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Richard’s Correspondence On Mailing List ‘D’ with Correspondent No. 32 (Please make sure java-scripting is enabled in order for the mouse-hover tool-tips to function properly; mouse-hover on the yellow rectangular image to enlarge; left-click on the image to hold).
Re: It is impossible to marry Actualism and Buddhism RICHARD: [...] As a matter of related interest, the computer search for the above exchange shows that I have used the word marry in several similar contexts. For instance: [...]
Incidentally, that last one there (about being ‘bound to be confused’ by attempting to marry Buddhism and Hinduism)
should give due pause for re-consideration to anyone artfully trying to dismiss my eleven-year experience, night and day, of full-awakenment/
full-enlightenment via asserting it to be ... um ... more in line with how enlightenment is conceived in the Hindu tradition (for instance). RESPONDENT No. 12: I do not see how that follows Richard. I’m not trying to marry Buddhism and Hinduism. I’m pointing out the flat obvious. Namely that the Awakening the Buddha taught is NOT the Enlightenment that the Indian spiritual tradition talks about(neither in it’s pre-Buddha expressions nor it’s after-Buddha expressions). I am also(obviously) aware that the Indian spiritual tradition has not always been called ‘Hinduism’ and I was just using that term as a convenient well known catch phrase. I hope that was not cause for some confusion. I am also not denying that you were authentically Enlightened as per something similar/identical to what Enlightenment means in the Indian/Hindu tradition. Again, however your Enlightenment is not the same as the Awakening the Buddha taught per the Pali Canon(it is best to not even use the term ‘enlightenment’ for what the Buddha was on about as Awakening is a much better translation of what the Pali was getting at.). Your very own testimony shows you were not free of the 10 Fetters, so I’m really surprised how you do not understand this. I guess we need to go into the 10 Fetters to try to clear this up.
This certainly does not jive with my understanding of what you have written about your enlightenment. Just to be clear, I will ask you a direct question: As an Enlightened Being, were you *totally* free of *all* sensual desire, ill will,
desire for material or immaterial existence in any way/form, sense of self(either personal or impersonal. Ie this is part of ‘conceit’), and
restlessness(any subtle form of anxiety whatsoever)? Because if you were not, then you were not an Arahant. The 10 Fetters are not ‘suppressed’
in Arahantship, they are totally cut, eradicated, blown out forever. My understanding of your Enlightenment was that ill-will/ malice/ aggression
and fear/ restlessness were not eradicate but m kept in check(surpressed? sublimate?) by Divine Compassion and Love Agape. Which I gathered from http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/abriefpersonalhistory.htm I would appreciate you answering this question. (Message 11972) RESPONDENT: G’day Richard A very good question imho and I’m also interested in knowing the answer to this. RICHARD: G’day No. 32, Yes, up until the ‘total annihilation/ complete oblivion’ episodes, on some uninhabited
islands in the tropics off the north-eastern Australian seaboard (I have re-inserted the 1-to-10 Wikipedia list you had snipped off as your co-respondent has left out the pivotal saṃyojana, upon which all of them depend, in the rather selective 4-to-9 follow-up question of his which you have re-presented here). And it was those ‘uninhabited islands’ episodes, of going beyond awakenment/ enlightenment, which experientially gave the impetus for further investigation/deeper penetration into that highly-prized and much-exalted state of being. I had already begun to question karuṇā whilst in India (and had been referring to that questioning with the phrase ‘the trap of compassion’) so my attention then turned to an intimate investigation/ penetration into the very nature of mettā as well and ... well, the rest is history. RESPONDENT: If they say that the fetters are cut from the root, then this means that it cannot arise anymore. RICHARD: Yes, and they are accurately describing their experience; in the fully-awakened/ fully-enlightened state there
is the ongoing experiencing of all saṃyojana having been uprooted, rendered groundless, thrown away,
unable to sprout again For instance:
And another example:
Just as a matter of related interest: when I left Australia in 1984, to fly to India via Singapore on an Indian airline, all I had was three sarongs and three home-sown shirts (plus hairbrush, passport, nail clippers and so forth) in small bag; at the baggage departure counter (in Perth, Western Australia) the attendant, a locally-born employee, somewhat mystified by my lack of luggage, took one look at my bare feet, and insisted on me purchasing footwear in order to board the aeroplane, as per some rule, or regulation; I politely declined, he insistently insisted, I politely declined again, he most insistently insisted, I once again politely declined and the impasse was only broken when a senior airline executive, an Indian woman in Indian garb, came out from her office, took one long look at me (long hair and long beard, full-length sarong, home-sown shirt and bare feet) and clasped her hands together Indian style, bowed her head respectfully, then gestured me gracefully to proceed on through to the departure lounge and, soon, out and on board the aeroplane. Moreover, I had an eighteen-hour stopover in Singapore; in those days hippie-type men with tattered jeans, long hair, beards, etcetera, were banned from entering – an outright crack-down had been taking place for some time – yet, upon approaching the checkout doorway the attendant deferentially waved me through without me having to pause even; I spent the day sight-seeing the CBD, strolling hither and thither as was my wont, and was never approached let alone accosted. There are some distinct advantages to being spiritually enlightened/ mystically awakened when in eastern countries. Regards, Richard.
