The Gate

Test it out, throw out all of your beliefs and thoughts on this matter, and approach it scientifically. Right now, what you see of life, is it true that there isn't a real thing that life happens to.

Dig deep, make sure you really see the answer to this.

there is a body that life happens to or with depending on how you look at it. It grows old, out, in, changes, hurts, senses. The brain too. The brain and body are a part of life, not separate from it. the body is made and sustained of stuff from the earth and the earth from the universe. In fact I really don't see how humans are separate from life with or without a self.

There is still experience of thoughts, events, feelings, emotions, senses. This is all experienced by the brain.

Ok. Humans aren't separate from life...with or without a self.

What is self made of?

(keep the description short)

What is self made of?

The egoic self is made of ideas. It's an attempt to conceptualize the person in a stereotyped way based on memories and thought. Like "i am [this or that]". It's not tangible but there are elements stronger and more stable than others because there is a stronger belief and identity held with them.

The seer, doer, experiencer, thinker is the other half of the self. It's made of an identification between experience and an assumption that they are experienced by something inside...a me. The centre point of existence. It's thought. Thinking gives the impression of that something at the centre. That voice in the head.

Going to sit with that last paragraph for a while

Do that.

You just told me that the self is an illusion.

:)

Congrats ZOC.

Do that.

You just told me that the self is an illusion.

:)

Congrats ZOC.

It feels like this is another piece of the puzzle. At least in understanding. Damn Jeff... realisations get so close then it seems to swing the other way and gets lost again in thought and confusion.

You must still look at this "I" in the context of your own life. REALLY you have not done this. Look over the "I" through the context of your personal history your story so far, how has it manifested.

It is manifesting right now in your being here.

You have not challenged this. Look at it. You understand the beginning of this the assumed self. You understand the end of this that there is no self.

Look between the two bookends how does self become no self? You know the start and end. Look at the process in the middle. You gloss over it as unimportant thinking that knowledge of the outcome/ending of "no-you" is enough.

This isn't about that. It's about un-weaving the muddled tapestry between the two.

Forget about what you know. Take a look at the process.

Why are you here? Who wants to be free? Why do they want to be free? Is that not just the ramblings of a man who does not exist trying to pitch his tent on higher ground to ensure his existence.

You must still look at this "I" in the context of your own life. REALLY you have not done this. Look over the "I" through the context of your personal history your story so far, how has it manifested.

It is manifesting right now in your being here.

You have not challenged this. Look at it. You understand the beginning of this the assumed self. You understand the end of this that there is no self.

Look between the two bookends how does self become no self? You know the start and end. Look at the process in the middle. You gloss over it as unimportant thinking that knowledge of the outcome/ending of "no-you" is enough.

This isn't about that. It's about un-weaving the muddled tapestry between the two.

Forget about what you know. Take a look at the process.

Why are you here? Who wants to be free? Why do they want to be free? Is that not just the ramblings of a man who does not exist trying to pitch his tent on higher ground to ensure his existence.

There are early memories of negative emotions which probably shaped the view of the self. Throughout my teens I was shy (more selfing) and to counteract this I took on a rebellious streak and played the role of the bad student and behaviour that got me into the popular group. The self was shaped on the basis that the self wasn't good enough and needed to be something else to be anything. Memories of life are largely based on aspects of the self. Never the episodes for what they were but the episodes were always viewed through the self filter. I.e. that behaviour or saying those things make me look stupid, weak, good, etc.

Ego aside the self is here today because the mind has always had a belief that it has had and continues to have control over life. That decisions and choices were made by me and life is being lived by this inner central force...the me, the voice, the commentator, the thoughts.

Why am I here? Because there is a belief that there is a me here. Why does it want to be free? Because the me is playing the the role of the victim, the sufferer, and believes it needs to be free from fear and suffering for 'it' to be a better self.

The only one who's turning this into a "personal problem" is you.

How could anything be a personal problem?

How could it?

Now please stop whining and look at what we're asking.

thought is believed by what? Isnt the belief in thought just another thought of claiming the thought to be yours? Are you in control of when and what you think?

You already see that thoughts follow each other in a string to get something done. Now is there an I directing that thought or is "I" just another thought that seems to have extra importance to it?

Take a deep breath, exhale. Relax. Sit back. And just look at what is real. Look at your surroundings. The sights and sounds, the smells, the feelings and sensations and the thoughts. Watch as they all do their thing. And see how there is nothing there making any of that happen. How too, there is nothing creating the thoughts and the feelings and the sensations; doing the seeing, hearing the sounds, beating the heart and pumping the blood, breathing in and out, scratching a nose, registering hunger or thirst. It all just happens.

