Requesting a guide.

[IainB]

Is that done by someone/something?

There is knowing thought. There's a returning to not-thought, known.

As for seeing the answer and answer formulation...eek.

Nothing comes. Certainly there's no sign of a thing or someone.

I Really Really Really want to see the No someone something rather than just answer from the intelectualy suggested No.

Of course I know this to be a bit silly, as a non thing cannot be seen. But there can be a knowing about this...?

It is very easy to see and know the Now, absent of thought. The question/looking what is it? (the questioning and looking of what is this movement known in and out of thought) is clearly present in the space also.

This looking and questioning is great. I want to do more and come up with some better answers based on seeing and answer formulation.

[IainB]

Is that done by someone/something?

Em, no. I looked many many times. Not finding someone/something is obvious either before during or after knowing not in thought.

Is that controlled?

There's so signs of any control going on. Being in thought takes place many times, returning to not thought and knowing it takes place many times. All quite chaotic and uncontrolled.

What is it exactly that is 'reliably returning again and again to the place outside of thoughts'?

I cannot provide a clear answer to this other than it is clearly known being not it thought. So nothing is found moving in and out of thought.

By default many thoughts have an I or me component, e.g. 'I feel this', 'I could do this'.
Or thought has a vivid narrative about other in comparison with Ian/me/I (other characters appear & Ian may appear as a thought body image or there is the idea that the other characters are known to Me and are separate from Me.
In this way thought seems to perpetuate the belief or mistake that there is a person actually here.
Not that thought has any power to do this, but there is a link between this appearing in thought and not being clear.
Being not in thought and knowing it may help shift this mistake but it's not immediately taking place.

[IainB]

Hi V,

Are you away for a Christmas holiday?

I went to a small seasonal gathering of friends this weekend myself. A friend expressed her limited belief in choice/chooser. Another mentioned determination. I don't feel called to debate or discuss such points in these settings, preferring just to relax and be and enjoy being with others.

Is that controlled?

I must have been triggered though. I awoke this morning and 'remembered' there is no choice or chooser. There was a forgetting, and an absorbtion in into life, but then this was remembered again.

Being conscious or 'un-conscious' - happens, no chooser
Knowing colour, sound, sensation - happens, what is, no chooser
There being a flesh body, in 'england', in this here-and-now with its experiences - what is alived to - no chooser.
Whatever Ian is - not chosen.

With love,

[IainB]

There have been many features of our delightful conversation.

One of the most naturally fallen into, simple, and resoundingly clear has been the value of:

Seeing reliably and clearly each time when looking takes place.

As opposed to the expectation that some permanent enduring shift takes place not requiring further work.

So now there is the ability here to look each time lookings take place and it is known without doubt:

That there is a reliable return to the not absorbed into thought content.

That what is was not chosen, and there is no chooser present (would be good to look at this one some more to move further from doubt as like a lot of people concepts of agency are a little heavy).

That a thought can be known to be a thought only in the moment of the thought (this was clear for some days then lost but it may come back, who knows, now there is a memory this was doubtless).

Thank you for guiding these out.

[Vivien]

Hi Ian,

Now, I would like to give you series of exercises on doership and control for the following days or few weeks. You might have done these, but please repeat them many times again and again.

1. Place both hands on a table in front of you, palms down.
2. When you have done that, rest for a moment and then raise one hand in the air but not the other.

Don't go to thoughts, examine your experience. Do this as many times as you like, and each time inquire:

What is it exactly that is choosing which hand to raise?
Can you find a self/me or anything that is doing the choosing?

Is there a me/I controlling and moving the hand?
Is there a ‘I’ controlling which hand to raise?
Is there a controller? Where?

How is the decision made?
Is the decision made by an I/self?
Is there a decision maker? Where?

Repeat this many times before replying.

Vivien

[IainB]

Thank you for giving me an exercise to do many times over many days before responding.

What is it exactly that is choosing which hand to raise?

The hands are intently stared at in the moment of rest before one raises. Thoughts imagining one rising or the other sometimes come but are disregarded and the mind calms and I remember to rest and for one to raise. Nothing can be found behind one raising over the other.

Can you find a self/me or anything that is doing the choosing?

The lookings at the hands feels potent. Like 'this is it'. If the self/me/anything isn't going to show up now, it's not going to be found. So, no.

Is there a me/I controlling and moving the hand?

No thing like this.

Is there a ‘I’ controlling which hand to raise?

No, one hand simply raises following the rest.

Is there a controller? Where?

A controller would have to be found but nothing is found.

How is the decision made?

This is a good question. A hand raises as part of participation in this exercise. There is a wish to do the exercise. It happens and a hand raises. You could add stories, but they would be ideas.

Is the decision made by an I/self?

A decision happens in as much as one hand raises, but there are no component parts that would usually be considered part of decision making. Thoughts are disregarded and the raising follows from the hands being laid out and the rest.

Is there a decision maker? Where?

It's just a natural action. A decision maker is looked for but not located.

So, there is alive, and knowing, but no doer or chooser.

I do the above exercise and tend to get swept away in remembering that this alive now is arbitrary. The colour and shapes and sounds and patterns of life unfolding are all here and laid out. There was no course steered bringing to the here. No choice influenced who my parents were, family situation, experiences as they come.

