Hi

[suma]

Dear Marcin,

Getting rid of "I" and the whole guiding process is really a miraculous medicine! The current perspective here is that the removal of the "I" concept (which seems to be basically done) laid bare other concepts - or beliefs - present in the mind. As it turned out, the most troubling and a big hurdle in life, was a concept related to rejection (rejecting/being rejected): that it is stressful, should be avoided, and - simply put - is a bad thing.

Yes, a wonderful clean up!
See it that way:
When any kind of strong emotion or thought comes up - it is really full of spiritual vitamins!
It is not pleasant, but you know now for sure that it happens just nowhere to no-one.
Stay with it; don’t avoid any kind of feeling or emotion that was called ‘negative’ or ‘unpleasant’.
It’s a process, a clean up, and it can be at times really unpleasant.

The old reflex is to try and stop it.
To drag you out of this mind state you may create some distraction for yourself,
phone a friend, have some chocolate or whatever.
The mind will start to create all sorts of interpretations of the feeling.
And like this the unpleasant state is trying to increase itself.
Who is doing all this?
It is the old story, or the ego, the person.

Just noticing it is enough.
There are sensations, there are thoughts, something is visiting, staying for some time
and at some point all this will change again.
Staying with the raw experience is simply enough.

Can the sufferer be identified?
Who is suffering it?

Basically what happened was that when "my" answers in this conversation were rejected repeatedly, the belief that the rejection is unbearable took a central stage.
There was a strong body reaction and turbulent thoughts - probably cortisol level was quite high for some time.

Dear Marcin, nothing and nobody was rejecting you!
There is also nothing like a big wonder-bag which opens to the ‘blessed ones’.
There is no one making judgements about ‘processes’ and all the stuff.
These are just labels.
Also the label ‘Gate’ and ‘gated’ are just nothing but labels.
Totally meaningless, as you might see by now.

The only authority to see any changes lies within You.
Never expect anything from imagined outside authorities.

So an action was taken, and this concept has been removed. Now "you" can reject "me" as many times as you want,
and there will be no hurt feelings! And then it is just extremely useful in everyday life situations :)

What kind of action was that exactly?

Yes. However, it seems like a process of recovering now: there was an illness, now the illness started to recede, but it's still impossible to function normally.
The driving force behind the illness might be gone, but it is still important to keep a strict regime of prescribed medicines.
There are probably many troubles ahead (like that rejection thing

When anything comes up, just stay in the aforesaid manner.
Use it as a pointer.
There’s - unfortunately ;) - nothing like a ever happy after.
The journey continues.

Yes, it's clear. But "I" habits are persistent and it is still important to continually question any incoming "I" states –
is there anybody there? Who is doing this or that? - otherwise they linger like ghosts.

Very good.



Maybe we just start a second attempt with the final questions:

Give special attention to the fifth one.
Explain it as direct as possible without so much going into analogies.

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form?
Was there ever?

2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience. Describe it fully as you see it now.

3) How does it feel to see this?
What is the difference from before you started this dialogue?
Please report from the past few days.

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over; made you look?

5) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control.
What makes things happen?
How does it work?
What are you responsible for?
Give examples from experience.

6) Anything to add?

All the best

nina

[mpsi]

Dear nina,

It has been a busy week and I had no time to sit down and write a reply. Probably the weekend is going to be busy as well, therefore I might be able to send an answer only on Monday or even Tuesday.

Best wishes to you!

Marcin

[suma]

That's
perfectly Ok.

All the best

Nina

[suma]

Dear Marcin,

how are you?

Is everything OK?



wishing you all the best

( :

nina

[mpsi]

Dear nina,

Yes, everything is perfect. But in the recent days it was clear that the work and other mundane things have priority, and this is why I'm only now giving an answer.

Can the sufferer be identified?

No, no sufferer,. The suffering is identified as such by thoughts, and there is a kind of a compulsive loop of thoughts wishing to end it or to dissociate with it. And the sensation labeled as suffering usually is perceived as a discordant one, interfering with other sensations but not bringing any positive development itself - but these are also just thoughts. Therefore there are two components: the sensation (e.g. pain) and thought ("this is painful, I do not want it").

