EXPERIMENT - FAO New honest enthusiastic green wanted

[adriandc]

Great stuff tak, good idea about the texts I did something similar, remember it's only the 4 pointers to no self, nothing else matters whatsoever in terms of this. Maybe afterwards you can ponder on things but the only way of seeing it is to keep directing your focus on no self.
Looking forward to more reading!

[adriandc]

If you're having trouble with the visual thing, it's mainly just trying to see there is no you in any experience, try investigating that when doing no. 1.

[Tak]

Day 4 - Fri 4/May/2012

am:

Look at any object in front of you and try and see that there is only that object, there is no agreement between a self/you and that object , there is no experienCER of that object, there is ONLY that object. Its just an experience of that object.

i believe I’d been FOCUSing on attributes of the assorted objects (that’s red, that’s solid, that’s warm), rather than seeing that there’s no self/you. oops. thanks for the correction. labels on stuff (even me) don’t really seem to matter either.

Tho now here’s something .. there’s a bunch of stuff in the room here with me. You’re saying that I have no “agreement” or relationship between myself and, say, my house plant. Or anything else I might cast my attention upon .. my speakers, the couch, the remote, the empty glass. What about the relationship between my remote and the house plant. there’s no real relationship between those two, and they do just fine. hurm. remote:houseplant::me::houseplant ? so, i have the same relationship (none) with an object as two random objects have with each other... that feels odd.

It feels like it should be different, but im assuming its not, if i stop looking at ‘stuff’ and consider something animated. a pet, a bird. There’s some relationship between me and an animated thing. The experience of each of those animated things changes because the other thing is there. my friend’s dog is happy to see me, i’m amused by experiencing it’s antics. This seems like not the point of the exercise tho, so back to …

.. there is no experienCER of that object, there is ONLY that object. Its just an experience of that object.

Whats “its” in that last sentance? At first glance im reading it as: [“my viewing of the object”] is just an experience of that object.

too complicated, everyone says its very simple. simple.

grr.

my mind isn’t me. the self i think i am doesn’t exist. this exercise is designed to convince me of that, so I can stop waiting for santa to show up .. “but see, i get presents..”. So somehow this visual exercise is the equivalent of something filming my parents putting gifts under the tree... irrefutable evidence that make it impossible to un-see that santa is a fiction. hurm. so maybe something about all these selfless objects can open my eyes that im selfless as well .. “self is a fiction created by the mind.”

i will give myself room to experience what that feels like (rather than think about it) as i go about my day.

-tak

[adriandc]

I wont lie, Im really tempted to jump in and start picking apart the post, but thats not the purpose, you're pushing it either , keep investigating, keep looking, all 4 points as well, dont get number 2 and 3 :)

ps obviously if I think its going off track completely ill redirect, but I dont think it is, I think you already know what it is you want to see, so its just a matter of perseverance.

and yes , it IS DEFINITELY frustrating!!

[Tak]

I wont lie, Im really tempted to jump in and start picking apart the post, but thats not the purpose, you're pushing it either , keep investigating, keep looking, all 4 points as well, dont get number 2 and 3 :)

ps obviously if I think its going off track completely ill redirect, but I dont think it is, I think you already know what it is you want to see, so its just a matter of perseverance.

and yes , it IS DEFINITELY frustrating!!

Thanks for the encouragement!

i'll definitely work at keeping going on all three approaches.

-tak

[Tak]

Day 5 - Sat 5/May/2012

am:
Tons of emotion coming up over the last 24 hours. Trying to sift thru it all, and/or just let it wash thru me.

-tak

[Tak]

Day 6 - Sun 6/May/2012
pm:

had a very active day, mostly outside of the range of cell phone coverage, so most of my reminders to “look, action, others” didnt get thru. As such, I had much less frequent interruptions in my normal self to wake-up.

I did happen to be in a rose garden today and the name of the roses I was enjoying was “sweet surrender”, which reminded me of this whole exercise.

[Tak]

Day 7 - Sun 7/May/2012

pm:

Today I went to a public garden near my house. I figured I could do a triple play there -- look at the plants and flowers, observe my actions and try and trace them back, and observe other people doing the same.

So, yes, it is pretty difficult to stay focused on the task at hand. Songs run thru my mind instead, i get attracted to something to look at or smell, or there’s some other activity happening .. people taking photos, etc. Before I know it I'm no longer focused. I can backfill that as things just happening as they’re supposed to, or people fighting against what’s happening and making things uncomfortable for themselves.

Still no shift in perspective to report, tho

[adriandc]

Day 7 - Sun 7/May/2012

pm:

Today I went to a public garden near my house. I figured I could do a triple play there -- look at the plants and flowers, observe my actions and try and trace them back, and observe other people doing the same.

