Post 1- VOID LOGOS / VOID - Thread Initiated 06 / 12 / 13

________________________________________________
Links:
The Jhanic Level of the Path and Fruit
________________________________________________

If you are a pre 1 and known 0. (see 'developmental models' for 'enlightenment' ...01234...)

CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING CAREFULLY

Regarding the Immediate, short, medium & long term implications, for you and for your life.

NO 'OTHER BEING(S)'
can really assure you or re-assure you about how a path such as this path will arise, persist, change, or disappear
EXCEPT YOU, FOR YOUR-'SELF', 'FOR YOU'.

Not that this need be seen to be a bad thing, nor seen to be a good thing,

only that 'YOU' are 'SUCH' and this 'PATH' is 'THUS'.

Disclaimer:

All ULTIMATE outcomes post 1 are presently more or less 'specifically' 'undetermined' or at a minimum 'contested'.

There are a lot of "warnings about the, so called, ''dark night" however this is where all of the fear is almost always oriented due to 'ignorance' and 'delusion' so, inform yourself, well and thoroughly, BEFOREHAND."

Nothing can be said with 100 % certainty about post 4 existence without a study which will postdate the existence of the presently ongoing and sentient UNIVERSE, IN ITS ENTIRETY or the DEATH OF THE PRESENT ALL, nor will it be, by anyone short of a SAMASAMBUDDHA, the last of which merely referred to this as THE DEATHLESS.

The deathless may simply mean the end of birth. ie. THE END.

or

It may not.

triplethinking, may still not be enough thinkin' on this one.
________________________


For those quite certain they are beyond the point of Know Return, we'd best 'incline' to this 'working' cautiously. In the interests of ALL humanity, we'd best do ALL we CAN to Know ALL WE CAN.

_____________________________

The 8FNP says it is good, in the end.

I am inclined to agree, probably good.

This would perhaps lead one to conclude the Mahayana are on to something............

Or maybe not.

Supposing the Deathless = Mastery over Death and ongoing-ness regardless of conditions, then this would perhaps be a good thing, if, that is a good thing.

I have begun a study on this in the Tipitaka and so far it also includes the OT book of Genesis, I take one verse a day and reflect on it. That has been instructive together with whatever Mahayana I have to hand and the Tipitaka.

I hope at least some others here, with experience, and scholarship in this area will participate in this 'ongoing(?)' study.

Should be........... interesting.

I have been finding this passage to be of inspiration of late.



And have been exploring ways to go about it.

One way is to see how there is a force or habitual movement of mind to move and at the same time create shapes and form for aspects of experience, like a sensation in the chest, a thought/s, an image, an object to desire, and object to avert from. It's like the field of experience is a one of these


and the mind moves and when it moves it gives shape and this at the same time creates some 'thing', that is purely mental and overlays the field of experience which would simply be a flat bed of nails without that movement. So I observe this movement to create and give shape to 'objects' of mind. And when this is done, they lose some aspect of their continuance, something about the looking at zaps the movement of momentum. And that bed of nails will exhibit sublter movements that don't give full shape to some 'thing'. Like a half 'object' that as soon as it arises sinks back down and the nail bed is flat again.

When doing this, I will recall the cessations of the senses (the infamous blip) although the middle of the blip , I really don't remember what it is like cos the whole harddrive shuts down for that blip. But for some reason just recalling how it was a moment of shutdown sort of inclines the mind away from those mental movements even more and thenthe mind stops, though it is not a shutdown of the senses. It is simply the mind not making 'objects'.

Does this make any sense? I thought I had a question, I really don't. I think I'm just going with the flow or rather there are fingers typing bythemslves on the keyboard and this interaction may trigger something useful for me, you or someone elese. Who knows? This practice has been makign it very obvious that those movements of mind are very habitual, and seem to come from some eternal pit of past habitual movements building upon eachother. And yet, it's so nice to incline away from it all.

Anwhoo,

I'm rambling, or rather my two fingered typing is rambling. This current baseline although seen as normal these days by myself, alccimatised, would perhaps be perceived as being on LSD by someone just borrowing it for a few moments.

Nick, there ya go.

A question just arose: How do you relate to the notion of 'inclining towards the deathless' in your own practice? PM me if this is too sensitive for public discussion.

Indeed.



