The Gate

Try a couple of simple action experiments. Pay close attention all phenomenon involved, including thoughts that arise and report on each experience.

1. get up… walk slowly… Is there a controller that controls walking?
or
Is there just walking?

2. Without pre-meditation, count to three and then raise one hand in the air. Reflect on this: what in experience chose which hand to raise?
or
Did choosing just happen?

Pay very close attention to what is actually occurring. Look straight through any thought phenomenon that wafts in front of the ‘doing’ and ask yourself, does the body experience sensations and thought?
or
is the "body" just a label for the place where sensations and thought intersect?

1. I got up and I walked slowly. Was there a controller? Not directly, I was able to observe walking. Yet if you had typed get up and walked quickly, I would likely have walked quickly.
2. I counted and raised a hand. I had no direct choice in this. If you had typed raise your right hand I would have done that. If you had typed the left hand I would have done that.

Sensations arise and are quickly separated into thoughts about things. From this I conclude that choices happen and action is taken.

Every word used is "just a label" In that sense the second statement would be more correct. Is the body a place? Or does it just appear that way due to how the sense inputs are interpreted?

It should be clear that I’m looking for indication that you are seeing through what is untrue- and then moving on instead of lolling around and marveling about the nature of untruth itself and getting stuck back in it. Why be content remaining with mere thoughts about other thoughts, when the real treasure is not that?

I can see that I follow the stream too far. I understand your meaning as stick close to observation and don’t draw conclusions or make assumptions.

"There is no separate self in real life at all in any shape or form and there never was."

What thoughts and feelings come up in response to the statement? How does the body react? What happens?

I repeated this statement numerous times and my response came back that this is not true. Every sensation I have seems to reinforce a separation. Even if “the body” is a point where sensations and thought interact, this is enough. If there was not some level of separation why would this conversation occur?

I’m also interested what do you mean when you are using words like “I”, “me”, “myself”, “mine”, etc…

What are those words pointing to in reality? What do those words represent?

These words do not point to anything in reality. They represent conclusions about sensory input. Actually anything I say or think or type (all output) represent conclusions about sensory input.

"It should be clear that I’m looking for indication that you are seeing through what is untrue.”

I can see that I follow the stream too far. I understand your meaning as stick close to observation and don’t draw conclusions or make assumptions.

Only “too far” inasmuch as we are trying our best to strain actual phenomenon from a deceptive swamp of thoughts about phenomenon. It stands to reason that the tighter you rein in the urge to speculate during the process of identifying what we are looking for, the less thought can obscure observation. Like David Attenborough in search of Yeti, we’re not satisfied with anything short of direct evidence here. We’ll not settle for mere footprints, cold camp fires or other apparent relics that seem to imply or allude to a self. We want to turn a bright light on it, to catch it redhanded, rummaging through our garbage cans.

Then afterwards, when it comes to deconstructing our direct experience, there’s plenty of time for thought…about the implications and so forth.

But let’s never forget that these thoughts are neither neutral nor disinterested. There’s an entire ego structure on the line here and you are stomping around all over its delicate early-warning and security systems. ;)

"There is no separate self in real life at all in any shape or form and there never was.”

I repeated this statement numerous times and my response came back that this is not true. Every sensation I have seems to reinforce a separation. Even if “the body” is a point where sensations and thought interact, this is enough. If there was not some level of separation why would this conversation occur?

OK, so reading between the lines a little here, you threw a question into the darkness, asking, “Am “I" there?” and a voice came back with, “Yes!” …Did you insist this voice reveal its source, that it step out into the light? Because that’s where this enquiry can come to rest, as soon as it does that.

Hopefully it is also obvious that nobody is asserting that the feeling of selfhood is illusory…just the foundation assumptions upon which the layer-upon-layer of self-referencing thought are resting. Also, the onus here is on establishing existence of this self…as I cannot imagine any way of proving non-existence.

But let’s run with that response, accepting at face value that there is a separate self (…as reported by a possibly biased “I”) and dig deeper. If there is a self that separates “you “ from “not you” then it should be easy enough to delineate...and you have chosen “the body” as the dividing line? A number of questions arise naturally here, eg.,
1. Where does the body start and end? and
2. What part of it is “you”? By that I mean are “you” the meat-coated skeleton made of stardust and does it include the thoughts passing through “your” awareness, as well as the awareness itself? Is “you” located in some corner of the brain as a critical mass of self-aware intelligence? Or, do “you” have a meat-coated skeleton made of stardust as “your" vehicle to interact with the rest of the universe, and exist in thoughts and awareness, as the “owner” of that package? …or something else altogether?

Now, when you answer this question, understand that it needs to be based on evidence, not on what merely seems reasonable or obvious. By the time we finish, you should be holding up your (possibly bruised or bloodied) “self” in the light, for all to see.

