Seeing/accepting the ground of being and allowing pure intent

In my case, @emp, the effects are related to my state of consciousness/attention/pure intent in that moment: if it is good, that kind of exposure tends to motivate me or at most to leave me in the same state; if not, the emotions (anxiety, sadness) tend to grow.

The day before yesterday, reading about the Russia-Ukraine conflict while feeling good, there were the usual reflections related to the stupidity of war, how instinct dominates, and so on. Naturally, these reflections were accompanied by mild feelings of unpleasant hedonic tones, but I still felt good (my level of awareness/attention/pure intent was good).

Yesterday, however, one of my daughters was watching “Saving Private Ryan.” I stopped to watch a bit in the midst of work issues and was reminded of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Reflections arose regarding how human beings never learn from previous conflicts, etc., again accompanied by mild natural feelings of a negative hedonic tone.

After a while I went for a walk thinking about those work issues, but by association of ideas quickly triggered memories, thoughts, imaginations, related to very complicated current family situations. Negative feelings (sadness, self-pity, anxiety) then arose.

When I started to observe the chain of events that led me to that state, I noticed that the work issues had put me on “autopilot” (my state of consciousness/attention/pure intent was not good), that in that state I looked at the images of the movie, that in that state I reflected about the human learning, etc., without noticing that the natural unpleasant hedonic feelings turned into negative feelings. In that unconscious state I started the walk and I was met by thoughts and memories about the aformentioned family problems, which worsened those negative feelings.

Once I went back to a neutral state I managed to pin-point those causes and mechanisms, and then I felt good again thanks to a good state of consciousness/attention/pure intent. And, like reading bad news in a good state, I was able to continue reflecting on those family problems while still feeling good.

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I have this model of a bullet train moving along toward freedom, and sometimes the train is really zooming along and nothing can get in the way, I just easily burst through any obstacles that pop up.

And sometimes I’m moving slowly and an obstacle hits me and really slows me down but I do get through it after some time.

But sometimes, I’m totally stopped… that’s when rust starts to get in the moving parts, moss grows, leaks come in the roof… it takes a lot of work to get going from this position.

Richard’s advice was, that the best way to move along the path is by having a baseline of happy and harmless, always return to that, and any investigations or obstacles will be a breeze. That has been my experience as well. Keep that train moving.

So with that in mind, when the train is already moving well, throwing some reminders about terrible shit that has happened is great motivation. When the train is barely creeping along, such information can totally freeze the whole thing, which is the last place you want to be.

That also means there’s a certain skillfulness involved in this process: only give yourself that kind of ‘kick in the pants’ when you can handle it. Pouring too much on too fast will backfire. Once you get moving, then sprinkle some on. Once you’re really moving, you can do more and more and more.

Finally, there’s something interesting about anxiety: anxiety has the character of worry, a fundamentally sorrowful emotion that doesn’t tend to go anywhere except more worry.

A couple of months ago I was able to light a fire under myself by using my own aggressive instinct to direct all my energy toward becoming free.

It essentially looked like, “I’m pissed off that humanity keeps doing all this nonsense, I’m pissed off that I’m not living the best life possible, I don’t even care who tries to stop me, I’m going to become free!!!”

It did not look like worry at all. And later I’m not living in that sense of anger. But, it was very very useful for getting my bullet train moving at a good enough clip that I’m making progress.

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This is very interesting as I arrived at the same thoughts myself recently. I don’t read the forum very often but every time I do, I come to find that everyone has similar ideas on how to progress that I have. Perhaps psychic currents at work?

But with that said this has been my current approach as well. My previous one had the characteristic of fighting myself over and over. Like trying to solve the Human Condition from within. The ironic thing was that this kept all of my issues alive. It was a cunning way for the identity to stay alive. To separate ‘me’ from ‘my’ feelings. It also showed me the genesis of the instinct to reach for the ‘good’ feelings while ignoring the ‘bad’. But I would keep doing this over and over while completely not seeing the fact that there is no solution within the Human Condition. And that was the key to moving forward. In this case, it was an “actualist identity” at work. It even got to the point that when I would become happy, I would feel out other “issues” for me to work on. I came to realize that there are an infinite number of “issues” within me. Once I solved one another one would take its place. ‘I’ was trying to construct what ‘I’ thought the actual world was. This whole process was kept in place due to my approach. My approach did not have any application or rememoration of pure intent. It’s that classical definition of insanity lol. The other thing stuffing up the process is the belief of how ‘I’ should be progressing on the path to an actual freedom. Like I can’t already be experiencing an EE or PCE if I haven’t spent the last week feeling good lol. It has been helpful to re-read that virtual freedom is something that one does in the mean time. That apart from sincerity and pure intent there are no rules. Also I may be putting the cart before the horse and the investigations may naturally begin and end with application of pure intent.

