"Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
User avatar
Sabbe_Dhamma_Anatta
Posts: 2177
Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2019 5:06 pm

"Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

Post by Sabbe_Dhamma_Anatta »

40-DAY MEDITATION RETREAT AT PA-AUK TAWYA, BURMA


  • WHY I DECIDED TO GO MEDITATE AT PA-AUK TAWYA
    • Gabriel Rocheleau wrote:I heard about Pa Auk by doing a web research. Exploring the fascinating world of concentration practices appealed to me. In my previous 10-day Goenka Vipassana retreats, we only did 3 days of concentration practices and then proceeded to insight meditation. I always wondered what the results would be if I pushed my concentration further, so I decided to go meditate at Pa Auk for 40 days.
  • FIFTH WEEK – IS CONSCIOUSNESS ME?
    • Continuing to meditate, the nature of phenomena kept getting clearer. I still experienced sensations, thoughts and mind states in a very spacious and distant way, and the big “who’s seeing all of this” question was puzzling me on a visceral level.
    • Maintaining the illusion that things were “solid” was downright impossible.
    • On several occasions, even thoughts were very hard to form. It’s complicated to describe how I experienced them, but they just seemed like tiny abstract ripples.
    • Even “intentions” were seen in “3rd person”, ..... and were definitely not “me”.
    • around day 30, there was a shift in the way “I” experienced reality.
      It occurred to me that I wasn’t conscious of sensations. They were conscious of themselves.
      It might not make sense to you. You might wonder why this would be relevant. But it made all the difference in the world. “Consciousnesses” were arising with their respective sensations. It all came as a “package deal”. There wasn’t “anyone” watching. The process was just watching itself. Consciousness was permeating phenomena, just like yellow is imbued in a lemon.
    • Nothing was happening to anyone. It was just happening. ..... All of this wasn’t even happening to anybody! It was just happening.
    • It’s very hard to describe how this made “me” feel. Questions like how “I” felt can’t be asked. They are fundamentally flawed.
      What does a camera see when you turn it off?

  • " Questions like how “I” felt can’t be asked. They are fundamentally flawed."

:heart:
𝓑𝓾𝓭𝓭𝓱𝓪 𝓗𝓪𝓭 𝓤𝓷𝓮𝓺𝓾𝓲𝓿𝓸𝓬𝓪𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓓𝓮𝓬𝓵𝓪𝓻𝓮𝓭 𝓣𝓱𝓪𝓽
  • Iᴅᴇᴀ ᴏꜰ Sᴏᴜʟ ɪs Oᴜᴛᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴀɴ Uᴛᴛᴇʀʟʏ Fᴏᴏʟɪsʜ Vɪᴇᴡ
    V. Nanananda

𝓐𝓷𝓪𝓽𝓽ā 𝓜𝓮𝓪𝓷𝓼 𝓣𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓣𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮 𝓘𝓼
  • Nᴏ sᴜᴄʜ ᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴀs ᴀ Sᴇʟғ, Sᴏᴜʟ, Eɢᴏ, Sᴘɪʀɪᴛ, ᴏʀ Āᴛᴍᴀɴ
    V. Buddhādasa
User avatar
JamesTheGiant
Posts: 2147
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2015 8:41 am
Location: New Zealand

Re: "Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

Post by JamesTheGiant »

Good article, thankyou. I'm glad I don't do intense retreats anymore! The memories are of pain and dread. But they were also amazing and useful times.
sakyan
Posts: 171
Joined: Tue May 14, 2019 1:00 pm

Re: "Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

Post by sakyan »

Sabbe_Dhamma_Anatta wrote: Sat Dec 26, 2020 6:04 am 40-DAY MEDITATION RETREAT AT PA-AUK TAWYA, BURMA


