Gary's Practice Journal

Questions-
Does hunger have an unpleasant feeling tone to you? It does for me. I have had little successes with changing it to pleasant, but I would rather just eat.
Does the flow of becoming actually have a pleasant feeling tone, or have I just imagined it that way? I don't know why I should feel the ROOT of all my SUFFERING as a group of pleasant sensations in my chest and head.

Gary

"Questions-
1. Does hunger have an unpleasant feeling tone to you? It does for me. I have had little successes with changing it to pleasant, but I would rather just eat.

2.Does the flow of becoming actually have a pleasant feeling tone, or have I just imagined it that way? I don't know why I should feel the ROOT of all my SUFFERING as a group of pleasant sensations in my chest and head.

Gary"

1. It may or may not. It may for you. Best to eat. But if one is 'overeating' more than one actually needs to fill one's stomach, then perhaps the vedana that is being reacted to should be investigated.

2. The flow of 'becoming' according to Nick is all of the following: The mentally felt sense of: self / self-obsessing chatter / being / the weird arse post af shadow being/ presence / location in the world / subject to objects / duality / inner world / me-ness / instinctual passions / any affectively felt mind state / moods / being of any kind / being the absolute / being one with everything / being one with anything / being connected to everything / being space / being infinite consciousness / being no-thing-ness / being the void / being anything / imagination / the flow of time / existing

All born from subtle and gross craving and clinging leaping from vedana of pleasant, unpleasant and neutral tones. This process when one is ignorant of it all leads to becoming.

Thus a pleasant vedana is not becoming, but just a link in the chain. Observe it with dispassion and discernment and it will eventually drop away not to influence fruther becoming. Or one can utilise it to create a pleasant becoming or mind state like felicity or wellbeing. From this pleasant becoming base, one is able to attend to the senses with a much greater ease and then be able to cut the sequence of becoming at vedana, or even bypassing vedana and seeing bare sensations via apperceptive awareness.

" I don't know why I should feel the ROOT of all my SUFFERING as a group of pleasant sensations in my chest and head.
"

Khandha Samyutta No. 117

It was said that one should know the feelings, their conditioned origin, their diversity, their outcome, their cessation, and the way to their cessation. Why was this said?
What are the feelings? These three: pleasant, painful, and neither-painful-nor-pleasant.

What is the conditioned origin of these feelings? Sense-impression is the conditioned origin of the feelings.

What is the diversity in feelings? There are pleasant feelings, worldly and unworldly; there are painful feelings, worldly and unworldly; and there are neutral feelings, worldly and unworldly.

What is the outcome of feelings? It is the personalized existence (attabhava) born of this or that (feeling), be it of a meritorious or demeritorious character, which one who feels causes to arise.

What is the cessation of feelings? It is the cessation of sense impression that is the cessation of feelings.

And it is the noble eightfold path that is the way leading to the cessation of feelings, namely: right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration.

If a noble disciple knows in such way the feelings, their conditioned origin, their diversity, their outcome, their cessation, and the way to their cessation, he will be one who knows this penetrative Holy Life, namely the cessation of feelings.

" Or one can utilise it to create a pleasant becoming or mind state like felicity or wellbeing. From this pleasant becoming base, one is able to attend to the senses with a much greater ease and then be able to cut the sequence of becoming at vedana, or even bypassing vedana and seeing bare sensations via apperceptive awareness.

"

I don't know for certain what felicity means as an AF term, because I don't know the special AF meaning implied, but if it translates as peacefulness and well being, then I think I can follow that direction toward apperceptive awareness.

"

What is the conditioned origin of these feelings? Sense-impression is the conditioned origin of the feelings.


What is the cessation of feelings? It is the cessation of sense impression that is the cessation of feelings.

If a noble disciple knows in such way the feelings, their conditioned origin, their diversity, their outcome, their cessation, and the way to their cessation, he will be one who knows this penetrative Holy Life, namely the cessation of feelings.
"

Another fascinating quote from the discourses of the Buddha, I gather. But what do you think he means by "sense-impression"?

Thanks,
Gary

"I don't know for certain what felicity means as an AF term, because I don't know the special AF meaning implied, but if it translates as peacefulness and well being, then I think I can follow that direction toward apperceptive awareness."

Hi Gary,

Felicity = highly refined sense of wellbeing.

Nick

"Another fascinating quote from the discourses of the Buddha, I gather. But what do you think he means by "sense-impression"?

Thanks,
Gary"

2. Sense-impression

Simile: A skinned cow, wherever she stands, will be ceaselessly attacked by the insects and other creatures living in the vicinity.
Like a skinned cow, man is helplessly exposed to the constant excitation and irritation of the sense-impressions, crowding upon him from all sides, through all six senses.

The Paali word phassa, rendered here by sense-impression, means literally "touch" or "contact." But it is not a physical impact that is meant here, but a mental contact with the objects of all six senses, including the mind. Sense-impression, together with attention (manasikaara), is the mind's first and simplest response to the stimulus exercised by the world of material objects and ideas. According to Buddhist psychology, sense-impression is a constituent factor in each and every state of mind, the lowest and the highest, occurring also in dream and in subliminal states of consciousness.

