Thanks Kay,
Apologies for the late reply. Life. I had actually started this after I got your message then saved a draft and then things caught up.
1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form?
Was there ever?
There are thoughts of me and often a sense of me but none of those constitute a me. And when investigation into that me takes place it is seen that there is nothing behind it. And that what I had thought was me all along as the center of my being, the controlling entity, the doer, the thinker, it totally and utterly empty. Thoughts and feelings exist without a me they are happening to. Experience just is. As we have discussed, I do not feel radically different because of this and the same, thoughts worries, emotions happen, feelings happen, so experientially not much has changed, but this is underpinned by an absolute certainty that everything is just arising of its own accord. No me, just what is happening, to no one. And it has always been this way but I am also less interested in the way things were in a supposed past. I'm interested in what is now. Investigation has also shown me clearly and in very tangible ways that all the thought stories happen after events and not before. When you look hard you can see that and sometimes things almost seem to slow down to let you see the sequence. Further evidence, lest it be needed, that the apparent thinking/doing me is well behind the curve. Or put another way that the me doesn't exist and the thoughts floating about, cause nothing and are fairly random waves trying to comment on, and often claim doership for, events. No me, never was.
2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience.
Describe it fully as you see it now.
The illusion of separate self is just a thought, nothing more. And a learned concept. Basically taught firstly by parents and then wider society. Drummed in time and time again until the belief in the illusory self becomes rock solid. We know its not there at the beginning of life. And part of the reason we know that is, throughout the rest of life at moments during our waking day we experience moments regularly when the illusion of self IS NOT THERE, at all. It comes and goes, peaks and troughs. And generally seems to be heightened when supposed survival issues are perceived, or strong desires, or strong resistance. What I mean by this is I don't think most of us can remember being a one year old baby, but there is enough of what I imagine that experience to be, in most of our daily lives, in quiet moments.
As far as I see it now, and since we started our inquiry, the times when the illusory self is there is much diminished. Much more time when its not there at all. And when it does rear it's head, and seems to grab me, particularly when thought patterns seem to run away with themselves in times of stress or anxiety, it lasts not so long and I can step back from it and see that it is just thought patterns arising.
3) How does it feel to see this?
What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.
Hmmm. This is where I have to be careful. Not the way I thought it would. Not really a whole realignment of the tectonic planes and, alas, constant peace and contentment. Far from it. But it gives me a place to go to. To ground myself in an understanding of what's true and real, and whats not, and to be very certain of that. When things are challenging, or even when they are not, I can rest in what is, not what thought says about things (nothing is what thought says it is and that's quite funny to me when you grasp it). And that is really a solid foundation to be on, very far from the choppy waters of most of the rest of my supposed life. And to spend less time looking for reason and meaning in things. Just rest with what is. And as I have said to you before the sitting in what is in a headless way is very liberating, and in a very tangible way all separation drops and no division between seer and seen because there is no seer and you just exist withing, and as, the seen. And in this way how it feels to see this is indeed fun, but only when I focus on it and normally not on its own.
4) What was the last bit that pushed you over; made you look?
Well I think it was you who dragged me over by pointing out that I was already over, somehow.
But really important things for me were anything and everything that involved sitting with sensations in the body. Which remains very important to me. Such supposedly "personal" experience and yet those feelings just sit there, utterly impersonal. And the thought stories that arise about those sensations (pain, sadness, love, fear) are just made up narratives, which when you try, are quite easy to see through.
And obviously any exercises we did which examined doership, ownership of events, or thoughts, when we see that things in actual fact just happen and the reason why we can't control them is there isn't anyone there. At first this realisation is worrying and then, yes, liberating.
5) a) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How does it work? Give examples from your own recent experiences to how things happen and how things work.
Well the easy way to answer that is to say that things just happen, out of nothing, and I and no one else can say why or how. Everything happens as experience.
We think, of course, that we have free will and think up things and make choices but that isn't so. Thoughts just arise out of nothing and thoughts don't make anything happen, as it took me quite a while to see. THoughts are basically retrospective commentary after an apparent event, claiming doershsip (haha). Thoughts happen, actions happen - not related. Nor are thoughts related to other thoughts nor sequential, that is just a thought arising. Cause and effect, which I had problems with earlier because I believed in it so strongly, is actually a false premise. For the simple reason it, by definition, implies separation. Things affecting other things, over time. And that is false because there is only now and what is arising, itself.
b) What are you responsible for? Give examples from your own recent experiences to how this works.
I think this is partly where the freedom that we describe comes from. Without a me, nor "cause and effect" and me making things happen, "I" am clearly not responsible for anything. What I truly am isn't doing anything, or interested in judging anything. So the issue of responsibility just doesn't come into it. And that is immeasurably liberating for someone like me who seems to have grown up with a permanent sense of Catholic guilt as my bedfellow. These typed words are just happening in front of me and I am thinking I have written them. But I haven't. And they aren't words and this isn't a computer and I'm not sat in a hotel room. That's all just a thought arising. All it is, is awareness and the content of awareness, not separate, arising right now.
6) Anything to add?
We talked earlier about expectations, and how I expected the seeing of no self to be different. For me it has been more subtle than that but I would say no less profound for it. Like I said to you for some time now things have been different here and my perspective has certainly changed. I haven't read anything since we started since mid December and I don't know why that is. I just think I have found this inquiry enough. And even in the times when I have gone quiet for a bit, especially recently, the new perspective remains with me. Like I said to you, I've changed. Just not in the way I'd thought I would.
I want to thank you Kay for all of the love and patience you have shown me. I really appreciate it and it's funny not even knowing anything about you or what you even look like. But you have been the best guide I could have hoped for and wherever I'm at is down to you - and a little effort from me too ;-)
Love, John