I hope it is okay that I quote Beoman Claudiu Dragon Emu Fire Golem, from this thread here https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/23642312
where he succinctly describes Actualism as:
This is very similar to the practice I employed which led to what I describe as enlightenment, non-dual existence.
But my version seems a little simpler when it comes to understanding what's going on and finding our way back to enjoying.
* Perhaps this approach could be called "selflessness", to differentiate it from Actualism/Buddhism/non-duality etc...​​​​​​​

step 1:
At any moment of the day, ask yourself "is this perfection, is this enlightenment?"
the vast majority of the time the answer will be "no/not really/clearly no" etc...

this is more or less the same as Actualism from what I understand, but where it differs is the understanding/realization that the reason why the answer is "no" is always the same, it is because there is a "me/mine/my" construct that is experiencing some emotion about its related story/object.

step 2:
All there is to do now is to put whatever current "me/mine/my" construct that is not having a good time in front of the awareness, which will result in the construct dissolving away.
When you pay attention to the monitor or the table in front of you, the table becomes the object of your awareness. you can describe it, it is this long, this color etc...
The same is true for internal objects like pain/fear/anger etc.. when we feel our pain in our knee, it becomes the object of your attention. you can describe it "it is this intense, goes from here to there" etc..
the same is true for the feeling of me/mine/my that is experiencing the emotion/pain etc...
Feeling the sensation of me/mine/my causes our system to shift from seeing from the me/mine/my point of view, to seeing the me/mine/my construct as a simple meaningless object in awareness, like the table in front of you or the pain in your knee.

What we're left with is experiencing life as it is, unclouded by the limited and singular point-of-view of a me/mine/my construct, the non-dual experience.

To put the me/mine/my construct in front of your awareness, we simply feel the me/mine/my construct just like we would feel a pain sensation in the body, we can do so by internally saying and emphasizing the me/mine/my sensation when saying something like:
"this is MY pain, I'AM the one that is pained, it is ME", 
"this is MY anger, I'AM the one that is angry, that is ME",
"this is MY sadness, frustration, boredom, exhaustion, panic, horniness, addiction, trauma, history, favorite team who is about to lose, cancer, stress, annoyance etc. I'AM the one that feels that, that is ME",

the moment we do so, the me/my/mine construct becomes just another object in infinite awareness. 

step 3:
enjoy!
Once the shift happened, look around and realize that you are free from this construct now, you are now seeing with eyes unclouded by personhood, you did it, yay!
this is what I believe actualism refers to as a PCE, a Pure consciousness experience

step 4:
repeat.
Our conditioned identity is made of thousands of me/mine/my construct our system accumulated from early childhood.
My body, my mom, my family, my gender, my preferences, my job, my fantasies, my friends, my goals, my pets, my desires for others, my favorite sport, my favorite team, my favorite players, my opinions, my life etc...
(more info on the me/mine/my construct here: https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/23667299)

soon after we transcend a me/mine/my construct, the next me/mine/my construct will bubble up.
Don't be discouraged, they all have to bubble up and be seen for what they truly are, until none are left.
Soon enough it will become obvious that all of the me/mine/my constructs are selfish, limiting, and cause suffering, and none of them are us or ours.

and when you do get discouraged, transcend that me/mine/my construct that feels discouraged and keep going, your entire life will begin to unfold

practical example:
step 1:
"is this perfection?"
answer: "no because I'm a little bored".

step 2:
put the me/mine/my construct as an object of awareness by feeling its sensation,
feel the feeling of me/mine/my sensation when saying:
"I'am the one that is bored, it's MEEE!"

step 3:
look around, realize that this me/mine/my is but a small sensation in infinite awareness, you are free from this construct now, you are now seeing with eyes unclouded by personhood!
look at the infinite perfection/heaven/Buddha nature/the natural space everywhere all around you

step 4:
ask again, is this perfection?
yes or no answer? enjoy!
no?
find whatever "me/mine/my" construct that arose.

repeat until enlightened!


tip: while practicing this, while walking, I would often find myself having mental arguments with my boss or a coworker that was causing me grief at work, or imagined conversations with a family member etc.
Whenever this would happen, I would refuse to continue the argument and the thought "let's see if I still care about this argument once the me/mine/my construct is dissolved!"
and of course, the moment it dissolved, clarity and peace would replace everything and the vast majority of the time, there was no need for any kind of argument whatsoever.

tip: I noticed that when walking, often I would realize that my gaze would be on the ground in front of me instead of enjoying the sights.
This was a sign that I was lost in thoughts (the thoughts and concerns of a me/mine/my).
So as soon as I would realize that I was staring at the ground in front of me, I would know that I was under the spell of a me/mine/my and could shift out of it.


