Happy new year all. May it bestow gifts of clarity and good work of the heart.
 
My first DhO practice log, covering about 2 years of practice, including... :

*probable SE at home (end of june 2019) after which I experienced many cessation like events over a month, which stopped with things coalescing again at around the end of july. Left with the main change being much less sticky emotions and what I would call the end of rumination, something which has not budged a bit since then and has been accompanied by further perceptive shifts.

*a 10-day long dzogchen retreat led by Doug Veenhof, student of Alan B. Wallace, during which I had what has variously been desribed as A glimpse of Rigpa / A non conceptual experience / the natural state / recognizing the nature of mind / the luminosity shift / the entrance of the winds in the central channel, as well as, before that, hypothetical second path (august 2019). This left me with an extremely unsubtle, noticeable at all times clarity of perception, as if some filter had been taken off of perception. The week after the retreat, fast daily cycling was experiened, and it manifested most clearly as shifts in visual luminosity of objects, which for a few months, were actually glowing like mad, although ti tended to dilute back down after a while. Nowadays this has settled, but the clarity of perception has remained, and occasionally the mad luminosity will reoccur.

*subsequent month-long Mahasi noting retreat in Panditarama Lumbini, during which I experienced many cessation-like experiences, usually following the classical review sequence  and offering much clearer "door moments" over a few weeks, before and all through the beginning of retreat, for a total time of experience fruition-type events of about three weeks (september/octobre 2019)

*following practice confusion during a few months and deep questioning about the western consumerist lifestyle and its viability in the short/mid-term.......... See Chris' "Uncharted territory thread" for a lot more on this !

*mahamudra retreat lasting several days during which I found my way back to rigpa-like experiences which were much less saturated than the previously described opening (february 2020)

*subsequent developments, including easier access to the "natural state", deeper and lighter perception and recognition of the unfindability, non-locatibility, non-separation, interpenetration/just hanging there-ness of phenomena and self during a few months

*a tiny, subtle but profoundly effectful realization that I had been, all my life, basically, looking for a "pure" phenomenal experience, and understanding that this was just an illusion, as experience always manifests as what manifests and is none other than what manifests as it does, ie, symbols are what experience is too, are part of it too. This was the end of a more than a decade long, unconscious quest for the "true" reality "underneath" my conceptual experiences - a kind of quest for something glimpsed at "beyond" normal familiar reality, btw, which one can read about in detail in JP Sartre's book Nausea.

*Immediately following that, a deep "refamiliarization with the world", indeed a very deep, simple and funny sense of coming home. Not that I felt estranged much, but even after all the meditative work and such, it still felt like there was "something" that was supposed to be found/seen. Seeing/trusting that this was not the case, that the familiar everyday reality was as deep as it gets, changed something. During the next few months, and in fact until now, my mood has been 95% of the time quite joyful and cheery, and very resilient without much intention having to be exerted for this to be so. This has stood the test of sustained time with family, lockdowns in small spaces with girlfriend, other life events ...A burgeoning sense that the act of looking for something in meditation was the main source of the remaining resistance I would experience in meditation. In fact, perceiving that almost tactile-ly, if that makes sense. As in : "What is preventing this from being perfect right now ?" Answer : a slight tension that is a kind of mind-body intention manifesting as both a knot in space and an emotional dissatisfaction/intellectual curiosity, messing up the completeness, introducing contraction in the whole thing.

*a two-week self retreat in (october 2020), during which I practiced 4 days of shamatha/brahmaviharas, 4 days of a structured scaffolded hierarchy of practice devolving from just seeing things as they are, noticing attraction/repulsion/neutralness, etc. down dependent origination and down the levels of practice from just sitting to straight vipassana noting of sensations, urges, emotions, thoughts, 4 days of following the instructions in Clarifying the natural state. This all lead to interesting realizations, about the nature of mind and the nature of seeking, and how these relate to the higher fetters, how desire and looking and ignorance are connected one with the other. How meditation methods are part of experience which is realization. This was seen with profound clarity, and at the "right time", and seeing this would be understood, accepted and trusted wholeheartedly ; it seemed to me like there wasn't much to see beyond that. And indeed, this has seemed to put a kind of end to my quest - although that, according to our shargrol, is "the surest sign of third path". Since this retreat, during which I also read profusely, classical texts and others, which provided a lot of confirmation to what I seemed to have grasped, I basically stopped meditating. 

