attention to certain parts of my consciousness (sensuousness), 3. contemplate facts, and just in general try to convince my 'self' that using affect to influence the universe is a misguided effort. This is all that I seem to require to become felicitous and eventually on occasions slip from felicity into PCE. If this stuff doesn't work for you, and I'm sure you've gone through every argument, contemplated every fact and tried many times to pay sensuous attention, then maybe it's time for you to try something else? I'm really just a beginner in all of this... all I've done is to poorly explain what has been better explained elsewhere in my own terms and with my own framework.

What I've basically done is to elaborate on my own method of one part of HAIETMOBA, the seeing that something is silly step, which is with rational arguments which boil down to making the points that the affect is unnecessary to achieve it's goal and that it's unnecessary to achieve it's goal at all. I'll keep going, despite everything I just wrote I really don't mind, if you think that there is some part of my rational arguments I haven't made clear, but if you understand them, and for some reason they're still not helping you to see that your moods are silly, or if you are seeing them as silly but they don't go away, then I think there are people better "qualified" for the job.

If you want to know what changed for me I think I already basically explained it, I just sort of decided that no matter how much pain this body was in, no matter what happened around it, none of that really mattered so "I" didn't need to care about it, "I" didn't need to influence it. So then my practice lost all those elements of trying to strain towards pleasure, and my life lost a lot of trying to strain towards some form of results, I was much more just happy on the path to the goal (seeing that affect was unnecessary) and often there was no goal at all (seeing that the goal was unnecessary).

oops! sorry I was so long winded... again

What I'm thinking of is the idea that there is already 'peace on earth'. The actual world is untouched by feelings, only 'I' am affected. The body, being actual, doesn't feel suffering. I might be confusing two ideas here, I don't know.

A respondent on the AF site said, "RESPONDENT No. 108: The flesh and blood body has actual neuro-chemical events but the identity/ resident entity isn’t actual – and neither is feeling, because an actual brain doesn’t feel, only an identity feels. whatever the actual brain is doing while an identity feels isn’t itself feeling."

http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/listafcorrespondence/listaf123.htm




Ok, thanks for trying to explain.