Relating Buddhism and the PCE

Orasis, I tried your practice a bit and found that attention would always move from the chest & world to the body-as-a-whole & world after a certain point. But I'll try it some more and see what happens.

I think there may be a correlation between what people report about attention and what they think of the PCE. Here's a preliminary bit of data.

Beoman...PCE has no attention bounce, is the best thing ever
EIS...PCE is recalled not to have attention bounce, is the best thing ever
Orasis...PCE has attention with variable shape bubble, is *not* the best thing ever
Antero...PCE has attention resting in the base of the spine, is *not* the best thing ever

Please correct any mistakes, or weigh in with your own experience, as appropriate, and we'll get to the bottom of this.

After apparently misjudging Adam's experiences I don't want to get on the pulpit and tell other people "that's not a PCE!!!!!!" but I am making this list with an eye towards exploring that possibility. The other possibility, of course, is that Orasis and Antero have figured out how to do something with their attention that Beoman and I haven't figured out yet.

I also want to thank each and every person who has participated in this thread so far. I've learned a lot from it and I think it's one of the clearest discussions of high-level practice related to the PCE and the end of suffering that I've read. The fact that KFD is not a gathering-point for people interested in AF, but for people who have benefited from Kenneth's teachings, and thus is a place with a wide diversity of viewpoints, probably has a lot to do with it.

And I think, as we get data on this attention bounce stuff, it's only going to get clearer and better.

With my shape bubble as full body, standing outside barefoot in the grass with the sun shining there is the perfection of the experience and the perfection of the moment. Its great, but "best thing ever" is hard for me to say because its just as it is, perfect.

Now, when I move my attention to my heart, then the body sensations subside and love arises. I pretty much feel like Jesus. Still perfect but less tactile.

From my experience this also seems to be influenced by the "phasing" of attention. I may be currently a sort of an equanimity junky, but sometimes I'll notice really weird phasing, especially if I am trying to look backwards a couple of reality frames and I start seeing things fall off or a random discontinuities in the time stream. Recognition of awareness is still perfect because it is what it is, but its certainly some weird perfection. My experience with the nanas and jhanas is still in its infancy so I hope to gain a deeper understanding of this going forward.

To clarify. With the shape bubble as full body, if I had been habitually suffering and caught up in anxiety and thoughts for most of my experience, then that moment on the grass in the sunlight would have been one of the most cherishable moments in my life.

With my attention on my heart center I just went over to my 2 year old sun and held him in my arms and looked in his eyes. He gave me a kiss and it was an absolutely beautiful loving moment.

However, I can't honestly say either was "the best thing ever" because those moments come and go of their own volition and were both as perfect as this moment of trying to type while being awake (very hard for me to do).


(edit: as a side note, I have to constantly switch between being embedded in thought to type and looking away from the laptop and disembedding to be awake. I am not good at maintaining wakefulness while communicating)

Thank you as well EndInSight. There has been some great stuff on here.

Yes, Orasis - moments like that, all moments, just come and go and we can't control any of it. So to be awake in each one is the key thing, at least for me. That means being present as fully as possible. Present openly, not closing down on or inhibiting. Letting it just be *as it is* and accepting that. Whatever arises is part of each moment in which it occurs. No doubt this is personal preference but allowing that natural openness to experience what plays out right now, over and over, recognizing it is whole and complete just as it is, is what I'm after.

"With my shape bubble as full body, standing outside barefoot in the grass with the sun shining there is the perfection of the experience and the perfection of the moment. Its great, but "best thing ever" is hard for me to say because its just as it is, perfect.

(edit: as a side note, I have to constantly switch between being embedded in thought to type and looking away from the laptop and disembedding to be awake. I am not good at maintaining wakefulness while communicating)
"

While the shape bubble is full body, does attention bounce between the body and everything else, or is there no bounce, just noticing-everything-at-once, absolute-greatest-possible-intimacy-with-all-experience-without-separation?

My recollection of a PCE is that there is no bounce, just noticing-everything-at-once (almost like a superior form of 4th jhana / high equanimity, because in those you notice everything at once...except for the attention bounce).

About being embedded...you seem to be *very* good at high level practices, and maybe your experience is an example of Kenneth's repeated point that development and awakeness are not the same and that one can have one without the other. My experience of 4th path, as well as what I believe is Kenneth's 6th / 7th stages, is that awakeness is better, so you're pretty lucky

EDIT: Somehow I missed reading this the first time...can you also say more about the phasing thing? (This could be the attention bounce I'm asking about.)

(As far as I can see, the stuff that AFers talk about relating to "eternity" has to do with an altered perception of time relating to attention bounce...normally time appears as a series of vaguely-defined moments, each moment being one attention bounce. With no attention bounce, there are no moments, no flow or change in time, just an absolutely continuous unending 'Now'. As the attention bounce in normal experience lessens, the sense of this lack of moments or flow or change becomes increasingly strong.)

