The Gate

Excellent Theta, this is Direct Experience, we look without thought labelling to see what is real and actually there.

There is raw experience: simply hearing, simply seeing, simply tasting, simply smelling, simply touching. There are sensations in the body: hunger, thirst, pain. This is what we call Direct Experience. Then there are thoughts. Thoughts overlay concepts onto raw experience. A thought, or label or concept is never the raw experience. Some thoughts point to raw experience and some thoughts just point to other thoughts.

Now that you are acquainted with direct experience (DE) let’s turn that intellectual understanding into a more experiential one:

While walking in nature, a park or even just sitting, looking out at a garden:

• Find a quiet place, take a deep breath, relax and allow your attention to just rest and take a break
• Allow your field of vision to gently open a little more, NOT focusing on anything in particular
• Allow everything you see to come into you like the sunlight that engulfs a dark room when the curtains are opened
• Allow it ALL to fill you, to be you without any trace of resistance or mind labelling
• Allow the ‘’being’’ of everything in every cell of your body and consciousness without judgement or analysis.

(Thoughts can bubble up but that’s ok, just allow them)

If you feel any type of resistance take a short break, relax and come back to it.

Take your time with this exercise, enjoy it, have fun with it and please report back your experience

Just sitting and being, I feel a cool breeze on my skin;
The cicadas sound like a water sprinkler and an inhalation captures the scent of Nag Champa incense as I sink into the memory foam that supports me.

I often like to focus awareness from one point to another— from hearing with left ear to hearing what’s to my right. Then I’ll focus behind my head just to experience all that’s going on in the moment from a perspective outside of the body.

It’s all a part of my makeup and the sensations and perceptions are not separate.

Hi Theta, I always see this exercise as meditation with eyes open. When we use words either in our head or out loud we can only ever point to Direct Experience (DE) but as we both know: the map (wordy description) is definitely not the territory. In DE the closest I could probably get using words to describe your experience would be:

The cicadas sound like a water sprinkler - hearing happening
Scent of nag champa - smelling happening
Sinking into memory foam - kinaesthetic feeling happening
Noises in right and left ear - hearing happening

All of them….just happening without control, labelling or thinking about them, this is Direct or Actual experience in its purest form.

As we proceed It may appear sometimes that we are using DE as tool to achieve an objective but as you will see (if you don’t already) DE is our birthright. We all have natural inbuilt mental health hardcoded into each and every one of us. This may seem difficult to accept when we look at the world around us but it is an irrefutable fact. The mind is like a pond with a layer of sediment, it will naturally clear if thought isn’t used to stir up all the mud at the bottom. The illusion of self takes its stick of thought and guess what……

Why do we place so much emphasis on DE so early on in this process? Consider this question and see what arises.

As you go about your day consider the pond analogy. Can this be true? Can it be that simple?

Yes, Steve:
I can see it being just that simple as the pond analogy where thought stirs up the bottom sediment (which consists of a lifetime of mental/emotional conditioning.)

Thoughts arise but I need not prioritize them, welcome them or engage with them.
In every moment I’m either holding on to being “a someone” or dissolving it.
Mixing up the mental sediment stabilizes rather than dissolves thoughts/ego.
Embracing “Presence” keeps me grounded and more and more able to remain undistracted by thoughts which say nothing worth listening to.

Don’t you agree?

Thoughts tell the story of a ‘self.’ Just put the book down, know that it’s only a story and look directly at what is real.

PS I really like this quote.
It’s so true.
We buy into so many stories and take so much for granted as TRUE without ever questioning or looking for ourselves!
Better to not trust blindly but verify! ☝🏾

Hi Theta, Something fresh to Look at, please complete the exercise below. The Direct experience of thought is also very important in the seeing through the self illusion. Take your time and really work through this exercise, it can be helpful to get a piece of paper and write it as it comes and in the flow of questioning and looking, clarity comes.

