Ok, so the whole subject is:

"Is there anyone being actually free who is willing to take me under their wing?"

Things are going fast for me. And sometimes it's heavy. And sometimes there are roadblocks.

Is there anyone out here who is actually free who can help me out?

The DhO.

Ok, so I'm having an issue with this.

I have dissected how am I experiencing this moment of being alive to it's exact meaning.

And each time I ask that question, I notice what is going on, and the bad things somehow seem to diminish.

I seem to recognize that there is this quality in this body that can always feel good.

My challenge is:

When sh*t hits the fan, like being broke beyond being able to pay your bills. it doesn't do enough for me.

Sure, during the daytime it can calm me down, and I'm truly trying to look further into this, but it only goes so far.

At night, where I don't have the rational mind able to do things, I wake up screaming and/or wake up bathing in sweat. Sometimes I even kick the wall next to my bed because I am fighting something in my dreams.

So the point is, once I wake up and am awake enough to continue the practice, when I'm sleeping and the automatic mind takes over, there is great evidence for turmoil.

How do I deal with this?

Simon, you can only deal with it when you're lucid enough to investigate and choose how you are experiencing this moment. So when you're unconscious that's not gonna happen :-)

Look, are you saying that while awake you feel felicitous or good easily, regardless of your circumstances, but that when your circumstances are challenging (being broke) then you have nightmares and night terrors? Because if so, that may be evidence that you actually aren't investigating with attentiveness but are, while conscious, repressing or dissociating from the negative reactions to your circumstances, and they are then popping up when you-as-ego turns off in sleep. Is that possible?

Anyway, the thing to do with this sort of stuff (being broke, dog died, girlfriend left you) in my experience is to see how it (affective judgments of circumstance) functions in real time so you can choose to have felicitous feelings about always available facts of being alive, breathing, sensing, aware, intimate and so on rather than choosing to perpetuate feelings about what has happened, might happen, should have happened, shouldn't have happened, needs to happen, needs not to happen, and so on.

By making this choice consistently I find moods stabilizing and lightening and non-circumstantial well being, appreciative of wide-open and referenceless now-ness, growing. But again, if you get this already and believe you are doing this well already, than perhaps consider whether you are actually doing it or are subtly dissociating from negative reactions, which are then popping up when you-as-censor falls asleep.
--Jake

-Jake

keep practicing, I had terrible nightmares, and problems with losing awareness, but after enough habituation HAIETMOBA becomes much more automatic, I actually have bad dreams and find myself practicing HAIETMOBA in them, then they're not so bad.

the more often you realize that it's silly to feel bad the stronger that confidence becomes and the easier it becomes to make the argument even under extreme circumstance.

""Ok, so I'm having an issue with this.

I have dissected how am I experiencing this moment of being alive to it's exact meaning.

And each time I ask that question, I notice what is going on, and the bad things somehow seem to diminish.

I seem to recognize that there is this quality in this body that can always feel good.

My challenge is:

When sh*t hits the fan, like being broke beyond being able to pay your bills. it doesn't do enough for me.

Sure, during the daytime it can calm me down, and I'm truly trying to look further into this, but it only goes so far.

At night, where I don't have the rational mind able to do things, I wake up screaming and/or wake up bathing in sweat. Sometimes I even kick the wall next to my bed because I am fighting something in my dreams.

So the point is, once I wake up and am awake enough to continue the practice, when I'm sleeping and the automatic mind takes over, there is great evidence for turmoil.

How do I deal with this?""

"Simon, you can only deal with it when you're lucid enough to investigate and choose how you are experiencing this moment. So when you're unconscious that's not gonna happen :-) "

Haha, You have a point there.

"Look, are you saying that while awake you feel felicitous or good easily, regardless of your circumstances, but that when your circumstances are challenging (being broke) then you have nightmares and night terrors? Because if so, that may be evidence that you actually aren't investigating with attentiveness but are, while conscious, repressing or dissociating from the negative reactions to your circumstances, and they are then popping up when you-as-ego turns off in sleep. Is that possible? "

I have a habit of repressing feelings and find it very difficult to do much more than feeling like I'm only scratching the surface. I have trouble finding the repressed feelings.

