Alex's experiment with the grounding of emotions

"It has a quality of non-being. This is such a relief and changes one's world view so totally that it is quite understandable that the Buddha made such a distinction between a worldling and a Noble One. While the meditative absorptions bring with them a feeling of oneness, of unity, the path moment does not even contain that. The moment of fruition, subsequent to the path moment, is the understood experience and results in a turned-around vision of existence."

"The new understanding recognizes every thought, every feeling as stress (dukkha). The most elevated thought, the most sublime feeling still has this quality. Only when there is nothing, is there no stress. There is nothing internal or external that contains the quality of total satisfactoriness. Because of such an inner vision, the passion for wanting anything is discarded. All has been seen for what it really is and nothing can give the happiness that arises through the practice of the path and its results."

"The Nibbanic element cannot be truly described as bliss, because bliss has a connotation of exhilaration. We use the word "bliss" for the meditative absorption, where it includes a sense of excitement. The Nibbanic element does not recognize bliss because all that arises is seen as stress. "The bliss of Nibbana" may give one the impression that one may find perfect happiness, but the opposite is true. One finds that there is nothing and therefore no more unhappiness, only peace.
To look for path and fruit will not bring them about, because only moment to moment awareness can do so. This awareness will eventually culminate in real concentration where one can let go of thinking and be totally absorbed. We can drop the meditation subject at that time. We need not push it aside, it falls away of its own accord, and absorption in awareness occurs. If there has to be an ambition in one's life, this is the only worthwhile one. All others will not bring fulfillment."

If the above description doesn't point to a full blown PCE, I don't know what does. Here is another important quote by Ayya Khema that seems related to the AF approach:

"The initial fruit moment needs to be re-lived, one has to resurrect it over and over again, until the second path moment can arise. It's like repeating what one knows and not forgetting so that one can build upon it."

This last quote sounds awfully similar to "stay as close as possible to the PCE" if we take the full blown PCEs as actual fetter destroying path moments and the short glimpses of the PCE as the fruition attainment. Ayya khema says to constantly recall "right view", which is the view of the falsehood of self gained from the path moment and to recollect the fruition attainment again and again.

thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com/2011/07/...hening-fruition.html

Thanks a lot Nikolai, for these great quotes and interesting insights. I cannot access your blog from China but will read the latest articles when I get back to Switzerland.

Getting back to what triggers an EE, it seems that one thing that people like me have to unlearn at this stage (keeping in mind the Buddha's simile about the boat that should not be carried on our back when we have already crossed the river) is *turning awareness back onto itself*. This technique works well during 3rd path to realize that body and mind are actually experienced within the aggregate of consciousness.

Why? Because becoming *aware of being aware* is also the root of reflexive-consciousness. It is precisely what feeds and maintains the subtle sense of self (the "I AM") that we are trying to forget (when we have clearly seen that what we are is not even non-dual awareness and that awareness cannot be seen or experienced as a object).

These instructions applied to any sense door will lead to continuous attentiveness to sensuousness (awareness of the senses and sense objects) which will lead EE and PCE territory (apperception) and the thinning out and eventually the elimination of any illusory sense of subject/being/presence/location/agency.

"What I mean by 'the sense of seeing' is, literally, what it is to experience seeing directly; to perceive is to be engaged in a lively activity and is what is meant by paying attention. Yet, such attention is likely to tend toward proliferating stories and fabrications, from persistent reflection and mental commentary on one hand (when concentration is weak and/or scattered) to outright hallucination on the other (when concentration is powerful and/or focused). Those proliferations are to be avoided. How may these proliferations be avoided? By otherwise engaging the proliferating tendency. How may the proliferating tendency be otherwise engaged? By applying the mind further. To what further apply the mind? To the apprehension (of more) of what is happening. What more is happening (that is not yet engaged)? The apprehension of (the apprehension of) perception itself.

