Owen's Practice Journal, Part II

thanks for documenting this!

"I'm pretty sure this is what I'm talking about. Something that makes every other mode of perception seem like a mockery of, a distortion of, a blight on of what is truly worthwhile...yes?

"

So far, yes.

Please keep us posted on how this develops for you. At the very least, *I* would like to hear about it (as stabilizing that experience is really the only thing I care about in my own practice, and perhaps in my own life...everything else is incidental).

EDIT: Also looking forward to hearing what Owen's experience or non-experience of this is like (perhaps on the podcast?).

A few days ago, I walked to the supermarket and passed a wide wall. Ontop of it a cute furry cat sat. My body just stopped and its eyes caught mine and we stared at eachother for an unknown amount of time. It's furry vibrant curious nature was so palpable. It then approached me on the wall and tried to jump down into my arms. It was purring so happily I let it kneed my hands with its paw claws while its hindlegs clung to the wall. It was a beautiful moment/s, that I am unsure of how many went by. I have had many more of these moments of just beautiful connectedness. With my wife especially.

Owen, that's awesome mate, I'm really pleased for "you". Ha!

These ongoing descriptions and discussions are tremendously useful and it's great to see a more balanced view of this developing. Freeing this whole thing from full-on AF-speak will hopefully clarify a lot of the issues people have had, and demonstrate how we're all still working towards the end of suffering regardless of how it's labeled.

A few more things are becoming clear.
1. The regenerative aspects of deep sleep are available during waking hours. Conversely, the awareness of the waking hours is becoming more available during the sleep state. I am aware of "something" when I am in dreamless sleep. Also had a few dreams, but without affect. They are lucid and much more fun. I don't get tired as easily, though I did take a nap yesterday to try and mitigate the effects of the pressure in the back of the skull.

2. I don't feel compassion, but it's not a problem. I think of it much in the same way that if I hurt my arm, I'll cradle it and try to make it feel better but there is no feeling of compassion for my arm. It's me. Same now for people. If someone is hurting it's totally natural to want to help them since I don't see them as being separate from me. It just makes sense to want to be helpful. It's an obvious thing to do - only one of us in here anyway.

3. The disorientation is passing. I previously wondered how I could function like this, now I wonder how I functioned before.

Are you actually aware when in deep sleep, or do you think you enter the conscious-NS ("9th" jhana), then fall asleep, then wake up into it, then get out of it? I guess it would be hard to tell since you have no sense of time anymore =P.

Just curious as I heard for AFers that dreams stop happening (just disconnected images, like with a TV off), and I haven't heard about the awareness while asleep.. so it's interesting to get these data points. though i suppose it would be more interesting to find out for myself, hah.. i guess i'll keep doing that

"Are you actually aware when in deep sleep, or do you think you enter the conscious-NS ("9th" jhana), then fall asleep, then wake up into it, then get out of it? I guess it would be hard to tell since you have no sense of time anymore =P.

Just curious as I heard for AFers that dreams stop happening (just disconnected images, like with a TV off), and I haven't heard about the awareness while asleep.. so it's interesting to get these data points. though i suppose it would be more interesting to find out for myself, hah.. i guess i'll keep doing that"

It's a bit like that, yeah. Conscious-NS or very hard 7th jhana. It's strange and still sorting itself out. I do notice that I have less dream content and they are getting less coherent. Again, not calling this AF but that's probably more a matter of semantics and personal taste - especially given that I think 10 fetters arhat and AF are describing essentially the same development.

"It's a bit like that, yeah. Conscious-NS or very hard 7th jhana.

"

I believe Ken Wilber describes a similar phenomenon in One Taste. If so, it's known in parts of the tibetan tradition. I'll see if i can find a quote tomorrow

"I believe Ken Wilber describes a similar phenomenon in One Taste. If so, it's known in parts of the tibetan tradition. I'll see if i can find a quote tomorrow"

That would be lovely, thanks.

