Keen to REALLY see the truth and would be very grateful for

[Nick D]

Hi Matt,
I have a sense that this is coming to a completion of sorts even though there is still lots and lots of ongoing wanting and intermittent unease and lots of grasping etc etc. It almost feels as if the reactivity intensifies, to try to divert attention away from this seeing. I do also understand that this insight is a beginning and that the path as it were continues.

This much does feel clear though- if I look for a me, there is nothing 'new' that is 'me'- it's all habitual responses. Where there is freshenss and aliveness and newness, it doens't feel like 'me'- it's wonderful and it's happeining more than it used to, but I can't lay claim to it.

Now, increasinly subtle habitual responses keep coming up like "you're making a fool of yourself if you believe you've seen through the self" & "look, all this craving and grasping is proof that you haven't seen through the self" and "this can't be it because you can't even get very far into the dyanas" etc and etc. Daniel Ingram says that insight practice is like the old 'shooting aliens' computer games, and that's what it feels like- 'me-related' thoughts keep cropping up with a story that they are real and genuine, but on close inspection there's nothing new in them.

Re your first question above- , when 'reactivity' is apparently in the 'executive' i.e., there seems to be 'me' being reactive/grasping/craving etc etc, what does provoke suspicion is that if 'I' look closely at what's happening it all feels very automatic and habitual and familar and not 'in my control'. There's a sense of feeling that unhelpful responses to situations happening and they either stop when recognised as pain-inducing, or they carry on - but in either case 'I' don't feel like I'm in control. It reminds me of the Buddha saying that you can be forgiven for believing that the body is yours, but the mind changes every minute so it can't be 'you'.

I also sense that all this reactivity is just a conditioned, innocent knee-jerk reaction to a sense of estrangement. On close inspection it seems that there is a sense of 'existential pain' driving the reactivity. And I can't say for sure, but so far this 'looking at direct experience' seems to make that sense of alienation go away at least temporarily- and what's felt is the aliveness of 'being here' - colours sounds sensations movement and 'love' towards that very feeling of pained estrangement.

I really like your point about the dream analogy, that basically any expectation that anything be any different for awakening to happen is imposing an imprint over the top of direct experience and and yes I do see the checkmate. If there is nothing genuinely new in this sense of self, then even the moments when there is a strong 'sense of self' is still a masquerade.

There is a fear that this understanding won't be so easy to remember when/if life gets very difficult again - at the moment 'the story of my life' is a good one: great job satisfaction, being 'in love', having reasonable health etc, and for many years in my 20's and 40's it was desperate and miserable with extreme ill health and emotional trauma. But yet again, that fear feels very habitual and familiar and just more reactivity.
Warmly
Nick

[Matt]

Dearest Nick.

You have an excellent chance to see that behind EVERY experience, there is no real experiencer.
How can any given experience eclipse that? Understand?

It doesn't matter if it's an experience of reactivity and habit, or the sense of self, or alienation. Okay? I'm not asking you to change that. If you think I am, you're looking in the opposite direction!

This is not about changing your experience. If you think 'seeing' has anything to do with feeling better, it's just going to be an unending circle. I don't care to go around in circles. It's time to cut through that crap.

Please answer:
Logically speaking, does the experience of "the sense of self" imply a separate experiencer?
In the actual experience of "the sense of self" or "alienation", is there a separate experiencer?

There are no obstacles to seeing this. Is that acceptable?

Best wishes always,
M

[Nick D]

Hi Matt,
Sorry for the days delay replying- had a cold and some responsibilities I had to deal with.
Thank you so so much for engaging with this dialogue with such dedication and unfaltering clarity. I think it is hitting 'home' what this actually means in direct experience.
No the sense of self that 'I feel' doesn't actually imply a separate experiencer- or at least, it implies it but it's all inference.
This is what does seem clear- variying levels of subtle or gross experience which infer a sense of self keep happening (eg, thoughts like "you can't have seen it because you're being so unmindful" etc etc). But the sense of self that they infer, doesn't have anything original and new it it. It's made up of the same kinds of thoughts and feelings and habits. It is a bit like 'Ground Hog Day'. 'I' keep looking and whatever the 'I' is doesn't feel new or original or in control. When there is any sense of newness or aliveness or originality- goodness only knows where it comes from- it just happens automatically (and it feels good). And I can see that it's not about trying to get to there being more of that spontenaety and feel better. It's all spontaneous, even the 'self implying' thoughts.
In short, a fair bit of the time it feels like I'm in control (or out of control and trying to regain control), but if that is examined its like it's a script running - familiar routines noticed at ever more subtle levels.
So where 'I' am now is still looking- as yet I can honestly say 'I' havent found anything like a 'self' that really feels original and in control- even though the 'inner voice' keeps telling me there's a 'me' and it needs 'fixing'/improving.
Deepest gratitude
Nick

[Matt]

Thanks for the clarity of your message.

whatever the 'I' is doesn't feel new or original or in control.

