MuMuWu's Practice Journal

It can also be used to highlight resistance, focus on how much it hurts and then compare with sensory clarity or some other appropriate object. For me, this tends to cause a lot of resistance to be dropped, at least for a while. Used it to drop the doer while dancing today, which was quite a delight. Apart, you know, from a bit of fear. "Oh noes, what if the dependently arising nature of things dances badly"

After locating the resistance, take the label off it and have it as energy. Let the energy do whatever it wants. Notice it is made of consciousness, like everything else in your experience.

Furthermore, take the label consciousness off, and any other labels - including any sense of space, nothingness, etc. and have it all as one substance.

[9:46:29 AM] Villum Wendelboe Lassen: take the label off?
[9:46:43 AM] jaysonbyrne: yeah
[9:46:50 AM] jaysonbyrne: just have the experience without the concept
[9:47:35 AM] Villum Wendelboe Lassen: i find that hard right now, but it seems to result in a kind of release
[9:47:57 AM] jaysonbyrne: so say, "I am wanting things to be different"
[9:48:05 AM] jaysonbyrne: then whatever comes up, just let it be there
[9:48:13 AM] jaysonbyrne: now instead of a fixed thing, see it as energy
[9:48:22 AM] jaysonbyrne: and let it flow, sputter, move, or whatever it's going to do
[9:48:35 AM] Villum Wendelboe Lassen: oooh, nice one
[9:48:52 AM] jaysonbyrne: then, instead of having it as something separate from everything else, just notice it is also an arising in consciousness
[9:49:21 AM] Villum Wendelboe Lassen: yeah
[9:49:22 AM] jaysonbyrne: then notice the consciousness and the emptiness beyond/underlying it
[9:49:30 AM] jaysonbyrne: then take those labels off
[9:49:34 AM] jaysonbyrne: and have them as one substance

"...But this not the whole story; all the dharmas of Samsara and Nirvana, though thought to be permanent, they do not last. When examined, they are but empty forms, that appear without existence. Although unreal, they are thought to be real, and when examined, they are unreal like an illusion.

Look outward at the appearing objects, and like the water in a mirage, they are more delusive than delusion. Unreal like dreams and illusions, they resemble reflected moon and rainbows.

Look inward at your own mind! It seems quite exciting, when not examined. But when examined, there is nothing to it. Appearing without being, it is nothing but empty. It cannot be identified saying, "that's it!" But is evanescent and elusive like mist.

Look at whatever may appear In any of the ten directions. No matter how it may appear, the thing in itself, its very nature, is the sky- like nature of mind, beyond the projection and dissolution of thought and concept.

Everything has the nature of being empty. When the empty looks at the empty, who is there to look at something empty? What is the use of many classifications, such as 'being empty' and 'not empty' as it is illusion looking at illusion, and delusion watching delusion?

"The effortless and sky-like nature of the mind, the vast expanse of insight, Is the natural state of all things. In it, whatever you do is all right, however you rest, you are at ease." This was said by Jetsun Padmasambhava and the great siddha Saraha.

www.nyingma.com/dzogchen2.htm

Oooh. Got a really good/absorbed 2nd gear thing going. Asking who am I/where am I.

Very interesting.

Seems less 3rd eye than the witness practice I used to do originally. Seems to have more to do with tensions in the body. Feels like direct mode in some ways with more of the head & face in focus.

Really takes the edge off experience. Mind seems super still. Quite content.

Eyes feel stiller than usual as well (nothing really draws the attention away from the center).

Energetic feel is quite dense, but not unpleasant.

Nice to feel a bit out of it hehehe.

So... this seems to be a very stable, very easy to maintain form of direct mode.

I think the key is to use self inquiry as a way to bring up all the affective charge in the body. This makes it so there's really no need to intentionally ground it or maintain the dead man's switch in any sort of effortful way. If you find yourself off on a tangent, rather than the tollbooth, simply ask "to whom does this thought arise" and allow whatever arises to merge with the rest of the affective charge / wax in the lavalamp - so that it once again becomes whole.

Just as 2nd gear was a way to a more stable version of Kenneth's original 3rd gear, it seems self inquiry (also considered second gear) is a way to access and easily maintain direct mode (no suffering, whole, direct experience).

This is really wonderful.

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL051F1AB8E08633C3&feature=plcp

Great series of videos. Gives me lots of ideas to mull around.

So, rather than being a question of getting rid of a self, or seeing through some illusion, if I take it to be a matter of seeing how perception of individual features is the firing of various networks of neurons, I can keep that sort of firing going, more and more until there's a feeling of knowing of sensory reality going on in a much broader and in depth way.

In other words, by noticing more and more detail coming in from the environment, rather than averting to the internal stuff, I can wind up in a very present, interesting, awake experience.