Trying out Orasis' suggestion to keep attention on the chest, I find that after a certain point (as my experience approaches the beginning of an EE) it's much harder to keep attention anywhere or confined to any location, as if the experience of confining it to a location would require it to bounce between some other object and that location, which is the process that falls off as I become more present / in the moment.

It seems that there are actually two phenomena called attention; one is purely cognitive and behind-the-scenes (looking at various objects and allowing the brain to process them), the other is attached to the cognitive thing in normal experience and produces a palpable sense of a rapid shift between attending-here and attending-there. As direct mode deepens for me, the cognitive thing continues (obviously I don't process everything in my experience whatsoever), but the rapid shift between things that I'm processing goes away. The cognitive attention is behind-the-scenes (can't be observed, only inferred) and the shifting attention is phenomenological (easy to observe).

I'll keep up with Orasis' practice suggestion for at least a few more hours and see what I can turn up.

(This is an example of a really cool situation...if "PCE-like experience is compatible with different attention varieties" turns out to be true, then beoman and I are very lucky because a whole new range of good experiences is revealed to be possible, a range which we didn't previously recognize was possible. If "PCE has no attention bounce" turns out to be true, then Orasis and Antero are in the same position. Situations like this are great, because the best possible case for each person is the one in which they turn out to be wrong!)

'to keep attention on the chest" - interesting. I did this for a while last year to clear out some grief stored there. It really worked. Also led to more direct experiencing. Hmm.

"(This is an example of a really cool situation...if "PCE-like experience is compatible with different attention varieties" turns out to be true, then beoman and I are very lucky because a whole new range of good experiences is revealed to be possible, a range which we didn't previously recognize was possible. If "PCE has no attention bounce" turns out to be true, then Orasis and Antero are in the same position. Situations like this are great, because the best possible case for each person is the one in which they turn out to be wrong!)"

In my opinion the deeper message behind this is the important idea that a practitioner, while needing to stick with a specific practice for some time so that it actually works, also needs to branch out at some point and learn about and experiment with other practices. Being a one-hit wonder may just make you so narrowly focused that you miss some really important insights and experiences. Likewise, and this is a lot of self-reflection speaking, it's crazy to dismiss other practices out of hand by assuming that we "know" what they are -- that thing just like this thing, we tend to say, so I already know it. Well, maybe we really don't know it.

This doesn't mean we have to try everything and it doesn't mean we can't take a pass on certain practices for various reasons. For whatever reason they just don't interest us. It does mean that in practice terms, like in everything else, a little patience and compassion can take us a long way and maybe reveal things that we'd otherwise miss.

So, for a number of hours I tried Orasis' practice of keeping attention on the chest & the rest of experience while being present (direct mode), and what I found is that when direct mode deepens sufficiently, the idea of having my attention "on" anything stops making sense. Up to a certain point, things are fine, but beyond that, attention starts to be nowhere in particular.

As far as I can see, attention being "on" something is just a kind of rapid shifting between that thing and the rest of experience. The thing can be a pinpoint or the whole body, but it's not the whole of experience.

In fact, I found that I could not progress to an EE if I kept placing my attention anywhere. The act of placing it seemed to be incompatible with an EE.

The experience of attention being "on" something is different from the fact of what you're paying attention to. I explained what I thought in a previous post and it seems true, except that the cognitive process may not be entirely behind-the-scenes, and may be subtle but discernable. Whatever that cognitive process is, it doesn't correspond to anything I understood Orasis to be asking me to do, because when I put my attention on something, it is very easy to discern that fact. (cont)

In some ways this is analogous to jhana. Jhana 1 has applied and sustained thought as a factor; deeper jhanas don't. If you refuse to let go of applied and sustained thought, you don't get to jhana 2. If you get to jhana 2 and try to conjure up applied and sustained thought, you go back to jhana 1. Same here. If attention must be on something, one goes no deeper, or gets kicked back to the beginning.

This clarifies my recollection of the PCE. In the PCE, experience is everything-at-once. Attention isn't on anything. Everything just arises within the mind. When attention is on something, it's as if 'I' am looking at it (though the 'I' may be quite subtle and refined). When attention isn't anywhere, but everything is perceived anyway, it's as if the mind is taking itself in all at once. I think this corresponds to AF "apperception".

To try to explain how deep I can go into direct mode without letting go of attention being "on" something, I have this basic taxonomy:

* Miscellaneous...seeming very present, very in the moment, very grounded, very appreciative of sense experience. This is very similar to normal experience, like a refined and refreshing version of it. You could explain it to a normal person very easily. 'I' seems diffused or thinned-out, but not so much as it appears at first glance.

