Removing the illusion

[Pwkitchen]

Hi Rali! Thanks for sharing these thoughts.

Is "experiencing" something that can actually be found? Or is it another label describing what is present?

No, experiencing is just a label describing what "is". Very tricky, I am finding, to verbalize these things without smuggling in a presumed "doer" of some kind - but all I can say is that as I use these word-labels to communicate, it is abundantly clear to me that every word I reach for is "falling short" and here I just mean that every word, every label appears by necessity to be one step removed from the 'IT' or 'THIS' or 'THUS' (the DE), such that putting "it" into words already betrays the truth of "it" ... "this" is all that is happening directly - and it seems that ANY move away from THIS is conceptual. And I mean ANY move. In the flash of a millisecond that it takes for the "experiencer" to show up - to just have what is assumed to be the most basic of human experiences: "I am experiencing," you've already lost the game, so to speak!

When "seeing" is labelled seeing, hearing labelled hearing, sensation labelled sensation, are those labels describing something real, or are they already one step removed?

The labels are one step removed. The label "hearing" is not required for "it" to be happening ... "senses" are also a label.

So even though it might look as there are clearly defined senses, what is DE showing? Does the sound appear in a different place to the thought? Can you find an actual line/wall/boundary that divides the thought and the sound? Or is the line a mental construct?

I did the exercise, and there are no boundaries. It's all just happening. The mind seems to want to notice this thing or that, back and forth, and so it is creating the boundary - then it is a mental construct, it must be a mental construct because nothing is required for these things to be going on.

No description survives inspection.

Descriptions are labels - they are not experienced directly. It is utterly impossible to communicate without them but it is evident that they are "empty" or "not the thing" (no-thing), "not THIS" ... reading ahead, yes, "THIS" does seem to be the most appropriate label. It might be interesting to try that - rather than notating things with a label, simply noting "this".

Again, using DE labels or any other everyday label is useful as it helps communication - they are good pointers (like fingers pointing to the moon). There is nothing wrong with using them as long as their empty nature is seen (not mistaking the finger for the moon).

Yes, absolutely. This was something that clicked during the apple excercise: not only is "apple" a label but all of these sense words are labels too - the sensation itself just "is" - as you say, they are very useful for communication, but it is clear now that they are not the thing's "thusness" or "not the thing, itself".

Everything is just happening all the time, so to speak.

It's striking how simple it all seems - it's almost ridiculous!

When you consider how much work and effort and suffering is required to hold "yourself" together ... and how everyone is doing it ... how very limiting it is ... strictly limiting ... oppressive, even ... I'm left with a very deep sense of compassion for others ... and myself! Hard to explain. It all seems very unfortunate, in a way. This is wonderful work you are doing!

Pat

[poppyseed]

Hey Pat
Beautiful. Notice what has happened here. We started with "apple." Then "self." Then "observer." Then "experiencer." Then "seeing," "hearing," and even the idea of separate senses. Now you're seeing that the same mechanism is operating everywhere.

No description survives inspection.

Yes! And yet descriptions still have practical value. We can talk about apples, hearing, seeing, Pat, neighbours collecting cans, and nobody gets confused. The difference is that the labels are no longer being mistaken for what they point to.

The mind seems to want to notice this thing or that, back and forth, and so it is creating the boundary.

Have another look here.
Is the mind creating boundaries? Or is "mind creating boundaries" itself another description appearing afterwards?
Look very carefully. Can an actual boundary be found? Can an actual creator of boundaries be found? Or is there simply the appearance of distinctions, followed by thoughts ABOUT distinctions?
Don't answer from logic. Look.

“Mind” is not the villain. Have you heard the saying: "The mind is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master"?
Thought is self-organised around the experience but at some point becomes organised around itself. Language is basically the relationship between concepts – how they are organised. That carries meaning on top of the meaning of the actual concepts. That is why different concepts mean different things to different people and in different situations. One very good example of how meaning is formed, is AI. GPT (Generative pre-trained transformers) are large language models that are based on the semantic relationships between words in sentences (natural language processing). GPT models are trained on a large amount of text. The training consists in predicting the next token (a token being usually a word, sub-word, or punctuation). Throughout this training, GPT models accumulate knowledge about the world, and can then generate “human-like” text by repeatedly predicting the next token. But does AI have any direct experience of what it’s talking about? That is why I always use the analogy with the desktop icons – they give meaning to 0’s and 1’s.

So what/who is doing the looking, if there is no observer? What is so exited about:

It's striking how simple it all seems - it's almost ridiculous!

What is doing the inquiry? What is doing the looking? What is looking made of?

