Daniel

[Ilona]

come in, show me what you got. what are your expectations from this conversation?
make a full list, take your time.

[Daniel]

I don't think I really have any expectationsper se. Just more what I hope for, which is to finally see through this illusion once and for all. At times it seems I am just hanging on by a string. As many say, I have the intellectual understanding but I never seem to quite push all the way through.

[Ilona]

Ok, let's help you see then.
The thoughts I, me, what do they refer to? Is there a separate entity behind?

[Daniel]

Ok, let's help you see then.
The thoughts I, me, what do they refer to?

To me they refer to the interplay of senses,thoughts and feelings that are carried in the body. You could get quite complicated in describing it but essentially the body takes in information via the senses, the thoughts create meaning, and make commentary about what is taken in, and most often physical feelings and specific body physiology results from those thoughts. Then there will be more thoughts about the feelings which create different feelings, which create different thoughts and so ad nauseum. There is a sort of overlying/overlying sense that goes with all that, that is the feeling of attachment/authorship to the thought/feeling mess.

Is there a separate entity behind?

I don't see one.

[Ilona]

Thank you for answer. If you can't find it, does it mean that it exist?

Let's look closer at the thoughts and how they create meaning.
Where do thoughts come from?
How do they create meaning?
Can thoughts be controlled?
Can a thought do anything?
Can you know what the next thought gonna be?
What influences thoughts?

Just answer these questions on full as you see it.

[Daniel]

Thank you for answer. If you can't find it, does it mean that it exist?

I know the answer I am supposed to say , and I believe that it doesn't exist (other than as a concept.) But I know it is not just about believing but about seeing, so I will give you my inner skeptic answer which is there are lots of things that I can't see that exist. Molecules, electrical current, oxygen. So although I can't see it, I experience it and it's effects everyday.

Let's look closer at the thoughts and how they create meaning.
Where do thoughts come from?
How do they create meaning?

They create meaning through an elaborate series of beliefs that start forming, I speculate from, birth. Maybe with just one idea that gets held onto and then more stacked on top of that until you have an entire model of the world, how it relates to you, and you to it. Things happen, you have thoughts about them and certain thoughts are labeled as being more right, or effective and are held for later use. A system of manipulations geared to towards altering events to an outcome favorable to you, or maybe I should say likeable or at the very least acceptable to your system of ideas.
[quote="Ilona"
Can thoughts be controlled?
[/quote]
At times it seems as though they can and other times no. What is controlling them I have no idea. As I have heard so many times before, they come from nowhere going nowhere. A thought by itself does nothing, the results they can lead to do much.

[Ilona]

Daniel, you are not looking. i don't want your answers that come from your mind which is looking at what you are supposed to say.
words 'i speculate', 'maybe', 'seems', 'i have no idea' are not gonna take you anywhere. so take your time and answer the questions above in full only when you investigate yourself and with complete honesty. otherwise we are wasting each others time.

don't think what to answer, look for yourself and answer what you see, not what you read about it.

do it now.

[Daniel]

Okay. I read your response just a bit after waking up this morning, so I have thought about this all day, my own original thought and not just some regurgitated crap. I really mainly just focused on the part about "how is meaning created?" Thought is maybe not the right word, but held in mind and watched. At one point I was sitting outside in my car (I find it's a great place to think) and I could hear the sounds of nearby maintenance. Trucks, middle aged men talking, small gasoline engines. After a while it all sort of just faded into the background. All of the sudden I heard a bike bell, it was so out of place that my attention sort of automatically snapped to it, and sort of started trying to construct a story or explanation for it. Now since the whole reason I went outside was to thing about how meaning gets made, it stuck out to me that I was trying to construct a story. I had no idea where it came from but the mind doesn't just accept that. It wants in explanation for all phenomenon it witnesses so it just makes shit up in an attempt to do that. Even in cases where you do actually witness stuff happen the meanings I typically make are just so distorted.

I continued kind of thinking about this the rest of the day and was able to just sit and focus on it for few minutes at a couple of points. What I came up with is that there is no such thing as meaning really. I mean the actual realization of this doesn't stay ever present with me or anything but at a few peak points of looking today and one in particular I could really see that all meaning is made by the mind. Meaning is imposed by the mind. Things are what they are right now, and nothing more, no amount of thinking will ever change that.

[Ilona]

Following this answer of yours can you tell me, what do you know for sure, 100%.

How do you know that?

[Daniel]

Going from the previous answer, I would have immediately said if nothing has any meaning except what we give it, then nothing can be said to be real 100% because it is all defined by mind made meaning. However I wanted to look and be able to see that the way I did with the meaning question. But it's been a few days and I feel like I've gotten nowhere with this one except frustrated. I just having trouble sinking my teeth into it the way I did with the meaning question. I will keep going but it's been a few days and I at least wanted to report back something even if it's a lack of progress.

[Daniel]

I looked at this again last night with a bit more success. Concentrating on this question seems to quiet my mind, to the point of near complete silence, more than giving it answer, maybe that's the point. I don't know.

I have basically come up with there is a lot, just about everything that comes up I can safely say I don't know. There's not a lot I can say I do know and it kind of depends on the angle you look at it from. I can say I know what I think and feel or you might say that those things aren't provable or true outside my head. You could also say that there is no way for sure I can even say the world exists and this isn't some kind of elaborate hologram or dream, and just like with meaning , the only thing that's there is what the mind creates.

[Ilona]

there is something that you know for sure. what is the obvious answer to that? no mater on any angle.

[Daniel]

The obvious answer. I exist.

[Ilona]

Yep! Great.
Cool. Now look at that I.
It is a word that comes before another word.
I breathe- breathing is,
I exist- existing is.

Is there an entity that does breathing/ existing?

[Daniel]

Basically from the very first day here of looking, it has been working. At the end of the first day looking at how meaning is made I felt myself sort of start to cross over. Then again during my regular meditation a couple of days later. Then today from looking at how I is basically just a word, a subject placed before a verb.

Every time I sort of back off. I have to admit I think it is fully within my capacity to do this, but I'm quite nervous about how I will function in the world and relate to my family, friends, coworkers. I realize this is probably not what is normally discussed here, and I'm hesitant to say it even now. I wonder if there is anything you might tell me.