Monson notes III

I guess as long as long as one is sticking to the tar baby, that story is going to be inescapably compelling. Work is a gold mine of noting material.

I wonder (maybe if I start it that way the fall from grace wont be so hard ) if changes from practice while similar in so many ways for all of us are also completely different in ifinite ways as well based upon who we were "before," -- on the patterns of our self. I mean, i'm so struck by this lack of "story creation" since path because that was so much a part of my life at one time.
I can imagine that many practioners didn't necessarily do that sort of thing to begin with so they aren't going to be noticing the same difference before and after that I do.

"I wonder (maybe if I start it that way the fall from grace wont be so hard ) if changes from practice while similar in so many ways for all of us are also completely different in ifinite ways as well based upon who we were "before," -- on the patterns of our self. I mean, i'm so struck by this lack of "story creation" since path because that was so much a part of my life at one time.
I can imagine that many practioners didn't necessarily do that sort of thing to begin with so they aren't going to be noticing the same difference before and after that I do. "

That is a very interesting observation. But I suspect that everyone spins copious stories, until they are awake/aware enough to stop.

The stories don't stop. You just learn to pay less attention to them as they are seen as not you.

"
The stories don't stop. You just learn to pay less attention to them as they are seen as not you.

"

I can't imagine them stopping completely. But, my point here was that in my practice right now they've lost their pull and temptation and more often than not I just don't identify with them so they die pretty quickly or never/barely get born.
Oh, and I less often add to them and believe in them. So I'm getting in and causing less "trouble" lately. Really.
But on a smaller (bigger) scale when isn't it a story when I'm doing something as me?

Yeah my stories rarely become epics any more. Mostly just 1 page essays.

"Yeah my stories rarely become epics any more. Mostly just 1 page essays."

Be cool if they could be haikus.

random thoughts/notes:

It's clear to me right now that I don't understand any of this stuff: jhanas, nanas, fruitions, paths, etc. It just seems that since "path" my life is better, and if I stay out of the way and go with the buddha inside me it will just keep getting better and better (and I DON"t mean I'll stop having problems)

I get an instant hit of peace and luminosity if forget that I ever thought I knew anything about anything.

There really is a place before thought.

Norman Fischer was right: to think we need to improve ourselves is a ridiculous notion.

We need to be more intimate with ourselves, me thinks.

"We need to be more intimate with ourselves, me thinks. "

Yeah: it's funny, but 'intimacy' has something in common with a good 'noting' process-- it's precise, located in the body and in the moment.

And 'suffering', like the stories, is pretty sketchy on the specifics-- just a big, billowing cloud of probable feelings, events, outcomes.

I had the peculiar 'good fortune' to lose my job not once, but twice, in the decade since things changed for me. Both times, first I felt kicked in the gut; then I cried; then I did what I needed to do for the rest of the day, and went to bed. I told myself if I needed to have a meltdown the next day, after I'd done what I needed to do to plan the next step-- then I'd do it. Somehow, there always wound up being other things to do, rather than have a meltdown. I concluded I'd come up with an 'enlightened' version of my fault of procrastination...

Maybe it was the negative version of Kenneth's advice to 'never plant the flag.'

Sat at noon today in my office for about 50 min.
For the first time in I'm not sure how long, did a focused vipassana rather than samatha practice.
Started noting the rising and falling of my breath/abdomen and pretty quickly there was a LOT of activity of vibrations, itches, raptures, etc. I noted each. I saw a lot of objects rise and then end.
That (for me at least) high equanimity state of being very in synch with my sensations while at the same time oddly enough losing the feeling of "body" came pretty quickly.
I became very aware of the feeling of the plastic of my glasses on my nose and this led to a lot of awareness of the sensations (and images) associated with the sense of "me."
It was wild and fascinating with lots of raptures and energy surges and a different kind of frution like thing where I felt like there was a sort of warning first, and then the jerk awake-like moment.
Then, I fell into a deep sleep that was only stopped by the sound of my cell phone ringing. During the sleep I dreamed my last x-wife came over to my house and put her head through a window and asked for money to help her to get a "harvard operation" to make her more boyish. Not make her a boy, just more of a masculine woman (this x-wife is in reality now an enthusiastic and happy lesbian).
It's been about 90 minutes since I woke up and I feel kind of disoriented but good.
Also, I noticed just now that if I have an experience in which I sound like an "expert" on something and I think other people (especially co-workers) buy it, I really like that and my sense of self gets puffed up real good. Then, of course, I ALWAYS fall from grace and suffer afterwards because there will always be a moment when I'm convinced I've just looked like an idiot or at least ignorant.

