Any pointers ready to talk?

[RuthRudd]

Hi, I joined up a few days ago but had been waiting for the wrong name to turn green before diving in. Still, here now. Would like to engage with someone on this question of self. This is step one.

[dreamer]

Step two

Hi RuthRudd

Welcome to the enquiry :) I will be your guide.

We will have to agree on these terms:
Post at least one time a day, even if it is only to say that there is nothing to post
I will ask and you will answer
Please focus on this enquiry while it lasts, which means let any spiritual search rest as long as we are engaged here
Be willing to let go of any beliefs in anything.

If you agree on the terms mentioned above please answer following questions:

1. What are your expectations to the outcome of this enquiry? Please look carefully into this and answer as detailed as possible.
2. 'I' is just a thought, 'I' doesn't exist. What happens when reading this? Thoughts, sensations, feelings...anything

Can I call you Ruth?

Warm regards Vivi

[RuthRudd]

Hi Vivi
Good to meet you. Thanks for doing this. Yes, please call me Ruth.

I’m smiling at your request that I should be ‘willing to let go of beliefs in anything’ because I ‘believe’ in very little, though I’m not a miserable cynic. I feel I’m, rather, just a realist; keen to cut the crap – if you’ll excuse the coarse way of putting it.

Looking for my actual expectations I find those more slippery and difficult to pin down than my hopes. I am open to what happens here. I’m expecting your questions to nail me down and get me to strip my responses of egotistic waffle, posturing and conjouring. (Such is the stuff of everyday interaction.) Do I expect the outcome will be that I have actually ‘seen’ that there is no ’I’? Sort of, yes. Though I do feel that I already have some experience of that. And I think if I’m right about that then our exchange may give me confidence to ‘believe’ or trust those non-self experiences and encourage me to dwell in that way of being rather than in the ‘ego’ or the ‘self’-centred mode. When everyone else is working from ego it is easy to slip right in beside them and do the same. I am prepared to ‘believe’ that this process of interaction with you will lead me in the right direction. If it does then I ‘expect’ to be able to hold in the non-self mode for more of the time. That would be good.

I should say upfront that I’m not always good at identifying sensations and feelings. But when I read ‘"I” is just a thought. “I” doesn’t exist.’ I get a bit of a flip in my stomach/chest at the thought of being free. It isn’t scary, it calls to me like a huge refuge of peace. I think that may sound phony. But I assure you it isn’t. ‘Me’ or ‘I’ seems small and constricted, suffocating, even. No ‘me’ – though there is some sort of ‘being’ typing this – seems limitless and beyond threat. That is the mind I’d like to experience for more of the time, if I can. It’s there, but I forget it. It’s like the sun goes behind a cloud and I don’t notice and then I forget it's there.

[dreamer]

Hello Ruth

Thank you for your answer.

What do you know about thoughts? How do you experience thoughts? Are you the thinker of thoughts? Can you control thoughts? All of them, some of them - which ones then - none of them? Do you believe thoughts?
Answer as detailed - and short - as possible

Warm regards Vivi

[RuthRudd]

Thoughts come from somewhere mysterious. No I'm not in control of them. But I can choose whether to attend to them or not. Some seem more worth paying attention to than others. Some seem to come from a better (more sane/healthy/balanced) place than others. A lot of them are just unhelpful or neutral 'noise'. I'm not the thinker, more an experiencer or witnesser of thoughts that arise. I'm using the word 'thought' here as if I know what I'm talking about. But I'm not sure that the mental stream of experience can be chopped up into discrete units. There is sometimes a flow of 'chit-chat'. But sometimes also peace, where nothing like thought arises. So perhaps 'thought' rather than 'thoughts'. Not all experience is accompanied by thought.

[dreamer]

Good.

Now tell me what thoughts you can choose to attend to and how you do it.

Warm regards Vivi

[RuthRudd]

Hi Vivi

A succinct question! Answer less likely to be so. ; )

Hmm. The thoughtstream tends to be (isn’t always) a commentary on, interpretation of or reaction to experience. This is a kind of self-story-telling. I (experiencer) am sceptical about those stories. Neutral stuff is easier to sift or ignore. Sometimes – when more ‘reactive’ – it’s accompanied by bodily sensations; e.g. in extreme situations this might be an adrenaline rush, etc. At those times I’m extremely sceptical because the impulses that ensue can lead to difficult behaviour. I.e. behaviour with difficult consequences or effects. The thoughtstream isn’t ‘me’ and isn’t ‘the truth’ about my experience. Some stories I am happy to reinforce, other stories I don’t want to feed. Memory of previous behaviour and interaction helps me to discern which are better, helpful and which are worse, unhelpful stories. But they’re ALL stories/versions (incomplete, skewed, even ‘mad’ sometimes). By mad I mean I just can’t work out what the pattern is.
How do I do this? I’ll use the concept of the ego here. It’s the ego that produces the stories and it has its own ‘behavioural’ agenda – which is simply justification of its own existence, ego perpetuation. The ego isn’t ‘me’. It’s a sad, brittle and scared thing. My experience and behaviour can be independent of it. There is a choice.

[dreamer]

Hi Ruth

Please look into what is Ego, really. Can you find an Ego anywhere? Where? How? No - then what is Ego?

:) Happy New Year
Vivi

[RuthRudd]

Hi Vivi
What I’m calling the ‘ego’ is not something I actually experience as such. I use the word to label the source of the flow of stories. I can’t know what it is. I’m talking about it metaphorically I suppose. By giving it a name I’m not saying it is ‘real’. But somehow there are stories.
Happy New Year to you, too.
Ruth x

[dreamer]

Yes.
Look at this. Is 'Ego' a thought, like 'I'?

[RuthRudd]

Hah. Thanks. Yes, it's simply yet another fictional construct. An 'explanation' that isn't needed. The notion of 'understanding' is an addictive compulsion – but also a construct.

[dreamer]

Hi Ruth

Fine!
Now look into how some thoughts can be controlled and how, and what is the controller?
Or........????

:) Vivi

[RuthRudd]

No. I see. None of them can be controlled. No identifiable controller! So why invent one?
: )

[dreamer]

Hi Ruth

How do you experience choice to happen?

Greetings (It is evening here and tomorrow New Years Eve, maybe I will not be online until the day after tomorrow)
Vivi

[RuthRudd]

Hi Vivi

I know you'll not reply today. I hope you're having a nice time.

This one brought up resistance. But looking closely I see that making choices is no more explainable than thoughts arising. Choices (and decisions) are made, but I don't know how. The process is no more open to me than generation of thought.

Ruth