What is happening is all that there is...

[daniel philip]

Hello Fred,

So nice to hear from you.

Does any name, like ‘awareness’, accurately describe THIS, WHAT IS?
What if we called it rhinoceros? Would it change anything to THIS? You give it your own name!

THIS is. Bamboo wind chime pulsing muted tone, over over over. stop. Stillness.
'Awareness' is used as… a radio tower receiving signals from 'what is.' This, what is, = the tower, the signal, the translator of the message. Don't forget that damned translator! The self. "I" thinks it is storing incoming data in files, neatly labeled good, bad, sexy, gory, beautiful, horrific. But the I just each thought. Then thought thinks it can control the data, switch labels, change it up for the benefit of the self. Alas, all just thought. Taking it'self' so seriously!

Thought, believing itself! Can thought think? Can thought know? Can thought understand anything?
"I' don't 'think' so :-)
Can thought understand that there is no self? Does the self know when it is dead, merely and illusion, never existed?
The absenting of self is revealed in the shifting to THIS. Presence. Being.

Walking to garage, popping hood, attaching battery charger, thoughts rise… 'Take it to garage for new battery now, or wait til morning?' Back and forth. Thought 'thinks' it has used logic to come to a conclusion — just another thought. What is happening is simply happening. Thought-ing, charge-ing, car starting, rain-ing, walk-ing into house, sit-ing, type-ing, scratching beard, THIS-ing.

No controller. No decision maker. How? Why? is it all happening?

Just another accumulation of thought, excellent example of thought operating on the world 'out there.'
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... muggy, splashing water, garbage truck groaning and hissing brakes screeching backing-up beeping, walking to AC, turning to Cool, ahhhh-ing. no problems.

‘what am I, then?’ Where does the need for identification come from?

Identification = self. Self IS identification. Just thought rising in the form of a new label. Oh goodie! I'm one with the cardinal! I'm the universe!

Right! No description applies. As soon as we use words, we lie a little …

Dan, awareness, receiver, witness, rhinoceros - mind games. Even 'presence.' Word is the net, the sieve, the catcher's mitt of the self.

Does WHAT IS change whether there is a belief or not?

The WHAT IS is change. The belief never changes, all belief is the same - thought. Thought cannot enter the WHAT IS. When it does… it just can't, like oil and water. Thought, belief, is rigid, unbending, final, cast in bronze - thoughts rise in different clothes, but remain thought.

No life in thought. Outside the screen door stillness after rain, motion-less, muted, cardinal singing - thought rises, identifies the sound, ok, relativity, thought disappears no longer needed, not relied upon to witness the mystery of THAT sound-ing.

What is it that greets the thought, checks it out, then drops it? Does not BELIEVE in it, that the cardinal is a separate thing out there? A pure 'seeing' that it is only thought, or just another thought?

Go deeper…

There is a seeing that the word is not the thing. An actual 'understanding' or truth is witnessing that the label is not the sound. It cuts to the bone, of this moment as 'I'.

Of course, this is just another thought! It loops. It loves to loop. But IT…

What reality of Dan here? What reality of the universe there? Do you look to thought or experience to call these reality?

Once again, what is looking? Whenever something starts looking the other side of the coin is the looker and the whole coin is the future projected from the past. Dan here, universe there the whole coin is just thought. When that is dropped, THAT IS. Unknown. That is-ing.

My experience, now, this universe 'ends' where sight/seeing ends, ends where hearing ends, ends where feeling/touching/tasting ends, IS where sight-ing, see-ing, hear-ing is. When thought arises, shoooooooop! another dimension. Two. The fog.

There is loop-ing; shoooooop-ing and Is-ing. When the shooooooop stops, there is boundless mystery, there is unknown territory that can never be known, for when it is, guess what happens…

Quiet thrilling. A quiet scary thrilling. IT is create-ing in the now, disappear-ing in the now, no past, no future, they simply DO NOT EXIST HERE NOW.

Thank you!
Dan

[Freddi]

Hi Dan,

Again, a real pleasure to read your post. So much freedom, honesty, and willingness to LOOK. Thank You!

Can any of THIS ever actually be known? Who or what would know IT?

Can you come up with a single event we would call ‘decision’, say, in the last 24 hours, where there was a real, tangible, verifiable separate entity, ‘Dan’, choosing one option over an other?

If you pick such an event, can you describe what happened, noticed in real time, what came into play, did thought actually do the choosing? Were there other factors? What was seen unfolding in that moment?

Warm wishes,

Fred

[daniel philip]

Hi Fred,

Wondrous. Astonishing.

Can any of THIS ever actually be known? Who or what would know IT

As I move thru the day, or it seems more like as the day moves thru me, the me struggles to survive because as the day journeys there is a maneuver happening that has not acted before. Different. Developing…

The same routine, a retired single male going through a general pattern of activity, but with a twist!

