4) 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 you see it now. (Feel free to use conventional language here)

Presently the understanding is ... the 'separate self' illusion is primarily a language and ...

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

There is 'sense' of self, as there was before, but it is now seen to be just another thought in awareness. The idea that there is some crazy paradoxical duality of a separate self ...

Hi Again Xain!

... there are six questions I can ask you as part of this process which may highlight further areas - Are you ready for them?

Yes

Hi Xain!
What (if anything) is clear?
What I may not have made absolutely clear is the deep gratitude for your time and energy in this guiding. This direct transmission happening at here at LU is so important in addressing that strange personality cult inside our heads that is undoubtedly the ...

Is there any 'me' they relate to? Or is the whole thought nothing more than 'just a thought'?
Just thoughts.
Can you see here? The difference between thinking about it, and actually looking!
Yes! The 'opening out' as I've called it before, is looking. A distinct quality of immediacy. Ruminations ...

Hi Xian - back from break and ready to see this through ...
Lots of questions there - Feel free to expand and let me know what appears clear (or if there is any confusion).
I'll do my best :)
Is there a separate self, an 'I' having the thoughts?
Thoughts are 'seen' to be no different to other ...

Hi Xain - off on a long weekend camping and hiking in the mountains with friends. Will reconnect when I get back on Tuesday next week.

Ciao,
Devindra.

Greetings Xain! ... change in format here. Good meditation this morning! Everything wen't in the same usual direction with sitting comfortably and settling into breath. There was at some point what can best be described as an 'opening out' into spacious consciousness ... and wup! ...there it was ...

Is there anything that can be found creating the impulses? Or do they 'just happen'?
Is there anything that can be found causing the arm to raise? Or does it 'just happen'?
Although you mention that there is an impulse and the arm moves, does the one necessarily cause the other.
Or is it more fair ...

Hi Again Xain!

I've done some arm raising and found the following ...

Now from the experience itself, can it be found what 'I' did the choosing?

Close observations reveals no abstract 'I' pushing some mysterious button labelled 'raise arm'. In the act of arm raising all that can definitively be ...

Rest a hand on a table or flat surface . . . is there a 'you' or 'hand' or 'body' that is doing the touching.
Are there two clear parts to the experience 1) The 'I' that is touching and 2) The table that is being touched?
Further . . . without the 'idea' that it is a table . . . would you know a ...

A life for of false assumption for who or what?
For me at the moment, the most substantive aspect of 'I' can find (as I must admit I cannot find it in direct experience) around this concept of 'I' is a firm BELIEF that there is an abiding entity. That is the potentially false assumption that I'm ...

Since the last post it has been interesting ... More of an ability to return to immediate experience and stay there without getting lost in the need for reflection. Best way I can describe it at the moment is a kind of opening out into the world (as cliched as that sounds ;). Self reflection turns ...

OK ... there is a glimmer of recognition of what is being pointed at here. That in the actual seeing of the screen, the immediate experience of it that is, seeing just happens. Reading happens on it's own, understanding happens - no intermediary is necessary. You loose it when you try to make sense ...

What makes the body 'you' and the screen 'not you'?

I cannot say the body IS me, anymore than the screen is. There is a sense though ... that the body is more personal than the screen. I am personally invested in the body and it's well-being, more so than the screen's. So in that sense I identify ...