To apprehend perception directly is necessarily also to apprehend that apprehension is occurring, and to experience in such a manner is to experience cleanly and clearly, entirely engagedly and encompassedly, incuding the bodily sense of such experience. To see not just what the eye sees but what it is to see is therefore to see cleanly and clearly, entirely engagedly and encompassedly, including the bodily sense of such seeing. Seeing in this manner engages the energies which otherwise fuel the proliferating tendency, and so avoids such proliferation. Further, experiencing seeing as a bodily sense leads to deeper insight into what the body is, and what perceiving is." Tarin Greco

In Buddhist terms, it means technically stopping perception at 'sense contact', instead of allowing it to trigger vedana, tanha, etc. in order to cut the stream of paticca-samuppada. In his excellent book "Heartwood of the Bodhi Tree", Achan Buddhadasa explains clearly how this strategy can be used to put an end to "I" and "Mine".

"

"

The cultivation of felicitous states of mind also makes EEs occur more frequent to the point they become the default mode. Full blown PCES will then occur naturally. When the sense of being/presence manifests as the state of well-being that is felicity (a refined mode of becoming) then all of the different practices (HAIETMOBA, vipassana, actualizing jhanas etc) aimed at attentiveness to sensuousness with the goal of apperception (that which cuts out the sequence that leads to tanha) occur without any sense of "being" manifesting as the hinderances. The felicity route works well as does the highly refined modes of becoming that are the jhanas as they act like felicity does. A combo of both is highly effective. They act as jumping boards to attentiveness to sensuousness and the easy discernment of the arising and cessation of suffering via apperception. The arupa ones juxtapose actuality and the sense of "being"/presence/agency/subject quite well enough to do something about it.

"I" am my feelings (vedana/tanha) and my feelings are "me" (sense of agency/presence/location/"me"-ness/subject/"being"/becoming).

Ayya Khema: "Since each one disappears to give room to another one, could we then say that each time one disappears and gives rise to another one that the 'me' has disappeared as certain entity and arises as new one? It never occurs to us to say a thing like that but that would be logical, wouldn't it?

So the pleasant feeling has disappeared so the pleasant 'me' has gone, and now the painful feeling arises so we've got a painful 'me'. And then that one goes away and a neutral feeling arises so we've got a neutral 'me'. So we already have three 'me's' but that is not the end of it because we have 6 different sense contacts and we can have 3 different feelings in each of the sense contacts" dharmaseed.org/talks/audio_player/334/7893.html

Some more tips to get into EE and PCE territory from Daniel ingram (quoted from the above mentioned DhO link):

a) Simply incline the mind that way by memory or desire, forget about it, and see what happens. Sometimes this is enough.

b) Ground awareness in the physical realm solidly, openly, clearly to the exclusion of anything else as object.

c) Tune into the sense of tingling up the base of the neck and into the skull in a way that is yet wide open, similar to Equanimity in focus but more directly physical, even if the tingling is not there. I used to get this feeling just briefly after completing a new path cycle sometimes, but now can feel it for hours during a PCE or something like one.

d) Should any hint of any emotive feeling at all arise, use vipassana-like technique with a wide-open physical-sphere-oriented awareness to track down the offending trigger ruthlessly in this physical sense sphere to its end again and again. I have found this more reliable for figuring out how to avoid the PCE ending than for getting into one, sort of like work done for future reference of what not to do, but it is good work to do at times, I think.

"The cultivation of felicitous states of mind will also make EE's occur more frequently to the point they become the default mode of continued experience. Full blown PCES will then occur naturally. When the sense of being/presence/agency manifests as the state of well-being that is felicity (a refined mode of becoming) then all of the different practices (HAIETMOBA, vipassana, other pointers, actualizing jhanas etc) aimed at attentiveness to sensuousness with the goal of apperception (that which cuts out the sequence that leads to tanha) occur without any sense of being manifesting as the hinderances. The felicity route works well as does the highly refined modes of becoming that are the jhanas as they act like felicity does. A combo of both is highly effective. They act as jumping boards to attentiveness to sensuousness and the easy discernment of the arising and cessation of suffering via apperception. The arupa ones in particular as they juxtapose actuality and the sense of "being"/presence/agency/subject quite well enough to do something about it."


Interesting. How do you do it, practically speaking? Do you get into deeper and deeper Jhanas during formal sitting practice and learn to recognize and cultivate the state of mind of 'sukkha' experienced in Jhana throughout the day?

