My humble and sober request for a guide...

[Delma]

Hi Ben,

I apologize. I'd actually been waiting for the email notification that you'd replied and every once in a while it doesn't come through.

I'm here! :)

Ok, yes. Perfect. Would you say that it's through the senses that we can tell whether something is real?

[Delma]

Oh, yes, if you find exceptions to that rule, let's explore those a little too.

Delma

[Dimitri]

Yes, the senses are how I know.

AND I do wonder about other things like desire. I want THIS... badly. Is my wanting... or even simply the wanting that's happening not true? The wanting isn't perceived by the senses. It's perceived by my thoughts and feelings.

[Delma]

Exactly right.

What if I told you that this was as simple as understanding the difference between reality and fantasy? It would seem kind of absurd, as though there was no way you didn't understand that difference.

But take a look. Look for the self right now. Please do each of these exercises, designed to move you from thought-based inquiry to experiential.

Look for the self. If it's there, and has been ther 'your whole life', then it should be plain. List what is seen when looking happens.

Listen for the self. What is heard right now? List it out.

Find the self with touch. What is found when this happens?

Delma

[Dimitri]

When I look for the self all I see is the body. I can look at the surface of the body, clothed or not. I can look inside the body, up my nose, down my throat. There is a body inside and out. All else that I see with my eyes is separate stuff related to self - clothes, apartment, son - all adjacent objects.

When I listen I find nothing at all. There are thoughts and feelings which represent one kind of listening, maybe an inside listening, but they are not self. There is also actual listening, with my ears, and all that arises there is the listening itself. If I go deeper and listen for the listener, I find what seems like a vast void.

Touch seems similar to seeing. I can touch the body interior or exterior but there is nothing else to be touched that I know to be me. All else is separate.

And so seeing and touch seems similar to me - simple in a way. Listening on the other hand is more complex. It feels more of the mind even though these senses all get processed in the mind. Not sure why this is. Seeing and touch seem so much straight forward while listening feels like and infinite loop.

[Delma]

Thank you.

Did you find a seer, listener, or feeler at any time during the inquiry?

Let's look more closely at a single sense because the exercise is important, and it will begin to address what you say is "separate stuff related to self" or "adjacent objects".

Look at the adjacent objects now. Is there a border, barrier, or dividing line between 'seer' and seen'?

Then, try to determine whether, using only the visual apparatus and not thought about the visuals, there are three things commonly referred to in language...

1. seer
2. seeing
3. seen

Can you find all three? How many are found?

Thank you, Ben!

[Dimitri]

Did you find a seer, listener, or feeler at any time during the inquiry?

Tricky question Delma. Did I find a place where seeing, listening, or feeling "lands?" If this is what you are asking, no, I cannot find the seer, listener, or feeler. These sensations just seem to land in awareness. Where THAT is, I have no idea. It seems as if it is simultaneously in this body and nowhere.

What's funny about the separate objects is that the only "knowing" of this stuff comes through awareness. When I feel awareness within, then in a funny way it's as if these objects are within me… to different degrees depending on which sense it is that I'm exploring. Listening somehow seems as if it lands in the body. Sight has it seeming as if these objects are outside of me although the actual awareness of the sight may land inside - hard to say. AND where as listening was the odd one out last time around, touch seems to be the weird one this time. Awareness seems to land inside this body except with touch where it seems to be on the surface. Awareness of touch may land in this internalized or nowhere awareness but the sensation is on the skin. This liminal line between the body and things beyond the body seem to make touch different.

If I had to put these three on a spectrum from awareness landing within and without, hearing would be within, sight in the middle, and touch outside of the body. Put another way, there seems to be less separation with sound, more with touch and I'm not sure where to put sight.

Actually, with seeing there may be separation too. If the object is distant and other objects are between me and it then there is a separation. I can look through a dirty glass window and see an object beyond it. If I move my head I see that the dirt on the glass which reveals and obscures portions of the object beyond I now know that the surface of the glass is between me and the object. The barrier here is space… and the glass.

Then, try to determine whether, using only the visual apparatus and not thought about the visuals, there are three things commonly referred to in language...

1. seer
2. seeing
3. seen

Can you find all three? How many are found?

Here seeing seems to just be happening. Awareness is the seer, though I cannot say exactly where awareness is located. As to the seen, the seen still seems our there, separate. If I close one eye and depth of field goes away, the object seems more inside of me than out there.

I think I'm thoroughly confused now.I will continue looking at this.

Thanks!

[Delma]

Can you find this thing called Awareness in reality? Is there both Awareness *and* objects?

Secondly, Is the idea of "inside" and "outside" verifiable? Or is it an assumption? In the visual field, can you truly find an outside/inside? What about sensation? Close your eyes and touch an object, then get a feel for where the sensation is in space, not what you know about the sensation.

The idea of awareness sounds like an idea you may have picked up through spiritual circles or through reading. Right now it's a concept. Can you find it in Reality? And remember, we've defined reality earlier.

[Delma]

By the way, confusion is very good. It comes in because what is found in Reality is very, very different than expected and goes against all convention.

