Looking for a guide

[Jack'n'theBox]

Hi Carmel, yes try the Spira meditation a couple of times and see if your ‘framing’ of what’s actually going on – shifts from sensations in ‘the body’ – to just sensations in awareness or even just -- sensations.

while I was able to 'see' sensation as just that; able I guess I mean, to appreciate sensations as energy in space I was still placing the energy in relation to my body.

OK. Can you actually experience a thing named ‘body’. Just sit down now and do just this. If you have ‘a body’ – you should be able to experience all of it, at any time, right? Can you actually do this? Or is what is available in experience just disparate sensation?

So, for example, if I was focussing on an tickle in my knee and then felt an itch in my eye I would imaginatively lift my focus up to my eye level. Do you understand what I mean by that?

OK, yes, I get it – the key term you used here is ‘imaginatively’!! Yes, we can imagine lots of things – like unicorns, Santa, ‘myself’ or ‘my body’ – what I am asking you to do is focus on experience – can you experience a thing called ‘my body’!?

Note how in experience there are just disparate sensations – but thought keeps referring these sensations to an imagined whole or thing called ‘body’ – but the referal is taking place in the imagination.
You mention ‘eye level’ – what is your experience of eyes? (I don’t mean vision vs no vision) – just sit and allow attention to rest on what thought says are ‘eyes’ – what do you actually find in experience? Anything?

Tip: imagine how a newborn baby would experience ‘body’ without any of the labels for its parts or even any idea that it ‘has’ a body.

[Ezra]

Hi J,

I've just done the Rupert Spira meditation again.
Something shifted. Everytime I focussed on the points of pressure where my body met the chair and I reached into the chair the chair and body melted into sort of 'sparkles in space'. It was so moving. My face was wet with tears. It felt like a glimpse.
So hard to find words to describe this stuff and I'm a little bit stunned.
I'll do the meditation again before the day is out.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Great. Does anything 'own' these sparkly, tingly sensations? Is there any 'thing' separate from the sensations themselves that is experiencing them?

metta, J.

[Ezra]

Great. Does anything 'own' these sparkly, tingly sensations? Is there any 'thing' separate from the sensations themselves that is experiencing them?

I don't think I had a notion of any 'me-thing' in the moments of experiencing those 'sparkly sensations'. I think 'me' came and went during that particular meditation. It was in those moments of feeling into the pressure points that the 'me-thing' seemed to disappear.

I just did the meditation again this morning. This time I didn't get beyond my body. I was able to focus on sensations more keenly that I could before starting this process but there was still a body framing the experience - 'tingly swirl of energy in my tummy area' was the kind of sensing I was at this morning.

In my normal day I'm trying to bring more attention to my sensations in general - fingers around the cup, feet moving on the floor etc - other than excellent mindfulness is this helpful!?

Also, just to let you know, I'm off on holiday today for one week. It might be tricky getting online so there may possibly be some disruption in posting while I figure it out. Is that ok?
Thank you.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Hi Carmel, don't worry about going on holiday -- just check in when you can.

Here's an exercise which builds on the exploration of sensations we've been doing so far and will help increase general mindfulness:

Sit in a chair and bring awareness to all the contact points your body has with the chair and the floor. Feel the sense of pressure in your feet, move up to the pressure in the backside and the back. Close your eyes and focus just on the raw experience – ignore the ‘inner picture’ that has constructed the experience as ‘my body sitting in a chair’. Can you feel where the body ends and floor/chair begins or is the experience itself seamless? Without using thought – before thought intervenes – what is the nature of the experience? Where is the experience taking place? What are its qualities? Is there a ‘centre’ to this experience? Is there a ‘thing’ separate from the sensations that the experience is ‘happening to’? When thought tries to intervene, don’t follow it, allow awareness to remain in the raw experience. Do this several times for at least ten minutes.

