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Post by james on Jan 16, 2013 0:07:09 GMT -8
Background as repeated elsewhere on this forum in bits and bobs over time:
For quite some time (and with variations in effectiveness) I have been
watching thoughts a lot of the time. As they come up they almost instantly start to dissolve in most cases, since thought chains can't seem to form if the beginnings are merely witnessed.
Where I do get tractor-beamed into thought chains, when I pop back in to awareness of them they are rapidly seen (in a non-minding sense, more like a direct seeing-through) to be fabrications and fantasies, day-dreamlike etc. Swish.
So the situation is that I have fewer thought chains because of insta-swishing, and those thoughts that get as far as being fully formed chains get swished on regaining consciousness.
Probably a lot of seekers end up here.
Anyway, this does definitely stop certain classes of suffering, but there is still a deep and persistent energetic dissatisfaction/discomfort stemming from the fact that these thoughts start up at all, since they are quite obviously symptomatic of subconscious belief of there being a me in a body in a world full of things in which the me needs to compete for psychological and physical advantage.
So you could say there's relatively a lot less suffering than before, but the scale has now changed and so the suffering seems just as bad as before, just different. Now it's a non-vocal sensation of having stalled, of the journey not having been completed, and quite possibly a bit of fright that the journey may never end.
Do you see it as likely that the fundamental errors will be taken away eventually (by grace) with this situation carrying on as it is? Or do you think it could go on without end because of some flaw in the mechanism? Is this not likely to lead to getting out of the way quite enough?
Do the sensations of disease themselves have to be turned away from as well, or are they acting as helpful kicks up the backside to stimulate endeavours to travel onwards? I have no idea.
BTW The periods of recognizable ATA are very slowly going up in frequency and duration, but as I understand it (and I may be dead wrong) you guys don't see ATA as necessary? Is direct seeing possible from this position, or is the fruit not nearly ripe enough?
Sorry to say, I think I have forgotten, or have become confused about, or never really fully understood what your teachings are for this state of affairs... Anyway, I feel moved right now to stick my head above the parapet, expose this state of confusion and to take some flak.
Please could you say something about it?
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Post by james on Jan 16, 2013 0:25:57 GMT -8
In another place, Reefs said:
I resonate a whole lot with the Esther thing because I am nowadays genuinely shocked by the psychological violence that get perpetrated by me (whereas before it wouldn't have registered in the slightest). This bodymind is always trying to screw someone over just a leeetle bit, or make them feel guilty about something just a leeeetle bit, gain that leeetle bit more cake (or whatever it is) than the next man. And so on.
It can manifest as subtle as a slight inflection in the tone of voice, a specific word selection in a sentence, a well-timed pause, even the lack of something said...
But I sense when it is happening and the motivation behind it very clearly. There is no mistake. Deep down this bodymind is very violent (and therefore very scared, since aggression is from fear), as most 'regular' folks must be, I guess.
This violence is way more subtle than thought, these are impulses. You can only see the effect in real time (e.g. an inflection as a sentence is being spoken), the causes are in the hidden layer, the subconscious.
I also resonate very strongly with the Warren Buffet thing. These days I am more financially endowed than ever before, and I also work from home. A great setup. But my mind comes up with nonsense about how I have to hold on to the money or invest it wisely or how to hold onto this working from home gig... you get the idea, protection. My preciousssss! I had far fewer thoughts and concerns about money when I was 20k in debt than now, when I have a goodly amount of savings.
So is this descent into more subtle and subtle layers going anywhere? Will a thread get so thin that it breaks and brings the house down? Or will I constantly be halving my problems and doubling my sensivity (you can divide one by two infinitely without reaching zero) until I go nuts. :-)
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Post by james on Jan 16, 2013 0:50:13 GMT -8
In another place, enigma said:
I'm not seeking self improvement AFAIAW. And I could hardly even call watching thoughts 'a practice' any more since it's so habitual.
I can say that the increase in subtlety isn't intentional. I've merely been watching thoughts for a long time and all this is a byproduct.
Aside: I dimly remember ZD (and perhaps Adyashanti as well) saying they knew of people who had practiced 'mindfulness' (or did shikantaza - 'just sitting', if I spelled that right) for decades and got essentially nowhere.
