Does a you need to be improved?
Lots of thoughts popping up like...
Well yes, I need to do more around the house, I need to have friends, I need a hobby, I need to be fit... and I am not.
Also, a recognisation that whatever is here without all thinking (when stopping and looking) is not worried about what is here or have any need to improve what is.
What does it feel like in the body?
A dull numb feeling in the face and upper chest.
What is there in guilt (or shame) that activity distracts from?
That was a powerful question! It got paired down to "what does activity distract from?".
After sitting with it a bit, activity distracts me from the disappointment that I am not what I want to be. That I am not what I think others want me to be. That I am not who they think I am. That I am not what they think I should be.
From someone saying "I am so disappointed in you", or my own thoughts "I am so disappointed with myself".
Ultimately it is distracting from disapproval from others.
It is nice to have some sunlight on all that. But also hard, and a bit painful. I can see the effect of these thoughts and beliefs in lots of behaviors.
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And now the exercise. Which was very interesting.
In step 1 when thinking about their respective qualities, did you ‘choose’ the qualities? Or did they kind of appear by themselves?
Thoughts appears playing out the pros, cons, and what was known about the qualities of the drinks. No choice or editing was evident. They just appeared.
If some preferences manifested, did you ‘choose’ these preferences? Or did they just pop up by themselves?
No. Just a list of facts / info all thoughts that played back memory and what was known all as facts just appearing. No sign of any chooser.
In step 2 when you counted to 5, if the preferences took the back seat while the numbers took the front seat, did you ‘choose’ this sequence of event? Did you ‘choose’ to shut down the preferences to give way to the counting?
No. It just happened.
Did you directly experience a mental function or faculty doing the ‘choosing’? Have you seen this function in action?
No, all automatic. Just a stream of events.
In step 3 where you made a choice, did you actually witness or directly experience a mental function or faculty doing the ‘choosing’? Did anything arise that announced, ‘I am the chooser’? If so, what does this function look like?
When the choice was seeing saw a hand shoot out and grab a glass. There was no chooser anywhere. It just happened.
I cross-compared a previous decision / choice from earlier. Same pattern. Some thoughts about a choice, then a choice with no chooser evident (it just happened), and in that case a thought following up personalising (saying I chose it) after it happened.
So. I see no chooser choosing. Choices get made. Thoughts happen before and after. I see no structure, person, I, whatever actually making a choice in experience. It is interesting that all these unconnected events thoughts arising before, an action, and thoughts afterwards come together to form something that makes it like look someone made a choice.
Sometimes we describe this sense of choosing as a ‘feeling’: It feels like ‘I’ did the ‘choosing’. But the question is, can a feeling ‘choose’? Is it in the nature of a feeling to ‘choose’?
No. It was clear. A choice got made, no feeling was involved. Qualities were described. A glass was selected, the hand moved, the glass was grabbed.
Interesting... who can be blamed for something when there was no one choosing. How can anything be 'wrong' or 'right' when there is no one choosing?
Even when I do good or bad things I still see, sense, think, smell, hear, live. Whatever it is that I actually am, it does not withhold no matter what happens.
Is it fair to be disappointed when someone never chose to take an action? How can there be guilt for something when no visible will, person, mind, entity made a choice to do that?
I don't know what to say.