(I know that it must be on your blog, but I can't access it from here)

Here is a bit from the blog post:

Each arupa jhanas has certain characteristics or aspects that can be seen to be actual. That is, they do not need to be seen as support for a sense of 'being' or flow of affect. They can be seen without any affect attaching to them. These actual aspects of the arupa jhanas allows for the possibility to really juxtapose the sense of 'being' with those actual characteristics.

What one is essentially doing is paying attention to the actual aspects of an arupa jhana and then paying attention to the aspect within the field of experience which seems to be a conditioning factor for the arising of 'being'. This will generally be the grossest sensation that is sensed within the body. For myself, these gross sensations seem to flow at different points up and down the body often referred to as the chakra spots i.e. the gut, solar plexus, heart, throat etc.

When the sense of 'being' is seen to seemingly overlay a particular aspect of experience i.e. certain gross sensations, one then 'mashes' the actual aspects up against those gross sensations and, in a sense, actualizes those gross sensations. That means seeing those sensations as just actual sensations.

Juxtaposing the mind's tendency to overlay certain sensations with a sense of 'being' with actual aspects seems to act as an interference signal towards that tendency. The sense of 'being' will drop away as the gross sensations, which were seemingly acting as a conditioning factor for that sense, are seen as just actual aspects too. The arupa jhana aspects of sensations of space, infinite consciousness, no-thingness and neither perception nor non-perception (signlessness) are all actual aspects which are present, if one pays attention, within the PCE itself as well as permanently at AF. The "I am" obsession is cut away from the aggregates as one does this.


Taking the actual aspects as objects allows for the clear juxtaposing of what is actual and what is being seemingly overlayed with the sense of 'being'. One could do this practice with the lower rupa 1st-4th jhanas, but the actual aspects of those jhanas are not so easily juxtaposed with the aspects supporting the sense of 'being'. One could also do this practice at any time in any state of "being". The reason the arupa jhanas work best though is that they juxtapose the sense of "being" extremely well against the actual aspects more so than any other state. When one gets good at this practice, applying it at anytime may be very advantageous in order to trigger apperception (PCE) and ultimately to become actually free of of all craving, aversions, malice and sorrow.

This is very interesting. To bring it down to something very simple and doable, could I per example get into the 6th Jhana and, from this perspective, observe how the sense of being arises and manifests as (or overlays) physical sensations within the body?

This may sound totally crazy, but in order to test some of the material of our book on enlightenment in relation with Western magic and mysticism, I contacted the archangel Raphael a few weeks ago. This channeling session turned into an amazing experience in which was taken through the Arupa Jhanas and being shown how theses refined mystical states can be used to deconstruct the *sense of being*. The whole thing was so subtle and intense that I haven't been able to unzip the finest details. But what you are describing here sounds so similar that I can't fail to mention it as the risk of sounding like a crazy occultist.

"
In Buddhist terms, it means technically stopping perception at 'sense contact', instead of allowing it to trigger vedana, tanha, etc. in order to cut the stream of paticca-samuppada. In his excellent book "Heartwood of the Bodhi Tree", Achan Buddhadasa explains clearly how this strategy can be used to put an end to "I" and "Mine".

"

Yes, and in Dzogchen terms, it is explicitly stated that Rigpa is nothing more than remaining in that 'first moment'.

The universality of practice and realisation!

Adam.

"The new understanding recognizes every thought, every feeling as stress (dukkha). The most elevated thought, the most sublime feeling still has this quality. Only when there is nothing, is there no stress. There is nothing internal or external that contains the quality of total satisfactoriness."

I agree with most of what Ayya Khema says, except the above. My experience is the exact opposite - the true nature of the reality, just as it is, this right now, is compete and total perfection; utter completion in and of itself. Nothing need be changed nor fixed. There is no deficit to be found. This is what is realised, not the Theravada dogma of the intrinsic suffering of experience itself.

Suffering follows from a misapprehension of reality, not from the intrinsic nature of reality itself. This is obviously the position of the higher Mahayana, and my experience shows this to be true also.

But, that is just me.. Each to their own.

Adam.

Yes, and perhaps we can leave "politics" and who is right or wrong aside in this thread. Maybe you could take it up on the PCE thread, Adam, as that is where the yana differences where being talked of to a degree. Perhaps, I should have posted the Ayya Khema quote there as to avoid the potential arguments and sidetracks.