Who is suffering it?

While there is a habit of thought still present to some degree to feel suffering as something personal, something that creates separation, there is no one suffering it.

Dear Marcin, nothing and nobody was rejecting you!
There is also nothing like a big wonder-bag which opens to the ‘blessed ones’.
There is no one making judgements about ‘processes’ and all the stuff.
These are just labels.
Also the label ‘Gate’ and ‘gated’ are just nothing but labels.
Totally meaningless, as you might see by now.

Yes, of course, therefore the whole affair was patently absurd, but well, that was what was there at that time.

So an action was taken, and this concept has been removed. Now "you" can reject "me" as many times as you want, and there will be no hurt feelings! And then it is just extremely useful in everyday life situations :)

What kind of action was that exactly?

That was a technique to get rid of unwanted beliefs acquired on a website (recreateyourself.com). Basically, it is a sequence of mental actions: first admit a belief, second imagine circumstances when it was established (childhood situations), then imagine different interpretations of the situations (for example suggested by imaginary friends), then make clear that the belief was not real - that it was just a thought - and that it is not real now. This is basically a multi-step realization that the belief is just a content of some thought, and doesn't need to be mistaken for reality.

----

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form?
Was there ever?

No, there is no separate "I", "self" or "me" and never was.

2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience. Describe it fully as you see it now.

The illusion of a separate self is created when a specific (which happens to be a "socially accepted" one) way of seeing things as separate beings is mistaken for the reality. Then, continually strengthened through interactions with other humans and the use of language, it becomes habitual and any other explanation increasingly seems unconceivable and absurd. Then it resembles an image in a distorting mirror mistaken for the real thing, and creates constant disapppointment, because the image of the reality is distorted, so things constantly do not fall in place.

3) How does it feel to see this?
What is the difference from before you started this dialogue?
Please report from the past few days.

There have been several phases so far, but now more or less the dust has started to settle down, and basically the feeling is a kind of patient sobriety. When being challenged, the mind acts, gets agitated, sometimes makes blunders, but afterwards just simply get backs to being, more or less, at ease with everything.

And it is not that suddenly something important that was part of "me" is missing, no, all aspirations, most habits, most problems, most limitations etc. are still here. But all these things now simply stay here temporarily. And it is much easier to keep life in order. What is broken can be fixed, what is not needed can be thrown away, all this fixing and clearing out is work, requires effort and so on, but there's no drama about it anymore.

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over; made you look?

It was the mirror exercise, as reported earlier. Seeing that the boundaries are imposed arbitrarily by the mind on the reality.

And also, when told to go to nature and to check if there was any separation between "me" and nature, it was very obvious that there was none. In childhood my family used to spend summers in an idyllic place with meadows and fields, big forests and a lake, and very few people around, and at that time it was obvious to the child that he was but a part of a big beautiful whole. This perspective - being part of nature - has been present all the time, but not clearly articulated, and lost in constant social interactions.

5) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control.
What makes things happen?
How does it work?
What are you responsible for?
Give examples from experience.

Decision happens spontaneously depending on all present conditions.

Intention is a thought about future with admixture of wishing for something to happen or not happen. It influences outcome as part of current state of affairs, but does not decide it alone.

Free will - the problem of free will is a part of the distorted view of separated entities. This is like getting an absurd result when solving a mathematical problem, which arises because of an error made somewhere in calculations. As long as one does not spot the error, one only can keep being puzzled by the self-contradictory result.

Choice, just like all decisions, happens spontaneously according to the all given conditions.

The problem of control or lack of control is also irrelevant. No need of control.

Things happen by themselves.

The machinery that makes things happen is not visible. But the way they happen brings a conviction that basically there is no hidden machinery. Everything happens in the most natural way in plain sight, and if something seems mysterious it is only because of the limited view from a particular perspective that is being experienced.

There is no separate me. "I" am not responsible for anything.

