Gary's Practice Journal

Hi all. I'll start off with these three posts to Nick, split off from Owen's Practice Journal.

Hi Nick,
While I find the apperceptiveness piece evocative, I still have problems putting it into practice EXACTLY as written.
If I edited out the parts that contradict 3rd gear practice, I would have an excellent guide to 3rd gear practice. But instead I have the impression that 90+% of the piece leads me directly into 3rd gear practice, while the rest of it, contrary-wise, leads me away from third gear.
The contrary portions include
1) "there is neither tolerance nor intolerance '“ with no acceptance or prejudice." Since tolerance, and especially acceptance equate with surrender, then Richard has ruled out surrender and third gear as a practice for AF.

2) "Apperceptiveness is the immediate sensitive discernment of whatever is happening without the medium of feeling '“ it comes before the feeling-tones in the perceptual process". To me, the practice of surrender, and Kenneth's lightning rod practice of grounding thoughts, proto-thoughts, and emotions etc. happens through opening to, and accepting, the feeling tones underlying those manifestations. Although grounding keeps me very present-moment oriented, it also takes my focus into feeling the energy of beingness. That internal focus on the energy of beingness, from my understanding, leads away from the PCE.

Since I have a tendency and affiliation for third gear, I go into third gear easily, and thus, I get no PCE. I can also from that state "groove" on something detailed and beautiful, but still no PCE.
Gary

Responding to Nick's query, I describe my experience of third gear-

Hi Nick.
OK. I hope doesn't bother Owen.
I can feel my whole body, but I mostly feel a radiant inner core. The inner core starts at the crown of my head, down behind my eyes and nose, in my mouth, tongue, through my throat, through my chest, to just under the rib cage, into the top of my abdomen. My abdomen feels relaxed, and I take shallow abdominal breaths in a relaxed pace, like sleep breathing. I feel my heartbeat in my chest.
I feel the self consciousness of doing this has amplified my self sense. That radiant core feels like a core tension of self identity, that if I could relax it, would merge with surrounding space. The rest of my body, my hands and feet, for example, feel more neutral and congruent with surrounding space.
The radiant core of ME has a pleasant tone. I feel very good. I feel a pouring of equanimity into that space of ME. It pours from here to here. If I look away from the screen for a bit, the radiant core expands more, filling more of my body. I feel peaceful, relaxed, warm, and radiating energy.... my eyes have a soft open focus.
The effortless pouring, or giving, and radiating, of this energy, of myself, continues. Still, I have a sense of a surrounding space outside of my body. If the core energy or tension of me disappeared, only this immaculate space would remain.
Gary

After I shut the computer down and relaxed more, the radiance expanded to fill my whole body, then the surrounding space as well. Discriminating inside and outside mostly went away. (lying down now with eyes closed)
All one fullness, radiance everywhere.
Nice.

Hi Gary,

Does that 'inner radiant core' give off a felt sense of 'presence' or 'location' of any degree? Have you tried just staring at the felt sense of self/tension/radiant core with the view that it will eventually drop all by itself, without any hint of 'you' wanting it to drop away?

That definitely does not sound like a PCE/apperception, but IMO, just the manifesting of of sense of 'being/self in a more refined form. Try watching the 'radiant inner core' without attaching any importance to it. See it as just another manifestation of refined 'self'. Although peaceful and calm, see what happens when you just watch with the expectation in the forefront of the mind that it will eventually drop away when no importance is given to it. See what happens when it is allowed to drop away (via not identifying it as important and allowing its annica characteristic to become blazingly clear). What happens when it does drop away? You may have hinted at it when talking of 'immaculate space'. Is there still a felt sense of presence or location in said space?

Nick

"Hi Gary,

Does that 'inner radiant core' give off a felt sense of 'presence' or 'location' of any degree? Have you tried just staring at the felt sense of self/tension/radiant core with the view that it will eventually drop all by itself, without any hint of 'you' wanting it to drop away?


