Requesting a guide.

[IainB]

There seems to be a process composed of three stages, with a seamless transition between each:

A thought is known. Full attention is given.
Then it is known that I am having a thought. Here there is both the thought, and I become alert to it being a thought.
Then the thought goes. And what is left is the knowing that I just had a thought.

I can see clearly… ‘I just had a thought’… ‘that was just a thought’.

Then back to a thought again, as though at the beginning of this rotation.

I can see this process happen again and again.

I can’t find any doing, it’s as though an automatic happening again again again. I can’t start, stop or escape this process whatsoever.

With love,

[Vivien]

OK, nice.

Now let's look at this.

Whenever you notice a thought being present, make a 180 degree turn with your attention to the I that is having a thought.
The belief is "I am having a thought" or "I am noticing this thought". so turn attention to that I, or whatever that is, to see where is the perciever, noticer??

[IainB]

This seems to need greater focus still, and a deep willingness to repeat again again again, so it's useful that you guide me to use each noticed thought.

Of course the thought is known.
Then it is known a thought is happening, and I remember to turn attention to the I that is having thought, and where this percieving and noticing is.

By the time I look in this way, the thought has departed so I just find the alert looking, and all the colours sounds and sensations of what is. That which knew the thought seems gone with the departed thought, not that it was ever known separate from the thought during the thought-time.

Anyway, I continue.

With love,

[IainB]

I do look with each thought when remembered.

However, there does not seem to be anything to find.

Rather, with each turn of looking for the I having thought, and where the perceiving is, I just find the moment.

With each transition I reliably return to knowing, ‘well, that was another thought’.

Thought continues to pull full attention each time, but now subsequently it is seen as another thought having appeared and departed.

With love,

[IainB]

Would it be okay to recall briefly the LU discovery I may paraphrase as 'a thought is simply a thought regardless of the content, it is unchanged as being thought only'.

I didn't get this before, but I can see the truth of this now.

I can still feel a response of pleasure, neutrality or discomfort within the pull of the thought. But after the thought, the validity and necessariness of this is held up to the light and questioned, in that knowing 'that was just another thought'.

With love,

[IainB]

Today I will do hawklike looking in the space between thoughts, turning and looking for the I that had that last thought, where it is and so forth, how that thought was but has now gone.

With love,

[IainB]

I have a few more days away from my usual routine, so it has felt natural to go deep. It is fun to be in the 100x daily lookings club and not having work / usual routine promotes this.

As many thoughts led to looking for the I that had the departed thought, and any location to the perceiving, this place of looking increasingly allowed thought to be ‘looked back on’ and it’s possible to see the game thought plays, how attention is pulled fully into thought each time and the message of the thought is swallowed, until of course the thought dissipates or it is remembered I am having a thought, and attention then bounces away from the thought.

I felt empowered to spend some hours knowing thought to be thought only as thoughts arise, or immediately after the content comes through. I love this, as it does shift the rules of the game. Of course thought content is not chosen as different images, words or ideas rise and fall, but when they are known as thought only this doesn’t matter. They are just thoughts.

I can see how thought content must have coalesced early in consciousness, has always been attended to, and the messages fetishised over, gripped and believed, because this just happened naturally and there was a falling into a deep slumber of thought captivation. It is exciting to know that belief in the content part can be undone.

As the story of Ian/me/personhood is conveyed in thought content, and there is no small self person in the here and now outside of thought, there is the exciting potential here to look deep at that person as he appears in thought, the frequent I references, and how thought infers Me as it bounces off other thought characters presented for evaluation.

I can really scream with hawklike focus to know these thoughts to be thought only at the earliest juncture and fully in their midst, and see what happens.

Wish me luck,

[Vivien]

Now, when a thought is believed it, where is the believer?
Where is the one that is either sees a thought to be a thought only, or it believes it?

Find the believer and the seer / noticer.

[IainB]

I can only find three places to look:

In the believed in thought.

In the seeing thought to be thought only.

In the looking when it is known no thought is present.

The believed in thought is a rather strange place. Its message is distinct and taken at face value. It swallows attention whole. It’s not an easy place to enquire. I have to look at it from the rear view mirror. All that being said, a separate believer is not found.

The believed in-ness is part of the noise of the immersed in thought. The thought rings with believing, it would seem.

Thought seen as thought only is filled with seeing and knowing the translucent message as it flows and passes. Again, this is part and parcel of the known thought, not a separate seeing. No noticer there findable seeing it.

In the space between, there is just looking. No believers or separate noticers there.

I’ll repeat lots more as the point may be this lack of finding.

With love,

[IainB]

When thought content is a narrative stream about a supposed past event, or another person appears in thought, it does so in such a way to imply there was a me that was present viewing the original event, or who stands separate from the other person appearing in thought.

Thought content is a symbolic representation only, and refracts and distorts wildly. Part of this distortion and refraction would seem to include the emphasis and perpetuation of I/me/Ian personhood within the thought processing and appearing.

In looking for the believer of thought within the thought, around thought and after thought has departed I can’t find the believer but I can see how thought appends I and Me and has it as a focus within thought. After the thought passes so does the implied believer, I/me/person.

With love,

[IainB]

I will look intently for the believer of thought and the seer / noticer of thoughts seen through and keep the momentum of this looking going.

With love,

[Vivien]

Yes, please keep looking, until not a shred of doubt is left. And even after, look a bit more ;)

[IainB]

Hi V,

I really wanted to just check in and say hello.

I remain engaged here.

Returning home with work, my conventional routine, the coldness and slight illness, and my addictive pattern firing is like having my head forced up against a wall of emmersed thought that is taken at face value and I'm left trying to glimpse and look from the corner of my eye rather than being able to look directly at what is going on here.

That's enough excuses thought. I strive onwards. I only have this circumstance to use here.

With love,

[Vivien]

Thanks for checking in. Just keep going, you have all the tools

Have a nice day,
Vivien

[IainB]

Omg life is busy and filled with (believed and taken at face value) thought. Oops.

Work (work work work)
The meeting of my emotional and sexual needs
The doing of my addictions (no doer of course)
The bloody allotment
Groups and associates attention giving.
Getting out and having fun.
Being a bit ill.

Consciousness is just filled with busyness. I admit I like busyness. It suits me.

How on earth do sweet LU clients find the time and opportunity to take the space to really see the absence of personhood here reliably again again again and that that such personhood was of course only ever in thought with a paradigm shift that thought is only empty whispers/lies and not me like I used to believe.

I do keep remembering to look so will look when I remember each time of course.

With love,