Very interesting interview from Angelo Dilullo

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Ben V, modified 1 Year ago at 4/24/22 10:16 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 4/24/22 10:15 PM

Very interesting interview from Angelo Dilullo

Posts: 417 Join Date: 3/3/15 Recent Posts
Angelo Dilullo interviewing a meditator about her journey through the path. Lots of references to Pragmatic Dharma (she had a Prag. Dharma teacher guiding her).  Very down to earth and 'human', for lack of better words. Just someone who was honestly looking for a way out of suffering and worked hard at it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gquAw8p83LU
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Ben V, modified 1 Year ago at 4/24/22 10:37 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 4/24/22 10:35 PM

RE: Very interesting interview from Angelo Dilullo

Posts: 417 Join Date: 3/3/15 Recent Posts
At around 30 min. of the interview (and 1:11 or 1:12) she mentions a sense of awareness broadening and how nature seemed so bright and beautiful. Perhaps equanimity nana? I so so recognize this in my current phase of practice, both the broad awareness and finding beauty in nature (somehow both are related).

But at around 1:12 she describes this broad awareness has to go... 

Sometimes I feel the tension of wanting to maintain broad awareness and recently there are moments where I just let go of the tension and I get moments of there being 'just the seen', 'just the heard'..which cuts the previously mentioned tension. But I don't think I've broken through the way she describes yet. Anyway, kinda highjacking my own thread with something which should go in my log perhaps. But I'd be curious if anyone has more to say on this phases of going beyond broad awareness. They talk about it a bit at the end of the interview.
shargrol, modified 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 6:54 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 6:54 AM

RE: Very interesting interview from Angelo Dilullo

Posts: 2344 Join Date: 2/8/16 Recent Posts
I haven't listened yet, but going beyond broad awareness often involves finally deconstructing the sense of being an observer of experience, the sense of being a self-that-looks-out-and-sees-broadly. Once we realize that "broad awareness" is simply another experience, another recognizable state with characteristics that allow us to notice it... then the question becomes: what is the mind that notices broad awareness?   (!)   

Then we're really in the realm of meditation and meditative insights and not just "mindfulness". This is where the certainty of being an observer starts crumbling. There can be a mini-dark night (or another full blown dark night) as we seem to be "losing" what we have "gained". But hopefully by this point in practice we have an intuitive sense that this is the identify freaking out a little and the path forward is to gently let it happen and continue to be curious.

Equanimity is equanimous with everything and anything, broad awareness, narrow awareness, confusion, uncertainty... all of it. Things can get quite dreamy in late EQ and that's fine because the knowing mind knows dreamy, too.

The real challenge after broad awareness is possible... is to let it come and go as it wants to. This is a very interesting experience and really points to the "I" being beyond awareness, so to speak. emoticon
shargrol, modified 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 9:27 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 9:27 AM

RE: Very interesting interview from Angelo Dilullo

Posts: 2344 Join Date: 2/8/16 Recent Posts
Ah, okay so I just listened to it. She was talking about the version of this that happens around third path -- reifying awareness as a thing. But this also happens around EQ in first path, where we reify being an observer as an identity.

So Ben for you, spend a little bit of energy in  hold both the broad awareness and the "I feeling" at the same time. "I am broadly aware and if feel like this"... and then notice how the "I feelings" are also being percieved.

Interesting right? So there is something that seems to hold even the awareness of broad awareness! And there is a Big Self that seems to hold the sense of "I feelings". What is mind?

This is using gentle inquiry to fuel the investigation. You're not trying to verbally answer these questions, but rather EXPERIENCE what comes up when you ask these questions.

​​​​​​​Hope this helps.
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Ben V, modified 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 9:41 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 9:41 AM

RE: Very interesting interview from Angelo Dilullo

Posts: 417 Join Date: 3/3/15 Recent Posts
Thanks Shargrol!

I was going to write about how in this broad awareness there is this annoying observer in the middle of it , that I know to be just a sensation yet still asserts itself again and again. 

Then I re-read the inquiry questions in your second post above and did them on the spot, and a sudden terror popped up. I think fear is what keeps the sense of observer.

