My fellow tarnished, 

​​​​​​​In meditation things are tending to go straight to a centerless experience. I was noticing the flickering of micro second contractions and how they can lead to worldviews. I started to see that even these micro second contractions were impermanent, not self and led to suffering. This created a feeling of great energy and I felt sort of free to just experience this moment. For a few days I was experimenting with this and sort of doing a "no meditation" version of investigating the three characteristics. A deep allowing of the practice of three C's and six s's. I dont exactly know how to say it, similar to the no distraction, etc practice, there's a little setup but then the ball is just rolling. 

So then it felt like I was free in the moment and two things would occur. Either more flickering contractions and I returned to openness or flickering contractions that would trigger these really uncomfortable experiences that felt like huge swathes of attention would become stiff, tense, hard. It was really nasty to be honest and a lot of the time I had to leave my preciousness about letting things happen on their own and directly, agentially investigate the three characteristics of this horrible blob of stiffness. So I did that for awhile and then centrelessness really started to show up. When the center reestablishes itself often just noting it will cause it to evaporate. 

Still some subtle control I'm working with. The heart notices it. But there's a great freedom to not being bound up in a centre point. 

Recognizing my tendency to repress anger responses in the moment was also somehow a huge part of this. 

It feels as though I can look at experience and say well there's no discernible center point here yet there are subtle assumptions about egoity or identification that still need to be worked on. 

​​​​​​​Like... I can't find a self yet there are subtle assumptions buried in my experience that there should be one or that things ought to occur in relation to one, even, strangely, when there doesn't seem to be anywhere one could be found. 

"restlessness" is an interesting fetter to ponder.

Foolish Ambitions

I've felt/feel that sword.

I don't think ego is a bad thing. It's there to protect this being. 

However we seem to believe our thinking (patterns). And yet it's just an experience as an itch is an experience; not self, impermanent, unsatisfactory (to cling to and think it's a permanent self). 

If there is no knowing-certainty about any of this then what is left? 
What is left if the wind moves the branches and the leaves fall down to the ground? 

A but farts! Show me the sound of one but cheek! 

This still sounds so heavy-handed to me. 

Koan alert!

What could cause a person to hold onto the assumption, however subtle or involuntary, that there's a center? 

EDIT - there truly is a center of experience, given that our sense organs are placed physically close to each other. Incoming sensations get to us in close proximity in time. So yeah, there's an obvious physical center of perception. But there's another assumption of a center that has nothing to do with this physical center. It's deeper than that and hidden very, very well.

EDIT 2: searching for a center isn't useful. Rather, examine the assumption of a center. This is not a vipassana examination as much as it is metaphysical one. You know in your bones there's no permanent "you." But is there something about the ever-arising impermanent you that satisfies a well-hidden craving for..... what?

Ok, enough of that for now.

Hi Bahiya. When you say centerlessness, do you mean the moment to moment shift in "perspective", or the complete lack of perspective. Or do you mean something else entirely.

Im sorry for everything Ive done that's inadvertently caused harm

Robert

Yes, perspective can change moment to moment. I mean something in how the self is constructed throughout a range of perspectives. 

Geoffrey

I dont know if I possess the authority to forgive you for everything you could potentially have done to cause harm but I will do so none the less. The world can always do with a little more forgiveness ... That's a lesson I learned from old Vimalaramsi. 

What has developed since my last post is a recognition of what I call "problem consciousness" (perhaps this is equivalent to the "rising up" of restlessness) 

Basically at a certain point in practice throughout my experience there's a simultaneous recognition of "hey, all of this dukkha is just a psychodrama a chain of unnecessary reactions to mostly made up problems" and then the whole rigmarole of problem consciousness just sort of stops. Which is refreshing to say the least. 

​​​​​​​There are real problems and things can be done about them but nothing HAS to be done about them. There's no chronic NEED to resolve the problem. 

Uh oh I like this Chris! More of such Chris, please! Maybe he comes only once in a blue moon? 

You are forgiven! Don't worry, its uncertain. We do a mistake. We carry on hitting ourselves for that mistake! Why?!

Baaaaaaaaahiiiiyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Of course, the mind has to sort out even the chronic problems! A way around this (human) fact is a fool's hope! Dukkha Im telling you!  

If its ok for the mind to be free within this very chronic problem-solving, then what is the freedom within that????? 

Baaaaaahhiiiiyyyyaaaaaa! There is no way you can win this fight! xoxo

what fight? Fighting doesn't exist. I think he has already won, he just doesn't know it yet.

Well, I take that back. BB is very astute, and knows it for sure.

Good stuff, yeah there is a restlessness and from that you can infer there is a ongoing foundational primal assumption that something needs to be done or fixed. 

