Disclaimer: My current two cents always subject to change at the drop of a hat.
EDIT:
In the spirit of informed consent, Richard of AFT disagrees with much
of what I've written about on this blog especially this post and
elsewhere concerning my buddhist slant and the comparisons I have made.
For more info on this disagreement visit here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/actualfreedom/message/11702. All the same this technique of HAIETMOBA works so it goes into the yogi toolbox.
HAIETMOBA= How Am i Experiencing This Moment Of Being Alive?
This pointer was originally made popular within the pragmatic dharma crowd by the introduction of the teachings of the Actual Freedom Trust, This pointer is extremely effective in training the mind to recognize what
the dzogchen master Namkhai Norbu, theravadan monk Bhante Gunaratana
and 'the guy who lives on a houseboat on a river in northern NSW' called
Richard of AFT seem to be pointing to in the following quotes:
The
awareness arising at the first sudden instant (of sense contact) is
indeed that pure presence which arises without correction (or
modification) and which is uncreated (by causes). This
very condition of existence which transcends the limitations of both
subject and object is the authentic self-originated primal awareness of
pure presence. Namkhai Norbu
Bhante
G: "When you first become aware of something, there is a fleeting
instant of pure awareness just before you conceptualize the thing,
before you identify it. That is a stage of Mindfulness. Ordinarily, this
stage is very short. It is that flashing split second just as you focus
your eyes on the thing, just as you focus your mind on the thing, just
before you objectify it, clamp down on it mentally and segregate it from
the rest of existence. It takes place just before you start thinking
about it--before your mind says, "Oh, it's a dog." That flowing,
soft-focused moment of pure awareness is Mindfulness. In that brief
flashing mind-moment you experience a thing as an un-thing. You
experience a softly flowing moment of pure experience that is
interlocked with the rest of reality, not separate from it. Mindfulness in Plain English
Richard:
"When one first becomes aware of something, there is a fleeting instant
of the clean perception of sensum just before one recognises the
percept (the mental product or result of perception) and also before one
identifies with all the feeling memories associated with its qualia
(the qualities pertaining to the properties of the form) and this ‘raw
sense-datum’ stage of sensational perception is a direct experience of
the actual. Clear perception is in that instant where one converges
one’s eyes or ears or nose or tongue or skin on the thing. It is that
moment just before one focuses one’s feeling-memory on the object. It is
the split-second just as one affectively subjectifies it ... which is
just prior to clamping down on it viscerally and segregating it from the
rest of pure, conscious existence. Pure perception takes place
sensitively just before one starts feeling the percept – and thus
thinking about it affectively – which takes place just before one’s
feeling-fed mind says: ‘It’s a man’ or: ‘It’s a woman’ or: ‘It’s a
steak-burger’ or: ‘It’s a tofu-burger’ ... with all that is implied in
this identification and the ramifications that stem from that. This
fluid, soft-focused moment of bare awareness, which is not learned, has
never been learned, and never will be learned, could be called an
aesthetically sensual regardfulness or a consummate sensorial
discernibleness or an exquisitely sensuous heedfulness ... in a word: apperceptiveness.
HAIETMOBA
brings the mind back to this very moment every time one asks it to
oneself. Either two experiences will present when asked:
1. One will become aware of one's mood dominating the moment.
2.
The mind will become aware of the fleeting moments of pure sense
contact, the moment of seeing in the seen, hearing in the heard etc
where the experience of a 'seer' and 'hearer' has yet to arise. The
subjective experience of 'mood' and 'me-ness' arises after those
fleeting moments of pure sense contact.
HAIETOMBA aims to cultivate recognition of this pure sense contact awareness, which is free from the sequence that gives rise to the 'seer' and 'hearer' regardless of how these subjective experiences manifest, HAIETMOBA aims to allow this unfabricated, unwarped, unsegregated awareness to be recognized for longer and longer periods till it one day sticks for good.
When
a 'mood' has arisen, some sense contact (thought, sound, smell, taste,
touch, surface and within) was run through a habitual sequence of
'objectification' (1), naming, conceptualizing, evaluating and reacting
via a subjective experience of me-ness/being/sense of exisiting/seperate
identity arising along with it. This sequence leads to a subjective
experience establishing a relationship with the now 'perceived object'.