*However, I'm sitting again these days, and I'm about to do a four day home retreat with my gf, focusing on heart practices.

*poems.

...can be found here : Opinions welcome

Closing this first log, I want to sincerely thank all those who participated, benevolently or otherwise, helpuflly or not, and give a particular shout out to our main guys shargrol and chris marti. This has been a vivid part of my journey, sometimes bringing confusion, sometimes clarification, but vitally so throughout.

And this brings us to this new log, a new log for a new year, which I will start by quoting a wonderful poem by Rilke, which I want to thank Tim for - it's an excerpt from Rilke's "Turning point" :

Work of the eyes is done, now
go and do heart-work
on all the images imprisoned within you; for you
overpowered them: but even now you don’t know them.
Learn, inner man, to look on your inner woman,
the one attained from a thousand
natures, the merely attained but
not yet beloved form.

I am grateful!

EDIT: So very, very grateful.

Me too! The scrolling over in the last thread was killing me.

I don't think I knew most of your practice history, Olivier. Dang you've got alot of retreat time in. Good for you!

All of that work reading the previous log when I could have just waited for this...

Amazing and inspiring recap Olivier, congrats!!! 

Happy New Year to you, Olivier. Glad to see you are still around and working on the "Great Work".

There is a reason there is still the attention from "enlightened activity" on your thread, and I would posit that it is because you show great potential. 

( "Strictly speaking, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity." - Shunryu Suzuki Roshi )

The doc from from your Dzogchen retreat is utterly chockablock with excellent stuff. It's all anyone would need to "get it" honestly, but there is a door for every seeker.

You talk about wanting to do some "heart" work. Not sure if I am interpreting you properly but I would greatly recommend:

https://www.amazon.com/Untethered-Soul-Journey-Beyond-Yourself/dp/1572245379/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3FXEW7F15AL1G&dchild=1&keywords=untethered+soul+by+michael+singer&qid=1609907139&sprefix=untethered%2Caps%2C227&sr=8-1

Not a Buddhist book per se, but a greatly simplified (in a GOOD way) series of suggestions for working with surrender and "self".

In the Mahayana/Tibetan tradition, I personally got a LOT out of "7 Point Mind Training", specifically Ken McLeod's fabulous book:

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Path-Awakening-Commentary-Mahayana/dp/0877734208

This was the focus of my training when I was in my late 20's, working with Dave Newman and occasionally Gyatrul Rinpoche, and it created lasting and indelible change. 

Also worth a read is one of my lineage teacher's books, a more modern/Zen take on the same teaching:

https://www.amazon.com/Training-Compassion-Teachings-Practice-Lojong/dp/1611800404

My discussion group are currently working through the latter, with frequent referencing of the former... I still prefer the wording in some of the "slogans" from McLeod's book. Fischer's book is also available as an audio book, which I enjoyed being able to digest on my commute to work earlier this year... back when I had one.

Bows.

LOL, sorry guys I didn't realize it was so hard to navigate, as I always use the "flat view" which just lays it all out chronologically.

--

Sterling, thanks for the suggestions. Just a few things : First, sorry to hear you lost your job. I myself don't have one either I've actually been considering doing meditation coaching.

On a side note but related, re:the links you sent. Guys, whether you are enlightened activity or a person, please please please boycott amazon. :p 1 amazon job got = 4 regular jobs lost...

Second, yes, I agree with you in that I actually have all the material I need on awakening already, and am not especially looking for new resources on that dimension. Just a matter of broadening now, there are some things I've become more curious about like sleep and death, but all in due time... 

