Hello Dharma Brothers and Sisters,

Today is my first day back in the US from my retreat in the UK. The transition from retreat life to "ordinary" life is really tough to say the least. All the pain/bodies are being activated although the recovery is much quicker (yay!).

OK, so this is what happened/is happening.

Day 30 or so, I experienced my first cessation.

The next 2 weeks was a mixture of intense joy, equanimity, and hellish dark night stuff. All I ever thought enlightenment was obviously wasn't. I was like, "What do I do?," "How do I do it again? (as if I was the do-er of cessation, ha!)" There was (is) complete disillusionment with life. All the achieving and doing and becoming all throughout my life led to this wonderful situation, but obviously was not going to work now. I wanted to lie down and go to sleep all the time, but usually had the willpower to stay awake.

Toward the end of the two weeks, things started settling down to where equanimity with a few ups and downs here and there was the norm. And then, it seemed like a new cycle was starting. There was a feeling of "Oh my God, there is actually nothing but emptiness." I ate a lot over on several occasions over the next couple of weeks (the cravings were intense), although I started realizing eating wasn't going to make me happy. Then, about a 40 days or so after the first cessation, there felt to be something like the first one. I was really restraining the food and working hard, letting all the cravings arise and pass, and then one day, the intense mouth-watering food cravings just started sliding off and I knew I was getting close to something. I think I cycled through roughly 125 times from what seemed to be the start of another cycle of progress to what seemed like the second cessation (although the apparent second one, I don't really remember as well). The first day after this happened, there was intense rapture for several hours, and during one evening meal, I ate like 4 peanut butter and jam and tahini sandwiches (LOL), stayed up until like 3 listening to dharma talks, walking, feeling really good, taking a bunch of random medicines and vitamins (thinking it would counteract the foolishness of eating like a fool) and felt absolutely miserable the next morning. The next 5 days or so was marked by really high equanimity most of the time interspersed with what seemed to be small and large energy bursts in the body and joy.

Then, I think another cycle(?) started and there were all these really unpleasant sensations in the body and most notably along the spine. All of a sudden, all this fear of death started coming. Like, "Wow, I am actually going to die one day." I started stretching more, doing more yoga, cracking the back more often, just being more restless overall. The food cravings are still alive, for sure. All this volitional thought and judgements arise, but they slide off easily. It's like something wants to hold onto them but the emptiness doesn't allow it.

Now, I'm back home and I am tired as heck. There is complete disillusionment with lay life, but monastic life doesn't seem to be the ideal answer either (religion/dogma/rituals of any type sort of turn me off, [also the ego doesn't want to surrender completely yet]). Lay life seems SOOOOOO self-centered, and brings about all this negativity in myself. Maybe it's because I am self-centered (DUH!), but it seems the conditions have a lot to do with it as well (a computer, cell phone, family that isn't full of enthusiasm for the dharma yet, etc.)

I am going to spend 3-5 months at at Forest Refuge in Barre, MA starting August 1. I think I am attending a Goenka course in between and introducing my mom to the dharma. Both of my teachers recommended that I do more heart work (love/compassion) at the next retreat. Something is resisting, which means I am going to do it!

Gosh, I know there must be gaping holes in my story and a lot about myself I don't see yet. Could you guys ask me some questions to gauge where I am at and give me some advice (if possible), as well?

PS. I ate a lot of candy on the plane ride back to the US. It's like I absolutely know it's not going to make me happy, but sometimes it feels like there's like nothing else to do and I am going to completely explode if I don't do something...

The sex drive is still here, but it feels so disgusting....

OK, I just took a shower, shaved my head, and thought of a couple of more things.

--All these expectations I had during the retreat of what life would be like after the retreat have mostly been disappointed. But, now, it seems that the mind is OK with them after the initial few hours of shock.

--The last 4-5 days of the retreat were spent mostly reading books and reintegrating with the material world. Among the books I skimmed/read were:

Empty Cloud: Holy schnikes, if anybody is proud and thinks they are a hardcore practitioner, I would highly recommend this book about a Chinese Zen Master who lived 120 years. Talk about not caring about the body and complete faith in the Dharma. And in the end he says "My wisdom is shallow and my karma is deep." Makes us rethink what spiritual life is. I'm not sure we want to go that far, but it's still amazing.

Daniel's book MCTB: definitely flipped through this a couple of times during the retreat.

