realizing selflessness

[vinceschubert]

How do you help other people grok that it's just THIS?!

First answer is "i don't know." i just respond spontaneously to them.
A more intellectual starting point is that i look for abstract nouns that language seems to indicate are being taken as concrete nouns. (self, choice, decisions, responsibility, control, future, etc)

Incidentally, I mentioned the “Ahhh . . . okay, this” thing to my husband yesterday or the day before, and this morning he asked me to remind him what it was. Just thought you’d like to know that it seemed helpful to someone else too.

Excellent! Did you notice some kind of realignment happened as you considered how to present it?

But then I remembered that I’m trying to set that story aside (and was proud of myself for remembering that). And I remembered that when that sort of thing arises, I can, instead, attend to what’s actually here, and I can also deconstruct the story, starting with the “I.”

This happens mostly in response to old habit in the beginning but will evolve to happen sooner and even predictably. Eventually it it wont need to happen as what it used to respond to won't occur.

i'm off to golf now.
Talk soon...

love

v

[whoknows]

Did you notice some kind of realignment happened as you considered how to present it?

Hmm . . . Do you mean, did I rethink it in some way for the purpose of sharing it with him? I don’t think so. Or more like, did telling him about it somehow change how I was assimilating it? I don’t think so.

[whoknows]

Early Tuesday morning. Feeling completely miserable and oppressed about the work I need to do, for both jobs. This isn’t really spawning the “I need to wake up” story but a mainly a more ordinary “WTF is wrong with me, and how do I fix it?!” feeling. And when I think about looking at “What’s actually here?” I feel resistant, angry, and more miserable, and of course I’m sobbing. And this feels like something more for my therapist than for you, but I don’t have a therapist, and none of the many therapists I've ever had did me much good. (If one of them has recognized and understood how to work with autism, that probably would've been a big help.)

I did pause in the middle of writing the paragraph above to clean out the inbox of my school email account as I get ready to prepare my fall course, and that felt good.

OK, now here comes the “I need to wake up” story — and the feeling “I don’t want to try to do anything about it!!! I just want all this to be different!!!”

[whoknows]

P.S. OK, having a little sob-fest helped a bit (as I'd hoped it might). I imagine that apologizing for sending it in your direction is silly. I'm getting ready to leave the house and go get some work done. But any help or insight is still welcome.

[vinceschubert]

Did you notice some kind of realignment happened as you considered how to present it?

Do you mean, did I rethink it in some way for the purpose of sharing it with him? I don’t think so. Or more like, did telling him about it somehow change how I was assimilating it? I don’t think so.

By “realignment,” I meant whether putting it into words subtly reorganised the experiencing—not whether deliberate rethinking occurred. If none was noticed, don’t invent one.

Early Tuesday morning. Feeling completely miserable and oppressed about the work I need to do, for both jobs. This isn’t really spawning the “I need to wake up” story but a mainly a more ordinary “WTF is wrong with me, and how do I fix it?!” feeling. And when I think about looking at “What’s actually here?” I feel resistant, angry, and more miserable, and of course I’m sobbing. And this feels like something more for my therapist than for you, but I don’t have a therapist, and none of the many therapists I've ever had did me much good. (If one of them has recognized and understood how to work with autism, that probably would've been a big help.)

This sounds like nervous-system overload, not failed Inquiry. “What’s actually here?” had become another demand, so resistance increased. Sobbing reduced the pressure; one small practical action felt good; movement resumed.
Let regulation come before investigation. Ask: “What is the smallest tolerable next movement?” Inquiry isn’t a substitute for autism-informed support, if that becomes available.
Before “WTF is wrong with me?” appears, can a defective K be found—or only distress, contraction and thoughts demanding explanation?

i get that persistent Inquiry can feel annoying—and entirely ineffectual in the midst of overload. happening.
At that point, even to consider “What’s actually here?” can register as a demand.
So don’t use Inquiry to make the overload disappear. Let sobbing happen. Let one small practical movement happen.
When a little space returns, look gently: Is there actually something wrong with K—or are overload and the thought “Something is wrong with me” simply arising together?

OK, now here comes the “I need to wake up” story — and the feeling “I don’t want to try to do anything about it!!! I just want all this to be different!!!”

The overload has recruited awakening as a rescue story: “If K wakes up, this will stop.” That creates another demand, followed naturally by refusal.
No need to do anything about awakening right now. Distress and the wish for relief can both be present.
Apart from the thoughts “I need to wake up” and “I want this to be different,” can the “I” who needs rescuing actually be found?

i want to remind you, K, that these circumstances will continue to arise when seeking drops: overload, resistance, tears and thoughts wanting everything to be different.
What changes is not necessarily what arises, but how it is seen. These experiences no longer need to mean that something is wrong with K or that awakening has failed.
Consider this: How much of the suffering comes from the circumstances themselves, and how much from the story that awakening should make them disappear?

