Kenneth's Experiment

Kenneth's Journal 21SEP2010

I haven't been angry, resentful, or anxious for eight days. Intrigued, inspired, and goaded by Tarin Greco's recent reports of his experience as free from emotional suffering, I decided last Tuesday to ground the emotional charge continuously in the body à la Eckart Tolle and to give over the resentment, anger, anxiety, manic joy, longing, etc., in each moment in return for peace à la Adyashanti. To say that the result has been gratifying would be to understate the case; I have been at peace for over a week, in a way that is new to me. I don't yet have any conclusions to draw about this, so I'm just reporting my experience. The only time I re-enter "ride the wave" mode, temporarily leaving behind "be the wave" mode, is when I am talking with a yogi who needs me to be there with them on that level. This is part of my bodhisattva trip, if you will, and I don't mind doing it at all. At all other times, though, I am content to remain in direct perception mode, which means I don't experience or have any desire to experience nanas, jhanas, fruitions, primordial awareness, rigpa, cycling, siddhis, astral travel, or altered states of any kind. All of that seems painful from my current point of view, as it requires re-entering a mode of perception that is fragmented, holding one part of consciousness apart from another in order to observe it. The direct mode of experience I am cultivating at this moment feels undivided and whole.

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My wife is away on a six-week retreat (she left last Saturday), I have a very low stress lifestyle and I love my job, so I don't know if I would be able to sustain this continuity of "direct perception mode" in more challenging circumstances or if I will be able to continue to sustain it into the future. For now, though, it feels stable. I did drive an hour each way to Rockaway, NJ, tonight, with no forays into angry mind, which is unusual; driving is typically a trigger for me. The emotional or somatic charge is continuously grounded throughout my waking hours as body sensation, so although I feel "proto-emotions" that bring useful information (like "hurry and finish in the shower so someone else can use it" or "get out of the way of that speeding truck"), the emotions do not fully form. Using the lava lamp metaphor, the proto-blobs don't break off from the main body of the wax. As soon as the wax becomes distorted, I experience the distortion as unpleasant or mildly painful. This is the reminder to re-apply awareness to the body allowing the wax to cool and settle back into its resting state.

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Also, I have the odd but satisfying impression that some Caspar-the-friendly-ghost-like energy bubble is subsiding into my hara (the area below the navel). It's kind of like one of those movie shots where they reverse the film as someone is exhaling a puff of cigarette smoke so that the smoke cloud appears to coalesce, shrink, and go back into the person's mouth. I never knew I had this kind of energy leak, but it seems to be associated with the emotional charge in the body and now it is returning to rest as the emotional charge subsides. I especially notice this phenomenon when I am half-awake after I take my afternoon nap but have not yet gotten out of bed.

I don't feel holy or purified or saintly or any of that. I still like to drink wine or Scotch or both in the evening. I still like burritos, gluten-free lasagna, and chocolate. I'm still interested in sex. (Sorry for the embarrassing details, but I think full disclosure is crucial inasmuch as it doesn't violate my privacy too much.)

More details to follow. May you all awaken in this lifetime, my precious dharma friends.

Kenneth

Thanks for the fascinating report, Kenneth. Would you say that your mastery of 'riding the wave' (nanas, jhanas, 1st gear practice) contributes to your ability to sustain this state?

@Nadav: Yes, I believe that to be the case.

"Kenneth's Journal 21SEP2010

I haven't been angry, resentful, or anxious for eight days. Intrigued, inspired, and goaded by Tarin Greco's recent reports of his experience as free from emotional suffering"

Hi Ken,

Its inspiring to see the openess to new ideas, I went back and reread the Power of Now in regard to his descriptions of grounding the emotional charge. Have you investigated the process that Tarin recommends "How am I experiencing this moment of being alive" ? it would be interesting to hear the results.

Appreciated
Jeff

edit: Bad spelling

Kenneth,

I've been trying to do the arc ride a few times in the past few days and it's pretty easy to get going. As soon as I start manipulating the focus and paying attention to details of my experience and such and inclining the mind that way, things proceed as usual. For the moment I am preferring the direct mode. We had a hurricane here today. It was interesting to me how little anxiety was there in relation to having to drive in it.

There are a lot of proto-blobs still. Do you find them lessening over time? Also I've been grounding the warm tingling feeling I get as I start to tune into the niceness of this. I'm wondering if this is preventing it from getting delightful and wondrous. It's been fairly flat today, though the suffering is still minimal.

