somewhat dillulusioned ish, going through shadow

[jefe2060]

Welcome back to us both then!

Let's start where you are.

I think so.

As I mentioned / reflected for us before, many of your answers to questions here involve a substantial measure of this kind of qualification.

On a scale from 1 to 10, how willing are you to question any currently held beliefs about 'self?

9

You also stated up front that you are a "9" in regards to this question. Please clarify why that was / is the case?


Then there's this:

update, big mental change happened when I realized that it was possible that I was an English word/label/pronoun being unnecessarily added to every feeling and implied or at the start of most thoughts. I can say this has slightly quieted things, much struggle still remains though. What's also very unclear is what this leaves. I can still see stuff obviously, colors, scenes, people; what are other people? labeling them that doesn't feel totally right. what am I without the label I? it feels daunting, or


like I don't want to look. Weird mess right?


if I could sum up: I still feel like a someone (maybe a being or a mass or amorphous thing) who wants to not have certain feelings, even perhaps unlabeled. is that real? will that go away? Is I more than just a label?

like I don't want to look.

I'm not going to say that this isn't going to work because you aren't a 10 -- or an 11 -- for me, it was like, if there's a way for me to stop suffering, I have to had to have it and there was no scale big enough to qualify / quantify that.


Even the idea that you ”don’t want to look” isn’t necessarily a problem.


BUT IT HAS TO BE ADDRESSED, as does all the qualification stuff. Because that’s what’s here.


What’s ALSO here is this kinda stuff:

I realized that it was possible that I was an English word/label/pronoun being unnecessarily added to every feeling and implied or at the start of most thoughts. .

This is very good!


Many "spiritual" teachers suggest there has to be a certain level of seriousness and diligence on the part of the seeker in order for them to get what there is to get. I'm no sage, but I have a slightly different perspective. You are here, doing this, not something else. That’s enough.

The fact that there is apparently some "reticence" or "ambivalence" about it and some confusion / qualification about the way you communicate is about as relevant as the color toothbrush you use in terms of that being "bad", "good" or indicative of your likelihood of "getting it".

But that doesn't mean it doesn't bear examination.

Let’s call this next exercise,


PIN THE DIRECT EXPERIENCE ON THE MONKEY

When you look at your foot, you say (A) “I see my foot.” When you add, (B) “I think” prior to (A), you shoot yourself in the foot and you then focus on the pain and describing it and talking about it instead of the truth that came before it, giving it equal weight THAT IT DOESN’T HAVE INTRINSICALLY.

Until further notice, please compose ALL OF YOUR RESPONSES TO ALL FURTHER QUESTIONS I ASK YOU in the following manner:

1. I ask you a question.

2. You copy / paste the question into a word processing program outside of the LU board – you do ALL your composing off of the board. (I know you are probably already doing that, but I want to make it explicit)

3. You…
a)…write your “normal” answer to the question off the top of your head, like you always do and label that as “Part 1”


b)…separately, break apart EVERY DISCRETE STATEMENT CONTAINED WITHIN YOUR ANSWER into its parts, and label it as “Part 2”

c)…separately, re-write for us two sets of answers to the question(s) I ask, comprised of (1) your ACTUAL , DIRECT EXPERIENCE OF THE QUESTION (labeled as “Part 3a”) and (2 - labeled “Part 3b”) whatever negating, ambivalent, or qualifying comments you may have about “3a”.

d)….then make ANOTHER answer where you categorize any negating or ambivalent components in terms of DIRECT EXPERIENCE. Label that as “Part 3c”.

In other words, I want you to categorize every thought, idea, “feeling”, or ____? that arises which seems to present an opportunity for you to qualify what the ACTUAL / DIRECT EXPERIENCE you are reporting on (first half of your “binary” statements) with anything else in terms of ACTUAL / DIRECT EXPERIENCE.

REMINDER:

There are only 6 ways for any objective experience to happen. These are:

Seeing
Hearing
Smelling
Tasting
Touching (somaticisation - any body sensation)
Thinking (the process, not the content)

If the experience doesn’t fit into any of these categories, it is either because it is “mysterious” (if you want to, or if none of this works, we can have a philosophical / experiential discussion about the nature of reality after you realize there is no such thing as a separate self, because that understanding falls within the rubric of the “nature….”, but is technically beyond the scope of the LU inquiry), because you don’t understand the categories, or because you are lost in thought (which means it falls into one of the categories in the list ;>), the one that usually gives us the most trouble).

