Why does this have to be concluded?
Surely something can only be 'not me' in opposition to a 'me'. That's how language works.
This isn't about replacing one conclusion with another conclusion (insert 'belief' for conclusions)
In fact it's worth considering very carefully where the conclusion 'everything is not me' will lead to. Here is a hint, that's not a fun place to land.
I mean: I can conclude that everything I find is 'not me' in the same way I can conclude everything I find is 'not Santa'; one doesn't have to presuppose that Santa actually exists in order to say everything is 'not Santa'. Same with the self. In this case, I am starting with the belief 'there is me and there is stuff which is not me', and I am finding that everything I look at is 'not me'.
What's the difference between 'no self' and 'everything is not me'? As far as I can tell these would be the same thing. Ie: 'no Santa' and 'everything is not Santa' are the same thing, also.
Let's reframe this a bit. Raise your hand and touch the wall.
What is the difference in experience between 'hand' and 'wall'.
Get very specific here.
Well ... I would say I can feel the hand and the wall. I feel the hand in a kind of tingling where the hand is, and I can also feel the cold air around my hand - so I would say there was a sensation of coldness - and I feel the wall as a kind of pressure or resistance. Furthermore, I would say that the feeling of tingling is somehow adjacent to the feeling of pressure/resistance, and also the feeling of coldness of the air. As a matter of fact, the tingling is sandwiched between the pressure on one side and the coldness on the other. I can also feel the coldness between my outspread fingers which helps me feel the shape of my hand (the pattern of coldness reveals the shape of the hand).
The only sense in which I experience the wall is in that pressure/resistance. I think I experience the hand not only in the tingling, but also in the feeling of pressure/resistance. I mean ... I know my hand is there because of the pressure/resistance as much as I know that the wall is there because of the pressure/resistance. (I wouldn't be able to feel the wall unless my hand was there, so the feeling of the wall implies the hand, and this is one of the ways in which I experience the hand.)
There is also the uncanny sense that, the feeling of the point of contact - the pressure/resistance - is neither wall nor hand. If I try really hard to stop filtering the feelings through ideas about wall and hand, (and images of wall and hand) and just feel the feeling of hand on wall in its most immediate and pure sense, it's just a sort of vague feeling - almost a kind of non-feeling, if that makes sense. The sensation almost feels like nothing when I take away the filters and interpretations. Like I said before: a reflection in rippling water.
So that's it, you are not even going to try?
What is an emotion made of?
What is that experience?
Take a look. Here they are, those pesky emotions, happening all the time and apparently making your life miserable.
Aren't you curious to get a handle on whats going on and what misperceptions/ misinterpretations are going on?
Don't you hunger for freedom from the limitations of your beliefs and current understanding?
If not, why are you here?
I guess I chickened out, there. An answer to that question was not forthcoming, but an answer to the other question popped out at me. The question of emotions is just very difficult. Regarding emotions vs a stubbed toe, for example. The stubbed toe is physical pain, and the emotion is something other than that. There is, however, some physical component to emotions. In fact, I've found that when I'm experiencing (basically any) emotion, there is always a feeling in the chest that goes along with it. One interesting thing about this chest feeling is that, when the emotion is bad, I characterise it as a feeling of heaviness, and when the emotion is good, I characterise it as lightness, or lifting. But, when I made the effort to really compare these two sensations, it was not clear to me how they were actually different. When I tried mentally to put them side by side it really wasn't that obvious that they were different feelings in the chest, but this needs more consideration and it's obviously very hard to take your mind to those two different spaces in quick succession (though it is possible with positive/negative thinking).
Another thing is that with negative emotions there is also a feeling in the throat of tightness. I have not noticed this with positive emotions.
I've also found that with many negative emotions, the physical components are the same. The tightness in the throat, and the feeling in the chest. This seems weird because you'd expect the sensations to be somehow different, since they are different emotions and you'd think the feelings would have to different in order for you to tell the emotions apart! But apparently not ...
Oh, but I think an exception is anger. When I get angry there's this additional sensation which I might describe as 'bristling' - it's almost a feeling of tingling or hairs standing on edge around my head neck and upper body in general. I would almost say it's a hot and spiky feeling, but it's not painful, just a general sense of rising tingling or hotness around the upper body and heart. But it's very subtle and not really an equivalent to physical pain, or a true physical feeling of hairs standing up or heat. Either way, I would say that the physical component of anger is quite unique.