  • WHY I DECIDED TO GO MEDITATE AT PA-AUK TAWYA
    • Gabriel Rocheleau wrote:I heard about Pa Auk by doing a web research. Exploring the fascinating world of concentration practices appealed to me. In my previous 10-day Goenka Vipassana retreats, we only did 3 days of concentration practices and then proceeded to insight meditation. I always wondered what the results would be if I pushed my concentration further, so I decided to go meditate at Pa Auk for 40 days.
  • FIFTH WEEK – IS CONSCIOUSNESS ME?
    • Continuing to meditate, the nature of phenomena kept getting clearer. I still experienced sensations, thoughts and mind states in a very spacious and distant way, and the big “who’s seeing all of this” question was puzzling me on a visceral level.
    • Maintaining the illusion that things were “solid” was downright impossible.
    • On several occasions, even thoughts were very hard to form. It’s complicated to describe how I experienced them, but they just seemed like tiny abstract ripples.
    • Even “intentions” were seen in “3rd person”, ..... and were definitely not “me”.
    • around day 30, there was a shift in the way “I” experienced reality.
      It occurred to me that I wasn’t conscious of sensations. They were conscious of themselves.
      It might not make sense to you. You might wonder why this would be relevant. But it made all the difference in the world. “Consciousnesses” were arising with their respective sensations. It all came as a “package deal”. There wasn’t “anyone” watching. The process was just watching itself. Consciousness was permeating phenomena, just like yellow is imbued in a lemon.
    • Nothing was happening to anyone. It was just happening. ..... All of this wasn’t even happening to anybody! It was just happening.
    • It’s very hard to describe how this made “me” feel. Questions like how “I” felt can’t be asked. They are fundamentally flawed.
      What does a camera see when you turn it off?

  • " Questions like how “I” felt can’t be asked. They are fundamentally flawed."

:heart:
This is exactly what I experienced when I was pumped up by the Books of Thai Ajahn Ven Maha Boowa and Ven Ajahn Chah and seriously meditated on a home retreat.

As I kept my mindfulness established on the arising and passing away of consciousness, The experience became clearer and clearer.

I saw the body as just body and consciousness animating it at any of the six sense bases at a time, Further I saw that consciousness was just consciousness, It was not I, mine or my self. It was just consciousness, what else it could be?

From there the belief in a 'Self' weakened and I saw myself as mere assemblage of the 5 khandas.
auto
Posts: 4584
Joined: Thu Dec 21, 2017 12:02 pm

Re: "Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

Post by auto »

https://www.updevelopment.org/pa-auk-tawya wrote:However, my teacher told me to keep focusing on the breath until the Nimitta and breath “merged” and pulled me into the first Jhana.
that above is important.
which he didn't achieve on that retreat.
https://www.updevelopment.org/pa-auk-tawya wrote:After 20 days of focusing solely on the breath, I decided it was enough. I was strongly determined to use this retreat to grow as much as possible as a human being, and didn’t feel like pure concentration practices were an efficient use of my time.
I turned my attention to the always-changing and fascinating reality. I switched to insight meditation.
there is prolly a reason, he was learned to ignore sense of self because of misunderstanding anatta, no soul, khandhas are not self..
https://www.updevelopment.org/pa-auk-tawya wrote:Who was I?

