Owen's Practice Journal, Part II

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

Holy crap! Awesome! Sahdu Sadhu Sadhu!

You, Nik and Antero are really inspiring me...

"Holy crap! Awesome! Sahdu Sadhu Sadhu!

You, Nik and Antero are really inspiring me..."

I concur with Ron - this is very cool and very inspiring... congrats indeed!

Maybe between you, Nick and Antero we will have enough data points to begin to learn about what awaits practitioners who have gone this far. Look forward to hearing more about it and seeing what your fingers have to say as they dance across the keyboard...

"I concur with Ron - this is very cool and very inspiring... congrats indeed!

Maybe between you, Nick and Antero we will have enough data points to begin to learn about what awaits practitioners who have gone this far"

Thanks guys. Teamsport.

It occurs to me that I should document this transition as completely as I can, I haven't seen a lot of what happens right after a shift like this so it might be interesting for people.

A few things I'm noticing right off the bat. It feels as though there are a lot of habits around the self; flinching, tension, ways that the body is conditioned to respond. It's a bit like I've been living for years in a house with an active alcoholic or somebody with a borderline personality disorder - but now they are gone. They just vamoosed, but I'm left with all the strategies I had in place to deal with them.

For instance, I've had a lot of body image issues over the years, yet suddenly all of the emotional charge around them is just gone. Yet when I pass by a mirror I begin to flinch, waiting to get hit by all of these (proto?) emotions that don't come. When I notice that, I begin to laugh. Laughter, surprisingly enough does remain. It's a bit like a sneeze, no emotional content behind it but very enjoyable.

I'm also very disoriented. I've been searching for self (THE PROJECT) for so damn long. But now there is nobody home... Out of habit I keep looking. The looking is burning itself out since there is no payoff. And that's the really striking thing, so many mental structures around getting some advantage or pleasure for ME are in place but they quickly run into the wall of being useless. They are like the calluses and grip strength of somebody who has been wheelchair bound for years but now can walk without pain.

Nick describes the possibility of an "out-from-'my'-control attentiveness to sensuousness" phase that can precede freedom. Did you experience that, or did you just plop into it from the 7th jhana spontaneously? What was the lead-up to this (the last few days / weeks) like?

Congrats, Owen!

Please do post as much detail about the experience before, during and after as possible. I think one area of great interest is the nature of your experience with the sensuous side of life now that you've made this transition. What's lost? What's gained? As you adjust what are the unique challenges? How do other people relate to you now and do they perceive that anything about you has changed? You know, the usual encyclopedic data dump

"Maybe between you, Nick and Antero we will have enough data points to begin to learn about what awaits practitioners who have gone this far. Look forward to hearing more about it and seeing what your fingers have to say as they dance across the keyboard... "

Is it possible (or would it be a good idea) to open a new thread having to do with advanced practice--what Dadriance is suggesting--rather than have this discussion over individuals' practice threads? Not that individuals can't keep posting on their own threads, but it might help to put this material in a thread dedicated to that topic.

Maybe but I think its important that we be able to easily follow in a linear way a single individual's progress from beginning to end so we can learn the most about how this stuff really works..

Congratulations Owen!
Thanks for the continuing inspiration that your practice has been.

Congratulations! Very inspiring!

I probably reveal more about myself than you when i ask how long you have been planning to use that quote?

Oh, Owen, one more question...Nick's description of his current experience seems to emphasize stillness. I'm not sure yet how you're describing yours, but it seems to lean in that direction. On the other hand, Trent and Tarin (and the whole AF troupe) emphasize wonder.

When I look at my experiences of EEs / PCEs / apperception, I understand the stillness angle, but wonder is the "big thing" that jumps out at me as a way to describe it. As if the nature of the senses is some kind of feelingless silent ecstasy, but conveying the ecstasy is more important than conveying the silence. ("Wonder" being an equivalent way of describing this ecstasy for me.)

Do you think you're having a different experience than the AF troupe, or just emphasizing different aspects of it, or what?

Congratulations! Enjoy!!

"Nick describes the possibility of an "out-from-'my'-control attentiveness to sensuousness" phase that can precede freedom. Did you experience that, or did you just plop into it from the 7th jhana spontaneously? What was the lead-up to this (the last few days / weeks) like?"

There was a period before the shift where I realized that I was going away. It was filled with at first what could only be described as grief and fear which then gave way into the most profound, palpable peace. The peace also dropped away, and with it me.
Now there is just stillness that is burning off what remains.

Congrats Owen, well done! I am excited to see what unfolds next.

