Hello everyone.

Wall of text warning!
I am sorry for the big post but please read the whole thing because i am in need of help!

A needed prehistory:

I read Mindfulness in plain English in twelfth grade at school(senior year in american terminology). This other than a spontaneous sitting when i was a little boy and watched a film about the Buddha was my intro to formal meditation. My practice consisted of periods of about a month of sitting virtually every morning and evening for half an hour with great difficulty and than finally giving up because i just couldn't build up any concentration. This repeated with Zen and finally i discovered Dan's book and understood that i need Access concentration first(I did read almost the whole thing without the chapters about the different models). This however didn't break the pattern. During that general period of time i was studying at university and developed a pattern of starting to study something and than giving up for some supposedly logical reason. After reading the MCTB i recognized classical dark night symptoms during the times i gave up.I remeber one time(i didn't give up than) telling myself "Now if that's not textbook dissolution i don't know what is." Problem was i couldn't connect some classical A&P's with these Dark Night resembling phenomena so i thought they were some depression episodes or something of the sort. Years later i had some A&P like dreams and remembered having the same type of dreams around the times i was suspecting D.N. . They included a very powerful rush of energy shooting through my spine. Also, around the first time i had similar episodes but of lesser intensity and more diffuse propagation of the energy throughout the body also when i was awake kind of like a very powerful shiver but without any cause. I haven't had the waking ones for a long time now . The waking episodes i didn't connect with meditation at all. The dreams i thought might be A&P
s but because they didn't have any bright lights/visual component i decided they weren't A&Ps. Around the time i experienced the textbook dissolution i think i tacitly decided that i would just will myself out of this whatever it was and this engendered a repression of a lot of thoughts and most of feelings which i now recognize. Fast forwarding a little i discovered Actualism through the Dharma overground and forgot the whole meditation stuff(although i didn't connect all this fully until this morning). The pattern repeated though: on->off ad nauseum.

So recently i decided to follow Tarin's advice to learn to enter jhana if one has trouble putting the actualism method to work.
I started and didn't have much progress other than some(probably) "touching" of Access Concentration for brief moments.I had problems with trying to do the meditation as in "the doer" was messing things up for me and the only time i concentrate is when i pretend that i am not really focusing on the breath exactly sneakily actually paying attention to the breath so "I" don't get in the way. Other meditative thing is that i can(especially after waking up, but without much trying always) perceive countless very fast flickerings in the visual field like snow TV noise but a lot finer and plentiful.

During this last period i was trying for jhana i was really afraid that this might cause me to enter the Dark Night if i wasn't already in it. This morning i woke up and realized that i am very probably in it for the last 5 years and have just learned to repress it enough to be able to somewhat function.

So i ask:
1)Do you think i crossed the A&P?
2)And if so what course of action do you recommend considering the following:
-I have no means of going on a retreat because outside of non-permanent (pun,semi-intended)Goenka thing a few times a year and some Tibethan weirdos that really don't know what they are talking about there are no retreat centers where i live and i don't have neither the finances nor the time to travel abroad.
-furthermore i am again going to university and am in a now or never situation with studying.
-whatever happens i will eventually aim for Actual Freedom
-me believing that this may all be just dark night stuff actually engenders a sense of relief that these feelings i repress may be normal and i don't need to repress/deny them.

Basically, what is the risk of jhana training fostering a (re)crossing of A&P and is the Dark Night more or less manageable while practicing. Also if i did already cross, is it worth it to pursue jhana and actualism or should i shoot for stream entry in a daily practice regimen and see what happens?

Hi there,

Here is my take on it, which is going to be in the minority on this forum.


You are definitely well on the spiritual path.


Continuing to meditate in any way (e.g. practicing jhanas) will foster more spiritual developments, such as A&Ps and Dark Nights. Holding spiritual ideals/goals in mind while going through life, even if you don't meditate, will also likely perpetuate the symptoms you mention.


Dark Nights can really suck and mess your life up, whether you are practicing or not.


Stream entry won't help you with actualism or attaining an actual freedom. Indeed, in my opinion it makes it more difficult.


If you're going to aim for an actual freedom anyway, you might as well do it directly instead of going about it in a roundabout manner. This link on "180 degrees opposite" might be of use, excerpt here:



You either see it or you don't... but in order to make progress on the actualist path you have to understand what spirituality/meditation is, and how it leads you away from actuality. If you don't then you'll keep going down the spiritual path you're already on now. This spoken from my personal experience! I'd suggest reading as much as you can on the AFT about spiritualism/meditation/buddhism/vedanta etc. and seeing how it applies to what you've been doing thus far. If you don't understand that, you won't make progress towards actual freedom, because you'll be looking in the wrong place.