The loss of a sense of personal will is tough to get used to. I would be a very sh*tty green lantern. There is absolutely no sense anymore that I can do anything - that which happens, even in this mind and body are simply due to cause and effect. The world is just doing what the world is doing, and part of what it's doing is me. In a sense this is almost traumatic. I appear to be going through one of the worst dark nights I've experienced, however, there is zero suffering or affect. I would have expected this to be debilitating, but it is just fine. I seem to operate and nobody knows any different except I might appear less impatient.
There is still a burning sense in the hara and if I forget to eat or push myself too hard I get a storm of thoughts and disorientation. I'm really starting to sympathize with B. Roberts and her descriptions. If there were any possibility of suffering this would be the most horrible state anyone could conceive of. It's all so amazingly funny and unexpected.

The 1st couple of weeks for me was very confusing too. There was a bit of disorientation as to how to operate and the shadowy 'being' but not quite 'being' experiences, a broken up mess of apperceived strangeness (please don't take my descriptions as too literal, as I find it very hard to describe exactly what was going on in the following weeks. Some strange residual stuff). There was a sense that I couldn't get the mind to focus on one thing, as it felt bombarded by objects at the sense doors and especially some really, really vibey flows of sensations at the hara and chest especially. It was like I was going to give birth to something down there. But after two weeks it had subsided and now, as I sit in a big comfy chair waiting for my next class, the bliss of stillness, of no 'me', of absolutely no push nor pull of 'being', the affectless bliss of this moment unhindered is 'home'.

The advice i received was to hang out in the 7th jhana's focus as it is accompanied by the angle of equanimity. It will clean up all of that residual stuff. The 'other' NS will also seemingly clear out that stuff too.

"I appear to be going through one of the worst dark nights I've experienced,"

Out of curiosity, how can you tell? Without any attention bounce, without any affects, what is left? Something purely cognitive about the way your thoughts flow? Some hara sensation?

"Out of curiosity, how can you tell? Without any attention bounce, without any affects, what is left? Something purely cognitive about the way your thoughts flow? Some hara sensation?"

I think I know what he is talking about. And it is truly too hard to describe accurately. There were some 'eruptions' of vibrations of a very unpleasant nature at the chakra spots for a week or so afterwards for me. There is the recognition that those vibes might have been supporting factors in a major dark night episode before. Yet there is no affect or sense of 'being' forming from them. Communicating all of this accurately and bypassing the possible misinterpretations and mis-projections of those reading about it is tricky, and thus I think it is best that Owen explain as best he can without leaning towards using terms that convey different things to others who haven't experienced what he is going through.

Owen?

"Out of curiosity, how can you tell? Without any attention bounce, without any affects, what is left? Something purely cognitive about the way your thoughts flow? Some hara sensation?"

Yep, it's all just mental commentary and physical sensations happening to nobody in particular. There is also the sense of having to learn how to operate without a self. The mind is re-learning how to think.

One more question. You said that your current state is "like" a PCE but not the same thing. Did you have this kind of disorientation and these kinds of problems functioning in past PCEs before? If not, any clue what is fundamentally different?

I imagine you're working through some kind of deep brain rewiring of something, whereas the PCE is just a temporary thing...is there some subjective experiential thing that corresponds to that difference?

I will mention that talking with someone anonymous, they told me how their first or second full blown PCE was so much cleaner and more high defintion than directly post-AF. It seems that one may get a glimpse of what this mind/body organsim looks like without 'being' nor even residue in a full blown PCE. It seems there may be still a bit of residual stuff that needs to be worked out of the system directly post-release. This is a possible difference between a full blown PCE and the newly released.

Another difference is the permanency of post-release. There is no sense that this PCE-like perception will end, but just keep deepening. Whereas in the full blown PCEs I had, there was a recognition that they were perfect but would fade and end. And they did. The gnarly vibes that may come up the week or so after do not interrupt the continuous PCE-like perception and apperceptive awareness. They may have interrupted PCEs in the past but they do not interrupt this permanency. There is ample room to explore without 'fear' that it will end.

Nick

Richard experienced something similar:

"After my break-through into actual freedom I went through thirty months of mental anguish thinking that I had lost the plot completely (although physically everything was perfect).
No one could help me as nobody had traversed this territory before." actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedcor...ndence/sc-sanity.htm (he goes into it in more detail later on that page)

what nick+owen talk about might be similar.. essentially eliminating 'being' but without all of it's supporting factors gone yet.. like someone said, to get AF, you don't have to chase down each little thing, you just need enough momentum to get it done. and i suppose how early you get it done (how many little things are left) will correlate with how hellish-yet-not-hellish-at-all the period of adjustment will be.

i used to think it would be great if there were a ray gun which you could point at someone and cause them to be released... now, considering how far Owen + Nick were and the unpleasantness they experienced, i realize that might actually be a terrible idea. you really do have to prepare the mind to be free..

