Hi Rali,
1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?
No
2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience. Describe it fully as you see it now.
Experience happens. Sensations are felt, heard, smelled, tasted, seen. And then thoughts arise to contextualize what is being experienced. Those thoughts create an illusion of a fixed entity that is 'me.' More thoughts arise that suggest that experience should be interpreted by referencing the thoughts about 'me;' this often appears as thoughts like: What should I be doing? What should I do next? Am I doing this right or well enough?
3) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.
I feels like relief. The tendency to look ahead to what I have to do next instead of looking at DE is significantly weakened.
Prior to this dialogue, a pattern of resistance would frequently arise that said I need to figure out how to realize no-self/awakening, and it would be seen as true. Such thoughts now arise less frequently and when they do, they are relatively quickly seen as empty resistance to what is happening now.
4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?
There were many useful pointers. Probably the last one was seeing that the story of awakening was just as empty as any other thoughts.
5) Describe decision & give examples from experience.
Prior to this dialogue, there was a lot of resistance (that was believed as true) around decisions. This took the form of thoughts like "I am indecisive." It's seen now that this resistance has been a frustration with how DE actually is. There was seeking for a clear point where a separate entity 'I' flips a switch from undecided to decided, and that never happened (because how could it?). So even when a so-called decision was made, it was interpreted in various not-so-pleasant ways.
Examples:
- "I decided" to take off work a half an hour early today. What really happened is there was no 'work' in progress, and no thoughts arose to point me to another problem to solve. The thought asking "should I?" arose, and no thoughts against the idea arose.
- "I decided" to get coffee when I was at a bakery today. What really happened is the inclination arose, then a thought about how I didn't need another coffee, and then I asked for one anyway, and then the thought justifying: "this is a new place, it'll be nice to know if the coffee is good here."
Describe intention & give examples from experience.
Intention is a prediction (thought) of what will happen based on other thoughts/memories and what's happening now.
Examples:
- I sat down at my desk, intending to write responses to these questions. When other unrelated thoughts arise (distraction), sooner or later a thought comes in about these questions and writing responses continues.
- At work, team members write down what we intend to accomplish in the upcoming workday. We write down thoughts based on what we are inclined to accomplish (again, based on thoughts about what happened before and future "goals"). Yesterday something more urgent came up and superseded everything I had on my list. So it could be said that I didn’t accomplish what I intended, or maybe it could be said that a higher-level intention to spend my work time doing the most valuable work-related thing overrode my initial intentions. But what really happened is work on one of the intentions was in progress then interrupted, followed by different work happening.
Describe free will & give examples from experience.
Free will is the thought that an agency exists that directs thoughts and actions.
Examples:
- It can be said that I have the power to choose what I do for work. But in reality, the work just happens every day. Any choice made to get here cannot be traced back to a free agent that made an uncaused choice.
- Similarly, I supposedly have the freedom to make choices about my daily habits and how they contribute to my health and wellbeing. But in reality things just happen and sometimes the things that happen fit into a story of how "I made a good choice" to exercise today, or "I would have exercised today, but…"
Describe choice & give examples from experience.
The word choice is used when something happens and there is an apparent (according to thought) alternative.
Examples
- I chose the type of coffee I had this morning. What really happened is a preference arose and there was no resistance to that preference.
- I just chose to put my headphones on and listen to "focus" music as a preference to the noise coming from the another room. What really happened is I had an aversion to the noise from the other room and the body responded by modifying the environment to result in preferred sounds.
Describe control & give examples from experience.
Control is the thought that an agent has the ability to direct the flow of events. In direct experience, no agent can be found that could be in control.
Examples:
- I can say I have "control" over the movement of my hand. But when looking in direct experience, no one is there to direct the hand to move.
- I can say I can control my breathing. But really slow, deep breaths just happen, and then the story that "I did that intentionally" is applied.
What makes things happen? How does it work?
In DE, things just happen. There is no "making things happen."
What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.
There is no one to be responsible for anything in DE. This is one of the most fascinating aspects of the illusion. It is probably the most frequently reoccurring illusion (that I am responsible for people, tasks, awakening), but when the illusion is see through, the fact that there has never been and could never have been someone to be responsible is more clear than the more abstract "there has never been a self."
Examples:
- "I need to do the right practice/exercise to get myself to wake up." When looked at directly, this story is reinforcing the illusion that there is a self that needs to wake up.
- "I am responsible for what thoughts I think." When looked at directly, it's clear that I have not chosen my thoughts. How can I be responsible for them if I can't even choose them?
6) Anything to add?
Thank you, Rali, for the guidance through this process. It's much clearer now that what I've been looking for is in DE, not in thoughts. There are reoccurring patterns where I can be temporarily convinced that there is something I'm not getting, but like mentioned above, they are less intense and it seems to be easier to "look at what is here" and allow it to pass.
The main thing that was unexpected is how slowly and incrementally this has unfolded (and continues to unfold). The pointer that was experienced as the most profound was early on in our discussion: the moving the hand exercise that showed that an entity directing the process couldn't be found. But when any doubt arose again, it was quicky compounded by disappointment that I once again thought I had an important realization but obviously I didn't because here I am getting upset again.
Overall, It has been much more like the 'learning to ride a bike' analogy than I could see when I first brought it up. I'm at the point where I'm still falling down sometimes but I know what it's like to stay up and even find myself enjoying the ride for long stretches.
Best,
Brian
