Owen's Practice Journal, Part II

Chris, I think we are getting closer to an understanding.

When we do a spiritual practice, the goal is to suppress something. We agree on that. The goal of vipassana is to suppress misidentifications, false beliefs, etc. This is literal suppression, not a play on words or a metaphor. The goal is to make certain things never arise in experience again. That occurs via understanding them, not by bearing down and trying to push them away, but it is still suppression.

If Owen wants to suppress something (change his experience permanently), how is that different-in-kind from what you have done in your practice, given that what you have done has led only to good things?

Owen says the stuff he wants to suppress is generated by some kind of misunderstanding / confusion. From my perspective, I have no idea what that could be and I'm quite skeptical. But I don't see myself in a position to judge either way until my skill at direct mode is closer to his.

Whatever the case is about what he wants to change, and whether it would change simply by virtue of reducing ignorance or habits formed by ignorance...suppress one thing, suppress a different thing...what is the difference? It seems like the only thing you could call into question (which you do) is whether he can in fact be successful at what he intends, which is an open question.

About whether it is enough to recognize that the entire field of experience is empty, this is just my own perspective. When I got stream entry, I thought, "wow, recognizing that none of this is me really will be the end to suffering! painful experience is only suffering because I project all kinds of nonsense onto it; when I no longer believe that a self is the perceiver or subject of that pain, there is no problem, no suffering." (cont)

(cont) And as I moved through the paths, this seemed more and more true. The less I saw things as "self" or related to them in terms of a "self", the less they seemed to matter, no matter how pleasant or unpleasant they were.

But now I see that entire line of thinking as a reflection of the grossest kind of conceit. Coming from a form of experience where *absolutely everything* is conceived of in relationship to some kind of believed-in self, recognizing that experience is just experience was an enormous relief. And there was a big inclination on my part to think that, minus that conceptual framework, everything would be just fine. But that was only because I was a self-obsessed, narcissistic, deluded idiot before that! The enormous relief was the relief of taking steps towards not being that idiot anymore! Thinking that what's wrong with unpleasant kinds of experiences is that they're falsely believed to be related to a self was just the drawn-out dying gasps of that idiot, i.e. an attempt to relate all my problems to my own perspective or lack of perspective about them and their nature, as if everything important revolves around how I look at and think about my experiences.

My vipassana practice ended when I realized that there is no perspective on experiences. They are always what they are. Conceptual frameworks about duality and false beliefs about self and delusions and clinging are just more experiences, they don't mediate the perception of anything, they are not anything I'm doing, they do not change the way that I see other things, and there is no difference between my pre-path experience and this other than that those things stopped arising and I stopped believing that I ever had anything called a "perspective" (except in the conventional sense). Really, literally no difference apart from that. (cont)

"Whatever the case is about what he wants to change, and whether it would change simply by virtue of reducing ignorance or habits formed by ignorance...suppress one thing, suppress a different thing...what is the difference? It seems like the only thing you could call into question (which you do) is whether he can in fact be successful at what he intends, which is an open question."

Owen should pursue the practice he wants to have. I doubt he'll be successful at what I perceive to be his desire to eliminate the arising of a sense of self. That's just my opinion, of course, and others will have differences with it.

About the use of the word "suppress" -- it is simply not a word I would associate with vipassana practice, or with my practice. I disagree that it has been or is my practice objective. Only if we re-define the word "suppress" to allow vipassana, a practice aimed clearly at investigating, uncovering, and revealing the true nature of phenomena, then we can stretch "suppress" to include that. It's not what I would do and not how I would describe my practice. It seems to me, however, that that is what you are doing, EndInSight. "Suppress" implies an active, forceful elimination of something. That's not investigation and it's not the cause of the relief from suffering that the realizations we gain from our practice bring. Certain things may not arise due to our practice but it's not because we actively suppress them, force them down, as they arise. It's because we perceive them differently having removed the veils that previously obscured their true nature. It;s just too much of a stretch for me to call that suppression.

Make sense?

(cont) So that brings me to today. Painful things occur. Clinging (in the technical 4-path model sense) does not occur, false beliefs about pain in relationship to a self do not occur, false identification as the subject of that pain does not occur. That's much better than it was before. All that nonsense added to painful experience was itself painful. But there's still pain. It's exactly the same as before. It doesn't ensnare my mind in the ways it used to, but It hurts just as much as ever. I can't think "the pain does not hurt me!" as a form of succor because seeing the pain as unrelated to a perceiver is one of those perspective-thoughts that doesn't arise anymore. I can't chant it as a mantra because it would be a lie. Pain is just there.

For an analogy, think about the experience of the color red. Pre-path, I imagined that there was the experience of red in relation to a perceiver. Now, there's just the experience of red. Recognizing that red is just red and isn't an experience that exists in relation to a perceiver doesn't make it any less red. It doesn't make it anything! The experience doesn't change one bit. Just red.

