Thread for Monja Gitana

[Monja gitana]

Direct experience is vivid, alive, intense, interesting
Imagined experience is flat, duller, harder to stay with the object.

[Mad biker]

OK that is just great.
I now want to ask you to return to these questions from earlier above and address them from the standpoint of being in actual Direct Experience yourself:

[[[Sit with awareness of the unsatisfactoriness that is ‘here’ now. The direct experience and sense of it.

Where is it happening?

What form is it taking?]]]

(Here is an expansion of what is meant by the term Direct Experience:

Direct Experience is what is noticed, here and now.
We can skilfully divide d.E., for the purposes of investigation, in to 3 main aspects:

1) thought

2) sensations
seeing
hearing
smelling
tasting
feeling [tactile + kinesthetic)

3) an unmistakable sense of Aliveness
(presence, being)

The illusion of separation is maintained by a stream of self referencing thoughts that are based on past conditioning. The most common reference point is a thought-created center referred to as "I" / "me" / "self". There is no such center, and those self-labels refer only to other thoughts, or to some aspect of Experience.

By referring to d.E., one is able to deconstruct any assumptions of separation or self, and see that there is just an Experience. There may be thoughts about Experience that conceptually divide certain aspects of Experience into a "me" and other aspects into "the outside world", yet those thoughts are also just a part of Experience, and as such there is ONLY Experience.

There is an assumption that there is an experience-er that experiences. This is propagated by a belief, as expressed by a thought such as "I experience". We investigate this in d.E. by looking for this "I". Is there a separate "I", or is there just an Experience that thought conceptually divides as such: "I" + "what is experienced"?

There is an assumption that there is a perceive-er that perceives. This is propagated by a belief, as expressed by a thought such as "I am the perceiver". We investigate this in d.E. by looking for this perceiver. We can see that there is no such thing as a perceiver, just a perception and thought dividing it in to an "I" + "body" + "perception through the senses".

A sound is heard, then there is a thought "I hear a sound". We can investigate and see that there is no hearer of sounds, just sound. If there is something felt and assumed to be the hearer, or self, is it anything more than some other sensations? or that sense of Aliveness? or another thought?

"I feel my body against the chair" a thought says. So, we investigate d.E. and see that there are sensations that are habitually labelled "body" and other sensations we refer to as "feeling of chair against body". When we investigate where this "I" is that claims these sensations, it cannot be found, as there is either another self-referencing thought, some sensations or another aspect of Experience.

We can pick up an object, and look at it. We might say "I am looking at the object". We then test this conclusion to see if it correlates with d.E., and what we find is that there is a sensation of seeing, and maybe some sensations that we usually label 'head' or 'eyes', or even other feeling-sensations labelled "body". A thought may arise with the conclusion that these are inherently separate, and that one is "self" and the other is "what is observed". When we test this out we see that there is never an "I" looking, never a watcher, never a seer. There is only seeing, only feeling, only Experiencing. We can say that it is simply Experience experiencing itself.

We look deeply in to Experience, and see that the assumptions of separation, self, "I", perceive-er or an experience-er are just references to Experience. There is never an actual separate object, just the perception of such, and thoughts labeling it. We deconstruct all these assumptions of there being a watcher, or a looker, or a hearer, and find that there is only Experience, never an actual separate self.

Is it possible there is just Experience, with no separate experience-er?)

So as you can see DE is not difficult and takes no big deal concentration or anything, but just to help things along just sit there in front of your monitor now and take say, six breaths just to continue to arrive there on your chair.

Now respond to the above bracketed questions from your Direct Experience as you just sit there.

[Monja gitana]

Hi MB, Just need to say that I get bamboozled by lots of words so less is best for me. I also find it difficult to do the exercises and write about my experience at the same time. So I did the exercise this morning and writing about it now.

When I open up to what I'm experiencing directly I feel overwhelmed and bombarded by what is coming in through the senses, especially hearing. I feel I need to cut off from the experience because its painful,too much. I don't know where I'm experiencing exactly, it feels quite general, not anywhere in particular.

