Nikolai's Practice notes, Phase .2.

"My practice at the moment continues to be the grounding lightning rod technique Kenneth has explained. It comes very natural and is effortless to do. I don't feel any pull to do anything else. I tried accessing jhanas today but when I did, I felt the manipulation and desire to experience them caused the subtlest of tensions which was ever so clear to be tanha and suffering."-Nikolai

This is good, Nick. Tanha is indeed the problem. Grounding attention in the body is the wedge. When you are whole, there is no place to go. Being whole is the continuous grounding of the attention in the body, alert to every subtle wiggle. When there is no place to go, tanha is short-circuited. When there is no place to go, you stay home. (I mean that metaphorically. When you are complete, you are "home" no matter where you go.)

"My practice at the moment continues to be the grounding lightning rod technique Kenneth has explained. It comes very natural and is effortless to do. I don't feel any pull to do anything else. I tried accessing jhanas today but when I did, I felt the manipulation and desire to experience them caused the subtlest of tensions which was ever so clear to be tanha and suffering. So I let go of it and let the mind settle back to what it now seems automatically pulled to and that is the direct perception mode. It feels like it is becoming my default state.

This morning though, I did test 3rd gear primordial awareness access, and its still there and it seems much easier to access now, like just another thing to be aware of. I have a lack of urge/push/desire to do much with meditation these days so most of my time is spent doing daily chores and work. I'm in and out of cycling and not cycling. And I have no urge to change that. Nothing arises to cause an action to do something different. So I seem to be posting less and less inclined to have any presence anywhere. Could get worse, stay the same or get better...
"

There is a lovely chapter in Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind called something like "Leave no Trace."

here is is, page 63:

storage.worldispnetwork.com/books/zen_mind_beginners_mind.pdf

I love the freaking internet

checking to make sure I didn't break the site again

Nick, I've been reading the Stephen Wolinsky book since you posted the link. It appears to me to be a complete theoretical and practical guide to literally everything we talk about here but presented in the context of quantum physics as translated into quantum psychology.

Yes, it is quite a great book. I've been putting the little meditation excercises into practice and I am finding them really helpful in broadening my understanding of my experience of "emotions". I certainly had the thought that most of what he writes about is very much what we are going on about here.

Very much? It is exactly what we have been doing here, just in somewhat different language. It's amazing, actually. It's all there for you, in one place, with exercises and theory, whole and complete. And from 1993 no less.

Some good free reading here:

stephenhwolinskyphdlibrary.com/

Check at the bottom of the link above for this pdf link. It's a fascinating graph called

Post Deconstruction: The Death of the Illusion of the 'I'-Subject: Metaphors and Pointers From Science, Philosophy, Buddhism and Yoga which Deconstruct The Deconstruction Process

Interesting indeed!

Please take what I write with a grain of salt. I have just had a wow factor experience and it is influencing my mood.

I have been going through a bit of a rough time with life "stuff" as of late. I have also been trying to go deeper into exploring new territory. I have my Indy fedora on. And I have also made some interesting discoveries for myself, me thinks.

Today something happened to me which has caused me to rethink what I was considering to be the direct mode. Direct mode for me has been constantly 'grounding' with the lightning rod technique by taking the whole body as object and catching the physical trigger for mind states and emotions. This helped to calm the mind down for sure. However, there were momentary slips of the mind where the proto-blob would form. This would go on and on, slip, whole, slip, whole, slip, whole. I never really got to a stage were that wholeness lasted for longer than 20 odd minutes before I was wrestling again to make the experience whole once more. Ok, it helped me to a degree. But I was seemingly ever so subtly wrestling with it. And thus suffering somewhat.