Sense-impression is a basic nutriment, that is a sustaining condition of life, and what is nourished or conditioned by it are feelings or sensations (vedanaa) which are living on that multitude of constantly occurring sense-impressions and assimilating them as pleasant, unpleasant, or indifferent. This relationship has also a place in the formula of Dependent Origination: "Conditioned by sense-impression is feeling (phassa-paccayaa vedanaa)." As long as there is craving (ta.nhaa) for sense-impressions which arises from unguarded feelings (vedanaa-paccayaa ta.nhaa), there will be an unlimited supply of that foodstuff to be digested by feeling. In an unending stream and in rapid alternation, forms, sounds, smells, flavors, bodily impacts, and ideas impinge upon us as long as we live.

continued...

It is the poignant awareness of that constant bombardment by sense-impressions that induced the Buddha to choose for the sense-impressions the simile of a skinned cow whose raw flesh is the target of swarms of insects that cause intensely painful feelings to the animal. According to the Buddha, any type of feeling is bound to cause suffering and conflict in him who has not yet freed himself from attachment. Painful feeling is suffering in itself; pleasant feeling brings suffering through its transience and its unsatisfying and unsatisfactory nature; worldly indifferent feeling produces suffering through the dullness and boredom involved in it. It is sense-impression that is the constant feeder of these feelings.

www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/nyanaponika/wheel105.html

Hi Nick,
I still did not fully understand the meaning of "sense impression". After reading what you said to Justin in the thread "Insufficient
Conceptual Motivation", post 11, I got more confused. You wrote:

"What is the sense impression that is hitting a sense door to trigger the feeling to arise? A sense impression is the contact of any object with its corresponding sense door."

So what does that mean in the context of that previous quote above in this thread:

"What is the cessation of feelings? It is the cessation of sense impression that is the cessation of feelings."

Putting those two quotes together, the cessation of sense impressions sounds like a complete shut down to me. The cessation of contact with the senses. I guess I'd like to know how sense impression works in the sequence of dependent origination in everyday life terms.

I know you have already left this forum, so I'll check in with you on Skype. Thanks for all your help.
Gary

Feeling some confusion, or too many options regarding my practice, I tried to return to something simple.


This little thing from Mumuwu's Practice Journal caught my interest-

Owen Becker: want to try something fun?

jaysonbyrne: yeah

Owen Becker: look around for a minute
Owen Becker: now, do it again but with the assumption that what you are percieving is "in"

jaysonbyrne: it's doing something weird
jaysonbyrne: finding it very hard to use the mind at all now

Owen Becker: where did what was previously "in" go?

jaysonbyrne: lol - I'm not sure
jaysonbyrne: seeing the world as in made it sort of impossible to go to the other in
jaysonbyrne: if that makes sense

---

I started to play with that and I got a similar result. But I can't just do this casually. It takes a lot of concentration power.


I also returned to HAIETMOBA practice, and I do it in conjunction with my breathing. I've combine breathing awareness with noting, sweeping, gratitude practice, and other things in the past, so it usually works for me. I stripped down the question to give my panoramic awareness more room to expand.
What happens- on the inhale
now? on the exhale.

Later, I just started using
What - (inhaling)
Now? (exhaling)

It has the same effect as asking the full question, although since I just started doing this, I go back to the full question occasionally to see if I note any difference. This simplified question makes it easier for me to bring this focus into my daily activities. And it works very well on the cushion. Working with both of the above practices, I think I had two EE's during the weekend. When I have to ask myself "Is this a PCE?" and "Where is my sense of self?" I know I've gotten really thinned out.

want to try something fun? he asks

Yeah. I do. Kinda funny, I think that my current meditation practice came from this casual conversation quoted on some thread on this internet forum. Where did this originate? I have no idea. Some AF person probably, maybe Owen made it up.

Anyway, it does something for me. I enter a state of concentrated or pressurized equanimity. I observe the "sense of being" in front of me. Even thoughts don't distract me. Thoughts may occur, and I let them occur. They attach to the trunk of being like vines crawl up a physical tree. The vines don't keep me from seeing the tree. I see the vines/tree as one thing.

It does not go anywhere. I just keep seeing that. It does not bother me that it doesn't go anywhere. I feel content with it.
I don't know.

My sitting practice has picked up momentum. I used to do the bare minimum. 10 minutes per day. Period. Now I do a half hour to an hour, when time permits, not out of ambition, but because I enjoy it. I go into the zone within seconds of sitting down. Make the inside the outside. Pressurized equanimity.
"When ordinary equanimity just isn't enough, try pressurized equanimity , today."
In other news, I started tying out another exercise Owen recently wrote about. I considered typing this report for the Hamilton Project, but I have not found out yet how to leave comments there. So I will continue here. Over at the Hamilton Project, (Oct 12) Owen suggests a yogi experiment he calls "The Diet". I'll paste it here ; QUOTE

You know those diets where you can eat anything you like, as long as it's cabbage or bacon or whatever? I'd like to propose a simple yogi experiment along those lines.


"You can think about anything you like, as much as you like, so long as it is about what's happening right now."