I’m also interested what do you mean when you are using words like “I”, “me”, “myself”, “mine”, etc…What are those words pointing to in reality? What do those words represent?

These words do not point to anything in reality. They represent conclusions about sensory input. Actually anything I say or think or type (all output) represent conclusions about sensory input.

I think you’ve demonstrated quite conclusively that is not the case, here or anywhere. We're seeing mostly inference and assumption stacked atop a house of cards made of previous inference and assumption…all around a hollow core. Thus is the idea of “self” that we protect and keep away from the possibility of direct scrutiny, by the many and ingenious deflective mechanisms made obvious in this forum and elsewhere.

I think you're doing really well burning away the layers that obscure the truth here. How's your stamina holding up?

Where does the body start and end?

I can not honestly come up with an answer to this question. Parts of what is perceived as the physical body can be chopped off and the label does not change. I could be wired into a computer with no physicality and still have the same perception of a body.

What part of it is “you”?

There is no me to the bag of bones. There is no special spot where “I” is located. This is still a convenient label for perspective.

I think you're doing really well burning away the layers that obscure the truth here. How's your stamina holding up?

I feel like I am bumping around in the dark. I don’t know what I am looking for. No named thing can stand up to scrutiny as every label is built on one or several assumptions. What could there possibly be there to find?

I think you're doing really well burning away the layers that obscure the truth here. How's your stamina holding up?

I feel like I am bumping around in the dark. I don’t know what I am looking for. No named thing can stand up to scrutiny as every label is built on one or several assumptions. What could there possibly be there to find?

Now we're cooking! Not knowing what you are looking for is perfect...you've just given yourself permission to go outside of what you think you know, beyond words and thoughts ...and asked yourself the exact, perfect question...you're standing right there (figuratively speaking, of course)...

Hi Knabo, you do realise there is a most significant question hanging over you, yes? Most significant because it came from you. Hanging because you seem to think it rhetorical. It's not.

Are you afraid?


"Watch out for that first step, doc. It's a doozy!" - Bugs Bunny

Well, initially I thought you would answer it :)

But I know the question is for me. There is a vast empty space. Normally this would quickly be filled with something, but this time it is staying empty. Still digesting.

I am not afraid of the nothing (so far). I might imagine there would be some sense of loss, but since I never had anything to begin with there was nothing to lose. I have, however, identified other things I thought I was afraid of. Then I realized these things also are nothing.

I am going on a week long retreat today. This may introduce some delay in my ability to post.

So pleased, so very pleased.

Not for 'you', naturally, but for the puzzle (that includes both ‘you’ and ‘I’) awakening to yet another piece of itself; in place, intact and exactly where it has always been - and really noticing, maybe for the first time, that the lines between software ‘self' and ‘other' are as arbitrary and unreal as the lines on any map.

But you’re not looking at the map anymore, are you? The feel of your last couple posts is that of an awareness located in the actual terrain, eyes open to what is there beyond mere thoughts about it…and what is not.

Comments..?

There was a piece of the puzzle I was missing.

It was a realization that all of my conceived answers were actually more obstacles. I was creating obstacles as fast as I could tear them down. To try to name a thing is enough to create a barrier.

Looking at the map would just be something else I would have to tear down.

Hi Knabo,

Time for a push. Let's get some of this reflection process out in the open. Please be attentive to what each question is asking and try to answer each one completely and in sequence, before moving to the next.

1. How does it feel to see through the illusion of a separate self?
2. What’s the difference from before you started this investigation?
3. Please explain in full what this illusion is and how it works from your own experience.
4. How does it feel to see this?
5. What pushed you across the line?

Regards,
Michael

1. How does it feel to see through the illusion of a separate self?

My first impression is that it is easier. I don’t have to come up with the answer anymore. I am also quickly crashing through many of my barriers of fear and resistance. Once you realize there is no ground to stand on, falling become enjoyable.

2. What’s the difference from before you started this investigation?

Before I started this investigation I was very deep into seeking. I was looking for an answer to life and how things worked. I was reading up to three books at a time, watching videos, a member of numerous mailing lists. What I did not see is that after everything I read my answer would change a bit, sometimes coming full circle. It was a never ending quest.

I do not have a need to continue this pursuit. The answers I thought I had did not answer anything. They likely created more questions and more seeking.

3. Please explain in full what this illusion is and how it works from your own experience.

The separate self is introduced in childhood. As you are figuring out the world, you are continually told about the separate things. And, probably more destructively, about ownership of things. Things that are yours and things that are not yours. Somewhere related to this is the development of a fear of change and therefore a resistance to change. This is funny. You can feel the desire for change, new car, new job, new status, but along with that is a fear of anything different.

