"Actual Freedom" within a larger context

So Alex, you'll be signing up for the ride on Richard's yacht?




"Pretending that certain traditions or methods are better than others is just being intolerant and small-minded"

Major point, IMHO. Major.

@Chris: Richard's yacht - yeah! That's what convinced me.

I'm not particularly interested in AF per se, but I find the general attitude some have taken towards it rather surprising. At times it seems more in the spirit of self-congratulatory mockery and groupthink than in the spirit of independent, open-minded assessment. Any number of the reasons given for why to reject AF could have compelled me to reject Buddhism and insight practice if I had been of that sort of temperament.

- Richard is loony (the Buddha, or Spiritual Teacher X, is loony)
- the logical trappings of AF are insufferable (the religious trappings of Buddhism are insufferable)
- the dogma of materialism is absurd (the dogma of reincarnation is absurd)
- why would I want to eliminate emotion? that is what makes me human! (why would I want to eliminate desire/the ego/the self? that is what makes me human!)
- from one perspective, the goal of AF is not all it's cracked up to be (from some perspective, the goal of any contemplative practice is not all it's cracked up to be)

That's not to say that this is all arbitrary, or that people shouldn't take whatever stances seem best suited for them. But the attitude of mockery and intolerance seems out of order, because the same mockery and intolerance could just as easily be leveled against the practices and conceptual systems one oneself holds dear. There is no substance to such an attitude; it is at best not useful and at worst ignorant and divisive.

What got me here is the attitude of seeing past the extraneous fluff built around contemplative practice, being open-minded to what value it might hold, and taking seriously the claims of practitioners without setting aside the virtues of rationality and empiricism. I imagine it is the same for many here. But having found by that approach something that works well for oneself is not occasion to lay down the very virtues that got one there in the first place.

I'm jumping in a bit late, because I was moving over the weekend and was without internet.

I appreciate Kenneth's critique of the PCE as being simply another one of the many conscious perspectives available to human beings. This re-contextualization of AF - bringing it into the larger context of contemplative practice - belies the AF dogma and brings us back to reality. Just saying that the PCE is a nice perspective, and that cultivating is helpful, is one thing. Declaring it to the be supreme perspective above all others is where the AF teachings take flight over the cuckoo's nest.

We all want to be happy. Most of us find ourselves more or less at the mercy of our emotional currents, and we want out. Looking at classical contemplative (or 'personal liberation') traditions, the 'way out' of the emotional tyranny is upward and expansive (e.g. awakening, interdependence, compassion, primordial awareness as groundless ground, etc.). Conversely, the AF teachings, seem to suggest that we should move downward, escaping from reason and emotional consciousness back into the body. This is evidenced by the fact that the PCE is an experience that people first encounter in childhood. The childhood spirituality-consciousness is body-centered, non-egoic (but not for long), non-rational, non-temporal, non-affective, non-complex, not driven by rage or lust (usually), . Basically, non-adult. Growing into an adult spirituality ensures that one will be working with more complex psychological and psycho-social structures, and this seems to be what people are having such a hard time with. After all, being an adult is more difficult that being a child (controlling for things like trauma, severe illness, and poverty, of course).

(continued below)

So, the "path" of AF can be - rather, should be - seen as a regression rather than an ascension. The PCE isn't bad, as temporarily regressing can be good for one's overall development, spiritual or otherwise. Plus, there's nothing wrong with having a nice experience - we all need a break sometimes. But to make a path out of trying to remain perpetually regressed is seriously frightening. For those of us who are fans of certain aspects of Ken Wilber's work, this is clearly a pre/trans-fallacy. Since both the PCE and Maha Ati/dzogchen perspectives are non-temporal/non-egoic, Richard seems to be teaching that the PCE is trans-temporal/trans-egoic, while Maha Ati/dzogchen is pre-temporal/pre-egoic. The opposite is "actually" true.

I hate to see people take a step backwards in their development by denying themselves access to higher, wider, deeper aspects of their reality. Denying AF is not denying PCE/"vipassana consciousness". Why not have access to it all? Why not be free whether in a PCE, or ordinary adult consciousness, or in the trans-personal states?