So, Owen finds something painful about his experience (whatever he's talking about when he uses the label "self") and wants to change it. You think it's enough to recognize that experience is empty. I can't see that it's *ever* enough just to recognize that experience is empty, if the source of pain is the experience itself and not the confusion that arises alongside it. And there certainly are experiences that are painful in themselves. (The confusion that arises alongside such experiences is one example of a painful-in-itself experience.) Not everything that normally gets called painful, but some things. (cont)

(cont) If Owen says that part of his experience sucks and he wants to change it, even if I don't quite understand what he's talking about, the reasoning behind it makes all the sense in the world to me.

Anyhow, keep in mind that I don't mean to speak for Owen or interpret him; he's just the foil that brought us to talking about this. Sorry, Owen!

You asked me "I'm curious if you ever feel like you have been wronged, if your sense of fairness feels violated, feel jealous or get angry. Yes? No?"

Of course. But minus the nonsense that used to arise simultaneous with them. And when I look at what those things are, all I see are unpleasant body states, and certain dispositions to think in a certain way. In some ways they don't deserve to be called "feeling wronged", "feeling jealous", etc. etc. and in some ways they do. (I'm not sure how to express this point succinctly so I'll just stop here.)

"About the use of the word "suppress" -- it is simply not a word I would associate with vipassana practice, or with my practice. I disagree that it has been or is my practice objective. Only if we re-define the word "suppress" to allow vipassana, a practice aimed clearly at investigating, uncovering, and revealing the true nature of phenomena, then we can stretch "suppress" to include that. "

If phenomena ever had their true nature obscured and you aimed to change that, that obscuration was either a lack of an object which now arises, or a superfluous object which now doesn't arise.

In my practice, I found that "obscurations" were just deluded beliefs, deluded identifications, and so on. So uncovering the true nature of phenomena turned out to mean transforming the mind such that those things stopped arising. The method was "directly seeing." The actual outcome was suppression.

My understanding of your own experience was that it, too, went like that. If the same objects of experience present themselves but you no longer see them in a confused way, "not seeing them in a confused way" is a bunch of objects that you have suppressed, that no longer arise. Again, not by bearing down and pushing them away, but by understanding the truth of things, which resulted in a transformation of the way your mind functioned. But the objects are gone, and the goal was to remove those objects, or in other words, to see clearly. If I have misunderstood you, please explain how clear seeing for you was not a change in the objects that present themselves to the mind.

Chris, let me just ask that you tell me something about your own experience, in addition to whatever else you may want to write.

If you hit yourself on the hand with a hammer, does it feel the same as or different than before you started this practice?

If you drink way too much coffee and are rocking all the body tension / anxiety that comes from that, does it feel the same or different than before you started this practice?

I'm not asking about whether the whole experiential package is the same or different, just the experiences of physical or emotional pain themselves, apart from your thoughts about those things or lack of thoughts about those things or reactions to those things or lack of reactions to those things.

(I'm not asking you to run these experiments; just tell me what you think.)

I'm chuckling to myself after reading your comments because I can't find much to disagree with you about here, except the use of some of the language. I'm vastly uncomfortable using the word "suppress" to describe what my experience has been. I use words like "opening" and "unveiling" and the like because that's how it has always felt, this process of awakening. Throughout, it has been a process of gaining a wider, more accommodating and more deeply accurate experience from moment to moment, to be open to whatever comes up, to be less reactive to it, to drop the complications that you talked about. So using a word like "suppress" just doesn't fly with my experience and sense of the thing.

And of course I feel pain. I've used the same examples you used here over and over in days gone by to argue the same points.

To answer specifically about my experience of pain before and after, the change is related to a few things:

- there is little or no difference in physical or immediate emotional pain, that which I would call "first arrow" type pain
- I do not identify these experiences as "me" as everything is on the same level playing field with no "inside" or "outside" distinction and more importantly with no pre-eminent, privileged or controlling "me" driving the bus. There is no driver. Sh*t just happens.
- they come and they go with little or no friction
- I do not spend time agonizing over them after they happen or anticipating them before they happen
- they are perceived as simpler phenomena that happen in pieces in rapid succession
- any arising of secondary agony, worry, anxiety, anticipation, are seen for what they are and dropped

My experience is focused on this minute, right now, and attention is drawn with increasing frequency to this moment, right now. I can let go very, very easily and do that all the time. In fact, letting go seems to have become a habit when any kind of intensity arises, be it painful or pleasurable.

Life is not perfect in the way I previously thought it should be, but the world is complete and whole and I'm perfectly happy with it as it comes along. We seem to be describing the same thing using different words, which I find to be extremely common when I compare notes with others. That's just endemic to the nature of the experience and to describing mind effects with imperfect language as the second we start to use words we've lost the accuracy.

Again, as I've already said, Owen should so what Owen wants to do. Apparently, he's offline and doing it right now.

Hi Chris,

you wrote that you don't think that it is possible to accomplish what Owen wishes to.
i'm sorry to poop on your beliefs but i've spoken to 6 different people who reported that their on-going, daily, permanent mode of experience does not include a sense of self, a feeling of being, or any negative emotions.

so, it seems that it is very possible to do so, despite your belief..

