Villum's further mistakes

An interpretation of the last contemplation of the Conducive to the imperturbable sutta.
"It shall not be, it shall not occur to me. It will not be, it will not occur to me. What is, what has come to be, that i abandon"
There is a practice here, if one can figure out how to do it. This is my current interpretation of it, which seems potentially powerful. The practice is done as a sort of slow stuctured counter-noting, in the spirit of renunciation. We will start by slowly chanting the line out loud. The rhythm of it is a help here.

/ It shall not be /
Taking in objects in the way you do while noting, you touch them only mildly, in the spirit of renunciation, while trying to mean what you're saying.
/ It shall not occur to me /
returning to broad awareness in the spirit of renunciation, not resisting, you incline towards giving up not just the grasping of the object but the mind grasping it as well.
/ It will not be /
returning to tendency of awareness to make various things come up, in the spirit of renunciation, touching only lightly. Again, not resisting, as these things are not even there to be touched. You can lightly notice various things you know the mind tends to take as objects - touch, physical objects, solidity, this room, space, thoughts, emotions, longings
/ It will not occur to me /
You return to inclining towards abandoning the mind that grasps at these things, the awareness they occur in, the witness that witnesses them, the tendency for these things to come up at all.
/ What is, what has come to be/
The totality of things, of objects or their lack, the inner and outer worlds, all borders. these ideas and similar are lightly touched, as is the feeling of broad or open awareness.
/That i abandon /
inclining towards renouncing these things, let go of the center. Then start the chant over.

This work for you? Seem like a good idea? How would you do it?

Also of interest:


www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.121.than.html

www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.122.than.html

Clarification: The idea was to chant just the "it shall not be, it shall not occur to me. It will not be, it will not occur to me. What is, what has come to be, that i abandon." The rest of the text is a description of meditative actions to take while chanting.

Been muddling about lately. Didn't keep up the nothingness practice. I have mostly been noticing that various phenomena are composed of just thoughts (broadly understood, Mind may be a better term), combined with various way of pointing out to myself the emptiness of thoughts.
It all started with the "I am a thought" trick that mumuwu wrote about, where you think, examining the thought "I am a thought". Combine this with seeing that thoughts have no location or duration when examined properly, and the question "where am i in this picture" to find things to be looked at.

Further details to follow

Quick note: on instinct, replaced "thought" with "confusion" in the above. Seems to be working better.
Also, noticing that "everything is present" (again) seems very powerful. It creates a shift during a kriya to a nondual perspective, no noticeable subject/object distinction as all things are seen as equally present.

Edit: Resistance can also be used instead of confusion. Combine with "Where am i in this picture" "What in this picture is mine" "What in this picture is resistance/confusion", "Notice that resistance/confusion doesn't even last for a moment" "In the felt there is only the felt"(et.c.)

Lots of confusion coming up. Kriyas from noticing that everything is present are more powerful, and feel slightly like panic

Today, considering the following: Everything is present spontaneously as the experience of itself. That is no experience, experiencer or object apart from this.
I seem to be able to approach this, but not quite give in to it. Yet it seems to be the case as far as i can tell.
My practice still seems muddled and undirected, but perhaps that is the way of things.

It seems i have found a way of *resting* as experience recognizing itself. It makes the recognition of awareness more stable, but is so far still easily distracted. More to follow. Tilopa's Mahamudra Instructions to Naropa continue to impress me with their depth, even knowing the oral teaching.

Something i'm working on, after noticing that the awareness of the mind-image from a candle kasina is really nice,
Fire of the Dharmakaya Kasina (arcane name for the fun of it)
step 1: imagine a flame.
step 2: notice that you are aware of this imagined flame.
step 3: surrender to the imagined flame, rest (part of?) the mind(door) as the awareness of this imagined flame being experienced. Notice that awareness resting as the experience of an imagined flame is effortless. Let go trying to see the flame, or imagine the flame. Simply rest as the awareness of the flame. Let go of doubt whether the flame is there, simply rest as the awareness of the flame. Let go of distance, let go of noticing awareness and instead rest as awareness. let go of awareness and allow the flame to be there spontaneously.
step 4: keep the fire going.
step 5: Notice that everything is present in just the same way as the fire, spontanously as awake presence. (i don't know if this is true, but the approach seems promising)

Villum, how do you let go of awareness?

Awareness does not actually disappear when i let go of it in this case. And that step might not be productive. But i let go of actively being aware of awareness to something subtler, simply allowing whatever is there to be there as it is. It is more relaxed and more stable than what i used to call awareness. I think what i mean i let go of a grosser "Awareness here!" form of of awareness in favor of a simpler presence-just-as-it-is

Is it possible you mean "attention?" Awareness is just there, always. Attention is something different.

i know it is always there. Being alert to that awareness may vary though (i really do not know very clearly). It seems a shift from a kind of (local, partial?) awake-to-awareness that causes arising emotions and selfing to subside into clarity, to an awake-to-awareness-implied that doesn't cause arising emotions and selfing to subside.

Well. here's what appears to me to be happening in your #32: by imagining andy focusing on a flame we are putting a constructed thought/experience in attention. This is not unlike anything we attend to - stories, emotions, imaginary objects of all kinds. We then put an observer in to the picture - "me" being aware that "I" am attending to the flame. Surrenduring to the flame is like concentrating on any object, placing the attention lightly on that and resting there, dropping the observer.

The place that it falls apart for me is "letting go of awareness" because I can't do that, although I can release my attention from the flame. Again, this is concentration on an object. Awareness is present, as it always is, and one can attend thus to narrow (the flame) or broad (everything in experience) attention.

