There is definitely no consensus haha. You won't find one here on many topics but Actual Freedom especially. I think there are a few different views on it.

I would recommend trying the Actualism method for a couple months and making up your own mind about it, without too much input from outside sources on it. You've probably already read enough to see that some people think Richard is crazy, others think everyone else is crazy.... I don't know how much can be gained from that sort of reading.

If you can be honest with yourself and apply the method and find a result of being consistently happy and harmless then I personally think that is amazing.

They don't do retreats and there is no email to be found...
But occasionally Richard emails to the Actualism group on Yahoo https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/actualfreedom/info

here are a few links to sum up the method

http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/thismomentofbeingalive.htm

http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/aprecisofactualfreedom.htm

http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/library/topics/method.htm

http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/actualism/path2.htm

I agree that the site layout is pretty bad... Though by now after 3 years of using it I can find anything on it in a few seconds haha.

So just recently found the "Actual Freedom" site and have a really strong intuitive attraction to it like they are legit and it is a good methodical approach to blast through.

Found a bunch of posts regarding controversies with them and what not, and many back & forths, some of which are just impossible to read because they are literally like mini-books pages long of responses, threads going way to deep for me to read and waste my time on instead of just simply posting this new thread and asking, "what's the consensus?"

Thanks

If you were hoping for a way to "skip" straight to the "being totally free" stage which perhaps you are imagining, then it is probably going to take some time.

Hoping for a quick fix is a sign of seeing your life situation now as far inferior to a projected life situation that will come as a result of actual freedom. Seeing your life in negative terms is a sign that a good amount of work will be required. I say that because that is what I recognize myself as starting out with 3 years ago. A utopian vision that saw my current life in stark contrast to a wondrous and amazing life that had yet to be attained.

Over time, it became clear that living in the shadow of a wild dream of what I could be and what my life could be was a very depressing and frustrating way to live.[...]

The journey to seeing that things (as they actually are) are already great is a strange and counterintuitive journey

Saying that they "are already great" would be just an act of dishonesty. One starts from where one is, and usually where one is is "reality" or "spirituality" with all their feelings/beliefs. This other thing is not an act of surrendering to what's already great; it's an exercise of dismantlement of what is not actual (feelings and beliefs) via the actualism method to then -and only then- see what is. If you do this intellectually and/or affectively you'll indeed form a concept/hallucination/projection/idea of what is actual, instead of actually living actuality via your senses. The actualist method is an experiential method, not a philosophical or mystical one.

So just recently found the "Actual Freedom" site and have a really strong intuitive attraction to it like they are legit and it is a good methodical approach to blast through.

Found a bunch of posts regarding controversies with them and what not, and many back & forths, some of which are just impossible to read because they are literally like mini-books pages long of responses, threads going way to deep for me to read and waste my time on instead of just simply posting this new thread and asking, "what's the consensus?"

Thanks

In September 1981 I underwent a monumental transformation into an Altered State Of Consciousness which can only be described as Spiritual Enlightenment. ...[M]y ‘ego’ disappeared entirely in an edifying moment of awakening to an ‘Absolute Reality’. I lived in the Enlightened State for eleven years, so I have an intimate understanding of the marked difference between Spiritual Enlightenment and actual freedom.

[A]fter The Altered State Of Consciousness has manifested itself, the soul is still present as ‘The Self’. No matter how Enlightened or Liberated one may be, an ‘I’ is still in existence ... Timeless maybe, but still an ‘I’, still in the body. The soul, as ‘The Self’, is a psychological entity identifying as being an Enlightened Master. The ego is only half of one’s identity; the other half is the soul. When the ego dies, one has dispelled an illusion – the illusion of a personal self – only to wind up living in a delusion – the delusion of an impersonal Self. ... The delusion must be dispelled in order to be actually free: along with the ‘death of the ego’ there must be a corresponding ‘death of the soul’.

I opened the door [to actual freedom] and walked through. Once on the other side – where thousands upon thousands of atavistic voices were insistently whispering ‘fool – fool – fool’ – I turned to ascertain the way back to normal. The door had vanished – and the wall it was set in – and I just knew that I would never, ever be able to find my way back to the real-world ... it had been nothing but an illusion all along. I walked tall and free as the perfection of this material universe personified ... I can never not be here ... now.

If we think the falling away of the ego, with its ensuing transformation and oneness, is the no-self experience, then what shall we call the much further experience when this egoless oneness falls away? In actual experience there is only one thing to call it, the "no-self experience"; it lends itself to no other possible articulation.

Initially, I gave up looking for this experience in the Buddhist literature. Four years later, however, I came across two lines attributed to Buddha describing his enlightenment experience. Referring to self as a house, he said, "All thy rafters are broken now, the ridgepole is destroyed." And there it was - the disappearance of the center, the ridgepole; without it, there can be no house, no self. When I read these lines, it was as if an arrow launched at the beginning of time had suddenly hit a bulls-eye. It was a remarkable find. These lines are not a piece of philosophy, but an experiential account, and without the experiential account we really have nothing to go on. In the same verse he says, "Again a house thou shall not build," clearly distinguishing this experience from the falling away of the ego-center, after which a new, transformed self is built around a "true center," a sturdy, balanced ridgepole.

"By the time the journey is over, the only possible way of living is in the now-moment, wherein the mind moves neither backward nor forward but remains fixed and fully concentrated in the present. Because of this, the mind is so open and clear than no preconceived notions can get a foothold; no idea can be carried over from one moment to another; much less, could any notion demand conformity from others. There are no more head-trips -- no clinging to a frame of reference, even if it is only the reference of tomorrow's expectations. In a word, what is to be done or thought is always underfoot, with no need to step aside in order to find out what is to be thought, believed, or enacted...."

