At times I'm answering intellectually, at times not, it depends on what I'm being asked, probably. If someone asks me to look at my experience, or to do something, I do.
I think that perhaps you're misunderstanding what's being asked of you xyzzy.
Vince is asking for reports from direct experience . When he says answer only from direct experience he means that you're not allowed to use "thought stories". There is a good reason for this. The reason is because by doing so you might discover that you are not the thinker of thoughts, and if that is true then obviously thought can not be trusted in a search for the truth.
Just so that you clearly understand what I mean, here is an example:
Sit in a chair and close your eyes. Now describe to yourself what you KNOW in the moment, and only what you know. That means look ONLY at true and direct experience, and not any thought stories about the experience.
Do you experience sitting in a chair?
Do you experience sitting?
Do you experience having a body?
An incorrect answer would be. I feel my butt on the chair and hear the sound of birds in the back yard, because you've added the story of a person's butt on a chair, and the story of birds in the back yard, and you haven't even mentioned the running comentary of thought that is also going on all the time.
You have to ignore the thought stories and describe ONLY direct experience.
If you do, you will find that direct experience does not tell you that you are sitting in a chair. Direct experience would be that you would feel pressure on your butt, but without thought (including memory thoughts) telling any story, all you can say is that there is sensation which is interpreted by thought to be coming from your butt. So in actual fact, from direct experiential evidence, and without using thought stories, you can not say that you are sitting on a chair, and you can not even say that you have a butt.
So the correct answer would be that there is just sensation that feels like pressure but can't be located, there's blackness, there are chirping sounds appearing in this blackness, and there are thoughts appearing out of nowhere that are telling a story about the direct experience, and then fading away into nowhere again.
Do you see the major difference between the two versions? One is looking at the thought story about what is being experienced, and the other is just looking at direct experience.
It's this direct experience that you need to stay focused on during this investigation.
What we're getting to here is NOT some kind of intellectual idea or psychological trick. We're talking about REALLY discovering that there REALLY AND TRULY is no "personal I".
It seems completely impossible, but as soon as things are clear, then it's completely obvious that there never was a personal "I". So stick with direct evidence and stay with the enquiry.
This is really NOT a load of silly psychological trickery, it's something that's been realised throughout the ages and across all cultures, and it has very profound and amazing ramifications. It's also been realised by many completely on their own, and without ever having this pointed out to them, so it's not some sort of 'hypnosis' either.
We're looking to see whether there really is a thinker of thoughts.
It seems completely impossible that all of this thinking and doing can go on without anybody doing it, but it's not impossible at all. In dreams there is loads of apparent thinking and doing, but upon awakening it's completely clear that there was nobody really thinking and doing anything. It was all just a manifestation of consciousness.
Do you see that there is no particular logic that says that thoughts have to be thought by a thinker? The ONLY reason that you think it's logical is because thought says that it's logical.
