The Gate

Check your experience to see if location is actual, or just another thought/mental construct.

Can you lend anything on this?

Take for example sound:

Close your eyes and pay attention to sounds that arise. There is a sound. Is the sound experienced in an actual location? Or, is there the sound and then thoughts about it? Sound and then...What made the sound? What heard the sound? How does sound occur? And learned answers follow...A car driving by made the sound. I heard it with my ears. The movement of the car caused vibrations that caused movement in ear and brain registered the sensation. Etc.

When experience of sound occurs there is just the experience of sound. All that follows...thoughts about that sound create the story of hearer, heard and location.

The same exercise can be done with all sense experiences.

That helps, thank you. I can see that sound happens hear, it must really, and that "proximity" is a mental construct. Its very quick :)

You've spent your entire life cultivating this sense of self, it's not going to magically disappear overnight. And is it even a problem? If you've seen it is just a sense of self and not an actual self, that can be seen again each time the sense of self arises.

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So your saying the only necessary thing to see is that an ACTUAL self doesn't HAVE to exist, just because there is a sense of self existing?

What really distinguishes the two from one another? An "actual" self answers to the "who" question? An actual self has a name?

As for the sense of self, it is more of just a felt aspect of my current experience. Of course now that begs the question, if the sense of self is experienced...than what is its antecedent?

No actual self can be detected with the senses. Just like the weather example.

Sense of self is the subject in subject/object duality. Sense of self comes from the deeply ingrained belief that there must be some sort of a seeer seeing, hearer hearing, smeller smelling, thinker thinking...

But if close attention is paid to senses and thoughts as they arise, it may become clear that:

in seeing just the seen

in hearing just the heard

in thinking just the thought

There is no subject/object separation in actual experience. Separation only occurs as a construct in (content of) thought ABOUT experience.

Yes. The past is as illusory as the future. To exist means to be existing. The mind is just the residual of this.

I wouldn't say mind is an actual solid thing. There are just thoughts arising with content that tells a story about a past or a future. Thoughts come and go. Do they point to/describe an actual past or future? Can we know for sure?

Does this current experience exist as an actual solid thing, or just a fleeting ungraspable flux of ever flowing thought and sensation?

As for antecedent to sense of self, imagine what experience is like for a newborn baby.

Re: Guidance requested.
by Chris » February 2nd, 2013, 5:45 pm

You've spent your entire life cultivating this sense of self, it's not going to magically disappear overnight. And is it even a problem? If you've seen it is just a sense of self and not an actual self, that can be seen again each time the sense of self arises.

********************************************************************************************************************************************

So your saying the only necessary thing to see is that an ACTUAL self doesn't HAVE to exist, just because there is a sense of self existing?

What really distinguishes the two from one another? An "actual" self answers to the "who" question? An actual self has a name?

As for the sense of self, it is more of just a felt aspect of my current experience. Of course now that begs the question, if the sense of self is experienced...than what is its antecedent?


No actual self can be detected with the senses. Just like the weather example.

Sense of self is the subject in subject/object duality. Sense of self comes from the deeply ingrained belief that there must be some sort of a seeer seeing, hearer hearing, smeller smelling, thinker thinking...

But if close attention is paid to senses and thoughts as they arise, it may become clear that:

in seeing just the seen

in hearing just the heard

in thinking just the thought

There is no subject/object separation in actual experience. Separation only occurs as a construct in (content of) thought ABOUT experience.

Chris

Posts: 125
Joined: March 3rd, 2012, 4:05 pm
Top

So with the above are you saying that if attention is paid to the senses as they arise, ill find that there is no hearING, just what is heard?

As for antecedent to sense of self, imagine what experience is like for a newborn baby.

Interesting.

I could only imagine that its sort of soley sensory existence, without any form. Is there an awareness of self tho? And is the difference, once the baby matures, that it becomes aware of the awareness of an "existence" (for someone/thing), rather than essentially being existence?

So your saying the only necessary thing to see is that an ACTUAL self doesn't HAVE to exist, just because there is a sense of self existing?

What really distinguishes the two from one another? An "actual" self answers to the "who" question? An actual self has a name?

As for the sense of self, it is more of just a felt aspect of my current experience. Of course now that begs the question, if the sense of self is experienced...than what is its antecedent?

Does this current experience exist as an actual solid thing, or just a fleeting ungraspable flux of ever flowing thought and sensation?

No, there is nothing solid. And I can see that its ever flowing and ungraspable.

There is awareness of the tactile sensation of "fingertips on keyboard", and for the most part I can experience it without labels as just this sort of touchingness. But, there is still this I/Me being aware of this touchingness, even when I see that I am not doing this touchingness. And they are occurring concurrently. I can not seem to reduce either one down to some sort of common denominator of my direct experience. OTHER than, the awareness of both of these, aka...the space within which the above is experienced.