Which is fine, except a lot of the time there is nothing that needs to be done or fixed. The self is looking for a reason to exist in its selfing role. It's almost like a radar system that prevents any possibility of peace or fundamental relaxation because there is this very quiet yet disruptive "ping! ping! ping!" that the self insists on doing all the time. The self looking for something to do... or it might die? 

Being gently mindful of the dukka of restlessnes is helpful. Dukka is your teacher. 

The three poisons can also be a helpful framing, because a moment of being an arhat is a moment of being without greed, aversion, or indifference. Don't forget indifference, this is the one that is overlooked the most at this stage. A bizzare amount of energy goes into being indifferent to things that don't feed the self. The self is indifferent to things that don't need to be done or fixed --- but 99% of experience falls into this category of things. The self cuts itself from a vast peace by ignoring all the already peaceful things.  

There will be more and more moments without the three poisions. And when the peace of enough moments of arhating tip the scale, then the self says fine I'll be arhat that has moments of selfing instead of a self that has moments of arhatting. 

But it's funny, the self doesn't want to go. It can help to have a basic practice schedule/routine even though it seems pointless. I was kinda lucky that I had signed up for a weekend retreat at this time that was mostly for beginners. It was with a western monk who had trained under the Ajhan Chah (Ajahn Chah - Wikipedia) and was now the abbot of his own monestary. He was a very normal guy who talked about being a monk and the interpersonal challenges of being an abbot and the physical challenges of growing old --- very very normal guy. It took away the notion that there was something particularly special or esoteric that needed to be discovered or something particularly special or esoteric that resulted. 

I was doing the simplest of exercises sunday morning: breathe in "may I be well", breathe out "may all beings be well". When the tip happened for me, I had a brief flash of visceral feeling that I might go insane or die, which I felt a million times on this journey so I took that in stride, and then I felt something happening and I almost said "oh shit" out loud in the middle of a silent retreat. 

The doneness of done is most notable in the loss of this primal restlessness. It can help to imagine what done feels like. (It sorta feels like that space after an outbreath before there is any desire for the next breath.)

There are still things that need to done or fixed of course, but there is also a vast blossoming of all the things that we were previously indifferent to. That's perhaps what is "gained" with enlightment, if anything. No big deal.

​​​​​​​ 

It feels like coming home. It's been happening this whole.time and I didn't even notice it. It's like I wasn't even looking at the right level of reality. 


Guys, I'm sorry I flipped out. I really do have an anger problems, I have been talking to my friends about it and I am really sorry. I will take a hiatus for awhile 

Thank you for all your support. It means the world and I'm not always worthy. 

No past, no future 
Just this blossoming moment 
​​​​​​​Try to be nicer to people 

Hi Bahiya,&nbsp;<br />Take this as an opportunity, not a setback. It was a gift. Embrace the feeling of the anger, embrace the shame that often comes with it. Allow the feelings the space to arise, and just let them do their thing. Shit happens.

Which is fine, except a lot of the time there is nothing that needs to be done or fixed. The self is looking for a reason to exist in its selfing role. It's almost like a radar system that prevents any possibility of peace or fundamental relaxation because there is this very quiet yet disruptive "ping! ping! ping!" that the self insists on doing all the time. The self looking for something to do... or it might die

hmmm. But like it kinda switches between "doing" and "focusing" (like attention is kinda external or internal). But it is always doing something, and I've noticed I usually switch to doing something "out there" when "in here" gets too much to handle. But I have also noticed that colors of stuff tend to correspond to what they do. So
Free Green - health, growth
Free Red - love, heart, anger, fire, etc
Free Blue - open, sky, water, flow, magic
Free Yellow - riches, money, sun, summer
So my idea is that by identifying the problem, and selecting an environment that makes you go "fuck yeah", you're figuring out to externally process your internal state. And you can do this implictly or explictly

Purple also seems like an interesting fusion of color - flow/heat, freedom/fire, blood, royal, etc.

Also, spring cleaning seems powerful. Just give away appropriately anything that isn't super functional or doesn't spark joy.

Hi Geoffrey,<br />I agree, nothing to do. Just be ok with whatever comes up in the moment, cultivating that Boddhichitta, I found helpful. I don't understand what you're talking about with the color stuff, but that's ok too.

"It feels like coming home."

Kenneth Folk equates the SE with the 4th path in terms of getting the cosmic joke! You get it at SE and then you forget about it and believe you must plow on and on to get to something better, so the seeker continues its journey (and ultimately exhaustion). So at 4th path it comes to the same spot of "it feels like coming home" Oh! Its never going to be anything other than what it already IS!  

Excuse me for posting this clip once again but I feel it to be appropriate  
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1EoqWbbQJz/