The Life of Shabkar: The Autobiography of a Tibetan Yogin: Amazing story of what the Bodhisattva path and meditating in solitude in the mountains and caves can look like. Opened my eyes to Tibetan Buddhism.

Ajahn Chah's stuff.

--It's like I am trying to live up to impossible ideal standards, and clearly see that my conditioning doesn't allow for it yet. There is an intense sense of urgency, but at the same time disappointment every time there is a contradiction in myself. And then, sometimes, it's like, "Everything is perfectly OK, it's all just conditions." Sometimes it feels like I am never going to overcome these food cravings, and other times, I feel like I could never eat again and be OK.

--Sometimes I think I am going to eat one meal a day, live on nothing but the bare essentials, find a place to meditate in solitude for a year or two, sleep sitting up. And then other times, it's like, "What the hell am I striving so hard for?!"

--All I want to do is give things away. All I own can fit in a small backpack. I don't want to buy anything, and when somebody asks me what I want, I usually just shrug my shoulders, like "Whatever."

--My relationship to money is still pretty delusional. It's like I want nothing to do with it, but I understand that I need some to keep attending retreats. There's a hidden (hehe) plan to work for a bit after the Forest Refuge retreat, save up some money, and then retire from the world for some time with the resources I have and find somewhere to meditate alone for some time. Of course, planning is just planning.

Ok, that's it for now. It's late and I haven't slept for a while. Please leave some comments/questions if the urge arises.

Be Happy!

Hi Mitsuaki David Chi,



I think this is natural. Taking this into satipatthana practice gradually wears out this bond. A bonus result is that a better understanding of addiction is gained.

I think what happens after abatement of certain cravings in high EQ and SE is that the mind starts augmenting other gratifying activities (activities that feel pleasurable in some way) until that/those other gratifications create the "high" of the gratifications that were abated by EQ/sotapanna. It's not for nothing that personal dissatisfaction may be outwardly reflected by obesity and/or meanness or aversion. A person who does not know wholesome "exit" of dissatisfaction/stress becomes stuck in (addicted to) their gratifying consumptions and may even develop pleasure in preventing other sentients' ability to consume even basic nutriments.

I responded somewhat to your food point in your other thread, so I will wait and see what you think, but can offer some of my personal efforts on this front if you think it could be helpful.

This is dissatisfaction/dukkha until there is akuppā me vimutti (url=http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.026.than.html]Ariyapariyesana Sutta: '...unprovoked is my release', MN 26.

Here is the "Wilderness". I my opinion, it speaks well to the studies and observations you're raising here so usefully:
Wherever you live, the practice is simple and anticipates the re-arising of dukkha: both sangha and lay communities face the consequences of du + kha : a bad axle hole wearing down its wheel, the wagon, the axle, getting stuck, getting angry, getting hungry, getting thirsty: how to deal with this unfit axle and wheel? I really like Bhante Thanissaro's translation "unprovoked" for "akuppaṃ/akuppā". So, not looking for anything, abiding attentively in the practice, remaining non-reactive, receptively aware, the release is without provocation.

Could you explain this a bit?



What's akuppa me vimutti?

Thanks, Katy.

Hi Mitsuaki David Chi -

To the first bit about gratification: a DhO member posted recently this TEDTalk on porn and gratification. I think the craving-gratification-addiction(subtle or gross)-dissatisfaction-problem described in terms of porn relates to any craving. Note that drugs/alcohol "only hook about 10% of users" while natural, evolutionary rewards (food and sex) hook...well, check out the obesity and porn statistics.

So, when a person sincerely abates some cravings and reduces/eliminates their related gratifications (like habitual and long-term depressive mental perseveration) - such that those cravings just cannot arise fully fledged again, then the brain may still be dependent upon and actively seeking the chemical highs of the afore satisfying levels of dopamine (gratification) and also starting up a "delta fos-b" cycle of binging and craving "rewards".

So, let's say sotapanna or equanimity greatly diminishes a person's dukkha nana (maybe expressed as schadenfreude or depressive/anxious mental perseveration (and I do think many unskillful mental perseverations are actually, chemically gratifying else a person would not cycle for long periods in them))...well, that brain may then seek the same satiating "highs" but now that brain looks for ways to get the dopamine from other activities, such as a novelty or a new variation on an old theme.