Cheers,
- Claudiu

Thanks for the extensive reply Claudiu.

I too am biased more on the side of Actualism not because it is more direct, but because it seems more doable in my situation.
What about hatha yoga? Is it too meditative considering that the execution of every asana is accompanied with watching of the breath.I find it is an unitrusive way to keep the level of physical fitness needed by the average person

Considering the difference between spiritual pursuits and actualism.My understanding is as follows:
-meditation's aim (whether Samatha or Vipassana) is the remodelling of the convolution mechanism through which (normaly ) every sensory input or thought passes and is subsiquently warped and/or something is added to it (in other words the affective mechanism) so that the total effect is something which is more skillful/wholesome/enjoyable/divine/blissful etc.. Pick your flavor.
This change can be temporary as in Samatha or permanent as in the result from Vipassana and other forms of insight training.

-actualism's aim is the incremental disassemly of anything that applies this convolution.Accordind to Richard and company these mechanisms are affective in nature and are either stimulated to act on the imputs of the senses/thought by the social identity(i.e. beliefs, morals, ethics etc.), or are the direct act of the affective animal self which normaly acts on these inputs as a form of crude built-in survival mechanism.When this disassembly is through, the sense of being, being itself of affective nature disappears along with the other feelings and only the perfectly unencumbered senses/thoughts remain to operate in the body.

This is what i think and to be honest i reeaaaaaly don't want to read the whole Richard bashing and subsequent spiritualism bashing charade.I think my problem is not one of lack of intellectual understanding but of practical nature.Up to now i repressed too much to be in touch with my feelings enough to practise the method.Right now when i ask myself how am i experiencing this moment of being alive i have to answer that i am not so sure and i tell myself that this repression is fighting against myself and this works more often than not.The next step is feeling the feelings but because i am not oh so familiar with them i cant actually feel it and name it precisely only from the feeling itself but i kind of deduce it from the context.So now i am basically learning not to repress and to name my feelings correctly.Only after that i can actually put the method to work. Although not repressing is nicer than repressing, an unpleasant feeling is still an unpleasant feeling and this is hard because there is no affective reward (in the form of feeling better) for doing this preliminary practice .
So any tips in that direction are more than welcome.

I found this article to be a good/entertaining read on yoga. It's most definitely developed with spiritual aims in mind, much like tai chi, but simply exercising doesn't seem like the worst idea.


That's fine; your understanding of the two seems pretty accurate.


This is good stuff in that you at least realize when you are repressing your feelings. What I find helps is, when you're feeling something and you don't know what, try to ask yourself "what's wrong?" Like, let yourself start thinking about something. The content of the thought is likely what you're worried/anxious/angry/etc. about. This will take time. But, as you said, not repressing is nicer than repressing, so there's a reward in and of itself already.

As to how to get to feeling good: in order for that to work you have to really want to feel happy and harmless, to really want to enjoy this moment of being alive. That is both the means and the end to actualism - the enjoyment of this moment. While that seems obviously beneficial on its surface, it can take a surprising amount to really get to the point where that's something that you want. What really helps in this regard is a PCE, or an experience of pure intent (the actually occurring stream of benevolence and benignity oft-mentioned on the AFT), because from there it will become obvious that that is a worthy goal - to experience that 24/7 - and that feeling felicitous is both the closest affective approximation and also the most effective way of getting there.

Once the intent is in place it will become a lot easier. You will find ways of allowing yourself to figure out what it is that is bugging you, and why, and how to stop worrying about it.

Hope that helps!
- Claudiu

Yes, yes, yes ... I overlooked this aspect for years of actualism practice. Contrary to what one may think, humans do not have the intent to be happy now. What we really mean when we say "I want happiness" is that "I want to attain so and so desired object". If you're into evolutionary psychology, this translates to "I want to attain power, wealth and sex".

OP, one tip I can give is this: take particular note of all those moments you genuinely/ simply enjoy being alive. I'm talking about normal enjoyment and fun (nothing special). Appreciate them all. Begin to wonder by asking such questions as "Wouldn't it be great if all of my moments were like this?" .. and "What is preventing me from having all of my moments enjoyable?". Slowly you'll get to a point where enjoying life right now, right here becomes more important that those mindless/ automatic/ ongoing/ semiconscious stratagems to fulfill/ repress/ act on the desires.

Actualism == enjoyment; you could have titled this thread "RE: Dark night, jhana and enjoyment".

Good luck!