Hi Michael
No seer or hearer. This is very clear.
Fine
A knower being absent is less clear to me, but very clear at times.
There is awareness (being aware ) but no knower as a subject :if it were so it would be seen.
No separate self in any shape or form, other than the thought. But that's not a real self. It's an imagined self with no 'actual' reality.
Yes, how do you feel to see this?
I see there is a projection of a me who felt stupid or misinderstood. Usually I believe the projection is me. But the projection can't be tied to anything actual in my experience.
Do you see that all this is a thought story? How can a me (a concept) feel stupid.
Yes, I need to see them as insentient arisings
No effort is needed.
Yes, a bit. I need to spend a bit of time looking at this more.
Practice the discrimination between thoughts and direct experience (seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching or sensations). The label is not the object : the concept water does not quench your thirst.
There is an exercise which will help.
There is a belief that labels have a one-to-one correspondence with ‘reality’. But there isn’t. Just like it is a generally accepted belief that labels like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are inherent characteristics of ‘things’. But actually, they are not.
When you look at the word label ‘
GREEN’, what is the actual experience?
Is the colour red ‘experienced’, or is the colour green ‘experienced’ as the label suggests?
Does the label
‘GREEN’ have a one-to-one correspondence with ‘reality’? Or does the label suggest something else other than what is here now (red colour)?
Is 'green' associated in any way with the experience of the colour red; or is green just a label that overlays the actual experience of red?
If the label ‘
GREEN’ is replaced with the label ‘GOOD’ or ‘BAD’, is the redness affected in any way as the labels suggests?
Does redness become ‘good’ or ‘bad’, or do the labels have no affect whatsoever on ‘reality’?
Best for you