An Exercise -- Freedom and Dependent Co-Dependent Origination

I started this exercise on another thread but it should really have its own, so, please participate if you want, but let's not debate the terminology. Rather, please provide phenomenological descriptions in answer to my question. You can use language that you are comfortable with in your response, but please at least map it to the language below. Much appreciated:

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Let me propose an exercise that anyone can report back on. Assume you are walking along the street one day, just minding your business in a "normal" and calm state. You are suddenly confronted by a friend who proceeds to very angrily accuse you of a very serious but mistaken moral transgression. Let's assume this person thinks you stole their wallet, even though the claim in untrue. What happens "inside"?

*** Can you walk us all through the chain of causation (dependent co-origination) and the process of perception that you used to experience versus that which you now experience, and under this same scenario? ***

This exercise, I think, would be very helpful to many people here. And, for everyone's benefit, here is the dependent co-origination chain, or at least one version of it:

On ignorance depend willful actions.
On willful actions depends relinking consciousness.
On relinking consciousness depend body and mind.
On body and mind depends the functioning of the six senses.
On the functioning of the six senses depends sense experience.
On sense experience depends feeling.
On feeling depends craving.
On craving depends clinging.
On clinging depends becoming.
On becoming depends rebirth.
On rebirth depend old age, death and the continuation of suffering.

Thanks!

This is my take on it. The sequence of dependent origination is not always so linear and there are loops within it continuously playing off of each other. This is written on the fly.

Assuming the situation you have described occured while at technical 4th path:

The words of accusation come in contact with my ear. The irate man seen with the eyes (the contact of sense objects at corresponding sense doors give rise to ear consciousness and eye consciousness for example).

The other aggregates of nama and rupa then arise to play their role. There is an immediate cognition, conceptualization and evaluation of the sense object that has given rise to the sense consciousness. There will be an immediate evaluation of sense object as either pleasant, unpleasant or neutral due to past habitual tendencies of 'this is good, this is bad, this is meh!".

Depending on the evaluation a sensation (rupa) will arise in the body (usually a chakra spot) and have a mental feeling tone (vedana) overlayed on it depending on the evaluation of the situation. There will be an immediate sankaric movement to identify the feeling tone as either something to crave, something to feel aversion to, or something to not care for. This then leads to the mind continuing with this flow of craving or aversion which will result in the mind holding on to the evaluation and feeling tone allowing it to flow longer and grow in intensity. This whole process gives rise to an affective feeling and more sankharic movements of the body and mind: the mind fills up with affective fueled 'I'-based thoughts. There is more sense object/sense door contact (the loops): "Me? Steal money? How preposterous!", the breathing gets heavier (bodily fabrication) as agitation and self-defensiveness take hold. All of this would give rise to a felt sense of existing or presence or me-ness=becoming.

More loops of dependent origination sequence would occur, as thoughts would arise to make contact with the mind to then give rise to more conciousness, feelings, sankharic mental reactions, which if strong could result in physcial and verbal actions.

Post technical 4th path , the above process could occur. The quality of 4th path was that the process felt looser than pre-4th. It was much easier to step back and watch the thoughts that had filled up the mind, the heavy breathing, the sensations that had triggered it all, the affective feelings and there was more mental control to not allow these mental fabrications spill out into verbal actions or physical actions.

The mental fabrications that formed had a lack of stickiness to them that allowe them to be observed quite easily. Although this may not have always been so automatic. At times due to a lack of awareness, maybe being sleepy or agitated already, there would be verbal and physical actions which would occur. I might have talked back in self-defense to the person accusing me, and even waved my arms at him in protest. That would have been as far as I took it, not being a violent person nor a confrontational person to begin with.

What happens post-this last shift is that the compounding of the aggregates does not give rise to the affective feeling. The sequence may occur up till the point where soemthing has been evaluated as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, and a feeling tone is given to a sensation that has arisen at a particualr spot in the body. There seems to be a serious lack of craving or aversion to that feeling tone like before thus no clinging arises, which was giving rise to the feeling of exisiting through a fully formed affective feeling.

There is something missing in the mind that allows for the full sequence to continue. It gets cut at a point right before a fully formed affective feeling arises.