Third, when I said heart work, I had a few things in mind, but specifically here I was talking about the brahmaviharas and transforming suffering into joy (tonglen), which I have practiced quite a bit before, and during my last retreat felt like a very fecund venue of exploration and cultivation. I think I've read/reflected upon/understood/practiced enough about all that in the previous years to be pretty independent, and that now just doing the practices will reveal more than enough about them. 

I also meant trusting intuition even more, and letting the more magical side of things show up, which it has been... :p

Cheers and bows 

" I've actually been considering doing meditation coaching."
YES! You are aleady an excellent meditation coach/teacher who is among the best I have seen. You would do well. You have already been a huge help to me.

Thanks for the kind words, Sam. That means a lot to me. 

Olivier,

I still have my job, actually, despite a move to another state - it is the commute I lost, since I work entirely remote at present. Sorry for any confusion.


The McLeod and Fischer books are VERY MUCH about the work you are describing, since they are specifically about Lojong, which Tonglen (a wonderful practice) derives from. Working with Bodhicitta is key, and transformative. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojong


A fantastic idea! The dharmakaya is AWAYS pointing back to its non-dual source. The fabric of Mind is teaching. Taking what arises as path is an INTEGRAL part of Lojong teachings, and the books I recommend.

Best of luck.

Well good news about the job ! Although i inagine the remote part is a pain in the B

Yes I realized this was the same direction, and I'm keeping a special place for these books on my very very long list of references, if i feel like i need some guidance later on For now, happy to keep exploring and let what comes up teach what it must, as you said.

--

These days I've felt a strong pull towards literature, which I hadn't in a long time, and knew clearly, for some reason, that I should start reading Proust again. His main work is 7 volumes long, 600 pp. each... I'd never gone further than the first one, which I'd forgotten everything about, it appears.

Well, I know why I wanted to go back there. The beginning of the first book is amazing, and superbly written.

Proust basically describes the process of falling asleep or waking up and the metempsychosis and confusion of identities which can happen there, the process of recreating the identity and the surroundings of the sleeper from the "kaleidoscope of darkness"... How memories and fragments from the past are put together by perception to construct the specific place in time and space that the sleeper is supposed to be in.

He seems to describe DO, but in terms which are closer to what Dudjom Lingpa calls "devolution", the "architecture of the impure mind" from the alaya, alaya-vijñana, etc., the stratas of mind up until the gross worldly identities. Something very buddhist, makes me think of the different things I read about dream yoga. Reality is also described very similarly by phenomenologist Michel Henry, as I've mentioned many times. In terms of The Father and The Son, of course...

The kaleidoscope of darkness, man...

Michel Henry, drawing on phenomenology, calls the DO process, the process of constructing the objects of the world : "the operations of transcendental subjectivity". And the world of things we inhabit, he calls "memory", in reference to Augustine. Augustine said that this world we live in where thing appear and die - if we take it from the perspective of truly existing things - is made up of memory. Identity, name, language, all rely on memory - and its correlate : time. Funny that we rarely talk about memory here, or in buddhist contexts for that matter.

Anyways, all this finds its way in an early twentieth century writer's novel, Proust's Looking for time lost. Very curious to see what else he's got. Of course, eveyody knows about that stuff. It's just reality. But it feels very good always, to find a fresh perspective, especially one so close from home (france, for me). I just today stumbled upon a book review by Greg Goode which argues that literature is a form of tantra. Well of course !

The kaleidoscope of darkness... Wouldn't that make a great book name ? Might have to read the whole thing, although it's also superbly boring at times...

This is a good illustration of intuition and magic : this book is connected to all the new concerns i've mentionned here in so many ways...

Oh, meaning.

Cool.

Yeah.

Edit :

Reminds me of this, from my journal :

<sigh>

What ?

i think he meant that it was good for him. If he lights up a cigarette and blows the smoke at the ceiling dreamily, you can be sure.

