Some more thoughts on unthoughts:

The mind stilled, sometimes it takes a while for the mind to settle down, there is alot of stimulus, and if stimulus is not dealt with immediately as it occurs, the mind clings and is sorted out later, ruminating or even in our dreams, conscious effort of abandonung or even they atrise and pass away naturally.

So, reading The Holotropic Mind by Stanislov Grof, has stirred all this up.

Say, for instance, the Universe resonates at a frequency of Oneness, with varying densities, perhaps freedom arises then when the consciousness is resonating in the present moment at the same frequency in which frequency the Universe is also in at that present moment.
This requires the mind to not be as much of an island or an impenetrable fortress of solitude, but rather a flexible, instantly adaptable, malleable consciousness.

Like when the surfer and the wave become one. So too, Our consciousness surfs the Universe , not riding the crest, but nestled within the wave.

Psi

Might as well start a practice log:

The delusion is not seeing things as they really are, that is the core point.

12.05.2014  Formal meditation  31 minutes, 10 minutes ,

Mindful when mindful throughout the day,Bare Attention Style, Guarding the Sense Doors, as much as possible , Eightfold Path and Basic Precepts also a must do part of practice, Day 8 in a row of evening shifts at work, off this weekend, time to meditate more, yay!,  get back on track with practice. Also lift weights and run, this is important as it releases physical tensions and keeps glands active, should start yoga and energy practices. Oh yeah, I do a kind of Moola Bandha slash microcosmic orbit practice at beginning of some formal meditations, I have to watch for fatigue when running or lifting alot, also I am 48 years old, married with two children.

Will be starting 3rd or 4th year of consecutive formal daily meditation practice, have to check log books, for exact numbers, maybe it is only three years. Average 20 minutes daily up to seven hours, but most days between 1-2 hours, in multiple sessions.

Current Reading , The Holotropic Mind by Stanislov Grof, The Direct Path by Greg Goode, and Meditation on Perception by Bhante Gunaratana  ;Other books, Strength Training Anatomy Workout II by Frederic Delavier.

Drives to and from work, most days, listening to Dhamma talks by Ayya Khema, just 10-15 minutes here and there, but it helps to place mind on dhamma.

That is all for now, sorry for the jumbled intro, practice log would be a day lag so times can be entered, and will eventually shift to multiple days per post. Will try to keep my random type philosophizing here so as not to futurejack other peeps posts.

Psi

If the delusion is not seeing things as they are, how do you know that the way you're seeing them as delusional isn't also delusional?

How do you not know?  

You make it fun...

Okay, I'll play fair, for you have good intentions. One knows delusion by Investigation and Comparison.

By Investigation, The level of delusion present in any given mind moment is directly proprtional to the level of greed and anger that arises after a sensation. 

By Comparison, One knows delusion is present by comparing the present mind moment to mind moments when delusion was not present.

But, if one has not had a moment when delusion was not present, then they would not know.

This is how one would either know or not know when delusion was or was not present.

There, as far as I know, no one has ever said that ,at least in that fashion before, so one can not say I am a dogmatic preacher creature...Well, one can say what they want, I suppose...  Hakuna Matata

Psi

12.06.2014

Meditation log.  37 min.  20 min.  33 min.  21 min.  15 min.
No real news here to report, old memory of 30 years past came up in the last 15 min. session of body scanning, body scans seem to bring up forgotten memories, it is good to have them arise as I can conjoin them with equanimity as best as able.  Probably need to add more body scanning time, as the last 15 min session was only body scan for the day, the other meditations were, Stillness meditation, Unthinking...

Psi

So, perusing Not Tao's link to the Acualism website, and doing some reading, it seems that Richard's descriptions coincide to my actual experience in life, Richard uses different words, though the experience conveyed in not at all unlike what I here from others, such as Ayya Khema, Nyanaponika Thera, or perhaps Bhante Gunaratana.  It is just in different words, their descriptions also coincide to my life experiences.  I have not yet discovered how deeply Richard goes into these experiences.  Remember , these are just words, like unthinking, as Richard states, "The habituation of actualistic awareness and attentiveness requires a persistent initialisation; persistent initialisation segues into a wordless approach, a non-verbal attitude towards life. It delivers the goods just here, right now, and not off into some indeterminate future. Plus the successes are repeatable – virtually on demand – and thus satisfy the ‘scientific method’."