Thought exercise:

Sit quietly for about 10 minutes and notice the arising thoughts. Just let them appear as they appear. Try your best to COMPLETELY ignore what they are saying and just notice how they appear without you doing anything at all.

Where are thoughts coming from and going to?

Did you do anything to make a particular thought or thoughts appear?

Could you have done anything to make a different thought appear at that exact moment instead?

Can you predict your next thought?

Can you select from a range of thoughts to have only pleasant thoughts?

Can you choose not to have painful, negative, or fearful thoughts?

Can you pick and choose any kind of thought?

Is it possible to prevent a thought from appearing?

Were all the thoughts ‘I’ or ‘Me’ thoughts?

What is a thought made off?

What can a thought do?

Can a thought think?

Where are thoughts coming from and going to?
They are part of the human makeup. Their modus operandi is to arise and then dissipate.

Did you do anything to make a particular thought or thoughts appear?
Nothing consciously.

Could you have done anything to make a different thought appear at that exact moment instead?
No way.

Can you predict your next thought?
No.

Can you select from a range of thoughts to have only pleasant thoughts?
No. (Though an elevation in vibration naturally aligns with more positive thoughts.)

Can you choose not to have painful, negative, or fearful thoughts?
No.

Can you pick and choose any kind of thought?
No.

Is it possible to prevent a thought from appearing?
No.

Were all the thoughts ‘I’ or ‘Me’ thoughts?
No.

What is a thought made off?
/memories/ reflections / impressions from sanskaras.

What can a thought do?

Nothing.

Can a thought think?
No.

Hi Theta, we are moving along nicely. Judging by your answers and given your previous non-duality studies I think you have a pretty good grip on what thought is and is not. For our purposes the main distinctions are:

Thought with content: The stories we tell in our heads about people, events and the world around us. When we use verbal labels to describe our experience.

Thought without content: Pure knowing of the world around us and how we relate to it without language based conceptual interpretation.

Exploring our Experience

We are born and for the first couple of years we experience the ‘truth’ of the world around us directly. The world is adventurous, beautiful, wondrous, amazing, colourful and tactile.

Is this true?

We are given a name then taught language which we then use to label things and communicate with other people.

Is this true?

We begin to hear words out loud in our heads and look at things, people, events evaluating them using combinations of these word labels.

Is this completely true or were there other times when you would look at a thing, person or event and there would just be ‘knowing’ without word content? In other words there would not be a ‘self’ telling you what to do?


We then begin to have internal mind made conversations and debates using our word language. This makes us assume that there is a person in our heads with whom to have a conversation and that the events in the outside world happen to that someone. We now feel separated from the world because there has been a veil of interpretation pulled down between us and what is real.

is this true?

The reason for all the ‘Is it trues’ is to encourage you to question everything. Question your own thinking, question what you’ve been taught, question me! Is it true?

What is the real truth of what we are? Is it the word constructed ‘Me’ and ‘I’ or ‘self’ that suddenly appeared when we learned language? Or are we pure awareness in which reality manifests itself free of language based interpretation? Can that be true?

Go back in your imagination to when you were a toddler exploring the world. Relax and go back to a time before language when you were maybe nine months or a year old. How does this baby Theta experience the world? Can you find a ‘Self’ here. Then report back.

Hello again Steve.

I loved reading the further explanation about thoughts.

Baby Theta experienced her world purely from her senses.
There were sensations of hunger…thirst…feelings of enjoyment vs. discomfort (ie wetness vs. the coziness of a dry diaper (nappy to you ☺️).

Is this good or need I dig deeper?

T.

Hi Theta,

Is this good or need I dig deeper?

No need Theta, that’s fine.