So now there is knowing when thought is absent, there is knowing thought as thought only in the moment, and there is knowing that experience here is not chosen and not influenced by a chooser or doer.

[Vivien]

Good. Now here is an example about decision making.

Please put some chocolate (or something you think you shouldn’t eat or drink) in front of you. Look at it. Inspect it closely. Smell its delicious fragrance. And pay attention to emerging desire to eat it.

When the desire is there, pay close attention to the thought process.
See how thoughts list pros and cons why you should or shouldn’t eat the chocolate.
These opposing thoughts might even try to argue or convince each other what to decide.

What is it that is considering these options?

Is there anything that is listing the pros and cons, or only just thoughts appear about pros and cons? – look very carefully
Now, make a decision, but whatever you decide, don’t eat the chocolate (yet). Rather just pay very close attention when the decision is made. Particularly pay attention to thoughts, as the decision is made.

Let’s say a thought appear: “I decided not to eat the chocolate”
So the thought about the decision just appeared. What made that thought to appear?

Can you find the thing that made that decision, apart from the presence of the thought about the decision?

How exactly the decision is made?

Now, act according to the decision. (Either eat or don’t eat the chocolate.)
What is it that performed the chosen action?

[IainB]

Please can I do the exercise for a couple of weeks or so, repeating many times each day, in a similar way to the raise one hand exercise.

Thanks,

[Vivien]

Of course. It's all about repetition, until something happens, you can see it, again and again, with each looking.

[IainB]

Hi,

I've been a terrible client. I want to be honest and say several days have gone by, but I have only done the exercise a few times. Rather than repeat repeat repeat the interest has fallen away. I have the exercise and a bar of chocolate on my desk at work, and likewise I have chocolate in the room in my house where I spend 90% of my time, but I have been lazy and unmotivated.

No choice in this or anything of course.

Many times the thought appears 'I should do the exercise', but then I usually potpone doing it to some imagined later time.

What has come up several times though was a knowing that I have no control of the thoughts appearing (in general), and wider than that no control, agency or separate doer regarding how there is always colour and sensation taking place when awake, and no control how colour and sensation seems to 'me' and is taken to establish seperateness 'here', a seperate seemingly distinct experience. There is only consciously known, always now, but always changed. Unconcious is by definition not known.

Is a clear seeing or knowing that there is no doer or agency (not 'always' but when looked at and remembered) critical to seeing? I would say yes.

I suppose resistance or lazyness here may be a sign this is a good thing to push on with.

Please allow me another 24 hours. I will work the exercise hard tomorrow and report back in 24 hours.

Thanks,

[Vivien]

All right. thank you for the update

Vivien

[IainB]

Hey,

So the goal is to know reliably (when it is remembered to look) that whatever is here, is unchosen, and of course absent of a choosing entity.

That is easy to suggest and type out. To be known of course there has to some hardcore commited looking to push through the veil of deep seated convention and genuinely and deeply question-look at everything and in particular those thoroughly gripped beliefs around 'I am here', 'I am me' and so forth. Nothing is got, just deep assumption is lost.

A huge clue is how so much of experience is unpleasant thoughts, unmet needs and deficiency known, distraction, being tangled in unwanted uncomfortable interactions, toxic or addictive patterns, no control over ever shifting experience. All these are the antithesis of what would be chosen...and yet agency is gripped at nonetheless.

I'm not done with the exersize yet, I think you should keep me on it until [more] seeing occurs...

This morning there was knowing...I wondered if separation and separate self beliefs takes place because as a culture or a whole people we're obsessed with the separate individual. I ask, because 'here' there is thought after thought after thought referencing the self, saying 'I', with 'other' characters appearing in thought, the pros and cons of such characters, what to say to them, what to avoid about them....

And...the exercise does have teeth if done right and chocolate is prepared. You see how life is just a happening flow, and not person centred at all. The always changed uniqueness of life here is not reliant upon, or a product of an entity. That's just how life is - it is experienced as separate and unique and always changed at a location here. But allows for endless waves of experience, such as those called Vivian and others.

Thanks,

[IainB]

It's like a flip flopping...there is repeated frequent subsumption into identify, the narrative and separation are fully believed.

Then remembering-looking takes place that what is is other than solely identity-separation-narrative...

[Vivien]

Are you saying that you haven't done the chocolate exercise yet? If that so, then it would be a good idea to look at resistance.

whenever there is resistance then there is a story believed about negative consequences to the inquiry. So what is that? What is it that you don't want to happen?

V

[IainB]

Fantastic guiding: there is big resistance to looking at this exercise, going deeper and knowing reliably when remembered no choice and chooser.

There has been a flood of absorbing thoughts today, none of them were about looking. If thought content in fact has no relationship with looking, still looking didn't take place.

There were thoughts of guilt and lazyness and fearfulness you would write me off as a client.

It is a sweet exercise, and the few times I did it there was a big consequence. A knowing of no choice and chooser when it comes to thoughts or actions and how life is shaping up was known.

How strange that there is reluctance or resistance for life to be as it is, with this addition of separation and belief that what I am is a controlling entity gripped and persisting.