Looking for a guide

[ray]

Hi Jonathan,

Before I forget many thanks for doing this. It's really appreciated.

You're very welcome. For me this is a bit like a walk and a chat in a garden as the spring flowers open. Walking with someone as they go through the gate is an echo of, and revisiting, my own journey. So thank you too :)

Choices; I thought the numbers were interesting. The choosing was so non personnal, spontaneous. The "answer" is a part of the limits 1-20 answer 8. So 1, 8, 20 seem to relate to each other but not to anything else. The nearest I got to a self is a feeling; "where between 1-20 do you feel comfortable??" "I am" felt more secure with 8 than 5 or 6!!

Look closely at the sequence. Did the self get involved before the choice happened, or was the choice made, dependent on the parameters, conditions and habit etc., and then after that the self got attached and there was a thought/feeling of comfort with the choice??

So direct exp. is awareness but lacking DE is lack of awareness and there is still the pull of this.
You say "you must have done this before"..but what I have is years of meditating and watching. But I wonder if a lot of it has been like a fisherman fishing with no hook. You see lots and lots but you don't catch much.
What is the self??...It's hard to find any body home. But the house is still there.

I really like the fisherman metaphor. Seeking can be another attachment to "keep you busy" and hinder the business of seeing through the illusion of self! In another sense you are coming to the end of a long chapter in the book "The Story of Jonathan". Is it time to turn that last page? You'll then no longer be so engrossed in the story. What will become of the central character?
As you say, the house is still there. Was there ever anyone at home?

Ray

[jon45]

Hi Ray,
Many thanks for a fine letter.
I continued with the numbers and some choosing but it started to get rather abstract/cerebral. I then went to sit on my sofa and watched my foot! It moved, it was still, I thought about the foot, I ignored the foot. What did I get?
Once I had D Exp I found I had a range of items. Thought/no thought. Foot still/moving. Most of the time the sense of self and foot movement were not connected ie no real connection only a loose association. The thought did not control the foot. I sat and just watched the foot-it was still then eventually 2 toes moved. Who did that? The foot did it all on its own. It sounds like Alien but the foot just did "foot things" You could start to think about it/foot and maybe the foot would move accordingly but that was just a phantom. Like willing to move the sun a bit and then saying "I just did that."
So the foot is full of "footness"- what about the legs and arms??
All of a sudden its got rather BIG. What have I connected with? or rather what's changed?
The sense of self seems like a side show; it can find lots to do but has no real power just now it seems like a phantom.
Keep Well Jonathan

[ray]

Hi Jonathan,

Hi Ray,
Many thanks for a fine letter.
I continued with the numbers and some choosing but it started to get rather abstract/cerebral. I then went to sit on my sofa and watched my foot! It moved, it was still, I thought about the foot, I ignored the foot. What did I get?
Once I had D Exp I found I had a range of items. Thought/no thought. Foot still/moving. Most of the time the sense of self and foot movement were not connected ie no real connection only a loose association. The thought did not control the foot. I sat and just watched the foot-it was still then eventually 2 toes moved. Who did that? The foot did it all on its own. It sounds like Alien but the foot just did "foot things" You could start to think about it/foot and maybe the foot would move accordingly but that was just a phantom. Like willing to move the sun a bit and then saying "I just did that."
So the foot is full of "footness"- what about the legs and arms??
All of a sudden its got rather BIG. What have I connected with? or rather what's changed?
The sense of self seems like a side show; it can find lots to do but has no real power just now it seems like a phantom.
Keep Well Jonathan

Cool! This is moving along nicely.

I couldn't help but notice "my" foot as I read your reply. The thing seems to have a mind of its own, or be working in auto. LOL

Please look at this. In the reality of this moment, right here, right now, is there a self? What about in thoughts of the past and thoughts about the future. Is the self involved/attached to those thoughts?
Are the past and future real or just thoughts?

---------------------------------------------------------------

Let's keep this gentle and light. Why not take a walk in nature. Relax and be at ease. Take in the sights, sounds, colours and shapes of what's around. Let any names or labels fall away. You don't actually need to be outside to do this. You could look at a cat, or a cup, or your foot!

