Why so little talk of desire here? [Jinxed P]


Jinxed P - 2014-04-21 17:19:08 - Why so little talk of desire here?

The first few noble truths state that the cause of unsatisfactoriness is desire/craving. And while people here make a great deal about nonduality I find little discussion on how nonduality relates to the cessation of desire (does it?).  

From my understanding of buddhism it is the ending of desire that leads to nirvana. And while many here have claimed to have fully reached a nondual understanding, no one here claims Nirvana. Are we at the DhO community simply stopping at nonduality and not realizing the nondual implications for ending desire which in turn leads to the end of suffering?

What is the relationship between desire and nonduality? Between desire and the attainments you have reached?

How has a nondual understanding impacted desires for sex, good food, friendship, etc?

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T DC - 2014-04-21 18:00:28 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

I think that a distinction should be made between desire in the context of that which is ended upon Nirvana, and desire such as for food or sex.

The desire which has cessation upon reaching nirvana is desire that is conditioned by the issue that nirvana solves.  In essence nirvana is the antidote to this desire.  This desire is craving, based on the dualistic belief that having what you want will make you full or whole, that the fulfillment of your desire will eradicate your suffering.

A different form of desire however, that is not eradicated upon nirvana/enlightenment, is the everyday desire for things which we perceive ourselves to need.  For example one might desire food water and shelter.  Even upon enlightenment, one must take care of immediate physical concerns.

Perhaps the desire for sex or something like that, upon enlightenment, is more questionable.  However, as I have said elsewhere, upon enlightenment one does not lose their individuality.  A persons individuality includes desire for sex, for love.  People have a whole suite of desires which are intrinsic to them, and this is not wrong, it's just the way it is. 

An enlightened person is not a perfect being in strict moralistic sense.  And why should this be the case?  What is the grand truth upon which a strict moralist, anti-desire (anti-sex) view point is based?  Upon enlightenment one is simply who one most basically is, beyond such conceptual frameworks of good and bad.  

I understand that this question comes from a basis of traditional ideas of enlightenment.  However I would say that one need not desire simply based on dualistic-confusion, based on belief that the object of desire will make one whole.  There is a deeper, natural form of desire, much as there is a deeper, natural self, beyond the 'ego' imposed by dualistic confusion.

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James Yen - 2014-04-21 20:18:14 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

A person who doesn't understand the type of craving that the Buddha talks about is liable to equate with something it is not.

It's a craving you feel, it's a deep thirst, the resolution of which is Nibbana. The commentators and Abhidhamma compilers directly after the Buddha directly equated desire with desire for "food, sex, sleep, fame, money" etc. And then compiled what they thought was a "technically" accurate Dharma.

But this is not possible, ehi passiko, one must come and see.

This is why I am reluctant to teach the Four Noble Truths, because no one will see them.

But after coming here, it is easy to realize what the Buddha meant by the five clinging aggregates, and how the letting go of craving, is in fact Nibbana.

In peace,

James

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C C C - 2014-04-22 01:01:14 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

In non-duality you become everything.  Hard to desire something if you're already it.  (speaking from experience, of course  ). 

There's a story of a woman who went to India and came across a holy man.  She was quite impressed with him and so asked if he would come to visit her in London.  She explained that it would be her pleasure to show him the all the wonderful places around town.  He replied "Madam... I am London".

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Pawe? K - 2014-04-22 07:45:45 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

the same reason why there is little talk about other things like advanced meditative states and other things that would indicate real progress. Instead we have people who skip all that and go straight to having enlightenment that is superior to Buddha's

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Chris M - 2014-04-22 08:15:22 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?


T DC I'm not sure what version of Dhamma you are espousing, but it certainly is not Buddhadhamma. What you describe in the above post, and others of yours I have read, is not the goal of awakening of the Buddhist path. However, I can see you are resolved on believing that you have attained the final goal, so I am not going to try and convince you otherwise. This is more for the benefit of future readers of this forum, who maybe seduced and deluded into believing what you describe as full awakening. 

Jinxed P, you are right to question these very salient points re non-duality verses desire, as it goes to the heart of the Buddha's teachings, the Four Noble Truths, which are not so much beliefs that we need to adhere to, but Truths to be comprehended & experienced:

This is the noble truth of dukkha
This noble truth of dukkha is to be comprehended
This noble truth of dukkha has been comprehended.

This is the noble truth of the origination of dukkha 
This noble truth of the origination of dukkha is to be abandoned 
This noble truth of the origination of dukkha has been abandoned.

This is the noble truth of the cessation of dukkha 
This noble truth of the cessation of dukkha is to be directly experienced 
This noble truth of the cessation of dukkha has been directly experienced.

This is the noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of dukkha 
This noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of dukkha is to be developed 
This noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of dukkha has been developed


The above is paraphrased for the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta the Buddha's first discourse.

Non-duality is not even a main preoccupation and goal of the Buddhist Path, it is the letting go of craving which ultimately leads to Nibbana. It is the actual letting go of that leads to cessation, not as you have described T DC: "In essence nirvana is the antidote to this desire." 

You clearly have the cart before the horse here.

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Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii - 2014-04-22 21:53:26 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

One thing I am surprised no-one here talks about is the insight into the illusory nature of desire, as separate from the insight into the illusion of self-as-doer (agent).
In my experience, this insight into desire (which occurred separately some time after I did MCTB 4th path) was a mighty sledgehammer blow into the foundations of the patterns of craving & desire.

Here is how I saw/see it.

Last September I had the insight into non-doership, meaning that self-as-doer, agent was seen through, which is one of the conditions that people in here call 4th path (MCTB 4th Path). Thoughts just appeared with no thinker, the body moves and reacts to various stimuli, and there is no single, controlling entity of my experience. This became my baseline state.

However at this point, my desire, lust, craving etc, were all still unattenuated in any way. I was suffering much less, confusion is significantly reduced but the same craving/fantasy patterns of thoughts, sensations and actions continued to occur, with no controller, no agent.

Although my experience was centreless, and doer-less, just experience, happening all around, it seemed like there were pulls and pushes on experience, which were my latent desires, my karmic conditioning, which I decided needed to be dealt with, or allowed to self-liberate. It seemed certain objects had gravity (or repulsion) which pushed or pulled the mindbody system into conditioned responses. And in my new condition, I curiously had no more power than before over these cravings and aversions.

Then, by doing more insight practice specifically into desire/aversion I felt like I had a really really big liberating insight, and now patterns of wanting/aversion are starting to unwind frighteningly fast. For example romantic & sexual fantasy were really frequent and sticky, but now they are mostly dropped within a second or so.

The insight is very simple, it was simply seeing that the gravity of certain objects, and the "pulls and pushes" they cause are totally illusory. In short that desire is a total illusion.

The illusion of desire works in a similar way to the illusion of "do-er", but it is a little more subtle.

The illusion of do-er
1. a thought appears spontaneously e.g. "look, cake!"
2. another thing happens spontaneously e.g. the hand reaches for cake
3. a false interpretation is made that "I, the self, did that"
4. from this dumb interpretation, more erroneous thoughts can arise "Oh, I'm really bad for taking that cake"

The illusion of desire (even after the illusion of do-er is clearly seen through)
1. a thought appears spontaneously, with no thinker e.g. "thought of Person X"
2. another thing happens spontaneously e.g. sensations around the heart area
3. a very fast habitual false interpretation is made that "therefore there is still desire for person X playing out in this mindbody"
4. from this dumb interpretation, more erroneous thoughts can arise "hmm why do I still have desire for person X?"... suffering

The reality is that in direct sensate experience, it is not helpful to say that the thought (1) CAUSES sensation (2)... it is truer to say that one thing happens, then the other spontaneously, with no link whatsoever, for reason whatsoever, with no meaning whatsoever. Go there in your direct experience now, bring an object of aversion or desire to mind, and watch the play of sensations and thoughts. It appears to the untrained eye that they cause, that they push or pull each other, but look carefully and they are not linked in any way. One sensation cannot pull or push another sensation. It just is one sensation.

The fact that they might appear to be linked is a subtle illusion of self-as-desirer. So I did a lot of insight practice with strong objects of desire and the sensations and reactions and it is seen clearly that there is nothing that can be called desire, nothing that can be found to be lust, nothing that can be called karmic conditioning, experience is just one thing happening spontaneously, then another, with NOTHING in the gaps between... when this was seen clearly then fantasies just don't gain traction anymore, because the root of fantasies is the false interpretation at step 3.

This seems like an important insight post mctb 4th path and I believe is the basis for the therevada path 2 (weakening ill-will / sensual desire), but I have not seen anyone talk about it. It can only really be appreciated after seeing through self-as-doer/watcher (mctb 4th path) because prior to that, it is not possible for people to see that there is nothing in the gap, because they still believe in a nebulous selfy-continuity to the whole of their experience, so they can't see clearly that there really is nothing hiding in that gap which can possibly be their desire.

By the way this (doing insight practice on the strong desire-feeling-thought patterns) is I think the same method which Adyashanti describes in rooting out of thought belief patterns, and also I believe the same process as Byron Katie's the work. Basically you are just trying to see the patterns clearly, see that there is no you in them, no desire in them, then finally they can self-liberate. Prior to this, if you believe that there is some mysterious force of personal desire in there, then the patterns cannot self-liberate as they are being held in confusion.

Anyway just how things have panned out for me. would be interested to hear from other people...



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Jinxed P - 2014-04-23 00:41:33 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Thanks for that post Sadalsuud. I too would be interested if any one else has similar experiences..

How would you say that seeing that desire is an illusion has effected you in terms of suffering and happiness?

also when you said that MTCB 4th path cleared up a lot of confusion..what did you mean by confusion?

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Bruno Loff - 2014-04-23 09:47:49 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

This has to do with the origins of the pragmatic dharma movement. Also with the fact that people here are almost all laymen, who still have sex, earn a living, etc.

Though people do discuss this issue, under the guise of different "models of awakening": different descriptions of what enlightenment is and what it means. You will find occasional mention of the "10 fetter model", which is basically the one you are referring to (a google search for "10 fetter model will give results).

One point is that models of awakening can get so implausible (perfect personality, total absence of pain, rainbow body, etc) that it is more productive to drop the most outlandish ones and try to attain those which are less ambitious first. I have seen that after attaining to some goal people invariably find that more can be done, and they move on.

Even within models people can keep moving the flagpost: you experience whatever it is you feel satisfies the requirements for the understanding of "the illusory nature of self" and you move on to understanding "the illusory nature of object" or "the illusory nature of desire" or whatever. Or upon attaining "complete freedom" you find that you still need to attain to "super-complete freedom". Or you are suddenly able to do all the jhanas as described in some specific book or framework, and you decide that you want to do jhanas in a different way, as taught by some other source (for example).

One problem is that many of these goals are very subjective. Someone claims that they have "seen the ultimate nature of reality" [1]... but have they? Or do they just believe and appear to have done so? What if someone claims to have "no sensual desire" but still has sex (maybe lots)? Maybe they do sex for different motives?! What if someone claims to have "no ill will of any kind" but other people still get hurt while interacting with this person (maybe often)? Maybe it is the other people hurting themselves (as people often do)?!

I am getting a bit off-topic here, but I think that this complication is part of the reason why people don't discuss certain models very openly.

[1] Swear to god, I sometimes have the feeling that people give pseudo-random names to whatever dramatic epiphanies or perceptional transitions they go through. To me, "seeing through the illusory nature of desire" reads like "Super-duper-level-7".

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Jane Laurel Carrington - 2014-04-23 14:16:51 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

I don't consider myself to be done yet, but I do seem to be getting deeper insight into certain patterns. For example, yesterday I had a strong craving for chocolate. I went to the campus hangout and got this thing that had the equivalent of chocolate frosting oozing out between two sweet crackers, and ate all of it. Then I felt sick. I noticed the sick feeling, and instead of tuning it out I let myself experience it fully. It continued far into the evening. I have also been having a strong aversion to my work. At the moment, there is a fair amount of it piling up. What I am seeing now is that this organism is tired, and these things are happening because of a need for rest. So instead of scolding myself for having no willpower, I have carved out some space this week to get some rest, eliminating non-essential activities. 

This may not sound like deep insight, but it does take the onus off of a personal self that "should" be exercising executive power over craving and aversion. I would venture to say that the body and mind are going to be needing what they need even with further attainments, but perhaps craving and aversion can be seen as signals rather than orders to be obeyed. One more thing: in my tai chi class, I can tell exactly the point where my energy is exhausted, by the fact that I lose focus. Up until that point my concentration is strong. I can see that this body and mind need compassionate care, the same as one would give to a child. There is no sin or shame in any of this.

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Not Tao - 2014-04-23 22:46:59 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Thank you for making this post, Jinxed.  I think you've helped me understand why I've been having so much trouble relating to MCTB and this community.  The responses to this thread verify something I've suspected: the enlightenment talked about here just doesn't seem to have much to do with suffering.  There is such a strong focus on anatta, and I kept trying to find out how this mindset people were straining to achieve related to removing stress, but it just never lined up.  I mean, all the talk about cycling forever through dark nights, even after you've reached the end of the road, and once you get there you're still going to feel craving and aversion...  I just don't understand the point.  I mean that respectfully, too; I just really don't understand.  I can't see any real benefit to removing a concept of a self if it doesn't mean the stress goes with it.  I understand some people desperately want to know the truth about their existence, but even after years of practice and experiencing the feeling that there is no self, why do you believe it's true?  It's possible for a concentrated mind to convince itself of a lot of things - maybe this whole path is essentially a self-indoctrination process.  I don't really know.  I'd really like to understand, but none of it makes much sense to me.  If you'd like to answer this question directly I have another thread about it.  I don't want to derail this one.

@T DC: Your response doesn't make sense in the context of Buddhism, at least in my understanding of it.  The buddha was looking for an escape from dukkha, which is what the ancient Indians believe kept a person in samsara.  Dukkha means all attachment, in any form, for any reason - this is why the arahant has to give up attachment to the jhanas, otherwise he or she will be reborn in a heavenly or formless realm.  Karma was considered a natural law, where, when a person/being died, whatever they were most attached to would lead them to be reborn in a realm that would suit their disposition.  If a person dies with a heart full of anger, they'd be reborn as a demon.  If a person was highly attached to sex, maybe they'd be reborn as a rabbit.  In this kind of belief system, contemplatives out searching for liberation wouldn't be satisfied until they truly believed there was nothing left that would keep them in samsara.  From this, if we believe the buddha really was liberated, as he said, we have to conclude that he felt no desire or attachment at all.  There was nothing left holding him to the world except the life of his body, and once he died, he wouldn't be reborn.