Right now I seem to be in one of those incredibly vivid, wonderfilled, paradise/fairy tale sort of modes.

Yeeha.

Who am I? That doesn't make much sense to me at the moment. What am I? Simply the current activity of the brain - the very qualia I once thought I was observing is what I am moment to moment!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

Current practice is mainly:

If thought is occurring and noticed mentally say "don't know" - which cuts it off

Feel tension that is in the present experience - see it, allow it, idea is not to increase the craving/aversion in the experience which caused the tension in the first place, allowing it to dissipate when it will.

Tune into the senses

Repeat

Email to Kenneth from Today...

"Kenneth,

Things are going quite well.

I'm wondering where the best place to sort of look right now is.

Where am I in this picture is good, it really helped ferret out subtle tension and such. I'm wondering if you think maybe I should keep on doing that or would looking into the doer be possibly more productive.

The reason I ask is that I just read an article by Gary Weber that suggests continually looking into the doer/creator of the experience. It also reminds me of some of the instruction that Tarin/Trent were giving to Nick to "slip out from control."

It also seems to be an area I really haven't delved into deeply, and had spent more time on the tension in experience, thoughts, etc.

In any case, if I don't hear back I'll probably go the way of investigating the doer (why would I be running this by you if the inclination hadn't already arisen right?).

Thanks & all the best.
Once again - eternally grateful that you happened to decide to post the KFD site and offer guidance to students. "

"Hi Jayson,

Definitely go with whatever is calling to you right now. The doer question is very powerful and cuts right to the heart of this. If you can see that there is no agent, then there is no possibility of doing anything... and yet life goes on, activity continues, work gets done... all without "your" participation. To see through agency is to be free.

Keep me posted on what you find... "

I've been experimenting with something
I've noticed a sort of correlation with a bit of writing from Richard (the actual freedom guy) and a sort of thing that happens on it's own with a very simple meditation instruction.

so first of all Richard's advice : "Reach down inside of yourself intuitively (aka feeling it out) and go past the rather superficial emotions/ feelings (generally in the chest area) into the deeper, more profound passions/ feelings (generally in the solar plexus area) until you come to a place (generally about four-finger widths below the navel) where you intuitively feel you elementarily have existence as a feeling being (as in '˜me' at the core of '˜my' being ... which is '˜being' itself).
Now, having located '˜being' itself, gently and tenderly sense out the area immediately below that (just above/just before and almost touching on the sex centre).
Here you will find yourself both likeable and liking (for here lies sincerity/ naiveté).
Here is where you can, finally, like yourself (very important) no matter what.
Here is the nearest a '˜self' can get to innocence whilst remaining a '˜self'.
Here lies tenderness/ sweetness and togetherness/ closeness."

what I'm playing with is essentially an instruction Kenneth gave me a while back

Anyhow, simply feel your body as a single object, from head to toes.
In doing this tension seems to start off centered around the head and slowly starts draining off in the sequence mentioned by richard above.

First to the heart, then further down. It feels like pulling the plug on a sink full of water and having all the tension drain out of the experience. All it takes is to keep the whole body in focus.

"Anyhow, simply feel your body as a single object, from head to toes.
In doing this tension seems to start off centered around the head and slowly starts draining off in the sequence mentioned by richard above."
I've found something very similar in my practice recently. Any constriction of awareness(self) creates tension. They are the same thing. Limiting awareness=suffering. Whatever "I" am is vast, and needs space to stretch out.
I'm beginning to see that even limiting my awareness to the entire body also creates tension, though much more subtle then constricting it to the head. Focusing on a single thought, as required at work, or interacting with others creates a subtle tension as well.
I don't have an adequate way to describe this, sorry about that. I would, if you wish, encourage you to allow your awareness to expand beyond your body, as an experiment.
Metta,
B.
edit: I don't mean this to sound like some great realization that I'm sharing, just some recent experience. Re-reading my post it sounded kind of self important and preachy, it's not meant that way at all.

Agreed!

Have you seen this post over the HP (you may notice my screen name in the text there)?

thehamiltonproject.blogspot.ca/2012/04/y...peripherycentre.html

What I detailed in my last post is merely a means of refining tension in the body so that one can more easily practice the method at the above link!

Metta Mirror!!!

This is a Chat I had with Abre Chen shortly after a chat I had with Nikolai you can find at the Hamilton Project forums at: thehamiltonproject.blogspot.ca/p/hamilton-project-forum.html (the chat should be in Nikolai's journal dated May 11, 12:03 am)

JB: Hello!

AC: HI

JB:

AC: how are you?

JB: great

AC: great

JB: had a big coffee and was chatting with Nikolai for a while

AC: coffee? What time is it?

JB: well, I finished it around 11:30
it's 12:15 now

AC: a bit late for coffee

JB: yes I know
it was a gift

AC: how is Nikolai?

