This is in direct reference to the question posed on the podcast mentioned in this thread:
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/684357
tarin is given the question: when should someone start? and the answer given was something like "as soon as possible... as soon as AF makes sense."
This caught me a bit off guard, since I read somewhere else from you, tarin, that you said it might be a good idea to do stream entry first just to clear out a lot of stuff. (or something like that.)
Well, I will say that AF makes sense to me. The PCE doesn't make a lot of sense, apperception doesn't make sense, the practice itself doesn't make a lot of sense, but as a whole AF makes very very good sense, and sounds a lot more like what I was wanting all along than enlightenment. Living in the actual world makes a lot of sense to me. This gives me a sense that I've probably had a PCE before, and I think I could say with some certainty that I've most likely had an excellence experience before. In fact, what I look back on as my A&P event 11 years ago, I don't really remember it as an event, but rather as an experience which lasted for a few weeks in which life really did feel perfect in everyway. I remember writing lots of poems about oblivion too. Maybe I got a PCE and A&P event at the same time? I don't know. And, in fact that's part of why I want to get stream entry (if that's really where I'm headed) is just so that I can get some distinctions between insight progress and the strata of mind so to speak.
Anyway, it seems like the practices are a bit different, and I'm confused/conflicted about switching over, or even what the differences are. I am still shooting for three characteristics and stream entry, as it seems closely attainable now and I guess I just feel like so much is unclear about the nature of mind and matter that it doesn't even really matter at this point which practice, I just really gotta get some clarity first.
I listened to the AF discussion, and I didn't understand much of the practices in a way that I felt i could apply them. The one practice which made sense the most was the magical fairytale practice, which seems quite natural to me. I have done this thing quite a bit already just naturally. I'm not sure what it'd be like to try this as a practice 24 hours per day, I'm not sure I could keep it up. Especially, it seems like the Dark Night would get in the way a lot.
Also, it seems that there are some things which overlap both practices - for example, "being friendly with yourself" seems to be both actualism and spirituality.
Anyway, there may not be an easy answer to this one, but I'm just wondering about mixing, focusing, practicing, and where to put attention and energy. Or, if there are any thoughts on this subject. I guess it's still mostly untested territory as there aren't a lot of AF people to shed light on it.
What seems different is that AF practice sounds like not the kind of thing you do on retreat in silence with your eyes closed, whereas insight works best in those conditions. So, that might make a big difference.
Of course, I'm still not convinced that all of this isn't just crazy talk - since I've never actually met anyone in real life who claims any experience with the stuff on the progress of insight map or the AF stuff. The people I meet in the real world don't seem to talk about any of this stuff.
Thoughts from anyone on either side of the insight/AF line would be appreciated. Thanks.
