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[hylas]

Seems that everytime I get close, "why" questions begin to asail me. If there is no "I" and hunger arises to no one, why would the body need to feel hunger to eat? Why would it need a kind of pain to change it's behavior? How is this hapenning without awareness transmitting the sense of hunger to the behavior that ends it? If awareness were not part of this transaction then it seems the signal would not have to be negative.

I know this must be just the kind of thing to make you want to smack me at this point . . .

[hylas]

Describe that with as little story as possible. Take your time with this. Do it when you can really focus on this alone.

Ok. You can ignore my previous question if you like. I will try hard to look into this later . . . right now I am hopping back and forth between this and work and a full DE examination is difficult at the nonce (hence all the "thinking about" thoughs . . . which enjoy immensely, so thanks for humoring me).

[hylas]

Ok, maybe the "hunger question" wasn't so far off topic. There's a deep sense that some things that arise cause other things to happen and that awareness is essential to making them happening, essential to linking them. Hunger/eating is of course just one example, pain/avoidence being an obvious second. A sense of self arises because it seems that conciousness takes in a sense and then directs the necessary behavior. If it weren't this way, what would be the point of having a signaling sensation in the first place? Need for food would cause foraging, without hunger; damage to body would cause avoidence, without pain. Yes, THAT is a logical point, one that looks to explain, but the sense of awareness as a participator between sense and action gives rise to the feeling of self---and it does not require thought.

The alternative you are likely to suggest is that hunger arises, eating arises, both are experiences appearing to conciousness, directed by no one. But then it seems highly coincidental that every time hunger rises I know to eat.

This is not all to the seeming sense of self . . . there is the just sitting there being aware . . . it's got a quailty to it, it seems. One I assume is particular to me. Maybe it's not, maybe everyone's "sitting there being aware" has the same quality. Or maybe it's left over personality coloring it, or creating a state, or a physicality doint the same. If so, it's a very subtle contribution.

Not trying to argue, of course, just showing where the mind goes . . . trying best to examine this supposed feeling.

[Josephkoudelka]

just showing where the mind goes . . . trying best to examine this supposed feeling.

I'm not interested in where the mind goes. Find a physical feeling that supports the "sense of self" and close your eyes and just feel this "sense of self." Drop the stories that mind wants to impose on the feeling. What is actually happening sans thought?

Thoughts and minds are endless. However I challenge you to find a mind that is not just another thought claiming ownership over a prior thought of which you never had control of in the first place.

[hylas]

Ok, clearly there is nothing beyond thoughts and sensations. I know I'm never going to find more than that.

But I'm just too identified with thoughts. However apparent it is that "I" am not thinking them I am still lost in them.

[Josephkoudelka]

what do you find present during DE of the sense of self?

[hylas]

I can find no one sensation that points to a self. There is still a center to experience, most apparent with sound, which is perceived directionally and from any direction. I'm sure though that I will not ever be able to answer that I've found something else at that center.

[Josephkoudelka]

[quote]There is still a center to experience,/quote]

Look deeply into this "center". What do you find in direct experience?

[hylas]

I'm not sure how to make the looking deep. There's obviously nothing to see, and sound flows around me as if I'm transparent. Thinking seems to happen everywhere and nowhere. I don't know what else I could find or how to look deeper to find it.

[Josephkoudelka]

There's obviously nothing to see

This is an assumptive thought.

Is this *center* a thought? Beyond hearing, how else is this center known?

[hylas]

This is an assumptive thought.

I meant that there was nothing to see visually if I tried to turn inwards. But I realize now this too comes with assumptions.

The sound center is my head. But perhaps, you're right, any other notion of a center is assumed. Though, of course, the visual field has a center: the part that's in focus. But I don't think that's what you're asking me to look deeper at. The idea of an inner depth, though, is hard to make concrete.

[Josephkoudelka]

non conceptually, where is this center? how does it feel?

[hylas]

Empty?

[hylas]

Dumbfounded here. Don't know how to answer. Behind my head with my eyes open. In front of my head with my eyes closed. I don't know if the world of perception swirls around me or in front of me.

[Josephkoudelka]

Look. There is no me.