Hi John,
The point of my post here is four-fold:
1. to clear up a few points now that we’ve had a few exchanges;
2. to restate a point I made to you 10/23/11 8:33 AM, that efforts in this thread (yours and mine) can be exactly like the discipline of a sustained, pure practice (and result in insight). In this post, I am looking at the practice product of this thread because we “already have, by being willing to participate agreed” to the principles of the DhO (quotes here borrow from your words on 10/16/11 6:33 PM as a reply to Nikolai);
3. to support the pragmatic mission of this buddhist-oriented forum, the DhO, which is explicitly established to support diligent practice, collective wisdom of strong practitioners, personal responsibility, and supportive co-adventuring (which forum is supported entirely by one founder and moderated by volunteers to maintain the site’s principles); and
4. to practice, myself, in the challenging realm of putting ideas into words and to communicate with others for mutual, supportive benefit.
Item 2 is the dominant aspect of my post here.
So, to start with point 1:You observe:
Thanks for trying to free me from something you consider pointless and misdirected. (I mean that, not being sarcastic).
We’ve had a few exchanges, so let me clarify that I do not consider you in need of being freed from something and nor do I consider your interests here pointless and misdirected.
I do consider that life duration is an unknown, thus I ask myself about how I spend my free energy. This expenditure has changed with my mind’s own travel through stages of insight.
To recap, my exchange with you so far:
a) I am not trying to free you from anything,
b) I have answered directly your inquiry about some aspects of the AFT writings which I found bothersome,
c) I have opined that the consequence of one's effort may reveal the quality of the effort, and
d) that life duration is unknown and this unknown can shape the quality and subject matter of any effort (and I very directly feel this last point in taking time to reply here, which has been my own choice).
point 2: the practice of your posts here First, my intention in considering your posts here falls under the DhO principle of “openness regarding what the techniques may lead to, collective wisdom of strong practitioners and mutual, supportive adventuring.”
Not knowing your meditative practice, I consider your posts here and consequences of your practice(s), and have these questions about your goals, how they are effected and by what diligent practice. The consideration of your posting practice is perhaps akin to your consideration of Richard/AF/AFT writings and the consequences of his practice.
On 10/23/11, aligned with the nature of this buddhist-oriented forum, the DhO, I expressed my opinion to you that how one makes effort “can be exactly like the discipline of a sustained, pure practice (and result in insight)” and that, specifically, your work here can bear excellent investigative journalism, or it can produce unsound speculation. Essentially, every action has a reaction. In Buddhism, this point refers to
karma[1] and ending one’s suffering in each moment of self-awareness: How I am today, is likely how I am tomorrow. How you/I make effort and take action in this thread forms our next moment and next moment and next moment, etc.
Here are some questions and observations about your practice in this thread:
2.a. What is your objective? I think you express it here, on 10/22/11:
… what if the things that "were initially a big bother to " about Richard are in fact a consequence of long-term living in the condition he describes and advocates, rather than being incidental to it and separable from it? Don't the possible long-term consequences of being in this condition need to be looked at critically? And if so, how else can it be done?"
and on 10/16/11:
"If AF results in deficits that are invisible to the one experiencing them, leading to delusory certainties that are impervious to feedback or correction (because that would depend on precisely what is deficient), then how can being in that state tell you anything about it's true nature? That the actually free people don't seem to grasp this simple point is not exactly reassuring."
Are you asking: does the conclusion of actualism, AF, have bothersome long-term consequences/deficits, and, specifically, will practitioners’ behaviours resemble the AFT author(s)/Richard?
I do consider that your intention is also as you stated on 10/23/11
Well, all I intend here/now is to prompt people not to take too much at face value, to be aware of how little verifiable information they actually have, to look at the role that hope / faith / belief is playing in their lives, and to question the wisdom of making profoundly life-changing decisions based on such scant (and IMO profoundly unreliable) information.
Oblique hints will have to suffice for now, but I have confidence it'll all come out in the wash.
and I try to understand it in the context of your other points regarding for whom you make your efforts (and this, your audience, is still unclear to me).
2.b For whom do you make your efforts here, if not for yourself? You write on 10/23/11
I'm not doing this for my own sake, Katy.
and on 11/8/11:
Let the desperate and/or the gullible find whatever solace they can, and ultimately have what they deserve.
and also on 11/8/11:
What I do care about is:
-how people think and talk about this AF stuff,
-how they influence one another,
-how little information they have, and
-how little they care.
(the words are exactly yours, but the formatting to a outline form is changed for my ease of comprehension).
11/8/11
I'm interested in the consequences of people
- buying into the claims of AF and
- striving for its results,
- because I probably know a few things about it that they don't, and
- I'm interested in the way people think,
- what matters to them, and
- how they make decisions.
(These are your words, but outline-formatted for my ease of reading comprehension).
Again, if the above are not being asked for your own interests, then you ask for the interests of whom? This regards the clarity and motivation for your practice, in the same way that knowing desire-for-siddhis may be motivating a person's practice for jhana also sheds light on the efficacy of their practice.
To combine your statements, I understand:
i. you do not do this thread for your own sake;
ii. you do not care about the desperate and the gullible;
iii. your interests are in
a. how people think, and
b. in consequences of this practice, and
c. what matters to , and
d. how make decisions, becauseiv. “ probably know a few things about [AF/AFT/RICHARD?] that don’t” based on “how little information they have”.
