Thread for Harvey

[bdhtgcr]

Hi Nettie,

I continue the looking and I know how important this is. I realize that this is a journey that only I can do and I appreciate all of the pointers. I somehow know that I will know when it's clearly obvi9us. When you mention that thoughts of self will arise and are without substance, I know that and yet I wonder if I just know it conceptually and not fully experientially.

When you ask about "owning" things, I know my computer monitor is just a monitor and that I overlay it with the thought "my monitor". At a subtle level, when I say, my monitor, I notice it is like I incorporate the monitor into the concept of "me". I see what is happening when there is the looking. When I am hearing sounds, as you suggested, I cannot find a hearer or anything separate from that which is heard. Even the word "sound" is or the type of sound is something that I am overlaying on the sensation.

When I look for a separate self, I can't find it, yet it is like there is a focal point of awareness, but it's not separate. It reminds me of a cloud. It looks it has substance and is separate. But when I go through it, it is just a mist and is not really anything but a mist. The looking / noticing continues.

[Nettie]

Ok, Harvey, this is it.
There is only here and now, so LOOK!

Quick, without thinking, LOOK.
Can you see a separate self like you can see a cup of coffee?
Can you grab a separate self like you can grab a cup of coffee?
Can you smell a self like you can smell a cup of coffee?
It really is that simple!
It doesn't have to a big "wow" experience!

If it feels like there is a separate self when you can't find one, then that is an assumption.
Shine light on this assumption. Where did it come from, what is it made of?
Be specific and then peel away the layers of this assumption like you would the layers of an onion till there is nothing left.

LOOK! If it isn't obvious, then tell me what your separate self feels like in detail, and we will keep looking.

Nettie.

[bdhtgcr]

This morning, I have spent the last 2 hours just working on the looking at any assumption of self.

There is this inner turbulence going on. It is like I am looking for something that I already know is not going to be found. It like when I am looking for my keys on the table and I already know it's not there. So, I keep looking back at the table as if the keys are going to magically appear. And I know, in that example, its just thoughts saying "but it should be there."

And I can see this coalescing of thoughts / feelings that gives the 'sense of self". But it's not a self. It's just a focal point of things in awareness at that moment. So, there is this efforting going on to find something that I'm not going to find. And even to say 'I'm not going to find' doesn't sound on point because it isn't me that is not going to find it. It's just not found. Hope that all made sense.

The looking continues even at the turbulence or a resistance to letting go. Not sure if that is even correct. There is this urgency / importance to this - not because I am expecting any outcome. Rather it is this questioning that is constantly there.

I will keep reporting.

[Nettie]

Let the fear/anxiety be there, notice there was no you who created these. Let it all rip!

[bdhtgcr]

I am letting it rip :). And it continues today....as I notice it. It is just there.

[Nettie]

Dear Harvey,

"It is like I am looking for something that I already know is not going to be found. It like when I am looking for my keys on the table and I already know it's not there. So, I keep looking back at the table as if the keys are going to magically appear. And I know, in that example, its just thoughts saying "but it should be there"

If you know you can't find a separate self, then there isn't one. It's really that simple. It's that knowing that is crucial.

It's like when you get up in the morning and you check to see if its day. When that is determined, then you don't have to keep checking. It might not be noticed all the time in conscious attention, but the knowing is there. Usually though when no self has been "SEEn", doubts may arise that it has. These are also naturally arising and are no problem, just look again.

When I was a kid I learned "step on a crack, break your mothers back". Remember that one? So everyday, walking to school, I made sure I never stepped on a crack in the sidewalk. Then one morning she made me mad for some reason and I stepped on every crack I could! When I got to school it occurred to me that it might be true! I spent the entire day consumed with worry, even though I wasn't quite sure what breaking your back might entail-- it sounded bad! So after, I ran home as quickly as possible, and she was just fine! Although I had disproved the theory, I still was cautious about the crack thing for awhile, but soon forgot all about it.
Kinda like this discovery of no self, check it out and you will gain certainty.
Nettie

[bdhtgcr]

Hi Nettie,

I keep up the looking. Today in between teaching classes, the question and looking continues. I start to wonder that if I know that there is no self, then am I just conceptualizing that fact, or taking on the no-self as just another belief? Maybe I am expecting, at some level, something to happen even though I know that isn't necessarily the case.

So, the questioning and the looking continues. Maybe I am in "crock pot" mode and there is a slow simmering. I take this seriously, so I continue to go within.

[Nettie]

If the self can't be found, yet belief remains, look at it!
What comprises belief but thought?
Are thoughts real?
If you are a thought, can a thought think?
Really LOOK! Describe exactly what you are. Where is the separate self located? Does it have a shape, a color?
Is it necessary to add on this thought 'I' after each experience?
If walking is happening, do we need to say, 'I am walking?'
Try it out with every experience you remember to do so.
Walk around the room right now and check it out, and report back!

'Is experience just happening, or is there a separate experiencer?'

