Compassion isn't an affective feeling: Discuss

"This makes sense. But how is it that we know the "affectless" versions of the sublime abodes if we do not feel them? I am interested in your response, thanks for the discussion, Nick. :]

Justin"

The PCE will give a temporary glance of how this can be. Affectless is emotion free, 'feeling' free, feeling meaning an affective one. You can't experience it when the flow of affect is flowing. A PCE will give a glimpse.

"In my own experience there is an instant 'recognition' which is cognitive, of another's suffering. There are instant thoughts and intentions to help. If we are talking about vedana which then leads to an affective feeling arising, then no, that isn't my experience. I cannot call up any affect. But this has not hindered my ability to help others. In fact it has enhanced it. I don't think I would have been able to help the many that are contacting me via email and skype without pause and without getting tired and without wanting a rest before this last shift. I have not delved into the possibility of 'siddhis' though so can't comment on that.

The affectless sublime abodes make sense when there is no affect arising. As Owen once said, 'it just makes sense to help others'. In part, the actual caring or intention to help others come out of suffering is a mystery. The affectless versions of the sublime abodes are just inherently a part of what is underneath the veil of fabricating. They have nothing to do with self or 'feeling' or fabricating. I wish I could explain it better. But it can't be imagined, as imagination is 'I' and 'I' am that very veil. "

Interesting. Can't confirm it fully yet.

However, this makes a whole lot of sense right now in my practice: "it just makes sense to help others" (in terms of the push-pull free way of abiding).

I can only speculate, I need to wait and see too

Maybe there is no feeling whatsoever

"The PCE will give a temporary glance of how this can be. Affectless is emotion free, 'feeling' free, feeling meaning an affective one. You can't experience it when the flow of affect is flowing. A PCE will give a glimpse. "

Thanks Nick, would it be incorrect to say that there is feeling that is affectless? I wouldn't call Karuna an emotion, so much as a feeling. There is a tug to action involved, but I wouldn't call it an emotion involving suffering. ( I'm still not very familiar with "affect" "affective" terminology. )

As far as I can see, and this may change in future:

Affect arises to 'give off' a sense of 'being'/presence/duality/location in the world/me-ness. This creates the illusion of duality, of 'me' and 'them'. This can get very subtle.

The arising of any felt 'feeling' is a fabrication and whether it is wholesome or unwholesome, it leads to rebirth. It leads to the flow of becoming continuing onwards.

This sets up a separation between this mind/body organism and all other mind/body organisms as this mind/body organism now has a 'location' in the world as a subtle or gross identity (whether of a gross self or a subtle sense of being everything, being one with everything or being connected to everything). There can still be a subtle duality at play even unnoticed by an 'equanimous' mind.

When there is no sense of 'being'/presence/location in the world/me-ness, there is no separation now no matter how subtle, between this mind/body organism and the rest of the mind/body organisms. There just isn't any felt sense of connection nor non-connection. But this just makes it clear how connected everyone on this planet is. No need to 'feel' it. It just is.

Thus helping others just makes sense. There is no illusory sense of being 'another' or 'being' anything for that matter. That sense just isn't present. Helping others is like an extension of helping oneself. It just makes sense.

Nick

"1. would it be incorrect to say that there is feeling that is affectless?

2. I wouldn't call Karuna an emotion, so much as a feeling. There is a tug to action involved, but I wouldn't call it an emotion involving suffering. ( I'm still not very familiar with "affect" "affective" terminology. )"

1. I would say yes, it is incorrect.

2. I see there being two versions, an affective version where a subtle sense of existing or being attaches/clings to that notion of sublime abode. And an affectless version which has nothing to do with a felt sense of existing or being.

There is a reason why the Buddha went on about cultivating the sublime abodes and being reborn as a brahma/god as a result if one didn't get release. Fabricated sublime abodes lead to becoming. Any fabricated affective feeling leads to more becoming. If the end of becoming is not your objective, then obviously you may disagree with me.

