Richard's Insight Practice 2

thumbnail
Richard Zen, modified 5 Days ago at 11/28/24 8:57 PM
Created 5 Days ago at 11/28/24 8:57 PM

Richard's Insight Practice 2

Posts: 1676 Join Date: 5/18/10 Recent Posts
Creating a new thread to make it easier to open. Wow! 12 years flies by!

Part 1:
https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/3139959

Beginning of Part 2:
 
Just going back over my old Actualism post, I found that Richard actually died this year on my birthday, which was creepy. Hopefully it was as rapid and painless as possible. I noticed that the website moved and I'll have to review my post to see if definitions can be refined even further to clarify in a helpful way. The new site seems to have a search function, which is helping me find things MUCH EASIER.

I searched up Richard's important "persistant initialisation," which to me is a mindfulness/concentration to go into a wordless approach. Again, so much is like Buddhism here. Everyone wants to remove excess thinking by noticing the energy loss so that it doesn't unconsciously takeover the foreground of experience. In my search I found a helpful response:

https://actualfreedom.com.au/actualism/peter/list-af/corr03a.htm

"As one knows from the pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s), which are moments of perfection everybody has at some stage in their life, that it is possible to experience this moment in time and this place in space as perfection personified, ‘I’ set the minimum standard of experience for myself: feeling good. If ‘I’ am not feeling good then ‘I’ have something to look at to find out why. What has happened, between the last time ‘I’ felt good and now? When did ‘I’ feel good last? Five minutes ago? Five hours ago? What happened to end those felicitous feelings? Ahh ... yes: ‘He said that and I ...’. Or: ‘She didn’t do this and I ...’. Or: ‘What I wanted was ...’. Or: ‘I didn’t do ...’. And so on and so on ... one does not have to trace back into one’s childhood ... usually no more than yesterday afternoon at the most (‘feeling good’ is an unambiguous term – it is a general sense of well-being – and if anyone wants to argue about what feeling good means ... then do not even bother trying to do this at all)."

This alleviates some of that pressure to look for "perfect" experiences, which I still think are Flow states (not perfect, because nothing is), but based on sensation, as opposed to purely intellectual flow, and the equanimity jhana (minimising both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings). Flow states let go of the sense of a heavy "I" and what people are complaining about is actually the super-ego that is literally attacking the mind by making a preference lack forefront, a stress pressure to make one uneasy to motivate action to change things. To go back to why one felt better is simply the time before a stressful, ruminating, worried, catastrophizing, etc., thought appeared, along with the stress pressure to control. Once a person returns to a "general sense of well-being," then one is back. It doesn't have to be a major HIGH. A wordless approach is just mindfulness of thinking, and the mind just realizes it's hurting itself, by paying attention wordlessly to the sensations of the mind making itself feel bad, to motivate changing oneself or the environment. The wordless realization is when the unconscious lets go of the self-induced pain automatically so that consciously what remains is well-being. 

He does rail on in that link about expressing emotions in the therapeutic way, but he's wrong about that, especially with this kind of concentration, where repressed content comes out MORE, not less (Eg. Willoughby Britton). Some forms of shame, low self-esteem, paranoia, catastrophizing, etc., are so deep that one has to explore those areas until enough mystery is exposed. Once that has happened then meditation becomes much easier to handle. There are also periods where feeling well-being will return when a preference in the environment is practically taken care of.

The important thing is carrying on with life not paralyzed, (Right Effort etc.), by letting go of indulging useless energy-wasting content, while allowing the important thoughts to combine with actions. As momentum builds, the jhanas can appear "one up-levels ‘feeling good’ [1st/2nd jhana?], as a bottom line each moment again, to ‘feeling happy’ [3rd jhana?]. And after that: ‘feeling perfect’ [4th jhana?]." 

These states naturally breakdown again when imperfect life circumstances arise bringing up deeply lodged irksomeness over preferences, which is the hardest thing to control when expectations aren't not kept to a minimum. I would just add that humble attitudes about reactivity can open things up so that one can catch these reactions as a form of over-efforting so that one isn't caught in a loop over the mistake and one can prioritize focus instead on relaxing effort in real time. In fact, this seems to help when I get caught in a malaise, or inbetween state that's kind of yucky, which almost always center around expections and desires to control the future.

The only thing I can think of adding is the Heideggerian sense of wonder that anything exists at all. This increases appreciation for both nature and technology. It helps with that "grooving" on sensation that cheats the equanimity a little bit. How I do it, is pondering wordlessly why questions, like "why these colors and shapes and not something else?" "why these laws of physics?" I also try to imagine a universe other than this one so that the uncanny reality pops back as it is because this is the only REAL universe we are aware of. The momentum brings up appreciations for the sensations, shapes and colors that were just moments ago taken for granted. I've done this persistently sitting at a park bench and eventually a jhana appears, but it's more like a Wonder Jhana with Wonder flavors, compared to just the rapture absorption as per normal.

