I’ve been rememorating the PCE.
Basically I do what I did in the restaurant that time. I sit there, and I basically don’t move, and I observe everything that is happening externally and internally.
It works to great effect, much more than reminding myself to feel good each moment again a la virtual freedom.
Then I find myself getting in the way less and less - it’s almost impossible to stay in the way. The “light of awareness” depowers the feelings and there is more and more to appreciate as this shift happens.
What I find most of all is that there is a lot less excitement in it, compared to what I aim for when I’m pursuing virtual freedom.
I.e the feeling good that ensues when doing this is not the feeling good what I aim for when applying the method “in daily life”.
It takes me to a much more anonymous place, and boy does it feel good, but it’s not “the excitement” of a typical feeling-being good mood, in my opinion.
It reminds me of something @geoffrey wrote in his diary one time, it’s in the Zulip archive. It’s about him realizing he had been trying to “maintain a high, with a lot of excitement”.
I think I’ve come to the same realisation. Feeling good in this sense isn’t really what a feeling being imagines when they are advised to aim for that. It’s much more along the lines of Attentiveness, Sensuosity, Apperception.
Once here I just want to bathe in it, it’s so nice to not be under pressure. Of course there is further to go, all the way to the PCE.
There really is something to be said for sitting and doing nothing, just chilling and doing this “practice” for quite a while. I think all the people who became free so far did some version of this. Not being busy with other things all the time. And that’s part of making this a singular goal of your life I think.