But wrestling with what? What is the 'it' I am wrestling with? I've been really investigating hard into what 'it' is. That attention wave as Daniel Ingram has called it. The afflictive feelings as some call it. That sense of 'being' that is there. That is what I have been investigating. Suffice to say, there is a lot of fear and attachment there. That sense of 'being' seems to have been put up on a pedestal, similar to how the centrepoint of self was pre-4th path. It has been given some prestige. All of this seems to have become clear to me only recently after experiencing something quite different to anything I've experienced before. The prolonged absence of that sense of 'being'/the affective feelings/ the attention wave.

Continued from above...

It made me realize, that while I thought the direct mode as I was practicing it would make me experience a PCE, I think it either doesn't or I probably wasn't practicing the direct mode properly. So I started reading the article in Starbucks sitting in a nice comfy chair. The noting of apperception is kind of new for me. Well, not so new but reading about it kind of made something click inside. I realized I hadn't been observing the sensations in this way. Apperception is all about seeing the sensations for as long as possible as the initial bare sensate experience without allowing the sequence of evaluation, judging, conceptualizing and connecting to feelings and emotion to occur.

Something in the crazy-arse AF style of writing set something off in me. All the vibey buzz of sensations in my body were observed non-stop without shifting to conceptualizing and evaluating. Grooving! Then suddenly after 15 minutes of reading and feeling the experience of apperception occur for that length of time, click!...I felt the strangest of sensations within the back of my head, where the skull meets the neck. Something around that area tensed and I felt a click of some kind. Immediately I found that the mode of perception had shifted from feeling that attention wave dominate perception, to absolutely no attention wave and absolutely no sense of self. Not even an impermanent centre point arising and passing away, nor a sense of witness or even a sense of 'being'. I felt a coiling energy at my stomach though which was subtly grumbling away. But complete peace . Just this body in the here and now. It was utterly marvelous. This was so different to anything I had experienced previously. No suffering at all. No subtle craving nor aversion even. Complete peace. No subtle wobbling and shifting of attention. A pristine clarity unlike anything I have experienced before. This lasted a good 3 hours.

continued from above...

I have been suffering a bit lately as much as a cling-free 4th pather can'¦and you still can. 1st arrow is a biatch. I got to the stage were it could really be seen that there is this attention wave/sense of 'being' /this seemingly alien entity-like flow of automatic reactionary energy, that I seem to have no power over as it arises and influences the mind's attention, shifting it here and there. It can be willed to shift into patterns too to create the jhanas. It can be seen as something separate from the body or that is how it seems in my experience now, after investigating this past month. And the idea that 'I' am my feelings and my feelings are 'me' is starting to make perfect sense only now after those feelings disappeared for 3 hours leaving no sense of 'I' nor 'me', not even a temporary one a la 4th path.

And how did this state of 'no being' come about? Well, today, I had so much miserable energy surging at my heart chakra. There was a heavy sense of depression there. I am dealing with some life stuff which is influencing this feelings. It is easy to let go of, but these sensations of depression kept arising. I tried using the direct mode as I understood it, but it felt like an onslaught of 1st arrow misery. So I looked at it and thought to myself'¦.why am I letting it influence me? What is it anyway? Is this how I want to live? I wanted to know how to experience a PCE. All the rave about it and I still thought I hadn't really experienced it. I need to make an informed decision over this stuff. No more reactionary fear-induced opinions.

So I went and read this article by the weird AF dude. I have been quite anti-AF in the past, but I was willing to try and just 'see' what he was on about. I read this artice: actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/at...apperceptiveness.htm

Continued from above...

I have been pondering a lot on this experience. I still am feeling the effects. The attention wave is subtly back and that sense of being which I can only equate to the affective feelings.

I must admit that much of what I expected 4th path to be has fallen short of reality. Sure there is no clinging, but there are feelings, both positive and negative. The negative can be a biatch. But this state, was exactly what I originally envisaged 4th path or awakening to be. I swear that there was no sense of self, no suffering, no affective emotions or feelings and no negativity anywhere. Just this body operating independantly of any influence of feeling or the help of anything else. I am still trying to come to terms with it. It was not like anything I have experienced before. No jhana, no fruition/cessation after glow nor NS could compare. This was complete and utter peace.

