Stages, Part the Third

Another thing I want to mention, again, is that the direct perception mode/PCE is most often promoted in a way that smacks of manipulating one's experience. This is largely caused, I think, by the marketing - the emphasis on the reduced amplitude of emotions. It's often sold as a way to sort of rid ourselves of emotion, so the connotation is manipulation oriented. It's a fine point but what I see Kenneth saying on this thread is not so much about manipulation as it is about taking advantage of a natural grounding effect that occurs when we allow conceptual mind to fall away and focus our attention on the body. It does not, as I experience it, require anything more than allow that grounding effect to happen. The effort I have to put out is to stay in that natural mode no matter what is happening in my experience, not to ground the emotions when there. For example:

"From this point of view of being "in," you don't experience any negativity. I realize this brings up all kinds of theoretical problems about conditioned states not being "it;" I am very familiar with the theory. On the other hand, this is not a jhana or a nana or anything so narrowly defined. It seems more accurate to call it a mode of perception than a state, although I won't quibble about that. The point is that from the point of view of this mode, it's possible to adopt the highest standards when defining suffering and not-suffering... standards that would not disappoint even the most die-hard sutta thumper. ***You don't have to do any kind of dancing or shoehorning at all.***" -- Kenneth

(The ***'s were added by me for emphasis.)

Cmarti that was wonderful. Thank you so much for writing that.

I would just like to piggy-back on to cmarti and Nick's comments here a bit.

What I find so amazing about this place and Kenneth's teaching is the neo-spin they put on more ancient practices teachings, scriptures as well as modern spiritual figures. It matters quite a bit to me that Kenneth has had several teacher in bonafide traditions and frames what he does in light of that accumulated, authoritative experience, even if he integrates it in new ways.

Also, I have no problem with innovation and Kenneth posting on what he's doing. I think it is potentially great if also a little over my developmental head.

The problem I have began with the two threads "Are you sick?" and "Are you uncomfortable?" which feel like we've shifted in ten days from important experiment to direct provocation and based on a new goal (?). It seems like some 4th pathers who've been here a while are having trouble adjusting and are skeptical. Definitely hard for me at one-month and 2nd or 3rd (maybe). Why put a forced choice out like that? Why emotionally charge a question in that way?

We are still human beings. Authority of tradition and metaphysical frameworks are helpful (we've all got them for the 4 paths). A sense of how it all fits as well. You can never get over these skillful relative elements when a redefinition (?) of enlightenment seems to be being offered.

Now I get that Kenneth can't build all that out in such a short time--nor should he be expected to. But therefore I don't think these kinds of provocations should be sent out there yet either. Or if that challenge is needed or feels like a good experiment, why not send it privately to people who are really ripe for it? I honestly worry about the great results the community (and myself) have been getting if things change too quickly. I'm not sure I would have been attracted here if then was now.

There is a difference between these two things:

1) Seeing a busy mind for what it is - empty - and being able to abide in that empty, clear space
2) Seeing mind for what it is - busy - and attempting to reduce the busy-ness

I don't really like to quote other people on these boards because they're here for us to put OUR experiences down and to thus share those with others here. But in this case I thought it illuminating to post something I always found very insightful and that I believe represents a truth I have come to see. It appears the next reply due to its size.

"About this mind... in truth there is nothing really wrong with it. It is intrinsically pure. Within itself it's already peaceful. That the mind is not peaceful these days is because it follows moods. The real mind doesn't have anything to it, it is simply [an aspect of] Nature. It becomes peaceful or agitated because moods deceive it. The untrained mind is stupid. Sense impres- sions come and trick it into happiness, suffering, gladness, and sorrow, but the mind's true nature is none of those things. That gladness or sadness is not the mind, but only a mood coming to deceive us. The untrained mind gets lost and follows these things, it forgets itself. Then we think that it is we who are upset or at ease or whatever.

But really this mind of ours is already unmoving and peaceful... really peaceful! Just like a leaf which is still as long as no wind blows. If a wind comes up the leaf flutters. The fluttering is due to the wind'”the 'fluttering' is due to those sense impressions; the mind follows them. If it doesn't follow them, it doesn't 'flutter.' If we know fully the true nature of sense impressions we will be unmoved.

Our practice is simply to see the Original Mind. We must train the mind to know those sense impressions, and not get lost in them; to make it peaceful. Just this is the aim of all this difficult practice we put ourselves through."

~ Ajahn Chah, Food for the Heart

Cmarti. Thanks for the great quote. So much of what is going on here in the last few days has me extra confused. Straight forward, simple and eloquent is much appreciated.