That's my take on it.
~Jackson

Brianm2, you're assuming no one here has done any homework in regard to AF. Have you visited and read the AF web site?

Also, I think you're misconstruing some practice goals. I don't think the practice as Kenneth presents it and as many of us engage it, when properly understood, is about eliminating aversion, the ego, the self, or anything else. It's about understanding those things, letting them happen as they happen, without interference and without reacting to them or being bound up and attached to them. As I said before, any practice that tries to force fit things like that (personality, emotions) is something I'd avoid, so if that's what some Buddhist practices do, I'd skip them as much as I'd skip AF.

I'd read what Jackson just wrote as it really gets to the meat of this, IMHO.

Trying to be open-minded and tolerent, I have changed my mind and decided to encourage people interested by this approach to follow AF. And I am not being ironic here. We are adults after all.

But I now feel uneasy, realizing AF might also be marked by a spirit of self-congratulatory mockery and groupthink.

"We then met a man called Richard who said, '˜Everybody has got it 180 degrees wrong'"

actualfreedom.com.au/actualism/default.htm

"Brianm2, you're assuming no one here has done any homework in regard to AF."

I am doing no such thing. If you read carefully what I wrote, you will see that I am not denouncing the critiques of AF, but the attitude with which some of these critiques (or just flat out mockeries) are put forth.

"Have you visited and read the AF web site? "

Yes, and like just about everyone else I find it painful to read. But that is not directly relevant to assessing the practice or the claims of practitioners, just like reading Buddhist suttas is not directly relevant to assessing actual insight practice or the claims of its practitioners.

"Also, I think you're misconstruing some practice goals."

This is missing the point. I am sure that everyone, at some point early in their introduction to Buddhism, comes away with the notion that the practice is about the elimination of desire or something to that effect. The point is not about the validity of this understanding, but one's attitude towards it. If one takes the attitude that, a priori, this is something hideous and absurd and to be avoided at all costs, maybe even derided in the name of humanism or whatever, they are prematurely blocking themselves off from the path.

If their understanding is invalid and needs maturing, such a dogmatically dismissive attitude will ensure that it never is matured. The practitioner is of course under no obligation to actually do the practice, and it is reasonable to critique and avoid doing the practice due to reasonable beliefs one might hold about it. But by the same token the practitioner cannot make claims with dogmatic certitude about it if they have not put forth a good faith effort to explore the practice for themselves. And the attitude of dogmatic certainty, to the point of derision, seems counter to the spirit one ought to bring to contemplative practice. That's all.

""We then met a man called Richard who said, '˜Everybody has got it 180 degrees wrong""

Isn't that the proclamation of nearly every major religious teacher/prophet who ever lived? E.g. Abraham, Moses, The Buddha, Krishna, Zoroaster, Jesus of Nazarath (and the other would-be messiahs of 1st century Palestine), Muhammed, Bahá'u'lláh (though he was more open minded), Joseph Smith, etc. etc.

That's my point Jakson.

People are free to practice what they want, but we should also be free to discuss the ideas and methods of cults, sects and religions from our (limited) point of view.

Brianm2, just for the record, I have trouble equating or maintaining any kind of equivalence between what I've personally experienced on the path I've taken with what I know of Actual Freedom. That applies to the practice itself, the way it has been communicated to me, the teachers I've encountered and the results I've been able to obtain. If your experience of either or both is that different, that's cool. Please go with what you believe is the right approach.

"That's my point Jakson.

People are free to practice what they want, but we should also be free to discuss the ideas and methods of cults, sects and religions from our (limited) point of view.
"

Absolutely!