"

To answer your first question- No. No presence except my own. No location other than in my body as described, then expanding out into surrounding space later, when the sense of inside and outside diminished, and the sense of me expanded into surrounding space.
Second question_ Yes I have! Wait, not exactly. I can answer yes to the first part of the question. I have spent months of regular meditation time watching the felt sense of me. Most of that time the sense of me concentrated in my head. Watching the watcher. Second gear, right? I gave it up after hitting my head against that wall and getting nowhere. Then my own teacher told me to observe it also, (in this context, the physical sense of being that I described in the core of my body) and he also told me that it would eventually disappear. So I observed the physical infrastructure of being-sense. It just stayed and stayed. The last time I tried it, I even got a headache, as if I went cross eyed from two much looking within.
But I have not done it in the sense of the second part of your question: "without any hint of 'you' wanting it to drop away". Because I would love for that to drop away. I WANT it. I CRAVE it. You know. So maybe that explains why it doesn't disappear. I don't know if I can watch it without wanting it to drop away. Worth a try though, I guess.
(cont)

Nick says-"Try watching the 'radiant inner core' without attaching any importance to it."
I see it as an obstruction residing in immaculate space. I don't know how NOT to attach importance to it.
Nick says-"See it as just another manifestation of refined 'self'."
I do! Ha! at least I do something right.
Nick says- "Although peaceful and calm, see what happens when you just watch with the expectation in the forefront of the mind that it will eventually drop away when no importance is given to it. See what happens when it is allowed to drop away (via not identifying it as important and allowing its annica characteristic to become blazingly clear). What happens when it does drop away?"

I get that I really have to drop the IMPORTANCE part.

Nick-"You may have hinted at it when talking of 'immaculate space'. Is there still a felt sense of presence or location in said space?"

No location other than outside my personal sense of being. I sense no presence other than my own. My phrase "immaculate space" aligns in my view with Kenneth's "Mahamudra". It has no quality of presence. It only has the strong quality of no quality. It seems more real than internal space, because no obstructions exist in immaculate space. It seems denser than internal space, because no room exists in it for sensation or perception. I can only describe it in CONTRAST to that which manifests because immaculate space does not manifest in any perceivable way, for me, other than as space.

Hi Gary,

So there is a felt sense of presence that indicates 'you' being there? And when the sense of self expands is it still feeling like 'you' are there but now one with space or 'you' are space?

Try observing just the mental aspect of 'being'. Forget the physical for a moment. And just stare at/be attentive to the mental sense of 'being'/me-ness. Watch for when it drops away.

In my own experience, the 'wanting' and 'craving' was the very same felt sense of 'being'. Have you considered the notion that 'I' (the sense of being) am my (affective) feelings and my feelings are 'me'? To crave non-existence (as a felt sense of 'being') is only re-enforcing that existence and continued arising of being. One of the Buddha's view of wrong direction. Craving for non-becoming/non-being. The other is craving for becoming.

Edit: the felt sense of your own being is the 'presence' and sense of location I am pointing to. there is no presence even of one's self in a PCE.

Hi Nick,
to continue,

N-So there is a felt sense of presence that indicates 'you' being there? And when the sense of self expands is it still feeling like 'you' are there but now one with space or 'you' are space?

G-Yes, I see what you mean now. I feel the sense of me as a presence. Me being here. And when I expand into space I am space. Nothing isn't me.

N-Try observing just the mental aspect of 'being'. Forget the physical for a moment. And just stare at/be attentive to the mental sense of 'being'/me-ness. Watch for when it drops away.

G- By mental do you mean observe the thinking, emotions, and images that arise in mental space? Or the sense of me residing inside my head, i.e. the hearer of sounds, the feeler of feelings, the thinker of thoughts etc. Because that is both a mental and a physical sense to me. I feel the physical sense of me residing in my head.

N-In my own experience, the 'wanting' and 'craving' was the very same felt sense of 'being'. Have you considered the notion that 'I' (the sense of being) am my (affective) feelings and my feelings are 'me'?

