EXPERIMENT - FAO New honest enthusiastic green wanted

[Tak]

So I may as well use this opportunity to point out to you that a guides effort should be appreciated, probably more than it is.

Let me start off by saying : Thank you for this opportunity.

I have a theory though. ... Its just the very fact that the thread is being kept alive ,i.e. its just the persistent push the guide is doing. And what REALLY cracks it is, persistence and repetition from the person trying.

These instructions may seem weird, and very specific, but its honestly what I did that I think made me see this.

So if a green is interested in trying this, all I ask is that they keep replying AT LEAST once every 2 days with how they are getting on. Im not going to start guiding you, my only replies will be simply out of courtesy , basically to tell you Im reading your posts.
...

So whos up for it?

We'll give it 2/3 weeks of regular replies from you and then review it to see if it worked or failed.

Hello,
i just joined this forum this week and am posting here to participate in the experiment.

Some narrative background - I'm 43 male, single, living in california, a programmer by trade. I came to this site via some posts and podcasts from Lori Ann Lothian at http://www.theawakeneddreamer.com. I'm especially drawn to her posts/podcasts about resistance to waking up and the utter simplicity of it all. She mentioned this site in one of the podcasts archived on her facebook page.

I believe I could probably say or write all the right things (especially after reading the PDFs or some of the threads here) to put on the appearance of 'getting it', but it wouldn't be true ,would not stand up to in-person scrutiny, nor would I have actually experienced it. Right now I'm the guy who believes he can enthusiastically describe, understand and explain all about water and swimming but has never actually been near the water, much less in it. In a dry and unsatisfying way I know ‘it’ already, but I wanna feel it, know it, realize it, believe it in a way that doesn't involve the mind. ( /sigh at expectations.. just putting that out there )

What I've tried before (lots of thinking and approaching from my brain) hasn't shifted my perspective like I've heard described here, so .. here I am. Surrendering to trying something new .. tossing my useful-tool mind at a whopper of a puzzle .. have a direct experience of questioning the really big assumption -- that I exist. I'll try and stay out of my head, it's way too easy for me to retreat there.

Thanks for offering this option -- I'm excited about the opportunity .. i'm hoping this experiment will allow me to put aside my argumentative / analytical mind and focus me .. w/o having new material to analyze and ponder, i'll only be left with the truth to stare at. And the external accountability will be appreciated as well. If i end up getting hopelessly lost in my head here anyway, it sounds like there are other paths here to try. :)

-Mark

[Tak]

Day 1 - Tuesday 1/May/2012

I woke up today (lol, not like that) and couldn’t remember all four things. off to a great start! I remembered persistence (#4), and something that I’m gonna backfill as ‘action checking’.

So action checking … as I went about my morning shower routine I tried staying with my breath, letting the narrator fizzle itself out and then asking “so.. you don’t exist, eh?” It felt kinda odd. a bit uneasy. so what did I do? i ran right to my head!

“well, lets watch this shampoo’ing my hair thing .. did I actually decide to do that?” well no, it was sorta an auto-pilot experience. get up, go to shower, turn on water, grab shampoo, dump on head, lather, rinse, repeat. It didn’t feel particularly present tho, more asleep .. I was thinking about this post, the forum, trying to remember the 4 points, etc .. rather than simply experiencing the splashing water, the scent of the shampoo, the chill, etc.

Hurm, missed it!

I then promptly wondered how I’d finished my hair with no memory of deciding / choosing to do so.. asleep auto-pilot? or maybe the universe just happening w/o a me having to be there. I dont recall ever really *deciding* to move my limbs deliberately .. outside of something like yoga. But then again, just standing there with the intention to wash my hair didn’t suddenly possess the body with the actions required. Hurm, that feels complicated and thought-y, I bet i’m just twisting things.

I laughed a bit at how silly I was being .. like a kid trying to set a trap for santa claus .. i pictured a bear trap baited with choc chip cookies and milk. I bet/hope this will be amusing to read later.

But there was a distinct sensation of unease there.. a desperate refusal to <something>, followed by an immediate flight back into the comfort of the mind. I’d like to explore that uncomfortableness, i feel it’s my pointer if i can be brave enough. And I think I’ll declare that to be success-experience today .. seeing a place of unease in myself, recognizing that maybe I can use that as a pointer and a call to bravery.

the rest of the work-day passed in a whirlwind of asleep/’normal’ perspective.

I’ll re-engage with the instructions later tonight.