So instead of perhaps waving my hands in protest and saying a few words in my defense and feeling self-defensive, I would see the process occur up to the point mentioned, and just stare at the man who is accusing me. I would then wait for the opportunity to explain my situation with him calmly and just watch it play out without getting agitated or reactive, watching in curiosity, and looking for a means to calm the man down.

Please ask questions if more clarity is needed as I have written this quite quickly. Knowing the habit pattern to tweak what I have written, I will say I wont tweak this, but answer any questions for clarification. Have I left anything out? I probably have.

Edited: I tweaked the spelling and grammar.

Chris, I know you first broached the subject of this post on my practice thread and were hoping for me to respond, but anything I could say would be less precise than what I have already said, so I will abstain, apart from the following summary version.

In the past, between every two moments of contact (+ feeling) there was the manifestation of the "attention wave", appearing as a perceptual gap of some sort. In the in-between region of this perceptual gap, there were affective experiences (= craving / clinging / becoming). Currently (with the partial cessation of ignorance) there is a partial cessation of their arising, leading to a gap with only shadow-affects inside.

EDIT: Using this model, "affect" is completely different from "feeling". "Feeling" is the physical vedana of contact. "Affect" is the combined experience of craving / clinging / becoming and the mental vedana associated with them. This is how I understand dependent origination in relation to the actualist view.

Pre-Stream Entry:

I believe I exist inherently, I believe others exist inherently. All that is ignorance.

So there is subject ignorance (I exist inherently) and object ignorance (he exists inherently). We can call this dual ignorance. In the example provided by Chris there are two types:
1) I believe I am an inherently existing (IE) victim and the other is an IE thief. (The accuser's deluded narrative)
2) I believe I am an IE innocent person and the other is an IE mistaken person (My deluded narrative).

Accuser's narrative:
Since I believe I am an IE victim and he is an IE thief, I believe there is IE victim's AND thief's will (dual IE will).
If there is dual IE will, I believe there is IE victim's and thief's consciousness.
If there is IE dual consciousness, I believe there's IE victim's and thief's mind-body.
If there is IE dual mind-body, I believe there are IE victim's and thief's 6 sense gates.
If there is IE dual 6 sense gates, I believe there is IE victim's and thief's sense experience.
If there is IE dual sense experience, I believe there is IE Victim's feeling (I feel pain) and IE thief's feeling (he feels pleasure).
If there is IE dual feeling, I believe there is IE victim's craving (I want to feel pleasant sensations of justice) and IE thief's craving (he wants to feel pleasant feelings of victory over me).
If there is IE dual craving, I believe there is IE victim's clinging (I am my pain, desires and voices) and IE thief's clinging (he is his pleasure, desires and voices).
If there is IE dual clinging, I believe there is IE victim's becoming (I am a victim) and IE thief's becoming (he is a thief).
If there is IE dual becoming, I suffer because I am the victim and he is the thief every single moment that rises and ceases.

To be continued.

Pre-SE:

Accused's narrative:
Since I believe I am an IE Innocent Person (IP) and he is an IE wrong person (WP), I believe there is IE IP's AND WP's will (dual IE will).
If there is dual IE will, I believe there is IE IP's and WP's consciousness.
If there is IE dual consciousness, I believe there's IE IP's and WP's mind-body.
If there is IE dual mind-body, I believe there are IE IP's and WPs 6 sense gates.
If there is IE dual 6 sense gates, I believe there is IE IP's and WP's sense experience.
If there is IE dual sense experience, I believe there is IE IP's feeling (pain) and IE WP's feeling (pain).
If there is IE dual feeling, I believe there is IE IP's craving (I want to feel pleasant sensations of justice) and IE WP's craving (he wants to feel pleasant feelings of victory over me).
If there is IE dual craving, I believe there is IE IP's clinging (I am my pain, desires and voices) and IE WP's clinging (he is his pain, desires and voices).
If there is IE dual clinging, I believe there is IE IP's becoming (I am an IP) and IE WP's becoming (he is a WP).
If there is IE dual becoming, I suffer because I am an innocent person and he is a wrong person every single moment that rises and ceases.

Although the accused is right, suffering rises because he clings to the characters in the narrative.