A couple notes about me:
After experiencing vipassana type cessations and stream entry, my practice eventually became more or less doing what I describe here as much as possible during the day at work and in my private life, but also a couple of hours of walking alone to and from work every day where I would focus on doing only that practice.
after a few years, the sense of me/mine/my dropped entirely. From the moment I wake up in the morning to the moment I go to bed at night.

I also call this practice "abiding as the natural state"

I hope this helps you awaken!

That's really intriguing. I never thought of using something the "this is MY pain, I'AM the one that is pained, it is ME", to objectify the self. 

On a three-day trial basis, I have to say that this

(To put the me/mine/my construct in front of your awareness, we simply feel the me/mine/my construct just like we would feel a pain sensation in the body, we can do so by internally saying and emphasizing the me/mine/my sensation when saying something like:
"this is MY pain, I'AM the one that is pained, it is ME", 
"this is MY anger, I'AM the one that is angry, that is ME",
"this is MY sadness, frustration, boredom, exhaustion, panic, horniness, addiction, trauma, history, favorite team who is about to lose, cancer, stress, annoyance etc. I'AM the one that feels that, that is ME",

the moment we do so, the me/my/mine construct becomes just another object in infinite awareness.)

works ridiculously well! It is fast and crazy efficient. 

It's one thing to see myself clinging to something and remind myself that the thing being clung to is not me or mine, or to deliberately shift into open awareness, and totally a different thing to approach it with the technique that you describe. One reason might be because, with the first approaches, there is a transference.  I say, "that's not me" and imply that the guy saying "that's not me" is actually me. Or I shift into open awareness and imply that there is an agent doing the shifting. So the me-sense, even though diminished, gets transferred. With your approach, the me-sense just evaporates with no remainder, because the attention is exclusively in the me-sense when it dissolves. It's a type of autophagy. 

If I do it again and again with each arising me, however, I get a little tired. I tried it for the duration of an hour-long walk and, though it made me very happy, it was somewhat of a relief to get home and stop doing it. But when I use it just as a laser gun to shoot down suffering, it's amazing. I will keep working with this! Thank you for telling us about it. 

amazing, thank you for sharing!
the way I see it with this technique is that it shifts the system from looking from the point of view of the person, to looking at the person construct itself.
the moment this shift happens once, you're out of the dream of personhood. The system is awake now, look around at infinity, you're out of your mind, you're free!

Once you're out of your mind-dream, while looking at reality itself, realize that everything that ever happened, everything you ever thought, everything that you ever felt arose and will arise and disappear back into this infinity. the sense of separation itself appears and disappears into this infinite oneness, which contains everything and is the background of everything.

you don't need to keep looking for me/mine/my constructs to transcend, just keep looking around at reality itself.
until you find yourself alseep again, lost in the thoughts, feelings and stories of the identified mind.

Then use that door again, out of the mind dream, back to the absolute
​​​​​​​
this is very much like Mooji "the invitation" if you are familiar with it, and if you're not, I recommend it.
I suggest you notice that "me" construct that think it needs to shoot anything down ;)


and enjoy!  

Yes, that's it exactly. I have been experiencing this on an off for several years now. It does not, however, last long for me. Usually just a few minutes before a thought comes along and a new sense of self forms. The approach you describe is not really opening up something that I did not have access to before, but it makes it much easier to get there. Which, is really wonderful!



I may not be seeing quite what you are pointing to, but that (the "me" construct that experiences suffering) is exactly what I am noticing, and that is exactly what dissolves, leaving just the world, doing its thing.

Hi,

I would say this practice is more related to Katami's Two Part Formula than to Actualism (more on this below). Just beware I'm pre-Path, so take my comments as from whom they come from.

I tried it today out of curiosity, after reading Martin's report. For every visual, physical or aural sensation or mind-state, I labelled "this is MY tension/pleasure/visual/etc", and allowed it to fully develop and pass away. With the pass away of the sensation/mind-state, many times the physical sensations related to the Observer also disappeared, and a wider space spreaded out. So a far as this, it works. Thanks!  

Katami's 2PF is all about "releasing" tensions (not about "allowing" them be, as in MCTB2) and once this is done, then search for remanents related to the I by speaking aloud "I, Me, Mine". 

This has nothing to to with Actualism method
You are not dissolving anything in Actualism

What real Actualist Srinath J wrote

Underlined lines are closest to what could be considered issue with me feelings or sense of self, etc. but in Actualism you are not dissolving them or trying to get to no-self of any kind but just investigate what about them is making you feel not-good. Rather than trying to dissolve or eliminate anything you are supposed to get to feeling good as soon as possible. My understanding here is that you are not supposed to find these me feelings bad but all the things about them which are actually making you feel bad. 

