Thank you very much Henri for your patience. How would I email you at a later stage? What is your email address? .. and what does it mean to PM? Sorry for my ignorance ..:)

Warm wishes, Michael.

Are there really "choices", "decisions" that "life" makes, or is it a figure of speech?

You are right of course ... It is indeed a figure of speech ... there are no decisions ever made, nor do decisions even exist ... life unfolds as a continuous process and to call any particular part of the ...

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

No.

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 you see it now.

The illusion is that ...

Would you like to answer them or is there something else you want to explore?

I am sure that there will definitely be some things I would want to explore further once this settles, but don't know what yet ... the videos gave some pointers but not sure how this might apply to me. Perhaps the ...

How does it feel to see this?

It feels like a calm spaciousness has opened up. In the background there is a desire to figure it out but it is dwarfed by the silence.

Is there a letting goER needed?

No ... sensations come and go by themselves.

What are 'you' in control of?

Nothing ...

Is your internal world in your head, or is your head in your internal world?

The sensations of my head is in my internal world, or inside of much expanded me ... would it not be correct to say that everything is inside of me?

How will you know when the understanding is fully formed?
Who would ...

What is the experience of 'my'?
What is 'my' referring to? Something real?

"My" is a thought, including the thought that if the body is injured, "I" will feel pain. The "my" is referring to sensations in the body, tingling or buzz, that a thought says are "mine" but it now seems clear that they ...

Did you create this thought, or did it just arise?

No, it just arose on its own. But thinking tells me it arose in the wider context of an experiment to explore choosing ... but I now see more clearly that this is just a thought.

Does the sense of self have a location? Does the sense of self ...

Are you aware of sensations in the hand before it turns/stops?

I have repeated the experiment several times and still cannot really identify any sensations prior to the turning, except perhaps for a slight tingling buzz which may be due to the fact that there is attention on the hand. Perhaps I ...

Does it matter? Are 'you' in control of it?

You are right ... I have to conclude that I am not in control of the movement, at least not in any way I can identify. I have gone back over our exchange and can see how hard I find it to stay with direct observation only.

Is there an impulse that ...

- How is the movement controlled?

This seems quite strange and subtle ... I cannot find a directly controlling thought but note thoughts/questions about the phenomenon and how the flipping takes place. But the mystery remains, if I don't do it by thinking then how does it happen? Is there a ...

Hi Henri - I have taken some time to get back to you for two reasons ... I have been on a nine hour road trip (I was driving) and, secondly,I have found the assignment both challenging and interesting and still feel fra from sure about my answers. However...

Where are they coming from and going to ...

Is red, yellow and brown direct experience?

Upon reflection, the colors require reference to memory for labelling ... so direct experience is "seeing".

In either case, when you look at an apple, what is seen?

Yes, I am using a real apple.

Red, yellow and brown colors (the apple is on a brown table)

What about the content of thoughts, what do they describe?.

I find your pointer that the content of thought is actually just more thoughts very helpful.

Is there really an ‘apple’ here, or only color and a thought about ‘apple’?

It now seems quite clear that there is no apple as a direct ...