Re: it is impossible to marry Actualism and Buddhism CO-RESPONDENT: [...]. Just to be clear, I will ask you a direct question: As an Enlightened Being, were you *totally* free of *all* ... ... [i.e. saṃyojana]? RESPONDENT: A very good question imho and I’m also interested in knowing the answer to this. RICHARD: Yes, up until the ‘total annihilation/complete oblivion’ episodes, on some uninhabited islands in the tropics off the north-eastern Australian seaboard, my ongoing experiencing, night and day, of full-awakenment/ full-enlightenment was indeed being totally free of not only *all* of the above saṃyojana but others which appear elsewhere in the Pāli Canon as well. RESPONDENT: G’day Richard Thank you for the detailed reply and I really appreciate them. That said, I recall this from one of the articles:
This is something I find a bit confusing – you mentioned having being irritated 4 times during those years ... RICHARD: G’day No. 32, Yes, and not only just four instances of irritation (which were quite mild, by the way, and only momentary) but several brief flashes of fear, as well, which I further explicate in the next paragraph following on from the section you quoted above. Vis.:
RESPONDENT: ... but going by the fetter model , that does not look possible as the fetters of ill-will and restlessness are uprooted completely and cannot arise any more. RICHARD: No, neither vyāpādo-saṃyojana nor uddhacca-saṃyojana are ever actually ‘uprooted, rendered groundless, thrown away, unable to sprout again’ in the state of full-awakenment/ full-enlightenment – despite that being their ongoing experiencing – as the transcendent nature of that highly-prized and much-exalted state of being is such that the negative emotions/ passions have been sublimated (and not extirpated). I wrote about this distinction betwixt an ASC and a PCE earlier this year on this very forum. Vis.:
RESPONDENT: I would appreciate further clarification here. Maybe I’m missing some point here. RICHARD: Yes, you are indeed missing some point ... the whole point of me going public, in fact, and thereby exposing myself to all manner of totally unwarranted abuse (including the most massive invasion of privacy this forum has ever seen such as to put into jeopardy both my personal security and my physical safety). Look, you provided a quote, further above, which you found in the ‘Selected Correspondence’ on my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust website, and not only did you not read what immediately came after the section you quoted – as in ‘the sublimated passions’ plus ‘the evidence indicating the transcendent nature of the ASC became too much to ignore’ part – you did not click on the follow-up link, with the word [quote] ‘(more...)’ [endquote] in blue, and read what came next in the exchange that particular ‘Selected Correspondence’ came from. Vis.: Actual Freedom Mailing List, Alan 13 December 1998 RESPONDENT: haha , your encounters at the airport with Indians are amusing ..I do know these very well ! Indeed , the whole spiritual enlightenment thing in India is one of the biggest, corrupt money-making markets out there and every now and then you get to hear some sex-scandal or some other money-making scam exposed by these so called ‘babas’ and ‘gurus’ .. I’m surely not impressed by any of that. RICHARD: Then why on earth are you aspiring to become one of them – as in being awakened/ enlightened – such as to actively participate on another forum where that very goal is (purportedly) the out come of their practices? (Not that you will become awakened/ enlightened, of course, via those meditative detachment-dissociative techniques/ meditational affective-repression procedures, but the intent is to become one of them, obviously, else why the participation). RESPONDENT: Thanks once again for your reply. RICHARD: You are welcome, No. 32, and I appreciate you asking for clarification because (even though such clarification is already on the website many times over) more than a few otherwise intelligent peoples have been badly led astray by the affers and their dastardly ‘self’-survival act. Regards, Richard.
Re: it is impossible to marry Actualism and Buddhism Posted RESPONDENT: Again, there is a bit of confusion about what you’ve written. On one hand , you’ve written this :–
And this is what you’ve written in the last post : –
On one hand , you say that ‘they are accurately describing their experience’ and on the other hand you say that they have only ‘been sublimated’. When they say that the fetter is cut off completely, they do mean that it that it cannot arise ever again unless they are lying or they are deluded. RICHARD: G’day No. 32, I had to chuckle when I read your ‘or they are deluded’ words as the entire awakened/ enlightened state is a massive delusion, from beginning to end, and to ponder whether in one aspect of it they are either deluded or lying is really neither here nor there. Also, as I am on record as describing that anti-life state as being ‘a disassociated delusion, a massive hallucination And I say ‘anti-life’ because the whole aim, the very raison d’être, of Buddhism (and Hinduism for that matter) is to escape samsāra, the innumerable successions of life, inasmuch Buddhism (as well as Hinduism) is not an existential solution to the human condition, as is Actualism, but a salvational solution (i.e. deliverance from samsāra). In short, the ultimate goal of Buddhism is amata (just as amṛta is the ultimate goal of Hinduism). RESPONDENT: I do understand that the so called ‘babas’ (especially the Hindu ones) have only sublimated, but the Buddhist criteria is uprooting forever (not sublimating) , otherwise they have technically not achieved what they are supposed to. RICHARD: Maybe this will throw some light on the issue: in my previous email I quoted a paragraph of mine (from Message No. 11042 In a PCE both identity in toto and the entire affective faculty are in abeyance (aka in suspension, dormant, latent). The advantage a PCE – the direct experience of being a flesh-and-blood body only – bestows is that it provides first-hand experience of the existential solution to the human condition known as an actual freedom (whereas an ASC provides first-hand experience of a salvational solution). And in a PCE not only are the negative emotions/ passions in abeyance but so too are the positive emotions/ passions abeyant (as well as the felicitous/ innocuous feelings, of course, as it is the entire affective faculty which is in abeyance, but the current issue is the positive and negative emotions/ passions). Now, the positive emotions/ passions include karuṇā (and/or anukampā/anuddayā) and mettā (and/or pema), for example, and the negative emotions/ passions include soka (and/or cittasantāpa) and vera (and/or viddesa), for instance. If you can find it recorded anywhere in the Pāli Piṭaka (or the Chinese Agama) that all of the positive and all of the negative emotions/ passions have been extirpated, become extinct (as directly experienced, albeit abeyant, in PCE’s), it too would surely qualify as the discovery of the millennia. RESPONDENT: 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 is too far removed from the buddhavacana for any meaningful discussion. RESPONDENT: ..but not with the so called new-age deluded ‘babas’ of the likes of Sri Sri Sri Ravi Shankar etc who have only sublimated and there are just way too many of them around ..I think this will help seal the whole Buddhism vs Actualism debate forever.. RICHARD: There is no Buddhism versus Actualism debate – never was and never will be because they are