Hi Jeff,

Richard's "how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?" is a pointer as is Eckhart Tolle's "what is my experience in this moment?" but it is not the one I use. I've been using "I will pay that toll," (see my toll booth metaphor) or singing a few words from the chorus of Bob Seger's "Sunspot Baby" (see my sunspot metaphor) or just saying "ground it in the body" (see my lightning rod metaphor). The important thing to know about pointers is that one is as good as another; each yogi can choose the one that works best for him or her, changing them us as often as necessary to keep them fresh. The pointer is not the point, ya know! There is no magic in those words. The pointer is just a reminder to ground the somatic charge gently and continuously in the body by placing your attention there. The attention is the lightning rod. It plugs the leak. It cools the wax. That is how you pay your toll. (That toll is the best value in town.)

@Mumuwu: The proto-blobs seem to be getting a bit smoother, which may have to do with the momentum of feeling them as they arise and continuously grounding them. They become more insistent and require more attention during challenging moments like driving or hurrying to get ready to leave the house. As I type this, it's fairly automatic to keep the lightning rod continuous because it is becoming a habit (that's called unconscious competence in pedagogical theory) and because this is not a challenging or stressful situation.

You are right to ground the warm tingling before it develops into a fully fledged emotion (blob) because once a blob breaks off from the main body of wax, it can instantly morph into anger or anxiety. In other words, whether a blob starts off benign or malignant, it can turn into a monster once it takes on a life of its own. Pay the toll, trading shallow joy for peace. You pay the toll by grounding the emotional tension in the body continuously.

Thanks Kenneth I'm definitley with you on the blobs getting a bit more challenging depending on the situation. The feedback loop works wonders in that sense as the pain is greater at those times.

Dag. This is all so cool. The metaphor stories, the experiment. Most instructive. Thank you.

Hi Kenneth.

Can you report on what your view of reality is during the experiment. What is "the world" and "who" are "others" while you are cultivating this state? Also, "who" are you?

I am also curious about your comment about primordial awareness or rigpa--which I am translating here to my language of Atman or Shiva--be painful to access. Once you have cultivated awareness of awareness, isn't that primordial awareness there all the time through all states including this? Why would that be painful to cultivate? Or rather, does one have to always cultivate it (isn't is supposed to be sahaja, or natural at some point?)

Also, if those highest of contemplative insights are painful to cultivate compared to this, could it be that this AF-esque/Eckhart/Direct Mode is actually something new on the map?

Mark

Mark, you ask the greatest questions. It's almost as though you were a doctor of integral studies or something. ;-D

"Can you report on what your view of reality is during the experiment. What is "the world" and "who" are "others" while you are cultivating this state? Also, "who" are you?"-mdaf30

I feel simple. Those questions seem once or twice removed from the essential. I am me, you are you, a book is a book, these computer keys are smooth and hard. I know that sounds evasive, but I don't mean it that way; my initial impression is that this mode of experience is not given to abstract theory.

"I am also curious about your comment about primordial awareness or rigpa--which I am translating here to my language of Atman or Shiva--be painful to access. Once you have cultivated awareness of awareness, isn't that primordial awareness there all the time through all states including this? Why would that be painful to cultivate? Or rather, does one have to always cultivate it (isn't is supposed to be sahaja, or natural at some point?)"-mdaf30

I don't know. All I can say is that the question doesn't come up when I feel undivided. I may have more to say about it after this sinks in a bit.

"Also, if those highest of contemplative insights are painful to cultivate compared to this, could it be that this AF-esque/Eckhart/Direct Mode is actually something new on the map?"-mdaf30

Sort of. In other words, this may be new to the consensus map. But there have always been oddballs who spoke of something that may be this. See Bankei, for example, or Bernadette Roberts. Maybe it is for us to place it more firmly on the consensus map of enlightenment. For now, though, I want to stay open and admit that I don't know how, where, or if this should be placed on the larger map of archetypal understandings.

So the whole "I am the unmanifest source of the universe," and "I am not my body" thing really disappears in this perspective?

"So the whole "I am the unmanifest source of the universe," and "I am not my body" thing really disappears in this perspective?-BrunoLoff"

Yes, but only because the questions don't arise. It's much simpler than that. It's more like, "In the seeing is just the seen," etc. But, to tell you the truth, even that seems too complex, too cold. It's more like, "Why do we have to talk about this? Can't we just stand here and smile at one another?"

*smiling*

--- are you doing an all-nighter?

"... I don't know if I would be able to sustain this continuity of "direct perception mode" in more challenging circumstances..."