Autism is not a disease or sickness to be cured. It is a different neurodevelopmental pattern—a different way of perceiving, processing, communicating and responding from what is considered neurotypical.
Those differences can include strengths as well as genuine difficulties, especially in environments designed around neurotypical expectations.
How much of the distress comes from autistic functioning itself, and how much from expecting this organism to function like a neurotypical one?

much love

v

[whoknows]

Thank you for your late-night response, dear vince. (Also asked spouse for prayers, and commiserated by text with a friend with similar challenges to mine.)

This sounds like nervous-system overload, not failed Inquiry. “What’s actually here?” had become another demand, so resistance increased. Sobbing reduced the pressure; one small practical action felt good; movement resumed.

Thank you for these observations.

Let regulation come before investigation.

Yeah, OK. Good.

Ask: “What is the smallest tolerable next movement?”

That’s good. Filing that. (I’ve heard plenty of things like this for dealing with “executive functioning” difficulties, but I like this particular version of it.) Thanks.

How much of the distress comes from autistic functioning itself, and how much from expecting this organism to function like a neurotypical one?

I’m on board with the “social model of disability” — that my autism-related problems are not with “what I’m like” per se but with how the world is set up mainly for people different from me, which makes things difficult for people like me. But it’s hard not to sometimes fall into thinking that there’s “something wrong with me,” and even when I don’t fall for that, it’s still hard to deal with stuff! Even if autism is a socially-constructed disability, it's still a disability in a lot of circumstances. But, yeah, I can at least be understanding and kind to myself about it.

Not ready for these yet, but filing them for later:

Before “WTF is wrong with me?” appears, can a defective K be found—or only distress, contraction and thoughts demanding explanation?

When a little space returns, look gently: Is there actually something wrong with K—or are overload and the thought “Something is wrong with me” simply arising together?

Apart from the thoughts “I need to wake up” and “I want this to be different,” can the “I” who needs rescuing actually be found?

Now gonna do some work . . .
(Actually took care of an annoying preliminary task for setting up the website for my fall course before finishing this post.)

[whoknows]

Returning to what I’d saved:

Before “WTF is wrong with me?” appears, can a defective K be found—or only distress, contraction and thoughts demanding explanation?

When a little space returns, look gently: Is there actually something wrong with K—or are overload and the thought “Something is wrong with me” simply arising together?

I think I’m actually not all that prone to thinking I’m defective, or not as much as some people seem to be. I think I’m more apt to do what spouse and I call “going cosmic” and thinking the universe, or the way reality is set up, is defective. And that impinges on me in certain ways that I would like to be able to deal with better.

But I might be wrong about that. Maybe I think I’m defective more often than I realize. I suppose “Why can’t I deal with this better?” is just a version of “What’s wrong with me?”

So anyway, yeah, what actually arises is feelings of overload, resistance, and distress and thoughts of “I wish I could handle what I need to do in the way a lot of other people would be able to” (i.e., more easily) and worried thoughts about problems that will ensue or an increased burden on future K if current K can’t get stuff done.

The overload has recruited awakening as a rescue story: “If K wakes up, this will stop.” That creates another demand, followed naturally by refusal.

Yep to all that.
But it’s a compelling story. As you said:

What changes is not necessarily what arises, but how it is seen.

Great! What I care about is how it’s seen. I want to see the ordinary ups and downs of life in a different way. That’s what I want to change. So my seeking energy gets aimed at that. But the seeking is (so I’m told) what reinforces exactly the sense of “self” that I’m hoping to let go of. And here I am stuck in the same koan I’ve been stuck in for forty years.

Please tell me, or remind me, what I’m missing here?

Apart from the thoughts “I need to wake up” and “I want this to be different,” can the “I” who needs rescuing actually be found?

OK, that’s probably what I need to be reminded of. What do I even mean when I think, “I am suffering” or “I need to wake up” or “I want the universe to be different” or “I want me to be different?” What does “I” even refer to there? Stop and look . . .

[vinceschubert]

What changes is not necessarily what arises, but how it is seen.

Great! What I care about is how it’s seen. I want to see the ordinary ups and downs of life in a different way. That’s what I want to change. So my seeking energy gets aimed at that. But the seeking is (so I’m told) what reinforces exactly the sense of “self” that I’m hoping to let go of. And here I am stuck in the same koan I’ve been stuck in for forty years.

Please tell me, or remind me, what I’m missing here?

