Vineeto: I recommend Richard’s article “Peace on Earth in this Life-Time”
(snipped by Jon: “as an introduction for what actualism is about, and perhaps other of Richard’s articles (Richard, Articles, Index), or even read Richard’s journal (Downloads), before you make such a life-changing decision”.)
Jon: Will do.
Hi Jon,
A waited a couple of days before my reply to give you time to read, digest and perhaps comment on Richard’s articles I had recommended.
Vineeto: Well, if pride is the source of your ‘blithesomeness’ then with this motivation only
Jon: Emphasis added. How blithe could the feeling be if pride was any part of its source? Maybe none. Idk. Maybe a tad. Not sure. But if pride was a motivating factor into resetting so as to allow happiness and harmless then is that not a different story?
Here is the full text of what I said –
Vineeto: Well, if pride is the source of your ‘blithesomeness’ then with this motivation only actualism is not for you – the actualism method is designed to diminish all ‘good’ and bad feelings in order to experience the felicitous and innocuous feelings. Pride is a ‘good’ feeling, whilst hurt pride or unfulfilled pride leads to feeling bad.
You clearly said that you want to “cultivate a sense of being behooved to be happy and harmless” and “valuing happy and harmlessness as a virtue to be proud of might help”. (link)
Perhaps a re-read of the correspondence Richard had with you about pride 13 years ago might assist in understanding. Richard explains in intricate detail the difference in progress regarding consciousness versus progress in materialistic success. (Heavily edited for brevity) –
JONATHAN: … but it his [Richard’s] point about patting yourself on the back which is most pertinent here.
RICHARD: The following is a quote which will serve to illustrate just what it is you are referring to.
Viz.: (…)
JONATHAN: He [Richard] said that feeling beings inner dialogue is quite self-critical.
RICHARD: The following is a quote which will serve to illustrate just what it is you are referring to.
Viz.: (…)
The following (quite lengthy) quote is particularly informative vis-a-vis both this and related issues.
Viz.: (Audiotaped Dialogues, Silly or Sensible)
JONATHAN: So it is a very good idea to pat yourself on the back whenever it will promote felicity or get you feeling excellent so you can move on to wide eyed wonder.
RICHARD: No, what is a very good idea (to use your phrasing) is to pat yourself on the back whenever you succeed in finding out just what it is which is preventing this moment of being alive – the only moment you are ever actually alive – from being lived at its optimum.
In doing so you get to find out how you operate and function (just what it is that makes you ‘tick’ as it were) each moment again.
JONATHAN: So if you are a salesman and just made a big sale, pat yourself on the back with the aim of increasing your current happiness so you can on move to feeling excellent and then to wide eyed wonder.
RICHARD: No, I neither said that nor anything of that nature (I am clearly talking of success, no matter how slight it may be, regarding consciousness and not in regards to materialistic success).
JONATHAN: That is what I took from his comments though I have a history of not understanding his words all that well.
RICHARD: This is as good an opportunity as any to drive home the point I made to [No. 25], (…), inasmuch the words I spoke to you were, essentially, a verbal reiteration of what is already freely available on The Actual Freedom Trust website.
(…)
JONATHAN: In trying to research the site, I find that Peter has a chapter on pride in which he admonishes the feeling.
RICHARD: Maybe, just maybe, feeling-being ‘Peter’ took note of what Richard had to say about pride and examined it for ‘himself’ so as to ascertain whether it be true or not, eh?
JONATHAN: Yet Richard highly recommends ‘patting yourself on the back.’
RICHARD: What Richard highly recommends is being pleased (aka ‘patting oneself on the back’) whenever you succeed in finding out just what it is which is preventing this moment of being alive – the only moment you are ever actually alive – from being lived at its optimum.
JONATHAN: This isn’t a contradiction.
RICHARD: Oh, yes it is.
JONATHAN: They both agree.
RICHARD: They both agree about being pleased (aka ‘patting oneself on the back’) – not about feeling proud – at success, no matter how slight it may be, regarding consciousness.
JONATHAN: In fact, Peter’s last words to me were ‘pat yourself on the back once in a while.’
RICHARD: Aye, but those last words of his were not in regards to feeling proud.
JONATHAN: So ferreting out how the two ideas do not contradict each other is an excellent spot to learn more about the site.