180 degrees opposite – and what you have been sucked into is comparing a buddhistic-flavoured therapeutic humanism, with phenomenological
overtones (per favour Mr. Edmund Husserl et al.) and a dissociative/ affectively-repressive psychiatric state Or, as already expressed, a watered-down-and-westernised Buddhism and a watered-down-and-bastardised Actualism. As I have remarked before, it can be quite amazing, at times, to see just how deep shallowness extends RESPONDENT: ..until then such debates will go ad nauseum.. RICHARD: No, I brought ‘such debates’ to a conclusive end, in Message No. 11955 (regarding that nibbāna = the actual world nonsense), and all what remains is a few diehards who have yet to wake up to the fact that it is all over. Vis.:
And I will probably keep on utilising this ‘discovery of the millennia’ format (just as I did further above) until it dawns upon those few that they are unable to back their fancies with facts. * RESPONDENT: Indeed, the whole spiritual enlightenment thing in India is one of the biggest, corrupt money-making markets out there and every now and then you get to hear some sex-scandal or some other money-making scam exposed by these so called ‘babas’ and ‘gurus’..I’m surely not impressed by any of that. RICHARD: Then why on earth are you aspiring to become one of them – as in being awakened/ enlightened – such as to actively participate on another forum where that very goal is (purportedly) the outcome of their practices? RESPONDENT: My intent is simply to end suffering , whatever it takes me to.. RICHARD: With your [quote] ‘end suffering’ [endquote] words you are obviously referring to dukkha-nirodha ... as expressed in, for instance, the Anurādha Sutta. Vis.:
And here are four regular online translations (with the word dukkha re-inserted where they used an English word):
First, I will paraphrase that fourth rendition: Even earlier (in 1997 when I first went online) and now too in 2012 I do *not* point out dukkha and the cessation of dukkha. In fact (to paraphrase all four of them) nowhere at all, on The Actual Freedom Trust website, do I point out and/or proclaim and/or make known and/or describe dukkha and the cessation of dukkha. Never have done and never will do. And in order to explain why not, I will provide an example of your further above sentence with the word dukkha similarly inserted where you used an English word:
Now, quite evidently, when your intent to simply end dukkha succeeds it will take you to nibbāna (because that is the whole point of ending dukkha), right? Put simply: the end of dukkha = nibbāna. Yet, it has already been demonstrated that nibbāna is *not* the actual world (the world of the senses, the sensate world, the sensorial world where flesh-and-blood bodies already reside, as is experienced in PCE’s). Ergo, the end of dukkha does not = the actual world. Put differently, the end of dukkha does not = an actual freedom from the human condition. And because I already knew that, when I first went online in 1997, there was no way I was going to point out and/or proclaim and/or make known and/or describe dukkha and the cessation of dukkha. No way at all. What I went online in 1997 for was to inform my fellow human beings about what lies beyond nibbāna ... namely: this actual world (the world of the senses, the sensate world, the sensorial world where flesh-and-blood bodies already reside, as is experienced in PCE’s). (Incidentally, the English word suffering does not have sufficient explanatory power to be useful for translating the Pāli dukkha). * RESPONDENT: so far I’ve found that both Actualism and Buddhism have helped me in that..I also did take your advice/ caution about the ‘mongrel’ state of being of the ‘affers’ very well. These days , in fact I am more and more seeing that whatever it is – its the universe in action – be it another person in front of me..its like I’m seeing the universe and the concept of a ‘person’ or a ‘me’ is dropping away.. one more question that I’d once asked and I think this might help a lot of people :–
RICHARD: I would not recommend [quote] ‘locating the sincerity/naivete point below the navel’ [endquote] at
all, ever, unless you are 100 percent certain – beyond all doubt – that all of those highly-prized and much-exalted states of being are, in
fact, disassociated delusions/ massive hallucinations as it seems to be far too dangerous, otherwise, if a quote I posted last week, in Message No.
11944
Regards, Richard.
Re: it is impossible to marry Actualism and Buddhism RICHARD: [...] as I am on record as describing that anti-life state as being ‘a disassociated delusion, a massive hallucination’, amongst other similar characterisations, it does appear you may not have read much of my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust website. And I say ‘anti-life’ because the whole aim, the very raison d’être, of Buddhism (and Hinduism for that matter) is to escape samsāra, the innumerable successions of life, inasmuch Buddhism (as well as Hinduism) is not an existential solution to the human condition, as is Actualism, but a salvational solution (i.e. deliverance from samsāra). RESPONDENT: This is true if we go by the multiple-life model (or rebirths) I had once found that several Buddhist teachers had rejected the commonly held notion of rebirth (aka taking physical birth again and again) and rather considered rebirth as the rebirth of suffering again and again and samsara as the that state of mind which experiences that suffering again and again. RICHARD: G’day No. 32, Unlike those several *sectarian* Buddhist teachers (who evidently know not what the Pāli word dukkha refers to) I do not have the option of picking and choosing amongst any such smorgasbord of buddhistic models as I am directly informed by my eleven years, night and day, of living that/being that which Mr. Gotama the Sakyan referred to, via the Pāli text, as dhammam (aka ‘Dhamma/Dharma’) in the Vakkali Sutta, for instance, where he unambiguously states, after first making it abundantly clear that he is not the flesh and blood body, that anyone who sees dhammaṃ sees him and whoever sees him sees dhammaṃ. Vis.:
