Walking the talk

[Alless]

Hello Hannah,

So now I have more time to think.

This can be a trap. This having "more time to think" can be a figure of speech but it is the conditioned default that causes us so much suffering. This investigation is about looking not thinking. As you say later.....

Doing the exercise make me realize how “addicted” I am to labelling.

Be very careful to LOOK and not just go to thought for the answer. The further we go in this investigation the more you will be amazed at how often you take what the mind says to be true and believe it rather than authentically looking to see what is actually happening.

For example when you say.....

1. Seeing arise from the sense of seeing: the eyes.

and

3. I can close my eyes though.

Is seeing limited to the eyes or are the eyes just a "part" of seeing?




Do you stop seeing when your eyes are closed?



Now close your eyes and look and tell me.....
What do you see with the eyes when they are closed?



What else can actually be seen without using the eyes when your eyes are closed?




With love


Alan

[Hannah]

Hi Allan

I have seen your answers. I was aware of the mistake I made when I said that I can close my eyes. Of course I still see with the eyes closed.

But for now, I must take a. reak from the process. I have both of my sons in Israel and I am unable to put my mind to other questions than what’s going on in Israel.

I’ll come back as soon as I am able to.

In the meantime all the best and loving regards


Hannah

[Alless]

Thank you Hannah for your message and letting me know.

Please rest assured that taking a break is very understandable.

Just post a message when the time seems right for you to come back.

All the very best in the meantime


With love


Alan

[Hannah]

Hi Allan

I am back. i hope that is ok with you. I hope I’ll be able to keep it up. I will try. Your last questions made me feel uncertain.
But I’ll try to deal with them.

I do not think that seeing is limited to the eyes. Part of the brain is involved.

I see when my eyes are closed. Physically I see different shades of darkness and light that changes when I move around.
I also see in my dreams and I see parts of the things I think about. Memories ect. But is that “seeing”?

I feel it is complicated - unless I use all my professional knowledge - which you advised me to put away.

Thank you

Love
Hannah

[Alless]

Welcome back Hannah

I feel it is complicated - unless I use all my professional knowledge - which you advised me to put away.

If this feels complicated it is a sure sign you are going to the mind for answers.

This exploration takes us out of thinking. We simply LOOK and report what is SEEN without any interpretation This all is actually very simple.

You also say....

Physically I see different shades of darkness and light that changes when I move around.

This is getting closer.
When you say you see different shades of darkness and light, is not the pure seeing in its most basic description of darkness and light just descriptions of colors? Can you see that?



Look at the back of your hand and tell me what you see?




Now look at the back of your hand and answer this ...
What colors do you see?




Were the answers to these two questions the same?




If there was a difference in your answers can you see what made the difference?




Now Hannah be very patient with yourself. For many of us this exploration can feel so frustrating. We will take it step by step.
Right now as you restart this exploration how does it feel for you?




With love


Alan

[Hannah]

Hi Allan

It is good to be back, but not without its challenges.

when I look at my hand I see my hand -as I know it - and I see the place it is resting on (a table). Any further describtion would come from my mind. And I would have a lot to say.

When I look at the colours of my hand I see many different shades of red, pink, brown, occer, beige, bluegrey, and a little white.

The difference is that it is easier to stay close to the actual seeing of my hand, when I look at the colours of the hand.

I look again and is honest, it is a difficult exercise - to me.

I’ll plot on!

with love
Hannah

[Alless]

Hello Hannah

It is good to be back

Yes, good to see you back Hannah and before we go on let's explore a couple of things you mention

but not without its challenges.

I'm assuming you are speaking of this exploration when you speak of challenges.
It is so understandable that there are challenges at this stage.
Can you tell me more of what these challenges with this exploration are?

I look again and is honest, it is a difficult exercise - to me.

I would love to know more about the difficulty you are experiencing in this exercise
Can tell me about the difficulty you are experiencing?




With love


Alan

[Hannah]

Hi Allan

The challenge is that I do not understand the exercise - I think.

