first ever practice journal!

The synaesthesia is way clearer than before. I realize now that these experiences were a source of ongoing pain of various degrees (as minor sense-experiences would lead to a cloud of synaesthetic 'me'-stuff floating across so many modalities, whatever vedana it all had). Now it's just really interesting.

Anyway, come on in, the water's great!

Like Nikolai, I think it would be really nice if you would post some phenomenological descriptions of what you're talking about.now.

(redacted)

You know as well as anyone that I have a tendency to write at great length about things...I simply think that it would not be especially skillful to do at this particular moment. Please respect my wishes and my judgment on that.

If you want your wishes respected, here on a public message board, then it might be best not make a claim until you're wiling to discuss it openly. If you really want to keep it quiet, to yourself, under wraps, then just do that. Seems pretty straightforward to me. I was just asking for the backup. Your call on providing it.

I thought that some people would be interested in hearing my own evaluation of my progress, is all. I'm sorry if that's a problem for you in some way; I was merely sharing in a way that seemed innocuous to me at the time. I do see where you're coming from.

EDIT: I may have misunderstood you; perhaps you wanted a phenomenological description of post #274? I quite honestly couldn't give you one. My best attempt would be something like "sense-experience, in itself, has this miraculous quality which is normally passed over," but that's not much of a description, and I'm not even sure if it's accurate.

You are missing the point and the bigger picture. Please allow me to explain -- this site has from its inception been about openness and the sharing of phenomenological details of the practice. Unsubstantiated claims of any sort have never been tolerated well and should't be, IMHO. So announcing something and then saying, "but I really don't want to talk about it" and then, when questioned, calling the non-responsive\ness "skillful" is pretty much the diametric opposite of the mission here. This is my opinion as a long time participant on KFDh. If the mission changes and unsubstantiated claims become the norm I suspect it'll be sayonara for a lot of folks who've been held to, and maintained voluntarily,the original standard.

Perhaps you're right; sorry for the lapse in judgment. I withdraw my claims and have edited the posts in question.

"Perhaps you're right; sorry for the lapse in judgment. I withdraw my claims and have edited the posts in question."

Dear Endinsight - I don't post on this forum often, but I must add a strong opinion. When you talk about advanced practices and attainments, you have a responsibility to the other readers - those who are less experienced, and struggling to understand their path - to be honest and clear and speak of your own experiences sincerely or not at all. Every time someone questions your claims, you withdraw them and disappear. Then you come back spouting new concepts and complicated stories. And the cycle goes around again. I think you need to take the time to think carefully about what you are getting out of this game, and think about the responsibility you have to your fellow practitioners to not play mind games and confuse them with constantly changing stories and explanations. It's disrespectful and dishonorable. The purpose of the dharma practice we are all focused on includes development of profound honesty, truth, and openess. Think carefully about your motives and be sincere with yourself about your experiences. Best wishes -Ona

"Every time someone questions your claims, you withdraw them and disappear. Then you come back spouting new concepts and complicated stories. "

My practice journal is right here. You are free to read it; all 284 posts to it, if you like. If there's something confusing about what I've said in it, let me know. I don't recall ever having done what you are claiming. Perhaps you could say explicitly what thing it is that you think I've done wrong or where I've spoken in an intentionally false or intentionally misleading way.

I withdrew my claim in the face of Chris' point because I was not prepared to describe my recent experiences explicitly and publicly, and perhaps that means that I shouldn't make any claims about things until the time comes when I am so prepared. Chris was right in pointing out the deleterious effects that making claims without describing the experiences that back them up can have.

If you aren't making a mistake or mixing me up with someone else, I would respectfully ask that you consider the extent to which you are seeing qualities in my writing which simply aren't there, or qualities that appear to be there due to some kind of gross misunderstanding or miscommuncation between us.