Just as it always has. It actually is that simple. All that's necessary is to see that the belief "I am doing this" is just a thought, which itself is not being done by anything, but is just a product of a lifetime of conditioning and instruction.

An assumption. But the actual truth is that when you look at life, there is no discernible, identifiable 'thing' that does it.

It lives. Just like the 'it' in 'it rains'. There is no 'it'. Just living.

Drop everything learned and practiced for the space of time you post here. Start fresh. Baby fresh. Innocent kid kind of fresh. Naive. Because instead of looking, you're jumping right into what you think you're supposed to know about this already.

That's gonna trip you up real bad, ZOC. Real bad.

Give the seeker a break. Just look plainly instead of seeking.

Remember, it takes just one look, one moment of seeing what's actually real, and what's not.

Not even do more or less, just the looking, is there a 'you' behind doing this?

Intellectual knowledge is just thought so is irrelevant for seeing there is nothing there to own knowledge!

Nothing there where an 'I' should have been indeed. LOOK!

What is this fear? Is there a chooser to have the fear to not see this, or is it just fear?

Can you explain what you mean by 'not personal'. Having trouble with this. Personal to me means things are happening to zoc, this mind, this body. Isn't that personal?



Will get to your other questions later as on mobile.

Have you considered the nature of this inquiry, when we say, 'not personal'? What do you think it means? Does life happen *to* a subject?

I think one area I struggle with is what's left after illusion is seen with clarity. The mind and body doesn't disappear. The illusion is still there but its seen through. Things still happen to the individual (what I understand by the term personal) but if things don't happen to anyone then what?

I'm eating a crappy sandwich from a hospital canteen. Tastes, sensations, thoughts are all real enough. There's no I eating but isn't the experience happening to the individual?

Ok ok, in writing this there is understanding. By not personal you mean not personal to the proposed subject; the I behind...I am eating, I am tasting, I am digesting.

Do you want some control, in what happens after you see this? Do you have any control in what happens? Is that really possible? :)

Do you want some control, in what happens after you see this? Do you have any control in what happens? Is that really possible? :)

No I don't want to have control, I want to be able to relinquish control. No me to be in control anyway, so I don't know why mind still like to think it has control. I imagine it'll be a lot simpler to know there is no control.

Ps. Still haven't had adequate opportunity to answer rohits questions from a few posts back

Answer Rohit's questions please, and let me add this....

All it really takes is a simple look to see what we are trying to show you.

You can feel the 'sound' that the body makes right? It is almost like a vibration, a life that is generated by the body.

You can feel that?

Now look behind that.

There is a transparentness right below that.

Can you feel that?

It is there, so you need to feel it.

Notice that neither of these 'pictures' stay, attention seems to move somewhere else on it's own after the 'glimpse' stops.

Take a bigger look now, without an 'oh but, wait, isn't this...blah blah...' just look for me, ZOC.

Look at first the 'sound'-'vibe' of the body, and then feel the sense of transparency under that.

Then, look at the breath. Take a big deep conscious breath.

It is only breath?

Look at this that is coming inside you.

Can you 'feel' the vibe and sound of the air?

Is it life or is it just air? Maybe it is both? It is ok to see it as both.

Feel this life-sound-vibe, and look deeper at it?

Is there a sense of transparency when looking at it?

Now look at your sense of being.

Are you really different, experientially, than the way that this air feels? Are you different than the life that you bring in and out of that body?

Is that life just yours?

Why would Jesus have said that the light is the lamp of the body? Is what comes in really different from the air?

What about the rest of your body. Can you not just bring this silence in through your chest? Are you different than this silence?

For the sake of looking, let's say that everything that is, has a presence. That presence is within all things.

Can you see 'that'?

Look and tell me what you see. Use no more than four sentences.

:)

Love.

yes i feel the transparency and the mind tries to define it and it disappears.

i can sense that all things have presence. the christmas tree, the notepad, the plate, fingers and toes. it can be felt when the mind doesn't butt in. These things seem more real, colourful, present, when viewed in this way.

hmmn, in feeling a oneness with sensory experience it is images/thoughts of the mind that disrupt it. looking at the feeling of sitting in a seat: a softness, tingling, compressed, warm sensation arises....then mind makes the distinction between body and seat. it separates seat from ass and labels sensations as something happening to "me".