How does one self immolate?

[bub]

I did a search for self immolation on the forum, but wasn’t able to get much practical information on how to go about it.

Wasnt able to find much about it on the AFT website either.

I’d like to commit to the goal of self immolation as it seems a worthy one and would be v grateful for any pointers on how to get there

[Srinath]

Bub, you can find a basic guide to self-immolation here: SIMPLE ACTUALISM - Actual Freedom

It also has relevant links to the AFT re: reports of self-immolation – mine included.

There’s also other articles on actualism there which you might find useful. Its a website that I created to explain actualism in a simple way.

The homepage of the AFT has a precis of how one becomes actually free. Read the bit starting with ‘The way becoming actually free …’ (4th paragraph from the top)

You’ll need to have a better understanding of actualism and actual freedom – both intellectually and experientially before you’re in a position to self-immolate however.

[bub]

@Srinath

Bub, you can find a basic guide to self-immolation here: SIMPLE ACTUALISM - Actual Freedom

It also has relevant links to the AFT re: reports of self-immolation – mine included.

There’s also other articles on actualism there which you might find useful. Its a website that I created to explain actualism in a simple way.

The homepage of the AFT has a precis of how one becomes actually free. Read the bit starting with ‘The way becoming actually free …’ (4th paragraph from the top)

You’ll need to have a better understanding of actualism and actual freedom – both intellectually and experientially before you’re in a position to self-immolate however.

Ahh, ya bastich - nothing practically useful about the how of self immolation.

I know there was a lot of info on the old slack site.

But I’ve got pretty much zero on self immolation to go on from reading reports (really really wanted to do it and belived I could do it and then IT happened!).

6 people have gotten to basic freedom, two of whom transitioned to Actual Freedom.

Just need a little more on practical how to’s on the journey.

I’ve been devouring actualism, but definitely have a long way to go.

I’m also mixing methods but have signed on for another couple of retreats till the end of Feb, and will be doing some direct path work till then. After that, it’s probably going to be solamente actual freedom.

[Miguel]

@bub

Ahh, ya bastich - nothing practically useful about the how of self immolation.

I know there was a lot of info on the old slack site.

But I’ve got pretty much zero on self immolation to go on from reading reports (really really wanted to do it and belived I could do it and then IT happened!).

6 people have gotten to basic freedom, two of whom transitioned to Actual Freedom.

Just need a little more on practical how to’s on the journey.

Hi, @bub.

Perhaps you overlooked or underestimated the importance of the step probably most often referred to by those who have managed to self-immolate (including @Srinath in his site, as a pre-condition): having had enough PCEs (and having somewhat tired of returning from them to “normality” -however extraordinary, as in those who returned to still-in-control/same-way-of-being virtual freedom, or even to out-from-control/different way of being virtual freedom-).

And about how to make PCEs happen, there is indeed much that has been written.

However, as I have had many PCEs and some of them of long duration, Vineeto made it clear to me (I would see many years later she was right…) that it is a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.

[claudiu]

@bub

Ahh, ya bastich - nothing practically useful about the how of self immolation.

I know there was a lot of info on the old slack site.

But I’ve got pretty much zero on self immolation to go on from reading reports (really really wanted to do it and belived I could do it and then IT happened!).

6 people have gotten to basic freedom, two of whom transitioned to Actual Freedom.

Just need a little more on practical how to’s on the journey.

In terms of practical guide on how to self-immolate… in an email to me, Vineeto said this about Geoffrey & Srinath’s report: “Those two reports that are online are the perfect motivation and how-to-do-it guide for becoming actually free […]”

That’s to say that, if fully actually free Vineeto considers those two reports to be “how-to-do-it guides”… maybe they really are, and you are missing something

I think once you have a full-blown and clear PCE it will become more clear. There’s definitely a how and a way to do it, but it’s really about “letting it happen”, which is so simple yet so incredibly ‘non-specific’ (haha), that it is easy to even miss that it’s an instruction in the first place. And of course before you can let “it” happen you have to experientially understand what “it” is…

What I would suggest if I were you, as you say you can already feel fantastic on-command, is to commit to feeling fantastic (or at least ‘good’) come-what-may, if only for say a day or two, and while feeling particularly excellent, read these descriptions of PCEs with your whole ‘being’, with the particular intention of inducing a PCE for yourself! Once you have that clear PCE goalpost then the way will become clear.

---

With that being said, I wrote a long post about this how actualism writings seem to not have anything practical in it on the DharmaOverground. Note that it’s specifically about the actualism method and not how to self-immolate per se. That being said, it may well be worth a read, though it’s not specifically tailored to your situation: [link].

I’ll mirror it here for posterity sake:

@Claudiu

@Griffin

Griffin
When it comes to actualism, I always wanted to see a bullet-point list of precise instructions, instead of long narrative forms. Daniel actually created a numbered list, but it doesn work for me because it simoultaneously contains many different aspects and I cannot hold that many intentions at the same time. I guess the problem is in me and not the system itself, but I wonder whether there are others who feel the same.