So I was wondering about your experience - it seemed like it was a longer path toward just resting attention on a thought and observing the mind attend to the thought and alternate between the arising of that thought and other objects in experience, potentially recognizing a full spectrum awareness in which all else falls away.

Just curious, is all.

That sounds about right (maybe, these are subtle things). I didn't know the trick with the thought, nice one. I might just have figured out a way to stabilize mind-objects that i didn't know before. What i call localized awake-to-awareness might well correspond to what you call dropping the observer.

Trying out a simple intuitive deity yoga i'm working out with a little help from Alejandro, seeing everything as self-experiencing spontanous compassionate pure fire. It is a little hard to keep going throughout the day, didn't really manage to do it yesterday, just kept returning to it whenever i remembered. It does, however, seem like a potentially very powerful method, and i see aspects of rigpa/original empty cognizant nature throughout the day. Currently, it works as a cycle of imaginative generation, seeing as self-experiencing, and surrender into what is seen of empty cognizant original nature. Surrender cannot currently work alone in this practice, imaginative generation of the self-experiencing fire-image creates an opening and a path through which to surrender. I know some would recommend a more simple surrendering practice with perhaps less potential to create subtle new selves, but this feels like what to do at this time. And for now, the practice must be a cycle - imaginative generation and surrender, again and again.
Nice pointing-out thing i just found: What in this picture is confusion - notice that all confusion is fire. - this causes a process of opening up and seeing through of subtle bodily tensions of selfing.

Some pointers and checking/pointer dilemmas
- Am i someone who experiences or something that is experienced?
- I am a thought (good one, bears repetition)
- Is this thought something that has any substance or essence. Does any part of it last for even a moment.
- What is not experienced
- Is there anything here that has any substance or essence or duration such that it could possibly be clung to? (Edit: I don't think i'm really advanced enough to use this one. Very nice opening up at first, followed by retensing. Not sure)
- Where am i in this picture? Am i something that is experienced or something that is not experienced?

- Is there any distance or seperation between experience and experienced?
- does what is experienced have any substance or essence apart from it's being experienced
- Is there anything to experiencing other than the experienced?

This is an excellent expansion of 2nd gear and a bit of 3rd. Thanks much for this Villum. At some point, Kenneth's 3 gears, is going to need to be fleshed out with good pointers to practice such as this.

I use all of them for what i would call third gear (surrender into clarity/openness). They might not take me all the way, but they point the direction. I might, however, be mistaken in this. Which would you call particularly 2nd-gearish?

☸ And in a way i was right, but oh, so far to go. I would like to thank mahamudra noting for being more sure-footed than my pointers, at least right now for me. Likely because i overused the pointers for other purposes (directed opening-up of things, which seems to be helping in it's own way. Surrender. I think it is time for more simple surrender.
☸ Manipulation and pointing is a constant part of whatever practice i do, even if it gets subtler with time. Sometimes, and more often with time, it seems a seductive vice.
It is ok if things are not simple. It is ok if i don't get what i want. Clinging hurts.

"I am half sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.

[practice talk]

This weekend, at mumuwu's suggestion, i have been trying a non-practice.
It goes like this: When you think about practice, note "practice thought". When you long for practice, note "practice longing". When you manipulate your experience, note "practicing" and stop doing it. That is all.
It is an interesting and in some ways brutal thing to do. I have noticed how much i habitually do various meditations, and that various everyday things have become somewhat meditative. Friday, i wept for an hour due to not hiding from pain (edit: or due not doing anything to alleviate the pain). Don't know how long i will keep it going. I have a feeling the benefits of it might be slowing down for this time. But it is a great way to look at your practice and the flaws it might have. Also, i have had several moments where i didn't know how to manipulate my experience even if i wanted to.

If things go according to plan, i will be going on the first of three weekend retreats in May. The retreats are called Direct Path of Padmasambhava, and sound very interesting. It is a dzogchen-like thing, and is led by Erik Pema Kunsang, a prolific translator of (mostly dzogchen, i think) tibetan buddhist material, and a student of Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche. Looking forward to it, hoping it will provide a fruitful new perspective and another set of coherent practices.

The "non-practice" you mention in #46 is rather genius. In what way are "the benefits slowing down"? ie by what criteria do you judge a practice to be working? no need to answer so much as perhaps a pointer back to mumuwu's suggestion. I recall a period that sounds similar to your own, and it was that struggle between wanting effort to have some result and having it thrown in my face that effort was futile that was characteristic. I knew there was nothing I could do, but that enraged me, at times.
ETA, reading back over your thread again, the pattern sounds the same, but for me it was pre-4th. Post 4th I just stopped meditating for three months. So take it or leave it.

"The "non-practice" you mention in #46 is rather genius. In what way are "the benefits slowing down"? ie by what criteria do you judge a practice to be working? no need to answer so much as perhaps a pointer back to mumuwu's suggestion. I recall a period that sounds similar to your own, and it was that struggle between wanting effort to have some result and having it thrown in my face that effort was futile that was characteristic. I knew there was nothing I could do, but that enraged me, at times.
ETA, reading back over your thread again, the pattern sounds the same, but for me it was pre-4th. Post 4th I just stopped meditating for three months. So take it or leave it."

It's good you asked. I think the way the benefits are slowing down is that there are no obvious insights every hour into the pattern of practice as an identity. This seems like a bit early to abandon a practice, so will keep going for now. In some cases, i have this impression that i can feel the conceptualization and distracting meaningfulness draining out of an activity in real time.
The investigation of manipulation is a very good part of this nonpractice, in addition to the look at the identity-as-practitioner. So far, it seems to me, everything changes the present experience, and nothing can really be done. But i have understood none of those insights on a really deep level, so much work to do there.