I don't really put much stock in ancient Indian cosmology, myself, but it doesn't matter very much.  Liberation from stress in this lifetime has it's own intrinsic appeal.  There's no need to believe what the buddha believed to benefit from the methods.



This is very interesting to hear you say, to me, because you say you've completed the path presented here.  If you think they're separate, that probably means this no-self path isn't going to be useful to me.  I think you're mistaken in thinking you need to believe in an illusory self to see the nature of desire.  I've been working on desire from the very beginning, and while I can't say I've made any changes in how I see the existence of my "self", I've had a number of insights into the link between stress, desire, and the emotions.  Something to point out: desire doesn't have to be seen as an illusion to remove it or challenge it.  The suttas give many techniques, including the jhanas and mindfulness, to cut desire at the root and achieve equanimity toward the five aggregates.  Anatta (not-self) is one of the strategies that the buddha gave to remove desire - but I have yet to find any real talk of "no-self" in the suttas.  There are a number of suttas that mention no-self as wrong view, though...  I understand you guys aren't too concerned about where a strategy comes from, rather how successful it is, but from the talk I've seen from Daniel and Ken Folk, along with the other people around here claiming to be "fourth path" or what have you, this no-self strategy doesn't seem to be working.  If you guys feel I'm wrong and can explain how following this path will lead to the ending of negativity in my life, please let me know!  I'd really like to understand!



But this is exactly what the Buddha was challenging with his whole system.  The very definition of an arahant is "there is nothing left for this world."  The arahant is someone who has finally dropped all desire and craving.  To this kind of person, it doesn't matter what kind of signposts there are, who is achieving them, or why.  They're free from all wanting, why would they try to achieve anything else?  If someone says to an arahant, "I have a new system of enlightenment for you to try!  There are 100 different blissful meditative attainments and it will lead to an understanding all of reality including quantum physics, knowledge of all the countless dimensions, godlike powers, and lordship over all of existence!  You also get 1000 diva wives/husbands who have been training for 1000 years each in the kamma sutra!"  The arahant would simply say, "That's nice, but I'm free. I'd rather just sit here on this tree root."

If you guys don't think this is possible, your practices must be leading you in a very different direction from what I seem to have found for myself after some simple practice and reading the suttas.  The buddha tried all the big practices in his day including self-inflicted torture, and in the end he realized, "Oh, how silly I've been.  I just needed to calm down and let go of all this wanting..."  There isn't really much that we want in life.  We just want to be content and satisfied.  We get angry because we think other people are taking away things that lead to our satisfaction.  We get sad because we don't have something that used to lead to our satisfaction.  We are anxious because we believe something we rely on for our satisfaction is going to go away.  You can approach it any way you like, but in the end the heart of buddhism is simple stopping in the middle of your desire and realizing there is nothing you really need to do.  Just let go of all of it.  That seems to be what he's saying.  Why does it matter what self is, or if you can see everything as empty?  How does any of that relate to lasting contentment?

One of the things that has confused me a lot is the way jhana is treated as a simple calming or mind strengthening exercise in Theravada.  They say something like, "Learn jhana if you have trouble focusing, but it's not very important.  Best not to waste time and do vipassana as soon as you can concentrate."  In my experience over the last few months (an admittedly shot time), the jhanas are essentially a systematic training in letting go.  This seems to be the very core of the Buddha's teachings.  What could be more insightful than learning equanimity is a more pleasant feeling than bliss?  This alone has transformed the way I see every emotion or desire.  I spend a lot of time these days simply sitting and existing.  It just feels nice just to let go and realize there is nothing you need to do, ever, to be happy.  Ironically, the one thing on this site that seems to be the most Buddhist is the Actual Freedom stuff, and they have nothing but contempt for altered states of consciousness.  I've read all the hate speech on their website, but that only served to make me more confused, since they are essentially preaching mindfulness training.

I know you guys get these sorts of posts a lot here, and everyone has their own strong opinions, but I've spent a lot of time trying to reconcile the buddha's teachings with the things people around the world are calling buddhism, and I've failed to come up with any great understanding.  The teachings seem so simple to me until I read the commentaries and religious texts and traditions.  I guess, end of the day, it's just another desire to let go of - the desire to understand.

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Not Tao - 2014-04-23 23:56:07 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?



Hi Jane,

IMHO, this line was your biggest insight: "perhaps craving and aversion can be seen as signals rather than orders to be obeyed."  The progress I've seen in my own practice revolves around this idea.  The beginning of your story seems to have two kinds of craving in it.  You wanted the chocolate, but you also wanted not to want the chocolate.  After you ate the chocolate, you felt sick, and then you absorbed into this feeling - perhaps to punish yourself?  This whole mass of stress you described could end at any point in its progression by realizing that a bad feeling doesn't have to end to be content.  The craving for sensual pleasures (like chocolate) are not the true craving, but a mask for discontent.  Discontent is simply the feeling of, "I need something besides what reality is right now to be satisfied."  Next time you crave chocolate, look in your heart and ask yourself what you really want, it will probably be as simple as allowing that desire to continue on without fighting it.  Simply say, "Ahh, this feeling is impermanent, as are the pleasant tastes that come with the chocolate.  In the end, all I really want is satisfaction, and to be satisfied, I just need to stop wanting."  Wanting to resist wanting, or wanting to make wanting go away, is still wanting.  Let all of the wanting just be itself and watching without being too attached to what it does.  Without any attachment, these things tend to fizzle out on their own in about a minute.  Then, having seen how weak the feeling really was, the next time you feel it, you won't take it as seriously.  Eventually it won't arise at all - you'll just be content already.

However, if you do eat the chocolate next time, you can use this same method on any feelings of self-retribution you might have.  They're just as hurtful and stressful as any other craving, and spending the whole night carrying them around isn't going to make the desire for chocolate go away.  In the end, all it takes is letting go.

You might like this story: http://users.rider.edu/~suler/zenstory/obsessed.html

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Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii - 2014-04-24 01:25:45 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

@Jinxed & @NotTao - seeing the illusory nature of desire has caused the collapse of a lot of desire related patterns of thoughts and emotions, which has hugely reduced suffering for me. For example, I am no longer suffering much from romantic and sexual fantasy, which was strong and painful previously.

In my experience so far, the lessening of suffering is exactly a side effect of deepening insights into anatta (non-self), and not "a goal". Well, we are playing with words here, but it's a shift in perspective. You start out saying "I want to suffer less" and you solve the problem by removing the "I" at various depths, which crushes the patterns which cause suffering.

@Bruno
sorry to add labels to insights in a manner which you perceive as un-needed. I feel that one of the strong points of DhO-like forums is that the use of very precise and technical language can help point people to genuine insight. For example, in this case I wanted to lessen my desires and recursive thinking, and a teacher told me - don't aim to do these things, they will happen as insight into anatta deepens. But gave no pointers at all on how or where to deepen the insight. Eventually someone else pointed me to exactly this place (illusion of self-as-desire), and I found it pragmatically worked a treat. So this is my attempt to maybe help anyone else out. If you feel the description is needless then either you totally get both the insights already and it's trival to you, fair play to you. Or if you don't see the 2 insights as distinct at all then I suggest you check it out, as I believe that there is a valuable suffering-lessening thing in there.


to no-one in particular, but addressing a DhO way of speaking:

I would like to say that although it definitely feels true at one level, I think it can be misleading to say that insights into non-self end at mctb 4th path. For example the AF stuff, in a way is exactly just having more insights into no-self. It could be described as being about breaking the illusion of the subtle subjective quality of moods, which when done, leaves thoroughly no-one at home to even perceive anything (happy harmless apperception).




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Jane Laurel Carrington - 2014-04-24 14:44:03 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?



Thanks for the feedback! At first I found your descriptions of wanting this or that to be confusing, but I think I'm on my way to sorting it out. 

So what happened is that I just plain decided to go with the desire for chocolate to see what would happen. And I decided to stay with the sick feeling not as a punishment, but to let it in, see what it was like. As a result, I had the insight that eating the chocolate failed to end in satisfaction. The illusion that it would was punctured. And as I let unpleasant sensations in, I was able to experience other sensations as well, such as fatigue. Which means that yes, I really was desiring something else--I was desiring rest. In fact, I recognized that as a need, and took measures to fulfill it. 

I have to be honest: I wanted not to want the stuff. I let that in as well. And I was thinking about the punishment motive when I started feeling sick, but realized that it just didn't make any sense, so I dropped it. 

Right now there's a task I need to do and I'm feeling aversion. The aversion leads to a belief, that I won't be able to complete the task successfully, with bothersome results (I'm looking for documents and worried I won't locate them). So I am avoiding, pushing off the task, by being on this website, which is a lot more fun than facing the possibility that these documents are not accessible. What to do? Investigate the fear of the sensations of frustration. Investigate the fear of being criticized, and the potential for sensations associated with self-reproach and blame. Investigate the fear of inconvenience, the sensations of being unable to control my space and what it contains. Break it all down. Who or what am I trying to protect? 

Again, possibly these aren't the deepest insights, but they are where people live a lot of the time. Can I let these things be and still be okay? Of course. So, on with the search!

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Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii - 2014-04-24 18:09:39 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Hi NotTao,

Sorry I didn't see you had addressed this at my quote. You are asking some interesting questions and I will try and answer a bit. I think you are mixing up what you think is the pragmatic scene with a general buddhist approach to development. Maybe these explanations might help?

1. Traditional hardcore real-deal Buddhism:
0. goal - let's try and eliminate suffering.
1. do some basic training in morality and concentration so you can meditate well
2. now you're lead a more harmonious life and can meditate well, start doing strong insight practice to realise anatta
3. realise anatta. don't make a big deal of this though. It's just the beginning, like taking the stabilisers off your bike.
4. with the insight into anatta, all belief systems are begun to be let go of, both the obviously bad ones but also all the 'good' ones which helped you so far. 
5. All patterns of selfish behaviour can liberate themselves at their root, if faith is there. This now happens much much much faster and efficiently than pre-anatta insight. It is like the difference between using a dustpan and brush to clean up your neurotic stuff VS a vacuum cleaner. Also a vacuum can get stuff out of some cracks in the floorboards that a brush simply cannot.
6. all neurotic patterns of craving/desire/aversion are gone. All belief systems, all moral frameworks, are gone. No suffering at all. Enlightenment.


2. Traditional softcore Buddhism aka self-improvement
0. goal - let's try and eliminate suffering
1. do some basic training in morality and concentration so you can meditate well
2. you become kinder, more in control of desires, have insights about all psychological stuff and generally become a better person. Wow, Buddhism is great.
3. Do not believe in all the devotional, mystic or anatta stuff, or non-dual realisation stuff, because you can see that your interpretation of Buddhism is working just fine, you have made leaps and bounds, and you don't need all that mumbo jumbo. The buddha simply logically describes a path of psychological self-development.
4. Build up a view of what you think is good and moral behaviour (skillful) VS unskillful. Build up a view of how your thought/desire patterns work. As time goes by you do more and more skillful stuff, suffering less and less.
5. Lead a very good conventional moral life, according to certain rules and frameworks. Suffer a bit.


3. Your impression of the Pragmatic Dharma scene
0. goal - let's try an eliminate suffering
1. get obsessed with maps, technical practice and the nature of the illusion of self
2. do loads of dry insight practice which basically leads you to misery and depression for some months or years
3. realise anatta to some degree. go totally fucking nuts, claim you have "done what had to be done", describe yourself as enlightened and build a huge identity around the idea of no-self
4. Deny that it is possible to eliminate sensual desire or ill will, hence causing yourself to be stuck, not practising wholeheartedly to eliminate them, hence creating a self-affirming loop that it's impossible
5. Retain your stuckness by creating more and more models or paths that focus on technical aspects of non-duality or meditation, rather than allowing the ego to totally surrender to truth
6. continue suffering


It sounds from your post like you are currently in mode 2, because mode 3 does not appeal. My opinion is that without anatta, buddhist practice is de-fanged, limited. With overemphasis on anatta Buddhism is also limited - people get stuck in the transcendent aka 'stink of zen'. Many great teachers have warned on both these sides.

I agree that it can seem here that anatta is overemphasised. But do not let what you perceive here put you off the idea that anatta is v important. Pretty much every type of Buddhism has some kind of training to point people toward realising anatta. It IS in the suttas, the buddha famously uses the analogy of a cart to demonstrate the emptiness of self. And he talks about anatta in terms of lack of agency (control) in the Anattalakkhana Sutta. Therevada has insight practice, so does all the Tibetan buddhism, Zen has koans.

My own journey within this ----  I was stuck in mode 2 for a couple of years. Then very gratefully I found the pragmatic scene and had some realisation of anatta. Then decided that practice needed to continue in ways that are not discussed a lot here, for various reasons as discussed above and in this thread. But that does not invalidate the importance of what the perceived angle of practice is in the pragmatic scene. It is beautiful, invaluable, vital.

go well. I enjoyed writing this from the hammock I now have in my room, & the sun is coming through the window...





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Not Tao - 2014-04-24 18:21:57 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Jane, I think your response points to the fundamental difference between two paths.  You've helped me sort out some thoughts I've had about these practices, so thank you!

I think I've been trying to make sense of two methodologies that seem similar on the surface, but are actually leading to different results.  In the situation you described, what I'd be looking for was where the stress was, and how the desires I had caused it to continue rather than dissipate.  I would feel successful when I could see clearly what caused the stresses to cease in relation to what desires I let go of.  This is why I gave you the advice I did, I was assuming you were attempting to see through the desire and how it led to suffering.  Specifically, what I would find as the culprit would be the desire to control the urge to eat the chocolate.  This desire for control is specifically what I've found to prevent control in similar situations of my own experience.  Once I've let go of this desire to control, or the desire for the emotion itself to change or go away, I have been able to see that the emotion itself doesn't have much to it and tends to dissolve quickly on its own if I place my attention on other things.  With this practice, I attempt to strike at the root of the emotion itself so it is weakened or won't arise again in the future.