Affect: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affect_(psychology) (mood, emotion, subtle or gross, wholesome or unwholesome)

"When there is no sense of 'being'/presence/location in the world/me-ness, there is no separation now no matter how subtle, between this mind/body organism and the rest of the mind/body organisms. There just isn't any felt sense of connection nor non-connection. But this just makes it clear how connected everyone on this planet.

Thus helping others just makes sense. There is no illusory sense of being 'another' or 'being' anything for that matter. That sense just isn't present. Helping others is like an extension of helping oneself. It just makes sense.

Nick"

This to me is the Mahayana.

Thanks for the clarification. I think part of the issue is that I'm probably not being precise enough with my language. When I was using the term feeling, I was referring specifically to contact with sensation, as one might use feeling in referring to the sense of touch, but not to the subjective experience of emotion as it is usually used in psychology. ^__^

Anyhow I'll take a bit to parse what you've said.

Thanks again,

Justin

"Affect arises to 'give off' a sense of 'being'/presence/duality/location in the world/me-ness. This creates the illusion of duality, of 'me' and 'them'. This can get very subtle.

The arising of any felt 'feeling' is a fabrication and whether it is wholesome or unwholesome, it leads to rebirth. It leads to the flow of becoming continuing onwards. "

Ok, regarding this, allow me to ask, in reference to

"In the seen, there is only the seen,
in the heard, there is only the heard,
in the sensed, there is only the sensed,
in the cognized, there is only the cognized."

I probably should have used "sensed" instead of "feeling" in my previous posts. But my question to you is, when the above applies to the experience, as "In the seeing only the seen" would this be affectless?

If so, I would suggest that Karuna is "sensed" although it may not be "felt" or "feeling" in the mundane sense, instead I would say it's sensed as an aspect of the absolute. Or maybe I'm just full of it. :] Thanks for the interesting discussion!

Justin

"Ok, regarding this, allow me to ask, in reference to

"In the seen, there is only the seen,
in the heard, there is only the heard,
in the sensed, there is only the sensed,
in the cognized, there is only the cognized."

I probably should have used "sensed" instead of "feeling" in my previous posts. But my question to you is, when the above applies to the experience, as "In the seeing only the seen" would this be affectless?"

Of course.

"If so, I would suggest that Karuna is "sensed" although it may not be "felt" or "feeling" in the mundane sense, instead I would say it's sensed as an aspect of the absolute. Or maybe I'm just full of it. :] Thanks for the interesting discussion!

Justin "

How would it be sensed? You mean via vedana, a feeling tone? In a particular spot in the body? In the heart?

We all want our views to be validated. It makes 'us' feel good when 'our views' are validated. 'We' are conditioned and shaped by our views and beliefs after all. We try our hardest to convince others, to convince ourselves that reality is a certain way. 'We' flow for this reason; to create 'our' reality; to create locations and identities; to improve this presence in the world; to mold and shape it amongst all the other identities 'we' perceive. The flow of the world is such, the flow of desire. To turn against it, to turn against what 'we' prize most....'ourselves'?....'our beliefs'?....our 'feelings'?...that very desire?.....is one of the most difficult things for anyone to do. There is too much at stake.

I can honestly say I'm not here to have views validated. I'm here because here we can find pointers to practice in a manner that allows us to attain insight into the truth of this moment. I may or may not contribute to this here.

In this thread, my intention is to clarify the language being used; to try to be sure I am understanding where you are coming from. This is the intention behind my questions and posts. To compel one another to continue to try and further clarify a living expression of each others insight in this moment with one another. To connect.

Following from the discussion, I would say that in the sensing of Karuna, there is only Karuna. ^__^

I may not have investigated feeling tone to the depth that you have. I'm not sure I hold any view, or whether the terms feeling tone are more appropriate for this sensing of Karuna than simply "sensing Karuna". I continue in this discussion under the impression that I can learn from you, that you are pointing to an insight, realization, that can clarify, for everyone involved. My discourse with you is to try and clarify this for everyone.

