realizing selflessness

[Anastacia42]

Are you being sarcastic?

https://youtu.be/wyNwhK2Ur1c?si=TZwuFEst-7Hsadpu

https://www.liberationunleashed.com/res ... ar-seeker/

[whoknows]

Are you being sarcastic?

Sorry! I was intending to be playful, but I can see that it misfired and that it wasn't clear what I was trying to say.

I will keep practicing and looking. I do trust the value of this sort of exercise, even if I don't understand exactly how it might be helpful. And I find this particular exercise intriguing.

What I meant was this: It does feel like it could be a while before it's obvious to me whether I can or can't see a clear dividing line. Actually, it feels like it might never be obvious.

What do I do in the meantime about communicating with you? Should I just keep saying, "Still looking . . . " Or should I share my observations and musings and frustrations with you? Or what?

Although I did and do fully intend to keep looking where you're pointing, Delma's post was helpful for reassuring me that lots of people going through this process have some trouble trusting it. But I truly do get that LOOKING is the key.

Thank you for your patience. I'm gonna try ButtBed again right now . . .

[Anastacia42]

Sorry! I was intending to be playful, but I can see that it misfired and that it wasn't clear what I was trying to say.

That's hard to do in print.Smiley faces help, but even that can be misconstrued. Thanks for explaining

In seeing no separation between you & the bed . you set up the conditions of seeing no self.

Should I just keep saying, "Still looking . . . " Or should I share my observations and musings and frustrations with you? Or what?

Yes, sometimes. You can report a few brief notes but I don't need lots of long paragraphs of thinking. Thinking is the problem not the solution.

LOOK. This means LOOK with your eyes.

It is not difficult. It is not mysterious. In actual fact there is NOTHING THERE.

The *idea* of "self" is a lie feeling of contraction plus the lie thought of a "self." That's it.

There is "awareness," but only because we want to call it something. Some people call it "consciousness, " but that word gets used a lot. I live in a place where even a brand of coffee is called "Conscious Coffee" So I prefer "awareness. "

Awareness is not a "self."

This will make no sense at all to you until you drop all thinking and actually see it. Until then It is all concepts.


"Enlightenment is an accident. Meditation makes us accident prone."

Sunryu Suzuki

We cannot predict it and we cannot make it happen. We can only practice the conditions in which it is more likely.

This frustrates the mind because it wants everything to be linear and logical and step-by-step, but this is not. It is non linear and unpredictable.

The quicker you drop the expectation of linear predictability, the quicker you create the conditions for seeing no self.

Loving,

[whoknows]

Thank you for your response.

Continuing with ButtChair (that's what I'm supposed to be doing, right?) . . .

I wrote out lots of observations, musings, and confusions last night and this morning, but I’ll just share the following with you, since I’d be grateful for your feedback on it:

I want to be sure I’m not misunderstanding the exercise — specifically what is meant by “dividing line.” If I look at the text on this page, I can directly experience the dividing line between the black letters and the white space around them. That is, I can see the edge of the black and the white: the dividing line between them. Similarly, if I were to use my hand to touch where the edge of the area rug meets the floor, I would be able to directly experience the dividing line between rug and floor. That is, I could sense where one ends and the other begins. Right? Or am I missing something important about the phrasing of “dividing line”?

What I’m finding intriguing about this exercise is that the dividing line between my butt and what I’m sitting on does not seem so obvious as the dividing line in the examples above.

[Anastacia42]

You're completely overthinking it, but basically, yes.

You probably should stop all of that writing. It is keeping you stuck in thinking and that will keep you from seeing.

Just LOOK. Nothing more.

This is another version.

Hand on Desk

Please close your eyes for this exercise, just notice any ‘mental’ images or thoughts that appear and put them aside.

Place a hand on a desk or table (flat surface) - Close your eyes.

Now 'go to' the Sensation which we would normally refer to as 'hand on desk' and answer from what you can FIND.

1) How many things do you find? Are there two things (hand and desk) or is there one thing – AE of sensation.