The way you approached the situation (this will be my interpretation, so feel free to correct me), you were looking at the stress, specifically, as an illusion caused by an interaction between a "doer" or a "self" that felt the emotion, and the emotion in its raw form.  You were attempting to use the strong emotions to understand the illusion so that, next time you felt those emotions, you would be able to tolerate them more easily.

Or, maybe a better way to put it, the eventual goal of your practice (or, if I may be so bold, the practice presented in MCTB ) is the ability to withstand any emotion that arises.  The goal of my practice (perhaps a more AF type thing) is to prevent the arising of unpleasant or stressful emotions.

This may actually be a deeper divide in Buddhism in general.  Zen seems to lean towards withstanding emotions, whereas Tibetan Buddhism seems to work on preventing them.  In Theravada, the Burmese methods aim towards withstanding, and the Thai forest tradition aims towards preventing.

Perhaps you could diagnose a tradition by the importance they place on the jhanas.  If withstanding all emotions is the goal, the jhanas, at best, would be seen as practice for dissociating from pleasant emotion, and at worst a fundamental trap that will lead you astray.  If removing all stress is seen as the goal, the jhanas would be seen as an essential tool for learning how to release said stress and abide in a stress-free lifestyle.

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Not Tao - 2014-04-24 18:40:54 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

LOL Sadalsuud that really cracked me up - especially part 3. ^^

I think you're right about my impressions, but I'm definitely not in mode 2.  I've actually read a large number of the suttas and I haven't found anything that I disagree with on a fundamental level.  In the Anatta-lakkhana Sutta especially, I see the buddha as describing a very effective strategy that leads to dispassion.  



This is a sound logical argument that describes a logical way of relating to phenomena that will lead to dispassion, the ending of craving, and thus, stress.  The way I've often seen anatta described in the pragmatic scene is that it is a truth that needs to be realized, and by seeing that truth due to some mystical mental events (fruitions) you will magically let go of cravings because...idk voodoo.  This is the main problem I seem to have.  The whole goal, as I see it, is dispassion towards things that you can't control, not the visceral annihilation of the sense of self.

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Bruno Loff - 2014-04-24 21:19:48 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Un-needed is probably not the right idea I was trying to convey.

My general impression about a lot of the "meditation is about trueself/noself" approach is that the language they use is far from technical.

What someone might call "seeing through the illusion of desire as self" (IDS) might not mean the same at all for someone else using the same nomenclature. Because the matter of whether you see IDS or not is ultimately a matter of you deciding you see it.

That said, I am not saying that your realization / perceptual transformation is not genuine, that is not the point at all. I totally believe you when you say you have had some transformation that lessened suffering after someone told you to see IDS. But I tend to believe that if someone had told you to see "the illusion of agitation as self" or some other nomenclature, you would have gone into your meditation with the added attention/concentration/ardency to have the exact same breakthrough, and today you would be giving it a different name.

Because while you praise the DhO for its use of technical language, my impression is that things like "illusion of self" and variants thereof are far from technical.

This is in contrast, for instance, with "staying with the meditation object uninterruptedly for 30 minutes", or "sustain a panoramic focus", among other measures of progress in meditation, which are far more objective, and can be assessed far less arbitrarily.

My impression when people say "saw the annatta of whatever" is basically that they had some epiphany (a genuine one), and they phrase it in the cultural lingo they are used to hear surrounding these things.

Granted, it could be just me who doesn't get it. I started having this impression after the "ruthless truth" people interacted with DhOers a few years ago.

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Not Tao - 2014-04-24 21:58:47 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Haha, maybe this is why the Pali canon has 99 examples for every possible thing that could happen in any way, and it repeats all of it 99 times.

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Rist Ei - 2014-04-25 10:44:45 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

edit: This is actually BS and decided to delete previous post. 

Arahat is desireless. Fetters model is correct.

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Rist Ei - 2014-04-25 13:42:40 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?



Not having a desire for sex is better than having a desire for sex. 
This is like if you have had something without you knowing what is to be without it and when you give it away you realize that existence without it seemed unimagineable but now what the heck i was thinking all the time (y'll get the point).

we just don't know what is to be desireless, thats why we aren't Arahants.

There was a top dog in the village, bang every female dog and bite everyone else. One day its balls were cut, now he sits home and very friendly towards strangers, but still it didn't happened overnight, it took time to old habits completly disappeare.

Chakra system: its seccond and first? chakra is about desires but it is completely done if one reaches 6th chakra and pass over 2nd subchakra(chakra within 6th), maybe

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Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii - 2014-04-25 22:55:05 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Hey Not Tao,

I am enjoying our exchange. Don't take anything too personally I am just enjoying freestyling out some thoughts

It seems to me that you are seeing this game as a logical self-development sort of thing. e.g. a you, develops dispassion to things, and becomes liberated.
This is just one lens of looking at it. Another lens is that the universe realises that it is in fact the boundless universe, and that laughably, there was the appearance of a totally illusory individual self, which had some sort of agenda or any sort of beliefs in anything, and along with this joke was also the fictional appearance of suffering. In reality there is actually, clearly no suffering at all, never was. The universe is totally incapable of suffering. Both of these lenses are as true as each other.

re: idk voodoo, "mode 2"
Dharma requires more than to read, analyse, agree, disagree. If you believe in the Dharma, then you are doing it wrong. The Dharma requires you to totally give up the ability to believe or not-believe anything. It requires a total surrender of the entire rational intellectual function, so that the unimaginable can happen. Now you can believe these words or not, I don't mind. But unless you surrender to the voodoo, then you are deffo in mode 2. This is ok too, I also don't mind. But is misleading to say it is the same path as the one the Buddha walked. The Buddha had no idea what enlightement was, or if it even existed, but he made a vow to not get up, even if he died, until he found it, and sat there for 49 days without eating or drinking looking for it... so the myth goes.  But for me the most beautiful thing about the story is  - can you throw away your life, pour every passion of your being, to the search for something indescribable that you actually have no idea exists or not... this is a far cry from the attitude of a "logical path to logical ways of relating to phenomena that lead to the end of stress"

ps - the whole dramatic portrayal of anatta insight, fruitions, and exactly how that leads you to magically less craving (as I described in the earlier post) seems totally logical and rational to me, as logical as basic algebra.

hope you're well and enjoying the show



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Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii - 2014-04-25 23:15:06 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

thanks for the this Bruno I get what you're saying. I still think the lingo is useful - how else is one supposed to try and describe an insight other than "I saw clearly the empty nature of thing x, which had previously been supporting illusion y in this manner..."

I think surely some kind of map of anatta of XYZ map for this sort territory is useful... there aren't that many things to have anatta insights into!

how about

1. insight into emptiness of some kind of external phenomena - the A&P
2. insight into emptiness of self - Stream Entry
3. insight into emptiness of self as watcher, doer, centre - Daniel's most quoted defn of MCTB 4th path
4. insight into emptiness of all gross objects - 2 fold emptiness (thusness 7 stages)
5. insight into emptiness of causality or desire/aversion - aka Maha experience (thusness 7 stages)
6. insight into emptiness of all the subtle subjective qualities of moods - Actual Freedom (or total arahantship).

that's only 6 anattas of whatever... are we allowed them?

ps I would love to have a model of attainment called "The 6 (or 93) Anattas of Whatever". The name cracks me up.



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Not Tao - 2014-04-25 23:55:52 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?



This is fine in theory, but I'm not very interested in philosophy, TBH.  I've seen this argument a number of places, but I can't relate to how it works.  Are you claiming to experience this in real time?  If so, please explain phenomenologically how it works.  For example, "I feel the physical sensations that are accompanied by stress, but they don't seem stressful anymore because of...voodoo."  If not, consider what you're saying.  Just because the universe is experiencing itself doesn't mean that the universe couldn't feel stress.  If you are the universe experiencing itself after enlightenment, you are the universe experiencing itself before enlightenment as well, so what exactly is different that made the stress go away?  If stress is an illusion, then what is the illusion that is seen through?

The way I see it, the buddha never said any of this.  Instead he told people, "There is stress, there is an end to stress, and the way to remove it is dispassion."  Dispassion towards all ideas of a self is a skillful way of removing the cravings that lead to discontent.  Turning anatta into a religion or philosophy, though, takes the teeth out of it.  Suddenly it's a truth rather than a practice, and realizing anatta takes precedent over removing stress.  It seems to have gotten to the point in some traditions where removing stress isn't even seen as the goal (or possible), and instead realizing anatta is the goal.

It's kind of like if a person said, "Driving a car skillfully takes good coordination."  While this is true, if a person were to spend all of drivers training juggling balls and walking a tightrope, they wouldn't be any more skilled at driving coming out than they were going in.  Maybe they hit a point where juggling balls was effortless, and they knew a strange and interesting truth about how the arms move automatically when concentrating.  But none of that has anything to do with driving a car.

The goal, in my mind, is to end suffering.  Anatta is a strategy towards understanding that, not the goal.  Consider that the buddha put "identity view" as one of the fetters the stream-enterer has cut.  This doesn't make much sense if anatta was going to solve the problem of suffering.

P.s. I also think these conversations about anatta are overly abstract.  What exactly is the self anyway?  I've experienced a lot of interesting shifts in "where" or "how" my "self" exists.  I can't tell how any of these relate to non-duality or emptiness (which are also abstract words).  If the fruition is just a moment where you suddenly realized you lost a few seconds of time, how does this produce any kind of insight, aside from realizing you're capable of blacking out, and thus, your perception and consciousness is impermanent.

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Dream Walker - 2014-04-26 00:24:16 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?


Interesting book on the self...The Ego Tunnel. It might un-abstract it for you. 
After fruition certain aspects of the self seem to be deleted. Aspects that are only noticeable/comparable after it is deleted as you can not usually perceive them before the fruition.
Check out the book and see what you think...

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Not Tao - 2014-04-26 00:52:53 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Ok, so what is deleted, why do you think it is, and how does it relate to craving/desire and stress?  Maybe talk about how it feels in sensory terms.  Can you relate the fruition moment to what the Buddha described as nibbana?

EDIT: I watched Metzinger's Ted talk.  These ideas are fine, but it still doesn't address the abstract nature of the idea.  Stress and suffering are visceral phenomena.  "Being" is a visceral phenomena.  "No-self" must also be a visceral phenomena, otherwise it's just a philosophical idea and couldn't end any stress besides existential angst.  What is this phenomena exactly?  If a person "experiences emptiness" as they say, what exactly is happening when you look out and see a drinking glass in front of you?  What if the drinking glass breaks and cuts your hand?  How does this no-self make decisions and move around?

It's my suspicion that all of this actually relates to something closer to the nature of identification.  If a person trains themselves to disassociate completely, there is still something experiencing that disassociation, and therefore, there is still a self.  Removing the idea of self would then be a hindrance to understanding suffering because you wouldn't see where the suffering was happening.  There is a paradox at the very core of the idea.  How can "no-self" be a living experience?  If it is experienced, what is experiencing a lack of self.  If there is still something experiencing, then there is still something that can suffer, no?  So even if no-self is true, and this truth is realized, how does it end suffering?

The heart sutra "in the seeing, just the seen" is maybe the best attempt at an explanation, but it still involves seeing.  What if there is pain?  What if there is anxiety?  "In the anxiety, just the anxiety" doesn't sound like a very nice outcome from years of hard work and effort.  On the other hand, being without desire sounds lovely.  That's the definition of contentment.

P.S. I've been posting a lot on this thread.  I hope I'm not hijacking it...  These ideas are just very interesting to me.

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Psi Phi - 2014-04-26 04:59:33 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?



Person A.  (Thinking thoughts in mind, hey a glass, looks interesting, hmmm... I sure as hell am thirsty, ...I'm gonne get a drink,  yumma, mind anticipates cool, sweet drinking sensation, loves, no LOVES cold soda,   mmmmmm.)  Person A verbalizes "Mmmmmmm"  Grinning in anticipation, Person A reaches out, greedy eyes wide open, (glass breaks, cuts hand)
Eye sensation, cut hand , blood dripping, skin/nerve endings start sending pain signals, Minds freaks out hits the adrenaline panic button, painful sensation panic sensations mind is in a fast swirl, instinctive reactions activated, Mind thinks "who the F,,ck made this glass, I'm gonna f,,ing kill the sunuvva biatch,,  ZGrrrr Grrrr, feet stomp, throws glass across the room, glares like a Maddened Bull, testosterone raging) Person A Wishes to never have gone into such a restaurant, and is ever gonna sue the sumba guns for every last damnable Penny!

Person B.  Mind in silence mode, no stray thought arising, can think what one wants at any time, it's just that thought are not always needed.
Sight sensation of a glass, thirst sensation.  Person B takes glass, glass shatters.  Person B , registers the phenomenon, cut hand, feels the cut hand sensations,  grabs the dinner napkin wraps the hand,  Reviews what may have been done different to prevent this from occuring, tries not to drip blood all over the restaurant.  Person B finishes meal, or goes to a doctor for stitches depending on severity of wound.

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T DC - 2014-04-26 22:31:28 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

The point I was making is that while we might think desire for sex is bad and should be eliminated, what is the basis for this?  Who are we to say we would be better off without desire for sex?  Who are we, as unenlightened individuals, to say that desire for sex is ended upon enlightenment?

I understand that the sutras say enlightenment is the end of desire. What I am saying is that the desire for sex is different from that desire which is eliminated upon enlightenment.  Enlightenment eliminated desire is the desire for experience based on the view that such experience will utterly fulfill one and end one's seeking (duality). 

 However, enlightenment does not make one a passive observer, or turn one into a stone.  Upon enlightenment, you lose nothing but your preexisting misapprehension of the world that caused you to see everything as separate.  The unique individual 'you', who is experiencing all this, and was formerly suffering from dualistic misapprehension, continues to function in the world, unchanged, unimpeded.  Now you just realize that a. all is one, b. the nature of reality is love itself, c. you are love itself, along with everything else, and d. thus clearly you are not a bad person for having sex, it's just a natural occurrence.

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T DC - 2014-04-26 22:42:54 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Chris M - The goal of Buddhism is most clearly to overcome dukha/ suffering.  From wikipedia, Dukha means 'a general sense of unsatisfactoriness'.  In conventional terms this means wanting more, not being content, ceaselessly striving for more..

Enlightenment as I have defined it is the end of this suffering.  Thus I an actually entirely inline with what the Buddha apparently taught.  

