No, awareness is not personal. Awareness can also be called consciousness. It's the blank slate that everything else sits upon. It's the feeling of being able to feel or notice anything, the feeling of having a subjective experience. It's completely empty other than the things that arise in it, such ...

Hi Pete,

Apologies, must have missed that part.

In day-to-day experience, it's fairly clear that there's no choice or free will. Choices that are made, aren't really made at all. Why did I choose coffee instead of tea this morning? Who knows. A thought which came out of nowhere decided to have ...

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

No actual self or I, just a strong illusion.

2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience. Describe it fully as ...

Hi Pete,

Have you been able to find, a ‘self’ that is the ‘experiencer’?

No, no experiencer, just experience.

Or a self that is the doer, or can control what happens? Or a self that ‘makes’ decisions?

Nothing that be in control, nothing to really choose in the truest sense. There is a ...

Splendid. But, as always, I just want to be absolutely sure before moving on. I know you say that it makes no sense for there to be an 'I' seeing, hearing etc, but can you specifically confirm that, having simply looked at the raw experiencing of each of seeing and the other four senses, you've not ...

Hi Pete, glad to hear your procedure went well!

In fact, just to be absolutely clear on this, from what you say, 'you' don't choose anything do you, because there's no 'you' doing any choosing is there?

No there is no me to do any choosing, just choices being chosen.

So, now to return to the ...

You say through these experiences it seems more and more likely that the 'self' that I think I am is just the feeling I get when I'm not paying enough attention. But is even that something you can see in direct experience, or is it too just another thought? Isn't it simply that when you look there ...

Raise your right arm (or don’t). In that process of raising the right arm (or not), a decision is made, or at least something happens (or doesn’t). But can you pinpoint the actual moment of choice and find the actual entity that appears to be making that choice? In direct experience, can that ...

Hi Pete,

My apologies for the delayed response.

It's clear that when we breathe, blink, digest food etc. there's no 'I' involved, but how is it for you when walking?

When walking it feels like there is an 'I' doing the walking at first, but upon closer looking this doesn't make much sense. The ...

Hi Pete,

Thanks for your replies. I haven't had a great deal of time to consider your questions today, and I don't want to rush my experiencing of them, so I'll spend today and tomorrow observing actions and I'll answer your questions properly tomorrow.

- T

Thanks for your thoughts Pete. It feel like progress is being made. I feel closer to the truth, and your insistence that no special effort is required makes sense to me. No magic, just seeing what was always there to be seen, but obscured by thoughts and a story.

Not from what you think, but from ...

Hi Pete,

I think I had an interesting moment of clarity today. It didn't come from the seeing exercise, I still am finding it difficult to see the truth of that situation.

It happened during my usual meditation practice. I felt like I suddenly really saw thought for what it was. It wasn't an ...

Hi Pete,

Thanks for your notes. I get what you are saying, but I'm still having trouble feeling the direct experience. I feel like I don't know how to just look without thoughts getting involved. When I try to ask myself the question of 'who or what is looking' this question comes as a thought ...

Hi Pete,

Thanks for your honesty, I appreciate that you're pushing me to really see the truth instead of just letting me think that I see it.

I'm having some trouble breaking through thought and really seeing directly. I've had some moments in the last few days where it's felt like I've started ...

That's good Theo - I know exactly what you mean. But I wouldn't say 'experiencing the no self' because that tends to objectify something that's not actually there, as a thing, as 'no self'. It's just a matter of seeing an absence of something that 'you' always believed to be there: something that ...