Existing in the Liminal Space

[wildnothing]

LU is focused guiding for seeing there is no real, inherent 'self' - what do you understand by this?
That the I sense is just a bunch of thoughts and sensations and there is no inherent me that is having control.

What are you looking for at LU?
I'm not sure exactly. Honestly, I think someone to tell me that I'm not insane, or maybe to tell me that I am. My life has been quite strange for the past two years and the metaphorical whiplash has been dramatic and scary at times. I have no one at all to speak to about this. So I am open to whatever happens.

What do you expect from a guided conversation?
I don't really have specific questions, just a whole lot of confusion and I'm hoping for some pointers. I know I'm tied up in some places but "I" don't know where. There are so many paradoxes, and I seem to let go and then grab back on, over and over.

What is your experience in terms of spiritual practices, seeking and inquiry?
About two years ago I took some psilocybin and at that time I had no background in any of this, I was pretty much a hardcore skeptic about most everything, and lived almost entirely in my head. On that day, there were no strong visuals, I just had a feeling like I was dying, and then a sudden realization that struck me as hilarious at the time. For a while, I could barely remember what it was because it seemed to be in a different paradigm. But I had a sudden clarity that I was playing a character and that everyone around me was as well. And it was as if we were all partaking in a play and saying our lines and creating our little dramas. If you have ever seen the show "Whose Line is it Anyway?", it was like suddenly realizing that everything is made up and the points don't matter. But it felt like the "I" grabbed hold of me again and suddenly things were "back to normal" so to say. I was the character believing I was a character. And the thoughts came saying, well, that must have been the drugs, or you're going crazy? I had no context for any of this until a year later when I started to become interested in lucid dreaming. I was "awake" in my dream as if it was just like "real life". How could my mind be making textures, sounds, visuals, emotions just the same as they felt in my waking life. It sent me down a path of intense research because I was now no longer certain that I could really see any difference between a lucid dream and my "reality" but I thought, surely other people have been speaking about this. This past April, I discovered Ramana Maharshi as well as some literature on Zen and felt like I finally had some understanding of what had been happening to me other than the explanation I was operating on that perhaps I was having a mental breakdown. I practiced some self inquiry and things became quite...strange almost immediately. I had a similar insight to what I felt under mushrooms, but this time more intense and terrifying to realize the extent of my delusions, but again it dissipated and I was once again in a sort of liminal space. I've pretty much stayed there since. It feels like I am between two states, like I'm playing a character in a story, but also the character is feeling more and more apathetic and confused about the plotlines. And sometimes the identification feels so strong and other times I can barely see how I can be here at all. I keep expecting everyone around me to suddenly break character and we all laugh at the great joke, but no one ever does. It seems like I accidentally fell out of the world as I knew it, without knowing how or why. I've read pretty much every book I could get my hands on, but no one in my life has any interest or understanding. Even writing this seems a bit silly, but here we are.

On a scale from 1 to 10, how willing are you to question any currently held beliefs about 'self? 11

[Maylson]

Hi, I’m May.

How can I call you? :)

Ok, so let’s drop straight in, ok? No padding, no theory, no spiritual decoration.

Everything you wrote was raw experience scrambling to rebuild a sense of “me,” trying to hold together a center that isn’t actually there.
You can feel that. You know that.
That’s why it’s uncomfortable.

So let’s cut through all of it.

Right now, in this exact moment, what is being experienced that proves there is “someone” at the center of any of this?

Please don’t give me concepts or stories.
I want now, here, this instant:

what sensations are present?
what thoughts are appearing?
and where, exactly, is the “you” in any of that?

You’ve described partial collapses, flashes, dissolutions, returns, panic, humor, liminality.
All of that is just the mind scrambling to reassert control... the selfing, the armor snapping back into place.

But the real question is this:
In this moment, without looking back, without remembering psychedelics, without explaining anything...

Where is the controller?
Where is the character?
Where is the “I” that’s supposedly sitting in the middle of all this?

Be brutally honest.

Don’t think... see.

Don’t answer with theories.
Describe ONLY what you find, not what you think you should find.

Let’s start with a simple, unavoidable point:

When a sensation appears, that tightness in the chest, that jolt, that unease... where is the “feeler”?

The sensation appears.
Thoughts appear commenting on it.
But where is the “I” that supposedly feels?

What exactly do you find?

[wildnothing]

Hello May,

You can call me Taylor.

Thank you very much for your response. After I posted this the other day, things had stabilized a bit and it suddenly became a little clearer what everyone has been referring to. I had heard the pointers a million times before and it had never clicked at all for some reason.

When I go into a sensation there is just the sensation. I can never find the I, the controller, only thoughts. It became strange to look in the mirror. There is a slight distance from this face that wasn't there before.

