Stages, Part the Third

Okay, back in the saddle.... I ended my last thread very abruptly. Here's why:

I spent nine days on the road in late April and early May. This was business travel full of running around producing stuff and meeting people and managing things. At the end of those nine days I was bone tired. So I got on a plane at Dulles in Washington DC and flew home. This was Thursday May 6th. Window seat. I really like window seats because I like the sensation of flying and I like the view, which heightens that sensation. I was decompressing. I was listening to music. I looked out the window and saw some clouds floating by below me, and then ......

**click **

Before that click I was what I have been all my life and throughout my practice:

- out of sync with my experience
- wondering what magical thing I could find to help me see what was really going on
- driven by a process that seemed energetic, biological, inexorable, a dharma conveyor belt

After that click I was:

- in sync with experience, all of it. I mean ALL of it.
- not wondering or seeking, knowing beyond any doubt that what I had been looking for all these years was right in front of me and always had been
- off the energetic, biological conveyor belt

What struck me then (and now) is that I had suddenly, somehow, managed to get out of my own way, phenomenologically speaking. No more need to seek, no need to see anything but what is right here, right now. The import was thus -- awareness became a part of perception. All the time, always on, real time, any time perception. Perception is wrapped in awareness, so to speak. This was not an event. I don't know what happened. I don't recall a fruition. I know those and how they feel, event the little ones. This was.... not that. But it did and still has immense consequences.

TBC....

Some pieces of a what I e-mailed to Kenneth a day later:

The tipping point, if there really is any one thing I can point to that seems to have caused 'this' whatever-it-is, is the notion that the seeking is hiding the sought. That, weirdly, is everything in a nutshell.

This is a cosmic joke. When this happened, I laughed out loud. I'm still laughing out loud when I think of this. It's just funny. I seem to have taken a walk, aiming for the nearest corner but ended up going all the way around the city just to travel a few feet.

The seeking, the urge and the act, are done. There is nothing to go out and find because it's all right here, right in front of me. It always has been. Recognizing this and the utter simplicity of it clicked in my head as if a switch had been thrown.

A void exists where the seeking was. The conveyor belt that has driven me to seek, to believe there was something I could or would find, has been turned off. So'¦ now what?

There is a leveled experiential playing field. There is a deeply felt removal of an innate, heretofore unexamined hierarchy of experiential existence. All things, all processes, all experiences, are absolute equals. There are no experiences or processes that are in control, bigger, better, or somehow more import, than other processes and experiences.

I see, more clearly than ever, that 'I' am a collection of little things that only seem to add up to a bigger thing. These little things are always scurrying around and they each have their own problems, concerns, delights and interests. Taken as a whole they appear to the world as 'Chris.' Do not be fooled!

I've been staying awake at night a lot, right after I go to bed. Not upset. Not worrying. Just in awe of 'this.' Whatever has occurred has opened a universe to me. It's huge. HUGE. It echoes with curiosity and wonder. And it brings energy.

That's it. I'll keep updating as time goes by.

Very interesting cmarti. I would say that I know what you mean except that this has happened to me several times and each time has been just as you describe in that 'click', simply the ending of that kind of a process never to begin again, but then it will happen again in another kind of way slightly differently. Sometimes it seems as if the field of awareness has widened, sometimes it seems more unitive, sometimes the 3 characteristics seem more prominent but always it is as if the engine of kamma has blown another cylinder. I don't want to sidetrack your thread but I'm curious what you, Kenneth or others might have to say about how this seems to have happened to me from time to time in more than one way. I really have no sense if it will happen again sometime or not, but it always seems to be an added benefit and relief when it does.

I and others have also noted the related increase in energy and the tendency to sleep for fewer hours.

Interesting. I've had similar experiences before, too. There are a few differences this time, however. What appears to be a slight change in perception generates a very large change in other things, and those changes are, at least to this point, permanent.

Yes, the commonality is that there is a permanent shift involving the release of stress when some form of inner drive is resolved. I think this is why there is a corresponding increase in overall energy and this allows for a fuller appreciation of the qualities which remain aspects of conscious experience. It makes me think of the Tibetan allegory of the crow setting off in search of water and, finding none elsewhere, returning to the one pool.

Well, it's like setting off years ago to walk down to the nearest corner only to realize that once you get there you went all the way around the city and, seemingly, wasted all that time and energy to make what now is seen as a very short trip. It could anger a person, but it made me laugh. I've never had that perception before, and now that it's here it ain't going away, just like the feeling that the conveyor belt has been shut off ain't going away.Or the real time awareness of awareness ain't going away. Or the feeling that I'm in sync with the universe ain't going away. Or the knowledge that I'm not standing in my own way, phenomenologically and perceptually speaking, ain't going away.

Hugs, Chris!

Congrats Chris!!!!!!! Is this the circuit completed? No more insight disease?

How inspiring!!!!!!!!!

Congrats!

"Well, it's like setting off years ago to walk down to the nearest corner only to realize that once you get there you went all the way around the city and, seemingly, wasted all that time and energy to make what now is seen as a very short trip."

So if you could go back, what would you have told yourself while you were lost downtown? What was the essential core and what was the extraneous fluff?

"What was the essential core and what was the extraneous fluff?"

