The Gate

Good evening Jim,

It is what it is, ultimately unknowable.

Exactly. The concept 'cup' is useful for communication purposes but the observation, the seeing and the recognition of what you are seeing is valuable. You don't see a cup. You see shapes and colors and textures etc.

I'm interested in dissolving an illusion of self

Yes, and in the same way that you recognize that 'cup' is a concept by realizing that concepts only exist in the mind, you will recognize that self is also a concept.
Oh, and you won't dissolve the illusion of a self. You will convert the delusion of a self into an illusion of one. You will always feel and talk as if one exists, but you will recognize that the feelings and language refer to an illusion.

is not to my understanding of what LU is about.

LU is a place for guides and seekers to meet. Each guide has their own take on how to accompany a seeker. Certainly, the general philosophy is to confront the delusion of a self head-on, but there are many delusions associated and many portals to fall through. i prefer a broader perspective than just the 'self' delusion. If you are unhappy with my approach, I can quite happily request another guide for you.

vince

i prefer a broader perspective than just the 'self' delusion. If you are unhappy with my approach, I can quite happily request another guide for you.

Vince, I'm not unhappy with your approach. I'm really appreciative. I realise that guides are putting their care and time freely into this for only good reasons. Your approach has clearly worked for many, many others but everyone's slightly different and the broader take - given my background and habits - might not be the best route.

If as a final act of kindness you could introduce me to another guide who works more directly, then yes, I'd appreciate that and thank you in advance.

Very best regards

Jim

you could introduce me to another guide who works more directly

No worries. i have proffered your request.

Hi Jim,

I can continue with you assisting in your inquiry.
I would like to have a fresh start.

I haven’t read your conversation with Vince, but I read your introduction. So we can say that you have an extensive knowledge about the Buddhist concepts, including the 10 fetters. That’s all right, but for the time of our investigation I would like you to put aside ALL knowledge you have about awakening. Since that just can create a seeking to validate your understanding of those concepts, and trying to get them or achieve them.

Instead, I will ask you to only ever examine your immediate, direct experience, and never reply from learned knowledge or intellectual understanding. Can we agree on this?

If you feel ready, we can start with a very simple question.

In your everyday life, when not thinking about this topic, when not meditating, just taking part in ordinary life, what is it that you take or perceive yourself to be?

So when you say ‘I’, what is it that you actually refer to?

Again, I’m not asking you to think about the answers, but rather have a full day OBSERVING what you take yourself to be.


Note:
I'm going to write all my questions in blue. Every blue question will be a pointer for you where to look. Please make sure that you investigate ALL the questions thoroughly in your own experience, without trying to come up with an answer from intellectual understanding, like something you've heard or read, or learned by someone else. This is something you need to see, not just understand.

So please make sure that you deeply investigate all blue questions, and you reply to them one-by-one (unless I group them into blocks).

Try to avoid replying quickly... since that would be just the mind answering with the same old beliefs or learned knowledge. Rather with each post, spend a whole day investigating it again and again, before replying. I hope you are OK with this. This deep investigation could help immensely.

Vivien

Instead, I will ask you to only ever examine your immediate, direct experience, and never reply from learned knowledge or intellectual understanding. Can we agree on this?

We can. I'll go further and try to keep my answers short. If you do want me to expand, just let me know.

In your everyday life, when not thinking about this topic, when not meditating, just taking part in ordinary life, what is it that you take or perceive yourself to be?

In the moment? the person who decides on things, the person who thinks thru things, the person who simply reacts e.g. I like this, I don't like that, I need to think what my position is on the other.

So when you say ‘I’, what is it that you actually refer to?

The "I" is the decider, thinker, feeler.

Hi Jim,

The "I" is the decider, thinker, feeler.

Yes, exactly. These beliefs keep up the belief in a separate self / entity, as a doer.

Let’s start with looking at thinking.

When you look very closely, is it possible to think up a thought?

Yes, thoughts appear, but is that your doing?

HOW do you think a thought?

What do you DO EXACTLY in order to make / create / birth / think a thought into existence?

Remember, we are only ever looking at our experience, and never our theories about them. So really look and OBSERVE how you do it.

Please give a precise description from experience of the ACT of thinking itself.

If you are actually thinking thoughts, it should be super easy to describe how you do it. :)

Vivien

When you look very closely, is it possible to think up a thought?