Ona, parenthetically, I would note that one of my main personality flaws has always been the inclination to write too much, discuss too much, argue too much, theorize too much, etc. This is a flaw which I have displayed on KFD numerous times and in numerous ways (perhaps the last case being a discussion with Kenneth over what is equivalent to stream entry in the suttas, which was quite unproductive despite [or probably due to] my voicing my own opinion and giving an explicit defense of that opinion numerous times in a few different forms). So, I was especially surprised to read that you believe my main failing as a poster here is approximately the opposite, i.e. making claims and not defending them in the useless and passionate way that I imagine I have a reputation for due to my habits in the past. This is why I'm wondering if you're mixing me up with someone else.

"...my voicing my own opinion and giving an explicit defense of that opinion numerous times...vs... making claims and not defending them..."

None of those are your day to day experience. They are stories, opinions, claims and defenses. "I sat down and felt this sensation and saw this color" - in your own plain words - is an experience. Why claim anything at all? Why not just describe what you felt during your meditation or day to day, in an ordinary way? If you suspect you may have an "attainment" the best thing to do is to simply describe what you are experiencing - preferably in a live skype video chat with a qualified teacher or advanced practitioner - and ask their feedback on your experiences. People like Nikolai, Chris and Kenneth can help you be clear about what's going on, so you don't make claims and then feel obligated to defend them or withdraw them, which just becomes confusing for everyone reading this. Best wishes, Ona

Ona, it seems that you very much want to hear about my experience...but, as I have said, I don't think it would be skillful for me to talk about it just yet. I already admitted that I made a mistake in bringing it up at all, but I can't undo that. You will have to respect my wishes on not sharing the details at the moment, simply because you won't be able to change my mind on that.

Wait a few weeks, and I'm sure you'll hear enough detail from me to satisfy you, plus more. I have every intention of describing this recent transition in my practice in the future, don't worry.

About describing my experience to others...let me assure you that I would not be so muddled not to have discussed this privately and in detail with someone whose judgment is trustworthy before posting about it earlier. (Unfortunately, I did not follow that person's advice to let things settle before posting. Perhaps I should have recognized that judgment which is trustworthy in one context is likely be to trustworthy in many contexts.)

I'm not really sure what else I can say or what you'd like to get out of this interchange. You mention the lack of sensation-by-sensation phenomenological description in past posts...I'm not sure where your own practice is, but one thing you may want to keep in mind is that post-4th practice isn't about the qualities of sensations in a way that lends to this easy, mechanical sort of description. Or at least it seems that way to me. If you read the journals of other post-4thers, I believe you'll recognize that they lean more towards "summary description" over phenomenology than e.g. a pre-path or early path journal would, for the same reason.

The first principle on this is that the ongoing spirit and practice on this forum is to be honest, open, and phenomenological when describing one's practice and attainments. This is not the place we come to post about what we hope has happened, but rather the place we come to describe in detail, like Sgt. Friday in "Dragnet" would ask us to do ("Just the facts, Ma'a\m."), what we experience. As this exchange demonstrates, posting claims without phenomenological explanation gets push back. And it should.

Second, those who have some attainment appear to me to be far less likely to make errant claims, and they feel in their bones the responsibility to the other posters, maybe younger or maybe just less experienced, who need to see examples of the practice as it should be, and need to see how to report on one's practice as it's most appropriately done here. Proclamations without descriptions are worthless, and it's best not to expect that just any description will suffice. Expect to get a hell of a lot of assistance if you show the kind of open honesty that abounds here. Expect to get questioned seriously if you don't.

EndInSight, your adherence to these KFDh traditions will be greatly appreciated.

One more thing -- the typical order of presentation here is first "this is the description of what is happening in my practice" and that is then followed by questions and suggestions by others. It's after that, after some conversation, back and forth, validation or what have you is in evidence, that a marker of path or attainment is placed. Not before. I'm sure everyone can appreciate the difference in the order.