What’s missing is that seeking itself isn’t the problem. The self-reinforcing part is the story: “A deficient K must use seeking to become different later.”
Curiosity, inquiry, and experimentation can continue as conditioned activities. Don’t suppress seeking or follow its promise. Notice it as thought, tension and movement toward an imagined future.
When seeking is seen as simply another ownerless event, seeing has already changed.
You are not required to escape the koan. The imagined person trapped inside it is the koan.
When “I want to see life differently” arises, is there an “I” behind that thought—or is the thought itself one of the ordinary ups and downs asking to be seen differently?

v

[whoknows]

What’s missing is that seeking itself isn’t the problem. The self-reinforcing part is the story: “A deficient K must use seeking to become different later.”
Curiosity, inquiry, and experimentation can continue as conditioned activities. Don’t suppress seeking or follow its promise. Notice it as thought, tension and movement toward an imagined future.

Gonna need to read that a few times . . .
OK, I’m confused.
Doesn’t seeking, by definition, involve aiming to have something be different in the future?
Are you saying to go ahead and do seeking sorts of things — like meditation, self-inquiry, watching awakening-related videos, and posting multiple times a day on the LU site — but just be aware of the thoughts and sensations of aiming for a different future?

When seeking is seen as simply another ownerless event, seeing has already changed.
You are not required to escape the koan. The imagined person trapped inside it is the koan.
When “I want to see life differently” arises, is there an “I” behind that thought—or is the thought itself one of the ordinary ups and downs asking to be seen differently?

Reading that bit a few more times . . .
Yeah, OK, the issue is, of course, the “I” — the imagined thinker and doer — who is thought to be a seeker, to be stuck, to want a different view of life.

So . . . what do I DO?

Right, right. I see it. Who is the “I” who wants to know what to do? Who is the “I” who wants to do something in order to make something happen so that “I” will, in the “future,” no longer stuck in the “I” perspective?

And then the thought arises: But, like, for real, how do I get unstuck?

And, yes, before I even finished typing that sentence, I saw it: Who is the “I” who wants to get unstuck?

OK, so I'm noticing feelings of frustration and resistance, like I don't even want to have to examine the supposed "I" to discover, yet again, that there's nothing there. Maybe I'm making it too practice-y? I just want to scream and make it all stop. I want to chop through the "I" with an axe, but that image doesn't even make sense. You don't need an axe to destroy an illusion. You don't even need to destroy an illusion. You just see that it's an illusion. I feel like I understand that the "I" is an illusion, but that hasn't made enough of a difference yet. Can't you make this stop?!?!

[vinceschubert]

OK, so I'm noticing feelings of frustration and resistance, like I don't even want to have to examine the supposed "I" to discover, yet again, that there's nothing there. Maybe I'm making it too practice-y? I just want to scream and make it all stop. I want to chop through the "I" with an axe, but that image doesn't even make sense. You don't need an axe to destroy an illusion. You don't even need to destroy an illusion. You just see that it's an illusion. I feel like I understand that the "I" is an illusion, but that hasn't made enough of a difference yet. Can't you make this stop?!?!

Yes—it has become too practice-y. You’re repeatedly opening the fridge and demanding that each inspection finally produce a watermelon.
Stop examining the “I” for now. Nothing needs chopping. The seeing may be genuine while the nervous system is still reorganising. Frustration does not disprove it.
Awakening doesn’t promise that distress will stop. But the added demand—“This understanding should have changed me by now”—can stop being treated as truth.
Scream safely, cry, walk, reduce demands. No spiritual assignment.
Without searching for an “I,” can “This should have made more difference by now” be recognised as just another thought arising?

v

[whoknows]

Without searching for an “I,” can “This should have made more difference by now” be recognised as just another thought arising?

Sure. Of course.

No spiritual assignment.

So. Here I am. Same old perspective on "self" and reality. Without even a hobby of seeking awakening to keep me occupied and give me a purpose in life. This is maddening.

[whoknows]

Before I move along with my day and try to get myself to do some work I don’t want to do:

Imagine falling—not thinking your way—into the experiencing of:
“Ahhh . . . okay. THIS is it.”

Body relaxes a little.
Breathing settles.
I see what's in front of me.
I hear the very faint ticking of my bedside alarm clock.
Mind settles down.
Hear the microwave beeping in the kitchen, where spouse is probably reheating his coffee.
Hear the sounds of his probably getting milk out of the fridge to add to his coffee.
Stillness.
Vague thought like: Well, sure, this is nice for the moment, but next I have to do some tedious work.
A little tightness in chest and throat.
Stillness.
Distant sound of vehicle outside.
Faint mechanical or plumbing sound that I can't identify.
Exhalation.
Cool air in nostrils.

OK, time to get dressed, go to coffee shop, and get some work done.

[vinceschubert]

No spiritual assignment.

So. Here I am. Same old perspective on "self" and reality. Without even a hobby of seeking awakening to keep me occupied and give me a purpose in life. This is maddening.