I seem to be confusing you by saying that something remains upon enlightenment, and that this something can be characterized as emotion, such as desire.  As one proceeds upon the path, false claims in teachings are seen as such, and the elimination of all desire upon enlightenment is one of these false claims.  Duality is eliminated, all the rest remains.

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Not Tao - 2014-04-26 23:55:47 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

This page might interest you:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca1/dukkha.html



Access to Insight is the wikipedia of buddhism. :3

I think it's important to remember that the buddha didn't teach "enlightenment", rather he taught "nibbana", which is the ultimate cooling of all passions, desires, and clinging.  Nibbana is freedom from samsara - or becoming.  Becoming is defined as becoming ANYTING at all.  An arahant is "fully blown out" - meaning they have nothing else they feel the need to do.  This isn't a false claim, it's the whole premise of the sutta pitaka, which is the oldest surviving documentation of what the buddha said.  Enlightenment implies knowledge - like the knowledge of no-self, as you defined it.  Nibbana is simply the ending of desire.  Your version of enlightenment might lead to nibbana, but it should be thought of as a strategy, not the goal itself in my mind.  If you feel happy with that attainment, then great!  But telling people nibbana is impossible is kind of silly.  You can't prove something doesn't exist - and you're only going to discourage the more sensitive people who have that as their goal.

It might be useful to you to read back over your post and try to see the dogma in it.  Don't you think those opinions will hold you back later if you find yourself unsatisfied after having attained your goal?  Ending desire doesn't sound so far-fetched to me - especially when considering the other attainments people are talking about here.  We can soar on the wings of jhana out of our bodies and into mind-bending new ways of perception, we can learn to turn off our consciousness at will, and bring our minds to states of such complete serenity that staring at a wall for hours at a time is no problem - but learning to prevent ourselves from wanting?  Naw, that's just too hard.  I won't believe it!

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An Eternal Now - 2014-04-27 01:14:17 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

I now generally live a life free of passionate and emotional feelings, but this is not due to any inquiries on feelings. As Thusness told me in 2011:

(3:28 PM) Thusness:    so it is simply the 'insight' of anatta
nothing to do with 'feelings'
get it?
for till now u have not practiced anything relating to inquring about 'feelings', 

yet under normal conditions, there is effortless pce that is free from 'passion and feelings'
has is this so?
also, u experience lessening thoughts or no thoughts
just luminous manifestation
or non-conceptual thought
does that mean u have to practice no-thought?
or having no-thought is 'key'
so the primary cause is due to the arising insight
u can have other supporting conditions
like practicing bare attention

That being said, I certainly do not think that AF has to do with Arahantship. An Arahant or Anagami in the Suttas sense do not have sexual relations however a stream enterer and once returner can have (this is stated explicitly in a number of suttas). I consider for example Richard's active sex life, smoking habit, and so forth, as examples of a conditioned tendency towards sensual pleasures, something which would be absent in suttic Arahantship and Anagami. This is so even if that person experiences no libido, fantasies, and so forth. (Note: I do not claim to be a suttic Arahant or Anagami)

Also I do not think AF is the result of seeing the emptiness of feelings or whatsoever, from the articles I read on AFT site there is nothing about emptiness or emptiness of feelings. Richard explained that the so called freedom from emotions is the result of 'self-immolation'*, i.e., the complete dissolution of any sense of self/Self leading to that pce-quality of experience becoming permanent (at which point the term PCE no longer apply because pce refers to a peak experience which has entry and exit and the sense of self is still latent and ready to come back). But it is not so much about emptiness or anatta realization. AF may be in some sense similar to Thusness Stage 5 in terms of experience but in terms of realization/insight of anatta I do not see much of it being expressed in AF and for Stage 5 the emphasis is on the realization (and the experience naturally comes with the realization).


*"Often people who do not read what I have to say with both eyes gain the impression that I am suggesting that people are to stop feeling ... which I am not. My whole point is to cease ëbeingí ñ psychologically and psychically self-immolate ñ which means that the entire psyche itself is extirpated." - http://actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/aprecisofactualfreedom.htm



........


My experiences are the result of insights. The 'Thusness Stage 5' realization of anatta that in seeing just the seen, no seer (and this has always been the case), and everything is experienced centerlessly as gapless (no subjective observer and observed division), self-luminous (self-aware experience instead of experienced as if from a vantage point of a perceiver), disjoint (there is no linking co-ordinator or self or ground) spontaneous/self-arising manifestation (of all senses and mental experience). (also there is the aspect of gapless self-luminosity that was more prominent for me before the disjoint groundless aspect that came for me a few months later, corresponding to the second and first stanza of anatta by Thusness) It is also at this point that one sees a general falling away of passion/emotions/etc but that is rather a side-effect of actualizing insight and letting it settle down or stabilize. But if one were to think that one has overcome all fetters then it would be another delusion. Be mindful of any attachment to a piece of memory, to body, to relationships, to possessions, etc. Emptying the 'I' does not mean emptying the 'mine' and this is equally important. Also afflictions and delusions may seem to be gone in waking state but may surface in sleep, which shows latent tendencies at a subtler level of consciousness. However at certain point one's wisdom and actualization also enters into sleep and dissolve any afflictions (including fears, etc) and sense of self in dreamless sleep, or dreams, or sleep paralysis, and only self-less, center-less and boundless transparency/clarity/bliss is experienced. This can be experience as pure contentless bliss consciousness without any subject/object in dreamless sleep or it can be experienced as the centerless and boundless display/awareness in sleep paralysis or dream (and in the case of dreams there will be no karmic contents or stories or sense of self/Self, only images and bliss). The amazing thing about sleep paralysis is that in the few times I have experienced it in the past 2 years, in each of those times it becomes amazing bliss, boundless and centerless clarity with no fear or sense of self (whereas previously it could have turned out to be one of the most terrifying experience in life filled with monsters, dread, and what not).

I am not sure how you link Maha to 'emptiness of desire/aversion'. Also: Maha is not about realization of emptiness, be it emptiness of causality or emptiness of desire/aversion, but rather it is directly realized/experienced due to the realization of anatta + realization of Dependent Origination. However this Maha actualization will release traces of I and mine. This is the +A aspect of Dependent Origination. Secondfold emptiness - Stage 6 realization is the -A aspect, which realizes the very non-arising of pure sensory experience [as opposed to conceptual imputation] and is not the result of deconstruction of gross objects [which is a conceptual imputation] or any form of deconstruction at all. (It does not mean nothing is arising, but that while everything is seemingly arising they do not amount to or create anything, like no matter how many things are dependently-arisen in a mirror, they are no more than illusory reflections that do not amount to an actual arising/abiding/cessation) When this Emptiness is directly realized, one realizes the empty nature of all and every phenomena without exception.

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T DC - 2014-04-27 01:16:49 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?



I believe someone posted a link in this thread to a teaching called 'How the Buddha suffered'.  To counter somewhat the quote above, clearly the Buddha suffered both old age and death.  So, perhaps it is not too much of a stretch to say a Buddha could also suffer sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair.



I hope the sensitive people will forgive me, but I will refute you.  So as you say nibbana is the end of becoming, becoming anything.  To be fair you did not define becoming very well, using the word to explain itself.  I did some research, (on access to insight, thank you for the link!) and as well as I can make out, becoming is analogous to the process of creating a fixed identity in relation to the surrounding world.  The basic reason a person does such a thing is due to dualistic misapprehension, an underlying belief of being inherently separate from the world.  (Such a perspective is common in Tibetan Buddhism, with which I am most familiar.)  Thus it follows that in order to combat becoming, one must combat the underlying false belief, which I have been calling 'duality'.

To a great extent our argument here is ridiculous.  Nibbana different from enlightenment?  The end of desire vs the end of the self?  Are you aware what a crucial teaching that of no-self is?  Insight into no-self is the very basis of the path!  If you dispute this, I don't know really know what to say.

I am aware that you are an actual freedom practitioner, and as such I am assuming you abide by the opinion that emotions can be fully ended.  So perhaps you are trying to reduce emotions without focus on overcoming the self?  It doesn't matter what you are doing, because all thoughts are imbued with one's level of dualistic belief, for whatever level of attainment one possesses.  Grasping at thoughts based on dualistic notions is the basic issue.



Fine, don't believe me.  I'm not expecting people to believe me, and frankly they don't have to.  Every has the free will to figure out the issue of enlightenment for themselves in their own time.  What I am trying to do is basically give some clear standards as I see them as to what is and is not achievable.  

In regard to your last paragraph, you have presented many different spiritual type accomplishments and used this as the basis for positing that unlimited accomplishment of whatever one may desire is possible.  However, these different spiritual attainments do not just exist in free space, they must be viewed in context.  These are interesting accomplishments people have achieved, however they are temporary state that do not combat the reality of suffering, they are merely sideshows on the greater path.  That they exist in no way proves the end of emotion possible, in fact these two things are unrelated.  

What I suggest is that if you experience attainment, you will experience it as I experienced it , and you will never come to fully destroy your emotions.  Instead, you may come to appreciate them and facts of life which can suck at times, despite their occurrence in an enlightened being.

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Chris M - 2014-04-27 07:59:25 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?


T DC, your are not confusing me at all. If there is any confusion here, it is yours. You are simply quite wrong. Nibbana is ìthe extinguishing of greed, hatred and delusionî. The meaning of Nibbana is to ìextinguishî. By your own admission you still have ill will and sensual desire arising, so this suggests by the fetter model of Early Buddhism, you have reached at best to the second level (Sakad?g?mi) of awakening. That you think you have attained the final goal suggests that you still have delusion arising also. 

Iím with Not Tao here. I believe that the abandonment of craving is attainable. Itís a big task but can be achieved, but not if you have resigned yourself already (as you appear to have done) to the belief that it canít be achieved.

I would ask that you go back and reread my post, where I quoted from the Buddhaís first discourse. If you read it carefully you should understand what he is saying. He is stating the end of dukkha is attained through abandoning craving. In fact, if you were to read the whole of his first discourse that I linked to there, you will see undeniably what he is saying: It is the Four Noble Truths that he awakened to. Not non-duality, not-self, emptiness, dependent origination, or anything else. It was The Four Noble Truths, or more precisely each of the three modes of each Truth: 

ìAnd, monks, as long as this ó my three-round, twelve-permutation knowledge & vision concerning these four noble truths as they have come to be ó was not pure, I did not claim to have directly awakened to the right self-awakening  unexcelled in the cosmos with its deities, Maras, & Brahmas, with its contemplatives & brahmans, its royalty & commonfolk. But as soon as this ó my three-round, twelve-permutation knowledge & vision concerning these four noble truths as they have come to be ó was truly pure, then I did claim to have directly awakened to the right self-awakening unexcelled in the cosmos with its deities, Maras & Brahmas, with its contemplatives & brahmans, its royalty & commonfolk. Öî
(Empahsis in bold is mine)

The Four Noble Truths are the entire framework for the beginning, middle and the end of the Buddhist path, and form the very heart of Buddhaís message, stated unequivocally and clearly from his first discourse. This is the quintessential and foundational teaching, and there is just no way to pull any punches here, you are distorting this message T DC. 

So unfortunately T DC the version of what you claim to be full awakening is falling a long way short of what Gautama was claiming, not just for himself, but what he clearly defined also for an Arahant. Perhaps you should really give this some serious thought, not just for your own sake, but for the impressionable who may only aspire to a bar youíve set quite low. I think there is a question of responsibility here too, particularly when the best evidence suggests (which disagrees with your version), a bar set much higher.

(Edit: added to quote from first discourse).

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Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii - 2014-04-27 08:22:19 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Hi AEN, some very valid points there.

I think we are agreeing but I am using slightly different language which relates to way that some of these insights played out for me. I enjoy these kind of discussions as a way of probing/checking my insights and understandings, so thank you for chipping in.

insight into emptiness of causality or desire/aversion
=======================================

when I say this, I mean precisely what you say by this:



For me this insight has seemed like a big smash into the foundations of passions, which is why I called it the above. I came to the insight when I was doing insight practice on my desire, seeing the total disjoint, non-causality, vacuum, non-link, between sensations of desire and thoughts. Having had this insight, it seems very possible and believable that I could quell all the passions, I did not have this confidence before.
I agree that desire aspect is always a "side effect" of insight practice. I think it's worth mentioning the side effect (passions subsiding) as a lot of people are interested in this, it may motivate them to practice, and it's a way of relating insight to the ending of suffering, which is what this thread is about.

AF / emotions / moods / insight
========================

what I am saying here is just one way of phrasing stuff, and is only based on my own understanding and experience of PCEs.

If PCE mode is not there - e.g. one is experiencing a mood, or a slight unrest, then one way of looking at what is happening is that at a subtle level, a self is there, having a slight, subtle opinion, that the world is not perfect right now. Essentially a pattern of sensations/thoughts/subtle thoughts is playing out which is creating the illusion that there is a self which wants something, a self which is not 100% content. To re-enter PCE one retunes to the sum of sensate experience, with a keen focus on the background, which can break this illusion of a subtle self-as-mood, and return one to PCE. Or one contemplate the folly of not being happy, or compare your current experience to the last time you were happy - in my experience this is an insight practice as you are comparing a state of being PCE, to a state of not being PCE, which causes one to see the difference - you see what patterns you are now adding to experience to make it appear unperfect - and in seeing it, you see through it, shattering the illusion of self as mood.

when all these PCE experiences become realisation, than that is AF. No more illusion of self-as-moods, ever. (just my theory. I am not even remotely AF).

regarding whether AF/arahantship are the same thing - in my model of AF in my head they are, but as to whether richard of AF is AF, or about sex or his attainment, I have no opinion on this. Prefer to talk about how these various terms relate to our own experiences.

maha experience
=============

I would really like some clarification on this, I think I don't get it still.



I think had the insight about the non-arising of pure sensory experience in the following way. I heard a goose quack, and was curious about how it is that a goose quack can appear to be a discrete, object, a quantized bit of sensory experience. I looked deeply into the patterns of attention narrowing onto objects, when perception occurs etc, and saw clearly that objects appear to appear as a result of these patterns, but even the things which appear to be objects, e.g. thought of "a quack" are empty themselves. The thought "a quack" appears to point to something which does not exist on its own. There is no audio quack which is separate from feeling, seeing, from the sum of all your total experience. And there is no quack which is separate from the non-quack which preceeds and follows it in time. Simply, no objects arise or pass in experience. Is this the -A experience you are talking about?