Here’s what he (Adyashanti) went through (taken from my notes .. may not be 100% accurate):

In 1988, after years of zen practice, his ego dropped and he woke up and went through what I’ve been going through since 2009 when the personal self fell away. He waited eight years to start teaching.

For about 5-6 years he taught from this state .... In this state, there is still a subtle identity—an “I”—even if it is merged with the Divine (the Witness/Unity/the duplex personality). ... There is still a Self identity—an I.

Around 2002, 14 years after Adyashanti’s enlightenment, that impersonal scrap of identity—his Self—fell away completely. He calls this state “No-Self.

(speaking of his experience with Anagami stage)
The refined sukha and dukkha that arise exclusively within the citta, and the amazing radiance that emanates from it, have their origin in avijjã. But since we have never before encountered them, we are deluded into grasping at them when we first investigate this point. We are lulled into a sound sleep by avijjã, believing that the subtle feelings of satisfaction and shining radiance are our true essence beyond name and form. Oblivious to our mistake, we accept this majestic citta, complete with avijjã, as our one true self.

"The moment when that radiant center disintegrates, something even more remarkable—something that has been concealed by avijjã—will be revealed in all its fullness. Within the citta, it feels as though a powerful tremor shakes the entire universe. This crucial moment, when the citta breaks away from all forms of conventional reality, is one of indescribable wonder and magnificence. It is precisely here—at the moment when avijjã is finally extinguished—that Arahattamagga is transformed into Arahattaphala. When the path is fully developed, the fruition of Arahantship is attained. Dhamma and citta have attained complete perfection. From that moment on, all problems cease. This is the nature of Nibbãna.
When that nature which we imagine to be so awesome and amazing finally disintegrates, something that is impossible to describe arises in full measure. That nature is Absolute Purity.

The difference between the emptiness of the avijjã-citta [mind clouded by ignorance experienced by the anagami] and the emptiness of the pure citta [experienced by the arahat], free of avijjã, can be illustrated by imagining a person in an empty room. Standing in the middle of the room, admiring its emptiness, that person forgets about himself. Seeing that there is nothing around him in the room, he reflects only on the emptiness he perceives and not on the fact that he is occupying a central position in that space. As long as someone is in the room, it is not truly empty. When he finally realizes that the room can never be truly empty until he departs, that is the moment when avijjã disintegrates and the pure citta arises.

Once the citta has let go of phenomena of every sort [the level of anagami], the citta appears supremely empty; but the one who admires the emptiness, who is awestruck by the emptiness, that one still survives. The self as reference point, which is the essence of avijjã, remains integrated into the citta’s knowing nature. This is the genuine avijjã. One’s “self” is the real impediment at that moment.

As soon as it disintegrates and disappears, no more impediments remain. Everything is empty: the external world is empty, and the interior of the citta is empty. As in the case of a person in an empty room, we can only truly say that the room is empty when the person leaves the room. The citta that has gained a comprehensive understanding of all external matters, and all matters pertaining to itself, this citta is said to be totally empty. True emptiness occurs when every single trace of conventional reality has disappeared from the citta.

So just recently found the "Actual Freedom" site and have a really strong intuitive attraction to it like they are legit and it is a good methodical approach to blast through.

Found a bunch of posts regarding controversies with them and what not, and many back & forths, some of which are just impossible to read because they are literally like mini-books pages long of responses, threads going way to deep for me to read and waste my time on instead of just simply posting this new thread and asking, "what's the consensus?"

Thanks

why is it such a bad idea?

They just do not work well together. Done properly on their own, they lead to totally different understandings and experiences, which do not harmonize - one is not conducive to helping with the other.

Daniel seems to have combined elements of both. Couldn't that be a viable approach?

Be more specific. Is that because Actualism is about grooving on sensations until that becomes a baseline and Buddhism is about being detached as a baseline?

they actually make it more difficult in my experience.

Don't miss this link as it is pretty much required reading:

http://actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/attentivenesssensuousnessapperceptiveness.htm

[Richard]:‘The whole point of actualism is the direct experience of actuality: as this flesh and blood body only what one is (what not ‘who’) is these eyes seeing, these ears hearing, this tongue tasting, this skin touching and this nose smelling – and no separative identity (no ‘I’/‘me’) means no separation – whereas ‘I’/‘me’, a psychological/psychic entity, am inside the body busily creating an inner world and an outer world and looking out through ‘my’ eyes upon ‘my’ outer world as if looking out through a window, listening to ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ ears as if they were microphones, tasting ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ tongue, touching ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ skin and smelling ‘my’ outer world through ‘my’ nose.