It seems to be essentially the mind narrowing in and naming a clumping
of atoms and floating particles, sensations, thoughts etc. as some
'solid' or inherently existing 'thing' when it truly is empty of such
inherent existence and via evaluation establishes the mentioned subject/object relationship.
But
if one cultivates recognition of those fleeting moments of pure sense
contact, the sequence that habitually follows it via the narrowing of
the the mind's focus, thus segregating parts of the field of experience
into 'objects', is interrupted. The process which gives rise to the
whole 'me-ness' duality conundrum is continuously interrupted. This
leads the mind into refining the possible courser qualities of the
'selfing processes' (habits/emotions/moods/thought loops of mind). The
tendency to narrow mental focus to create 'objects' for a subjective
experience (selfing process in all manifestations) will begin to
diminish and be replaced by simply seeing in the seen, hearing in the
heard, cognising in the cognised. When there is no sequence that leads
to the 'subjective' experience, there is just a 360 degree soup of sense
contact happening all the time, simultaneously at all sense doors
non-stop.
This
is the unfabricated awareness of pure sense contact; right at the point
of contact. No room for 'you' to arise and cause havoc then, as the
sequence that gives rise to 'you' as an illusory unsatisfactory
experience loses ground.
What if a 'mood' becomes apparent when asking HAIETMOBA?
If
a mood becomes apparent, recognise it as simply a mood that has arisen
due to the sequence mentioned above, giving off a sense of 'me-ness',
'I', 'mine'. Simply recognise what is arising and ask HAIETMOBA again
and allow the point of sense contact to be recognised at all sense doors
as that is what is already occuring right now from moment to moment at
all times. The brain is cognising it all right now, but it often gets
warped and filtered and ignored by the 'moods' and selfing processes.
Accept those warping factors as they arise, gently recognise them
as 'warping factors' and simply return again to the point of pure sense
contact via HAIETMOBA. This is just one way of approaching that which
has arisen after pure sense contact. There are many ways as discussed
below.
The push and pull of 'moods' and selfing processes is too much!!!!
The mind and
its habits can be extremely strong at times and 'you' may keep
arising manifesting as this 'mood' and that 'emotion' and/or this locked
in thought loop to push and pull the mind here and there making it hard
to practice. There are a plethora of ways to deal with such arisings
and return to recognition of the point of pure sense contact. Many
different techniques and approaches to calm and subdue the mind
are available to choose from, to suit your own temperament and
motivating factors for your 'personality'.
If the
actualist context doesn't suit 'you' and your temperament (which is a
common occurrence for many) then there are other ways to get back again
and again to the recognition of the point of pure sense contact. One can
use a hybrid of approaches and use the techniques that appeal. One
could use access to jhana to subdue those self-narratives manifesting as
this and that 'mood', and then see how a jhana is fabricated and take
it apart, investigate how it is fabricated,
let go of those fabricating tendencies and see how doing this leads the
mind to apperception/pre-symbolic awareness/pure presence/pure sense
contact. Aya Khema seems to point to this in the following quote:
"The path moment doesn't have any thinking or feeling in it. It
is not comparable to the meditative absorptions (jhana). Although it is
based upon them because only the concentrated mind can enter into a
path moment, it does not have the same qualities. the meditative
absorptions have — in their initial stages — the ingredients of rapture,
happiness and peacefulness. Later on, the mind experiences expansion,
nothingness and a change of perception. The path moment does not contain
any of these states of mind."
"It
has a quality of non-being. This is such a relief and changes one's
world view so totally that it is quite understandable that the Buddha
made such a distinction between a worldling and a Noble One. While the
meditative absorptions bring with them a feeling of oneness, of unity,
the path moment does not even contain that. The moment of fruition,
subsequent to the path moment, is the understood experience and results
in a turned-around vision of existence."
"The
new understanding recognizes every thought, every feeling as
stress (dukkha). The most elevated thought, the most sublime feeling
still has this quality. Only when there is nothing, is there no stress.
There is nothing internal or external that contains the quality of total
satisfactoriness. Because of such an inner vision, the passion for
wanting anything is discarded. All has been seen for what it really is
and nothing can give the happiness that arises through the practice of
the path and its results."
