I also really appreciate your commitment and guidance David. The experience has been wonderful.

Thanks also for recommending the Hsin Hsin Ming - It is excellent.

Take care.

D

Are there not thoughts, sensations, sights, sounds, smells and tastes that are not claimed or associated with a self-sense?

Hmmm... yes, there are. So more accurately it starts with identification of, or with those things. Identification could be as simple as a label or assumed knowledge of what ...

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

No and 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.

What it is: A ...

Experience flows and questions float past? What are they floating past? Is there the expectation that I will consciously experience my own absence, I want to notice when I am not here? What is this fixed thing that is positioned to recognize these things, flow, floating past, my no-self?

Good ...

It's not a question of the content, how things appear or what is appearing/happening, how it feels, if it's self-like, etc., but is it happening to/for someone? If so, what is this presence things are happening to? Is there one, or is there just the unknowable, unfathomable happening? This is the ...

So, there is an experience of seeing the fabricated aspect in others, but an overlooking of the fabrication of it being used as a tool 'here'?

Yes

The lens has simply not turned back upon the lens to see the operator itself is the original fabrication?

Yes. That experience is commonly absent ...

What about 'beginning to experience everything as constructs' is this also a construct? Is it a place to land? Can it be turned into a method or a practice?

Yes it is also a construct, of course. It seems that there is nothing that could be written that is not. The desire or intention to turn it ...

This inquiry addresses the initial, grosser levels of identity.

... and what happens from here onwards can't be discussed because it would be nothing more than thoughts and conjecture. What happens will just be what happens.


I'm not entirely following your description of the experience, but I ...

There is clearly a lot more to it than simply realising no-self.
Yes, no separate self is still far from the end of solidified, time-bound identification.

Thoughts on this?

Also, some posts back you used the word 'energetics'. Can you define what you meant by that term?

Those are the thoughts ...

Isn't spectating another word for witnessing, which is dividing experience into a witness and what is witnessed? Where would the viewing position of a spectator be? It's more imaginary form. Nothing can be made from thought that is of any use. It leaves only what is seen, what is heard, felt ...

Yes, I see and agree with everything you said. It is being aware and under the spell simultaneously. The magic show never ends, but there is no need to participate. Spectating is better.

What needs to happen? What is missing and who needs to get it? What mind construct is believable?

Nothing. No ...

OK, but that's still mental imagery, and just an observation here, it has an aggressive quality. So rather than say a hand opening so that nothing sticks, or a stream with leaves continually washing past, it feels like a habit of using thought and intellect in a particular way.

Good observation ...

The dead end you sensed is nothing other than the dead end of thought and conceptualizing. When all this energy of verbosity, figuring out and explaining runs its course, this will be obvious. Again, none of this is a destination. As you glimpsed there being nothing behind thought, the same is to ...

What about what is designated a smell, a taste, a sight, the heard, the felt?

Those designations are constructs. All of them are taught/learned/imagined/assumed - including any rationale behind an explanation... I have no idea what they are outside of the construct that has been designated to it ...

hahaha. Far out.