khora, let's talk here.

[Ilona]

Hi khora, thank you for message. i'm happy to assist. :)
please introduce yourself and tell a bit about your journey so far. how did you come across our forum? what do you expect from our conversation.

looking forward to our chat.
much love.

[khora]

hi ilona / thank you kindly for accepting
i'm 26
from a small country in eastern europe
i've been interested in different forms of spirituality since 12, i think - lots of things, from osho to christianity, from nonviolent communication to philosophical counselling, from sudarshan kriya to vipassana (i just came from my first 'real' retreat, i the tradition of u ba khin, after an unfortunate experience with a very manipulative group, led by a guru with a huge spiritual ego, which gives a very twisted variant of it)
i wrote poetry for a time
studied for an ma in philosophy
and now work on my phd thesis in linguistics

after the retreat - i came back a few days ago -, i was browsing, in order to find information which would help me integrate / interpret my experience (it's a useless thing, i see that - but reading is one of my addictions) - and found a foum called dhamma over ground, and there i stumbled upon your threads - and your approach seemed very interesting

especially since the embodied self and dialogue are the two topics which are the most attractive for me in the field of research - and here both are put in a very special light

now - regarding expectations
at the retreat, we were told (and taught) to observe impermanence via sensations in the body - and we were told an insight in selflessness will come automatically, after some time, and an insight in suffering - these three characteristics
but i felt somehow it would be easier for me to start with selflessness
and this thought was in the back of my mind for several days during the retreat, and after it i stumbled upon your approach - which seems directed in the first place towards it

so, my first expectation in to understand the fact of selflessness not just intellectually, but as an experience of clear seeing
also, i would like this understanding to come quickly
and i would like to become less self-centered after it
and more accepting
and to be able to help others to become like this

thank you again for accepting to guide me through this

[Ilona]

thank you for such a nice intro. i too come from a small country in eastern europe- lithuania. where are you from?

linguistics? nice. perhaps these two post will be of interest for you.
http://markedeternal.blogspot.co.uk/201 ... guage.html
http://markedeternal.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/labels.html

so, my first expectation in to understand the fact of selflessness not just intellectually, but as an experience of clear seeing
also, i would like this understanding to come quickly
and i would like to become less self-centered after it
and more accepting
and to be able to help others to become like this

understanding and seeing is not the same. understanding comes from the mind as thoughts about it.
seeing, however, is direct experience. you can describe what you see, without understanding it.

do this little experiment- smell something for 30 seconds. indulge into experience, focus on the fragrance, feel it. then for another 30 seconds, describe it. just write here what it was like. after that, tell me, what does understanding of fragrance has to do with direct experience of smell?

sending love.

[khora]

moldova
our countries have something in common :)

ok - understanding and seeing are different
you can understand without seeing, and see without understanding

i did the experiment
i picked a pair of socks :)
and i smelled them for ~30 sec
i was thinking i washed them properly, but they still retained a faint smell of sweat - a smell that could be discerned only by smelling them directly, with the nose covered by them, but still. and i also was feeling how the fabric was touching my nose.

so, the understanding of fragrance and the direct experience of smell
understanding is establishing a link between the description of the present experience and descriptions of past experiences, and ways in which they are similar / dissimilar
understanding can be separated from direct experience
and usually happens after it

[khora]

and when i try to describe a direct experience to someone, i try to make her / him 'understand' how it was for me
or how the thing is
in order to have something in common - a starting point for an action, for example, or a reason for making a request, or i don't know what else - to share, as sharing is one of language's functions

love here, too

[Ilona]

Great!

Tell me now, where thoughts come from?
Can you control them? Are you in charge of thinking? Can you stop a thought or choose just pleasant ones?
Is there a thinker?

Take a look in your own experience and describe what you see.