One reason I think apparently benign over-indulgence effects equanimity and sotapanna is because in equanimity, a spaciness/unsettledness can arise, because now the mind is open to so many other forms and options to perception: it has released its obsessive contact with the dukkha nanas (if its life circumstances are good/not oppressed) and is really adrift in an ocean of wonder and novelty-satisfaction. If one has been training in jhana, then bliss can start arising spontaneously in the body, such as the hands or joints or head or eyes suddenly (and briefly) feeling almost orgasmic. Meditation is beginning to undermine that sorrowful-angry gratifications of the mind, and one starts to perceive delight in the simplest things. Sunset, trees, sky, sounds...these forms become apparent and delightful, unshaded by the previous dukkha nana perseverations that brought one to meditate in the first place.

There can be a lot of delight here. Initial equanimity continues until something internal or external shows its impermanent satisfactoriness, it's dissatisfactoriness. The spaciness of equanimity (and SE) can also cause a person to feel both free and in great need of an anchor, so one can become very very attached to some wholesome purpose here. (This does not prevent any progress and can become another tool on the path...especially if the anchoring purpose was pretty will chosen (usually a purpose aligned with ethical disciplines will serve as supportive vehicle for the practice and a purpose that did not factor in ethical discipline becomes a challenge, if the purpose is hard to drop (e.g., incurs a lot of debt or some contract).

So, equanimity has different challenges than the dukkha nanas. Sotapanna is a realization that is very close to equanimity. It seems to sit back in the armchair of equanimity, trying to understand, "Now what?" Luckily, dukkha does arise and provoke one to look more at what is causing this dissatisfaction? What is causing dukkha? It is akin to being a wealthy person who has everything, "has it all", yet starts to feel a void.

For sotapanna, in my opinion, this area can be sort of tricky and time-consuming, because sotapanna has seen some degree of the aggregates and has some exposure to anatta and is also getting a lot of exposure to the spaciness of equanimity. Nevertheless, sotapanna end up following their self-reflexive nature --provoked by obvious fetters -- to go forward: why am I still irritable? Why am I restless? Why am I still gratified by torpor? Why does conceit satisfy me? Why does ill-will flash through the mind occasionally even if it does not openly express?

Those are my two cents.

To the second bit: akuppā me vimutti: akuppā is often translated as unshakable. However, Bhante Thanissaro translates it literally as unprovoked and from my experience I think this is an apt translation of factorial nibbana. So, he translates "akuppā me vimutti" to mean unprovoked is my awareness-release.

[edited: typos]

Wow, thanks for that explanation. That definitely explains why I have overeaten on several occasions knowing that it leads to suffering.

It's like you've read my posts and know exactly what is going on in my mind. Or maybe everybody progresses in the same general direction and you've helped others who are in a similar situation.

This whole anchoring thing--could you explain that a bit? How I can beneficially anchor (ha!)?

Ha. I understand. This is the Progress of Insight and satipatthana. So, my own experience of these stages informs me, and I reply hoping that I've related to you correctly and usefully. Because, as they say, "awakening is a team sport"; our individual right effort and our individual studious, candid observations work together, and we help each other by sharing exactly what we have discovered directly, that which we know experientially. A monastic used the word "gratification" in answering a question I had a few weeks ago, and that one word really helped me. The monastic, through the monastic's own direct personal experience, knew exactly the word to use to relate to my own frame of mind.

Well, being aware of restlessness/spaciness/the open "what next?" is a start. I do think it's very useful to do test food modification as Gotama suggested regularly: even just put something on the table that triggers craving and do not consume it. This will, over a 24-hour period, clearly show what is craving (an intense urgency presenting as pressure in the front half on the head) and what is actual feeling (for example, the stomach's own comfort can be completely obscured by the din of craving). So, one can basically eat a meal and just not consume the food that one is craving.

Once one knows the feeling of craving, then one can feel gratification. You eat the thing or something else you crave the next day after, first, again letting the craving arise in the mind so that one knows they are feeling "craving" again. Now, knowing craving, one eats and pays attention to "gratification". Thereafter, it will be increasingly easy to feel when craving and gratification are arising in response to many self-centered feelings: when one then feels ill-will (like the subtle ill-will of an unexpressed impulse to press the car's gas pedal a little harder in response to another driver's maneuvering - a seed of hostile driving, for a personal example). One will notice here the exact same pull of mind as one felt in the craving. If one does cut off the other driver, then one will feel the exact same gratification. Now, this uncomfortable pull of mind (anti-nibbana:vader gives a sense of what creates and sustains a reified sense of self.