When I had this insight, I was walking along, and every footstep was felt/known to be the entire universe, not separate from any other aspect of the universe - is this the +A experience?


On sleep
=======



very beautiful, very inspiring to practice! thanks,

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An Eternal Now - 2014-04-27 10:51:59 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Disjoint aspect is not related to Maha. Maha is something else, which I described in http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/dharma-body.html based on my experience

Also, by Disjoint I mean absolutely all sensations and thoughts are disjoint without continuity, linkage, from moment to moment and there is no reference like 'return back to a Here/Now' because there is simply no linking ground between two sensations or thoughts, everything vanishes without trace and there is simply no linking self or co-ordinator or ground. This is not just 'between sensations of desires and thoughts', literally everything every moment is disjoint. Practice turns from the subtle effort and attachment of 'grounding to the actual here/now' to natural opening as spontaneous arising and self-releasing without ground.

Also this 'disjoint' aspect of anatta is more related to the 1st stanza and is not the same as that 2nd stanza of anatta in which when one realizes anatta, in the seen just the seen no seer - that leads to direct gapless apperceptive awareness of that self-luminosity of the senses. Some are skewing towards 1st stanza, some towards 2nd, they should be complemented and then with that as basis, proceed further. AF is more similar to the 2nd stanza than the 1st.

U.G. Krishnamurti is able to describe a similar 'taste' of disjointness: 

Your movement of thought interferes with the process of touch, just as it does with the other senses. Anything you touch is always translated as 'hard', 'soft', 'warm', 'cold', 'wet', 'dry', and so on.

You do not realize it, but it is your thinking that creates your own body. Without this thought process there is no body consciousness -- which is to say there is no body at all. My body exists for other people; it does not exist for me; there are only isolated points of contact, impulses of touch which are not tied together by thought. So the body is not different from the objects around it; it is a set of sensations like any others. Your body does not belong to you.

Perhaps I can give you the 'feel' of this. I sleep four hours at night, no matter what time I go to bed. Then I lie in bed until morning fully awake. I don't know what is lying there in the bed; I don't know whether I'm lying on my left side or my right side -- for hours and hours I lie like this. If there is any noise outside -- a bird or something -- it just echoes in me. I listen to the "flub-dub-flub-dub" of my heart and don't know what it is. There is no body between the two sheets -- the form of the body is not there. If the question is asked, "What is in there?" there is only an awareness of the points of contact, where the body is in contact with the bed and the sheets, and where it is in contact with itself, at the crossing of the legs, for example. There are only the sensations of touch from these points of contact, and the rest of the body is not there. There is some kind of heaviness, probably the gravitational pull, something very vague. There is nothing inside which links up these things. Even if the eyes are open and looking at the whole body, there are still only the points of contact, and they have no connection with what I am looking at. If I want to try to link up these points of contact into the shape of my own body, probably I will succeed, but by the time it is completed the body is back in the same situation of different points of contact. The linkage cannot stay. It is the same sort of thing when I'm sitting or standing. There is no body.

Can you tell me how mango juice tastes? I can't. You also cannot; but you try to relive the memory of mango juice now -- you create for yourself some kind of an experience of how it tastes -- which I cannot do. I must have mango juice on my tongue -- seeing or smelling it is not enough -- in order to be able to bring that past knowledge into operation and to say "Yes, this is what mango juice tastes like." This does not mean that personal preferences and 'tastes' change. In a market my hand automatically reaches out for the same items that I have liked all my life. But because I cannot conjure up a mental experience, there can be no craving for foods which are not there.

Smell plays a greater part in your daily life than does taste. The olfactory organs are constantly open to odors. But if you do not interfere with the sense of smell, what is there is only an irritation in the nose. It makes no difference whether you are smelling cow dung or an expensive French perfume -- you rub the nose and move on. 

...

Is there in you an entity which you call the 'I' or the 'mind' or the 'self'? Is there a co- ordinator who is co-ordinating what you are looking at with what you are listening to, what you are smelling with what you are tasting, and so on? Or is there anything which links together the various sensations originating from a single sense -- the flow of impulses from the eyes, for example? Actually, there is always a gap between any two sensations. The co-ordinator bridges that gap: he establishes himself as an illusion of continuity.

In the natural state there is no entity who is co-ordinating the messages from the different senses. Each sense is functioning independently in its own way. When there is a demand from outside which makes it necessary to co-ordinate one or two or all of the senses and come up with a response, still there is no co-ordinator, but there is a temporary state of co- ordination. There is no continuity; when the demand has been met, again there is only the unco-ordinated, disconnected, disjointed functioning of the senses. This is always the case. Once the continuity is blown apart -- not that it was ever there; but the illusory continuity -- it's finished once and for all.

Can this make any sense to you? It cannot. All that you know lies within the framework of your experience, which is of thought. This state is not an experience. I am only trying to give you a 'feel' of it, which is, unfortunately, misleading.

When there is no co-ordinator, there is no linking of sensations, there is no translating of sensations; they stay pure and simple sensations. I do not even know that they are sensations. I may look at you as you are talking. The eyes will focus on your mouth because that is what is moving, and the ears will receive the sound vibrations. There is nothing inside which links up the two and says that it is you talking. I may be looking at a spring bubbling out of the earth and hear the water, but there is nothing to say that the noise being heard is the sound of water, or that that sound is in any way connected with what I am seeing. I may be looking at my foot, but nothing says that this is my foot. When I am walking, I see my feet moving -- it is such a funny thing: "What is that which is moving?"

What functions is a primordial consciousness, untouched by thought.

- http://www.ugkrishnamurti.net/ugkrishnamurti-net/mystiq2.htm
In my experience after realization of anatta, PCE becomes effortless, and the crucial key is clear insight into anatta (in the two aspects) and d.o. and emptiness. Focusing on the experience, the PCE, is not the way towards effortlessness. Therefore, my approach is different from AF. Furthermore, PCE is not the crucial key towards liberation even though a necessary element (but not as a state to attain but a natural result of insight).

'Self' is never there, however an illusion of self may be there. Also as Thusness told me in June 2010 (before my realization of anatta):

(11:33 PM) Thusness:    the mind realizes that there isn't an observer and the way things are, there is no effort, just in seeing, only forms and colors and in hearing, only sounds.
(11:33 PM) Thusness:    when the veil is gone, there is naturally no obstruction
and everything becomes most direct and clear without gap.

(11:44 PM) Thusness:    to me...i would consider that a form of efforting
(11:45 PM) Thusness:    think mentioned b4 in anatta article that such mode becomes effortless when anatta insight arises.

(11:51 PM) Thusness:    to me anatta is not a state as i told u
so to me, that is quite meaningless as such question does not arise to me.
(11:53 PM) Thusness:    when u realize what anatta is, u realize there isn't an observer behind anything... then how does the question about sensate imperfection arise?
(11:53 PM) Thusness:    it is like asking questions of where is Self/self when there is no-self.
(11:54 PM) Thusness:    and you insisting a way to become no-self.
and say that this is more perfect than that...
(11:54 PM) Thusness:    this only happens to a particular state of attainment
it does not refer to insight
(11:56 PM) Thusness:    when u see that the rope is not the snake, u don't ask question like how to tame the snake...what happen when the snake bites u...etc
(11:56 PM) Thusness:    or treat the snake like a rope
misleading isn't it
(11:57 PM) Thusness:    all questions relating to 'snake' becomes irrelevant
do u continue to ask such a question?
(11:57 PM) Thusness:    and expect an answer to tell u how to treat a snake like a rope?
u realize and u stop asking
u just use the rope as a rope

In 2011:

(11:52 PM) Thusness:    but it requires one to understand the same insight
further
sometimes i look at the advice of af, how they lead one to effortlessness this way
focusing so much about experience
knowing nothing of the causes and conditions
in anatta, everything is so clear...there is simply nothing obscuring and therefore has to be in the most direct mode of apprehension
(11:55 PM) Thusness:    anyway focus on refining ur insight and experience and do not waste too much time

...what leads to PCE is really just the dissolution of self...
...u can call ppl to look at the hand
taste the saliva
see the beauty of the scenery
nothing will be realized
what causes experience to be 'pure'?
it is just the dissolution of the agent
the one behind so when there is nothing blocking, all presents itself in obviousness
I am not sure if 'AF' is defined as a form of realisation or insight. Have not exactly read Richard describing it that way.



This is good but not the emptiness of -A I'm talking about. You are looking at deconstruction and then the view of D.O.. By applying the emptiness of self to the mind-constructs like body, mind, etc, we no longer see solid/separate/inherent body with a fixed contour but instead just sensations, we no longer see mind-entity but mental-events/activities, we do not see 'Weather' as an entity but the sensation of wind-blowing, cloud formations/colours, etc. Then looking into D.O. Eventually that can lead to Maha.

However this is still not what I meant.

Related:

Thusness to Kyle: Hi Kyle,

    Actually I am saying instead of attempting to deconstruct endlessly, why not resolved that that pure experience itself is empty and non-arising.

    In hearing, there is only sound. This clear clean and pure sound, treat and see it as the X (treat and see it like an imputation/conventional designation as u explained), empty and non-arising.

    In seeing, just scenery, just this clear clean and lurid scenery. Where is this scenery? Inside, outside, otherís mind or our mind? Unfindable but nonetheless appears vibrantly.

    This arising thought, this dancing sensation, this passing scent, all share the same taste. All experiences are like that -- like mirages and rainbows, illusory and non-arising, they are free from the 4 extremes.

    Resolved that all experiences are non-arising then pure sensory experiences and conventional constructs will be of equal taste. Realize this to be the nature of experience and illusory appearances will taste magic and vajra (indestructible)! Groundless and naturally releasing!

    Just my 2 cents of blah blah blah in new year.


Also I wrote:

In deep contemplation, it can become apparent in direct experience and insight that all appearances are merely appearances, nothing arising or staying or ceasing... there is no actual birth of anything. Just like no matter what images appear on the movie or in a dream it will never amount to anything more than an appearance, without anything that truly come into existence. This is different from resolving non-arising through being-time. Lastly it is not that things are mental projections but that they are dependent arising.. what dependently originates is empty and nonarising appearance... momentary suchness, but still as vivid.

It is with some reluctance that I'm sharing this... I'm afraid that writing this might be a disservice to readers. I shall refrain from posting and discussing further about this. I do not wish this to become merely something to talk about, it has to be seen in direct taste and insight... so that one knows what the experience is like and what the realization is. Spouting big words or philosophizing about this do not mean anything.


Sounds like it. When you realize anatta, one will begin to have mini-Maha experiences. Daniel Ingram has describe something similar to it. Even AF Richard has expressed something that is close (but not the aspect of D.O.)*. And there are different degrees until full-blown Maha and actualization. Contemplating the view of dependent origination and realizing dependent origination is necessary.


*From past conversation:


    Thusness

    There must b direct experience and expression of maha suchness otherwise it is imo not a matured realization of anatta and DO.
    4:16pm
    AEN

    oic..
    4:17pm
    Thusness

    U see such expression even in af
    4:17pm
    AEN

    maha in AF?
    4:17pm
    Thusness

    Some sort of that experience
    4:18pm
    AEN

    oic..
    4:20pm
    Thusness

    U see he kept emphasizing the infinity, eternity and perpetuity of the universe as the direct experience of the actual"
    4:20pm
    AEN

    oic... that is like maha?
    4:23pm
    Thusness

    Yes ... He was trying to express some sort of this experience into this moment of being actual...that infinitude as this immediate actual moment

    The universe experiencing itself as the actual world in the PCE

    What give rise to such experience? What give rise to the experience of dharma body?

    Of
    4:27pm
    AEN

    u mentioned last time its impersonality that led to the 'universe experiencing'

    in AF
    4:28pm
    Thusness

    In ur Dharmabody
    4:28pm
    AEN

    for me it was like anatta + D.O.
    4:28pm
    Thusness

    Yes

    Very good

    But AF has abt half that flavor from dissolving that sense of self

    So anatta + DO have to give rise to the experience of maha suchness.

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Rist Ei - 2014-04-27 11:02:39 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?



i agree and not agree little bit.

There is 6th chakra, everyone has it. And there is energies. And there is earth(world), average of everyones 6th chakra power. When 6th chakra is weak then energies are flowing out to the world and when we awake then energies are starting to flow in(reverse) and 6th chakra power starts to grow.

5th chakra acts like a dam between 6th and four lower chakras. When 5th chakra is enough opened then there will be ability to suck energies. For example if sensual desire cup starts to become full(sensual craving starts) then we can force 6th chakra that will cause 5th to open more and cup will be emptied. 
Other way to empty the cup is sexual release or watching TV 8 hours, but this way 6th chakra does not grow and we don't rise above average. And who knows whats there when we get to the top of the pyramid.

6th chakra is pure awareness, 5th is void/oneness, other four lower are energies/matter- idea, mental, emotional, physical

When the cup is empty there is no desire but it becomes desire when the cup is full, desire is like a signal. Wrong is to bury that signal, right is to deal with it(correct way of course). 

To grow or spend is the question.

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Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii - 2014-04-29 09:30:06 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Hi Not Tao,

I can't answer your question to your satisfaction, but I will try anyway. Not sure why. Probably because I like talking about myself.

an example of a painful suffery thing.

during the time I was going through what they call Stream Entry and MCTB 2nd path, I was in a very on-off romantic liason with a good deal of desperation, pain and mini-heartbreak.

I would describe it as wanting which causes, fear, pain in the chest area, sad thoughts. Familiar to many people.
After SE and second path, an odd thing happened. I had a phone call with this person, and afterwards, I felt intense longing and pain. I noticed the sensations of being heartbroken rip through my experience - thoughts of person, fear, pain in chest, more thoughts about person, more fear, more pain in chest. Exactly the same as being heartbroken before. But the stress associated with this event was reduced by a factor of about a million, due to idk voodoo. This unfulfilled wanting, this being heartbroken was not a problem at all. It was unimaginably strange, totally didn't make sense, and felt very liberating, and I was like holy fuck, this dharma is some powerful voodoo. Prior to this experience, if you had asked me, is it possible to want something badly, and at the same time be totally content, I would have said no, I don't understand that, no matter how much I put my head to that, I can't understand it. But now I could.