I can cast my mind back and think of ... feeding a banana to a baby elephant. That's a thought.

Yes, thoughts appear, but is that your doing?

More often than not, no. But sometimes they are directed e.g. shall I go here or there? Were there no direction being given, I would simply set off at random. My assumption is that I choose the direction.

HOW do you think a thought?

It's like deciding to raise my hand. I decide that I shall recall x or think about y and it is so...

What do you DO EXACTLY in order to make / create / birth / think a thought into existence?

I will it so.

Please give a precise description from experience of the ACT of thinking itself.

I shall think about that more during the day, no pun intended 😉 and get back to you if I may.
I'm currently out of the UK but returning tomorrow afternoon on a long flight so please don't be concerned if I drop off the radar at some point...

Jim

All right Jim, I’ll wait with my reply until you’ve looked at all questions. Please make sure that you are not theorizing, not analysing, but looking at what is clearly present, what is actually going on.

Please give a precise description from experience of the ACT of thinking itself.

I'll admit I'm somewhat stumped. I expect that's no surprise.
It's like trying to describe the process of raising my arm, say. It's so automatic I can hardly see enough of a gap to describe it.
It's worse than describing raising my arm ... it's more like describing the process of biting my own teeth.

I'm not sure I can do it. At least not without some more reflecting - and I don't mean thinking - on what an answer could even look like.

There have been periods when I've simply been sitting in a chair not doing anything too taxing mentally and - how to describe it - there is simply .. presence. Thoughts appear as spontaneously as noises or colours and as undirected.

Feel free to comment thus far or allow me to roll it around in my experience for a while longer...

J

Hi Jim,

You did an excellent investigation! :)

And yes, it is very surprising. We spend our lives believing that I am thinking my thoughts, of course I’m doing that, and when we give the chance to actual look and investigate it, it turns out it’s not the case!

Previously you wrote:

V: When you look very closely, is it possible to think up a thought?

J: I can cast my mind back and think of ... feeding a banana to a baby elephant. That's a thought.

If you look at this same question now, what do you see? If the thought of a baby elephant (or any other thought) comes up, was that your doing? Do you actually think up that thought? Or that thought just arise on its own, totally unbidden, without any doing on your part?

Dive deep here… Play with this again and again.... 50 times for a day (you don't have to count it :) Look at it until no doubt is left, and even then look a bit more. We need an unshakable conviction here.

Vivien

If the thought of a baby elephant (or any other thought) comes up, was that your doing? Do you actually think up that thought? Or that thought just arise on its own, totally unbidden, without any doing on your part?

Well, after a day of - admittedly not continuous - asking that question on thoughts in general... then no. Using another analogy it's like trying to open the fridge door to "catch" the light being turned on: no matter how fast I can't quite catch "me" in the act.

At times I found myself wondering what this would feel like - the whole "not having a self" thing. I seem to have intimations of this but that could be me being mistaken. How would I be different? How would I be acting and... am I doing 'that' (whatever it is)?

I understand that there will be no supernal light or angels chorus once the illusion is seen thru, but I suppose I can't help wanting to know. An

an unshakable conviction

is quite a high bar....

Jim

Or that thought just arise on its own, totally unbidden, without any doing on your part?

Well, although I cannot see the chain of actions that result in the thought appearing… there is an obvious link between the instruction I read (“think of elephant/banana”) and the end result. That effort appears to have a “bidder” and therefore cannot really said to be “unbidden”…

J

Hi Jim,

Well, although I cannot see the chain of actions that result in the thought appearing… there is an obvious link between the instruction I read (“think of elephant/banana”) and the end result. That effort appears to have a “bidder” and therefore cannot really said to be “unbidden”…

You are approaching this intellectually.

You need to LOOK at thoughts DIRECTLY, as if you were looking at an object, and not mediated through by more thinking. It’s just thinking about thinking. Thoughts are objects, just subtle ones. So any object can be looked at, just as a tree can be looked at.

Just because one thought follows the other, it doesn’t mean that there is a thinker, a you, Jim, who is intentionally DOING it.

Focus on the doing part.

The exercise is read… then a banana appears. Are you DOING it? Do you making it happen?
Is there even someone READING these words?
Or reading just happens on its own? Without an I? Without a doer? Without a reader?