G-Yes I have. I used to do that Advaita inquiry where you go- I observe my chair, I am not my chair. I observe my foot, I am not my foot. I observe my breathing, I am not my breathing. And I agreed with these up until I observe my sense of being in my head. Then I think I observe my sense of being and I AM my sense of being. So yes, I can also consider that I observe my feeling and I am my feelings at the same time.
(cont)

N-To crave non-existence (as a felt sense of 'being') is only re-enforcing that existence and continued arising of being. One of the Buddha's wrong directions. Craving for non-becoming/non-being. The other is craving for becoming.

G- I don't think Buddha got it wrong, if you go back to the original suttas. The interpreters and translators got it wrong. A very important point, and one I just found out about very recently.
Gary

Hi Gary,

I may have made a typo. I meant to convey that the Buddha talked of two wrong directions. Those I mentioned. He said they were wrong. See Thanissaro's excellent The Paradox of Becoming. The Buddha's way bypasses those two wrong directions IMO.

"

G- By mental do you mean observe the thinking, emotions, and images that arise in mental space? Or the sense of me residing inside my head, i.e. the hearer of sounds, the feeler of feelings, the thinker of thoughts etc. Because that is both a mental and a physical sense to me. I feel the physical sense of me residing in my head.

"

I would just ignore the physical sensations that seemed to support the mental sense, and stare at the mentally 'felt' sense of being. You might have to experiment yourself. You could focus and identify the phsycial part as being, but it really isn't. It is the mental sense that overlays the physical sensations that is the felt sense of 'being'. Focus on that. See what happens when you decide to see those sensations in the body as just sensations rather than have anything to do with 'being'. What happens to the felt sense of being then?

Tricky stuff. But I look at the sensations as raw data without my interpretation of it as the physical foundation of self identity. Right?
So I put some time into it and I noticed the sensations getting stronger and stronger. Mostly in my head with a corresponding loud ringing in my ears which happens frequently for me. A kind of momentum built up, and it did not require effort to focus, I just rode the sensations.
It went on and on like that for a long time, then my attention suddenly shifted. I think I had my eyes open, but I had so much attention directed at these sensations that I don't know for sure. I sat in an almost pitch dark room with only a little light coming through one edge of a window blind 10 feet in front of me. My attention shifted completely from my sensations of "being" inside to the window light. Not beautiful or detailed but suddenly I found it very compelling. I noticed very strongly the space in the room and the distance between me and that little light. After a short time of this, (seconds, I think), I thought: is this a PCE? What happened to my self sense ? (I still think in those terms) I had to turn my attention back within and look. I found it, but it had greatly thinned out from the earlier highly magnified state.

"Tricky stuff. But I look at the sensations as raw data without my interpretation of it as the physical foundation of self identity. Right?

So I put some time into it and I noticed the sensations getting stronger and stronger. Mostly in my head with a corresponding loud ringing in my ears which happens frequently for me. A kind of momentum built up, and it did not require effort to focus, I just rode the sensations.

It went on and on like that for a long time, then my attention suddenly shifted. I think I had my eyes open, but I had so much attention directed at these sensations that I don't know for sure. I sat in an almost pitch dark room with only a little light coming through one edge of a window blind 10 feet in front of me. My attention shifted completely from my sensations of "being" inside to the window light. Not beautiful or detailed but suddenly I found it very compelling. I noticed very strongly the space in the room and the distance between me and that little light. After a short time of this, (seconds, I think), I thought: is this a PCE? What happened to my self sense ? (I still think in those terms) I had to turn my attention back within and look. I found it, but it had greatly thinned out from the earlier highly magnified state.
"

