My purpose in starting this thread is to glean information from those on here who are actually free, or have experienced some sort of lasting shift in regards to perceiving actuality, about the middle stage of Actual Freedom.

Last Saturday, lying in my bed, I experienced a squirming sensation in the back of my head, followed by an immense bliss wave and the deepest peace I have ever felt. My experience is now changed all in ways which I would associate with actual freedom; a very pervading but somewhat subtle sense of here right now being all there is, and drastically weakened emotional processes. However, subtle, weak emotions are still in play; so I would not call this full actual freedom.

I have continued to practice the actualism method in the same way as I was prior to this shift; feeling emotions and letting them be as they are, not fighting/continuing negative thoughts, and constant attentiveness. Doing this I have triggered new PCE's. They are very similar to the PCE's before this shift, characterized by lack of negative thoughts and thoughts of self, but they seem deeper, like more here.. The sense of everything being random and chaos, but at the same time perfect as it is is much more evident.

What I am wondering is how this lines up with other's experiences, and any tips as to what to specifically investigate. I feel like my current practice has gotten me here and it would be wise to keep using it, however I am open to and would really appreciate suggestions.

Cheers,
Tim

So I don't mean to turn this into a full on practice thread, some discussion would be interesting, but anyhow here's an update on where I'm at:

The first few days after this shift occurred were very pleasant due to the great reduction of my emotions, and greater sense of being here now. I had a feeling then however that this would fade because the relief from the reduction in emotions was simply relative to my previous condition. This has proved true it seems. My emotions do not seem to have intensified, but I have become more aware of them as they are, which has been somewhat unpleasant.

The main emotion which has been present the past few days is a subtle but encompassing feeling of loneliness, and general tender sadness. I have been attentive to it and have been trying to see its cause, but haven't come to any definite conclusions so far. In these new PCE's, the feeling is replaced by one of general exited happiness. Really the main difference I see between PCE's and my experience is this emotional switch, as well as a reduction in thoughts dealing with fantasies about life.

Another interesting thing about my experience after this shift is an inability to access the jhanas, where as previously I had access up to the pure land jhanas. One thing I would say about this is; I have no desire to access the jhanas, though I wasn't all that into jhana practice prior to the shift. Actually, thinking about the jhanas makes me remember the old experience of the "attention wave" somewhat, the memory of which makes me happy I have left it behind. Not to say I am totally beyond an attention wave, but it is lessened.

your experience is interesting. keep us updated. your attention to detail regarding your inner-life is admirable and makes for good posting. nor are you too wordy or self-satisfied as i tend to be. i would like to continue to hear about you attention to the more subtle emotions to which you are becoming accustomed now that the relief of no longer experiencing their more gross manifestions has begun to fade, the ongoing fantasies and the melancholy you mentioned.

jon

Thank you for your reports I am not early or late AF, but I have been getting better at applying the actualism method .
Have you tried contacting Richard through the AF yahoo group? If you can avoid all the gossiping and stuff it may be worth a shot, as he has started correspondences again.

Reading your reports is a breath of fresh air, keep it up !

Hopefully some folks with more experience than I, will share their experience.

Take care
Ross

Hey Tim,

I'll cut to the chase here and explain as I go, basically I don't think you're AF, early or otherwise. I also don't think that you're 4th path as you claimed here although I suspect you've might have attained stream entry. I also think you're getting very, very mixed up in your understanding of what is and what is not a PCE, again I'll explain more as I go why I consider this to be the case.


Any emotions, however subtle, being experienced in the ways you describe do not happen in either a PCE or, as I understand it, AF as defined and described by Richard. The "squirming sensation" in the back of your head could have been anything from a nerve twitching to some sort of meditative thing, just because Richard said it happened to him, and another few people also mentioned vaguely similar phenomena, doesn't make it criteria for the attainment of AF, something only Richard claims to have attained along with, through his "quickening" process, Vineeto.

It's not AF, plain and simple. Any idea that it is will just take you further from the possibility of realizing it.


Definitely not AF, and definitely not PCE.


Describe, in detail, what happens when you appear to have triggered a PCE.


Again, nothing like a PCE other than the use of the word "perfect" to describe it.


You'll have guessed that I don't agree that you've gotten AF. However, if you're able to go into more detail about your practice, what it is that you're actually doing, how you're going about investigating emotions, and the ins and out of your practice to date, it's easier to help with that sort of information available.


Not to stress the point or anything, but if you're in a PCE or have gotten AF then there is absolutely no unpleasantness, no emotions arising, no intensification of emotions or feelings or thoughts, none of that. Zilch.


These lines suggest to me that you haven't gotten 4th path either, there is nothing in anything you've said in any of your posts on here which lines up or which matches my experience of any of these things. And also, this ain't PCE you're describing.


I have seen no evidence whatsoever that you had/have access to any of the jhanas beyond your claims on other threads.

So, where do we start? Firstly, I won't pull any punches with this post 'cause I don't think it'd do any good to take a softly, softly approach here. It's not personal and I'm not having a go at you, but there are high standards for a reason and watering this stuff down leads to more suffering and more ignorance, things we're all working to eradicate.

A lot of stuff you're saying and have said on other posts on here is very confused and displays a major gap in what terms like jhana, Path and PCE actually mean and the way in which you understand them. "Seeing the no-self" doesn't equate to 4th path. I think going back to square one and describing your practice history, Path moments you believe you've experienced and what it is that you're experiencing and calling jhana would at least allow for a better understand of where you're at, and how best to proceed. There's no point trying to offer any advice if we're not reading from the same page. As for your previous claim to 4th path, that entire thread went off on a tangent but in the three posts you made to that thread I saw no evidence of your claim other than the brief descriptions you gave. Describing the things you experience in detail is something you really need to be able to do if you expect people to take your claims to attainments seriously, as it stands I don't see anything in your writing which suggests that you've experienced 4th path.

