Shamatha Vipashyana practitioner curious about Actualism

Actualism
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I am a shamatha vipashyana practitioner. An Arhat. I have adept level skill in stopping the chains of DO at contact itself. With awareness colored with the brahma-viharas each and every sense contact loses its original vedana (valence) and the act of paying attention / being aware itself carries positive vedana (valence). I do this at will, I don’t abide like this.

I totally understand that this language and conceptual paradigm of speaking about direct experience would be alien to at least some people here. I am not really ‘married’ to this representational model, but its the only one I have.

A friend of mine recommended that I check out actualism, telling me that this is one of the core objectives of actualism. Out of pure curiosity to know more about actualism I joined this forum.

I am here to learn more about actualism, satisfy my curiosity, speak to practitioners of actualism.

Thanks
Adi

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Welcome to the forum, @adivader.
You will see that several members have practiced Buddhism from different schools (myself included), so I think you will be able to have fruitful conversations using in principle “your own language” and compare theoretically and experientially both disciplines.
Don’t worry about that.

(Oh, I’ve just change the category of your topic to “Actualism”, where it belongs but where it will also be most visible. “The Watercooler” is for any other topic like music, jokes, chit chat, etc.)

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Hi @adivader , and welcome to the forum!

Unfortunately, your friend is misinformed about what the objectives of actualism are. But not to worry, as you are hear to learn more about actualism, you came to the right place!

To start with what actualism is not…

The goal of actualism is not to stop the chains of Dependent Origination – which starts with “Avijja”, meaning ignorance of the Absolute – at contact itself.

The goal of actualism is not to color awareness with the brahma-viharas (loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic-joy-of-others, equanimity).

The goal of actualism is not to replace all sense contact’s original vedana (as in hedonic-tone) with a positive vedana (as in a positive hedonic-tone).

Rather, the goal of actualism is to successfully employ the actualism method, which is enjoying and appreciating this moment of being alive, as much as humanly possible.

This enjoyment and appreciation is facilitated by feeling as happy and harmless, as felicitous as possible. This felicity facilitates this continuous enjoyment of being alive. But to be clear, continuous enjoyment is in and of itself the actualism method.

To re-iterate:

  • the method is not to stop the chain of DO at contact itself. It is to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive.
  • the method is not to color awareness with loving-kindess. It is to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive by feeling felicitous, as opposed to expressing the ‘good’ feelings such as love.
  • the method is not to color awareness with compassion. It is to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive by feeling felicitous, as opposed to expressing the ‘good’ feelings such as compassion.
  • the method is not to color awareness with empathetic-joy-of-others. It is to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive by feeling felicitous, as opposed to expressing the ‘good’ feelings such as empathy.
  • the method is not to color awareness with equanimity. It is to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive by feeling felicitous, as opposed to feeling equanimous/neutral.
  • and although enjoyment and appreciation and felicity do indeed have positive hedonic tone… the method is not to cause sense contact to lose its original valence and color every experience with the hedonic tone that comes with positive-emotions. Rather the method is to enjoy and appreciate this moment of being alive.

This is one of the key simple points that is critical to grasp. Everything else flows from there :slight_smile: .

I look forward to corresponding with you,
Claudiu

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Hi Adi - welcome to the forum. Certainly not speaking for others but I have to confess I did not understand almost anything you said. Arhat? Vaharas? While some folks here may have a background in Eastern mysticism, many here have strictly Western frames of reference, including myself. I suppose it would be like referring to Christian mystical concepts like Transubstantiation or The Trinity (which are hard enough to understand for the average Westerner) to a rice farmer in the East. Would you care to describe who you are, where you come from, from a secular standpoint? It sounds very interesting.

My name is Rick. After coming upon Actualism in 2004 I committed myself to duplicating Richard’s freedom from the animal instinctual passions, along with self formed thereby, by feeling as happy and harmless as possible regardless of circumstances, with varying degrees of successes and setbacks along the way. I am fascinated by Richard’s current condition of being utterly unaffected by adversity. I have always derived great satisfaction from reading his descriptions and explanations as to what he attained and how he got there. I am presently in the process of conducting a comprehensive examination, inquiry, and analysis into all his millions of words, taking his words to their logical conclusions, as it were, and allowing for any experiences that eventuate as a result.

I hope you find your journey through here interesting. There are some folks that participate on this forum who managed to successfully duplicate Richard’s condition and are a great source of information, insight, and guidance.