An example from experience: let's say I am not happy about wasting too much time on unnecessary things - so these are thoughts first outlining some behavior, then evaluating it as "wasting time" and about feeling dissatisfaction. Then there may be an intention to waste less time - another thought. A belief (again a thought) that it is possible to change the behavior may be present. So the mind starts looking for possibble solutions and slowly discovers some methods, for example slowly builds new habits to paying more attention to some behaviors and learns how to avoid unwanted ones. For example I could be taking notes about it, discovering behavior patterns and so on. I may be seeking advice or reading some books about changing habits, and when received suggestions seem useful, the mind naturally looks for a way to use them. Etc.

6) Anything to add?

Well, this feels really like getting in touch with reality. Neither good nor bad, just what is. But on the other hand it is really liberating, so again: big thanks to you all for this amazing thing!

All the best

Marcin

[suma]

Dear Marcin,

thank you very much this long and detailed post.
There is much clarity inside.
Jet, a few remarks I’d like to offer:

Can the sufferer be identified?

No, no sufferer,. The suffering is identified as such by thoughts, and there is a kind of a compulsive loop of thoughts wishing to end it or to dissociate with it.
And the sensation labelled as suffering usually is perceived as a discordant one, interfering with other sensations but not bringing any positive development itself –
but these are also just thoughts. Therefore there are two components: the sensation (e.g. pain) and thought ("this is painful, I do not want it").

Actual experience of sensation and actual experience of thoughts.
("this is painful, I do not want it") The really painful part here is the ‘ I don’t want it’.
The painful part is the resistance towards something which is manifesting in the given moment.
Without referring to or from a me, would it be equally painful?
Would resistance be there towards something, which simply IS?
Or would resistance be there without an ‘I’?

Who is suffering it?

While there is a habit of thought still present to some degree to feel suffering as something personal,
something that creates separation, there is no one suffering it.

Actually thought is not a habit; it is more something like a tool.
Habitual here is more the identification with what thought is suggesting about reality.
When suffering is considered as personal the story of the me just continues endlessly…

What kind of action was that exactly?

That was a technique to get rid of unwanted beliefs acquired on a website (recreateyourself.com). Basically, it is a sequence of mental actions: first admit a belief,
second imagine circumstances when it was established (childhood situations), then imagine different interpretations of the situations
(for example suggested by imaginary friends), then make clear that the belief was not real - that it was just a thought - and that it is not real now.
This is basically a multi-step realization that the belief is just a content of some thought, and doesn't need to be mistaken for reality.

Sounds good.

How does it feel to see this?

What is the difference from before you started this dialogue?
Please report from the past few days.
There have been several phases so far, but now more or less the dust has started to settle down, and basically the feeling is a kind of patient sobriety.
When being challenged, the mind acts, gets agitated, sometimes makes blunders, but afterwards just simply get backs to being, more or less, at ease with everything.

And it is not that suddenly something important that was part of "me" is missing, no, all aspirations, most habits, most problems, most limitations etc. are still here.
But all these things now simply stay here temporarily. And it is much easier to keep life in order. What is broken can be fixed, what is not needed can be thrown away,
all this fixing and clearing out is work, requires effort and so on, but there's no drama about it anymore.

Wonderful

Intention is a thought about future with admixture of wishing for something to happen or not happen. It influences outcome as part of current state of affairs, but does not decide it alone.

You seem to be quite clear about decision, free will, choice and control.
What about intention? It sounds as if there is someone influencing, not alone though,
but still some residue of power is there belonging to whom?
Who exactly carries or commands this intention?

An example from experience: let's say I am not happy about wasting too much time on unnecessary things - so these are thoughts first outlining some behaviour, then evaluating it as "wasting time" and about feeling dissatisfaction. Then there may be an intention to waste less time - another thought. A belief (again a thought) that it is possible to change the behaviour may be present. So the mind starts looking for possible solutions and slowly discovers some methods, for example slowly builds new habits to paying more attention to some behaviour and learns how to avoid unwanted ones.
For example I could be taking notes about it, discovering behaviour patterns and so on. I may be seeking advice or reading some books about changing habits, and when received suggestions seem useful, the mind naturally looks for a way to use them. Etc.

Hm, but here is still pretty much of ‘Marcin” involved.
Let’s say you are reading magazines and while doing so you may think:” I should not be reading magazines”.
So what does all this imply?
The fact is that there is ‘reading magazines’, and the thought ‘I should not’, just as a thought.
What is more real? And what has more validity?
The actual reading is here a fact in this given present moment.
And at the same time thought is denying the present moment.
So there is a friction, a division, a breaking apart.
Can you see that?