It's hard to describe because it is so new. It goes back to the statement you made:

And I did not say that ‘thought is not what is happening, when it is being thought’, I said that thought come and go, they are part of our direct experience, but the content, the story contained in them is not happening.

! Thoughts are streaming, chugging along, the self is chattering away and then …. a switch goes off. An instantaneous shift from this foggy brain twaddle to - to - a totally other dimension, the dimension of senses, the dimension of perception, the immediate. It is STUNNING

Like a key finally fits, turning the tumblers, and opening a door away from all the mental gibber jabber. What is happening in the head, in the fog HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS!

The beauty, the simplicity, the shock of landing on the feet, squarely centered in the NOW freaks me out - then there is the realization that there is no me - just THIS.

All that drama! All that mental static! THIS!! THIS!

It's all just happening.

No, it can't be known. Then there is a knower. Then 'I'M' back. I'm the knower, but
Where is the balance? There is a registering of THIS, some knowing must register, be present, be aware. 'That's Rusty and Jillian. I am going to be their third in the sailboat races at the yacht club, we need to put the boat on the lift and get it into the…'

It's all so new Fred. Who or what discerns, registers… oh, oh, the fact is in the thought, there is no self to pick and choose which thought is 'real' or 'necessary', just part of the stream, happening.
The sailboat is hoisting into the air, the cradle is moving under it, chains are lowering it, thoughts are rising like steam from a kettle, finger is pushing the motor down button, boat is gliding down ramp, thought goes back 50 years, a boy, holding the motor control for dad's boat… the past is now part of the present, lost… 'hold it!' voice booming from the shore… self recrimination that 'I' should have been paying attention, that 'I' should not be… CLICK HERE NOW

Decision: They are putting up the sails. Should I run back to the car and get my water shoes, or just keep my sneakers on. Thought arises who is running back? Who's shoes? Is there enough time? The race is starting. The boat will be dry…
Running down the cement ramp to the dock.

It all just happened as it happened. Conditioned thoughts rose about boat construction, the wooden floor deck, the man's obsession with perfection and the odds against him having a leaky boat… did 'I' choose the thought not to go back for the shoes?

No, thoughts are not chosen. Thoughts happen. Motion happens. Life wanting to be sailing not diddling around with shoes.

LOOK! dark grey horizon cloud brilliant orange yellow lining, sun streaking beams thru waning blue. 'Coming about.'

[Freddi]

Hi Dan,

Wow. Thanks for the wonderfully evocative responses. ;-)

I feel that the illusion of the separate self has been seen, don’t you? Are there any doubts about it?

What I propose is this, Dan. At this stage, I send you our usual six summing-up questions. When we’re both happy with the answers, I submit our exchange to other guides. They may or may not have further questions, depending on whether we’ve covered all areas.
Then you’ll be invited to a group or two, where you can share, exchange about this experience with guides and others. You and I (or someone else) can also explore further, in a different part of the forum. Seeing the illusion does not mean that there won’t be residue to look at. In many ways, it is only a beginning. The beginning of an examined life.

So, what do you say?

Warm wishes,

Fred

[daniel philip]

Hello Fred,

Yes yes,the illusion has been seen. Is being seen.

The tide, the current is flowing towards this new chapter, this new level.

Any doubts that remain will be revealed as the journey continues.

In many ways, it is only a beginning. The beginning of an examined life.

lovely!

Dan

[Freddi]

Hi again Dan,

Here are our usual six summing-up questions, which we ask at the end of these dialogues.
Take your time with these, let them percolate.
As usual, don't accept a mind answer, scan your immediate, first-hand experience.

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

2) Describe your experience of the illusion of separate self, how it arises/disappears. Is that process always the same, or does it vary, and if so, how?

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.

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

5) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How does it work? What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.

6) Anything to add?

I look forward to your answers!

Warm wishes,

Fred

[daniel philip]

Hello Fred,

Wow, a test. Deep breath!

Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

The separate self cannot be found. Only a net, a sieve, rising as thought, a process, capturing, holding, dividing the flow of life *THIS* into segments can be found, can be seen - SEEN between thoughts as they rise and disappear. The net, the grid, the 'me' only exists in the un-SEEN, as the un-SEEN. The 'I' exists as apparition, pre-occupation. 'I' am not THIS.

Describe your experience of the illusion of separate self, how it arises/disappears. Is that process always the same, or does it vary, and if so, how?

The seeing: the illusion, the hallucination, of a separate self arises as a component of the smoke and mirrors of belief. An instantaneous, habitual… projection inherent, intrinsic, in thought.
A continuous flow of conviction, conclusion forming another conclusion that it is all emanating from a solid core 'acting' on what is not the solid core, 'out there'. The process of 'I' 'me' 'mine' is a dependence on this phantasm reference point.

