Alex's experiment with the grounding of emotions

"Alex, how to do you see the differences in the aim of the inquiry, to see if 'I' as ego exists, or if there is just existence, that is somehow inseparable from reality itself?
"


Hi Adam,

Both aspects are inseparable. And of course, the question answers itself.

What I do instinctively is basically to:

1.) observe the source from which thoughts arise to get into a deep state of no-thought
2.) gradually extend my attention to the body as a whole, spotting possible emotional reactions
3.) then extend it to the totality of my field of consciousness, until the everything starts to be seen as an object - with practice this is sufficient to slip into a non-dual state
4). from time to time, I ask the question "do I exist?" to deepen the state

Whenever I lose it, I get back to stage 1.) and gradually add 2.), 3.) and 4).

Once mastered in the sitting posture it can be extended to everyday life as an ongoing practice.
As such it could be a single practice leading one all the way.

While i am not yet awakened, lately my practice has also tended towards this area. It seems my centered self (the who-am-i self) has become tenuous enough to step aside and allow emotions to mindfully fill the core of being without noticeable aversion or attraction. Ceasing to hold emotions at bay (something i didn't even know i did, earlier), allow more of their vibration-nature to be seen clearly,

The recent beginning of nondual-ish experiences seem to have been part in learning this stepping-aside. But reaching the state you could call peace-revealed is still a long sit, as tend to run into a basic nervousness that might be related to the one Alex talked about.

Tonight's sitting practice:

It must be my background as a Soto Zen (married) monk/lay priest, but I always come back to Shikantaza, which has been my main practice for the last 15 years or so. Doing nothing but sitting, allowing everything to be as it is. Mindful of the sitting posture, one is naturally attending to the body as a whole, while allowing thoughts, emotions, good and bad experiences to arise and pass away as they please. Shikantaza is sitting without a *doer*. Nothing to do, nowhere to go; allowing everything to manifest in its suchness (Jp. Shikan).

I realize that the *Direct Mode* is essentially Shikantaza extended to everyday life. One more day of ongoing *Direct Mode* practice and yet no sign of unwholesome emotions.

Great practice Alex!

You wrote:

'We then allow that sensation to expand and pervade us. We become the emotion. We cease to be observers of our emotions. We stare into the face of the arising emotion with such completeness that all sense of division between '˜experience' and '˜experiencer' dissolve.'

This reminds me of a certain stage when doing this practice, when I started to experience mind states as a very rapid vibration. The states went by so fast, up to ten per second, that I was not able to note them anymore. I called this more refined way of Direct Mode practice '˜Being the Sensations'.

Here is a quote from my previous practice journal (post #24):

'1. Riding the Sensations.
In this state, I observe body sensations as a whole and note or notice mind states one by one as they arise. I see how each mind state corresponds to certain sensations in the body.

2. For lack of better term I call this one Being the Sensations.
Everything is experienced as a rapid vibration of different sensations (see post #18). The sensations and mind states are felt to be one and the same. This seems to change the way how I experience emotions, but further investigation is necessary before more can be said.'

see: kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/thread/44...set=20&maxResults=20 )

It became possible for me to do state #2 continuously and after two days a permanent shift happened that changed the way I experience emotions (stage 6 on Kenneth's map).

I am interested to know if you have experienced this.

@Antero - Thanks a lot. Yes, I can definitely resonate with your description of state no. 2, but most probably not with the same level of intensity.

Although, not good at labeling and making mental notes, I have learned to experience my body as a buzzing field of energy long time ago. What has been most useful was Robert Bruce's 'New Energy Ways' that I tested and adopted before its publication some 13 years ago. The idea is to first brush your left palm with the fingers of your right hand, and then try to reproduce the same sensations, brushing your palm with an imaginary hand. When mastered, one gains the ability to energize the hands, arms, feet, legs, and finally the body as a whole, transforming it into a buzzing energy field. This can then be combined with Kundalini Yoga or Qi Gong and greatly enhances the effect of Vipassana (especially body sweeping vipassana) to activate the chakras and energy channels.