As soon as that question arose, I felt very strong vibrations and palpitations throughout my body. Nothing made any sense. Nothing was me. Who the hell was experiencing all of this? Who was looking? Who was “The Observer”?
..
My meditative insights pretty much remained the same, “I” still couldn’t figure out who was “watching” all of this, and it clearly felt like something was wrong.
i think it stemmed from his concentration being weak,
if he would have strong concentration(in context of what he wrote) then he would have come aware of himself.
https://www.updevelopment.org/pa-auk-tawya/ wrote:I began to see how much of a beginner I still was, even after a few years of regular meditation practice. It was getting clearer that the impression of having good concentration abilities was only caused by the grossness of my mind. Isn’t it ironic that the better my concentration got, the weaker I felt it was? Great lesson of humility!
and the concept of breath would have made more sense. I think the teacher talk about different conceptual breath than what he thinks of conceptual breath,
https://www.updevelopment.org/pa-auk-tawya wrote:I began to wonder if I was practicing correctly. I remembered the teacher telling me I had to focus my attention on the “conceptual breath”.
..
I think that the key thing in “nailing” the conceptual breath was to seek and find the only constant and unchanging part of the breath, which is the mental conceptualization of it.
Note that this concept is not “ultimately real”, it’s just an idea, an agglomerate of diverse sensations that we identify as the breath.
if he would have had strong concentration and become aware of himself, he would have reached this point quickly that the breath interrupts concentration,
https://www.updevelopment.org/pa-auk-tawya wrote:Once in a while, I had to take deep conscious breath, since I felt like my breathing had stopped. My concentration was always “blocked” by this..
he has wrong idea of conceptual breath and how to focus on it,
https://www.updevelopment.org/pa-auk-tawya wrote:The following morning, I went to my teacher and asked him about my flickering eyes. He told me it was likely because I was trying to “see” my meditation object with my physical eyes. He said it was a natural tendency, and that I should strive to ignore my physical eyes and to just perceive the breath with my awareness/mind.
at the end he interprets this 'conceptual breath' instruction as simply resting in simple awareness of the breath in the present moment,
https://www.updevelopment.org/pa-auk-tawya wrote:Again, I felt that although my concentration had its ups and downs, overall it was improving. I had (and still have) the common and bad habit of trying to “seek” specific states as opposed to simply resting in simple awareness of the breath in the present moment, and I should definitely make efforts not to indulge in that tendency. When meditating, one must let go of expectations and be fully mindful of what is occurring NOW.
coconut
Posts: 1061
Joined: Tue Oct 13, 2020 8:10 am

Re: "Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

Post by coconut »

Yep, a pity he fell into the wrong view of "does the self exist? no there is no self"

instead of focusing on suffering and the cause of suffering.

But alas, that is the product and result of counterfeit dhamma.
User avatar
Sabbe_Dhamma_Anatta
Posts: 2177
Joined: Sun Jan 20, 2019 5:06 pm

Re: "Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

Post by Sabbe_Dhamma_Anatta »

  • Gabriel Rocheleau wrote: ...
    “Consciousnesses” were arising with their respective sensations. It all came as a “package deal”.
    ...
    Questions like how “I” felt can’t be asked. They are fundamentally flawed.
    ...
  • JamesTheGiant wrote: Sat Dec 26, 2020 6:20 am ... they were also amazing and useful times.
  • sakyan wrote: Sat Dec 26, 2020 12:02 pm This is exactly what I experienced when I was pumped up by the Books of Thai Ajahn Ven Maha Boowa and Ven Ajahn Chah and seriously meditated on a home retreat.

    As I kept my mindfulness established on the arising and passing away of consciousness, The experience became clearer and clearer.

    I saw the body as just body and consciousness animating it at any of the six sense bases at a time, Further I saw that consciousness was just consciousness, It was not I, mine or my self. It was just consciousness, what else it could be?

    From there the belief in a 'Self' weakened and I saw myself as mere assemblage of the 5 khandas.
    • Thanks, this post somehow makes me look in a fresh new way towards Ajahn Maha Boowa. And, it is quite inspiring to see Ajahn Chah's teachings can be followed & experienced even through the medium of the books, in a serious home retreat.

Awesome Dhamma experiences.

Muditā to you all.

❤️
𝓑𝓾𝓭𝓭𝓱𝓪 𝓗𝓪𝓭 𝓤𝓷𝓮𝓺𝓾𝓲𝓿𝓸𝓬𝓪𝓵𝓵𝔂 𝓓𝓮𝓬𝓵𝓪𝓻𝓮𝓭 𝓣𝓱𝓪𝓽
  • Iᴅᴇᴀ ᴏꜰ Sᴏᴜʟ ɪs Oᴜᴛᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴀɴ Uᴛᴛᴇʀʟʏ Fᴏᴏʟɪsʜ Vɪᴇᴡ
    V. Nanananda

𝓐𝓷𝓪𝓽𝓽ā 𝓜𝓮𝓪𝓷𝓼 𝓣𝓱𝓪𝓽 𝓣𝓱𝓮𝓻𝓮 𝓘𝓼
  • Nᴏ sᴜᴄʜ ᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴀs ᴀ Sᴇʟғ, Sᴏᴜʟ, Eɢᴏ, Sᴘɪʀɪᴛ, ᴏʀ Āᴛᴍᴀɴ
    V. Buddhādasa
justindesilva
Posts: 2602
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2016 12:38 pm

Re: "Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

Post by justindesilva »

coconut wrote: Mon Dec 28, 2020 3:04 pm Yep, a pity he fell into the wrong view of "does the self exist? no there is no self"

instead of focusing on suffering and the cause of suffering.