"The Nibbanic element
cannot be truly described as bliss, because bliss has a connotation of
exhilaration. We use the word "bliss" for the meditative absorption,
where it includes a sense of excitement. The Nibbanic element does not
recognize bliss because all that arises is seen as stress. "The bliss
of Nibbana" may give one the impression that one may find perfect
happiness, but the opposite is true. One finds that there is nothing and
therefore no more unhappiness, only peace.
To
look for path and fruit will not bring them about, because only moment
to moment awareness can do so. This awareness will eventually culminate
in real concentration where one can let go of thinking and be totally
absorbed. We can drop the meditation subject at that time. We need not
push it aside, it falls away of its own accord, and absorption in
awareness occurs. If there has to be an ambition in one's life, this is
the only worthwhile one. All others will not bring fulfillment."
If the above quote doesn't point to a PCE, I don't know what does. Another important quote:
"The
initial fruit moment needs to be re-lived, one has to resurrect it over
and over again, until the second path moment can arise. It's like
repeating what one knows and not forgetting so that one can build upon
it." All Of Us: Beset By Birth, Death and Decay
This 'initial
fruit moment' is what informs the rest of one's direction and practice,
just like the first full blown lasting PCE can do if the right
conditioning/view is in place, and just like the pure moments of
primordial awareness/pure presence can become one's 'view' that informs
all practice as well (according to a Dzogchen master I asked recently).
Other ways may be like the Great Perfection route as expressed by Namkhai Norbu and other dzogchen masters,
accepting all those self-narratives and moods as part and parcel of
that pure sense contact. This seems to strip away the 'objectification'
(1) of such compounded phenomena leading the mind back again and again
to apperception or 'pure presence'. The tibetan dzogchen masters seem to know what they are talking about.
There are a
variety of ways to deal with the 'self-narratives' and 'moods' that push
and pull the mind. Choose which fits you best in order to return again
and again continuously to recognising that unfabricated pure sense
contact, pure presence, apperceptive non-symbolic awareness, and
eventually there won't be anymore mental unsatisfactoriness to throw a
stick at and in its place, an immeasurable friendliness with all
phenomena. The context within which one practices matters very little in
my opinion as long as it motivates one to keep recognising those
fleeting moments of pure sense contact until such recognition becomes
more and more accessible.
A mind/body
subject to 'self narratives' will need to allow such 'self-narratives'
to be co-opted into practicing well. Desire needs to be fueled to
practice. Each person will have differing habitual tendencies, likes and
dislikes manifesting as this self-narrative and that 'view' of the
world. The pure sense contact, pure presence, pre-symbolic awareness,
apperceptive awareness is devoid of 'view'. 'View' is for the
self-narratives to orient themselves once they arise again. If your
practice is fueled by recognition of pure sense contact, then the
'self-narratives' will begin to point continuously in that direction and
become more refined moving ever so closer to dropping away for good. If
they are not informed by such realtime recognition, then they are
subject to being informed by all sorts of madness and misdirection.
A person
conditioned to aim at investigating and coming out of suffering and/or
perhaps helping others as well do the same thing, when this type of
conditioning is in place and when a full-blown lasting PCE occurs with
it already in place, one's entire practice will be informed by such an
experience. One will truly and experientially know the illusion that the
'separate identity' is as it has dropped away in a PCE. One will drop
all attachments to ideas of rituals and ceremonies freeing the mind as
it was recognition of pure sense contact that allowed that to happen.
One will have no doubt about how to go about continuing practice in
order to experience the cessation of one's own mental suffering as the
PCE has shown how that is possible. One will have seen how
unsatisfactoriness arises and how its cessation comes about and from
this experience of the absence of 'being'/self narratives, will know
what to do to keep moving to the end of one's own mental
suffering/unsatisfactoriness. This is my current subject to change
opinion on the full-blown PCEs plus appropriate conditioning being in
place.
I should
include the disclaimer that a practitioner may go through differing
'stages' of changes/baseline shifts depending on how they approach the
practice of recognition of apperception. This is just me speculating and more info and data is needed though to make such assumptions clearer.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Allow the recognition of unfabricated awareness to inform how you practice HAIETMOBA. Ask the question as many times as possible continuously throughout
the day. Bring the mind back again and again to this recognition of
pure sense contact. It is very accumulative. Practice it as a lifestyle practice, not as a goal orientated practice. Results will come in and of themselves.