I've been trying to so this same experiment while producing a major conference this week. The results are different than yours, Kenneth, because I just can't focus squarely on the body grounding and do three or four high-level tasks at the same time. I plan to keep practicing this as it seems valuable and worthwhile to know, but I can't help but think it's not something one can make permanent or even want to make permanent. There is a level of mental function required of this practice and when "in" it this induces a pretty simplified view of the world where nuance and assertiveness (both required in spades for what I do) are just lost and not available.

I also notice differences between the view induced by this practice and previous 3rd gear experiences. I suspect this practice induces a state, unlike my typical access to 3rd gear, but I need to keep playing with it to make sure. This thing is nice but in a way it's kind of zombie nice

More later....

Chris,

Would you have characterized yourself as an anxious person prior to your developmental progress? I'm wondering because for me the sensations in the body are quite prevalent most of the time so I'm finding it somewhat easy to tune into them even at work (although admittedly, I think I may be dropping it temporarily when interacting with people or doing heavy cognitive work. I am aware of it as I am typing now though.)

I'm not getting the zombie thing really. I don't feel dulled or spaced out or anything like that. This may be a result of the presence of significant "proto-blobs" related to my anxiety. I'm wondering how that will change if those sort of things start to taper off somewhat.

Excited to hear what else you find. And I agree, if this is nothing more than a useful skill, so be it.

Mumu, based on my experience this week I doubt one can engage in lots of interacting with other people and perform higher order mental tasks and remain in that state. I may not be very good at it, though, so like I said I plan to keep practicing it and we'll see what happens. As to the proto-emotions lessening over time as one remains in this mode, of course they will. Why woudn't they? The less interaction with other human beings, the less cognitive functioning and the less stress one experiences the less those proto-emotions are prone to arise. If you CAN remain in this mode, that is

Later!

"I feel simple. Those questions seem once or twice removed from the essential. I am me, you are you, a book is a book, these computer keys are smooth and hard. I know that sounds evasive, but I don't mean it that way; my initial impression is that this mode of experience is not given to abstract theory."

Although I haven't yet had a chance to check in with Kenneth, what he describes seems to be how I've been living pretty steadily since mid-August. Simple seems the best description to me, or maybe simply awake, although I've noticed that it also tastes of great love and compassion, gratitude and joyful contentedness. I don't really have any desire for any other mind state or experience other than than what is. When the proto-emotion blobs arise, they are for the most part effortlessly released. There's not even a desire for the release or an aversion to the arising of the blob; the release just happens.

I don't what the Tibetans mean by "self-liberating" but that term seems to describe what's going on for me. For the most part, the blob arises and self-liberates simultaneously. And the few times that the blob has broken off, the noticing that this is the case is usually enough to allow it to drop. It's like noticing that I'm clutching something tightly in my fist and opening my hand. It just falls away.

I have a very busy job, my mother came and stayed with us for a week, a dear friend's mother is dying a painful cancer death, I had a biopsy last Friday and my computer just crashed in the middle of typing this reply. The simple awakeness has dominated throughout. It doesn't feel like an induced state at all, but rather like a basic condition of being that is very fresh and clear. I know that 5 weeks is a rather short experiment, but so far it feels very stable.

Just thought I'd share my 2 cents worth on the subject...

Naomi

"See Bankei, for example"

Song of the Original Mind
Unborn and imperishable is the original mind'¦. / Search back to the time when you were born: you can't remember a thing at all! / Keep your mind as it was when you came into the world, and instantly this very self is a living 'thus-come-one' [tathâgata, or Buddha]'¦. / Clinging, craving and the like'”I don't have them on my mind. That's why nowadays I can say the whole world is truly mine! / '¦ Thinking back over the past, you find it was an evening's dream. Realize that, and you'll see everything is just a lie'¦. / Since, after all, this floating world is unreal, instead of holding onto things in your mind, go and sing! / '¦ When you don't attach to things, the floating world will cease to be [as a separate, merely objective appearance]. Nothing is left, nothing at all. That's what 'living tathâgata means.' / When you do wrong, your mind's the demon, there's no hell to be found outside. / Abominating hell, longing for heaven, you make yourself suffer in a joyful world. / '¦ Mysteries and miracles'”there are no such things! But when you fail to understand, the world's full of weird happenings. / This is the phantom [ego-mind] who deceives, who makes us take the false world to be real. / '¦ When your study of Buddhism is through, you find you haven't anything new. / Enlightenment and delusion too never existed at the start. They're ideas that you picked up, things your parents never taught. / If you think the mind that attains enlightenment is 'mine' your thoughts will wrestle, one with the other. / These days I'm not bothering about getting enlightenment all the time, and the result is that I wake up in the morning feeling fine! / '¦ Nowadays '¦ I just move along at my ease, letting the breath come and go. / Wonderful! Marvelous! When you've searched and found at last the one who never will grow old'”'˜I alone!' The Pure Land where one communes at peace is here and now, it's not remote, millions and millions of leagues away

Naomi, what you describe (especially because you are using the word awakeness) sounds a lot like what I'm familiar with as part of what happened post 4th path. This "new" third gear practice is different. At least that's my perspective on it. It's really critical that we know we're describing the same phenomena - so are you doing the practice Kenneth is offering up to us in this topic?