It does not vary. The separate self exists solely as this process, taking in, chewing over, spitting out. What it takes in, how fine it chews it over, in what form it spits it back out is all relative.

How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.

It feels like a dawning. Like an illumination. The slightest light is still pure light. It feels like the light inherently will intensify. Before this dialogue there was a Helen Keller-ing. LOL. A lurching, a stumbling up against words and concepts. There is in the last few days an actual SEEING that he light reveals separate objects, but the light that reveals them is all the same, one light.

What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

Having an unknown, impersonal 'guide' leading me to the actual looking - when the student is ready the teacher will appear type thing. Once again, the key that opened the eye was the seeing that the story is not what's happening! LOOK!

Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How does it work? What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.

Wow, that's a tall order. If there is faith, there is faith that these 'bones of contention' will become clearer as the light intensifies. The paint is still wet so to speak on decision and free will.

Decision - there is a discerning that what the 'me' thought it was deciding, is merely a rapid firing off of thoughts out of a conditioned pattern - the 'choice' the last thought rising in the bowl like bread dough.

Intention - an aim or plan projected onto THIS from the past, from thought intending to turn what is into what should be. Intention is merely 'what is' making its way from potentiality to actuality. It sounds complicated, but it is all one movement.

Free will - that's a laugh! LMAO How can a thought be free?

Choice - belief. Garbage in garbage out. If it's all garbage, there is no garbage. It sounds very Alan Watts-y, but there is no 'thing' choosing, just a movement of what is is-ing. Whatever 'choice' is made doesn't really matter as it all comes from the same source. Whatever the 'mind' is preoccupied with it is preoccupied with, call it choice, call it whatever you want.

Control - ME! The net, the sieve, the what should be. There is no control, only movement, action, flowing. Diverting the stream, damming up the stream, siphoning off the stream - it's all still water.

It all just rises as the now. As the unknown, from some unknowable source. How does it work? It doesn't work. It happens. It IS. Whatever theory you impose on IT is just one viewpoint out of infinite viewpoints. It is not an object like a still-life that can be viewed from different angles for the best effect to put on canvas.

How does it work?

Does it work? Who says it works?

What are you responsible for?

'I' am a thought rising. There is no I apart from the thought 'I'. In that sense I am not responsible for anything, and I am responsible for everything, as 'I' am not separate from THIS. Aside from all the non-dualistic mumbo jumbo, if there is anything that 'I' took away from a guide named Eckhart Tolle, it is that 'my' main responsibility is to act from this still center of simple being. Better to act from a state of simple awareness of the NOW than from a mental 2-D movie imposed on/as consciousness.
An example would be: while doing dishes, staring out the window at a neighbor sitting on the stoop texting while smoking a cigarette, and 'naming' him a fat slob so lazy that he can't even bend over to pull out a 3 foot tall ragweed in his shrubbery, then fretting how my $250 weed whacker was stolen out of my shed and getting all stressed at 'why me' - there is a simple LOOKing - from the mind to what is actually happening here, now, all there really is, warmness soapy water, sponging, rinsing, hearing Joni Mitchell voice CD-ing, sunlight streaming...

Fred, thank you!
It is all new. Fresh. The old pattern, the fog still forms, but there is a LOOKING now where there wasn't just a week ago. It is a 'work in progress' that is not work but a joy, ever changing ever staying the same ever lapsing from the known into the unknown, moment by moment. A freedom from fear? may be the best way to describe IT.

Dan

[Freddi]

Hi Dan

Thank you for your detailed responses. Just to push this a little further …

The net, the grid, the 'me' only exists in the un-SEEN, as the un-SEEN. The 'I' exists as apparition, pre-occupation. 'I' am not THIS.

Step out of the mind stream for a moment. Come back to the breathing, notice all that is unfolding right now. Notice the shapes, the colours, how it moves, how it dances.
Do you see/experience a ‘net’, a ‘grid’?
Without relying on thought, how do you KNOW that the ‘me’ exists in the unseen? That the 'I' exists as apparition?

Aside from all the non-dualistic mumbo jumbo, if there is anything that 'I' took away from a guide named Eckhart Tolle, it is that 'my' main responsibility is to act from this still center of simple being. Better to act from a state of simple awareness of the NOW than from a mental 2-D movie imposed on/as consciousness.

What do you SEE that could be responsible for anything, even ‘act from a state of simple awareness’?
Do you see an entity that could turn this seeing on or off, like a tap?

Also could you give me a couple of examples of events we would usually call ‘decisions, choices’, in everyday life, and describe how you SEE them unfold, in real time? This could be what route to take somewhere, what to cook for dinner, whether to call a friend, anything that pops up.
When you would usually have thought about a ‘Dan’ deciding the outcome of these things, what do you observe now?

