Direct Mode

SIDE NOTE:
I didn't mean that there is no reality. I meant that it's an error to assume that one is receiving true, unshaped information from conditioned experience at any given time. Realizing that it IS shaped is something else entirely. That's what I was trying to get at. Sorry if I caused any confusion.

-awouldbehipster

In light of the above being true -- you think about film -- movies, tv and how when such a thing is directed and acted and edited and designed and music add in order to just show the audience a certain aspect of a certain experience a certain way -- isn't that just like how each of us tunes into and percieves life each moment?

But, then, if each of us are doing this each moment, then aren't each of us having a diffferent experience of the filmed movie/tv show, etc?

I don't know, I think it is less different than you'd think. Why else would most of us all laugh at the same joke?

I have no idea if I managed to make ANY sense here. I tried though.

"By allowing emotions - without commentary - we see them clearly. Emotions consist of thoughts plus bodily energy. [...] We let the thoughts go - but we remain aware of the physical sensation. In the gaps between thoughts then, the feeling begins - of itself - to assume its natural form."

That last paragraph clearly explains not only what is experienced, but how one experiences this during meditation practice.

In my experience, the kinds of "thoughts" that co-mingle with feeling energy are often like a lived narrative, including audio, visual, and somatic feeling (Shinzen Young's "feel, image, talk"). The story and associated media disband together and dissolve back into presence, or present experiencing, or now. Earlier in my meditation practice this type of dissolution was abrupt and more violent, for lack of a better word. Over time my body has learned to release the energy much more gently, so that witnessing the dismantling of emotions happens has more of a natural flow to it.

Just thought I'd share. Great excerpt. Thanks for sharing, Chris!

Interesting discussion guys. I don't have much free time to post on forum, because I am writing a book with a friend.

But I had a Skype conversation with Kenneth a while ago and what he was describing was pretty much what I was told do to in my Soto Zen years, ie, to let go of thoughts and stay aware of body sensations. Emotions are then felt as physical sensations and everything around us looks brighter, fresh and alive.

Kenneth took was apparently intriged by AF's claims in relation with the vanishing of the sense of self and found a similar practice in Eckhart Tolle's Power of Now. What he has done was basically to follow Tolle's instructions and remain in 'the Now', healing the pain body, etc. It seems that it does lead to a certain degree of freedom from negative emotions (after awakening at least) as well as to the vanishing of the sense of self, which seems to be the ultimate stage.

I suspect that what they mean by the permanent vansihing of the the sense of being is actually that it blends with the 'beingness' of 'what is'. The sense of existence is not anymore related to the body, but blends with the totality of consciousness. I experience it rather often during meditation (through a different type of contemplative practice insipired from the 14th century author of the Cloud of Unknowing, but it has not become a permanent state; reason why I can really comment, approve or dissaprove Kenneth's new discovery.

Best,

Alex

book? need any readers, you know where to find em

Thanks Jake. It's gonna be related to the Western tradition: mystical theology (Dionysius the Areopagite, Evagrius Ponticus, Meister Eckhart, Saint John of the Cross), Renaissance magic (Agrippa, Trithemius, Pietro de Albano, John Dee), etc., with a bit of Santeria. Is it you who first mentioned Peter Kingsley?

Yes, I think so. have you followed up on his work? --- and your book sounds awesome

Yes, I find Peter Kingsley's work fascinating. My intuition was that of a continuity between the spiritual practices of archaic and ancient Greece and the hesychiast tradition of the Desert Fathers that later gave birth to the Western contemplative orders, and Kingsley bridged the gap with his discoveries related to incubation and hesychia.

absolutely! I'm also fascinated with two trends which I detect in the Western tradition which seem to be under-represented in Eastern traditions generally.

1) The use of intellect and logic in discovering "Reality". This is a controversial subject in contemplative circles; but suffice it to say that I don't see this as merely 'thinking about' an abstraction called "reality" or "being", but rather the full-on use of the intellect in approaching the unthinkable, unrepresentable, unnameable. This is naturally connected with understanding the scope and nature of "thinking", and the automatic limits which arise when trying to use intellect as a lens through which to "view" reality. As one facet of our actual living existence it seems useful to bring intellect onto the path, along with emotions, imagination, sensations, and action.