​​​​​​​Thanks again, these pointers definitely speak to me.
shargrol, modified 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 10:32 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 10:31 AM

RE: Very interesting interview from Angelo Dilullo

Posts: 2344 Join Date: 2/8/16 Recent Posts
Right, it will have a little bit of an edgy feeling.

So the goal is not to "make the observer feelings go away and not come back". You don't want to make anything go away -- that just reinforces the self by making the self try to get rid of the self! emoticon  Too much force/effort just reinforces the thing you want to go away.

(The same thing is true in psychology, the more you repress something, the more it finds clever ways to pop back up.)

What is actually needed is slowly getting used to that weird kind of fear feeling that coincides with knowing the self is there but isn't really as real/solid as it seems. Also slowly getting used to that weird feeling that somehow "your mind" is bigger than whatever shows up as the content of your mind.

This can sometimes lead to a kind of "pulling the rug out from under me" or "free-falling in space with nothing to stop me" feeling. No big deal, totally normal. Niether repress nor indulge the feeling of uncertainty, fear, lack of control etc.  

(Sometimes we start indulging in fear, uncertainty, lack of control because then it feels more solid, which is oddly comforting in a silly way. "I AM AFRAID" "I AM UNCERTAIN" "I AM OUT OF CONTROL"  All of that is sort of a last ditch effort to being back the "I AM" feeling. emoticon  But that's eventually see as a dead end. Ultimately, fear is just fear, uncertainity is just uncertainity, a feeling of lack of control is just a feeling of lack of control but we can still go to the bathroom and poop and wipe our ass so it's not like there is some big sense of no control-- we can still control wiping our butt, so things aren't that bad! emoticon )
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supermonkey :), modified 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 11:23 AM
Created 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 11:23 AM

RE: Very interesting interview from Angelo Dilullo

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Loving this, thanks shargrol. I suggest that this goes into the post compilation.
Chrollo X, modified 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 12:08 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 12:07 PM

RE: Very interesting interview from Angelo Dilullo

Posts: 65 Join Date: 1/11/22 Recent Posts
This inquiry Shargrol talks about is exactly what the Awakening to Reality peeps recommend for the entire path up to 1st awakening. 
Angelo talks about the process in many of his videos:

This part elucidates the process in the beginning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Fyy_ll8Pw
He talks about the going through fear and plunging into the mystery that is awakening in this 2nd part:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a85i9lg4Z3s&t

T DC, modified 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 3:22 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 3:20 PM

RE: Very interesting interview from Angelo Dilullo

Posts: 516 Join Date: 9/29/11 Recent Posts
Another take is that sometimes, often after great effort, we happen upon very pleasant, mystical type states on the path, be they peace, sudden equanimity, panoramic awareness, etc.  These states are enjoyable and attractive, and they seem to represent the goal we have been searching for, so we grasp at them and seek to maintain them. 

This process introduces and reveals subtle tension, a duality between an idealized state we seem to have found and the suffering from which we are fleeing.  Ironically, only when we relax and cease grasping at the state can we really gain the genuine insight necessary to lock in such experiences.  And once we have crossed this threshold of realization, the tension dissolves and we find the state is much more alive, natural, present, and integrated.  ​​​​​​​

And we're amazed by its beauty until we notice another facet of subtle clinging or ignorance.  We lean into investigating that imperfection and the process begins again, leading us ever deeper.
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Arena Heidi, modified 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 4:56 PM
Created 1 Year ago at 4/25/22 4:41 PM

RE: Very interesting interview from Angelo Dilullo

Posts: 73 Join Date: 4/16/22 Recent Posts
I have been appreciating this thread and all the comments here. It seems to encapsulate a lot of where I'm at and what I'm working with. I only listened to the last 15 minutes of the podcast and resonated with it. Thanks Ben for posting it. 

I could especially relate to what Shargrol said about "this can sometimes lead to a kind of "pulling the rug out from under me" or "free-falling in space with nothing to stop me" feeling. No big deal, totally normal. Neither repress nor indulge the feeling of uncertainty, fear, lack of control etc." I've been learning to become comfortable and find some some kind of ease with those kinds of uncomfortable feelings/sensations.

T DC, I appreciated the simplicity and clarity of your articulation. I want to add that sometimes, when leaning into investigating the imperfection, I have times when the difficulty and suffering reveals its own beauty or pleasure. I see that that too is part of the abundance or grail.

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