Remember, I am exploring because I can, as i have already gotten insight disease out of the way. If there is a way to ease the suffering of the 1st arrow, I am gonna explore it's usefulness. My opinion could change at the drop of a hat.

Edited to add, I may be talking out my arse, as the wow factor is still being experienced...so again with the grain of salt. More exploration is needed.

Nick, I know it's a bold claim, but I think I've had this happen several times. It has been for much shorter periods (maybe 10 minutes at most, usually only a couple). The last time I had it I read the descriptions of PCE's on the AF site and on DHO and I'm convinced it's the same thing.

I've had it outside and I've had it driving a couple of times. It isn't like Jhana in that it is like the self/attention wave drops away entirely (it isn't wider than usual, it isn't there). Everything seems to be happening with equal clarity and it is very, pristine, etc. There is also no euphoria or anything associated with it, just clearness.

It has usually happened in the context of me first seeing how the attention keeps moving around and then it feels like I've pushed through it or something like that and I emerge into this peace. I was paying attention to the fact that since the senses are all operating, if I didn't pay attention to anything in some way everything would be clear. It was seen how looking at anything, paying attention to anything was causing a distortion and that by not looking at anything it all became clear.

Hi Nick -- I don't doubt your experience, but there is this thing about all this direct perception stuff that bugs me and maybe you can give a shot in answering.

All the descriptions of direct mode/AF I've read are totally "myopic" in the sense that all anyone seems to mention is a self-focus of being grounded in the body and being without suffering as an individual. Which sounds great (really), but just seems totally narrow. There is no discussion of love, mercy, compassion, or non-duality (how the individual relates to the universal)--just of how great it feels to be totally peaceful. I just came from seeing the Dalai Lama yesterday, and listening to him really nailed this point for me--why I've never liked the small boat approach and why I resonate with the mahayana view. It extends the lessons in the 2nd person (the "other") direction. We ultimately realize for the sake of others it seems to me.

I'm not asking this to be a prick, but I just think I'd be more comfortable--since it seems everyone is going this direction, with now you and Owen taking the plunge--if there were something bigger or more expansive about this than one guy feeling totally great in his own little sack of skin. I resonate with most of your posts and descriptions, so I wonder if you can help me out?

Nick, as you can see, it gets tricky when the emphasis is on experiences. Everyone has had tons of mindblowing experiences and it is always possible to map your own experience onto whatever someone else is reporting. It leads to this ever-escalating, "oh, of course, I know exactly what you mean. I've had that experience and in fact it's been my default state since I was knee-high to a bullfrog." But then another experience comes along that trumps the previous one. Then you have to say, "oh, sorry, I didn't really know what you meant then, but now I do. In fact, this is even cooler than what you are reporting, etc."

It all gets unmanageable, with an ever-escalating game of "can you top this?"

It's more helpful to come at this from another direction. One good approach is to be technique-oriented rather than experience oriented. You just keep practicing the techniques, understanding that a gazillion amazing things will happen. You think you've seen a lot of cool stuff? Forget about it. It never ends. In five, ten, and twenty years you'll be laughing about what you think is cool now. How do I know this? Because this is how it goes for everyone.

Another good approach is to choose a standard that is so ridiculously high that there is no possibility of planting the flag too soon or even getting very excited about any experience. The highest standard I know is the end of suffering. Are you suffering in this moment? If the answer is "yes, I am suffering," then you know what to do: put your head down and practice. If the answer is "no, I am not suffering," then the question is "how long are you able to sustain it?" Setting the bar that high will keep you busy. And if there ever comes a time when you can say, "yes, it's true, I am free from suffering and able to maintain this freedom from suffering indefinitely..." then go ahead and brag.