Hi Gary,

Right. Keep experimenting in that direction and share what happens in this thread. What happens when you ask 'How Am I Experiencing This Moment Of Being Alive (HAIETMOBA)? Where does the mind's attention fall when you ask this question a number of times a minute? This link might help:

nickdowntherabbithole.blogspot.com/2011/...-conversation-6.html
Nick

Hi Nick-

I've had a heavy workload period, so here comes a few days report all at once

I spent 4 hours in meditation Saturday. Mostly focused on the physical senses, and primarily on what I keep thinking of as the felt core of being. I need to think of another name for it that represents the raw data and not my interpretation. It feels like a bundle of energy tubules, especially when it "thinned out" for a while, when it felt like 80% of the tubules had disappeared. (see above) So this bundle has taken front and center stage in my consciousness, and it took up the bulk of my meditation time. I stayed very focused, and I did not notice the bundle diminish like it did before.For a while, I experienced a period of wonder over a very ordinary optical illusion, which took my awareness out from the bundle. As I stared out one pane of a bay window, I noticed the scene outside shifting back and forth in relation to the pane, with minute movements of my head. I've noticed this illusion with larger movements, but it seemed slightly surreal, and very compelling, to observe it as I sat very still.
This core bundle- at times it felt pleasant, like an internal energy circuit from my abdomen up through my mouth and tongue, up to the top of my head. But the fact that it persisted and grew in strength annoyed me. At the end of my meditation I took a cold shower, and it felt so relieving as the focus of my sensations spread out to the surface of my skin. Although I would normally judge this meditation session as very deep and "productive" because of the depth and concentration, I can also consider that the driven quality of it may not lead me toward a PCE.

Perhaps for this reason you have recommended the HAITMOBA. Asking this question: How am I experiencing this moment of being alive? has a salutary effect on me in these five ways:
(cont)

Perhaps for this reason you have recommended the HAITMOBA. Asking this question: How am I experiencing this moment of being alive? has a salutary effect on me in these five ways:
1) It reduces driven-ness, and nudges me toward relaxation. Asking the question gives me permission to feel exactly what I feel in the moment, this relaxes that craving or tension of wanting to make things different or better.
2) It has an expansive effect. When I ask myself the question at random, I usually find my self thinking about something. Most of my consciousness and focus resides in that thought stream in that moment. The question opens my awareness into the wider view of how I am experiencing this moment of being alive. Not only the thought stream but the physicality of the moment. No judgment implied, as in "Oh I've gone into future speculation when I should have my attention on the present moment." The question nudges you into the present moment without the SHOULD. When I ask this question during my meditation time, My awareness expands from my core bundle to more of my physical sensations out from that core to my whole body, and into my physical environment.
3) It nudges me toward equanimity, due to the relaxation/allowing factor, and dropping the judgment or the SHOULD. Remember Hey Jude? "The movement you need is on your SHOULDers."

(cont)

4) It redirects my attention to the present moment. Obviously.
I noticed in your blog you write the question thus: How am I experiencing this VERY moment of being alive? (emphasis mine) . This changes the results slightly for me. When I ask it as unmodified HAIETMOBA, I sometimes go "I was just thinking about this or that", so I have already reached back from this very present moment to a second or two ago. Whereas when I ask it as HAIET-V-MOBA, I don't go back into the previous thought, because the question has entered my present thought stream. So I experience the question AS my present thought stream, along with the more panoramic based physical awareness that the question evokes in me. I wonder then, if you wrote it that way for a specific purpose or just casually.
5) It redirects my attention to the raw data of sensory input, rather than interpretation or thinking about...

you said: What happens when you ask 'How Am I Experiencing This Moment Of Being Alive (HAIETMOBA)? Where does the mind's attention fall when you ask this question a number of times a minute?

This deceptively simple question has subtle and profound effects. A plain spoken tool for my Buddhist toolkit. As far as I can tell, I have not stepped off the path of Buddhism. In fact, I see this as Buddhism 101. Not that you would find Buddhism 101 commonly taught.
As a POSSIBLE result of this meditative practice I have undertaken plus asking the question randomly, I feel lighter and happier during my day. Also during a very long meditation, I did not go into my spacey one-ness with everything mode. Just a change I noticed. I consider it possible that this investigation curbs my tendency for zoning out into unity. But perhaps I can ascribe it to a temporary infatuation with the novelty of a different method.
(cont)

Yesterday while walking, I asked the question at short intervals. I found I could set the question in mind like setting cruise control in my car. To hold it in mind as an ongoing inquiry, without having to verbalize the question. So I would have a run of good feeling, and moment by moment present awareness, like setting the cruise control on GROOVE.