:)

[khora]

they just come
sometimes they develp from other thoughts
sometimes they are a spontaneous description of inner / outer experience

i am not in control of them
they just develop, one from another, sometimes with slight pauses
when i try to stop them, sometimes they stop, sometimes they don't - sometimes they come back
usually, they stop when something else enters into awareness

i can't chose my thoughts - only to try to do something (read a certain book, talk to a certain person) and usually a part of the thoughts which arise are based on the book i read or what the person i talk with says
but i can't guarantee the pleasant character - it depends on the whole of experience

sometimes, i can say i select an initial thought - or, more exactly, a certain thought / desire in me selects another thought, and a sequence of them starts to develop

i don't find a thinker in my inner experience, just desire to think over something or spontaneous appearing of thoughts
but usually desire of something generates thinking about that thing

[khora]

i feel the process has started, somehow

and i was very restless :)

i kept checking back, to see if you responded - obsessively :) - but when i asked myself 'who' is the one checking or if 'i' wanted to see if you responded, there was no i - just expectations that the process would be quick and you would be available - and these expectations were making 'me' (that is, 'my body', or 'the body i label 'mine') do some actions. and the actions followed automatically the expectations.

i also had a very intense headache in the late afternoon / evening (i forgot to mention my chronic headaches) - and during the headache there was only the experience of pain - wanting to avoid pain - changing position - thinking that meditation would help avoid pain - awareness of breathing - pain again - and so on

i also tried to meditate in the late evening, and thoughts continued to appear - without any control from me, just triggered by the fact we started this process - thoughts like 'who is trying to meditate now?' 'who is trying to be calm?' 'what am i trying to achieve, anyway?' and so on - i treated them as i normally treat thoughts, and returned to the breathing - and there was a feeling that these two processes interfere with each other, and the decision to drop formal meditation practice for the duration of our conversation was taken almost effortlessly (but with the thought that, when i will lie down, i would be attentive to the breathing until i fall asleep - the way one takes a pill)

and the attentiveness to ordinary processes is interesting
there was hunger (in the late evening, 1 a.m. or so) - followed by lack of desire to do anything else but eating - remembering the taste of food at mcdonalds :) - body rising up - walking - awareness of interaction between all these factors - more walking - buying food :) - desire to report that to you :)

so that's it, for now
waiting to see where the process will take 'me' when you respond :)

much love, and waiting :)

[Ilona]

Hi khora.

Sorry I could not answer you yesterday. I held a meeting in London and was working with people live first time. After that my brain wanted to switch off and process.

Ok. So you ask a question- who is trying to....

This question assumes a doer. There is no who. None at all. Who am I? question is not the right one. Replace it with- is there a who other than in language.

The way we label action consists of subject, action and object. Like - I am typing message. You are reading these words. What happens is reality is- typing and reading. Just verbs, no subject at all.

Test it. Is it true?
We assume there is a who, but look for yourself and tell me is it true?
Right now this moment. Is there a me- doer?

Sending love.

[khora]

hi ilona
no stress :)
how was this process live?

now your questions

no, there is no i
there is this body
there are desires
there are thoughts and memories
there are sensations
there is awareness of some sensations
and they are changing

and 'i' is used as a label - sometimes for a complex of all this things - sometimes for all of them

the source of it is the fact that in the awareness we call 'mine' certain experiences - feelings, sensations, etc - are experienced as more vivid - and we see clearly the link between them and our actions - and see our actions as conditioned by these feelings / thoughts / desires
for example, in my case, there is this desire for liberation and seeing the truth - there is a certain elation generated by it - there was searching for something that could quench this desire - and now there is hope this quenching is possible - and they are experienced - and they generate our interaction (typing, which is also experienced)

in this field of awareness, there is no sensation which would 'belong' to 'others' - there is just seeing their actions, listening to their stories, reading their writing
and assuming it's the same for 'them' - their actions are generated by feeling and thoughts the same way 'i' perceive 'my' actions as generated by 'my' feelings and thoughts

and there appears this concept of 'i' - which also means 'the one i have more experience of' - not just seeing actions and assuming those causes, but also seeing causes and links between them and actions

but this 'i' is assumed the same way feelings analogous to ones 'we' experience are projected upon others
it is just a construct, which sometimes has it usefulness - for example, in communication
but the same way i could be wrong about the feelings i infer from others' actions, the same way i could be wrong in infering an 'i' from the fact that in this larger awareness there are not only actions, but also sensations, feelings, thoughts i can directly experience

so, there is this assumption of a doer, following our linguistic conventions, when 'we' perceive 'our' actions along with feelings / thoughts we perceive as their causes
now, at this moment, there is no doer. there are just processes

love here, too / thank you for your support and kindness

[Ilona]

in the experiencing, is there experienced and experiencer?

in control, is there controler?
in choice is there chooser?