As for PCE's, consider that you may be accessing what are known as "EE's", or excellent (excellence?) experience, which is as close to a PCE as you can get while still experiencing affective feelings. A PCE is unquestionable, if you've heard of them, read about them and actually experience one then you'll know all about it, it leaves no doubt as to how pure and pristine this experience can be and why I keep on going on about there being no affective feeling whatsoever in a PCE. I am currently in PCE right now as I write and the simple, perfect stillness of right now is apparent, there is no emotion, no tension, nothing similar to what you've described so far. Due to this, I recommend going back to square one on the AF front too.

In the meantime...

- Don't try to get into a PCE, just pay attention to the senses as constantly as possible. If you can't, find out why and then get back to the senses again.

- Keep you standards as high as possible, no matter how high you aim the outcome of this is literally beyond what you can imagine.

- Stop using terminology that you don't really understand, it'll do you no good and will lead to sloppy practice. If you don't know what something actually means, for example "jhana", then ask and you'll find out; better yet make use of the practical advice available on this site, and in MCTB and test it out for yourself.

- What is it that you want from all this? I'm assuming it's "AF", which I put in quotes to make it clear that it's not the same thing Richard describes based on his recent updates on the AFT. In that case there are ways you can practice which, and I'm speaking from experience here, are far more effective than what you appear to be doing right now.

Clearly I could be completely wrong, this is all just opinion based on experience of all of the things you've claimed to have attained here and my experience may differ from yours. I don't think this is the case, in all honesty, but it would be great if you get the advice on this site that gets you to where you want to be, whether that's AF, 4th path or whatever. It's entirely possible but I highly recommend going back to the basics and starting from scratch, if you've attained what you think you've attained then there's nothing lost, but if not then there's more to be gained than you've even glimpsed yet. Seriously. Again, you're free to dismiss what I've wrote or to think that I'm just some arrogant prick on a forum, it makes no odds to me, but I wouldn't bother putting the time into a post of this length if I didn't have a genuine interest in helping in some way if possible.

Let me know what you think and we can take it from there if you want.

Tommy:


Tim:


misreading or something?

Tommy:


He wasn't talking about it being those things, he was describing his practice



I don't see any "evidence" that your claims are true either, don't you think its better to trust that people, or if you think they are making a mistake with the terminology ask them about the error you expect they may be making? (rather than telling them they haven't had that experience because they haven't shown evidence?)

If you think that someone is actually lying about there experience then they aren't very sincere and you probably won't be able to help them whatever you do


shouldn't you be sure that they hit the mark at least?



When he described his practice it seemed to be quite similar to what you suggested.

tim


tom


there seem to have been a lot of miscommunications and assumptions and "punches" in your reply tommy, i'd suggest a slightly more naive approach o.o

what he has described seems similar to something I've experienced in many parts, I labeled it as some sort of shift in the "AF spectrum" i.e. eliminating some tension which never came back. anyway: tim to answer your question, if your experience was similar to mine i'd suggest you keep practicing as you mentioned you are...

I would fully agree this is not actual freedom. Still having emotions is a clear sign of that. The reason I called this early actual freedom was based on a thread on here, which I have not been able to find, in which End In Sight and Nikolai were discussing there being an early AF stage before true actual freedom. From that thread, it seemed both of them had experienced shifts in experience in line with the expectations of the actualism goal, but had not completely achieved it. It was based on that that I named this thread.



Re-reading it, I can see that how it doesn't look like actualism practice. To clarify, what I meant by feeling and letting emotions be was essentially not repressing emotions. Also I have tried to look at their source, but often it seems like I am just perpetuating them, so I have mainly just been going with attentiveness. By attentiveness I mean; employing HAIETMOBA and trying to stay with that experience, not get caught up in mindless nonsense fantasies. As for not fighting/continuing neagtive thoughts(or any thought for that matter), I believe this falls under the actualism method of seeing what is keeping you from being happy and harmless right now and stopping that process if possible.



There are no negative emotions, or overly positive ones, there is just a baseline state of happiness and excitement, as well as fascination with the world around me. Everything is fine.



This example was based on an experience where I was looking at a road at my school which has seen quite a lot of landscaping work. There were trees and bushes all over the place, a sidewalk, mountains ocean, a safety phone... I was looking at this initially not in PCE mode, and there was just stuff all over the place. I didn't really care all that much, but looking at it I was driven to think about why that was there, and what function it might serve in some sort of semi-unconscious effort to make my experience better. Then I switched to PCE mode and my perception of the scene was that all this that I was looking at was totally random, it could have been any way but it happened to be like this. And this as it was was perfect, nothing needed, nothing lacking. Sorry if that description is confusing, I struggle with describing all this stuff in a sure fire way in which others will be able to relate to it.




Right, to make clear, in a PCE I experience none of that, I am talking about my experience after this shift, whatever it was.



I have no idea how you are getting from getting from this description that I haven't gotten 4th path. As for PCE, I am not sure either. Could you elaborate? One thing in my description I could see as problematic is the wording "a reduction in..." Not being in a PCE right now I cannot say precisely how I would view thoughts in regards to them being fantasies. I will say, thoughts are not annoying in a PCE.



Alright so first off, today I was able to access the jhanas, so that statement I made above is false. Access up to the 8th was very easy, pretty much on command, similar to the stages of insight. To respond, I don't know how I can provide you evidence of my ability to access the jhanas aside from claims.



