The Gate

Okay, try this:

Drink Exercise

The aim of the following exercise is to discover whether the function of choice can really be found or confirmed in actual experience. The idea of making ‘choices‘ is a very clear example of a function that we wrongly identify as the basis of our identity.

Here's what’s needed - a chair, a table and two different drinks. Any two drinks you like are okay for this: coffee, tea, milk, water, juices, smoothies, beer, wine, etc.

Preparation - Place the two drinks side by side on the table in front of you, sit comfortably on the chair and mentally label them as drink A and drink B.

Experiment - Finding the function of choice

Sit for a few moments, take a few relaxed breaths and let the dust settle. When you feel ready:

1. Look at drink A and at drink B. Think about their respective qualities, the things you like about them, compare and weigh the pros and cons of each. See if a preference is manifesting for one or the other.

2. Count to 5.

3. Choose one of the drinks. Pick it up and take a sip.

Questions:

Remember that we’re looking for some kind of function, a something, an ‘I’ which is doing the ‘choosing’.

In step 1 when thinking about their respective qualities, did you ‘choose’ the qualities? Or did they kind of appear by themselves? If some preferences manifested, did you ‘choose’ these preferences? Or did they just pop up by themselves?

In step 2 when you counted to 5, if the preferences took the back seat while the numbers took the front seat, did you ‘choose’ this sequence of event? Did you ‘choose’ to shut down the preferences to give way to the counting? Did you directly experience a mental function or faculty doing the ‘choosing’? Have you seen this function in action?

In step 3 where you made a choice, did you actually witness or directly experience a mental function or faculty doing the ‘choosing’? Did anything arise that announced, ‘I am the chooser’? If so, what does this function look like?

Sometimes we describe this sense of choosing as a ‘feeling’: It feels like ‘I’ did the ‘choosing’. But the question is, can a feeling ‘choose’? Is it in the nature of a feeling to ‘choose’?

Quote each question with the quote function & reply underneath, please.

In step 1 when thinking about their respective qualities, did you ‘choose’ the qualities? Or did they kind of appear by themselves? If some preferences manifested, did you ‘choose’ these preferences? Or did they just pop up by themselves?

The qualities just appeared. Even thinking about categories like "portableness" or "sweetness" just appeared.

In step 2 when you counted to 5, if the preferences took the back seat while the numbers took the front seat, did you ‘choose’ this sequence of event? Did you ‘choose’ to shut down the preferences to give way to the counting? Did you directly experience a mental function or faculty doing the ‘choosing’? Have you seen this function in action?

I did not experience any "thing" doing the choosing. The first time I did the experiment, the preference was there the whole time during the counting. A thought came up to push it away, but it persisted anyway. The second time I did the experiment, I "intended" to relax more and let the preference soften, the choice seemed to just emerge. I cannot see this function in action.

In step 3 where you made a choice, did you actually witness or directly experience a mental function or faculty doing the ‘choosing’? Did anything arise that announced, ‘I am the chooser’? If so, what does this function look like?

No, haha, that sounds funny. I did just see the hand move and "knew" which way it was going.

Sometimes we describe this sense of choosing as a ‘feeling’: It feels like ‘I’ did the ‘choosing’. But the question is, can a feeling ‘choose’? Is it in the nature of a feeling to ‘choose’?

There does seem to be this feeling of "impulse" or "intention" but it still seems to operate of its own accord.

What I'm really confused about right now is that I can see how these pointers clearly show that there's no chooser/doer/separation....so if we just said well yeah, "I" am not doing any of this, it still feels like "I" is watching it all. Watch the breath, watch thoughts, watch spaciousness, watch the choice unfold...yeah I don't know how to type or speak or sit or do any myriad things the body just does...but here I am! I know I'm here!

Well, since "I" does not exist & never has. you're just telling a story. It is made up. Like Santa Claus.

There is awareness or consciousness. but that is not a "self."

When Santa Claus takes off his red clothes, you see, you know he's just a man in a red suit. If he puts the suit back on, you're not fooled.

We're looking for that shift in perception from thinking there's a "self" to knowing there is not. It may be subtle.

You actually have to work to keep the illusion in place. Just relax the thought story & it's gone. Let it go.

You only *think* you're here. Putting it in bold doesn't make real.

Keep LOOKING.

Loving,

You actually have to work to keep the illusion in place. Just relax the thought story & it's gone. Let it go.

You only *think* you're here. Putting it in bold doesn't make real.

This is helping so much, Stacy, I appreciate you and your dedication.

You're totally right that there is a process working to keep the illusion in place. I see spaciosuness/truth with every new insight/experience that is clearly showing no central controller and that what I keep calling self is just commentary after the fact. And then I see the self-belief thoughts come back like "but, but, but..." and then I can also soften into not-thought. They are both here.

