Thread for Gunasara

[jowate]

Hi Gunasara,

Here's your thread. Could you just confirm you've seen the 'usual terms and conditions' and are ok with them?

Here they are:

- Post once a day (at least) if at all possible. It’s fine if there are times you can’t do that, and there will probably be times I can’t respond on the same or next day.

- Be as clear and accurate (i.e. honest) as you can about your observations and responses.

- Respond from direct experience, rather than from conceptualising about what’s being asked.

- Leave aside other ‘spiritual’ or ‘dharma’ reading / viewing for the duration of this direct pointing. It’s ok to read other LU stuff, but even that could be a bit of a distraction. The main thing is keeping a strong focus on the investigations.

- If you want to use quotes from my posts in your replies, please use the quotes function on the forum (click on ‘post reply’ rather than ‘quick reply’, select text and click ‘quote’ on the line above the post – you can also use that for bold, italics, even colours!)

Taking that as read, could you give me an outline of your views and expectations around seeing through the self-view. What will be gained? What will be lost? What do you imagine life would be like with no self-view?

T.

[Gunasara]

Hi T.

Yes, I have seen the usual terms and conditions and I am happy with them.

My views and expectations around seeing through the self-view are as follows:

I am hoping that I may find it easier to access direct experience once I have seen through the self-view, rather than spending so much of my time nattering away to myself

I may be able to process painful sensations and emotions more easily without the drama of worrying about 'myself' quite so much

I hope I may feel very justified in pursuing this intuition I have that self is an illusion and that when it dissolves I shall be a considerable step closer to 'authenticity'

I hope I will feel grateful for the help I have had on the way

I hope I will find death an easier prospect

I imagine that there is likely to be some adjusting to do once self-view is seen through. But I can't really see what that would be because I think I am trying to answer through the paradigm of self. The universe is not going to stop turning and whirling because I have lost an illusion. My body, feelings, emoting, thinking and awareness will continue functioning and may find a new balance. I'd like to think that the primary task of the spiritual life would be complete and in a sense I could get on with simply living rather than striving for an awakening that I do not have. But I suspect it may not be so easy...

Regards,

Gunasara

[jowate]

Hi G,

Most of your expectations there are fairly on the mark … only bear in mind that nothing can be ‘guaranteed’ in any absolute sense.

A couple of comments:

I am hoping that I may find it easier to access direct experience once I have seen through the self-view, rather than spending so much of my time nattering away to myself

Direct experience is whatever is happening now, including nattering away. Or ‘distraction’, as we often label it. This isn’t saying that distraction is either ok, or not ok – on an everyday level, we probably benefit from being less ‘distracted’. Cultivating non-distraction is a worthwhile pastime. And less mental nattering may be an outcome of seeing through the self-view. But to clarify what’s meant by ‘direct experience’, it’s a way of indicating just whatever’s arising here and now.

Can you ‘look’ (feel, listen, taste…) at / in direct experience now with this implicit question in mind: what is undeniable here, what cannot possibly be doubted right now?

Give me your response to this from direct experience, not from the mind.

The universe is not going to stop turning and whirling because I have lost an illusion. My body, feelings, emoting, thinking and awareness will continue functioning and may find a new balance.

Yes, the only ‘difference’ is that an illusion has been seen to be an illusion. Some-thing that never existed in the first place, ‘the self’, is seen-known never to have existed in the first place.

I'd like to think that the primary task of the spiritual life would be complete and in a sense I could get on with simply living rather than striving for an awakening that I do not have. But I suspect it may not be so easy...

The ‘primary task’ is certainly seeing through the non-existent supposed entity that ‘I’ so often invokes. Apart from that, it’s advantageous to let go of, or hold very lightly, any views, beliefs or maps of ‘the spiritual path’ or whatever ‘it might be like’ when the self-view has been seen through.

T.

[Gunasara]

Can you ‘look’ (feel, listen, taste…) at / in direct experience now with this implicit question in mind: what is undeniable here, what cannot possibly be doubted right now?

Give me your response to this from direct experience, not from the mind.

It's lunchtime at the shop I work in and I am eating mushroom soup is the storyline.

As I practise what I consider to be direct experience it all pretty much dissolves...