Yes. Seeking wasn’t merely a problem; it was also a hobby, identity, hope and source of purpose. Dropping it can feel less like liberation than unemployment—with no enlightenment pension.
“No spiritual assignment” doesn’t forbid curiosity or Inquiry. It only removes the demand that K must use them to become acceptable or arrive elsewhere.
What is maddening right now—the ordinary experiencing, or the loss of the promised future in which it would finally become different?

Imagine falling—not thinking your way—into the experiencing of:
“Ahhh . . . okay. THIS is it.”

Body relaxes a little.
Breathing settles.
I see what's in front of me.
I hear the very faint ticking of my bedside alarm clock.
Mind settles down.
Hear the microwave beeping in the kitchen, where spouse is probably reheating his coffee.
Hear the sounds of his probably getting milk out of the fridge to add to his coffee.
Stillness.
Vague thought like: Well, sure, this is nice for the moment, but next I have to do some tedious work.
A little tightness in chest and throat.
Stillness.
Distant sound of vehicle outside.
Faint mechanical or plumbing sound that I can't identify.
Exhalation.
Cool air in nostrils.

OK, time to get dressed, go to coffee shop, and get some work done.

Excellent. Sounds, sensations, an imagined future, contraction, stillness—and then the next movement arose. Neither the thought nor tightness had to disappear before action became possible.
When “tedious work” appeared, was any work actually present—or only thought, tightness and anticipation?

v

[whoknows]

Now at coffee shop, and delaying getting to work by engaging in my seeking hobby.

Yes. Seeking wasn’t merely a problem; it was also a hobby, identity, hope and source of purpose.

Yep. Not an identity so much, but, yes, a hobby and a source of hope and purpose.
(I’ve never thought of myself as “a seeker.” Well, maybe when I was living at the Zen monastery? Maybe not even then, and never using that word. Seeking was more a thing I did than what I was. I never wanted a dharma name. I never “took refuge” and formally became a Buddhist. I’ve never identified as a Buddhist. Being involved in Buddhism was never about finding a community or a sense of belonging, except in the sense of finding other people who were dealing with the same existential issues I was and who might have a clue what to do about it.)

Dropping it can feel less like liberation than unemployment—with no enlightenment pension.

:-) Yes.

“No spiritual assignment” doesn’t forbid curiosity or Inquiry. It only removes the demand that K must use them to become acceptable or arrive elsewhere.

Having trouble quite getting how this all works without being understood as a means to an end.

What is maddening right now—the ordinary experiencing, or the loss of the promised future in which it would finally become different?

Sorry (I guess) to say that I still haven’t given up on that promised future. It’s more just that such thoughts get labeled as supposedly misguided. And sometimes I remember to notice that thoughts like “I need to awaken” don’t even make sense. But thoughts of a promised future continue.
What’s maddening is still having the same old perspective on “self” and reality, plus feeling like there’s nothing I can DO at this point to change it or perhaps, more precisely, feeling like there’s some really subtle thing to “do” that’s hard to even call a “doing” and which I’m still groping my way toward?
Plus, if I weren’t writing all these posts to you every day, what would I do with all that time? As you said, “unemployment—with no enlightenment pension.”

When “tedious work” appeared, was any work actually present—or only thought, tightness and anticipation?

It wasn’t present in the sense of being in front of me on my computer screen (which was all I can come up with for how it could be “actually present”). It was just thought tinged with feelings of dread and oppression and resignation.

And I’ve been delaying getting started on my editing for nearly an hour, mainly by writing this post.

Thoughts of getting starting make me feel like crying — no, not just “feel like.” Oy vey.

Ask: “What is the smallest tolerable next movement?”

Open emails from boss. Easy.
Take a look at them. Only need two of the three I opened; other one now archived.
Figure out where to begin. Not so easy.
. . . . .

I wrote up a lot more blow-by-blow on getting to work (including discovering that I maybe hadn't properly recorded some previous work time and need to sort that out first), but I will spare you that and will go ahead and post this and at least do an hour of this tedious, frustrating work that is meaningful to me primarily as a way to earn some money (and I have a very low tolerance for alienating work) . . .

[vinceschubert]

Sorry (I guess) to say that I still haven’t given up on that promised future.

No apology needed—and don’t make “giving up the promised future” another assignment. Hope may continue arising. The issue is only whether its promise—that fulfilment exists somewhere other than THIS—is believed.
Can the promised future remain as an attractive thought without becoming evidence that something is missing now?

that promised future.

Look closely at what this promised future actually promises. Does it appear as a detailed story or image of how life will be—or is it merely an undefined blur labelled “awakening”?
How is the promise experienced? As words or images in thought? As longing, tension or movement in the body? Or is no future presented at all—only a response to vagueness, such as frustration, hope or resignation?
Before examining it, there may seem to be something definite being sought. But when looked at directly, what is the promised future actually made of?


v