Thus I experientially know, from that ongoing lived reality, how what is nowadays called Buddhism (as well as what has come to be called Hinduism) is not an existential solution to the human condition, as is Actualism, but a salvational solution (that is, deliverance from being yoked – saṃyojana, fr. saṃyuñjati (saṃ+ yuñjati) where yuñjati = to yoke, literally means ‘yoked together’ – to sensory phenomena (aka ‘sabba’, SN 35.23; PTS: S iv 15) or, conversationally, from being yoked to/ fettered by worldly existence). (Incidentally, as the Pāli word dhamma has some equivalence with the Greek word lógos, considerable light is thrown upon what Mr. Gotama the Sakyan is indicating, in that Vakkali Sutta passage, via the ensarkosis of Mr. Yeshua the Nazarene, in the Greek phrase ‘ho lógos sarx egeneto’, meaning ‘the lógos was made flesh’, in John 1:14 in the Christian scriptures. (The Latin word incarnatio – fr. in + caro, stem carn, meaning ‘flesh’ – corresponds to the Greek ensarkosis). As the Greek term ‘ho lógos en pros ton theon’ and ‘theos en ho lógos’ means ‘the lógos was with the theos’ and ‘the theos was lógos’, in John 1:1, then that well-known epigram ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the theos’, in John 14:9, can be rendered ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the lógos’ by virtue of that very theos = lógos equivalence. Its parallel, then, with ‘Anyone who sees dhamma sees me; whoever sees me sees the dhamma’ is obvious). RESPONDENT: Personally, I am more interested in such a line of reasoning because ... RICHARD: If I may interject (before you go on with your ‘because’ justification): that ‘line of reasoning’, conceived by ‘several Buddhist teachers’, is at odds with, and has no basis in, the buddhavacana (lit. ‘the words/ teachings of buddha’). It is also a classic example of why I have no interest whatsoever in a dialogue with such peoples – as already made clear in this very email you are responding to – and the fact you regurgitate some of their watered-down-and-westernised Buddhism (as in a buddhistic-flavoured therapeutic humanism, with phenomenological over-tones per favour Mr. Edmund Husserl et al.), as if you are having an engaged, sensible discussion with me, makes me wonder whether you suffer some type of ‘reading and comprehension’ disability. Either that or you are vainly hoping to engage me in a defacto dialogue with them, with yourself as a proxy interlocutor, by pretending you are ‘more interested in’ their hypotheses than my first-hand experience. If so, these will be my last words to you because a pretend dialogue holds no interest for me. If not, and you really are ‘more interested in’ their hypotheses than the buddhavacana, then these will also be my last words to you as any such fancies hold no interest for me either. RESPONDENT: ... [because] as you have very rightly said something like :- ‘Whether it is the first life or last , this is the only life we are sure of’. RICHARD: I have never said ‘the first life or last’ and neither have I ever said this is ‘the only life we are sure of’, either. You are obviously referring to a half-sentence of mine in the second paragraph of the explanatory text on the home page of my part of The Actual Freedom Trust website. Vis.:
That half-sentence is self-evidently written in the context of introducing ‘The Third Alternative’ (i.e. Actualism), to either Materialism or Spiritualism, and is, therefore, poor justification for a ‘line of reasoning’ conceived by some persons illuding themselves they can know better than Mr. Gotama the Sakyan just what it was he directly experienced in the luminous hours immediately prior to, and leading him on towards, his highly-prized and much exalted rediscovery of the awakenment/ enlightenment of all of his predeccessors. That they may very well be the same peoples who also illude themselves they can know better than Richard, just what it was he experienced, night and day, for 11 years (not to mention what he has been, since then, experiencing for the last 20+ years now), would not be at all surprising. * You are frittering away a vital opportunity, No.32, so if you would like to start afresh, here is the sequence, from the beginning up to where it could have been an eye-opener for you, with an added last line from me as a self-explanatory lead-in. Vis.:
In fact, it is the very reason why the adage ‘The lotus has its roots in mud’ has such an immediate and intuitive appeal. Regards, Richard.
Re: it is impossible to marry Actualism and Buddhism Posted RICHARD: [...]. that last one there (about being ‘bound to be confused’ by attempting to marry Buddhism and Hinduism) should give due pause for reconsideration to anyone artfully trying to dismiss my eleven-year experience, night and day, of full-awakenment/ full-enlightenment via asserting it to be ... um ... more in line with how enlightenment is conceived in the Hindu tradition (for instance). RESPONDENT No. 12: [...]. I’m pointing out the flat obvious. Namely that the Awakening the Buddha taught is NOT the Enlightenment that the Indian spiritual tradition talks about (neither in it’s pre-Buddha expressions nor it’s after-Buddha expressions). [...]. I am also not denying that you were authentically Enlightened as per something similar/ identical to what Enlightenment means in the Indian/Hindu tradition. [...]. Just to be clear, I will ask you a direct question: As an Enlightened Being, were you *totally* free of *all* ... ... [i.e. 4-to-9 saṃyojana out of a 1-to-10 Wikipedia listing]? RESPONDENT: A very good question imho and I’m also interested in knowing the answer to this. RICHARD: Yes, up until the ‘total annihilation/ complete oblivion’ episodes, on some uninhabited islands in the tropics off the north-eastern Australian seaboard, my ongoing experiencing, night and day, of full-awakenment/ full-enlightenment was indeed being totally free of not only *all* of the above saṃyojana but others which appear elsewhere in the Pāli Canon as well. And it was those ‘uninhabited islands’ episodes, of going beyond awakenment/ enlightenment, which experientially gave the impetus for further investigation/ deeper penetration into that highly-prized and much-exalted state of being. [...]. [No] saṃyojana are ever actually ‘uprooted, rendered groundless, thrown away, unable to sprout again’ in the state of full-awakenment/ full-enlightenment – despite that being their ongoing experiencing – as the transcendent nature of that highly-prized and much-exalted state of being is such that the negative emotions/ passions have been sublimated (and not extirpated). In fact, it is the very reason why the adage ‘The lotus has its roots in mud’ has such an immediate and intuitive appeal. RESPONDENT: There is not one instance of the recorded history that says that the Buddha had mild irritation or bouts of fear post-awakening ... RICHARD: G’day No. 32, First of all, and purely for the sake of clarity in communication, what I had referred to was several brief flashes of fear – three or four ‘bleed-throughs’ from the sublimated/ transcended negative emotions/ passions (i.e. the ‘mud’ in the above the-lotus-has-its-roots-in-mud adage) – rather than the common, everyday fear which a phrase such as ‘bouts of fear’ could convey. I also delineated those momentary instances of mild irritation as being ‘once peeved and three times annoyed’ during those 11 years, so what you may very well have missed, when you were examining the entire recorded history (i.e. the Pāli canon), sutta-by-sutta, in the 2 hours and 39 minutes which elapsed betwixt me posting my above ‘start afresh’ email and you posting your response, was just which spoken words and/or