Please re-read the above instructions as many times as you need to until you get the idea. I’m happy to explain it to you and to answer any questions about it you may have, BUT YOU HAVE TO PUT A SIGNIFICANT EFFORT INTO FIGURING IT OUT FIRST.


Here’s an example. Please follow this format (not the color or bolding) EXACTLY:


Q:
Are you aware?


A:
NORMAL ANSWER
(Part 1): Yes, sure. I mean, I think I am.

B:
DISCRETE STATEMENTS
(Part 2):
Yes, sure.
I mean, I think I am.

C:
BINARY

i) A/D EXPERIENCE
(Part 3a) - “Yes, sure” (eg, “I look at my foot, I see my foot, my foot is showing up in ‘seeing’ “)

ii) QUALIFYING COMMENT/S
(Part 3b) - “I mean, I think I am.”

iii) DESCRIBE “3b” in DIRECT EXPERIENCE.
(Part 3c) - “I mean, I think I am” is thinking about thinking. It is a thought.

...


Yes?



After re-reading all this as many times as you have to in order to get it, as an exercise, work your way through the previous statements you made, deconstructing the whole thing as I have specified.


You wrote:

Update, big mental change happened when I realized that it was possible that I was an English word/label/pronoun being unnecessarily added to every feeling and implied or at the start of most thoughts. I can say this has slightly quieted things, much struggle still remains though. What's also very unclear is what this leaves. I can still see stuff obviously, colors, scenes, people; what are other people? labeling them that doesn't feel totally right. what am I without the label I? it feels daunting, or
like I don't want to look[/b]. Weird mess right? if I could sum up: I still feel like a someone (maybe a being or a mass or amorphous thing) who wants to not have certain feelings, even perhaps unlabeled. is that real? will that go away? Is I more than just a label?

Copy paste all that elsewhere, reformat it as specified, re-read the instructions and double check your work. If you have any questions about it, DON'T send me th whole thing in process, just ask me / post a couple of SPECIFIC questions (3, TOPS!) here.

If this takes you more than a day to complete, please just post that you are working on it. Post every day.



Cheers!

J

[jrwever]

Hey Jeff,
Please give me a day or so. I was frankly pissed by your post, your stuff is always hard to respond to but the double whammy implication of "i don't actually want to stop suffering" followed by let's relook at your second guessing yourself, followed by more formatting critiques (please meet me halfway on that) was too much.

On the second guessing part, we already looked at second guessing right before break, did you have the chance to look there yet, and two, the second guessing shit has been really mentally difficult recently because I'll get it really stuck on simple stuff like what to eat and when, or how to think about stuff. Like "do I go with what my stomach is rumbling for, what I'm craving, or the healthy options" just as one example. It's horrible. The fact that decisions are "just made" after the deliberation hasn't helped at all.

In sum, every sensitive spot I have right now was hit either by me or the post, so

I'll probably respond to your post in a day, but I'm stewing right now

Wishing you the best truthfully,
Jack

[jefe2060]

Hey I'm very very sorry your feelings were hurt. I take complete responsibility for that and I apologize unequivocally.

I didn't do a good job reviewing all our posts and just grabbed what was on top for me. Not good!

I also was being really controlling. Ridiculous. Humans suck. Especially those who think they know something.

If you need time to be mad at me, please take all you need.

If you want to use your upset as an opportunity to inquire, we can do that too.

Don't wait too long to post.

Again, very sorry.

J

[jrwever]

hey Jeff,
thank you so much for the kind reply. You don’t have to take any responsibility for my feelings, but i appreciate the willingness to. It’s very possible i wanted to fight something just as much as i was hurt.

if you could please excuse me on the response, this week has been pretty busy because i’m in a new loaded school quarter, i’ll try and get it done tomorrow, otherwise i’m also happy to look at the upsetness or something else if you happened to look back at the second guessing post

jack

[jefe2060]

I'm just happy to be here together and glad I didn't break anything!

Let's have a do-over. Just skip what I asked you to do in the post that caused all the trouble.

Answer any or all of these questions however you like, or share anything you want to that brings our conversation into focus.

Where would you like to start?

What deserves our attention?