I emphatically deny being an 'arahant' as I don't feel the urge to run with the idea that I'm 'done' with the flow of becoming (outflows and inflows) . As I don't think i am. And I feel not claiming this and that helps practice wise as it leaves the field of experience unshaped by terminolgies that can actually shape it...oh, I'm this and I'm that, thus the nail bed gets pushed up and a 'thing' is born. I'm on a path, that is for sure.




My conditioning inclines this mind/body organism to have much curiosity for the 'majic time' though it would appear I have little urge to follow through on it and would rather it just happen in and of itself without an attempt for it to happen. We ad an email exchange about this awhile back and I just can't seem to gather momentum and motivation to do something about the curiosity for it all. Meh! More inclined towards a flat nail bed.



Lucky you!

Lets do an inclining towards the deathless thread Nick, if you are game, you begin and I will follow your lead on it.

Done!



Cool. In think it is the bdoy's respones aswell. But there is soemthing about inclining towards it without the blip pccuring that does something to the movements I have been talking about.

My current set up:

1/ recognise the movements of mind cutting up and segregating, sectioning out bringing forward aspects of experiences and ignoring other aspects, and recgnise that there are gaps in between where the nail bed flattens.

2/ incline towards cessation by simply deciding, "I incline towards cessation" while at the same time paying attention to the entire field of experience as a flat bed of nails which will then lose that flatness when the mind moves to take or give shape to an 'object' to then react towards (by flatness I mean lose their unrippled, unsegregated and uncut entirety of experience, the entire field of it-all the senses at once). If any desire crops up for cessation, i recognise it as simply another nail bed movement taking the shape of a localised area of passionate sensations in the chest, coupled with a slight thought of want of oblivion, more nail bed shapes, that when seen for what they are, fall back down.

3/ I also remind the mind to simply 'ignore' the objects being created and taken up by those nailbed movements and move towards cessation y simply inclining but at times also by , and this part is very hard to describe without it not describing it well, that middle of the blip, the void perhaps, is the objectless object. Hmmmm, maybe, maybe not. I'll let that be the explanation for now. it may change later.


Anyway, when i do this long enough, eventually it all stops, and it feels like it unravels a little bit more of this bundle of habitual lunging.

open to critiques, ideas, queries and whatnot..

Nick

Some interesting and possibly related quotes.

Nathan,

Can you elaborate on the significance of nested sets and theory and their relation to the deathless or whatever this thread wishes to be about?

One Narrative re: The Most Pleasant Abiding

ok Nick;

I want to do the themes here justice and the day is growing long, so just another quick note to say this will take time and any other people with an actual thought on the three signs for nibbana are welcome to participate or people with any info on how the Mahayana might approach this subject of the Void or Emptiness and so on. This is an important area for me and if it is just going to be a troll fest then my time at DhO is truly ### in hours.
______________

I pointed at the nested set math because one way to look at this may be to consider the thread of one existence over imponderable long periods of universal time as an evolution towards something. It would be a huge waste to loose that investment simply from the POV of a UNIVERSAL element that might be referred to as Percipience.
So, what might the universe do with such a full grown one?
Perhaps give it license to 'give birth to another Universe.
or
as I already cautioned
perhaps simply recycle it some other way
anywho

_________________________________________________

Probably best to begin my input with a narrative so I am composing that and will post it within the hour Ok?

For simplicity's sake, lately, I have been considering the Universe to be something of a Multiverse.

When it comes to speculation about the entire universe of which even Earth is such a small part, it is best to put humility first for the purposes of day to day mortal life. However that does not mean that people, human beings should not consider all sorts of speculative or imaginative questions. It has proven widely useful to do so.

So I will explain some details about my life and my speculations and I will attempt to put this in a very human and ordinary lifetime, which in many ways my life has been, and in some ways my life has not.

So, as for speculative models and theories of what or how this universe actually might be considered everyone can simply read or not as they like, science fiction and speculative fiction, physics, quantum physics, string theory, set theory, the victoria secret catalog, whatever…

I read broadly, so I read all kinds of stuff. Chuck recently recommended Christian Science Monitor, I hope Chuck shows up in this thread, he seems suited to it.

...

So, to begin my narrative I will begin at the beginning of this being-ness and quickly bring us up to the 21st century and where I am at today.

As I recall I was born in Winnipeg Manitoba Canada in 1964 to a wonderful couple who were young at that time, my father was 30 years old and still in university.