Thank you so much for that Chris, Ajahn Chah keeps it too real... Love it! : )

I discovered at an inflection point in my practice a truth. Let's call this one Truth. There is nothing, really, that we can count on in this life but this one particular truth is timeless. In virtually every tradition it's called "Awareness." This awareness is accessible to me at any time if I drop the mind of ideas, concepts and permanent objects. It reveals the emptiness of things as they are - the three characteristics we talk about here. This is the uncovering of what Christopher Titmuss calls "the light that reveals." This is when the mind attends to awareness itself, not the objects that we are generally enamored of.

For me, this awareness and the resulting view of the emptiness of all things is original mind, natural mind, Zen mind, the ultimate perfection, the simplest thing. When I am that all objects, be they things, thoughts or feelings, appear empty upon arising. I can see the arising and passing away of every object, the full passage of dependent origination, just as it is. There is enormous clarity, no sense of "I/me/mine" and a tangible sense of timelessness, of a universe that this human being and all things are only tiny co-dependent particles of. Ours is a universe that does not care or take sides, that just IS, always has been, always will be.

This is what I practice to be.

-- do you practice to be, or do you practice not being distracted?

Sometimes when you seem concerned about expressions of 'View' here, I'm puzzled because THIS view, which you so eloquently set out here-- IS 'the View'-- simply that which one sees through practice, no more, no less. It's not some doctrine that you're supposed to squint, run through a bunch of drills, and torment your mind to 'attain.'

Despite my onerous exposition, it is revealed not by addition but by subtraction. When I say "discovered" I mean that it just happened and I have no idea why. Does that help?

There are times when I don't feel even close to being awake. In those times I actually don't think I am awake. There are times when I know, and times I when I don't know. This is all a second by second thing. It's when I lose that, the second by second realization part that things become solid and I buy into the dream, it is then that I'm not awake. And there's a huge sense of mystery about every freakin' thing and realizing that everything I think I know is just a thought, sometimes stored as a memory. So this "I don't know" stuff isn't about not knowing a concept, though that's true. No, for me "I don't know" is about not relying on concepts at all.

PS: the poet John Keats wrote of a thing he called "negative capability." It would behoove you to look that up.

"
There are times when I don't feel even close to being awake. In those times I actually don't think I am awake. There are times when I know, and times I when I don't know. This is all a second by second thing. It's when I lose that, the second by second realization part that things become solid and I buy into the dream, it is then that I'm not awake. And there's a huge sense of mystery about every freakin' thing and realizing that everything I think I know is just a thought, sometimes stored as a memory. So this "I don't know" stuff isn't about not knowing a concept, though that's true. No, for me "I don't know" is about not relying on concepts at all.

"

Yeah-- when it comes down to it, what is 'being [or NOT being] awake' but a concept? An attribution after-the-fact [if only a heartbeat later] added to the experience of the moment?
-- what Keats called 'an anxious grasping after facts' in that essay about 'negative capability.'

'Knowing'/'not knowing'-- same thing: it's a secondary mental construct after-the-fact of the intimacy of experience. 'Drawing conclusions on the wall', Bob Dylan said. A conclusion is an end, a full stop-- but experience doesn't end.

Reminds me of that Rumi poem that was so important for me: 'If the Friend rose inside you, would you bow... or would you say "I know-- no, I don't know, now...' The bowing is the immediate response to experience; the mulling it over, trying to decide what to think about it-- pfft, it's gone.

"The bowing is the immediate response to experience; the mulling it over, trying to decide what to think about it-- pfft, it's gone."

*Nodding* This is when the Buddha held up the flower, and the "Friend rose" within Mahakasyapa, and he bowed with his smile.

Surrender of the conceptual mind: knowing that knows better than to need to know. ; )

"So this 'I don't know' stuff isn't about not knowing a concept, though that's true. No, for me 'I don't know' is about not relying on concepts at all." ~Chris

Ajahn Chah's version of "not-knowing" was to remind one's self, "not sure, not sure." Other Zen teachers refer to not-knowing as doubt, or even Great Doubt. As you said, it has less to do with a lack of conceptual understanding, and more to do with doubting the validity of conceptual thought as a means for gaining penetrating insight into the truth of things.