[bdhtgcr]

So I continue the looking and I do not find a me or a self nor do I think that I consciously believe that there is a self. Yet, there is not the direct experience of no self. I realize that I need to keep looking at where there is some type of holding on to any residual belief.

In my next class that I teach (PHIL-101), the topic is neuroscience and coincidentally I show the video of the MRI where it shows decisions being made 6 seconds prior to the mind telling a story that it made the decision. So, while I conceptually know this, I realize I have to SEE it.

I tried the walking without the "I am walking" staements and it is so much easier to notice the "just walking." I did realize that there needs to be awareess on what is being done or the thoughts seem to latch on to each otherand spin into even more thoughts of stories or that I am the decision maker.

I was wondering if you would recommend that I use the third person witness mode to keep looking at Harvey in the third person. Let me know your if that might be more effective in the looking.

Most of all, I do want you to know how much I appreciate your guidance.

[bdhtgcr]

One other question. I have avoided reading the other threads on LU so as to avoid comparisons. But would that be helpful?

[Nettie]

Dear Harvey,
I am on my phone so I can't quote.
What would you expect an experience of 'no self' look like?
Would it be possible to have selfing or other thoughts and not believe them?
If you have a thought about a dinner you would like to have, can you eat it?
If you are not the thinker of thoughts, then they just happen like wind blowing.
Not necessary to change our speech. All words merely indicate reality. They are for communication.
All words seem to divide the timeless flow of perceptions into 'this' and 'that'.
Check it out, when you say or think the word 'tree' it seems to separate experience into tree and everything that is not tree, including a separate you. Like if you see a flower, you Know the flower and it seems simple, but if you try to describe it, it gets really complicated. You could write volumes about one instant in your day, and still never capture the unique moment!
Words are paltry compared to life!
I could send you instructions how i make my bread, and you could read it and copy it but you'd never taste it.
So word/thought seems to get in the way of experience, yet it is also naturally occurring.
Many read other threads, and if you feel like it do! Read the book, read the articles, and when the guide says Look! Then, well, Look!
Nettie

[Nettie]

Most people experience reality as a collection of separate "things". We have become enchanted with word/thoughts to such an extent that we have forgotten to experience reality as it is, we have been taught to ignore it.
If I am walking with a friend, I may physically point to a tree and my friend will experience a similar reality for a moment, but if I am talking with a friend later, I could say "oh! We saw the most magnificent tree today!" But no matter how much I tell her about it, I could never convey the color, light, leaves in the wind, the hills beyond, the feeling of my feet on the path, the rumbling in my stomach, the touch of the breeze on my face, etc. I could write volumes about a single moment and it could never convey the experience.
So language is a paltry tool we use for communication. I could sing or dance the tree, I could paint a picture. Even a photograph would not contain the experience, as life itself, reality itself cannot be contained!
And yet that is what we are trying to do with word/thought. Trying to "catch" life! Why? Are we frightened to see that life is living itself? That there is no separate individual who can control it?
It is so simple to see that when we see a flower, we Know it, yet when we try to describe it, it seems complicated!
Thinking is not the problem, as thoughts are part of the amazing display! But when they are believed and held onto as reality, it is very painful, as it separates us apart from the timeless flow of being.

[bdhtgcr]

Hi Nettie,

Thank you so much for your responses. I deeply appreciate them.

This morning something unexpectedly happened. I was watching a video by Rupert Spria called "Subtle Origins of Self." In the video, he is talking about concepts like a "pink flower" and the difference between the explanation and the flower itself. Like you did in your message, he made the distinction and talked about how we use those descriptions in a pragmatic way. But then he went further, he disentangled the description and the inferred self.

I listened to the video twice and then I realized that the description of the flower stood on its own. It was OK to have a concept or a description but it was better or worse than anything else. There wasn't a self creating the description. It was just what was there as a thought, but it didn't have any special significance.

Then I realized that I had been fighting previously to separate or stop descriptive concepts as if they were somehow negative. Now it is a seeing of both the experience and the description - not as the same things or separate - but both are there equally or standing on their own. The description has its usefulness in its own way.

As I walking before from the parking lot at school to the campus, and even now looking out the window, there is a still vividness to visual perception. Thoughts are still here, but as you said, they are just a display. That is more apparent.

In this disentangling, it just sort of all came forth when I saw the video and just let the descriptions and concepts have their own standing. They are not really separate, but just one of the displays. They just are.

Maybe this is a glimpse. As I look at the tiles on the floor in a noisy building lobby, there is a pervasive stillness as well.

I will keep reporting as I notice the displays.

[Nettie]

Dear Harvey,
So LOOK without analyzing, at experience throughout your day.
See how even calling them sensations, smells, tastes, etc, are labels for experience.
It is a seamless flow, can't say where one begins and one ends.
Are they separate occurrances that you can compare? Better or worse? What about cause and effect?
Nettie

[bdhtgcr]

Today (Friday) -- the looking continues at the questions of better or worse and cause and effect.