So true, the process of Right Mindfulness, coupled with the Process of Right Effort, can and does lead one to the understanding of Dependent Origination, and the use of that understanding to "nip' the bud of Craving before it seeds and starts, this bypassing of the rest of the links, enables one to reamin in the Wholesome States, and if not, to reinitiate the cycle at nthe next available mind moment.  

So far, it seems that the  Actualism that Richard describes is the same as what is descibed by Buddha, there are surely some differences and nuances, but so what, really?  But, that being said, I am still not convinced that Actualism brings one as far along the path as does Buddha's teaching.

Anyway, if you read the excerpt below with an open mind, one can plainly see Richard is speaking directly about the Process of Right Mindfulness, and or Bare Attention, Right Effort or the Four Supreme Efforts, and the use of Dependent Origination...  Or, Unthinking....  


http://actualfreedom.com.au/actualism/vineeto/selected-writings/investigatefeelings.htm

So, yeah , the silent mind, the mind stilled

Psi

Further reading and on/off contemplating , meditating today

Excerpt from Vineeto, this really clarifies a good example:  Actually practicing  Vedananupassana, Contemplation on Feelings



http://actualfreedom.com.au/actualism/vineeto/selected-writings/investigatefeelings.htm

• I find the feeling, and I name the feeling.

The non-felicitous feelings in question are both the ‘good’ feelings such as love, compassion, sympathy, belonging and the ‘bad’ feelings such as anger, fear, sadness, boredom, hate, loneliness etc. I found by experience that it is far easier to focus on dis-empowering the bad feelings first but soon it also became apparent that the so-called good feelings were in fact often the reason for my feeling bad. For instance love caused me to pine and feel lonely and feel dependant, compassion caused me to feel helpless and feel sad for others’ sake, belonging to a group caused me to worry if I did the ‘right’ thing according to the group-ethics, desire caused me to feel frustrated, competitive and anxious, and so on.


So what Vineeto is saying and descibling is kind of correct, but requires clarification, when Vineeto is noticing that love caused her to pine and feel lonely, true, that is love with attachment, that kind of love should be dropped, and replaced with Metta, i.e. Love and friendliness without attatchment.  Metta is independent.  She further writes that compassion left her sad and helpless for other's sake, well that should be dropped to , but that is pity, not compassion, True Compassion has no negative feelings, and leaves no trace of sadness. 

So, it turns out Vineeto is practicing the Four Supreme Efforts, albeit unknowingly, and has had to drudge through all this with little or no instruction, But, I guess that's how it works, we all have to practice on our own.

So, it's not really a dropping of all emotions, good and bad, Actualism does practice the Brahma Viharas, somehow, they are aware and yet unaware of it, perhaps due to the English Language default.

I can now see where common mis-understandings  about Actualism are arising from, the source of Actualism, the definitions there are murky and westerny, English just doesn't fit well into the Path of Mind. But, English is an Ego-based language, so go figure...

And , to be fair, this might have all changed by now, everyone is different from moment to moment, people change and grow, moment to moment.

Psi

12.07.2014

Meditation Sessions
23 min, 10 min, 18 min, 10 min, 60 min, I throw in the short sessions when I can grab some time, it really helps to carry mindfulness along throughout the day, Like training a puppy or something, repetition works, Someday I would like to experiment with like 20-30 10 minute sessions, just to see if the sessions stack, and carry the mindfulness along between sessions, maybe add some mindful walks ,mindful runs. The last session was dealing with sloth and torpor, that was overcome and meditation was peaceful for a while, tried noting, then overdid energy and became restless, go figure...Now it's time for bed,  must have a moron samskara deeply ingrained in the ole psyche....