behaviours and/or actions to look-out for which would indicate any such momentary and mild instances of negative instinctual emotions/ passions as being the instigator of such out-of-character lapses. Having said that – and apart from there being several instances in that canon of Mr. Gotama the Sakyan being irritated enough to (for example) abruptly withdraw from communal interaction and retreat into solitude in the forest – the topic under discussion is clearly about whether or not that highly-prized and much-exalted state of being, known as full-awakenment/ full-enlightenment, is in fact *totally* free of *all* saṃyojana (emphases as per the initial question further above). Moreover, it is not just the recorded words, behaviour and actions of Mr. Gotama the Sakyan which can be fruitfully examined, in this regard, but the recorded words, behaviour and actions of all of the duly recognised and acknowledged Arahants (including both male and female) in the Pāli Canon. Therefore, it is going to take more than a mere assertion – and that, surely, is what it really is – about ‘not one instance of the recorded history’ of
Furthermore, to properly conduct an exhaustive examination of the Pāli Canon would not only take years but would require an in-depth knowledge of all the Pāli words, and their many and varied grammatical nuances, as well (as the regular printed or online translations are all flawed, to some degree or another, partly because of translator bias and also because of corrupt dictionaries due to Pāli being a dead language). Obviously, there has to be a better way of discerning the truth of the matter ... and there is, of course, and that way of finding out, for yourself and by yourself, features prominently on The Actual Freedom Trust website. (Of course, that would require actually reading the website – which is something most pragmatic/ hardcore dharma peoples appear to be quite reluctant to do – rather than making ill-informed assertions about both awakenment/ enlightenment and an actual freedom from the human condition). RESPONDENT: ... yet you expect me to agree to that your state of mind during those 11 years was the same as that of Buddha’s state of mind. RICHARD: Quite frankly, I do not expect anyone to agree and am always quite surprised when somebody actually does;
generally speaking, they are people who either can recall or are having a PCE However, there are those who can intellectually comprehend what is being presented – taking *all* the words and writings regarding actualism/ actual freedom as a prima-facie case worthy of further investigation (rather than capricious dismissal) – and thus arrive at an (intellectual) agreement. RESPONDENT: Anyhow , I dont think all this is reaching anywhere ... RICHARD: Oh? And where did you think all this *would* reach when you posted your [quote] ‘A very good question imho and I’m also interested in knowing the answer to this’ [endquote] email? In fact, just what ‘answer to this’ were you ‘also interested in knowing’? Even more to the point: why did you uncritically accept the so-called [quote] ‘flat obvious’ [endquote] premise which your co-respondent based his question on? (I have re-inserted an edited-for-brevity version, at the top of this email, so as to provide context). In other words, is it a fact that being ‘bound to be confused’ by attempting to marry Buddhism and Hinduism stems from the 4-to-9 saṃyojana, out of a 1-to-10 Wikipedia listing (and thus leaving out the pivotal saṃyojana upon which all of them depend), which he asked his ‘direct question’ about? Put succinctly, could it be that the reason why you do not think all this is ‘reaching anywhere’ is because it was a beat-up from the very start? So, I will ask again for emphasis: where did you think all this *would* reach when you posted your [quote] ‘A very good question imho and I’m also interested in knowing the answer to this’ [endquote] email? RESPONDENT: ... and I prefer practise based results ... RICHARD: As there is nothing, absolutely nothing, to prevent you from practising the actualism method (enjoying and appreciating being alive, being here, each moment again), whilst you are typing those words/ whilst you are reading these words, that is a go-sit-on-a-cushion-and-withdraw-from-physicality kind of cop-out. RESPONDENT: ... so here is what I will do – I will practise Actualism with utmost sincerity and see as far as it will take me and if I see that there is something even beyond that, then I will report back. RICHARD: If I might ask? How will you practise Actualism – be it with utmost sincerity or not – when you, quite evidentially, do not know what Actualism is? RESPONDENT: But please , I can only proceed if you can help clear these 2 questions :- RICHARD: How can I possibly help you clear any questions when I am so dumb as to be unable to realise how I was not only *not* fully-awakened/ fully-enlightened, for those 11 years, but am way too dumb to even realise I now am (and have been for these past 20+ years)? Golly, I am even too dumb to realise that Mr. Gotama the Sakyan was really suffusing, pervading every direction with an ‘intent
to help others and reduce suffering If I might also ask? Was he, then, also suffusing, pervading every direction with an ... um ... an intent of a pure,
pre-eminent, unalloyed, all-permeating/ boundless mettā Regards, Richard.
Re: wow ! RESPONDENT: I see how conveniently the AFT has edited and pasted the correspondence to it’s advantage. Shallowness indeed runs deep ! ..and it is precisely for these reasons Actualism is going to fail as a long term solution..I’m unsubscribing from this group and I’m off Actualism practise until I see and hear that Actualism is indeed a successful practise to follow. Good luck to everyone here ! RICHARD: G’day No. 32, Despite what you say you [quote] ‘see’ [endquote] it is not the case that The Actual Freedom Trust has edited and pasted my correspondence to The Actual Freedom Trust’s advantage (whatever that means). It is actually the webmaster (currently Vineeto) who copy-pastes all my online correspondence onto The Actual Freedom Trust website’s archives and I have checked with her and she assured me that, apart from anonymising, correcting spelling, fixing typos, and the such-like, nothing has been edited-out at all. To date I have written and posted five (5) emails to you on the ‘Yahoo Groups’ forum – this is the sixth – and they may all be accessed at the following URL in their entirety. Vis.:
Alternatively, they can be accessed one-by-one at the following URLs. I have also coupled each of the corresponding ‘Yahoo Groups’ URL with each of those website links so that you can compare each and every post with each and every one of those archived emails. You will need to have java-scripting enabled to view the yellow ‘mouse-over’ in-line footnotes. (Incidentally, the very first one has more of the original question’s context added, than I had re-inserted in my initial reply, so as to provide even more contextual embedding ... apart from that, what appears on the ‘Yahoo Groups’ forum is what appears on The Actual Freedom Trust website). Vis.:
Regards, Richard.