If you can define "people" that will give shape (to me) for some of what you are communicating.
In romanette iv, you are creating your own introduction to openly share your first-person experience (unless you also have the “how little care” attribute). Such sharing of your first-person experience would be quite in line with what you see on the DhO.
Is your audience, non gullible, non desperate actualist experiementers?
2.b. Your data collection. Your ability to collect good data depends on
- your credibility as an interviewer (as determined by your interviewees),
- you ability to accurately document,
- your ongoing availability,
- your interviewee body (is your audience non-gullible, non-desperate actualist experimenters? Or some other body?);
- and what questions you ask (see 2.d)
If so, you might interview actualism practitioners at the outset of their practice to determine the bothersome traits they individually see in the AFT author's (authors') writings. Position yourself well to track those practitioners over time.
See 2.d. Interview questions and responses
2.c. “third-person observable data”So far, from your initial post 10/9/11 edited 10/21), your data is a first-person account, and
Apparently its from Richards ex wife Irene
not unlike the authorship of the AFT/Richard. (Or, it can be said, the writings of the AFT are another third-person observable account.) I respectfully disagree with your point of 10/17/11:
"If we were talking about one first-person viewpoint (by itself) vs another first-person viewpoint (by itself), what you're saying would have some relevance and validity. But we aren't, and it doesn't."
I find two presumed first-person accounts of their interpersonal experience are being subjectively evaluated by third parties here. I cannot say that your evaluation as a third party here is pointless or misdirected, but I have questions about its product here (and have openly wondered why and for whom one spends one’s last moments doing this speculative action).
The "third-party data" to which you refer often are not quality independent, third-party, expert data, the latter of which can sometimes form stable theories based on their reproducibility (by other independent, expert third parties). Your third party data so far refers to a letter of unknown origin. Further, if you wish to cite psychological conclusions, it is worth considering that repeating psychological conclusions by independent third parties is much harder to due to the influence of culture, training, desk reference editions, etc, of the independent expert third parties.
Your first-person unknown source of data raises psychological conclusions. In addition to the difficulty of getting independent, expert third-party harmony for an initial psychological diagnosis (due to influence of culture, textbook editions, training, etc) a fixed diagnosis over time (like PTSD) it is not likely and for good, authentic reasons. If states like anger, PTSD, depression and maturity were not able to change, then people would be hopelessly stuck wherever they are. People do not even like the being stuck with the effects of Viagra over time, so it is great that there is a lot of reporting nowadays on the pliability of mental states and their physiological underlyers (such that whole personalities and capabilities are transformable).
Unless you can find a confirmed source of data and you can determine that data to be quite verifiable by a variety of independent third parties, then there appears a tit-for-tat marital discord of opinion, the origin of which is unknown. This kind of data may undermine your efforts and any consequences you seek.
To continue 2.c...
10/18/11:
external facts that might change the meaning and value of that mode of experience
and
10/23/11:
Oblique hints will have to suffice for now, but I have confidence it'll all come out in the wash.
If you are not clear about what are the "external facts", have offered only a first person letter of unknown origin, and remain obliquely hinting at what is coming out in a later wash, then the small effect is that you gain no audience other than an adversarial one, and the larger effect is that you are comfortable putting speculative information into the world with your own name/avatar and personal efforts. If flimsy action were applied to carpentry, then there is a “straw man” building a straw house.
We are all doing this: putting our efforts into action, and this is why quality of effort is key. The results may be wrong (or right), or fall short, but the diligent,
"right effort" is not in question.
2.d. Interview questions and responsesJust a simple point here: so far the hypothetical nature of your questions position you for quid pro quo, if you are a fair interlocutor. Do you want to answer your hypothetical questions when the direction of the hypothetical is reversed? Here is a sample:
10/11/11:
"What if you found out that the text was indeed written by Richard? Would it change anything for you?"
“What if you found out that the text was not indeed written by Richard? Would that change anything for you?”
10/23/11:
If you absolutely knew it to be genuine, would it change your opinions about AF and your aspirations in life?
“What if you knew it to be non-genuine, would it change your opinions about AF and your questions in this this thread/life?”
In my case, what I have learned through following the career of a dubious self-appointed monastic in wales, who could not produce his credentials, is that his actions and their consequences follow him. I do not need to do anything, and I can spend my time on the quality of my own actions[1].
Not knowing your meditative practice, I consider your posts here as consequences of your practice(s), respond from my own practice, and have asked the above questions about your goals, how they are effected and for whom/what purpose.
I hope you do not feel criticized. Again, Item 2 is the dominant aspect of my post here. To repeat: the consideration of your posting practice is perhaps akin to your consideration of Richard/AF/AFT writings and the consequences of his practice.
Should we meet again, I hope any diligent practice between us is apparent.
Best wishes and thank you for your time and consideration.
[1]
karma1827, in Buddhism, the sum of a person's actions in one life, which determine his form in the next; from Skt. karman- "action, fate," related to krnoti, Avestan kerenaoiti "makes," O.Pers. kunautiy "he makes;" from PIE base *kwer- "to make, form," related to the second element in Sanskrit.