Finally seeing through the illusion of self is not a formula to be written out and fully understood. I have no doubt that many who have awakened probably had ‘an inkling’ but never actually knew how they got there and usually don’t want or need to know. This is why it is good to be aware that as we move through exercises and discussions there will sometimes just be points at which we experience aha moments and just ‘get it.’ This is how ‘insight’ works. We sometimes look at a problem and look at a problem and look at a problem and get frustrated and then back away from the problem and when we back away or take a break from the problem space is created for insight to enter and then we ‘see’. At this point it is perfectly ok to move on and progress. As Einstein said: ‘No problem will ever be fixed at the same level of consciousness that created it’.

Mind Labeling Experience

The mind has a tendency to label things that it focuses on. In the course of your normal everyday life have you may have noticed that your mind names things and tells stories about them? When we acquire language the mind learns to label actions: “I walk”, “I talk”, “I breathe,” etc. If you change these labels to “walking,” “talking,” “breathing,” what happens? Is there a real “I” that takes those actions or is it just a case of, walking happening, talking happening, breathing happening? Is there an “I” in the breathing or doing the breathing?

Here is an exercise which examines the way in which the mind labels experience - it takes about 20 minutes and you will need a pen a paper.

This exercise is broken into two 10 minute lots. For each 10 minute period pay attention to any bodily sensation i.e. is there any tightening, or any relaxing?

For the first ten minutes write down what you are experiencing right now using the word “I”.

For example:

I am sitting on a chair,
I am hearing a clock ticking,
I am looking at a computer screen,
I am feeling hungry.

Get right to the point, no past or future fantasy, just a plain description of your experience right here and now.

Then for the next ten minutes continue writing down what you are experiencing but this time without using the word “I”. Just describe the experience as it is happening using verbs.

For example:

Sitting on a chair,
typing,
breathing,
blinking,
hearing the clock.

(Again, watch what is happening in the body.)

At the end of the twenty minutes compare the two ways in which the experience was labelled and answer the following four questions:

1. Is one truer than the other, and If so, which one?

2. What is here without labels?

3. Do labels affect the experience or just describe it?

4. What differences/changes in the body did you notice?

Good day, Steve.
I trust you are enjoying a lovely NOW.

Here is my exercise:

1. Is one truer than the other, and If so, which one? The verb-centric 2nd group

2. What is here without labels?
Just the direct experience of -ing.

3. Do labels affect the experience or just describe it?
Labels make for a lazy experience that’s not accurately described.

4. What differences/changes in the body did you notice?
Removing the “I” allowed me to zoom into what was actually experienced with clarity.
Oddly enough, I felt more present after dropping the “I”.
I wonder why that was the case? Please enlighten me.

Best,
Theta

Hi Theta, yes I’m having a very chilled NOW day…silence is definitely speaking lol.

Is one truer than the other, and If so, which one? The verb-centric 2nd group

Yes, correct but I can tell that you sensed that neither were really true as labels even without an ‘I’ are still the map and not the territory even though they might be a more accurate map.

4. What differences/changes in the body did you notice?
Removing the “I” allowed me to zoom into what was actually experienced with clarity.
Oddly enough, I felt more present after dropping the “I”.
I wonder why that was the case? Please enlighten me.

We naturally know what is truth and what are lies. We know deep down that the concept of a self, ‘Me’, ‘I’ is just a ‘thought lie’ that diverts our attention away from what is real and truly present in our lives. Dropping the ‘I’ probably made you feel more present because you were able to see that without the ‘I’ reference that breathing, sitting, talking, walking, writing were happening perfectly well without a self in charge….the conductor never actually existed and the orchestra played perfectly well without him.

Truth Lie Pointer

Here is how to distinguish truth from lies.

We often lie every day & don't realize it.

For example, the grocery clerk asks, "How are you?" You reply, "I'm fine." While, yes. there is a sense in which we are always fine, even in the middle of suffering, at that moment, you were grieving the death of your dog, you had a slight sore throat & you had a headache, but you didn't feel like sharing all of that with the grocery clerk, so you lied, "I'm fine."

Also, it matters none at all how "distant" the remembered lie is. Besides the fact that time itself is fictional, a kind if lie, as we recall the lie it becomes present in this moment, as if it were happening now. This brings the body Sensation that accompanies lying.

