Could you guide me?

[Jack'n'theBox]

Thanks Glenn, some people go with a bang, some people don't. In fact for some people the shift is so subtle they don't notice it at first. We still need to do some work on expectations -- maybe your ashram days have left you with an unrealistic idea about 'states' -- precipitiation into bliss almost never happens for anyone and all the best teachers will tell you this -- Adya, Mooji, Joan -- have a look at what Shinzen Young has to say here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoAbCgmhqdM

Seeing through self is the end of searching but the beginning of exploring -- it's a gateway -- nothing more.

[nowitis]

Thanks Mark, I don't think precipitation into bliss is my expectation, indeed, if there is an expectation or shadowy condition in me about this it's much less solid than that. But apart from 'telling myself' to stop searching I can't say that searching has ended.

[Jack'n'theBox]

We've talkied about this a bit before -- it's hard to search fro something that's not there! Try this exercise:

Suppose I extend my hands to you and, lying, say—here is a watermelon.
And I give you an imaginary watermelon.
You take the imaginary watermelon and “hold it”. Go ahead, do it. Hold the imaginary watermelon—huge—in between your hands.
Now I ask you: what you should do to get rid of this watermelon in your hands?

Now how does this relate to 'getting rid' of self?

[nowitis]

Sorry Mark, I dropped the ball (or watermelon...) - didn't see that you'd posted back. The watermelon metaphor makes plenty of sense conceptually - of course getting rid of something that doesn't exist is as easy as....(what did Da used to say? Stopping pinching your own ass...) - but that doesn't make a lot of difference experientially.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Hi Glenn, not sure how to go forward here. As you say, we don't seem to be getting anywhere 'experientially' -- and that's the crux -- intelectual understanding doesn't cut it -- the kind of realisation we're after can't be grasped by the mind. If you go back to page 5 -- there seemed to be a stream of experiential insights leading up to an 'a ha' momen when you got what the 'Direct Experience' method is really getting at. But then you seemed to backtrack very quickly into 'still believing in self' and from that point on we've been doing more talking than looking.

So let's get this clear -- do you really want this? What we offer here is a method of direct inquiry that reveals the illusory nature of the self belief. This (mostly) doesn't come with bells and whistles and it (mostly) doesn't result in big changes in a person's life (though things continue to unravel over time). It's not possible to see through the false self view without sustained attention -- no days off or leaving things to the weekend -- it's a relentless pursuit, like a fox hunt, without that passion to really LOOK at direct experience, it just isn't going to work for you.

So why don't you look and see what volitions arise -- do you still have that passion that brought you here and the necessary drive to really look at your experience and get this thing done?

[nowitis]

Thanks Mark for the reminder, and the nudge. I don't think my motivation is changed although I've felt very discouraged lately. There's also a certain amount of confusion in me because you sometimes refer to a very intense looking in the moment - and then in this most recent statement from you there's a sense of more sustained pursuit. The daily contact formula is both helpful - and I sometimes wonder what the dickens to say, particularly when I'm as busy as I am.

All that said, your most recent note oriented me today to the vitality of this process, to a vigorous looking and I found myself fresh again. So thank you.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Hi Glenn,

I mean sustained in the sense that you keep coming back to it throughout the day -- sure you're busy but we've said before that there is always-already no self all the time -- not just when feeling one with the flowers -- all experience is arising and passing in the moment empty of any centre-point or reference outside of itself. Take 5 in the midst of a stressful event (or just after -- go to the bathroom or something) and just look -- what is 'stress'? It's just a label for a bunch of stuff arising. Who is stressed? Where is the centre-point of the experience? Is there some 'thing' outside of the sensations/thougths occuring that it is happening to? If you really look and see there is no 'thing' outside the experience then you're done!

So let's look at these beliefs that are holding you back . . .

What does it mean when we say we “believe” something? If you look at any belief, can you see that "Belief" is just a label that one thought claims to apply to another one. And sometimes a feeling arises more-or-less simultaneously that gets labeled as part of what "belief" means. Then another thought label: "Oh, this must be a real belief because there's that feeling about it too. What do you mean when you say you still 'believe in a self'? Unpack that belief in experience (not in thought) -- take it apart -- what is really happening?

