Thank you Felipe.
While reading your advice something occurred to me in relation with my previous idea. Your advice is to try to determine two different characteristics of my condition:
1)whether feelings of pride,shame or guilt are operating and
2)to see the basis of my judgement of the current situation.
So maybe after enough information is gathered(how i am feeling and why) the intent that fueled the investigation is enough to automatically turn the feelings off so that there is no "me" pushing.
Richard says . But what is your experience guys, do/did you first get back to feeling reasonably good to investigate or do/did you at least sometimes investigate whilst in the storm.

And that brings me to my other question. Richard says that a prerequisite for applying the actualism method is to understand that this is my only moment of being alive. What is your experience?
did you "get" it from the start or did you "get" it at some later point on the path and
what was your success rate before and after "getting" this point?

And concerning the second question. Do you think its wise to try and really get this point as a type of koan- "How is it that this is my only moment of being alive" until it fully sinks in before trying the method again.

Hi,



In my experience investigation is indeed much more fruitful when feeling "reasonably good" than bad.
That being said, especially in the beginning, feeling good sometimes seemed far, far away and to get things rolling it might be neccessary to do some digging even in suboptimal conditions.
What has been a crucial turning point in my practice though, was to realize that some very basic resentment (i.e. of not wanting to be here and now in the first place) cannot and need not be further investigated. All that is required to get over it is the conviction that
a) suffering is optional
b) suffering is silly
c) happiness (and harmlessness) is preferable
under ALL circumstances.
Out of that conviction (arising from either a PCE/EE or really just any experience better than your average mode of being) you may form the intention to be happy and harmless 24/7.



I didn´t fully understand it from the beginning and my success rate was equivalently rather low.
The reason for that as far as I see it now is simply this:
Realizing that this is my only moment of being alive also means realizing that this is the only moment I can be happy and harmless. If I´m not willing to be happy and harmless now when will I be?

That question was the crux of the matter: I was postponing being happy and harmless because I was hoping for some future event which would make it easier for myself: more money, more stability, better job, vacation etc pp

Having done that long enough (postponing i.e.), at some point you realize that external conditions might very well never be perfect for 'me', because usually as soon as one thing is resolved another is right around the corner.
So considering that waiting isn´t going to get me anywhere closer to my goal, I resolve to be happy and harmless NOW... the only moment in time where I can actually CHOOSE to do so.



When I tried to 'get' how this is my only moment of being alive, I was often times expecting some magical insight into the meaning of life which would automatically catapult me on the right track. In my experience it is much more practical though, in that the understanding of how I can only be happy and harmless right now leads to the determination to do exactly that ...every waking second.

Thanks for the advice Martin.

You are absolutely right about postponing. Why don't i want to do it now but later? Because later is supposed to have something that lacks now or or not have something that is blocking the way now and that may even be true but then i am not changing but waiting for the world to change in my favor which is not besides the point of the method. so it is important that the point is clear enough
-to be happy now, which includes to stop having/being the block that is interfering with practice.
-to be harmless now, which for me is mainly to not be malicious towards myself for not feeling the right way and then to other people for "making me feel some way".
i am beginning to fish out a belief that somehow its not my fault and so i don't need to change that somehow i can feel different but stay the same.

something occurred to me today. whatever event happened doesn't exist anymore, is not actual now. and noticing that made me drop the resistance.
hours later i noticed that i have been repressing something automatically and the same technique didn't work because you can't at the same time stop feeling bad and secretly hold on to what causes the problem. there is a clash: on the one hand i don't want the result of the identification and on the other hand i hold on to the identification that is causing the problem. so maybe being sincere includes not having an ulterior motive for investigating, not doing it out of hate for the feeling but somehow as a pure action, not resulting of someone's(oftentimes me) arm-twisting.

absolutely, that is what naivéte / being sincere means
you might want to check out trent´s post on that topic:

http://www.dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/1652335#_19_message_1454500

and of course the aft definition/explanations:

http://actualfreedom.com.au/library/topics/naivete.htm

About resentment. I think that the basic resentment/existential angst is caused by the belief that the world is a bad place, which is at root me not wanting to take responsibility for the way i feel, because if the external world is not to blame then it is me who is at fault and that is hard to accept.

yep, yet at the same time it is empowering, isn´t it? it´s all in our own hands



[1] http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/selectedcorrespondence/sc-sorrow.htm