Simple awakening, truth.

[Elizabeth]

There are several terms for seeing through the illusion of self, in several traditions. Gateless Gate, stream entry,the end of self-enquiry, etc. All simply seeing what a self is, or more accurately, is not. In reality, in experience, not intellectually. The fear that often precedes Gate is referred to in my favourite Alan Watts title, 'The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are". The forums are there to walk you through a short directed process of looking at what is really there. It's not teaching, it's looking. It's free.
And the standard warnings about how your expectations of awakening will be wrong, and there is no saying how life goes later (when it is strongly felt to move to truth in all things) all apply. People who resonate very strongly with truth find this process difficult to ignore.
So, if you are a truth person, and are committed to get this, I'll commit to staying with you the very short distance to what is actually here.
I work with people on PMs on this site as well. Whatever works :-)

[horace]

Hello Elizabeth!

I hope I find you well.

When I look for "I" I only find thoughts, feelings, memories, etc. about "I" as a category. However, I cannot seem to find "I" myself (or itself). If anything, the "I" I'm looking for is the I that is looking, but it is so shifting and splintering -- thinking one second, then thinking about the thinking the next, on and on and on -- that I don't know if I could really label that as "I." It's just more labeled thoughts.

I understand no-self intellectually (Alan Watt's Religion of No Religion and Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are got me started), but I do not know if I have really experienced it. Close, but never over the edge.

Horace

[Elizabeth]

Hello Elizabeth!

I hope I find you well.

When I look for "I" I only find thoughts, feelings, memories, etc. about "I" as a category. However, I cannot seem to find "I" myself (or itself). If anything, the "I" I'm looking for is the I that is looking, but it is so shifting and splintering -- thinking one second, then thinking about the thinking the next, on and on and on -- that I don't know if I could really label that as "I." It's just more labeled thoughts.

I understand no-self intellectually (Alan Watt's Religion of No Religion and Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are got me started), but I do not know if I have really experienced it. Close, but never over the edge.

Horace

Hi Horace, apologize for the delay, it seems that I am not being notified of posts here. I'll look into it now.
Glad you have made some headway on this illusion already, sometimes all we need is a push. You will know when you see it, and I'll annoy you by asking you questions about it, but it's all going toward establishing ourselves in a deeper understanding, before we wander off and do the rest of our lives.
If you have not lost patience (and if you are a seeker you have a few years in on this, so hope you are patient) let's swing into it.
Where do the thoughts arise? In reality, when you look, where do they arise?
How are they held in awareness?
Where do they go when not in awareness?
This process is not about the knowledge we hold on these subjects, but this moments actual experience.
And 'I don't know" is always acceptable. It is a very useful realization in itself.
Much love, Elizabeth

[horace]

Not a problem at all =-)

In this moment, thoughts are rising and receding on my mind like the train horn out the window is on my ears. I have to focus very hard on this or else I get wrapped up in the feeling that "I" am generating these thoughts.

However, when I am focused, they seem to rise into awareness spontaneously from somewhere outside of my awareness, in front of my awareness (as if seen), and then move on outside my view. It is like looking through the slats in a fence at people walking by.

The trouble I feel like I'm having is that "I" feels like my conscious awareness. Like I said, if I focus I can forget that association, but I am easily hooked back into it. It's not so much the thought-label "I" that I'm having trouble with -- I can see that that is just a thought in my awareness -- it's a feeling in my gut. That, too, is just a feeling in my awareness, but it is proving a difficult sensation to shake.

[horace]

I was trying to just be aware in the present and had two realizations.

This is all just a perspective of existence in existence.

Everything is only in the present. Even memory, which seems to be the past, is just thoughts in the present.
From the second, "I" exist as a story, labelled memories. However, if I cannot find "I" in the present, then the label on the memories must be false, because there had to have been an I in the present (this present).

I don't know if this is off-track or relevant at all, but it seemed significant. It produced a stepping back from association with what was happening. Things were just happening. I've had this before but it didn't stick, so I think I'm off track.

I'm posting this anyway so that you can be up to date on what's happening. =-)

[Elizabeth]

I was trying to just be aware in the present and had two realizations.

This is all just a perspective of existence in existence.

Everything is only in the present. Even memory, which seems to be the past, is just thoughts in the present.
From the second, "I" exist as a story, labelled memories. However, if I cannot find "I" in the present, then the label on the memories must be false, because there had to have been an I in the present (this present).

I don't know if this is off-track or relevant at all, but it seemed significant. It produced a stepping back from association with what was happening. Things were just happening. I've had this before but it didn't stick, so I think I'm off track.

