Villum's further mistakes

A practice thought: "Is this how you kill the Buddha?"
Another: An interesting variation on this practice would be to note "living", "being present" and "being me", or some combination of similar impressions and thoughts. The idea of this would be to target directly the idea that "living" and "being present" are feelings, and add another perspective to the investigation of "being me". I suspect, at least for some people, that the idea that life is something that occurs at specific times can be quite strong. You could perhaps also note the sense of a moment being somehow important.

Returning again to my interpretation of "EiS Jhana" (the further developments of which i have not been following), it it sweet, and rest, and freedom. This time i started by building the direct-mode-through-self-inquiry that mumuwu has described, and followed, probably as usual manipulating to much. I changed my tactic for building this state and focused on resting as the self-experiencing nature of objects, now pointing out to myself that in the experienced there is nothing other than just it's being experienced. This helped leave solidity behind and achieve a more restful state as sweet pleasure began to build a little. Resting as the self-experiencing nature of sweet pleasure caused me to go beyond it into the territory of light-and-clarity which seems to be the nature of third jhana.
I did not go very deep, as thoughts continued to be possible and i experimented a lot, but it was sweet and restful in just the way i remember. The afterglow from which i write this is open, clear, happy and peacefully active, with no trace of the tiredness which accompagnies some other forms of concentration.
Edit: the strategy of breathing pleasure into things remains important.

"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."

What (or who) changes the present experience? In what time frame? Right now in this instant? Or only upon secondary reflection?

In what way can nothing really be done? If nothing can be done, who or what keeps trying to do something?

Those two ideas ("something keeps changing the present experience" vs "nothing can be done" (implied: to change the present experience) seem at odds to me.

"What (or who) changes the present experience? In what time frame? Right now in this instant? Or only upon secondary reflection?

In what way can nothing really be done? If nothing can be done, who or what keeps trying to do something?

Those two ideas ("something keeps changing the present experience" vs "nothing can be done" (implied: to change the present experience) seem at odds to me. "


There is the impression of an agent (me) affecting experience, standing partly outside experience. I change the focus of attention, for example. This agent is (when seen closely) part of experience, and the doer arises along with the doing and the done. Thus, it doesn't really seem to be any changing anything taking place. Instead, experience shifts as a whole from moment to moment. Thus, nothing can be done.
Yet i keep trying to do something, "doing" meaning trying to act upon experience as if standing partly outside it.

I was further considering that leaving everything as it is is not possible either, as any investigative attitude changes the way suffering and stuff like that is perceived and reacted to. So a totally objective seperated mindfulness is an impossibility.

Edit: not sure how clear this answer turned out. I'm still working on understanding this stuff myself.

Do 'you' really change the focus of attention? Isn't that also just part of experience, and quite spontaneous? Everything you list as an obstacle is just another thought arising and passing away by itself, and is included in experience. There isn't "experience" and then "thinking about it" or "experience" and then "someone watching it". The latter are simply more spontaneous experiences. The sensation of agency is just another spontaneous thought.

I agree. Working on understanding that properly

You'll get it.

Jayson showed me something very nice:
[2:23:14 PM CEST] jaysonbyrne: can I give you a practice to try
[2:23:23 PM CEST] Villum Wendelboe Lassen: yeah?
[2:23:45 PM CEST] jaysonbyrne: 1st - go read the 4 noble truths while I type this
[2:23:59 PM CEST] jaysonbyrne: I want you to take clinging to be equal to thinking
[2:24:27 PM CEST] jaysonbyrne: craving/aversion will be the equivalent of tension in the body / not simply accepting it after it has arisen
[2:24:37 PM CEST] jaysonbyrne: when a thought arises you will let it go
[2:24:45 PM CEST] jaysonbyrne: and then notice tension in the body and allow it to be there
[2:25:00 PM CEST] jaysonbyrne: you will then ask one of the following questions
[2:25:06 PM CEST] jaysonbyrne: "how am I experiencing this moment of seeing"
[2:25:16 PM CEST] jaysonbyrne: "how am I experiencing this moment of hearing"
[2:25:26 PM CEST] jaysonbyrne: "how am I experiencing this moment of feeling"
[2:25:51 PM CEST] jaysonbyrne: when the contemplation of one of those is broken by thought - repeat the process asking the next of the three questions
[2:26:08 PM CEST] Villum Wendelboe Lassen: ooh, nice
[2:26:51 PM CEST] jaysonbyrne: if you start to get piti/sukkha arising spontaneously - feel free to switch to anapanasatti where in you stay with the breath instead of the questions - continuing to release thinking and then notice/allow whatever tension has arisen

Practice of the day: For everyone you see, tell them (in your mind) that they are good and beautiful and a gift to the world. Especially the people who you wouldn't normally feel this about. If it someone you feel attracted to, perhaps add something like "wherever you might go in the world" to try and make your good wishes independent of attraction.