Warm wishes,

Fred

[daniel philip]

Hi Fred,

Well, this has been an extraordinary last few days. Intensive introspect-ing. Then an equally potent relax-ing.

Without relying on thought, how do you KNOW that the ‘me’ exists in the unseen? That the 'I' exists as apparition?

Words words words, they so get in the way! But what's in the way is the way.

• My experience changes from moment to moment. Subtle, blunt, harsh, but that which observes it never changes.

• Is there an experience-r or a simple experience-ing?

• At this point 'I' seem to be shifting between the two.

• Is there an entity that could turn this seeing on and off like a tap? No such entity can be found. I don't even know what that word 'self' means really. I keep looking for IT and no-thing can be found. Only a projection in the form of thought that keeps comparing the objects that appear from moment to moment to some pre-conditioned belief. The 'self' if you want to call it that, you can call it anything you want, is built into the thought.

So, you could call that thought the 'experience-r'. The experiencer is the thought. That experiencer is the 'me'. I experience the world as this and as that, separate from it, acting on IT according to some past input/belief.

• There is a shifting that 'happens', no-thing or no-one is shifting it, of a focus from that 'process' to a simple, pure experiencing. There is no entity that is responsible for this re-focusing.

For example: Yesterday the mailman came by while there was a 'gardening' happening in front. One of the envelopes was sent by the city codes department. The action of pleasant gardening was disrupted by a thought of alarm. Entering the house and opening it the alarm grew to a sense of panic as I read 'Your above subject property is in violation of city code bla bla which states it shall be unlawful for any owner, lessee or bla bla to permit within 10 feet of the curb and brush, weeds or grass to a a greater height than 8 inches. Please make arrangements to have the vegetation cut within 5 days or the DPW will cut it and a service charge will be added to the tax bill."

The experience-r kicked in with a vengeance. 'Me'? 'My' property is one of the best kept on the block! Another thought rose - it must be that small patch of grass the utility co planted this spring that grows faster than the rest of the lawn, and I don't notice it behind the hemlocks that much. Who turned me in? Thoughts firing off like a machine gun, enflamed by the feeling of indignation. It must Gwyn, my immediate neighbor. He mows into my property all the time, but he's such a nice guy! The edger came out, extension cords, whacking down 4 feet of 10 inch grass with thoughts of 'his new grass is at least 8 inches high, I should leave him a note that bla bla bla.'

A shifting of awareness, a re-focusing. An 'owning' of the raw emotion, the indignation, the anger, a 'seeing' of a separate 'me' in the emotion, as the emotion. A relaxing into hot, humid, glaring sunlight, fresh cut grass scent, deep breath, a clearing. Upon entering the house I looked at the letter again. In the state of alarm the sentence RE: 129 Riverview Pkwy South. ! ! It was my rental house, on the other side of town. The house of cards of 'me' collapsed into a state of what could be called a 'witnessing presence' that got in the car, drove by the property, a seeing that the lawn had been mowed in the last day or two.

Is there an entity that turns this off and on? In the LOOKING there is just a happening. Nothing is responsible for it. It is one movement inside and outside. Did 'I' lose a 'self' at some point in the past and don't even know it? Who or what would know it? All this jabber over the decades preaching I have a 'self'. Well 'it' a thing can't be found! Only a river of changing faces searching for an ocean. Searching to be one with what it already is. Conversing with strangers on the other side of planet Earth to determine if, or not if, this 'thing' exists.

To sum up, there is a knowing, a seeing of a relaxation happening, where what could be called a separate 'self' is being called out as a fake, an impostor. There is a SEEING of each thought about a 'Dan' for what it is, every decision that 'Dan' makes is just part of what's happening making itself happen as it happens.

All worded out!

Wait - this might illuminate in some way. This word keeps popping up with any mental questioning of the concept of a separate self:

Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to any change in its state of motion, including changes to its speed and direction. It is the tendency of objects to keep moving in a straight line at constant velocity.
The 'self' is the resistance in every thought to any change in its state of motion by WHAT IS.
The 'witnessing presence' is the change that is being resisted. Once the witnessing presence gets moving, there is nothing to stop it, for it is WHAT IS.
Bla bla blah!

Peace!

Dan

[Freddi]

Thanks, Dan
I have no further question. I will now invite other guides to take a look. They may or may not come back with questions. I'll be in touch shortly!
Warm wishes,
Fred

[Freddi]

Hi again Dan,
Three other guides have now taken a look at our exchange and there are no further questions...
I will now send you a private message about what follows.
Thank you for the privilege to accompany you in this investigation. It was a real pleasure.
Warm wishes,
Fred

[daniel philip]

Thank you with a big heart Fred. This has been an intensely clarifying inquiry into awakening. Your guidance has been superb!

I look forward to hearing from you again.

Peace,
Dan