RESPONDENT: The way I interpret it, when the observing aspect of the psyche is not treated as different from the observed contents (fear, anger, etc) all conflict ends. The observer IS the content, IS programming.
RICHARD: Okay ... in the context under discussion the ‘observed contents’ of the psyche are the outside (pointed out by Mr. Jiddu Krishnamurti in the instance provided as being ‘the trees’, ‘the yellowing trees’, ‘the tamarind’, ‘the bougainvillea’, ‘the hills’, ‘the shape of the hills’, ‘the quality of their colour’, ‘all the colours’, ‘the shape of the land’, ‘the rocks’ and ‘the shadow’) and when the ‘observing aspect of the psyche’ is not treated as different from these observed contents then ‘all conflict ends’ (aka the outside is the inside) ... ‘the observer IS the content’ (aka the observer is the observed). This is nothing more than a different way of putting what I have been maintaining all along: ‘the inner’ creates its own reality, which it pastes as a veneer over the actual world, and then calls that reality ‘the outer’ ... then the ‘inner’, feeling isolated from ‘the outer’, seeks unity with its own creation (little realising it is its own creation of course) and the rare few who achieve this sleight of hand experience a state of unitive awareness (otherwise known as union or oneness or wholeness). Yet all the while this actual world goes unnoticed ... there is no inner or outer in actuality.
RESPONDENT: If the inner creates its own reality, that is delusion.
RICHARD: No ... that is illusion (such as is experienced by perhaps 6.0 billion people): the delusion is when the inner becomes one with its own reality (such as is experienced by perhaps 1.2 thousand people).
RESPONDENT: And conflict will not end with that because a reality invented by the mind of man is at odds with truth, with what is.
RICHARD: No, the reality invented by the feeling-fed mind of human beings *is* the truth, the what is ... what it is at odds with is the fact, the actual.
RESPONDENT: The observer is the observed means there is no subject split from object.
RICHARD: Which means that the outside is the inside.

The attainment of actual freedom doesn't go far enough as far as ending suffering is concerned, as there is still attachment to non-conceptual imputations for example.

Taking all this into consideration, how could we be so sure that what we call a PCE is actually a PCE or that what we are experiencing is really a pure attention to the senses or from the senses, and not actually our inner reality overlaid on actuality as an outer one? Are both methods really the same in that regard? Would they lead to the same results in the long run?

I don't think you are familiar with what I am referring to as bare attention to sensations.

The other possibility is that what I am describing as bare attention is not actually bare attention.

In the experience there is no overlay of an inner reality as it is experience free of a sense of observer, it is reality experiencing itself without any overlay. When what has been referred to as affective feelings present themselves the purely sensate process that gives rise to a sense of self, and the sense of self as a sensate process, is abundantly clear so your assertion on that end is incorrect.

Further, there is no actual word that can be separated from an internal world. One depends on the other.

Personally, af does not interest me as it seems overly philosophical and contrived in a way that just seems unworkable for me at this point in development.

They all say that certain aspects of the PCE as written about on the AFT and experienced by actualist practitioners contain attachment, concepts that overlay the experience, etc., yet these very aspects are, by actualists, considered to be intrinsic to the experience itself - not an overlay, but part and parcel of it.

I suppose one of the issues that I have frequently run into when dialoging with folks about af is that if you disagree, or criticize some aspect of their interpretation, it is only because you haven't yet had the experience that would allow you to agree with them ha. Notice that you have done this more than once: The fact that I don't agree with your perspective is followed immediately with an inference that I may have not had a pce. Surely there is room for more than one perspective.

1) Really pay attention all day long to just what its going on, particularly in the wide visual field and in the body. This sounds like the typical mindfulness advice and is, but that sort of attention forms the basis of so much that is good that it is very worth repeating.

2) Notice the beauty and niceness in ordinary and beautiful things, sounds, tastes, textures, feelings, the body, visuals, smells and the like. Really take time to smell the proverbial roses of the ordinary sensate world you find yourself in. Appreciate the feel of air on your skin, of the fingers hitting the keys, of characters showing up on computer screens, of your car going down the road, of the legs moving in space and balance shifting as you walk, of the taste of the food you eat, of the sound of your footfalls echoing off of the walls, of the quality of the light in the room, etc. It is very cliche advice again, but really do it all day long for a year or two and see what it is does to you: taken to that dose and degree of dedication, you would be surprised at what can occur.

3) Pay attention to feelings, meaning what you actually are feeling, whenever you notice you are feeling something. It is easy, given the AFT rhetoric, to do this in a somewhat aversive way: avoid that mentality like the plague. Instead, take a real honest approach to noticing feelings in the body, right here, and notice how they arise (causality), what thoughts go along with them, and what the stories in those thoughts are. Try to gently, honestly, humanly and kindly tease apart the stories and assumptions of those feelings, and notice when they change and what they change into as time progresses. If you go into this with the mentality that these practices will be designed to totally eliminate your emotions, it is nearly impossible to really be honest about them. Tarin, Trent, Stef and Jill all finally and in their own ways warned against this, so avoid denial and avoid scripting yourself into some zombie-state: it is a trap. Instead, just be honestly human, ordinary, and feel what you feel: not in some exaggerated way, and not in some reactive way, just straightforwardly and clearly. This doesn't need to translate to any particular action or non-action, and regarding morality, that is yours to decide and experiment with and live with the consequences of, but internally you can at least get used to really being clear about the feelings that drive it all and get more naturally fluent in that through practice and repeated attention.

4) Try to remember anything that might meet the description of a PCE and try to incline to that way of perceiving things: a flash onto a truly remarkably wondrous way of feeling, seeing, hearing, etc. in which the beauty of the world suddenly comes shining through in a very direct way. The cliche's are that you might have noticed this mind state when watching a sunset or light on water or a beautiful rainbow, or some great music performance, or whatever: remember that, as you almost certainly have had some moment like that at some time in your life. Once you have found something like that, remember it and see how that way of seeing things applies to your ordinary consciousness when it returns, and try to incline back that way. You may find your own set of triggers to get into that mindset that are unique to you: work with those. Honestly assess for yourself the value of those experiences and try to see what they might be telling you about what is possible. I realize that the term "PCE" is politically loaded, but it is not unique to the ATF kids, and I am sorry that has some branding element to it, but using it will allow you to interact with the rest of what you find written about it, so it may have value in that regard. Don't worry if your PCE is the same as anyone else's PCE, just appreciate them if and when they do arise. If you can't get PCEs to arise or this makes no sense to you: totally don't worry about it, and just proceed with the others.

