Hi, Vince.
1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form?
Was there ever?
None that can be found in direct looking. And one did not drop away, so must not have been one. However, there are thoughts, memories, leanings, beliefs (known and unknown), that seem to define a self. Thoughts are just thoughts, memories are just thoughts, leanings are just thoughts, beliefs are just thoughts, and all of them can disappear in a poof. There is no solid entity, nor a ghostly presence that can be 'me' or 'I.'
2) Describe how the illusion of an independent, self came into being by giving examples from actual experience.
Then give some experiential examples of how life changed for you after seeing through this illusion.
I don't think I can give examples from actual experience, only from memory, which is thought. Potty training: playing intensely with trucks in the dirt and putting off going to the potty, only to be threatened with punishment if I didn't make it. The expectation that the 2.5-3(?) year old could
forecast into a future that if she didn't stop playing and attend to bladder fullness, there would be a mess and punishment would ensue. She was
expected to have
control over her body, or else.
Shame was a big part of learning a sense of control. If mom did not get me to pee in a toilet, kids at school would have humiliated me into it. The separate self is a tool for control, domination. It produces good little girls and boys who grow up to do what is expected of them. (At least that is how it is supposed to work.)
How life changed for me after seeing through illusion? No big stroke of insight. No idea when or if there was a 'shift.' Just when something was sought, worked for, and denied, there was seen to be more freedom from something that was false. (Getting a 'B' in grad school, and, after suffering for a bit, realizing that none of this stuff that builds up the ego matters.) Or when life did not appear to be working out the way I planned and there was emotional pain over it -- it was important to talk with someone who could help me see the bigger picture or the truth of the matter (rather than agree with me about the 'rightness' of my pain and the wrongness of the other party). No big night and day change, just an orientation towards the truth.
3) How does it feel to see this?
What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days
I suppose when I started this dialogue, I still believed that seeing through the sense of a separate self would mean freedom from suffering. I let go of that belief. There are other beliefs that you helped me drop (it recently took me several days to read through all of my posts and I can't think of anything in particular.) There is some relaxation of expectations. Not so bound up in thinking life would look/feel any different than it does right now.
4) Can you remember any specific inquiry that resulted in an epiphany? ..a before and after seeing the actuality of the Self. Was there a point when you ‘got it’?
No epiphany. No big shift, which is why I have had such a difficult time. There was the expectation of a shift. (I still have doubt related to the lack of a shift.) And it seems that I needed to go away, study other things, learn about the fetters and do a little other fetter work, then come back in order to digest the work that we did before. I was just not ready to accept that there might not be a shift earlier.
5) a) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How does it work?
Give examples from your own recent experiences to how these things happen and how they work.
Decision: There are proclivities towards certain decisions based on conditioning or reactivity to conditioning (such as when someone raised by fundamentalist parents, rejects all religion or joins a cult that is contrary to the original cult). They just happen. I have often watched my hubby research and research and worry over a decision, and then the spontaneous decision he makes has nothing to do with the research findings. It just happens.
Intention: It seems to be pointing in a particular direction without force or will. Who decides which direction to go? (See decision above.) An intention is different from a fantasy; there is an alignment of energies with an intention. It is as if the intention doesn't belong to a contracted individual self, it belongs to life. With allowing and acceptance, life seems to flow in the direction of the intention, and things just seem to line up.
Free will: seems like we touched on this at some point (seems like we touched on all of these at some point), and I forgot the content. So, there is no free will. There is conditioning. Reactivity. Zeitgeist. Things just happen. Things just lined up to point Leela in this direction in life, and to LU, and then Vince just happened to pick this case. While there has been a lot of frustration and a mean-ass inner critic, there does not seem to be an ability to just say, "fuck it!" (But you never know, it could happen;)
Choice: It seems the same as decision. What's different? Vanilla or Chocolate? There might be the thought that I once had a really good chocolate experience, or an unconscious memory, and want to repeat it again that drives me to choose chocolate. I have conditioned myself to prefer one over the other, even though the result rarely lives up to the story. Nowadays, there is frequently no preference (except I would prefer cats not eat birds) and whatever presents itself is OK. Even vanilla.
Control: There is no control. There is sometimes a desire for control, even though control is a fantasy. The desire for control is associated with the sense of contraction, possibly frustration. The illusion of control reifies a sense of a separate self.
b) What are you responsible for? Give examples from your own recent experiences to how this works.
Conditioning says Leela is responsible for a whole lot of shit: other people's feelings, how others perceive me, keeping baby birds from getting eaten by cats, the planet, other people's health and well-being, my own health and well-being, maintaining inner peace. None of this is true. Trying to intervene and fix the things I think I am responsible for just causes a lot of drama. Example: thinking that there is no reason for all the very public suffering someone in my community was experiencing, she just needed to see all the support that was there for her. When I tried to help her see it, the negative voice in her head blamed me for all of her suffering. Lesson: people just need to suffer until they don't, including me. I am not responsible for my thoughts and feelings, or for other people's thoughts and feelings. I'm not even responsible for my reactivity. It does not seem possible to be responsible for anything I do not have control over. I don't control anything. That is a relief.
6) Anything to add?
I do feel a sense of relief derived from writing about responsibility. Like something has been lifted from my being. I may not have fleshed things out enough. And, I may be out in the weeds with some stuff, just let me know and I will look again.
With Love,
Leela