'here' is awareness

there is no 'I' that cannot be doubted...

there is seeing...

is it mushroom soup? there are no signs on this liquid
is it liquid? there are colours and shapes and movements and change...

a flash of silver moves towards what i cannot see or know but hope is a mouth

there is taste but no way of knowing that the taste is related to the seeing... but there seems to be tasting

though tasting is a label for a wet splurgy experience...

i don't think i can doubt experience in itself... as far as I understand that word it represents what is going on in the moment of awareness...

there is change and yet no sense of time that cannot be questioned...but there is change

barely conscious of how the typing is happening

sounds that could be a street full of people outside... but how is that known?

touch of cold on skin that i call a breeze

labelling seems to be a part of the whole

breath...or is it?...sensations and coolness

and yet i type... having some sense of purpose.

[Gunasara]

a bit later i was driving and there seemed little doubt that if i didn't stop i would plow right into the back of that mini...

[jowate]

Hi G,

Excellent observations! Labelling is as you write, part of the whole – i.e. there is nothing ‘wrong’ with it. Except, the mind taking its own labels as ‘real’ and continuing to construct its dream world of ‘me against them’ etc. around them. There’s not even anything 'wrong' with that - except it tends to be stressful, unpleasant, uncomfortable. Notice: when that thought arises, it is the empty, rainbow-like reality at that moment … and is already gone …

And the thought ‘if I don’t stop I’ll go into the back of that mini’ is the reality of that moment too.

So this separate ‘self’ / ‘me’ / ‘Gunasara’ – can you find ‘it’ anywhere except as an idea, belief, concept?

Did ‘Gunasara’ decide to do what he’s doing now?

Is ‘Gunasara’ seeing these shapes on the screen, reading these words?

Is ‘Gunasara’ deciding what he’s going to think about next? ….

T.

[Gunasara]

So this separate ‘self’ / ‘me’ / ‘Gunasara’ – can you find ‘it’ anywhere except as an idea, belief, concept?

Did ‘Gunasara’ decide to do what he’s doing now?

Is ‘Gunasara’ seeing these shapes on the screen, reading these words?

Is ‘Gunasara’ deciding what he’s going to think about next? ….

well i'm looking hard...

what i have observed that i take to be 'gunasara' are a number of things... an idea that gunasara exists and has existed and has been busy building and creating this life for many years... an image of my facial expression that flashes up to allow me to think i understand what i think and feel about what's happenings at any one time... a sensation of roundness around each eye which triangulates my place in space... a similar sensation at my ears which presumable keeps me upright... i am the familiar sound of my own voice which has been chatting away for a long long tiime... my breath... the gentle sound of my breath letting me know i live now and all is well ... the tears that form from the swell of my heart as i notice that i am sitting in the middle of a story about a happy family saturday morning cooked breakfast and children whizzing down the hallway on scooters as Rihanna plays sweetly in the background... an idea that there are depths that need acknowledgment, that are not present but that i remember come up remorselessly from time to time...

an idea
an image
sensations
sound
more sensations
awareness
emotions
ideas

no real need for a 'gunasara' in any of these...

is 'gunasara' the flow of all of these?
flow being a bit of an idea of course... 'gunasara' doesn't seems particularly crucial to any of this

although the life story and choices?... again of all the conditions present 'I' am responsible for so little of it... the land, building, furnishings, food, toys, music created by so many hands... but as i saw the breakfast room floor replete with yesterdays crumbs and leavings... who decided to pull out the hoover?

care
responsibility
trained healthy responses
i don't see a 'gunasara' who is vital for choices, initiative, sensitivity, creativity

non-executive director maybe?
a floating fat useless bloated overpaid grandee who makes the odd suggestion that might be useful but who is largely there because he's there... paid to protect the system through lack of trust and fear of that which is really working and giving...

doubt that it so simple and fear of letting go

there 'he' is...

[Gunasara]

a doubt arising... the memory i have is of different times... sometimes when describing myself takes 'time' to reach a satisfying explanation... other heightened times a consise and clear expression, a gestalt moment

the doubt is that i am trying to describe gunasara in a newspaper headline (NOW and HERE)... reductive and superficial

the depths will have their say if i try and brush past

it's a story

[jowate]

Hi G,

an idea
an image
sensations
sound
more sensations
awareness
emotions
ideas

no real need for a 'gunasara' in any of these...

is 'gunasara' the flow of all of these?
flow being a bit of an idea of course... 'gunasara' doesn't seems particularly crucial to any of this

So, ‘gunasara’ being the supposed entity, – can you go further than seeing (conceptually) that there is ‘no need’ for it? Can you look directly at these areas arising in experience and see/ feel / know that no such entity can be found in any of them?

who decided to pull out the hoover?

