New Video: "The Direct Path"

I just posted a new set of videos with detailed instructions for entering what I call the "direct mode of perception," or the "direct path." This is not vipassana, samatha, Mahamudra, Advaita, Dzogchen, Yoga, or Zen. Leave your preconceptions at the door.

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/videos/al...1468/The+Direct+Path

Let me know what you think!

Kenneth

I am very excited about this. What I've watched so far is pretty familiar from last night's meeting, but it is really great to hear another student's reaction.

Also, pretty cool to see you've split off the "people are getting enlightened here" video from the Jhanic Arc tour. Hopefully some folks on the tubes will come across that as well.

I just ran across the whole set of video.
Wow!
Your face started to blur and go holographic and it was such a psychedelic trip.
Don't know what it is, don't care.
I practiced some tai chi and qi gong and I like the energy approach.
Could not imagine it as an access to the direct path. This is my dream practice!
I will just do the homework and play the videos many many times.
More than Pixies, Nirvana, Sonic Youth...
My gratitude is beyond words.

"But Kenneth says... this is ANXIETY!" lol

Kenneth,

Very helpful! I'm seeing this as some really helpful metaphors (plus specific technique!) that to me points to the same territory as Tolle's teachings. The nice thing about this approach is that one doesn't have to introduce a concept like 'pain body', which I imagine can be a real block or point of confusion for some people, requiring a lot of additional explanation. Indeed, one could probably talk about the approach without even using the term 'energy body', either. Observation of an 'imbalance' or 'disruption' in the way the whole body feels, resting attention on it, thereby 'grounding' it... and then a feedback process to confirm.

I often had the thought reading Tolle that he was pointing to wonderful territory but perhaps making it sound too easy without giving people handles/practices to get there. You are providing some more concrete handles, I think, plus a specific feedback method...

I will experiment with using sound rather than image as the feedback confirmation. If that works, then this approach might be something I could actually use with my University music students without weirding them out (as they might if I introduced more traditional meditation-oriented language or technique) -- helping them manage their their plentiful anxiety and to learn how to be open to and see beauty in "sound as sound" at the same time.

Wow -- the method of actually using the physical hand works. That actually weirds ME out a little bit!

Interesting practice, very soothing. I'm pretty suspicious that arhatship will make this a lot more effective, since the crown-heart-dan tien connection is, after all, a device for grounding.

modalnode: yeah, my friend psychonauts were amazed at the frequency with which I looked at my hand during our trips.

Kenneth: the "anxieties" you were giving mark as examples, were they your own? ("what does this make of enlightenment / the years you spent meditating" and so on)

I found your own comment on altruism, and "second-hand anxiety smoke" very AFesque; also the "inhabited by some freaky pod person" comment you made on the other thread. Fascinating

"I found your own comment on altruism, and "second-hand anxiety smoke" very AFesque; also the "inhabited by some freaky pod person" comment you made on the other thread. Fascinating "-Bruno

Actually, I am cribbing heavily from Eckhart Tolle here, although I am reporting my own experience. Remember that Tolle's initial opening came as a result of reflecting upon the fact that there seemed to be two of him: one who could not abide the thought of the other. Upon seeing the impossibility of that, the "pain body" evaporated, allowing him to remain undivided in his experience. This is consistent with my experience as well; the lava lamp blobs can separate, take on a life of their own and fight tooth and nail for their existence, which means that they have to sustain the agitation. They seem to know that to stop fussing is to settle back down into the main body of wax and be subsumed into the whole, a fate they regard with terror. Weird, because after all they are just thoughts run amok. Once grounded in the body, those scary monsters are completely defanged.

Yes, the thoughts I used as examples on the video were the proto-anxieties arising in my own mind, although I was calling up some from the past, trying them on for size, and continuously grounding them for the purpose of illustration.

Okay Kenneth your Direct Path videos just gave me another option for daily life practice. Very well done. I'm just wondering if it's more efficient to have vipassana be in daily life or just on the cushion for enlightenment? I haven't tried noting at study but I just try to make study/homework into objects of concentration which works sometimes with lots of agitation in between.