"I'm not asking this to be a prick, but I just think I'd be more comfortable--since it seems everyone is going this direction, with now you and Owen taking the plunge--if there were something bigger or more expansive about this than one guy feeling totally great in his own little sack of skin. I resonate with most of your posts and descriptions, so I wonder if you can help me out?-mdaf30"

Mark, I think Eckhart Tolle is the best of the modern-day direct path advocates at presenting it with a bodhisattva spin. He believes that we could bring about peace on Earth if more people saw that there is no separation anywhere. Maybe he is right. As I recall, J. Krishnamurti had a similar vision.

My favorite of the direct path advocates was the Pali Buddha. The direct path is the Four Noble Truths in realtime. Suffering ends now by bringing attention to the root of suffering. As for the bodhisattva ideal, when you want to help others, it's good to first find out what "other" means. Not that it isn't good to help people all along the way, but as you have seen, reality reveals itself at ever deeper levels as you continue to look. Always hold open the possibility that even your deepest principles are rooted in misconception.

Excellent post Kenneth, I guess one of the reasons I haven't posted in a while is I am coming to grips increasingly with the progression, I am almost certain anything I think now will have changed within a year, best wishes

Hi Kenneth.

Thanks for your response. I put my response to you on my thread, as this is Nick's and I don't want to swamp his with my questions.

Yours,
Mark

Nick,
Your reports are always so fun and helpful to read!
And I also like Kenneth's gold standard with suffering and it's end, the amount of time of this being sustained.

"
I'm not asking this to be a prick, but I just think I'd be more comfortable--since it seems everyone is going this direction, with now you and Owen taking the plunge--if there were something bigger or more expansive about this than one guy feeling totally great in his own little sack of skin. I resonate with most of your posts and descriptions, so I wonder if you can help me out? "

Hi Mark,


I wanted this. I was always looking for complete freedom from suffering. This feels like what I always wanted. I can now operate like i always wanted to. As a kind hearted human being without any little misfires that cause me to momentarily cause others misery. And i have caused others misery. Even now at 4th path, I can be a prick to my fiancee. I don't want to be a prick to my fiancee. Nor a petty prick to anyone for that matter. i don't want to negatively react to anyone, ever. So if it is possible, I want to go in that direction. I reckon that is pretty bodhisttvaish.

Anyway, i should have put my mantra....could get better, could get worse, could stay the same. Thanks, Kenneth for the wise words. I know it was an experience. But I have repeated it since and it seems direct mode for me is now actually working like I thought it should. it was just tweaked somewhat by being more present and "grooving" to the sensations. We'll see how far it goes. I enjoy not suffering and making others not suffer too.

And I repeat, my last long post was written in the after glow of that experience. So apologies for being overly enthusiastic. It happens. It's very much part of my personality. I even posted 10 minutes after getting 4th path for goodness sake. Hehe!




Nick

As soon as it is all seen, the evaluation and reaction drop away to leave just the sensations 100% the object of attention. Not 90% percent on sensations and 10 % embedded in agitation or desire for something, which seemed to be my default mode before. They are completely unjudged with not even the qualities of pleasant, neutral nor unpleasant coming up. It is just a completely bare sensate experience. And rather than allow for the sequence of evaluation to arise, there seems to be a growing effortless tendency of the mind to stay with just the sensations. The more I practice this way, the easier it is getting to trigger PCE's. And the peace of mind that results from all this is something I have never had before. I feel this is truly a natural progression towards a complete freedom from suffering. The freedom often promised in the pali canon and what i always thought to be what awakening entailed.

Really, all emotions, the positive and negative are put down in return for freedom from suffering. Even with the positive emotions there exists inherent suffering, let alone the negative. I really feel that this is what the Buddha (in the Pali canon) was talking about. Having been a Goenka practioner for so long, this is basically what Goenka talks about being the end result. I really feel suffering levels have hit an all time low. How far will this go? I don't care. I am not making anyone else suffer not even myself at this moment. And that is quite the development for me .