All that is needed to be whole is just to be with any given moment.
No need to create thoughts about changing this moment.
No need to resist this present moment,
also no need to crave for anything different than just this present moment…


Of course it won’t happen generally all at once in an instant to face any given moment without any resistance.
It is more like as you wrote before:

…most habits, most problems, most limitations etc. are still here. But all these things now simply stay here temporarily.
And it is much easier to keep life in order. What is broken can be fixed, what is not needed can be thrown away, all this fixing and clearing out is work, requires effort and so on,
but there's no drama about it anymore.

Once the direction is clear, the enfolding may start to happen just naturally.

With warm regards

nina

[mpsi]

Dear nina,

Actual experience of sensation and actual experience of thoughts.
("this is painful, I do not want it") The really painful part here is the ‘ I don’t want it’.
The painful part is the resistance towards something which is manifesting in the given moment.
Without referring to or from a me, would it be equally painful?
Would resistance be there towards something, which simply IS?
Or would resistance be there without an ‘I’?

Yes, of course! Thank you for this clarification.

What is seen here is that there are still many residues of "I" left. When, let's say for example, there is some kind of painful event or just simply physical pain, these things surface and the whole phantom of "I" becomes present again. It seems that these residues can be identified as beliefs, just like that thing about rejection from my previous post. By the way, just identified another major belief today that creates separation and therefore the illusion of "I". What seems to be tricky here is that those beliefs are not stated as regarding specifically "me", but in impersonal or interpersonal terms. Although no belief in "me" is present and it's somehow self-evident now that "I" is not real, those beliefs can still persist temporary on their own terms. It seems some more cleanups are needed.

While there is a habit of thought still present to some degree to feel suffering as something personal,
something that creates separation, there is no one suffering it.

Actually thought is not a habit; it is more something like a tool.
Habitual here is more the identification with what thought is suggesting about reality.
When suffering is considered as personal the story of the me just continues endlessly…

Maybe "belief" would be a better way to express the intended meaning than "habit of thought".

You seem to be quite clear about decision, free will, choice and control.
What about intention? It sounds as if there is someone influencing, not alone though,
but still some residue of power is there belonging to whom?
Who exactly carries or commands this intention?

It probably should have been stated more clearly: the thought of intention arises according to conditions present, for example beliefs (it seems necessary to mention them again). It may be very simple: there is for example a belief at the present moment that a sensation of hunger is going to get stronger if it is not satisfied with food, so an intention arises to prepare something to eat.

No one is involved in carrying an intention. It appears as a thought and may - or may not (again, depending on circumstances) - be taken into account when other thoughts are formed or decisions made.

Hm, but here is still pretty much of ‘Marcin” involved.
Let’s say you are reading magazines and while doing so you may think:” I should not be reading magazines”.
So what does all this imply?
The fact is that there is ‘reading magazines’, and the thought ‘I should not’, just as a thought.
What is more real? And what has more validity?
The actual reading is here a fact in this given present moment.
And at the same time thought is denying the present moment.
So there is a friction, a division, a breaking apart.
Can you see that?

It was meant as a kind of multi-step process, but you are right: there is something creating friction in that little story, and it seems to be ... beliefs (again!) about necessity to do something or not to do something else. These beliefs are somewhat hidden, and it takes time to uncover them.

All that is needed to be whole is just to be with any given moment.
No need to create thoughts about changing this moment.
No need to resist this present moment,
also no need to crave for anything different than just this present moment…

Yes, this idea is very clear and it is the best thing to do. The tendency here was to try to escape some more "difficult" moments, but now it is obvious that they should be embraced instead.

Best regards,

Marcin

[suma]

Dear Marcin,

Although no belief in "me" is present and it's somehow self-evident now that "I" is not real,
those beliefs can still persist temporary on their own terms.
It seems some more cleanups are needed.

Wonderful realization, isn’t it?

When suffering is considered as personal the story of the me just continues endlessly…
<Maybe "belief" would be a better way to express the intended meaning than "habit of thought".

