Simply start here.

[Seichi]

Thank you so much for your understanding answer :-)
I think that I'll come back... - but not right now, something has to ripen or wither away; time will show which...

Love, Leif

[Elizabeth]

It's been a pleasure, Leif.
If something further develops on it's own, come back and play.
Love, Elizabeth

Thank you so much for your understanding answer :-)
I think that I'll come back... - but not right now, something has to ripen or wither away; time will show which...

Love, Leif

[Seichi]

If something further develops on it's own, come back and play.

Two and half month have passed... - and I am back :-)

Elizabeth, please tell me honestly if you have the time and/or the courage to continue the journey together with me. If you haven't got the time right now, tell me and we might postpone the continuation...

What has brought me back is an increasing feeling of falsehood in my life. I did these tibetan buddhist things... - but while exciting when new, later on I to a higher and higher degree felt as if I was performing on a scene. I did the practices because I was expected to... - not because it felt right for me to do so.

I stopped with you because I was afraid of being looked down on by my fellow buddhist practicioneres: "Do this guy know what he want? He is soooo enthusiastic and look now! He is running away right away...!"

I also didn't want my wife to think of me as being a "turncoat"... - she knows I am (!) but in THIS degree!!!?

I have now realized that I HAVE to be honest to both myself and to others... - therefore I turn back to you.

What do you say to all this nonsense, Elizabeth ;-)
Do you want to play?

[Elizabeth]

Hi Leif,

How nice to hear from you again, glad you are back. I wondered if you were well somewhere, and hoped you were.
No problems whatsoever picking up here. In fact, you probably noticed some things in meditation and life that will be helpful here, awesome! Let's check in your experience:
You noticed that you were playing a role for others. It felt very insecure.
You noticed that if it is not your truth, you feel out of integrity, it's not peaceful.
Your 'self' concept' changes constantly, and you wish it could be stable. Turncoat, LOL, good observation! Indeed!
Self needs to identify with something to feel real. A role, as in the first observation. Very self-reflecting loop.
Given the work you have already done here, can you find a self in this that is real?

What do you think? Much love, Elizbeth

[Seichi]

Hi Elizabeth,

Thank you so much for being with me again :-)

Given the work you have already done here, can you find a self in this that is real?

No, it was precisely this that was the problem. I took this role on me: ”I am a tibetan buddhist!!!” I was in fact labelling what was going on, and I was pasting these labels upon some ”ghost” which I called ”I”...

I could not ”letting things be as they were”, but insisted on creating a ”person”. A person that should appear homogenious and stable and coherent in front of others. That is: a kind of a ”made-in-Hong-Kong-thing”... ;-)

The funny thing was that I to a certain degree KNEW this, but still I could not let go and be whatever this ”I” was... I dared not just be...

I thought I had to MAKE this person to not disappoint others. Now when I write this I come to think that this word ”not to disappoint others” has a much greater significance in my life than it should have...

I make a ”persona” who will not disappoint others, an image which will satisfy others... - but this can never ever be satisfying for me. This is the opposite of freedom, it is slavery.

Love, Leif

[Elizabeth]

Let's run a small test and directly observe this process of putting together a self.
As you have observed, we have these thoughts ABOUT who we are, and who we should be.
Thoughts ABOUT a MY character in the story of a ME.
Probably a different character for different people :-) Wife, kids, teacher.

Thoughts are real things. But contents of thought only point to things, concepts. For example, thoughts ABOUT a cup are not the cup itself. Do thoughts ABOUT a character mean that it is real?


Please sit and look as precisely as you can at the thoughts as they come and go.
Does a self cause these thoughts to arise?
Be very sure of this answer.
A SELF has been claiming the thoughts as SELF generated. And thoughts ABOUT self have been accepted as real. It's a very strong habit by now. So we have to check, or this intellectual dishonesty will override direct perception again.

In direct experience, how do thoughts arise?


And finally:
Self is a thought.
Can a thought think?


Really work with this, run it a few times, see if it opens things up.
Much love, Elizabeth

[Seichi]

Hi, Elizabeth

Thoughts are real things.

Are they not rather happenings than things? Well... - not important in the context.

Do thoughts ABOUT a character mean that it is real?

Absolutely not. A thought about a unicorn does not make it real. Neither does a thought about "me" make a character, it be my thought or another persons thought.

Does a self cause these thoughts to arise?

I have pondered what are these thoughts.
Is a thought anything else than what happens when a person talks to himself/herself in silence? I see no difference between socalled thoughts and talking. Yes, one is silent, the other is loud...