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Post by Reefs on Jan 16, 2013 1:59:54 GMT -8
I resonate a whole lot with the Esther thing because I am nowadays genuinely shocked by the psychological violence that get perpetrated by me (whereas before it wouldn't have registered in the slightest). This bodymind is always trying to screw someone over just a leeetle bit, or make them feel guilty about something just a leeeetle bit, gain that leeetle bit more cake (or whatever it is) than the next man. And so on.
It can manifest as subtle as a slight inflection in the tone of voice, a specific word selection in a sentence, a well-timed pause, even the lack of something said...
But I sense when it is happening and the motivation behind it very clearly. There is no mistake. Deep down this bodymind is very violent (and therefore very scared, since aggression is from fear), as most 'regular' folks must be, I guess.
This violence is way more subtle than thought, these are impulses. You can only see the effect in real time (e.g. an inflection as a sentence is being spoken), the causes are in the hidden layer, the subconscious. You are very good at observing and analyzing. So I have a few questions for you: 1) Do you have control over these impulses? 2) Where does the analyzing lead you? 3) Do you think you are better off now on a feeling level than before you went into analyzing these subtleties? Yeah, that's what I call 'the goal post keeps moving and moving' because the game seems to change constantly. A-H are making a lot of fun about that phenomenon. The story they usually tell is: first you want a house, then you notice that it is empty so you want some nice furniture and closets. Then you notice that your closets are empty so you buy clothes. Then you notice that the walls look empty so you buy some stuff you can put there and so on until your house is full. Then you notice that you have too much stuff and that your house is actually too small for all that stuff so you want a bigger house. When you have a bigger house and even more stuff you notice that you are busy all day with maintenance work and feel overwhelmed. So you are looking forward to getting rid of some stuff, maybe most of it so that you can breathe again and maybe even a smaller house with less chores... and on and on and on it goes. It's kinda inevitable. Expansion is natural. It never ends, and your vantage point keeps changing constantly. When you sell your small car and buy a big car you change your vantage point from a owner of a small car to a owner of a big car and suddenly things look different, you have different ideas and desires than before when you only had a small car. That's how it goes with manifestations. The crucial point is how you go about it. If you think that one day you will be done and have it all in perfect order, then you will be very disappointed. But if you accept that you will never get it done and that it will never be perfect (because perfect means end of expansion) then you can finally relax. The flawed premise is that you are working towards some end point, some final destination. And this is what keeps you from living in the now. Exploring layers of resistance is basically exploring different mind states. So there won't be an end. If you think about it in LOA terms there can't even be an end, because if your focus is on uncovering layers of resistance, LOA will bring you an endless stream of layers to uncover. Same with the analyzing. If you are into analyzing, there will be no end of stuff to analyze. |
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Post by Reefs on Jan 16, 2013 2:08:47 GMT -8
Aside: I dimly remember ZD (and perhaps Adyashanti as well) saying they knew of people who had practiced 'mindfulness' (or did shikantaza - 'just sitting', if I spelled that right) for decades and got essentially nowhere. That's right. There are no guarantees. I don't recommend monitoring thoughts, what I do recommend is getting in touch with your intuition. That's what it basically boils down to. The masters live based on intuition, the seeker lives based on reasoning. So if there would be something of a goal or a getting 'somewhere', then it is living intuition based. |
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Post by james on Jan 16, 2013 5:06:04 GMT -8
1) No, because the noticing of the tendency is simultaneous with its arising. It's different with a thought - that gets observed and it dissolves.
2) Nowhere. It's just a noticing (or a monitoring as you might say, it is kind of a superego/umpire thing going on, isn't it if you want to promote it to being an entity). I don't see any control the umpiring activity either at the moment.
3) No not really. Like we have been saying, the scale has merely changed to fit the range.
Yes. I recognized this some time ago in the material world. In fact oddly enough it's what kicked off the spiritual journey. I recognized that nothing material (or any relationship, or any experiential high) was ever going to be result in lasting satisfaction, because of this goalposts/its-all-relative problem.
Just so I have a good chance of being clear on this, could you re-present the house analogy but in spiritual terms (if this is what you were getting at)? I had a couple of attempts but they didn't come out right.