Does that help?

OK, I will try a more rational line to appease your belief systems.

you are right, it is all about disidentification. There are many fast and murky patterns of thoughts, sensations, which cause identification, and the path of the dharma is to see through these, as means to end sufffering.
However, the point of the mess is, that someone who is identified, doesn't know, can't see, how they are currently identified. The insights that you make are of the form "Oh my god, all along I have been doing a very subtle pattern X, which I was not remotely aware of, I had just assumed that that was how reality was. Now I actually see this thing I have been needlessly adding to every sensory experience, I have more freedom somehow. Things now are unimaginably different".

For me this was the key to dharma practice - there is something unimaginable on the other side of insight, because one cannot currently see the trap one has built oneself into. So when I talk about faith and the voodoo, this is all I mean, it's not mystical, but it just involves accepting that you cannot currently see the limits of your illusory prison. How about that?

I use the example of a guy who is abused as a child age 6, who is now an adult, and as a result of his abuse, he constantly underperforms at work, to maintain hidden ideas he has of himself as bad. If a counsellor says "everytime you have an important piece of work to do, you do it very well, but then deliberately screw it up at the last minute, on purpose, as you have low self-esteem", the guy, an intelligent, rational guy, will argue that "no, that's ridiculous, it's just bad luck each time, I didn't know about factor x or y". Why can't he see it? Who knows? One day he may be ready to see this giant deliberate pattern, and he will go "woah, I can't believe I didn't see that I was doing that. I can stop it now." This is insight and how it liberates.


re: the stuff about the universe and experiencing it real time. Yes, when I say both lenses are as true as each other that means both feel as true to say about this current experience as each other, aka this is my experience.
Explain it to you phenomenologically - your experience is also like this too! Our experience is both made up of sights, sounds, thoughts etc. Apart from the fact that you have some patterns of sensations and thoughts which are currently creating the illusion of a central entity who does not believe it. These patterns are thick and fast habits as explained above. The way to see through them is guess what - do insight practice!

peace and love



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Not Tao - 2014-04-29 21:30:07 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?



It's interesting you talk about this state specifically, because it's actually what caused me to start meditating about a year ago.  I think you're referring to what Daniel calls the "no-dog" state (I generally just call it "freedom" haha).  Kenneth Folk said somewhere it was the first thing he ran into as well (I'm not sure where I heard that, so I hope I'm not mis-attributing).  I'm pretty confident saying that state isn't related to any kind of fruition, as I'm fairly certain I've never had one.

Actually, this mindset is what I've been practicing with almost exclusively, outside of developing the jhanas.  After working with it, I think it essentially boils down to realizing that the physical and mental sensations associated with feelings are not fixed to a good, bad, or neutral mind-frame.  So acceptance of feelings and emotions (removing greed and distress in reference to the world - as the Buddha said) brings this mind state on.  It's not voodoo, it's directly removing desire from the equation.  Perhaps after you had your path moments, you mind was in a more accepting state, and you found it easier to simply "incline towards nibbana" and let go of control.

Around New Years I had a very strong jhana type expereicne that could be called an A&P.  It happened because I was trying to deal with anxiety (the same kind of feeling you describe in your quote) and I hit a kind of acceptance that flipped it over entirely.  It became the piti of the second jhana.   For the rest of that night I was in the no-dog state, which created a kind of effortless equanimity.  If you look closely, most physical sensations associated with emotions will have both a positive and negative association.  The stronger the emotion is, the bigger the shift will be if it flips.  Oddly enough, after hacking with this a bit, I feel like the neutral tone is the best of the three - which lines up with the idea of dispassion.

Maybe you simply didn't make this connection because the fruitions do this work behind the scenes in your sub-conscious?  I guess it's hard to say.  Do the fruitions make this permanent in some way?  Daniel said he only discovered it after 4th path...  I think it's just unrelated completely, TBH.



I just wanted to note I don't have any strong belief systems.  I'm very open to discussing these things.  Mainly, I'm interested in results that line up with my goals (attenuating the passions).  One of the main reasons I'm posting here is to debate the issues I don't understand, so thank you for taking the time to defend your viewpoints.  I think I'm getting a lot out of these posts.



Wouldn't it be faster just to focus on the emotions completely?  The whole point of the practice is to find peace of mind, isn't it?  So why is it important to dis-identify from everything in existence?  Simply having a body isn't a source of stress - it's the desire to protect the body and keep it happy that creates stress.  The way I've been approaching the four frames of reference is to see them as a chunk of information that is framed by a feeling tone.  If this feeling tone is removed, there is stillness underneath them, no matter what they are.  



This seems to be something I can relate to.  I wonder if, perhaps, the fruitions themselves have little to do with insight, and are actually just a particular attainment, like a jhana, that helps with concentration.  Can you point to the fruitions themselves magically granting you an instant and permanent shift in how you see the world, or was it just an event, and you later began to see things in a new way?  After attaining a fruition, what is the mind like, and how does that lead to insight?  Also, what is insight specifically to you?  People mention "having insights" a lot, and to me that seems to be a particular kind of knowledge, but it seems like people are talking mor about something else (maybe voodoo <_<).



Most of the things I've discovered are fairly easy to explain, and I can point to a practice that got me there.  If your mind is changing, and you don't know why exactly, can that really be called insight?  In your example, the man was deluding himself and the doctor was able to point out why specifically.  This is what I'm looking for with "anatta".  If it's a delusion that's causing stress, it should be fairly easy to point out the connection.  What is it about a self that causes stress, and why does getting rid of a self remove the stress?  From what I've read, even fourth path doesn't seem to stop people from experiencing stress, it simply stops the stress from "sticking", which doesn't sound like what the Buddha described.

It's not very helpful to tell people they're in an illusory prison, and all they have to do is black out for a few seconds to see it, haha.  That sounds more like religion to me.  I'm willing to try getting a fruition, if only to see what everyone is talking about, but I really don't see how it's supposed to change anything.  I've already had a great deal of success simply working with desire and the emotions directly.  Please think about what I said above and get back to me!  I seem to have had some of the same "insights" you're talking about without any fruitions specifically, so maybe there's something else going on here.



This central entity is something I don't really understand, TBH.  What does that mean exactly?  You say I'm experiencing an illusion of some kind and you aren't, but an illusion is generally pretty easy to explain.  Yet you also say we experience reality in the same way.  What am I supposedly feeling that you aren't - and more importantly, why does that mean you don't have stress and I do?  If both feel completely real, it's hard to say it's an illusion, rather it's just a different frame of mind.  This frame of mind is only worth pursuing if it leads to nibbana, otherwise it's just another possible desire to be let go of.

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Sadalsuud Beta Aquarii - 2014-04-29 23:33:00 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Hi Not Tao,

I am glad you are finding this helpful. I hear what you're saying. I wanna try to reduce the words flowing in this conversation so I will take the 2 most interesting points. 

fruitions: from reading the site, it can appear that the fruitions are a sort of magic. It is not the fruitions which cause less suffering etc. It is the moment of insight, clear seeing, that happens just before the fruitions, then the fruition is a side effect of that. I am not big on fruitions. AEN who posted on this thread had deep insights into anatta with no fruitions at all. Imagine if I showed you, incontrovertibly, that your parents are secretly space aliens, then you passed out from shock. From then on you have very different reactions to the "things which you thought were your parents". It is not the blacking out that caused this! So in a path moment, you have a moment of clear seeing, which shows you that something you thought was fixed and solidly a 'you', is in fact an illusion, always was. Then maybe you have a fruition. From then on you have different reactions to sensations relating to "the thing you thought was you".

illusions - the illusion of self is very easy to explain, but can be hard to see through! that is why there are zillions of books, analogies, practices, metaphors about it and yet many people spend years trying to see through it yet remain stuck in it. In the example with the doctor, the point of my example is that the guy, who is intelligent and rational, cannot himself see it, despite the therapist pointing it out to him - it could take him years of therapy before he is able to see it and drop it... so an illusion is not always easy to see through, even when the logic is laid right out in front of us. The human mind is simply more complicated and sticky than this.

The illusion of self is a fascinating topic BUT I feel this way of talking about it in terms of models, theories, is not gaining us any ground, I evidently do not have the skill required. I think the writings of J krishnamurti would resonate with you. He is a very rational logical type who talks from a deep understanding and living from no self. I like rupert spira as well, I think he's a good clear communicator (youtube search him). I can only recommend my path, which was to 1. accept that I was stuck in a mysterious illusion of self and 2. to do lots of insight practice and contemplation on no-self to get out of it. If you want to have the illusion of self pointed out to you, I recommend liberation unleashed also. if not that's ok too. 

I read your way of interpreting my experience and don't feel that your way of interpreting it is as accurate or helpful (to eliminate suffering) as what I see as a simpler, more logical, anatta framework. I don't think we are talking about the same sort of equanimity regarding sensations in each case. I could be wrong of course as I didn't experience your experience

does that help? peace and love.

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Pawe? K - 2014-04-30 07:21:49 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?


there is plenty of almost-no-dukkha and pleasant mind states. What exactly makes you believe your pre-SE and pre-practice-at-all state was the same as Daniel's post-4th path 'no-dog' which he attained after many years of intense meditation at home and numerous long retreats?

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Nikolai . - 2014-04-30 11:23:32 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?



Thus has been my experience....The entrance and exit experiences are goldmine's of insight into what constitutes unsatisfactoriness and what doesn't. For myself right at the very exit experience post-infamous 'blip', there is an absence that if cultivated leads to the interfering of continued mental habit that simply suck.

My current opinion and experience points to the cessation moment/s not being the actual 'fruition'. I think Mahasi agreed with this. Phala means fruit in Pali, i.e. fruition. It occurs post nirodha (cessation).






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Not Tao - 2014-04-30 17:27:16 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?



I wasn't describing a pleasant or dukkha free mind state (though I have experienced that as well more recently with jhana), I was descibing what could be called a "frame" of mind, where any emotion or mental state can exist, and it's completely acceptable. It isn't too hard to mistake, I think.  I was standing in the shower, feeling the same exact anxiety I had experienced off and on for years, but it had absolutely no effect on my mind.  I was completely content with it.  It actually seemed kind of funny, and I couldn't understand why it had ever been a problem for me before.  This state doesn't last, though, sadly lol.

I hope I didn't sound conceited to you.  I hadn't done any meditation before encountering this state, but I had been practicing "radical acceptance" for many years before this to deal with my anxiety (I considered myself a Taoist), so that's why I claimed the mind frame doesn't have much to do with meditative attainments.  I think it's directly related to desire - like we're discussing here.  I've been able to re-create the mind state by accepting negative feelings.  It's very difficult, though, because it's so counter intuitive.



This makes a lot more sense to me.  If you can point towards the insight itself, it might be easier to find the frame of mind that will produce the insight for the meditator.  What is it specifically about noting practice that causes these insights to happen?  Are you attempting to hold the whole sensate field away from you?  Are you trying to see things without judgements?  If you can't explain the insight directly, you might be able to point to where it happens and why.  I thought this was the Buddha's reason for pointing out the four noble truths.

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Nikolai . - 2014-05-01 06:42:52 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?



My current take as it makes sense to my own experience,  subject to change:

A normal habitual flow of experience for the majority of humanity is the chain of dependent origination (DO), starting from ignorance of sankhara/formation all the way to craving and clinging and all the dukkha that follows (I am following a DO chain that occurs in the moment from moment to moment, not the supposed "3 Lives" version). 

There are volitional urges co-arising with consciousness flipping here and there co-arising with name and shape slapped on to 'things' thus giving rise to those very 'things',  triggering habitual like/dislike/meh! and feeling tone to boot, followed by habitual lunging to keep or to get rid of/turn away from and all the mental,verbal and physical actions that leap/sprout from such  bases/soil.

What does the noting technique do?

When practicing a noting technique (as there seem to be a variety of approaches), one is interrupting the usual habitual flow of 'bhava' or 'becoming' by pinpointing certain  links in the chain of DO such as the nama/rupa link or the vedana link. One metaphorically steps back from the usual identification/attaching/clinging/becoming process albeit momentarily, which is why the need for continuous momentum in noting. 

One is interrupting the continuous flow of DO as one notices/notes and for that brief moment interrupts the usual lunging, grasping and identifying habit. For that moment, it is simply what is noted, the perception of the object that has been formed in the mind (the nama/rupa link) before the rest of DO follows suit, though any part of DO can be noticed and noted/interrupted.

The flow of becoming is strong and thus the need to continue to notice and note all the formations, compoundings and movements of mind and body, noticing all the different flavours of a samsaric existence that co-arise and depend on that flow of becoming, being one and the same i.e having a 'presence'/location'/'being'/selfhood-ness/me-ness/incessant restless dissatisfaction/desire/conceit.

As one interrupts this flow momentarily, from moment to moment, equanimity towards these DO links is developed further, interrupting the grosser manifestations of 'becoming', such as afflictive emotions. When equanimous feeling develops due to such conditions (4th jhana/11th nana territory factors getting established), the whole field of samsaric experience/formations are seen to arise and pass without any of it being given weight thus leading to interruptions further up the chain of DO to its first and second link, ignorance of sankharas/formations. Here, even the non-afflictive formations, the subtle refined pleasant formations are seen without the grasping at them, at least from moment to moment as there is noticing (and maybe noting).

In the 11th nana, one can experience the 4th jhana-like viewpoint of the whole mass of sensations of supposed foreground and background no longer misread as a 'foreground' nor 'background',  including the arupa aspects/mental sensations that leap from a 4th jhana/11th nana base. Such aspects like  'space', 'infinite consciousness', 'nothingness' and the weird-arse 'neither perception nor non-perception' can be seen equanimously without grasping. If such arupa aspects are solidified, they become the fullblown absorption samadhis. 

Such highly refined formations  when also not clung to, but interrupted by the noticing and noting process, will also eventually collapse and show their cessation via a 'blip'-->nirodha/cessation. 

And on the other side on the exit, something has changed about the ongoing experience. There is a concious absence of that which collapsed, but perhaps for a brief moment initially. Then 'samsaric experience' being such a strong lifetime habit re-establishes itself.  Thus the term "rebooting" is used to describe the exit experience from cessation.

Further use of the fruition (as I would currently classify it being the post-experience of the cessation 'blip') leads the brain to notice the absence of 'formations/desire/becoming, which make up the entirity of the samsaric experience. 