I would say "Seeing the no-self" and utter agencylessness and centerlessness as DI described it are exactly the same thing. In my experience, this consists of seeing everything that arises as not self. I don't really see how to describe it better. To be straight with you, I'd rather not go over a major description of my vipassna history, the description I gave in the After 4th Path thread still holds true, perhaps you could use references from that to question me by? I don't mean to be evasive, but it would greatly simplify matters if you could be more specific as to why you don't think I am fourth path.



My claim to experiences is based on review of my own experiences with those that I have read. I am very sure I have experienced PCE's.



Ya thanks for the advice, will do.



Who are you to say I don't understand it? Frankly I think the idea I could be deluding myself as to experiencing the jhanas is ridiculous. Self deception is possible, but I highly doubt it would be possible for me delude myself to the point of falsely believing to be in various jhanas, all of which I have experienced exactly in line with everything I have heard about them. Just to put it out there, I have also gotten Nirodah Sampatti through the jhanas, using the method you wrote about, as a matter of fact (that was really helpfull advice by the way, thank you).



Ya I want the end of suffering, that is my goal. Advice is definitely appreciated



Tommy, thanks for the reply man. Replying to you definitely forced me to take a closer look at my experience, and that was helpful. I'm not sure I put as much into this as you were looking for, but anyhow it seems like enough to work with. Sorry if the writing is confusing, I'm doing my best to clarify but it is difficult.

Thanks for the reply josh, it is good to hear this is a shared experience. It's helpful just to look at it as an experience along the path and not make too big a deal about it.

Hey Tim,

Please read the latest addendum by Richard. It clears up to some degree what he is calling AF. Tarin is not 'full AF' according to Richard. I am not sure he is even considered 'early AF' though Tarin has said he does not seem to be where Richard is (full AF).He does not experience the 'golden hue' for example.

As EiS and myself have talked of experiencing 'shadow being' phenomena and Tarin has none of that in his ongoing experience according to what he has said, then according to the AFT and Richard, we (myself and EiS) would not be even 'early af'. So it might be best to stop calling 'early' or 'late' af on any ongoing experiences or shifts that don't explicitly match what Richard has called 'early' and 'late' af. It seems to be very political these days to use such terms so best avoid it in my opinion. Or if not it might be a better idea to go to the source of it all and get your advice from there rather than from the DhO where splicing, mixing and experimenting reigns.

What is your ongoing experience of 'being', sense of existing, moods, affect?

Can you call up felicity in this very moment?

Can you generate any affect at will?

Can you sense a tangible experience of 'location'? Anything that feels like having a location in the world?

Is there a sense of presence in the ongoing experience?

What is your experience of imagination and images in the mind's eye?

What is your experience of illwill and sensual desire?

Do you experience any sort of sensations that seem to 'relate' to affect?

What have you observed in daily life in situations where there would have been an affective reaction? Is there anything different, changed, reduced in such situations? What are the differences, phenomenologically? What happens now and what doesn't happen now that was different?

Nick

http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/announcement.htm#Addendum6

Hi Tommy,

Even reading the above with only one eye(from a physical condition I have), it is utterly obvious that Richard still considers Peter, Vineeto, Pamela, Justine, unnamed person, Tom and that possibly Christian and probably Stef as being actually free(ie newly free of the instinctual passions). Somewhere esle I think Richard calls this newly actually free condition peace-on-earth actual freedom and the latter development meaning-of-life actual freedom. He is not negating the above people's actual freedom, but rather stating that Vineeto is the first to join him in the latter development of actual freedom. Richard does obviously think the other participant's here(Trent, Jill, Nick, EndinSight) are either not actually free or their claim is dubious. I think this is mainly from Richard's belief that people having Buddhistic views and using Buddhistic practices couldn't possibly get actually free. While I can understand why Richard would think that, I suspect he is mistaken on that. Trent, Jill, and Tarin at the very least seem to describe a condition that *perfectly* fits with being newly actually free(ie free from the instinctual passions and sense of self). Nick's and EndinSights descriptions/claims are more problematic because of the "shadow being" talk, but even there, they are either describing(perhaps confusingly) early actual freedom or something that is *very* close to it.

A

Why confusingly? Not defensive, but curious about why it is seen as confusingly to others?

There are not many people talking about post shift stuff where affect has been changed and residual stuff still remains, even from the af camp. I've only seen small mentions of such phenomena (that seems to match what i've experienced) from Peter mostly and little from Vineeto. With so few descriptions of the phenomenological occurences after such shifts, it is hard to compare and be clear about such things.

Nick

Hmm is there more about the 'golden hue' somewhere ? I cannot find about it on the AFT site.

Do you know why Richard makes a difference between Stef-Christian and Tarin-Trent? The four followed similar paths {vipassana first, they got AF very quickly, they participate in the DhO}, but it appears that Richard gives the first two the benefit of the doubt but does not believe in the attainments of the the last two.

Hi Felipe,

I have not discussed the matter with Richard so I don't know for sure, but I think the reason is fairly obvious from what he has shared so far(and in the context of what the four DhO participants have written). Simply, Stef/Christian practiced vipassana(getting possibly 1st and 4th path respectively) and then made a clear switch to actualism practice and never really actively advocated vipassana/Buddhist practice after getting actually free. Trent/Tarin practiced vipassana(both possibly getting 4th path) and then made a switch to actualism practice and after getting actually free they still continued to assist others with vipassana and Buddhist based practice. I think in Richard's mind it is very questionable that a actually free person would continue to advocate/assist with vipassana/Buddhistic practice. Questionable enough to put in question their status of being actually free. I'm not certain at this point if Richard thinks Tarin is just cognitively mistaken/confused in regards to his advocating of vipassana/Buddhistic methods/use of the phrase "pure intent" or if he thinks he is not really actually free. Certainly Richard thinks Trent, Jill, Nick and EndinSight are not actually free. I think Richard is sincerely well meaning in not wanting others to settle for second best and that is the motive behind his speaking out on this matter. Well meaning of course does not mean he is correct.

