Would really appreciate a guide!

[Xain]

Is there an 'Aoife' here right now (in other words, what is considered to be 'I', 'me', the separate self)?

If yes, describe it and how it is known that what you are describing is 'Aoife'.

What is it responsible for - What attributes does it have - What does it control.
Again how is this known in each case?

Xain ♥

[aoife]

Is there an 'Aoife' here right now (in other words, what is considered to be 'I', 'me', the separate self)?

The separate self is only found in thought. There's a separate body and thoughts that only this awareness has access to. There are actions and thoughts arising by themselves. There's no 'self' or 'I' here just a body and a collection of processes along with awareness.


I've also been thinking, just because something is understood to be an illusion doesn’t mean you can perceive it differently. Like that illusion of the two lines that are the same length with the arrows at the ends pointing in opposite directions. Even if you've gotten a ruler and measured them and are totally certain that they're the same length they are still perceived as being different lengths. This is just because of how the brain processes things visually. As far as I'm aware there's nothing that can be done to make you able to see them as being the same length.
Is the illusion of self the same? Even when you are certain it's an illusion does it still feel like it's there? Surely it would have to be there? It seems like the self is pretty fundamental to how humans function.
It seems like getting rid of a sense of I is not realistic. If it does happen surely it will be a brief 'mystical' state and not an ongoing, permanent experience.
So I’ve been asking what exactly I want to experience to be satisfied by the no-self thing. So I feel I need to know through direct experience that all thoughts and actions are arising and passing away automatically as a result of cause and effect without a middleman with a personality and history processing decisions, thoughts and actions. Is that realistic? How do you know when you know this directly and not just in theory?


Thanks,
Aoife

[Xain]

There's a separate body and thoughts that only this awareness has access to.

How do you know this is the case? How do you know about 'other awarenesses'?
So the body doesn't have senses and thoughts, it is awareness that has these?

There's no 'self' or 'I' here just a body and a collection of processes along with awareness.

So three separate things?

just because something is understood to be an illusion doesn’t mean you can perceive it differently.

Sure - But in this case, who or what would be 'perceiving it differently'?

Even when you are certain it's an illusion does it still feel like it's there?

What can you find here and now that would know it is an illusion or not?

It seems like getting rid of a sense of I is not realistic

What has a sense of 'I' to get rid of?

If it does happen surely it will be a brief 'mystical' state and not an ongoing, permanent experience.

A 'state' or an 'experience' - Who or what would have these things?

So I feel I need to know . . .

What exactly is this 'I' that needs to know? Describe it to me right now as it appears to you.

Xain ♥

[aoife]

There's a separate body and thoughts that only this awareness has access to.

How do you know this is the case? How do you know about 'other awarenesses'?
So the body doesn't have senses and thoughts, it is awareness that has these?

I’m experiencing ‘my’ thoughts but I’m not experiencing anyone else’s thoughts. Or does the question mean how do I know there are ‘other awarenesses’?
The experience of senses and thoughts is localised at the body. Nothing is having thoughts they are just arising and passing.

There's no 'self' or 'I' here just a body and a collection of processes along with awareness.

So three separate things?

I don’t know that I’d say separate, it is all happening together. I don’t know if you could have each thing individually.. You can have a body without the processes but not the other way around. Can there be awareness without a body..? This seems to be veering off topic.

just because something is understood to be an illusion doesn’t mean you can perceive it differently.

Sure - But in this case, who or what would be 'perceiving it differently'?

Nothing, perception would just be different.

Even when you are certain it's an illusion does it still feel like it's there?

What can you find here and now that would know it is an illusion or not?

There would only be thoughts about wether or not it was an illusion.

It seems like getting rid of a sense of I is not realistic

What has a sense of 'I' to get rid of?

Nothing.

If it does happen surely it will be a brief 'mystical' state and not an ongoing, permanent experience.

A 'state' or an 'experience' - Who or what would have these things?

There would just be the perception of them.

So I feel I need to know . . .

What exactly is this 'I' that needs to know? Describe it to me right now as it appears to you..

All that can be found are thoughts about needing to know something.