Because surprise surprise it is not issue with me feeling themselves which is making people miserable. What it is is to be figured out on case by case basis rather than result in gross generalizations. Though before person spirals down in to such investigations the first thing they do is making themselves feel good and when feeling good then investigate why these things made you feel bad so that any investigation is already done from perspective of feeling good.

Feeling good is your choice. If your choice is feeling good only when you eliminate 'me' feelings or sense of self then you should not claim to know anything about Actualism

@Actualist DhO expedition
I hope I didn't misrepresent anything

I may be misunderstanding Patrice's technique but what I am doing with this is something like flexing a muscle to be able to see it.

I think it might go something like this: I notice that there is suffering, which is to say, there is clinging, which is to say that there is a subject and an object, which is to say that the mind has taken some sensations as "me" and other sensations as "it." It's always pretty easy to identify the "it" sensations, as that's a task the mind is very used to doing, but the "me" sensations are usually just sort of assumed. By emphasizing the "me" part of the "me/it" that has come into being (flexing the muscle; saying, this is my xxx, it is happening to me) it makes it easy to see the sensations that the mind is taking as "me." They are emphasized or exaggerated, so they are easy to spot. Once those sensations are seen as sensations, they become undifferentiated from all the other sensations arising and passing away, and the "me" construct ceases to be a separate thing. Once that happens, all the other sensations get equal treatment from the attention. For a while, anyway. Within minutes I get pulled in again, which is to say, a "me/it" forms. But I'm fine with that, considering that, when I started getting glimpses of this way of seeing a couple of years ago, it was for seconds, often weeks or months apart.

By the way, I have no idea what Actualism is. The resultant state, for me, as well as the way Patrice described it seems similar, to Loch Kelly's awake awareness, though the technique is totally different. As for the technique, I am reminded, in a loose way, of Atmananda Krishna Menon's focus on the subject as opposed to the object. Atmananda is going in a different direction, but there is maybe a Venn diagram to be drawn.

Yeah, I'm saying pretty much the same. Just would add that including "my/mine" not only allow to spot the visual/aural/physical sensations related to the I but also an implied (and cloudy) sets of beliefs. In my experience, this loosening of the I-Self just happens for about 10-20 seconds, so it's cool that you could extend it to minutes. Have you tried self-inquiry or koans in that period of time? 

Definitively, Patrice's descriptions look similar to Loch Kelly's awake awareness, though her technique is more close to Katami's 2PF.  

Martin --
​​​​​​​

Can you give us an example of a sensation you can detect that is "me" in nature?
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Hi Ni Nurta, Actualism sounds similar to what it means to understand Right View. Understanding the 4 Noble Truths basically leads to feeling good/happy/wholesome all the time right?

I always understood Eightfold Noble Path not having some specific view or following one set of right actions but rather path that leads to improvement, also of all of these eight items. Each of these items support other items. Right View support for example Right Action and so on. Right View would not be set of specific views but evolving view. Concepts might be useful and they might seem to work but if they stagnate they are not Right View.

Even unskillful thinking can lead to some good results but we see people cling to views just because they had some improvements because of them. This is not Right View. Man should not cling to anything in this way. Man should not even cling to Noble Eightfold Path either because clinging to it would imply clinging to come conclusions and this is not Noble Eightfold Path.

Coming to Actualism, this method itself has some good ideas but as a whole 'tradition' or rather 'shangha' Actualism certainly has some issues. Most of them are imho related to the fact it exists as some -ism. Insight such as that thinking goes better if we feel good hence everything should be done from this perspective rather than seeing thinking about issues should be obvious. And even Buddha stressed this point a lot. People struck with arrows anyone? There is nothing new in Actualism other than creative use of Thesaurus but even then these ideas were butchered by stupid ideas like some grand release and states of no Most wanna be teachers fall for the same thing. And sure people would not come and would not stick if there was no imaginary "Actual Freedom" state in Actualism but it is against everything Actualism stands for. At least the way I see the narrative put out by Actualists. They play this kinda cult with guru and some super actualists and other people who are kinda actualists but are not actually free... it doesn't make any sense! Either you know what these basic instructions are telling or not. There is nothing in between. In this sense however people take actualism as this state of wanna-actualists-ism and because of that never attain actual freedom despite of how clearly written Actualism basic instructions are. It is something which understanding and immediately testing doesn't take longer than reading the brochure.

When it comes to feeling "good/happy/wholesome all the time" if person worries about 'all the time' then that person is a fool. Especially in my view of Actualism. Feeling good/happy/wholesome "now" is what person should not even worry about but just do it and already experiencing it. There isn't to be done there than just feeling good/happy/wholesome in practice that is being good/happy/wholesome. That is why I call "actualists" who do not immediately claim being Actually Free after reading instructions as fools. Maybe they didn't learn how to read? Definitely learning how to read written words would be a good attainment to strive for.