At that time they spoke Czeck in the home which I am only now revitalizing as I now live with them again in their retirement. It is difficult for me to remember those years because in public school I began to rely on English and so the first four years are visually not too bad but the linguistic aspect and the vocal cues are missing. This should improve now in a year or two.

At the age of six months my father and mother moved to Minneapolis St. Paul in order for my father to attend Bethel College. At the age of about 4.5 we moved back to Winnipeg and my father took up his first pastorate at a local church and we lived there until I was about 13. I remember seeing Star Wars in Winnipeg the year we left and that was Awesome dudes, dudettes, and I was there on opening day at the Odeon Theatre! So cool, Star Wars was my first LP, wore it out!


At the age of 13 we moved again to Prince Albert, SK which proved difficult for me but was a small city in Northern Saskatchewan where I underwent many… changes…

The key one for this discussion was the discovery, at about age 14, of the Buddha in a small book on his life story and a thin tract on meditation, by (I think) Lawrence LeShan entitled "Meditation".

I read it and sat down on the floor to meditate.

I immediately noticed that my back was sore and decided to recline on my back on top of my bed. I lay there and closed my eyes breathing as slowly and for as long as I could in and out.

I decided I would not move and see if I could watch my body go to sleep while I was entirely conscious...



As I lay there my body did seem to be slipping into a sleep-like state but I could tell that I was still very alert and conscious and so one of the first things I thought to examine was whether or not consciousness or the mind was only in one spot at a time or if it was everywhere at the same time in the body. So as I lay there I examined this and observed that it appeared to be everywhere that the body was.

That noted I went on in my warm full bodied deep slow breathing way.

I then soon noted that my body was quite numb and warm and I assumed that for all practical purposes it was more or less going to sleep. The next thing I observed was that as I was breathing slow and deep the body seemed to be internally sort of glowing with a soft bright white light. I decided to allow the breath to resume a more normal kind of resting condition.

At the time I was in very good condition, I was swimming for an hour each morning at the high school pool before the days classes. The body continued to breath deep and slow but as it normally did or does.

The bright white light became more attractive and joyful and at this point the process is very much as Sariputta describes in his account of moving up through the Jhana and into "the Deathless" or "the Voidness".

So this brings us to my first encounter with the Deathless. This is the example I always use because this was the first such for me, in this life, and since then I have become more familiar or less depending on how one views familiarity or familiar relationships.

As I do not know how long I was in "the Deathless" and had not even expected to arrive there I will set that aside.

As I abided in that, in that,,, anyways a question arose in the mind or in the body, outside of that, and this question, from that pov was sort of like 'Whhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaa… ……….. ….. …. .. .. >0'



The sensation, from that incomprehensible point of view, was like someone attaching a talking vacuum cleaner to that space and it felt like that perfectly sweet place was being sucked back out into the rest of me…………<<<<<<<<<<
as percipience returned the first thing noted was a huge rush of bliss, like nothing I had ever felt before. It was like having that brilliant bright light of the whole body explode in the pure darkness of midday from one point in my pitch black basement bedroom.

>?sound familiar?< = the sign for the or the Logos of the Void

Then cognition became possible again and the whole experience became something I was conscious of, that is to say following consciousness from its presence as a field of percipience throughout the entire body all the way 'in' to its complete disappearance, that occurring for some time, and then whatever was on the outside becoming alarmed about the absent occupant or whatever that was that vanished entirely and was quite content to stay that way.

After getting over that strong but brief explosion of joy and light I slowly sat up and mused on what happened for…

oh, about 35 more years so far.

We are now much more familiar and good company when no one else is around.

So that brings us up to this century and the DhO.

Where we are all musing together about what all of this might be, what it may mean and the implications of all of these sorts of things.

====
So that is my deathless narrative and I agree with Sariputta that it is THE 'MOST PLEASANT ABIDING'.


?/|||\0

::;=>3Bird>

The emperor has no clothes on.

Nathan asked me: so how do i go about trying to eradicate anxiety, agitation and conceit?

Well, the way i go about it is first identifying the moments when those three things arise. And as far as I can see they arise as explained above with this nail/pin bed
.

There is a movement initiated by a lightning fast urge and as there is movement there is shape given to a 'thing' which could be an idea, a thought, an image, an interpretation, a sensation in a localised area, that localised area, a body, a 'part' of a 'body', notions of 'location' and having 'presence', 'me-ness', a feeling tone assigned to a localised 'sensation' etc etc.

