Aftershock

[graceabounds]

There is a lot here to explore Mike.

Don’t solve death for a moment. Locate the one who will die, the actual separate entity.
Can it be found anywhere except in thought-reference?

And is all this about a screen, can you find it? Or is it conceptual too?

it feels like there is a center of the screen

Start here.

Can you locate it directly?

Is there an actual center to seeing?

Close your eyes for ten seconds.
Without referring to mental pictures, where exactly is the observer? What shape is it?
What distance from sensation is it? Does it have edges?

Is center an inference?
(An inference created by the same self-structure that would like a ‘safe’ place to reside…)

/Becca

[DonnBeach]

The body dies. Experience dies. Everything perceived dies, including the I-thought.

The screen is always present during waking state. It precisely is the waking state.

Can you locate it directly?

Is there an actual center to seeing?

I cannot locate it directly. Anything locatable is an image within it. So there's no actual center unless we consider the whole thing to be the center.

Close your eyes for ten seconds.
Without referring to mental pictures, where exactly is the observer? What shape is it?
What distance from sensation is it? Does it have edges?

There is no observer nor is there shape. No edges when eyes are closed, but seeming edges when eyes are open, like a portal whose edges are blurred.

The inferred 'center' I think gets inferred from this portal-like vantage point in which the world appears. Observer and observed aren't separate when I look directly, yet there is the whole thing right 'here', the view.

[graceabounds]

Hello Mike.

So is the screen anything more than a concept pointing to the fact that experience appears?

Can you experience a screen itself?
Or only appearances?

there is the whole thing right 'here', the view

What gives “here” its apparent location?
Are portal-like edges actually experienced continuously?

Observer and observed aren't separate when I look directly

If there is no separate observer now, what exactly is threatened by death?

Look at the immediate contraction that wants continuity.
Where is that contraction located? How does it manifest in the body right now?
What story immediately grows around it?

-Becca

[DonnBeach]

So is the screen anything more than a concept pointing to the fact that experience appears?

Well, yes. I'd say that we are using the word 'screen' is the conceptual pointer to the entire field of experience.

Can you experience a screen itself?
Or only appearances?

There are only the experiences, along with the entirety of them all together in the whole field (screen). The screen isn't experienced, it is experience itself.

What gives “here” its apparent location?
Are portal-like edges actually experienced continuously?

"Here" is the entire field, though there is no apparent 'elsewhere'--only the screen/field of experience and perception. Nothing else.

Observer and observed aren't separate when I look directly

If there is no separate observer now, what exactly is threatened by death?

I suppose nothing is actually threatened... there is the feeling and concept of fear of death.

Look at the immediate contraction that wants continuity.
Where is that contraction located? How does it manifest in the body right now?
What story immediately grows around it?

It's a sense of doership/ownership. Doesn't really have a specific location. It manifests in vague ways I can't put into words, but has a centralized face (my own) as a stand-in for agency.

The story is the story of the character who needs clarification.

[graceabounds]

It manifests in vague ways I can't put into words, but has a centralized face (my own) as a stand-in for agency.

Excellent. That is concrete. A face-image appears and functions as a reference token for ownership.

The story is the story of the character who needs clarification.

Outside the face-image, can that entity actually be found?

The screen isn't experienced, it is experience itself.

Soooo
Looking at this in the same way… is it actually found or just an image? This is subtle but important.

[DonnBeach]

It cannot be found. It's just an image. I kind of know this already, that this 'me' guy simply doesn't exist. I think what I was after to begin with was what is beyond even this experience-only state. There are only states, or otherwise put: there is only consciousness. This is all that can be directly known because "it" is right here, right now. No person included. This I understand already.

I get that you have helped me with the motivation behind this longing, which is very helpful. However (putting death and related concepts aside), all states of consciousness (or consciousness itself) is known. The entire field of perception is being made aware of by.... what?? Not who, and not Me. But what is aware? If this no-me/experience-only state were really all that is, then there could not be awareness of it--since there is awareness of consciousness, there is "more", namely the "thing" that is aware (I'm losing the power of language here if you can't tell).

I hope this makes sense, and you by no means have to continue this conversation! I was curious if someone could help even in the slightest with this thing I'm trying to convey. Again, I understand that directly and immediately there is only experience experiencing, existence existing, without a finite/locatable 'me' to be there. I'm trying to take it a step further, because this no-me experience experiencing is known and so is not ultimate/absolute.

[graceabounds]

Language leaving is important. It was built to describe objects, relationships, and distinctions which don’t hold up…

But underneath there seems to still be an energy of seeking… if so, there is perhaps still some self structure in tact. And the classic place for this to hide out is in Consciousness or Awareness or a Witness as a doer. As ‘the thing.’ Different traditions diverge here. My invitation is simply to look there directly.