Another noticing: I enjoy and am more intimate with things when my focus is off how much I've progressed or how much that progress matches my idea of what it should be like. Beginner's mind, basically.
It is very tempting to put an "expectation filter" over reality because I've done so much practice, and sitting, and reading and thinking about all this stuff.
It is so much better when everything I may do or feel is okay even if it is negative, annoyed, angry, selfish, lustful, anxiety-ridden, fearful.
THIS moment, really, isn't "practice" it is the Mike Monson thing arriving at now in whatever shape that may be and there is nothing anyone can do about that I don't think.

i see that i am talking about shoehorning in kenneth's terms. Idon't want to decide anything

FCKW just wrote that the "the fals illusion of an independent existance of an entity denoted as "I", which definitely vanishes with stream entry (or Satori in Zen)."
I'm not sure where that came from and, like most of this stuff when it gets conceptual at all I get confused and bored pretty fast, but this statement made me want to test my post SE stuff.
I'm not sure if what he said is the common thing or just one opinon, but I think it is true that for me I've stopped thinking of myself as a fixed entity that is real and permanent and that can get things that don't go away. (it hasn't improved my spelling at all)
I actually notice the old urges to see myself as somehow lacking as a person and the resultant urge to fix and change myself so the lack will go away followed by a definite letting go of the urge. It seems to be automatic right now. It is VERY freeing.
Now, the self-contracting thing? That is still very powerful and I'm not at all concerned about it. I actually love it and give it all the space it needs.

this is a weird time for me I must say.
I am so happy that I made such progress and got path. My life has changed for good and that is thrilling.
However, I havne't had a lot of direction for what to do next and I think I need to seek that .
I listen to Nik and Owen and Clayton on their podcasts and have NO idea what they are talking about and would really like to be where they are but like I said, I have no direction so I don't know how to get there.
I read Kenneth's posts lately about the direct path and I REALLY don't get that.. I love Kenneth so it is weird to not respond to what he is talking about. Im sure it will all work out but for now I just don't get it. I don't want to be in some "state" I want to be okay with whatever state I am in. I have no interest in not being angry any more or not feeling the "negative" emotions. I want to have those enter, do their complete thing and then leave on their own time. I don't want to limit them. But, we will see, maybe what kenneth is doing now is what i'll be doing next year?
Plus I don't feel so much a part of KFD as I used to. I think I got a lot of ego hits by people responding to my posts and lately -- not so much Oh well, that is a lesson I am sure.
My gut tells me to continue with "first gear" and try to get to where the Hamilton Project guys are and then decide what to do next.
How does that sound?

"How does that sound?"

It sounds sane, sensible, and an all-around good plan, Mike. Remember, I teach all 3 Gears for a reason. I'm still here for you. First Gear is as important as 3rd, and as far as I know the synergy between them is enormous. In other words, people who just do 3rd Gear without also doing their 1st Gear practice are just going to have to go back and do it later if they hope to really realize the full potential of this practice. So the way you are doing it is just right.

Kenneth

"At first I used to watch my teacher Ajahn Tong Raht and had many doubts. People even thought he was mad. He would do strange things or get very fierce with his disciples. Outside he was angry, but inside there was nothing. Nobody there. He was remarkable. He stayed clear and mindful until the moment he died. "
-- Ajahn Chah

I first read this at least 30 years ago. I'm realizing lately just how influential it was to my ideas about practice, awakening, awakened behavior. As time passed, my own practice and experience and other teachings just seemed to reinforce what I got from these words, which is that enlightenment is understanding your true nature so well (the three characteristics) that you could be empty of self striving, self development, self improvement, self.
Empty.
But still, that emptiness could manifest itself in infinite varieties of behavior, feelings, emotions, activities based upon the organic nature of that empty entity, which was now free to make mistake after mistake that would probably end up harming no one.
And, that it was important to be mindful all the time and have the courage to just freaking JUMP IN to life with this empty mindfulness and not be afraid of how you'd feel, how you'd act, how you'd look to others.
That everything would be okay if done from that empty mindful state -- how could it not be?
Seriously. I had to find this quote because it's been nagging at me all week.