Thanks,
Aoife.

[Xain]

I’m experiencing ‘my’ thoughts but I’m not experiencing anyone else’s thoughts.

How are they 'your thoughts'?
Who or what exactly is the owner?

You can have a body without the processes but not the other way around. Can there be awareness without a body..? This seems to be veering off topic.

Not at all.
How are awareness and the body linked?
If I may, I will add together 'awareness' and 'experience' as they point to the same thing.
So 'the body' creates/does 'the experience'?

Sure - But in this case, who or what would be 'perceiving it differently'?
Nothing, perception would just be different.

How do you know?
In what way would 'perception be different' from how it is at the moment if you are unable to find anything that would change?

Xain ♥

[aoife]

How are they 'your thoughts'? Who or what exactly is the owner?

I meant that they were thoughts experienced from this perspective. No owner.

How are awareness and the body linked? If I may, I will add together 'awareness' and 'experience' as they point to the same thing. So 'the body' creates/does 'the experience'?

Awareness/experiencing is happening from the point of view of being located at/in this body. If there’s any other link I can’t see it..
No the experience just happens.

How do you know? In what way would 'perception be different' from how it is at the moment if you are unable to find anything that would change?

Fair point, I can’t think of anything that would be different.

Thanks for sticking with this!
Aoife

[Xain]

How are they 'your thoughts'? Who or what exactly is the owner?

I meant that they were thoughts experienced from this perspective. No owner.

Ok. Good. Perhaps I laboured the point a little bit, but I just wanted to ensure that this was clear.
Is it clear to you that 'other perspectives' don't appear - It is just a thought about something else that may be going on? All there is, is 'experience' - This experience right now?
'Other perspectives' and 'Other experiences' appear only as a thought/idea - Is this fair to say?

How do you know? In what way would 'perception be different' from how it is at the moment if you are unable to find anything that would change?

Fair point, I can’t think of anything that would be different.

Great - Do you have any questions at this point?
Is it clear that 'I' is only ever a thought and not something 'real' that can be found?
Or is there some separate 'I' somewhere that needs to be addressed. A 'real' one that exists or has some sort of control or input?

Xain ♥

[aoife]

Is it clear to you that 'other perspectives' don't appear - It is just a thought about something else that may be going on? All there is, is 'experience' - This experience right now? 'Other perspectives' and 'Other experiences' appear only as a thought/idea - Is this fair to say?

yes.

Great - Do you have any questions at this point? Is it clear that 'I' is only ever a thought and not something 'real' that can be found? Or is there some separate 'I' somewhere that needs to be addressed. A 'real' one that exists or has some sort of control or input?

No not really, any questions that come up it seems like there’s no point in asking I just have to look myself. Although out of interest, when you asked how are awareness and the body linked - how would you answer that?
Yeah it really does seem pretty clear at this point.

Thanks,
Aoife.

[Xain]

Although out of interest, when you asked how are awareness and the body linked - how would you answer that?

Ok.
Currently there is awareness. All the senses are operating and thoughts could be experienced.
The senses appear to be localised to the region of the body, although it known for certain that the body doesn't 'operate' the senses. There is simply 'seeing', 'hearing' etc
To make a statement like 'The body, eyes, brain perform the seeing' is just a thought about what is happening. Not an actual true description of what is being experienced. Therefore, 'seeing' and 'the body' are not linked - Only linked by a thought. An idea that they are.

To say it is a perspective would be to allow the idea that there might be other ways of perceiving things.
That there might be this 'one perspective' and there are others. This is a thought - An idea. There is simply 'awareness'.
Awareness and the body are not linked at all - Other than by a thought - An idea that they are.

What is your opinion on what I wrote?

I pushed you on this as you were leaning towards the idea of some-sort of 'separate awareness', or 'separate perspective which is different from other perspectives'.
Is there such a separateness? Or just a thought about it?
This is pushing slightly beyond looking for a separate 'I', but such probing might assist you in further examination.

Is it clear that 'I' is only ever a thought and not something 'real' that can be found?

Yeah it really does seem pretty clear at this point.