It is fortunate to be able to train gently and with excess, like this: one has the ability to chose to expose themselves to unessential deprivations like snack food (which is not to say that the dopamine deprivation/delta fos-b drive is less...this I don't know, but I think some addictions are milder than others), unlike being forcibly exposed to a deprivation of something essential, like forced thirst.

So, this food modification recommended by Gotama is very useful and helps greatly to loosen the mind around craving. It also causes compassion for craving and deprivation. This is what I can tell in the regards to practical (as opposed to procrustean) "anchoring" in the spaciness of equanimity/sotapanna.

Thank you for providing your reports.

Yes, there is definitely restlessness and spaciness. It's like I know what's next (craving) and fear, but sometimes it's too much for me to bear. I will do my best to bear more.

I am testing out intermittent fasting as well. Like cutting meals down to 2 meals in the morning, and then 1, and then eventually once every two days (if it doesn't overwhelm me on my next retreat).

Can you tell me about taking care of health out of compassion for oneself? Like I understand brushing teeth is wisdom, but sometimes chiropractic seems to be an "extra" (although it does help relax muscles immensely after 6-8 months of not stretching regularly or getting adjusted). It seems like I am clinging to the body, but I would like to change my attitude so that I am doing it out of compassion and not clinging. Obviously, dedicated compassion practice would help, no? Is it OK to take pleasure in a healthy body and take care of it so it is healthy or is this holding me back from liberation?

Also, on retreat, I was testing out not eating the foods I like. Like only eating plain oatmeal in the morning or skipping some wonderful lunch items. Is this something I should do more? It feels like self-deprivation sometimes or like an aversion to desire.... What's your experience on retreats where the only outlet for "self" is through taste consciousness?

Personally, I think the kind of awareness and candor you express in your threads about this bond/addiction/craving/fetter causes a natural arising of effort to start working on this particular bond (e.g., addiction/craving/fetter). I personally have learned to support a gentle, natural progress here.

For example, if I commit to eat just one meal today and then I willfully eat three meals (no matter if it is because of accepting guests' offerings or my gratifying cravings), I do not add a negative mental state to this: people may clearly see my actions and judge my failure even, and I am encouraged to be receptively and non-reactively aware of what it is to be an (my) animal subject to impulses, cravings and gratifications. This is the richly compassionate and wise part of this practice. I know from experience that this receptive and non-reactive means actually results in efficient practice: meaning, for whatever reason, the behavioural modifications resulting from this gentle and receptive non-reactive (and mostly non-repressive) practice actually develop more quickly.

Regardless, the first few times I modified meals to once per day, I did need to apply, at least for a few moments, emergency "mind crushing mind" restraint to prevent the action. "Mind crushing mind" is reserved for emergencies, when the action one would take is really harmful or when one cannot make progress in their practice without a brief, serious, diehard repression. I feel very lucky to learn this about cravings, addiction, gratification and unbinding from these in luxurious circumstances of personal will, of receptive non-reactive awareness and in abundance, versus via an external enforcement of deprivation (which deprivation may also come with cruelty, judgement and the ilk and these cause even greater challenges to overcoming addiction, because now one may become deeply averse to restraint, have deep cravings, and naturally develop very hard feelings, like hatred, and very severe predilections of action such as killing). There are some amazing teachers of all walks of life and practices and traditions who come from severe treatment, yet they truly teach and practice mettā, equally and including their prior "handlers".

Bhikkhu Anālayo (p 195, Satipaṭṭhāna: the Direct Path to Realization, Windhorse, 2003) has a significant footnote which encourages mettā on the basis of several suttas, and its capacity to weaken fetters and "I" (noting also that mettā alone does not completely dissolve the latter). To a group of listeners, he mentioned recently his own practice of mettā, for several hours a day, leaving only a few hours for other meditative practice. And he mentioned mettā's utility for progress at the four-stage level in the fetter model of awakening (once-returner to non-returner). He also spoke to the etymology of mettā (mitto: friend) in order for practitioners to really know what they should be practicing (friendliness), as loving kindness can be a bit abstract. Bhikkhu Anālayo also notes that mettā treats ones own low self-esteem and alienation "and thereby provides an important foundation for successful insight meditation."