If I look at my hand - the back of my hand I see my hand. But I feel like adding that it is an old hand, with a little bit of croocked fingers. Well used. Weins clearly seen. But then I think - well most of that came from the mind. How can I detach the mind from the seeing?

As I wrote it gets a little easier when I have to tell about the colours, but even then, I cannot see that the mind/brain is not involved in the seeing.

That is my difficulty.

Hope you can sort it out - not do the work for me, but push me in the direction. There must be a RIGHT direction or we wouldn’t be doing this. Right?

With love
Hannah

[Alless]

Don't worry Hannah the very purpose of these exercises is to help us work through anything that might be confusing.

And because we have had a pause in the exploration is is important that we revisit what we covered a few posts back. A few posts back we said this .......

So what is this Direct or Actual Experiencing? For practical purposes we can identify 6 aspects of experiencing. It is PURE

Seeing
Hearing
Feeling (Sensation, not emotion. Emotion is Sensation plus made-up thoughts & labels)
Tasting
Smelling
Thoughts Arising (but not their content)
We are depending totally on DE to LOOK for no self.

The exercises we are covering at the moment are to do with SEEING. We will come to some of the other senses shortly. This exercise is helping discern between the experience of
pure seeing,
and
seeing with or through thought and/or labels and/or interpretation

You are right when you say that the mind cannot be totally excluded from seeing. Because even to name colours is using the mind. But we do what we can to disengage from the mind by describing in the MOST SIMPLE TERMS what we are SEEING without referring to ANYTHING we have learned or been taught AS BEST WE CAN.

One of the ways we can notice if we are starting to engage the mind is to ask ourselves
"What would a baby opening its eyes for the first time see?"


So here is another exercise. Please just answer the questions and do not try to figure anything else out.

Please remember we are looking at only SEEING here. You are being asked to attend to SEEING only. You are not being asked to report your experience of any of the other senses - hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling or THINKING

Spend a few moments looking at this picture ........



Please answer each of these questions individually without adding anything to your direct answer

Is there anywhere on this picture there is NO color?



Would a baby see anything else other than color if this was held in front of its face?



Would a baby know that there were lines or shapes or just see color?



What would have to happen before a young child would be able to recognize anything in this picture?




With love



Alan

[Hannah]

Hi Allan
Thank you for your very promp answer. This is helpful.
There is nowhere without colour on the picture.
A baby would see only a blur of colours. and would not recognize them as colours.
The baby would not notice lines or shapes - not to say objects.
In order to see more the baby would have had to grow up - quite a bit - and to have learned to recognize fx. houses, towers roads and a sky. The older the young child the more objects could be pointed out.

Thank you again

Love

Hannah

[Alless]

Those responses are spot on Hannah !

And thank you for answering each question individually. Answering each question as you have somehow helps limit distractive thoughts.

I'd like to come back to what you said here ...

The older the young child the more objects could be pointed out.

This is so true and so obvious when we watch little children grow and develop. As well as developing necessary functional understanding children "learn" so much else. They learn familial expectations, cultural and religious beliefs and habits. Another term for this "learning" is mind conditioning. On and on the conditioning goes. It all builds a tight web of beliefs (thoughts) that we accept as true that sabotage our freedom. And at the centre of all this is something else we are all unconsciously conditioned to believe - that there is a separate independent entity we refer to as "me" that has control of our living. We are here in this exploration to see whether that is true or not.

Let's now take this exercise. Take a cup for instance. Grab one and hold it in your hand.

Let your gaze settle on it. Let your attention be thoroughly absorbed by the colors. Do your best to avoid labeling in any way. Just let the tones, the complexities, the subtleness of the colors be SEEN for what they are.
What in particular do you notice about what is going on in this experience of SEEING?




Can what is seen be in any way accurately described so that someone listening or reading would know EXACTLY what you are experiencing?




As you are looking at the cup, notice its features. As you look at it notice what is happening in your experience.
Are there thoughts labeling what you see? A handle perhaps, the lip, the shape of it? Or a particular memory pops up?





In this experience of seeing, can you find some specific thing, a separate entity that we can call a "me" doing the seeing? Or is seeing just happening?




