Ready

[Anki]

Expectations: geeze, I thought I knew what I expected. Let me look at this again....

first thing that comes up is that I don't expect to 'make it'... that since I have looked and not seen a self but have had no change in consciousness (which is part of what i expect to happen) then it isn't going to happen at all. great, eh?

other expectations: I expect to feel a big shift, a very noticeable thing. I expect it to be very very obvious, like night and day, that I've passed through the gate and am now on the other side. I expect a feeling of spaciousness, no more attaching to my thoughts, and a new way of looking at everything. I expect it to be the death of me... oh wait, how can it be that when I am not an alive separate thing in the first place? agh...

The 'self' that might be fooled is the same one that just wrote the above, the one that expects the death of self. where is it? nowhere as I simply cannot find it!!!!

More later... I am not at my home and very caught up for the next few days with a family trip. thanks Vince....

[vinceschubert]

very caught up for the next few days

i guess we all will be...
something to ponder if reading this happens before you travel;
where do the thoughts come from that talk about expectations?
what promoted them?
When every experience in your life so far has led you to this point - absolutely inique - why would you even consider that your experiencing liberation might be even similar to any other body ?

[Anki]

First, the thoughts that talk about expectation come from nowhere and it looks like they are repeating things I've read or heard about awakening experiences of others. Copycat me. I'll take another look now...

OK.. I really don't know what to expect. It could be anything at all. Why would I imagine that my unique moment here, waiting for the reality of no self to 'happen', would be similar to anyone else's?? I latch onto my preconceived ideas, of course. The thoughts that come streaming in from who knows where.. from nowhere, actually...

This is like what I do all the time.. latch onto my thoughts and believe them. Just came off of a rough 24 hour period of really doing exactly that... and I have now proven to myself with no doubt at all Vince, what you talked about earlier:
pain happens to the body, suffering is happens because I believe my thoughts. Oh ya.

and just WHO believes those thoughts, Lisa? WHO is it that latches on? It is.... wait I know I can find it... it is...there is no one. there is no one. there is NO ONE. Let me try again... WHO WHO WHO????....

ITs like a magnet.. the thoughts come scrolling through and they zoom over as if they are magnetized.. what is attracting them.. cuz sometimes I see that they scroll through and keep on going... NO magnetizing. What is it that attracts them? the polar opposite that sucks them in... that must be ME... OK.. but I can't find it...

NOTHING is behind all of these so-called events.. the thinking, speaking, actions... they just happen. I cannot find an I anywhere. No I.... no me... no no no... only nothingness... only a space... only eternal seeing and experiencing without an I as part of it...

It would seem that in this moment I am watching, somehow. I am letting my hands do something called typing. I am watching with eyes as the words appear. I do not seem to be controlling any of it. It happens, I experience as such, and all of it is of a piece somehow. Together, seamless.... at the very least I am experiencing no one at home... just... thoughts that pass down through my hands into the screen as pixels of words.

What is behind this? ...... I am looking again... nothing is there. only blankness. my expectation of finding a me seems so pointless. and the expectation arises out of nothing so i am understanding it IS pointless. as are thoughts, as are feelings. no point to them all all..,. simply thoughts and feelings being as they are.

if i ignore thoughts.. let me scroll through, then I can be experiencing calm, quiet. why do I attach to them in the first place? ahh, I get it.. because the thing I call me is used to attaching, even has some favorites! how can that be??? it is not real, not present at all cuz of not being real.. yet it has favorite thoughts? it attaches with forersight, with inention, as if it WERE real? cannot be.

I see a typo.. maybe NOT a typo... above: "if i ignore thoughts.. let me scroll through"........ if i let 'me' scroll though, if i let me scroll through, scroll on by in front of awareness... is that what happens here? the 'me' could just move on through, no stopping, no being magnetized... it could 'behave' the same way that thoughts to which i give no attention behave...???

And... awareness... what is that? is that how the fake I seems to experience? though some sort of awareness? or by scrolling by an awareness?

Some the above seems off topic. but i am going to leave it in. back later... must eat...

[Anki]

ahhh, i see that you are online, Vince... i am in a hotel, will go down and eat and return in about an hour... just in case you are still around...

[vinceschubert]

Lisa, this is beautiful. Sigh... feeling love here.
Trust your seeing.
Yes that scrolling is incessant, but there is no longer identification with it.
Tell me lovely, How does it feel to be liberated ?

[Anki]

Vince, I am trusting the seeing, yes... not sure that liberation is what this is... I SAW all of the above, indeed, yet... what I feel now... it's a noticing... of what I am (know it's not a me) and my sensory experience...