"... anything I could say would be less precise than what I have already said, so I will abstain, apart from the following summary version."

Never-the-less you really should participate in the full exercise, and in your own words from your own experiences. Really. I'm interested in all the replies.

Thanks!

"Although the accused is right, suffering rises because he clings to the characters in the narrative."

Continued from above,

So actually, the accused is right but he feels he should continue his existence as innocent, hence he suffers because his friend is accusing him of stealing his wallet. In my experience, this always lead to immense suffering.
I would usually say: "You're wrong, I'm innocent. Accept that Im innocent, you must accept it. I cant tolerate that you think I'm a thief." Etc. At the same time I'd be feeling so much desperation, pain and anger because someone else is making a false accusation about me, and at that precise moment "me" is innocent. At that moment I must preserve the existence of my identity: innocent. If I succeed and continue clinging to "Innocent person" I'd probably be watching my back, checking if no one else is making false accusations about me. Hence, I'd still be suffering.

On the other hand:
"You're a thief, what is wrong with you? why won't you accept you're thief? Stop lying! You keep hiding the facts!" He wants to preserve his existence as victim. While he's doing that, he suffers because he struggles with a different reality. If he succeeds he suffers because he must protect and defend his identity: target of thieves. He feels anxious, a little scared, a little angry at suspects.

Guys, this is painful, because I am going through a version of this scenario right now, and find myself for various reasons (mostly the need to protect other people) unable to defend myself, and I'm pre-stream entry and I am, indeed, suffering. But I also feel some culpability in the situation and have had to acknowledge that, only it's not what people think, and as a pre-SE person on the path I am able to take some comfort in the dharma, but only to a point.

What I felt all afternoon: depression, inability to concentrate, shame, frustration, fear, unworthiness. What I am learning: the extent to which "I" thrive on a certain attitude of respect and deference from others, which "I" take for granted until it is taken away, at which point "I" feel deprived of oxygen. Being able to see this helps somewhat. I can even see some benefit of an experience of humiliation for revealing this to me, but it still s*cks. What I really long for is vindication and the humiliation of my accusers. When I come up for air I can understand their point of view, and even see how I could come to the same conclusions as they, how I have in fact arrived at snap judgments and behaved unskillfully.

This is my news from the front, in the throes of self-centered drama.

@LaurelC -- if you can see all of that you are definitely making progress! Keep going and take refuge in the fact that these things were not visible before, and though these insights can be painful they are also the fruits of your practice.

Nikolai, now, just after reading your really helpful comments. would it be fair to say that the chain of dependent co-origination is "broken" for you at the link called "feeling" in the list I posted yesterday? This is based on your comment:

"The sequence may occur up till the point where soemthing has been evaluated as pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, and a feeling tone is given to a sensation that has arisen at a particualr spot in the body."

Anyone else?

A situation occurs, there might be an evaluation of the situation, and perhaps due to past habitual tendencies, the situation will be evaluated in a split second as good, bad, meh! And there may arise a sensation/vibrations within the body at a certain point which is recognised to have maybe triggered pleasant, unpleasant or neutral affect before the last shift, corresponding to the evaluation. But it now doesn't. This is the 'shadow' stuff End was talking about. It might trigger a split second thought that ends abruptly or an undecipherable wispy mental movement in the mind's eye where once full blown mental images arose. But full blown images do not arise anymore nor does a sense of self or being.

I think translating sankhara as 'willful action' as you did is not how I would read that word. I would translate it as fabrication. Sankhara is the mental movement to give rise to fabricated things, like affect and a sense of self/being/exisiting, which does not seem to arise for my current predicament.

"And why do you call them 'fabrications'? Because they fabricate fabricated things, thus they are called 'fabrications.' What do they fabricate as a fabricated thing? For the sake of form-ness, they fabricate form as a fabricated thing. For the sake of feeling-ness, they fabricate feeling as a fabricated thing. For the sake of perception-hood... For the sake of fabrication-hood... For the sake of consciousness-hood, they fabricate consciousness as a fabricated thing. Because they fabricate fabricated things, they are called fabrications." Khajjaniya Sutta
www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.079.than.html

I am still thinking about how best to describe the difference between then and now. The above description was done on the fly and without much thought put into it. I may try again soon after giving it more thought.