". It's really critical that we know we're describing the same phenomena - so are you doing the practice Kenneth is offering up to us in this topic?

"

Thanks for the excellent question, Chris. As I said, I haven't had a chance to check in with Kenneth yet, but I do believe that I am doing the practice Kenneth has offered as described in his recent video. My hand is pretty steadily on the dead man's switch, attentive to disruptions in the whole body energy field. The disruptions are for the most part noticed before there is any eruption and my experience is that the grounding happens simutaneously with the noticing. The body energy settles down very, very quickly and kind of smooths out again until the next flair. Maybe I am toggling relatively quickly between a direct perception mode and and a more ordinary mode, but it feels very seamless to me. On the other hand, it mostly doesn't feel like a practice that I'm choosing to do at a particular time; it feels like a way of being.

I may very well be confusing aspects of post 4th path phenomena with this mode of perception since the stability in what I believe to be the direct perception mode opened up very soon after 4th path and I haven't really spent the time trying to sort it all out.

I should also note that the new practice doesn't feel entirely new to me. It feels a lot like a "dropping" technique that I learned and practiced on and off the cushion for many years. In that practice, whenever I noticed any kind of disruption in the mental/emotional stream, I simply dropped my attention down into the body as whole and the disruption (usually) evaporated and perception became fresh and direct again. What's different now is not so much the access to this kind of perception so much as the stability of it.

So, what do you think? Are we describing the same phenomena?

Thanks, Chris and Naomi for this clarity! This is exactly the kind of discussion we need to have. Naomi, the simplest way to know whether you are in direct perception mode is to ask yourself whether there is any suffering at all. Is there any emotional charge in the body in this moment? Anger, anxiety, and coarse states of pleasure do not arise during this mode, so the emotional experience is one of peace and acceptance. The flavor of the coarser emotions arises along with the valuable information emotions normally bring, for example "I am in danger" when appropriate, but these whiffs of proto-emotion are experienced as subtle energy disruptions or sensations within the body and continuously grounded as body sensations.

So, there is a kind of checklist. If I answer "yes" to any of these questions, I am *not* in direct perception mode:

Am I angry, bored, restless, resentful, manic, overcome by positive emotions, longing, anxious, agitated?

Do I feel a compulsive need to defend my position or prove that I am right? (Look for the emotional charge.)

Am I skeptical of the value of direct mode or am I skeptical that it is possible?

On the other side of the switch, here as some signs that I *am* in direct mode:

I don't know.

I'm not inclined to defend my position.

I am willing to give over my resentment and anxiety in exchange for peace.

Shapes and colors are compelling.

The emotional (somatic) charge is continuously grounded in the body.

I'm not suffering even a little.

Anger does not arise.

I feel open to possibilities.

I remember the argumentative pseudo-entity with puzzlement (even if it came up just a few minutes ago). Surely it wasn't I who got so upset about such a trivial thing. It is as though I were taken over by some madness or briefly inhabited by some freaky pod person.

Indeed it is not surprising that with practice and persistent, particularly full-day practice for many days, the thing simply becomes permanently established (and go figure, an established absence of the energetic I-sense and the "Higher Self").

The aspect of AF that seems to go beyond what has been said so far, is that the thing can apparently be practiced in a way that some sort of "turn-over" event happens, after which the "lava-lamp bubbles" loose their support, and simply do not arrise anymore at all.

A good theme of investigation is finding out whether one can maintain access to both modes of experiencing, to the extent that (1) one can choose in which mode to be at any given time, and (2) one can effortlessly and perfectly abide in either mode for as long as one decides to do so.

I know I am just a 2nd path fart with poor concentration, but I am talking about setting the highest possible standards for mental development. Every known mode of experience, at any time, perfectly mastered.

Edit: Interestingly, I suspect that the PCE mode itself will find such a goal a silly endeavor, since everything is fine just the way it is.