Best regards,
Rick

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Hi Rick

Thanks for writing to me.
I completely understand that the language I used will probably not be understood. But yet I mentioned those terms in the hope that it sets some context for at least some folks who might help me orient myself. I see Claudiu has also written to me, giving a detailed explanation of what actualism is not! Which was very helpful.

I will try to give a brief summary while avoiding conceptual paradigms and related language which are unfamiliar to you.

Arhat: Someone who has completely overcome the cognitive processes that create suffering. This involves understanding where suffering comes from experientially and overcoming it experientially - forever.

Brahma-viharas: Imagine that all human beings are predisposed to, and as they grow up get habituated to, relating to the world, other people, situations, sense contacts of all kind from certain unhelpful ‘platforms’. For example the platform of competition, transaction, adversarial-ness. A Brahma-vihara is a platform an Arhat (or anybody else really) can create which is based on friendship, compassion, appreciative joy, equanimity. One learns to abandon the habituated platform and live on and from these new platforms. These platforms are deliberately constructed and maintained. And over time they become the default way of being. These platforms have nothing to do with suffering and overcoming suffering, but are skillful ways of managing interaction with the world at large.

Some background about myself: I experienced a period of depression and anxiety that lasted a decade and I decided to address it using the ‘tech’ of Eastern mysticism. I am very practical and non-mystical, and yes secular as well. I am not at all sectarian. I received great success along the way. There are friends with whom I share my practice and the results thereof. One of them suggested to me that I educate myself about Actualism. On inquiring around I got directed to this forum and thus here I am.

Where may I access Richard’s words? Is there any order or sequence that is optimal in learning more about actualism.

Thanks a lot for your welcome
Adi

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Hi Claudiu

Thanks a lot for writing to me.
Also thanks for pointing out my errors in understanding.

Yes, I am here to learn about what Actualism is, and No, I have no intention of imposing any preconceived notion on top of it :grinning:

Are there resources that you can point me to to gain a preliminary conceptual understanding in line with your explanations but perhaps in an expanded form.

It seems to me that you are quite knowledgeable about the terms I have used and thank you for using that language. It is not my place to correct you, but the one niggle I have is your framing of DO as ‘starting’ from Avijja. Perhaps a conversation for another day :grinning:

Thanks
Adi

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Hi Miguel

Thanks for the welcome. I am still orienting myself to this forum website. Very kind of you to change the category of topic. Will read through past conversations using the search function.

Adi

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Hi @adivader,

if you haven’t already done so, have a look at the simple introduction over at Simple Actualism.

If you want information straight from the horse’s mouth (i e Richard et al) you have the Actual Freedom Trust here. The site can be a bit… opaque at times so consider it an excursion. I personally like the descriptions of PCEs found here.

Welcome :slight_smile:

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@adivader, welcome. This is terribly interesting. Great to have you here! :slightly_smiling_face: I’ve wanted to have a dialogue like this for some time now.

I became actually free nearly 3 years ago now. That means an absence of feelings and self-hood. Since AF I live as this body and mind happily 24/7, delighting in the world I live in and the people I encounter. There is still further to go yet. A full actual freedom, which is also called a ‘meaning-of-life freedom’ is characterised by a complete absence of even subtle non-feeling displeasures and an ever present openness of consciousness to the infinitude of the universe. I cannot say I am there as yet in those respects.

Many years ago I was a meditator in a largely Buddhist vein. But I have forgotten much of the lingo. I have a very basic understanding of the terms you speak of so pardon my ignorance. Sorry to grill you but I am really interested in knowing more!

  1. How many years were you meditating for before you became an arahant and how long have you been one?

  2. Were you on the Dharma Overground following DI’s MCTB by any chance or was it some other teacher or practise?

  3. I know that there are varying definitions of arahantship amongst different Buddhist schools. What are the criteria that you are using?

  4. […] I have adept level skill in stopping the chains of DO at contact itself.

What does it mean practically to have an adept level of skill in this context? What are the other levels?

  1. […] With awareness colored with the brahma-viharas each and every sense contact loses its original vedana (valence) and the act of paying attention / being aware itself carries positive vedana (valence). I do this at will, I don’t abide like this.

[…] These platforms are deliberately constructed and maintained. And over time they become the default way of being. These platforms have nothing to do with suffering and overcoming suffering, but are skillful ways of managing interaction with the world at large.

So the Brahma Viharas are an optional practise that you deliberately cultivate as they enhance your relationships with other beings? Are there any other meditative practises you engage in now?