That is: Thoughts are happenings in the world just like talks, earthquakes, the taste of a melon, the sound of a bird singing, wars, lovemaking etc. etc.

In direct experience, how do thoughts arise?

They arises in exactly the same manner as any other thing in the world: as a result of cause and effect. Something in the world makes this thought happen. It has nothing to do with anything "spiritual" thing called a "me". It influences surely this body which I call "me", but not in any other way than the wind blows and makes trees fall...

And finally:
Self is a thought.
Can a thought think?

No, it cannot. That is, it is absolutely not needed to postulate any self to be the creator of thoughts. No, they come and go like anything else in this world.

Love, Leif

[Elizabeth]

Hi Leif, let's check the thoughts out a little more.
Thoughts are measurable happenings. We can communicate them, 'watch' them come and go, sense them reflected in bodily response (fearful thoughts associated with tension, for instance) laugh at them, use them as tools...
But do they belong to a self that controls them? Originates them?
You say you can't find a self that owns them. Cool.
So if you say:
"a person talks to himself/herself in silence? I see no difference between socalled thoughts and talking. Yes, one is silent, the other is loud..."
Who is this person that is talking to himself? What are these apparently two selves? Is this another story in thought? A story ABOUT a story?
Is what is looking part of the thoughts?
Look behind story, Leif. Anything there? Yes, or no?
Check. REALLY check.

Much love, Elizabeth

[Seichi]

Hi Elizabeth,

So if you say:
"a person talks to himself/herself in silence? I see no difference between socalled thoughts and talking. Yes, one is silent, the other is loud..."
Who is this person that is talking to himself? What are these apparently two selves? I

At first sight there seem to be a thinker and a listener (witness).
But when I look closer, it seems that there is no thinker... - no little man sitting inside the brain talking to someone.

Thoughts (silent talk) need no I or me to exist. They just bubble up like bubbles in a glas of champagne. They might be taken notice of or not...

But then arises the question: who or what is it that might take notice (or not)? Who or what is this witness?
Maybe there also here is no need to postulate some kind of entity called I or me...?

Thoughts arise... - silent talking takes place, some action might follow.
E.g. there arises the thought that "I" am thirsty, there might then in the brain silently be pronounced the words "I am thirsty". Then there follows the action that "I" go in the kitchen for a glass of water.

There is no need for neither a thinker nor a witness...

But still: I have this feeling that there is in fact this little man (or girl ;-)) sitting in the brain estimating every thing!

Is what is looking part of the thoughts?
Look behind story, Leif. Anything there? Yes, or no?

What or who is this little boy or girl sitting in my brain?
He or she is also nothing but a thought, the thought "I am conscious about this or that".
This consciousness is also just a "silent talking", a thought, that is a happening in the world, a happening that just arises like the bubbles of champagne...

Consciousness might be called a thought about a thought, understood in the way that it is a happening (consciousness) caused by another happening (thinking)...?!

In that case there are neither I or me, but only happenings in the world...

Well... - enough for now, Elizabeth :-)

Love, Leif

[Elizabeth]

Lovely, very relaxed feeling about how this investigation proceeds.
Bubbles of champagne :-) Yes, that'll work!

You wrote:
'In that case there are neither I or me, but only happenings in the world...' Aha. Very good noticing.

Is there more evidence for that, than evidence for a little commander of happenings in your head? Is there really someone things happen to, or is the happening all part of one thing, no separation? Even that which apparently separates, the story of a separate I, is that a seamless part of the happening?

Check and see, which, in reality, looks truer. All a happening, or somehow, this thing that separates from it all, stands off, and complains, LOL? Wants it different? Self-ish, self-centered, self-absorbed, self-aggrandizing, self-reflective loop of thoughts?

Maybe also check to see if most suffering is generated when a self-story is felt to be separate from this whole.
The thought, which is insubstantial and affects nothing, can certainly be thought: I am a separate person. It's the belief in this, the grasping and building on it that appears to cause suffering.
Can anything be separate from the whole?
Or have we been one thing all along?

Love, Elizabeth

[Seichi]

Is there really someone things happen to, or is the happening all part of one thing, no separation? Even that which apparently separates, the story of a separate I, is that a seamless part of the happening?

Things do not happen to ME, they happen to the WHOLE. Everything, every happening, every thought changes the world, not just this thing which I used to call "me".
Nothing is separate from anything else...
E.g.: neither is there a separate ego.

Maybe also check to see if most suffering is generated when a self-story is felt to be separate from this whole.