Great!
There are a further six questions to look into. These may further probe into areas that need examination and we can look at those if they come up.

Here are the first three:

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

2) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference (if any) between 'now' and compared with before you started this dialogue? Maybe give a report from the past few days.

3) Was there a moment, perhaps something I said or something that you looked into that that pushed you over, made you look and realise?

Xain ♥

[aoife]

Hi Xain,

These answers are taking quite a while, I need a bit more time!

Thanks,
Aoife.

[aoife]

What is your opinion on what I wrote?

This bit is very interesting, I hadn’t considered it,
“To say it is a perspective would be to allow the idea that there might be other ways of perceiving things. That there might be this 'one perspective' and there are others. This is a thought - An idea. There is simply 'awareness'.”

Definitely something I need to spend more time looking at.

These may further probe into areas that need examination and we can look at those if they come up.

I’ll try to make the answers a bit longer than usual so that any such areas will be a bit more obvious.

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

No and no.

2) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference (if any) between 'now' and compared with before you started this dialogue? Maybe give a report from the past few days.

It doesn’t feel different in an obvious way. It's more like 'oh of course there's no self, how silly of me' rather than some earth shattering realisation. It was pretty gradual so it’s hard to remember how things were before we started. However at the end of last week I wrote down a long list of concrete examples of how things are different so there have been very definite changes. For example leading up to specific situations where I would usually spend the hours before hand going through it all in my head and being generally anxious, now there’s none of that going on at all. There’s also been a couple of specific situations in the last week where I realised afterwards that they were situations where usually without fail I get extremely irritated but there was no reaction at all. I realised to get upset I would need to have had a fixed identity for myself, for the other people involved and also a very definite sense of how things ‘should’ be - an awful lot of balls to keep in the air! Who knew so much effort went into getting upset about things. Not that I’m claiming I never get annoyed.

Also there’s much less of a need to be a certain type of person (or be seen as a certain type of person) or the same fixation on how things are supposed to be (I have specific examples of this but they are a bit long winded). Relatively speaking now there’s almost no time spent planning ahead and spending ages weighing up wether or not I should do something or that kind of thing. - that’s a funny one because before we started when I understood to some extent in theory that there was no controller it led to laziness and poor choices but this time round it’s the opposite.
Last night I went out and got caught in some pretty bad weather and when I got back someone asked if I regretted going.. there’s zero feeling that anything could go any other way and that question is also hard to answer because it implies there was a controller who made a conscious decision.

Also I’m not sure if this is related to the self thing or as a result of the fact that I also started doing mental noting a lot in the last month but there’s a definite difference in how time is experienced... which sounds a bit weird but when teachers say things like there’s only the now and that kind of thing, my experience is actually closer to that these days. I know that sounds like someone who’s just read the power of now and is a little deluded or something but no joke there’s a big difference. Especially for very short term things, if there’s something I don’t want to do that’s about to take a few hours I don’t mind because it’ll be over and it will just feel like the next moment.. or maybe it’s more accurate to say the same moment I don’t know how to put it. I’m also wayyy more relaxed about the future now which is possibly because of this. Before we started there was massive stress about the future which has completely disappeared over the course of the last month so that’s a huge weight of my shoulders!

3) Was there a moment, perhaps something I said or something that you looked into that that pushed you over, made you look and realise?

The last little bit was last week when I was answering the questions from the 18th. I realised that even though I was saying there was no controller I was still spending large amounts of the days trying to kind of enforce self discipline and trying to persuade myself to act differently in specific situations. So I realised that I felt that there was an I controlling these thoughts. Now I know you’re not supposed to logic your way through these situations but that’s more or less what I did - I took every situation I could think of where it seemed like there was a self controlling the thoughts and argued from an evolutionary point of view why those thoughts were exactly the thoughts that would arise naturally. For example I was spending a lot of persuading myself and trying to force myself to act more sociably in some specific situations. From the perspective of evolution the feeling of not being well established in a group means survival is at risk so there’s going to be a reaction to act in more social ways. So in an animal capable of abstract thought, you would completely expect the thoughts I was having to arise.
Then later that day when I had a response ready with a few questions relating to what were perceived to be “non-autopilot” thoughts, I realised I understood the answers already.