HAIETMOBA
brings the mind back again and again to this point of contact and one
trains the mind, in my opinion, as the Buddha exhorts:
"Then,
Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there
will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In
reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized,
only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you
there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in
reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only
the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bahiya, there is no
you in terms of that. When there is no you in terms of that, there is no
you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder
nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress."Bahiya sutta
Possible Alternatives to HAIETMOBA
* HITBCITVM (How Is The Brain Cognising In This Very Moment?)
Any others?
(1) 'Objectification':
My
current thinking from my ongoing current experience has shown that the
mind will create 'objects' in the field of experience (sense
contact-eyes/sight, ears/sound, nose/smells, tongue/taste,
body/touch-surface and within) via a narrowing of mental focus, which
segregates 'parts' from the 'whole' field of experience. This
in turn leads to more 'objects' arising within the field of experience
to juxtapose with more 'objects', segregated from the whole, giving rise
to an 'attention bounce'.
This
illusory 'attention bounce' has the mind's attention jumping/flickering
from one perceived/conceived 'object' to another 'object' back and
forth. A thought may become an 'object', a sensation an 'object, a sound
an object, even the notion of 'seeing' and 'hearing' and a sense of
'me-ness', also another kind of 'object', which feels more like a
'subject'; a subjective experience for the 'object' to be related to in some way. But really, it is just another part of the 'objectification' of 'parts' of the whole.
Essentially,
attention bounces around and gives off a sense of 'duality': "'I'
am experiencing 'this'!" Subject and object. This 'objectification'
process gives rise to the subjective experience of 'self' in many
differing manifestations, all in my own experience seen to be
unsatisfactory and illusory. This 'objectification' or conceiving of
'objects' for a subjective experience to
arise and relate to has the mind create an 'object' from a mass of
floating particles and atoms and terms/names it 'hearing', 'seeing', 'a
chair', 'a man', 'a woman', 'hatred', 'self', 'thoughts of want',
'shitty sensations in the chest', etc and sets up all of these 'objects'
for the subjective experience of 'me-ness' to arise as an established
relationship with said 'objects'.
With HAIETMOBA,
one trains the mind to recognize pure sense contact without this
'objectification' occurring for those fleeting moments at a time until
those moments grow into longer periods of lack of 'objectification'/
segregating of conceieved 'parts' of the field of experience.
When
the whole field of experience is now segregated into 'parts', there are
now 'parts' for the mind's attention to bounce back and forth with. When
the entire field of experience is experienced as simply 'the whole
field of experience', without that attention bounce segregating via
'objectification', there is simply 360 degree ongoing experience of a
soup of sensations which can be explained in conventional terms as
seeing, hearing, smelling, sensing, tasting, thought hitting mind, all
cognised as a mass of mixed up sense contact with none of it being
segregated and 'named' 'seeing', 'hearing', etc.
The
mind/body organism is able to function perfectly without 'you' arising
to overlay it all with a sense of 'controlling' and 'defining'
relationships with 'parts' of experience (objectification/conceiving).
When
there is no 'you' arising, everything functions perfectly normal, just
without the 'I', 'me' thoughts/subjective experience relating to the
created 'objects' segregated from the whole field of experience.
'you'
think 'you' can control this process by controlling attentiveness to
physical sensations. but 'you' don't have control in that process -
'you' don't even exist in that capacity, in actuality.
the
actual world is not 'i'. the actual will is not 'i'. intelligence is
not 'i'. consciousness is not 'i'. memory is not 'i'. discernment is not
'i'. intention is not 'i'. motor function is not 'i'. controlling is
not 'i'. attentiveness is not 'i'. physical sensations are not 'i'. this
process is not 'i'.
further,
'the actual world is not 'mine.' the actual will is not 'mine'.
intelligence is not 'mine'. consciousness is not 'mine'. memory is not
'mine'. discernment is not 'mine'. intention is not 'mine'. motor
function is not 'mine'. controlling is not 'mine'. attentiveness is not
'mine'. physical sensations are not 'mine'. this process is not 'mine'.
one who realises that none of these things are 'i', or 'mine', realises 'my' time is up. Tarin
This explanation is subject to future editing.
Nick