Write back with what you notice.

Be well and happy,
Ray

[jon45]

Hi Ray,
Thanks again.
It was a good idea to "look at nature" I live in a particularly beautiful part of North Wales so there's no excuse. And after 4 or 5 days of feeling very positive I noticed I had gone a bit flat.
Looking at things indoors and out has uplift. It's always bigger than "you", a bigger picture but usually with you still in the frame.
If I really switch to the present ,in D Exp., moment then things have worth/presence in themselves. It feels that in the present every single thing is interrelated and all rolling/flowing foreward like some long long wave across a beach. Labelling drops off when the awareness/experience is so real in itself. The folded clothes across the chair all of a sudden have huge presence and identity. As the eye scans it all gets included in this real/now wave.
Is there a self here. Any kind of labelling is like switching from 3D multi colour life to 2D black and white small.
Past and future are concoctions like 2D small.
Keep Well Jonathan

[ray]

Hi,
Just enjoy the ride today.
Please update me tomorrow.

If a feeling of separate self pops up does it matter?

Warmly, Ray

[jon45]

Hi Ray,

Here are some jumbled thoughts straight after my above post.

But is there a self? Do you want a self or a reference point? Maybe I do..but where does that get you.
It gets you away from reality. Reality with a small r is just things in themselves. The shoe, the table..just that. Conditioned things, just that. The human body, the human mind conditioned but nothing in it fixed/set/permanent. no one part you could hold on to because its all just a part never the whole. So self?
Its just not there.
An overarching experience of everything, a sense of possessing? It's not real.

Caution for Jonathan; If you work from 1. Self... asking is there a self, it never quite works. But
2. ask where is there something in all of this that's fixed, owned, that could be called real.
There is nothing of that nature.
Best Wishes, Jonathan

[ray]

Hi Jonathan,

I had a walk on the South Downs in the sunshine with an old friend today, hence the delay in replying.

Thanks for the description of your spontaneously arising thoughts. It gives a real flavour of where you are in this experiencing. Can there be any thing which is separate from THIS, all that is, always arising in this moment? Can any thing overlay it, possess it or own part of it. Can any thing experience it and thus be separate form Experiencing?

Caution for Jonathan; If you work from 1. Self... asking is there a self, it never quite works. But
2. ask where is there something in all of this that's fixed, owned, that could be called real.
There is nothing of that nature.

Yes! Interesting and accurate looking.

Take a look at the boundaries of the senses. In hearing where does the sound end and the listener begin - in a physical sense (where do the pressure waves in the air become a hearer?) as well as an experiential sense. Listen to some music. Get absorbed in the music without engaging your knowledge or analysis of the piece. Get lost in the music and feel where or if the boundary is.
Similarly with sight, taste, smell, touch and thought. Is there a feeler, a thinker, or is there just thinking, feeling, experiencing?

Warmth and kindness,
Ray

[jon45]

Hi Ray,

Thanks again. Nothing like an old friend.

"Is anything seperate from this.."
No; Nothing overhangs the experience or posseses it. Once looked at its only real in itself and yet always rolling on. What's scary, if that's the right word, is the ability to become mechanical--to dully, sleepily slip into the fog of....?? a kind of duality.
Direct Exp. only finds thingness. The tree is complete in itself and the experience is tree awareness not me and my tree awareness.
The music is the same.The sound is everything in itself...no listener only sound awareness. Or sound.

Dullness?? Perhaps there is a responsibility to be 1. true to things 2. to be awake. But then if "you" are not careful it becomes my truth, my responsibility. There is still a line here. Still got the house?
I need to sit with this.
Be Well, Jonathan

[ray]

Hi Jonathan,

"Is anything seperate from this.."
No; Nothing overhangs the experience or posseses it. Once looked at its only real in itself and yet always rolling on. What's scary, if that's the right word, is the ability to become mechanical--to dully, sleepily slip into the fog of....?? a kind of duality.

