This is my first post on Dharma Overground. I'm excited and a bit anxious to be part of this discussion group. I've been practicing meditation for 10 years or so, a frankenstein process pulling from different branches of wisdom and my own inner unique impulse, primarily based on Goenka Vipassana. My intent is to be as fully Awakened as I can.

More on my path later, but first point I came to after years and years I feel of bruising along without distinguishing two different approaches to Anicca. Ken Wilber in Integral Spirituality first helped me consciously see some of shortcomings of simply noting anicca. I knew something both was working and wasn't working with the approach I was following:

What was happening in me, and to many I knew, is that Anicca seen in an inauthentic way didn't get at the underlying issues. I kept using "anicca" to let negative sankharas disappear, and I became disowned from them (instead of dealing with them). These are especially true for second order reactions (e.g. shame, guilt)...I now feel the second order reactions exist to point out a flawed relationship to the original reaction (e.g. anger, desire), not to be seen as anicca. Inauthentic Anicca causes disassociation from the sankhara, as opposed to full clarity of the sankhara.

Anicca - Inauthentic
The negative situation will go away
The pain will go away
The problem will go away

Anicca - Authentic
The sensations flicker in/out of existence, sometimes with great rapidity
The suffering will be seen through
The grip/fixation will be seen through

Basically, wanted to check in with y'all to see if this conclusion/line of experience resonates. I'd love to hear experiences.

RT

Hi R.T.

I think your second, "authentic" anicca is spon on.

The "inauthentic" one I'd file under the "roots" of unskillful action: aversion to the unpleasant experience, and subsequently tuning out of it ("delusion"). Actually, these situations can be used for skillful observation of the suffering characteristic, by staying with and inverstigating the upleasant experience instead of tuning out, dully waiting for it to stop.

Cheers,
Florian

Yeah, I agree with Florian. Once in a while there's this quality of "OK, I'll note it, but only because it'll probably go away if I note it." That quality exposes suffering, and it's useful to note it. I call it "underhanded attention" or "ulterior motive".

Thanks Florian, Antonio - You guys gave me exactly what I was looking for - support that my conclusions are not off base, in your own words. Of course, anyone else with additional experiences - please do share.

I don't know why this "close cousin" of authentic anicca (so to speak) has been misunderstood in circles I've been part of...perhaps the fear of touching / questioning / improving traditional teaching styles.

RT

Maybe that, a touch of the Mushroom Factor as Daniel calls it.

But frankly, suffering is unpleasant, we don't like it, that's the whole point - and when there are good excuses not to honestly stay with the suffering, that even seem to be quite in-line with received teachings, it really does take a lot of bloody-minded determination to still want to examine the suffering, and to debunk the excuses. It's well worth the effort, of course.

Cheers
Florian