Ok, this is more precisely it. Good!

It probably should have been stated more clearly: the thought of intention arises according to conditions present, for example beliefs (it seems necessary to mention them again).
It may be very simple: there is for example a belief at the present moment that a sensation of hunger is going to get stronger if it is not satisfied with food, s
o an intention arises to prepare something to eat.
No one is involved in carrying an intention. It appears as a thought and may - or may not (again, depending on circumstances) –
be taken into account when other thoughts are formed or decisions made.

OK.



Dear Marcin, there is a chapter in Ilonas book I’d like to share with you.
She’s saying things so nicely and I would hardly use any different words.
Hope you enjoy and can make some sense out of it and best use:


“So What?

Nothing changed, but everything looks different.
If this make sense, then the Gateless Gate was crashed, the illusion of separate self is seen through. The nonexistent line is crossed and there is no way back.

The End of the Search, but Not the End of Our Exploring.

Crashing the Gate may be the end of seeking, but it is not the end of exploration.
Seeking may not stop immediately; it may still have momentum. The recognition of no self is just the beginning of seeing life and “your self” in a new light.
It takes time to clean up all the mess, to settle in and adjust.

The journey continues, the story carries on, but thoughts have been seen to be thoughts.
The story is no longer solid, true, or real. “So what?” you might ask.
You may still feel like a separate being, but now you have the ultimate tool: looking!
So keep on looking. Keep noticing, keep asking questions.

Keep finding silence, being, and presence, and rest in them. All you need is already here. Trust that life is unfolding by itself and that there is no other way than this. You will know when deconstruction is over. Until then there is work to do. By “work,” I mean two things: Question what you know is true. Rest in being.

Some Things Change Quickly, Others May Take Longer

There is so much to explore, and life will bring all that wants to be seen into the present moment. So whatever shows up is here to be looked at. Say yes to it all.
See everything as an opportunity to deepen. Question everything, and little by little you will notice changes in everyday life: less judgment, more openness; less thinking, more appreciation; less story, more being; less structure, more flow.

You will notice that some habitual thoughts no longer arise. The story changes in a way that allows more space for simply being. There might still be expectations, confusion, and doubt. That’s normal at this stage. You may be wobbling between “I get it” and “I don’t get it.” You may be thinking that this is not enough, that some experiences need to happen, that you should be happy and blissful all the time.

When these thoughts arise, bring the focus to what is here now.
There is no other time or space. Just this.
And look again: what is here that wants this to be different, and what feelings are here about that?

Come back to stillness. The search may be over, but the journey continues.
This is an opening, an invitation to look deeper, to free the mind from conditioned patterns, to become aware of habitual thinking, to unhypnotize yourself from the dream of separation.

This is where you start living authentically, spontaneously, and are okay with all that comes. This is where you rediscover the beauty of being.

Don’t Hold On to Anything

My only advice at this stage is to hold on to nothing.
Don’t hold on to anything. When beliefs start falling, when certainty is no longer there,
it may be scary and painful, but all of this is part of the cleaning-up process.

Bring attention to the here and now, notice what is happening, rest in being, and,
at the same time, question all beliefs— one by one.
You may look into time, world, body, emptiness, awareness, space, impermanence…the list continues, and wonder what these things are.

If you feel lost, don’t worry—it too shall pass. Here and now, all is always as it should be. How to know that? It’s already here. Isn’t that wonderful? You may now find that feelings are much more intense, unfiltered, and raw, or that emotions come up and pass quickly.

You are free to feel, to experience, and to enjoy the intensity. It’s juicy and makes you feel alive. The gift of freedom is being able to feel free to live life in its fullness, which includes all. “




Please let me know how you are going, taking all the time you need for…

Warmly

nina

[mpsi]

Dear nina,

Thanks a lot for the excerpt, this is very fitting and helpful in present situation. Yes, it seems that beliefs have to be questioned one-by-one, and it takes some digging to identify any of them. So it is going to take time.

Love

Marcin

[mpsi]

Dear nina,

Since there are no more questions for the time being, but the quest is not over on this forum, it occurred to me to write in a little bit different voice.

