Exhaustion

[tiredseeker]

LU is focused guiding for seeing there is no real, inherent 'self' - what do you understand by this?
I understand that I am not the story of my life and my mental identification with thoughts and mental snapshots of experience. I understand that there is no conceptual self, that what I am is something more like presence, or emptiness, or direct experience of what is here without any separation. No-self is experiential, not conceptual.

What are you looking for at LU?
Liberation from egoic, mental identification into nondual experience. Preferably very direct and expeditious. I feel exhausted from seeking, meditating, and inquiry, but I'm still willing to do more. But I feel so much weariness and exhaustion from spiritual practice and retreats and I worry that I breakthrough and then lose energy due to apparent breakthroughs but then it turns out my ego is still firmly in place and it was just another experience.

What do you expect from a guided conversation?
I have no expectations. But I have made some progress in recognizing thoughts and doing self-inquiry and some experiences of expanded states and just being directly here now, with less of an egoic sense. I'm hoping to experience first awakening and an enduring shift into nondual awareness. I understand it's the first step in a larger process. I really want help finally transitioning somehow.

What is your experience in terms of spiritual practices, seeking and inquiry?
It feels like way too much. Years of meditation, Vipassana, the past year focusing on self-inquiry, a nonduality retreat, meditations working with boundaries and the sense field and questioning the sense of I.

On a scale from 1 to 10, how willing are you to question any currently held beliefs about 'self? 10

[welcomegrace]

Hi tired seeker, what do you expect will change after 'awakening?'
Thanks L

[tiredseeker]

Hi L,

I'm not sure, I believe I've mostly given up my expectations. Everyone tells me awakening won't be what I think it will be like, so there appears to be little use in conceptualizing it. I hope that it will decrease the suffering associated with the false identity of I and fixation on fear and desire, past and future. I don't expect it to be a magical solution to my problems or to get rid of pain and difficulty. There's so much mixed information about what awakening does and doesn't do, though, it can be confusing. But whatever, I'm ready to embrace whatever it's going to look like for me. I really do feel like I'm ready to embrace it all, whatever the chance looks like, whether it's easy or hard.

After going on a nonduality retreat recently and having what felt like experiences of "just this here now" and times when I had a hard time locating a sense of I, or when I felt I could see it was just a felt sense of identity attaching itself to different snapshots of experience, I feel like I'm experiencing the ego's revenge. It feels like none of the meditations or inquiries, or practices ever result in anything more than temporary experiential shifts. The ego identification mechanism is relentless and persistent.

I am experiencing emotions of rage, despair, frustration, exhaustion, and hopelessness about spiritual practice and awakening. I just want to realise, let go, and rest in being already. To finally stop striving and efforting not to strive and not to effort. But LU appears to think this process can be simple.

Thank you for your support. - Andrew

[tiredseeker]

I guess I'll add that I can cycle between periods of intense and committed practice and then feeling discouraged and taking a break for a while, then getting back into it when life gets hard. This pattern feels unsustainable and also exhausting. It doesn't feel like progress is being made.

[welcomegrace]

Hi Andrew

I understand. It's not a one-instant hit for the vast majority of people. It can be a slow unravelling.

Please tell me about the one who is experiencing emotions, feelings of hopelessness and who is efforting.

What can you tell me about the 'I'?

Thanks
Lorraine

[tiredseeker]

Hi Lorraine,

The one who is experiencing all this is a thought or a collection of thoughts about a story and a series of events. The I is a thought about thoughts. Even now, there's a thought that's saying I'm afraid I know the nondual answers too well for my own good in terms of awakening.

-Andrew

[welcomegrace]

Hi Andrew

Who knows the answers?

Can a thought 'know' anything?

L

[welcomegrace]

What is it that you want? What are you afraid of if there is no seeking?

L

[tiredseeker]

Hi Andrew

Who knows the answers?

Can a thought 'know' anything?

L

Hi L,
No a thought cannot know anything. So, who knows the answer? I'm not sure. There is knowing? But it seems as if there's a collection of thoughts or mind identity that appears to know things based on past knowledge and experience, and that's what I tend to identify as me.