5) Settle into this moment. Gently relax into it when laying down, when just sitting. Learn the basic, simple art of just being able to be at ease. It is more profound and not necessarily as easy as it sounds. Notice how there are tensions in the joints and muscles that seem to be bracing against life itself even when there is no threat: gently feel into those tensions, allowing gentle mindful attention and gentle reassurance to slowly relax them such that you learn to sit at ease, just here, appreciating this moment in a very ordinary, quiet, easy, simple, straightforward way. It is probably one of the most useful skills you could learn and practice. If you do formal sitting practice, try eyes open and eyes closed and get good at both. For this stuff, I generally prefer eyes open, but for doing this when reclining before sleep or before getting up in the morning, I like eyes closed. See what works for you.

6) Commit totally to this sense field, this rich and vibrant and colorful volume of human experience, as a volume with thoughts and body and memory and all of that as qualities of this integrated space, and really be with that all day long whenever you can remember to. Be obsessive about this but in a light-hearted, adventurous way rather than a drudgery sort of way. Drudgery won't help at all. Inspiration and anything you can do to be inspired helps. I listened to my favorite music on fantastic headphones, ate my favorite foods and relished them, really payed attention when watching my favorite movies (particularly to how they made me feel and how cool the visuals were), really enjoyed the feel of driving down the road with my hand on the wheel, my foot on the gas, and the wind in my rapidly vanishing hair, really listened to myself when I played guitar, really listened to people and looked at them when they talked, really listened to the sound of my own voice when I spoke, really felt what it felt to just be a feeling Daniel in this body. Recommit again and again and again and again and again. Make it a way of life. It is your life, so you might as well be here for it. In the face of terrible pain, such as kidney stones, all bets were off for me, and I did whatever I had to to get through it, but for ordinary life that doesn't totally suck, really be with it.

7) I mean these next points in the most lighthearted and jovial of ways:

Screw anything to do with all of the complexities of AFT politics and bullshit. Enjoy this moment instead.

Screw anything to do with the various AFT-related cults of personality. Enjoy being where you are and who you are instead and value the truth of this moment for its own sake.

Screw the fanaticism of the die-hard Actualism-is-the-only-true-way converts. Enjoy the empowerment, experiences and insights that come from just experimenting with being present and tuning in to this wondrous world instead.

Screw what any of these practices have to do (or not do) with anything else, including "Buddhism" and "Actualism", and finally

Screw anyone who says these basic practices are a bad idea, as points 1) to 6) above all make perfect sense and are based on sound meditative principles, and it is your journey, your life and your attention to it that finally will make the difference.

All of that except #7 simply rings totally cheese-puff and fluffy to me as I re-read it, and yet that is what finally really did something good, though it took a few years of doing it. I also have no idea how this will effect someone not coming from my practice background, which is unusual, so you will have to do the experiment yourself and let us all know, if you wish, as data on this is woefully lacking, and it would be good to know what everyone learns and discovers as they do these sorts of things.

I would like to see what AFers think about Daniels instructions and how they differ from what they do:

1) Really pay attention all day long to just what its going on, particularly in the wide visual field and in the body. This sounds like the typical mindfulness advice and is, but that sort of attention forms the basis of so much that is good that it is very worth repeating.

2) Notice the beauty and niceness in ordinary and beautiful things, sounds, tastes, textures, feelings, the body, visuals, smells and the like. Really take time to smell the proverbial roses of the ordinary sensate world you find yourself in. Appreciate the feel of air on your skin, of the fingers hitting the keys, of characters showing up on computer screens, of your car going down the road, of the legs moving in space and balance shifting as you walk, of the taste of the food you eat, of the sound of your footfalls echoing off of the walls, of the quality of the light in the room, etc. It is very cliche advice again, but really do it all day long for a year or two and see what it is does to you: taken to that dose and degree of dedication, you would be surprised at what can occur.

3) Pay attention to feelings, meaning what you actually are feeling, whenever you notice you are feeling something. It is easy, given the AFT rhetoric, to do this in a somewhat aversive way: avoid that mentality like the plague. Instead, take a real honest approach to noticing feelings in the body, right here, and notice how they arise (causality), what thoughts go along with them, and what the stories in those thoughts are. Try to gently, honestly, humanly and kindly tease apart the stories and assumptions of those feelings, and notice when they change and what they change into as time progresses.

4) Try to remember anything that might meet the description of a PCE and try to incline to that way of perceiving things: a flash onto a truly remarkably wondrous way of feeling, seeing, hearing, etc. in which the beauty of the world suddenly comes shining through in a very direct way. The cliche's are that you might have noticed this mind state when watching a sunset or light on water or a beautiful rainbow, or some great music performance, or whatever: remember that, as you almost certainly have had some moment like that at some time in your life.

Once you have found something like that, remember it and see how that way of seeing things applies to your ordinary consciousness when it returns, and try to incline back that way. You may find your own set of triggers to get into that mindset that are unique to you: work with those. Honestly assess for yourself the value of those experiences and try to see what they might be telling you about what is possible. I realize that the term "PCE" is politically loaded, but it is not unique to the ATF kids [...]

