Thread for Hannah Brown

[Mad biker]

Hi Hannah,
Here is your thread. Nice to have you here with us!
Mb

[HannahBrown]

Hi! Ok, here 'I' am! Thanks for offering to be my guide. What now?

[Mad biker]

OK, lets get the formalities out of the way :

If you haven't already seen it, there is introductory info here, the disclaimer and a short video too.
http://www.liberationunleashed.com/
If you could confirm you have seen all the above and would like me to be your guide - then we
shall begin.

There are a few ground rules, please respond to confirm:
1. You agree to post at least once a day.
2. In general, the guide will ask the questions for you to respond to
3. Responses require your utmost honesty
4. Responses are best from direct experience (felt senses and observed thoughts). Longwinded
analytical and philosophical answers are best avoided and may even hinder progress.
5. Put aside all other teachings, philosophies and such for the remainder of this investigation.
Really put all your effort and attention in to seeing this reality, as it is. If you have a daily and
essential meditation practice, it is fine to continue that.
6. Please learn to use the quote function; instructions are located in the link below this line:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=660”

[HannahBrown]

Ok, I have read the disclaimer, instructions etc but could not find the short video and am having trouble making the quote function work! It keeps highlighting the whole of your text and not just the bit I want. Maybe it's because I am on an iPad? I'll post this anyway then see if it works better on my computer.

[HannahBrown]

Hi there, I posted yesterday and it seems to have disappeared! Along with your post to me. So I am reposting what I wrote in case you did not see it,
Best wishes, HB

Thanks, I feel very welcomed.

So, I am a dharmacharini in TBO, ordained 11 years. I have been very involved in TBRL for 17 years, and lived in communities for 15. Now living alone and becoming aware of how all that altruistic activity and commitment, while providing useful intensity and challenges, also very conveniently kept me too busy and engaged to see all my habits. I find it much easier to respond to an objective demand of the situation than be with my own stuff. Now beset with doubt and indecision, with questions like 'why do anything?' And 'what's the point?' , while wanting to indulge what I thought was my frustrated artist. I had imagined plunging into a creative flow but instead have just needed to decompress and find out who I am without the demands of activity and having a role. No regrets about any of it, just interested in the process. So that's a bit of background.

What brings me to LU? I have been fascinated since I first heard about it, and thought I would do it long before now. But there has been a lot of fear masquerading as procrastination. I have been very encouraged by friends' experiences, but still it has taken me a long time to get here. There is fear I think but mainly what I have been feeling since I registered is adrenalin, excited fear!

What I hope to get? A sense of freedom, of not getting in my own way any more. Either by self -doubt or distracted pleasure-seeking. (I don't mean big unethical sorts of pleasure seeking , just the momentary grasping of pleasure, of food, books, films, little distractions. I would like to be able to stay more in touch with my vision and not be afraid of going deeper, into my own experiences and into friendships. I would like to see clearly that everything is an interconnected flow of events, that there is no need to attempt control, or to hide parts of myself I deem unacceptable to others (to myself really I suppose). I would like to be fully authentic and not ashamed of anything.

What do I expect to get if successful? Well that's a funny one because quite a strong part of me does not expect to be successful! I will be the one that couldn't get it! Then I think what makes me so special? If it works for others why not me? So I guess I expect that if I can see through the illusion of self it will help me be free of the identity I have built up around not being 'good enough', free up energy to see through vagueness and superficiality.

Hope that's not too much information, you did say cut loose!

[Mad biker]

Yes there was some hiccup and some posts were lost as the site was getting work done on it.

Right you are sounding just great!
Let me kick off by saying it looks to me that you are going to get this without any bother at all.

No, this is not some corny reply to your last paragraph. It is entirely contingent upon what you said before that. Believe me, you look like you are going to just stroll through the gate, I kid you not.

I just want to say that Insight is a completely different 'thing' from what folk think it is. It is a very simple thing.

When it arises you will not believe it! You will think; 'Blimey THIS can't be it surely?! Nothing could be more drop-dead obvious (yet hidden in plain sight)

You do not need to be in a great state to get it and your current one sounds just fine.


OK let's go.

Just tell me what happens, when you let this thought in:

There is no actual separate being, no self whatsoever, no Hannah, no I, none, as in zero. There is no being that is divided off from other beings. All experiencing, perceiving, feeling, sensing, thinking, is happening all by itself. There is no watcher, witness, observer, but there is watching, witnessing, observing, the same way as there is no breather, walker, talker, reader, but breathing, talking, reading etc, happening... There is no subject that life is happening to, but simply life happening, as one unified field.

If there is resistance to any of it, just tell me the most resistant points.
Mb

[Mad biker]

PS There are no 'wrong replies' to any of the above so just lay it all out for me.
Mb

[HannahBrown]

I feel I have heard all that before, and really want to see it, believe it. I think the resistance is around choice. I can choose what to observe, witness, think(to some extent anyway) I know thoughts just arise but often it feels like I can choose, so who/what is choosing? My cat is lying against me on the bed, I can choose to stroke him. Stroking doesn't just happen all by itself. Just as he is choosing to groom himself. So I guess the resistance is in my thinking brain, wanting to be in control.