RICHARD: In which case I will leave you with the following quote to mull over as it is but one example of what I have to say about pride (and its companion-in-arms humility).
Viz.:
• [Richard]: (…). Personally I have no humility whatsoever and, of course, neither am I proud. In order to be free of the Human Condition one needs to see the place pride and humility plays in one’s life. ‘I’ am proud of ‘my’ major achievement – which is maintaining ‘myself’ as an identity – and ‘I’ will do anything but relinquish ‘my’ grip on this flesh-and-blood body … including humbling ‘myself’ before some God in order to ameliorate the pernicious effects of pride. However, humility is merely the antidote to pride … and they feed off each other, continuously.
For example, one cannot but feel proud of one’s accomplishment of self-abasing humility … it is in the nature of the entity to do so. A humbled self is still a self, nonetheless, leaving one proud of one’s performance. When one realises how silly all this is; when one sees that pride and humility are standing in the way of freedom from all self-centred activity, something astounding occurs. The opposites vanish. I am simply here where I have always been … and pride, with its companion in arms, humility, has disappeared along with all the other feelings.
I am free to be here now in the world as-it-is. Unadorned and unencumbered, I can stand on my own two feet, owing allegiance to no-one. (Richard, AF List, No. 4, 9 Jan 1999).
[Emphases added]. (Richard, List D, Jonathan, 4 Aug 2013)
I added the emphases because I noticed your tendency to summarize what you read only at a glance, which more often than not leads to you not comprehending of what is being conveyed. When wanting to understand about a brand-new paradigm in human consciousness, an actual freedom from the human condition, quick summaries are useless because you merely paste the template of materialism/ spiritualism over what you read. Such incorrect summaries rather signify a lack of vital interest.
-
Vineeto: actualism is not for you
Jon: Noted.
It is interesting that even your terse answer points to your modus operandi, your technique – and I didn’t need to look far where this “noted” originates from –
JONATHAN: From what I can recall, Richard’s view of the buddha is not in the mainstream. As I understand it, the view that Gautama believed in a universal self is held by a significant minority of scholars. But the mainstream believes that Gautama and the bhagavad gita were on to two different points of views. Because Richard is with the minority, he doesn’t speak of emptiness ever. (I found a definition of it in the AFT and I found a page referencing Zen but I haven’t found anything on emptiness as the pragmatic dharma crowd speaks of it.) My question is. Is emptiness as the dho and kfd folks talk of it a feeling? When those folks speak of emptiness and r. speaks of Being with a captial B, are they talking of the same thing? (Message 162xx, 19 Jan 2014, Subject: Emptiness)
Richard then went into great detail to explain to you the difference between the “‘Noting/ Mahasi Style’/ ‘Goenka Vipassana’” practiced by the Affers in DhO and an actual freedom from the human condition –
RICHARD: (…)
Fifth, the reason why you did not find anything in my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust website on [quote] ‘emptiness as the pragmatic dharma crowd speaks of it’ [endquote] is because what they speak of is the result of the presently-popular but controversial sukkhavipassaka practice (what is known colloquially as the ‘Dry Burmese Vipassana’, as in ‘Noting/ Mahasi Style’ and ‘Goenka Vipassana’, for instance) and which is more akin to the much-diluted modern-day ‘Neo-Advaita’ form of secularised/ westernised nondualism than anything else.
I have written about my degree of interest in that practice on this very forum.
Viz. (emphasis in the original):
#12054
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:47:49 -0000
From: Richard
Subject: Re: it is impossible to marry Actualism and Buddhism
• [Richard]: […snip…].
• [Respondent No. 32]: This is why I wish there can be a direct dialogue between you and some of the accomplished Buddhist teachers..
• [Richard]: I have no interest whatsoever in a dialogue with accomplished *sectarian* Buddhist teachers – and especially not any such teachers of sukkhavipassaka – as the buddhaghosavacana [‘the word/ teaching of Buddhaghosa’] is too far removed from the buddhavacana [‘the word/ teaching of Buddha’] for any meaningful discussion. […]. (Richard, List D, No. 32, 21 Dec 2012).