Where does it hurt?

What's right / good / fine / beautiful about anything?

What's wrong about anything?

With gratitude,

J

[jrwever]

Hi Jeff,

I’m curious to get your thoughts on something I’ve been playing with. I feel like I’m onto at least something, but it’s also highlighting some of my ongoing friction with the sense of self.

Yesterday, I started leaning into the feeling of a specific dream I had. In the dream, there was this distinct sense that "I" and the environment were essentially one continuous movement. There was no clear, separate agent, no central decision-maker agonizing over choices, and notably, absolutely no suffering. It was just phenomena unfolding. That led me to look into some discussions about sleep and dreams, specifically how the dream state naturally models non-duality and the dropping of the ego.

It made me realize that what we take to be the "real" waking world—and the "real" us—is ultimately just another highly coherent storyline that we happen to assign massive, unquestionable value to. I saw clearly that a huge part of my spiritual searching has just been a subtle attempt to make this waking **plot** feel better or improve that character's situation. But when you look at it from that wider perspective, wanting waking life to upgrade is as nonsensical as sitting inside a dream and desperately trying to negotiate for a better dream-plot instead of just recognizing it's a dream. Looking further, the boundary between dreaming and waking suddenly feels hugely unclear to me. The "me" I am right now could be just as constructed, and just as real or fake, as any character I've been in a dream. Even "awakening" itself just seems like another description—deeply relevant from the perspective of the ego trying to escape, but totally just another story from any other perspective, say in a dream. Seeing this actually helped; waking moments haven't been taken quite so seriously today, and things honestly do feel a little lighter.

Here is the part that hurts, though. Sitting with this totally dropped a big part of the sense of I for an hour or two. The suffering fell largely away, and I felt incredibly peaceful. But then, inevitably, the "I" rolls right back in, and the heavy machinery of suffering starts up again. It is incredibly frustrating that no matter how big the realization is, or how much it legitimately drops the suffering in the moment, the gloves eventually come off and the ego reasserts itself.

Now I’m left wrestling with this weird implication: it feels like I am somehow the exact same underlying "I" that continues uninterrupted through waking, dreaming, and deep sleep. Before, I was only the waking person (who had dreams), now I'm less bound to the importance of the waking but have taken on the role of all 3 stages. It is a total mind fuck when you consider some of the chaotic, wacky, or outright unethical shit that happens in dreams. And the familiar pains don't go away.

I'd love to hear your perspective on this, especially regarding that bounce-back of the ego after a clear drop, and why the storyline is so persistent.

Jack

[jefe2060]

Thanks for sharing all that.

Funny, I just woke up from a nightmare where I couldn't fix anything no matter what I did. In one part a very scary fellow stuck a knife right at my heart. One of those dreams where nothing goes right, the clock is ticking, you can't get where you have to, and everything is totally fkd and futile.

Also, I just had a convo with a friend I don't see often who's a pretty unhappy guy and who is enamored of lucid dreaming. And I'd just listened to one of Rupert Spira’s clips where he uses the dream analogy as a way to illustrate the illusory self. I stupidly argued with my friend, suggesting that it made a lot more sense to just look at the awareness / truth that's right here right now then to learn an exotic system to find the same truth in the dream state.

Anyway, sounds like you had a wonderful dream.

You're def onto a couple of things that resonate with me. The whole bit about trying to change things is pivotal. Our conditioning is such that we look for the continuity, peace, and ok ness both from the perspective and in the phenomena of change, which by definition won't - can't - stay still. We find moments of ok-ness and cannot help but associate them with the situations or objects they seem to arise within, and get lost in an endless shell game (ever heard of 3 Card Monty?) where no matter what we do, what we seek is forever elusive, fleeting. It is precisely because we associate “ourselves” with sensory experience - especially thinking, interpretation, labeling, and appropriating the other senses within our definitions of what this and that mean - in other words, the smokescreen of “real” existence - and try futilely to get more of those same qualities that “we” want and like and less of those “we” don't that is the crux of the dilemma.

Meanwhile, the infinite context in which all of this takes place is where the answer is, and the true “I” (further down the path, even this is extinguished, I've only glimpsed it) just rests peaceful, waiting for the prodigal children to get tired of chasing their shadows and come home to rest.

Who we are is coincident with that.

Everything else is just thinking.