[...] and I am sorry that has some branding element to it, but using it will allow you to interact with the rest of what you find written about it, so it may have value in that regard. Don't worry if your PCE is the same as anyone else's PCE [...]

[...] just appreciate them if and when they do arise. If you can't get PCEs to arise or this makes no sense to you: totally don't worry about it, and just proceed with the others.

5) Settle into this moment.

Gently relax into it when laying down, when just sitting. Learn the basic, simple art of just being able to be at ease. It is more profound and not necessarily as easy as it sounds. Notice how there are tensions in the joints and muscles that seem to be bracing against life itself even when there is no threat: gently feel into those tensions, allowing gentle mindful attention and gentle reassurance to slowly relax them such that you learn to sit at ease, just here, appreciating this moment in a very ordinary, quiet, easy, simple, straightforward way. It is probably one of the most useful skills you could learn and practice. If you do formal sitting practice, try eyes open and eyes closed and get good at both. For this stuff, I generally prefer eyes open, but for doing this when reclining before sleep or before getting up in the morning, I like eyes closed. See what works for you.

6) Commit totally to this sense field, this rich and vibrant and colorful volume of human experience, as a volume with thoughts and body and memory and all of that as qualities of this integrated space, and really be with that all day long whenever you can remember to. Be obsessive about this but in a light-hearted, adventurous way rather than a drudgery sort of way. Drudgery won't help at all. Inspiration and anything you can do to be inspired helps. I listened to my favorite music on fantastic headphones, ate my favorite foods and relished them, really payed attention when watching my favorite movies (particularly to how they made me feel and how cool the visuals were), really enjoyed the feel of driving down the road with my hand on the wheel, my foot on the gas, and the wind in my rapidly vanishing hair, really listened to myself when I played guitar, really listened to people and looked at them when they talked, really listened to the sound of my own voice when I spoke, really felt what it felt to just be a feeling Daniel in this body. Recommit again and again and again and again and again. Make it a way of life. It is your life, so you might as well be here for it. In the face of terrible pain, such as kidney stones, all bets were off for me, and I did whatever I had to to get through it, but for ordinary life that doesn't totally suck, really be with it.

7) I mean these next points in the most lighthearted and jovial of ways:

Screw anything to do with all of the complexities of AFT politics and bullshit. Enjoy this moment instead.

Screw anything to do with the various AFT-related cults of personality. Enjoy being where you are and who you are instead and value the truth of this moment for its own sake.

Screw the fanaticism of the die-hard Actualism-is-the-only-true-way converts. Enjoy the empowerment, experiences and insights that come from just experimenting with being present and tuning in to this wondrous world instead.

Screw what any of these practices have to do (or not do) with anything else, including "Buddhism" and "Actualism", and finally

Screw anyone who says these basic practices are a bad idea, as points 1) to 6) above all make perfect sense and are based on sound meditative principles, and it is your journey, your life and your attention to it that finally will make the difference.

All of that except #7 simply rings totally cheese-puff and fluffy to me as I re-read it, and yet that is what finally really did something good, though it took a few years of doing it. I also have no idea how this will effect someone not coming from my practice background, which is unusual, so you will have to do the experiment yourself and let us all know, if you wish, as data on this is woefully lacking, and it would be good to know what everyone learns and discovers as they do these sorts of things.

I wonder if this practice gets confused with attention to vedana "feeling tone" because that includes thoughts as well.

If you pay attention long enough until the tones go away that would seem the same thing except for the wanting to be felicitous.

Can you rephrase this? If which practice gets confused? I don't understand your sentence as it is.

A disciple of the Buddha, with concentration, awareness and constant thorough understanding of impermanence knows with wisdom the sensations, their arising, their cessation and the path leading to their destruction. One who has reached the destruction of sensation is freed from craving, is fully liberated.

Hmm, it might seem to be the same thing, and it would have some similar properties, but it wouldn't be the same thing. Paying attention to feeling-tones doesn't lead to a PCE, you need something more than that. That sort of attention would probably lead to a state of heightened sensory perception, though.

I guess it's hard for me to understand the ending of affect and having felicity (which is another word for happiness). Happiness feels like affect but the release of emotions should feel like relief or "liberation".

+1 (EDIT: that is, for John's explanation, which is accurate - not different from what I've been saying)

With the caveat that I don't have much experience with vipassana, ........

Only then is your experience directly sensate (in the actualist sense). (And any attempt to prematurely get into the world of the senses is going to give you a very different result, even though it might seem similar in some ways).

3) The practice of paying attention to feelings, blamelessly, neither repressing them nor expressing them, is a really difficult thing to learn.

William Golden FinchThank you End in Sight for the link. Some of Tommy McNally's comments point directly towards what I brought up originally. He wrote:

Tommy McNallyIf you break Actualism down to a basic set of techniques and cut away all the verbiage of the website, you’re left with bare attentiveness to immediate sensate experience. At its most fundamental level, and regardless of what the self-proclaimed progenitor says, the entire practice leading to “an actual freedom from the human condition” is based on paying attention to what’s happening in the sensate field right now, but with a focus on the aggregate of feeling"

John WildeWith actualism, you pay attention to how you experience your life in everyday situations; how you respond emotionally to people and events, how certain instinctive feelings are triggered in certain situations, and how your beliefs and principles interact with these instinctive feelings (e.g., sometimes endorsing and justifying them, sometimes repressing and keeping a lid on them).