Chris, why do you not want to manipulate your experience, as you put it? The Buddhist path is straightforward: identify suffering. see what causes it. see what leads to its cessation. then follow the path leading to its cessation. That implies that, once you're done with the path, there will be no more suffering. So, if there is still suffering in your experience, why do you not want to eliminate it, but want to be 'free to suffer', so to speak? What benefit does it bring you to be able to feel first-arrow- or second-arrow- type pain, however brief it is?

Chris, I'm not surprised that you agree with my descriptions (even if they're in different language than you would pick). I don't doubt that you've put in the time and come to understand a lot of things in your practice, at least as much as me, maybe more.

The thing I'm curious about is, why do you think it's enough to understand that experience is empty? If I could sum up what I've learned (in a way that's tailored to this context) it would be: "Everything is what it is, everything is as sh*tty or awesome as it is, no imagined perspective on it changes what it is." To me that seems like it leads to the opposite of what you're saying.

I agree that most of *what I thought* was wrong with experience, pre-path, is not actually wrong with experience. Knowing that experience is empty is enough to do away with all that, and that is extremely valuable in a personal, psychological, human development sense. But what's left is that experience can still be good or bad, and I don't see how emptiness has anything to say about that either way (except to confirm that it's actually good or bad).

"Hi Chris,

you wrote that you don't think that it is possible to accomplish what Owen wishes to.
i'm sorry to poop on your beliefs but i've spoken to 6 different people who reported that their on-going, daily, permanent mode of experience does not include a sense of self, a feeling of being, or any negative emotions.

so, it seems that it is very possible to do so, despite your belief..

"

Yes, this. I'd understand if nobody heard of AF, yes, maybe 4th path is all it is. But now, people are saying, here is an entire class of suffering, that of 'being', here is how it arises, here is how it ceases, here is how you, too, can cease it, permanently, all you have to do is investigate. So, why the reluctance to investigate?

Yadid, that's perfectly fine. You can poop on my beliefs if you want. They're just beliefs, after all.

beoman, I think it's really, really important to be open my experience right now, whatever it is. Conversely, I think it's not a good idea to resist anything that arises, as that is what in my experience actually causes a lot of suffering. Clinging and aversion, as they say. So as things play out in my stream of experience right now I want to be open to it, to allow those things into my awareness, to embrace all of it, because as I see it, it's all the same. It's a trick of mind to name things "good" or "bad" and to try therefore to suppress (oops, there's that word again!) anything. So when I say i don't want to manipulate my experience I'm referring to the real time, moment to moment playing out of experience-as-it-happens.

The labels we apply the experiences are just that, labels. There really is no "good" or "bad." It all just IS.

Question for you -- do you think you will ever be able to eliminate the pain of the first arrow? When that hammer hits your hand hard you will, at some point, feel no pain? ReallY?

Quick request, do you guys mind starting a new thread for this discussion? Since I'm taking off for a while, might be more appropriate to do outside my practice journal. Thanks for understanding.
-o

"So, why the reluctance to investigate?"

It doesn't have any appeal for me for reasons that I've been expressing on this thread for more than two days. It's a personal choice. If you want to investigate that please do. Also, that discussion (Actual Freedom, yes or no?) has been held here many times. My comments about it are thus posted here for you to read inside those topics. If you want to find and read them it's probably pretty easy to do but I'm not going to revisit that here now. It's just not of interest to me and it leads to more drama that it's worth, IMHO.

Owen, yes, That's very appropriate. I'm sorry to have hijacked your journal.

"Quick request, do you guys mind starting a new thread for this discussion? Since I'm taking off for a while, might be more appropriate to do outside my practice journal. Thanks for understanding.
-o
"

Yes, my mistake. Sorry!

Oh housebuilder! You have now been caught!
You shall not build a house again.
Your rafters have been broken. Your ridgepole demolished.

Congrats!

Details?

Booya!

"Congrats!

Details?"

Whatever it was, it was done via noting, the lighting rod and jhana. Was in the 7th jhana last night and found an opening, I went into it and didn't come back. What's typing this is what remains. I've spent the majority of my day attempting to figure out how to function.
I can say that there is no sense of an interior life, no sense of time, no sense of me as an individual person, There is some crap and habit energy remaining though there isn't anything that it can hook up with. Such amazing stillness. No desire to do anything, but I seem to be typing. Go figure. I still laugh, so that's nice I suppose. There is some physical buzzing going on in the chest and guts, almost like a mini dark night without anybody to afflict. I don't have jhana anymore, at least not in the way I did before. First 4 are gone, but there are aspects to the arupas I can dig.

As always, three options.

Could get better, could get worse, could stay the same. So far, it gets better.

Are you having trouble functioning, or just needing to adapt practically to a new way of experiencing?

How does it compare to PCEs you've had?

"Are you having trouble functioning, or just needing to adapt practically to a new way of experiencing?

How does it compare to PCEs you've had?"

Having trouble reading books, I get sucked into the beauty of the letters and the shape of the fonts.
This isn't a PCE, but it's very much like one. Don't ask how they are different.

I would say this is what I've been looking for, but the I that was looking went away and along with it, the problem that caused the looking.