2) Do you notice 'one thing feeling another thing'? Or is there just 'a sensation'?

3) Do you find an 'I', a body, a hand 'feeling' . . . or is there just 'a sensation'?

Look very carefully. Where does ‘feeling’ end and Sensation begin? Can a dividing line between ‘feeling’ and sensation be found? Or is there just sensation?

Can a ‘feeler’ ever be found in 'what is being felt' – AE sensation?

If that is all, and no INHERENT FEELER is found . . . would anything that is suggested as the feeler be other than a concept/idea/thought?


You can try this with your eyes open. If you can let go of the "separate hand" story, it can be very interesting.

Loving,

[whoknows]

1) How many things do you find? Are there two things (hand and desk) or is there one thing – AE of sensation.

I find “one” thing: the sensations of touch.
(I put “one” in scare quotes because I experience multiple slightly varying sensations of pressure, texture, and temperature from various places on my hand. But I do not directly sense a separate hand and desk, just the sensations of touch.)

2) Do you notice 'one thing feeling another thing'? Or is there just 'a sensation'?

There’s just a sensation.

3) Do you find an 'I', a body, a hand 'feeling' . . . or is there just 'a sensation'?

Through direct experience of the contact between hand and desk, I only find a sensation.
(I have a sense of an “I” or witnesser in my head who is feeling the sensations in my hand, but that’s clearly a mental construction. And I can directly experience the presence of my hand and other body parts via proprioception, but there’s no direct experience that my hand or body is somehow doing the “feeling” of the sensation. E.g., the sensation of the presence and position of my hand isn’t “feeling” of the various sensations of hand-on-desk. That doesn’t even make sense.)

Look very carefully. Where does ‘feeling’ end and Sensation begin? Can a dividing line between ‘feeling’ and sensation be found? Or is there just sensation?

The sensation can be found, but no separate feeling of the sensation can be found, and so, of course, no dividing line between the feeling and the sensation can be found.

Can a ‘feeler’ ever be found in 'what is being felt' – AE sensation?

I can’t find a “feeler.”

If that is all, and no INHERENT FEELER is found . . . would anything that is suggested as the feeler be other than a concept/idea/thought?

I can’t experience a feeler; I can only have thoughts about a feeler.
(I suppose there could be some sort of “feeler” that I’m not conscious of, but that means, of course, that I can’t directly experience it.)

[Anastacia42]

Correct.

Any "feeler" or "self" is only a lie feeling of contraction plus a thought story.

How does it FEEL to see to see this?

Loving,

[whoknows]

How does it FEEL to see to see this?

Mainly frustrating, I guess, since it seems like mainly an idea, not any sort of visceral, transformative insight into reality.

[Anastacia42]

Relax into it.

You are equally likely to see it when you're not practicing. Don't force anything and don't get stressed. If you do, stop for a while.

Here are some recorded pointers to try, too.Be sure to listen to the Introduction.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ksba3zhi9uuz ... hsk1a?dl=0

Loving,

[whoknows]

Here are some recorded pointers to try, too.Be sure to listen to the Introduction.

Thanks! I'm listening to the introduction, and these pointers sound right on target for where I am.

Who is this?

[Anastacia42]

He only gave that class once and then went into a different business. I agreed not to give out his name.

Have fun!

[whoknows]

I've started listening to the first 5 or 10 minutes of each pointer to see which ones might particularly grab me.

So far, I especially like "Perceiving Receiving," from which I'm taking self-inquiry pointers.

These notes are mostly for my own sake, so that I’ll remember these details:
- Ask your question as if you're really expecting an answer from God or the universe or whatever, and wait expectantly and attentively for the answer.
- Rest your attention in/as that which is open to receiving the answer. Let your entire body be part of the receiver, and let it expand as much as you can. The receiver has no limit in space or in time.
- Notice where your eyes have moved as you wait for the answer, and keep them pointed there.
- Notice that thoughts and sensations that arise, including the idea "I," are being received by the same receiver.
- See how little effort you can expend and how much you can relax your mind and body while doing this.