[Tak]

Day 2 - Wed 2/May/2012

am:
last night i noticed the cover of one of my favorite consciousness books, the untethered soul. It’s got a silhouette of a horse (or maybe a unicorn) on the beach, it makes you take a closer look … is it a horse or unicorn? it’s hard to say with certainty. As far as I remember, the book makes no mention of the cover art. But now that I’ve heard there’s the analogy unicorn:exists::self:exists, i’m wondering if the cover art is a nod towards the analogy .. sort of an inside joke.

[adriandc]

Nice one!! :)

Dont forget, only those 4 points!! Especially the last one, every situation in your life is a time to apply 1- 3 ,seeing no self is your ONLY interest here

[Tak]

Day 2 - Wed 2/May/2012

pm:

I kept forgetting to do my “visual immersion / action checking / other selves” during the work-day. I contemplated the “forgetting” itself as a path, but didn’t stick with it very long. Put out some reminders for myself so that I’d have some visual and interrupt driven prompts to do my “no-self” challenge. Also set up a series of automated txt’s to myself at various times throughout the day. Hey, whatever might shake me out of my routine..

But, Wow, it’s easy to just operate normally.

I don’t know that I quite “get” the visual (senses) immersion approach .. but perhaps feeling silly is part of the process. I read a post somewhere else there that people have used other senses to immerse in .. sound, scent... i’m very visual and descriptive, maybe i should try a sense that’s im not so strongly/mentally tied to..

The “default” automation of self and others has always seemed obvious to me .. or maybe a tragedy .. we go thru so much of life “on auto pilot”, but i’d never thought of that as a way to pull back the curtain..

Actions arising from the material body seem like they’d have the body as origin .. “hungry”, “itch” .. which prompts thought and corresponding action. I considered the more abstract “i need to make a decision” thoughts that arise. Maybe those also arise from an emotion .. “I’m lonely … what do i want to do about that”.

If there’s no-self, who’s lonely? f*ck if i know, I’d guess you’re saying the answer is no one, it’s just an experience expressing itself through my form. so let it express itself and surrender to the next experience. That sounds like the right thing to say, but it feels like more of the same describing water w/o feeling wet.

I find i’m fiercely distracting myself from sitting quietly and considering this. I have to remind myself that this approach has worked, and not try and figure out how to improve it w/o understand it. This is going to require some bravery.

I must remember to experience this, not just think about it.

[Tak]

Day 3 - Thur 3/May/2012

pm:

My txt’s to myself were a great success. They fire about once an hour from 9a-11p (could do with a bit more randomness, but that’s 1.1 version) and I found it effective at getting me out of whatever busy-mind/asleep task I was engaged in. *blip* Reminder: you don’t exist *blip*. Ya. It did make me laugh and smile tho.

During one of my walkabouts (I took to strolling thru the parking lot treelawn at times), i started to really look / think about the supposition: “I don’t exist” or “the self is a lie, just like Santa”. How would you actually go about testing that. Then I realized that’s what this process is .. a recipe for questioning the big assumption. whew, maybe now I feel a little better.. the strangeness of the process seems appropriate to the strangeness of the question.. anyway, I’m hoping that little exercise was just me procrastinating or not being willing to trust / surrender completely w/o a bit of buy-in.

As well as looking at this, looking at that, trying to look at the world w/o bringing alot of preconceptions .. lots of trees just hanging out. Saw some birds. I didnt really like the chain of thought that I wasnt all that different from all those other things, those .. less sentient .. things. It made me uncomfortable. I tried to stick with the feeling for as long as I could.

It reminded me of an experience i had meditating, where the guide instructed us to find a place from which to observe our thoughts as they arose. Then to “look at the observer of those thoughts”.. ok, whoa.. i remember feeling a bit strange there. “is there anyone observing that observer?” He let us sit with that for awhile. Then he said: “now turn around” .. i remember a sharp spike of fear and popping my eyes open. No *way* was i gonna turn around .. nothing was back there.. a big yawning nothing. I’m thinking that might have been me getting my first taste.

-tak

[adriandc]

Great stuff tak, good idea about the texts I did something similar, remember it's only the 4 pointers to no self, nothing else matters whatsoever in terms of this. Maybe afterwards you can ponder on things but the only way of seeing it is to keep directing your focus on no self.
Looking forward to more reading!

[adriandc]

If you're having trouble with the visual thing, it's mainly just trying to see there is no you in any experience, try investigating that when doing no. 1.