* EE...fantastic, sensory richness, so much 'I' is gone and there is so little affect to prop it up that it can be deeply threatening to the ego. Not easy to explain to normal people, not really resembling normal experience very much, even though the descriptions do.

* PCE...a finding-the-meaning-of-life level of experience.

(cont)

The experience of attention being "on" something starts to get shaky at about the upper 1/4 of states in the "miscellaneous" category. These states are pretty good, one can begin to see traces of what is unique about the PCE in them, but they are still very much like normal experience, just highly refined. If I don't let go of attention and allow it to move towards not being anywhere,
I don't get to the EE, much less the PCE.

I also tried putting attention on the base of the spine (as Antero talks about) and found that the same thing happened. I didn't spend as much time with this, because it was clear to me that it worked the same as having attention on the chest. Attention on the base of the spine (actually, on the lower portion; I can't be so precise) is reminiscent of some of the features of the PCE, and may make it easier to attain one, but the PCE as I experience it does not have attention resting there.

It's possible I don't know how to do the practice under discussion, and it's possible there's something about attention that I haven't developed that allows me to have it "on" something and have a PCE-esque experience. Who knows. I can report not feeling like Jesus, even though Orasis did, but to be honest I would be surprised to have that experience because it's quite far outside my normal range of emotions. Perhaps that's a sign of not doing it correctly, but I don't know how I could correct that.

So, that's my experience as it happened.

Orasis, Antero, if you're interested, why don't you try to find a way to make attention not on anything in direct mode, and tell us how it goes?

So this is probably getting beyond my range of experience. I can tell that there is an enormous amount of unexplored territory around the current edge of my practice.

By default, when I recognize awareness, I am not trying to direct attention. I just wake up. Then, if I am so inclined, I sort of back into being aware of attention. I basically notice the type of phenomena that are showing up. In general I have a tendency to have my attentional field more centered on my head area with very little awareness of my body. I notice this because body phenomena are simply not showing up. This is definitely not a fantastic experience, but I am awake (by my own definition) regardless.

This is especially true if I have been sitting stationary for a long period of time or I am tired. In that case it can be extremely difficult if not impossible to direct my attention to my chest. From here, it is easy to slip into narration and I will often constantly find myself flipping back and forth from being lost to awake. As I said earlier, I don't focus on trying to maintain the state, I just try to remember to wake up as often as I can when I am lost.

(2nd gear is also very difficult to find from here because even though my attentional field is on my head, there is little 'I' sense to follow. So I can sort of fake 2nd gear just by going to the place right in the middle of my head where I know second gear to be.)

If I am walking around, it is usually a completely different story. Body phenomena arise quite naturally on their own and it becomes apparent that my attentional field is including body sensations in addition to the world. There are many confounding factors here because this may be due to physiological factors such as increased energy due to body movement or the fact that most of my awakeness practice is done while walking.

Sorry, no conclusions. Just data points.

When you're walking around and recognizing awareness, can you try to incline towards noticing body sensations without trying to notice them, or without directing your attention towards them (but without lapsing into unawakeness)? This is hard to explain...see if you can let your attention slip away...the difference between attention "on" something and experiencing-everything-at-once comes in a lot of gradations, so don't look for a drastic change, just see if you can find a way to move towards that in a slow, gradual, gentle way.

You could also try looking for things that are affects (feeling positive, feeling that the situation is perfect, feeling joyful) and trying to make them go away...not by making yourself feel bad, but by seeing them clearly and giving them permission to fade away as the attention shape bubble fades away. This kind of instruction might be my own personal, peculiar door, but it can't hurt to try.

(*Feeling* that the situation is perfect would be different from the pure affectless recognition that it is.)

Over the next couple of weeks I'll see what I can tease out.

By the way, a clear way to explain my typical awake state is to do Listening for the Ships in the Harbor and then apply a bit more looseness.

Sounds great!

If the PCE is other than what you thought it was so far, then there's something unimaginably special in store for you.

I'll keep working on this attention thing and see if I can figure out some other way to get what you and Antero seem to be talking about.

If you have any more advice or pointers for me, please do share.

"In my opinion the deeper message behind this is the important idea that a practitioner, while needing to stick with a specific practice for some time so that it actually works, also needs to branch out at some point and learn about and experiment with other practices. Being a one-hit wonder may just make you so narrowly focused that you miss some really important insights and experiences. Likewise, and this is a lot of self-reflection speaking, it's crazy to dismiss other practices out of hand by assuming that we "know" what they are -- that thing just like this thing, we tend to say, so I already know it. Well, maybe we really don't know it.

