Postby Gita » Fri Mar 15, 2013 8:38 am
1) Is there a 'me', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever? How about self, is there anything that is separate from everything else?
No, there is no ‘me’ or ‘self’ and there never was. It is the realisation that there never was that is somehow particularly bemusing and has me slightly shaking my head and going ‘wow’, but is also clear.
2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works.
I don’t think I am any more qualified to do this than I was ‘before’, particularly in terms of when it starts. However, I don’t know if this is relevant but just before the shift, I had strong memories of an incident at primary school, I think aged 6-8 where I had done something silly and unkind though without meaning any harm (it was pretty minor) and it caused a lot of personal accusation of me and within the memory I could clearly feel the feeling that I had then of anxiety and discomfort which led to a belief that the accusations were unjust and a felt need to defend my ‘self’. That memory appeared weirdly out of the blue at the time but I now wonder if its because the sense of a self that needs to be defended starts around then, so quite a lot later than we start saying ‘I’ and ‘me’, which I think I have always assumed, though I have never thought about it much. Watching babies bashing mobiles above them we can (indeed I did) observe clearly how early we start intentionally repeating actions that have a pleasing affect, but I assume that is purely on a sub-conscious level and does not lead or link to a belief in agency in the sense of a self intentionally choosing to make that happen, just to conditioning and habit-forming. But I don’t really know.
In terms of how it works, there are certainly lots of affects, if that is the same question. Because we think there is a self in control and making conscious decisions we can be very critical or proud of things we do, say or even thoughts that arise. My experience is also in terms of the need to defend that ‘self’, which I guess links to that school playground memory. Lots of pretty unhelpful and unnecessary self-referential stuff basically.
3) How does it feel to see that the separate self is an illusion? What difference has it made in experience? Describe in detail.
It feels wonderful, mostly. If I tune into the feeling now there is a lightness, spaciousness, looseness and slight excitement/ movement of energy around my heart area and a deep feeling of calm. Thoughts are slower and fewer with more gaps and they have massively less pull because the is an awareness that they are just sensations arising like any other and are not truths or me and don’t make anything happen. And a background sense that is not disbelief exactly, but that incredulity or slight head shaking and ‘wow’ I said above (the words ‘wonderful’ and ‘marvelous’ have a richer meaning of wonder and marveling at). Yet at the same time it feels totally ordinary and not like big spiritual progress. I feel clear, calm, positive and very grateful, and very much at the start of a spiritual path – like this is simply essential ground for beginning.
As I said in a post and now understand is generally the case with seeing through, I am not in touch with that sense all the time (it is not a ‘state’, as you put it) but it is always available. Picking up on the ‘mostly’ wonderful, when I have been with lots of people and required to respond a lot on work topics for several hours, I have also felt an anxiety related to a lack of solidity or emptiness.
It is really very early days in terms of the difference in experience apart from that basic sense of it but I have had some experiences of the effect of the shift in relation to others – I’m not sure how much you really want ‘detail’! For example, I had a meaningful and enjoyable 3-hour conversation with my 18-year old son, who has just jacked in his latest job and announced he wants to move back home, but it was as if ‘I’ was no longer in the way so I was not feeling anxious or trying to shape or control things, just very much aware of loving him and wishing him well and being unable to make him change. We laughed quite a bit. And sitting on the tube I was looking at the person opposite and had a sense that the boundary between me and him started at him, was around his body, if that makes sense. I also experience walking along with a nearly empty head in the middle of a working week in London. Those are good bits. I am more in touch with those as I write than the ‘no-one home’ related anxiety feelings. But then I am being given the luxury of talking/ writing about this experience. I know these are standard questions, but thanks for asking!
4) How would you describe it to somebody who has only just heard about this illusion and is curious?
I don’t know. I would say it’s ever so peculiar! It is understandable how it happens but a widespread mistake. Like adding 2 and 2 and getting 347 (as in putting together a felt sense of dis-ease or anxiety with other things and believing that adds up to a being/ self - that having that combination of experiences must mean there is someone there to have them, or even to make them happen). That may not sound very clear.
5) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you SEE? Was there a specific moment when seeing happened or was it gradual? What exactly happened?
Yes there was a moment, or rather a process over a short time. I was sitting on my meditation cushion and had done a just sitting meditation. I had finished but then sat on just observing sensations and I think I had slipped back into meditating. I remember the thought that people don’t SEE during meditation itself so was aware of a combination of no expectation of ‘getting it’ at that moment and also of massive confidence that I would at some point, though I had no idea how or what to do to support it, certainty no idea how to make it happen (I had only just started with you as guide). Then, suddenly, my back straightened up, the result of a small whoosh of energy up my spine, and my torso twisted so my body and head/gaze physically reoriented to the left, and then there was quite a prolonged experience of vast open space and a slow trundling along. At one point a thought popped up along the lines of ‘wow – this really is a gateless gate – that’s why they call it that’ but mainly as that experience was happening I was not aware of seeing through or anything else to do with self, just the slow, open trundling along. It was pleasant and substantial and I don’t remember any previous experience exactly like that, but I have had a lot of dhyana experiences in meditation over the years so didn’t think much of it at the time or as I finished sitting. I had the same experience I had the previous day of not being able to make myself stand up. But after a short while I did stand up to start to get on with my day and then it was a gradual dawning over several minutes, maybe longer, that ‘I’ had gone – there was no-one home – indeed never had been. And that phrase you opened an early post with about ‘no me, no self and never was’ was suddenly greeted with instant and joyful recognition and ‘of course’– I had the experience described above of combined wonder and ordinariness.
Although it was preceded by a lot of grief and fear on Sunday evening, (resistance, presumably) which had prompted me to get back in touch with you and which I described in my opening post, at that point it felt very simple, quick and easy. I remember saying ‘can it really be this simple, and this quick?’ It was several hours before I started believing that it actually can, indeed was.
6) When you say "I", what are you referring to?
It’s a convenient and necessary shorthand to refer to this bundle of stuff that is relating to others and doing things and saying things etc. When I am directly experiencing the reality of no self, every time I use ‘I’ or ‘me’ it feels faintly ridiculous and I want to use inverted commas (though mainly resist that temptation). Otherwise, it’s just a word I am used to using.
7) In experiencing, is there an experiencer?
- Does the body experience, or is it experienced / an experience?
- Do thoughts experience, or are they experienced / an experience?
Body sensations and thoughts both just arise. I am aware that a number of others have used the analogy of the weather, which is a good one and I don’t have a better way to describe it. For years when teaching the mindfulness courses I have been talking about ‘sensations, sounds, emotions and thoughts simply arising, changing and passing’ and now I know it’s actually true! (I always believed it intellectually and had direct experiences of it too; it’s just now absolute, black and white).
8) What was the experience at the moment you saw through the illusion of self?
I am not sure what to add to what I described in response to question 5 – my experience was a gradual realisation after I stood up but looking back I assume ‘the moment’ must have happened when sitting earlier.
9) Describe experience right now as you see it.
There are two computer screens and words appearing on the larger of them, and periphery sights from the room and hands typing on a keyboard and a cursor moving around the screen at times. My bum feels slightly numb on the chair. The hands moving thing is a bit weird - hands moving and words appearing on the screen. Sometimes I am aware that a phrase is a thought before I type it, sometimes not. But I am not sure if you just mean ‘see’ here as in visual experience.