Let's leave this thread to Alex's experiment. Best not to argue over who has the better vehicle and dogma but focus on what helps ease or eliminates suffering for those who seek it or want to know what all the fuss is about. Maybe let's start a new thread or continue that type of discussion in the End of Sight's PCE thread as it relates to what you want to convey.

Of course you're right. However, the basic assumptions around why we are practicing, what results from pce and why, and what exactly is actual freedom, is it very important also.

This being a practice thread. Enough said.

Edited for clarity.

Hey guys! I am now in Beijing but for some odd reasons cannot cannot access the forum from my hotel room. This also means that I won't be able to post much, namely only when able to find free wifi.

This thing is again working - good! The basic assumption - according to my present understanding - is that awakening (or technical fourth path) is certainly the end of seeking, but not the end of the path. What happens with awakening is that we finally get to know who/what we truly are and have always been, namely nothing, as leads nothing like what we had seen, experienced or understood before, not even non-dual awareness, pure consciousness or anything like that. As a result of the event of awakening, we experience a permanent shift that has something to do with the dissolution of the self-center, the knot of perception or whatever we may call the ego structure that used to be crystalized somewhere at the center of the head (or in the heart space). It takes a few weeks or months to get used to this new state and, during the following year, we do not really feel like doing anything new beside enjoying and deepening what we have discovered as our new natural state liberated from thoughts and egoic identification. What we all seem to discover about a year after this shattering event is that is that emotions are gradually starting to be experienced as a cluster physical sensations and subtle mental states (now that they are not anymore fed by thoughts). What we also start to understand is that, in order to attain total freedom, the sense of self must be extinguished. Not only the ego (or self-center), but the self, the very sense of existence as something abstract and non-localized yet somehow separated from the totality of 'what is'. In this respect, we also realize that once beyond thoughts, identification to unwholesome emotions and passions are precisely what prevents the dissolution and complete vanishing of the remaining (illusory) sense of self.

The task is therefore to train oneself to recognize and objectify the subtle grasping at pleasant and unpleasant feelings that maintain and feeds the sense of self at is arises in real time. It is also at this stage that we start to understand why the Buddha insisted so much on the moral training and the elimination of fetters. What I also begin to understand is the reason why he insisted on co-dependent origination, which is at the core of his system.

What happens is that the perception of the senses arises first, followed by a pleasant, unpleasant or neutral feelings. It is stops at one of these first two stages, the wheel of becoming is broken. However if grasping at pleasant or unpleasant feelings takes place, a sense of self is generated and cycle of becoming (bhava) moving on towards birth, death and suffering, keeping us jailed in samsara.
.
Stopping co-dependent origination must therefore start at the level of perception, or at the latest at the level of feelings, before grasping takes place giving birth to a sense of self, separation and duality. This explains why Kenneth's Direct Mode and Tollbooth methods do work, like other similar techniques such as Gurdjieff's self-observation, awareness of body sensations and non-expression of negative emotions, AF's HAIETMOBA, Dzogchen's Trekchöd and self-liberation, or other similar practices.

Having given it a fair - initially skeptical - try, I must admit that it works as advertised, prof of it the fact that I have been in a continuous happy mood since I started it with an increasing number of non-dual experiences. We have seen that these events called EEs by some are symptoms of a gradual vanishing of the sense of self that takes place naturally when we gradually become able to see the Self as a cluster of objects.

Experimenting with Nikolai technique (as suggested in one of the above posts) last night, this morning, as well as whenever I could during the day, has so far been a fascinating and rewarding experience. For memory, the idea is to rise to one of the Arupa Jhanas and investigate the physical sensations and other subtle phenomena that maifest as our sense of existence within the body, in order to get a clear understanding of the process and how grasping takes place at subtler and subtler levels. The higher the Jhana, the subtler it becomes.


I do not know if I am doing it right, but the result has convinced me that this is indeed a brilliant strategy. As such it shares similarities with Kenneth's method based on finding the witness in the 6th Jhana to bring it down through the other Jhanas and finally cultivate it during everyday life. But here I zoomed in and out between the 5th and/or 6th Jhana and the physical sensations manifesting a sense of self, until I became able to observe the latter from the formless Jhana.