Aaron

Hi Nick,

I did write *perhaps* confusingly. I wrote that because while Peter and Vineeto have written about some of the "cleaning up period" right after getting actually free, the way they write about it does not suggest there is any affective stuff happening, but rather just some old sensate patterns continuing that used to be linked to affect(ie like Peter's felt physical tightening in his chest that happened for a bit after getting actually free). I think the "shadow being" talk(metaphor?) can be confusing because it could be seen as suggestive that their actually is some residual *affect* left, which is not the impression I get from Peter or Vineeto. Nor is it the impression I get from talking personally with Tarin about his becoming actually free or another actually free person right after they got actually free. So, my best guess is either you got actually free, and are describing some of the "residual patterns" in a way that could be confusing or that you didn't get actually free but something *very* close to it. It is unfortunate that Pamela, Tom, Justine and No-name have not described in their own words their experiencing of becoming newly actually free as that would give us some more notes to compare. To my knowledge Trent has never really described what happened with him in detail when becoming newly actually free either.

Aaron

Josh,


Did it escape your notice that the title of the post was "Early AF vs. Late AF"? While Tim did say that he doesn't consider this "full actual freedom", he does make several references to having attained to some "stage" of AF.


Wasn't he? As far as I could tell, there was a distinct claim to having attained "AF" to some degree, although he did say that he was continuing actualist practice.


It seems you're the one doing the misreading here. The comments I made contained specific requests for Tim to provide phenomenological details of his practice, claims to attainment, current experience and current understanding of the terminology he was using.

As for "evidence" of my claims, you're welcome to go back through what I've written on here, on KFD and other sites over the last couple of years since I've talked about my practice in detail and make no secret of the mistakes I've made along the way. This is why I mentioned having high standards, setting the bar low and then misinterpreting terminology to fit a flawed understanding is sloppy and doesn't do anyone any good.


At no point did I mention lying or a lack of sincerity, the whole point of my reply was to point out the inconsistencies between commonly accepted criteria for certain attainments and the claims being made by Tim.


Would you like to point of where, in your opinion, my comments didn't "hit the mark"?


Perhaps, but it didn't seem to be leading to genuine PCE's or to the attainments being claimed, hence my advice.


The same goes for your response to me, lots of miscommunication and assumptions. Also, since you suggest a "slightly more naive approach", would you mind detailing what exactly that would entail? Bear in mind that I was replying while in a PCE so I think it's safe to say that naivetè isn't an issue.


Yes, there are aspects of practice which seemed similar to things I've experienced but certainly not PCE or, and as far as my understanding goes, and bearing in mind the title of the initial post, an actual freedom, late, early or otherwise.

If you're labelling things as being on this apparently arbitrary "AF spectrum" then you clearly don't understand what you're talking about and are instead creating your own personal criteria. If you want to continue to water this stuff down, diluting it beyond recognition and then giving people advice, or encouragement based on that then you're just going to mess up your own practice and that of the people you're trying to help.

That's fair enough, I initially distinguished between late and early AF too but, in the interests of keeping things precise, not mixing things up unnecessarily and giving advice based on people's practice I no longer think of it in that way.


O.k., that clarifies things more and it does sound like actualism practice to me. When you're looking at emotions, try looking at how the inner narrative pulls you away from sensuousness 'cause this is where the storytelling stuff begin. If you can notice the feeling arising, look at what sort of thoughts accompany it, what mental images and chains of association come up at the same time, following these back until you can catch them happening in the first place will hopefully help. Also, look at whereabouts in the body the feelings arise as they've got a physical component with which you can ground the emotion and get a better, more objective look at them.


That sounds more like an EE than a PCE, there is absolutely no emotional content. Look closer at what's still happening when you find yourself experiencing things in this way, see if there's any "you" hiding or causing any subtle tensions. It's easy to just sit back and enjoy these things but it's worth investigating them too and learning as much as you can about them, the recall of a PCE is what leads to pure intent and it's incredibly powerful in practice.


O.k. If that was a PCE, remember what it was like to experiencing things in that way and remember, cognitively as in how it was to see with the eyes, to hear with the ears, etc etc, and not affectively. Ask HAIETMOBA and look at what's different about how things are right now compared to how it was at that point, remember that actuality is always there and so there must be something "you" are adding to the picture which is preventing it from being apparent.


In that case, it's not AF, early or otherwise. Again, high standards help a lot in making sure you're optimizing your practice.


The reason I say that is because you wouldn't be experiencing things in this way if you had attained to 4th path, emotions absolutely do not stick around for anything like a couple of days in my experience. It's also because of the reasons I mentioned before, I've seen nothing of your descriptions which line up with 4th path or any evidence of the previous claims you made.

When I mentioned it not being a PCE, it was because you mentioned an "emotional switch". I may be misunderstanding what you mean, if you could explain that phrase a bit more then I'll respond accordingly. As for thoughts not being annoying, they're not annoying at 4th path either but it doesn't quality as criteria.


In terms of evidence, some phenomenological descriptions would help a lot because it should be far easier to ascertain whether or not you're accessing what you think you're accessing.


Why would you rather not tell me about your vipassana history? It would be more helpful if I knew how you're practice has progressed, how long you've been practicing for, what techniques you've been using, when you attained the paths and the basic details of your practice so that we can at least make sure we're talking about the same things.

Another reason why I'm questioning your claims is due to your first post about having attained 1st path, then following that shortly afterwards with a claim to 4th path, then following that up with a claim regarding AF. Three very different claims made in a very short space of time, and even though it's possible to make fast progress with dedicated, precise practice it's reasonable to be skeptical of such a rapid-fire list of attainments when no details have been offered to verify your claims.