"It occurs to me that I should document this transition as completely as I can, I haven't seen a lot of what happens right after a shift like this so it might be interesting for people.
- Owen"

Inspiring development! Please continue posting all the details until we beg you to stop

"There was a period before the shift where I realized that I was going away. It was filled with at first what could only be described as grief and fear which then gave way into the most profound, palpable peace. The peace also dropped away, and with it me. Now there is just stillness that is burning off what remains."


Great! Very inspiring. We will have to come up with a short practical how to manual to make this practice more accessible.

"
Great! Very inspiring. We will have to come up with a short practical how to manual to make this practice more accessible.
"

Kenneth knows how to get folks to the tipping point (technical 4th/ TF 2nd). It's pretty well documented at this point.
From there if you want it to be as simple as possible about it, keep a thread of attention on the body during your entire conscious experience during the day. Get it to the point where you know if your first breath at wakeup is an in-breath or an out-breath. Take that body awareness and begin to note and ground the emotions. Get honest. Really fracking honest about your self and your motivations. Anything that has the flavor of self needs to be investigated with the right view attained at the tipping point. Jhana, lots and lots of jhana. Investigate the feelings of being and self that remain in the arupa jhanas. Cry. Deal with your emotional ****. More body awareness. Let it hurt so bad you think you will die on the cushion and die anyway- there is more life than you have ever known after it's over. Question motivations more. Surrender to fear. Get willing to not exist. Notice how strange it is to feel like you exist. Understand that "you" will never get fully enlightened, "you" is what goes away and in so doing allows enlightenment to finally and consistently express through the mind and body.
Surrender, pay attention, investigate. Cultivate joy and wonder and when it's time stop doing anything just stop. Let the momentum of the practice do itself and end the big project. One morning you might just wake up and feel like filing a missing persons report.

As far as i see it, with the limited data I have access to, the sequence is:

1/ Trigger a full blown PCE. The AF route uses the PCE as a carrot and model of what to aim for. It shows what this mind/body organism looks like sans sense of 'being'. One could argue that a full blown PCE is a path moment as talked of by Ayya Khema. She would advise a yogi to recall what was learnt from the path moment (falsehood of self) and recall it continuously. This sounds like the AF instruction to stay as close to the PCE as possible. So one can use the experience of it to fuel the pure intent/dhamma desire to refine the flow of 'being' until it ultimately vanishes. This can be done via a variety of techniques that aim to refine the flow of 'being'. I do not think we have any data that says someone got AF or whatever you want to call it now, without having experienced a full blown PCE at least once beforehand. To trigger a full blown PCE, one can follow steps 2, 3 and 4. Steps 2, 3, and 4 should be followed post 1st PCE as well, now fuelled by the PCE carrot and the pure intent based off of what was learnt from the 1st PCE.

2/ Once one has the carrot (the PCE) to base all continued directed movement, the aim is to continuously refine the flow of sankhara/affect/being/etc to a degree where discernment of the senses and sense objects is unhindered by the 5 hinderances. Doing so will lead closer and closer to EEs (excellent experience) and short glimpses of PCE territory, where the sense of 'being' thins out and may drop away for short periods. There may be full blown episodes of a PCE too where it lasts hours or days.

Anything that blocks or hinders the refinement of the flow of 'being' should be investigated and let go of by any means seen fit. The AF route calls it 'dismantling the social identity'. Owen called it being honest with oneself. Are there any beliefs or things 'I' am holding on to that act as blocks to progress and act as supports for the flow of 'being'? If so, drop them by the means you see fit.

This refinement can be done via cultivating and actualising the jhanas, cultivating a continuous state of well being/felicity, HAIETMOBA, binary noting as Owen did, or a combo of all the above. Whatever refines the mode of 'being' so that discernment and attentiveness to sensuousness is extremely easy to do, is a good technique to continue to use.

3/ The practice of refinement of the flow of 'being' will lead to being more attentive/heedful of sensuousness/the senses and their objects. This eventually leads to apperception (PCE). Apperception cuts the sequence of dependent origination and the flow of sankhara/affect/being/ignorance/mental suffering.

4/ The goal of 24/7 attentiveness to sensuousness will lead one eventually to what the actualists call an 'out-from-control" period. Here the attentiveness to sensuousness and the actualising process that occurs and leads to apperception will then become effortless and automatic, which can result in a lot of peace coming up. Both Owen and myself had the same insane peace arise automatically days before. Also there may be a period of 'fear' come up shortly before the deed is done, 'fear' of non-existence. One of the last hooks to go it seems.