Yes, this is what suffering is: Pretending to be a separate thing wanting this and that to be otherwise than it in fact is... - or wanting this or that other human being to be and behave otherwise than he or she in fact does.
Recognizing that all beings are equal in that respect than all are ONE, removes the thought that others or I should be otherwise than they or we are. We are as we are because of the whole world being as it is. Nothing could be otherwise than it is...
There is a great release in realizing this (if it is true!)
That does not mean that the world (and I and other beings) cannot change, but changes will occur without any separate ME to take charge.

Can anything be separate from the whole?
Or have we been one thing all along?

Nothing can be separate from the whole, because it this were so, then the whole would not be the whole but only a part of the whole.
The whole is the whole not only in space but also in time. The whole is the whole including past, now and future. Therefore we have always been what we are, and we will never be otherwise.

And now to the champagne... - or - well: a glass of red wine ;-)

Love, Leif

[Elizabeth]

Yes :-)
And now, lastly, I would like you to look at belief. Tell me how a belief is possible.
How is it different from knowing?

I raise a cup of tea to you, Leif!
Love, E

[Seichi]

Tell me how a belief is possible.
How is it different from knowing?

This was not an easy one... - but I did reach an answer:

A belief is not in itself a fact. It is a thought ABOUT something that might be a fact or might not be a fact.
A belief is a thought. A belief is theory...

If I KNOW something, then there is no need to think that I know, I just know...
I act upon this knowledge knowing that this or that is in fact the case.
I act in stead of making theories.

I don't tell stories, I live the life...

Does this make sense to you?

Love, Leif

[Elizabeth]

Hi Leif.
It makes sense. The ability to discern between belief and knowing is the difference between a you living an apparent life and life.
Does it feel as if a shift has happened? One that is not a belief, or a wish?
One that is beyond an intellectual argument?
I know these questions have been answered before. but what would KNOWING write? Let's see.

1) Is there a you, at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form?

2) Explain in detail what a self is and how you've seen it work. Please be simple, as if explaining to a 18 year old in the process of building an identity and finding it hard for some reason.


3) How does it feel to be liberated? What you expected? :-)

Bows <---- Elizabeth

[Seichi]

Does it feel as if a shift has happened?

Absolutely so! And I am very grateful :-)

1) Is there a you, at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form?

There is an Indispensable need to use words like I, me, you etc. in everyday communication.
But this is only because of a grammatical convention.
The words are all needed. But these words do not point to any factual entities. They point rather to what might be called something like "collections of ongoing and forever changing happenings"

2) Explain in detail what a self is and how you've seen it work.

I am not quite sure that I understand your question... - but I try to answer:
A baby being born it has no ideas of I or you, this or that. It has no ideas of self or others.
Then comes the parents (and a lot of other people) saying things like "How sweet YOU are, Molly", MAMMY loves YOU", Don't touch THAT, IT is not YOURS" etc. etc. etc.

And slowly (but surely) the child learns about the apparent differences between "I" and "you", between "this" and "that". The child cannot unlearn these things... - it is a trap...

And then the suffering begins: The "others" are very stupid. They do not behave as I wish them to behave. I become angry, frustrated, disappointed either with others... - or I become disappointed and dissatisfied with myself, if this is what the genes determine.

The whole life becomes a struggle between this ME and the OTHERS. Or if not a struggle then a more or less unhealthly clinging. I remember that Jean Paul Sartre wrote a title named something like "Hell, that is the Others".

All suffering has to do with this splitting of the world in this and that, me and them. Physical pain is another thing, pain cannot be avoided, but pain does not neccessarily imply suffering. Suffering is a mental thing...

Do animals suffer? I would say no. They sometimes have terrible pains, but without a language, without alienating concepts they do not suffer. They do not have the mental capacity to allow suffering. Well..., this was maybe a distraction?!

All these alienating concepts imposed on one and every child form eventually a more or less coherent "self". Many children of an age of 8-10-12 yrs come to ask "Why am I ME and not another child"? Remember this?? I remember this question very clearly!
This question is impossible to answer simply because there is no "I" who could be this or that other child!!!

Also the thousands of sites of philosophical littarature concerning the question of "free will" vanishes into nothing simply because there is no "I" to have a free will or not to have a free will!!!

3) How does it feel to be liberated? What you expected? :-)

How should I know??? The bars were never there... - but I thought they were :-)
Who thought this? Well... nobody did... - it simply was that way. Now things are in another way...

Am I liberated? I feel happy and free :-)))
But I know that this is not the end... - the "self" imposes itself every hour of the day claiming attention. There needs to eventually be a stable practice of not believing in this concept of a self.

Bows <---- Elizabeth

I bow down to the Noble Guru Elizabeth :-)