Re: it is impossible to marry Actualism and Buddhism RESPONDENT: G’day Richard I have catalogued the points of interest from this conversation on the Dho. This will help prevent another fool like me to waste time discussing such things with you. Right, eh ? RICHARD: G’day No. 32, Whilst I am pleased to see you are trying to make it clear to pragmatic/ hardcore dharma practitioners that Buddhism is not Actualism (your emphasis on the fact I do *not* point out dukkha and the cessation of dukkha might very well drive it home to them), was it really necessary to resort to lying? Vis.:
Nothing, absolutely nothing you said in any of my five (5) emails to you on the ‘Yahoo Groups’ forum has been edited-out
... let alone [quote] ‘totally removed’ [endquote] Regards, Richard.
Re: Few humble words from Justine RICHARD to No. 37 (Sock-Puppet ‘I’): [...]. Now, I know for a fact that [Respondent No. 00] (posting as <email ID withheld>) is not a ‘sock-puppet of Richard & Associates’ as that is both her birth-certificate name and the only email ID she used. Also, she was quite up-front about having met in-person. Vis.:
(Incidentally, she is the woman I referred to, in the post (#10532 CLAUDIU: I find it amazing how consistent and consistently positive people’s impressions of actually free people are after having met them in person. [No. 4]’s initial reports, my reports, woman-from-another-continent’s [No. 6] initial reports, [No. 25]’s reports, [No. 00]’s report here, etc... safe, sincere, helpful, fun, harmless indeed! It’s too bad it doesn’t always come across that way on the internets. But really – and this will unfortunately be lost on anyone who doesn’t already get it – you don’t know what (e.g.) Richard is like till you’ve met him in person.... and even then you might later forget. Here’s some more speculation as to why that is, using analogies from my experience with programming. It might be analogous to a broken abstraction. [...]. Writing is an abstraction over spoken communication. Thus as humanity has learned more and more to communicate with words, it has done so with the assumption of communication between feeling-beings. Writing is a proxy for full-fledged communication, one which conveys a lot less information... so we’ve had to learn to take that limited information and blow it back up to what the full-fledged message was, which involves accounting for all the feeling-states at the other end of it. [...]. Society has developed this abstraction of writing *amongst feeling-beings*. So of course when we see written word we automatically ascribe the feeling-tones that the person intended to convey – because those feeling-tones were indeed usually there on the other end. This seems to be more difficult with people from other cultures, then progressively easier as you get to the same culture, same peer-group, and then to those you know the best/who are closest to you, as it seems you fine-tune that feeling-tone-insertion algorithm more and more the more you get to know that person (though misunderstandings can still occur). The problem, as of 1981, is that this abstraction no longer holds true for every human that one can communicate with ... not all humans now have that feeling-being doing the talking for them (so to speak). Yet so intrinsic to writing is the generation of feeling-tones over it/the reading-into it of affect coming from the other side that of course we continue to do this even when communicating with someone who no longer is a feeling-being (e.g. Richard). Thus, broken abstraction –> unintended consequences. So, it seems to fix this broken abstraction, you can do one of two things: 1) Meet an actually free person in person so as to see exactly what it means for someone to be sans affect entirely. Then it will be possible – even as a feeling-being – to see how someone can communicate without affect, and how exactly that works out, which can then be used as something to keep in mind whenever reading words by said person. 2) Read the words of an actually free person while in a PCE, thus with your own affective faculty being in abeyance, and/or while tapping into pure intent. Here the filling-in-affect part of the process of reading written communication will also be temporarily in abeyance and you will be able to read those words as they were written – sans affect. (Message 13996)RESPONDENT No. 6 (Sock-Puppet ‘MJ’): i see what you mean. But Tarin and Justine have withdrawn from AF. Justine’s progeny also. we have been informed by the lady from the other continent and some others on this forum that Pamela and Tom have left the AF too. so, there is something dubious about Richard’s ideology in the first place. CLAUDIU: Tarin withdrew his claim after finding it untenable to claim actual freedom while being unable to recognize it in others. Justine & his progeny withdrew their claims it seems because they disagree with Richard on important points. I haven’t heard about Pamela and Tom withdrawing their claims – where have you heard about that? There’s nothing dubious about this if you consider that a) an actual freedom is an objective, factual way of existing and b) it’s possible to consider yourself actually free when you aren’t. RESPONDENT No. 6 (Sock-Puppet ‘MJ’): Lady from the other continent has written extensively about Richard and has revealed many details which put Richard in a very untenable situation. It is not about what and how Richard has written here or on internet, ALONE, but how has he acted with people – [No. 4] and Lady from the other continent who have met him extensivetly. [No. 4] actually did not write much about Richard after his second visit and pointed that he did not like the cult around Richard that had been buit. This was immediately after his second visit. CLAUDIU: All I’ve seen is a lot of talk and no substance (i.e. facts). When I ask for substance I’m told that the substance can’t be revealed due to privacy concerns. This despite the fact that supposedly ‘secret’ stuff keeps being leaked – which, after being leaked, is also shown to have no substance. Further, archived messages with supposed substance in them have been deleted. In the meantime Richard is slowly demolishing factoid by factoid with his considered replies. If there was indeed anything of substance about any claims that reveal something adverse about Richard, everybody propagating those claims has done a terrible job of it. Pro tip: don’t pose as somebody’s dead ex-wife when you are trying to perform a character assassination of that somebody. It... well, it just doesn’t really promote you as someone of an honest nature. RESPONDENT No. 6 (Sock-Puppet ‘MJ’): First impressions can be totally wrong and misleading because it is less about the person but more about what you think of them. It is only when you meet someone for a longer time that you get to know a person, how he acts in different situatiosn , where your pre conclusion are not (mis -) guiding you. CLAUDIU: Sure, I could see that. So, how about Peter & Vineeto? Surely they would have said something by now if Richard had a history of violence. How many years have they known him? Likewise with Tom, Pamela, etc. In the meantime we have [No. 5 (Sock-Puppet ‘H’)], [No. 37 (Sock-Puppet ‘I’)], you [No. 6 (Sock-Puppet ‘MJ’)] and [No. 2], all railing against Richard without ever having met him. Richard is entirely consistent in all his interactions. I remember Vineeto telling me that once, after having already known Richard for some time, she came by to visit Richard and caught him just waking up (or he was sleeping & she woke him up). She said she was impressed by what she saw – that just-woken-up Richard was exactly the same as fully-awake Richard – because most people, having just woken up, haven’t yet put their face/their persona on. There’s a lot of talk, emotion, and feelings surrounding this whole debacle, but there’s simply not much in the way of