43 minutes morning jhana. Started with self-inquiry based "direct mode", which seems to work very well for making things calm down. Unintended progression to what-i-call-piti going away, leaving only "sukha" a very subtle positive sensation associated with perceptions of white light. States were very "dirty", meaning there were strong elements of non-jhanic and lower-jhanic perceptions continually thrugh sit. Went up through some very dirty formless jhanas by means of pointing out to myself that the jhanic sensations (sukha, neutral equanimious sensation, perceptions of space, perceptions of consciousness, perceptions of nothingness, neither-perception-nor-nonperception) were experiencing themselves. This causes these jhanic sensations to go away. I'm unsure about the jhanas above boundless consciousness.
After leaving what i think was a very dirty neither-perception-nor-nonperception, there was for a short time a state of i have a hard time identifying, but which involved a sudden lighting up of visual perceptions, and a non-intended opening of eyes. 43 out of planned 45 minutes had passed. In afterglow i seemed at first tired, but on examination, distant and uninvolved are more precise descriptions. No lightness or clarity, but sensual impulses also very faint and unimpressive.
Edit: Subtle similarities (feeling of face, partial sense of having gone away) indicate that sit was affected by my playing around with LocoAustriaco's recipe for temporary 8th stage yesterday. Also, throughout what seemed formless, i examined continuing perceptions of a center through noticing that it experienced itself.

Cool stuff Villum. Do you think the brightness after 8th could have been related to pureland jhanas or maybe a fruition? Also could you explain what you mean by things "experiencing themselves"?

It's not like any pure land experience i know of. Pure land jhanas have a quality of fine pleasure. This didn't feel like anything. Might be the afterglow of a fruition. I think it was something like what i experience when i try to follow MN 121, The Lesser Discourse on Emptiness: www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.121.than.html

By experiencing themselves, i mean pointing out to myself that for the targeted quality (everything else too, but this is a targeted version), there is no distance between observed and observer. Then i let go and surrender to resting as the union of observer and observed. This eliminates, as far as i can see, any possibility of resistance and, i think, fabrication.

An attempt at pointing out.
Notice that X(whatever object you choose, or everything) is experienced.
Notice that there is in the experience nothing other than the experienced
Notice that there is in the experienced nothing other than it's being experienced.
Notice that there is no distance to what is experienced, no seperation from what is experienced.
Notice that what is experienced is also what experiences. Surrender to experiencing as the experienced right where it is experienced.

So in other words, no experiencer?

Yeah. But this way of seeing it seems to clear away resistance and, i think, fabrication. Resting as pure experience just being where it is, no point in experience seen as dependent on or observed from any other.

Edit: Note to self. Jhana in the evening clears the mind for the evening. Jhana in the morning shapes the day. Will change my practice pattern.

"Jhana in the evening clears the mind for the evening. Jhana in the morning shapes the day."

Ooh - nice!

Goodie!

Every moment of being restless at the bus stop is a moment of running away from what is. Every moment of ordinary joy is a moment of lacking acceptance. Not being present is looking at the world and seeing pain instead. This is suffering. Every moment of total acceptance is a moment of total awareness. Unconditional love is total awareness. Not being present creating a dream of pain to hide from pain.
I'm trying to understand this. I'm trying to understand, but yet, most of the time, i am still running.

What if "what is" really is just being restless at the bus stop? It's possible to over analyze experience so that in the desire and process of analyzing we actually add unnecessary layers of complexity to what started out as, and really remains, very simply just "what is." And I'd hate to think that ordinary joy could become something to avoid, and for what?

Or am I misunderstanding something?

I was perhaps overly poetic. I was thinking about how suffering actually really really hurts. and trying to understand that better, to help my practice motivation. And wondering, a bit, how it is suffering when it is not actively felt. And then, i wrote something to express those thoughts that was perhaps not entirely precise.

I do not think, actually, that ordinary joy is something to avoid. But it seems to me, from comparisons and such, that it involves not being fully present. As in, bodily stuff not being seen properly, creating something to be carried away in. Everything is simply "what is", yet some things seem to disappear or change when seen clearly, or when accepted fully, or when loved unconditionally. What i mean by joy here, is one of those things, in what little experience i have. Yet what remains is still quite familiar.
I do very much agree that overanalyzing is possible. It might be possible for what is to be restless, but my restlessness is not that, as far as i have been able to tell. It is a not being able to stand still because that would involve facing some pain. I am practicing standing still at the bus stop, for that reason. I do need to get better at being with the pain.