JB: good, we were talking about some of our current ideas about practice

AC: which are?

JB: specifically about the senses operating and the layer of fabrication on top of it
and how to the fabricated layer, the simple operation of the senses can appear dull
because it hasn't abstracted information from that layer
and how if the fabrication layer can just relax, the need to know dissipates
along with the sense of dullness
the fabrication layer wants to make a very beautiful copy of the senses so it can work with them
and this leads to a very wonderful blissed out state
however it's sort of a dead end in some way
as it can't contain the reality it's trying to copy
the senses only experience is much calmer
and cleaner

AC: so the layer of fabrication, is this a mental layer?

JB: yeah
for example if you are looking at a flower
it's all there and perfect
but something wants to analyse it
before it can be enjoyed

AC: where the experience is processed through the mental instead of just the the experience

JB: well, whenever the mind grasps to know
there is a knower

AC: yes, the mentalization

JB: for example, while the self is active
if I show you a beautiful painting
you'll want to start taking it in
digesting it
if you stick with it, eventually you may have feelings of beauty
and awe
and maybe even feel somewhat high or intoxicated by it's beauty
this is because it has become known
by the knower
it's now in the mind
but prior to all that
it was in the senses
whole and complete
along with all the rest of the experience

AC: right

JB: but it doesn't move you
which is only a problem for you
because you want to be moved

AC: well, in this case it is receptivity that is beyond mind
in the case of looking at art

JB: but why is art special?

AC: it is beyond the conceptualization of looking at art

JB: I'm not talking conceptualization so much
I'm talking about taking the senses
and perceiving objects out of that sense stream
vs. allowing the natural intelligence to simply function

AC: special because it is a language that is beyond mind

JB: it's a scary thing
but it seems possible
for example right now I have a whole room streaming into my senses
and there's a natural aloofness
however, depending on what I see, a process can occur
whereby, something is marked as special
and it starts to be analysed
and singled out
I'm not sure if this makes much sense hehe

AC: well again to me what makes sense is that it is beyond mind

JB: yes

AC: a door to get beyond mind

JB: sure, it is pre-mind
the mind can be seen to select from within it
and obscure it in some way

AC: well, it is good to pause
and be with the simplicity of things
it does not have to be complicated to explain and to get

JB: I'm sort of looking at it like, no me = no objects

AC: and who is sort of looking...

JB: right, for the moment there's a person on the sidelines enjoying this theory
hehe

AC: let it come to you
you pause,
you make yourself receptive and you let go of it all
that is subversive... to the ego
you're no longer doing, just pausing

JB: yes yes!
exactly

AC: creating some spaciousness

JB: you are out
that to me seems like the only way forward
no more refining, simply getting out of the way
of something bigger

AC: right
the mind churning has to stop too
all the theory has to be pulled out of

JB: you are sneaky
thank you!

AC: it is an endless swirling gaping hole
it needs to be fed endlessly
remove yourself of all mental activities
let that go
and the mind
the self goes

JB: it is like dying and being born at the same time

AC: beautiful
space beyond the self
that talking self can be so constricting and suffocating
minds are so caught up in the beauty of ideas
an ego feeding on bright ideas

JB: it's like a child asking questions without ever accepting an answer, just "why, why, why"

AC: right on

JB: you're talking me into a different experience here

AC: just dropping it
wow, so much spaciousness
letting go of all that crap

JB: everything is already beautiful without my needing to acknowledge it

AC: it just is and that is so complete
just beingness
very simple

JB: yes! normal experience is a picture of a tree drawn in the dirt covering a window
When you simply wash away the dirt, there's a real cyprus tree that is much more wonderful than any image could convey
my attempts at knowing are the obscuration
so silly!

AC: and whatever the mind is doing is ok, you just need to see it

JB: but it seems like the one who would see it, is the mind

AC: just dropping it, keep dropping it
drop that too

JB: yes

AC: every time it comes at you, you just drop it
nothing to do about it
as Jean Klein said
a complete rejection of all mental activities

JB: yes
no more graven images

AC: this is a good space, Jayson
right now, to stand in
just to pause the mind

JB: yes I would like to simply be with this for a while

AC: to allow space

JB: I'm glad I drank that coffee

AC:

JB: the veil is lifted it seems, for now at least

AC: at our stage, just remembering to pause can be enough

JB: yes relaxing, and then just dropping whatever comes after that

AC: yes, this spaciousness feels right

JB: it's so still

AC: just making myself receptive, all the senses are open
I let the wave come at me

JB: yes it feels like anything could happen

AC: I let the me go completely

JB: yes
that's clear to me
that's the only way
everything up to now was just trying to convince me of that

AC: just hanging in that

JB: so many "yes, but"s
not now, but before

AC: all the buts, seeing them like balls coming at you, but you are not catching
just letting them drop