Yes, I see what you mean from an LOA perspective. I can't say that I have knowingly had a focus on layers though. It hasn't been an intent to become a better person or anything like that. My intent was to watch thoughts (of course with the aim of disidentifying, leading to 'getting out of the way', leading to grace, enlightenment, yadda yadda), and things have just played out from there. Then just recently I noticed the pattern as a potential bad loop, hence the post.
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Post by james on Jan 16, 2013 5:12:10 GMT -8
Aside: I dimly remember ZD (and perhaps Adyashanti as well) saying they knew of people who had practiced 'mindfulness' (or did shikantaza - 'just sitting', if I spelled that right) for decades and got essentially nowhere. That's right. There are no guarantees. I don't recommend monitoring thoughts, what I do recommend is getting in touch with your intuition. That's what it basically boils down to. The masters live based on intuition, the seeker lives based on reasoning. So if there would be something of a goal or a getting 'somewhere', then it is living intuition based. Thanks. That is a direction I can understand, and am seeing more of it as time goes on actually. In a way (as I see it) mind is most of the time in the business of rationalizing intuition anyway. Say I would like the fish instead of the chicken and my wife asks me why... well, mind is just going to come up with some bullcrap to justify it! (silly example, but the point is that I can ask my mind for reasons to support or reject pretty much anything and it will oblige in spades) |
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Post by Reefs on Jan 16, 2013 7:22:43 GMT -8
Thanks. That is a direction I can understand, and am seeing more of it as time goes on actually. Yes, intuition means supreme guidance. It comes from a broader perspective. If you see it in combination with spontaneity it will be easy for you to see which impulses are coming from intuition and which are just minding. You can also tell the difference by observing where following these impulses will lead you. If you follow your intuition it will always be a right-time-right-place scenario for you (not necessarily for others, but it's not your job to make it right for them anyway because they have their own guidance). If you follow only those impulses that come from minding (i.e. conditioning) it's never really satisfying, especially in the long run. Hehe, there will always be an explanation for just anything. I'd say that following your intuition more often would require more trust in life and less protectiveness. The reason why no one really follows their intuition anymore in nowadays complex societies is that most are raised and educated by people who don't have a clue about their own intuition either. So you are taught by insecure people. They tell you that bad things happen, and they happen not only to bad people but also to good people. So you will never know when it will hit you. Which means you have to always be on guard, buy a lot of insurance etc. Just play around with the impulses you are getting and watch where they lead you. It's really just a matter of chilling out. If you have little kids around you, ideally pre-kindergarten, then watch them how they approach life. They are masters. |
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Post by Reefs on Jan 16, 2013 7:53:02 GMT -8
1) No, because the noticing of the tendency is simultaneous with its arising. It's different with a thought - that gets observed and it dissolves.
2) Nowhere. It's just a noticing (or a monitoring as you might say, it is kind of a superego/umpire thing going on, isn't it if you want to promote it to being an entity). I don't see any control the umpiring activity either at the moment.
