Kenneth's Buddhist Geeks Keynote - Enlightenment for The Rest of Us

Here's Kenneth's talk from last year's Buddhist Geeks conference in video form!

vimeo.com/35262634

"Drawing from Buddhism, neuroscience, and personal experience, Kenneth explains that enlightenment is a natural aspect of human development that is available to everyone."

I had a question about the experiential vs narrative focus which Kenneth talks about at the 15:00 mark of the presentation.

I feel that I have a good grasp of both modes, and how one or the other would be the default mode. Narrative focus seems to be a lot like an auto pilot. It almost seems like the brain needs a certain amount of narrative focus to rest/coast now and then, similar to how the brain needs a certain amount of sleep. Is that correct?

The other question is how about those two modes in the nanas? The first 4 nanas seem to me to be 100% predicated on expereincial focus, but after A&P I seem to have a brief period of great tranquility (like a break through) and then naritive focus can enter into it again in unusual ways during the Dark Night. Is that correct?

Regarding Thought - Check out Gary Webber:
www.happiness-beyond-thought.com/
Youtube video - Living without thoughts:


Regarding the second question, I'm not sure.

Thanks for posting that Mu. I quite enjoyed it. Kudos to Kenneth for an excellent summation of his main points with impressive yogic charisma, pacing, and breathing.
Like Mark, I also have a question regarding the subject of narrative vs. experiential focus.
Most mindfulness recommendations revolve around the experiential focus of the body-mind perceptions. Shinzen Young divides it into "focus in" and "focus out". Kenneth talks about the 4 foundations of mindfulness. Both systems break perception into bits in order to prevent a person from getting caught up in the flow of narrative thinking.
But instead of observing in the smallest of bits, can't one also benefit from observation of your surrounding in context?
To contrast "in bits" to "in context" I'll give an example. I can go for a walk and use Shinzen's focus out technique, noting sounds I hear as "hear out", body sensations of walking, breathing, arms moving etc as "feel out", and different things I see passing by as "see out". My awareness stays in these "bits" of present moment experience..
I can also take a walk and note the sound of the wind going through nearby trees, a red Nissan going by with a fat man driving, rhododendrons and arborvitae, light blue house with fading paint, brown mailbox with dents on two sides. Not "seeing like an artist", but seeing like a poet.
This falls outside the 4 foundations of mindfulness. I don't know of any system, or "enlightenment technology" other than Constructive Living, which David Reynolds created by combining Zen and two Japanese psychotherapy techniques, that recommends observing one's environment in context, like I have described. And yet it does fall into the category of present moment experiential focus, or "mindfulness" and I can do it without getting caught up in narrative.

"Not "seeing like an artist", but seeing like a poet.""

I'm pretty sure based on what you wrote - that when I practice it - it's the same thing.

"wind going through nearby trees, a red Nissan going by with a fat man driving, rhododendrons and arborvitae, light blue house with fading paint, brown mailbox with dents on two sides"

Kenneth's direct mode (tollbooth, and such techniques) do lead in that direction.

Have a look here:
kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/3rd+...Tolle%2C+and+the+PCE

Kenneth's advice from the link you posted-

"Now look around. See like an artist. Notice the brightness and immediacy of colors. See how shapes and patterns captivate the attention. Wood grain patterns are fascinating. That translucent green plastic yoga ball is a visual feast. The visual texture of fabrics is delightful. Feel your body again and ground the anxiety. If excitement arises, see it as an energy disruption. Ground it by placing your attention on it. Speculation arises; is this practice valuable? Ground it in the body. Look around at the clarity of the colors and the shapes. Feel the anxiety. Ground it. Doubt? You just sprung a leak. Feel it in the body and ground it."


I see this as completely different from what I tried to describe. I would call my practice an environmental focus rather than self focus. His description relates to the body, the senses, and the feeling of "grooving" on beauty. I say, forget about the self focus and turn attention outward, while maintaining the ordinary context. Sure, appreciate beauty, but don't make a fetish of it. No grounding needed in this, or lightning rod.

For you it may have ended up as the same, but who does this as a practice? My beginning instructions on this do not match third gear, second gear, or first gear.

Yeah they do - they're third gear. It is the same thing divorced from the grounding aspect.

It's called attentiveness to sensuousness in AF speak and it leads to PCEs.
actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/at...apperceptiveness.htm
actualfreedom.com.au/actualism/others/corr-pce.htm

You can do just what you're talking about, however the grounding process can help scaffold a person into a no-self (PCE) /dramatically reduced selfing experience (known as an Excellence Experience in AF speak).

Kenneth describes the grounding process as a push - which takes you so far, and then the seeing as an artist/poet/attentiveness to sensuousness aspect is seen as a pull which takes you the rest of the way.