Personally, a problem I have seen in myself with "loving kindness" as a translation for mettā is it can be, for someone like me of limited practice, "high-brow" and even condescending in those encounters which are particularly agitating to the practitioner (say, where the practitioner has feelings of aversion, or is repressing their anger/disgust by sort of forcibly applying mettā, which in actuality is applying more aversion than actual mettā and this kind of aversively applied practice is really an emergency effort (in the "mind crushing mind" category) but if used long-term will re-inforce, instead of dissolve, fetters of which one is forewarned of in the Progress of Insight, such as conceit.

Sotapanna has a natural conviction now in the training, and so now any practice can really develop and sink in - it is like one's fitness is at a good base-level now: one wants to do the practice and will not harm themselves with distracted/partial or aversive-to-the-practice will. So here mettā has a great chance of re-forming citta, to the point that hinderances arising in one's dream-state also begin to re-form wholesomely.

To know that a scholar-monk with many other duties spends several hours per day in meditative and mindful training of the mind in friendliness (mettā) is not something I should ignore. I am also reminded of Gotama's reply to Ananda on the importance of admirable friendship. Again, this is why our shared practices cultivate each other's practices and citta, like a rising tide lifts all ships.

I think this is very useful to the mind, both in terms of understanding directly through personal experience craving and in terms of causing natural empathy and wisdom.

To approach this craving-gratification at Equanimity or sotapanna is very anchoring and very useful: Truly, it shows exactly what mental craving and mental unbinding feel like. Thereafter, one can well feel the same unpleasant pull when ill-will or restless grasping or other fetters arise. These are called "fetters" because they bind like addiction. They bind based on gratifying feeling, and this craven feeling actually obscures the real delight of actual eating, actual intimacy, actual sleep. One does not need to, as a lay person, give up many activities, but one benefits immensely by dissolving the addictive contact. Without addictive contact, one can really savor these activities. It is as if they become "better" - as if time slows down and enjoyment of them spreads out, becomes greater. It is simply because the unpleasant din and terrible pull of addiction is undone.

I take any stretch that feels good and apply the body and breath to it for no less than two full minutes (unless it is unstable, such as a balancing stretch); the inhalation is no less than 5-seconds and the exhalation is no less than 5-seconds (and I do allow myself regular breaths if it seems helpful). I do no stretch that causes pain or discomfort; knowing well the sukkha of a beneficial stretch and the dukkha of a forced stretch (be careful: having an ego with the hamstring muscles can cause a very quiet, painless "pop" to occur which takes no less than 7 months to a year to heal with gentle, very very attentive mild stretching.) I have two severe tennis elbows in recent weeks and I treat them with basic stretches and have been able to, thankfully, do a lot of work with hands and forearms still. I do not want surgery and have developed trust in this 2-minutes-with-5-sec-breathing over the past 10 months. This also healed well a slightly torn wrist ligament over a three-month period.
[edit: so, knowing your own health and pains and (limits of/extents of) healing will help you with others, because eventually, people see your well-being despite ailments and they start to be drawn to authenticity, gentleness and healthfulness. Considering that great teachers, such as Gotama and dysentary, die with massive aliments or trauma, one's practice cannot ultimately avoid pain/injury/demise, but it treats well suffering]

When you do the modified eating practice, you will quickly learn what is the nature of craving contact and what is the mind unbound. Then you can approach activities knowing if you are subtly or grossly craving the gratification or if the mind is released from gratification and those free to do or not do a particular activity. Your own bodily study and healing will help others: Many people start from a position of mental and physical misery and want the liberation of buddhist meditation about which they've heard or read. Truly, the start of the path is as a great heap of suffering, mind and body cycling harmfully, fearfully and in greater and greater volume of stress, not sure how to stop fostering the escalating greed, hatred and delusion.

Then, when such a mind first feels relaxation of, say, yoga asana and pranayam, the mind starts to tackle the problems of the body, because, wow, it feels good. It feels much better than fear and disgust and anger.

Whether the person knows it or not, the good physical practice will also start to effect the mind: a person with a job in which there is conduct/custom that troubles them, for example, may find themselves getting very good at the body practice (such as yoga asanas) yet very dissatisfied by their work (say, for example, they can no longer ignore that their work profits from investments in the slaughter or exploitation of sentient beings or commercialization and pollution of water, etc).