  1. Do you still have feelings/emotions? How are these experienced now vs prior to you becoming an arahant?

  2. How do you experience yourself and the world - i.e. is there a sense of emptiness of all phenomena, is there a non-dual element, is there an absence of a personal self?

Oh yeah and feel free to likewise ask me any questions also

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Hi Adi,

That’s great to hear :smiley:

Certainly - there is a wealth of material available on the Actual Freedom Trust website (which @emp already linked to): http://actualfreedom.com.au/ .

The This Moment of Being Alive article is an excellent guide to the actualism method. I recommend reading all the footnotes as well.

The descriptions of PCEs that @emp linked are also excellent.

This Introduction to Actual Freedom that feeling-being Peter made a while ago is also a great starting-point.

The way it tends to go with actualism is one starting-point topic expands and flourishes into a multitude of others, all of which then flourish into a multitude themselves, which then interconnect with each other, and after thorough investigation of all the paths it is seen it is actually all really simple, yet it takes a while to get to that point :smiley: .

The best way to investigate a topic is to use Google’s site: feature to search the website, e.g. “site:actualfreedom.com.au brahma-vihara” will yield 4 links:

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Regards,
Claudiu

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Hi Srinath

No worries about the grilling. I will try to answer to the extent I can within the limitations of the written format.

  1. I have been meditating since mid 2016. I gained Streamentry in end 2018. I gained Sakadagami in mid 2019. I gained Anagami in end 2020 and Arhatship in 2021 about 6 months ago.

  2. I have an account on DhO but I participate sparingly over there. I have read MCTB and found it a motivating book, but it wasn’t part of my practice curriculum. I have meditated in line with the Satipatthana Sutra as my insight practice and Asanga’s elephant path (as represented in a book - The Mind Illuminated), I have practiced all 8 jhanas and Nirodha Sampatti, as well as a concentration practice called Nirvikalpa samadhi. My formal seated practice upto maybe 7 to 8 months ago was 3500 hours. After that I stopped tracking it. But I have been meditating approximately 3 hours everyday in that period. My teacher is Stephen Procter a teacher in the lineage of Mahasi Sayadaw from Myanmar/Burma. But Stephen is not a teacher of the Mahasi method. His teachings are heavily directed towards the characteristic of Anatma (absence of a soul) rather than that of Anitya (unreliability).

  3. You can read the criteria that I use here: https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/o8sl9f/vipassana_the_awakening_project_part_1_dus/
    This is a definition based on the 10 fetter model that I have created using my own understanding and is mostly in line with the sutras.

  4. The link between Vedana (valence) and Trishna (thirst) has to be broken by everybody who wishes to attain to Arhatship. The link between Sparsh (contact) and Vedana (valence) is something that is possible as a attainment but it is not a criteria or necessary condition to attain to Arhatship.

  5. My current meditation practice is 3 hours of Nirvikalpa Samadhi. You can read about it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/patiw3/samatha_vipassana_the_midl_practice_of_nirvikalpa/

  6. If by feelings you mean vedana or valence - a sorting tag of positive negative neutral against all sparsh (sense contact) then yes, I have it but can stop it at will. Emotions: I don’t experience Fear, Misery, Disgust or any variant or consequent thereof : Anger, Jealousy, Anxiety, Panic - nothing

  7. The self is seen as a construct - a very useful construct. But it is not seen as the ‘self’ anymore. I am not sure if I am expressing this sufficiently. Emptiness: It is seen, understood and digested that meaning is imputed by the mind. All of conscious experience is created by the mind, all meaning it has is imputed by the mind. The ‘weight’ is nil. Again I don’t know if I have explained myself sufficiently.

Thank you so much for your offer for answering questions. I will first engage with the material that other folks have so graciously shared with me. Digest it and then come back to you with questions. Thanks again. If you need any elaboration on what I have written here - please feel free to ask. The reddit profile I have linked is my own.

P.S. I am not an MCTB Daniel Ingram path model Arhat. I am :slight_smile: the real deal :slight_smile:

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Curious question - why do you still meditate?

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@adivader thanks very much for those answers. I too will have a read before I hit you up again. I’ve already started making my way through the Culadasa book.

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@adivader if you’re still around would be good to hear from you …

I have been meditating since mid 2016. I gained Streamentry in end 2018. I gained Sakadagami in mid 2019. I gained Anagami in end 2020 and Arhatship in 2021 about 6 months ago.

Copy that. How would you say your life has changed since you became an arahant i.e. in terms of work, family and your general experience of life when contrasted with stream-entry or prior? Was there a big change from anagami to arahant?