JB:

AC: this space feels good, so complete, and there is nothing there

JB: nothing/everything

AC:

JB: truly nondual

AC: it was all worth it

JB: so let's just marinate here for a while then

AC: ok

JB: hehe
there are still some ghosts in the attic
but I can ignore them for now

AC: thoughts still pass by but I do not have to resist them or engage in them

JB: yes
it's odd
that's a reality for the moment
I've seen this before
but always fell
i don't think I grasped the essential point before though
that it's not something the I attained to
it's on a whole other level
a different way of experiencing entirely
it seems like luminosity is increasing at the moment

AC: yes, just opening up, making myself so receptive that everything falls away in

JB: there's a sense of joy arising

AC: right, you just open up and let it come to you
you can ask, is there joy and happiness right now

JB: I'm surprised by the bliss, effortless!

AC: and you discover that it is there waiting for you

JB: it's physical

AC: and it takes over
because there is the space for it

JB: how long have you been achieving this?

AC: high bliss right now

JB: likewise

AC: I have been doing this since about a month
it is doing itself really

JB: neat

AC: so fricking transforming
the space is changed completely
things feel smooth a lot

JB: yes, I've been noticing something building over the past couple of weeks
I started looking at dukkha, it became clear that it was a case of ion
and more and more subtle dukkha became visible
and this seemed to be the last little hurdle

AC: and the stuff that usually would be super charged at work, with a lot of crazy around flipping on stuff
and there i stand in the middle
so calm, so transformed
at peace in that higher state

JB: hehe, I interviewed some students for a position, and I was struck by how calm I was
but I think that it would be even better tomorrow
is it sort of like a feedback thing
where the mind just reels at smaller and smaller levels of dukkha
and just wants to stay open??
or at least, the strategy has changed
letting go vs. clamping down
if it's ok with you I may post some of this conversation to my journal. It milestone, and I've got a good record of it in this conversation

AC: yes, it is that letting go, just pausing, making yourself totally receptive, opening totally, listening with the whole body when people speak, speaking from that space,

JB: it became clear to me at some point that jhanic bliss arose on it's own in the absence of craving/aversion
and that put me in this direction
seems there's a concentration without effort

AC: Thank you Jayson for that spaciousness

JB: thanks so much Abre, I really appreciate the time, this has made things very clear
it really put me in the right direction

I am a lone, aging dynamic object instantiated on a universal-size multicomputer. My reference count just reached zero a few millennia ago; soon I will be deleted. Is there any hope?

I've shifted from trying to relax into an open awareness and do nothing to asking HAIETMOBA and if I am not feeling well or enjoying myself when I ask that question I investigate what triggered those feelings. I then get back to being as happy as I can and enjoying this moment as much as I can.

When I feel particularly excellent, things just sort of open up on their own.

This is just great. I'm using the HAIETMOBA question as a means of monitoring my current relationship to the moment, not as some sort of magical formula. If I'm not feeling good, I investigate why not and get back to feeling good as quickly as possible. If I'm feeling particularly good, I sometimes ask "Can I find perfection in this moment" which leads to a fascination with what's happening - which leads to feeling even better and enjoying myself even more.

!!!

Also, this: thehamiltonproject.blogspot.ca/2012/05/y...olbox-haietmoba.html

Helpful at the moment:

"Pure contemplation is not thinking '˜about' something '¦ which is the usual way of thought. Pure contemplation does not take a duration of time. It is instant thought, a realisation, a flash of seeing. In pure contemplation '˜I' do no thinking ... thinking does itself. '˜I' have no substance, therefore in pure contemplation there is thinking without a '˜thinker'. Thought operates freely ... and in immaculate wonder. Pure contemplation is a state of unsullied wonderment: '˜how can this world happen?', or '˜what is this universe doing here?', or '˜where does this body come from?'. These questions are posed in such a way so as not to get a thought-out answer, but to simply wonder, in a pure contemplation of the actual. One stays with the notion: '˜I am this body' and regards that magical world of the PCE. Opening up to that fairy tale-like world by seeing that it is indeed possible now makes it close '¦ so close as to be already here. It is always already here. Regard the very best as possible for oneself ... and for all human beings. There is a must in pure contemplation that something amazing can happen: all of a sudden '˜I' am no more and the actual is already here. I am here where I always have been."
actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedwriting/sw-universe.htm

A very intense sense of dread came over me on Saturday night. This was much worse then anything I've gotten from the fear nana. Something about it seemed to be related to a fear of imminent death. I closed my eyes and followed my breath until I was able to fall asleep.

The same sense of dread came up again on Sunday. I tried to allow it to be present without it overcoming me entirely.

I stayed with the senses as much as possible and it eventually went again.

No sign of it since.