To be continued.

I don't think I can make any absolute claims at the moment Chris about the sequence. As far as I can see there is no ignorance leading to the forming of affect. So to say that the entire sequence (including ignorance) continues up to a point is not exact. If I understand the terms, there are parts of the sequence in there such as the contact of a sense object making contact with a sense door giving rise to sense consciousness, but something of it seems to be missing for the full affective felt sense of becoming to arise.There is no arising of a felt sense of existing (via affect) which i would equate to the 'becoming' result of DO. So does the sequence then exist for Nick? I see consciousness arise as a sense object comes in contact with a sense door. I don't see anything like a sense of self or existing being fabricated, nor an emotion being fabricated. There are some weird vibes that are being called 'shadow stuff' by some that might arise like before that last shift. But that is where it ends. But that, I don't know what it is to be precise about it.

This subtle shadow stuff is hard to describe and I do not know where it falls within the whole sequence. I've been told it's residual broken versions of the last 5 fetters. But who knows. All I know is that there seems to be something wrong with the entire sequence now. It does not really occur like it once did. So does that mean this particular sequence has ceased for good? The sequence begins with ignorance and sort of ends in becoming. Both of those have been dealt with in a massive way. Whether or not the shadow stuff is considered just residual karmic remainder clean up or the last 5 fetters seen in an unexpected weird broken arse way is for for those who wish to speculate.

At the moment I believe I am still a Stream Enterer according to the 10 fetter model. This is what happens:

Suffering still occurs but a lot less than before (2 to 3 times per week). I usually abide in the first 4 jhanas and sometimes I become as a formless jhana (like 4 times per week) , usually 5th and 6th jhana. Access concentration happens as soon as I wake up, up until I fall asleep, I lose it momentarily (like 5 seconds) when a conflict arises. I have never practiced when dreaming. I used to have lucid dreams but I didn't meditate at the time so I don't know how meditation occurs when lucid dreaming. So at the moment I'm always becoming when dreaming.

If I'm accused of doing something I didn't do by a close friend, I instantly become as a person that believes he exists. Here I lose access concentration for a few seconds. Nevertheless mindfulness is 99% present, so I become aware of my neurotic thoughts, heavy breathing, my blood, heartbeats, negative emotions and my suffering and start disembedding a la 2nd and 3rd gear. Then I get to low equanimity and observe myself and my friend: I observe my anger rise, endure and cease (mindfulness of Feeling), I observe my friends anger rise, endure and cease. I observe the identity I am sustaining (mindfulness of becoming, birth). This contemplation allows me to change my behaviour. I make adjustments to my voice, facial expressions, non-verbal stuff, etc. I usually send this message verbally and non-verbally: "I dont want us to get hurt". It is hard but it is possible. I sense my cravings (I want to control, I want to win the argument, I want fight back, etc.) I sense them and I remain in equanimity. If all goes well, meaning, I dont give in to arguing, it takes about 10 minutes to end evident suffering, and about an hour to become in a jhana again, or become as metta.

The 12 links still happen but with less intensity. To be continued.

This thread seems to be about understanding D-O. So, though I am not AF yet, here is my best guess at what it's about... at the end I will talk about the example, using my knowledge and the PCE I had as guidance.

I do not think the chain continues, and is cut short somewhere (e.g. around feeling or contact). One can draw this inference just by looking at the suttas. The 10th fetter is ignorance, which is totally shattered upon Arahatship. From SN.12 we have:

"Now from the remainderless fading & cessation of that very ignorance comes the cessation of fabrications. From the cessation of fabrications comes the cessation of consciousness. [etc...] Such is the cessation of this entire mass of stress & suffering."

This indicates that as that ignorance fades totally, every chain afterwards also ceases without remainder. Yet, clearly Nick and Trent and Tarin are still conscious and performing willful actions. Clearly the Buddha was able to give discourses, so still he was conscious in one sense of the word. So, we have to analyze what each of the links refers to, exactly.

(Note that I have no idea where the shadow being stuff fits into all this, so I'm talking about full Arahat with no remainder, now.)