Anxiety arises as a compounding of a variety of 'things' which could be a sensation with an unpleasant feeling tone assigned to it, a thought or thought loop or mental posture of shaking/aversion, an image of that which seems to trigger anxiety (an exam to do for example). Agitation and conceit will also have 'things' compounding as well.

So thus recognising these compoundings of anxiety, agitation and conceit, I go about inclining away from their habitual creation by inclining the mind towards their cessation, by inclining towards cessation and the complete resting of the nail/pin bed, by deciding to ignore those objects being habitually created and leaning/inclining/turning away from the entire movement of mind towards the ceasing of that movement. Something Chuck onc shared on KFD stuck with me. It's like a peaceful serene lake that I'm standing with my back towards. I know it is there but if I turn towards it it dissappears. I incline the mind towards that lake without look at it so to speak.

I see this as stripping the compounding of agitation, anxiety and conceit of their vital supports again and again, depleting them of their fuel. It seems to be doing something positive to my brain.

[quote=Bagpuss The Gnome]The emperor has no clothes on.why would a see through troll even give a spit?________________________________________________________________________________________

Well Nick, I suppose we should give Bagpuss a moment to, compose... himself.
_____________________________________________________________

RE: Inclining towards = VOID LOGOS => VOID STATION => the Deathless
12/6/13 4:52 AM as a reply to Bagpuss The Gnome.
___________________________________________________________________________
Amended at this date/time stamp ( 12/06/13 15:12:42 local ) to: Well Nick, obviously Gnomes are serious wits, more professional about these things than I am, I tend to the fast code hack and then go back to polishing the turds. Clearly beneath the likes of a Gnostic Gnome of course. So, what I should have said would have been more like, "Eeh Gads, a Gnome of all things! Here at the very gates of Void Station! Do tell us Great Gnome how does the ALL appear from the view point of the Great VOID... it(?)sef' " or some such, and then bowed widely and low in hopes of some such answer.
Perhaps, having blown it so badly with this great being, we now shall never know.../|\.

___________________________________________________________________________
[ Amended: to add: My mistake Sir|Madam;
No apparent relation to the troll, so easily and much maligned, these days. ?/_ _ _ .
Also, clearly, this would be your area of particular expertise. /// ]

footnotes:

gnome (n.) "dwarf-like earth-dwelling spirit," 1712, from French gnome, from Modern Latin gnomus, used 16c. in a treatise by Paracelsus, who gave the name pigmaei or gnomi to elemental earth beings, possibly from Greek *genomos "earth-dweller" (cf. thalassonomos "inhabitant of the sea"). A less-likely suggestion is that Paracelsus based it on the homonym that means "intelligence" (preserved in gnomic). Popular in children's literature 19c. as a name for red-capped German and Swiss folklore dwarfs. Garden figurines first imported to England late 1860s from Germany.

gnomic (adj.) "full of instructive sayings," 1815, from French gnomique (18c.) and directly from Late Latin gnomicus "concerned with maxims, didactic," from Greek gnomikos, from gnome "thought, opinion, maxim, intelligence," from root of gignoskein "to come to know" (see gnostic). English gnome meant "short, pithy statement of general truth" (1570s). Gnomical is attested from 1610s.

gnomish (adj.) 1822, from gnome + -ish. Related: Gnomishly; gnomishness.
wight (n.) Old English wiht "living being, creature," from Proto-Germanic *wekhtiz (cf. Old Saxon wiht "thing, demon," Dutch wicht "a little child," Old High German wiht "thing, creature, demon," German Wicht "creature, infant," Old Norse vettr "thing, creature," Swedish vätte "spirit of the earth, gnome," Gothic waihts "something"). The only apparent cognate outside Germanic is Old Church Slavonic vešti "a thing." Not related to the Isle of Wight, which is from Latin Vectis (c.150), originally Celtic, possibly meaning "place of the division."

Lifted from: Gnome
______________

I think, possibly, Bagpuss views the 'emperor' the way one might view 'our milky way galaxy' as 'that which rules our existence'.

How the galaxy might be viewed as unclothed as opposed to magnificently clothed eludes me, however if viewed in reverse, perhaps the way one who sees nothing might view something, then the voidness is mistaken for the apparent as opposed to the voidness.

Anywho, suppose the voidness of the galaxy were likened to a huge black hole at the core of a percipient galaxy, say one called "Milky Way" or one called "Mt. Meru".

