This reminds me of Vineeto having to undo her Buddhist conditioning & ‘become attached’ again before she could properly get to the bottom of different parts of herself
I found it!
"VINEETO: Personally, the word attachment came to my attention through the spiritual teachings where I learned I should not be attached. Attachment as such was a bad thing, the concept was to become unattached to one’s body, one’s emotions, one’s relationships, one’s desires, one’s actions, until only the completely unattached higher self, the real ‘ME’ would remain.
In actualism, I deliberately went in the other direction – a full commitment to being ‘attached’ and then exploring the ramifications of it. I found that I am not merely attached to my emotions but ‘I’ am my emotions, I am not merely attached to objects of my desire but ‘I’ am my desire. Wanting to get rid of my attachments I had to get rid of ‘me’. And in the course of discovering what ‘me’ consists of I found ‘me’ in each and every state of love and hate, in every attachment and repulsion, in every dependency and need for independence, in each fear and every instance of pride. That’s what makes investigating one’s attachments really thrilling.
I found it was vitally important to fully commit myself to my relationship – 110% – in order to overcome my spiritual conditioning of being non-attached or aloof so I could then explore all of the emotions I had been avoiding experiencing. To commit oneself totally to something is utterly delicious and is the only way to get at the roots of whatever I have been avoiding by being half-hearted, aloof or detached.
Not only was it great adventure and liberation to root out my dependencies with Peter, for instance, but the reward came almost instantly, making way for a sparkling intimacy, obvious parity and uninterrupted harmony. Love and affection pale into insignificance compared to the delight of enjoying the direct intimate company of another actual human being each moment again."
While I was looking for the above, I found these which address attachment as well:
"The idea that one is merely ‘attached’ to one’s emotions is an invention of Eastern spiritualism and a particularly persistent and popular one at that. This theory is integral to the notion that the way to become ‘free’ is to become detached from one’s unwanted feelings (as well as from the corporeal body and the physical world). Becoming detached from one’s unwanted or undesirable feelings inevitably leads to dissociation – the prerequisite to delusionary states such as enlightenment.
This is not what actualism is about – it is impossible to be attentive to the operation of feelings emotions and passions that one is busily being detached from or feeling dissociated from.
Actualism clearly recognizes that ‘I’ am my feelings and my feelings are ‘me’, which is ‘me’ at the core of my ‘being’ and one’s own attentiveness will reveal that this is so. Whenever I am feeling annoyed, it is ‘me’ that is feeling annoyed – ‘I’ am the feeling of annoyance and the feeling of annoyance is ‘me’ in operation as it were. Whenever I am feeling sad, it is ‘me’ that is feeling sad – ‘I’ am the feeling of sadness and the feeling of sadness is ‘me’ in operation as it were … and so on.
If one is detached in any way from any of the feelings that are ‘me’ then it is impossible to understand, let alone actively investigate, how ‘I’ am operating at this moment.
And:
"Vipassana has to be seen within the whole context of Buddhism to understand its intentions and implications. Vipassana is the particular method to reach to the Buddhist’s highest goal – Nirvana. The idea in Vipassana is to become conscious of the sensations in the body, of the ‘stress’ of the sensations, feelings, desires, attachments etc. in order to extract one’s self from those stressful feelings. You are supposed to learn consciousness in order to become the Consciousness, thus removing your ‘self’ from the content of what you sense, feel and think.
…
Essentially, they say, that you are not the body, not the mind, not the sensations, not the feelings. They say you are the ‘soul’, you are Consciousness. This is 180 degrees opposite to Actual Freedom. In Actual Freedom you are the flesh and blood sensate and reflective body only, no ego, no soul.
But, if you get lost with their many words of going round and round and round then you know that the method is just to hypnotize oneself out of one’s normal way of thinking and feeling to end up in a pleasant drug-like state of no-mind, somewhere else, numbing one’s intelligence as well as one’s feelings and sensations. Spiritual practice is to numb your feelings and emotions while for actual freedom you need to dig into them, feel them, explore them, investigate them and trace them back to the root instincts of fear, aggression, nurture and desire.
In the above article the expression of ‘not clinging to anything in the world’ is the give-away. The whole meditation consists of turning away from something considered ‘unwanted’ to something considered ‘wanted’ – which is a moral evaluation of good and bad. The whole Buddhist religion is a very moral code of ethics.