To “touch” what we already always are, the peace, happiness, stillness, and “perfectly ok-ness” of infinite reality is just too simple a task to fit into any other explanation besides silence. Don't bother looking for peace in a war zone. Look for the peace that everything is happening in.

As it's been famously said, “You are / I am that.”

If you like, I can show you “where” it is. “Where” and “what” you are.

As a by product, one naturally recognizes that there just isn't anyplace for a “separate” self to hang out. As you have experienced in your dream, everything is continuous with everything else, and things just happen. Everything impermanent just arises and passes away.

J

[jrwever]

Hi Jeff, thanks for the response.

About your dream, that's super scary! I wonder if you're a fixer in real life? Or generally, how and if you interpreted that dream to be relevant for you, if at all?

The 3 card monty thing scares me a bit. I sense that it could be true that I'll keep finding small bits of happiness forever, but never the real deal. But where tf is the out? It's supposed to exist, but I've never found more than a couple hours of bliss or true peace. Thinking about it, I can't think of anything that doesn't change, but it's interesting one that I can't find much and two that I defaulted to thinking about it.

So, I guess I am curious about your infinite. I've heard discussion of stuff like an infinite peace, infinite intamacy, etc before, but can't say i've ever really experienced anything I'd describe as infinite. just "a lot of peace, for a moment." In fact, I feel like there's always perhaps been a knowing that even the blissful experiences would come down, and that the happiness wouldn't last, while it was still happening. I'm also still curious about questions like if I exist, who am I, or what I am, so the seperate self stuff is still on. I'm not altogether clear on what I am. Maybe some assumed experiencer


Jack

[jefe2060]

Hey man it's really really simple.

Really.

We have a lot of ideas

None of them are it. What is "it" is always here, now. To "see" it, we have to put the senses aside. This doesn't take some incredible, special skill. Pretty much anyone can do it.

Start like this.

Take some time when you won't be disturbed, just so you can focus a bit on the exercise.

Then start to pay attention to all the things you are aware of. Go through all the senses. Write down what you notice. No interpretations. Just the objects, plain and simple.
Use this form in each case: "I am aware of ____."

What do you see?
Whatever it is, you are aware of it.

What do you hear?
Whatever it is, you are aware of it.

What do you smell?
Whatever it is, you are aware of it.

What do you taste?
Whatever it is, you are aware of it.

What sensations are your body feeling? (easiest word for this is just touching)
Whatever they are, you are aware of them.

What thoughts are you thinking? (just wait and they will come)
Whatever they are, you are aware of them.

Do this exercise a few times, just establishing all the things you are aware of, and all the individual senses involved. If you are paying attention to a banana you're eating, or a piano, or what's around you while taking a walk, you might sometimes be focused on one thing but have different sense "gates" involved. Just see what's there. You only have to write once, but do a bunch of paying attention. Distinguish all the sensory experiences, and your awareness of them. Ok? Simple. Just this.

Peace

J






What do you smell?

[jefe2060]

Oops, that was an extra "What do you smell?" typo.

And this:

“What sensations are your body feeling? (easiest word for this is just touching)
Whatever they are, you are aware of them.”


Is awkward. I was doing all this stupidly at 2 am.

So after enough sleep, I want to give you a better form to work with.

First however, let’s discuss and get on the same page about an area of great confusion for most people in (at least) western culture. I include myself in this category because I was conditioned by it and therefore however much of it I still function with is there. This is REALLY important because it’s a key area where the “separate” self / “self” illusion hangs out and does its business in a self referential manner that serves to reify and reproduce the illusion.

It’s the word, “feeling”. Unless we are being really “spiritually” (hate that word) / politically correct, we ought not really care when people use it, as long as we understand what we or the other is actually talking about. In the (somewhat clinical) context of self inquiry, it is pretty vital that we are ridiculously precise, however, especially in this format of communication.

“Feeling” or “I feel” usually refers to a mixture of thought (both individual and clusters, patterns, and habitual streams of thoughts, interpretations, and concepts - or just “thinking” / “thought”), body sensations, and maybe something called “intuition”, which I haven’t much to say about currently as I really haven’t bothered to spend much time studying it and coming up with a precise description for it, actually its an area of current interest but def in process. Mainly we are talking about thought and tangible, objective, somatic experience, for example, “my hand feels hot” or “I can feel the sensations of pressure where my butt is meeting the chair.”