This doesn't mean we have to try everything and it doesn't mean we can't take a pass on certain practices for various reasons. For whatever reason they just don't interest us. It does mean that in practice terms, like in everything else, a little patience and compassion can take us a long way and maybe reveal things that we'd otherwise miss."

Chris, why don't you try our practice out if you haven't already and tell us what you think?

Endinsight: "After reading through the last flurry of posts, it strikes me that I have my own bizarre terminological problem, using "worthwhile" for what normal people would call "non-affective pleasure".

Yeah, I think it is inappropriate to use affect for tactile pleasure. There need not be emotional pleasure or reaction to tactile pleasure - pure sensory pleasure of one's biology. That would be a category error. Kenneth earlier alluded to this. I think that it is the clear source of the confusion around using affect for 'all and kinds of pleasure'; that just is not affective. No emotions or feelings involved. That is why I would dump affect altogether. It is idiosyncratic to AF and most certainly problematic for the above reasons. It is just confusing!

(cont)

(cont.)

It is absolutely clear to me that Richard and Peter in the early quotes provided where experiencing pleasure and delight. Which is inconsistent with the use of affect as pleasure, if they are saying there is no affect. AF is pointing to a particular category of pleasure and delight. One that need not have, and according to them, by definition, does not contain emotional domains of pleasure. I don't accept that emotional domains of pleasure have any necessary role or dimension in the construction of self, anymore than sensory, tactile pleasure does. But that is a different analysis. But lets at least be clear about the different dimensions and sources of delight. Affect clearly, as it has been use, conflates the two.

Clinically speaking, affect means emotional expression. In the form of body language and para-linguals etc. So one may be feeling happy or depressed. That is a subjective state. Its expression is the category of affect. Blunted, reactive, flat etc. So there again, affect is not being used correctly according to conventional use, at least as it is use in psychology / psychiatry etc. I am a social worker, by the way. Mental health clinician. But I digress.

edited for spelling.

I think "affect" is a perfectly good term that picks out a range of experiences that there isn't a better word for. If I had to say it using Buddhist terminology it would be "pleasures or pains or neutral experiences conditioned by sensual desire or aversion or lust for material existence or lust for immaterial existence." And anyone hearing that would probably think "...what?". I could say "experiences conditioned by clinging" but that is much too easy to misinterpret (as if one needs to replace the "clinging" thing with affective equanimity...rather than doing away with that class of experiences.)

"Emotion" isn't good enough because the states that I call affective are often not states that correspond to any emotion in English. As you can surely see, every moment of non-PCE experience has something standing in the way of the PCE...a kind of experience I call affective...what do you call it?

But, you don't like the term, no problem. I don't see that anyone should be a cheerleader for that particular piece of AF jargon, so long as we all get the bigger point, which is not about actualism or dzogchen or the pali suttas or anything at all other than freedom.

If you could tell us whether there is "attention bounce" in your experience of the PCE, or whether attention rests in any particular location in the body, or whether it's everything-at-once, or however else you think it is, that would be great! (The sub-conversation about this begins at post #162 in this thread if you don't understand what I'm asking.)

I don't think rigpa and the PCE are the same. PCE/not-PCE is a binary switch. Heaven and hell. Samsara and nirvana. Rigpa is the realtime recognition that samsara and nirvana are not-two. This is the Hinayana/Mahayana divide in a nutshell.

Both Nick Halay and Ron Serrano have separately pointed out that the PCE may be synonymous with the fruition attainment of Theravada Buddhism as interpreted by Ayyakhema. Good call. This seems plausible. Theravada Buddhism is considered to be a dualistic tradition in part because of the clear distinction between samsara and nirvana. It's one or the other, not both.

It is precisely this dualism that Mahayana and Vajrayana challenge, not just on philosophical grounds, but by means of direct experience; rigpa shows that the essential nature of all things is empty and cognizant. While some of the language used to describe rigpa and the PCE may overlap, the similarities are superficial.

This morning I compared and contrasted rigpa and the PCE. Not the same. PCE vs "not-PCE" is a binary switch. Rigpa allows for no duality.

My belief is that both practices will lead to developmental buddhahood (as opposed to the momentary buddhahood that IS every moment of rigpa). The main difference may be the enhanced integration that rigpa brings; you can be fine all along the way, in heaven or in hell, because you see that in essence they are the same. Over time, it seems that both approaches lead to more and more PCE-like experience, as unnecessary discursive thought subsides and all the subsystems of selfing unravel.

I recommend practicing both. You will know which to do according to the rhythms of your practice. There is no need to plant the flag in either camp. Just keep practicing until there isn't any practice left to do!

After spending the majority of this week looking at rigpa, I am indeed finding better results than I did prior to this week when I do switch back to direct mode, so it seems the two practices do go well together. I'm sort of switching back and forth between the two today and what Kenneth says in this last post makes a heck of a lot of sense.