Check this sutta out: www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.048.than.html . It might be that, in D-O, all the aggregate-links are clinging-aggregates. Thus the aggregates themselves remain, once AF (once no shadow stuff left whatsoever), and nothing else. And D-O just describes how clinging-aggregates (or clinging to the aggregates) comes into play. When there is no clinging, there is no D-O, just aggregates, completely integrated and seamless yet still recognizable as distinct. (And there is no need to classify how those interoperate, as once you're there there is nothing more that needs to be done.)

This means every link in D-O is 'me', is 'self', is 'suffering'. Thus none of it happens, for the Released, as it all depends on ignorance. So, 'me-consciousness' no longer arises (cause no 'me-formations'), yet actual consciousness is there - an aspect of apperception.

I will commit a terrible sin now and refer to some things without links, but there is a part of the Visuddhimagga that categorizes various types of consciousnesses, yet it says the Arhat consciousness cannot be classified. There is also a lot about this in the book "Concept and Reality in Early Buddhist Thought". Further there are references in the suttas where devas (or monks?) say to the Buddha that they do not even know upon what his consciousness depends on. So the consciousness of an Arahat is quite different than that of a non-released person.

In this interpretation, 'willful action' is also not an accurate rendering of sankhara (see Nick's #13), so I will use formation/fabrication.

I still am not entirely sure what to make of the links between consciousness and feeling, though (body+mind, six senses, sense experience). My guess is, those links refer to those things happening, but already tainted by the pre-existing consciousness. Thus if your consciousness is currently tainted cause you are in a bad mood, any sense experience you have will be tainted (e.g. significantly dimmed, as your mental energies will be elsewhere).

More guesses/places to look as to aggregate vs. clinging-aggregate:
sensory input: consider how that is different pre-AF, vs. AF or in a PCE
vedana: consider how pain feels pre-AF, vs. AF or in a PCE
perception: consider all the attention wave wobbling and stuff before, vs. what happens in a PCE
sankhara: hand actually moving (actual will) vs. imagining your hand to start moving but without moving it (feeling-fueled fabrication)

Now, to try my hand at explaining the process, using my PCE as guidance.

DISCLAIMER: I haven't read any of the long explications of D-O (like the one in the Visuddhimagga), so this might not be entirely accurate, and when I choose to label a 'mood' as 'becoming' that's just my choice, not necessarily a correct interpretation. But I think it's a good rough model (EDIT:based on my experience of PCE, and results of meditating on the links of D-O in real-time, e.g. in formless jhanas).

Normally, there is ignorance. This means not looking everywhere at once (not being apperceptive). When the friend yells at me, 'I' shrink away from the sensory input (ignorance). In the gap formed by ignorance, the mind basically makes a bunch of stuff up, influenced by past karma (formations). If there is enough momentum (which there would be in such a tense scenario), it will start rolling on its own (mind-consciousness), and very quickly run through the next links in D-O, starting up a chain of negative vedana, along with strong desire to have it end (craving/clinging). This will form a mood (becoming) and an emotion (birth). Once the situation dies down, the mood + emotion will also die down (death). When gripped by all this stuff happening, my senses function far more poorly, and every sensory input is basically diverted to resolving the situation at hand (consciousness affecting body-mind, six senses, sense experience). If I am mentally ill or on drugs or something I might just start hallucinating right there, seeing his face distorted into a terrible evil visage.

Like Nick said, this stuff will keep looping in on itself, over+over... needless to say, with the mind so burdened, it is difficult for it to think clearly and make a good decision in the circumstance, regardless of what your definition of 'good' is... and any reaction will be tinted by this mass of dukkha constantly flowing + looping.