[tiredseeker]

What is it that you want? What are you afraid of if there is no seeking?

L

I want freedom from suffering, effort, and agency. I'm not sure I understand the question. The thought that there is no seeking brings a sense of relief in this moment. Maybe there is a fear nothing will get done, or no shift will occur.

[welcomegrace]

Hiya

Yes, there is knowing but it's not your knowing.

The you that wants freedom from suffering and relief - who is that? Who is the I that is claiming suffering? Who is the I that is efforting?

A shift can only occur when the illusion of self is no longer there. As long as there is an 'i' that is seeking and suffering, there is identification.

You say that you know the answers. Who knows? Who is suffering? Who is efforting?

L

[welcomegrace]

Hi Andrew

Can you notice what’s actually here before the thoughts about effort, suffering, and agency appear?

Right now, without using any idea, concept, or mental story:

Where is effort?
Where is suffering?
Where is agency?

Look closely.
Not the thoughts about effort or agency. Not the memory of suffering or a mental image of you trying to do something. Not anticipation.

I mean in the raw, direct, unfiltered experience, right now—what is actually present?

Is there actually a seeker there—someone who “wants freedom”?

Look carefully.

Right now—can you find a boundary, a center, a controller?

What moves? What chooses?

And if you still feel that fear, “nothing will get done”…

What is that fear?

Where is it located?

What does it feel like—not the story about it—what are the physical sensations?

Stay with that and tell me what you find.

Thank you
L

[tiredseeker]

Hiya

Yes, there is knowing but it's not your knowing.

The you that wants freedom from suffering and relief - who is that? Who is the I that is claiming suffering? Who is the I that is efforting?

A shift can only occur when the illusion of self is no longer there. As long as there is an 'i' that is seeking and suffering, there is identification.

You say that you know the answers. Who knows? Who is suffering? Who is efforting?

L

The "me" that wants relief and claims suffering is a thought in the moment. The suffering one is a thought about experience judged as painful. I'm not sure how to see through this I-thought. I can see it as a thought in the moment, but it keeps happening.

[tiredseeker]

Hi Andrew

Can you notice what’s actually here before the thoughts about effort, suffering, and agency appear?

Right now, without using any idea, concept, or mental story:

Where is effort?
Where is suffering?
Where is agency?

Look closely.
Not the thoughts about effort or agency. Not the memory of suffering or a mental image of you trying to do something. Not anticipation.

I mean in the raw, direct, unfiltered experience, right now—what is actually present?

Is there actually a seeker there—someone who “wants freedom”?

Look carefully.

Right now—can you find a boundary, a center, a controller?

What moves? What chooses?

And if you still feel that fear, “nothing will get done”…

What is that fear?

Where is it located?

What does it feel like—not the story about it—what are the physical sensations?

Stay with that and tell me what you find.

Thank you
L

Yes, I see that there is no suffering or agency in this moment. Just being and happening and typing. No there is no seeker, there are only thoughts about seeking and suffering and freedom and an uncomfortable sensation in my chest. There is a thought that "I" choose but really there is an experience of thoughts and typing happening. What is actually present is just whatever is happening and thoughts about a doer.

The fear is located in my chest. Tightness, rapid heartbeat, achy, contracted energy.

[welcomegrace]

Hi Andrew.
Good.
Stay with only the chest sensation. Let all interpretation, even the label “fear,” fall away. Don’t explain it. Don’t soothe it. Don’t try to release it.

Just go into the rawness. Let it be. The ache, the tightness - let it fully exist. Let it burn.

No commentary. No analysis. No “doing.” Just this.

Does that sensation need a story?

Can it be just this aliveness-this contraction—without needing to mean anything?

What happens when it is not resisted or turned into a problem? What happens when it is simply allowed as part of the unfolding?

And now without referencing a memory or a thought—right here, at that moment, is there an “I” that is doing anything?

Or is that just another arising—just like the tightness, just like the thought?

Stay here. Let me know.
L