Going deeper

[AwayKen127]

Hi Bill,

This is what I get from your responses so far:
There's no see-er. No privileged point of view.
There's no agency/choice/doership/responsibility.
There's no thinker. No controller.

Maybe the point isn't a solid foundation. It's the movement.

Your statement suggests that you might be beginning to let go of the need for conceptual understanding, although in other responses, you seem to cling to the desire to "figure it out".

What's still standing in the way of clear seeing? Sometimes it's fear. Sometimes it's an unexamined belief, which is often that awakening, or life after awakening, is supposed to look or feel a certain way or pass a certain test. Sometimes it's the narrative--Bill and his past or future. Sometimes it's clinging to a conceptual scheme where everything "makes sense". Do any of these ring a bell?

Jeff

[wgiruzzi926]

Hi Jeff!

It's funny ... I notice the "Bill" that is currently showing up is "It sounds like you're close. Be careful what you write so you don't mess it up." LOL

Honestly Jeff, I think it's all of those things especially finding a scheme where everything makes sense.

It seems to me that these different points of view, characters are going to arise. They are going to keep arising. It doesn't seem to me that there's anyway to stop them, and I'm not sure they should be stopped. Perhaps there are "deeper levels" for lack of a better way of saying it, although I suspect that there are not. So I can only speak to now. Now there seems to be remembering who you are, forgetting who you are, remembering, forgetting, remembering, forgetting ....

But even that doesn't seem accurate either because thoughts, feelings, sensations aren't who you and they are. How could they not be? If you're all of it.

Anyway, I'm going to stop there for now before I get too entangled in trying to wrap this all up with a nice bow. :)

[AwayKen127]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lh_E3Jo7fqE

Here's an interview with Pam, a person who just awakened. In it, Pam says that she recently saw a 2 year old toddler in distress because he was separated from her mother. Pam said we never stop feeling anxiety about that separation. But we transfer the savior role from mother to spouse, or to money, or to possessions, or to identity as a member of a church or political party or nation, or to our image of ourselves. Waking up is letting go of whatever one clings to for security and finding that one is already always at home and secure because there is no separation from Life. There is nothing to chase after and nothing to run from, nothing to gain or lose, because there is no one apart from the whole. So you can't chase awakening. You have to relax and let it come to you.

So, Bill, what are you clinging to to keep the terror of the experience of separation at bay?

Kindly,
Jeff

[wgiruzzi926]

Morning,

I'm clinging to good feelings, my body, the ideas that make me feel better, the hope of making it - being enlightened. I'm clinging to the order of my life and to letting in a little amount of unpredictability at a time.

I'm clinging to understanding. To having it all make sense.

Watching videos like this one always confuse me and mess me up. Enlightenment isn't a feeling or experience, but to hear Pam talk about the same thing over and over, listening to her talk about how wonderful it is is like a carrot on a stick for me. It makes me think I'm missing something because for me sometimes it's wonderful and sometimes it's not - just like it's always been.

I'm doing this other program called Smart Body, Smart Mind and it's basically to help people deal with trauma that may be stored in the body, to heal their nervous systems. There's an aspect of the program where this man Elia leads us through Movement Exercises. Today was the first day of doing this. When I was getting set up to watch the video, I remembered that the day I had a brain bleed back in 2020, it was a gray day just like today. I was getting an exercise video set up for my wife and I to do and I moved my head in a particular way and felt something in the back of my head. Turned out somehow I had torn a blood vessel that was likely worse because I was on blood thinner and aspirin. What might have been a small bleed was a gigantic bleed and I was only the blood thinner because they discovered I had a blood clotting disorder that causes my blood to over clot. That discovery was made after I had a mild ischemic stroke while sitting in this same room that I'm in now watching TV when suddenly the TV started to float in my perception. This all started what was the worse 2.5 years of my life. And so, as I set up to get ready to do this mornings video, I was reminded of setting up that video 2.5 years ago and how my life changed, and then there was terror.

I'm clinging to the hope that will never happen again, but not because I'm afraid to die, but because I'm afraid of having to live like that again.

[AwayKen127]

I'm clinging to the hope that will never happen again, but not because I'm afraid to die, but because I'm afraid of having to live like that again.

I feel the heavy, heavy weight of that, Bill. I have known it myself, albeit in different circumstances.