It is my experience that Karuna is "sensed", that Karuna is more than just compassionate action. Whether feeling is the proper term to describe that, is what I'm exploring with you. I don't see why sensing Karuna need be localized to any location. That it need contribute to becoming. I understand your interpretation of the texts in that regard.

It's not so much that I want "my views" to be validated. There is no my views. But there is this moment, and if I can see this moment more clearly, deeply, from you pointing from your perspective, great.

I was curious as to the possibility that people may actually be having the same insight, but confused because they are taking terms in different ways. Thanks for the discussion!

Justin

"It is my experience that Karuna is "sensed", that Karuna is more than just compassionate action. Whether feeling is the proper term to describe that, is what I'm exploring with you.

It's not so much that I want "my views" to be validated. There is no my views. But there is this moment, and if I can see this moment more clearly, deeply, from you pointing from your perspective, great.

I was curious as to the possibility that people may actually be having the same insight, but confused because they are taking terms in different ways. Thanks for the discussion!

Justin"

Hi justin,

Not a problem.

If there is any of the following involved in one's version of 'compassion' or 'karuna' or any of the sublime abodes, then I do not personally think we are talking about the same thing. Perhaps you can investigate next time you have that 'sense' of karuna yourself if any of the following are experienced:

A mentally felt sense of: self / self-obsessing chatter / being / 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 or everyone / being space / being infinite consciousness / being no-thing-ness / being the void / being anything / imagination / the flow of time / existing .

Nick

"If there is any of the following involved in one's version of 'compassion or any of the sublime abodes, then I do not personally think we are talking about the same thing. "

Ok, Thanks for the clarification, Nick! ^__^

"Honestly, how is this not obvious to everyone? Sometimes I throw up my hands in bewilderment.

"

Do you really, literally throw your hands up? I don't know if I've ever done that. Maybe some day.
I'll tell you a few things that make me WANT to throw my hands up in bewilderment.
Kenneth, as you began commenting more on this thread, addressing your comments in Nick's general direction, I hoped to see some conversation develop between two advanced and respected adepts. But the dialogue between you two stalled pretty quickly. Why?

Here, I'll make a fool of myself and pretend to facilitate conversation for a minute. OK -
NICK, Kenneth just threw down some criticism (post #55) of AF, based, I think, not just on your communication but that of other AF people. Do you think his criticism has any validity for AF in general, as expressed by other AF people? Do you think it POSSIBLE that you, Nick, might have lost some vital ingredient to communication because you don't feel physical empathy for the suffering of others?
Nick, by saying you only represent only yourself and not AF, you disassociate yourself from relevant history that other people consider important in evaluating it as a path for human development or evolution. You quote the AF website, and recommend actualist practices, but you don't want to represent actualism. Can you understand Kenneth's argument regarding AF in the context of AF history?
For example, I don't trust Richards claim to "actual caring" or "fellowship regard" while he he tries to sell his abysmal journal for an exorbitant price on his website. He also sells DVD's, and makes use of other peoples money for his "Floating Convivium Project", a large boat for the actually free people to do whatever (the hell) they do.
(cont)

He also makes a claim for a powerful and important position in human history, as the first person to experience actual freedom, and then to begin a imagined worldwide revolution leading humanity toward world peace. I don't argue against making money, I just see that he may have some self interest motivating him. Something other than "actual caring". This has relevance to the topic of compassion or karuna. If you delete the entire emotional software package (assuming we can call love and compassion software) and you don't have such a thing as "actual caring" or "fellowship regard" as a back up default program, then what do you become? A sociopath?
We don't have enough data points to assume that this benevolent quality called "fellowship regard" exist as a natural default setting for the actually free. I think you have a stronger claim for something resembling "altruism" than Richard, because you have not tried to sell us anything or tried to glorify yourself. Actually you and Owen have both demonstrated an admirable and humble orientation toward SERVICE. But you both also demonstrated that to some extent BEFORE becoming actually free.
If we could compare the behaviour of a self centered person, or group of people, who did very little in service to humanity before becoming actually free, with their behaviour afterward, to see if they began to help others in a really selfless way, we could then begin to assert that the state called "actual caring" or "fellowship regard" exists as a default setting. But I don't know of anyone who has testified to a change like that. In fact one of the actually free claimants (Stephanie Dunning) has said that "becoming actually free will not produce in you a set of predictable behaviors, as if there is a "right" way to behave if one has no affective faculty." I believe Richard has said something similar. (cont)