Again, much of this comes down to a lack of adequate descriptions and scant details of practice history. Two things which are of considerable importance when it comes to understanding another persons practice and claims.


My reasons for saying that are, again, down to a lack of detail. I'm not saying for a moment that you're deluded, I'm trying to understand where you're at and how you define the terms you're using. As I've said too, I could be completely wrong and it could be my misunderstanding that's at fault, I have no issue with that but if there's no point of mutual understanding to work from then we're going to get nowhere.


You're welcome, I'm happy to go back and forth until we're on the same page and then we can both hopefully learn something from each other. I know my writing style is quite particular and that I can come across as quite forceful or rude, it's really not my intention but the limitations of writing on a forum are a pain in the arse. I know this stuff is all difficult to describe which is why I keep going on about understanding the terminology, something I've made a mess of on several occasions and ended up suffering for, and seeing that we're both talking about the same things.

Also, take into account the number of posts you've made on here and the fact that I know nothing of your practice history beyond what you've told me; a lot of people get mixed up with where they're at when they come on here due to the specifics of the maps and the terminology involved, if someone comes on and their first handful of posts are claims to attainments with no background, no phenomenological detail, and no evidence of the how's and where's of their practice then it makes sense to question them and to want to know more. I don't tend to take a gentle approach to this stuff because I know how important it is to set your standards high and to practice hard, that's why I likely come across as a serious business hardliner which is partly true but I also know the importance of not taking things too seriously and having a laugh.

I apologize if I came off as rude or dismissive, I really would like to be able to help out if I can which is why I'm being so specific and asking so many questions. Hopefully you can understand my skepticism and why I've said what I've said, it's really nothing personal and I mean no offence, I'd like to know as much as possible about the ins and outs of your practice and why you think you've attained what you claim.

Thanks for the reply and for going into more detail about things, I'm sure it'll all come good in the end anyway.

(line by line response)


I noticed this, but you seemed to be judging his claim of something other than the full end of affect as a claim of the full end of affect, disqualifying it based on the fact that affect was present. You said that any emotions however subtle don't happen in PCE or AF, but Tim was clearly not claiming this, and you have admitted that for a while you were making this distinction between attenuated affect and ended affect as "early" and "late" but then your thinking changed. Maybe other people's use of these terms didn't change, was the fact that Tim wasn't up to date with your latest thoughts about what different terms mean justification for your apparent belief that he was fundamentally confused about this stuff?



I was responding to a specific quote of yours in which you were responding to a specific quote of his in which he described his practice, which you said wasn't PCE I was pointing out that he was describing a method of practice, not an experience so judging it as PCE/not PCE wasn't applicable at all. This affected the rest of my reading of your post, because it seemed that you were really grasping for evidence to fit a theory that he was confused about his practice, rather than looking at the facts and then making a theory.



Most of your post consisted of stating that you didn't believe his claims, you did ask for phenomenological details about his practice, but you were coming from the position that you didn't believe his claims, if you didn't have the details why were you so quick to deny his claims? The claims which had details backing them, thus the ones apt for denial/acceptance, were about what he was calling "early AF" which you apparently took to mean simply "AF" going by your stated reasoning that the claims were false based on the fact that he mentioned experiencing affect. But he was obviously talking about something "lower" than you were in which there was still affect. The rejection of his 4th path claim seemed irrelevant to the question of whether he was using the term "early AF" correctly (whatever correctly would be) which also caused me to think that you were taking a theory, that he was fundamentally confused, and then trying to stretch the facts to fit it.



I didn't say that you did, just that if you are rejecting someone's claims you are either assuming they made a mistake or that they were lying... just mentioning each option and pointing out that neither option seemed justified.



As the central term in question here is "early AF" could you inform me of the commonly accepted criteria for it? You have said yourself that your thinking has changed on this issue, it would not seem to be a commonly accepted or agreed upon term. The only apparent definition of it being by Nik and End In Sight who talk about something other than the complete end of affect, which you apparently are taking the term to mean.



I was trying to say that you should be less sure of your judgments when they are based on tenuous evidence, and that you should not assume that your initial impression was correct and then try to back it up by stretching the evidence, these things would imply a belief (as the AFT uses the word - something we wish to be true) which is the opposite of naievete as the AFT uses it.

.

I was just trying to demonstrate that it isn't very useful to tell someone they are mistaken about their claim because they haven't shown evidence in their statement of that claim, better to just ask specific questions about the experience... also, it isn't really "setting the bar low" if one claims an intermediary attainment which one states is not where they are setting the bar (the basis of the thread was that he was asking how to go farther, he hadn't yet gotten to the bar), that would be like saying that someone is setting the bar low if they mark off each mile they run in a marathon.



I'm still not sure why you are applying PCE/not PCE and Actual Freedom/not actual freedom to experiences, as those are two different categories - shifts vs. temporary experiences, in this case he was talking about a shift. You have also applied PCE/not PCE and AF/not AF to a mode of practice which is also a mixing up of categories.



I am not sure how the word "arbitrary" can apply to a spectrum or how using a spectrum could be considered a form of watering down the significance of the end point on that spectrum. To be clear, by "AF spectrum" I mean a spectrum - on one side there is an experience with more tension, attention wave, and affect and on the other side less, the left side of the spectrum begins with "normal" untrained experience and the end point on the right side would be full on AF without any tension, affect, or attention wave.