So, yes, it is pretty difficult to stay focused on the task at hand. Songs run thru my mind instead, i get attracted to something to look at or smell, or there’s some other activity happening .. people taking photos, etc. Before I know it I'm no longer focused. I can backfill that as things just happening as they’re supposed to, or people fighting against what’s happening and making things uncomfortable for themselves.

Still no shift in perspective to report, tho

it may not seem it but what you're saying here is quite normal, it even seems there is very good honesty in the fafct that you are realizing when that you are drifting off. Back to the 4 points!! :D

[Tak]

Day 8 - Tue 8/May/2012

pm:

Very very busy at work today. Was kinda amazing when I remember to look up and around and see everyone operating .. and wondering .. even myself. So much activity.

[Tak]

Day 9 - Wed 9/May/2012

pm:

looking at things... such an odd experience. I notice that every time I try and LOOK at something, my mind engages. I wonder where it was before it got there, i wonder who might have seen it before, i wonder if ill be able to see it again, I wonder how long it’s been there, who might have made it.. blah blah. A whole imaginative / fictitious narrative arising around a simple viewing of an object. Yet sometimes that’s useful .. “whose sunglasses are those? have they been here long? are they labelled with a phone number?” .. i’m thinking that a “right action” level of engagement with the object, functional control.

its frustrating that its still such a mental process. I want to experience from something other than my head. There’s too much of life to experience w/o missing it all thinking about it.

Actions (mine and others) are interesting to observe as well, but fundamentally suffer from the same issue .. its still a mental exercise. there’s always point 4 tho .. keeping at it.

[adriandc]

cool stuff Tak, i aint gonna say anything more than JUST no self, thats it!!

[Tak]

Day 10 - Thur 10/May/2012

pm:

today i noticed that i tend to think about 1-2-3-4 while driving. It helps me to turn off the radio and and just drive. To not fill my mind with music or radio talk shows or even podcasts. My actions are so mechanical in normal traffic, so appropriate (i would hope) if an abnormal reaction was required as well.

my walk in the garden near my house after work led me to a memorial service, but one of the more uplifting type .. a series of remembrances of how this person’s life had touched those around her, and, even after her death, was touching mine. On the way to the garden i had been listening to a speaker that I like, and she’d left me in a really nice state of “now”. Away from the garden and for the next few hours I was quite happy.. happy to look, to feel (ups and some troubles that passed thru like breeze), to experience, to be, to interact. But, to be fair, I wasn’t really in an environment that challenged me or my outlook.

Still, moments like that do help me believe that it’s possible to feel, perhaps to glimpse, what it could be like to be happy and joyful without the mind and self and it’s constant noise and chatter and future-worry and past-replay getting in the way of our true nature.

I’m still looking at the vase/faces illusion, but now I think im just managed to convince myself that I’m a happy vase. :)

[Kari]

This post was so fun to read, Adriandc!
Your enthusiasm was felt through the words.
I've been quietly lurking around this sight for a couple of weeks, looking for ways/ideas to express this 'no self' to others. It's been a challenge, but your post has opened something up.
Thank you.

[Tak]

Day 12 - Sat 12/May/2012

am:

well, i had expressed an interest in experiencing life outside my head over the last few posts here, and the universe delivered.

yesterday I managed to stay out of my head more than usual and I invited alot of emotions to come up and express themselves instead of firmly tamping them back down and not letting them out.

The predominent emotion that showed up was sadness, grief and moments of peace. To some extent i understood the sadness, but I wasn’t really ready for the depth of it. At at times, the lack of attribution for it.. what was I sad about? Sometimes the source was very clear, other times, it was like a random bubble had arisen and broken out.

Reading back over these posts, my mind had identified and turned away from fear at times. Im worried (and afraid?) about how those fears are going to express and what that experience will be like. maybe I shouldn’t worry about that (heh) til it happens, but just be open to it.

At work friday, we had a “fire” to deal with and I think i was able to respond well and stay focused with getting tied up in useless mind chatter the typically surrounds fires , mistakes and pressure. Im grateful for that.

friday night I went to a store and bought a number of cheap bracelets / wraps to place around my wrist. I’m trying to get myself to remember to 1-2-3-4, to surrender to what comes up out of that, and to stay out of my mind. I like the physicalness of the bracelet. And, since i don’t normally wear things on my wrists, people comment on it, which reminds me all the more.

Normally I’m reading two books .. a fiction book and a “self-improvement”-ish book. I’ve dropped the self books for now. I dont want to feed my mind more fodder during this experiment. Ive tried to even cut out some radio / music listening unless i’m really into expressing my emotion thru the music at the time .. otherwise it feels like a stream of distraction. I do still listen to a podcast episode I like from LoriAnnLothian called “wake up now”, where she tells her story and addresses alot of distractions. I find alot of overlap between her podcast and what Im hearing here.

Well, reminder bracelets are on, time to go out into my saturday... 1-2-3-4