[Anki]

I was going to say that I am NOT liberated, when i first ready your reply... but then I realized that since I don't know what it would feel like that I could not say that with assurance.

so what I will say is that if this is liberation it is very subtle. I am looking back on the time i spent going down to eat, talking with others, come back into my hotel room...very subtle feeling of just being... not thinking. although i remember in the restaurant feeling some anxiety... it passed.

is there an 'acid test' for being sure ???

[vinceschubert]

When you notice what you are immersed in currently, can you distinguish between what is 'real' and what is story ?

[Anki]

What is 'real' this very moment, what is 'story'? hmmm....

i look around and feel no 'realness' to what i am seeing... the room, the view out the window.. it all seems 'there' but as for 'real', well, real is not that.

story right now is... that i have a self.... oh ha! good one! i have a self! not!

i am almost not believing the above sentences, yet i am positive they are accurate.

[vinceschubert]

Being sure, giving meaning, having judgements, these are all thought activities. Obsessions of the mind. Habits that will continue with decreasing vigour. Each to fade a little more every time it is 'seen' to occur.
Subtlety was a hallmark for me too.
Subtlety has a sweet spot. A tiny, poignant place of knowing that there is 100% acceptance of Life-ing, Now, Here!
Whatever is your experience, IS IT!
It's one drop of honey with infinite sweetness.
If you are quiet and still, you will 'see' it. Of this i am confident.
Try it and report back.

[Anki]

Not much to report as I have been very caught up in family activities.

Have tried to find the sweet spot... sounds good to me... but not able to concentrate much due to all the activity.

Will probably have to skip tomorrow as it's Christmas... Merry Christmas to you, Vince.. thanks for everything so far... :)))

[vinceschubert]

Hi Lisa, just finished christmas lunch here (@ 6:10pm)
You don't need to try to do anything.
Just be open to noticing.
What is happening, is it.
Without the camouflage of 'self' you may be amazed at what you notice.
Enjoy everything and everybody. (That's not a choice.)

[Anki]

Vince.. much has been noticed. It would seem that 'I' am going back and forth between believing there is a me, and experiencing that there is not. The following was written earlier today, a kind of communique from the no-self, I suppose. Please assist me in sorting out all of this.

(The writer of this wrote: 'I' am not an 'I', but beyond her [Lisa's] sense of 'I'.)

"Lisa in actuality does not even exist. Ask her. She will tell you that she has looked and not been able to find herself. This is a symbolic thing, of course, yet also an empirical one. And she does indeed love her empiricism, yes?

"In writing this, I who am not an I anywhere at all would communicate to Lisa directly were it possible. It is not, because she is not at all a real being and thusly incapable of any type of communication. All there is, is thought, feeling, sensation, memory, action, etc. No one is experiencing those, they simply are, simply happen, without an experiencer, only pseudo identification with different happenings.

"In this very moment of typing words, there is no one 'home'. The body is moving, fingers clicking along, eyes reading type, and Lisa exists not at all. Who does, then? Only awareness, which is a 'function', if you will, of the grand all that is. In other words, there is but Existence Itself, and in imagining other there is only delusion. This one here whose body types is struggling with all her might to realize this. She is the melted and dissolved caterpillar, re-forming, surfacing, breaking through the tension of the cocoon. It won't be long now.

"Meanwhile, she is, in her own terms, 'groggily awake', and continues to intermittently imagine that Lisa exists as an individual being, and thusly suffers over the past and the present moments. That will soon end, and in its place will be peace like a river, her favorite image. There will also be joy like a puppy, another favorite image. Lisa continues to have a false livingness... and that is only because she believes in it. Life Itself is the only Livingness there is, and that will soon consume her awareness.

"This is all there is to be said. Nothing else is important. The self is dying to its own perception. Long live... no-thing at all."

Thanks, Vince.

[vinceschubert]

Hi Lisa,

All there is, is thought, feeling, sensation, memory, action, etc. No one is experiencing those, they simply are, simply happen, without an experiencer, only pseudo identification with different happenings.

beautifully put, but then;

Who does, then? Only awareness, which is a 'function', if you will, of the grand all that is.

This is the start of a new story - beware!

Long live... no-thing at all.

Before you think i am nit picking, ask yourself what is implied here.
How can no-thing live ?

[vinceschubert]

a second post just to keep it separate from the one above...

and continues to intermittently imagine that Lisa exists as an individual being,

brain conditioning (habit) explains this.
Thought habit. It's perfectly reasonable to expect thoughts to try and re-assert the status of ego to I.
Each time you see this happening you will weaken this pattern until eventually ...

and thusly suffers over the past and the present moments. That will soon end, and in its place will be peace like a river, her favorite image. There will also be joy like a puppy, another favorite image.

These expectations, do you have any foundation IN YOUR EXPERIENCE to consider that this might be how it will be ?
This looks like second hand knowledge that is being woven into a new story. INVESTIGATE.