First the report: Beliefs - after looking for some more beliefs (by the way, dropping them is easy now) something happened: when more and more limiting beliefs (limiting - because they were about what should not be done) were removed, expectations about what should or must happen just kept inflating. It took some time, some disappointment and some visions of insects (I love insects, so this was not something as scary and awful as it may sound) to notice them as another distraction pattern. So here are they, another obstacle to seeing free flow of events, expectations that something will turn out, that it even has to turn out, as great, perfect etc. Afterwards, they were seen as just empty thoughts and mostly removed.

It seems that limiting beliefs and expectations used to work as a mechanism that enabled some mental navigation through life or rather through an imagined life map. Expectations seemed to fuel the movement forward, limiting beliefs were acting like brakes and together they created an illusion of influencing the movement.

Except the movement just didn't go in the expected direction. The whole map and the mechanism were not working at all.

After this structure was dismantled, there has been some heavy stuff surfacing here, because of the perception that "my" life situation is not good now.

In a way, I have been living through an ongoing catastrophe. I entirely lost interest in doing what I was doing to earn money while living in China and started to lose footing in life there. At the same time, I feared I had too few resources to go to a direction that was actually interesting to me. While my family grew, I was less and less certain what I should be doing in life. After relocation back to Poland a year ago I have been struggling to reinvent myself professionally, but everything just seems to fall apart. I cannot connect with people, fall into many traps and cannot keep a straight course. Slowly, I sink into debt. But still, things that seem easy to grow, being a continuation of my previous profession choice, are both occurring naturally and are postponed indefinitely because of sheer lack of interest (sometimes it is just ridiculous: when all conditions to actually start making progress with work seem present, I just get ill or constantly suffer overwhelming headaches). At the same time, things that are actually attractive present themselves as a wall too steep to climb without some outside help or some tools, and I lack both.

Before, there were many years of things coming right by themselves without using any effort. But most of potential gains were wasted and now, when it's become the opposite, I do not have resources to cope with it.

Or so it seems. Because all of this is just a story, an invention.

Nevertheless, the realization that there is nothing to be done comes here at the moment when the feeling of the occurring loss is very intense.

Therefore, there is a lot of heavy stuff arising. And the ongoing realization is like finding peace amidst a storm on a vessel that is on the brink of sinking. One can report the feeling of peace, but at the same time it is difficult to neglect that all what is happening around seems to scream: big problem!

So what? This is the whole point: life is simply like this, there is nothing sad or difficult about it. There is not even a lesson here, just the ongoing experience.

But there is still something left, some kind of expectation that when the surrender is complete, life will just get better, that it has to, and that there must be a way to find the magic path which will lead to blessings and riches.

But if nothing gets "better"? Well, it won't make a difference. There is going to be a moment when the bottom is reached and the whole adventure will be over. That's it, and even this is only a story. Will it be a great story? (This certainly is every storyteller's greatest ambition.) Well, who cares? Life doesn't care about stories that much, and even for a storyteller they ultimately are just a way to make livelihood. They are tools, to be used when needed and to be discarded when not useful anymore.

But just like one has to use the language to interact with other humans, one cannot live as a human without telling a story.

Or so it seems.

---

Putting that story aside, just being in the moment becomes more and more natural, even when difficult emotions are present.

---

I decided to get the Ilona's book. There are quite interesting things in it, like Deep Looking technique and I think it will be quite useful when dealing with the residues that are waiting for a cleanup.


Hope you don't mind reading this kind of confession.


Best regards,

Marcin

[suma]

Dear Marcin,

thank you for this very long and honest post.

I wrote you an e-mail to continue on another channel...


All the best

nina

[mpsi]

Dear nina,

As agreed during our email exchange, I am sending another set of answers to the "last questions". Initially I thought to wait a little bit longer before writing it, to wait for some feelings to "settle", but it doesn't seem necessary now.

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form?
Was there ever?

No, there is none, and never was.

2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is,
when it starts and how it works from your own experience.
Describe it fully as you see it now.