(/line by line response)

I think the fundamental misunderstanding here is that he said "early AF" which I take to mean some point before "late" AF on the "AF" spectrum of tension etc. You took what he said to mean a state without affect (I assume this because you disqualified his claim with the reasoning that he still had affect). He clearly meant something else as he mentioned still having affect. The rest of your original post seemed to hinge upon this, and you seemed to be trying to provide evidence for the basic idea that he was misunderstanding everything, all of this evidence seemed to be distortion of the facts, like pointing out that his method of practice isn't a PCE (inapplicable) and suggesting that he hadn't really attained 4th path or jhana either (irrelevant) - which would only be relevant if you are trying to put together some sort of lawsuit or prove a point about him as a practitioner rather than clarify specific use of terminology. All these bits of evidence seemed to be based on stretching facts to fit belief which is why I suggested a lack of naivete.



So to keep things precise you eliminate terms for distinct stages, wouldn't this be the opposite of precision? What should we call shifts which center around decreasing background affective stuff? Where is the issue in giving advice? I don't see how it would be possible as someone who has attained full-AF would probably not be looking for advice? Also, the advice for minimizing attention wave doesn't seem to change dependent on how much of it you are working to minimize.

And then because your thinking has shifted (for what seem to be incoherent reasons) you attack others' experiences, and then their practice as a whole, based on the fact that their experiences do not fit the terminology you (now) are using in your mind?

Anyway, I think a more sensible response would have been focused on asking how specific terms were being used and asking for details about experiences without starting from believing or disbelieving the claims (again, if you need details then on what basis are you denying) rather than building a line by line "case" which included content from irrelevant posts outside of this thread to "prove" a claim, the basic intentions of which would seem to be less than pure.

One last thought - you seemed to have taken Tim's claims out of context, the central point of this thread wasn't to state a claim, but to ask for advice on practice. It isn't reasonable to reject someone's claim because you don't see evidence if their intention isn't to prove that claim in the first place, as providing all the necessary evidence wouldn't be relevant to their intention.

You can interpret what I'm saying however you like, you've completely misunderstood what I've said and what I was trying to do. The content of my response was nothing to do with you, although it was prompted by what I and other people saw as erroneous encouragement being given when what was being said by the OP displayed a very different interpretation of commonly used terminology, in this case the PCE. I have no interest in getting into a debate with you about what I meant when I said this or that, or justifying what I've said to another person with regards to their own practice, due to this I'll be ending the conversation here in favour of focusing on my own practice.

I wasn't particularly interested in debating you either, I was interested in pointing out a nonsensical attack on someone for their sake. You criticized their practice in ways which seemed to me totally unjustified. Your right though, I have no idea what you were trying to say, only what you said which I responded to. Either I misinterpreted something or you did, I guess we won't be agreeing on who did the misinterpreting though

anyways good luck with your practice, I'll be focusing on mine as well

btw, it was somewhat unnecessary, sorry for inconveniencing us both

Thanks for the advice, I will try to put that in to practice. Just one question; when you say notice the feeling, look at ...thoughts, ... with what sort of attitude are you suggesting to look at the thoughts with? Am I correct in assuming you are talking about looking at these things with an inquisitive attitude of figuring out why they are arising, as opposed to more of a meditative attitude of looking at these thoughts, as they are, with equanimity?



Reading this and mulling it over has somewhat brought me to the conclusion that what I have been thinking were PCE's were probably just EE's. I believe had a PCE in high school; I was feeling really good/not anxious all day, maybe EE, anyhow the part that really stands out, was walking into the bathroom, and there was a kid in there walking out. The experience was happening right then. It was not a special situation, but I had no idea it would play out just the way it did. It was like it was unfolding right before my eyes, at the time I thought a good metaphor for it was "being in the movie" as opposed "watching the movie". You could definitely say it was fascinating. The whole experience at the eyes, at the ears bit really rings true for this one. Comparing that experience to my current experiences of "PCE's", they do not match up in terms of directness, and lack of subtle "me" tension as you said.






I see where you're coming from; I definitely can see a lack evidence given on here to support my attainment claim. On one hand, I do not think this discussion of 4th path attainment is contributing to this thread, so I would rather no continue it here. I would rather this thread rather just be concentrated on the AF path. On the other hand, for the sake of understanding, clarification, and getting on the same page, I would be fully willing to continue this discussion of 4th path attainment in another thread, or through pm's.


Again thanks for the reply. This was beneficial. For the sake of transparency, I will put this out there (obviously this is my interpretation of events): Your first post did come off in parts as somewhat of an attack, and I was reacting to that to some extent in my last post. I feel like this is perhaps what Josh was reacting to as well. It seemed like he wrote his first post to back me up perhaps, which led to some unnecessary, distracting, interlocking of horns between you two. I can appreciate the sentiment of trying to stick up for someone else, but I also agree with Tommy that it is hard to truly read someone's intent through an online post. Personally I find it somewhat frustrating to attempt to get my point across online, while it would be much easier face to face.

Anyhow, what I'm getting to is I have found your advice helpful Tommy and hope you continue to post in this thread.

Edit: I posted this before I saw Josh's latest post...

Hey Tim,

Let's talk about what has changed if you wish.


What is your ongoing experience of 'being', sense of existing, moods, affect?

Can you call up felicity in this very moment?

Can you generate any affect at will?

Can you sense a tangible experience of 'location'? Anything that feels like having a location in the world?

Is there a sense of presence in the ongoing experience?

What is your experience of imagination and images in the mind's eye?

What is your experience of illwill and sensual desire?

Do you experience any sort of sensations that seem to 'relate' to affect?

What have you observed in daily life in situations where there would have been an affective reaction? Is there anything different, changed, reduced in such situations? What are the differences, phenomenologically? What happens now and what doesn't happen now that was different?