To explain: that sectarian ‘ditthi’/ ‘drsti’ (i.e., ‘wrong view; theory, doctrine, system’) already mentioned – institutionalised by all those unawakened/ unenlightened practitioners, commentators, translators, scholars/ pundits, and so on, as the anatta/ anatma doctrine – has reified (reify = ‘to consider an abstract concept to be real’) and/or hypostatised (hypostatise = ‘to construe as a real existence, of a conceptual entity’) an otherwise simple expression which essentially means what the English word devoid conveys (devoid = without, sans, free from, completely lacking or wanting in, bereft of, empty of, deficient in, denuded of, barren of; destitute or void of) into being an (affectively) subjective ‘thing-in-itself’, so to speak, as in some kind of a metaphysical ‘emptiness’ and/or a timeless-spaceless-formless ‘void’ beyond all reckoning.
*
Having attended to all the points in your preamble your question can now be addressed as-is. (Richard, List D, Jonathan, 25 Jan 2014)
-
Vineeto: actualism is not for you
Jon: Noted. (link)
Your ‘noting’ has left out my explanation for the reason why actualism is not for you, so I will expand in a summary of our conversation for your further understanding –
Last week you were suggesting one should accept “shit like this”, “an unacceptable world as it is …” because that is your quick-and-dirty ‘noting’ summary of Richard’s suggestion to put things on an ‘it-doesn’t-really-matter’ basis. When I presented Richard’s exact quote you asked me –
**Jon: **How is that not close to what I said? It is better though. It would be beneficial to go and search what he exactly said. thank you. (link)
Also, you informed me that you were contemplating to “cultivate a sense of being behooved to be happy and harmless for myself and to show to others that it’s possible then I think that’s a good life goal” (link) because –
Jon: A problem is real-life goals and values. I was thinking that maybe if I changed those goals and values than I’d have more success. Valuing happy and harmlessness as a virtue to be proud of might help. (…)
I feel a renewal lately. At 48, I am experiencing a mid-life crisis. It is too late for me to be a family man and a successful professional or businessman. It seems taking pride in always being mirthful and never feeling pressured takes the sting away from missing out on having kids and not having a big network of friends or enough luxury money to travel on the drop of a dime or just completely retire right now if I wanted. Without that sting, which can cause some gloominess, it is easier to feel blithesome. (link)
It seems to me that those lengthy explanatory correspondences with Richard in 2013 and 2014 have had no lasting impact – perhaps they went right over your head. You still value pride – “taking pride in always being mirthful” – and say that your aim is to gain “a virtue to be proud of”, and wonder if actualism can assist you in cultivating this virtue. Here is a definitions of what are considered the highest of all virtues –
Richard: • [quote]: ‘Brahmavihara’ (Sanskrit: ‘living in the Brahman-Heaven’), in Buddhist philosophy, the four noble practices of mental development through which men can attain subsequent rebirth in the Brahman Heaven. These four practices are: (1) perfect virtue of sympathy, which gives happiness to living beings (Sanskrit: maitri; Pali: metta); (2) perfect virtue of compassion, which removes pain from living beings (karuna); out of karuna the bodhisattva postpones entrance into Nirvana to work for the salvation of others; (3) perfect virtue of joy, the enjoyment of the sight of others who have attained happiness (mudita); (4) perfect virtue of equanimity, being free from attachment to everything and being indifferent to living beings (Sanskrit: upeksa; Pali: upekkha). These are also called the four Apramanas (infinite feelings), since these four practices give happiness to infinite living beings’. [Emphasis added]. (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
In short, your stated goal is a typical ‘self’-enhancing goal of being blithesome in order to be proud, and proud in order to be blithesome. Isn’t this the same as what the Affers did in 2010, bastardising some of the actualism techniques into gaining prestige amongst their peers? (see Latest Public Announcement, Addendum6).
Should your interest in life, the universe and what it is to be a human being, ever expands into a persistent and vital interest in being happy and harmless because it makes sense to you to do that, let me know. Or, in short, for your convenience –
>Richard: • (Distilled précis for No. 25: Peace-on-earth is nice). (Richard, List B, No. 25, 29 May 1999).
Needless to say this would entail fully abandoning the Mahasi-style Affer-method of ‘noting’ and turning around 180 degrees (see Richard, List D, Claudiu, 7 Feb 2012).
It is impossible to marry Actualism and Buddhism.
Cheers Vineeto