Reading more Vineeto, big thanks to Not Tao's suggestion, thank you, it's interesting to read other people's practice suggestions. Not sure my practice relates exactly to hers, or how her practice was. My practice has less story making about why something happened, or what core belief triggered such and such,  My practice is more like, Negative state arises, then Drop, there it goes down the garbage chute.  From what I can see, the reasoning of a negative state or rumination is the mind storytelling and may actually feed the negative samskara, for me it seems better to just abandon asap, though maybe that skill has to be aquired first, hence, why vipassana and jhana practice skills are so useful for the Buddhist.  

For a better analogy, one I am paraphrasing from Ayya Khema, Why pick and look through the garbage?  Oh, here is  a bit of plastic, some crumpled paper, a wet tissue, wonder how that got there, etc, etc.  Best just to throw out the trash, no need to over analyze it.

Ordered Robert Burbea's new book, Seeing That Frees, tried to hold off as long as I could, but succumbed to my greed...

Psi 

Alarm goes off in 4 hours 47 minutes, worky worky, weekend is over...

I'm glad you found it helpful, and I'll leave your opinions alone in your practice blog, haha. 

In trms of seeking out the cause of the negativity, this is the meat of Actualism.  It's good to abandon the negative state quickly by neither expressing nor suppressing, but then the investigation is there to disband the cause of the state so it doesn't arise the next time.  This has worked very well IME.

The idea is that the garbage is still there, you just don't smell it anymore.

Maybe the garbage is still there, but througout the process, less and less garbage arises, and less and less garbage is re-created to even have to deal with.  And furthemore, the pracitce Vineeto and yourself descibe will eventually become you new automatic response sytem, as Shinzen Young has said, eventually the Practice does you, but by that point the you is really, really thinning away....

I am still in the middle of reading Vineeto, interesting, and I am sure these are very nice people, spiritual practioners tend to incline towards that direction.

Psi

11.8.2014  6 min, 10 min, 36 min, 15 min, 11 min

11.9.2014  10 min, 10 min, 10 min, 42 min, 34 min, 15 min 

Daily life, crazy work schedule, sleep schedule whacked out, transitioned from night shift back to early morning shift

Bare Attention, Four Supreme Exertions, throughout daily activities when possible.  Need to key up on other Folds of the Path as well.

All this AF posting is very interesting, and during mediation this metaphor or rather riddle story arose in mind.

There was a blind beggar with an outstretched hand, and along came a generous passerby, the generous passerby placed a diamond in the blind beggars hand, the blind beggar felt the diamond, and tossed it aside, then raised the outstretched hand again.

Now, we all , at different times play the role of different characters in life, and usually have played the part of both sides of a story, and at times unkowing of the part we play.  Therein lies a danger to spiritual advancement, a closed and narrow mind keeps people stagnated and constricted whilst further empowering belief systems and or shadow sides.

Now, commentary on the story, From the generous passerby's standpoint the beggar makes a grave error throwing away a small fortune, the diamond, the generous passerby, may even try to replace the diamond in the blind beggar's hand several times, perhaps even eventually admonishing the blind beggar as a fool.

From the blind beggar's perspective , perhaps the diamond is felt as a rock, a really cruel and unusual joke, and the blind beggar expecting to feel the usual coin of the land casts aside the diamond. So, the blind beggar has missed an enormous gift. It also could be that the blind beggar was enlightened, knew that a diamond was placed within the hand, and still casts the diamond aside as the blind beggar knew the diamond would bring no further fulfillment, and outstretches the hand again only to see if the rain, that was smelled earlier,  had started, and it was wise to go inside, and was never actually a beggar at all.

So from where do stories like this arise from? It arose, it came to the consciousness already created.  Perhaps, only the Shadows knows, Mhwaaa Hahahah
Psi

Are you the beggar or the passerby in your imagination?

Is the rain the cloud or the river?


Psi

12.10.2014  30 min. , 41 min. 

12.11.2014  30 min., 15 min., 30 min. , 15 min., 30 min. , 60 min.

Probably one of the most boring practice logs....

I dunno, now when I meditate there really aren't any visualizations, but I don't have much of a visualiztion ability anywho, I don't really know if people that can visualize are lucky or cursed, sounds distracting.  Visual field with eyes closed is just the little sparkies, I always thought this was the rods and cones field on idle, but then again open eyed seeing is kinda pixelated too, I looked this up once, it's normal, and always there, just usually not noticed.