Again, I don’t care what term we use for *actual* body sensations, as long as it is precise and we both know what we mean when we are talking about it. For the sake of getting to work, I’ll just pick a term. If you have another one I’m open to suggestions as long as it is precise.

So for the moment I will use the term, “physical sensations” (*objectively* experienced). It’s a bit clunky, but it’s hard to miss what we are talking about and just saying “touching” doesn’t really work grammatically all that well. Sorry to ad nauseum about this.


So, here’s the full exercise again. This is just part one. The other parts build on this so it's important to get this one really clearly done. Let's call it,


“I Am Aware Of…”

Take some time when you won't be disturbed, just so you can focus on the exercise.

Then, start to pay attention to all the things you are aware of.

Go through all the senses. Write down what you notice.

No interpretations. Just the objects of the senses, in each case, plain and simple.

Use this form in each case!

You can copy / paste and use for each query.
(feel free to edit out or leave in the text of the senses you are / aren’t referring to in each instance).


Q: What do you (see / hear / smell / taste / experience*sense physically / think) ?
A. I (see / hear / smell / taste / sense*experience physically - physically sense*experience / think) ____.

Q: Whatever it is, you are aware of it, right?
A: (Y/N) ____. I (am / am not)_____ aware of _____ .


Example:

Q: What do you sense physically?
A. I physically sense the stiffness in my legs.

Q: Whatever it is, you are aware of it, right?
A: (Y/N) Yes. I am aware of the physical sense of stiffness in my legs.


Hope that is understandable.


If I didn’t mention this before, the form is here to serve clarity. That’s it. I’m not trying to be a pain.

This is about discovering where the suffering comes from. Not the pain, mind you, the suffering.

Pain is inevitable in life.

Suffering is what we want to decrease / eliminate.

It’s bad enough that person called me a bad name.

It’s far worse when I repeat it to myself for 10 years like a mantra and say it to everyone else that it seems to refer to because since I think it refers to me and that it’s true, I am only just sharing the gospel and “....mak[ing] the whole world blind” in the process.

Love,

J

[jrwever]

Hi Jeff, here's my attempt at your activity. I did my best to stay within your format while cutting slight corners for time.
Before my answers though, I did have a few questions that were curious. How do you know you only have 5(or 6 with thinking) senses? Is that distinction important? I can't say that there are more, but I also can't rule out a sense that I'm not aware of, especially since like my sense of taste and smell are total shit when i'm not smelling or tasting something strong. I've also heard of senses like proprioception, balance, temperature, internal pressure, etc, just as a small thing to back up my challenge.
Second, what's with the awareness thing youre calling attention to? are you meaning awarness to be distinguishable from the hearing, for example? Like in my mind, I hear my keyboard, so by English, I'm aware of the keyboard. I guess I can go back and check and yeah I'm aware when I pay attention to it, but what's the deal here? just curious again, I guess I like to understand things..



Q: What do you see?
A: I see, a laptop, headphones, a phone, a stuffed animal, my feet, a chair, the room, windows
Q: Whatever it is, you are aware of it, right?
A: Yes. I am aware of each: the laptop, my fingers, the phone, headphones, the stuffed animal, the chair.


Q: What do you hear?
A: a tv show in the background, wind, breathe, buzzing and humming noises, ringing in my ears, a washing machine, vocal sounds in head
Q: Whatever it is, you are aware of it, right?
A: Yes. I am aware of the voices from the show, the buzzing, footsteps, ringing, breath, wind, car noises.

Q: What do you smell?
A: I smell nostril odor, smell of my fingers, slight smell of air in room.
Q: Whatever it is, you are aware of it, right?
A: yes I am aware of the hand smell, of air and nostrils, of my clothes,

Q: What do you taste?
A: I taste bitterness, some orange maybe, some like burnt taste, sweetness, really really vague tastes, acidy flavor
Q: Whatever it is, you are aware of it, right?
A: yes. I am aware of the tastes in mouth. I can’t say I can well differentiate though, especially a few hours after a meal. acidy flavor, some sweetness.