I know that all that was completely going against the ideas of looking purely at direct experience but I’m just being honest about how it went!


Thanks,
Aoife.

[Xain]

Thanks, Aoife.
Here are the last three questions.
Have a go at answering them, and then we can go over what you wrote.

4) Say someone had never heard of this 'illusion of the separate self'. Could you explain in detail what it is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience. Describe it fully as you understand it now.

5) Do you decide, intend, choose, control events in Life? Do you make anything happen? If you can, give examples from your experience.

6) Do you have anything else that you would like to add?

Xain ♥

[aoife]

4) Say someone had never heard of this 'illusion of the separate self'. Could you explain in detail what it is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience. Describe it fully as you understand it now.

There is walking but there’s the thought that says ‘I’m walking’, walking just happens but there’s the thought ‘I decided to walk etc. Everything you do is narrated with thoughts about a separate self controlling thoughts, awareness and the body. Thoughts claim ownership of all these actions but when you look to see what is claiming ownership there’s nothing there other than layers of thought.
Presumably it starts shortly after birth, or maybe even before since it seems like the mind is just inclined this way and it looks to me like the idea of self would arise regardless of conditioning.

5) Do you decide, intend, choose, control events in Life? Do you make anything happen? If you can, give examples from your experience.

No, there are plenty of thoughts claiming there is an I that’s choosing but no I can be found that chooses the thoughts or intentions or actions. No, there is nothing here to make anything happen. There is a strong illusion of control making it seem like there’s a controller managing things but no controller can be found. It’s observed that everything is just happening, no controller required. It’s all just stimulus, response.

6) Do you have anything else that you would like to add?

No, not at the moment!

Thanks,
Aoife.

[Xain]

Thanks, Aoife.
A number of your answers appeared to be along the lines of 'what appeared to happen' - That's fine.
In the following questions, can you tell me what really is going (or went on) on as you understand it now.

I realised to get upset I would need to have had a fixed identity for myself

Ok, you are explaining what appears to happen - But what is actually happening?
What I mean to say is, in this example, who is getting upset and who or what has a fixed identity?

Also there’s much less of a need to be a certain type of person (or be seen as a certain type of person)

Can you find a 'certain type of person' here now of any kind?
Who or what has a need to be less of one?

Relatively speaking now there’s almost no time spent planning ahead and spending ages weighing up whether or not I should do something or that kind of thing.

Well planning, or not planning may happen. Who are the plans for?

There’s zero feeling that anything could go any other way and that question is also hard to answer because it implies there was a controller who made a conscious decision.

Yes. Good.

I know that sounds like someone who’s just read the power of now and is a little deluded or something but no joke there’s a big difference.

I read the Power of Now seven times in my 'story' :-) Many people think I'm very deluded ;-)
Seriously though, what you are saying resonates here. 'Time', past and future could be something else for you to examine should you have an interest to do so.

So in an animal capable of abstract thought, you would completely expect the thoughts I was having to arise.

Are you an animal capable of abstract thought?
If not, what does that statement refer to?

Xain ♥

[aoife]

Sorry about the delay in replying!

Ok, you are explaining what appears to happen - But what is actually happening? What I mean to say is, in this example, who is getting upset and who or what has a fixed identity?

There were certain thoughts and physical sensations (ie. upset) happening but they weren't happening so someone. Nothing had the fixed identity there were just thoughts about a fixed identity.

Can you find a 'certain type of person' here now of any kind? Who or what has a need to be less of one?

No. Nothing. By that I meant there are less thoughts arising about having to take certain actions to fulfil a certain image or identity. Obviously there’s nothing that has an identity it’s all just thoughts.

Well planning, or not planning may happen. Who are the plans for?

They aren’t for anyone.

Are you an animal capable of abstract thought? If not, what does that statement refer to?

No. It was speculation about why certain thoughts might arise, but ‘I’m’ not claiming that the thoughts or the body are what I am.

Thanks,
Aoife.