It doesn't line up with the traditional 3rd gear (rigpa, mahamudra type thing) but it is what is meant by being the wave rather than riding it (direct mode).

Not the same.
Richard says this "Pure perception takes place sensitively just before one starts feeling the percept '“ and thus thinking about it affectively '“ which takes place just before one's feeling-fed mind says: '˜It's a man' or: '˜It's a woman' or: '˜It's a steak-burger' or: '˜It's a tofu-burger' ... with all that is implied in this identification and the ramifications that stem from that. This fluid, soft-focused moment of bare awareness, which is not learned, has never been learned, and never will be learned, could be called an aesthetically sensual regardfulness or a consummate sensorial discernibleness or an exquisitely sensuous heedfulness ... in a word: apperceptiveness."

I refer to not to soft focus bare awareness, but to the very discriminating mind he excludes in his description, the mind of the poet, which makes even more distinct observations than man-woman-steak-tofu.
Man with gray hair, black beret, gray goatee, blue eyes, black jacket, tan shirt.
But then not to get caught in narrative, or "ramifications" but to leave it there.

Now the PCE's descriptions you linked to do have outer world observations in some detail but GETTING to that state seems to require some kind of feeling practice of grounding or attention to physical/emotional/ or proto-emotional feeling. The fact that I do not include that inner-world attention in my description of practice makes it a different practice than third gear, second gear, first gear, or apperception.

Right

Paying exclusive attention to the senses.
Using noting to bring out distinctions (creating a chain of pure perceptions).
Cool.

Man (perception) with gray (perception) hair (perception), black (perception) beret (perception), gray (perception) goatee (perception), blue (perception) eyes (perception), black (perception) jacket (perception), tan (perception) shirt (perception).

"It is the meeting of this virginal chaos (a rock yet to be defined or recognized)'”the world directly experienced via the unfiltered senses'”with the ordering capacity of the intellect (a capacity only found to this degree in humans) which enables the linguistic articulation of the order of the universe which always already existed (the rock as such, now also defined and recognized as such). The apperceptive, (direct, unfiltered, seamless) simultaneous experience of this complimentary interaction between chaotic sense-datum and the ordering functions of the intellect engenders the never ending experience of delightful patterns of sensations which have been named: wonder. Wonder, it seems, is the default state of the unrestrained intellect, as one may well notice while experiencing a PCE, or after having achieved freedom from the human condition. "

www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discu...oards/message/956281

This might be of interest to you.

"I see this as completely different from what I tried to describe. I would call my practice an environmental focus rather than self focus. His description relates to the body, the senses, and the feeling of "grooving" on beauty. I say, forget about the self focus and turn attention outward, while maintaining the ordinary context. Sure, appreciate beauty, but don't make a fetish of it. No grounding needed in this, or lightning rod.

For you it may have ended up as the same, but who does this as a practice? My beginning instructions on this do not match third gear, second gear, or first gear."

Gary, do you tend to have phenomena arise from your body or is there only external experience while you are doing this practice?

Perhaps it is simply a matter of the type of thought that is arising? If the mind is simply labeling sense data, then it can still be a non-dual cognition.

Sometimes when I am in these modes, the breath is prominent, sometimes not. Can we simply treat this as labeling being prominent vs not?

I too am confused about the subtle differences between some of these experiences, but they at least all seem to have the same flavor.

Gary, keep in mind that we have no direct access to the outside world. Everything "you" experience, everything that goes to make up "you," is a representation within the brain. There is often, but not always, feedback from the outside world... but what you experience is not the outside world. See Eagleman's Incognito or Metzinger's The Ego Tunnel for a more detailed explanation of how this works. Meanwhile, there is no need to make a rigid distinction between the experience of the senses and the experience of the mind. Simply take experience as it comes. If you can identify the specific phenomena that are being taking as "you" and look at these phenomena directly, there will no longer be a "you" in the picture; there will be only phenomena, referring back to no one. To see this is to lose the sense of ownership of this experience, which is half the way home. Continuing on, you can ask whether it is even possible to direct the attention. When the answer is "no," you are free; there is nothing further to be done. This is the end of agency. When the answer is "yes," continue to practice using whatever method/non-method feels right.

All best,

Kenneth

"Continuing on, you can ask whether it is even possible to direct the attention. When the answer is "no," you are free; there is nothing further to be done. This is the end of agency. When the answer is "yes," continue to practice using whatever method/non-method feels right."

Great post, I'm with you right up until the "ask whether it is even possible to direct the attention" part. For some reason the thought/practice of a Goenka-style body scan came to mind. Could I still be able to do a body scan without directing the attention? Interesting, I'll try and look at that and see.

