*Practice inspired by actualism but not necessarily either approved or endorsed by the Actual Freedom Trust.

Planning on doing a 20+day either late 2014 or early 2015.
I have successfuly run insight-focused home retreats for myself, up to 10 days, but am also considering using a Goenka centre (sit 1-2 retreats for every 1 served, and leave a hefty donation as a silent apology for not bodyscanning).
If I run the retreat at home, I'll do less formal sitting in favour of long outdoor walks.

Rationale is: I will make faster progress with the method using consecutive intensive retreats, than daily practice or spread-out intensive practice (just like insight). I've made a lot of progress with daily practice since my early 2014 "practice notes" posts, but still find that paying attention in this way (inclining to the PCE, haietmoba, referencing various cues I made for myself from AFT writings and posts on this forum) is effortful, and thus a function of (finite reserves of) willpower. I average 90%+ of my daily waking life in an EE or better, but it's not a normal distribution. Stressful events and accompanying habits have pulled me out for days. My goal is to get this mode of percieving reality effortless and with any remaining time, take it as far as I can after that.

While I respect and admire some of the heavier hitters on this forum for attaining AF so completely and so quickly, I feel I have a strong enough understanding of the method and its goals (from detailed reading of the last 5+ years of this forum, the AFT, and the AFT's yahoo's group)  to shoot lower but move steadily in the same direction while skillfully managing other areas of my life. My schema for approaching all of this was heavily influenced by BG's "End of Self-Referencing" Podcast: The Jeff Martin interview. Namely, on some level a practicioner is simply developing an inhibitory mechanism. While sweeping changes through insight or "self immolation" could still be said to occur, research seems to indicate these are strong habits laid on top of the (instinctive) emotional responses, which still funciton but are not experienced.

Has anyone done something similar (stealth-run a goenka retreat), or have comments on my reasoning?

Dan: Not sure how active you have been. All those who previously claimed AF later renounced their claims. All. So far among those who have practiced actualism and followed AF on the dharma overground there is a 0% success rate for producing Actually Free persons who have sustained AF for any serious duration. If you find the teachings useful then by all means follow them, but it seems you were unaware of that, and that seems important. You could read Daniel's article on Actualism or other discussions here.

Thanks for mentioning that. That's a good point as I too was wondering who the heavy hitters he was referring to were. One exception on this forum: I don't think Chris Ballhaus has renounced his claim, nor do I think Trent has. Several exceptions in real life: Richard, Vineeto, Peter, Pamela, Grace, and Justine have not renounced their claims.

William and Cladiu,

Thank you for the considerate responses. I am aware of the low success rate. Yes, I was thinking of the exceptions, as well as the differences in outcomes. Of the people who claimed AF and later withdrew it, the was wide range of results, cirumstances, personalities and original goals. That said, I understand the confusion when I use a sentence like this:

"...I respect and admire some of the heavier hitters on this forum for attaining AF so completely and so quickly..."
when I really mean:
"striving for certain high ideals in an honest, diligent, and skillful manner (as is consistent with the spirit of this forum), and bettering themselves through the endeavour"


I'll clarify with the following points:
-It makes sense that practicioners are developing an inhibitory mechanism, in addition to various ways to script/interpret experiences.
-Daniel's original line with regard to emotional perfection models is pragmatic.
-I still find the method useful. I'm learning, and developing an intuition for working with my emotions and experiences. I could say I've seen benefit in every area of my life, but I think seeing how "this moment is great" covers it all.
-Standard motivations for wanting to go on retreat apply.
-I welcome any feedback now that my goals aren't as ambiguous.


Comments on motivation:
-I didn't think there was a reason to do this 1 year ago because I thought if you wanted to "seriously do the AF thing", it wouldn't make a difference if you just chilled out for a few weeks and didn't keep up with friends and family.
-There were unaddressed notions of "attaining AF", retreats being this big investment I needed to arrange my life around, and stories I didn't know I was telling myself about trade offs, opportunity cost, and identity. As others have said, "interrogative work with a social identity" stuff on this forum is pretty good, and helped in ways some of the AFT writings didn't.
-Fast forward to now, I've got some free time inbetween longer term commitments, and I feel like "hey, this is not a big deal, I could try it out and see if the environment helps". After all, I'm just developing a habit, like throwing frizbee or learning how to juggle. It's like of deciding to get better at juggling for a few hours on a lazy Saturday afternoon, on a different timescale.


A few points about where I am at now:
-I routinely fall in and out of really strong PCEs throughout the day, but the novelty has become routine. I work a lot, making most of this progress while being really busy (basically doing the opposite of sensible advice to disengage from the world for a bit and chill)  and just sort of fell back on basic mindfulness when things got stressful.
-I'm generally much happier than I was two years ago, in every sense of the word. I don't see this changing. I understand myself better, interact with others more skillfully, etc.



I think that's all that comes to mind right now. 

Hey Dan,

I'd be interested to hear what your practice is like.  I'm wondering what you might think this "inhibitory mechanism" is.  It sounds different from my experience with the AF stuff.  (I'm not judging here, just honestly curious.)  I've gone through a number of different types of practice the last few months, so I'm curious if any of them match what you're doing.  I'd be interested to see what kinds of results you get from your retreat if they do, too!

I've been wondering if an inhibitory mechanism might speed up the process, but it seems to me that, for AF to be real, it would eventually have to involve the complete dissolution of beliefs that lead to emotional responses.  An inhibitory mechanism would still be fallible in this regard.  If I'm thinking of the right article that you mentioned, I think he was referring to Gary Weber's attainment (not directly, but he mentions low blood sugar and tiredness being a cause for the mechanism to slip, haha).  Gary Weber claims to have no conscious thought processes.  (I say claims, but I don't really have reason to doubt him.  This is certainly possible to do.)  It makes sense that inhibiting thoughts on a more permanent basis would lead to mental calm, as this would help avoid the ruminations that lead to emotional reactions, but we can't concentrate all the time, even if we get really good at it.

Anyway, I'm just curious how you'll construct your retreat and what you hope to achieve either at the end or eventually.

Hi Dan,

       Thank you for your response, it was clear and well articulated. It sounds like it is working for you, and things are getting better. I hope you enjoy your retreat.

Bill

Hi Beoman,

        What's up? Trent did renounce his claim. Daniel acknowledged this in another thraed, although I don't think it was done puclicly, and perhaos renounce is too strong a word s it implies a sort of public apology. I do not know that I've ever seen anything from the Chris you mentioned. He probably moved to somewhere that doesn't have the internet or something.

Bill

P.S- In Michael Chabon's 2001(?) novel "The Amazing Adventures of Cavalier and Klay" a young Jewish man sneaks out of wartime Prague (?) inside of a golem. The inspectors, not understanding the nature of the contents, let him pass. I think there is something symbolic in that.

Hi Bill,

Could you point me to that thread by any chance? I'm pretty sure I have read all such threads, and never saw anything about Trent in them, but perhaps I am mistaken. It would be much appreciated.

As to Chris, I've emailed with him a little bit a few months or over a year ago. He seemed quite happy with what was going on and with figuring out the optimal way to live his life. Nothing in particular to report from my emails with him.

Cheers,
- Claudiu

Claudiu,

       I just did a cursosry look and couldn't find, I will look more later. To the best of my memory, and I'm paraphrasing, someone had interpreted Daniel's essay or the AF fall out here to be that those mentioned in the article were just no longer aligned with AF but who was Daniel to say they weren't free from emotional suffering. Daniel replied that he had spoken to the individuals personally and was not just guessing. I remember the poster than responding that he should have made that clearer in the article, or something.

Bill