The absence however may last a moment to a few moments. But one can learn to call up a cessation at will by inclining towards equanimity of all formations including highly refined arupa ones,  inclining to the cessation f it all to allow it to become more and more what changes the norm. That brief moment of absence can be lengthened with continuous inclination towards it. This inclination towards the absence of formations does change the brain. It may be fast or slow depending on the conditioning of the mind/body organism doing the practice. For me it is a slow process, as I have a lack of urge to trully take it fast and furious to flipping it permanently. I do think it is possible as I have seen my brain change drastically even when plodding along as a layman. We'll see where and how far it takes me. 

  

No. That sounds like de-personalisation



There is no such feeling from the results I am talking of. If it is a result, it is just another manifestation of becoming, a depersonalised one.

 

I regard judgements as the nama/rupa and the vedana link of DO that co-arises as I like/dislike/meh!. A compounding of it all. One can  interrupt this incessant judgement process by noticing the links that trigger its arising. To notice is the opposite of ignorance as i see it. And the first link in DO is ignorance.




Note your arse off till the first 'blip'. Cultivate the skill in calling up the cessation as Mahasi instructs in order to take the absence of formations/desire etc as the sole object so to speak. 





I think so. 



Nick

Edited a few times for clarification

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Daniel M. Ingram - 2014-05-01 13:50:10 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?



Lots of people do something like that. I don't recommend it, but that is what a good number do anyway for reasons unknown to me, truly, after all these years of seeing people do things like that.

If people would bother to really read MCTB, they would find what I recommend instead:

0. Goal: eliminate suffering
1. Apply the Three Trainings of Morality, Concentration and Wisdom, each if which is designed to address particular aspects of suffering and each of which helps the others in ways described various places, including MCTB
2. By training in Morality, one gains reduction in worldly suffering and improves one's life and psychological mind in many ordinary and useful ways
3. By training in Concentration, one gains numerous benefits, mental stability, numerous good mental skills and much better mental wiring, access to jhanas, and this provides support for the other two trainings
4. By training in Insight/Wisdom, one gains numerous benefits, including progressively refined clarity into fundamental illusions, the workings of the mind, the true nature of bodily and mental processes, as well as numerous improved concentration and morally skills along the way as a byproduct of what you must do to gain deep, fundamental insights
5. By these three skillful trainings reinforcing each other, the various kinds of suffering are reduced.
6. By understanding Dependent Origination to its core, one both sees through the Ignorance at the root of the process and one also recognizes that a body was born and that it will feel pain, become ill and die, thus avoiding the extreme views that people swing to all the time regarding what is possible in the spiritual life.

That is the path I have followed and continue to follow and I have found it very helpful. It is the path I continue to advocate for. Why people continue to ignore Part I of my book, where I state this explicitly, I have no idea. I will seriously need to think long and deeply on that before I publish MCTB2.

When one talks about insights percolating back slowly into psychological areas, that is training in Insight helping to support training in Morality, and is a real benefit of insight training and gaining insights into the lack of self in the process, as those insights to provide the fundamental clarity that help the First and Last training, that of Morality.



We are doing pretty well up through point 5.

The problem comes with point 6.: that of the total elimination of suffering while the body is alive. Clearly, reading the fine print in the Pali Canon is not popular. Notice the numerous ways in which plenty of arahats and even the Buddha suffered while their body lived. Notice that the total lack of belief systems is not gone their either, nor is the total lack of moral frameworks, nor is all neurosis gone either, as a careful reading of the thing will clearly demonstrate in numerous places, as well as any careful reading and reality testing of whomever you consider to be the most enlightened teachers living today.

That is not "real-deal Buddhism", that is a fictitious pipe dream. Give me the real-world evidence as well as the traditional textual evidence for point 6, please.

Admission: I feel in this moment the true and deep glee that I imagine is shared by an old vulture circling over a great cow staggering in its last moments of life in a wide-open field on a beautiful clear day.

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Matthew Horn - 2014-05-01 17:02:28 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

The Buddha identified two levels of dukkha: 

1. The minimal stress created by having sense experience: any fabrication of experience is stress.
2. The unnecessary stress created by identifying any sensations as I, me, or mine. To feel aversion to pain it's necessary to identify the painful phenomena as self and imagine that they're hurting "me". If you still have aversion to pain, you're suffering from the I-conceit. 

The Buddha says again and again in the earliest suttas that eliminating #2 is the final goal of the path. Considering how much you changed in reaching MCTB 4th, and the effects of the subsequent shifts you've experienced, if you were to practice at retreat level for years, how can you know that you wouldn't reach fetter anagamiship? Doubting this possibility makes some sense, but I don't get your certainty that the I-conceit is impossible to eliminate.

If the mind can turn off sense desire in jhana, why wouldn't further cultivation be able to do so permanently?

What do you think of Chuck Kasmire, Thusness, and the many Thai Forest monks who imply strongly that they've eliminated sense desire at fetter anagamiship?

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Pawe? K - 2014-05-01 20:38:46 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?


by practicing something like that for few years it can surely yield such results. You train your minds neuron network kinda virtually but when it is strong it can overpower normal processing patchs and actualize mind states you trained yourself for. It works best to not desire state you train to get but rather already kinda pretend having it even if it feels like small virtual mind rather than reality. Sooner or later it loads and bring about big changes. 

So I suggest working with this acceptance thing but with much more faith. You experienced it so there is no reason not to have faith now, right? =)

about no-dog... imho to get no-dog you have first to transcendent self and no-self (which you have to first experience fully if you haven't done so already), then solve issue of dividing experience to 'sides' and by that being able to see true shape of your mind mirror-like nature. By then you will be in 'pure abodes' and that is starting point where any thought about it being or not no-dog have any sense at all. Before that dwelling in this topic is useless and unskillful. 

BTW. why did you quit Taoist religion?

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Daniel M. Ingram - 2014-05-01 21:01:43 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Re: anyone who has said to have totally eliminated desire, I propose a general testing strategy that it would unfortunately be difficult to get most of the people who claim this sort of thing to participate in, as claims like this are easy to say in ordinary conditions most of the time and for carefully guarded lives, but to say "eliminated", one must be willing to put things to the degree of testing that that absolute term would seem to beg for.

The general strategy for proper testing of extreme claims such as to have "eliminated desire": give the person some moderately strong but not sedating combination of the standard disinhibiting substances and put them in a pre-paid high-class brothel far from home with the staff tasked with the mission of thoroughly testing their claim. Responses would have to be monitored discretely. I am not advocating for substance use here, nor am I advocating for prostitution, both of which generally involve all sorts of trouble, the least of which is the issues of legality. I am, however, arguing for reality testing, and real, robust reality testing is woefully absent most of the time in this business, which is too bad.

I have this uncanny notion that we are mammals and that this physiology is powerful, deep and relevant.

Anyone read "Lust for Enlightenment, Buddhism and Sex", by John Stevens? Great read, BTW.

In the same way, one who said they had transcended all physical suffering: major surgery (say, spinal or joint replacement or abdominal: things that people generally do end up having one way or the other eventually) or major dental procedure (also happens to most people) without anesthesia would seem a reasonable test of the validity of that extreme claim while monitoring responses carefully.

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John M. - 2014-05-01 22:52:42 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

I'm late to the party, so apologies for any repetition.

Desire is something that can be placed along at least a couple spectrums. The first would be the spectrum of wholesome to unwholesome. We can place, say, the Bodhisattva ideal at one end and self-absorbed hedonism at the other. Another spectrum to consider is the intensity of that desire. Ranging from, again just for example, healthy aspiration at one end to obsessive-compulsive drive at the other.

So what is it that's being eliminated, precisely? Just the bad stuff? This seems hopelessly slippery. If it's a full and complete eradication of all desire, this would seem to inherently imply an ultimate end-point to the development of human potential. This seems like an exceedingly difficult (and potentially harmful) case to make.

Edit: Daniel, if you need volunteers for your experiment please let me know. Good science demands a control group, after all.

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Not Tao - 2014-05-02 00:09:14 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Wow, so this post turned into a small book.  You guys can feel free to ignore this since it's just me talking about myself a bunch, haha...  I'll post it in case it's useful for someone out there.

*****

Really great stuff guys, thank you so much!  I'd like to bring a video into the conversation here because it really helped me understand my own practice better, as well as how it connects to the MCTB/Theravada methods.  I'm going to say flat out that I had a major misconception as to exactly what you guys were talking about with anatta.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ6cdIaUZCA

I'm sure you guys have seen this before, as I found it on a practice thread here.  This video basically describes what I've been doing since my A&P around new years.  The funny things is, I didn't actually know that's what I was doing.  I've struggled quite a bit to understand what the experience taught me.  I knew it involved "letting go" in some way, but I wasn't exactly sure WHAT I had let go of when the event happened.

As I understand it, please let me know if you guys disagree, anatta is referring directly to the idea that volition, or free will, is non-existent.  Everything that has already happened up to this point is what has caused this moment to be the way it is and has caused us to be who we are.  Stress is created by wanting (desire) this moment to be different, due to instinct or social identity.  Stress is the driving force behind "doing" and taking action against what is happening.  It's stressful because it can't happen right now, as right now is defined by the past.  It's the conflict that creates the stress, not the thing itself (whatever it may be).

Now, desire fits into this perfectly, because the only escape from perpetual stress it to stop fighting completely.  Anatta and desire are essentially pointing to the same truth, which is the cause of suffering.  When a person deconstructs the mechanism for desire or volition in their mind, they're essentially deconstructing the thing that causes them to feel separate or against the experience that's happening in the present moment.  So, a person who has successfully rooted out all forms of desire, would be completely spontaneous - the experience of which could be described as being "without a self".  Actionless action in taoism, or maybe emptiness in mahayana.  This isn't referring to a different way of experiencing the world, like an altered state, so much as a different way of encountering phenomena.  You aren't swimming against the river, you're just riding it as it is.  I've already seen a bit into what a completely spontaneous experience would be like, so I can understand how "no-self" came to be the predominant translation/description of anatta, but, personally, I prefer "not-mine", since it points directly to the method.



This is the misconception I had.  I have seen so many places where noting practice is described as "disembedding from experience", or phrases like "if I can pay attention to something, that means it's not 'me'", and in my own practice this seems to be opposite.  The experience takes over, and I become more embedded within it rather than separate from it.  The world doesn't become empty, it becomes more real as I strip away the labels and judgements and just look at it for what it is.  Daniel, you also say things like "note everything as rapidly as possible," or suggest that we're supposed to cover every base and pay attention to everything at once, but this seems like expending a lot of effort to, essentially, notice the effortless nature of the mind.  Have I mischaracterized again, here, or is that really what worked for you in the past?  Maybe I still don't understand this completely?

Shinzen Young says in the video that the focus of the meditation is to identify volition, or to look for the intention to direct awareness, and drop it.  This makes a lot of sense to me when I compare it to the success I've already had.  Noting practice, I'm assuming, works the same way as choiceless awareness, since he mentions switching between the two depending on the nature of your mind at that moment.  If I had practiced noting the way I thought it was supposed to work, I would have been doing the exact opposite - attempting to hold the experience away and examine it.  This was actually a pretty big error on my part, so maybe it's something to watch out for when instructing people in the future.  



When you say that someone "steps back", this is what really confused me.  If I'm not identifying with the experience, that means I'm separate from it, so I have an awareness other than the experience itself, or a "self" that is watching the experience.  This seems to be exactly the opposite of the intention of the meditation.  Identification with an experience seems different from clinging to it, to me, since clinging involves trying to maintain it, whereas identification could be seen as becoming a natural part of the experience.  Maybe I've misunderstood the instructions again, though.



Yes, see, this is what I've found to work best.  In these instructions, it seems like the noting is simply a prop to help maintain the non-judgmental awareness in spite of what the awareness happens to land on.



This is the kind of instruction I took to mean that the awareness should be directed to everything at once.  Obviously this is a mis-reading on my part, but it was a genuine misunderstanding.  It might be important to point out that awareness only ever rests on one thing at a time, and it's continuous by nature, so there is no need to direct it.  The goal is to see everything that presents in awareness, not to become aware of everything, right?  Awareness is, by nature, aware, so this isn't actually too difficult to maintain.  I think the biggest obstacle is realizing that distractions aren't distracting, and this is where noting helps support the meditation, as it points out that everything can be observed.



I also got caught by "arising and passing", since the description seems to imply noticing a series of moments in succession.  I think I may have gotten this idea from Daniel's frequent description of vibrations in MCTB.  My experience with these things has always been a kind of breakthrough to timelessness, where every moment of awareness leads fluidly to the next without interruption.  They can't be described as moments so much as a perpetual nowness that has no markers for beginning and ending.  I've always suspected this was related to the type of practice, but maybe it's just different ways of describing the same thing?



Are you suggesting here that someone usually goes through all the arupa jhanas before the typical path moment?  From my experiences, I can't particularly understand how the shutdown would happen out of the blue, since the jhanas just seem to happen on their own for me if I sit still and do nothing.  I've been trying to understand how to investigate the three characteristics in the fourth jhana, but everything I've tried just leads to the fifth, haha...



Now this isn't voodoo at all.  The mind let go completely, so it essentially stopped itself, and when it comes back, the first thing to reboot is pure consciousness without perceptions.  This consciousness doesn't hold any judgements, since it's incapable, so when the layer of perception/judgement comes back, the first thing it judges is the experience of non-judgement - which is the fruition.  Did I get that right?  If I might extrapolate, these fruitions generally happen from less concentrated states of mind, so the mind takes less time to reboot, and the insight is harder to spot.  If the fruition happens after the 8th jhana, as in NS, then the mind's momentum was already wound down a great deal, so the start-up takes longer, and the insight into non-judgmental consciousness is much clearer.

This leaves a bit of confusion for me about what the four paths actually are, but maybe I'm getting ahead of myself.



I had a response to this, but I don't think I was saying anything you haven't heard from other people.  I don't want to be annoying by suggesting things you've already heard, or making you feel like I have anything to contribute since you have been practicing for a long time.  I can only offer my personal reaction.  When I read your book, even though I have been very involved with my practice, and I think I could be put under the label of "serious practitioner", I still felt like you were attacking me directly in a lot of places.  You have some very strong opinions about what is "correct," and you seem to have a bit of a chip on your shoulder.  I can understand that kind of thing (I went to art school, where I learned to hate modernism more than anything else, haha), but it might be worth knowing that your writing can have a negative affect on the people you're trying to reach.  I'm not a morality fanatic, or anything, but one of the things that makes Buddhism interesting to so many people is the conduct of the monks and the genuine contentment they seem to display.  This is why people feel they can trust a Buddhist monk to teach them the correct path.  It's just logical to ask happy people how to be happy, and kind people how to be kind.