Cause and effect is always mentally established (mentally, meaning by thinking and reasoning).
But SEEING is NOT mental. It’s experiential.

You do not need to think to see the cup on the table.
Similarly, there is no need to think about thoughts in order to SEE / NOTICE the PRESENCE of thoughts, and see that they just happen on their own.

So thoughts might talk about causality… and that’s ok….but are you THINKING that thought?
Are you DOING it? Are you making that thought about a causational link to appear?

Or the thought appear on its own, just a cloud appears on its own, without you or anyone doing it?

We can rationalize why and how cloud forms… but that’s just more mental stuff.
In reality / experience I am NOT creating the clouds…. Just as much I am NOT creating thoughts… This is what needs to be seen. Focus on this.

At times I found myself wondering what this would feel like - the whole "not having a self" thing. I seem to have intimations of this but that could be me being mistaken. How would I be different? How would I be acting and... am I doing 'that' (whatever it is)?

Just notice that there is a hidden belief here that there is an I here who could have no self.
And this I could change as the result of seeing that it has no self.

But what is this I that could be different by not having a self?
Where is the one that could change? Literally, WHERE it is?

Just notice, that it’s also assumes that this I currently HAS a self. And somehow this self could vanish.
But this cannot be further from the truth.

There is ALREADY no self, and never has been. It’s always been just an illusion. But it’s never been real.
And certainly there isn’t another I that could lose this self which has never been there.

The one that tries to lose it is just more thoughts that claims that there is an I, and there is a self, and this I can lose the self and therefore change. Just notice, this is just more story about an I. Can you see that?

How would I be acting and... am I doing 'that' (whatever it is)?

Again, there is a belief that there is an I who is acting now, and when this will get rid of the self it will act differently. As if acting has ever done by someone! But acting has never ever done by anything.

Just a cloud is not done by anything.
A tree is not grown by someone.
A wind is not blown by a blower.

The body just moves, but without a mover… or acter…. Look at this… Can you see it?

Vivien

One note before I answer these questions: I generally avoid putting quotes around "I" or "my" unless absolutely necessary. Given the context of our dialogue, the quotes are kind of assumed - at least by me!

The exercise is read… then a banana appears. Are you DOING it? Do you making it happen?
....
Or reading just happens on its own? Without an I? Without a doer? Without a reader?

My experience is - or seems to be - that I place the "elephant" and "banana" in the centre of my mind for a few seconds and then "summon up" the image. The "I" appears to be the one that is applying the effort to do this. If I, for instance, unconsciously scratch an itch it requires no mental effort at all. It is the conscious effort that suggests an agent to me.

What resonates with me at the moment? Several things...
If the "I" is so obviously there why can't I put it up front and central in just the way I can with the screen I'm using right now?
That an "I" is clearly unnecessary for the majority of the day. Why would something so unnecessary be so uneasily surrendered?
Thoughts come and go just like the sounds and sights around me. They arrive and are 'clocked' with no effort and - for the most part - unremarked and unremarkable. Thoughts of self surely have no more substance than these?

Is there even someone READING these words?

So thoughts might talk about causality… and that’s ok….but are you THINKING that thought?
Are you DOING it? Are you making that thought about a causational link to appear?
Or the thought appear on its own, just a cloud appears on its own, without you or anyone doing it?

No it's automatic in my experience. I would qualify that to say, thinking sometimes requires effort. Directed effort. But like a set of scrabble tiles being arranged in the right order I can't see any gap between the act and the thought.

But what is this I that could be different by not having a self?

It is the "I" that enjoys things. I currently lack the imagination to see enjoyment without - crudely - ownership. Although most certainly not the experience of enjoyment. There's plenty of that. But it's the appropriation of experience that is just ... tiresome.

Where is the one that could change? Literally, WHERE it is?

In my head 😂

There is ALREADY no self, and never has been. It’s always been just an illusion. But it’s never been real.
And certainly there isn’t another I that could lose this self which has never been there.

Well here we enter into a discussion of ideas rather than experience. The proposition here - the awake would say , is that there really is no self. That it is an illusion. But there is certainly an idea of self and ideas are most certainly real in their effects.

The body just moves, but without a mover… or acter…. Look at this… Can you see it?

Increasingly so... 😊

J

Test. Please ignore.