Anyway, fact is that I always feel my body as a buzzing field of energy. These fast buzzing sensations can then get attuned with inner buzzing sounds and inner flickering lights to trigger A&P and the next stages of insight, but also with mental phenomena such as thoughts or mind states.

If I understand you well, what you are suggesting me is:

1.) to first get used to see how each mind state affects or manifests physically in real time, and

2.) to synchronize these mind states with the buzzing physical sensations until "everything is experienced as a rapid vibration of different sensations".

I will try. Sounds fascinating.

"I realize that the *Direct Mode* is essentially Shikantaza extended to everyday life. One more day of ongoing *Direct Mode* practice and yet no sign of unwholesome emotions."

Yes, this strikes me too, Alex. I suspect there is a natural progression for those who start with the breath in Zen and Theravada, and Buddhism more generally, to then move to the body as a whole in daily life and to organically progress to a natural realisation of the inseparability of emptiness and form, and the recognition of the unification or inseparability of luminosity, form and emptiness as the true state of things i.e. Rigpa or whatever else you want to call it.

It seems that direct mode and realisation of the lower and higher vehicles is a natural, organic process.

No real fuss needed - with the source of all controversy merely being political.

Adam.

"If I understand you well, what you are suggesting me is:

1.) to first get used to see how each mind state affects or manifests physically in real time, and

2.) to synchronize these mind states with the buzzing physical sensations until "everything is experienced as a rapid vibration of different sensations".
- Alex"

Yes, we are probably talking about the same thing, Alex. To be sure let me try to clarify.

I did a lot of noting mind states at that time at the rate of once per second throughout the day. In addition to that I kept doing the Direct Mode of feeling the body sensations as a whole at all times. This trained the mind to notice the connection between mind states and body states in real time.

Kenneth stressed the importance of not only noticing the body sensations but also being able to see as clearly as possible which mind state caused which reaction. In my experience also this is an essential step in building up the feedback loop.

What seemed to happen was that once the mind got good at seeing the connection between mind states and body states, the recognition started to occur faster and faster and become automatic. Also as the mind states were noticed faster and faster, they were experienced more as a continuous vibration than separate phenomena.

It could be that seeing that connection clearly will make the permanent shift possible as the mind drops the whole thing as unnecessary.

@Adam - what I started with Soto style Shizantaka Zazen, I was only told to maintain a perfect posture, returning to it every time thing I found my mind wandering in day dreams. You are not told more than that and the correct understanding is supposed to arise from this extremely simple practice. Then, all actions are ritualized in such a way that you can't fail to perform them as an extension of Zazen. This is of course easier in a monastic environment then in a busy city. Some Zen schools are more complex. In China where I am now, they tend to teach Vipassana, reserving koan investigation for retreats. What we call Tibetan Buddhism is also part of mainstream Chinese Buddhism since the Yuan Dynasty. It also became very fashionable at the Court during the Qing Dynasty. As a consequence, Mahamudra was eventually absorbed into Ch'an. The Mahamudra union of emptiness and luminosity take the form of the inseparability of *essence* and *function*. Koan either point to essence, function or both. Practically speaking, insight into no-self and the experience of oneness reveal the (empty) *essence* of the Mind. The intrinsic luminosity of phenomena and awareness are the primary function of the Mind, while the dynamic display of phenomena according to causes and conditions are expressions of the secondary function of the Mind. The latter shares similarities with the Dzogchen idea of *energy* (Tib. "Tsal"?).

@Antero - perfect, thank you very much. This is what I have been doing throughout the day, today, namely feeling the body sensations as a whole while noticing how each mind state was expressed physically. Since peace, happiness, and joy have become my main emotions I have reached a stages where I will have to make mental notes of subtle mind states. I found very interesting the reactions of the mind when looking at people in the street to see what is the emotional and physical reaction when seeing various people, like a cute baby, a sexy young girl, a funny teenager, a sweet old lady, etc.

Your description of the mechanism likely to have triggered the permanent shift makes full sense and I will follow your advice to label mental states during formal practice and then throughout the day to notice subtler and subtler mind states, with a focus in the sensation that they trigger within the physical and energy body.