Feel free to ignore this if it just makes you angry - that really isn't my intention.  I've been trying to avoiding critiquing people, but maybe this perspective could help you?  I don't know.



I understand you're being practical, but even from my own limited experience I've seen how neurosis can be reduced and eventually eradicated.  Maybe it's directly related to how much time a person puts into these things and how much faith they have in the ability of the mind to change.  If you look outside of Buddhism to devotional religion and also cognitive behavioral therapy, there are a great deal of unenlightened people who have found a way to change the foundations of their mind-structure.  There are also many examples of people who have pain asymbolia - or even look at S&M, haha.  It seems like pain is just another judgement about sensation that is flexible.  In the end, it's about removing stress, right?  People will probably stop, or slow down significantly, when the stress that caused them to want to begin the process is significantly reduced or eliminated.  If you don't experience a lot of pain in everyday life, then there isn't much reason to reduce or remove its effects.

Anyway, there's no point being cynical about it, and there's no point being hopeful about it.  We all just practice, move towards the results we want, and see what happens.  Arguing about the possibility of something doesn't have much purpose in the practice.  We'll know if we get there, right?



Did you note it?

Haha, sorry, you left that one open.



Haha, I haven't quit trying, it's been working well for me, actually.



The state I was talking about didn't have much to do with self.  It's hard to say exactly what it is, for me.  I just know the description matched when I ran into that page in the wiki.  It doesn't matter too much what it's called.  I just mentioned it because Sadalsuud had pointed to the same frame of mind as part of his (her?) fruition attainment, and I had experienced something matching the description without a fruition (that I know of).



I didn't quit, I just realized calling myself a Taoist was a little presumptuous since I didn't know much about the cultural implications.



Haha, well I'm more interested in eliminating stress.  A good test for me would be to lock someone in a white room for a year, and occasionally release some snakes or spiders into it.  Maybe turn out the lights at random intervals.  You know, this could be a fun thread to start.



Haha, quote of the day!

*****

Since you guys are all Buddhist geeks, I'll end with some Taoist geekery of my own. ^^





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Psi Phi - 2014-05-02 04:03:44 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Thank you for re-iterating this  Daniel, this just supports my current understanding of your view of the path, which is as it is.
It does seem that there has been mis-interpretations represented on this forum that, "noting one's ass off for 30 minutes a day will get one to stream entry"  When in actuality, this is a delusional type of wishful thinking, and is far from what is represented either in your book or by any serious practioners, of any path that works towards understanding reality.

Bryan

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Psi Phi - 2014-05-02 04:13:01 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Excellent description of what happens in the mind, and the "breaking" of the cycle, in dependent origination.  

Indeed

Bryan

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No-Second-Arrow Z - 2014-05-02 11:43:04 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?



The buddha had serious back pains, which sometimes where so painful, that he asked another monk to give a dhamma talk, so that he could lie down. And his murderous nephew injured his foot, when he tried to kill the buddha with a heavy rock, where a sliver cut the buddha's foot, which was very painful...Or so I heard.

The dart was an incredible eye opener for me, when I started to learn about the buddha. The fact that there are two kinds of suffering; the physical suffering of accidents, giving birth, sickness, getting old and dying. And the second one which is the stories we add to it. Gil Fronsdal (from Audiodharma.org) explains this very humorously, when he gives an example of stubbing his toe on a side walk. 
This explanation from the buddha was so incredibly practical to apply in my daily life and I remember how amazed I was that buddhism wasn't some old stuff with weird language, but a very practical way of changing your life.
It caused me to rethink my 'sufferings' and it has changed me a lot. Particularly when I used to fret about what people would think about me, all those low self esteem issues. And that has disappeared to a large extent. I'm not saying I don't have low self esteem issues at all any more, but I'm able to stop the chain of thoughts much sooner. Now it's more like: "Oh, that person is looking at my sweater", instead of: Oh, they hate my sweater! I knew I shouldn't have bought it! The color is all wrong. I always choose the wrong clothes, blah, blah, blah..."
And obviously, some things are very, very hard, like when a loved one dies. I realize I add stories when someone dies, but these are so overwhelming and painful that I'm not capable of stopping these thoughts, but at least I can see them some of the time and it has helped me understand what 'suffering' is.
Anyway, hence my user name no second arrow.

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Psi Phi - 2014-05-02 12:48:42 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Agree completely.  Maybe we should quit using the words suffering and desire and stick to dukkha.  Dukkha does not, as far as I can find have an equivalent word in the English language , same with jhana, absorption, and concentration, to me is just foolishness.  Jhana means jhana, dukkha means dukkha.   Dukkha isn' t a pain sensation a pain sensation is a pain sensation.  Also, dukkha can arise from pleasant sensations, why, because pleasant sensations do not last, they are impermanent, we can not own them, and thus due to craving and clinging, (the second arrow we shoot ourselves with, and which we don't HAVE to do) can cause dukkha.

So there is Dukkha and a path that leads to the cessation of dukkha, and that path leads us to an accumulative diminishing of dukkha along the way, fruits and benefits experienced here and now.  Gradual path, looking back with reviewing knowledge
one should be able to see the benefits and changes over time, if not , maybe it is time to review the recipe and look for missing ingredients.

Anyway I am sure you already know all of this, this is as much a universal reply as anything else, but I am glad for you No Second Arrow Z.  Glad you know you don't HAVE to fire the second arrow, cuz, really , life shoots enough arrows on its own.

Sorry to all if I break any posting rules...

Peace out

B

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Jane Laurel Carrington - 2014-05-02 12:50:55 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Thank you, No Second Arrow. That is how I understand the fetters: these are the proliferation of thought, amplifying the pleasant or unpleasant into desire and aversion. So the Buddha felt pain, but no dukkha arose as a result. He accepted it as part of things that come and go. Even emotions can be regarded that way: the physical sensation of fear can be observed as something that comes and goes, for example. And then there is no dukkha in it. I had to speak in front of the Board of Regents and the top brass of my college yesterday. I noted sensations of fear arising in my body just beforehand, and then it was transformed energy when it came time to speak. This energy sharpened my mind and gave me the focus I needed to do a good job. There was an emotion manifesting, but no suffering, no dukkha, because there was no aversion to the feeling. 

ETA: Looks like we posted simultaneously

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Adam Dietrich Ringle - 2014-05-02 15:48:56 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Insight stages and cycles are the desire for a desire less state.

Insight fruition is the desire for that which one cannot have, thus the dark night is a result of longing for that which one cannot have getting just that. That's why stream entry is for the birds.

Edit, and also why subsequent reported cycles are just as bad if not worse than previous reported experiences prior to the "blip".

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Adam Dietrich Ringle - 2014-05-02 15:55:28 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?



This series of statements sums up why there is so little talk of desire here at the DhO....Because the DhO is all about the cycles, stages, blips and so on. To have no desire is to have achieved perfect nirvana, and I suspect that even those who claim to have attained the latter might be willing to admit some personal kinks that are still being worked out.

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William Golden Finch - 2014-05-02 16:08:08 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Not to be contrarian but cycles following stream entry were much milder than when initially passing through. At different points further along the way there has been some real destabilization, but not of the heavy personal sort that preceded stream entry. This is my experience and has been reported by others who I've spoken with regarding the severity of stages pre and post stream entry (for those who might be curious and have yet to experience it themselves). Thanks.

Bill

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Nikolai . - 2014-05-02 22:39:20 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?



Language can be limiting, no? The term to disembed implies a disembedder. And if one approaches it like so, then an enternally disembedding witness is the result perhaps. If that is one's cup of tea. As far as I can tell, there is 'seen in the seen' only all the time for everyone. It is just not recogised and the thoughts that are experienced in the experienced are of a dulaistic flavour so giving the impression that someone or something is doing the experiencing. Language doesn't help sometimes trying to describe such viewpoints, and we can't all speak in only passives and emit the required (at least in English) subject pronoun/noun.



Attention (let's drop the language specific agent implied "paying" for the moment) to more phenomena all at once I think is nana territory specific. The 11th nana/4th jhana is more panoramic in viewpoint thus takes in a wider gamut of phenomena, and perhaps at high E it is the entirety of the mind and body recognised as it does its thing as a mass of sensations. In lower nana territory in my own experience, attention was positioned in more limited ways, such as more only the periphery in 3rd jhana/dukkha nana territory where the centre was foggy and disruptive to recognise. 



There are a variety of ways to note. One can use a selective intent-driven noting style, choosing to note vedana only or  mind states only for example. Or there is a more choiceless whatever-takes-centre stage from moment to moment approach to noting. One approach may work for certain conditioning or situations better than the other. For my own conditioning, a selective noting approach helped build the skills to eventually just note choiclessly, which resulted quickly in my first baseline shift. You experiment to find what works for one's own conditioning. We don't all have the same conditioning. 



Yeh, language. I should have only used the passive where there really isn't an agent, but simply the action. There is a stepping back from. Perhaps simply better put as there is a recognition of. There isn't any recogniser. Jut the recognition. The recognised in the recognised. There is only the action/occurence. No doer or agent of the occurence to find. But the English language needs an agent so language can fail sometimes, or more honestly, I personally can fail to use language accurately.




Yes, that is how I see it. It is just a support for noticing. It is a tool to keep the habitual movement to believe one's thoughts as well as one's habitually strong grasping nature at bay for that moment of noticing/noting. It  interrupts this habitually flow. If there is strong malleability and pliancy of mind resulting in strong discernment, then noting as a prop is not needed. 



Like I said, attention/recognition of it all at once is probably more territory specific. Though one can train the mind to be like so at any stage. If it isn't helpful and triggers frustration,  attention/recognition of the current territory's limited perception is enough to recognise (or allow to simply be recognised in the recognised). The training is one of training the mind to recognise the seen in the seen, not to recognise all of it at once. Let recognition of all of it at once play out in and of itself. 

A note after the noticing/recognition just keeps the mind honest about what is manifesting in the moment and acts as a feedback tool. If there isn't a note that follows the noticing, has one actually noticed or is the action one of getting caught up in the becoming process? 



Something else to note: "Timelessness, timelessness". 



I wouldn't say they are fullblown samadhi arupas for most but perhaps just the subtle light version aspect of them. I think high E has these arupa aspects as conditioning factors. And I would hazard a guess that the moment before cessation is probably very arupa based. Perhaps the 8th arupa aspect. The very moment before the entrance to cessation. For me it is like so. Though i can also bring up a cessation in any jhana by intending towards its collapse/cessation. I wouldn't be so absolute in saying it has to happen this way or that. But arupas leap from 4th jhana traditionally, and that is my experience in high E, space and the other mental aspects become more obvious factors that arise.

 

I wouldn't make the absolute statement that the very first judgement is the experience of judgement of the non-judgement, but yeh, it probably happens for most. The bliss wave is often talked about as 'bliss'. Tis itself is a judgement. The moment at the exit just before there is recognition of a bliss wave has no recognition of a bliss wave. I've learned to intend towards that  as opposed to bathing and getting caught up in the bliss wave. I find this practice changes the brain in very positive ways.




This makes sense. A more malleable, pliant and concentrated mind will mine more gold from the entrance and exit experiences. A less malleable, pliant and concentrated mind or a mind that is not interested at all in mining, will not see as much or anything at all.

Nick

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Jeff Grove - 2014-05-02 23:08:26 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Dan,
There is a difference between enjoying and lusting I bet if you slipped the Buddha a handful of viagra and put him a room of wrinkly old men something would pop up under his robe. It wouldn't mean he was. full of desire.
 I remember reading about Ghandi having his appendix out while chatting with the surgeon and sharing a joke with those around him. Does that mean he was enlightened he probably was but this extraordinary skill was perhaps a byproduct of his training I have seen similar results with types of qigong training. Anyways as long as your paying and we skip the moderately strong and go just with the strong and no tickling I'm in
Any chance u could throw in a feed with this experiment

Cheers
Jeff

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Daniel M. Ingram - 2014-05-02 23:20:01 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

Dear Jeff,

No tickling? Weird. To each his or her own...

As an aside, the problem is not that I conflate enjoyment and desire, it is that basically everyone who tends to make these claims conflates the two. It is obviously a slippery slope no matter how you slice it.

However, if we take it in the traditional sense, such as anagamis and above being unable to become sexually aroused by any circumstances and turning up their nose in disgust at the weeping orifices and meaty aspects of the flesh of otherwise gorgeous people, which is the stock Theradavin dogma, then it really does get easy to do hypothesis testing if they would allow it.

As I have noted before, there are some people who can handle what for ordinary people would be simply staggering amounts of pain, my favorite example being the mid-50's ex-military very tough woman who asked me to relocate her totally dislocated, fractured ankle without any pain medications or anesthesia at all and didn't even flinch or break a sweat. Truly amazing to have seen it with my own eyes.

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Not Tao - 2014-05-03 00:02:10 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

@Nikolai: Thanks for going through all that!  Your replies have helped me quite a bit, I think, if only to quell the doubts and misunderstandings I had.



So, are you making the distinction that these people are still suffering a great deal and just withstand it?  If I'd seen something like this, I think it'd make me a believer in, at least, reduction of pain if not total elimination.

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Daniel M. Ingram - 2014-05-03 01:34:30 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

The relationship to pain, as has been discussed in some previous thread, varies widely and even by the moment. I myself can handle unusually high amounts of pain (have had 12 kidney stones, used a total of 3 Tylenol and one shot of toreador), though I doubt I could handle the ankle thing, but I haven't tried. This was just built into me before I began meditating. I see a reasonable number of patients in the ER like this, though plenty more that scream out for narcotics instead. Part of this may be genetic, as a recent study that just rolled across my journal watch shows, though clearly there are extensive psychological and physiological components, as numerous studies from all sorts perspectives show again and again.

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Jeff Grove - 2014-05-03 02:26:50 - RE: Why so little talk of desire here?

yeah I will literally piss myself laughing, my 6 kids use it as a form of torture