Focus on focusing, attention itself. Do you move it, or it moves by itself?
Hold focus on breath - see how it moves to thoughts, sensations, feelings, sounds.
Is this something you control?
Where is the “you” in the looking? What is looking made of?
There is what IS happening and the description of it (aka thought). But where exactly is the looker / the inquirer?
What is “focus” in DE? Is it something like a torch lighting up things in the dark waiting to be illuminated? OR…
Is there anything more than just this + thought that says “I’m looking…”? Is there focusing/looking + THIS?
I guess what I’m pointing to is – is there a difference between focus and labelling??

Love
Rali

[Pwkitchen]

Hi Rali!

Is the mind creating boundaries? Or is "mind creating boundaries" itself another description appearing afterwards?

The latter - it is a narration, a sort of storytelling. If I look, there is nothing there.

Can an actual boundary be found? Can an actual creator of boundaries be found? Or is there simply the appearance of distinctions, followed by thoughts ABOUT distinctions?

Again, the latter - things only are, it’s only “this” … anything about a mind creating boundaries is some kind of “thinking about” - it is additive to the DE. An easy habit to fall back into!

But does AI have any direct experience of what it’s talking about?

No, it does not. It cannot. Its entire world is fundamentally made up only of concepts.

So what/who is doing the looking, if there is no observer? What is so exited about:
It's striking how simple it all seems - it's almost ridiculous!
What is doing the inquiry? What is doing the looking? What is looking made of?

No one and no thing. It’s just substance of thought. “It” being simple and feeling almost ridiculous is jumping right back into a narration. Thank you for pointing this out.

Hold focus on breath - see how it moves to thoughts, sensations, feelings, sounds.
Is this something you control?

DE feels like a letting go of focus more than anything, like focus is just a label - adding something to “this” It’s a pos-construct. It’s the same mechanism!

There is what IS happening and the description of it (aka thought). But where exactly is the looker / the inquirer?
What is “focus” in DE? Is it something like a torch lighting up things in the dark waiting to be illuminated? OR…
Is there anything more than just this + thought that says “I’m looking…”? Is there focusing/looking + THIS?
I guess what I’m pointing to is – is there a difference between focus and labelling??

The looker/inquirer does not exist. Looking and inquiring themselves are labels. Focus is also a label.

My direct experience is that “all this” is complete in and of itself. Focus does not illuminate anything because nothing is in the dark. There is nothing more than just this that can be directly experienced. The thought “I’m looking” is a conception.

So, no, no difference between focusing and labeling! There is just what’s going on around right now. It’s just this!

[poppyseed]

Hi Pat,
Good. There doesn't seem much point in continuing to dismantle labels for the moment.
You've looked at self, observer, experiencer, focus, boundaries, and each time the same pattern has been revealed. The common mistake here is to just assume - if there is no self there is no... That would be bypassing. For these beliefs to drop away / change, they need to be seen through. So let's look somewhere else...
A common assumption is that while there may be no self, there is still someone making decisions – having likes and dislikes.
Let's investigate.
1. Hold a hand in front of you; palm turned down. Now turn the palm up. And down...and up and so on.

How is the movement controlled?
Does a thought control it?
Can a ‘controller’ or and entity that is choosing be located?
How is the decision made to turn the hand over? Track any decision point when a thought MADE THE DECISION to turn the hand over.

2. Put two objects that you like in front of you (e.g. a cup of coffee and a glass of juice)
Step1. Look at drink A and at drink B. Think about their respective qualities, the things you like about them, compare and weigh the pros and cons of each. See if a preference is manifesting for one or the other.
Step2. Count to 5.
Step3. Choose one of the drinks. Pick it up and take a sip.

In step 1 when thinking about their respective qualities, did you ‘choose’ the qualities? Or did they kind of appear by themselves? If some preferences manifested, did you ‘choose’ these preferences? Or did they just pop up by themselves?

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? Did you directly experience an entity doing the ‘choosing’?

In step 3 where you made a choice, did anything arise that announced, ‘I am the chooser’? If so, what does it look like?

3. Please take me through a biggish decision that you made recently - not something very personal so you are able to share more details about your decision making...

How did it come to be? Consider all of the conditions that were necessary for it to happen. If any one of those conditions were different, would the outcome have been the same? How many of these conditions were outside of your influence? What was in your control (according to thought)?

Please take your time with each exercise! Repeat as many times as you need and then write the answers for all of them. Watch like a hawk. Don't go to thoughts, examine the actual experience. Do this as many times as you like, and each time inquire with the questions.

You can think back to something simple today. Perhaps what to eat. What to wear. Whether to reply to a message. Watch carefully.
Before the decision appeared, did you know what would be chosen?
Did you choose the thoughts that arose during the weighing up?
Did you choose the preferences that appeared?
Did you choose the reasons that seemed important?
Can you find an actual point at which a chooser stepped in and made the decision?
Or did thoughts, preferences, memories, feelings, circumstances and actions simply arise as part of one seamless happening?
Look in direct experience rather than reasoning this out.
Love
Rali

[poppyseed]

Hi Pat

It's been a while... Is everything OK?

Love
Rali