Oh and the ideas from my previous post aren't based upon thinking about all this. I've tested it again and again.
And, in my previous misunstanding, what I thought was "third gear" was what I'd always experienced when I'd been able to surrender with mindfulness completely and jump into life from that perspective, which would give me an instant experience of enlightened behavior of ... nothing.
I swear, every time I've done that (which is intermittent since my 20s but more consistent nowadays) it always seems like a smarter, more wise version of me takes over (buddha nature?) and things usually look more clear, more sane, more calm, more real, and all the stuff that I may have just thought was a big problem just goes away. But, how I'd act and how I'd feel could vary infinitely.
That's what I've always thought zen was teaching people to do and so i think I incorrectly saw Kenneth's "third gear" in that way.

More misunderstandings -- I never really got how the "gears" could be divided and separated. To me, my understanding of "third gear" could be going on all the time while one was practicing first gear and the other way around. But, now, my fellow yogis here seem to be talking about the two things as if they were completely separate somehow. I went through a period where I kept reporting that 'disembedding is a third gear practice" but now I think I know why no one seemed to agree. When I did what I thought was disembedding it was very similar to what I thought of as third gear practice.
Oh well. It'll all come clear eventually. Or not.

(I'm not talking about second gear because so far I've decided to not get into that practice for now, I've been holding it for later, if at all)

Mike, my own understanding of the gears and their implications keeps changing and evolving over time so it makes sense to me that yours would too. The original framework of the 3 Gears was intended to be comprehensive enough but also flexible enough to give structure to the practice and the path; so far it seems to be working. I love the fact that so many yogis here are interpreting the system according to their own experience and thereby helping it to evolve. The most important thing is to acknowledge that new information will keep coming in and if we are to keep growing and learning we have to be open to the new insights even when they challenge our existing notions. Some of the most important developments come as discontinuities, seeming to contradict everything you thought you knew up to that point.

Seed/vine/blossom/fruit; egg/caterpillar/chrysalis/butterfly; egg/tadpole/frog; who saw that coming? Who could guess, looking at a caterpillar, that it would become a butterfly? Certainly not the caterpillar.

Does a caterpillar have butterfly nature?
Does a butterfly have caterpillar nature?

"Does a caterpillar have butterfly nature?
Does a butterfly have caterpillar nature?

"

Mu.

I've always wanted to do that

"Mu.

I've always wanted to do that "

Sorry, wrong answer.

It's weird how certain phrases or sentences can have the power to calm, to clarify, to bring peace.
For me, it is:

"no fixed view"

"disembed"

"choiceless awareness"

Also, for sure, for some reason "how are you experiencing this very moment?" is also very powerful for me. It brightens the world.

I just left Reno with $900 in my pocket.
I really like that.
I.
I.
I I I.

the past three or four days or so have been great, practice wise.
what I'd like to do somehow, is figure out if I am first, second, or third path at this point.
I know I hit first about 4 months ago.
I thought I hit second about two months ago, but, my fault, I didn't really follow up with Kenneth if it was true or not.
Then, Friday, I sat at work and vowed to hit the 'next path.' I did vipassana and resolved to have 'third path fruitions," "powerful third path fruitions."
I had frutions, they were powerful.
Since then, I've felt different. I keep having fruitions, even when I lay down to sleep. even when, in reno, i was slightly drunk.
it's like my mind is saying 'hey, dude, here are some sensations, here are some objects, synch up with THESE.' and I synch up with them, and it is .... good.
So, how do I know? I don't feel done. But I feel like if you stuck a thermoneter in me, you'd say, "ok, let's let this turkey cook just a few more minutes."

"the past three or four days or so have been great, practice wise.
what I'd like to do somehow, is figure out if I am first, second, or third path at this point.
I know I hit first about 4 months ago.
I thought I hit second about two months ago, but, my fault, I didn't really follow up with Kenneth if it was true or not.
Then, Friday, I sat at work and vowed to hit the 'next path.' I did vipassana and resolved to have 'third path fruitions," "powerful third path fruitions."
I had frutions, they were powerful.
Since then, I've felt different. I keep having fruitions, even when I lay down to sleep. even when, in reno, i was slightly drunk.
it's like my mind is saying 'hey, dude, here are some sensations, here are some objects, synch up with THESE.' and I synch up with them, and it is .... good.
So, how do I know? I don't feel done. But I feel like if you stuck a thermoneter in me, you'd say, "ok, let's let this turkey cook just a few more minutes.""

The milestone for me was access to NS and the pure land jhanas. If you can reliably get into those, you are an anagami. My suggestion would be to try a sit and follow along with Kenneth's tour of the jhanas with Nick or with one of the Hamilton project podcasts. The NS variety hour has some pretty detailed instructions on how to access it. One of the reasons we put these up was as a path diagnostic tool. I'd be really excited and curious to see if would work for you.
Metta,
-o