The Gate

Thanks for the long reply.
'll answer tomorrow.

For entertainment until then:


There were one two mice called Ru and Ri. They lived in the garden of John. They didnt know that he was called that. They just called him ‘Doom’ in a fearful shrill voice. ‘Doom’s coming!”, they would shout when he appeared in the garden. The earth shook under his gigantic feet, and his towerlike body blocked the whole sun.
Ru and Ri quickly jumped into the bushes or dove for their holes before getting crushed by John’s Wellingtons.
Lately John was a lot in the garden. He cleared the ground. There was nothing left to eat for the mice.

Only in the evenings Ru and Ri dared to come out to nibble at some skimpy leaves.
They got hungrier und hungrier and started to quarrel.
“Why did you pick this spot to build our home?”, Ru accused Ri. “We will never be able to raise kids here. Too dangerous!”
“Well you liked the view”, snapped Ri back. “Now it is to late to move. We are too hungry and too weak to dig a new home. Let alone move all the furniture and especially the bookcases.” (It were very educated mice by the way, but that does not mean anything.)

One day, when going to bed, Ri said: “Do you remember my grandmother?”
“Her name was Su, wasnt it?”, asked Ru. “Why?”
“Well, she knew this ancient secret dance that could manifest food.”
“Hmh, that’s just a tale from the fairies”, growled Ru clutching his empty stomach.
Ri remained silent.
“Is it difficult?”, Ru asked.
“What?”
“The dance.”
Ri snapped: “I thought it’s only a fairy tale?”
“We could give it a try.”

Since this day, the two mice got up at sunrise, plucked a dewdop from a blade of gras, washed their faces and feet and started to dance.
The dance included a lot of very complicated steps and jumps and was performed in a circle around a group of daisies.

A week of diligent dancing had passed and no food appeared.
“Maybe it has to be done at sunset instead of at sunrise”, suggested a snapdragon who overheard Ru and Ri fighting about the proper way to do the dance.
Now the dance was performed at sunrise and sunset (for good measure). The mice got weaker and weaker. To rest and not to feel the hunger they slept during the day. But often times they woke up from dreams of delicious vegetables and trees growing cheese. Doom was walking around.

One day Ri sputtered: “Pfpbahh.”
A hole lot of earth had cashed down from the ceiling, covering the bed and Ri’s face. “I can’t move! I can’t move!” Something pressed into her belly. She wiped the sand out of her eyes.
Ru came to her help, pushing the pile of earth from her body. More and more earth fell from the ceiling. Ri was still pinned down on the bed by something. Ru worked hard. He had to push the earth into the corridor, to make some space.
“Carrot!”, he exclaimed.
“Did you say carrot?”, asked Ri shaking her head. Her ears were full of earth.
“Yes!”, shouted Ru. “It worked! It worked!”
And there it was, a delicious tender young juicy carrot, pinning Ri to her bed.
She opened her mouth, sharp teeth glistening, and bit deep into the helpless vegetable.

Now you know, if you see mice dancing around daisies: They are perfoming a secret holy dance from ancient times.
And you can probably guess that the full names of the mice were Ru Les and Ri Tuals and their grandmothers (bless her) name was Su Perstition.

Hi John,

I wanted to give you some tools and approaches to use along the way.

I appreciate that very much.
I will stop analyzing for a while until emotions settle down a bit.

To the extent we are not conscious, then yes, we are a pinball.

I am not sure but i am aware of what is happening (thought and emotions on automatic). I would call this conscious.
And still the pinball is flipping until it falls into the ‘abyss’ (intensity of story dissolves).

Oh i guess this answers it

It is hard, but then this is the challenge of learning to be conscious no matter what the situation

Conscious is: not being touched by thought and emotion. Stories and emotions are not mine. Kind of forgot that.

One way of looking at this is: what is called self, 'Anne', 'John', is basically a stacked set of reactive patterns, yes, mostly from childhood, which play out repetitively through our adult life. We could just leave 'em, do nothing about them, maybe even see them as 'who I am', in which case, all we can do is watch body and mind react to each situation when the jukebox pattern is pressed. Effectively, an organic slave to conditioning. Urgh.