On this same tactile note, while trying to apply the practice of removing labels from sensory input...im having a hard time removing the "body" label from the haptic "bodily" sensations. Essentially, I can feel these sensations called legs, even though im not touching them. I can feel my chest, even though im not touching or looking at it. Passive sensations. These lend some difficulty to the inquiry regarding touch, because if I analyze the feeling of the keyboard...the sense of touch doesn't seem to appear in the same place as this voice that is typing, or the sounds, or what Im seeing. I still feel like the sensation i call my hand, is still experienced slightly to the right and back from my central head quarters of awareness so to speak.

make sense?

So with the above are you saying that if attention is paid to the senses as they arise, ill find that there is no hearING, just what is heard?

Test it and see...

As for antecedent to sense of self, imagine what experience is like for a newborn baby.

Interesting.

I could only imagine that its sort of soley sensory existence, without any form. Is there an awareness of self tho? And is the difference, once the baby matures, that it becomes aware of the awareness of an "existence" (for someone/thing), rather than essentially being existence?

No one is being or doing existence. There is just existence, full stop.

A baby is taught the labels for things including himself. He is taught concepts about existence, etc.

There is awareness of the tactile sensation of "fingertips on keyboard", and for the most part I can experience it without labels as just this sort of touchingness. But, there is still this I/Me being aware of this touchingness, even when I see that I am not doing this touchingness. And they are occurring concurrently. I can not seem to reduce either one down to some sort of common denominator of my direct experience. OTHER than, the awareness of both of these, aka...the space within which the above is experienced.

Can u please address this. I feel like this is my most direct experience.

There is awareness of the tactile sensation of "fingertips on keyboard", and for the most part I can experience it without labels as just this sort of touchingness.

Remember when I said...and then there is a thought, "BUT"...and here it comes...

But, there is still this I/Me being aware of this touchingness, even when I see that I am not doing this touchingness. And they are occurring concurrently. I can not seem to reduce either one down to some sort of common denominator of my direct experience. OTHER than, the awareness of both of these, aka...the space within which the above is experienced.

Are they really concurrent? Or, if you look at this just like the sound experiment above, does thought just follow so quickly that it feels concurrent?

On this same tactile note, while trying to apply the practice of removing labels from sensory input...im having a hard time removing the "body" label from the haptic "bodily" sensations. Essentially, I can feel these sensations called legs, even though im not touching them. I can feel my chest, even though im not touching or looking at it. Passive sensations.

They're all passive. Remember, where's the you that decides to touch something. All bodily sensations are included in touch. Call it nerve sensations if that helps.

These lend some difficulty to the inquiry regarding touch, because if I analyze the feeling of the keyboard...the sense of touch doesn't seem to appear in the same place as this voice that is typing, or the sounds, or what Im seeing. I still feel like the sensation i call my hand, is still experienced slightly to the right and back from my central head quarters of awareness so to speak.

That's because you are analyzing the feeling. The analyzing, the thought about the sensation inputes a location, just like I stated above.

Try to look at it this way. There are six channels of awareness: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and thought. Awareness appears as sight, sound, smell, taste, touch and thought. Awareness is inseparable from the channel. Try this out.

That is a concise way of looking at it.

On that same note, I was reading from my Rupert Spira book today (Transparency of Things) and a chapter on bodily sensations and our actual experience of them really set in. It appears I confuse the alwaysness of Consciousness for the alwaysness of the "presence of the body". But there is no actual body, only the alwaysness of the awareness of the sensations I call "body". So within this..the sensation and the awareness of the sensation become intimately tied. But im still feeling this separation between the awareness that I am...and the sensory channels I witness, to use your term.

That is a concise way of looking at it.

On that same note, I was reading from my Rupert Spira book today (Transparency of Things) and a chapter on bodily sensations and our actual experience of them really set in. It appears I confuse the alwaysness of Consciousness for the alwaysness of the "presence of the body". But there is no actual body, only the alwaysness of the awareness of the sensations I call "body". So within this..the sensation and the awareness of the sensation become intimately tied. But im still feeling this separation between the awareness that I am...and the sensory channels I witness, to use your term.

Many (most) get stuck thinking that they are awarness, The Big Cosmic Self. It's an error, but a common one and lots of gurus out there don't even know that this is a stuck point. From my experience, it is.

I wouldn't say that sensation and awareness of sensation are "intimately tied". Do you see the subject/object split in that way of seeing?

I'd say they are inseparable. There is no awareness (separate thing) aware of sensation. There is just the sensation. Awareness is an attribute of senses and thought.

That's exactly what we're looking for here, the lack of a witness, or awareness (as a separate thing), or whatever you want to call it.