Mostly when I meditate,  I just meditate, and if a thought does pop in , it gets released, if a tension or physical tension arises or is noticed it is released, not many repressed memories or grudges or wishes and whatnot pop up anymore.  Also, I have noticed there isn't really that wish for some crazy out of body levitating telepathic experience anymore, the mind just is...  Maybe it's true, Vippassana, if you release something hundreds and thousands of times, eventually it loses it's energy and finally goes away, for good, have to wait and see.

Maybe I need to find a way , a method, a technique, to go a little deeper, put on the old psychonaut suit and start really getting into the subtle sensations, or try to get into deeper memories of early childhood, or break into the unconscious realm, which is the weird, and can be dangerous...  Have to think about this, poltergeist phenomenon and telepathic phenomenon might sound cool, but it is kinda disturbing....at least it was with the mind  of the past.

Psi

12.12.2014  30 min., 45 min., 15 min., 15 min., 20 min.

12.13.2014  30 min., 20 min., 16 min.

12.14.2014  13 min., 20 min., 30 min., 10 min., 17 min., 


Well, well, So I'm listening to a Rob Burbea talk, The Theater of Selves, Part 3 , I think it was yesterday about halfway through the talk and he is talking about imaginals, images, visions, and archetypes, concepts etc, that arise in the mind..   I think to myself, now that is odd, that just doesn't happen anymore...

Then during one of this morning's sits, I am looking down at someone's hands in a folded position, I see the veins, detailed , real, then I realise I am meditating with my eyes closed.....back to the breath as an anchor...  This also used to happen sometimes, I would be in another room I have never been in, but then realise I was actually meditating with my eyes closed....  back to breath as an anchor...

So, I usually just write this stuff off as a sensation, a mental phenomenon, an imperfection of insight, or what have you.

It's funny, usually when I think some aspect of phenomenon wwill not arise, it usually does within the next day, just as a test or something....

Mainly, I think this is sloth and torpor and I experience phenomenon such as lucid visions because the brain activates dream section while awareness is still active.   

Is this the light the Hermit uses to explore the Unconscious realm? or is it an imperfection of Insight?  I am voting for imperfection, just due to the imaginary qualities presented, though that is the only way the Unconsciousness can communicate, I think, that is through symbols.  Anyway, probably will not happen again for a while.

Mostly just thinking out loud.

Psi

12.15.2014 30 min., 30 min., 46 min., 9 min., 21 min.

12.16.2014 10 min., 20 min., 11 min., 39 min.

12.17.2014 42 min., 30 min., 20 min., 10 min.

12.18.2014 15 min., 23 min., 22 min.

Been delving into this visualization conumdrum.  Can't really remember if i have ever been able to pull up mental images at will, very well.  So, I have asked some people,  wife , father, children, some people at work, Can you picture an apple in your mind?  Everyone immediately responds, yes.  Well, I can not do this, even with a fair amount of time, I may get some brief vague reflection of an apple, maybe, but no clear image in my mind or anything.  Then I experimented when in meditation, all that is seen in my mind's eye, is blankness, or maybe the rod and cones sparkys.  So, that's that part of it.  Now when in deeper meditation, the mind has and does sometimes roll into visions that seem real, I have seen bright lights, bright enough that I have opened my eyes to see if someone was shining a flashlight at me or something.  And, I do have dreams, of which I am kind of awakened within.  So, the apparatus to be able to view with the mind's eye is there, just not like other people.  But, how distrsacting it must be to have visual thoughts interupting meditation, the blank screen is pretty peaceful, though all I can do is ponder what else there is.

I did find this blog about not seeing things when closing the eyes:


http://dfan.org/blog/2010/01/23/i-still-dont-see-anything-when-i-close-my-eyes/

Anyway, so much for Visual Nimittas, what a waste of time for some to chase that method, I know I did, my Nimitta or sign is the Pleasant sensation, or the sense of open contentment.  Though, I do see the tiniest of a pinpoint spark flash right before calmness, sometimes.