2) The conception of the "goal" of spiritual transformation as being, rather than an escape from finitude uniqueness and relationship into the infinite, universal and absolute, actually the transformation of the finite, unique and relational "person" into an (ongoing, contingent, groundless) individuated existential expression of the timeless, infinite Ground of Being.

As a friend of mine said recently, these are top-shelf questions about the possibilities of the spiritual life that I am prepared to wait many, many years of deepening realization/faith/practice to see for myself what those possibilities actually are. I just have the intuition that perhaps there is more to this East-West convergence, something which may emerge in a genuinely emergent synthesis which goes beyond what either tradition focused on in the past

To tie this back into the topic of the thread, my intuition is that through approaching the levels of transformation which Kenneth is calling the sixth and seventh stages-- and which in themselves may indeed be universal possibilities-- but that through approaching these with different views and methods, what they look like may be radically different, and that approaching them in certain ways may close off or open up certain possibilities for how they manifest concretely in the living experience of the practitioner who undergoes them.

Indeed-- my sentiments exactly. These are really live questions for me, which is why I want to avoid overly-certain, one-size-fits-all maps and models right now, whether my own or others'. I just think this issue is pretty wide open! It's exciting and challenging... and sometimes just a distraction from digging in to my own practice, wherever that's at

Thanks guys. Speaking about maps, I used an Excel speadsheet to compare 8 maps. My conclusion is that there are a few universal signposts, but that the stages are experienced differently by each individual from a subjective point of view. The reason as the same experiences will be interpreted differently by a Christian, a Hindu or a Buddhist, not only because of the methods promoted by various traditions, but also because of religious a priori expectations and paradigmes tend to color the experience.

A great discovery has been 'The Book of Private Counseling' by the 14th century anonymous author of 'The Cloud of Unknowing' that sounds just like Nisargadatta's self-inquiry focused on the sense of exitence. This is great example of trans-Est-West contemplative practice that explains why Meister Eckhart often sounds like a Zen master.

THAT would be a thing to see-- is it going to be in the book?

It sure will! Together with other forgotten forms of contemplative prayer, and tons of other practical things such as energy work, divination, ESP, scrying, astral travel, evocation of angels, orishas, hindu gods, catholic saints and spirits of the dead, magic spells, purification and consecration, asceticism or lucid dreaming; but also tactics and strategies to navigate through the dark night of the sense and the dark night of the soul with the help of divination and spirits, comparing various western and eastern maps with plenty of real life examples.

It sure will! Together with other forgotten forms of contemplative prayer, and tons of other practical things such as energy work, divination, ESP, scrying, astral travel, evocation of angels, orishas, hindu gods, catholic saints and spirits of the dead, magic spells, purification and consecration, asceticism or lucid dreaming; but also tactics and strategies to navigate through the dark night of the sense and the dark night of the soul with the help of divination and spirits, comparing various western and eastern maps with plenty of real life examples.

-alex_w

Wow. Sort of an East/West spiritual recipe/travel book.

Alex, this is all going to be in just one book? Wowza. I imagine this kind of material could easily full multiple volumes.

@Michael & Jackson: as such it covers vast territories including African spirituality since my friend co-authoring the book happens to be a Santeria and Palo initiate (and these guys know a lot about working with real spirits that are not just Jungian archetypes), but the focus is still on the Western tradition, especially Medieval and Renaissance mystical theology and theurgy rooted in Christianized Neoplatonism. It should hopefully fit within less than 300 pages. We will refer to other works for the theory in order to concentrate on the pragmatic side of it, giving no bullshit practical tips to get quick results based on our own experience with methods and techniques that are not necessarily described in other similar works.

Fantastic! Sounds like a mile deep and a mile wide

It's pretty much like a funnel: it is wide at the entrance but gets more focused as you dive deeper and deeper into it.

