The Gate

You are smart and observe well. Now, please understand the point of the questions is not for you to end with the right conceptual understanding. It's to shift the pattern that still creates doubt or a belief that you are a self. If it "feels philosophical" it's a good sign for you just to look more and more wholeheartedly until doubt is gone. I could ask you to find me an upside down circle. It could work if you look wholeheartedly enough. Are you up for the task with full commitment and to put all you have in it?

What could possibly be a self that could wake up? What could possibly be a separate self?

Look at all aspects of experience moment to moment, thoughts, feelings, sensations, attention, breath, movement... Is this the self that is confused and could wake up? Is this?

Don't let your analysis control this cause it won't get anywhere except becoming even more intellectually more refined then most people, which you all ready are. Fine and good, serves well many places. Not the point for waking up.

You are smart and observe well. Now, please understand the point of the questions is not for you to end with the right conceptual understanding. It's to shift the pattern that still creates doubt or a belief that you are a self. If it "feels philosophical" it's a good sign for you just to look more and more wholeheartedly until doubt is gone. I could ask you to find me an upside down circle. It could work if you look wholeheartedly enough. Are you up for the task with full commitment and to put all you have in it?

So how I understand this task is that I‘m supposed to watch the thoughts with high alertness to go beyond them, right? How do I do that when my attention is constantly switching around. Like I‘m not supposed to use willpower to force a single focus, that‘s not required. I have a hunch that these pointings are meant for people who can control their attention. That is the doubt I have. That I‘m not able to do it in this way that you are trying to point me in, because I am not able to focus my attention for long enough to be able to see the thoughts more clearly. (if you have “slight ADHD” yourself, was there something that helped you in your process?)

Other than that I cannot find any doubt about this at all. I am very motivated, I mean my orientation is clearly and profoundly towards cutting through mind identification. Maybe I‘m not using the right words for you to understand me, my words often project uncertainty to other people. There is no doubt here. Just a lack of clarity of how am I supposed to do this. I am not looking for conceptual understanding. I am looking for clear instructions.

Ok there is a lot of anger & frustration arising now, not being heard, seen. Needing to explain myself over and over again, people don‘t get it anyway. What‘s the point.

I cannot find a real thinker of thoughts in direct experience, eg sensations, attention, thoughts (without content), perception,…

What am I supposed to do when the fear comes while looking?

What could possibly be a self that could wake up? What could possibly be a separate self?

Look at all aspects of experience moment to moment, thoughts, feelings, sensations, attention, breath, movement... Is this the self that is confused and could wake up? Is this?

There is no self in any of these things. Self is a useful concept for communicating perspective. But it’s not a real thing, I am not able to find it in my direct experience.

I need clearer instructions of what I should do. You want me to sit and look at all aspects of direct experience moment to moment? I can’t. Like I try but my attention just keeps flicking around to other things and then I become frustrated and helpless because I don’t know what to do. I don’t wanna be forcing my attention and anyway there is no point.

If I go to sleep my thoughts stop (for some part of the night at least ). But in the morning I have a feeling of how restful my night was. I had an experience. Thought wasn’t necessary for that.

Ok so I know that I’m not my thoughts conceptually, and that there is no self there. Experientially though it’s hard for me to confirm that, because of the attention spinning around and around. I can go from thoughts to sensations though, which is very useful. I am not sure if you caught that. I feel the tension or pressure that the thoughts create in my head. And then I can relax that pressure by focusing my loving attention there. Is that useful?

On a second reading of the question I saw that you mentioned breath. I am not able to observe my uncontrolled breath. When I focus on the breath it becomes controlled. It’s weird. The first meditation object I get introduced to is the breath. Never worked for me. Maybe that’s a way in? Focus on what’s controlling the breath. What makes for a controlled breath. There’s selfing, clear as day. What do I do with it?

Ok now I notice that there is a person here that’s trying to answer your questions correctly. Tension needs to control the body and put a lot of effort in making sure what’s up. Unrelated to the controlled breathing example above.

Don't let your analysis control this cause it won't get anywhere except becoming even more intellectually more refined then most people, which you all ready are. Fine and good, serves well many places. Not the point for waking up.

What makes you think that my analysis is controlling this process? Maybe it helps me seeing what I am missing. My understanding is that I’m describing direct experience in answer to your questions and adding some relevant tidbits here and there to give context that might be useful for the process. And to ask some clarifying questions so I can answer your questions more truthfully and not just “guess what you mean” (which I’m not very good at).

Thanks, that was fun. I did a bit more than 20min.

First, there was a lot of things to mark down. I could never mark them all. But I enjoyed the exercise because there was something clear to do.

Some grinning and giggling happened. Some yawning. Boredom. Fear. Some lazyness at some point.

Thoughts are generally felt kind forced, means there was a tension associated with them: I have to, should… They were holding expectation about what this should be or what should happen. Thinking about how to do this right, strategizing how to do it better.

More ruminating thoughts towards the end. What does it imply that I’m not doing it. A sense of confusion, trying to understand. More fear towards the end.

At the end I caught myself thoughtlessly putting ticks on the paper, so I had to put some more ticks for putting ticks, that was meta.

One time during the day sit for 5 minutes and attend to experience in this way while while writing to me in real time. Here is me doing it for a few seconds, to give a sense of it:

Hearing jazz music, simply= sound
Looking at computer tabs, simply= sight
Feeling butt on chair, simply= sensation
Thinking if to go on more, simply= thought
scratching in the leg, simply= sensation

thanks! I’ll do that and report back.

One time during the day sit for 5 minutes and attend to experience in this way while while writing to me in real time. Here is me doing it for a few seconds, to give a sense of it:

Hearing jazz music, simply= sound
Looking at computer tabs, simply= sight
Feeling butt on chair, simply= sensation
Thinking if to go on more, simply= thought
scratching in the leg, simply= sensation

just to clarify, i am supposed to write this result of the 5 minute exercise exactly as you wrote above, right?

what does “simply” refer to in this format?
and am i supposed to say the = out loud?

just saying the DE and then saying “simply equals sound” is how I understood the exercise…

Thanks so much for clarifying That helps so much!