Suppose it was located, that there were some ultimate witness. Wouldn’t the same question immediately arise: What knows that? And on and on.

Come back to what can be experienced directly. What is real and not fantasy of thought. Can the something that knows the knowing be located or is it an assumption?

Can awareness itself be found?

Is awareness itself appearing?


What’s left?

The honest answer may be nothing that can be turned into knowledge. :)

This is why some traditions speak of the absolute as a mystery rather than a thing, a state, or an awareness.

[DonnBeach]

Suppose it was located, that there were some ultimate witness. Wouldn’t the same question immediately arise: What knows that? And on and on.

Yes, definitely. I've run into that trap already and came out of it. It's not that the witness should be locatable, but that it is known by an awareness beyond it. This cannot be turned into an object to search for (it is simply not an object at all), but "it" is nonetheless there.

Come back to what can be experienced directly. What is real and not fantasy of thought. Can the something that knows the knowing be located or is it an assumption?

It definitely cannot be located and is not an assumption. It sounds like I'm making the two separate--they aren't. But that awareness is somehow beyond. This is something that made itself known (though has been here all along). Of course, here I am talking as a little person, but I say what I mean. No object. Simply an awareness beyond consciousness.

I'm realizing that what I'm trying to point to and 'get at' is probably something I need to dwell on myself. Again, there is no person here, only (the field of) experience, or existence existing without a someone to exist. Yet there is awareness of consciousness/existence. It is a knowing, like the very fact of there being anything at all. But the fact is the knowing, or the "container" to it all. A precondition sort of.

[graceabounds]

Language is indeed difficult here, limited.

But that awareness is somehow beyond. This is something that made itself known (though has been here all along

How was it that it made itself known? (This is with curiosity, not poking…)

I'm realizing that what I'm trying to point to and 'get at' is probably something I need to dwell on myself

What does dwelling on entail?

[DonnBeach]

How was it that it made itself known? (This is with curiosity, not poking…)

No you're completely fine! What I mean is that recently when in this I-am/field-of-awareness state, the realization occurred that the state is known by awareness. I'm really struggling with the words here, but this is as close as I can get. It is actually quite "obvious" I suppose.

What does dwelling on entail?

I'm not sure other than staying in I-am (mentioned above).

[graceabounds]

By ‘obvious’ do you mean that the realization was an experience rather than a thought? Like a knowing without a knower?

Is staying in this state something that can be controlled? Is there the ability to go in and out ‘at will’?

[DonnBeach]

By ‘obvious’ do you mean that the realization was an experience rather than a thought? Like a knowing without a knower?

I'm hesitant to call it an experience. I think there's an experiential component, but it is more so a recognition, or an apperception.

Is staying in this state something that can be controlled? Is there the ability to go in and out ‘at will’?

These days it is hard to tell if I'm actually the one turning it on and off. I really don't know the answer to that! It's a great question that I've thought about. Sometimes I think it's the mind slowly getting more and more dissatisfied with its identification mechanism, so it decides to recede. Other times I think it's just something that keeps happening more and more frequently without my doing anything. After all, that state came on by itself one day a while ago without my will.

[DonnBeach]

I should also say that this awareness is impersonal. It doesn't have that flavor of me-ness, like the field of consciousness does or the I-am. It's impersonal somehow, but not necessarily separate. And yet beyond. This doesn't make sense in words, but this is what it is.

[graceabounds]

These days it is hard to tell if I'm actually the one turning it on and off. I really don't know the answer to that! It's a great question that I've thought about

Great! Keep looking here. And at the other mechanisms that presume a do-er in everyday ordinary life. Choice, control, etc.

When this impersonal knowing is absent, how do you know it is absent?
And when it is present, how do you know it is present?

Curious what ‘beyond’ points to as well?

[DonnBeach]

When this impersonal knowing is absent, how do you know it is absent?
And when it is present, how do you know it is present?

It's not that it's absent, because it's never absent. The whole thing's like a movie theater. I can un-invest in the movie for a period of time and realize that I'm watching a movie. Or, I get caught back investing in the character(s) in the movie and forget I'm in a movie theater. That's the field of consciousness--the screen of the movie. The awareness in this analogy would be the 'me' who knows the movie's on and who knows there's just a screen with a play of light.

Curious what ‘beyond’ points to as well?

The awareness of the screen and the screen itself aren't separate, or at least it doesn't seem that way. Yet, the awareness is somehow beyond or prior to the screen of consciousness (I-am). I-am is still intimate and has the fragrance of me-ness, while the awareness of it is the cliff where me-ness disappears. It is impersonal. Again, not separate, but beyond. Consciousness seems to completely depend on the awareness.