I know that last sentence is full of contradictions, but I'm sure they can be overlooked

I like to see it as an activity, in which I am living in that instant just before thought and doing whatever it is I've learned how to do sometimes to stay right there for a long period of time.
But I still know stuff and I'd be glad to tell you all about it. Thrilled, actually, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. (smiling face)

Okay, no bullsh*t here -- I've been experimenting with the practice that has been advanced hereabouts called "direct perception." I have no final conclusions (and may never have any) but I wanted to offer the following observations for anyone interested:

1. This is a practice that aims not at enlightenment/awakening as we usually describe it here
2. This is, IMHO, not anything that is brand new - it's rather easy to access and so I would imagine it appears in many traditions, some very, very old
3. There is, clearly, something to this practice as it leads to a definite result - one sort of "grooves in" on the flow of the present moment
4. One cannot access jhanas, nanas, cycles or, (worse) non-dual awareness (the clear light) when in this present moment "groove"
5. Actual Freedom is a philosophy and we can dispense with it on that basis. It's purveyor may have re-discovered a very ancient practice but the rest of the AF thing is full on BS

Folks speak of an "attention wave" and I now think of that within the metaphor of a phonograph needle -- you can be "in" this very singular present moment such that it is virtually all that you experience. It's like the familiar concept of "flow" -- you are not aware of self as there is no sense of self operating and you are captivated by whatever is immediately in attention, and as the needle of experience tracks along and things change you become immediately captivated by the next thing that shows up.

This practice leads to some very peaceful moments and it seems to have an inertia to it. The more it is practiced the more the inertia. It's not a lock. It dissipates for me when I have to do work, think a lot about concepts, live my busy daily life. Yet....

.. and yet... there is some lingering effect (habit?) that seems to take place below a conscious level that is better tuned in to the natural flow of existence and that serves to retain a subliminal sense of flow that is calming and allows for a better view of the arising of emotions and other phenomena. Think natural FLOW, not suppression, not suspension, not elimination. SLOW FLOW is even better, as there is a slowing of the mind and a concomitant reduction in mind spinning, thought loops, emotional reactions and such. And all of this is in the body, not in the head.

Do I think this is the Next Big Thing? No. But I do think it is a practice that makes sense and I plan to do it more and do more research, especially in the Zen and Vajrayana traditions because I suspect I'll find out that it's been out there for centuries under a lot of other guises and names.

I still think the clear light is the Way and I think my practice to date has been a path to Truth (the truth of what I am, the truth of my moment to moment experience, the clear light). I think direct mode is a modality inside our innate human capability. I think direct mode is far, far easier to practice and to maintain over the long term by folks who are able to lead a certain lifestyle.

Just this fool's opinion, for now.

Oh, yeah, I'm also absolutely fascinated by the difference between paying close attention moment to moment by noting and paying close attention moment to moment using the direct perception method. The former reveals the details of the perceptive process (dependent origination) while the latter appears to sublimate that in favor of the solidity and peace available by dropping any sense of evaluation, consideration, self, other, and so on and being captivated by that. The former reveals an uncomfortable truth and the later appears to relieve it

In a conversation with Kenneth this week I called this the "Spiritual Uncertainty Principle." You cannot know the truth of your experience in the noting sense at the same time you can know the peace of your existence in the direct perception sense. It seems you can have one, not both, at a time.

AND -- the things you observe arising together alongside every object in noting mode (self, other, dissatisfaction, aversion, clinging) are those things that are dropped in direct perception mode, leaving just the object to be perceived, unfiltered.

More - and you know I can't shut up sometimes --

Noting engages higher order mental faculties. You are dis-embedding, observing, taking note and, as Hokai Sobel says, noticing. You cannot be noticing and not thinking. Direct mode is, in many ways, the opposite of that. You are doing a kind of embedding, not evaluating, not noticing so much. Just going along with the natural flow of existence and trying to stay in that mode. Keeping your attention on what's being revealed by the phonograph needle **as it plays** and not anticipating the next few notes, the verse or the chorus, and just being that. Literally being that.

I like the way you think.

Me too!
cmarti is the best!

I love the Spiritual Uncertainty Principle, Chris. Really brilliant.

"
More - and you know I can't shut up sometimes --

Noting engages higher order mental faculties. You are dis-embedding, observing, taking note and, as Hokai Sobel says, noticing. You cannot be noticing and not thinking. Direct mode is, in many ways, the opposite of that. You are doing a kind of embedding, not evaluating, not noticing so much. Just going along with the natural flow of existence and trying to stay in that mode. Keeping your attention on what's being revealed by the phonograph needle **as it plays** and not anticipating the next few notes, the verse or the chorus, and just being that. Literally being that.

"

that sounds like what I do in high E once I drop the noting and just synch up

I can't synch up if i'm anticipating or disembedding on purpose. the disembeding just becomes natural and there is no evaluating, just moving with experience just as it arises

this is all so subjective who knows if it is the same?

"In a conversation with Kenneth this week I called this the "Spiritual Uncertainty Principle." You cannot know the truth of your experience in the noting sense at the same time you can know the peace of your existence in the direct perception sense. It seems you can have one, not both, at a time.
"

Seems like you're saying that life can't be experienced as noun or verb at the same time. Some people are battling over which is true, but you're saying both are.