And "understanding doesn't take longer than reading brochure" I meant literally. I immediately claimed attaining Actual Freedom. It is possible to immediately attain it. I just threw my pokéball at it and it was mine. It is question "what about it?" that is the issue. Nothing about it, just another pure abode. And to make myself clear: if person reads it or any spiritual text and doesn't understand it then it is not knowing how to read that is the issue. When reading books one can try to understand it or feel it. Reading poetry like that and trying to understand it is far far from how it was intended to be read. There is nothing to understand, it has to be felt. If it was not already experienced then nothing was read.

It's not just unpleasant emotions and pain. It is all of consciousness.

What does existence feel like? When you are angry consciousness feels like being angry. When you are happy consciousness feels like being happy. When you are seeing consciousness feels like seeing. When you are hearing consciousness feels like hearing. When you are thinking, consciousness feels like thinking. When you are walking, consciousness feels like walking.

This is all there is in consciousness - momentary experiences. There is no continuous matrix in which these experiences are imbedded.

The aggregates, the pixels of consciousness, are all that we are.

Observe your moment to moment experience of existing including the act and feeling of observing.

(Thanks for the lovely question. Sorry for the late reply. I went to see my mother in another city. )

Indeed, I cannot. Sensations of apparently the same nature can appear as me, neutral, or other, sometimes switching back and forth from one moment to the next. It seems that the difference between me and not me is in the interpretation, not the sensation. I suppose a further question might be "now do I know they are being interpreted as me" but I come up short there.

Sorry for the pause. No, I haven't. Directed conceptual thought ends it for me. I end up with a similar sort of effect by asking a self-inquiry question from any starting state, so it might be redundant to start from this quasi-PCE/awake-awareness. I have tried doing Patrice's practice immediately after exiting fourth jhana and found that the technique produced no particular effect. In general, it seems to work best for me when I am caught by something. 

I've never tried koans, or any Zen at all really. What's it like?

Yes. Coming up short is the point. Nothing about "me" that is concrete, permanent or special can be found. I am but an inference 

"flexing a muscle to be able to see it"
haha this is perfect!

​​​​​​​thank you, I will use this analogy to help explain things in the future

hello Jim,
​​​​​​​
I agree with you

yes for me it didn't last long at first as well.
it took a couple of years of dissolving the center everyday for a few hours intensely, and in general throughout the day for the whole thing to unfold.
* when i say a couple hours intensely, it was usually once, then looking around at reality, enjoying being awake. then going back to the "me" once I realized personhood reshaped when seeing the signs for it which could be a few minutes to 10-20 minutes

the way i think about it, it's like our system is a bottle containing all of our accumulated identities.
and our system can only have one identity active at once, this identity is whoever you feel you are in this moment.
If you're in a mood to go cheer your favorite sport team in this moment, then this is the identity that is active. Whatever problems and every other identity are forgotten for this moment, as only one of the identities has taken a hold of the attention.
this identity, whichever one that is active right now, is the cork of your bottle.

in retrospect, personhood is very much like being possessed by one identity after the other, then the other etc...

So this technique of focusing the attention directly on the sense of "me", is akin to dissolving the cork of a champagne bottle.
all of a sudden the identity that was at the forefront is gone, the cork is gone.
if there's a lot of pent-up energy, many energetic releases will happen at that moment. shaking, crying, bliss, extasy etc...
but if we don't have too much energy piled up, when the current identity dissolves, we just enjoy not existing as a personal identity for a moment without too much drama.

When people have a lot of pent-up energy and suddenly the center dissolves, it can be quite a dramatic scene.
and it seems that people can often mistake the dramatic energy releases as what awakening is, but it is only a side effect of awakening.

but for alot of us, our champagne bottle is a little flat (we could discuss why that is a different day)
once the cork is dissolved, there's no great energy release.
and we'll go right back to existing as a person moments later.
i think a great analogy for this is the classic example of trying to light wet wood; for some the wood is dry and it catches fire really easily, for others the wood is wet it keeps dying out.
or I like the analogy of a bathtub full of hair and dirt... the drain gets stuck and the bathtub wont empty, so we clear out the drain and a bit of water goes out before it gets clogged up again.
all we need to do is keep clearing up the drain and eventually, it will all start to go.

at the end of the day, it seems that every possible identity we may have, almost every role that are possible to play as a human being (the good, the bad and the uglies), will need to pass through that drain, as we remain equanimous and watch it all unfold.

every time the identity is dissolved, we are back to exist as unidentified awareness, the doorway to the absolute is wide open.
we get used to existing like this, we can embrace the void, abide as the absolute

That is very helpful. Thank you, Patrice!