Is anybody out there?

[Samiam]

LU is focused guiding for seeing there is no real, inherent 'self' - what do you understand by this? There’s an understanding that there’s no real, inherent ’self’. There is enough of an understanding to see the difference between ‘knowing’ and ‘understanding’. Right now, at this point, there’s an understanding that I don’t really know anything, and cannot really know anything. And that is very sticky business that has lead me in circles.

What are you looking for at LU? Community maybe, anyone that is able to see or poke at any areas that remain fixed or that I am blind to. Insight. Really I don’t know what I’m looking for, but still looking in hopes of finding. Maybe someone one there that is able to shake loose that firmly held belief that there is anything or anyone ‘out there’ to find or look for.

What do you expect from a guided conversation? A pointing maybe? It’s difficult to say, as the mind wants to reach out of itself to find some answer that it feels certain does not exist. Any help is welcome and appreciated though, and that’s all I can expect really. There’s the idea that there may be someone or something out there with the ability to trip up the mind enough to leave it behind. It’s a wishful and perhaps misguided thought.

What is your experience in terms of spiritual practices, seeking and inquiry? Started seeking two years ago, after a brief glimpse of no self which the mind quickly attached to as an experience and identified with. Inquiry is something picked up recently (it was picked up prior, but like, real and genuine inquiry was recent). Meditations, sitting with the silence and the noise, has also been recent. Too many books. Nisargadatta’s I AM THAT was the first and David Carse’s Perfect Brilliant Stillness was the last book I could read fully through, after that it all seemed pointless to bother with books.

On a scale from 1 to 10, how willing are you to question any currently held beliefs about 'self? 11

[ty0]

Hi Samiam (is that your name?), I'm Tyler and welcome to LU :).

There is enough of an understanding to see the difference between ‘knowing’ and ‘understanding’.

What's the difference? Do you know, or do you understand, that there is a difference between knowing and understanding?

Without referring to thought, who/what are you now?

What's here that's not a thought?

[Samiam]

Hi Tyler :) thank you so much for the questions, you can call me Sam.

I don’t know what the difference is between knowing and understanding. To compare them I would need some measure of them both, and I don’t have that. There seems to be only an understanding that there is a difference. The understanding seems to be both rooted in what I’ve read from teachers and from an experience that happened a few yrs ago which the mind likes to refer to from time to time to point toward the difference. The understanding can’t be sure that there is a knowing, and it does seem that it’s made some sort of belief out of it, but if I were to put into words what the understanding may think it is- it would be the knowing does not appear to be mind stuff, whereas the understanding is quite clearly nothing but mind stuff.

Without referring to thought, who am I? I don’t know. Thank you.

What’s here that’s not a thought? Sensations come and go without thought. Some actions seem to happen without thought too.

[ty0]

Hi Sam :)

I don’t know what the difference is between knowing and understanding. To compare them I would need some measure of them both, and I don’t have that. There seems to be only an understanding that there is a difference. The understanding seems to be both rooted in what I’ve read from teachers and from an experience that happened a few yrs ago which the mind likes to refer to from time to time to point toward the difference. The understanding can’t be sure that there is a knowing, and it does seem that it’s made some sort of belief out of it, but if I were to put into words what the understanding may think it is- it would be the knowing does not appear to be mind stuff, whereas the understanding is quite clearly nothing but mind stuff.

What is knowing? In your direct experience now, what is knowing?

The understanding seems to be both rooted in what I’ve read from teachers and from an experience that happened a few yrs ago which the mind likes to refer to from time to time to point toward the difference.

In other words... other people's thoughts and a memory (thought) of an experience?

How can we be certain of anything? What does it even mean for something to be true? It's important not to mistake the content of thought for reality. For example, is there:
1) An experience that happened in the past
OR
2) A memory (thought) about the past and a thought that says that happened in the past

Recognise what's actually here. What are you looking for?

Without referring to thought, who am I? I don’t know. Thank you.

Is there a you? Do you exist?