Q: What do you sense physically?
A: I physically sense, the touch of fingers on keyboard. the warmth on my skin all over my body. my chest rising and falling with breath physical sensations. feet in shoes. hands wresting on computer. legs and butt on bed. neck pressing into bed. soles of feet. tingling on feet. buzzing physical sensations in body. physical sense of pressure and weight of hands and head (less certain about these, have heard that both weight and pressure are illusory descriptions). physical sensation of clothes on my legs and arms.
Q: Whatever it is, you are aware of it, right?
A: yes. I am aware of all of the above, not gonna retype, but rechecked.

Q: What do you think?
A: thoguht about “doing this right.”
thought of what’s a thought.
thought of “this is going to be difficult.”
thought of questioning thoughts.
thought of self-doubt.
thought of unsure how to interpret the awareness part of this activity, separate from “what do you see / think”.
thought of guilt.
thought of labeling “breath.”
thought of autocorrect is annoying.
thought of “previous thought is funny.”
thought of me being shameful.
thought of “i guess i’m aware.”
thought of “i caught myself in the act.”
thought of “I need to get out of this loop of thoughts about thoughts” — weirdly suffering started here
thought of I’m caught in thinking and can’t get out now
thought of thoughts are silly
Q: Whatever it is, you are aware of it, right?
A: yes. While the above activity with thought specifically felt so messy and downright confusing, stepping back, I realize I’m aware of it happening and can just be aware without adding too much.

[jefe2060]

Hey, great job. To your questions:

How do you know you only have 5(or 6 with thinking) senses? Is that distinction important? I can't say that there are more, but I also can't rule out a sense that I'm not aware of,

My main sources of information:

Common sense and experience.

LU protocol.

Siddhartha Gautama (The Buddha)
https://suttacentral.net/ud1.10/en/anan ... ight=false

Rupert Spira (Advaita Vedanta & the Tantra of Kashmir Shaivism)

There are many references to "finer" kinds of senses in the literature and from various traditions, but really the scope of our inquiry here is just getting past thinking, concepts, beliefs, physical sensations, and our confusion about which is which and what is what.

For our purposes, 6 senses is more than plenty. For most of us human types, thought and physical sensation are sacred cows. They are enough to keep us in chains forever. Let's take them off their pedestals first before attempting "higher" equations. They don't work without getting the basics in order first. I promise.


And yes, it's important, that is, if you want to stop suffering.


But if you come up with a fun sense that you haven't ruled out and that shows up, drag it up into the light here and lets take a good look at that bad boy!

…especially since like my sense of taste and smell are total shit when i'm not smelling or tasting something strong.

It doesn't matter, you still have those senses. But if you didn't, it wouldn't matter anyway. Plenty of people are missing one or more or their senses and they are still aware. If they had those senses previously and lost them (sight, for example) they would be aware that they don't have the sense(s) anymore.

We're not after labels for our relative levels of sensory acuity here. My sense of smell isn't so hot anymore, I wear glasses for reading and I am approaching becoming deaf as a post in my old age, but I'm aware of all that. And my wife and teenage son let me know pretty quick when I forget 😂. What we are after is just the distinction that you are aware of whatever it is we are taking about. That’s it.

I've also heard of senses like proprioception, balance, temperature, internal pressure, etc, just as a small thing to back up my challenge.

Yep. Again, for our purposes, all those fall under the category of somatic / physical experience, or touching. Don't worry, nobody is going to take those (or anything) away from you that doesn't already not exist!

Second, what's with the awareness thing youre calling attention to? are you meaning awarness to be distinguishable from the hearing, for example?

It's nothing exotic.

“The awareness thing” is the simple, everyday awareness you and I and everyone uses all the time as the basis of everything we do or know. No awareness, no go. No awareness of the difference between your car and your bathtub…well, either a soggy ride to the movies or a very fast cleanup that gets 30 or so mpg., depending.

And yes, at this stage, we are separating the awareness OF something and the thing itself.

You are aware of something you hear, like the phone ringing.
If your eyes are closed while the phone is ringing, and you pay attention to it, you are aware of the visual field that is present for you while your eyes are closed. We are aware of all kinds of things.

Like in my mind, I hear my keyboard, so by English, I'm aware of the keyboard.

In this example, you are aware of the sounds that (I assume) your fingers tapping the keyboard make. As I think you noted, were also aware of the physical feeling/sense of your fingers touching the keys.