With love


Alan

[Hannah]

Hi Allan

I have followed your instructions and have been holding a cup in my hand and looked at its colours. It is blue and white and these colurs are chaning a bit depending on the way I hold the cup. I also notice that the very exercise change the way I notice the colours. Also I would not have observed the cup like I do unless I had been told to do so.

I am certain that I cannot in any way make another person see the cup and the colours of the cup in the same way as I do now. I am not sure that I would see it the same way, if I look at it tomorrow.

Yes, there are many thoughts coming up labelling this paticular cup as having a handle, beeing a big cup, a heavy cup and acup that I use a lot.
As a matter of fact I have many memories attached to this particular cup. But It is your question that brings them on.

The seeing is just happening, and I can in no way find a self that makes it happen.

I wonder where this exercise is taking us?

With love
Hannah

[Alless]

Lovely seeing here in what you report Hannah.

I wonder where this exercise is taking us?

It's actually helping us be aware of what we typically are unaware of. As you say earlier in your post...

Also I would not have observed the cup like I do unless I had been told to do so.

These exercises are laying the ground work for deeper investigation helping us raise awareness of how we as human beings default to identifying with thought in all experience. The ultimate purpose of Liberation Unleashed is to help people discover that the "me" is experienced only as a thought construct albeit an incredibly convincing thought construct that appears real. The evidence that we have realized the truth of this is when we find ourselves in a different way of living - that there is a fundamental difference in the way we react to life's circumstances.

It's one thing to see that there is no separate self and another to live from that truth. So this is where we are going with this inquiry.

Take a few moments to consider the possibility of living from this truth that in reality there is no separate self.
How does this possibility feel to you right now Hannah?




Now take the cup again

Now simply watch thoughts as you look at the cup.
As you start to watch thoughts and wait for the first thought to arise what happened?




Did you actually choose which thought arose first or did a thought just appear?




After a while of watching thoughts, what happens to them?




As you watch the thoughts does the experience of seeing the cup change in any way?




With love


Alan

[Hannah]

Hi Allan

I have not for a very very long time blieved that I or anybody else have a seperate self. But Honestly I cannot say that I have lived this notion and only rarely have I come back to think about it.
I am doing it now, but it is still very much in my mind.

Picking up the same blue cup and watching it, my thoughts almost ran me over. They were so ready.
I returned - in my thoughts to the firste experience a few days ago, and thought about how it stressed me. I also think about my many memories with that cup.

The thoughts are coming by themselves I ame not in control.

After a while the thoughts starts going in rings and become - almost boring.

As the time passes and I watch the cup, it becomes a cup. I feel the weight in my hand. I feel the handle. I see the colour and it is just a cup.

Have a nice day

Love from here
Hannah

[Alless]

Let's look at your reply to the question of a separate self Hannah.

I have not for a very very long time blieved that I or anybody else have a seperate self. But Honestly I cannot say that I have lived this notion and only rarely have I come back to think about it.
I am doing it now, but it is still very much in my mind.

Seeing that it is a belief is so important. And here is something about belief.
We can believe there is no-self or we can believe there is a self.
Now this may seem to be a tricky question. It is - if you try to figure it out with the mind. Just LOOK.
What is the commonality with believing either is true?




How do you tell whether either is true?




Let's come back to the cup.

Now look for spaces between thoughts.
Focus on seeing in the spaces. They may be milliseconds, but notice them.
What happens in your experience as you attend to the spaces?




As this seeing is happening, ask yourself "Is there a seer or a seen within or without the seeing?"




Or is there only seeing?




When you finish seeing, do you then recognize that which we call a cup is a concept? A cup that has uses and takes up space, and need washing after use?




A concept that includes shape, form, color, what it is intended to be used for………...but we aren't actually seeing it anymore. We look at it but recognize a vessel to contain something.

The "details" are all still there but are now typically veiled by our thoughts ABOUT the cup.

Now do this with a flower (or any other object) and see what is experienced.
What stands out for you in your experience?




Giving yourself time to really LOOK and FEEL into these questions is so important.

With love


Alan