It was funny when you said "putting it in bold doesn't make real" a thought came up like, "she's impatient with me, that's offensive, she's poking at me..." and then immediately there was this just hilarious feeling and then "she's not poking at ME, she's poking at THE THOUGHTS," and then your poking felt very compassionate.

Oh good. I do feel a lot of sympathy for how it must feel.

Just let me know when you're certain there's no "self."

Loving

Not certain yet. Self seems to be telling a story that I am the consciousness watching this whole set of experiences. Have had glimpses of that letting go but still just a sensory absorption or the just partial. Working with the "backwards step" of looking at/for the consciousness perceiving the "self." That has been feeling right, I can feel perception beginning to shift there. Practicing there.

Okay.

There is no self that could tell you anything. Just untrue thoughts.

Keep me posted.

Loving,

Right. When practicing with the presence beyond/behind the thoughts saying I'm here, I'm this, I'm that, it's immediately apparent that they are "within" just this knowing. The knowing / awareness doesn't think. It's aware of the thoughts that think I'm here watching, it's aware of the senses, it's aware of the body. But all of those *things* are experienced as within it. And *I* can't be it, it's "before" I.

Then why do you say there's a "self?"

No shift in perception?

Like what you already had here?

Suddenly, out of nowhere, my heart burst open with joy and tears streamed down my face, and the feeling was "I'm not alone." This joy and love was everything I had ever wanted, and here it just was.

having some fleeting trippy perceptions

This is the kind of shift in perception we look for.

Loving,

Then why do you say there's a "self?"

I can't/don't say there IS a self--I cannot intellectually believe there is independent anything in the universe, based on these experiments you've shared with me and from contemplating over the years. My lack of knowing how to actually do things at a mechanistic level (grow an arm, stop a thought from arising, etc) show that there can't really be a self. Watching how my fingers move to type these words or even knowing what a word is or what word can come out is pretty wild. So self must be a construct in thoughts, I am 100% onboard with that intellectually.

But I can't say I "know" this from my direct experience in a way that feels 100% true/assured. It still seems like intellectual conjecture. Like the spell has not broken.

No shift in perception?

Like what you already had here?

Suddenly, out of nowhere, my heart burst open with joy and tears streamed down my face, and the feeling was "I'm not alone." This joy and love was everything I had ever wanted, and here it just was.

having some fleeting trippy perceptions

I've had a lot of brief perceptual shifts (even just the time realization earlier in our thread), big joy, spiritual energy, and emotional releases over the years. It's hard to pinpoint any single one as a "perceptual shift" (after that first one you are pointing out). I've written them all out and none of them was like "now I know there's no self."

The closest was the one I'm referring to just Saturday Aug 8th, we're referring to here:

...practicing with the presence beyond/behind the thoughts saying I'm here, I'm this, I'm that, it's immediately apparent that they are "within" just this knowing...

In that experience it felt clear that there was this self/Maya person and then just the watching/knowing separate from it, watching the Maya person, and that watching did not have the same self-feeling.

But right now all of those different experiences exist as memories/thoughts, and the more I review them the more diluted they become and I don't really trust that I "know" something from them, that I'm not just fakeing myself out by stewing in all this spiritual stuff.

I'm not just fakeing myself out by stewing in all this spiritual stuff.

You're not. But that's just doubt. Have you reviewed Pernille's videos on the second Fetter of doubt? That's what you want to focus on.

Loving,

Yes I've watched the video. I can rewatch.

Some observations:
- doubt is thoughts. They come and go, are not constant
- awareness is present simultaneously with thought
- awareness watches thoughts come and go
- saying "I am aware" is a thought *within* awareness
- declaring "I" doesn't actually change awareness
- thoughts saying "awakening should look like X" or "I want to awaken" or "ooh what great observations here" are still doubt/thoughts within awareness and they come/go
- awareness itself seems like the constant, and not dependent on thoughts at all

Yes, all good observations.

I think there are 3 videos on doubt.

You're doing a great job of thinking about it. Now look and see it.

Loving,

I think there are 3 videos on doubt.

Yes, here's the playlist from Pernille / The Awakening Curriculum on the 2nd fetter (doubt) that has all 3 listed first: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL84o ... P5lic441rf

Noticing I've kinda let go of the whole attainment thing for the last several days and it feels more relaxing (less thinking /doubt) but then I also feel like I get sucked more into "just life" and don't meditate and start to do more brain numbing things and it doesn't feel good, either.

Okay, good. Maybe you can find a middle ground.

Have I shared this?

"Enlightenment is an accident. Meditation makes us accident prone."

Sunryu Suzuki

We cannot predict it and we cannot make it happen. We can only practice the conditions in which it is more likely. The pointers are meditations.

This frustrates the mind because it wants everything to be linear and logical and step-by-step, but this is not. It is non linear and unpredictable.

The quicker you drop the expectation of linear predictability, the quicker you create the conditions for seeing no self.

Above all, do not *believe* anything. Just relax & LOOK

Much love,