"But by the same token the practitioner cannot make claims with dogmatic certitude about it if they have not put forth a good faith effort to explore the practice for themselves. And the attitude of dogmatic certainty, to the point of derision, seems counter to the spirit one ought to bring to contemplative practice. That's all." -- Brianm2

Let me try one more time -- most of the opinions being expressed here are based on an intimate familiarity with what AF calls its practice. If you have practiced vipassana you have no doubt practiced the PCE and know it rather well. Chances are everyone here has done it. So to say that folks here are making uninformed, unsubstantiated or voicing reckless opinions is, well, wrong. The derision? That comes from the silliness of deifying the PCE, way and well beyond what it is, as the pinnacle of human existence. That's why visiting and reading the AF web site is important. The brouhaha isn't about the PCE practice, it's about the trappings and ridiculous philosophy (such as the assertion that the rest of human experience, all non-PCE experience, is pathological) that go along with AF. From my perspective - admittedly my own, not yours, not someone else's - AF is selling air. It's of no interest and because of the absurdity of the philosophy and the marketing, looks like a cult.

@Chris you're a gifted elephant-spotter. All that Buddhist training is paying off...

"Take this development as a challenge to re-examine your assumptions about the practice" --Chris

Yep - all kinds of assumptions, in fact. Which is awfully hard when the entire subject is declared taboo. And which is why I'm so glad Kenneth started it the way he did. Because I didn't have such a thread back last year, and - snivel - had to do it all by myself - snort!

"this practice is best described (my humble version) as a quest to discover what you are, and how to live given that fact." -- Chris

Yes!

Cheers,
Florian

"Just saying that the PCE is a nice perspective, and that cultivating is helpful, is one thing. Declaring it to the be supreme perspective above all others is where the AF teachings take flight over the cuckoo's nest."-awouldbehipster

Right. Just yesterday, I learned that there is a group in Colorado who believe that the 4th jhana is the most important of all states and should be cultivated to the exclusion of all else. The group members attempt to stay in 4th jhana all the time, whether sitting, eating, walking around, working, whatever. It is a truism to those of us familiar with basic Buddhist theory that attempting to stay in jhana is "wrong view." What may not be so well understood is that attempting to maintain *any* perspective to the exclusion of others is a mistake and leads only to stagnation.

The problem with AF is not the PCE, which is, after all, just another state. The problem is fixating on that state as the ONE TRUE EXPERIENCE.

As Alex points out, we do not have to succumb to the post-modern fallacy that every idea is as good as every other. We can apply our common sense. Some ideas are more helpful than others. Some ideas are not helpful at all. Some ideas are counterproductive. Any theory of practice that seeks to cultivate one perspective over all others is counterproductive. We can say that clearly without fear of being intolerant, unkind or narrow-minded.

Each of us has to go through his or her process. There are no exceptions. Let's give Daniel time to go through his exploration of AF. My guess is he will still be Daniel on the other side of it. He will learn to integrate the new toy with the old toys and he'll have an even more robust worldview than before. We can afford to be patient with each other, and the fact that some people are seeing that neither Daniel nor anyone else will always behave according to their expectations can only be healthy in the long run.

What I find strange is that Trent and Tarin both report that they cannot go back to their previous mode of experience.. How can one get 'stuck' in one perspective of consciousness?

Interestingly it seems that Daniel's experiment with A/F is starting to get the A/F community excited.

groups.yahoo.com/group/actualfreedom/message/9923

"most of the opinions being expressed here are based on an intimate familiarity with what AF calls its practice."

At least three high level vipassana practitioners would not agree with that. It is possible that they are mistaken in some way, but it is also possible that you are mistaken. In matters like this, one is inclined to give the tie-breaker to the ones who have devoted themselves to cultivating a practice, rather than the ones who believe they have some incidental familiarity it.

Is AF just about cultivating the PCE, which in turn is just a kind of experience one can get from doing vipassana? Maybe. But maybe there are legitimate differences in the practices, and maybe cultivating the PCE leads to a developmental change above and beyond just getting stuck in the PCE. Maybe this developmental change cannot be properly understood until it is experienced firsthand. This seems to be the claim of some practitioners on the basis of practice experience. We should not automatically take them at their word, but nor should we summarily reject their claims on conceptual grounds or on the grounds of related but uncultivated practice experience.