I'm collecting the main posts from my previous log into one text file, and re-reading some of your comments there now makes so much more sense

I'm humbled.

Olivier, I was sighing at the quote of mine that you posted. I can recall that period of time so clearly (May 2010) - like it just happened. The feelings were so deep and clear.

"May 2010"

Wow, memories here too. The very month and year I started with Buddhist meditation for the very first time (Shamatha as in calm-abiding). 
Jeez, time is passing  

"There’s nothing to add and nothing to take away. This says it all. Raw acceptance of everything, as it is. Just IS."

Both for Chris and Olivier; 
what do you think about Kenneth Folks explanation on This is It? He said that This either is or isn't. Saying something like "this is it ... but only if I have equanimity, is ridiculous" or in this case "this is it ... but only if I have raw acceptance of everything" or "this is it ... but only if the experience is complete" Otherwise This is not It  

For me the difference is the certainty. I could have understood the notion intellectually that this is it (i did actually) and believed it, but it was different to really see precisely how and why the search obscures the finding, and then being utterly free of the drive or notion that there is anything other than what is, it's qualitatively different and to me the difference is the certainty and the freshness and abse'ce of tension which comes from the lack of push and pull at the root of ignorance...

In a way it's more of a heart thing than clarity or perception thing.

It's like gow SE drives some kind of understanding deeper, you know ? Beyond mental understanding.

But i don't know, maybe for others it's easier to access that certainty.  

Kenneth is probably describing the difference between being in a state and not being in a state, or remarking on folks applying conditions to their experiences. I can't be sure without reading or listening to the whole diatribe.

"In a way it's more of a heart thing than clarity or perception thing."

Ok so "This is It ... but only if it's a heart thing" otherwise This is not It/This  

I hope you can sense my friendly kidding here I find all this stuff rather fascinating and defeating at the same time. 

I better go play with my son now as he keeps telling me "stop staring at your phone!!!"  

Scroll down it's almost towards the end. 
https://deconstructingyourself.com/the-cosmic-joke-transcript-with-kenneth-folk.html

Most of us can relate conceptually to the ideal of "this is it" and maybe we even have moments that touch on it... maybe it was even moments of clarity that sent us on this meditation journey... it surely was for me, that moment of clarity when I was ~17 years old and I was walking across a floor in my home and could understand why monks walked and why it could be a road to enlightenment, and I remember realizing in my bones how simple life could be and how I was making my own life so needlessly difficult....

But if we are honest, what we experience is a tiny bit of "this is it" and a whole lot of greed, aversion, and indifference/ignorance mixed in. Maybe we get to 50% this is it during a good sit, but wow, the mind is still filled with greed for something different, aversion to what is already occuring, and indifference to all the things that are part of experience that don't seem to be related to our sense of identity as a meditator trying to make progress on the path. Our sense of self is so small and petty...  

Even when we worry, "how can they mean "this is it"? this isn't much of anything and it's definitely not spiritual or wisdom or enlightenment" --- well that's worth investigating. How much greed, aversion, and indifference is in that view? 

Here's a koan: "how is this not it?"

 

Papa, can you just copy the pertinent parts of the conversation here? I'm happy to answer questions but I don't want to have to guess which part of the conversation I'm supposed to respond to.

Thanks!

Yes totally on with all what you said hence me being a huge fan of that Kenneth Folk's CONR Model as in Cosmic Joke vs CONR. However This is It moments can be anything, all from greed arising to aversion arising and compassion arising and ... any arising  ANY experience in consciousness IS THIS It cant be anything BUT This There is nothing else if we are to really be honest and see it for what it is (not past, not future but only this unfolding or even better yet, this Satipatthana Momentary experience which off cushion has more of a flow/unfolding sense because concentration is not as good as on cushion where stuff can have more JUST THIS . JUST THIS . JUST THIS . JUST THIS . feel if we reflect on it which again is nothing other than JUST THIS ... ). 

