Dear Sandra,

Thank you for your kind and understanding reply—I really appreciate it.

After reflecting a bit more, I feel that taking a step back from the inquiry for a while is the right thing for me at the moment. I’ve noticed that I’ve been trying to engage with it in a kind of “brute force” way ...

Hi Sandra,

I wanted to be honest about where I’m at right now. I really appreciate your guidance and the time you’ve put into working with me—it’s been clear, patient, and supportive throughout.

Lately, I’ve been noticing that I’m struggling to engage with the inquiry in a direct way. Instead of ...

Hi Sandra,

I want to thank you for your patience and guidance throughout this process.
I’ve been concerned that I might be wasting your time, especially with the possibility that I don’t yet have the capacity to fully trust what is seen directly.
I’ve also noticed that I’ve been relying a lot on ...

Hi Sandra,

What I’m actually seeking feels like clarity about whether there is anything real that is “me” in experience.

There’s a sense that something is claiming or owning what’s happening, but when I try to look directly, I can’t clearly find anything apart from thoughts and sensations.

At the ...

Hi Sandra,

How invested are you in your identity as a seeker? Do you feel that without seeking you would not be you or you would be missing something or something similar?

Let's say the seeking would stop. How would that feel like? Would you feel lost? Would it feel like you would stop doing what ...

Hi Sandra,

I noticed something in the inquiry today.

When I was responding to the question about what I would ask a friend to do, I included phrases like “sensation is just sensation” and “seeing is just seeing.” On reflection, I saw that this introduces a kind of conceptual position — as if there ...

Hi Sandra,

Well done, that's the way to go. Looking forward to know if you can find a real self :)

A self will never be found, but the “checkmate” clarity of this still feels elusive. There is a sense of frustration, effort, and continued seeking that seems to keep the illusion alive, even ...

Hi Sandra,

Thank you for your guidance—this is helping to clarify things.

Looking more closely, I can see that when I try to find a self as the centre of experience, nothing actual can be located—only thoughts and sensations. There isn’t an entity there.

What does seem to happen is that there are ...

Hi Sandra,

Thank you for your guidance—this exercise was really helpful.

I did the “photographic safari” as you suggested. I took photos of my surroundings, including some of myself. Looking at the images, I couldn’t find anything that could be called a self in any of them. Even in the photo of ...

Hi Sandra,

Thank you for your last message and the watermelon exercise—it really helped clarify something important for me.

When I did the exercise, I couldn’t make the watermelon feel completely real, but I could imagine some sense of weight and shape. When I opened my eyes and saw my hands were ...

Hi Sandra,

I’ve been noticing what happens when I follow your suggestion to observe movement. When I move my hand, I can’t find a self controlling it. I feel the movement, I notice the sensations in the arm and hand, I see the hand moving—but when I look for a separate “me” doing it, there is ...

Hi Sandra,

When I check each part, what I do is bring attention to one aspect of experience at a time and look directly at what is there.

For example, with seeing, I look at what is seen and then check if there is a separate looker present. I can’t find anything apart from the visual experience ...

Hi Sandra,

I’ve been looking a bit more closely at what’s happening during inquiry.

When I look at a sensation, I can’t actually find a self there. The same seems to be true for thoughts as well. However, I noticed that even when a self isn’t found in a specific sensation, there are still other ...

Hi Sandra,

Reading your replies I get the idea that you are struggling with the way you are doing this exploration.

When I’m inquiring, it seems that I first read your question and then there is a kind of pause where attention turns toward immediate experience. At times this feels quite natural ...

Hello again,

I have not considered this until now.
It seems that a thought prompts looking that gives an appearance of intention and curiosity. It has been assumed that a self is doing the looking ( habit ) but when looked at closely there is just looking happening, this seems to make the internal ...