Once you are comfortable with exploring sensation, extend the exercise – keep on doing the body sensation stage, then move on to the other senses, . . . look at smell, where is that sensation happening, try to stick with the pure sensation and notice how the mind kicks in AFTER the event by producing ‘selfing’ thoughts, e.g. ‘smell of incense in my nose’ – all this is imputed in thought and is not there in bare experience. Do it with taste, hearing, sight, individually. Then, and this is the important part, try to keep all the various sensations that you say are happening in ‘the body’ in awareness simultaneously – keep on building up to this and do it for 10 minutes at a time – in a chair, on the bus, on the park bench. Keep with the raw experience and notice there is a gap between the experience and the ‘selfing’ thoughts that impose to claim the experience as ‘mine’. Don’t hold on to the selfing thoughts – just keep coming back to the raw experience – in the felt, just the felt, in the smelled, just the smelled, in the tasted, just the tasted, in the heard, just the heard, in the seen, just the seen.

Don't worry if you can't post every day -- but do keep up the pace with the investigations at least for half an hour a day.

Have a good trip!

cheers,

J

[Ezra]

Hi J,

Hope you're still there?
Am just back from holiday. It proved more difficult than I imagined to get online.
I did , however, do the exercise below everyday.

Sit in a chair and bring awareness to all the contact points your body has with the chair and the floor. Feel the sense of pressure in your feet, move up to the pressure in the backside and the back. Close your eyes and focus just on the raw experience – ignore the ‘inner picture’ that has constructed the experience as ‘my body sitting in a chair’. Can you feel where the body ends and floor/chair begins or is the experience itself seamless? Without using thought – before thought intervenes – what is the nature of the experience? Where is the experience taking place? What are its qualities? Is there a ‘centre’ to this experience? Is there a ‘thing’ separate from the sensations that the experience is ‘happening to’? When thought tries to intervene, don’t follow it, allow awareness to remain in the raw experience. Do this several times for at least ten minutes

It felt like I didn't get very far. The first half of the holiday was challenging for various reasons and I was very sleep-deprived. I tended to nod off during most practice sessions. Then,about mid-week, as I grow more tired and discontent strong feeling began to arise pulling me away from the focus on sensation.
I am noticing, though, some side -effects. I'm much quieter and often more content being still rather than chatting. I've had some health issues in the past year and built up a fair amount of anxiety about my well being. I'm now noticing that the littler sense triggers that might have pressed anxiety buttons with me before don't anymore. I'm happy to accept them as sensations.
Hope I'm making sense.
Hope you're still there!
Thanks.

[Jack'n'theBox]

No worries Carmel. Can you answer the questions about the exercise, though, as that gives me the best input on where to point you next:

. . . Can you feel where the body ends and floor/chair begins or is the experience itself seamless? Without using thought – before thought intervenes – what is the nature of the experience? Where is the experience taking place? What are its qualities? Is there a ‘centre’ to this experience? Is there a ‘thing’ separate from the sensations that the experience is ‘happening to’?

[Ezra]

Hi J,

Ok. I'll try to answer those questions now.

. . . Can you feel where the body ends and floor/chair begins or is the experience itself seamless?

If I focus on the pressure points (feet on floor etc) after a short while the sensation opens up and the feet (for example) sort of melt into 'the floor'. It doesn't tend to last long. Usually another sensation claims my attention and that seems to bring thought back into the equation. With thought comes a sense of the body - 'my nose is itchy, I'd better travel up from my feet to focus on my nose'. I might then get lost in the 'nose sensation' and 'nose' may disappear leaving only the sensation. It has only happened a few times that I've been able to hold two different sensations at once and not have a sense of them being in different parts of the body.

Without using thought – before thought intervenes – what is the nature of the experience?
I'm not sure what this question means. You mean something other than what it feels like, I'm guessing?

Where is the experience taking place?

No idea. Usually something like 'around my body-field'- though sometimes the body disappears.

What are its qualities?
Moving (in movement). Soft. Open.

Is there a ‘centre’ to this experience?
No.