1) What do you mean by "feels new or original"?
2) What is 'I' really? What are you referring to, whenever you use the word 'I'?
Best,
M

[Nick D]

Hi Matt,
Answers to the questions
1) On reading your message thoughs pop up like
"I'm still not getting this", and "darn it I'm not trying hard enough" and "Matt is going to get fed up of me and he's already given masses and masses of time voluntarily- and I'm not quite getting it", and "I'll be left behind- while all these other people are getting it" etc etc etc. None of these thoughts are new, they are all recycled- siimilar to other thoughts that could happen in other contexts.
Similarly- your question 1) is read, and then as a response is being prepared 'internal' dialogues happen to produce an answer. Nothing in that seems 'new'- similar patterns of response to offered dialogue happen. It's like there's a yearning to 'find someone who understands and be affirmed' and this pattern runs through all kinds of communication- the same "please affirm me".
These thoughts have associated emotions- again very familiar.

2) this 'I' is these "patterns of response to offered dialogue/stimulus". Sometimes there are more 'alive' and 'creative' responses and then there is a different kind of feeling of 'me'- it's not a stressful one, it SEEMS more spontaneous- like when performing improvised comedy.

It makes UTTER sense that what needs to be seen (or unseen) is there in all experience and that looking for any kind of experience over another is missing the point.There is still frustration- because there is still an expectation that some magic WOW is going to happen. The question of course is 'who is frustrated?'. The only non-frustrating answer is moments when there is a real sense of not knowing 'who I am'. And that, when it happens, feels more like freedom.

[Matt]

Okay, so I think this is what you're saying:
"Not new" means tired, old habitual patterns (which I would say are thoughts about sensations).
And the word 'I' refers to habitual patterns (which are also thoughts about sensations).
Furthermore, it is obvious that expectations for certain WOW experiences are also thoughts about sensations.
And "feels more like freedom" as well, could only be a thought about sensations.
Is that a reasonable expansion of your point of view?

[Nick D]

Hi Matt,
Yes that's it exactly. Reading your words, laughter at the simplicity. The common factor is sensations, thoughts, emotions. Inside my statements was an implicit assumption that "feeling more like freedom" (thoughts about sensations) is better than "habitual patterns" (thoughts about sensations). It's quite something, though, to take on board that that is all there is ever - thoughts, sensations and emotions, and that even this quest for freedom is still "thoughts about sensations" with no one doing it, - all the craving and wanting, all the generosity and renunciation and acceptance, are all in that sense equal. There's an urge to say 'am I getting close?' which still feels like "please affirm that I exist".
Nick

[Matt]

There's an urge to say 'am I getting close?' which still feels like "please affirm that I exist".
Nick

What is that urge made of? What is that feeling or desire for affirmation made of? And are either of these a problem? :-)

Please answer each of the following inquiries, one at a time. Let the answers come from looking / direct experience (leave aside all learning, assumption, analysis, belief, etc.)

1: Is there, or has there ever been, a you/self in any shape or form?

2: Explain what the illusion of separate self is, when it begins in life, and how it works.

3: How does it feel, in the mind and body, to see this illusion for what it is?

4: How would you describe this to somebody who has never heard about the illusion of self, much less the ability to see through it.

5: What exactly was it that allowed this 'seeing' to be recognized?

[Nick D]

Hi Matt. I'm going to spend a couple of days looking closely to see what these questions point to in direct experience.It happens that I am on a retreat. Not a meditation an intensive meditation retreat but a retreat nevertheless booked many months ago. It is a good time though to examine whatclosely has appeared to be a self . I will be in touch in a couple of days. But a quick answer - the sense of self always appears in relation to imagined or projected others. When the word I is used it is always to enter and thereby create a relationship with an imagined other. Mental dialogue which happens for much of the day.
Many many thanks,
nick

[Matt]

Sounds great.
Just to be clear, I'm not so interested, this time, to hear stories about how things feel, or what you're expecting or thinking. Try to stay with direct evidence in the seeing, and give a dry report. See what happens. ;-)
Looking forward,
M

[Nick D]

Is there or has there ever been an independent sense of self?