3) No not really. Like we have been saying, the scale has merely changed to fit the range. If it doesn't change anything, then you could as well give yourself a break and drop the analyzing, right? ;D Well, there comes another Esther story to mind: Abraham told the story of Esther eating swordfish for the first time in her life and it was so delicious that it knocked her socks off. When she had the chance to eat swordfish, she always ate swordfish. That went on for a while until she became picky about how the swordfish was prepared. Her taste was more refined now, she reached a new vantage point with new standards again and just any swordfish wasn't doing it anymore. There are basically only two vantage points, the personal and the impersonal. Both are worlds apart. There's no way of really comparing them because there is no way of really describing the impersonal vantage point. It always will sound like another super duper personal vantage point if it is assigned attributes. So usually the impersonal vantage point is only described as what it not is instead of what it is. What happens with this goal post moving is that you only hop from one personal vantage point to another more elevated personal vantage point. So it's basically always only the personal vantage point. The 'goal', however, is to see from the impersonal vantage point as well. That's why practices and paths are leading nowhere except to more expansive, more elevated personal vantage points. The higher the elevation, the more progress is made, it seems to the seeker. The tricky thing is that the seeker who is looking from the personal vantage point can't really tell the difference between someone who is seeing from the impersonal vantage point and someone who is only looking from a highly elevated personal vantage point. The first one would be a real guru, the latter would be a thought-guru. But again, intuition will tell you right away. Yup, good observation. You've reached the limits of that practice. It isn't serving you anymore. Time to drop it. |
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Post by james on Jan 16, 2013 9:52:07 GMT -8
Thanks. So I'm taking away from Reefs (please correct me if I'm wrong Reefs) is: - stop watching thoughts
- follow intuition more
- trust in life
- be less protective
- play with impulses, see where they lead
- see which impulses are from conditioning and which are not
- watch how my son approaches life (< 2yrs old)
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Post by enigma on Jan 16, 2013 10:54:04 GMT -8
As I see it, what you've been describing here is the process of what I call becoming conscious. You're noticing behaviors that you weren't aware of before and you naturally find this disturbing. Of course this is why we subtly fail to notice them in the first place and make ourselves unconscious, so all you're doing is reversing that process. The process of becoming conscious is not an endless loop because ideally nothing is being imagined/created. It's just about being continuously aware of what's happening. However, there isn't any personal involvement in this awareness. There is just the noticing of what's happening and it stops there. No in-depth analysis, no self recrimination, no guarding against repeat behavior or thoughts. It's this involvement that perpetuates the struggle and seems to give the whole thing a layered depth to it. We notice the thoughts, then struggle with them, then struggle with our struggling thoughts, etc. The way I talk about realization applies here too. I say a genuine realization MUST bring about a change in the mental dynamics and an example I use is, if you realize the oasis is a mirage, you don't keep taking your empty canteen out to it to get water. The same is true of noticing motivations that were previously unconscious. Most folks very rarely experience the conscious intention to be deceptive, manipulative, cruel or unkind, and when they feel they have to be, it usually creates all sorts of internal conflict. But when this behavior is kept unconscious, there is no conflict. Mind will simply justify everything in such a way as to feed the preferred self image instead of harming it. The point being that all that is required in order to put an end to unconscious behavior is to be conscious; to notice it. From a larger context, you are neither the mind that's causing all the trouble, nor are you the controller of it, and yet it forms from your attention. You are the one aware of it. You are, and have always been, experiencing from an impersonal perspective, and the moment you interfere directly with mind, you make it personal. Noticing what in blazes is going on changes where the attention that you are attends, which changes the functioning of mind. There's never a need to involve yourself as the personal director of mind. That's what leads to going unconscious in the first place. There are a couple of articles on 'living consciously' here that you might be interested in: www.realizinghappiness.com/living-consciously.html |
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Post by enigma on Jan 16, 2013 10:57:50 GMT -8
Thanks. So I'm taking away from this: - stop watching thoughts
- follow intuition more
- trust in life
- be less protective
- play with impulses, see where they lead
- see which impulses are from conditioning and which are not
- watch how my son approaches life (< 2yrs old)
I see analyzing thoughts as a problem, but being aware of thoughts as a necessity. |
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Post by james on Jan 16, 2013 12:44:48 GMT -8
Hi enigma, thanks for posting.
That sounds right. About the 'nothing being created': There is sometimes a reaction to the noticing. There will be a slight inner cringe or glimpse of a frustration sensation (which sometimes but rarely results in an actual groan, forehead slap or murmered 'for gawd's sake be QUIET'), which may result in an energetic 'contraction'. Still, that just gets noticed too. But not dwelled upon.
Yes, I'm so on board with realization informing mind, I recognize it but I'm not sure how. Maybe mini (relative truth) realizations, of which I could say I've had a few but would have real trouble remembering them, count.
Totally agree. I know it from experience. Funnily though I've never tried to eradicate something by focusing on noticing it. It's always been a case of just noticing everything and then every so often recognizing the fact that some behavior or pattern that used to happen doesn't any more.
By 'interfere' I guess you mean when one (as attention) gets sucked into the tractor beam, and identified.
It seems so obvious and easy to say 'I am awareness' or consciousness or attention etc, but I just don't feel that way. I would say that I predominantly feel like a body.. a body in a world.