@JLaurelC I agree with Chris. If you can see all that, your practice is solid, wise and will definitely yield beneficial results. Acknowledging all the things you shared with us is like practicing "honest noting": the best tool ever (pre or post SE). Most of us know how you feel, I certainly know it and I agree with you: it s*cks. But its ok. Its ok if we "become" millions of times before something actually changes (in dharma terms). Good news: you can practice the Dharma, you're awake, you're more conscious than before, and all unpleasant feelings end

In a PCE or when AF, there is no ignorance. This means looking everywhere at once (being apperceptive). When the friend yells at me, there is no shrinking away from the sensory input (no ignorance). Being no gap, the mind does not fabricate anything (no formations). Being no fabrications, there is no momentum to keep forming formations (no consciousness is formed). With no formations forming on their own, sensory input is not affected, as the mind is not disturbed. Sensory input not being affected, there is no categorization of this being a good, bad, or neutral thing (no vedana, in the clinging sense - though I might like how the tone of his voice sounds or not, for example, based on preference, but not nearly the same thing as not in a PCE). There being no categorization of good/bad/neutral, there is no mood (no becoming). There being no mood, there is no emotion (no birth). And, there being no emotion in the first place, there is no emotion to die down (no death).

With no links in the chain occurring at all, and no looping among them or in between them, the mind is unimaginably calmer and unimaginably more perceptive. It is a simple matter for it to decide what the best thing to do given the situation is.

Hope that helped.

"@JLaurelC I agree with Chris. If you can see all that, your practice is solid, wise and will definitely yield beneficial results. Acknowledging all the things you shared with us is like practicing "honest noting": the best tool ever (pre or post SE). Most of us know how you feel, I certainly know it and I agree with you: it s*cks. But its ok. Its ok if we "become" millions of times before something actually changes (in dharma terms). Good news: you can practice the Dharma, you're awake, you're more conscious than before, and all unpleasant feelings end "

Thanks, guys. This thread, and this website, are a tremendous gift to me. Metta, and may we all awaken in this lifetime.

EDIT: p.s. But to be honest, a part of me still wants to slap a few people upside the head-- ))) Oh well, I'll get there eventually.

This may sound harsh but I really don't think speculation is at all helpful on this thread. This thread was created so that we can compare, from direct experience, before and after perceptual processes within the model of dependent co-origination. If you cannot make that comparison then please create another thread where you are free to speculate 'til the cows come home.

Make sense?

"
This may sound harsh but I really don't think speculation is at all helpful on this thread. This thread was created so that we can compare, from direct experience, before and after perceptual processes within the model of dependent co-origination. If you cannot make that comparison then please create another thread where you are free to speculate 'til the cows come home.

Make sense?

"

Not particularly. I thought, perhaps wrongly, that it might be helpful to include a fresh report from a pre-path yogi who is in the thick of the very problem you describe. I was responding to your invitation that "anyone can participate," which is why I posted. While I did not record my experience according to the formula, it would be quite easy for someone with more experience to make the translation.

As for my "speculation": I intended it as a statement of my commitment to my practice. Obviously neither I nor anyone else can know who will get where, eventually or otherwise.

Over and out.

Laurel, my comment was not aimed at you. Rather at those who post speculatively about the nature of being without a self-sense and emotion ,but have no actual experience of that condition.

I'm sorry you took it to be aimed at you. It was not.

This thread seems to be about D-O, and how a released being experiences D-O. In order to sensibly talk about the latter, I feel it is important to understand what the links in D-O actually are. Indeed, it seems the confusion about whether some links still happen and are cut off at a certain point, or whether none of the links happen at all, partly arises from not understanding exactly what the links are. I felt I could contribute to that conversation based on **my own experience** contemplating and meditating on D-O, so I wrote posts #15 and #16. One doesn't have to be released to understand D-O. (DISCLAIMER: My own experience is my own experience and interpretation.)

How did I meditate on D-O? I would take a particular link in the chain and focus on it. I would see how the link arises from the previous one and how it transforms into the next one. Certain links become more obvious in certain jhanas, e.g. a deep 8th jhana is wonderful for taking a look at what sankharas ('willful actions' in post #1, though a better word is 'formation') really are, how they arise from ignorance, and how they take on lives of their own (which I took to be the consciousness step). Personally, I found it a huge boon to my practice to understand what the links and the aggregates (notice how all the aggregates are found in the links) are, especially when I understood exactly what a formation was (e.g. it finally made sense why the 11th nyana is called "Equanimity regarding Formations"... and it also made sense why one can no longer visualize once one is AF, as visualization is creating sankharas). You can read about one such meditation in more detail on my thread on DhO: www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discu...#_19_message_2098446 .