No. The sense of independent selfhood has always been one of the fish that t swim in the sea along with all the other fish. whatever has appeared as self had always in fact been the 'interface' b where self and other arise symultaneously'

How the self operates.


There is simple pain and discofort and there are also pleasures and periods of great delight and happiness. Belief appears spontaneously/automatixally that pain and discomfort and the absence of delight and enjoyment and bliss are a tragedy and that what is needed is an enduring sense.ofnpositive experience. This 'sense of positive experience' is conceptualized as the life of an ideal 'me/self'. The simple pain and discomfort -the daily grit in the oyster of life, are spontaneously/automatically conceptualized as being the hallmarks of a broken impoverished self.
These conceptual ideal and broken selves cache out as -
"I need. . . "
I should. . ."
They should/shouldn't. . ."
"Ill never. . ."
"Life should be better ... ."
This experience means that i am/i will . . ."
"If only i had .. ."
Every momentary pain then spontaneously/automatically elicits (is taken as evidence for the existence of) the conceptualized impoverished self.
Every.momentary pleasure seems or can seem to hold the alure.of enabling the broken self to become the ideal self.


When this is all examined increasingly subtle forms of the sense of self appear-
"I am clever in being able to see this much"
"I am a fool if i think that this understanding is going to ongoing to lead to real freedom. I need decades.of meditation of more serious meditative attainment to really see through the illusion of self.
"Who do you think you are to think you are seeing through the self given that there is still lots of craving"
"If this were real freedom there it would be.more dramatic and amazing"

[Nick D]

I think i answered most of your questions in that Matt though not in order. I didnt answer this one though.

How does it feel to see this?
Very ordinary but disconcerting to keep seeing layers of ehat appears to be me in control only to see that these too are part of the picture. Its humbling to see how pervasive this belief in control is or the attempt to reassert a sense of dominion and superiority. But again - more fish in the sea.
This certainly doesnt feel like flash bang wallop liberation -just a sober acknowledgment of what is seen so far.

What enables the seeing?

The pointer- that there is nothing outside this, no vantage point, -that everything is included in the inspection so no sense of failure or aquisition however subtle can be me either. Even doubt and thoughts like "i cant do this" are the same attempt to reassert a me. There is almost an angry refusal- no i must exist and please affirm that byc telling me i am not good enough at this etc etc.

Having said that please debunk any delusions of grandeur you see.

[Nick D]

Hi Matt
Another day of watching/looking. A penny dropped earlier which was to notice fear and thoughts like "this dialogue is coming up to a month and I AAm still not sure I get it and I might miss the boat" etc etc.
And on close inspection inside that is still the expectation that there should be flash bang wallop insight which is effectively the same illusion of an ideal self, something to get that ' I am' missing out on. The machinations of the illusion of self seem clearer. It is all this thought that something or someone can make a me that's whole. And the thought keeps shouting very loudly with all sorts of complaints about all kinds of things internally and externally. Which in itself isn't a problem but it does keep trying on all sorts of disguises some very subtle.
With gratitude. Nick

[Matt]

Nick, aside from stories about a 'you', can a real you be found anywhere?
And if not, then can any stories about 'failure' or 'success' pertain to a real you?
And if they cannot, then what's the draw? Why keep tending to them, investing belief in them?
Do you know that these stories of success and failure have absolutely no meaning, and no power?
How could a thought change the fact that there is no thinker?

[Nick D]

Hi matt.
Ok this.much has been seen.
So fat there is no evideence for an indepndent self that i.s not just .more thughts sensations and emotions.
No no real self other than stories of what thr self is can be found.
:n response toyur other questions various "yes buts" appeared- and even anger, whichbis no doubt a good sign thatbthe hornets nest has been prodded. When i a ticulated them to a friend earlier who as bren through the liberati;n unleashd process he pointed outhat they were all just fear and that thag is normal and that they will probably keep coming up but that they are still just Stories.
The main two were
"Yes but there is still so much unhappiness and reactivity!"
"Yes but if this is all there is to it then unskilful action can just carry on and that doesnt seem like real freedom."

What is clear though regarding the second "yes but" is that when the story of me isnt believed in then what happens could be descrbed as the heart opening and love coming back to the senses, that is to what is actualy here.
It still doesnt feel true to say that the self has ben thotoughly seen through yet but somethng is very shaken and what seemed certain i.e. that i exist as a separate individual, now feels like "dont know".