Then say the 'clothing' is the raiment of stars and planets arrayed about that center which has a superdense cluster of tightly packed stars at the core which put a 'skin' on the black hole or void at the center.

We might consider each superdense star to be one Brilliant Arahant or VOID inclined in a group around one Buddha or massive black hole or PERFECTED VOID.

|||//////////////////|||O|||\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\|||

or not...

Well met Sir|Madame / Gnome.

>)==)3Bird0>

Hi Bagpuss, can you please elaborate on why you posted this?

He could always explain the relevance of it or amend it to anything useful, y'know, the more I think about it the more I like Bagpuss short answer, there is probably only three ways the Body / Body|Mind \ Mind can represent the VOID and none of them would be quite the complete picture alone. So the VOID in and of itself being able to don a Raiment does seem difficult unless you consider the body/body|mind\mind to be a kind of triple robe. In which case Bagpus can understand this standing on his head, which makes him way cool ( either way good one Bagpuss - how's thangs back Gnome? ) so long as you are comfortable describing it this way or whatever it is you mean is more or less this or something even more profound or something...

In any case

pithy that

thx

-triplethinka

VOID STATION - Post 10 - VOID LOGOS - THE VOID
_________________
06 /12 /13
_________________

LAST STOP ? Is It Better To Burn Out Or To Fade Away ?

Does The Golden Silence Implode As A Critical Mass ? Or ? Does It Explode As A Perfected Percipient Light

Thesis, Confabs & Speculations

w/footnotes from: Gnomes, Dragons, Wizards, Sages, Scholars and Saints

to follow, ongoing / _ _ _

Okay guys, now we're talkin'.

(Btw, Nikolai, what you describe with the "nail/pin bed" sounds like how I understand the signless/themeless concentration.)

What is this thing about


Do tell more, much more.

I have some ideas... I may be way off... and that might be a good thing. Enjoy:

The six sense spheres are, given conditions (like, say, ignorance), entangled. They are configured such that they seem to converge upon the five (grasping) aggregates. An interaction is taking place, a mingling, mixing, a cocktail of the spheres, giving rise to the perceptual equivalence of chemical reactions, creating new (perceptual) compounds/layers, like, say, the twelve links.

In a figurative sense, the six sense spheres of contact are bound up, held together by a linchpin, a central plug. The plug is probably ignorance (of the nature of percipience).

I think, maybe, possibly, the cessation of this coming-together and overlapping of the spheres, the unplugging of the linchpin, is nirvana without residue.

I don't have so much more to say, except a little musing on what nirvana without residue would be like. Try wrapping your brain around this—it might have a good effect.

The six sense spheres would occur completely free-standing, cut off, independent. Each sphere would be, and I mean this quite literally, its own universe, realm, dimension—sphere, d'uh—not connected or related, or even relevant, in any way to the other spheres.

Can you measure a sight purely by another sight? Can you measure a sound purely by another sound? I think not. The spheres are, in (reference to) themselves, immeasurable (or rather, unmeasured), boundless.

There would be no consciousness as such—or, more accurately, no self-consciousness. Clarity or perceptiveness still pertains—in fact, that's all there is now; radiant wisdom—but this after it went entirely out momentarily, demonstrating its ill-suitedness as the basis for the convergence of the spheres. Here now, there is no "being aware that one is aware", i.e. self-consciousness (all consciousness is self-consciousness, no consciousness is not self-consciousness). "Who" would that one be, that is aware? What a strange distortion that would be considering six fully disconnected spheres of immeasurable thusness. Right?

Phew!

Another stab:

The signs you guys are talking about—there should be three of them as far as I understand—are to be used as absorptions. You completely absorb mind-consciousness in either of them—literally suck in/out the mind from the incessant mingling, mixing with the other spheres.

The visual sphere will be absorbed in its thusness, becoming unconscious, no contact occurs, meaning the trichotomy of eye, eye-conciousness and form cease.
The auditory sphere will be absorbed in its thusness, becoming unconscious, no contact occurs, meaning the trichotomy of ear, ear-conciousness and sound cease.
...
The mental sphere will be absorbed in either of the signs, becoming unconscious, no contact occurs, meaning the trichotomy of mind, mind-conciousness and thoughts cease.

Double phew!

For those who recoiled in terror upon reading that one becomes "unconscious": It's not what you think it is. In high risk of sounding new-agey, being (self-)"conscious" is a much, much lower vibration than not. Radiant, vivid, vibrant, boundless—that's what "unconsciousness" is like.