What you are bringing about here is a "good work". Work that focuses on these arisings and to deal with them deeper and deeper to untangle them as to disolve those seeds of Dukkha which have maybe not even begun to sprout or have done so and then here is what we do with it (WUTYL etc). This is part of the CONR Model which is dealing with Suffering by either getting rid of Consciousness (C), or disolving the sense of self or Ownership (O), or getting rid of Negativailance (Word?) by going into Jhanas (but these are fragile states especially not much use off cushion) or getting rid of Realness (R) by Vipassanizing all experience to its bits and pieces hence all this flip flopping and popping in and out is not really real as its in utter flux. Your work with WUTYL would also fit well in one of these here Im sure or? As an Intervention for Suffering,becoming a better sane person amongst fellow beings (This aint good enough must be worked on which is valid and why not, of course)
So if we are not ok with This really being IT then we go into these Interventions according to our preference I guess and we even test them all and see how they hold up And they ARE GREAT work and we ought to be grateful for such teachings!

But ALL of this is still and ever will only be THIS in any shape or form and we cant do shit about that as in RIGHT NOW It is what it is. And it can be anything as we all here have seen again and again , as you say on the cushion especially and yet for some reason its hard to accept that THIS IS IT as This might not be what I hoped for (shit!)

We can get sidetracked by thinking that This ought to be very precise, very deep, very complete, very much disolving but in in experience This can be anything from the sensations of me taking a shit to some deep Jhanic stuff or else. It only ever chages shape and form and fiddles between all these sensations, feelings and mind states/thoughts. Its a theatre show in consciousness and its always new with us being able to reflect that some stuff seems to be cycling and was similar to what there was "before" (more thoughts in memory).

Also that sense of self you mention of course its small and petty but as we all know, its NOT THERE in that momentary Satipatthana when we practice right? However if we are lifeing these selfings will arise inevitably (maybe not for you or others here, what do I know) and these CAN be seen/known as This. This can be glitchy, and slippery and very clear and all of it ... yes always chages shape and form even the Knowingness of This is subject to fluxing.

But yes, even if This Is IT, there is absolutely no reason for not working on those deeply ingrained patterns of greed, aversion and illusion, for as long as one is alive. Its a good work for anyone. 

Sorry for making this so long   I guess Im in a funky mood again  

Will try later as my partner would like us to watch Star Trek now  

(but right now it doesn't seem relevant so if you dont insist I might foget about it   )

I'm going to zone into this point because it is essential. The sense of self IS ABSOLUTELY THERE when we do mindfulness practice. Just because we're practicing doesn't mean there isn't a lot of egotism. There can be lots of small self pride, ambition, greed, force, spiritual bypassing, aggression, elitism, etc. in the midst of practice. If we don't see how we bring the small self into practice, we'll never see subtle greed, aversion, and indifference.

Another Koan: how can we practice mindfulness without egotism?

We need to work with some kind of framework to remind us to look and see how we avoid dealing with the false small self even during dharma practice itself.

We could use the psychological frame work of defense mechansism: to what extent to we repress, project, deny, aspects of "this is it"? Is our attitude toward experience fundamentally pathological, immature, neurotic, or mature? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanism

We can use the simple three poison framework of greed, aversion, indifference.

We can use the 6 realm framework of anger, greed, obeying, desiring, jealousy, pride.

We can use the 5 element framework of solidifying, avoiding, intensifying, busyness, and confusion.

We can use the mahamudra framework of no distraction, no practice, no control

We can use the fetters framework of: attachment to formulatic activity, attachment to sensual desire, attachment to ill will, attachment to jhana, attachment to superiority, attachment to restlessness, attachment to indifference

But it's important to see that the small self is very much present... until it isn't.

I think you really meant to type "isn't."

Anyway, the point of mindfulness is to see it all as it happens. No worthwhile mindfulness teacher says "Pay attention to what's going on right now, but ignore all those selfish and ugly thoughts as you do it."

yes, isn't  (correction now made above -- thanks)

Edit; post removed as I realized this is Oliviers log and my reply was anyway of no benefit to anybody really my apologies.