I'm posting this anyway so that you can be up to date on what's happening. =-)

From here it does not look as if you are having trouble or are off track. It looks like you are walking around the thoughts of I and giving them a hard look. Exactly right. Looking directly at the reality, not just the thoughts ABOUT reality. Big difference.
Since you say that it is the association that you feel is the problem, let's look at how we attach to an I thought. Here is a very simple exercise. Look at a cup or glass on your table.
Is it true-er to say that it is A cup, or a MY cup?
Where exactly does a cup become a MY cup? What is the mechanism?
And when you find the mechanism, is that same thing applied to , well, everything? Looking forward to your reply.
Love, Elizabeth

[horace]

It' just a cup. "My" is a thought label describing the cup. So when I think about the cup there is a thought about the cup and a thought about the thought if the cup ("that is a cup that is mine").
Yes, ithe same priciple applies to anything. "My" is similar to "me" or "I" in that it is a thought that labels other thoughts into a category. The thought of feelings being mine happens within awareness just as everything else I can perceive.
With this question I can detach from the feelings that my awareness is me, and view things rising and falling almost like a movie (this is just a perspective, I keep coming back to), but it is very easy to slip back into attaching to things.
However, I can see that thoughts of the self will not necessarily go away because I realize there is no self, I will just be able to recognize them as simply thoughts, not "mine."

[Elizabeth]

It' just a cup. "My" is a thought label describing the cup. So when I think about the cup there is a thought about the cup and a thought about the thought if the cup ("that is a cup that is mine").
Yes, ithe same priciple applies to anything. "My" is similar to "me" or "I" in that it is a thought that labels other thoughts into a category. The thought of feelings being mine happens within awareness just as everything else I can perceive.
With this question I can detach from the feelings that my awareness is me, and view things rising and falling almost like a movie (this is just a perspective, I keep coming back to), but it is very easy to slip back into attaching to things.
However, I can see that thoughts of the self will not necessarily go away because I realize there is no self, I will just be able to recognize them as simply thoughts, not "mine."

It seems we can have a perfectly robust sense of self, without needing to believe that there is an actual director, do-er, or owner. This is a great tool for locating self-interest in a complex world. Language supports the illusion that there is a separate self. Something that is separate from other things, something that needs a boundary to exist as a separate thing. But that's just me. It's what you find out here that is important.
Let's see if an I really owns a choice, or directs our body. That is pretty close to home.
This is just us walking around in our life, a few places to look, are:
When walking, see how much of the time there is ownership of walking, and how much time is just walking. Was an I thought needed to walk, really? Where does the I thought come in, when walking around? Making left or right choices?
As you do chores, is there, in reality, a 'you' that makes these things happen, is the thought "I am going to make coffee" coming in before the movement to make coffee, during the making, or sometime after, if ever? Is an I needed to make coffee? Where does that I come into play, really?
And if you are typing , watch the thoughts and see f there is really a 'you' thinking them, telling the fingers what to do, what to say? Do 'you' really know what you are going to say? When do you know that?
It can be annoying and frustrating looking at these things, we take them for granted and are pretty sure we know what goes on.
But if you stay with it, it could be interesting.
It's helpful to journal about these experiments, keep running notes, 'talk" to yourself about it. And it'd be helpful for both of us if you can report where you are at with this, maybe take your time to nail it down and try a few things out, but keep in touch.
If I could have done this alone, I would have, so for some reason this short partnership with someone who has been this way, was key for me, and quite a few others.
Much love, and a good rest of the weekend :-)

[horace]

It' just a cup. "My" is a thought label describing the cup. So when I think about the cup there is a thought about the cup and a thought about the thought if the cup ("that is a cup that is mine").
Yes, ithe same priciple applies to anything. "My" is similar to "me" or "I" in that it is a thought that labels other thoughts into a category. The thought of feelings being mine happens within awareness just as everything else I can perceive.
With this question I can detach from the feelings that my awareness is me, and view things rising and falling almost like a movie (this is just a perspective, I keep coming back to), but it is very easy to slip back into attaching to things.
However, I can see that thoughts of the self will not necessarily go away because I realize there is no self, I will just be able to recognize them as simply thoughts, not "mine."

It seems we can have a perfectly robust sense of self, without needing to believe that there is an actual director, do-er, or owner. This is a great tool for locating self-interest in a complex world. Language supports the illusion that there is a separate self. Something that is separate from other things, something that needs a boundary to exist as a separate thing. But that's just me. It's what you find out here that is important.
Let's see if an I really owns a choice, or directs our body. That is pretty close to home.
This is just us walking around in our life, a few places to look, are:
When walking, see how much of the time there is ownership of walking, and how much time is just walking. Was an I thought needed to walk, really? Where does the I thought come in, when walking around? Making left or right choices?
As you do chores, is there, in reality, a 'you' that makes these things happen, is the thought "I am going to make coffee" coming in before the movement to make coffee, during the making, or sometime after, if ever? Is an I needed to make coffee? Where does that I come into play, really?
And if you are typing , watch the thoughts and see f there is really a 'you' thinking them, telling the fingers what to do, what to say? Do 'you' really know what you are going to say? When do you know that?
It can be annoying and frustrating looking at these things, we take them for granted and are pretty sure we know what goes on.
But if you stay with it, it could be interesting.
It's helpful to journal about these experiments, keep running notes, 'talk" to yourself about it. And it'd be helpful for both of us if you can report where you are at with this, maybe take your time to nail it down and try a few things out, but keep in touch.
If I could have done this alone, I would have, so for some reason this short partnership with someone who has been this way, was key for me, and quite a few others.
Much love, and a good rest of the weekend :-)