I have an account on DhO but I participate sparingly over there. I have read MCTB and found it a motivating book, but it wasn’t part of my practice curriculum. I have meditated in line with the Satipatthana Sutra as my insight practice and Asanga’s elephant path (as represented in a book - The Mind Illuminated), I have practiced all 8 jhanas and Nirodha Sampatti, as well as a concentration practice called Nirvikalpa samadhi. My formal seated practice upto maybe 7 to 8 months ago was 3500 hours. After that I stopped tracking it. But I have been meditating approximately 3 hours everyday in that period. My teacher is Stephen Procter a teacher in the lineage of Mahasi Sayadaw from Myanmar/Burma. But Stephen is not a teacher of the Mahasi method. His teachings are heavily directed towards the characteristic of Anatma (absence of a soul) rather than that of Anitya (unreliability).

I always had the impression that anatman and anitya were intertwined in Buddhism. What are the implications of emphasising one over the other when it comes to Buddhist awakening? Is Stephen an arahant himself and does he recognise you as such? - just curious about this, although it doesn’t really make a difference one way or the other.

You can read the criteria that I use here: https://www.reddit.com/r/streamentry/comments/o8sl9f/vipassana_the_awakening_project_part_1_dus/ 5 This is a definition based on the 10 fetter model that I have created using my own understanding and is mostly in line with the sutras

The phrasing you have used seems to be quite unique and different from elsewhere I have read e.g. Pali Canon and Abhidhamma as Wikipedia notes Fetter (Buddhism) - Wikipedia and which is elaborated on here Abandoning the ten fetters What is your explanation or take on this?

The link between Vedana (valence) and Trishna (thirst) has to be broken by everybody who wishes to attain to Arhatship. The link between Sparsh (contact) and Vedana (valence) is something that is possible as attainment but it is not a criteria or necessary condition to attain to Arhatship.

Got it. I found a nifty DO table which I have attached for the benefit of others.

If by feelings you mean vedana or valence - a sorting tag of positive negative neutral against all sparsh (sense contact) then yes, I have it but can stop it at will. Emotions: I don’t experience Fear, Misery, Disgust or any variant or consequent thereof : Anger, Jealousy, Anxiety, Panic - nothing

This I had to do a fair bit of reading to get my head around. From what I gather there isn’t a single word for emotion or feeling in Buddhism. Instead emotion is a complex construct which isn’t necessarily clearly differentiated from thought, both of which are included in the general realm of mental activity. Generally it seems that emotion is the outcome of multiple interacting processes of the skandhas or aggregates…

  1. Form (Pali, rupa)—Physical world
  2. Sensation or Feeling (vedana)—Responses to experience: like, dislike, or indifference (also translated as hedonic tone or valence)
  3. Perception (sanna)—Recognition or interpretation of sense objects followed by mental labeling.
  4. Mental formations (sankharas)— Volitional mental actions, triggered by some object, that produce karma
  5. Consciousness (vinnana)—Cognizance, including thoughts, which this system views as sense objects perceived through the “sense gate” of the mind

But a more comprehensive framework would also include other elements like heart-mind (citta), deep proclivities (anusaya), motivations (muula), craving (tanha)

(sources: Accesstoinsight, Padma De Silva and some other stuff on the interwebs I can’t remember)

Not sure if you would agree with this. From what you have written it seems that you experience emotion but at will are able to uncouple the categorisation of emotion (valence) in response to a trigger? Also you experience positive emotions but none of the negative emotions you mentioned i.e. do you experience love, compassion, joy as a felt emotion?

The self is seen as a construct - a very useful construct. But it is not seen as the ‘self’ anymore. I am not sure if I am expressing this sufficiently. Emptiness: It is seen, understood and digested that meaning is imputed by the mind. All of conscious experience is created by the mind, all meaning it has is imputed by the mind. The ‘weight’ is nil. Again I don’t know if I have explained myself sufficiently.

Are you saying that your sense of self is seen through therefore does not have any power over you? Hmmm not sure what you mean by the words ‘imputed by the mind’. Emptiness I understand conceptually (obviously not experientially) from what I have read about Nagarjuna/Madhyamika. Is that the experience you speak of?

P.S. I am not an MCTB Daniel Ingram path model Arhat …

Can you tell us the difference between an MCTB Arhat and yourself?

It has actually been pretty interesting to go back and study a little Buddhism after all these years. It is a whole other world really :slightly_smiling_face: I’ve long known the distinctions between Buddhism and AF but there is a bit more clarity now in terms of the detail.

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