facts to support any adverse claim against Richard or actual freedom. (Message 13999 see RESPONDENT: Methinks it is all happening because, as feeling beings, they either dont get the nature of innocence or they forget it.. RICHARD: G’day No. 32, Where you say ‘it’ (as in, ‘this whole debacle’ above) is all happening because, as feeling beings, ‘they’ (as in, ‘[No. 5 (Sock-Puppet ‘H’)], [No. 37 (Sock-Puppet ‘I’)], you [No. 6 (Sock-Puppet ‘MJ’)] and [No. 2]’ further above) either do not get the nature of innocence, or they forget it, just what is it you are cognisant of about those four online personae which persuades you to think that? Also, just what is it that you are cognisant of about those two persons Claudiu referred to at the beginnning of this thread – in his [quote] ‘No. 4]’s initial reports, my reports, woman-from-another-continent’s initial [No. 6] reports, [No. 25]’s reports, No. 00]’s report here, etc.’ [endquote] words (much further above) – which persuades you to think that they too either do not get the nature of innocence or they forget it? I would be most interested to hear about just what pattern of behaviour it is – consistent throughout the online actions of all six personae – that you are cognisant of. Regards, Richard. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• P.S.: Pleased to read your ‘Resuming actualism practise’ post (#13xxx Re your query about ‘the benevolence aspect’ of the actual world: perhaps if you were to think of it in a similar way to what is expressed in the phrase ‘a benevolent climate’, for instance, it might start to make sense. Here are a few random samples from an Internet Search:
Of course, I mean it in much more than a ‘conducive to life’/ ‘conducive to growth’ sense ... oft-times expressed by me as ‘I am swimming in largesse’, for example, so as to convey the super-abundance of life, here, in this pristine paradise which this verdant and azure planet is in actuality. Vis.:
Re: The Felicitous Thread RICHARD to No. 5: [...snip...]. In short, you are on a hiding to nowhere, and fast, trying to impose real-world standards – where they are an absolute necessity due to the aforementioned wayward ‘self’ – on the peoples populating Terra Actualis (where nothing ‘dirty’, so to speak, can get in and/or gain a foothold). For here all is immaculate perfection. Regards, Richard. ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• P.S.: Incidentally, the sentence which started all this – with [No. 25] saying he thought it a very strange thing for me to
ask him, when he was here previously, ‘what would be the point Perhaps an analogy will illustrate: a person makes an appointment with the owner-manager of an opulent Rolls Royce dealership,
in top end of town, whereupon, after making urbane acquaintance, he has all the virtues of the latest and most state-of-the-art luxury limousine
ever to grace the lushly carpeted floors of that august establishment reported/ described/ explained to him in meticulous detail only to say, upon
having a gracious invitation extended to him to personally take the wheel for a climate-controlled test-run, that what he really has in mind is a
Datsun Bluebird 311 And in vain doth the owner-manager freely proffer his priceless, top-of-the-line luxury limousine – which is, verily,
immaculate perfection on four wheels – complete with its conveyance transaction to be enacted in an instant (and at no monetary cost whatsoever)
as the person concerned is adamant in regards the Datsun Bluebird 311, and its indefinite-period lay-by instalment plan, because a friend, a friend
with a history, has convinced him that the owner-manager is a ... um ... a ‘lunatic cunt’ Hence the word ‘bizarre’ in that sentence which started all this. CLAUDIU: I took note of the following in your email, when you asked [No. 25] ‘what would be
the point in flying halfway around the world only to fly back the same person you were before you left when it is so *dead easy* to become
(newly) free Given you say it is dead easy to become newly free, and that someone managed to become newly free so easily, I was left asking myself – why have I not yet allowed it to happen for myself, given that it’s been around 15 months or so since I visited you & Vineeto? Perhaps the time was not right for me then as I had just woken up from quite the painful & unproductive dream that pragmatic dharma is, and the implications of that took some time to sink in, get processed, and settle down.. but all has been good on that front for some time now. It turns out, not surprisingly, that there’s still some reluctance to allowing it to happen – allow ‘me’ to never-have-been. So I’ve taken it upon myself to get to the heart of the matter and unfearingly go directly to that reluctance and see just what ‘I’ am about over there. So far the results have been delightfully promising! I find an overarchingly willing ‘me’ who is taking a gander at some bits of ‘me’ that ‘I’ haven’t been willing to (or haven’t thought to) look at, yet, yet there is no real resistance there – no game-breakers – just a simple matter of getting all of ‘me’ on board with this. I’m going to keep at it – addressing the heart of the matter (what, right now, is preventing me from
becoming actually free?) – and see where that takes ‘me’ =). (#14749 CLAUDIU: Hello all, I recently wrote: ‘So I’ve taken it upon myself to get to the heart of the matter and unfearingly go directly to that reluctance and see just what ‘I’ am about over there’. [...]. So far, the results are astounding! I find after a good session of introspection of the above sort – going right to the reluctance and no longer ignoring it, then neither expressing nor [suppressing] it – clears away quite a bit of feeling-bad and leads to unbidden felicity. Richard wrote:
