The Gate

Hi ennio

Thank you for your answers. You are doing good with observation of thoughts.
See that when a thought is noticed, is has already arisen. It is the case for the thought "I choose to think about apple".

About the mind, you are using the meaning given by buddhist. Here, we use awareness (being aware) instead of mind.

I invite you to be familiar with LOOKING AT DIRECT EXPERIENCE. Here are some practices ;
There is a big difference between knowing that there is nothing to give up and seeing that there is nothing to give up.

Here is an example to illustrate the difference:

If I ask you what colour socks you are wearing right now you have two ways to come up with an answer:

• You can have a think about it, you can think back to this morning and try to remember putting your socks on, and you can probably tell me what colour you think they are.

• Alternatively, you can take a quick look at your socks and tell me what colour they actually are!

Hopefully you would agree that you can only be 100% certain by looking.

For the purpose of our dialogue together, it is going to be very important that you are clear about this difference. Knowing is about knowledge which is all in the mind and we are not interested in that. We are only interested in looking at and seeing what is actually going on in your present moment to moment experience. We are only interested in your direct experience in the moment.

Practice :
Here's an exercise that I would like you to try as many times throughout the day as you can. Label daily activities simply colour/image, sound, smell, taste, sensation, thought.

So for example, when having breakfast, become aware of:-

Seeing a cup, simply= image/colour
Smelling coffee, simply = smell
Feeling the warmth of the coffee cup, simply = sensation
Tasting the coffee, simply = taste
Hearing the spoon stirring the coffee, simply = sound
Thought about drinking the coffee, simply = thought

Just break down daily activities into these categories (which are all actual/direct experience) and report back how you go.

Best for you

Hi warissem!

I finally made it back :-)

I completed the exercise. Here is just one example:

- Seeing the cursor blinking on my laptop screen = image/colour
- the smell of cinnamon in my coffee = smell
- feeling my hat on my head = sensation
- hearing my water bottle open = sound
- tasting my water = taste
- thinking about drinking my coffee = thought

The more I broke down my daily activities into these distinct categories, the clearer it became that direct experience is just an aggregate of these 6 groupings at any given moment. They’re all working together to create the direct experience.

While I’ve been away from LU these past couple months, I had a first fetter shift. I’d love to discuss this with you some more.

Warmly

N

Good evening

Glad to see you back. You speak about a shift : can you describe what happened?
Is there a separate self in any shape or form?

Waiting for your insights

Best for you