[Tak]

Day 4 - Fri 4/May/2012

am:

Look at any object in front of you and try and see that there is only that object, there is no agreement between a self/you and that object , there is no experienCER of that object, there is ONLY that object. Its just an experience of that object.

i believe I’d been FOCUSing on attributes of the assorted objects (that’s red, that’s solid, that’s warm), rather than seeing that there’s no self/you. oops. thanks for the correction. labels on stuff (even me) don’t really seem to matter either.

Tho now here’s something .. there’s a bunch of stuff in the room here with me. You’re saying that I have no “agreement” or relationship between myself and, say, my house plant. Or anything else I might cast my attention upon .. my speakers, the couch, the remote, the empty glass. What about the relationship between my remote and the house plant. there’s no real relationship between those two, and they do just fine. hurm. remote:houseplant::me::houseplant ? so, i have the same relationship (none) with an object as two random objects have with each other... that feels odd.

It feels like it should be different, but im assuming its not, if i stop looking at ‘stuff’ and consider something animated. a pet, a bird. There’s some relationship between me and an animated thing. The experience of each of those animated things changes because the other thing is there. my friend’s dog is happy to see me, i’m amused by experiencing it’s antics. This seems like not the point of the exercise tho, so back to …

.. there is no experienCER of that object, there is ONLY that object. Its just an experience of that object.

Whats “its” in that last sentance? At first glance im reading it as: [“my viewing of the object”] is just an experience of that object.

too complicated, everyone says its very simple. simple.

grr.

my mind isn’t me. the self i think i am doesn’t exist. this exercise is designed to convince me of that, so I can stop waiting for santa to show up .. “but see, i get presents..”. So somehow this visual exercise is the equivalent of something filming my parents putting gifts under the tree... irrefutable evidence that make it impossible to un-see that santa is a fiction. hurm. so maybe something about all these selfless objects can open my eyes that im selfless as well .. “self is a fiction created by the mind.”

i will give myself room to experience what that feels like (rather than think about it) as i go about my day.

-tak

[adriandc]

I wont lie, Im really tempted to jump in and start picking apart the post, but thats not the purpose, you're pushing it either , keep investigating, keep looking, all 4 points as well, dont get number 2 and 3 :)

ps obviously if I think its going off track completely ill redirect, but I dont think it is, I think you already know what it is you want to see, so its just a matter of perseverance.

and yes , it IS DEFINITELY frustrating!!

[Tak]

I wont lie, Im really tempted to jump in and start picking apart the post, but thats not the purpose, you're pushing it either , keep investigating, keep looking, all 4 points as well, dont get number 2 and 3 :)

ps obviously if I think its going off track completely ill redirect, but I dont think it is, I think you already know what it is you want to see, so its just a matter of perseverance.

and yes , it IS DEFINITELY frustrating!!

Thanks for the encouragement!

i'll definitely work at keeping going on all three approaches.

-tak

[Tak]

Day 5 - Sat 5/May/2012

am:
Tons of emotion coming up over the last 24 hours. Trying to sift thru it all, and/or just let it wash thru me.

-tak

[Tak]

Day 6 - Sun 6/May/2012
pm:

had a very active day, mostly outside of the range of cell phone coverage, so most of my reminders to “look, action, others” didnt get thru. As such, I had much less frequent interruptions in my normal self to wake-up.

I did happen to be in a rose garden today and the name of the roses I was enjoying was “sweet surrender”, which reminded me of this whole exercise.

[Tak]

Day 7 - Sun 7/May/2012

pm:

Today I went to a public garden near my house. I figured I could do a triple play there -- look at the plants and flowers, observe my actions and try and trace them back, and observe other people doing the same.

So, yes, it is pretty difficult to stay focused on the task at hand. Songs run thru my mind instead, i get attracted to something to look at or smell, or there’s some other activity happening .. people taking photos, etc. Before I know it I'm no longer focused. I can backfill that as things just happening as they’re supposed to, or people fighting against what’s happening and making things uncomfortable for themselves.

Still no shift in perspective to report, tho

[adriandc]

Day 7 - Sun 7/May/2012

pm:

Today I went to a public garden near my house. I figured I could do a triple play there -- look at the plants and flowers, observe my actions and try and trace them back, and observe other people doing the same.

So, yes, it is pretty difficult to stay focused on the task at hand. Songs run thru my mind instead, i get attracted to something to look at or smell, or there’s some other activity happening .. people taking photos, etc. Before I know it I'm no longer focused. I can backfill that as things just happening as they’re supposed to, or people fighting against what’s happening and making things uncomfortable for themselves.

Still no shift in perspective to report, tho

it may not seem it but what you're saying here is quite normal, it even seems there is very good honesty in the fafct that you are realizing when that you are drifting off. Back to the 4 points!! :D