The Gate

Hi again,

It still is really hard to do the exercises, especially the first one (blackboard). There is some kind of intense resistance, and thoughts like "I want to move on to the next thing, not stay with this" come up.

Yes. The idea of "moving on to the next thing" is an attempt to escape the thing that makes you fearful. The mere length of your thread tells me you like to "move on." You have been taking what the guides are pointing to and turning it into an intellectual exercise, like a dog chewing on a bone. No more bones for you. Stay right here and keep looking at what is making you uncomfortable. Everything you need is within this thread, and more specifically, within what I have given you.


The concept of "enlightenment," or "stream entry," as some call it, is simply what I call the freedom from the tyranny of thought. It is not spiritual. It is simply a psychological/sociological shift involving the decoupling of emotion from thought. The thoughts that are making you uncomfortable are the ones to look at throughout the day. You are already seeing that thoughts are not necessarily true, and that realization is pointing to the fact that everything thought says that you are- a "who"- is threatened.

Stay with it. Write what comes up.

Hi,

thanks for your reply. I guess this isn't completely unexpected and makes a lot of sense in retrospect. Your post makes the issue very clear though, which it wasn't before. I will stay with what you gave me so far, and look at uncomfortable thoughts during my day.

I was thinking that it feels like I have already been looking at uncomfortable thoughts for quite a while, but that "it didn't help", and that I didn't know what to do to change them. Then I somehow realized that this is exactly the thing to look at, this "it didn't help" that is fearful.

I was also thinking along the lines of "I didn't put enough time into this over the last few days", "I need to adjust something about how I go about this now", etc., and noticed that these thoughts also distract from some underlying issue. What is wrong that needs change?

Thank you again! Will report back with what comes up.

Hi again,

I am going to point you to the same thing I am pointing to from a different perspective to try to help. The following is taken from the group, "Dzogchen Thogal," a branch of Buddhism.


The Role of Thought

Notice any sensory perception. Or look at your shoe. If you had no access to thoughts whatever, no memories, no labels, no concepts, no ideas... the shoe would be an image with no meaning at all. Consider your surrounding sensory environment, absent of all thoughts, descriptions, labels, defining concepts and memories; what would it be like?

Consider your self; taking away all thoughts as memories, names, descriptions and identifications as self-concepts, who or what would you be?

All the “characteristics” of perceptual and mental objects seemingly belonging to the objects themselves, can be discovered to belong only to the thoughts describing them and not to the objects themselves. Try it, look at your shoes with no descriptive thoughts. There would be no thought of color, texture, size, shape, function or meaning.

That’s the true condition of our universe and all experiences. This means the characteristics of everything and everyone are established purely by one’s own subjective descriptions; thoughts.

Phenomena do have some kind of appearance, but nothing becomes something with characteristics, pre-existing one’s designating those descriptions in thought.

Since no one’s subjective descriptions of things are exactly the same, what are the objective characteristics of the objects that transcend all subjective descriptions?

This is how you create your self, others and your world; without creating anything at all!

Samsara is not knowing this, along with the obvious ramifications of not knowing the role and power of thought.

Hey,

I went through the text and 'did the exercise' a few days ago.

Now, somehow I'm having trouble focusing on it. Whenever I want to, it feels really hard to do, and I usually just end up doing something else. I can't really say why. Some kind of fear; Just sitting down with this makes me face the fact that not everything is alright somehow? It's not hiding my problems enough or allowing me to feel like I have "gotten better", which would allow me to dodge them. Something like that. Actually, while I just wrote all of that, a lot of realizations and things were happening. I was in a really bad/dark mood before, but now that is not the case anymore. This feeling good/feeling bad cycle has actually been going on for a few days now (probably also before that), and feeling good was usually accompanied by thoughts and fears of "this will not last/it will be bad again". Now, there was some kind of realization: This fear itself is a big part of the problem. Thoughts like these are resistance and create the problems themselves. The past is over, saying "I was in a bad mood" is about now, and not about the past. The past is done, there is nothing to fear. It doesn't continue to exist or something. That are just thoughts right now.

Okay, let me get to the text you posted and my experiences with it. When I first went through it, it was definitely an intense experience. Especially going through my memories and "taking them away" felt sad, but also relieving somehow. The rest was "just" experiences of looking at things and my 'sensory environment' letting go of labels, thoughts, concepts, etc.

I'm sitting down with it again. One of the first things I noticed was looking around and letting go of the thought that "this is my apartment". Somehow also very relieving. Just taking what's going on/being seen/felt/sensed/etc. exactly as it is, and not as more.

Looking at and "taking away" some memories felt as intense as before. To the question what would I be without memories, names, etc., it occurred to me that - of course - I would still 'be'.

Try it, look at your shoes with no descriptive thoughts. There would be no thought of color, texture, size, shape, function or meaning.

This felt quite obvious, and maybe also just became more obvious; I think I noticed (something like) this before: Basically thoughts are not the things they talk about. Even more, only thoughts create the idea of "things". "Red" is only an arbitrarily chosen word.

All of that makes sense, and I can see (or glimpse) how it is true. But the question that comes up for me is basically "how does this help me?". It feels like I'm not trying to get to the bottom of this, but treating it as a 'game' again or something.

Okay, I'll leave it at this for now, it's getting late here. Thank you again!

Hi again,

Before we go on, I want you to read the list of things that LU is not. Please read through and see if anything resonates with you. If so, you need to think hard about whether or not this is the right place to remedy what you think is slowing you down or stopping you from seeing what we point to here.


Liberation Unleashed is not…

Throughout the years our many guides have discovered that one of the major obstacles to the direct, clear seeing of what is already magnificently the case is a thick layer of expectations and narrative about a self’s journey towards enlightenment, built up by years and years of seeking. Getting these expectations out in the open and out of the way is an important first step. Below is a list explaining what the LU process is not:
•This is not a way to escape your daily life.
•This is not about gaining something extra, becoming something special.
•This is not about cultivating an altered state of consciousness.
•This isn’t a trick of the mind, or twisting the mind into believing certain thoughts.
•This is not about gaining a particular bit of knowledge.
•This is not about having a certain thought or sequence of thoughts.
•This is not about becoming a holy, good, moral or better person.
•This is not a belief, religion, or a philosophy, it not magical or mystical.
•This is not going to lead you to eternal peace and happiness, it is not about happiness.
•This is not about freedom from emotions and intense feelings.
•This is not about getting rid of self, ego, I.
•This is not a solution to problems in relationships.
•This is not a way to get free of depression or other diseases.
•This is not about stopping thoughts, changing thoughts, getting rid of thoughts.
•This is not a way to make the story of you disappear.
•This is not about convincing you of anything.
•This is not something that will lead to accumulation of money or things.
•This is not a self improvement program.