Is it possible to see this?

[dreamer]

I don't really have any feelings about looking into direct experience. I have done this many times during these various threads, I believe. Usually people would ask me to look at my actual experience and see if there is a me, or to see that there is no me. So I would look and see, ok, physical sensations, sounds, sights, whatever emotions I might be feelings, and I wouldn't see any me anywhere. But I wouldn't see that there is no me.

Sounds as you feel that direct experience does not work for you?

You can call me dreamer or vivi as you like :) What do you want to be called?

Vivi

[xyzzy]

I don't really have any feelings about looking into direct experience. I have done this many times during these various threads, I believe. Usually people would ask me to look at my actual experience and see if there is a me, or to see that there is no me. So I would look and see, ok, physical sensations, sounds, sights, whatever emotions I might be feelings, and I wouldn't see any me anywhere. But I wouldn't see that there is no me.

Sounds as you feel that direct experience does not work for you?

You can call me dreamer or vivi as you like :) What do you want to be called?

Vivi

Well, it hasn't worked yet. I don't know what might work.

You can call me Edward, or xyzzy.

[dreamer]

Hi Edward

Ok. Now do this:

Sit down. Close your eyes. Notice for 10 minutes what you can hear, feel and smell and body sensations. Tell me.

I do not care if you have already done that a 100 times or more, I want you to do it now, in order for me to know how you describe you experience now.

Warm regards Vivi

[xyzzy]

Hi Edward

Ok. Now do this:

Sit down. Close your eyes. Notice for 10 minutes what you can hear, feel and smell and body sensations. Tell me.

I do not care if you have already done that a 100 times or more, I want you to do it now, in order for me to know how you describe you experience now.

Warm regards Vivi

Sound of the computer fan, various physical sensations of my body pressed against the floor and the chair, a feeling of being, breathing. I wasn't really putting labels on them most of them time, but I have to do so in order to type them in here. I started falling asleep towards the end.

[dreamer]

I wasn't really putting labels on them most of them time, but I have to do so in order to type them in here

What made you think that you had to label the experience the way you did, in order to write it here?

Humming sound, pressure, being, breathing, sleepy.

Would have been a valid answer. What happened was that thoughts got in the way in a very subtle manner. Therein lays one difficulty in seeing 'I do not exist'. The thought of 'I' ruling.

During the day do the looking an noticing as I just described it.

Let us know.

Good day !
Vivi

[xyzzy]

I wasn't really putting labels on them most of them time, but I have to do so in order to type them in here

What made you think that you had to label the experience the way you did, in order to write it here?

Humming sound, pressure, being, breathing, sleepy.

Would have been a valid answer. What happened was that thoughts got in the way in a very subtle manner. Therein lays one difficulty in seeing 'I do not exist'. The thought of 'I' ruling.

During the day do the looking an noticing as I just described it.

Let us know.

Good day !
Vivi

I did the exercise again, but I'm not sure what you're wanting me to do in doing it again. It seems like you want me to put a bunch of effort into making it look like I put less effort into labelling the experience.

See, the thing is, I don't have much of a memory for experiences. When I say, "sound of the computer fan", those words are all I have left of the experience. I don't actually have a memory that I can recall of hearing the sound, I can't visualize or hear sounds in my mind or any other sensory recall. It wouldn't occur to me to call it a humming sound.

At the time that I was experiencing these various sensations, I wasn't labelling them for the most part, but there was some mental note made which later allowed me to go back and "remember" them and label them. To try to come up with some simpler sounding labels would actually take a large amount of effort, and might not come up with anything anyway. "The sound of a fan" is the simplest description for me for that sound, I'm not adept at describing sounds and would have no better way to put it.

Hopefully I'm not coming across as being too argumentative here...

[dreamer]

Hi Edward

Hopefully I'm not coming across as being too argumentative here...

Do you experience to feel you are coming across as being too argumantative?

I simply see resistance.

Sorry I didn't mention that you are not supposed to use the words I wrote in the example.

Greetings Vivi

[xyzzy]

Hi Edward

Hopefully I'm not coming across as being too argumentative here...

Do you experience to feel you are coming across as being too argumantative?

I simply see resistance.

Sorry I didn't mention that you are not supposed to use the words I wrote in the example.

Greetings Vivi

I'm not sure what you're wanting me to do now. Do you want me to keep doing that same exercise?

[dreamer]

Hi Edward

Yes that is what I ask of you.

Call it an exercise. It can also be called training in direct experiencing. It is my impression that you have not understood the point of that yet. It means to be in the now and when thoughts come in, you are not in the moment. It is about experiencing what is without thought. That means without any labels, just pure experience in the moment. If you want knowing beyond the intellectual knowledge you have to do direct experience without thought. Not to satisfy me.

Do direct experience a couple of times during the day (or more) and write here what happens.

Greetings Vivi

[Finoh]

Hi Edward,
I am joining this Three-on-One also. From my observations and my own personal experience there seems to be some log jam in the ‘seeing’ around experiential knowing and intellectual knowing.