So I assume that a person who exhibits exclusively selfish behaviour before becoming AF may continue to do so after becoming AF.
I know you did not say that Nick. But what would you say about it? Do you think a selfish person WOULD change, and manifest "actual caring" after becoming AF? How do you know that would happen?

KENNETH, the last time you discussed actual freedom on this website, (and I paraphrase from memory rather than going through that long thread) you implied that you had a friendship with Tarin, and that after Tarin became AF, he became less accessible, or more distant. Do you experience Nick now as less accessible or more distant? Have you talked with him by phone or skype? When you say, "let's take the lid off", do you mean to say that Nick has put a lid on his evolution as a human being by settling for AF? Do you think Nick missed the point of your "take the lid off" comment? Do you think that he will miss part of his potential as a human being by stopping at actual freedom?

You know what makes me want to throw up my hands in bewilderment?
1) That Owen says, after becoming AF that "Kenneth will get you to the tipping point". Owen says noting, "grounding", and Jhanas, (all sound practices you advise) got him to the tipping point. I think then he mostly followed the PCE's in combo with the above to get AF. So you helped him to get AF, not by your intention, because you think (my words) AF sucks. So where did Owen go wrong? Following the PCE's?
(cont)

2) The PCE gets people on the AF bus. Those AF people constantly come back to that refrain: "Just have yourself a PCE, then you won't have to keep questioning us". I don't know anyone else who claims to have had PCE's all over the yard, and has no interest in following it through to AF but you, Kenneth. Why don't you find the PCE state compelling as others do? I know you have addressed this before, but look at it in context of the rest of AF. To live in actual freedom means to live in a state of perpetual wonderment and stillness. I don't get a description from the more traditional Buddhist or practical dharma types that has that type of pull.
Your bewilderment bewilders me. If you give people a kind of vague description of where practical dharma leads them, (endless awakenings, it gets better and better, but you keep practicing, blah blah blah) and THEN give them a description of AF- (perpetual wonderment, stillness, complete and apparently PERMANENT freedom from fear, anger, hate, jealousy and any other negative emotion you want freedom from), BUT, you will experience some loss of empathy (that you won't care about when you get there anyway), then what do you think plenty of people will choose? Plenty of us will give AF a try. Let's not forget the attraction of getting something DONE. Richard portrayed it as a real "retirement", and although Nick and Owen don't present it as COMPLETE retirement, I still see it as at LEAST a retirement from having to deal IN ANY WAY with fear, anger, embarrassment, and the rest of the troublesome emotions. (And the stress that results from them) So people will continue to choose AF as long as it delivers the goods as advertised.
(cont)

Besides, maybe we don't think any negative outcomes will happen to US. But also because this whole AF thing may have already begun to evolve past it's creepy snake-oily origins. To sum up briefly the evolution of AF from my perspective-
Richard- creepy, VERY creepy
Tarin- less creepy
Nick- not creepy

Who knows what it may evolve into?

So your bewilderment bewilders me because people have a natural, perhaps even hard wired attraction to that which sounds amazing and has the practicability of a concrete goal MORE than a vague, or undefined, although perhaps safer, possibility, and one that, by the way, goes on and on and on. And on. Human nature 101.
Also, and unfortunately, I think this tendency of humans also might explain why the whole world political situation sucks. But let's not open that can of worms.

NICK- Do you think Kenneth has really had authentic PCE's? What do you think Kenneth needs to know, if he has already experienced the PCE and says "meh"? You told me this carrot "AF" is THE carrot to eat. So what would you say to convey the taste of that carrot to Kenneth?