​​​​​​​This is where I am at so far. 
thumbnail
Chris M, modified 4 Days ago at 11/29/24 8:46 AM
Created 4 Days ago at 11/29/24 8:46 AM

RE: Richard's Insight Practice 2

Posts: 5474 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
Thank you for creating a new topic!
thumbnail
Richard Zen, modified 1 Day ago at 12/3/24 1:42 AM
Created 1 Day ago at 12/3/24 1:42 AM

RE: Richard's Insight Practice 2

Posts: 1676 Join Date: 5/18/10 Recent Posts
I've always had a difficulty with The Great Way by Hsin Hsin Ming because of how uncompromising it is, but it does help me in part. I found a lot of relief today to just pay attention to how preferences were affecting my body, even in the most subtle ways, and the mind was letting go quicker and quicker. Without engaging with preferences, it's like beating around the bush.

It was a relief at work today to feel the same smoothness that happens in peak concentration states when preferences are let go of. Here I wasn't in a concentration state, but there needed to be some control of attention to make a priority of investigating, where I simply checked to see how detrimental preference-thoughts were towards my body. That's it. 

It opened up a freedom with action that was pleasurable. When doing sales, which is full of non-preferences, the smoothness came just from that simple investigation. No need for a concentration inertia to get there. Of course if the mind is swimming in thoughts, and a non-preference arises, that's when clinging is likely to takeover. Immediately returning to assessing how my body was doing was enough to get unhooked. At times one can feel a preference appear as a sharp heat in the mind, and sometimes there's a small contraction even before that. Either way, those impulses were defused, because the body naturally felt it was not worth it.

One is letting go of defending a self-image, so preferences can still operate more smoothly in the body. Action appears like a healthy normal because self-conscious resistance is absent. 

I've been debating what clinging, resistance, or preference is, but it appears to be anger. Anger has a special feeling of self-injury to motivate action so that the self-injuring can stop when the situation is under control. The super-ego really does behave like a separate person who is an authority. But it's like huring yourself before you attempt to control the environment. It's inefficient of course, and the question then leads to how freeing this actually is. Well, it is very freeing, but not to the point that physical effort, or pain will not bring fresh resistance. One still has to choose goals that are possible, and despite Olympic meditators that take painful ice baths or masochistically imagine being tortured in a dungeon, I'm sure I have my limits too.

The way forward is to test out this freedom by engaging in creative activity, but allowing rest where needed. Resistance in the body, as opposed to the self-concept, is more a signal as to whether there is enough energy now for one creative project or another. This method saves energy by not expending it on defenses towards a concept of self built on the past, present, and especially future mind objects, but preferences are still located in the experience of the body, but this is grounding because that's what we were supposed to protect all along.

What's therapeutic is letting go of this proto-anger towards the past that can't be changed, the present circumstances, that we have limited control over, and expectations for the future, which are ultimately predictions against the unknown, so it reduces shame, perfectionism, and improves creativity towards what is real. A learning mentality is more ego-syntonic with the body, because the body needs to continue on, so it's welcoming towards learning, whereas the self-concept I think can turn towards suicide with extreme expectations. Clinging towards the past is like an anger/effort towards events that cannot be changed. Clinging in the present is a drain on energy needed to problem-solve now. Clinging towards the future is putting too much stock in predictions.
shargrol, modified 22 Hours ago at 12/3/24 5:31 AM
Created 22 Hours ago at 12/3/24 5:31 AM

RE: Richard's Insight Practice 2

Posts: 2748 Join Date: 2/8/16 Recent Posts
Wow, really well said. I really like the way you describe it. 

This morning while laying in bed I was looking for subtle "ill will" or "proto-anger" in my body/mind and thinking many of these same thoughts. It was really neat for this to be the first thing I read this morning. Thanks!
thumbnail
Richard Zen, modified 8 Hours ago at 12/3/24 7:39 PM
Created 8 Hours ago at 12/3/24 7:39 PM

RE: Richard's Insight Practice 2

Posts: 1676 Join Date: 5/18/10 Recent Posts
shargrol
Wow, really well said. I really like the way you describe it. 

This morning while laying in bed I was looking for subtle "ill will" or "proto-anger" in my body/mind and thinking many of these same thoughts. It was really neat for this to be the first thing I read this morning. Thanks!
I'm glad it helped! I certainly know it's working when I feel I don't NEED to meditate. You realize the little pushes and pulls were surrounding regular life the whole time.

Breadcrumb