I'll keep exploring these pointers. Thanks again! These are great.

[Anastacia42]

Carry on. Let me know how it's going.

Loving,

[whoknows]

[I think we lost four posts in our thread when the LU site went down. I had talked about self-inquiry, and you said LU doesn’t guide that practice. I said that was fine and asked what I should be doing at this point, and you said ButtChair and maybe mentioned the recorded pointers you’d sent. Continuing . . . ]

Do you think there’s a way to use “Perceiving Receiving” (sending out a question and waiting expectantly for an answer, resting in what will receive the answer) that fits with what we’re doing at LU? That is, what question might I ask, instead of “Who am I?”? I considered “Is there a self?” But that has a yes-or-no answer, which doesn’t seem ideal for this practice. Maybe “How do I realize no-self?”? Suggestions?

So far, I’ve only sampled the first three pointers. I’ll keep checking them out. But if you think any are particularly apt for our exploration, please let me know.

Re: ButtChair: I feel like I might be missing something, and maybe you can tell me what. I can direct my attention to the sensations in my skin. E.g., I can feel the skin of my arms and specifically the sensations of cool air on my arms, and that seems like feeling the dividing line between my arms and not-my-arms (more or less, not counting, say, body hair). Likewise, I can feel the sensations of the skin of my butt, not against the chair precisely but against my clothing. So that seems like feeling the dividing line between my butt and not-my-butt. But is there a mental construction here, rather than just direct experience?

************************

I was ready to send the above, but the LU site was down, and I was continuing to sample the pointers you sent, and I got to “Dissolving.” When I said, above, that the dividing line between my arms and not-my-arms was “more or less” my skin, I figured you might think my “more or less” was overthinking it. But the “Dissolving” exercise got into how, of course, there isn’t really a definite dividing line. The edges are blurry. (Like, I’m thinking, what about the hair? What about the dead skin cells? What about any microscopic organisms on the skin?) It’s obvious to me (and has been since I realized this decades ago while doing Zen practice) that you have to be a bit arbitrary to label what is “my body” and “not my body,” just as you’d have to be a bit arbitrary to label which air and water molecules near the edges of a hurricane are or are not “part” of the hurricane.

So, back to ButtChair: Obviously, the “dividing line” between “my butt” and “not my butt” is blurry. I can’t directly sense a precise dividing line because there isn’t a precise dividing line.

[whoknows]

Although I'm a little reluctant to post again before you've responded to my previous post (thank you again for all the time and energy you put into LU as a volunteer!), it feels artificial to wait, so, returning to something you said on Wednesday:

It is not difficult. It is not mysterious. In actual fact there is NOTHING THERE.

The *idea* of "self" is a lie feeling of contraction plus the lie thought of a "self." That's it.

There is "awareness," but only because we want to call it something. Some people call it "consciousness, " but that word gets used a lot. I live in a place where even a brand of coffee is called "Conscious Coffee" So I prefer "awareness. "

Awareness is not a "self."

This will make no sense at all to you until you drop all thinking and actually see it. Until then It is all concepts.

This actually makes perfect sense to me, but only intellectually. And I am all too aware that an intellectual understanding of it does me no good, which is why I came to LU.

In doing self-inquiry à la Adyashanti and Angelo DiLullo, my aim was precisely to see this — to realize, in a transformative, experiential way, that my supposed individual “self” is a fiction, a construction, a reification, that it’s just made of thoughts. I was trying to directly look into where I feel like this “self” is and keep seeing that there is no “self” there but only clear, open, aware spaciousness, with the hope that somehow something will finally click in a new way. I don’t know what that means exactly, but maybe I’ll drop the “self” idea that I’m still clinging to in a way I’m not aware of? Or maybe I’ll drop the idea that I don’t already see it? I dunno.

Anyhow, that hasn’t worked for me yet, which is why I am open to whatever it is we’re doing here at LU.