What are your experiences of the following:

The mentally felt sense of: self / self-obsessing chatter / being / presence / location in the world / subject to objects / duality / inner world / me-ness / instinctual passions / any affectively felt mind state / moods / being of any kind / being the absolute / being one with everything / being one with anything / being connected to everything / being space / being infinite consciousness / being no-thing-ness / being the void / being anything / imagination / the flow of time / existing / craving of all subtle and gross kinds (even subtle preferences born from preferring pleasant over unpleasant vedana).

If anything has changed from above, how has it changed?

Nick

Hey Nikolia, sorry I didn't get back to your earlier post already. I will do my best to answer these questions, I am not sure my understanding of some of these terms is quite on the ball. As well, my memory of how it was before this last shift, and thereby my ability to come to definite conclusions as to what this shift wrought, is pretty faded.



My current sense of being is that there seems to be a frustrating shell of sorts between me and experience. Like my experience is of looking at at the inside of this clear plastic shell, which I am often trying to beat myself out of. It's like my mind dead ends at an impenetrable wall, and just builds up steam behind this wall, then stops with that certain thought path, and does it again.

When I look for a sense of existing, it's like I can feel a kind of airy wisp something, which then is seen to be not self. This process repeats itself over and over. It's quite frustrating, but seemingly unstoppable. Like I see there's nothing there, but clearly there is something which is holding me back, or somehow just there, which somehow is self, but also clearly seen to be not self...

As for moods, more than anything, right now thinking about it anyhow, there is just this underlying sense of frustration, of never being able to relax. What I was talking about earlier, the tender sadness, seems really to be caused by an attempt to break out of this shell, or do away with the strange permanent but not self sense of being here. I imagine something to be helping break of escape this barrier, and then I just go with it with all my might to try to escape. I think perhaps this process resulted in some experiences I have recently thought of a s PCE's. None of it is fulfilling, ya more than anything there is almost a felling of insatiable hunger, some frustration I cannot quench.

This feeling has been ongoing since, and started soon(maybe 4/5 days) after what I believe is 4th path.

As for affect, it hard to say exactly. I experience emotion as a sort of paralyzing force. It's like a bunch more energy just put in the system, and is overloading it. The main emotion I experience is anxiety, manifesting as worry or frustration, or if it's very intense as sadness(of loss, of say a hat I am very attached to), or anger. Emotion comes from the gut. When it occurs, it seems like the progression goes somewhat like; Triggered by an event, anxiety ramps up drastically, I see clearly this is occurring and react with suppression, I try not to suppress it and just feel it/ investigate where it came from, it slowly fades to baseline anxiety/ frustration.

One thing I would add is that this feeling of frustration if greatly reduced when I am employing attentiveness to sensuousness, which for me consists of focusing in somewhat of a vipassana-esque way on the sensation of the body, and also looking at visual detail. Mostly I just try to focus outward on the world happening to me as opposed to what's going on in my mind.



So I got the online definition of felicity as "intense happiness". No, I cannot recall call that up at will, thought attentiveness/HAIETMOBA immediately makes me much more at ease when I remember to employ it.



I would say I can pretty much to the same extent as I could before this shift, and probably roughly the same as at any time in my life. I don't fel like that has changed much.



Now that I look at it, location does seem pretty open ended. By that I mean it feels like right here where I'm sitting might as well be anywhere, kind of like I don't really care. Sense of location seems to be pretty reduced.




There is, for sure. When I am "on it" so to speak, when I realize I have been lost in thought, there is immediately a sense of presence in the form of the glass shell I talked about above. When I employ attentiveness and look outword, this sense is greatly reduced, by still fought against to some extent.



Interesting question. I would say conclusively these are greatly reduced since the shift. I can still imagine visually with effort; for instance visualizing the line I wanted to take skiing. I do think my experience is more here now, and less in my head, in a visual and spatial sense, since this shift.



Reduced for sure. Right now it is hard to conjure them, for instance, wishing harm or thinking about sex produce very little emotional of physical response, somewhat disconcertingly little response in the case of sex. I would say I have a relatively low sex drive most of the time anyhow, but this does seem especially low. One area I really noticed a lack of what I guess you could call sensual desire was taking risks skiing. Normally I am driven to really push myself, and try to charge hard, but skiing yesterday I really didn't feel the need to jump off cliffs, or just generally take excessive risk. I still ended up pushing myself to do it because the friend I was skiing with was skiing like I normally would, and a part of me wanted to keep up with him. However there was a large sense of "what's the point of this?, why not just enjoy the moment right now?", which is definitely new.



Ya, pressure, or tension, or maybe thickening almost, in the core area. If you were looking at a body diagram it would be a ball behind the first four abs, right below the bottom of the ribcage in the middle of the chest. As well, pressure at the temples spreading a bit onto the side the forehead.



Feeling is much lighter now, it's like the clouds of feeling have risen a bit, of maybe gotten thinner, and are now no longer able to be quite so oppressive and block out so much light. Also it seems like my attentiveness at the best of times before the shift is now my baseline attentiveness. What I had thought was a PCE, and was probably an EE is now essentially my baseline. Like I said above though, at first the experience was quite carefree and not subject to strong emotion. However at time passes, what I originally viewed as small, remaining emotion has come to seem larger and more oppressive.

It is WAY easier to be in a good mood, and to be friendly now. I don't have to work at it quite so much and it seems to flow naturally. Also, I definitely need to spend some time investigating why I feel the need to be nice, that seems to be a large driver of anxiety. A stumbling point on this is the harmless idea, ie: I will think "being friendly is being harmless, eh?". However I have the sense it is not so. Friendliness definitely feels like an emotion of sorts. Although it is pleasant, it also seems blind to life in a way, too caught up in being happy to do anything else. Perhaps harmless is more simply not being harmful?