Look at this process: how ‘decisions’ arise. Try with something minor, like ‘deciding’ to move a hand, or not. Does the act arise in dependence on a thought ‘I’m going to move my hand’? What actually happens in the moment that the hand moves? Or doesn’t move when ‘you’ (thought) tells it?

i don't see a 'gunasara' who is vital for choices, initiative, sensitivity, creativity

So again, look at these in direct experience – is there any ‘gunasara’, even an atom of ‘gunasara’ that has any part in any of these at all?

the doubt is that i am trying to describe gunasara in a newspaper headline (NOW and HERE)... reductive and superficial

the depths will have their say if i try and brush past

it's a story

What is gunasara then? Look in as much depth and detail as you can. What are the ‘depths’. Is it seen/known and beyond any possible doubt that ‘it’s a story’?

T.

[Gunasara]

jotting some notes during the day...

remembering a phase in my twenties when i was so busy prapanchising that i used to get really alarmed that i had been driving for 20 minutes or so with absolutely no concentration or memory of how i got there... this happened regularly... who was driving?

not completing practical tasks very well at moment... will look at who completes as well as who decides

[Gunasara]

and as awareness notices that completing is lacking... it begins

[Gunasara]

a moment in the kitchen, hands choose to flick the suds off completely on their own... it's freaky and i find myself jumping up and down with laughter...

but then a social engagement, getting to know some new friends by trading stories of selves and their making... and it all seems normal again... although there was some sense of life just speaking through each of our perspectives

when i look i can find no gunasara but when i am not looking he is the basic operating concept

who is writing this?

streams flow... words stutter forth... leaves fall... thoughts arrange themselves... breath moves in and out

what keeps an illusion in place

habit and practise

i've been selfing a long time now

a hint of something beneath or beyond... but no certainty as yet

[Gunasara]

this morning i noticed a gap between thinking and doing... i was thinking away about stuff as my body was simply getting on with it without direction... but then i wasn't getting the sandwiches made so thinking made an intervention... this is all stuff i have called gunasara before ... or so the thinking goes??

[jowate]

Hi G,

but then a social engagement, getting to know some new friends by trading stories of selves and their making... and it all seems normal again... although there was some sense of life just speaking through each of our perspectives

when i look i can find no gunasara but when i am not looking he is the basic operating concept

‘I’ look / don’t look. Neither apply. Look at what is going on here – what is doing the looking? Is it ‘my-self’?

You seem to be saying that there is some assumption of ‘self’ or ‘selfing’ taking place under these circumstances – so it’s the assumption that needs to be looked at and seen through. If ‘gunasara’ can’t be found when looked for, why should ‘he’ come into existence when not looked for? This is the assumption – does it stand up to examination? Is a real ‘gunasara’ there in direct experience when not looked for?

T.

[Gunasara]

If ‘gunasara’ can’t be found when looked for, why should ‘he’ come into existence when not looked for?

This is the assumption – does it stand up to examination?

Is a real ‘gunasara’ there in direct experience when not looked for?

the Father Xmas analogy is pretty good for communicating the possibility of something being seen and nevermore being able to be believed in the same way...

these questions remind me of an altogether darker character... the Trickster... and of course he would be hiding behind you, in the space not looked at...

he has the feel of an imaginal entity, who wouldn't bear examination and would not reside in direct experience... but i'm not sure i'm confident enough yet to call him a fantasy...

when i look 'out of the corner of my eye' i notice 'gunasara' manifesting as a cross identification of bodily sensation with an idea and image of the body, combined with bodily sensations around the eyes with images of 'my' face and 'my' point in space, combined with the sound of 'my' voice narrating either the visual landscape (external) or mental activity (inner)... 'gunasara' thinks he is a complex entity which can be directed and can effect activity in a world out there...

‘I’ look / don’t look. Neither apply. Look at what is going on here – what is doing the looking? Is it ‘my-self’?

awareing overcomes looking/not-looking difficulties...

who/what is awareing... 'gunasara' thinks he looks but i don't think he thinks he is awareness... that seems bigger...