So, everyone on this list who is actually interested in being happy & harmless – let’s make this an auspicious month, shall we? Perhaps by expressing felicitous & innocuous [vibes] ourselves in words on this forum we can turn around the vibe of this list into something more akin to posting out of the sheer enjoyment of being alive – or at least from that felicitous place – vs the often-glum-and-serious business that is more the norm. An auspicious month it shall be! What say ye? (#14756) RESPONDENT: An auspicious month then, as the moment is always :) Just yesterday, 2 things occurred while on a flight trip : – 1. While entering the security check-in gates, I was frisked by a rather rude group of security staff and I realized that my bad feelings were coming because of seeing them in a position of power and ‘me’ being helpless and at their mercy. I wondered how to turn around this and I realized that such events are going to happen ad-infinitum and it kind of hit home a bit deeper that there is just no long term solution to be found in the ‘human’ world of feelings – the seeing of this landed into a short EE. I still haven’t got the guts to abandon humanity yet and I can see how it is a sort of a ‘virtual’ cord that is linking ‘me’ to the ‘human’ world. 2. While in the flight I happened to remember Richard’s ‘looking between the stars instead of looking at the stars and realizing infinity’ (paraphrasing here) and I wondered how could there be infinity when the line joining the stars is finite until I happened to look behind that line and away (along the line of sight itself) and whoa it sucked for me a second or two into an infinite like abyss – but again the logical mind comes back to say ‘nah dont commit to infinity’.. but in all was a fun exercise ! back to having fun in the only moment :) RICHARD: G’day No. 32, In regards to the first of the two things which happened to you while on a flight trip: the realisation that your fellow human beings, when in an everyday position of power and control, will (on occasion) pull a power-trip on their fellow human beings – per favour blind nature’s rough and ready software survival package – can be of an on-going benefit (as well as that immediate long-term benefit, which you have already reported, of it hitting home to you more deeply how there is just no long term solution to be found in the human condition) but only provided your on-the-spot realisation manifests as an actualisation, of that valuable insight, in your moment-to-moment living. An anecdote might best illustrate what I mean: many years ago my then-companion Devika would oft-times say to me that I should stand up for myself and not let peoples (such as you describe) push me around ... indeed, it was one of the reasons she created a psychic force-field in her psyche (which is, of course, the human psyche) so as to protect what she saw, experientially, back then as innocence personified. (She was wont to exclaim, on occasion, how ‘Richard brings something marvellous – something absolutely wonderful – into the world and yet everyone deposits ordure on it’ ... albeit not expressed quite so politely as that). What she did not realise – except during a PCE of course – is that innocence itself (the genuine article and not the so-called innocence of children) requires no affective vibe/ psychic current protection whatsoever and, therefore, in vain would I explain to her that, in everyday situations such as you report (where the whole point of the exercise is to walk out the door with the goodies which those in a position of power and control can either dispense or withhold), I had no interest whatsoever in futilely striving to win a puny ego-battle with some officious power-tripper but, instead, walk away with the said goodies each time. Regarding the second of the two things which happened to you on that flight trip: there have been more than a few peoples ask me (but as a ‘gotcha’ question, of course, in their minds) what sensory organ it is whereby the infinite nature of this physical universe’s space can be detected – whereupon I usually answer that it is simply a matter of apperceptive awareness (inasmuch it is ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being, which is ‘being’ itself, who automatically creates a boundary to ‘my’ awareness by virtue of being the centre of ‘my’ consciousness) – and it makes for a pleasant change to read what you have to say upon having gazed deeply into that velvety darkness betwixt the stars and thereby experienced for yourself ‘an infinite like abyss’ for a second or two. (Incidentally, that ‘abyss’ description comes from an experience of that nature being a momentary loss of ‘self’ – or even partial loss more likely – as any such abyss-experience stems primarily from a (temporarily) non-egoic glimpsing of death-of-ego, rather than ‘self’-immolation/ ‘self’-extinction in ‘my’ entirety, as it is a feature of pre-awakenment/ pre-enlightenment experiences as well). Please note that I am not suggesting for a moment that the human eye – be it partially/ fully ‘self’-less or not – is powerful enough in its reach, or receptive enough in its absorption, to be viewing infinite space in a measuring sense (such as estimating the distance to a mountain peak, say, ten miles or so away) as infinity simply cannot be measured. The human eye is, rather, looking into infinity (when gazing deeply into that velvety darkness betwixt the stars) in the sense that there is no limit to its seeing ability other than its own physical capacity due to having evolved on a planet a short distance away, in astronomical terms, from its central star (aka the sun). There is an interesting twist to all this inasmuch, back in 1998 (on July 12 I responded with an intellectual – and therefore unsatisfying – answer at that time. By way of [physical] explanation I have presented it thisaway: in 1610 Mr. Johannes Kepler advanced an argument against the universe being infinite and eternal, and thus containing an infinite number of stars (a hypothetical problem nowadays popularly known as the ‘Olbers’ Paradox’ after the German astronomer Mr. Heinrich Olbers who also discussed it in 1823), by proposing that if the universe is indeed infinite and eternal and uniformly populated with luminous stars then every line of sight must eventually terminate at the surface of a star ... which implies that, contrary to observation, the night sky should everywhere be bright with no dark spaces between the stars. (This hypothesis erroneously assumes, of course, that because the night sky does not *appear* to be bright to the naked eye, with no dark spaces between the stars, then it is so in fact). In order to comprehend why it was presented as an argument against the universe being infinite and eternal it must be borne in mind that in both 1610 and 1823 the known universe was a one-galaxy universe (the ‘Milky Way’ galaxy) and it was not until 1929 that astronomers discovered there were other galaxies ... many other galaxies, in fact (the last time I looked it up the then-current estimate was 125 billion and rising). As recently as October 2001 astronomers, using the Hubble Deep Field telescope, looked 12 billion light years away from planet earth (one light year is approximately six trillion miles) into a speck-size area of the southern sky, an area so tiny to the naked eye that it would be obscured by a grain of sand held at arm’s length, and spied 620 galaxies (and one galaxy alone can contain trillions of stars). If the naked eye was optically receptive enough, or powerful enough in its reach (or whatever the right word is to describe what it is not) there would be nowhere it could look that its every line of sight would not eventually terminate at the surface of a star ... and the night sky would no longer appear to be dark. Hence it could be said that the universe is indeed a brilliant universe (in more ways than one) or, to put that another way, there is only light after all! Or, as Vineeto expressed it recently (in Oct 2010), in an apperceptive context, ‘the universe [is] ablaze with light from infinity to infinity’. Regards, Richard.
RETURN TO MAILING LIST ‘D’ INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one.
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