Here is a bit more of Mr. Buddha’s teachings of how to get out of their physical senses and retreat into an imagined reality or fabricated peace and tranquillity. Of course, practicing Vipassana is like being drugged by an overdose of pain killers – when you don’t feel anything, see anything, hear anything, it is kind of peaceful – I would rather call it numb and dull! And then, removed from the world of physical senses there are no limitations to the full range of imagination – one imagines being peace, light, love, compassion – take anything from the ‘feeling-shop’ whatever you want, nothing is actual anyway."
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Thanks @henryyyyyyyyyy that’s a good reminder. It is weird that even when Spirituality as a belief system is rejected, that underlying habit of escaping into some concept/fantasy still remains and can be habitually transferred over to ones involvement with Actualism, the good old Actualist identity haha.
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Identity is sneaky! Usually it comes under the guise of “Here, let me help with that…”
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Pretty excited this morning at something that has finally clicked. For a long time I have been stuck in this fear of no longer being able to relate to others if I give up being a group member.
There was this sense that if I continue down the wide and wondrous path that I am somehow separating myself from ‘them’, like I am leaving ‘them’ behind. Almost as if I am going deeper into separation, there was this sense that somehow this is ‘wrong’.
This morning this whole issue did a flip! And all of a sudden I saw clear as ever that ‘I’ as a group member am already forever separated from my fellow human beings. And that the only way for me to ever get truly close to them is to give up being an identity, and I could see that it is totally safe and very desirable, it’s what I have always wanted.
It’s hard to explain the irony of this seeing over text but it’s like the thing that I was most afraid of happening is actually continually caused by ‘me’ and yet I projected it onto becoming free.
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I hope I can come to this conclusion, this type of seeing soon!
There is something that Srinath mentioned to me a few days ago that - seeing something as silly can sometimes take considerable emotional work,
I think this might be useful to keep in mind for you @FrankN
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Very touching Kuba
This is very helpful, Kuba.
You done it again Kuba, nice work 
Thank you for actually saying this Kuba 
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So as inspired by @Elgin’s recent post I decided to write more about the process of sorting through various things.
There is 1 thing that came up yesterday that has been an ongoing theme for a very long time now, it has been getting better but this whole thing is still far from resolved.
I was coaching a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class yesterday at one of the gyms I teach at, I am relatively new to that gym so not everyone knows me so well yet, I have this feeling that I need to prove myself to them, prove that I know my stuff.
There is potential for bullshit to pass off as effective technique in the martial arts world so the instructor needs to be able to demonstrate that what he is showing actually works agains a fully resisting opponent and is not what is jokingly called ‘bullshido’.
Brazilian jiu jitsu is the martial art that demonstrated that the smaller, less athletic individual can beat a much bigger, stronger and athletic individual by using technique and leverage. By being a BJJ instructor I feel that I am obligated to carry this ideal forward, and that I need to be able to demonstrate it impeccably at all times.
So this pretty much sets the scene for this theme that has been going on for a long time. There is this responsibility/obligation I feel, to live up to that ideal of being able to use perfect BJJ technique to defeat anyone and everyone, and that as the instructor I need to demonstrate this in training at all times, phew that sounds stressful just writing it!
I want to live up to that ideal so that I can inspire the other guys to develop that same sort of skillset, by failing to live up to the ideal I feel that I am failing them. Because I am showing them that maybe this shared fantasy of being an invincible martial arts master is just that, a fantasy. Living up to the ideal is what I offer in exchange for love and adoration from them, because they want that power too so they will forever need me. (It’s funny how similar all of this is to the enlightenment drama that Richard writes about, the underlying mechanisms of trust, surrender, the master/disciple hierarchy, its all there!)
Now I know I am good, not world class but definitely high level enough to be able to develop guys to a pretty high standard. I do not compete as I never had the desire for it but in sparring I can hang with guys that are competing at high levels. So I know I am not teaching ‘bullshido’, I know that what I am showing works. There is however this underlying anxiety that I will be exposed for a fraud.
Yesterday when it came to sparring I was rolling with one of the guys who is relatively new to grapping, he has been training for a year or two, so I thought “I should be able to pretty much toy with him”. This would be where I would look to demonstrate the power of BJJ to my students and feeling great about myself carrying this beacon of power.
Now as much as technique ultimately beats strength, the thing that one finds very quick in doing martial arts is that strength and athleticism still matters, and there is a lot of variability as to peoples levels of strength and athleticism. You will every now and then come across those ‘freaks of nature’, people that do not look it but when engaged, feel like a wild animal, this guy was one of them 
For his frame, unbelievably strong and scrappy, and having some grappling experience too which made him extremely hard to control and submit. Now of course I did control and submit him but it was not as easy as I would like to demonstrate. Because I am the ‘sensei’, I am the guy that is meant to tap him 10 times without even breaking a sweat, and here I was really having to work!