I might edit this into a blog post later. Right now, this body is weak from the flu. Essentially, whatever techniques and practices that lead to what we are calling apperceptive awareness will lead to dismantling the chain of sequence of DO.

"Do you think you're having a different experience than the AF troupe, or just emphasizing different aspects of it, or what?"

So I think I'm having the same experience as the AF folks, but I don't particularly want to label it AF since I didn't practice the way the AF folks did. I would say it seems to fit most of the descriptions of 10 fetters model arhatship. They did it through felicity and actualizing, I did it via noting, grounding and jhana. I'm mostly convinced though that the 80% of the differences are semantic rather than methodology.

aperception --- bare attention
felicity

---

joy or rapture (piti)
actual world .... reality as it is (yatha bhuta)
pure intent ..... right intention
sensiousness .... right mindfulness

The big contribution of the AF folks IMHO is showing the pragmatic community how far developmental enligtenment can go. Also the pointing out about the social identity are vial to doing this outside of a monastic context where it is probably less relevant given that monks to a large degree renounce living in society.

Anyhow to pull out an old scrubs joke, "What has two thumbs and no affect or sense of agency? Owen Becker, pleased to meet ya."

"So I think I'm having the same experience as the AF folks, but I don't particularly want to label it AF since I didn't practice the way the AF folks did. I would say it seems to fit most of the descriptions of 10 fetters model arhatship. They did it through felicity and actualizing, I did it via noting, grounding and jhana. I'm mostly convinced though that the 80% of the differences are semantic rather than methodology.
The big contribution of the AF folks IMHO is showing the pragmatic community how far developmental enligtenment can go. Also the pointing out about the social identity are vial to doing this outside of a monastic context where it is probably less relevant given that monks to a large degree renounce living in society.

Anyhow to pull out an old scrubs joke, "What has two thumbs and no affect or sense of agency? Owen Becker, pleased to meet ya."
"

Owen, you DID actualise the jhanas and that is what did it presumably in the 7th, copy cat!. And this technique was given to me by an AFer. But I would agree, the terminology was the main difference as far as i saw it. The buddhist terminology has some baggage attached to it though from centuries of interpretation, so could mislead if not fully understood IMO.

Edited to add: the use of bad jokes and physical illnesses and toothaches are not eradicated with the disappearance of the flow of 'being'. Hehe!

"Owen, you DID actualise the jhanas and that is what did it presumably in the 7th, copy cat!. And this technique was given to me by an AFer. "

True, credit where credit is due. But I also found the instruction from an Ayya Khema talk about "becoming the jhana" or viewing the sense of an observer as a defect in the jhana. Same thing. My basic point is that this has been covered in the Theravada before, just not talked about much in the open.

"This wonder I speak of is not of the same meager intensity '˜I' experienced while '˜normal,' nor when '˜I' was '˜enlightened', but is of an entirely new level. It is as though one is perpetually questioning all things sensed and experienced and also answering all of those questions in some sort of elegant (and mostly subconscious) '˜dance duet'. It is as though one's mind is always on the 'edge of its seat.' (Trent, Between Chaos and Order Lies Wonder)"

About the stillness vs. wonder thing...apart from methodology and terminology, to what extent does this kind of thing describe your experience? (Would like to hear from Nick too, if he cares to share.)

"About the stillness vs. wonder thing...apart from methodology and terminology, to what extent does this kind of thing describe your experience? (Would like to hear from Nick too, if he cares to share.)"

Well, things appear profoundly still and wonderful if that's what you are asking.

Nothing is mundanely boring anymore. The minutest detail of my shoddy finger nails, the rising andes seen through the window, the way the light hits the table, the weirdness of the illness inhabiting this body for the moment. It is all experienced without boredom, and is appreciated as it is without affective judgement. If you wish to call this wonder, then so be it. I was not schooled in too much AF speak, having not read much on wonder so can't comment on what Trent, Tarin or Richard has to say about it.

The stillness is palpable due to remembering how the mind was before. The constant push and pull of the attention wave/bounce has gone and in its place is a stillness that is ever present regardless of what is going on in and around this body. The mind is certainly always 'on the edge of the seat' as there is no sense of time, everything perceived is appercieved, and thus does not get filtered through an affective judgement of 'this bores me', so like i said before, the most mundane thing can be stared at with an appreciation for it that was not there before. Is this the wonder you are talking of?

"aperception --- bare attention
felicity

---

joy or rapture (piti)
actual world .... reality as it is (yatha bhuta)
pure intent ..... right intention
sensiousness .... right mindfulness"

This is rather helpful...