Hi, I have a few beginner questions about the PCE.


1) Is there bodily pleasure in the PCE (either temporary when eating something tasty for example, or constant / pervasive)?

2) What is the difference between bodily pleasure and felicitous feelings, as you say that felicitous feelings are absent in the PCE? The reason I ask is because of the following quote from Trent:
"A bodily pleasure similar to what I experienced in 3rd jhana, always here."
- http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/503852

3) What is the difference between being in a PCE and walking around in a jhana? What are the practical differences between cultivating a jhana by focusing on pleasant qualities and cultivating a PCE by feeling felicitous?

4) Is a PCE the experience of being in nature where one is totally engaged, I do not tend to feel pleasure or wonder in this situation but just total engagement, and even here a sense of dissatisfaction creeps in after a while which leads to the next question...

5) What is the PCE-cultivating possibilities for someone who has not reached arahatship, as even when using 'how am i experiencing this moment of being alive' to see through thoughts and emotions and cultivate feeling good (as in pleasant / bright) I can still be distracted and sucked back down to negativity by the tension / physical pain / dissatisfaction particularly in the head and chest area which is not caused by emotions or thought.

- Martin

1- when i was trying to induce a pce, i tended to be more successful when there was some degree of sensuous pleasure happening.. nothing extreme, a simle walk down a flight of stairs or the street could do it. now actually free, i find the experience of being here pleasurable by default, though pain still operates as is appropriate (for example, the experiences of burning my leg against a motorcycle tailpipe and having a sinus headache are painful). it is not an entirely constant condition, but it is on-going for the most part. however, in addition to bodily pleasure, there is also the pleasure - to use the term loosely - inherent in apperception.. and this is all-the-time.

2- first off, bodily pleasure is physical, and felicitous feelings are affective. felicitous feelings are indeed absent in a pce, as are blissful feelings as well as afflictive feelings.. the entire affective field is. however, upon the resumption of affective experience, you may note that it is felicitous feelings which imitate the pce most closely.. and so they are essential to cultivate in the practice of actualism (in addition to it just making good everyday sense to feel deeply happy for its own sake).

3- walking around in a pce is entirely easeful and effortless, and is absent of the feeling of being and all feelings. walking around in a jhana makes use of the feeling of being to cultivate a quiescent feeling-state which colours the experience in a way the pce is entirely free of. the practical difference between cultivating a jhana by focusing on pleasant qualities and cultivating a pce by focusing on felicitous feelings is primarily that jhana is an inward experience in which affective energy is consolidated and held steady (the status quo of 'pleasant qualities' is held onto); a pce is an outward experience (in the sense that attending to sensuous experience is what is likely to induce one) that the cultivation of felicitous feelings (by feeling genuinely and inimitably well) leaves one open to have and able to induce (the status quo of 'felicitous feelings' is changed/left behind).

4- i found the sense of wonder essential to the pce, and found it most noticeable early on (other qualities came to the fore later). i found no sense of dissatisfaction whatsoever.. any dissatisfaction only came after the experience had devolved (the feeling of being had returned from abeyance).

5- as several people who had not reached arahatship (or stream-entry, for that matter) are now actually free, it is entirely possible for a person who is not an arahat (or a stream-enterer, for that matter) to cultivate a pce. actualism does not depend on the insight process at all.

and now a question for you: what do you suppose your tension/physical pain/dissatisfaction, particularly in your head or chest area, which you say is able to 'suck [you] back down to negativity' is caused by? (you have ruled out 'emotion or thought')

tarin

I understood it to be the belief in being a seperate self causing various contractions and tensions in the physical body, which although is variable (in different insight stages, different affective or pleasant or unpleasant states, and depending on enjoyability of the activity currently engaged in), this nevertherless seems to be my baseline which I understand will not change until enough time has passed for the developmental practise to complete (but perhaps this is short-changing the possibilities). Negative thoughts and emotions stem from this physical pain which is still there after those thoughts and emotions have been mindfully stopped, unless I actively cultivate pleasant feelings to compensate, which is possible but difficult as it requires constant effort and intent to maintain, and can even then be difficult for example when doing an unpleasant activity.
The way the muscles in the head clamp down tightly on things even as I look around this room (due to one part of the total field being somewhat out-of-sync with the visual field) works strongly against any felicity I try to cultivate, although this can be ignored for short periods by encouraging a gentle focus.

- Martin

your entire reply, while excellent, rests on a presumption i would like to get more into, if that's all right, namely why it is that you understand your tension/physical pain/dissatisfaction to be caused by 'the belief in being a separate self'. can you clarify this? what is it that supports this belief?

tarin

Hmm, could it be desire then? There is a desire for permanence, security and pleasure and so part of the body tenses itself into a ball like a hedgehog to give the impression of continuity and shield itself from the reality of the six sense doors which is flickering impermanence, security-less and centreless, unfortunately this 'ball' is inherently painful. But perhaps this is not what you're getting it, would you mind explaining?

- Martin

well i wasn't getting at anything, actually, i was just wondering what it looked like to you - as you have ruled out 'emotion or thought', i wanted to see what was left. as you now indicate that what supports your belief in being a separate self (which you located as the cause of your tension/physical pain/dissatisfaction) is desire, and furthermore, as you describe this desire as being one 'for permanence, security, and pleasure', then, as far as i can tell, it behoves you to ask yourself why it is that you desire what you do: what is it about what you desire which appeals to you?

in the meantime, here's something i think is worth considering:

what if what it is that you are shielding yourself against (and so are painfully tensed against) - that is, that reality is 'flickering impermanence, security-less and centreless' - is just as much an illusion as what you fervently wish for reality to be - a world permanent, secure, and possessing of (you as) the centrepoint?

that is, what if both these impressions of the world - the one you fear as well as the one you desire - are illusions... and there is, in fact, nothing to either fear nor desire?

can you see how this could possibly truly be?

tarin

That's an eye opener.
Tarin just scored two insight points.