Furthermore, they are actually no part of how I'm experiencing any moment of being alive. It's old repressed stuff that I don't feeling anymore unless I actively try to find it and then it's hard to notice what is there

I don't even know why I did this, Nothing bad happened to me as a kid, but for some reason I started to collect and bury all bad emotions and feelings.

"Anyway, the thing to do with this sort of stuff (being broke, dog died, girlfriend left you) in my experience is to see how it (affective judgments of circumstance) functions in real time so you can choose to have felicitous feelings about always available facts of being alive, breathing, sensing, aware, intimate and so on rather than choosing to perpetuate feelings about what has happened, might happen, should have happened, shouldn't have happened, needs to happen, needs not to happen, and so on. "

Makes sense,

"By making this choice consistently I find moods stabilizing and lightening and non-circumstantial well being, appreciative of wide-open and referenceless now-ness, growing. But again, if you get this already and believe you are doing this well already, than perhaps consider whether you are actually doing it or are subtly dissociating from negative reactions, which are then popping up when you-as-censor falls asleep.
--Jake

-Jake"

Maybe I also just need to give this a few months of practice. My sense is that the repressed stuff will come up eventually as long as I keep practicing, I've only been doing this for a few weeks.

Anyway, thanks!

You're right about it becoming more automatic. At times I just find myself wondering "How am I experiencing this moment of being alive?". It's a wordless attentiveness, as Richard describes.

I'm the type of person who pulls all this type of stuff into his nightmares very often. Maybe the HAIETMOBA attentiveness will show up there as well soon. Would be a great help!

What you say, that it's silly to feel bad, really did something for me. It suddenly made sense.

Thanks!

Simon,
I've been doing Vipassana for just over a year and have tried HAIETMOBA several times, with no effect. But for some reason it seemed to "work" on Wednesday, and has been since. I don't know why, or how. But, maybe, for some of us, it's something that takes some time to click? Keep at it and hopefully it will start "working" for you too.

For me the key was to dedicate myself to it. Just doing this HAIETMOBA exercise every once in a while didn't do much. It's a dedication that is required to do it fully. And then, surprised as I was, each day got better real fast.

Also, the following quote from Richard himself has really helped me:

"You need to have a keen sense of humour. This business of becoming free is not – contrary to popular opinion – a serious business at all. Be totally sincere ... most definitely utterly sincere, as genuineness is essential. But serious ... no way. An actual freedom is all about having fun; about enjoying being here; about delighting in being alive."

http://actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/thismomentofbeingalive.htm

Just curious, what happened on Wednesday for you and from there on?

Btw, I have a practice thread with my current status in case you're interested. You'll see it on the forum, it's called Practice thread - Simon or something like that.

Simon,
From my practice thread:
" Wednesday I ran HAIETMOBA through my mind as I was walking home, and it had an effect for the first time. I seemed to get pulled forward and experienced my surroundings in a significantly more direct way. It was like I was out meeting life instead of sitting and waiting for it to come to me. It only lasted about 5 seconds, but I did it 4 times. Previously whenever I asked the question the result has been the same as if I asked "what is the boiling point of water?" Nothing happened. It still changes the way I perceive my surroundings, it brings me to the present and lets me relax and smile and enjoy now.
For some reason it seems to be clicking, the idea of naivety also makes sense. All the AF practices have really rung hollow for me, now they seem to make sense and I can relate them to my practice. Apparently some change has occurred which has aligned me with the practice."

Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely be playing with these things a bit more in the immediate future.

I can recognize the getting pulled forward and experiencing your surroundings. That generally tends to be my response to the practice.

This actual world, this world that is actually there.

I have no idea of the wonder Richard or any of the actually free people are living in, but these glimpses do make it so I can only think that living in it fully is the most wonderful thing possible.