Could you guide me?

[nowitis]

Sorry Mark, my last post was really BS.

Here's where I'm at with sense of self: when I pay close attention, when I have space and time to contemplate I can find nothing but direct experience into which thought deceitfully inserts itself as I. However, all the rest of the time I'm busy just being ordinary me - in which there is no sense of no me. Despite periodic drop-ins to a quite profound sense of being/presence (as you put it) which is without any personal attributes, and despite being clearly able to notice the contractive quality of the story of I (as opposed to direct experience) nothing is really any different for me, ongoingly, routinely, regularly.

I can see that direct experience is all there really, in reality is - but most of the time I'm busy with my ordinary sense of I. It's thought-based, totally habitual, totally familiar, capable of being deconstructed when I'm deeply attentive - and it's who I think I am almost all of the time.

I feel like one of those cartoon characters who climbs a ladder of 1000 steps, puts a foot on the topmost rung - and the whole thousand rungs beneath collapse. I'm getting nowhere (and I suspect that getting nowhere is precisely what's needed), but I feel adrift with this process once again. I sit down every morning with your list of items to study while you're away, and then up I get on the horse of the day and gallop away.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Glenn you didn't do what I asked -- find this 'sense of self' -- what do you mean by this in experience -- where is it happening -- is it sensed by any of the 5 sense organs -- or is it just projected by the mind? Does it have dimensions? Where does it occur? Is it always present or is it triggered by thought or some other process? Do you have any control over whether it arises or passes away?

[nowitis]

Thanks Mark, no I didn't: I have something of a divide established, you on the other side of it asking questions from the certainty of no self, me here the obverse... All imaginary, of course. I suppose. Except I am affected by it, apparently, because I don't answer those questions, imagining them almost rhetorical and not feeling very hopeful about answering them. Nonetheless, here goes:

Find this sense of self? I go to body sensation. Upon more precise, thoughtful, slow and spacious analysis, engaging direct experience body sensation has no edges but in daily experience this ordinary cluster of sensations is the locus of what I call me. Is this cluster of sensations a sense of self? Habitually and routinely the answer to that is yes. Deconstruction reveals otherwise of course. But I don't think you're proposing a life spent in constant deconstruction.

So this is also what I mean by sense of self in experience: of course, if thought wasn't busy naming this as me goodness knows what the reality would be like, but thought is (un)steadily busy like that, and furthermore most of the time I assume I'm the thinker, despite this conclusion being contradicted whenever there's slower and more focused presence. Over and over again direct experience says thoughts just arise: over and over again the habitual sense of I'm the thinker becomes predominant.

Where is it happening? In direct experience, indivisible from dimensionless space, although 'space' is not really quite accurate, since there are no edges here. Sensed by any of the 5 sense organs? This only makes sense conceptually: in DE it's simply happening.

Your next question -

...or is it just projected by the mind?

- reminds me that I've been exploring body sensation hitherto here, and reminds me, again, see above, that absent thought this would merely be one more experience amidst an endless flow. But I take it to be me. I suppose that would be thought taking it to be me, which would be a summary statement of what I mean by the sense of self. And I shouldn't do that, because if I didn't do that I'd be liberated, but this resembles me trying to lift myself up by tugging on my shoe tops.

Does it have dimensions? No, in DE no edges, occurring always here, a place that loses all meaning in DE. There is only here. It is always present? My thought goes to the context of deep sleep - complete seeming vanishing. But also many times in the day actions are just occurring without much of an obtrusive sense of self. Do I have any control over whether the sense of self is strong and present, or passes away? This kind of beggars the question, doesn't it of whether I exist or not. But the answer is no.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Push further Glenn, what is this "I" that "assumes" you are the thinker? Do "you" really think thoughts or do thoughts just arise? What agency does "I" have to do anything here? What is it that "believes" thoughts other than another fkn thought? What is belief, exactly? Investigate it. Break it down into its constituents. Stop being so lazy and such a fkn slave to the mind.

So long as you continue to believe thought over your direct experience you will seek on for the next 40 years, as long as you don't die in the meantime.

You can do this Glenn but need to rediscover the urgency that brought you here. Don't accept what the mind says. Just look.

[nowitis]

Thanks Mark, clearly I have to be ferocious about this: there are patches in the experience of looking with this fierceness that bring up fear - of the groundless, of a certain kind of lostness (I believe an appropriate phrase would be 'nowhere to stand'.....:-)

Nonetheless, I accept your invitation. Thanks.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Glenn, the illusion *cannot* be seen with the same thinking that created it! In order to see it, you HAVE to shift into direct experience, because THAT is where it can be seen! I am not there to Explain it; I am here to Point to where you should LOOK—if you are willing to do the work to see it!! I can't do it for you -- you have to decide whether you are willing to do what it takes to see it -- it needs to happen now, in every moment, not on a quiet Sunday afternoon.