[Mad biker]

Fine that is all perfectly reasonable. More from me later as this is just a test post from me to see if the site has re stabilised after being 'migrated to a new location' (whatever that means)
Mb

[Mad biker]

See above post.
I have replaced all my lost posts. Do any of your lost posts need to be found by LU Central?
LU Central told me that the latter was possible but perhaps we are both now fully up to our latest with each other?
Mb

[HannahBrown]

I have only lost one post, from you, just asking me to say more about myself, what had brought me to LU and what I hoped and expected to get from doing it. Everything else is still here so we are up to date with each other.
HB x

[Mad biker]

OK Let's just get you settled and arrived there on that chair.

I want to ask you to be fully there.

Not with major forced mindfulness just nicely mindful enough!

I want to introduce you to Direct Experience. DE is a thing which is absolutely central to our dialogue so let me just describe it at a bit of length:


'Direct Experience'

The mind can subtly ‘simulate’ experience and hoodwink us into believing that a thought or image about an experience is the same as the direct experience itself.

Before starting any experiential insight practice, it’s important to be clear – experientially – about the difference. This is actually very simple – the main thing is just to notice. This is not about making mental judgments such as ‘body good, mind bad’ … it’s merely about noticing the difference.

A fairly straightforward way of doing it is to notice the difference between the mental simulation and the direct experience of the five senses in turn. You may find it enough to do just one of these to get the point, but in any case, these observations needn’t take you very long. You can easily enough devise variants on what I've suggested, but don’t labour it if you’ve got the point. As the saying goes, it ain’t exactly rocket science!

Sit with your eyes open, look at what is appearing. Note this as a direct sense experience of seeing. Close your eyes and imagine the scene you were just looking at. Identify this as a mental activity – imaging. Repeat until you’re completely clear about the difference.

Now with hearing. If you’ve got a bell or some kind of musical instrument you could use that – or some music on a CD, for instance. Imagine the sound, then listen to the sound. Mental activity … direct experience. Know the difference, directly.

With body (tactile) sensations: try mentally imagining / naming ‘hand’, ‘foot’ and other parts of the body and then bring attention to the direct sensations of the part you’ve just named.

Notice the process: is it ‘hand’ … mental image of hand … actual sensations of hand? Or what? Or, try it by imagining lying down on the floor. Then lie down, feel the pressure/weight/sensations of contact with the floor. Or, imagine crossing your legs. Now cross them. Similarly, you could imagine walking, then walk, imagine pinching your skin, then pinch …

This is simply a matter of getting clear in experience that tactile experiences themselves are totally different to any kind of mental activity about a tactile experience.

If that’s not enough, you can also do something similar with smelling and tasting – have, say, a piece of fruit available (but far enough away that you can’t smell it). Now imagine the smell / taste of the fruit. Note this as ‘mental activity’. Now pick up the fruit and smell it, noting this as ‘direct experience’. Continue imagining, smelling and eating until you are completely clear about the difference.

I can recommend getting a slice of lemon handy then considering the 'thought of biting into that lemon' before experiencing the reality of actually doing so!

Just take any two of the above possibilities and try it out fully.

It is only going to take a minute or two to say imagine the sound of the meditation bell before picking it up and pinging it, to hear the reality. Or imagining the scent of the flower before picking it up and inhaling the reality.

Do the experiments as often as needed (it wont have to be very often!)

Get back to me reporting on what happened Tell me what it was like, the difference between what was imagined before hand and what the real thing was like in reality.
Mb

[HannahBrown]

I can recommend getting a slice of lemon handy then considering the 'thought of biting into that lemon' before experiencing the reality of actually doing so!

Wow! The difference is huge. The direct experience is so intense, so real compared to the pale imitation of the imagined. Same with all the senses. there is precision and clarity.

And I think I've got the hang of quotes!

[Mad biker]

OK nice.
Just play around with this stuff some more, using the other main acuities. Really notice the DIFFERENCE BETWEEN the imagined and the actual experience itself.

(I am thinking of dropping the lemon exercise because the difference is so exceptionally pronounced and therefore more easily 'seen'. It is less black and white with some of the other senses)

BTW it sounds like you have got it OK, but I am just labouring this aspect of our dialogue because Direct Experience is so central. Indeed it is quite likely that I will often refer you back to this fundamental territory as we continue.

Great news about the quote function!

(my capitals are meant to represent the italics which are lacking in the 'Quick Reply' function] rather than shouting)

If you get back to me to day before 5pm on your old British GMT, we could do another bit of enquiry this evening!
Mb

[HannahBrown]

Sorry, been out all day, so missed the 5pm window, but I will continue to explore direct experience and try to really notice the difference between experiencing, and thinking about the experience. I am solid with that when doing body scans etc. but not so much with the other senses.