Thanks for that Alex - very interesting historical account and analysis! Yes, I am familiar with that form of shikantaza, having practiced it in the past. I may return to it tonight for further exploration to see what I see..

I assume you practice it eyes open? Do you have an opinion on the benifets / effects of open vs' closed? I sat with one Zen master who felt there was no practical difference. I ascribe to the Tibetan view that eyes open activates the channels, helps facilitate the pranas entering the central channel and the realisation of rigpa. I used to say that there is no comparison - open is the way to go. Now I am not so sure. I'd be interested in your take!

Adam. Edited for additional paragraph.

Night sitting practice:

- 30min noting mental states. The more we do it the easier it gets. Amazing to see how many mental states arise during a few seconds. The most interesting thing is however the interaction between physical sensations and mental states, especially in relation with various areas within the body that tend to trigger a specific set of mental states, and vice versa.

15 min - Just sitting (Shikantaza) Zazen with open eyes. After less than 10 min something clicks and everything becomes hyper-real and totally objective in the sense that all subjective feelings, emotions and thoughts have become part of the objective world. Once it clicked, remaining in it requires minimal concentration. This is I guess what they call a PCE. And yes, this is the state in why I ran very often in my early hardcore Zen years, especially during intensive retreats. One of the ways to trigger it is to focus on the objective world ignoring all subjective mental impressions. We can therefore understand how a materialistic philosophy may be instrumental to trigger it, but the state itself (once triggered) is a non-dual state of pure consciousness (hence the expression *pure consciousness experience*).

@Adam - closed eyes is better for Vipassana, in order to get a better focus on the arising and passing away of subtle phenomena. But for Shikantaza the eyes must be open since the attention must be broad as possible. The advantage is also that being used to medicate with open eyes allows us to find the same state, standing, walking or working, to gradually extend it to everyday life.

I remember that Kenneth once asked me how people like some of us who almost never attend retreats have been able to master this stuff. I told him that when you have a full-time job and a family to take care of, you have no other choice but to extend your practice to everyday life at an early stage. Progress may not be as fast and intense, but getting back to the busy "real" world is much easier. I bet is has always been your experience.

I mention Robert Bruce's "NEW" method to energize the energy body earlier. Since you used to work with him, you could tell us more about the benefit of the method. I realize that it became part of my life and that I do it unconsciousness when I relax on a couch or in bed before sleep. While learning to access the Jhanas with Kenneth something clicked and, since then, I have become able to trigger kundalini experiences using a simplified form of Tummo yoga.

Hi Alex,

I've only had 2 full-blown PCE's that lasted 3 hours and the other about 20 hours. All other experiences that resembled the PCE were probably high end EE's (an affective equivalent) which had very subtle, hard-to-see neutral affect to it, so was not the real deal. I believe that the many times I said I was experiencing the PCE, I was in fact just experiencing subltey affective close as you can get without it being the real deal glimpses.

Quite a few yogis I have talked with say they only had one or two full-blown real deal PCEs max before AF. I think these days, the PCE as a term is quite overused and often misused.

Fullblown PCE in my experience: Absolutely no sense of agency, no sense of "me"-ness, no inner world, no sense of presence at all, no sense of subject/object, no sense of "being", no sense of "being" anything, no sense of wow factor, no sense of self in any form or process, no sense of affective emotion in any form, no affective compassion, joy, equanimity, nor love. However, their affectless versions may be recognized. Only objects coming in contact with the sense doors.

All the arupa jhanas have specific aspects (space, boundless consciousness, no-thingness, signlessness) which if one contemplates and sees in real time as actual aspects of the structure of how the mind perceives the world, and if taken all together at once, this may trigger a PCE, as all of these aspects are present in a PCE, just without any "me"-ness/sense of presence/being attached.

The fullblown ones are the ones that change you.

