I sure would like to wake up, Hello.

[Moonlight]

Ah yes. Spot on. Like 'self-ing'. :)

[Sailor]

Good Morning,
The focus exercises are dificult to do now as opposed to before. I can listen pretty good but visualing things is hard.
Been having anxiety about potiential health, money things. Had dificult dreams last night. One where I was trying to recall a name of someone who didn't exist. I had imagined him along with a whole story about him. I believed something was true that I had completely fooled myself into believing. Was given a cigar which had the inscription "the death of Jesus" written on it.
Also I have been recalling an article I read last week by a neurosurgeon who claims that the brain has the capacity to make things and experiances up out of whole cloth and believe that it is real.
I'm just going to keep quite and keep looking.

[Moonlight]

Getting there, Mike! The mind knows, and doesn't want to let go.

Anxiety is common at this stage. Let it come up and tell you what it wants to say. it is an indication of where you are still hanging on.

And then look. Is it anything but thoughts and body sensations? Is there anything behind it?

[Sailor]

Getting there, Mike! The mind knows, and doesn't want to let go.

Anxiety is common at this stage. Let it come up and tell you what it wants to say. it is an indication of where you are still hanging on.

And then look. Is it anything but thoughts and body sensations? Is there anything behind it?

I like the definition of reality you quoted earlier about reality is what remains after you stop believing in it.
Yes I'll have to say all of that stuff was either just a thought or a sensation. Things that did just slowly move away and out of sight\mind like a leaf floating down stream. Their intent and purpose seemed to be to insist on their own reality and fearfully cause some appropriate doings. Yet it seems all they are capable of is fear and distortion.
And not even that when ignored.

[Moonlight]

Yes, you see how we get 'hooked' by this thought/sensation combination? A thought causes a sensation, or vice versa. The mind labels it as, for example anxiety, and this leads to the sensations getting stringer, more thoughts on how it's getting worse, perhaps an "I" thought like how "I'm always getting anxious, I won't be able to ...", and away you go, off on an imagine suffering trip. You get the idea.

I always want to read your observations, but plz do make a focused effort to first answer each question asked. Until you do that, I won't get a full picture. Could you plz answer the three questions asked, in detail. Thanks.

[Sailor]

Please report when you can about all three things:
1. The experiment
2. Observing the "I" thought as you go about your work day.
3. Your past and future. Do they exist, or are they thoughts as well.[/quote]

When I just listen and focus on sounds and listening They tend to merge into one experiance. The focus fades back and forth between one thing and one or the other. I do have a mind that is listening but I can't locate it.
When I add a tree to the mix I'm not successful as focus seems a juggler rotating awareness evenly from one aspect to another. Also the active addition of vizualizing a tree seems leaves me having an" I" because it is doing the image intentionally. Althought it feels there is an "I" it still cannot be located accuratly.

It is becomeing easier to go thru the day just observing thoughts and sensations without owning them.
And when I do it is pretty easy to let them float away on their own.

I have a story\memories, also an imagination. Do they exist? Only as much as I can say a thought exists.
Thoughts and experiances come and go. If I don't entertain the stories\imagings where do they exist? I do experiance in the present. Past and future "presents" become confusing to view. Only things that are here now can be real.
So all else must be of an "unreal" nature. Time is unreal?
Thanks for listening. Off to work.

[Moonlight]

Dear, you don't have to keep visualizing, listening in the experiment. I want you to do the experiment once, first only focusing on imagining a tree, or anything you find easy to imagine. Think of a loved one's face. Then shift focus to a sound. This is to see whether sound and the thought/image appear in and as awareness, or if there is any real difference between them, in their essence. To me, they both seem to appear out of nowhere in awareness, and disappear back into it. How does it seem to you?

As for you intentionally thinking of something, please look at the process itself. The eyes read it, so this idea was presented to the brain. To be brought up again later from memory. Brain processes, or "you"?

How are you seeing " your" past and future? Please tell me thoughts, feelings...

Does mike exist? Or does the label point to nothing real? Labels/names are of three kinds.
First, points to something real. Like a hand or table.
Second kind refers to a name used for communication, but it doesn't point to anything inherently real. Eg like the word government.
The third kind points to nothing real, only imagined. Like Santa or the tooth fairy. Once it is seen it isn't real, the belief doesn't come back.
Im saying label Mike is pointing to nothing real. Like Santa.

[Moonlight]

Like Santa, Mike IS a story. a character in the mind. how can he have a story if he is the story? Can a story have experiences? Or are experiences happening, life happening?

You tell me, how real is time? A useful concept. Are concepts real?

[Sailor]

Hello, I haven't figured out how to highlight single sentences and reply as opposed to quoteing the whole message. So I will respond to the four points in your last post.

I agree with your experiance, they seem to appear out of nowhere and then disappear back.

This is something I would like to pursue. The idea that I originate thought\doing. It seems that if I can "not think" of or choose "not to do" something then I am the originator and master of it. No one\nothing else involved here. Just "ME".

I see the past\future are thought\emotion\sensation. Yet I believe that things\experiances were different and will be different. Memories, present, future. Only present could be this now, yet I was and I will be.

Do I exist?
Something is here, it seems\feels like me. Something is aware and seemingly inside my skull.
Thanks

[Sailor]

Like Santa, Mike IS a story. a character in the mind. how can he have a story if he is the story? Can a story have experiences? Or are experiences happening, life happening?

You tell me, how real is time? A useful concept. Are concepts real?

Sorry for being so dense here, I am just slow I guess.
I do spend the day asking myself who is thinking\experiancing, where is he?
I can't find a specific place the experiancer is but it still feels like me.

[Moonlight]

NOT dense or slow at all. It can seem like the most cOmplicated thing in the world, but the looking is in fact effortless. We keep trying to understand the concept, but it is impossible for the mind. It is a seeing, not an understanding.

[Sailor]

how real is time? A useful concept. Are concepts real? "Quote"

Yesterday, today, tomorrow is completly encapsulated in now awareness?
All paradox, all that is, was and will be exist only now?

While we are on the subject "There is only one identity?"
Thanks

[Sailor]

We keep posting just short of each other.
So present awareness is the whole ball of wax? As in everything, nothing else.
Thanks for taking this time with me.

[Moonlight]

If I tell you to raise your right hand and you do not do that, what is happening? Look for yourself. Is it not thoughts, appearing one after another, plus signals from theind to body. Then an "I" thought claiming the 'decision'. Thought might come, yes or no. Then a thought, won't do it. Signal won't go to the arm and hand.
Then thought, see I didn't dO it, so I exist. Different thoughts, different mind processes, different signals to the body.

Really look at body actions during the day. When you are walking, is a you controlling every action? How much is done automatically, and what's done as a part of brain processing, and where the I thought comes in. How is a decision made. Look at that.

Do animals have little selfs controlling them?

Awareness is. Do we need to cut it off from the rest and keep a small part inside our heads? What for?

[Moonlight]

I wish I could get the timing right. I think just muss you while writing... what time zone are you in?

But ok. It is what it is.

You'll have time to observe. Let me know if you csn actually catch a 'you' making the decisions/actions. We are just so used to thinking it so that it is hard to let go.