There was an instant fear about what my students will think when they see us sparring. Will they feel let down because they no longer believe in ‘technique conquering all’, will they doubt me now when I demonstrate technique to them and think “why should I listen to you, you couldn’t do this on a white belt”.
Now the fact is that technique works, and I can show technique that works, but this ideal of technique easily neutralising ANY sort of athleticism with minimal effort is just an ideal.
The fact is that there are people that will always be a handful, and as a martial arts instructor would I not rather help my students see this fact clearly instead of perpetuating a fantasy? Afterall all what if they were to take this fantasy into the street if they ever found themselves in a situation, they would be shocked when they realise that the 100kg rugby player is actually not so easy to control, even though he might have no technique. Am I not doing them a better service by demonstrating what is factual, what works, even if it does not live up to some fantasy of being all powerful.
So this is a pretty in depth description of this theme, I can see there is an investment into all these values and ideals that underpin my identity as a martial arts coach, yet the reason this theme still continues is because I am still invested in them. At the core of it all seems the desire to be all-powerful and invincible. By being ‘that’ I will receive unlimited love and adoration from the martial arts ‘group’.
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Since this morning the words that have been on my mind are : sincere, genuine and naive. To be those is to no longer engage in that whole game I described in the previous post.
Being naive means no longer buying into the collective wisdom of humanity. Being genuine means that I am no longer acting out a persona that ultimately comprises of various fantasies. Being genuine means that I can act with sincerity, which means being free of deceit. To be sincere means that A = A always, not A being used to mean/achieve X.
I have been looking at this, what is the need for fantasy and deceit? Why is it that I am driven to pursue those ideals, there is good feelings in those but those are only there to cover up the bad feelings of not being good enough. What keeps the whole thing spinning?
It seems deep down there is the fundamental part of me that says ‘you are not enough as you are’. This is the very thrust of the social identity in action, that belief that I only earn my right to be happy if I meet the long list of expectations placed upon me. And of course if I do meet them and get my good feelings I then have to restart the process to get the next fix, very much a hamster on the wheel situation.
The conditioned wisdom is that one gets to be happy by being a someone, achieving something, it is granted to me if only I follow the rules laid out by humanity, it is clear why this kind of reward/punishment system is used to control the ‘being’ that exists in each human.
The funny thing to contemplate is that it is only real because I have been willingly playing along with the game, the wisdom of humanity appearing to be set in concrete when it is not.
Right now there is this hesitation, there is the draw towards naiveté, the shift towards naiveté is experienced as if I have been looking out of this dirty, muddy window my whole life. Then all of a sudden the window is wiped clean, There is still the window, the ‘me’ but it is a different ‘me’. From that clean place I am able to act in a way that is original and genuine.
On the other side there is that familiar fear of ‘something will go terribly wrong!!!’, it is familiar because I remember this fear from the very beginning, whenever I would contemplate stepping out ‘my’ firm outlines, it would be there, only to disappear later when it is seen that there was actually never any danger to begin with.
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It seems telling to me that not only has your goal been to successfully submit someone who is very athletic (already not an easy feat!) but to do it ‘with ease,’ which is first of all already moving the baseline, but second of all a subjective measure. We’ve all seen the cliches in kung-fu films of masters submitting opponents without hardly moving a muscle, which seems the logical conclusion of such an ideal
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Yes @henryyyyyyyyyy haha that is the exact archetype I am taking about with this martial arts fantasy
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It reminds me of spiritual masters who are not satisfied by one person loving them, they need a group. And then of course the group is never large enough, it must continue to grow and grow… there must be ever-more worship & adoration… even a group of millions is not enough, the whole world must love me! And then when the promises of the master don’t make the followers feel ecstasy it is never the fault of the master or the teachings, it is the fault of the follower, who must eternally double down on the teachings, they must be ‘doing something wrong.’
But of course it doesn’t work because human nature is just too recalcitrant, and the promises of the master are too outlandish, not connected to something genuine. No wonder they always move the baseline to some afterlife
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Yes it is the same game being played out, the question that is currently running through my mind is why I reject that which is genuine and instead continue pursuing the game of being someone special.
I can see this theme playing out in other scenarios too, for example with the hen party jobs I do. There is a certain ‘high’ that I get when I see that I am desired by the girls at the events, it makes me feel special, like ‘I’ am ‘right’ after all!
And yet their desire is more to do with them than me, I just happen to be at the right place at the right time, yet I so desperately seek to be special.
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