First, I wouldn't go back. You'd have to kill me

Second, there is only the appearance in the present of what you're calling extraneous fluff. It's not really extraneous because it's all part of a process that requires you to traverse the path. You can only see what you see, know what you know, at any given time. There's no shortcut, no "dharmic wormhole" to slither through. I was using that language only to explain how it feels now. I don't mean to mislead you and I'm sorry if I did.

" You can only see what you see, know what you know, at any given time. There's no shortcut, no "dharmic wormhole" to slither through. I was using that language only to explain how it feels now. I don't mean to mislead you and I'm sorry if I did.


"

This is a very, very helpful insight. For me, taking this on board has begun to expose and dispell the subtle tension and frustration at not seeing what the mind thinks it might be missing. Just see what can be seen, know what can be known...by oneself. Not what someone else knows. . The rest will play out in its own time. This for me has been the theme in recent days. I keep catching the mind wanting for there to be something to find....but that creates tension and frustration within. Once I realize that is what is happening, that I am looking for something, the mind relaxes back to seeing what is already just there... either watching just the sensations of frustration bubble and spit or whatever else presents itself. There is only what is right here , right now!

Sorry if this seems dogmatic but I cant help myself,

namo tassa bhagavato arhato sammasambuddhassa!!!

Yes, you're right, that is a big deal, Nikolai. There seems to be any number of things mind just assumes, and the key, the path if you will, is that many of those things don't get examined because they're pretty well hidden, not objectified. Once objectified, as we here all know very well, as assumption can be dealt with, investigated, seen for what it is. Mind gives privilege to some things and ignores other things. Getting down into the deep heart of those assumptions is required. That's the path, IMHO, and that's why there's no shortcut.

"There seems to be any number of things mind just assumes, and the key, the path if you will, is that many of those things don't get examined because they're pretty well hidden, not objectified. Once objectified, as we here all know very well, as assumption can be dealt with, investigated, seen for what it is. Mind gives privilege to some things and ignores other things.-cmarti

"

Yes, this is key. Enlightenment finally reveals that every thought and sensation that arises in the mind has exactly the same status as every other. The implications of this seemingly subtle insight are world-shaking to the yogi who can see it. Even the sense that "this is happening to me" is just another thought arising and passing away in this moment.

Nice job, Chris.

Kenneth

Wonderful Chris!

I've been "away" for a couple of days and missed all this.
Chills.

There's no doubt. It's a lock. Yes, I'm in love with the world.

Thanks for the inspiration Chris, it really helped on my recent retreat. Specifically your posts have helped me to keep going.

Nikolai: During this retreat, since it was conducted by a buddhist monk, we would chant that 'namo tassa ...' with him while taking refuge and precepts before his discourse. I was a bit put off by the dogma but later when I was in the dark night I chanted it inwards and it caused a lot of rapture and happiness, heping me to move on
(Sorry for the sidetrack, Chris

Sidetracks are good.

I want to give a shout out, a testimonial really, to Kenneth Folk. He's been so great to work with and recently he's been amazing at pointing for me. I've been peppering him with questions and he's batting a thousand by reflecting them back in a way that makes me realize. Thus it has always been.

Thank you, Kenneth Folk. A huge, never-ending thank you.

I lay awake a lot at night now. It's a great time to just be. Quiet and dark. I can play with mind and mind effects more efficiently as there are no distractions. I'm noticing how frictionless experience can truly be and how it is objectification that makes it so. One experiment I perform is to think of something that upsets me at work and watch what happens when that thought occurs. Do that while embedded and then do that again while not embedded. Freaky, but good practice, I think, because embedding is so natural and powerful the more practice we can get the better.

Reading this thread is so inspiring... thanks so much for sharing this with all of us. Congratulations!

Today, like most days, I woke up in a cavernous universe. To describe this in one way is to get detailed about the phenomenological stuff -- how "I" am no longer in my own perceptive way, how all phenomena arise from and then fade back into a non-hierarchical "thing" I''d call the neutral cosmic background. There's more but that's at least one way to describe it. It's an alteration of the perceptive mechanism, a twist to the way a being experiences phenomena that removes the immediate, closed in, self-focused concerns that place a filter over the experience of reality.

A second way is to talk about the effects of this is -- I wake up in love with existence and in love with experience and in love with the world. The removal of the filters of self, of ego, of whatever it is that preoccupies a mind embedded in the habit of ignorance causes something marvelous and lyrical and wonderful to literally just spring forth from everything, almost the time. The subject-object duality imposes a focus on objects to the exclusion of the mechanism of awareness. Once awareness infuses perception then the mechanism of experience is completely and utterly different than what it was before. As I go through the day I get re-embedded as I have to deal with the world of working and family and such. But as soon as that way of being is no longer necessary the filter snaps out of the way and it's back to being in love. I drove to the office in love with the way the world looks just before the sun rises, in love with the way cars all moving at the same speed on the highway look like they're not really moving, in love with the taste of Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Sounds silly, yeah? Well, it... does... not... feel... silly.

I'm trying to make this sensible. I'm probably failing. As Kenneth can attest, I'm not very eloquent as I fumble around for words to describe the indescribable.

"I'm trying to make this sensible. I'm probably failing. As Kenneth can attest, I'm not very eloquent as I fumble around for words to describe the indescribable.

"

You, fumbling for words? You are as eloquent as. Now me, I fumble. I love your descriptions,Chris. I want to be in love with the world too!!!!!!