The fear is a good sign -- welcome it -- try to find what it is pointing to -- remember that life founded in a lie is far more dangerous than a life based in reality!! What is there to fear?

[nowitis]

No, I have no sense whatsoever you will do this for me, even while I totally appreciate the encouragement and provocation of your questions, observations, and nudging.

And, a foundational confusion (or is it?) about direct experience: when I shift into direct experience, that is to say when I bring the barest attention to just what is here in this moment there is no discernible I.

But nor is there planning, anticipation, rehearsal, nor any of the futurizing that seems like the largest part of my mind's contents (labeling is foundational, but rehearsal seems like its really juicy - and potentially devastating - technology.) This leads to the "bump on a log" experience that is the usual rebuttal to any kind of prolonged inhabitation of non-dual experience: just hang out here?

Another way to say this, ask this is in the form of the question: do you mean just hang out continuously in direct experience and do not go to the place (that mind implies, but is not real) that is not in direct experience?

[Jack'n'theBox]

a foundational confusion (or is it?) about direct experience: when I shift into direct experience, that is to say when I bring the barest attention to just what is here in this moment there is no discernible I.

But nor is there planning, anticipation, rehearsal, nor any of the futurizing that seems like the largest part of my mind's contents (labeling is foundational, but rehearsal seems like its really juicy - and potentially devastating - technology.)

The point here is -- in DE we see there is no self. Then the mind cuts in and says "Hey sure there is, here's some random thoughts about 'future plans' -- this is 'me' here thinking them". Who you gonna believe Glenn, your direct experience or some random stuff going on in the mind? Do you really control the stuff going on there? Can you direct it? Is it you? Or is it the mind running on the mind program quite happily and independently of any 'one' doing it?

Another way to say this, ask this is in the form of the question: do you mean just hang out continuously in direct experience and do not go to the place (that mind implies, but is not real) that is not in direct experience?

Can you decide to hang out in DE or in any state? Do 'you' have any conrol at all over what states arise? Can you choose one state over another, like "Oh feeling anger really sucks so I'm gonna feel compassion now instead. OK, 1,2,3 . . . compassion! Way to go mind". Is that how it works?

That "I" is not in control of thoughts/feelings is as obvious as the fact that "I" is not the experience-er of direct experience. Just stop thinking about this stuff and start looking at what is REALLY going on in every second of experience Glenn. Can you find an "I" anywhere in any of it that isn't just a thought in a story about "I"?

[Jack'n'theBox]

OK here's is some more from Joan T that seems to me a pretty good description of what you keep doing when you choose to believe mind's stories over your own direct experience:

Dualism is a creation of thought. It only exists notionally or conceptually. Thought divides, reifies, categorizes, compares, evaluates and strategizes. It creates the illusory (conceptual) division between “me” and “my problem.” (Or between subject and object, or awareness and content). If we’re “trying to be aware,” or “doing acceptance” or “being aware SO THAT THE PROBLEM WILL GO AWAY,” that’s not bare awareness, that’s the movement of thought, operating from an agenda. At the center of that agenda is the thought-sense of “me,” the one with a problem. Bare awareness is undivided, whole, empty of self. It simply SEES what is, without separation. There is no owner of awareness.

Awareness has an intelligence that thought does not have. Awareness is alive and unconditioned, whereas thought is mechanical and conditioned. When there is resistance to how life actually is, when we are caught up in idealistic notions of how it “should” and “should not” be, the actions that arise from those habitual patterns of thought tend to repeat the same old grooves again and again. (Of course, that too is all the happening of life itself and in that moment could not be otherwise). If we think about all this, it may get confusing, but if but if we rely on actual, direct experience—awareness rather than thought—everything clarifies itself.

Thought is a story-teller. It creates narratives. It comes up with stories and then forgets they are fictional. It tells stories like, "I’m a hopeless case because of my traumatic past, doomed to a life of addiction and depression, and I’ll never be able to have the spiritual experiences other people have because I’m too traumatized,” and we BELIEVE these stories that the mind has concocted out of thin air. They SEEM very believable—just the way the story and the characters in a movie seem real. We think there really IS a “me” who has been traumatized and who is now hopelessly doomed as a result. But the truth is, this “me” and the whole “story of my life” is a creation of smoke and mirrors. And it doesn’t really matter whether what appears Here / Now is expanded or contracted, tense or relaxed, bright or dull, pleasant or unpleasant. None of it is personal—it has no owner, no author—and ALL of it is the happening of life

[nowitis]

Thanks Mark, I have looked a good deal today - mostly rather disbelieving/astonished how much of the time it is true that mind is busy making up stories and projects - and life is happening in an entirely different way. And, the apparent synchrony between thought and occurrence happens enough (or perhaps is unexamined enough....) to make the whole thing rather confusing. Which is to say that I cannot, alongside you and Joan T say there is definitively NO owner or author, although this statement seems a whole lot less theoretical than it did 6 weeks ago when I began this. But looking, in the spirit of your question

Can you find an "I" anywhere in any of it that isn't just a thought in a story about "I"?

has thus far resulted in my saying NO.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Is there anything that is saying that there is an owner of experience other than a thought? What does this thought point to apart from other thoughts?