Anyway, I remembered this one time that I had a brief PCE. The immediacy and closeness of everything had the quality of perpetual novelty. So I kept this in mind and would bring it to the fore throughout the day. Every time I applied it I’d feel good and when I don’t I simply revert to my previous way of operating. There weren’t any issues for ‘me’ to solve. It’s the whole of ‘me’ that is the issue. It’s like I don’t want to believe that it’s easy to be happy and enjoy life. That it can be that easy. I’m optimistic about this approach (really the approach prescribed lol)!

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I agree about pure intent maybe being the only necessity, even the sincerity arises I think from pure intent

And then from that ground, pure intent to do what’s best for this body and every body, with the awareness of what is possible (either through direct memory or having read about actual freedom / PCE) then there begins this interest to figure out how to become free, or maybe even just a little bit more free.

And that will carry you however far you can go, everything else is just tactics, motivation, whatever you happen to come across. But the pure intent is what keeps that scent in one’s nose to head the right direction

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I read this and thought you were being literal at first :joy:

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Yes I remember a discussion about this in slack I think. That it is like the felicitous being the closest approximation of perfection and it ‘trickles’ down from perfection - excellence - great - good.

In the same way sincerity is what trickles down from pure intent.

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I might say pure intent is what allows sincerity.

Because to be fully sincere ‘I’ have to recognize how thoroughly rotten ‘I’ am.

And if there is no way of being alive besides being ‘me’, that is simply not something that can be accepted fully.

But pure intent lets you see there is an alternate - therefore it is safe to recognize ‘me’ fully as being as rotten as ‘I’ indeed am… which allows the wonder of the alternative to be palpably experienced.

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I’m almost using this thread as a journal now but it all seems related to my recent shift in approach. Something that I have been realising lately is that I am able to see very clearly what humanity is. I have been seeing this more and more recently that we have taken the ‘primary colours’ of the instinctual passions and we painted/constructed a whole reality of of this, we call this being human.

What is so incredible to observe though is how this is all ultimately made up and re-enacted, then taught and reinforced onto the new recruits of humanity. It is not unlike a story we tell ourselves but the story is made ‘real’ by the affective current which gives the story its flavour and colour.

I think it is coming back to purity and establishing a baseline of feeling good that is making this so clear to observe. I can feel ‘me’ fundamentally as that shifting affective current, it is more clearly experienced now because of the contrast of purity. From that vantage point it is also clear to see just how silly what we are doing is, in terms of continuing to create, reinforce and live in that construct called humanity.

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There is something else that I have been experiencing lately that I wanted to write about. It is an odd one because of how the experience could appear to come about as a result of dissociation/repression. I do remember in my meditation days I dissociated enough that eventually emotions were beginning to be experienced only as physical sensations, that was very much a product of repression and dissociation and it had a very uncomfortable quality to it. All those physical sensations/emotions felt like they were jammed up inside me, I definitely was not feeling good.

What I have been experiencing lately is driven by more and more time spent feeling good, and by the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ feelings having less and less grip over my day to day life.

I noticed this morning that emotions are more and more seen as illusory creations consisting of fundamentally physical sensations only, before they gently dissolve and I am back to feeling good, this is the best way I can put it really. There is a direct seeing of how the entire affective faculty is based on the fundamental illusion of ‘me’, the emotions which ‘I’ experience are actually just as illusory. It is really quite a weird one to describe but I do remember Peter writing something similar of a near apperceptive awareness and the last dramas of ‘me’ being a primarily physical occurrence.

With this seeing ‘I’ am becoming more and more ‘washed out’ and not taken seriously, this means ‘I’ can fade away each moment to whatever degree and allow purity. Interesting stuff and the best thing is that lately all these new explorations are done within the background of feeling good so I cannot really go wrong in that regard :smiley:

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That was an awesome post! :love_you_gesture: really enjoyed that…

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