So, people are different, minds are different, yet we are also the same.  What works for some may not work for others, the path does seem to be different in regards to neurobiological particulars we may or may not have inherited or been moulded into.

The only other thing to add from the last few days, is to stress the importance of mindfulness and cessation of craving practice throughout the day on top of and in addition to daily formal meditations.  And, on that subject, to how mindfulness, and the cessation of craving practice from moment to moment, eventually becomes the new inclination for the mind, kind of an auto-pilot mode, in a fashion that sometimes I can not really tell much difference between practicing on the cushion and practicing off the cushion.  Perhaps, the effortless effort, or the unfabricated state , are good wordings to describe this, beyond mindfulness and beyond bare attention.   Once the Wheel gets a rollin',  it rolls of it's own accord, maybe just needing a little rebalancing once in a while.

That's all I have for now, will just keep investigating, and rooting out craving and delusion.  Mostly on the lookout for delusion, am I fooling myself?  Am I honest ?  Am I open minded?  Can I become more compassionate towards others?  Am I learning from mistakes?  Am I even recognizing mistakes?  This really does seem to be one big impersonal process, which while once was strange, now proves time and time again true, and the ego is never really found as any core or solidity.  Perhaps, it was just sensations and word games after all.  


Psi

I can't really picture something in my mind for very long.  Maybe a vivid flash if I'm really focusing.  I'm assuming this is what most people mean.  Consider how hard it is for most people to draw.  If we could just visualize something in our head with any degree of accuracy it wouldn't be so difficult.  Even now I've been trained up to draw and it doesn't involve imagining a picture in my head.  More like judging the picture as it appears in front of me.  Mental imagery seems to be the most activated when reading a book for me.  Maybe try setting a timer for 30 minutes or so, then reading a good novel. When the timer goes off, see what your mind was just doing.  For me the imagination is very disjointed and fleeting, though - lots of impressions, no real substance.  Like being blind but thinking it's seeing.  Invisible images, silent sounds.  That sort of thing.

Dreaming is different though, especially lucid dreams.  I've had a few where I simply couldn't believe the things I was seeing weren't real, even though I knew they weren't.  So that must be related to actually seeing vs. what's happening when "lost in thought."

EDIT: I see this matches your article pretty well, haha.

That link is extremely odd, the way he talks about having low visualization as some sort of problem or condition. I can't see images in my mind either - it's not that unusual and there's a wide variation in people's visualization abilities. It's nothing to worry about. But seems like you know that.

12.19.2014  15 min., 40 min., 24 min., 10 min., 10 min., 17 min., 

12.20.2014 8 min., 30 min., 31 min., 31 min., 26 min., 30 min., 26 min., 

12.21.2014 15 min., 10 min., 15 min., 10 min., 33 min., 28 min.,


Notes to ...

Equilibrium:  Practice to balance one's being to automatic equlibrium.  Mindfulness and awareness, paying attention to what is going on within and without, this is vital.  Then the next step is , once one notices when one is out of equilibrium, one makes adjustments immediately in order to recontact and remain in equilibrium.  Through practice this method becomes a new automatic response.  

External and Internal stimuli act as triggers that have cause and effect reactions within the human system, causing imbalances to occur.  Mindfulness is the noticing of these stimulus triggers, both internal and external, and Insight is the understanding of the experience and the implementation of an appropriate response or antidote to the imbalanced system, or ways to remain in equlibrium.  And this being an impersonal process, one uses this reality to advantage. In order to lean the mind and body into new pathways of existence, thus making the path part of a new and improved way of living.  Effortless effort, or perhaps the results as the Path itself.

From what I can tell, this equilibrium state , may seem to some as Pure Awareness, but that is perhaps due to the balance within the biological system.  Like a scale, on one side are stress hormones and on the other side are relaxation response hormones, when perfectly balanced, there would be the perception of nothing occuring, yet there is, that is perhaps the Middle Path, biologically speaking.  And , it could be other things unsaid or unconsidered, but it does not matter if it works, or what label is put upon a method.


Psi