The aim is to enjoy and appreciate everyday life, to be as free from malice and sorrow as possible, and to live in a state of harmless enjoyment. When malicious or sorrowful feelings arise, you acknowledge that this is 'you' in action; this is what 'you' are like; this is the way 'you' operate. It's not your fault that 'you' are like this, it's just a natural product of your genetic and cultural inheritance and your individual conditioning. But you can choose to be different, you can choose to cultivate and express a different kind of affective baseline.

And basically, the actualism method is that choice, made as often as necessary. Instead of being ruled by instinctive 'good' and 'bad' feelings tempered by moral principles, you choose to live in a harmless felicitous emotional state.... so that you can gradually release more and more control. The less you're affected by malicious and sorrowful feelings and other unruly impulses on the inside, the less need for moral restraint. You're free to let go control, and your intelligence can operate freely and clearly.

RichardSensuousness is the wondrous awareness of the marvel of being here now at this moment in time and this place in space – which awareness is combined with the fascination of contemplating that this moment is one’s only moment of being alive – and one is never alive at any other time than now. And, wherever one is ... now ... one is always here ... now ... even if one starts walking over to ‘there’ ... now ... along the way to ‘there’ ... now ... one is always here ... now ... and when one arrives ‘there’ ... now ... it too is here ... now. [link]

John WildeThis is as close as 'you', as a feeling 'being', can get to a PCE. And when you've become habituated to that condition, even the rudimentary feeling of 'being' (from which every feeling is derived/ of which every feeling is ultimately comprised) can disappear for good. Only then is your experience directly sensate (in the actualist sense). (And any attempt to prematurely get into the world of the senses is going to give you a very different result, even though it might seem similar in some ways).

Tommy McNally"Through the application of the method which, to give credit where credit is due, Richard [Last Name Redacted] developed - of asking “How Am I Experiencing This Moment Of Being Alive”, generally referred to as HAIETMOBA – the mind is inclined in a very specific way towards the way the body feels and how we, as an individual physical body, are experiencing the world at this very moment. It’s a powerful method when used correctly and the acronym makes it easy to remember, but it’s basically just a way of turning attention towards the sense doors."

Tommy McNally"if one continues to apply those same techniques once so-called Actual Freedom happens, the entire thread unravels and the very foundation of it is seen to be empty! It becomes impossible to posit the existence of a physical body beyond its imputation, so to continue to think that an “actual world”, existing “out there” and apart from the rest of experience is seen to be complete ballocks."

3) The practice of paying attention to feelings, blamelessly, neither repressing them nor expressing them, is a really difficult thing to learn. On the one hand, you're supposed to make friends with yourself, be your own best friend; on the other hand, you see 'you' as the source of all the ills of humankind, and your aim is to eliminate yourself. And you're supposed to be happy about this. It's not an easy thing to get a handle on. People understandably would rather go for a technique, a discipline that can be applied. (For me personally, even when I considered to myself to be an actualist, I didn't know how to do this very well. Now, no longer considering myself an actualist, I do.... but it took me a decade to learn how).

The description of sensuosness is none other than what I am referring to as bare attention to sensations

This is getting funny. Yes, that is what I am talking about, or experience when I am referring to bare attention.

[...] the experience of the natural unfolding of sensations without a sense of internal/external, no observer, no "thing" being observed, sensations appearing in nakedness, no center point, no sense of doer/perceiver, nor anything being perceived. There is the movement of sensations, but no sense of time, the intimacy of the sensate world experiencing itself in an undivided way.

If we say that there is no self, to say that there is an objective actual world outside is ludicrous, as the idea of an outer world only exists if we give credence to the idea that there is an authentic internal world.

But what is meant by paying attention to feelings, if not paying attention to the way they are constructed? Is it examing in a cognitive way those beliefs, like psychotherapy, or does it involve experiencing them in a physical sense? You seem to be denying the latter, yet I am wondering what you are referencing when you talk about transforming the affective energy.

The description of sensuosness is none other than what I am referring to as bare attention to sensations, if one were to conceptualize it, which is added baggage, helpful though for those with no experience.

I kow that you would like to have found this special thing that only you and a couple of other people understand, while all the others have misunderstood, but I don't see that to be true. It seems more likely you are a loyal soldier, and there is no war.

Oh my Beoman! It seems we only go in circles. At this point I should say "no, it's not like that because" and you will say "no, it's not like that because". We have had this same discussion before, not just here, but at kfd. We both stated our understanding, neither of us were moved to change our mind, and on it goes...It is fun though at times. Some times it is just tedious. At the end of the day what I remain most convinced of is that one of us is wrong, and it isn't me. That's a little joke. For almost everything you wrote I could give a counterpoint based upon my own experience and the ways that my perception has shifted. I don't see who that would benefit. Some of what you wrote here and on kfd seems to suggest to me that there are certain basic insights that have not happened for you yet, and that what you refer to as your previous spiritual practice must have been quite shallow. I wonder what you are protecting in holding so tightly to your beliefs, what it is you are afraid of giving up or becoming. Perhaps that is only my own journey, and my own way of seeing based upon the road I have travelled up until this point, and the assumptions i brought along with me. Perhaps not. My understanding is by no means definitive. Is it ok to say that here?

Some of what you wrote here and on kfd seems to suggest to me that there are certain basic insights that have not happened for you yet, and that what you refer to as your previous spiritual practice must have been quite shallow. I wonder what you are protecting in holding so tightly to your beliefs, what it is you are afraid of giving up or becoming. Perhaps that is only my own journey, and my own way of seeing based upon the road I have travelled up until this point, and the assumptions i brought along with me. Perhaps not. My understanding is by no means definitive. Is it ok to say that here?