But let's get back to the 'Direct Mode'. I must say that I still can see what is new or special about it. Would it be because I have never been trained in the Mahasi Sayadaw noting tradition?

Alex-- did you mean can or can't see? Assuming can't-- it seems pretty clear to me that direct mode may be one way of addressing an imbalance or extremeness in the hard-core mahasi technique; or perhaps even more, the set of assumptions (view) in which that technique is couched.

I could be wrong. But I'm continually amazed at how I as a relative beginner assumed that shamatha/vipassana was pretty much what Kenneth is describing as the practices which lead to the sixth and seventh stages respectively. So I'm mostly skeptical of the superstructure (7-stage model) in which it's placed, since I think it's not a question of "higher" practice just a different approach to practicing, and perfectly suitable for beginners as long as some basic skill at being present to what is exists. And that basic skill should emerge by practicing the shammatha aspect of it.

Actually, it's interesting in this connection the way one of my lamas-- the Dane, Ole Nydhal-- describes the first two yogas of Mahamudra. One-pointedness is an accomplishment which in his description sounds very similar to the Kenneth's sixth stage, but is not regarded as permanent, rather dependant on continued practice (although the practice may or even must be generalized in everyday life). He describes it as a deep contentment in the present moment, in which the richness of one's own body-energy-mind complex is innately satisfied and calm, deeply grounded in the present, and not looking outside or to emotional drama inside for entertainment. Something like that, I'm paraphrasing. Simplicity, the second yoga (which seems to correlate with "liberation", or Arhatship, or first Bhumi) could easily be read as the seventh stage, i.e., "no conceptual elaborations" of what's arising at the sense doors means de facto no inference of subject, but just whatever's arising at the six sense doors. Very interesting. There are many presentations of the Four Yogas and all are slightly different, so grain of salt.

So I don't think it's new per se. I think it's new to the more doctrinally committed practitioners in the hard-core or pragmatic dharma scene , especially the leaders such as Kenneth and Daniel. At least that's how it seems to me from more or less the periphery.

Thank you for your feedback guys (and yes Jake I meant "can't").

Beside the 'Direct Mode' that used to be my main meditative experience during my first Soto Zen years while focusing on the body as a whole with open eyes (Kenneth agrees with the fact that my description matches his experience of the direct mode), I found interesting his reply to your recent questions on his forum, in particular with respect to the idea of "Self-referencing".

As I see it, this does fit within the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, namely in the Fourth Satipatthana: contemplation of dhammas. Kenneth placed "thoughts" within the Fourth Satipatthana, but "thoughts" actually belong to the Third, ie, contemplation of the mind or "Citta".

The Fourth Sattipatthana includes a lot of things, from the contemplation of the arising of anger, greed and delusion, to wholesome and unwholesome states, as well as subtle functions of the aggregate of consciousness such as 'memory' and 'reflexive consciousness'.

We therefore do not need to reinvent the wheel (within a strict Theravada context), but only to pay a closer attention to the arising of the sense of self (or self-referencing consciousness) in real time and its relation to memory.

Is it a new stage of enlightenment beyond 4th path or only the clarification of the awakened state? I don't know. But my experience so far, shared with teachers, lineage holders and mystics from various traditions, is that there aren't 3, 4, 7 and maybe tomorrow 108 levels of enlightenment. This inflation of stages and levels is starting to become ridiculous.

There is one major awakening to our true nature that has nothing to do with "recognizing awareness" or "completing a circuit", even if does feel like the end of the ride. We just wake up to what we have always been. And That is not awareness, not a psycho-physical circuit, not a direct or indirect mode, nor anything that can be described or discussed.

If this realization is sudden and leads to a permanent shift, it still needs to become our everyday reality expressed in words and deeds through a gradual process of integration. What follows is therefore more like gaining further insights into finer facets of the diamond, allowing old habits of identification to body, mind, negative emotions or the sense-of-self to drop over the years.

That's how I see it anyway.