KENNETH- You say "But just as we have conditioned the mind to be free, we can condition it to be free while feeling compassion." I don't think Nick wants to do this. And I don't know that IF he wanted to do it, that he COULD do it. Most AF people consider AF irreversible and say that they can't go back... Do you that think they can go back to feeling?
(cont)

"Do you really, literally throw your hands up? I don't know if I've ever done that. Maybe some day.
I'll tell you a few things that make me WANT to throw my hands up in bewilderment.
Kenneth, as you began commenting more on this thread, addressing your comments in Nick's general direction, I hoped to see some conversation develop between two advanced and respected adepts. But the dialogue between you two stalled pretty quickly. Why?
"

There is a backstory to the reason why I posted my comments (directed at Kenneth) as I did. Without that backstory what has been conveyed by posts by others and even by my own apology to Kenneth appears as a complete disregard for Kenneth's 'feelings' on my part. It is not my place to talk about the backstory. So I will sit with and bear the projections of others.

I write in a plain and straightforward way. Others who aren't AF do so as well. Who says I cannot recognize suffering in others even on an internet board? So far I think I have been quite nice. Have I caused you concern Gary? If so where in my writings have I done so, so we can adress it? Have I upset anyone else beside Kenneth with my straighfrowardness? If I haven't then the backstory would clear that up.

"
Nick, by saying you only represent only yourself and not AF, you disassociate yourself from relevant history that other people consider important in evaluating it as a path for human development or evolution. You quote the AF website, and recommend actualist practices, but you don't want to represent actualism. Can you understand Kenneth's argument regarding AF in the context of AF history?
For example, I don't trust Richards claim to "actual caring" or "fellowship regard" while he he tries to sell his abysmal journal for an exorbitant price on his website. He also sells DVD's, and makes use of other peoples money for his "Floating Convivium Project", a large boat for the actually free people to do whatever (the hell) they do.
(cont) "

I disassociate myself from the interpretations of AF by Richard and co. As I'm now giving my own interpretations with the language I have and within the Theravadan Buddhist context which i have always remained within. This will change and evolve over time no doubt. If you want to hold me up next to Richard and co, that is your own prerogative.

Kenneth, I understand I have asked some awkward questions, and I understand that you have more invested, and more to lose with this controversy than Nick does. You have your set of teachings and your website and your students, plus you probably have less free time than Nick. Not to mention the highly volatile nature of this subject can turn the discussion and website into a 3 ring circus. (Take these posts, for example). But I think many people besides me would benefit from seeing an open and honest dialogue between you and Nick. You could do it on a closed thread perhaps and avoid all the side chatter which makes it so much more of time investment. Or record a skype conversation. Please?
See if you can "take the lid off". And whether or not you do this, or even if this post just drops like a turd in a punchbowl, thank you both, Nick and Kenneth.

Regards, Gary

Click on "yes" below if you like the idea of a conversation between Nick and Kenneth.

". But I don't know of anyone who has testified to a change like that. In fact one of the actually free claimants (Stephanie Dunning) has said that "becoming actually free will not produce in you a set of predictable behaviors, as if there is a "right" way to behave if one has no affective faculty." I believe Richard has said something similar. (cont)
"

I am not Richard. Or rather I am not the conditioned personalty (5 aggregates) that the conditioned personality Richard is. I have not argued anywhere that AF means one automatically becomes a saint. Have I said such a thing? All I have talked of are the the affectless versions of the sublime abodes that can be recognized post-af. Where have i said af results in something universal for all people? There is s till a conditioned mind/body organism that acts out certain personality traits. Each person being different. Owen, Clayton nor I are the same personality types. Clayton swears like a Pirate and Owen has a tendency to use the word 'love' a lot.

"So I assume that a person who exhibits exclusively selfish behaviour before becoming AF may continue to do so after becoming AF.
I know you did not say that Nick. But what would you say about it? Do you think a selfish person WOULD change, and manifest "actual caring" after becoming AF? How do you know that would happen?
"

No I wouldn't know as I have only spoken to 8 others who claim it. All showed enough caring for me while walking towards af to guide me there quickly.