I suppose one of the issues that I have frequently run into when dialoging with folks about spiritual practice is that if you disagree, or criticize some aspect of their interpretation, it is only because you haven't yet had the insight that would allow you to agree with them ha. The fact that I don't agree with your perspective is followed with an inference that I may have had a shallow practice.

@Beoman: I will get you for that sarcastic jab one day. Just wait until I think of a scathing retort.

@Adam: Good point, and questions. I'm just having fun, until it gets repetitive, hoping to bring something to the table and not cause any harm in the process. I don't think anybody's actually correct. Or actually free.

Maybe the trick to reconcile elements such as making friends with yourself and convincing you to walk towards self-immolation is to remember the "best" versions of yourself (the most happy and harmless ones). Perhaps those ones in which you were closer to a PCE/EE such as vacations. Then you can ask: how can I perpetuate this particular way of being? how can I make this unconditional/uncaused? what are the causes and conditions that impede this way of being?

Because, after all, if "you" really are "your" feelings and "your" feelings "you", then a happy/harmless person is still "you", a more likable version of "you". Appreciating it this way, all those qualifiers such as the one you used (ills of humankind), can be put and applied in a different perspective from the classic moralistic one, no? (silly/sensible in regards to personal results, perhaps?)

In short: there are better ways to be "you" than others, and, after that recognition, everything else depends only on your sincere intent to choose one over the others.

(...)

2) Try as I might, I couldn't make a permanent home out of one particular aspect of my 'being'. There were too many aspects of 'me' that I valued differently at different times: sometimes a happy/harmless 'me'; other times a melancholy sad/sweet doomed 'me'; other times a 'me' that sought out adventure, drama, challenge, risk and novelty; other times a solid, loyal, dependable 'me'; other times a 'me' that wanted to be tough-minded, resilient, unsentimental and ruthless; other times a 'me' that experienced echoes and intimations of something that's just on the fringes of the known, something once-familiar perhaps, something that seems to hold the promise of ultimate meaning, ultimate fulfillment. But none of these could live together for long, and none of them could be the exclusively real or exclusively dominant 'me' forever.

It has taken me a long time to figure out how to live without either (a) distancing myself from all of the threads of 'being' and living as a semi-detached witness of them all; or (b) identifying with one particular thread of 'being' and using that persona-du-jour to dominate all the rest; or (c) you name it!

1) Tendency to turn {happy and harmless guided by silly/sensible} into a defacto morality

In general, I value the kind of happiness that's derived from a richer sense of meaning more than good feelings per se

2) Try as I might, I couldn't make a permanent home out of one particular aspect of my 'being'. There were too many aspects of 'me' that I valued differently at different times: sometimes a happy/harmless 'me'; other times a melancholy sad/sweet doomed 'me'; other times a 'me' that sought out adventure, drama, challenge, risk and novelty; other times a solid, loyal, dependable 'me'; other times a 'me' that wanted to be tough-minded, resilient, unsentimental and ruthless; other times a 'me' that experienced echoes and intimations of something that's just on the fringes of the known, something once-familiar perhaps, something that seems to hold the promise of ultimate meaning, ultimate fulfillment. But none of these could live together for long, and none of them could be the exclusively real or exclusively dominant 'me' forever.

It has taken me a long time to figure out how to live without either (a) distancing myself from all of the threads of 'being' and living as a semi-detached witness of them all; or (b) identifying with one particular thread of 'being' and using that persona-du-jour to dominate all the rest; or (c) you name it!

Hey, John,







Starting from the assumption that you did try to give actualism a honest and whole-hearted shot, it seems to me that what you did here is trying to create your own personal actualism, according to your own previous values, and not actually practicing that important part of actualism that is identifying, tagging and discriminating feelings, and thus diminishing good/bad feelings and maximizing felicitous ones.

Perhaps you tried to incorporate/conserve some good feelings in the formula, instead of actually taking the time to question why you weren't able to discriminate between good and felicitous or why did you cherish the good ones as much or more as the felicitous ones. Because you write later:



And it's not about identifying with one particular of a personally made list, but identifying which "being" is more "beingless" and sticking to it because of its clear resemblance to a PCE. For example, I viscerally/intuitively value love at some level right now but, if I'm to be a sincere actualist, I know (experientially) that love is in the opposite direction where I aspire to be (unconditionally happy and harmless).

You must accept that not every point of your 2) is equally valuable to a person pursuing this AF thing, so maybe the best way to have gone about it at the time would be you taking note of each of those modes and assess how many "being" degrees each one of them contained and how much they were conditioned, caused, compounded, changing, uncontrollable, with collateral damages, etc. It's interesting how even the felicitous/innocuous ones can be later mutated into / interpreted as something very different from their original essence, evolving then in other kinds of feelings (for example, your "defacto morality" seems to be a side effect of "you" appropriating an aspect of your sincere practice), and that's why attentiveness is required at all times.

As this experiential tasting session becomes more refined with time, you'd note that you begin to develop a taste for freedom (as per the AFT standards), progressively leaving the other modes as obsolete in terms of sincerely seeking happiness and harmlessness. They, then, lose their grip and others aspects of the practice become easier (confidence, nipping in the bud, fearlessness at the time of investigating difficult emotions, etc.)

But... it seems i'm agreeing with you after all! haha (in the sense that this thing seems difficult to grasp).