I sometimes get abnormally itchy during meditation. This seems like an entirely incidental experience. It seems ludicrous that cultivating itchiness would lead to any sort of development, or anything at all except more itchiness. If someone tells me that cultivating itchiness leads to a developmental attainment, I will be quite skeptical, and I will not bother to do the practice myself. I would think that other people who do the practice are wasting their time, or regressing. But I would not feel justified in 100% writing off their claims on the basis of theory and my limited meditation experience with itchiness, because I haven't done the proper dedicated cultivation to see for myself. They *might* be on to something, even if it seems unlikely and not worth pursuing from my vantage point.

It may sound like I am trying to defend AF, but that is not so. I am not at all interested in taking it up for myself for many of the good reasons already stated in this thread. Really I am just trying to defend one of the founding principles of this community, which is this: contemplative practice looks different on the inside than it does on the outside. Therefore, the best way to evaluate a practice is not to think about it but to do it.

One can defend free speech even if the particular speech whose freedom one is defending is false, repulsive, etc., and worth confronting (if not suppressing). Similarly, If one is serious about the attitude of Ehi-Passiko, "Come and see", shouldn't one uphold the spirit behind this principle even for practices that one might not endorse actually doing for whatever reason?

Maybe CkD said it better than I:

"While I pretty much agree with all you say, what I'd hate to see is a wholesale demonizing of AF in the absence of any genuine engagement with either the AF practice, or with what those who do practice AF have to say about it. Assumptions and irrelevancies, and arguments from authority don't cut it with a decent meditation practice - why should they be thought enough in assessing AF? Watching it (almost) gather momentum is disheartening."

"What I find strange is that Trent and Tarin both report that they cannot go back to their previous mode of experience.. How can one get 'stuck' in one perspective of consciousness?-Yadid"

People say all sorts of things for all sorts of reasons. I'm inclined to wait for more data rather than take everything people say at face value (even when the people involved are nice, smart, affable, my friends, etc.). How many times have you seen someone you know or love get deeply involved in something, sing its praises to the skies, and try to recruit everyone they know to join in, only to get bored or disillusioned after some period of time and move on to some other interest? It's normal and to be expected. The glowing reports that come from a someone in the throes of their conversion must be viewed with a certain amount of skepticism, or at the very least, patience. More will be revealed.

In re; what is being called "genuine engagement" --

So... do I have to become a a devotee of the Reverend Moon's Unification Church to pass judgement on his cult? JIm Jones' People's Temple? How about the Branch Dividians? Don't you think that at some point some things are just a priori bad ideas? Just pointing this out. No need to reply.

"Don't you think that at some point some things are just a priori bad ideas?"-cmarti

Yes. Key point. And by the way, our impressions about which are the bad ideas and which are the good may change over time, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be able to decide what is best for us at any given time. I don't have to join the group that cultivates only the 4th jhana, even though I've never seriously tried their approach, in order to reject it. I see their approach as fitting into a category of approaches that I consider dead ends, i.e., those that privilege one state over all others. This category includes, not coincidentally, AF, and therefore I feel fine about identifying AF as an "a priori bad idea."

"... may change over time."

Yes! For example, there was a time, way back when, during which I was absolutely convinced I should become a lawyer

"Don't you think that at some point some things are just a priori bad ideas?"

In everything I have written in this thread I have gone to great pains to acknowledge that yes, sometimes it is reasonable to reject something a priori. What is not reasonable is to abandon the central principle that the gold standard for evaluating practice is doing it. In other words, you can argue that a practice is probably misguided and not worth doing while acknowledging that, if you have not given yourself to full cultivation of that practice, you can't be sure you can properly judge it. These are not mutually exclusive, we don't need to suddenly change the rules for what constitutes authority in contemplative practice in order to justify our viewpoints.

brianm2: "What is not reasonable is to abandon the central principle that the gold standard for evaluating practice is doing it. In other words, you can argue that a practice is probably misguided and not worth doing while acknowledging that, if you have not given yourself to full cultivation of that practice, you can't be sure you can properly judge it."

I don't buy this whole "gold standard" thing you're selling, here. The whole, "you can't knock it 'til you try it," line is sort of sleazy, don't you think? I imagine there are some cases where the fact that one hasn't tried something makes them a more effective judge than one who has.