Maybe, possibly.

my try to try again and will change:

void is an experience of no experience, in this void i am still outside of it. It should be given up, and not cling to it. Only then can be you=you.

when you become you 100% then there is no time(birth death of you) involved, then there is void + you, and that will hint that void isn't empty, because there are others too who have gone this far.

To make more clear myself:
False void is outside of us what allows other things to happen. When giving up this wrong view, we then automatically are "inside" the void(technically we haven't been outside but have hold our own copy of it(chakra system)). So when i try to get back to void like i tried before i can't anymore.

We don't die once we get inside because this thought have to end first what caused the birth:
thought consists of:
7th chakra(false void)
6th chakra (false mind)
5th chakra (false vibration/creation)
4th (false self)
3th (false feelings)
2th(false desires)
1th(false needs)

and this chakra system is inside false world and false universe, created by false god(sub/unconsciousness).

perhaps

Thank you for sharing Rist. Indeed 'perhaps'.

Post 14 12/06/13 As the fella holding the Bag, er sign or SIGNAGE or LOGOS for this er notITEM... The VOID...

...OK | will chime in again here.

2 Octaves later to repeat.

APPROACH the WORK of this SAGE and ANCIENT BELL WORK with the utmost CAUTION !!!!

...REVERENCE.. ..RESPECT ETC... _ _ _

ALSO

...workers and majical creatures of all sorts may be all about very near by...

...so...

easy

Giant Leaps... are not baby steps... unless of course...


==>3}Bird0>

hi ALL

Fri. 06/12/13 23:23:00ish

In the ongoing interests of full disclosure, because it has been another couple long space-alien-ish days after many and because it doesn't merit even finding the correct post in the appropriate thread at the moment, I will just post this quick related 4thpathish yet VOID unrelated note here for the time being.

I am almost at the end of the three marathon weeks of transparency and sincerity I committed this little U body/body|mind\mind to enduring within the DO-U upon returning here to DhO.

Where it goes from here? - hopefully nobody noise. When the outflow/|\inflow attenuation finally returns to ) 0-|-0 ( .

Tripleslam, triplethink and tripleops threads are still in business and wide open for fun and games on Sat. so as soon as I wake up from the latest major p.m. attempt to put this beast down tonight (this time with a half bottle of ( Wolftrap Red - looks promising ) I will be online fresh and ready for whatever may or may not occur at that point tomorrow in space/time. I did get a solid two hours of downtime last night so that was semi sweet and I'll take whatever I can get.
__________

I have been observing a lot of very remote and distant but no less obvious telepathy-like psychosis-like internal stuff - divinish earish - demons in the other earish - not at all unfamiliar or unknown phenomena - lately that would come up for anyone who is making a spectacle of 'their-selves' that is properly referred to here-abouts ( DhO ) as 10 fetter model 4th path stuff.

This is to say, anxiety, agitation and conceit.

I refer to this kind of faint background chitta-chatta, in the privacy of my own internal 'cogitato potatoe' whenever it comes up by whatever new note seems most handy in the moment.

It could be anything for example: astral blowback or whatever comes to mind at the moment; peanut gallery, kangaroo courtroom drama queers, whatever... Jesus plays battleship with Buddha for my soul, you name it...

It isn't new and was there in grade school as well, so no big whup, just saying' it has been noisier that way lately than a cotton berry bush in springtime.

Should die off 'afore too very long I espec'.

So fergettit and nighty night to all that.

-------------------

I was starting a thread on another subject when I noticed this was what I was writing about in order to get it out of my head again and thought I may as well put it somewhere, because it is so obviously fourth path fetter model bullshit about as pure and raw as it gets.

I think it has the same pathology, whether it is in the head of a no account kid or politician or a movie star or some rising subculture guru or wherever this same pathology might show up.

All I can say about this chitta-chatta is my response is, "is piss on it". Until the steam dies baby.

That is to say, same old same old, attend fully and attend to fully - to one's full capacity - in that moment, and then completely forget it and move on.

Sort of an inside out pirate motto:

"Give them everything - and take from them nothing."

It ain't worth the practice|practical time at all otherwise; 1. to attend, or 2. to attend to - at all.