I will give you an example of an intellectual knowing and an experiential knowing. If I had a bucket of water and filled it with ice you would have an intellectual knowing or understanding that it would be cold, you could look at various memories, general knowledge and life experience to intellectually know it was cold. BUT if you plunged your hand into the water and held it there for a few minutes you would really ‘know’ it was cold, you would not have to think about it being cold or do a course on it being cold or talk to a forum leader on it being cold or meditate on it being cold or ask god if it was cold or go to a retreat about ‘buckets and cold water coldness’. Once you shove your hand in and leave it in there for a few minutes you will know it is ‘effing cold’." In fact in most instances the shock of the cold water would bypass the thinking and the body would automatically react. A short time later after the event the thinking would come in that it was verrry cold!!

Can you come up with other examples in your life where a experiential understanding has occurred prior to thinking?
Finoh.

[xyzzy]

Hi Edward

Yes that is what I ask of you.

Call it an exercise. It can also be called training in direct experiencing. It is my impression that you have not understood the point of that yet. It means to be in the now and when thoughts come in, you are not in the moment. It is about experiencing what is without thought. That means without any labels, just pure experience in the moment. If you want knowing beyond the intellectual knowledge you have to do direct experience without thought. Not to satisfy me.

Do direct experience a couple of times during the day (or more) and write here what happens.

Greetings Vivi

I understand what direct experiencing is. I did this a few more times today. What happens is, there's a feeling of being, physical sensations, sounds, breathing, and so on. This goes on for a while, then thoughts start up and I get distracted by them and forget that I was doing the direct experiencing for a bit. Then I remember and the thoughts stop and I keep on with it for awhile more. It goes back and forth, as I continue being aware of this experience, and then get distracted again by thoughts.

[dreamer]

Hi Edward

Ok. What you describe looks like direct experience (DE), then thoughts, then DE, then thoughts again. Don't get lost in the periods with thoughts. Just let them be, and when you notice thoughts have taken over focus on DE again.
In DE can you find an 'I'?

Vivi

[Finoh]

Hi Edward,

I can't recall reading in your posts whether or not you have noticed thoughts just arising like when you first wake up in the morning before you get out of bed or even move there is a silence there and then thoughts arise. Have you noticed this? or have you been in other situations where the 'mind' is still and thoughts just arise?

Cheers

Finoh

[Empty Mirror]

Hi Edward

Sorry about my slow reply. I went away for a long weekend with some friends, and there was very little opportunity to get online.

I see that Finloh and Vivi have asked you a couple of questions, so I won't bombard you with any more until you've answered theirs. I'll just try to explain what we're trying to do here, and where we're going with this process.

We're trying to help you to discover that what you think of as subjectivity is deeply profound in nature. The experience of the colour red is not the same as the word red. The experience of love is not the same as the word love. And every single experience is accompanied by a stream of words and "thought commentary".

This thought commentary creates a sort of "veil of ideas" over direct experience, and at the same time tells a story that all experiences are 'centred' in a location. Thought tells a story of a 'mind'. There is no such thing as 'mind' and there is no such thing as "subconscious", even cognitive scientists will admit that 'mind' and 'subconscious' are nothing but concepts. Thought even tells stories about subjectivity, and gives it a "location", but thoughts CAN NOT BE TRUSTED.

These thoughts that create the "veil", and that tell a story about an "I" are NOT your thoughts. They only say that they are yours. We will go through the exercise of testing whether you're the thinker of thoughts, but for now you have to trust us, and do your very best to report ONLY direct experience, with as little thought story as possible.

I explained what I mean in my first post on your thread.

Here is an example from your reply to me:

Can you describe this "feeling that there is a me"? What does it feel like? Try not to use any thought stories in this description. Try to describe the exact sensation of what a "me" feels like. And keep a check on how much of that description is a thought story when reporting back please.

It's actually a knowing rather than a feeling; that is, it feels like I know that there is a me. The experience is that I know there is a me.

Can you see here that you have NOT used direct experience to report back to me? You were unable to find any direct experiential evidence of a "me", so you reported what thought says. When you say "I know that there is a me", you are reporting ideas, not experiences.

All you KNOW is that you are aware of experiences. You KNOW that because you directly experience them, but you do not directly experience any feeling of a "me". You may experience sensations of a body, but you do not experience feelings of a "me". When you say "I know that there is a me", what you should have said is that there are thoughts appearing that say there is a "me".

Anyway, i'll let you answer Finloh and Vivi's questions for now.

[xyzzy]

Hi Edward

Ok. What you describe looks like direct experience (DE), then thoughts, then DE, then thoughts again. Don't get lost in the periods with thoughts. Just let them be, and when you notice thoughts have taken over focus on DE again.
In DE can you find an 'I'?

Vivi

No, there is no I in my experience. So if an I did exist, it would have to be somewhere else. Where, I don't know.