And "I" was amazed to see how clearly one becomes able to see in real time how grasping takes place. A few threads above I had mentioned a feeling of self-love in the heart that seemed to be the core around which gravitated a rather diffuse sense of self. Observing the same phenomenon from a Jhana showed how the sensations of the body give rise to feelings and how grasping at pleasant feelings (in my case) takes place to generate a sense of self. Gradually, "I" could start to see how intentions, attention and this subtle grasping are nothing more than objects, probably what the great Ramana Maharishi called the "I-thought", namely the sense of existence that give birth to all other thoughts.

What I hope to be able to do through this practice combined with an ongoing cultivation of the direct mode, is to objectify (some would say *actualize*) more and more subtle sensations, feelings, etc. that used to be part of the sense of a separate existence. I suspect that the result will be an increasing number of non-dual experiences (EEs, eventually PCEs at a certain stage if we are to refer to a jargon that seems to be understood by most on this forum) and a constant feeling of peace, happiness and compassion, leading to complete vanishing of the remaining sense of self. I have strong reasons to believe that this is the real important stage after awakening, and possibly its completion as perfect enlightenment (samyaksambodhi). From my point of view this is not only the core of Buddhism, but also what has been described by Bernadette Roberts, Nisargadatta Maharaj, probably Gurdjieff and many other known and unknown masters.

I am reading Eckhart Tolle's 'Power of Now', the kind of book that you can easily find in the English department of any Asian large city. In this respect, I recall a Skype discussion with Kenneth a while ago during which he told me that although Eckhart Tolle's best seller looks like a pop New Age book at first sight, it is in reality a very advanced manual, most useful in the post-awakening phase.

Here is a small quote that clarifies the fact that grounding emotions within the body does not suppress joy, happiness and compassion:

"emotions literally means 'disturbance.' The word comes from the Latin emovere, meaning 'to disturb' (...) "Love, joy, and peace cannot flourish until you have freed yourself from mind dominance. But they are not what I would call emotions. They lie beyond emotions, on a much deeper level." (...) "Love, joy and peace are deep states of Being, or rather three aspects of the state of inner connectedness with Being. As such, they have no opposite" (...) "Emotions, on the other hand, being part of the dualistic mind, are subject to the law of opposites".

Today I found that the question "how am I experiencing this moment of being alive?" is actually very good to bring us back to the present moment. The trick is to get used to ask the question every 5 minutes or so until it becomes a habit. And it also works during sitting meditation, reminding me of the Zen huatou "what it is?".

When interacting with people I put more emphasis on the observation of emotional reactions with a focus on how they are experienced physically within body.

Tonight during formal sitting practice I also asked two questions from time to time:

- do I exist?
- how do I know that I exist?
- what are the feelings that tell me that I exist?

I realized that the *feeling of self* wasn't anymore felt in the head and had moved down to the heart.

Once identified, I observed it for a while from the 5th Jhana to make it as solid as I could (compared to an object as subtle as boundless space, feelings and emotions feel as solid as dense matter).

I then examined it, trying to analyse it as if it was purely physical sensation, examining its texture, temperature, exact location, etc. Suddenly it felt complete solid and material and something clicked, triggering a non-dual experience (EE).

It seems that "how" and "this moment" are both big parts of why it works so well. At times it gets you focusing on what is arising that is interfering with your experience of things as they are while at other times it serves as a reminder to be present in this moment. Also the realization that this is the only moment you have can be a big motivation to start enjoying it.

"
Tonight's sitting practice:

It must be my background as a Soto Zen (married) monk/lay priest, but I always come back to Shikantaza, which has been my main practice for the last 15 years or so. Doing nothing but sitting, allowing everything to be as it is. Mindful of the sitting posture, one is naturally attending to the body as a whole, while allowing thoughts, emotions, good and bad experiences to arise and pass away as they please. Shikantaza is sitting without a *doer*. Nothing to do, nowhere to go; allowing everything to manifest in its suchness (Jp. Shikan).

I realize that the *Direct Mode* is essentially Shikantaza extended to everyday life. One more day of ongoing *Direct Mode* practice and yet no sign of unwholesome emotions.
"

Indeed, Direct Mode is essentially Shikantaza.

When they say that "Zen is direct pointing to Reality" they aren't joking!