I would just say that all this that seems so hard comes just as a matter of time if you are sincere in your endeavor and have the PCE as a constant benchmark. That's why that phrase of "get back to happy and harmless as soon as quickly as possible" is so important and recurrent in the AFT website: to 1) identify what exactly is happiness and harmlessness as you become accustomed to them, 2) identify by contrast the rest of the "affective contamination" and discard its value as a legitimate alternative, whatever it seems to be. It's like tuning one of those old radios until you reach just the perfect position for that station, and you realize how enjoyable is music right there and just keep listening until the next time you need to re-tune for whatever reason because obviously something happened along the way.

And maybe all this is obvious to you after all those struggling years you wrote about, but I'll leave it here in case it's useful to someone else in the present/future.

Anyway, good luck in your endeavors! Hope you find what you're looking for!

I am not doing this to be special. I am doing it because I was misled, for a long time, into thinking that actualism and buddhism was the same, by participants of this forum, and that deprived me of the chance to actually put actualism into practice. I see clearly the misconceptions and misunderstandings and improperly drawn conclusions because I drew those same conclusions myself. Now that I have managed to clear it up for myself, I am posting so that others may do the same. Yet it seems a fool's errand to be honest.

You've said this before, but I haven't yet been able to see the difference. Looking at John's posts, which you referred to above, in comparison with what Daniel and Tommy wrote about paying attention to the whole sensory field, they seem to be saying the same thing. What is the actual distinction in practice between the AF-style "pay attention to how you experience the world" and the Buddhist mindfulness approach?

With actualism, you pay attention to how you experience your life in everyday situations; how you respond emotionally to people and events, how certain instinctive feelings are triggered in certain situations, and how your beliefs and principles interact with these instinctive feelings (e.g., sometimes endorsing and justifying them, sometimes repressing and keeping a lid on them).

The aim is to enjoy and appreciate everyday life, to be as free from malice and sorrow as possible, and to live in a state of harmless enjoyment. When malicious or sorrowful feelings arise, you acknowledge that this is 'you' in action; this is what 'you' are like; this is the way 'you' operate. It's not your fault that 'you' are like this, it's just a natural product of your genetic and cultural inheritance and your individual conditioning. But you can choose to be different, you can choose to cultivate and express a different kind of affective baseline.

And basically, the actualism method is that choice, made as often as necessary. Instead of being ruled by instinctive 'good' and 'bad' feelings tempered by moral principles, you choose to live in a harmless felicitous emotional state.... so that you can gradually release more and more control. The less you're affected by malicious and sorrowful feelings and other unruly impulses on the inside, the less need for moral restraint. You're free to let go control, and your intelligence can operate freely and clearly.

I am not doing this to be special. I am doing it because I was misled, for a long time, into thinking that actualism and buddhism was the same, by participants of this forum, and that deprived me of the chance to actually put actualism into practice.

I just read through this earlier and it made everything very clear for me:

http://actualfreedom.com.au/actualism/path2.htm

I was basing my ideas on Actualism off of what Daniel wrote since I had a hard time understanding the stuff I'd seen on the AF website (blocks of text, anyone?), but I've been reading a lot more lately and this map lays out everything very clearly.  If I go back and compare it with what Daniel wrote, I have to conclude that he wasn't practicing the same methods.  The whole purpose of Actualism is to dismantle the various judgments and identities until there's nothing left in the way of simply enjoying every moment.  You start with the social identity and try to see how it covers up the insticual passions.  Once the social identity is gone, you can work on the instinctual stuff by delving deeply into the physical manifestations of the feelings and looking for how they're linked to beliefs.  Eventually these beliefs are also dismantled and you arrive at pure contentment, which is a virtual freedom.  From there you use sensuousness - or the appreciation of the sensate world - to make the final step out of delight into the PCE, which is without affect or emotion.

I don't want to judge Daniel since I can't possibly know what he did over all that time he was practicing, but from what he wrote it seems like he focused mostly on the last step.  His experience might show that it's possible to split the attainment into two parts - or even that he was able to create a new attainment for himself.  His descriptions of PCEs match something I've come across a few times in the past when I was practicing a super attentive mindfulness, but I've also had some other experiences recently of a kind of quiet emotionless state that seem to fit the bill better.  This could be an interesting topic to explore, actually...

Anyway, TL/DR, Actualism seems like it's a lot more about dismantling belief systems than creating an altered state of hyper awareness.  I reserve the right to be wrong about this, though. XD

EDIT:
I wouldn't give up on buddhism yet, Beoman.  AF and Theravada definately aren't the same thing, but if you look at the suttas directly it reads a lot like the AF instructions.  That's why I've been asking so many questions about anatta and the like on here recently.  The Theravada methods (like vipassana meditation) just don't seem to line up with what the buddha was actually teaching about - at least in my readings of the suttas.

Ok, with your last post in combination with the "Enlightenmnet Self vs. AF Self" <sic> thread, which I just commented in, the picture I'm getting is that the Buddhist mindfulness approach is based on acceptance of things as they are, rather than trying to set a goal to experience or perceive things in any particular way, whereas the AF approach has the goal of choosing to be in a felicitious state and making some sort of change in thought or experience to move towards that goal.

This makes sense in light of the differences in the way the two approaches handle the idea of a self - under the AF approach, there is a self that can make choices, therefore it makes sense to try to choose to experience the world in a certain way, whereas under the Buddhist approach, since there isn't a self, the more sensible approach is just to accept the current experience as it is.