I guess I can go back and check and yeah I'm aware when I pay attention to it, but what's the deal here? just curious again, I guess I like to understand things..

I'm calling attention to the fact that you are aware of what's happening as distinct from what's happening. The exercises we are doing are devices to get you to be aware of awareness as a distinction. Usually it lives in the background of experience. We want it front and center.


Unless I tell you that my ventilation system is making the low level sound it makes before we hit the “get rid of extra moisture in the bathroom” switch, you wouldn't be aware of it. Likewise, I'm not aware of the last thing you drank, or what you are hearing or feeling physically right now, temperature, for instance.

Again, nothing exotic.

__

OK, so moving on…

Part 1 was, “I Am Aware Of…” (the 6 senses, objects they sense, and the fact of being aware of both)

Part 2 is a further exploration called, “Which Came First? The Awareness, The Chicken, Or The Egg?”

This one has two parts.

A.
Take in your surroundings.

Notice that you are getting all the normal data that your senses provide you.

Instead of prioritizing the listing of the senses and their objects, reverse it: use the objects of the various senses to clarify the existence of the senses themselves.

You don’t need to write anything down here. You have already done that. Just let the objects of your senses lead you “backwards” to the various senses.

Do this for a while and then report what it was like.

Here’s a blank space to write in and to separate the next pointer so you just concentrate on one at a time.
Don’t read ahead! Wait till you finish A. before looking at B.!


…
SPACE
…






















…
END SPACE
…


















BLANK SPACE.















BLANK SPACE.


















B.
Take another 5 - 10 minutes.

Go through the same process you just went through in A. again, only this time, observe if you can tell which arrives in your observations first:

-> awareness of the sense or the object?

-> or the object / sense and then the awareness of it/them?

If you get confused, go back to the format of the previous exercise where you noted (1st) the sense, then (2nd) some of the objects of the sense in question (you don’t have to write all that down, unless you need to in order to be coherent about the current exercise).

Then try again.

Then write about your experience.


:>)

[jrwever]

First, thanks for having me do this! very interesting and curious

Do this for a while and then report what it was like.

This was fun! At first I was highly resistant to it, I have some sense that things don’t happen without me forcing them, I get it’s bullshit but control is highly conditioned in me I guess. After a bit I relaxed and it kinda became a pleasant ball of shifting sesations, sometimes just one sense at a time, sometimes a mix. thought is the trickiest one to say “yes this is for sure thought,” even though you’ll hear a bunch of thougts like “are you sure this is thinking? what if it’s not? it doesn’t feel totally sure.” LOL like of course that’s thinking, but it’s tricky for me in the moment. Thinking seems to drag along uncertainty thoughts or actual uncertainty for me. very task oriented

observe

if you can tell which arrives in your observations first:

I’m fairly sure awareness comes first based on observation. At first I was like, they come at the same time, but it seems that something’s aware before the sense comes into focus/defintion or gets labeled a sense or object. And something acts while zoned out, kinda suggesting in my head a constant awareness before any clear object of senses.
another way I want to put it is awareness is there before attention moves into/onto it and clarifies things. Like I’m vaguely aware of typing before I’m like oh shit I’m typing and calling it typing. It’s really, really quick though hence some of the hard to tell. I don’t even really want to call it awareness, it’s more like “something”, but awareness works lol

there’s another part, it’s kinda like the sounds or senses are “self aware” or “embued with awareness”? Could be thinknig. The sense was that “me putting attention on sounds” is much more like sounds sounding or an amorphous process. 


Then write about your experience.

this was really beautiful for a bit, then some suffering and thinking and making conclusions snuck back in and confusion and anger at it so I’m not really sure. I have a hard time knowing what to trust because there’s a thought that it’s all a thought/thinking and therefore bullshit, and then there’s the smart sounding or accurate sounding realizations that have a pleasant tone

[jefe2060]

OK.

Can't process your response atm or give you the next thing to do but I did write this this morning for you:

...

Hi, I went back and looked at your other post where you answered the introductory questions after registering at LU. It's very dense material so I thought I'd see if I could unpack it.

Ever since i had my insight about thoughts being defensive in nature,

The thoughts that you have had (and perhaps have continued to have) may be / have been organized around “self-defense” (of whatever your beliefs about reality, your “self”, the world, etc have been / are) but the “nature of thoughts” generally is not “defensive”.