Based on the way we use the illusion of a separate self, it would seem its only purpose is to impress other separate selves. But since our senses cannot see the entire self we have to talk about how great we are. And then, of course, try to make ourselves “better”

4. How does it feel to see this?

As I said above, there is a sense of ease. Life is just easier now. Instead of endlessly searching, I can now focus on harmonizing with what is.

5. What pushed you across the line?

At some point during this process I realized what truth is. A truth is something you can disregard. Once you have branded a truth it no longer warrants scrutiny. When I started to look at the things I had labeled as truth, they did not hold up. Then everything I had been building fell apart and I was left with life living itself.

I have more to do. My ego is not broken, it still tries to resist. But the reminding myself of the illusion gets easier every day.

Welcome Knabo,

I do not care to pick on word choices, in that before long participants know firsthand that language falls far short as a tool for expressing and sharing what we discuss in this forum. We make do with what we have.

But we still need to be as thorough as possible and ensure to the best of our collective ability that the shred 'n shed of concepts isn’t merely the vanguard of a bigger, better, ‘enlightened’ or such aggrandised self in the pipeline…or (shudder) the birth of a new religion.

The void (for want of a better term) left by the discovery of no-self can be tricky to navigate. What’s doing the navigating? And, if it’s a void, where are the waypoints from which any kind of meaningful navigation can occur?

We’re so used to dealing in meaningfulness, in substantive and substantiating concepts, not meaninglessness, negative and negation. Fear (aka ‘ego’) sees this void as a space to be formatted like a hard drive and colonised with data. A wild space to be ploughed and made ready for a new crop of ideas and concepts to be raised in it. It’s not - very literally and in every way. It.just.ISN'T.

And I’m not telling you anything you don’t know.

...since our senses cannot see the entire self we have to …

See that? If “our senses cannot see" this “entire self", then by what magical power do you claim its existence? Is this newly minted self you write about a replacement for the separate self you so recently disavowed and proclaim freedom from?

At some point during this process I realized what truth is. A truth is ....

Truth, tied up in a nice bow like that… it reeks, mate. It’s a big, fat handle for ego to swing on and scream, “Look at me!!!" OK, so you’ve UNseen something that is significantly NOT truth. But, take a deep breath…exhale slowly and consider: can you honestly say that you’ve “realised truth”? Are they the same thing, or are we witnessing ego’s attempt to lick-and-attach itself to a non-stick, non-surface?

I have more to do. My ego is not broken, it still tries to resist. But the reminding myself of the illusion gets easier every day.

Understanding this as a beginning and not an end is a most honest observation and understanding of this process. Not being real, ego cannot be broken, nor can it resist…it can only be energised or not. Pay attention to what seems to pop out of you, that’s part of life going forward and, for better or worse, possibly your truest textbook.

Now, maybe a final question: thinking for a moment of the train of phenomenon which eventuated in this process, to this point of whatever, How would you describe it to somebody who has never heard of it? What are we up to here?

So your questions are kind of a trick then? Clever.

Explain in detail what this illusion is and how it works...?

How would I know? Its an illusion. I can only make up some kind of story from an illusion perspective.

What pushed me across the line? Classic. What line? What pushed?

can you honestly say that you’ve “realised truth”?

I realized that truth is a word.

I have to assume there is a little ego perspective left in me or I would not have tried to answer those questions from that perspective.

How would you describe it to somebody who has never heard of it? What are we up to here?

I would say that it is all illusion. And if a person was not happy with the illusion he was seeing, I have another that may cause less suffering.

not a trick, no. look... I'm not any kind of realised being here, just a dude who went thru the same process of looking and questioning with somebody who'd been there ...and who as a product of this process passed thru a distinct and limiting barrier I see never really existed and for which I feel a warm gratitude I feel moved to pay forward.

what I'm saying is there's nothing in it for me, I'm not withholding anything or being mysterious when I say that you're here, but seem a little blocked by trying to conceptualise what must be experienced- even as you are experiencing it. it's not what you think it is, so let go and try to feel it. look around without drawing conclusions and listen to what your experience is trying to school you in: BYOFT and start shedding what you aren't, to let some light in.

then answer the final question.




"Watch out for that first step, doc. It's a doozy!" - Bugs Bunny

look around without drawing conclusions

Of course, this is the thing. To look around without drawing conclusions brings a world of no-thing. There is no thing to see. The things are the conclusions. My experience of no-thing is indescribable in words or concepts, how could it be otherwise?

Since you can not decribe something that is not ultimately illusion, I have to conclude that everything is illusion.

There is no gate. There is no one to look. There is no ego. There are no things to hold on to.

While life is presenting a world of illusion, I can only harmonize with what is.

BYOFT and start shedding what you aren't, to let some light in.

Ok, it's been three days, so I guess I have my assignment. I will be my own f-ing teacher.