In light of these observations, I would say that my understanding of emotions is definitely changing. I've almost made a hobby out of trying to distinguish the physical aspects of emotions when they arise. The moment of realising that you've been swept up by an emotion and considering how it actually feels, physically, is a little like 'breaking the 4th wall', or something. It breaks the spell a little - but not totally. But I would say it's changed my relationship to emotions a little. For example, with anger, if the bristling sensation goes unconsidered, my immediate behaviours will be angry behaviours (I'll get clumsy or aggressive or whatever) but if I become mindful of the bristling, it becomes clear that there's no MANDATE to behave that way just because of that bristling, and I'm able to basically stanch the anger a little right away, because the anger just seems like an automatic behaviour change module (as if I were some kind of computer) which isn't really rational in and of itself; I mean, there's no rational connection or necessary connection between the bristling and the following angry behaviours, so you just don't have to do those behaviours!
BUT, I will say that the most peculiar thing about stanching the anger in this way is that I often feel like I'm cheating myself out of being angry - like I SHOULD be angry, or it's JUST (right, fair, moral) for me to be angry. Like, I almost feel like I DESERVE to be angry and that by choosing not to be angry I'm somehow not allowing myself some indulgence which I've earned. Of course, this all is silly, because anger is just not fun. I just regard this weird feeling to be some kind of vestige of learned behaviours. It's not too hard to see how silly it is and remind myself that I really DON'T want to be angry.
Now, I think I've written probably too much here in an altogether too stream-of-consciousness style. I hope it's not too hard to read. (I still don't know whether my predilection for semicolons and em-dashes makes my writing clearer or cloudier, but my natural writing style doesn't seem to work without them.)
This work on emotions is obviously an ongoing process.
If it seems like semantics then that tells me you are just playing mind games. Going back trying to think your way through this.
It just won't work.
That's why it's not clicking.
I'm not trying to play mindgames with you. I'm not teaching you a new language of 'no self'. If you leave here like that Xain an I have done you a disservice.
But I can only point out in language what is being unexamined, assumed, conjecture, beliefs.
Your job is to utterly honestly be ready to look at that with fresh eyes and be open to the fact you may not be experiencing what thoughts are saying is the case.
That's it.
[...] be open to the fact you may not be experiencing what thoughts are saying is the case.
So, there's a discrepancy between what is actually being experienced, and what thoughts are saying is true? Is this not precisely what a semantic change would be about? In light of the above discrepancy, wouldn't the goal be to bring thoughts into alignment with what is actually being experienced - ie, get the contents of thoughts (language) to change to more accurately reflect what is being experienced. Is that not basically what a new language of 'no self' would be?
On the one hand, nothing about experience is going to change, because things have always been in a state of no-self in the first place; and on the other hand, what we're looking for here is not just a semantic change. So, if the change will not be in the character of experience, and it's not going to be in language, where is it going to be? And if there's going to be no change, what's the difference between someone who has not seen and someone who has?
This is probably stuff that you would say is just getting in the way, and if it's going to be counterproductive then I will try my best to just stop it. But I'm generally very predisposed to approach things in this sort of analytic way, and that propensity was only heightened by my undergrad studies. Wanting to square up all the concepts and semantics - I'm drawn to that like a magnet. But I also get the sense that there's a divide between our approaches here which might be exacerbating our apparent differences. My only desire with this semantics stuff is to get us both on the same page, so we can understand each other just right. I'm just getting the impression that we're not quite there yet. My impulse, in that case, is to hash it out and really get to the bottom of that - but sometimes I know it's easier just to brush it under the rug and trust that the SIMILARITIES between our understandings here will be enough to get the desired result out of the conversation. There is a point of diminishing returns on semantic work and if you think we've hit it we can stop. I just want you to know that I'm not doing it to try to be argumentative. I'm happy to return to more 'direct looking' work.
Hmm ... nothing very strong. You see, I'm a very 'in my head' person. I started watching the video with an idea that I was supposed to react a certain way (sentimentally, to put it simply) and was pretty sure I wouldn't feel that way, so when I watched the video all I was thinking about was how I wasn't reacting to it sentimentally and thus was instead just sort of irritated by it. Honestly, I was, I guess, a little jealous of the girl and her family. And this was all coloured by the fact that I was still a little worried that I'd accidentally annoyed you by not answering the question about emotions ... so I was quite distracted.
It does, however, remind me of earlier when you said for me to go out in nature and think as if I was a child experiencing everything for the first time. Obviously, this is related to that...
Thanks for your patience, Hannah.