-triplethink

OK. I'll start with my journey to the void. Hopefully this will come out clear as I will cobble together a few things I've written about this in order to get something together. Thanks to sawfoot who managed to turn e-dust into html I am able to recycle a description from an old thread which saves me from typing some. I wrote:



Fleshing that out a bit: It was in March of 1994. I had been practicing micro-cosmic orbit and other non-movement types of chi-gong practices for 1 to two hours per day for maybe 6 weeks at this point. Over a week or two prior to this I had begun feeling the various points along the orbit open and connect together. Kind of felt like little jumper wires being connected point to point.

Then I was sitting on my couch one day attending to the sort of stillness quality of the energy in the body - mostly torso. Didn't know anything about jhana in those days but now I can say that it was at that point a first jhana in that my mental attention or focus of awareness was directed toward the pleasant sensations of energy in the body. I then became aware of a pleasant tingling sensation in the lower spine and there was a sensation of pea size bubbles that percolated up the spine one at a time and when they popped in my head there was a pleasant burst of energy there. My awareness was just drawn into the body - in a sense dropped down into the pleasant sensations so as to hang out with them. So at that point, dropping the mental attention and becoming absorbed in the body. From that point on I just seemed to have dropped deeper and deeper.

I sort of 'came to' when a rushing/roaring sensation brought me back into awareness at which point I was aware that I had essentially stopped or ceased to be - the rushing/roaring sensation felt like my consciousness was being sucked up and out of me - maybe lasted a second or two and then awareness just exploded into vastness. But at that point there was no Chuck. No observer. No subject. Distinct quality of being outside of time and space. Aware nevertheless. It had a knowing quality - more like a vast super grocking - a grocking or illumination of itself.

And what was known in a sense is what is known in contrast to what had been. Metaphorically, it was like I had spent my entire life in a small one room cabin surrounded by all my things - ideas, memories, possessions, desires, etc covering the walls and ceiling and this is all I had ever known. Then one day I fall through one of the walls and find myself on a high mountain - it's a beautiful day - and I can see forever. Looking back at my little cabin I can see that the walls were made of nothing more than all the things I had held onto as me and mine and nothing else - a prison of my own making - it very much had the sense of being a prison - that I was now free from. I have no idea how long it lasted. The experience burned into me deep. It fried every belief I had about who I was - about reality, the world, etc. Though I was back in my prison - I now knew it was a prison. The experience left a tiny opening - like a tiny whole in that cabin - in which the light/the vastness came through. Very subtle at first but always there when I looked for it. And that slowly expanded and deepened over time.

The journey back out of that experience seemed to have started with an arising sense of 'I' and the appearance of the universe - like a fuzzy ball of light - within that awareness and the knowledge that I was currently identified with a little body down inside the universe. So I made an intense effort to get back into that little thing and back I was. Heart rate and respiration almost non-existent. Went down on the floor and said over and over "What the hell was that".

Hey everyone!

Been thinking, or rather thoughts have been arising, and since the house of the body is burning down, for all of us, it is time to start sharing thoughts, don't know how close I am to what your discussing exactly so take it all with a grain of salt.

In another thread there was a discussion of the Brahma-nimantanika Sutta, basically Brahma-Baka, and Mara, so say that Brahma-Baka is infinite in one direction, (the Brahma planes) and say that Mara is infinite in the other direction (Mara's realms), then the Buddha basically is unseen from both. And yeah, I know I am butchering the story up pretty good. So, the thoughts that arose were: that the Buddha is unseen by them because he has balanced out of their realms, Buddha being EXACTLY BALANCED between the realms, this way one can not be seen by Mara, because Buddha is not there, nor seen by Baka, he's not there either.

But here is the catch, Existing in both directions simultaneously, perfectly balanced, neither one nor the other, and yet both. trying to express this, and the best I can come up with is a number line, below, the VOID would be the 0, yet the void is also encompassing of both.

−∞ -----0------ ∞

Though I suppose the Null point could be intersected by an infinite number of realities coming and going from all directions. But, I'm just a human, what do I know?

Maybe picturing it this way, pluck a guitar string, and watch it vibrate, it moves up and down, then, putting two fingers on the string it comes to the complete stillpoint, cessation, now walk away, no one there to pluck the string and start it all up again, ever. Now I haven't been able to do this, Sometimes I get the string to stop, and sometimes the mind starts playing the dueling banjoes, though not like it used to, which is why I know the N8path is real, it works .... I suppose it must somehow come down to Craving and its cessation, both the pleasurable wishes and the wishes to be away from the non-pleasurable.