It is a cumulative (conditioned) process of thoughts. A little child at some age starts using thoughts to separate objects in the experienced reality (having observed some infants, I'd say that the first important object is not self, but mother), and slowly during process of socialization builds many stories, including one of a character of self. Children crave stories and they are very vivid to them, so identification becomes quickly quite strong. This self character slowly accumulates various traits in the story, and probably for a teenager it becomes firmly a central character in their life.

It works as follows: there are almost constant thoughts labeling experience as happening to or acted by the self or someone else. When anything happens, the whole bag of beliefs is employed: is the self an actor, or acted upon? Is the self able to act like this or that? Should it or should not? As the self is believed to be such and such, anything that happens is treated as beneficial or harmful to it.

So, simply speaking, the self is a character in an ingrained story (of course, the story and the character is everchanging, but more often than not these changes come unnoticed, because the character is believed to act in a more or less consistent way).

3) How does it feel to see this?
What is the difference from before you started this dialogue?
Please report from the past few days.

It has been already some time, several weeks after the absence of self has been seen. There were both light and dark moments.

Gradually, many beliefs have been seen as unsubstantiated and subsequently disappeared.

Recently there is an increased feeling of lightness, and most things just go smoothly, as if the whole mechanism finally got properly greased. A lot of things just happen and noticing and labeling is often somewhat late to the show.

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

The most important moment was when during the "mirror exercise" it was seen that there are no boundaries in the actual experience.

Before that there was another important moment, when it was seen during meditation that thoughts are superimposed on the experience, that there is a gap between them and the experience.

5)
a) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control.

There are thoughts about decision, but things just happen and there is no single point when a singular decision can be pinpointed.

Intention is just a thought.

Free will and control are things that exist in stories about how "sentient beings" function. The actual experience indicates that both ideas totally miss the point.

Choice (for example: turning left or right during a stroll) happens spontaneously according existing conditions.

What makes things happen?

Things just happen, no single thing in particular makes them happen.

How does it work?

It doesn't work at all, it just is.

Give an example from your own recent experiences to how things happen and how things work.

Recent experiences: a dog barks, the head moves to look (although the dog is behind a door), barking gets some attention, and there are thoughts like "what is the dog barking at?", "this is too noisy". Nothing is controlled by anybody.

Waking up in the morning, there are thoughts identifying the place and orientation of the body, seeing light from behind the curtains and knowing form it that it must be quite late at this time of year. Reaching for a watch to see what's the time, habitually recollecting when I got asleep in the evening and whether I woke up during the night and quickly calculating the duration of sleep. Then some thoughts about what to do next ("planning"), getting up. Partially habitual morning routine kicks in: waking children up, preparing something to eat for them etc. As usual (this is also noticed in a thought) the children don't want to cooperate, some problems arise and have to be dealt with etc. There are many different thoughts arising, some emotions, some words are spoken with varying intentions.

All of these things just happen, by themselves. They are real happenings and deeds but there is no one doing them, although the convention of using "me" to refer to the "acting entity" is there ready to be employed at any time when needed.

There are also stories about other people, but when checked it is obvious that there are no "selves" involved there. It feels more than okay, because no one is at fault for anything.

b) What are you responsible for?
Give examples from your own recent experiences to how this works.

Nothing. "Responsibility" is another thing appearing in a story of "someone" doing "something", just like free will or control.

There are thoughts about being responsible for this or that, content feelings of being up to the task or unhappy feelings of failing at something, but all of these things are just thoughts, part of some story. While success or failure may be real, for example, I might have not found any solution to some problems, or might be late for an appointment recently, and because of that might experience some feelings of guilt, all of these pass away much more quickly than before and are easily seen as being just thoughts.

6) Anything to add?

As this is my third attempt to get the answers to the questions right ;), it's been quite a lot of time for the clarity to deepen. The change seems at moments almost unnoticeable now, there is even a thought "has anything changed at all?". At the same time any identification with "I" has become for most time simply absent. Most visible change is probably that when dealing with people the attitude has clearly become almost relaxed, while before it felt almost like wearing a heavy armor in most social situations.

It's incredible how light and beautiful this gift is! :)

All the best,

Marcin

[suma]

Dear Marcin,

no more questions.

( :

Please have a look at your (pm)
private message box.


All the best

nina