Here is a part of a conversation I had with and AFer:

me: there are different degrees of PCE for me it seems, some bordering very close to EE and the sense that "being" is on the sidelines ready for the chance to jump up and other times, that sense is not even there and there is no interruptions for a long period, I like those PCEs, the ones that arent interrupted

AFer: yeah, those are nice, i think maybe only calling that the pce is a good idea although i know just what you mean by those differences and that sort of grading of them, perfection can never be relative to itself ... there is only one perfect

me: yeh, those bordering ones are probably more EEs than PCE but they seem to be like slipping in and out of a PCE and not knowing if one is in EE or PCE.

AFer: ah, i only had a few of the stable kind, the kind that seems unshakably perfect

me: me too, they are rarer, good to know, so the majority were the later? kind of in and out?

AFer: yeah, i did not call them pce's though, just a higher grade of ee. i decided early on that since that unshakable variety of pce was the end goal, i should not call anything else a pce but that

me: right, maybe I should do the same

@Nikolai - Very interesting. Thank you for correcting me, Nikolai.

I had assumed that it was a kind of PCE, because it did match Richard's description of a PCE in his article on 'Apperception vs Choiceless Awareness' , where he also states that PCEs are commonly experienced by mystics and meditators form various religious traditions (and therefore not so unique as such), it seems that what I have experienced tonight shares similarities but is clearly not the full flown bona fide PCE.

So what should I call it? An EE I guess? What does EE stand for by the way? (guess I have been away for too long and missed some of the new jargon ).

I'm not saying that what you experienced was not the PCE. I don't follow so much Richard's take on things, so can't really comment on what he says. I think it's probably a good thing to keep in mind that the PCE, the full blown one that all the AFers I've talked with seem to have only had one or two of them in between starting AF practice (or not) and AF, is rare.

I lean more these days towards the speculative view that they are significant fetter path moments as talked of by Ayya Khema. But that could be argued against. If one keeps in mind that a fullblown ones are rare, then one may not rest laurels on what one thinks is the real deal, when the real deal seems to be the big convincer for many of those considering AF as a goal. Why is this?

The real deal one, in my own experience, showed very clearly the arising and cessation of suffering as I saw it. Thus it left no doubt in my mind the route I wished to take.

An EE (Excellent experience) is the closest one can get to a PCE with the sense of "being"/sense of "me"-ness/sense of inner world/sense of presence/sense of location/ flow of sankhara still present on a very, very subtle refined level. It can be a tricky thing to say if it is a PCE or an EE. If there is confusion as to whether any of the sense of presence etc is there, then it probably is a high grade EE. The full blown ones had a stability to them that they could be investigated easily without being interrupted by the flow of "being"/becoming.

Here's something I wish I'd kept in mind when wondering if it was PCE or not.

"Furthermore, there is the case where a monk might say, 'Although "I am" is gone, and I do not assume that "I am this," still the arrow of uncertainty & perplexity keeps overpowering my mind.' He should be told, 'Don't say that. You shouldn't speak in that way. Don't misrepresent the Blessed One, for it's not right to misrepresent the Blessed One, and the Blessed One wouldn't say that. It's impossible, there is no way that '” when "I am" is gone, and "I am this" is not assumed '” the arrow of uncertainty & perplexity would keep overpowering the mind. That possibility doesn't exist, for this is the escape from the arrow of uncertainty & perplexity: the uprooting of the conceit, "I am."'

www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an06/an06.013.than.html

Thought I'd chip in here too to support Nick's comments about the difference between a high grade EE and a full-blown PCE, what Alex describes is familiar to me too and I, until a proper PCE soon changed my tune, also thought that this was what a PCE was! Someone had even sent me a message a while back asking how to I went about getting into "PCE Mode" and part of my advice to them was to focus on the objective field while ignoring any subjective (mental) impressions so I think it's fair to say that what Alex is describing is, at least, very similar to what I thought was the real-deal.

Great to see you posting again, Alex.

Hi Nikolai and Tommy!

Tommy: "focus on the objective field while ignoring any subjective (mental) impressions". Thanks guys, for this. This is very clear and rather simple practice advice, with I appreciate very much. That kind of practice is quite similar to a strong open-eyed shamatha as practiced in some forms of Shikantaza and Dzogchen / Bon. Very cool to see the cross tradition commonalities.