Peace

Pop Pie

Hey Chuck,

Your experience seems very familiar. For me it is hard to reproduce and it is the foremost reason why I have ever started a spiritual journey. Starting when young I would, as I lay down to sleep, start progressive relaxation, systematically from my toes to the head, My mother had taught me this one time when I was younger, I was a horrible nap taker. I would send out the intention to move a muscle, and/or relax a muscle, but not actually move any muscles, but lie perfectly still. From time to time one will find new pathways and new muscles that one was previously unaware. Then once at the top of the head, I would send the mind out as far as it would go. Mostly I would just fall asleep, but every once in a while , the "pulling" would start. It is , as if one were to have a soul, this would start to be "pulled" up and out. Anyway, not knowing what is going on, Fear and terror sets in, and it stops. I had always thought later this might be the start of OOBE, or was connected to the pull of the Full Moon or, well, who knew I was young.

Each time this has happened, I have tried to push the envelope farther, by being brave, that doesn't really work. But the just observing with the equanimous mind was the key, no fear, just observe. The same skill to just "note".

Anyway about a month ago, the "pulling" happened again, I was in Lion's Pose, I let it happen, The best description is that the only phenomenon occurring is the existence of expansion, but super fast, like the Millineum Falcon's jump to Hyperspace with just the sensation, no visuals. Then the thought arose "where am I " with that , I was aware of one of smallest tiniest pinpoints of light imaginable, a "million miles away", then I was back, the body ,the mind ,the sense of self. I was like Hmmmm. So I closed my eyes , let go , and it happened again. There was no self in the experience upon reflection, when there was a self experiencing there was not the experience. Adding to as my memory comes together, after the "where am I " thought arose and when I saw the pinprick of light, I did have to "move" towards it with intention, and wasn't exactly sure I would make it back.

So far as I can tell, this was Fifth Jhana. But, if it was Fifth Jhana, I do not see how one can have the experience and not have insights arise, thus dispelling any insight vs jhana debates.

But, if that was not Fifth Jhana and I missed the use of the "Stillpoint", Oops, Anyway, I am still assimilating the experience.

Thank you for being so open with your experiences.

Peace

B

First of all - you got a nice Mom. What a great gift to give a child. Have you posted anything about your relaxation technique? I think there would be allot of interest in that. How you do it and the kind of experiential qualities that mark its deepening? That could be very useful.

I relate to your descriptions. The "jump to hyperspace" - yes, that's a good description of that roaring/rushing experience. Jhana definitions vary considerably. My sense of 5th jhana is that it is something like awareness seated on the edge of a vast void - like sitting on the edge of the grand canyon. But that's just me. It could be the start of an OOBE as you say. My limited experience with these is that once 'out' there is very much the sense of a self - a body - non-physical as it may be.

"Fear and terror sets in, and it stops"

Yes. After this event occurred to me it was another 14 years and other odd experiences later that the not-self shift happened. During that time I had at least 20 or 30 events that sound similar to what you describe here. It would occur during meditation at times when I had become very calm. There would be a kind of movement - and a portal sort of thing would approach me (odd description but within awareness there is kind of a seat we take and this thing moves toward that 'seat'). It had a certain quality that reminded me of that first experience when I was sucked out and there would arise either a feeling of excitement - and it would recede and disappear - or a feeling of fear - and it would recede and disappear.

After 14 years of that, one day it approached again - this time neither fear nor excitement arose - there was a sense that to move through it I would have to let go of everything I thought I was - and with that I just popped through and the door, the me that entered it, and the world that I had come from - disappeared and has never returned. It's like Alice going through the looking glass and then the looking glass (and Alice as she had experienced herself) disappearing as well - it's a one-way trip. The world that disappeared was like a mental overlay that gives a sense of reality to our thoughts - projects them out onto phenomena. There is a point in practice where we become aware of this overlay - we know we are doing it and it allows us to stand back and not get so caught up in things but at this point the overlay simply disintegrates. Then, in its absence, one sees how that overlay not only created the world out there but also the sense of a self identity. When this overlay drops away, a world that had been hidden by that is immediately present. It's also very raw - in that there is no separation between you and it. And that world is unexpected.

"Signless" Meditations in Pali Buddhism,
by Peter Harvey

http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/ojs/index.php/jiabs/article/viewFile/8674/2581

This reminds me of Katy's description of the post reboot skanda startup - LINK



Hope this is helpful....
~D