Now, please look and tell me where is "having to live like that again"? Do you find such a thing here and now in direct experience?

Try this exercise if you think it's advisable. Sit quietly with your eyes closed and remember what it was like to "live like that" after the stroke. Feel the body sensations that come up. Examine them with a microscope. Feel every bit of the texture and nuance of the sensations. Then ask, "Can a trigger be found?" A trigger would be some mechanism that makes a reaction inevitable. In this case, the reaction would be fearful and avoidant thoughts and more icky sensations. You can repeat this exercise a few times per day. Can you find a trigger?

Kindly,
Jeff

[wgiruzzi926]

Read you message this morning.

When I read this: "I feel the heavy, heavy weight of that, Bill. I have known it myself, albeit in different circumstances."
My heart opened.

When I read this: "Sit quietly with your eyes closed and remember what it was like to "live like that" after the stroke. Feel the body sensations that come up." I burst into tears.

To your questions:

The only thing I find in the here and now is the concept/thought "having to live like that again".

I've done it a number of times and cannot find a trigger - some mechanism that makes my reaction inevitable. I've thought about that time many times without a reaction, or times with a feeling of gratitude. And the truth is even if there was a trigger, I don't know if the thought triggered the feeling or if the feeling triggered the thought meaning I may have already been feeling "blue" and then the thought arose in the space of the feeling and then I connected them.

Does that mean there is no causality in the Universe? I have feelings, I have thoughts, I have physical sensations and then my mind seeks to make sense of them, connect them, explain them, figure them out, etc.

[AwayKen127]

Dear Bill, thank you for your honesty, openness, and willingness to engage. It's a gift to me, and it's what's needed for this inquiry.

The only thing I find in the here and now is the concept/thought "having to live like that again".

Yes. This thought is a paper tiger. Truly, it has no power. It doesn't even make sense. How would you even know you were "living like that again" without a thought that said you were? The experience of "living like that again" is nothing other than the experience of just living, plus an extra meaningless thought. You might as well have the thought, "I am Batman"--would such a thought add or subtract anything from direct experience? Let's do that thought experiment. (Or you could actually do the experiment--let me know if you do!) Suppose you believe that you are Batman. You get a costume, find a sidekick named Robin, and go out on the street looking for the Joker. You notice you are saying strange epithets that you never said before. ;) What is happening in direct experience in this thought experiment?

I've done it a number of times and cannot find a trigger - some mechanism that makes my reaction inevitable. I've thought about that time many times without a reaction, or times with a feeling of gratitude. And the truth is even if there was a trigger, I don't know if the thought triggered the feeling or if the feeling triggered the thought meaning I may have already been feeling "blue" and then the thought arose in the space of the feeling and then I connected them.

Yes! The sensation just is. It has no power. You don't have to fight it.

Does that mean there is no causality in the Universe? I have feelings, I have thoughts, I have physical sensations and then my mind seeks to make sense of them, connect them, explain them, figure them out, etc.

You see clearly.

Jeff

[wgiruzzi926]

Wow! This blew my mind: "How would you even know you were "living like that again" without a thought that said you were? The experience of "living like that again" is nothing other than the experience of just living, plus an extra meaningless thought."

Even today, I don't really know what living like that was. I don't really have any of the thoughts, sensations and feelings that I was having then. All I have today is the memory of what it was like to live then. Now it's all just thought!

And if I were Batman (shhhh ... I am Batman LOL), then what there would be are thoughts, feelings and sensations. Same as just plain old Bill :). Same as everyone else. There would just be a moment and another and another with thoughts, feelings and sensations coming and going.

[AwayKen127]

Even today, I don't really know what living like that was. I don't really have any of the thoughts, sensations and feelings that I was having then. All I have today is the memory of what it was like to live then. Now it's all just thought!

What does it feel like to see that it's all just thought?

[wgiruzzi926]

It feels quiet. It feels peaceful.

Sometimes it doesn't seem real. Sometimes I wonder if it all really happened.

Not to add a lot of thought. Sometimes I wonder if it will make me arrogant (Thought!). What I mean is my work is as Director of Training for a government agency and I primarily coach people on leadership (we've talked about this I think). Before I had anxiety, I was incredibly arrogant about it. Well, I didn't realize I was arrogant until I experienced anxiety. I honestly didn't know that a human being could feel that way.