I'm sure you have had plenty of thoughts that haven't been “defensive”.

It might be helpful for you to notice any thoughts that seem “defensive” and to write down a few of them.


Usually we have a few central “negative” beliefs that we came up with in our formative years in response to situations that hurt us and that we had no defense from. In some contexts these are known as “Fundamental (negative) Operating Principles”.

Identifying these are helpful, in that we begin to see how the filters our beliefs live as affect our interpretation of, and therefore, behavior towards people, places, things. So, when, for example, I started to see that I was projecting my abandonment issues onto my partner before we were married, so that every time she was mad at me I read it as “she’s leaving” or “it’s over” and then would behave in reaction to that instead of what she was mad about, I made all her feelings and legitimate gripes all about me instead of listening to them.

This is one of the kinds of suffering generating games we play when we are identified with the thinking and concepts we believe in and cannot, therefore, see things as they are.

it’s like i got hit with a bat of my own shit that I didn’t even know was there. really just trying to cope which has been hard while caught in between illusion and “true nature”? i’m not seeking as much, but definitely still want to get somewhere other than here mentally.

When we stop seeing our thoughts as having inherent properties of “me-ness” that we derive our identity from, thoughts are no longer a problem, even when they are “problematic” or not to our liking somehow. The only thing there is to do with thoughts is nothing. They aren’t who we are, so in a way – esp in terms of suffering - they aren’t any of our business.

When we smell something wafting by in the breeze, we may or may not like it, but neither stance changes the smell, or alters anything. Sure, if it’s toxic, we ought to “defend” against it if we can. But thoughts?


On whose behalf are we defending?



What is there to defend?



We are conditioned to think some thoughts are bad and some are good, and that we generally have authorship of some sort over them. On close investigation that turns out not to be true. Thoughts just show up.

update, big mental change happened when I realized that it was possible that I was an English word/label/pronoun being unnecessarily added to every feeling and implied or at the start of most thoughts.

In human development it is very useful to gain a concept of “me over here” and “you over there” etc. Think of all the practical (and impractical!) things people do all the time that require this foundation of subject - object relations. But at some point it’s not anywhere near a sufficient model to encompass the depth of what is possible while being a person. Many questions are unanswered and confusion ensues. In many traditional cultures adolescents were ceremonially removed from their normal environments and taken off to go through rituals where they were inducted by elders into the understanding of the nature of reality according to their culture. You ought to read Patrice Malidoma Some. Amazing story about African spirituality.

Unfortunately there is very little of that kind of thing that takes place or that is even relevant in the context of modern society. We are left to fend for ourselves.

So, “I” as subject/object is useful. But it’s a tool, and when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail. And it doesn’t work anymore. So here you are deconstructing it all. You are very lucky, as you will see.

I can say this has slightly quieted things

What things, exactly?

much struggle still remains though.

Please describe it.

What's also very unclear is what this leaves. I can still see stuff obviously, colors, scenes, people; what are other people?

They are just like you.

labeling them that doesn't feel totally right. what am I without the label I? it feels daunting, or like I don't want to look.

Yeah, that’s hard. Most of my life I didn’t want to look. But that has a momentum of it’s own. It started a very long time ago when we weren’t getting what we needed, and we “holed up” to protect ourselves. You are seeing that the pain of holding on is becoming or has become worse than the pain of letting go, and that you don’t really have the kind of control over things you once seemed to. So you said that your “going through shadow” was spontaneous. Yep. That’s how it works.

Weird mess right?

Nah. Not so much.

if I could sum up: I still feel like a someone (maybe a being or a mass or amorphous thing) who wants to not have certain feelings,

Do you think you have - or have ever had - any say over how you feel when you feel that way? That avoiding those feelings does anything other than burying them temporarily, or forcing them to express themselves in other ways?

even perhaps unlabeled.

What do you mean?

is that real?

Is what real?

will that go away?

Will what go away?

Is I more than just a label?

It’s a good question. We are working on it. First we have to solve the awareness thing.



So actually, start to work on this question. It's a shortcut from the previous exercise. Let's see what you do with it.



Are you aware?



Cheers matey

J

[jefe2060]

Hey, I said

Can't process your response atm or give you the next thing to do but I did write this this morning for you:

But there's questions there and then the last one is really "the next thing to do", so work on it and report.

J