Lies can be intentional or unintentional, conscious or unconscious, even so automatic that we ourselves are fooled.

The story of a separate "self" is a lie.

This is the lie you came here to see through. Therefore, it is helpful to notice the body Sensation of lying as one of the tools for finding the truth of no self.

You want to be in touch with body Sensations & able to clearly express them in words. This will help.

Lies are usually felt in the heart or solar plexus as a contraction that we may label as tight, heavy or tense.

In contrast, truth is usually expansive. We may call it loose, light or relaxed.

First, can you remember a time when you lied to someone you loved?

Here we count anything, lies we think of as "big" or "small" that "matter" or don't "matter."

How are you? I'm fine. No, your knee hurts, but you don't feel like discussing it with the grocery clerk.

It's a lie. A seemingly "bigger" one will work better for this exercise.

Find the lie. I don't need the whole story, just a few key words to refer to it.

Then scan your body for any Sensation (DE or Direct Experience), particularly in the gut or maybe the heart. Check very closely.

What is found?

If you think the memory you used wasn't clear enough, find another one or lie to yourself right now, make something up.

1 + 1 = 14 is a lie.

I love eating worms is (probably) a lie.

Or call up a video of a lying politician & notice what Sensations arise as you listen.

I will give you a clue: it is not that peaceful Sensation you felt before when you omitted "I." (refers to an exercise I gave before this one)

Please report back with what body Sensations (not interpretations) you feel. Bodies can feel hot or cold, heavy or light, contraction or expansion, etc.

"Peaceful" or “anxious” is an interpretation of a body Sensation, not the Sensation itself, for example.

Do you see that?


Please use the quote function when answering. Thanks

neither were really true as labels even without an ‘I’ are still the map and not the territory

Yes. Exactly.

I also like the conductor/orchestra analogy.
That’s clear now. 😀

call up …lying …notice what Sensations arise

"Peaceful" or “anxious” is an interpretation of a body Sensation, not the Sensation itself, for example.

Yes. I see that now.

With a lie to a loved one the sensation felt is literally a heavy heart.
Other lie sensations are felt in my gut.
There is a heaviness.
There is, if I might be allowed to quote Star Wars, the feeling of a disturbance within the Force.
T

Hi Theta, some great ‘seeing’ there.

Actual/Direct Experience - Apple

Have a look at an apple (or any fruit you like.) If you have a ‘real’ apple, you can use it for this exercise.



When looking at an apple, there's color; a thought saying ‘apple’; and maybe a thought saying, "I'm looking at an apple."

What is known for sure? Color is known and thoughts are known.

What about the content of thoughts, what they describe?

Actual experience does not refer to thoughts ABOUT something…because that is only just more thought.

Actual experience is sound, thought, color, smell, taste, sensation and the fact of thought arising, but not its content.

Is there really an ‘apple’ here, or only color and a thought ABOUT ‘apple’?

Can ‘apple’ be found in actual experience?

While these thoughts are known, what they talk ABOUT can't be found in actual experience.

This is what is meant by "looking in actual experience." What you know for sure, and, is always here.

Taste labeled ‘apple’ is known
Color labeled ‘apple’ is known
Sensation labeled ‘apple’ is known (when apple is touched)
Smell labeled ‘apple’ is known
Thought about/of an ‘apple’ is known

However, is an apple actually known?

Have fun and let me know what you find out.

Is there really an ‘apple’ here, or only color and a thought ABOUT ‘apple’?
Can ‘apple’ be found in actual experience?

No. Not really. No ‘apple’ present.
To play on Shakespeare’s classic words:
What’s in a name? An apple by any other name would taste as sweet.

There is only the name or label and thoughts around how we define an apple 🍎.

However, is an apple actually known?

No it’s not known.
I can only vouch for the DE of its color, shape, texture aroma and taste. //_\