Technical goblins, indeed 😂
You would share everything you do, even getting distracted, which happens to everyone.
For example, it might look like this: I sit down. I feel like I am doing the inquiry, so there's a sense of self. It feels like sensations in the head. I look at those sensations and ask: Is this sensation the self? Then I get distracted by how I'm doing. I then return to the sensations, but the sensations aren't the self. Now there's an image of the head, so I ask: Is that image the self?
I sit down with the intention of doing inquiry. This does feel like I am deciding and making effort to focus on a specific activity.
“Where is the person deciding to do inquiry?”
There is an internal looking, first into the belly, then the breath catches my attention. I sit with the breath. Then the sensation of my hands holding my phone. There is an image of my hands holding my phone in my mind.
“Is this sensation in my hands “me”?”
Attention stays on the hands
Then there are monitoring thoughts “stay focused”, “this whole process seems mind created.”
“Is that thought “me”?”
Whoop then the mind explains why “that thought can’t be me because a thought is just a thought, the me doesn’t come and go.”
“Is that thought me?”
There is a sense of looking back at the thoughts
Then a tightness in the solar plexus area, then a sensation of tightness in the chest and shortness of breath.
“Is this sensation me?”
Those sensations dissipate
A low-level chatter arises in the mind. No discernible words, just like a hum of words in a room full of people.
Tightness in the gut arises and the mind labels “agitation”.
“Why can’t the mind shut the hell up even for a few minutes?”
Now I get distracted with all kinds of things that I want to figure out. It feels like the one looking is also a thought and that this whole process of inquiry is just a game of mind. It’s all candy for the mind because it is directing the attention- like it IS the attention. It is the mind that wants to find something, so it is looking for answers.