But alas, that is the product and result of counterfeit dhamma.
Consciousness is not you or self but the carpenter who fabricated the being through salayatana. There is a Sutta to this effect called vtakka santana sutta. This carpenter should be skilled to form the being either with wholesome thoughts towards a person of punyabi sankara citta or with unwholesome citta who further suffers.
Once the carpenter of consciousness ceases kamma is no more for further fabrications.
Pl.read Vitakkasantana Sutta .
user99
Posts: 554
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2016 11:40 pm

Re: "Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

Post by user99 »

Yes the concoussness is you.
coconut
Posts: 1061
Joined: Tue Oct 13, 2020 8:10 am

Re: "Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

Post by coconut »

The 5 aggregates are simply an instrument/vehicle you use to get your cravings met. No different than using a lute in order to indulge in music craving, or using a car to drive around for pleasure.

No-self simply means the cost of acquiring this vehicle is not worth it and must be let go. Any interpretation beyond that is too extreme and veers into "everything exists" and "nothing exists".

The focus should be on suffering caused by craving/chasing these objects that you try to posses, own, and claim as "mine". Those things are not "yours", you don't own them, they can be taken from you, and you will lose them, so better give them up otherwise if you cling to them you'll suffer.
justindesilva
Posts: 2602
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2016 12:38 pm

Re: "Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

Post by justindesilva »

user99 wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 2:48 pm Yes the concoussness is you.
Anattalakkhana Sutta too states that consciousness is not self. How can one then say it is you or yourself.
user99
Posts: 554
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2016 11:40 pm

Re: "Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

Post by user99 »

I dont know whats true (I often thinking of whats true in that question).

But i believe that the things that make you different dissapointed becomes better next time.

"First glims of nirvana and when he come out of that be is a changed person now he can not do anyrhing that leads to very deep miseary"
user99
Posts: 554
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2016 11:40 pm

Re: "Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

Post by user99 »

justindesilva wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 5:25 pm
user99 wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 2:48 pm Yes the concoussness is you.
Anattalakkhana Sutta too states that consciousness is not self. How can one then say it is you or yourself.
Is there an explanation?
user99
Posts: 554
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2016 11:40 pm

Re: "Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

Post by user99 »

But i believe in buddha now.
user99
Posts: 554
Joined: Mon Aug 01, 2016 11:40 pm

Re: "Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

Post by user99 »

Are all newborned babys very near nirvana because they havent done something inmoral?
User avatar
Nicolas
Posts: 1295
Joined: Wed Jul 02, 2014 8:59 pm
Location: Somerville, MA, USA

Re: "Is consciousness me? " ... 40 Days @ Pa Auk / Experiences of a Goenkaji's student

Post by Nicolas »

user99 wrote: Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:42 pm Are all newborned babys very near nirvana because they havent done something inmoral?
Mahāmālukya Sutta (MN 64) wrote: A young tender infant lying prone does not even have the notion ‘identity,’ so how could identity view arise in him? Yet the underlying tendency to identity view lies within him. A young tender infant lying prone does not even have the notion ‘teachings,’ so how could doubt about the teachings arise in him? Yet the underlying tendency to doubt lies within him. A young tender infant lying prone does not even have the notion ‘rules,’ so how could adherence to rules and observances arise in him? Yet the underlying tendency to adhere to rules and observances lies within him. A young tender infant lying prone does not even have the notion ‘sensual pleasures,’ so how could sensual desire arise in him? Yet the underlying tendency to sensual lust lies within him. A young tender infant lying prone does not even have the notion ‘beings,’ so how could ill will towards beings arise in him? Yet the underlying tendency to ill will lies within him.
Post Reply