Hey guys.
Any good resources to learn how to do direct pointing well?
Youtube, books, websites?
thanks,

I remember "liberation unleashed" as a spin-off from "ruthless truth", searched up the website and found this: http://www.liberationunleashed.com/LU_Enlightening_Quotes.html, perhaps a bit overwhelming though... ?

The Surangama Sutra

Hi star avatar ;)

Did anything of your 10/1/13 4:10 report change that's causing you to look to "directing pointing"? Here's a specific excerpt from that post: "Apart from one evening when I seemingly came out of this state 4 days later, I have since been locked into it, 100% agencylessness, 100% teflon-mind, and 100% centrelessness."

I asked because there was a time in 2011 that I thought my own mind had landed in an astounding place and when I finally realized that place was not stable I set back to practicing and both seeing this and resuming the lab work were really useful.

Kind regards.

Hey Katy

my insights in terms of MCTB 4th path seem stable thanks
I feel like I have dropped exactly back into normality but with just nothing in the centre.

I was asking because I am making some movement meditation workshops to try to lead people to the no-doer insight, based on the bahiya sutta.

In developing these workshops I was suddenly struck by how similar the approach I was using is to direct pointing i.e. getting people to just use their senses, look clearly and just 'see' that their body is moving by itself, and there is no 'YOU' controlling it.

In the end I found the stuff on Liberation Unleashed is excellent. There is a great selection of quotes on the site and a book called the gateless gate which has conversations on it, which also show the strategies for pointing that they adopt.

also Douglas Harding's Headless exercises www.headless.org are interesting too, quite specific but some good stuff in there.

S.B.A:


Okay, and in that same thread about your "MCTB 4th path" earlier this year you mentioned this:


How is that going ("causing the reduction of ill will and crass sensual desire")?

Hey katy

I have been working recently with attachment to romance, useless romantic fantasy, and the adding of romantic stories/energy onto situations. Something has shifted, there seems to be the willingness to want to eliminate the attachment, and that seems to be a big step. But progress is slooooooooowwwww

Hi, again, star avatar,



Yes, I totally agree. The gratification of a good partnership has a challenge in it --- physical "congress" aspects aside even ;) --- because there can be aversion to aloneness-unplugness, lack of sati, when there's also attachment to partnership/romance/romantic fantasy. (This is not a veiled suggestion that we social species go it alone as practitioners, just more in the study of what am i? What notions move me to take actions and how?)

When I see "something has shifted" after I've turned my attention and intention to a notion and/or gratification I'm now sort of accustomed to seeing a process that takes a good year to unfold.

Anyway, this is also one reason I like the fetter model; I like the "actionables", the behavioural aspects that one can clearly trust for themselves have changed or not.

At the Abidhamma study this summer (which will be offered for four days at both the Bhavana Society and at Chuang Yen Monastery in 2014, I think), I think I recall correctly that Bhikkhu Bodhi mentioned that many of the Buddha's students stopped at sotapanna. It's easy to see why-- mind gets easier, fetters can seem like "oh, maybe tomorrow, life is good! I'm a pretty nice person..."

However, we also live in a great time to see the effects of unchecked/unstudied sense-gratification. Anyway, it's ehipassiko (see for oneself). I'm certainly addressing myself foremost here.

Orient perception internally and ever more penetratingly inwards.

Take notes when necessary.

Note the extents to which and in which the internal perceptions conform to the external perceptions.

Continue going on, within and without, until done.

Serve chilled with an appropriate beverage.