"We need to work with some kind of framework to remind us to look"

I think this is quiet right and the safest way to go about this stuff otherwise it can get rather slippery and one could fall and hit one self bad without even realizing However this whole meditation thing does look like a dog chasing its own tail in circles we go on and on ... It's a good chase though. 

Proust really is an exquisite phenomenologist. And he clearly sees that there is no way from the emptiness into form that is not in some way constructed by the mind. 

You said also---

Augustine owes his concept of memory to Plato, I think: anamnesis, remembering, is remembering the Truth of the ideal reality. Learning the Truth, for Plato, is a re-discovery of something already known. Proust's madeleine is a trigger for a more sophisticated "remembering," he realizes that he is re-membering, re-assembling, putting something together "again"--- but that thing re-membered has never been, in the form it now takes. It is made, and Proust, as well as anyone ever has, makes the process of the making transparent at points.

But this is very non-Buddhist, lol. The Buddhists are with Joyce, that other modernist giant, who said, "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." Not re-membering, but un-membering, maybe. 

For what it's worth, most of the metaphor/words for meditation in early buddhism are agricultural... like "cultivation" being used for meditation. So kinda an organic re-membering. Heh, so there is a garden too, it's not all weeds to un-member.

Yeah, i think culture is a good general term for the organic thing. And interedtingly, cultivation/bhavana is linked with root -bhu, which gave both Being, and Physics, through greek phusis. Meditation as existential, or ontological, flowering...

Tim, yes it seems to me that there's a crucial point in the different relationships with time/memory here, holding the DOed world and its inhabitants as sacred (the temple of god) VS wanting to escape it (architect, the raftpole of this house has been broken)... But in the end, as all dualities, i think they can be reconciled. It might say something about judeo-christian as contrasted with buddhist cultures, though...

As for the re-membering... Yes, plato !

Do you know, the pre-socratic term a-lethe-ia, "truth or revelation", or even even "reality" - contemporary greeks use the word casually as in "really ?" : Ie "I like you -aletheia ?", It literally means non-forgetfulness. The lethe river.

Well the similarity between aletheia in heraclitean thought and in the himalayan bon traditions rigpa and taoism, have been argued to  share historical origin - Elias Capriles for instance says that.

Another cool etymological thing : smrti/sati are cousins with memoria and martyr. A martyr is someone whi remembers, who practices smrti.

But IMO there is something deeper, beyond what we said, about this whole time and memory and awakening business... 

When...

The arrow of time
Crosses the heart

From the depth of the dark
Comes light

- Marcel Pérès

yes, and a lot of the Biblical metaphors likewise. The parable of the sower ("The sower sows the Word") is a sort of schematic of the varieties of wrong and right practice, and the fruit metaphor is pervasive. Faith itself is a mustard seed. (I've always enjoyed the counterpoint of the Buddha's mustard seed, which in the end, as a cure for grief, literally doesn't exist; there's actually a great potential for exegesis in comparing those mustard seeds, an illuminative compare and contrast. Because faith, technically speaking, is also nothing, empty, for one thing.)

I'm interested in fruits, lol. Who isn't? 

"Remembering" is also huge, biblically speaking: to remember God is close to the central action, the only meaningful move. I think the Hebrew זׇכַר zakar, to remember, is related to the Arabic dhikr(also spelled Zikr, Thikr, Zekr,or Zikar),  which in Islam is the mantra-like remembrance of God--- "Oh you who have believed, remember Allah with much remembrance." (Surah Al-Ahzab, 33:41). The heyschasm tradition in Eastern Orthodoxy can be seen as a striving to remember God in prayer with every breath, again mantra-like practice (although a lot of people get pissed off when you say mantra-like, but that's politics).

My favorite fruit is the mango !! And the innate mind-essence. 

Try a mango-innate-mind-essence smoothie, it's da bomb.

Will do sir !