Requesting a guide

[Mad biker]

Hi Tara, tell me how things are with you today?

[Amanda44]

Nothing much is up today. I'm a little short on sleep again, so my brain is not fully functional.

I have to say, I'm still stuck on my views around personal achievement. While I completely "get" that it and everything else fall within the realm of Pratitya Samutpada, I'm still having a hard time getting the puzzle pieces to fit together in my mind.

Yes, I see that from each moment to the next, from one condition to the next, I have worked on myself over the years. I feel very drawn to the dharma, and have a strong motivation to reach enlightenment for the sake of all beings. But something in there feels "impure," that it is ultimately, deep down inside a selfish motivation. I want it for myself -- it's "me" that I'm saving from samsara. And yes, there's a feeling that it's ME that's doing the work. There's that old self lurking around again.

I'm not feeling sharp enough today to investigate very deeply, and so that's as far as I've gotten. Delusion still lingers.

[Mad biker]

Hey! Don't be in the least bit concerned with your admirable Bodhisattvic motivation, or that there is a 'me' in there 'wanting it for yourself'. Of course there is! No problem there at all!

All of that stuff is just thoughts. 'Impure', so what?! That was always true anyway and is of little consequence. Having a bit of drive and ambition can help, however, that territory is totally immaterial to what we are here for. What we are here for is simply direct pointing to direct experience. To see that there is no 'self' to be found in direct experience. Or have you found a 'self' anywhere outside of thought? If so, then that is the bit I want to hear about right now!

Just return to this enquiry free from those concerns about a 'me' wanting something to happen. By this I mean free from those CONCERNS. Sure there will be those selfing aspirations, and there is no need to feed them in this enquiry, as that will only intrude, instead the question is; 'can you now find an actual verifiable self anywhere?' If so, where is it exactly?

[Mad biker]

Relax into metta breathing. Return to savouring and soaking in this moment as though there was no other moment (which there isn't)

[Mad biker]

Take this:
Look at a chair. Do you see the chair?
Look at your self. Do you see a self?
Some other classic coaching stuff:
As you move around in your normal activities, check and see if you can find an actual self actually moving the body around. Walking, typing, dressing yourself, etc.
Is there an 'I' living your life? Or are there just thoughts about everything, including a self, seeming to live your life?

That is very different and means that Tara can unencumber and can therefore Enlighten.
Just look at the evidence. In your daily life, in all your actions, keep returning to this. Focus on the thoughts as you move around. Keep checking if there is something real, besides a thought, that owns and directs the body?

Science has recently proven via brain scans, that what we call decisions have already been made long before we noticed them and saw ourselves acting on them (!) So even decisions just happen by themselves.

Actually hear the sound of the traffic. Can you actually hear the self in the same way?
Actually feel your feet touching the ground. Can you actually feel the self in the same way?
Notice that internal picture. Is it "you" or just a picture?

Look at a table, look at the components, imagine the table taken apart, where is the table? Is there really such a thing? Could this be the same for what you call 'you''?

[Amanda44]

I spent this morning in my sitting practice investigating what exactly it is that is not convinced. It's now pretty clear that I'm confusing vijnana with self. I can't tell the difference between the two. I can do the direct experience thing as you suggested in your last post, but it doesn't get me far enough. I can answer the questions "correctly" based on my direct experience -- I'm really not just answering from my head! Honest! But my experience of vijnana is still there, and so my ego doesn't know what to do with that. What is this awareness? Is that not a self, it asks?

I know you advise that we don't read stuff while in this process, but I feel I really need it. My ego needs to understand the structure of reality before if will accept something as truth. Especially when it comes to an impasse like this where my direct experience isn't answering the question sufficiently. I went back and reread Know Your Mind -- the section on vijnana. It explains it very well. I need to contemplate that a little more. I'm also looking through Lama Govinda's Creative Meditation and Multi-Dimentional Consciouness, though I haven't found a passage yet that nails it quite like Sangharakshita's did. I am someone who needs both head and heart to understand things.

[Mad biker]

Maybe Govinda, but I would not put your own teacher's writing in the category of something to avoid during our time on here. Take a look at page 188 of the same book which is a treat, then get back here to me!

[Mad biker]

Page 52 to the top of 53 is also good for a look.

But it could all be a bit heady and not quite mettafully savouring your direct exprience really, unless you go about 70% into your body first before your contemplations. Just keep looking, and get back to me.

[Mad biker]

The Heart Sutra might be all the reading you'd need right now, so it could be worth figuring that into your comtemplations. It really nails it down quite nicely. But keep that spirit of direct experience. Just being in the body breathing...

[Mad biker]

OK Tara, I need to lay a few more cards on the table: Unfortunately some people have found Sangharakshita a bit ambiguous on those pages and you already have as much as you need intellectually anyway.