The reasons you have for not doing this are the things you need to work on. I find doing this for any length of time cuts the ******** tremendously. Try it for just one hour. I dare you. ENDQUOUTE

I DARE YOU! Ha! I love that he says that. Anyway, this one really floats my boat. I remember talking with my own Buddhist/Vipassana teacher almost exactly one year ago about doing something just like this. Only in my case, I tried to monitor my breath AND my thoughts simultaneously. I found it somewhat doable as I found I could monitor my thoughts, if I corralled them and thought them CONSCIOUSLY instead of unconsciously. I corralled them by confining them to my current perceptions of reality. Not by tagging them via noting, but by naming perceptions or describing them breifly. (cont)

Seeing those french doors. Seeing that water bottle. Hearing that clock ticking. Seeing that red Volvo. Feeliing the pressure of my legs against the floor. This kind of thinking kept me out of narratives about the past or future. My teacher did not see much value in this exercise. In his defense, I did not have a clear goal with it. When Owen suggested it, I began to try working in that weave again, especially since I already have a strong bias In that direction.
I wonder about something. Do you think Buddhist practice and Vipassana has an inherent anti thinking bias? I think plenty of people suppress their thinking. My own practice has had a strong anti-thought bias. And by thought, I mean thinking in words. In my breathing practice, I had to keep dropping narrative thinking and return to my breath. In my noting practice, I would keep out of narrative thinking so I could tag each perception with a label. Both of these kinds of meditation required effort to stay out of narrative thinking.

Not knowing the name of this yogi exercise, I started thinking of it as the fifth foundation of mindfulness. It falls into the category of mindfulness practice, but does not fit in any of the 4 foundational practices, as far as I can tell. Does anyone else do this?
Anyway, the first few times I tried this exercise, I could not do it. I tried it during activity, not during a formal sit. But in trying it again and again, I noticed how complex thoughts (i.e. thoughts relating to present happenings) lead me almost instantly to narrative past/future remembering/speculating. I failed over and over. Then I finally tried it in sitting meditation, OUTSIDE in a rich natural environment. I stayed in it this time, for over an hour, noticing, naming, and describing each SPECIFIC happening. Those clouds, That color of blue/gray. Those distant hills. Those crickets chirping. That frog croaking. Another frog croaking, answering. This blanket. The cool air against my face.

I like this exercise. I can do it now. My fingers moving moving this way and that way, over this keyboard. The appearance of the letters on the white background. The cursor in the corner of my screen, changing colors. The tablecloth. The computer speaker. My dog snorting and wheezing. The clock ticking. My ears ringing. The slight haze and blur of the letters on screen. each thing happening now, and now, and now. Please use each new thing. Please use each new thing.
Where does this take me? What good does this do? I don't know. I really don't see how it "cut's through the ********" as Owen says. It just keeps me set in the present moment, and out future/past scenarios.
I just try ****, man. I feel like a dilettante. I try this and that from Kenneth, this and that from Nick, this and that from Owen. Stop judging me.

Riddle: How much arrogance does it take to change a light bulb?

Against my better judgment and Kenneths advice based on my own judgment, I have begun a strong investigation into 2nd gear.
I think to myself "I've tried this gear three times before, well four if you count the period represented in this journal and up until 3 weeks ago as containing lots of 2nd gear work, and I think it does.

Before when I've done second gear work, I've gotten into a dead end with it, along with a side effect of "Buddhisitc intertia" in my daily life. This time I have been at it for 3 weeks now, and I find it fully engaging with no dead end feeling, and no Buddhistic inertia.

This time however, as I practice noticing the physical infrastructure of the "I AM", that sense of being myself, I also include the feeling of void/yearning/hunger that commonly arises in my abdomen. This seems to make a difference, in that I don't space out on the "I AM" which seems to lead me into one of the jhanas.

Anyway, after floundering around for some months, trying anything hither and yon, I finally found something that has a strong gravitational pull on me, which thus helps my focusing power. I still do mindfulness noting, first gear as my practice in daily life because I can't yet do much second gear + void practice while doing complex activities, but I can still do noting. But I have greatly increased my cushion time, and I only do SG/void while sitting.

Continuing with my investigation of the witness. The void has taken a back seat. I talked with one of my teachers about the void+witness contemplation, and she suggested that in the previous times in which I had done second gear witness contemplation, my problems may have resulted from subtly avoiding the void or suppressing awareness of the void; that I kept running into a dead end with prior investigations because I did not include the void as an essential part of my total awareness. I don't think I buy this model of thinking about the void.
I think when the void does not manifest for me, that does not mean that I have limited my awareness, and that the void continues to lurk below awareness level. I think that I have to participate in the void for it to manifest, and if my attention falls elsewhere, then the void simply does not reside in me at that time.
Currently I don't notice the void much and my awareness keeps centering on 2nd gear witness IN RELATIONSHIP or IN CONTEXT of nearby physical feelings. As I noted in my last post about the void, this process likewise enables me to "avoid" heh heh, the problems of running into a dead end and Buddhistic inertia that I previously encountered in all my previous 2nd gear investigations.
I continue my prolonged sits with great zest and curiosity.