The thoughts are trying so hard to make sense of this though. And the habits are deeply ingrained. Because it seems there is still "something" witnessing, something still in a particular body. An awareness that peers down from above and sees legs and hands, and so it feels as if it is internal to this body and separate from the world. What is this awareness?

If there is no I then the thoughts and sensations and forms are not happening to any "me". But there are thoughts and there are hands typing this message, continuing the story of the one who "awakens", but now it has become obvious there is no one really there to awaken, and yet the story continues. If there were no thoughts about this moment it would just be a bunch of feelings and sights and sounds with no one or nothing to claim it was better or worse than the sensation before or after it. But yet, the personality still wants, still tries to avoid, still fears pain. Although there is a softening of the idea that things should be other than they are. Even this moment of wanting to find truth. Who is wanting? The wanting is a thought, a craving, the mind grasping to control, attempting to understand its own demise. It can be written down and even seemingly understood, and yet there is still a resistance to this simple question.

There is the thought that if there is no controller then there never was any control at all, but the greater implications of the idea of a past or a future has not quite been tackled yet. (Ah...language cannot grasp the nuance in any way that can communicate accurately, I struggle to even express concepts because every concept starts to dissolve under the least bit of scrutiny).

"I" do not decide to have a thought, the thoughts just appear. And so every "decision" I think I am making is really just a thought, but if I am not really controlling the thoughts then everything is just happening, an organic unfolding. Even the story itself is entirely manufactured. Awakening itself becomes part of the story. The mind cannot fathom this paradigm shift and it spins and spins. So it seems I will continue on this path because that's what seems to be happening. Things will be as they are because that is the way they are. There is a freedom in this if nothing else. There is a feeling as if an "I" is slowly dissolving, or leaking out. Even reading this back, it starts to lose all meaning, but I suppose I will submit this reply.

Best,

Taylor

[Maylson]

Hi Taylor, how are you?

Good! But now drop everything you just wrote. Not because any of it is wrong, but because every line is the mind trying to take ownership of what’s happening.

Let’s go straight in, zero conceptual breathing room.

“There is still something witnessing.”

Good!
Now look directly:

Right now, in this exact moment, can you actually find a witness, or is there only witnessing?

Not the idea of witnessing or the sense of an observer.
Just the sheer activity of experience unfolding on its own.

Pick a sensation... any sensation happening right now.

Does it come pre-packaged with:

“I am being felt by a witness inside the body”

…or is that tag added afterward by a thought trying to explain it?

Be absolutely ruthless here!

You mentioned a feeling of “awareness inside the body.”
Look again:

That’s not awareness.
That’s a subtle image of a center, a tiny contraction the mind keeps recycling.

Check this:

When there is experiencing, do you find:

a location?
a boundary?
a shape?
an owner?

Or are all of those added by thought after the raw data appears?

Stay with the raw data, not the commentary.

“Something feels like it’s looking through these eyes.”

Test it.

Close your eyes.

Now there’s just blackness.

Where is the “looker” now?
Did it vanish?
Did the point of view collapse?
Or did only the content change?

Find the looker.
Right now.
where is it?

Point to it.
Feel for it.

Maybe, won’t find a looker.. only a familiar contraction that thought labels “me.”

“If there is no I, thoughts and sensations aren’t happening to anyone.”

Correct, and now take it one step further ;)

Are thoughts happening to anyone at all?

Watch a thought appear.

Can you:

predict it?
choose it?
stop it halfway?

Who is thinking it?

The personality still wants, avoids, fears.

Ok, but none of that proves a “self.”

Wanting is just wanting.
Avoiding is just avoiding.
Fear is just fear.

When resistance appears, thought immediately says:

“I am resisting.”

But look carefully:

Is there an “I” resisting? Or is there simply resistance appearing, like any other sensation?
One is a story.
One is the raw fact.

“If there was no control, there never was any control at all.”

Yes! and notice:
that’s not a clever idea.
It’s a description of what’s being seen.

There was never a past controller.
There won’t be a future controller.
There isn’t one now.

There is only happening.

This message is happening. The feeling of “dissolving” is happening. The story of awakening is happening...

None of it belongs to anyone.

So now I want only one thing from you, just one:

Right now, in actual immediate experience, not in thought, not in imagination:

Is there a separate “self” anywhere at all?
Or is there only experience happening?

Be precise, simple and brutally honest.

Tell me exactly what you see.

Ohh, one last thing, it would really help the flow of our conversation if you used quote mode when you reply. Makes it easier to track exactly what you’re responding to.

Here’s a short video showing how to do it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fAToDNh9hQ