So I would like to ask you to leave that reading aside as it is probably all being filtered through an 'agent' right now, in that agent's last ditch attempt at maintaining a 'job-description' for 'itself'. (consciousness vijnana, observer, witness etc)

I want to now ask you to watch Elena's video on the LU homepage; 'Drop The Observer'.
Then lie on your back, there in your room and listen to one of your favourite pieces of music in your body.

[Mad biker]

I am still saying the Heart Sutra is good though! Reflecting on it during the music could be a very rewarding experience. Perhaps even a full recitation?

[Amanda44]

Yes, you can be assured I have set the reading aside. My intention wasn't to go on a big research project. I just had some nagging questions that my intellect couldn't answer, and I knew there had to be an easy answer. I read Bodhipaksa's Living as River -- his chapter on Consciousness, and I found that really helpful. His analogy of the mind as like an ecosystem worked for me. There is no central controlling agent in an ecosystem, just a whole bunch of separately arising bits of life that as a system balance each other out and live in harmony. He also talked about how awareness doesn't exist when there's no object to be aware of -- like when I'm asleep, for example. Yeah, now it all makes sense.

I've now put all the reading aside. I just meditated this morning. Started with chanting the Heart Sutra, which for the first time ever made sense to me. Yeah. It actually makes sense to me! And for the first time ever, I was also able to "try on" this idea that there is no self here. Yes, I actually was able to try it on and sit with that. It felt just fine.

So am I through the gate? I don't think I am yet. What's holding me back, I asked. An image came to mind -- that I was standing on the edge of a cliff, looking down at a yawning bottomless chasm. So I tried on the idea of jumping off the cliff too. What might that feel like in my body to be weightless and freefalling? I felt no fear, it was just fine. But I don't think I've actually done it.

If my personal history is any indication, I am more like the tortoise than the hare in matters of spiritual development. I move very slowly but steadily forward. I don't waver, but I'm slow. I think that's what we're seeing here. It's obvious to me that I am right at that edge, negotiating how to jump. In the same way that I couldn't figure out how to try on that coat of no-self before, this time I can't figure out how to jump of the cliff.

If my movements are so slow and incremental, how do I recognize when I've crossed the gate? It sounds like I'll just "know". Since I don't have that feeling yet, I'll assume I have not yet done it.

But I'm giving it lot of mettaful time. It'll come. I know.

[Mad biker]

Great stuff Tara, and good old Bodhipaksa! Loved that very instructive image of the ecosystem!

Don't know about cliffs though! Maybe get back to coats which sound and feel more cozy?:
Glad to hear you have set the books aside; "...you have everything you need to see through self here, and in this moment. There is nowhere to go but here no time but now. The key is in your direct experience. When confusing “I thoughts” arise, turn attention to the body and see how the senses support a sense of "me" through misidentification.

[Did you do that listening to some inspiring music?] Observe how, experientially, the process of hearing and the sound heard arise codependent upon each other -- how there is no actual separation between hearing and sound in the moment of experiencing.

Drink some coffee, feel the taste, in the experience of hot and bitter taste sloshing around and being swallowed, both me and the coffee is disappearing in a singular and unified experience ... “I am drinking coffee” is a misrepresentation of the actual experience – are you going to believe your direct experience or a thought? Is there any you in any shape or form that could create this seamless union with arising experience? Just LOOK and SEE this NOW.

Look more closely at feelings, including your current frustration, see how each is merely a cluster of physical and mental sensations, arising and passing away in awareness, not owned by anyone, lacking inherent essence and agency, but being misread, after the fact, in thought, as "my" feelings. Why believe the thoughts over direct experience? Thoughts don’t 'know' anything. They are merely inert objects in awareness. Why believe dumb thoughts?

Is there some advantage to believing in thought? Let thoughts go. See them as part of the arising and passing away that is the totality of experience in the moment – ungraspable, groundless, empty, belonging to no-one. Where is “me” in any of this?" (Jnanavira)

[Mad biker]

P.S.
And LOOK, re your earlier post above:
WHAT is short on sleep, or are sensations just arising ?
What is trying to get the puzzle pieces to fit together ?
What experiences frustration, or are sensations just arising ?
What is drawn to the dharma ?
What feels impure, deluded, selfish ?
What wants to know the difference between vijnana and self ?
What is there to understand about this moment, here, now ?
It is just as it is... Isn't it ?
How could it be anything else or any other way ?
What self is there to be found in it ?
Just look in Direct Experience. And prioritise this looking above packing for the trip...you will pack better I assure you!

[Mad biker]

P.S.
And in case you were still thinking in terms of 'jumping' (whatever the hell THAT is!)
What if you don't need to work out HOW to jump off ?
What if jumping off is more about letting go of the need to 'understand'? (rather than just look)
Just letting go, into not knowing what ANY of this is?
Would that be OK ?
Is any effort actually required for this ? Any striving with the mind at all?