[Mad biker]

OK I will be back with less word tomorrow. I had just felt it best to spell out Direct Exprience as it is such a central orientation.
Mb

[Monja gitana]

Yeh, sure, I understand. Thanks.

[Mad biker]

Dukkha is just sensations and thoughts.

Take some breaths in a kindly way:

In Direct Experience, turn towards sensations.

In Direct Experience, turn towards thoughts.

What happens?

[Mad biker]

How have things gone with those last two exercises in that last post amiga?

[Monja gitana]

Morning MB, Apologies for not writing yesterday. I'm in the Uk and dashing around seeing lots of folk. Noticing some interesting things but am about to head out the door so will write about the exercises this afternoon when I have access again to the internet. Muchas gracias, MG

[Mad biker]

Fine, that's great no probs.

[Monja gitana]

Hola,

Direct experience of sensations... bodily sensations uncomfortable in places, comfortble in others, sensations of heat and cold, awareness and openess to sound, felt sense of deeper stillness.
Direct experience of thoughts..... not wanting to experience uncomfortablness in the body, watching them go off in to different story lines, thinking I should be feeling fine because I'm in pleasant surroundings.

I'm finding I'm doing those exercises more and more generally, wherever I happen to be. Last night I had a strong sense of melt down, like I didn't know anything about anything anymore and my body was full of vibrations. I stayed with the sensations in my body and didn't respond in my usual way of going in to thoughts of it's all hopeless and the need to call a friend to talk about it. I stayed present and fell asleep. MG

[Mad biker]

Jeezus wummin! When your English went straight down the khazi in your first paragraph with the triple dot crap I flipped straight back to my first page ground rules, only to find that I had forgotten to ban triple bloody dots!

OK, I want full non-truncated sentences from now on, no abbreviations, no missing words!

Actually it was all fine on this occasion and I completely understood all that you said so no worries this time.

Hola,

thinking I should be feeling fine because I'm in pleasant surroundings.

I'm finding I'm doing those exercises more and more generally, wherever I happen to be. Last night I had a strong sense of melt down, like I didn't know anything about anything anymore and my body was full of vibrations. I stayed with the sensations in my body and didn't respond in my usual way of going in to thoughts of it's all hopeless and the need to call a friend to talk about it. I stayed present and fell asleep. MG

I appreciate what you are saying in your first line above Gitana but I want to ask you to just fully open up to how you DO in fact feel in Direct Experience rather than what you think you 'should' feel (the latter is 'thought' taking over from Direct Experience)

The pain only abates when you let it in.
Ask yourself: What is it that you can't be with?

Then:
Where can you feel that in your body?
What does it feel like?

Your last four lines above are great!
Yes do this stuff regularly wherever you are.

Then:
Can you turn towards it or embrace it or say 'yes' to it?

Turning towards it might be the last thing you feel like doing but just look at what happens when you do so!

Dukkha is wishing things to be other than they now are.

Can you apply the above pointers and then get back to me later this evening?
Mb.

[Monja gitana]

Hi MB thanks for that. I flew back to Barcelona last night so will look at the above later today. gracias amigo

[Mad biker]

No probs, that is just grand.
Must be nice to be back in Barca. Get back to me this evening if that feels comfy after the shocking weather or tomorrow morning if not.
Mb

[Monja gitana]

Hola MB, Right now I'm struggling with putting in the time to focus on this. Im swamped with sorting my stuff out and moving from place to place. Groundless and homeless. Had a melt down with the novio this morning so feeling pretty vulnerable right now. Having read the above I know it would really be helpful but I don't want to rush it. I want and need to give it space and time. I'm moving to a quieter piso tomorrow so I'm hoping that will soothe things a bit. I really appreciate your input but I don't want to muck you around so checking if its OK to respond over the weekend? Sunshine here. Gracias amigo MG

[Mad biker]

Yep, that stuff above can be really powerful so make sure you are comfortably seated in front of your screen and have taken your six wee kindly breaths in advance. Remember too your old pal the 100% honesty (which people sometimes HATE with this exercise, but that can be great!))

But the weekend is just fine, so no worries there. It will give you some time to re adjust and settle in etc
Mb