:)
sending love.

[khora]

i've been trained to think like this :)
but i can't find any

in experiencing, there is experience and awareness and a process of establishing relations between present and past experience
in control, there is expectation, a feeling of power, and a complex of feelings which want to supress other feelings and / or actions - or, on the contrary, to express them
and there is fear of what may be
and it is this fear (or dislike) of certain expected results which starts this whole process of controlling

in choice, there is awareness of a multiplicity of possibilities (of future) and of their consequences, desired or not, and there is a feeling of the power to act in different ways, as to bring about or to avoid certain of these possibilities
but every choice is determined by previous experiences and desires and expectations which enter, now, in the field of awareness and generate feelings, and feelings make 'me' choose in a way which also brings about the thought of certainty of some result which generates the feeling of pleasure (this is the easiest way i can explain this)
so there is no free choice
if 'i' could have acted otherwise, i would have acted otherwise
but given the fact that now there are certain feelings, these feelings generate actions
without any 'controler' or 'chooser'

but there still remains the feeling of a controller or chooser, or the thought of one
because of the habit of ascribing an agent to every action or process

but experiencing and choice are processes
and control too
and the process is started in the moment a certain feeling, or desire, or thought, enters the field of awareness - that is, brings attention to itself / averts it from other feelings, desires and thoughts

love here, too

[Ilona]

i've been trained to think like this :)

i can see that. you have been trained to analyse and think in a certain way.
what i am asking you is to look in actual experience and describe what you see, not what you are used to think ABOUT experience.

lift your left hand above the head now.

do it.

did it happen?
was there multiple choices or was there one choice that was played out even before you consciously named the choice? how exactly did it happen? was there a chooser that gave command first and then arm lifted? is here an experiencer that experienced this arm lifting? watch it closely as it happens. now blink 3 times, notice, was there a controller? could it happen otherwise?

really look here, and not just here, in any action, see if there is a chooser, commander, manager, doer? is there a doer in other human bodies? look directly at a feeling of controller/ chooser, what do you notice? where does it feel exactly? what is behind that feeling?

report back when ready.
much love.

[khora]

dear ilona,
hope i will not bore you too much with my avoiding of direct looking and analysing instead :)


"lift your left hand above the head now."

it happened
there was no controler
and no process of decision / deliberation i could feel
it just happened - spontaneously - as a reaction
and after the hand was above my head, there was a pause
and after that, a story about what had just happened - something like "i acted spontaneously" :) - and it was as if when the hand was lifting, there was no experience of hand lifting, just the hand, lifting - and when it stopped, a replaying of it in thought, or connection of moments, and appearence of the i, and thoughts about obeying and trusting the process and pleasing you and being a good practitioner :)

the same with blinking - just the thought 'three', blinking three times, not perceived as a decision, more as a reaction, or something that just followed reading "now blink 3 times".

there was no controller
maybe it could have happened otherwise, i don't know, but it just happened this way :) (and now the thought "that's the way i am" appeared - as a reaction to the words i typed before, again, no controller, and no conscious command)


for the last questions, there's still work to do - looking, looking, looking - and i'll report back tomorrow

thank you, ilona
and don't hesitate to shake me :)
and pull me out when i'm analysing (or, as a thought now says, "when i'm lost in thought" :) - i smiled when became conscious of this thought)

lovelovelove

[Ilona]

Yes, so you see that instruction comes, brain reacts without conscious thinking. Only then conscious thinking kicks in as explanation what happened, how it happened, what does it mean.

Impulse- reaction, big or small it all goes by itself.
Itch --> scratch kind of thing. + the thoughts about it.

So there is this direct action happening regardless if what conscious mind says about it later. Can you see that?
Is this true?

The narration is taken for reality. While reality is here now without words.
Do you need to believe the story?


Sending love.