Is there a ‘thing’ separate from the sensations that the experience is ‘happening to’?[/quote]
Again, no. They are just there.

Is that helpful? I find this exercise very hard.
I find it hard to see the experience and then find it hard to put into words.
Thank you.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Hi Carmel, great attempt here.

Don’t worry about holding on to any experience – we aren’t looking to develop any kind of ‘state’ where the body disappears. What we are trying to do is to see the difference between subtle conceptual overlays and actual experience – can we ever experience a ‘thing’ that mind labels ‘the body’?.

For example, if I were to say to a regular person “But can you really experience a ‘thing’ called your ‘foot’?” -- they’d think I was mad and reply “Of course I can, look!” and they might wiggle it about.

But look steadily at the sensation where thought says ‘feet’ touch the ‘floor’ and can you really say that the experience is one of “feet touching floor”? Are there two components in the experience – feet and floor? If so, you should be able to find the dividing line where one stops and the other starts. Can you? Or is ‘feet touching floor’ a conceptual construction of what is going on?

Try to locate the experience more clearly – is the sensation ‘in the foot’ or ‘in the floor’ or ‘between the foot and the floor’ / . . . or, where exactly is it?

Can you see how a kind of mental ‘body map’ locates sensation in relation to that map – but the map itself is just a mental construction – it doesn’t refer to an actual entity extended in space?

Just relax into the different sensations that arise as you sit in a chair and try to locate them in relation to each other without using this ‘mental map’ – Can you?

OK once you’re comfortable with this stage – let’s look at the idea of ‘MY foot’ (or backside, or nose, or wherever the sensation is prominent).

Is there anything in the sensation itself that makes it ‘MY’ sensation – what does ‘my’ refer to in the sentence “I feel my foot,” exactly? Can you find a ‘foot’ or an ‘I’ that claims ownership of it in the sensation itself?

[Ezra]

Hi J,

Bear with me- the quoting button eludes me again...

"Try to locate the experience more clearly - is the sensation in the foot or in the floor or between them...or where is it exactly?"

-It's not in the floor, the foot or between them. It's in a space with out reference to anything.

"Can you see how a kind of mental 'body map' locates sensation in relation to that map?'

-Yes, I can grasp it, have glimpses. Don't think I'm seeing it though - truly seeing it.

"Relax into the different sensations that arise and try to locate them in relation to each other without using this 'mental map'- Can you?"

-I've had a few moments of this. Usually a couple of times in each practice session. Very fleeting, though.

"Is there anything in the sensation itself that makes it 'MY' sensation?

-No. Not in the sensation itself. There are thoughts around the sensation which are very vocal about whose foot it is but none when I go 'into' the sensation itself.

How are we doing? Are you getting enough to go on?

[Jack'n'theBox]

How are we doing? Are you getting enough to go on?

Don’t worry, you’re doing fine. Just trust the ‘feel’ of the process. Do the investigations feel right to you?

"Try to locate the experience more clearly - is the sensation in the foot or in the floor or between them...or where is it exactly?"

-It's not in the floor, the foot or between them. It's in a space with out reference to anything.

Ok great. So when we look for any sensation – it’s not possible to locate it in a ‘thing’ – it’s taking place in an ‘aware space’ – we’ll investigate the nature of this space a bit later.

"Relax into the different sensations that arise and try to locate them in relation to each other without using this 'mental map'- Can you?"

-I've had a few moments of this. Usually a couple of times in each practice session. Very fleeting, though.

OK don’t worry – we aren’t trying to produce some kind of ‘state’ where there’s no sense of a body or of you – but to see, clearly and with complete conviction that the way thought structures experience is flawed – what thought says is going on isn’t an accurate representation of actual experience – if thought can be so flawed in relation to the organization of sensations – what else might thought have got wrong?

"Is there anything in the sensation itself that makes it 'MY' sensation?

-No. Not in the sensation itself. There are thoughts around the sensation which are very vocal about whose foot it is but none when I go 'into' the sensation itself.

