The Purpose of Practice and its Results - aka, the JLaurelC's Topic

On another topic, JLaurelC said --

"I'm nervous to say anything here because recently I planted a pretty big flag. But I do think clarifying things for newcomers is important. And I've been here a few months, but I'm still new. So I'm following this thread with interest, and I admit not understanding a lot of it.

But I have a question for anyone who might care to answer. My concern is that the PCE sounds like a nice experience, not insight into the way things are. A lot of people practicing AF now were on the insight path before. I'm concerned that just trying to get AF without that training leads - - I don't know where. In other words, I don't just want to make myself feel better, I want to do what one of your participants (Gozen) said on another thread--learn to love, and I am not trying to be sentimental here.

Please don't interpret this as trying to argue. I've gotten into two big arguments on this subject already and I don't want to do that any more. But what I'm saying is I don't just want to be happy and harmless, I want to arrive at insight. So I'm suffering on my path here. And like a lot of people, I want certainty, and I want to know who or what to trust and who or what is snake oil. I want a great big boundary clearly marked. And I know full well that I want this and that it's not possible. But I also know there is bad stuff out there, and it pays to avoid that. So wanting direction isn't entirely wrong-headed. I'll end here."

The edits, the 's, were inserted by me to "genericize" the original post.

Everyone struggles with this question at some point in their practice. In my experience you "do" the practices that you believe will get you to your goal. If you goal is serenity or contentment you will do practices that get you there. If your goal is insight into the nature of the mind you will do practices that will tend to get you there.

Now, at some point all of this becomes sort of moot as insight leads to serenity (or does it?), but in the throes of just starting or continuing a burgeoning practice, how do you make these decisions, and are there right or wrong answers available outside of your own personal preferences and instincts?

Well?

I'll qualify my take on this as being pre-path *but* the major reason I am here is because I believe that developmental progress is real and important. What I mean by that is this:

Whatever you do as a person, whatever you experience, changes your brain in some way - whether it be a small way as in creating a memory or a big way as in clearly and deeply seeing into the nature of reality, etc.
It is my belief that *most* people are not capable of transforming themselves easily with more advanced practices without getting some developmental stuff done - I can recall knowing for years how important being present was, sitting on and off, and *trying* to be present as much as I could be throughout the day for oh, 12 years or so. It did very little good from what I can tell - it wasn't until the last year or so where my concentration started to improve to the point where the mind would actually follow directions that things started to roll, even more so when I started noting. I have a long way to go, but even advanced people have commented that things like direct mode work best when daily concentration is included as a support.
-So its my opinion that concentration and insight unify the mind and clear out space, making it more malleable. Suffering isnt just my main motivation for practice, either - insight is important to me as well.
If I could just do more advanced practices and get results from them I would - but I've tried that and for me it doesnt work. It seems to work until the momentum from my concentration and insight practices wear off, then the mind becomes useless again.

I think also that for me when I read about all the AF stuff, I was still looking for a shortcut, a way to avoid the dark night, but really that didnt get easier until I started looking directly at the dark night stuff, examining the sensation, seeing whether it was pleasant or unpleasant, noticing what the mind was doing at that moment,

and seeing how neither the sensation, the vedana, or the mindstate was 'me', and would come and go.

So - Some people may have the wiring to benefit from doing something advanced from the start, but thats not me - I'm going to take my time and sample the whole array of experiences and learn everything I can along the way.

That doesnt mean I dont try to do mahamudra or see what this PCE thing is all about, just that they arent things that seem very accesible to me right now and so I dont give them as much importance as the building blocks - I would say try everything, and if somehow you have a knack for something then do it, and you can decide how it benefits your practice.

I get the impression that everyone here, no matter how awakened they are, carries with them a whiff of whatever motivation they brought into practice. My conclusion from this is that everything that made up our "relative selves" will keep echoing, even when we are as "liberated" as we can be, and even when we learn to see that those echoes are empty. If we think we can cut the cord that binds us to the lives which we were so unsatisfied with, then we will always find ourselves back in the trap.

If you hoped to escape forever from a painful condition, then that sounds like "a bad thing". But the hopeful part is that if you can keep some comfort (or at least, resignation) toward not knowing, then whatever you are driven to develop, you will continue to develop. If you want to love, love will grow forever.

The term I have been thinking about lately is "Consciousness Design" which would be another way of saying "you get what you optimize for". I too would like greater clarity on the potential design space so that I can know what end results are available. I believe that the plasticity of neurons is almost unlimited and if you use the knowledge that "neurons that fire together, wire together" you can train this nervous system to accomplish almost anything.

As a very simple example, for about one month, every time I would go for a walk and I would find joy in my experience, I would touch my thumb and forefinger together - intentionally firing the neurons associated with touching gesture so that they were firing with the neurons associated with joy. I essentially trained my nervous system to lock in that neuronal connection. Now, whenever I intentionally touch my thumb and forefinger together, I instantly have a strong feeling of joy and I spontaneously smile. This is very real.

I think the same thing is true for habits of love and gratitude and the whole thing seems to me to be orthogonal to awakening.

It would also be great to have a map of pitfalls along this road. Ones that immediately come up for me is that it makes zero sense to tie neurons to concepts. For example, 'I love democracy, or I love veganism". It also makes little sense to tie more neurons to a sense of self - we've already been doing that our whole lives and as that process unwinds, any work being done to create more connections will be counterproductive.