MuMuWu's Practice Journal

"what would it look like if there was absolutely no belief at all?
without belief in fear, in ****** sensations, suffering, belief in self, no self, freedom from suffering af, life, death
all of it?"

- Nikolai Stephen Halay


A great suggestion from Nikolai when talking to him about the dread I experienced this weekend

Does saying that to yourself actually help when the stuff starts to grab you? I suppose that by not developing a belief or a story around it you can keep it from digging in more firmly, but for as long as the sensation is there, does it really help to suspend belief? And how can you not believe in a horrible sensation when it's manifesting right there?

What makes it horrible? what gives it significance? Am I interpreting it in relation to some goal or cause?

For example, for me when the sense of dread was present I could see how it was related to various spiritual beliefs, what if's, what it meant in terms of my practice, etc.

Simply saying it doesn't do much, however it really points me in the direction of seeing how beliefs are shaping the present experience.

For example, if you believe pickles are disgusting, and I think they are delicious, who's right?

Here's a link to a video on Dependent Origination:


I read the transcript somewhere on dharmaoverground.org I think, but now all I can find is the video. Anyway, I used to suffer from a lot of anxiety and didn't realize exactly how the chain of events worked, so this information was extremely helpful. I learned what I could not stop (arising sensations) and what I could (labeling, judging, clinging).

"And how can you not believe in a horrible sensation when it's manifesting right there?"

One's baseline may make it easier. A physical 'tense' sensation (maybe called an affective charge by some) arises due to an 'object'. The 'object' could be anything, a thought, a memory, something seen with the eyes, or sounds, smells, taste, AND/OR sensations. There is a 'belief' that 'sensations' are some 'thing' to cling to and thus react towards. The reaction toward them can be unpleasant, pleasant or neutral. The neutral reaction may be described as 'equanimity'. However that equanimity is to be cultivated because there is a belief in place that such a 'sensation' is worthy of a 'reaction', whether an equanimous reaction or a a reaction of agitation, sadness or anger. Sensations become the 'object' of the mind due to a subtle and quite insidious 'belief' in how reality should play out. When there is absolutely no 'belief' behind 'sensations' nor any other sense contact, there is no consciousness forming around, lunging on, clinging to 'sensations' that need a subjective reaction of equanimity to bare them.

The 'sensations' that have become a fabricated 'object' of a co-arising consciousness co-arise with an unavoidable subjective reaction. We choose and fabricate the subjective reaction. But the mind also fabricates an 'object' for the reaction. What if there were no 'belief' that 'objects' of the mind were real? What if there were no 'objects' for consciousness to lunge onto? What if sensations, thought, sight, sound, taste, touch were all experienced without being ' mental objects'?

Another way to look at how the mind 'objectifies' and fabricates particular 'sensations' as 'object' is via the notion of 'hacking vedana'. Perception is very malleable. The perception of 'horrible sensation' is mind made and can be changed to a 'pleasant sensation' or even dropped as an 'object' of consciousness all together and simply experienced as part and parcel of pure sensory contact without 'form' and 'name'.

thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/2011/...-hacking-vedana.html

Nick's 2 cents.

That seems to me to be another way of saying that what we expect (want, desire) most often conflicts with what is, and accepting just what is without conditions (or filters, or expectations, or historical precedent) is freedom

"
That seems to me to be another way of saying that what we expect (want, desire) most often conflicts with what is, and accepting just what is without conditions (or filters, or expectations, or historical precedent) is freedom

"

One and the same.

Edit: though to be clear, 'accepting just what is without conditions', i think should point to a non-fashioning, non-construing, non-fabricating type of awareness as the main objective. Though to get to a place where this can occur, one must fabricate one's path via fabrication of equanimity (and perhaps other helpful mental modes of experience, jhana, karuna, mudita and metta) so that the fabricating tendency can be seen clearly, looked on dispassionately with curiosity and eventually dropped for the non-fashioning, non-fabricating awareness to be then recognised as truly 'what is without conditions' and mostly certainly an unimaginable freedom and dropping away of all weight from one's shoulders.