Removing the great mass of suffering is bliss and staying in the great mass of suffering is hell, but for some reason it feels like a big struggle to make the crossing from hell to bliss. If the crossing from suffering to unbound mind did this all at once as a society, then much of the perceived suffering would not arise. Much of the suffering comes from a craven/desperate bond one has with neighborhood and changing behaviour around long-term associates. Yet, really a person can just gently start to follow the path, with no judgement of others, and all will appreciate their changes.

For example, a person who hears a lot of hatred at work can just start to softly listen, like a softly reflecting mirror, seeing the person's strengths and good potential as the person makes a hateful joke or what not. Over time that person changes because they have been treated softly, with respect, without aversion. I didn't know this when I started the practice. I did not know to find a role model and I was too self-centered/stubborn/convinced I could do the path on my own perhaps, to even know perhaps to ask anyone about this. But, really, being a mirror of receptive non-reactive awareness and then working on one's own dharma, one's own conduct, this works very, very well for those around such a practitioner. It creates problems to set a "deadline", but I'd like to say this sort of listening has particular effects after about six months to a year. And, if one becomes confrontational to a misconduct (in contrast to non-reactive, receptively aware), then the confrontation arises from a landscape of prior wholesome composure and the confrontation can be more effective.

Oh yes! I understand this exactly. I once asked for the day's menu because I wanted to know which meal would be most satifsying (yes: gratifying, bound-contact). This is natural and useful: because, as you observe, to miss a wonderful meal begins to feel like deprivation. To live a life in willful deprivation can grow to a superior, conceited view. Whereas to live without craven contact may cause the choice to not eat the exact same meal, but will leave no mental trace. So, I think it is good to know exactly what you are doing --- asking to see a day's menu, knowing you want your one or two meals to be the most gratifying ones you can eat, and going with this. When the time is right, you can then practice just having one or two meals before noon (or just the evening meal, or something) and you can explore the craving and the non-gratification of even your favorite meal. I have done this this way and found it very helpful, effective and efficient.. So, to be clear, relax the practice a little when deprivation comes on. Even relax it a lot. For example, if you want something badly, even eat it abundantly. This can help one complete their practice at later non-meals: one just repeats "I can eat what I want tomorrow before noon." I have done this with whole bags of junk food, then been able to respect non-eating after midday. Funnily enough, when the next morning arrives I am not hungry and when I do eat I tend to eat a moderate meal. So, in my first efforts, I really amped up some gratification in order to offer a "prize" during the restraint periods


It is a great value to study craving and gratification in this kind of luxury of choice and abundance, with both gentle allowance and gentle restraint. And you can trust that you will be progressive about this practice (meaning you will naturally escalate the effort) because if a person - even a teacher - does not mind themselves progressively, then their own suffering will become apparent. In addition, the problems arising from this willful stagnacy in craving and gratification will show that meditator's practice to be non-adept. It may not arise for many years, but eventually such a willfully stagnant "practitioner" will be confronted by the effects of their unchallenged self-gratification and their willful training in ignoring their addiction: they may, as a teacher, be placed next to an adept teacher and feel embarassment, they may feel aversion for their own students who mimic this willful stagnacy, they may remember their own teacher and feel great remorse for having lived years in willful addiction. What can they do: return to beginner's mind. In teachers it is as if minding the gratification of craven eating --- this massive, biologically natural reward --- is one of the last cravings some teachers choose to subject to their sati, and thus they spend years permitting and re-inforcing this craving. There is no shame here: they can just start the correct effort that very moment. Only the first few days will seem hard, then the progress will sail. That is the value of direct, experiential, "wet" insight. Edit: Meanwhile, I personally am averse to spelling and proof-reading, condensing...so I have a lot of edits. But I know that this changes gradually, with awareness and candor and steady,gentle application. I try to also be aware of the harm I can do if I write something incorrectlyedit 2: I've also added a little "mind crushing mind" here as the gratification of impatience is dangerous and this particular area of impatience is starting to get "old" to even me. So, it's a constant tweaking and sensitivity of "what effort would be good here and now?"

Just knowing this is very useful. I find as soon as I see and acknowledge this sort of symptom or evidence, that I will start orienting towards knowing its stress and gently dissolving this stress. This is another reason to just listen to people in non-reactive, repcetive awareness: often times people have the right, wholesome answer within them and if they are heard like a gentle mirror, then they will either directly find their own right answer or wind their way to it. If they really don't know, they ask. So, I think your awareness and candor in your posts about hunger, eating, taste consciousness all indicate you are already gently resolving this binding.