Well, to rephrase what you wrote... is it any problem that the illusion of a separate self pops up. Or that feelings of resistance to what is occur. Does it matter to "someone", or are "self-ing" and resisting merely appearances in awareness?

Direct Exp. only finds thingness. The tree is complete in itself and the experience is tree awareness not me and my tree awareness.
The music is the same.The sound is everything in itself...no listener only sound awareness. Or sound.

Nice observing :-)

Dullness?? Perhaps there is a responsibility to be 1. true to things 2. to be awake. But then if "you" are not careful it becomes my truth, my responsibility. There is still a line here. Still got the house?
I need to sit with this.

Yes, please sit and see. Is the problem that there is still a you that has the house. Or do you expect the house to disappear? The physical body and the brain/mind are as real as any other object. They persist even if you do not think about them, just like that chair you are sitting on.
What about the sense of self? Is it more like Father Christmas, a character which once seen to be unreal is never seen in the same sense again? Is this sense of self something that only seems to exist when you are thinking about it.

Best wishes,
Ray.

[jon45]

Hi Ray,
When I read the last post of yours something clicked. Something was different. And it came out of; 1. "Does it matter if the illusion pops up" and 2. "Are they only appearences in awareness"
From 1. Is this the bottom line that yes this illusion matters. You can have objectivity and realness but only when the sense of self is not far off. Like a child with a parent. It's the elephant in the room to use another image. The unspoken importance of self. If "i" have to stand back once to get the reality of the tree then "I" have to stand back a second time to catch the reality of the illusion. Or the Santa image you give.
But then standing back or standing in any particular place is not right either. It's more like clearing the ground, letting go, noticing what's still left to be released. Waking up.
The "does it matter" maybe the key issue.
Best Wishes,
Jonathan

[ray]

Hi Jonathan,

That was a really interesting post. Your observations on the dynamic of the illusion of self and how it contributes to seeing was a new perspective to me. In this there are no "wrong" answers!

You are so right about clearing the ground. A major part of this process is to get you to look in various ways, until there is no where left to go. Then Looking and Seeing happens.

So, if the illusion pops up

does it matter

Who would it matter to?

Best Wishes,
Ray

[jon45]

Yes exactly......will write again tomorrow. J

[jon45]

Hi Ray,
Back again.
"get rid of more and more...to see"
Yes it's not what you bring to awareness/direct exp., that matters as much as what you can leave out, let subside, leave behind.
A fresh look at illusion is like; a tree is a tree, an illusion is an illusion don't give it anything other than DExp. And DExp., is just full/complete with all kinds of items/thoughts/ feelings with nothing to overarch/label them. Only a kind of unfolding that rolls foreward.
Sitting with this is a huge uplift.
Best Wishes,
Jonathan

[ray]

Hi Jonathan,

"get rid of more and more...to see"
Yes it's not what you bring to awareness/direct exp., that matters as much as what you can leave out, let subside, leave behind.

Aaah yes. Less is more, and letting subside. Love it!

Look at the body and experience. Does the body experience sensations and thoughts, or is the body just another thought label for sensations?

In an earlier post you commented

So direct exp. is awareness but lacking DE is lack of awareness and there is still the pull of this

Is this the case. Is DE awareness?

I hope you're enjoying the investigation.
Looking forward to your responses,
Ray

[jon45]

Hi Ray,
Is DE the same as awareness? This could be a puzzle ending in Yes and No.
How do I understand awareness..Sati/Smriti are the Buddhist terms meaning something like a state of mind associated with positive outcomes. Awareness of body, of feelings etc etc starting with knowing how they are, then seeing them gradually in a broader context of arising and falling away. There are levels but it's primarily conceived in a dualistic sense of the observer still being there.
If we remember Cosmiks article and "only experiencing" the DE is less "tool like" than Sati, it's more the eventual result. First Sati then plop into DE...could it be something like that.
Do you remeber the famous Buddhist sutta "in the seen only the seen"..It can sound like awareness but its an "inner realisation/knowing" The experience is everything.
Does "Body" experience thoughts/sensations? No. Body experience drifts into Mind just as thought experience and others do. You can have them in DE or not.
Jonathan