Can either of you guys point me to some well written, high level AF materials, that speak specifically to the above form of practice you two have described and the resulting PCE?

Thanks,

Adam.

Hi Adam,

I don't really follow the AF trust and their articles, having only read a few so don't know if there is any "high level material" on this tecnhique. I believe the technique that Tommy is describing seems to match the technique of "grooving on the senses" or "tripping" as described by Daniel Ingram here:

www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discu...oards/message/600967

Edited to add: This article relates to the above practice mentioned by Tommy as it leads to apperception. actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/at...apperceptiveness.htm

And the practice I did in the jhanas was also the same, although the subjective mental impressions (sense of "being") weren't ignored but juxtaposed with and mashed up on purpose against actual aspects in the field of experience to eventually drop away. A fullblown PCE resulted, as did other stuff.

thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2011/07/...ualizing-jhanas.html

Nice! Very helpful. I will check them out.

Thanks,

Adam.

@Nikolai & Tommy: thank you for your very interesting comments.

As a matter of fact, I just started remaining in Direct Mode a few days ago as an experiment. To my surprise, I have to confess that beside a ongoing feeling of peace, equanimity, joy and happiness, gross unwholesome emotions have ceased to arise since I started this thread. Subtle unwholesome mental states still arise, but do not seem to get associated with other thoughts and sensations long enough to be felt and acted out as anger, fear, ill will, anxiety, etc.

Then EEs are starting to manifest at various degrees during as well as outside formal sitting practice.Following your advice, I will keep the term PCE for the real full blown event that I haven't experienced yet.

My conclusion so far is that:

- is does work as advertised, faster than expected;
- it does NOT turn you into a dry fish - on the contrary I note that I have been able to bring joy and reconciliation amongst family members, listening to their worries with full attention, while remaining in a state of joyful equanimity;
- it does promote a gradual fading away of the sense of self, through recurring EE experiences (I have yet to experience a full blown PCE, but trust that, since the other events did take place as they were supposed to, I have no reason to doubt the possibility of a full PCE as described by very advanced practitioners).
- I am also getting convinced that all this is perfectly compatible with all schools of Theravada, Mahyana or Vajrayana Buddhism, even if interpreted through a different philosophical paradigm.
- I am also convinced that this is precisely what the Catholic mystic Bernadette Roberts has been experiencing, leading to what she has called "the experience of No-Self".

Here is what seems to be the best way to trigger it (from Daniel Ingram's description):

"Turn into the sensuous nature of this moment, "tripping" on the textures and qualities of the visual field, the auditory field, the contact of anything with the skin, in an open, really engaged way that attempts to lose one's self in the beauty and perfection and satisfying simplicity of just this in the most profound and yet direct way. This really is the advice to stop and smell the roses taken to the highest degree one is capable of. This is the most pleasant of the ways in".

It should be said that for AF to occur, not many fullblown PCEs need to be had. One or two max it seems. The memory of that perfection is what fuels the pure intent to be happy and harmless, to refine the flow of sankhara in the constant direction of felicity and to continuously move the base line experience to EE territory where the sense of subject/being/presence/location starts to thin out and move towards dissapearing for good (self-immolation as talked of at the AF trust website.) Thus the often instructed "stay as close as possible to the PCE" and remove all blocks that hinder this instruction (dismantling the social identity-blocks and cultivating felicity)

The jhana approach linked above does the same thing and relates quite well to the pali canon sutta instructions.

"It has a quality of non-being. This is such a relief and changes one's world view so totally that it is quite understandable that the Buddha made such a distinction between a worldling and a Noble One. While the meditative absorptions bring with them a feeling of oneness, of unity, the path moment does not even contain that. The moment of fruition, subsequent to the path moment, is the understood experience and results in a turned-around vision of existence."

"The new understanding recognizes every thought, every feeling as stress (dukkha). The most elevated thought, the most sublime feeling still has this quality. Only when there is nothing, is there no stress. There is nothing internal or external that contains the quality of total satisfactoriness. Because of such an inner vision, the passion for wanting anything is discarded. All has been seen for what it really is and nothing can give the happiness that arises through the practice of the path and its results."