[nowitis]

Hi Mark, thank you: here's the scoop on the day: sitting quietly this morning, nothing special, just noticing and realizing that apart from thoughts and various experiences there's nothing else whatsoever. Certainly not ''a self,'' other than the various concatenations of thought and sensation/feeling. No self. No big whoop, although quite relaxing, or very relieving.

Then into another busy day. And your suggestion to take five here and there, although I could remember it and it seemed like a good idea.....but it's as though I can't quite take a breath big enough to encompass the simplicity and the elegant self-evident truthfulness seen for a longer period of time this morning, and to actually take five, and to really pause for a few minutes seemed increasingly difficult as the day went on, as my habitual sense of self assembles itself believably over and over and over again.

But I know the way now. I know if I sit undistractedly for a few minutes and simply do an inventory, soberly register that all that is in experience is simply experience itself, and a bunch of thoughts claiming to represent an I, and that there really is nothing else other than this - then things are very plain.

And now I'm tired, and I still have notes to write from the day so I will write you tomorrow. Thank you very much for persisting Mark.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Hi Glenn, let me push you on this, you say:

"...as my habitual sense of self assembles itself believably over and over and over again".

What, exactly, is the agent here? Really look and see. What is it that is 'assembling' stuff and what is it, exactly, that is being assembled? And what is it that makes this so-called assemblage believeable?

OK do this for me -- really do it -- grab a random novel and read a few pages from it. Note how the characters, the scenario, the sounds, the descriptions, the conversations, all the 'content' of the novel comes alive in the mind -- is invested with a 'sense of' reality in the mind (I say sense because we known it's not real).

OK consider this -- your mind is engaged in exactly the same process every time a thought appears -- 'you' are nothing but a story about 'you' projected by the mind. You have a sense of self as really existing -- but that sense of self is just a sense -- it doesn't refer to anything in experience, just as the 'sense' that the characters in the novel are real exists, but the characters don't!

[nowitis]

Hi Mark, thanks.

I could say the agent is forgetting, or habit/momentum because every time I look, in any moment when I come to, consciously and examine what's happening there are simply I-referring thoughts and various kinds of experience going on. The next moment the intensive looking vanishes in favor of what seems like my habitual occupation of identity - I am the self those thoughts refer to. And yes, that self I am turns out to be just thought.

It's very similar to the novel-reading experience (I love to read novels, last thing at night before going to sleep and am vividly aware of my pleasure in slipping away into a world that is entirely created): a lazy, somewhat mesmerized or lulled, almost hypnotized feeling.

And the question came up today, as I sought to be direct-experience-present during a stressful interaction, "Is what's asked here to make this kind of effort ongoingly and continuously so there's an enduring recognition that there's never anything except experiences and thoughts, with the latter offering the mesmerized world-of-self that doesn't exist?" Because every time I'm present in this way (although it's laborious, akin to shaking awake the recognition of what's actually here, not staying hypnotized by what thought says is here, namely I) I'm aware of the quality of there being nothing other than experience + thought.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Still too much thinking Glenn. Drop the effort. There is no strain necessary. Looking at experience to see there is no self behind/at the center takes the same amount of energy as checking your pockets or briefcase to look for your cell phone. Can you think of a belief that you used to hold that suddenly you realised wasn't true? Do you need to keep checking back to see that the belief isn't true? No! Once the belief is seen through, that's the end of it -- it is no longer believed. You're making this much too hard for yourself.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Hi Glenn,

OK I need you to actually DO this and not speculate about it. Think of a scene in the last novel you read that really moved you, maybe you even shed a tear. Maybe you were sad about the event in the novel for a day or so maybe you even feel a twinge of sadness now when you remember the scene and your response. However what you probably didn’t do when you read the sad scene is cancel your appointments or not have dinner with the GF because you were ‘too sad at this thing that happened in a novel’. Nobody acts like that because we know the characters in a novel aren’t real – that doesn’t stop us having affective responses to them – but we don’t take what happens in a novel PERSONALLY.
OK now go into a memory from your past where you felt sad – maybe someone wronged you. Feel the intensity of that feeling – maybe betrayal, maybe guilt, but an underlying unhappiness. Visualise the harsh words said, the tears, the recriminations. Revisit those emotions. Alright, you’ve just visualised a scene from the ‘story of me.’ Explain to me how, in experience (what is happening in the moment, right now) how these two visualisations are different – the sad scene in the novel and the sad scene in ‘my life’. How is ‘Glenn’ any different – in the visualisation of the scene in the moment – any different from the very same mental processes that conjure up the sad scene from the pages of the novel.
Now you don’t believe in the novel – why do you believe in this other character that also only exists in the imagination, called ‘Glenn’? Why do you take what happens to Glenn personally?