"Richard experienced something similar:

"After my break-through into actual freedom I went through thirty months of mental anguish thinking that I had lost the plot completely (although physically everything was perfect).
No one could help me as nobody had traversed this territory before." actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedcor...ndence/sc-sanity.htm (he goes into it in more detail later on that page)

what nick+owen talk about might be similar.. essentially eliminating 'being' but without all of it's supporting factors gone yet.. like someone said, to get AF, you don't have to chase down each little thing, you just need enough momentum to get it done. and i suppose how early you get it done (how many little things are left) will correlate with how hellish-yet-not-hellish-at-all the period of adjustment will be.

i used to think it would be great if there were a ray gun which you could point at someone and cause them to be released... now, considering how far Owen + Nick were and the unpleasantness they experienced, i realize that might actually be a terrible idea. you really do have to prepare the mind to be free.. "

Interesting. At least Morpheus had rules about taking folks out of the Matrix. I feel like Neo when he had all the needles in him.

One other thing that occurred to me. It would not be accurate to say it feels like I don't exist, but it would be accurate to say that I don't feel like I have a separate existence. Cause and effect have replaced the sense of a self.

"It would not be accurate to say it feels like I don't exist, but it would be accurate to say that I don't feel like I have a separate existence."

Thank you, because that's far more helpful. As I've said before the language we use has got to be accurate to be truly informative.

"One other thing that occurred to me. It would not be accurate to say it feels like I don't exist, but it would be accurate to say that I don't feel like I have a separate existence. Cause and effect have replaced the sense of a self.
"

I've heard this description for 4th path, too:

tarin: "one more point, as you say it is 4th path you are after: after 4th path, for me, the sensations that implied a 'self' no longer had a relationship with (the rest of) phenomena, as being themselves phenomena, they no longer implied an Awareness that phenomena existed in relationship with (including as), which they had previously done. essentially, what this meant was that the whole field 'became' causal, and this opened the way to what i came to view as the important work. but more on that, if you wish, if/when it becomes more relevant." www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discu...ards/message/1870391

could you go into how cause + effect have replaced the sense of self now, vs. how that might have happened for you at 4th? (if you can see what tarin is saying, i mean)

I would not say cause and effect has replaced the self, but that the sense of any type of 'self'/me-ness has gone. This has made casue and effect become much clearer in the ongoing experience. Much much clearer than at MCTB 4th. It is so obvious that Owen writes sentences to describe it that can be read like so or in other different ways as Claudiu points out. What did I tell you, Owen!

Be as precise as possible! Less ambiguous the better!

"could you go into how cause + effect have replaced the sense of self now, vs. how that might have happened for you at 4th? (if you can see what tarin is saying, i mean)
"

There is now no phenomena arising in my awareness that is perceived to be belonging to or controlled by an individual entity. After technical 4th, there was phenomena arising that was perceived to be belonging to or controlled by an individual entity but it was an obvious mis-perception. Before technical 4th I believed I was an individual entity.

I wonder if these three stages are as much as one can model in a linear fashion.

The perception of phenomena perceived to be belonging to or controlled by an individual entity is a requisite condition for the arising of emotions. Simply put, an emotional life requires the contrast of self and other. Without the arising of these emotions, all that appears to remain is peace, beauty and fun - the spontaneous dance of the world.

When I was still experiencing proto-emotions (stage 6 and 7 on the kfd model) I was experiencing them because there was the contrast between self and other, it was just that my level of mindfulness would not permit them to glom into a mindstate.

This sutta (often referenced) is the best classical description of technical model 4th path.
www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.089.than.html

As Nick pointed out to me over skype, the use of the word "feeling" is problematic.

"As Nick pointed out to me over skype, the use of the word "feeling" is problematic.
- Owen"

I agree. After a certain point in practice words like feeling, emotion, mind state or body state do not describe the reality very well to someone who is not experiencing the same thing.