[edit: chat and PM seem to be broken. "Hi" back at ya'.
A few other syntax edits, too]

Ah, it turns out the passage from Bhikkhu Anālayo's book (Satipaṭṭhāna, the Direct Path to Realization, Windhorse Publications, 2003) was nearby, just one page after page 195 I cited above, on page 196; so I'll include it here as it is a useful summary (and I mistakingly stated once-returner to non-returner habits above in regards to effects of mettā). He used "loving kindness" here to translate mettā, but spoke briefly in a class setting of the utility of knowing, and even applying, mettā also via its etymology (mitto: friend). Any mistake on this point would be my own misunderstanding of the conversation. Anyway, here the excerpt (minus significant and helpful footnotes), beginning on page 195 and going to page 196:


This chapter addressing the hindrances then goes on, at page 197, to consider how physical torpor and mental sloth are developed into " 'clarity of cognition' (ālokasaññā). A useful book!

This activity is not inherently a problem. Twenty years ago I went to a chiropractor and there was an aftershock of an earthquake as I paid my bill. I was quite terrified of earthquakes, and the chiropractor stood up, when to the front door frame, looked at the wilderness outside and said, "I love to feel the earth move." Her own mind, expressing clearly, removed my fear completely in that moment. So, if these appointments are serving you now, who can say how else they may benefit you.

If you feel guilt about them, look at where that guilt is coming from. Perhaps there is a related reduction in ethical discipline happening? Maybe it is about the money? Sometimes one has the fortune to both pay for care and be generous with an organization that depends on donations. One just identifies a problem in the world about which one feels badly and also gives some means of donation to that organization and that effort.


Again, I want to bring home how useful is, "taste consciousness" and eating modification, in regards to your cessation experiences.

In cessation, one is enabled to see the khandhas clearly. For myself, in the one cessation I know to have experienced, the khandhas arrived in a sequence that seemed progressive. So I am going to express the following with what I know:

Consider the experience of khandhas like riding an elevator and stopping on different floors.
[indent]1. Form khanda - here there is some "start" as if form arrived from nothingness and the form/forms have no gradient, no sense of any distinction, though there are distinctions (this description can definitely be confusing)

So then the elevator goes up a floor,
2. Now there is feeling tone: pleasant, neutral, unpleasant. I only know "neutral" so it is as through this khandha was practically overshot because neutral is close to no-gradient, except that neutral feeling does escalate the distinction awareness...

3. ...into the next "floor" of recogntion. Now form is become named/categorized, there is the tone of "familiarity" here.

4. The next floor I experienced as if hearing a staticy obnoxious radio broadcast my thoughts and feelings! Just this babble occuring in the head like a radio left on, in an otherwise empty, quiet farm house at sunrise. It was as if volition-khandha was in known via rupa.

5. Consciousness...it was as if the doors of the elevator opened and revealed the exact same object of the preceding floors only with brilliance, like the light was turned up. Brilliance. I think this is the heart of the pure consciousness experience spoken of elsewhere[/indent]

Then, it is like the elevator dropped back to the 4th floor in response to that view of brilliant consciousness and "grabbed" at it, like a fish going for a shiny lure. That's how I felt. This meant my mind was filled with the din of grasping, wanting.

However, in buddhism, this khandha is cautioned as a magic trick, a circus. It can be corrupted by fortifying personality-view.



This is why a view of khandhas (which is not unique to buddhism apparently) is important. One can come to know the purity of the aggregates and their corruption/demoting distortion through grasping.

When eating and having just taste-consciousness, the eating has a something more than "wonder and brilliance" to it, but those or some other words will have to suffice. It takes practice to stabilize this. I certainly have not, but I know the dukkha of the aggregates is creating by addicting myself graspingly to them.

When "I" volitionally grab at any aspect of this, then the consciousness just becomes obscured by "wanting". This is the practice of sati: just paying attention to how one it grabbing at the just taste-consciousness and demoting it to a din of craving and dissatisfaction.

Ultimately, your wise and compassionate approach to sati will be the best, not all my words.


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Also, DhO chat feature is not working. I can see your words, but my replies are not coming through apparently. So, hello there :]