So the point is to be able to just be with some kind of pain? Sounds sort of like you're looking for pain or maybe even causing pain. Joy and pain, like everything else, both arise and pass. There's no reason anyone would need to add more layers to experience to see that, right? I'm not tracking with you on this but I think it's because of the complexity you're adding to explain.

Or maybe bus stops are really cosmic pain investigation stations.

My teacher once said, when I was in a period of great difficulty, that watching people struggle in meditation is like watching people punch themselves in the face. I feel like that reading this, villum. There are points where effort can help with practice, but there are many points where effort actually undermines or blocks realization. I don't know you personally, so I have mixed feelings about offering strong advice, but I'll do it anyway: be kind to yourself, relax, and stop trying so hard. I think it's really counterproductive for you right now. If you were my student or a close friend, I would tell you to quit practicing entirely for a few weeks, and just go out and have fun and go hiking and see movies and hang out with friends. The process will run by itself, and realization arises in its own time. That time comes more quickly when we aren't interfering in the process by constantly trying to change our experience to fit our preconceptions of how it should feel.

@cmarti
This is what happens when you don't keep a regular journal, and then think to write down something without particularly considering how the audience will receive it. It half seems to me that i am being over-interpreted here, yet both you and Gira also address real issues for me. So i will explain in more depth, so that if this discussion is to continue, it will be more useful.

The original post was a result of my considering the Theravadic point that all desire is suffering, like unto being roasted over a pit of burning coals. What i call "emotions" all seem to involve come combination of not seeing the bodily impressions which the emotion is a reaction to, and a resistance (as in, desire for things to be other than what is) to that impression. What i call "emotions" seem to mostly evaporate when they are accepted fully, when you meet them with only love/openness. This seems to do the same thing as fully and clearly seeing the impressions the emotion are a reaction to/an interpretation of. Accepting some emotion fully, it seems, removes the resistance and allows the original sensations to simply be there. Thus i considered that (poetically), seeing and loving are the same, in that they lead to opening up, to peace, and to the ceasing of reactive fabrication of dreams/interpretations of sensations.

There is also another way of working with these "fabrications". This is to let the emotion or thought go, leaving a (perhaps physically painful) tension felt somewhere in the body. Tensions of this kind do not draw me the way thoughts or emotions do, they do not seem in themselves to something the mind reacts to. And if you keep doing this, the tensions will begin to go away on their own. This happens, as far as i can see, because the bodily impressions are clearly seen when you cease reacting to them and then give the mind some time to figure things out.
continued...

These tensions are what i'm referring to when i talk of pain. They seem like physical things, sometimes directly painful, sometimes just feeling like a pressure or tensing. Yet they too seem to evaporate at least temporarily when seen or accepted fully.
I am guessing that these tensions are always there, below what i call "fabrications" - the emotions, thoughts and similar but more vague things that come up and draw in the mind. This is why i wrote that they are a result of looking at the world and seeing only pain. To speak more clearly, in my thinking (which i'm trying not to be too sure of), first, you desire something other than what is. This is felt as tension/resistance/pain. Then that desire becomes elaborated, giving you a "dream", a "fabrication" of something other than what is - a place for desire to drive you into.
There is a lot going on at subtler levels than this, so obviously this is not the entire story.
But it should help make sense of what i said.

Edit: This can be taken as a very simplified version of dependent origination. You have "what is". Then you have craving for things to be otherwise. This manifests as tension/pain/resistance. Then you have fabrication, which is the mind creating a way away from what you wish were different. This manifests as thoughts, impulses, emotions, attractions, et.c..

More explaining of what's going on for me to follow.

I kind of figured that's what you were getting at but the words looked, well, a bit odd to say the least. While it's perfectly okay, even a good idea, to investigate everything, at some point the investigation takes on the role of a hindrance, too. It's also perfectly viable to be willing to let all that go and just be. In the truly letting go there is freedom. Everything is filtered and processed through mind, with no exceptions. Tapping into dependent origination is the key to everything, I agree, but how deep one needs to go to get it at a level that produces freedom and awakening is a matter of some debate, as I'm sure you know.

@gira: It may seem you are right. I seems i might be trying to do this at a point where doing isn't the answer. There is a powerful clarity and release each time i note "expecting" or similar things, something i can't at the moment get any of my many tricks to do with the same power.

It seems it may be time to return to noting "practicing", "practice expectation", "practice thought" and all that. You did point out that i probably hadn't gotten the full benefits of it yet. Then i got distracted by a neat idea.
Edit: I will also note when i have aversion to witness-like sensations (because i want to go directly to third gear)