They are thoughts that just come and go but I usually think of them as me which now sounds a bit ridiculous. MG
Mmm! This is looking very nice.
I just want to re-visit some stock stuff now:
Just sit there and 'be' with those next few breaths just arriving there in front of the screen steadily aware that we are closing in on the final straight.
OK. Does what you call "you" actually exist?
The “you” that you think you are is JUST that thinking.
Those are mere thoughts. Not real. Not in control. (Just let this one sink in)
Does a “you” do the breathing, or the thinking? Is a “you” really in control of anything? Examine thoughts and actions. What is really here? What is real? There is an experience of aliveness, but does that need to be labeled “me”? This identification with all these thoughts feels normal and familiar, but it is ultimately not real and is the cause of Dukhka. This is what Insight consists of. This is what is meant by: 'it is so simple that it is overlooked'.
Do you exist? Is there in fact a 'you'? Look!
Look at a university. All it is, is a bunch of buildings, with certain types of people, with certain things being thought there. The label “university” is put on this area, and the feel of it being a university becomes very real, almost like an entity in itself. But there is only a bunch of buildings there. Now take your life, your limbs, head, brain, blood, guts, memories, thoughts, and feelings. All this stuff very much exists and is very real, but when all this stuff references itself and uses language like “me,” “myself,” and “I,” over time something that seems real appears, a feeling of ownership over all that a feeling of control, a feeling of “I am my name,” “This is me.” But truthfully, there’s nothing more there than the brain, the blood, the guts, the thoughts, the memories, and so on.
Much of this work consists of seeing how we get hooked by “our” thoughts. We examine these sharp, pointy, and sticky places. Just look in your direct experience and thought processes for the answers. Very simply: how do we “own” things? The screen you are reading on, is it a “your” screen or just “a” screen? Which seems more true? And why?
Is there a gap between the perceiver of thoughts thoughts and thinking or is there just one process that we call thinking? Test it with a sound. Stop everything for two minutes and listen intently to all sounds that are present. Is there a hearer of sounds, separate from hearing and the heard? Where does hearing happen? Listen to distant sounds. Where is the hearer then? With closed eyes, check if there is a line between here and there. Can it be defined?
So, quite a number of questions in there Gitana. Please take you time and answer each one.