[nowitis]

Hey Mark, thanks. I don't really know what to say: I've sat today at length with your questions and exhortations, particularly not to be a slave of my mind, to look with a crucial focus - but I think in some foundational way I'm not really getting it, and feel rather confused about whether there's actually anything to get anyway, or to let go of. When I endeavor to deconstruct belief I can't get much farther than recognizing it's thought on thought - but realizing this doesn't have the kind of impact that the next minute I don't believe....in I.... all over again. I'm not sure if I'm thinning belief here, or just going round and round in circles: suspect the latter. I get it conceptually that only from DE can I look and see the illusion - except 99.9% of the time I don't see the illusion.

Just so you know next Saturday, 8.3 I'm heading for the wilderness for six days, and I won't have any internet connection until Friday 8.9. I have many, many sheets of paper printed out with your questions on them and I can't imagine anything else really being needed - except I don't really seem to be sufficient or capable (or some deficiency rather nebulous and unknown) of doing this. I feel a bit discouraged, as you can hear. I think you've done everything possible to help me - maybe this is just not really going to happen (for me!?) this lifetime?

[Jack'n'theBox]

Hi Glenn,
Seeing through the illusion of self is something that all humans can do – it’s just recognizing our natural state. There is nothing ‘special’ about you that makes it impossible for you to see so just drop the idea that you can’t do it.

There’s no point spending a week poring over my words – you’ve read countless books and been to numerous satsangs and that hasn’t worked for you. Why? Because you have to do this yourself and the key is in direct experience. Now, all experience is direct experience. We ask clients to report direct experience and to refrain from reporting indirect experience. But that isn't the same as saying they're two different states. If you say you've experienced Paris by watching a movie about a trip there, then you've mistaken an indirect experience of Paris for a direct one. But that doesn't mean you were in a different state while you watched the movie compared to your state if you were actually in Paris. You still had a direct experience of the movie. It just wasn't a direct experience of Paris.

It's the same with thoughts about what we are. If we mistake our thoughts about what we are for the direct experience of what we are, then we're deluded, we've fallen for the story. But there's nothing indirect about experiencing thoughts. It's not a different state. It's just that the thought content is like the movie. It claims to be about what we are, but it's not actually what we are.
So you see why I keep calling you out on seeking for specific ‘states’ or putting off looking till you have more ‘space’? There is no center, ground or agent behind anything that happens – nothing behind bliss – no bliss-er –nothing behind stress – no stress-er – you need to look all the time to ascertain “Is there anything doing this or is it just happening?”

Just to pick up on a point from what you wrote earlier:

You write: "all the rest of the time I'm busy just being ordinary me - in which there is no sense of no me" D'oh!! No-me is NOT a sense!! If it were, with which of the five senses is it found??

Do you think No-Santa is a sense? No-Toothfairy? No-unicorn?? What is this "no sense of no me?" What exactly would a "sense of no me" feel like? You’re expecting to remain as Glenn and experience, as Glenn, a sense of no Glenn. Describe this 'sense of no me' that Glenn is expecting to experience. How exactly would that work?

Are you still awaiting a giant POP that hasn't shown up?
Review our discussion of what you think is SUPPOSED to happen when you’re liberated.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Hi Glenn, consider this in relation to this 'sense of me doing xxx':

Eating: There's food, there's a body, there's a hand bringing the food to the body, and there's the feeling that there's a you controlling it all. But in all this mess there's no ACTUAL you controlling it all. The desire itself - the intention to eat is controlling it all. The body is on auto-pilot. Same for driving, walking, and all other activities.

Thinking: There are thoughts happening, and that's the end of the story. There may be a feeling that 'you' are controlling them -- but look closely -- the brain's automatically generating them in response to other thoughts, or whatever sights and sound are around you, or whatever desires are in your body, but there's no ACTUAL 'you' choosing them to be there and there's no 'you' watching them happen. Look at your direct experience and tell me if it is possible to see this?

[nowitis]

Thank you Mark, it's late in the end of a very long day but I just wanted to say that in my therapy work today I experienced myself as mysteriously able to give voice and action to authenticity and spontaneity, and in some way I cannot quite make any logical sense of this flowed out of my strenuous efforts to LOOK again and again yesterday afternoon.

...there is no ACTUAL 'you' choosing them to be there and there's no 'you' watching them happen.

That feels deeply resonant to me.