My recent practice has been examining the variety of ways in which my personality and ingrained patterns of behavior lead to others' harm. For reasons related to those issues, in a wide variety of ways I have not been very good at making skillful decisions that lead to others' benefit. (In fact, I have done a piss-poor job on a number of very recent occasions.) I resolve to think carefully before acting so as not to cause further harm to anyone due to any unnecessary behavioral patterns or habits that I have adopted over the years out of ignorance. I also resolve to dismantle any parts of my personality that reliably and regularly lead to harm (of which there are likely to be many), once I identify them.

Bernadette Roberts has an interesting view of the path; one's own journey is supposed to be seen as a mirror of Christ's. Perhaps the lead-up to 4th path is falling more deeply into the "unitive" stage, where one thinks "I am my Father are one." Then, as she says, there is then an effacing of this "unitive core" (from 4th path to wherever) which ultimately leads one to an experience which is analogous to Christ's crucifixion and death. Thus, as the unitive experience comes to an end, there is suddenly no experience of self nor of Self / God. (Perhaps this is AF's "self-immolation".) In response to this sudden disappearance of one's sole reference point during the unitive stage (Self / God / 'being' / awareness), with nothing else being left, one may be moved to ask: "Why have you forsaken me?"

After Christ's death came the Resurrection some days later; Roberts describes its analogical relation to the contemplative's journey thus:

"Christ is not the self, but that which remains when there is no self. He is the form (the vessel) that is identical with the substance[...w]e cannot comprehend 'that' which acts or 'that' which smiles, but we all know the act-- the smile that is Christ himself. Thus Christ turns out to be all that is knowable about God, because without his acts, God could not be known. Act itself is God's revelation and this revelation is not separate from God, but Is God himself."

Perhaps the Mayahana creed "samsara is nirvana". Interesting.

Am I channeling Alex in this post? Or is there some novel Afro-cuban tradition that teaches a siddhi by means of which one is forced merely to channel his map-making syncretism?

"

Perhaps the Mayahana creed "samsara is nirvana". Interesting.

Am I channeling Alex in this post? Or is there some novel Afro-cuban tradition that teaches a siddhi by means of which one is forced merely to channel his map-making syncretism? "

If nothing/no one stands in the way, what prevents your mind/body to move precise, beneficial and efficient? What prevents you to stop when you need to stop, go when you need to go, speak when you need to speak, remain silent when you need to remain silent?

It is the pull/push-free movement.

Moreover, if you know you're selfless, you then realize everyone else, and everything else is selfless. So external anger is selfless: it appears to rise, endure and cease without becoming, ever. Unless you become and believe anger becomes, as well as everything else.

"One more thing -- the typical order of presentation here is first "this is the description of what is happening in my practice""

The nature of my current mode of experience has become clear to me, so here is a precise phenomenological description.

Consider a sneeze. The tension slowly builds up to a certain point, the suddenly reverses in valence while spiking in intensity right before the sneeze itself (felt as a kind of relief). Now, consider a "negative sneeze": it builds in tension slowly, then suddenly spikes in tension very quickly right before one sneezes. It's good that such a thing doesn't exist...except it does, in a way. This is how affects work. They are not singular, unitary experiences. An affect is an experience of a sense-object, on which various kinds of tension are accreted, slowly building up and then exhibiting a sharp tension-spike when the affect is "mature".

The tension spike is the "secret sauce" that makes a rather vague and uninteresting experience into something that is fundamentally unpleasant and disconcerting (as affects are).

My current mode of experience is characterized by there being a "blade" which automatically cuts off the affective build-up process before the "tension spike" forms. With no tension spike, there are no feelings, and there is no experience of self. Nothing that can happen appears to be able to produce these experiences for me, as the mental mechanism that transforms the inchoate "proto-affective material" into an affect no longer functions. However, there are still "residual" things, corresponding to the bare materials out of which the affect would have been fully formed, one step removed from sense-objects. Imagine:

"This feels really ni*CHOP*"
"I'm ang*CHOP*"
"What an assh*CHOP*"
"There is a sel*CHOP*"

These residual things are absolutely non-affective (corresponding merely to the very beginning of the tension build-up during a sneeze, not to the built-up disconcerting sensation of needing to sneeze for relief, let alone the hypothetical "negative-relief" experience that would be associated with a "negative sneeze"), but they are still "shadows" of affect which cause similar behavioral tendencies as affects would have, in the same circumstances in which there would have been affects. On the other hand, unlike affects, they have nearly no "clout", and the rational mind can simply overrule the behavioral tendencies they cause whenever the rational mind decides to overrule them, without any experience of struggle or negativity.