To answer you second question more directly, my mind's attention falls somewhat to my core energy bundle ( do you have a better word for it? I have not learned all the jargon floating around here yet) but also to more of my physical body and my environment. Asking it frequently during physical activity, my attention goes more to the surface of my body and outward ....


I find I can ask this question then hold it in mind, as I attend to the energy trunk, (it does not feel like separate energy tubules but like a tree trunk of energy) as if the energy trunk itself held the question. If I let awareness rest on that, then I feel more OK. This feeling comes in handy in those "in between" times, like waiting at a stop light.
I read a book once called "How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life". As part of his plan the author proposed that you should ask the following question as often as you think about it: What is the best use of my time right now?
The HAITMOBA stands as the polar opposite to that question. It pulls me out of that time-based anxiety. So instead of feeling anxious when 'wasting time' in a traffic jam or waiting in a slow checkout line at a store, I can check in (Ha- check in while checking out) with my core energy trunk being bundle thingamajig. I feel more relaxed and peaceful then.
(cont)

Today waking up I notice that self sense energy trunk front and center. I wonder if I have done something that makes it so obvious to me now, and so easy to lock in on. I remember doing 2nd gear type practice years ago and getting frustrated because it led nowhere for me. Then recently when my own primarily Buddhist teacher told me to observe the physical sense of self and it would eventually disappear. Again I got nowhere, and the last time I tried it I got a headache. Now I can work with it, and it feels like a subtly different investigation. It feels pleasant, to me, (the physical sensations themselves) for one thing, and I enjoy the process of observing it. I feel optimistic about this. I try to identify what makes the difference, and I can only see one thing so far: the lack, or reduction in craving as I investigate.

Gary

Brilliant! Forget about triggering a PCE and just focus on bringing the mind back to the moment with this pointer continuously and it will all naturally result without even thinking about it. This will take one naturally into PCE/EE territory and thin out the sense of 'me-ness'. Attending to the senses will become easier and more natural and automatic. This will then snowball and unpleasant affect will decrease in strength and positive feelings of wellbeing will increase. Here, one is refining the flow of becoming. From a highly refined flow of becoming, discernment increases and release is just around the corner.

Use the extra 'very' in HAIETMOBA only if it works for you to see the very moment of contact of a sense object with its corresponding sense door. Whether it be a physically felt ''energy core' or the touch of the wind on the skin, or the blue sky in the eyesight, or the birds chirping at the entrance of the ear, or the taste of saliva on the tongue. If it leads to this very point of contact then keep doing it. If it leads one to mentally proliferate, drop it.

Nice one!

Nick

" Here, one is refining the flow of becoming. From a highly refined flow of becoming, discernment increases and release is just around the corner.

"

Thanks, Nick!
Everything in your post makes perfect sense to me except this one quote. Would you explain what you mean by "the flow of becoming" and how refining it leads to increasing discernment?
I like the phrase, "refining the flow of becoming". I would just like to have a better sense of what it refers to.
Do you mean that felt energy core, and sense of "me-ness" I talked about?
And by discernment, do you mean discerning between that which feels like a "me" inhabiting this body and the actual "raw data" entering the sense gates? (birds chirping, wind on skin, energy vibration in chest, etc.)?
Gary

By 'flow of becoming' I mean any felt sense of self/being/presence/location in the world/inner world/me-ness/affect (who is affected?). The push and pull of mind states. The tug of war of craving and aversion, no matter how subtle and refined. The incessant bounce of attention due to the instinctual passions and blind ignorance od all the above. The flow of becoming is what flows when apperceptive awareness has not taken hold, all in my own opinion and experience of course.