I have little doubt that's all very true but I feel like I need a slide rule and a translator to understand it. Simple markets better. Simple is easier to understand. Simple probably gets more people interested.

Just sayin'

"
I have little doubt that's all very true but I feel like I need a slide rule and a translator to understand it. Simple markets better. Simple is easier to understand. Simple probably gets more people interested.

Just sayin'

"

I guess 'simple' is not my forte
Edit: Or maybe it is best others figure it out themselves. The complexity can make one shake their head in disbelief, but if it causes one to investigate themselves to find out what the hell such an explanation means, then my job is done. **hangs up coat and hat and smokes cigar**

I don't think it's necessarily you, Nick. I think complexity is in the DNA of pragmatic dharma folk.

An attempt at 'simple':

1. Investigate how the mind fabricates 'objects' of consciousness and thus the subjective reaction. Keep looking and investigating untill the causes and cessation become apparent. If not able to investigate see instruction 2.

2. If the mind is unable to investigate, fabricate (cultivate) a mind that can i.e. jhana, equanimity and all that jazz. Once able to investigate see 1.

Next time I'm experiencing dread I'll try it. It's hard, though, when I just wake up in the morning with that adrenaline surge in the gut and feel a grinding yuckiness, and think maybe I don't like being alive. I can see, though, how everything after the word "feel" is fabricated ("grinding yuckiness"), and then the "thinking" action piles on. If I can "think" instead "that's just my stress hormones putting in an appearance as I slide from sleep into wakefulness" it's still a fabrication, only maybe a less personal one. But if I turn my attention to the midsection and note the gross sensation breaking up into little pulses of arising and passing sensations that are themselves infinitely tiny, maybe we'll be getting somewhere.

Sorry to highjack your thread, Mu, but when you talk about "nameless dread" you're talking my language.

I for one appreciate the effort to distinguish between equanimity and non-arising conceptuality.

I have tried to think of a novel way of conveying how the mind has a lunging consciousness co-arise with a fabricate 'object'. it is hard to convey to others. This profound (and baseline shifting) insight arose in my own experience after much fumbling about and applying various pointers and techniques till it suddenly dawned on me that it was these fabrications of mind (objects and subjects) which were where all the unsatisfactoriness was jumping off. Not having certain things arise like before but a sublte 'tension' made it much easier to see, so maybe it is easier for yogis with certain baselines. Though i hope it can be groked by anyone of any baseline. If it informed one's practice from the get go, I think the results of any technique would be quite positive. But I'm only assuming and hoping.

How can the mind not experience 'objects'? This is probably a question one would have when confronted with what I've tried to explain. And I find this part difficult to convey, thus the complexity of descriptions. So i usually rely on a description of what experience looks like without object.

One way to see what consciousness looks like without object is to perhaps wait till one is in the 11th nana and then simply apply these following pointers:

thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/2012/...peripherycentre.html

thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/2011/...ent-riding-wave.html

Alternatively one can experiment with the following floater practice to see how visually the mind tries to grasp and conceive of an 'object'. It is quite a good way of learning how to drop the tendency to 'objectify' visual phenomena. Once one becomes good at dropping that tendency in the context of sight, one can then apply it to all sense contact at once.

thehamiltonproject.blogspot.com.au/2012/...oolbox-floaters.html

And... you can read this seminal but not well-known book. I highly recommend it as way to "get" what consciousness without an object means:

www.amazon.com/Franklin-Merrell-Wolffs-E...mation/dp/0791419649

This conversation (despite sidetracking a practice journal) is really very important because it shows, at least to me, that there are many angles from which to approach non-dual awareness.

Perhaps of interest

www.merrell-wolff.org/aphorisms

Yeah. I have always liked that progression.

Time for me to get down to brass tacks.

Thanks for the interest, comments, well wishes, etc. along the way.

Best of luck everyone.

I'll be doing my thing, but I won't be posting here for a while.

Thanks for your fantastic journal, mumuwu. Wishing you well with whatever you do.

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?i...ctive-neurochemistry

Wowee - I can't believe the site is back!