OK good observation. There is no me or mine in sensation itself – these attributes are posited in thoughts about sensation.

So let’s look at thoughts.

Try to find the thought that is happening now – what happens when you do this?
Can you hold on to a thought or stop the next thought from arising?
Can you have more than one thought in awareness at any moment?
How long does a thought last? Does it have a shape or a dimension?
Where is thought happening, exactly, can it be located in space?

[Ezra]

Aagh! Still can't get my head round the 'quote' thingy. I do apologise. Will keep at it.

Yes. The investigations feel right.

"Try to find a thought that is happening now. What happens when you do this?"

OK. Bedlam. A momentary blankness, then a panic -"I have to find a thought - where's a thought?" , then "oh, that is a thought", then I try to hold onto it but it's gone.

"Can you hold onto a thought or stop the next thought from arising?"
- No, can't hold them. In looking at thoughts I don't' just now, see a way to preventing a thought from arising. I can't see the beginning of a thought or guess what's going to arise so I can't stop it.

"Can you have more than one thought in awareness at any moment?"
I don't think so. I'll have to keep looking to be certain.

"How long does a thought last?
This is surprising me. I would have thought it depended on the thought. But as I watch thoughts it seems they are more intangible than I realised. They are more like clouds fleeting over one another.

Does it have a shape or a dimension?"
Interesting. No, I can't see or sense any shape or dimension. I'm intrigued because when I was looking at sensation I usually got a sense of dimension - the sparkly dots or a heavy dark nothingness. But I can't sense any dimension for thoughts.

"What is it exactly? Can it be located in space?"
I have no idea!
It's sort of in my head. But I'll play with this idea. I'll imagine my thoughts are generated elsewhere and see what happens.
Thank you.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Ok great. These answers are spot on.

So let's keep looking at thought.

So thoughts just arise and pass away -- we can't control them, hold on to them or make them stop. We can't even locate them in any actual place.

Can you find a think-er behind each thought, some entity (I or Me?) that is thinking them?

Is there an 'I' involved at all in the thought process -- other than as an object of thought.

What I mean is, could it be that the sentence "I am thinking" is not, in fact, a description of direct experience but rather, just another thought arising in experience?

See if you can locate this 'I' anywhere except in thoughts that reference an 'I'.

[Ezra]

I'm a bit shocked by what I'm finding.
Thoughts are so fleeting and random and 'I' don't seem to be in control (or even aware a lot of the time of what I'm thinking). It's unsettling. If 'I' am not there, where am I? (I kinda grasped on an intellectual level that this is what I'd find but to see it is unnerving).

Can I locate the 'I' anywhere except in thoughts that reference an "I'? - I'm not sure. 'It's a nice day' is a thought with no 'I' and yet there could be an "I' behind the thought.
I'm sorry, I don't have much to add tonight. I'll have to keep looking. This is very very difficult!
Thanks!

[Jack'n'theBox]

If there "could" be an "I" behind the thought, then we should be able to find it. But is there really an "I" behind any action or arising in experience?

OK try this exercise, sit quietly looking out the window for 5 minutes. As you sit quietly notice all the things that are going on in awareness – label each one as it comes up – e.g. “I am looking out the window . . . I am seeing the dog . . . I am hearing the car exhaust . . . I am scratching my nose . . . I am thinking about lunch . . . etc.”

OK now take a short break and stretch your legs.

Now go back to the window and do the exercise again. Notice what is arising in awareness, but this time drop the “I am” – just use verbs . . . looking . . . looking . . . hearing . . . thinking . . . hearing . . . scratching . . . breathing . . .

Was there a different feeling tone between the two exercises? Did either one feel more accurate a description of what’s going on?

Consider this – language is inherently dualistic – it posits grammatical entities that just aren’t’ there:

“It’s raining” – where is this “it”? Water is simply falling from the sky
“The wind is blowing” – where is this “wind”? Air is simply moving rapidly
“I am thinking” – where is this I? Thoughts are simply arising.

Report back what you find.