For a more in depth explanation of 'becoming' and its refinement in order to eventually dismantle and end its flow, I must recommend Thanissaro's excellent The Paradox Of Becoming:

www.dhammatalks.org/Archive/Writings/TheParadoxOfBecoming.pdf

Nick

"
1. Do you mean that felt energy core, and sense of "me-ness" I talked about?
2. And by discernment, do you mean discerning between that which feels like a "me" inhabiting this body and the actual "raw data" entering the sense gates? (birds chirping, wind on skin, energy vibration in chest, etc.)?
Gary"

1. Yes.

2. By discernment I mean seeing in real time what is going on. Seeing the point of contact of a sense object and its corresponding sense door. Seeing what happens when the sequence of dependent origination is allowed to continue, the arising of sankharic mental movements that give off a feeling of existing/being due to the ignorant habitual reactive craving and aversion patterns towards arising vedana.

What happens to the sequence of dependent origination when rather than ignorantly allowing the mental proliferation and arising of 'me' (flow of becoming) to spin off from the point of contact (sense doors/sense objects), one pays attention to the point of contact exclusively? HAIETMOBA takes one back to that point of contact so that one can see what is happening. It cuts at the root. The sequence of DO is momentarily interrupted. Freedom replaces bondage. The mind begins to change. The flow of becoming, the flow of the hinderances, is tamed and refined. It then becomes easier to discern more subtle stuff. A wonderful feedback loop, the more that is discerned, the more the flow of becoming is refined until one sees through and drops it all.

What is being, what is actual? Why does a sense of 'me-ness' arise? What ceases it? What causes it to arise? What causes it to drop away? What are the causes? What are the effects? The arising and cessation of suffering is discerned. All of this is via refining the flow of becoming and discernment. Via refinement practices and vipassana (vi=intensifier/passana from passati=to see).

Helpful?

"
Helpful?"

I see! said the blind carpenter, as he picked up his hammer and saw.

Helpful?

I think so. It helps me to at least have a general understanding of where this practice will take me.
I've started to read "The Paradox of Becoming"

My core sense of being feels amplified yesterday and today. I sat on my meditation cushion just now and my focus goes right to that core sense of being. It takes no effort. I get off my cushion and sit on the couch and nothing changes, so I just sit there, still immersed in this meditative state. I ask the HAIETMOBA several time but nothing substantially different registers. I hear the clock ticking. I feel the pressure of the couch on my legs and butt. I see hazily in front of me. This core sense of being now has a momentum that takes me away from my physical senses, into a familiar state of spacey consciousness. I wonder if I can sit in front of the computer and type a report in this state. I sit here in front of my computer utterly relaxed into my sense of being. The HAIETMOBA does not make a dent in this because my core of being IS how I am experiencing this moment of being alive. I've gone off track, I think. Did I forget something? Am I stupid?
I feel spacey yet still contained, and all this feeling still resides in my body. I have not gone into complete unity, but still... no thinning out, only a magnified sense of being.
I just stepped outside to let the dog out. The cold air on my skin, and the sound of distant traffic draws me back to my senses. I think I'll go back outside for a while.

Bad Poetry Corner

Listening
in the evening,
to the breezes,
running through all
the treeses,
reminds me
some,
of Jesus.

Hi Nick,
What one focuses on tends to expand in consciousness. How does one focus on the flow of becoming without expanding the flow of becoming?

I practiced in movement yesterday because I had to get some clean up projects done. Activity, and vigorous exercise, disperses that core sense of being for me, or grounds it in wider set of physical feelings.
Later I sat outside, (late in the evening), listening to crickets, my favorite meditation sound.
Moving my attention from the flow of becoming to the other sensations arising (hearing, seeing, feeling) I start to contemplate a relationship between the two.
I notice that I don't hear things at my ear or see images as they simply strike my eye. I don't, as you put it, see "the point of contact of a sense object and its corresponding sense door."

I hear with the flow of becoming, I see with the flow of becoming. I feel with the flow of becoming.
Noticing that relationship tends to contain the expansion of the flow of becoming for me. It still feels greatly magnified, but it does not overtake the physical sense field. It participates in the physical sense field.
This does not make it 'thin out', as it did before for me, but it does make into an interesting inquiry, rather than a problem and an irritant.
Gary