Inspired by Jed

[Bananafish]

Can you paraphrase what you call
"energetic presence" into a word
a 5-year-old kid can understand?

Please reply by just writing that word,
nothing else.

[Merrick]

Force.

[Bananafish]

Which one of these is "force" the closest to? Please choose from the below three:

1. thought
2. visual image
3. bodily sensation

[Merrick]

3. bodily sensation

[Bananafish]

Is that sensation you?

Is that sensation yours?

[Merrick]

Is that sensation you?

The sensation is simply a perception arising in my awareness. What I am perceiving cannot be me. Just as the rock on the ground that I perceive is not me.

Is that sensation yours?

Well this sensation in particular cannot be anyone else's as I am the only one who can experience it so it may seem like it is "mine" , but again, there is no "me" therefore, the sensation doesn't belong to anyone. The sensation doesn't require an owner to be experienced. It just happens.

[Bananafish]

That sounds like a logical conclusion.

Please feel that sensation again, observe it carefully, and write whatever comes up.

[Merrick]

Hi Bananafish, I would like to take about 2-3 days before I respond so I can really observe and feel this sensation again. I found that since you asked me to do this, I have been "on the lookout" / being more 'present as the watcher' and therefore because of this alertness, this 'sense of self' rarely comes up lol. I would like not take 2-3 days so that I can just allow it to naturally arise without looking for it and really look into it.

[Merrick]

Typo* I would like to take 2-3 days so that I can just allow it naturally arise without feeling like I need to be extra alert, which just causes it to rarely, if ever, happen.

[Bananafish]

No problem at all, Merrick! :)
Please take your time ... looking forward to hearing from you.

[Merrick]

Hello, hope you've been well!

I am finding this rather difficult. I don't even know what a "sense of self" is really anymore. I'm trying to look for it when it pops up so I can observe it, but it doesn't happen. When my ego/self is triggered by something, yeah I get lost in a whirlwind of thoughts. When I try to "observe it" and "experience" it, I am simply becoming present and then this sense of self is not felt.

How do you observe something that only comes up when you are not observing it? Everytime I feel my ego pop up, I try to directly experience and become aware and instantaneously/simultaneously, the ego is gone. I try to think about how the experience WAS, but then you said do not interpret/speculate. I understand this, there is no point in wrapping the experience around with concepts as this is not the true experience. When I think about the 'sense of self'/ego that popped up just a second ago, it feels like I was in a dream and I am now awake. I was lost in the dream of thought. This sense of self only comes up in dream form. Never in direct experience.

But how do I observe and experience this sense of self directly? It seems the sense of self is exactly the opposite of observing and directly experiencing. How do you observe the 'unobserved'?

[Bananafish]

What if the "sens of self" didn't exist at all?
Of course, you can't observe something that doesn't exist!


You wrote that lots of thoughts pop out
in a certain situation. How can that lead to the conclusion that there is a "you" that is "lost" in it? How can you say that the "ego" made it happen? That sounds like a sheer fairytale to me.


Sit quietly and observe any thoughts that come up. When you feel "lost" in it, look for the one who is lost. Is there any?

[Bananafish]

Here's another one:

If the ego comes and goes, where does it come from, and where does it go? Can you directly, without thinking or imagining, observe it?

[Merrick]

Sit quietly and observe any thoughts that come up. When you feel "lost" in it, look for the one who is lost. Is there any?

So I was sitting there, observing my thoughts until I got lost in them again. When I snapped back, I was trying to see if there was a self that was lost. I of course as usual, didn't find the ego/self but this confused me. What is it that is getting lost then? I thought, ok so awareness itself is lost in the stream of thoughts. I was trying to observe this, but of course, I was just turning the awareness itself into another perception/thought.

So what is this then? What is it that is getting lost in thought? I guess it is the awareness itself that gets lost in thought... It's just that you cannot have any thoughts about this/observe it, or as Alan Watts said that this is like 'trying to bite your own teeth'. Awareness cannot look at itself.

So yeah, there no "one" getting lost in the thoughts, it was just being lost...

Ok so as I am writing this, I am having some epiphanies.. I kept trying to see if there was a "self" getting lost in thought. Even imagined the 'awareness' as a "self" getting lost in thought. But how is awareness a "self" when it is dependent on everything it is being aware of as well. Just as how there is only seeing but no 'seer', hearing but no 'hearer', thinking but no 'thinker', is this the same thing? There was a "getting lost", but no "one being lost". The being 'lost' is the whole experience, with no experiencer behind it.

Here's another one:

If the ego comes and goes, where does it come from, and where does it go? Can you directly, without thinking or imagining, observe it?

Since this 'sense of ego' or whatever only comes when I am lost in thought, it is sufficient to say ego comes and goes is the same as when the thoughts come and go. These thoughts are very strange to think about. They just appear and disappear. What the hell are thoughts anyways? What the heck is a 'thought'.

They just appear out of nowhere and disappear out of nowhere. I cannot directly observe this ego. Not even thoughts. When I DIRECTLY observe them, the thought vanishes, but often, a new thought overlays the direct experience of observing the previous thought. So it's like:

Thought A > Observe Thought A > Thought B about observing thought A > Observe Thought B > Thought C about observing thought B > Observe thought C > etc...

I am not sure if what I am about to say is right or wrong, but, it seems I cannot directly experience/observe a thought/ego.

[Bananafish]

Good ...

If something is unobservable and not able to be experienced directly, can you still say that
it exists at all?