As affects are generated every single moment and experienced via "attention bounce", these shadow-affects are experienced every single moment in the same way. My working theory is that this is precisely what Khemaka sutta describes (a subtle 'I AM' scent that no longer attaches to anything in particular), that this is precisely what Dipa Ma described as her understanding of the anagami stage, and that, when there are neither affects nor shadow-affects, there will be no attention bounce, and that will be the final expression of developmental enlightenment: absolute stillness.

Unlike the case of prior forms of developmental enlightenment, this one has serious repercussions for one's cognitive machinery in terms of everyday functioning. There are many examples of this (and they take a variety of forms), but the most troubling one for me is that, without affective feedback, I have trouble recognizing when I'm saying something that is likely to come across as rude, dictatorial, or argumentative; there is no feeling of being an assh*le (and no shadow-feeling that is easy to discern), but unfortunately my personality tends towards that sort of thing, so unless I constantly monitor my behavior, I "default" to behaving in various extremely unskillful ways due to the absence of an "affective warning". And there are many subtler instances of similar kinds of things happening. So, this mode of experience is a double-edged sword; I can rationally overrule various behavioral tendencies with ease, but only if I recognize them.

Am I suffering? No...but, with a qualification. It is truly hard to say that there is anything I could experience which would count as suffering, as I previously understood the term. But, despite that, my experience is clearly not perfection. A paradox.

Yet, I realized that I could simply "raise the bar" and change my understanding of what affects are and what suffering is. So, if I redefine "affect" to mean ("shadow-affect" OR "full-affect"), and I redefine suffering to mean ("shadow-suffering" OR "conventional suffering"), that puts things in a new light, and clarifies why there is a need for the final end of the attention wave, beyond this current stage. And such a change is a natural one that can be made, once the "honeymoon" period for this mode of experience ends.

There are many things about my experience which I am still not inclined to share, mostly because talking about such things is unlikely to be of any use to anyone in their own practice, and because I have no independent inclination to. I hope no one will take this reluctance offensively. In the spirit of openness I have explained the nature of my current experience in a way I consider to be quite precise, and I hope that this will prove sufficient.

I also want to emphasize that this mode of experience is SO MUCH BETTER than what came before. I seem to incline towards a rather dry way of writing at the moment (albeit perhaps not much more so than how I often wrote previously), and that style of writing may not convey that I think that this is fundamentally good (and that I would have jumped at the chance to transition to this mode of experience in the past, if someone could have let me see me a preview of it.)

One thing that I have found very useful with respect to raising the bar is to repeat this mantra:

'Shadow-I' am my shadow-feelings, and my shadow-feelings are 'shadow-me'.

But this does not really capture how perplexing and wrong it seems to consider anything that I experience now to be remotely affective or remotely 'me'. (There is a reason that Richard considers a state that sounds to me to be identical to this one to be the beginning of AF.)

Truth is stranger than fiction. I really can't describe it. Come and see.

Indeed! I must say, you have described the past 8 weeks or so of my life quite well. The 'shadow stuff' is getting markedly less as time goes on. The honeymoon period is over. From talking with Tarin, it would appear all there is to do now is to 'pay attention', plain and simple, to clean it all up. Perhaps Khemaka style.

Nice descriptions, End.

"The tension spike is the "secret sauce" that makes a rather vague and uninteresting experience into something that is fundamentally unpleasant and disconcerting (as affects are)."

Where does the tension spike occur in the body/mind complex?