I'll try to hit those I haven't already talked about:
I still get lost in thought, and in those unconscious periods it seems like self obsessing, mindless chatter is the name of the game, though is does have much more of a positive, light theme than before. When I am being actively attentive, it is hard to get willfully sucked into self-obsessed chatter, though it does sneak up me relatively immediately after employing attentiveness.
Post 4th path experience of immediately seeing all thoughts as not self has continued, though for the first few days it almost felt like I had was identifying with experience more, which I put down to seeing the emotional self ties more clearly. No being anything really.
Flow of time seems normal.
I would say craving for mental peace faded immediately after the shift and has now returned to a strong force. There is some craving and enjoyment of things I have typically enjoyed such as outdoor exercise, but this has been reduced. It is still there somewhat, but I would really rather be actively trying to figure this AF thing out.

Interesting questions man, it was good to think about this so analytically. I am looking forward to hearing what you think.

'

Hi Tim,

I will compare what you described to the shift where I thought I got 'AF' or an 'early AF' and which i now don't think of in those terms. I have had two big shifts since which have made the ongoing expericne even more beneficial but I will stick with the 1st shift post-4th path in July last year for comparison. I'd advise talking with the source of AF if you are strictly interested in getting to what Richard is talking about as I have no idea if what I'm doing will result in something similar or already has. I don't really care to reconcile anymore. I do what I do. Change/shifts occurs when it/they occur/s.




What is your sense of 'being' like? Is it tangibly felt still although reduced or changed n some way? Or is it absent and more a shadow like version of its former manifestations? If so, how would you describe it phenomenoligcally?



I did not (and still do not) have a tangible sense of exisitng post july shift. It dissapeared. What remained though as a sort of residual expericne of 'exisiting' was a mental movement that seemed to arise and pass at times when I was not 'paying attention' well enough to experience. It felt like a waft of 'me-ness' arising and passing that seemed to not have that tangible sense of exisiting that was known to me before the july shift. When 'paying attention carefully was the theme, there was no mental movement as so. I coudlnt willfully give rise to this mental movement. it seemed to arise only as an effect to an outside external cause. So, this seems to relate to what you are saying.



What is this sense of frustration? Is there a mental overlay? thoughts? affective mood of frustration? Or is it more physical than 'frustration' of before? How does the frustration manifest phenomenologically? Sensations somewhere? Mental movements?



Strange. Did you feel like you 'got off a ride' when you say you got '4th path'? Was it like feeling of 'having done what needed to be done'? What you describe there seems not to point to what most describe post-4th a sense of getting off a ride and such 'frustration' being lai to rest. However, there might be a certain type of frustration you are referring to which is slightly different to the one put to rest at 4th path. What you describe sounds much closer to 3rd path in my own experience but I could be wrong. More details are needed.



By this admission alone and by what Richard has defined you would not even be 'early AF', as by then 'emotion' is not arising anymore as you described.All the same you have had a shift of some sort so I'd keep doing what you are doing as it seems to be working for you.



This sounds like it could be a result of any 'path'. The degrees of 'frsutration' though would differ.



Ok.



I could not (and still cannot) willfully generate any affect at will at all since the July shift. No matter how hard I try to generate affect, all i get is the back of my eyelids being seen or whatever is in front of me being seen if eyes are open. I don't know how to willfully generate affect anymore. That chip seems to have been removed.


I lost all sense of having a tangible location in the world at the July shift. It no longer is part of the ongoing experience. There is no tangibly mentally felt sense of having a location of 'me' in the world. Even when mental movements which have a shadow like 'me-ness' to them (hard to explain), they do not give off that sense of 'location' as similar more grosser mental movements would have previous to the July shift.



I have not had a sense of presence since the July shift. It just is not part of the ongoing experience. That presence would have been the same thing as the sense of location and existing in my own experience previous to July.


If I say 'pink elephant', what is the experience just now in the mind's eye? Describe it.



Sensual desire isn't just to do with sex. It is craving for all bodily pleasures. Have any of your likes and dislikes taken a hit? How so if so? Have you been in a situation where illwill would have arisen before? What happened? Was there just abolsutely no illwill in any form whatsoever? Has it changed? Completely absent even physically felt?


Ok.Is there any mental movement accompanying such occurrences, or is the experiecne of affect just sensations now? No mental overlay whatsoever?



Seems like progress all the same. Keep doing what you are doing.


Best to refer to the AFT website for the definition of harmless as Richard sees it if you want it from the horse's mouth. For me in my own experiecne, harmlessness was not a 'mood' but the very act of aiming towards 'self-immolation' or the end of becoming as I saw it for the benefit of beings around me so that 'I' with all my potential negative harmful manifestations would not cause cuch harm any more. It was constantly on my mind to be harmless via the practice that I took on board which meant dropping any self-serving harmful tendencies as soon as they arose in order to move back to moving the mind/body organism closer and closer to the goal.



Ok. This could be any path.




Hmm, still not sure about what you claim as 4th path being 4th path. What about 'feeling off the ride'? Was soemthing put to rest at that shift? If so, what was it? Describe it phenomenologically. What was th biggestdifference between 3rd and 4th path in your experience? Phenomenoligcally speaking, an compounded emotion for example, what would be the difference in expericning it pre versus post (your) '4th path'?



I lost all sense of 'time' in the July shift. It has not arisen since. It doesn't sound like you got a similar shift in my opinion. It sounds like maybe 3rd or 4th path in Daniel's book. I could be wrong of course. Since I am not considered even 'early af' by Richard, then by comparing your current ongoing experience with my July shift, it would be safe to say you aren't 'early AF'. However, what you have been doing is working for you as you seem to be in a better position than before, so keep doing what you are doing knowing full well that what you are doing will bring results.


It benefits one to keep the bar raised extremely high thus no resting of laurels will be the trap. Keep the bar high and optimize your practice to get to where you wish to get to.

Nick