Might this be down to the constancy of body sensations (like a constant background signal that is labelled 'me-ness'). Maybe that constant hum is what Niz's 'I Am' sensation is. I didn't focus on it yet (and when I tried a few years ago I just got very perplexed and frustrated!).
I also strongly have the sensation of a doer! Despite having withered the conscious belief based on noticing that it really isn't the case. Yes, there's a whole lot of stuff down there in the subconscious that is still all tangled up and cemented in.
I will stay with the noticing and take up Reefs' other suggestions.
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Post by enigma on Jan 16, 2013 14:33:00 GMT -8
Hi enigma, thanks for posting. That sounds right. About the 'nothing being created': There is sometimes a reaction to the noticing. There will be a slight inner cringe or glimpse of a frustration sensation (which sometimes but rarely results in an actual groan, forehead slap or murmered 'for gawd's sake be QUIET'), which may result in an energetic 'contraction'. Still, that just gets noticed too. But not dwelled upon. Yup, that's what I call falling into the river. What you call "sucked into the tractor beam, and identified". A lot of the frustration is because there's the sense that you should be able to control it all, but not the actual ability to control. It's easier if you accept it's not about control but rather noticing. You are a noticer. Awareness is a noticer and not a controller. Control is an idea that is implied in the idea of identification. Yes, there are 'mini-realizations'. In fact, the distinction between Self realization, and realizing you just had a silly thought, is just arbitrary, which is why I use the word 'noticing' to apply to both. There's a difference in the transformative potential of the two insights, but they both work the same way. Remembering realizations is an odd thingy cuz realization is empty of content, and therefore a realization is never placed in memory. The content that we find in memory is always conceptual and time based, while realizations are always non-conceptual and instantaneous. What it means is that realizations are always happening NOW. One 'recalls' a realization by looking again and seeing again, now. If it was seen once, it can be seen again. You don't want to work with your conceptual translation of a realization. It must be fresh. Use words to talk about it, but only while you are realizing it now. An ironic example is that the best way to eliminate an unwanted habit is to be continuously aware of the behavior. Usually, when we've decided we don't want to do something, the only way we can do it anyway is to go unconscious a bit and pretend it 'just happened', or that it was programmed or that the body craved it. None of that's true. But yes, at some point the games can't be played anymore and interest in trying is simply lost. It also may happen much more subtly, as you suggest, and a year later you notice you haven't done or thought something in a year, and you're not sure why. Mind will find this process highly unremarkable, but it's really very auspicious. This is the collapsing of illusion. Yes, there's the sense of 'I Am' or the sense of existing that comes along with being conscious, but of course that sense doesn't tell you WHAT exists, nor does it suggest that something is here doing something. What you know is that existence is having an experience. I would remove attention from the issue of whether you are a body or not, and focus on what you know. I think you know you're not in charge of thoughts or feelings or choices, and therefore you're not in charge of anything and whatever you are is apparently just along for the ride, and yet you are intelligent. The closest you can come to a directing influence is where you place your present moment attention. You don't really have control over that either, but it's an idea that may bring about change. |
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Post by Reefs on Jan 16, 2013 16:55:18 GMT -8
Thanks. So I'm taking away from Reefs (please correct me if I'm wrong Reefs) is:
- stop watching thoughts
- follow intuition more
- trust in life
- be less protective
- play with impulses, see where they lead
- see which impulses are from conditioning and which are not
- watch how my son approaches life (< 2yrs old)
Yup. Pretty long to-do-list, eh? ;D Top priority on the list would be to find out what impulses are coming from intuition and what impulses are coming from conditioning only. And when you see where these impulses lead and when you see that following your intuition is always right on the money, then you will naturally have more trust in life and be less protective and don't rely so much on outer guidance anymore and things will just fall into place more naturally. So you will still have to watch your thoughts for a while. Just don't take your thoughts all too seriously like you did in your OP where you basically described how bad you are because you had all these inappropriate thoughts. Maybe see them as clouds just passing by, like clouds moving over your house. You don't claim ownership of these clouds. They are not 'your' clouds. They are just passing over your house. Yes, watch your son and look if he is protective and has any plans for life or if he is just living in the now, fully spontaneous and just following his intuition. Edit: Impulses coming from intuition will feel more like a calling. Impulses coming from conditioning will feel more like a should or have to. |
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