Back to the question I posted before: I'd still like to know if naritive focus returns into the mix and plays a role in some dhukka nanas but not in others? It sure seems like it to me, but perhaps I am geting up to A&P and then getting derailed into a naritive focus when it's not really supposed to work that way. That's why I'm wondering.

Mu,
You keep directing me to actualism methods and the PCE, and including my practice in the actualism vein. Help me understand something.
Do you mean that if I keep practicing my observational noting of my environment, without paying attention to my inner world, that I will get a PCE eventually?
Do you mean if I persist in that basic practice, adding nothing more, getting more PCE's, then I will become "actually free" of all sense of self, with all that that entails?

Justin,
It just depends on how I/we want to slice up the pie of mindfulness. For years I only did breath awareness. They assure me that breath awareness can do it all. But I can't do breath awareness combined with complex activity. So I have tried many other methods for mindfulness in daily life. With each method I focus on one slice of the pie and ignore the rest as far as possible. So to answer your question, no, I don't notice inner feelings while doing this practice. I can slice the pie differently though and only pay attention to my Hara and the relaxation of my out-breath. Or I can include the Hara while listening to my environment and noting visual details of my environment. Dealer's choice.
The practice I described I picked up from Constructive Living. David Reynolds, the creator of this method fairly ridiculed seekers of enlightenment, nirvana, etc. He's described "not self" states though, that he experienced, so I think he speaks from a pretty deep well.
As a basic test of the level of neurosis in a client who came to his office for the first time, he would ask them to close their eyes and describe their environment. Some people could give no detail, perhaps saying room, desk, and Mr. Reynolds. Such a person had so much neurosis and self focus, that they had no attention left for the outside world. On the other hand, if someone could remember the color of the walls, floors, paintings on the wall, some contents of desktop, type of lighting in the room, then that person would have a less work ahead in learning to respond to the cues that reality presents (the CL path in extreme nutshell).


This practice of CL type mindfulness appeals to me because it apparently helps people avoid some of the Buddhistic inertia that some people (like me) have a tendency to fall into.

" If you can identify the specific phenomena that are being taking as "you" and look at these phenomena directly, there will no longer be a "you" in the picture; there will be only phenomena, referring back to no one. "


Hi Kenneth,

I think you point to 2nd gear here, right? I can do it, and I have. I tried that gear for months a few years back and got stuck, big time. Then again, more recently my current teacher pointed me down that path, and I got stuck again. Like going nowhere, stuck in a dead end, with way too much Buddhistic inertia. (see above)
Why I keep going back to first gear. I feel like you have pointed me to the quicksand and said "Hey Gary, give that a try". No offense meant, just my personal point of view.
Thanks,
Gary

Focusing with an ever greater clarity on the senses should lead to pces, yes. Will you become AF - heck no. AF is nonsense.

"The Actual Freedom puzzle comes increasingly into focus for me and I am able to see better how it fits into the overall picture of contemplative practice. Much of the confusion has come about because of the idiosyncratic language used by AF founder Richard. Nonetheless, the mode of perception he is pointing to is a natural and harmless one and is in no way antithetical to developmental enlightenment. In fact, what I would call the "direct" mode of perception (the "PCE" or "pure consciousness experience"), arises spontaneously for many yogis, can and should be cultivated, is neither new nor strange, and may in fact be exactly what "direct path" teachers like Adyashanti and Eckart Tolle are teaching. In other words, the PCE is what I call a 3rd Gear practice."

kennethfolkdharma.wetpaint.com/page/3rd+...Tolle%2C+and+the+PCE

"Focusing with an ever greater clarity on the senses should lead to pces, yes. Will you become AF - heck no. AF is nonsense.
"

LOL

Okay. Clear enough. We can leave that can of worms unopened.

You have this right, Gary. This is what the 3 Speed Transmission is designed to address. You get all of the teachings up front; full disclosure beats mushrooms every time. But you don't always have to do the more advanced or more difficult practices; you can downshift at will to get more traction. Your gut sense is that you should be doing 1st gear at this point. I agree. Follow your gut and keep noting. And watch the mind's temptation to chew on ideas the way a dog chews a bone. You will never figure this out in advance; no one ever has. Just put your head down and note, including the doubt, confusion, aversion, fear, craziness, annoyance, frustration, exasperation, and anger. Add in the joy, freedom, bliss, and equanimity whenever it arises and notice that these things are changing so rapidly that it makes no sense to put any stock in it. These thoughts and mind states are not you. To systematically and diligently note them is to see this first hand and to be free from identification as self.