[Dimitri]

Hi Delma. Thanks for sticking with me on this. I don't think anything has ever agitated me more than this. My stomach is in knots every day.

The idea of awareness sounds like an idea you may have picked up through spiritual circles or through reading. Right now it's a concept. Can you find it in Reality? And remember, we've defined reality earlier.

Let me start with "awareness" because it's kind of what had me arrive here with you in the first place. Up until very recently I've been all self - a driven, passionate self who wants this, believes that, is committed to the other thing. Recently however something else has arisen. Awareness is just a word but seems to describe this new "observer" or way of observing. True, I've heard and read about a notion of a bigger/higher consciousness and these concepts map pretty well to what I've been experiencing. The sensation is as if the seer is now unattached to the seeing or the seen. This detachment has the seer feeling almost like a separate and distinct entity all together… and yet somehow not separate. This new "witness" may be irrelevant or not real so that's all I'll say about that for now.

Can you find this thing called Awareness in reality? Is there both Awareness *and* objects?

Can I find awareness the way I can find the vase? No. So if our definition of reality is that I can "touch" it with one of my senses, then no, awareness is not real. However there is awareness happening and in this way it feels almost like the most real thing of all. This "landing spot" of the senses is how reality is perceived and so without awareness there is no reality. The vase wouldn't exist if I couldn't perceive it… like the tree falling in the forest. Not trying to be conceptual here, just playing with it. Feels as if I'm looking to see if the light stays on when I close the refrigerator door.

Secondly, Is the idea of "inside" and "outside" verifiable? Or is it an assumption? In the visual field, can you truly find an outside/inside? What about sensation? Close your eyes and touch an object, then get a feel for where the sensation is in space, not what you know about the sensation.

Again, the senses seem very different to me regarding this inside/outside notion. With regard to the visual field, if I am very still, I cannot say for sure that there is any inside or outside. There is simply awareness of objects in the field and it's hard to say where the field, this field of awareness, actually rests.

… and maybe the senses aren't different. Sound feels as if there is an inside and outside but the more I play with it, the less sure I am of this. Touch is funny because the body has sensors that are separated by distance. I can spread my arms apart and feel the sofa with my left and and then my right. I can tell the difference between the two. These sensations don't occur in the same place. And if I relax enough, these sensations seem to land in awareness, and suddenly there is not space between the sensations but just sensations being felt.

By the way, confusion is very good. It comes in because what is found in Reality is very, very different than expected and goes against all convention.

If confusion is good then things are getting better by the moment because I suddenly don't feel sure of much of anything. Aaack...

[Delma]

One important question you've forgotten, likely because you are now conditioned to "look for awareness" by all of the spiritual stuff you've encountered.

Here is the question.

Is there both Awareness of objects AND objects? Are there two things, or does the idea of awareness come up because of the feeling that there Just HAS to be something aware of things?

What's actually happening? Can awareness of an object be separated from the object?

[Dimitri]

Yikes Delma! That's a zinger! This question has me simultaneously wanting to scream and cry - my entire body has gone tense… and I'm not sure why. I want to run… Jaw tense… Tears. Fuck! What?

The feeling of nothingness, of vastness... has me petrified. Some part of me seems to know this - that there is no separation and yet the separation allows for the "I," which at this moment I seem more attached to than I ever knew.

Tears as if someone had died. Sorrow and grief are here. This idea that I've heard before, the idea of "worlding" is beginning to make sense - only an ant's breath of sense but something seems to be shifting. I feel scared, lonely.

[Dimitri]

OMG Delma. What if there just IS? What if ISness just is? This notion has me squirming - super uncomfortable, as if I'm on a very bad Ayahuasca journey or something. Severe anxiety is arising. This must be the thing I don't want to admit to. Holding this for too long could make me mad. Going to take a walk to try and move the anxiety on its way.

Thank you Delma. This has me freaked out enough to believe we are somewhere important.

[Delma]

Go for a walk and observe. Watch everything carry on as it always does without effort.

Look at the anxiety. Is it happening to someone or just coming up to itself? Is it yours or free flowing without a tether?

[Dimitri]

Aaack! This body feels like the problem. Everything starts and stops here, pleasure, anxiety, all of it. At times it all seems so concentrated that the body wants to wretch, as if having eaten something that's just too rich for the stomach and senses to handle. Feeling disgusted by it all, like an alcoholic looking in the mirror after a long, bad binge. Blick!

I can't seem to see it. Where does this anxiety come from? Where does it land? Why do I care? It arises and it is felt in this body, this throat, thus gut.

It was thought that this body/mind was ready for a good, hard run at this, to end the illusion once and for all. Now there is wondering about whether this is actually the time or not. The desire is so strong and yet the seeing and concentration seem so weak and fuzzy.

Staring at artwork that this body/mind made decades ago. Breathing. This seems to help the nausea. Looking at this thing, made from natural materials, fashioned with these hands, made by "me" and wondering about the "me." Looking at this thing as if the answer is in it. So weird.