May all beings be free from suffering!

I have been continuing to use direct mode as my main practice. It is now quite natural to do. i think it seems to be getting easier and easier to trigger PCE's over the last few days. The ease at which it can be done is quite surprising. But I think it very much to do with the technique I'm using .

A trick now is to ask myself now and then "Am I suffering in this very moment? And if so where is it being triggered?". I have also been asking myself , "How am I experiencing this very moment of being alive?". This really pulls the mind back from whatever subtle attachment or reaction it is embedded in to just the sensations in the body. These two questions have helped me see how I can switch the mode of perception quite easily whenever I feel that I am not present with the sensations. And when I am not, it is obvious there is the sublest of suffering/tanha arising.

Immediately after asking these questions to myself, there is a mental refocusing on the very trigger of the mind state, thought pattern or emotion that is causing the slight feeling of "not quite right" which I equate with tanha or suffering. The trigger is always a specific flow of vibrations somewhere in the body. Usually at the chest, throat or solar plexus. These sensations are observed and the sequence of evaluation and reaction are seen too.

Great work Nick.

As I told you before, I also remember reading somewhere that Sayagyi U Ba Khin (Goenka's teacher) wrote somewhere that "After getting rid of all unwholesome sankharas, one eradicates the wholesome ones aswell", and if you equate sankharas with emotional reactive patterns, this makes a lot of sense in terms of what you are describing here.

Thanks Yadid!

Owen said he is seeing the alien entity. What is truly going on? Here's my take: The more I see that attention wave/flow of emotional energy as alien, the more it has lost it's prestige and status. It really seems alien these days because i am not equating it to a real "me", or rather it is not seen as soemthing to put up on a pedestal. It is a continuing of the disidentification process. It is the very same process that happened to the sensations of "self" pre-4th.

Owen, have you tried 'calling up" that attention wave when in a PCE? Just to see it come up really fast and furious. i did this recently and from a pristine clarity of perception of the PCE, within a second it had switched to a confusing mess of shifting, wobbling, moving about of the attention wave, which includes the return of thought patterns and mind states arising. The difference is striking. And it is why the PCE mode of perception really does appeal more than the attention wave mode of perception. The difference in clarity and peace of mind is obvious.

This is where I would equate it to having the proto-blob being observed to be semi-whole. I am not sure though that the PCE is direct mode itself, or direct mode is the experience of maintaining an unreactive mind to the sensations and a PCE being a turbo version of direct mode, where the perception shifts because of initial direct mode. There seems to be levels of PCE as well. Some amazingly clear and long-lasting. And others short and sweet.

Anyway, when the attention wave is called up to interrupt the PCE, it becomes so obvious what it is doing. More than when it slowly creeps up to stealthily overtake the PCE without you knowing it straight away. This made it really obvious how it influences everything about perception. It seems to be that sense of "being". It seems to be all the emotions and affective feelings. It seems to be all the nanas and jhanas. It also seems to be 3rd gear/clear light when it takes itself as object. I say this because when i am looking at a visual object, it is obvious how the attention wave plays with what is being looked at, shifting the focus, filling up parts of it etc. But when it itself is taken as object rather than seeing it influence other objects, it is clearly 3rd gear practice. It seems it is also the dukkha nanas and high equanimity. It is lack of concentration and wandering mind, or a one-centered mind. It seems to be the kundalini surge of energy up the body. and when it is not influencing the mind's attention in a PCE, it seems to coil up at the hara spot ready to spring up again. When it does, the PCE disappears. This is really interesting to observe.

What do you think is going on? Am I talking out my arse? I'm enjoying passing through this investigative period. It is so interesting to question what I thought was the be-all, end-all. Where will this take me?

Gotta love the dharma.

Hi, Nick. Can you please describe in detail what you mean by "attention wave?"

Thanks!