"Your gut sense is that you should be doing 1st gear at this point. I agree. Follow your gut and keep noting. "

How interesting that you put it this way. I would not have described it as a gut decision. I would have said I made a rational, practical choice.
80 to 90% of my practice happens through mindfulness in action. I do the minimum sitting practice and as much mindfulness in daily life as I can manage.
Unlike 2nd and 3rd gear, I can get traction with noting during my day, in simple activities, sometimes at work, so I mostly do noting.
If I had two months in a monastery to meditate I think would take that opportunity to go as far with third gear "practice" as I could. I love "do nothing" meditation. Sitting, I mean.
But I can't live there. I don't see how I can afford the rent, to live in that space.
I think of Gary Weber that Mu linked to above. He says he functions fine with no narrative, no thinking, no "I"... makes decisions mostly via intuition "this feels right"... My rational mind finds it hard to believe his claims. I remember a news story about a "breatharian" who claimed he just lived on nothing but air. Only he kept ducking out to McDonald's to get CHEESEBURGERS. But Weber makes a strong case. Why would he lie about it, he gives his book proceeds to charity.
Maybe I just prefer the idea of returning to "ordinary mind" at the end of the journey, narrative and all.

Thanks for the advice. I'll keep on noting as long as it continues to "make sense". Did I make a rational, practical choice to do noting? I thought I did. Or maybe I followed my gut and then retroactively made a little story about why I have to make the practical choice. What do I know about this person typing at the keyboard, thinking these thoughts... Does this person even have a choice?
Uh-oh. Better get back to noting.

"I think of Gary Weber that Mu linked to above. He says he functions fine with no narrative, no thinking, no "I"... makes decisions mostly via intuition "this feels right"... My rational mind finds it hard to believe his claims. ...
Maybe I just prefer the idea of returning to "ordinary mind" at the end of the journey, narrative and all. "

It's not as weird as it can sound. Not so different from the way an artist, musician, athlete can sometimes be so absorbed in the flow of the thing they are doing that no thinking is needed, no reasoning or reflection interrupts the intuitive response and action to the approach of the ball, the movement of the fingers on the instrument, or the sculpting of the clay. The mind/body functions quite well without the overlay of story telling. It can be quite surprising at first when it starts to happen, because we are so used to thinking we need to bring all that reasoning and planning, figuring without that we'd somehow just sit like a lump on the sofa. This is, at least, my own experience and that of a half dozen friends and colleagues who are fully functioning adults with jobs, families, etc.

"I think of Gary Weber that Mu linked to above. He says he functions fine with no narrative, no thinking, no "I"... makes decisions mostly via intuition "this feels right"... My rational mind finds it hard to believe his claims."

Ah, but that (Gary Weber's description) is how things actually work for everyone. Most people just don't realize it. We rationalize "decisions" after the fact. That's how the mind/brain does things. Your conscious perception of events is a narrative, a set of stories, and nice cohesive fiction that is built around the recent past, but that actually takes place after most of what you think of as "my decisions."

"The mind/body functions quite well without the overlay of story telling."

It all actually works better, IMHO

thanks for the comments, giragirasol and Cmarti.

Why do you practice mindfulness meditation then? (assuming you do)
Or does that question have no meaning?
I ask this because I asked it of myself. I wrote in my post above that "I'll keep practicing noting as long as it continues to MAKES SENSE".
Why do I believe that?
Why do I believe that it makes sense, and secondly why do I believe that I can make a choice, then take action based on this idea that it "makes sense"?
I didn't divide up reality in that way. Other people did it. Then other people presented "noting". Buddha, Mahasi, Kenneth. I just bought in because I identified with the goals.

I want to put an end to suffering. I want to dis-embed from the eggo, the self. End personal suffering, then I can help end the suffering of others.
But where did these ideas come from? I did not divide up reality this way. I found it already divided up for me. Why do I think I can put an end to suffering, personal or otherwise? Why do I think that "I" can make this "choice" because it "makes sense" to "me"? If I don't really take this path for a reason or a purpose, then why do I do it?

Why do I want to end suffering?

Several teachers I have heard speak have said, we often experience the world as if we are making all sorts of choices and are in charge of the trajectory of our lives, and there is no reason not to honor that. In other words, trying to reason through why it might not be so is just an exercise that doesn't really matter. What can happen is that one day one perceives all of these decisions being without agency, arising from myriad causes, unfolding spontaneously, and that is how it is. But when it's not like that, there's no need to battle at it with logic, as if you can convince yourself to believe it. That's my take on stuff. Practice itself will deliver changes in perception and insights that will change a lot of things, in time. One doesn't need to have a PhD in geology or physics to hike up a mountain. One simply needs to take one step at a time up the trail. Probably not satisfying, but that approach has been most beneficial to me, so thought I'd share it.