Now that I've seem to have moved past the worst of it, I both find peace in not really remembering and I also worry that I'll be arrogant about it, dismissive of people's experience.

I know ... all thought :)

[wgiruzzi926]

Hey Jeff,

This note is just to confirm that you didn't respond to my last response (starting with "It feels quiet. It feels peaceful.")

It's totally fine if you haven't responded. I thought I saw an email that came after it, but there's no post from you. I suspect I'm just mistaken, but wanted to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Thanks

[AwayKen127]

You didn't miss anything, Bill. I'm working on a response. "Talk" soon!

[AwayKen127]

Hey Bill,

I used to have panic attacks starting with the sudden unexpected death of my father 30 years ago in a car crash. For months at a time, every day, all day, I'd feel that I was unable to breathe and thought, "I can't stand this. Maybe I'll kill myself." This completely subsided. Then, a couple of weeks ago I visited a friend in a remote cabin and the CPAP machine I rely on died after years of service. Without it, my nose obstructs the moment I dose off and I awaken gasping. I slept upright in a chair for three nights, which lessened the problem, but the last night I had quite a few episodes of suddenly feeling like I was suffocating. The experience was different, though, than I remembered. It was just sensations and thoughts, and the thoughts were no longer compelling. My point is that I wasn't "living like that again" because I was not trapped by desperate thoughts. Thoughts still arose, but they weren't believed in the way they were before.

Which brings me to this question for you (stepping out of direct experience for the moment and putting on our thinking caps): "Why do we discount thoughts in this inquiry?"

[wgiruzzi926]

Jeff,

Thanks for sharing this.

This past April, I was still not doing well with my anxiety. I had started electric shock therapy in January and had done my 19th treatment in April. I don't remember any of this, but sometime soon after my 19th treatment, my wife and I were out shopping. As she tells it, we were maybe 3 feet apart in a store when her phone rang. It was me. She answered and said, "What's up?" I responded with, "Who are you and what are you doing with my wife's phone?" That started around a 24 hour period of not knowing who my wife was. Again, I don't remember any of it.

What I do remember is some time a week or less later, I woke up in the morning, and started thinking all the awful, scary thoughts that I typically did. This time though, it was different. This time something deeper seemed to wake up inside me and I remember clearly thinking, "It's all lies. That voice, those thoughts ... it's all lies." I stopped believing them, and from that morning on, I started to get better.

We discount thought in this inquiry because the inquiry is about knowing who we really are ... and who we really are is NOT thought. It can't be found in thought. I'll admit Jeff, I don't really understand the difference between what the horror show I was believing for about a year AND whatever spoke to me that day to wake me up to it's all lies. In some way, I don't need or even want to understand it. I don't even really have words for it other than to say that it seemed like it came from somewhere else other than "Bill's thinking" - a deeper place, a quieter place. Somehow in the cracks between the lies, the truth came through.

[AwayKen127]

Hi Bill,
I appreciate your inspiring account.

We discount thought in this inquiry because the inquiry is about knowing who we really are ... and who we really are is NOT thought. It can't be found in thought.

Yes.

Here is something I wrote in my "awakening journal". I'm interested to know how this applies to your direct experience.

First, we have a belief, such as "there is a separate self". Then we see how the illusion is constructed and we adopt the opposite belief. This is still conceptual, and so doubt will continue to arise. Finally, we see the big picture and then the question, "Is there a self?" no longer makes sense. Then no doubts and no further questions arise.

This can be seen by analogy to Santa Claus (of course). At first, we believe there is an actual man with magical powers called Santa Claus. Then we see how the illusion is created and we believe there is no such actual man. But the question, "Is Santa an actual fire-breathing dragon?" never arises. This question is nonsensical because it contains a contradiction (between "actual" and "fire-breathing dragon"). Nonsensical questions don't arise. The categories of truth, falsehood, belief, and doubt are inapplicable to nonsense.

I had been proceeding under the belief that there is no self. Naturally, this leaves some room for doubt. Today, I saw this: When undivided, ineffable THIS is seen, ALL questions are nonsensical. All questions contain the assumption that meanings exist. “Meanings”, being relationships between parts, is nonsensical because experience doesn’t contain parts. Can meanings exist outside of direct experience? No, there is nothing outside of direct experience. Which brings us to Mu. I understand Mu to mean something like, "unask the question". Mu is the answer to ALL questions.