[nowitis]

Thanks Mark. A couple of things:

I can imagine that it would be quite maddening when I ask this, but it keeps coming up: the "you" (that would be the "me") that is making this difficult - I feel fairly confused about what that entity would be, since there isn't one. Is this a case again of a nominal self, a social self, on a par with the one who says Of course I'll get you a beer when he's acting the host at a party, and doesn't say There's no one here?

I think you're probably right, I'm making this too hard but I think you also misapprehend something about me: I still very often believe in the I. I'm embarrassed to tell you that I haven't exhaustively sat down and deconstructed this matter of believing, despite several very clear and detailed invitations from you to do so. And, or yet, there are times like this morning when I'm showering and aware of the perpetual flow of thoughts and suddenly realize, like last night too that what I've taken to be thoughts produced by me are just thoughts appearing, and nothing else.

I'll respond to your most recent post, the longer one later today: for now I would like you to know that I did actually pick up a novel and sit down and read it per your instructions and so I did actually do your exercise - later today I will earnestly engage the one you offered here yesterday. Of course, I can see the point of it and it's kind of poignantly impactful.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Hi Glenn, 'you' and 'me' are just convenient labels to describe the diverse set of processes that manage to get up each day, shower, eat breakfast, walk out the door and act in the world. The difference between you and me is that I have seen that they are just labels so when the shit hits the fan I don't take it personally. Let me give an example -- on my flight to Boston last month the plane's flaps weren't working so we couldn't slow down to make a safe landing so we had to make an emergency landing with fire trucks and all. It was pretty hairy. But the experience was one of adrenalin, heart pumping, huge surges of energy -- but no mental projections into the future about 'me' in flames -- this was the first time for me post-gate to see that the connection between direct experience and mental fabrication has been fundamentally altered. I just can't project disaster narratives about 'me' into the future because I've seen that there is no 'me' as a separate entity from whatever is occuring in the moment that could 'have' a future. This works for the past too -- there is no 'one' there.

Trying to figure this out through mental speculation doesn't work. You *can't* figure it out. If you could, you'd have done so long ago. The illusion *cannot* be seen through with the same thinking that's creating it. The *only* place to SEE it is in direct experience.

I keep giving you exercises to do -- like the one a few posts back about really LOOKING to examine the mechanisms that sustain/produce belief -- but you don't do them -- or you don't really investigate and report back on what's going on -- you just get lost in musings and speculations. Stop doing this. Just look.

[nowitis]

Hi Mark. Yes, I wouldn't be surprised if my responsiveness - or lack thereof - is a bit annoying. And, I did do some exploration of believing this afternoon, although I'm afraid I don't think I've quite gotten what 'looking' means, and I'm feeling a little anxious in replying to you in case this isn't right either. I just don't seem to quite hit the switch of what's being called for here. In any case here's my reflections on believing:

Is there anything outside thought when I say "I still believe in I."? Absolutely nothing - except present moment experience.
Does present moment experience include an I? Absolutely not.
Is there anything lacking in present moment experience, directly experienced? Absolutely not.

"I believe in I": I seem to have the experience of being able to summon this at will - but do I, or does it just happen? What am I really referring to when I reference I? A body sense plus a thought , sometimes a quite elaborate image of possibility based on memory. When that possibility, based on memory works out in actuality the sense of See? That's me doing it is strengthened.

Perhaps I'm too emotional to go at things this way (I know, there is no I so this is an absurd statement - but the loaded emotional content of my own story, as opposed to that in a novel is what seems to repeatedly tip me into self-belief. I can contemplate the difference, even play it out in something like an experiential vein, but when provoked it's a very different story) I seem able to get the reality of I is just a thought in quietude, or relatively contemplative space, but I don't seem to be taking the "I is just a label" reality as deeply inward as you seem to have done.

In other words, I think you've had a seminal event in which you have actually and concretely lost belief in I. I seem to be able to pierce that belief in quiet, but there's no real shift, and I feel some anxiety reporting this to you.