To repet my words from an older post, “no matter how many different descriptions of actualism practice I have read, it just never “clicked” for me. It’s like every article presents it somewhat differently, or it’s poetically ambiguous, or it’s a list of instructions that don’t feel like a coherent system of practice. There’s a lack of vipassana-like precise terminological practicality. I just gave up trying to understand it, and don’t care anymore.”

Hi Griffin,

Just wanted to chip in that I, coming from a Vipassana background into actualism, had a similar reaction to actualism at first. It rather seemed like the actualists all went on and on about this and that but never really got to the point, the core, the meat of what it actually is that the practice is.

After actualism finally ‘clicked’ for me, I was shocked to discover that the entire time, those writings specifically and in a very detailed, pragmatic, and thorough way, with great care taken for terminology, spell out precisely what the tools, methods and techniques of actualism actually are!

It’s just that it comes from such a completely different place than Vipassana meditation does, that it simply didn’t even register to me that it could be describing a practice or something to do.

At the most basic and fundamental level, the actualism method literally is enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive.

There is nothing other than this, that is what the actualism method is. This is the method, period. Enjoyment and appreciation of this moment of being alive.

So if the question is, what, practically is the actualism method? The answer is precisely this - enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive. If you are enjoying this moment of being alive now, then you are employing the method. If you aren’t, then you are not.

The key to it all, then, is when you are not enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive - how to find your way back to enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive? And that is where all the various tools, tips, methods, techniques and other methods come into place.

And the fact of the matter is, no matter how refined and intelligent we think ourselves to be, 99% of the time, what is causing us to not enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive is something incredibly mundane, like… got stuck in traffic… taking a long time to order my fast food… my partner said this to me and now I am triggered and upset about it… etc.

So one of the primary tools of actualism is to find out specifically and precisely, what exactly caused me to stop enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive. My answer when I asked myself this question used to be “Well it couldn’t have been this thing at my job, cause that doesn’t really bother me… and it couldn’t be what my roommate said cause that’s not such an issue…” and yet, those literally were exactly the things that were causing me to not enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive! I was just in denial that such things could get to me. Because after all, all those emotions were just impermanent sensations, coming and going, not-me, and of course intrinsically suffering, and therefore they didn’t really ‘get to me’ as I had developed equanimity towards such things…

But what I came to discover is that, simply by virtue of them occurring in the first place, it means they really were bothering me. And so my path was to 1) stop kidding myself, and 2) actually investigate myself and discover what specific part of my identity I held so dear that I would defend such as to keep being in such a way that those things would get to me, and finally 3) see that it is silly and therefore not worth continuing to be that way… after which, those particular triggers no longer got to me, and I was therefore able to employ the actualism method - of enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive - more successfully.

(If anyone reading this is bothered by the repetition I would simply point out it’s a device that can have great rhetorical effect, and particularly point you to the suttas for reference.)

I think the reason it might not appear to be a “coherent system of practice” to someone from a meditative background, is that meditation is more about doing one specific thing (whatever the meditation may be) very intentfully and intensely… and that simply doesn’t work with “having a fun time being alive”. You can’t force your way to enjoy being alive. The only way to do it is to remove all the impediments… and the impediments are as varied as the human condition. Essentially actualism is 100% about “content” and not about enything else - and specifically about dealing with your “content” such as to become a happier and more harmless person.

And with all of these things, you ultimately just have to see it for yourself, that it’s silly to be anything other than happy and harmless… someone can directly spell out to you what the answer to a particular problem is, but until you see it for yourself it does nothing for you. Further only you can know yourself fully and figure out exactly how ‘you’ tick, so in a lot of actualist discussions, the correspondents can’t do much besides offer advice and hints as to what it may be, and share their own experiences… hence it might seem “ambiguous” because of this.

Of course if you still “don’t care anymore” then there’s no reason for you to look into it… but if you are interested I’d encourage you to re-read the material with this in mind and see if you understand it differently now. There’s no requirement, duty or obligation to do so though - it is entirely a take-it-or-leave-it thing, and as Srinath says, it might not be for everyone.

Cheers,
Claudiu

[bub]

Cheer Claudiu, that’s spectacularly clear and useful.

it’s gradually falling into place for me.

I’ll make a bastardised precis for now, and I’m hoping you or somebody corrects me if I’m making glaring errors.

Just fucking feel good in the now as a baseline.

Identify what’s not making me feel good. Practically deal with that.

Find out about PCE’s and have at least one and build on that.

Identify negative emotions and practically deal with that - it’s probably similar themes that keep cropping up, so clear those issues.

Keep learning about Actualism so the dots keep connecting.

Dont focus too much on happiness or good feelings, but more on feeling good.

Dont mix methods.

Keep going - it’s clicking bigtime, will click even more.

[henryyyyyyyyyy]

@bub

Identify negative emotions and practically deal with that - it’s probably similar themes that keep cropping up, so clear those issues.

*Identify negative OR positive emotions - what you want to go for are the felicitous/innocuous emotions

@bub

Dont focus too much on happiness or good feelings, but more on feeling good.

Happiness is ok, it’s an aspect of feeling good

That ‘big time’ aspect I definitely relate to, when I get close to the actual world / ‘infinitude,’ I’m often shocked by how different it is than what I’m used to.