Ok. Thought or will is not a necessary precursor to action. When I am walking around, I may have thought, "I'm going to get up and walk," but this is not necessary. In fact, if "=" were to truely direct all of my actions, I would have to think "= am going to shift my weight onto my left foot as I lift my right foot, swing it forward, and set it down. Next, I repeat the process only shifting weight to my right foot and lifting my left." Even this is too broad. I would have to control everything on an extremely miniscule level where individual events and things bleed into a continuum.
So in short, I have no control over my actions.

I will try to post a little later with a description of where I am.

Thank you! =-)

[Elizabeth]

Hi Horace, Thank you for the update. Great!
This is the crack in the wall getting wider; no one seems to control the body, so what is happening there?
No one seems to be generating the thoughts, so how is a choice made if not in thought? Or is it made at all?
Is something doing all this, that you can point to or locate?
Because it has been a few decades of being you, and if you can't find you .....:-) what would that really mean?
Really push this. Push it hard. Don't let up.
Love, Elizabeth

[horace]

I worked your questions in numbered order.
1. I don't know. It seems to be a part of the dance of everything. Movement happens in the moment on its own. My heart beats, my arm raises a glass for me to drink. Both are the same. They just happen.
2. Just as the idea that there is a subjective "I" is a thought, so, too, are choices. That "I" make a "choice" is only the content of a thought: a fiction. So there is no such thing as an actual choice. Like movement, things happen on their own, without input from an "I."
3. If any thing is doing this, it must be everything, totality. When I am focusing on the present, there is no separation. Things happen together.
4. If I can't find "myself," then it must have never existed at all, which means that nothing changes when the lack of self is realizes. Things are the same as they always were, only I will recognize it for what it really is, a fiction.

I feel as if I have caught glimpses of the truth, but nothing definite enough to break through and make it stick.

[horace]

So I sat down with a notebook and tried to pin down where I'm at:

All that ther is, is awareness. All perceptions, thoughts, feelings, objects are within awareness. Awareness cannot act in the sense that "I" act. It simply observes. Nor can it observe itself. It is not a "thing." It is an act, a process. The thoughts and concepts of "I" exist, along with everything else, within this awareness. Therefore, "I" cannot be the perceiver or doer. Things happen, manifest, but no thing "does" them. They simply happen, manifest. Any thing that takes place is in this awareness, including the "things inside my head" and the concept of awareness itself. But, awareness is no thing other than every thing, because without every thing, there would be no thing of which to be aware.

The question remains, though, how can this be realized, recognized experientially?

[horace]

I suppose the answer if to realize the illusion of a self: what were trying to do =-)

[Elizabeth]

Hi Horace, my last post disappeared! Just replying to you. I see you are online.
This is rubber meets road. You see it intellectually, but not experiencing it as clarity.
So we put ourselves in intimate and abrasive contact with the experience of self.
You utilize intellect, stubborness, emotional energy of all kinds, even physical strengths, and don't let a single assumption or action pass by without looking at how it is constructed around self. Notice that self is selfish, self-absorbed, self-centered, and the center of the world. It appropriates everything to it's use. Notice it in others.
Living in intense awareness of the lie uncomfortable. And it's the only way to experience how the illusion is put together, for you. See it through and through.
And thanks for checking in, keep writing what you see, nailing the thoughts down has a great deal of value on a truth hunt.
Love, Elizabeth

[horace]

I am drowning with self. I couldn't even get past the first thing I noticed upon reading this without a deluge of narration, judgment, excuse, abuse, etc.
This pursuit -- to recognize the non-existence of self -- is in itself a selfish act. "I" am tired of all the various frustrations created by the chronic association with an idea or concept that entails a belief that the world can be meddled with and effected to match the desires also associated with this concept.
Realizing this brought on a slew of exclamations "from" myself, all amounting to, "this is a hopeless endevor. You might as well just give up."
I will not give up, but it does raise the question, "how do we use the self to realize it doesn't exist?"
My method at the moment is to try to observe the arising of selfish thoughts (thoughts involving the self, which is really all thoughts, isn't is?) And then questioning them: "is it real? Is this really how things are, or is it an interpretation filtered throught the self?" The problem I run into is the questioning is also associated with the self.

Any pointers would be much appreciated =-)