By recognising each pattern, seeing it, owning it, learning about it: where it came from, how we see it as true, challenging its relevance, the pattern turns from a jukebox behaviour, to a nice piece of knowing - 'ah, I'd been seeing myself as this, and now I don't need to anymore. hurrah.' :)

Each pattern we transform, the freer we are. So, someone presses a particular button, in the hope of firing a reaction, and it has no effect, water off a duck's back, the track is not in the jukebox anymore.

So the first example is about just recognizing that everything is conditioned
but still believing in ‘i am the thinker, the feeler, the body’ / recognizing the fiction of self
and conditioning staying in place.

Second example is about recognizing self as fiction and seeing source of conditioning and through that dissolving conditioning.

Our problem is this, that we can't observe a controller.
We acted like we could observe 'Anne' as the controller.
But we couldn't really. We just told ourselves the story that 'Anne' was in control.
But still, we miss that story, and the feeling of control that the story of 'Anne' provided.
Notice that we are not satisfied with mere control like touching each finger on one hand with the thumb - done with complete precision and control.
Oh no, we want more than control, we want to be the controller! :)
We are so used to 'Anne' being in control, that we want a replacement. :D
Now, does control require a controller?
What if control is inherent in this intelligent human being reading this?
Are we willing to drop our demand for a controller?
And who would be observing this controller?
Another supervising controller?

The whole deal is predicated on there being a controller, just like 'Anne'.
And the truth is, we don't like living without that feeling.
At least to begin with.

Hmh, i am not sure you see where exactly i am stuck.
A while ago there was real fear when ‘Anne’ would be seen as fiction. Who would protect me? Will i totally change? I remember this fear from last year. It’s quite irrational when looking back now. What should change? Anne is fiction and never had control. So this fear is gone.

Then there are thoughts, emotions and body experiences. I understand, i am not them. They arise independend. ‘Human being’ might be that, through what life is expressed. But there is no further knowledge outside of what can be observed. There is no god (controller of everything).
For example there is the seed of a chestnut and it grows and blooms and has fruit and throws of the leaves without a controller. From outside there is sun and wind and water, maybe even somebody watering it in the beginning. But there is no controller.
Imagine there would be a controller: ‘Branches, leaves, attention! Today is october 28th. Time: 1602, sunangle: 0.2, temperature: too damn cold. Branches, get ready to drop leaves. Leaves, brace yourself. And have a save trip. Getting rrrready... three, two, one DROP!’
Woooosh.
‘Well done ladies and gentleman. See you in spring. I’ll be off to prepare massproduction of snowflakes.’

Same with human being. Growing and blooming and having fruit (some of them) and loosing hair (some of them), there is active movement and thought and speech and emotion and senses. All with no controller.

I visualize a point of view from where i look from above at a construct of Anne, where a pinball is spinning between mirrors (Anne reflected by environment). When this construct is smashed there is everything just there, thought, emotions, stuff done and a breader view.
(We’ll its not a ‘me’ looking, its just looking).
There is view and its just there, like hearing.
I kind of forgot ‘the space with stuff orbiting around’. Thats probably a better picture.
And ‘not being touched by emotions’. Visualizing this helps to get some space.
I need to remember that earlier, before story explodes.


Only in my thought content there is the idea that control is needed and ‘i’ want control.
When story is not intense i can shift to perception: “There is a fiction of a self and conditioning. And here is just thought and emotion and experiencing.

When story is intense, the content of thought and emotions give the impression of a ‘me’ and truth of the story which is then believed.


My problem is (i think :)) ) how to be not through thinking but through intuition/knowing. Does this make sense to you?
You said there is a very silent voice. Maybe i am looking for that (to drop control on it ?!? :)) )
No, it would be just there like thought and emotion.
Maybe this still means i want to cling to a controller?
I mean i am still stuck in my head when deciding, like: ‘This didnt start smooth, maybe its a sign not to proceed. Or should I keep going?’
I dont know an other way how to do it, only:

Before quitting my job, i did an exercise where i took a seat and i explained all the arguments and thoughts pro/contra quitting.
Then i took a different seat and expessed the emotions pro/contra.
I cried a lot (what else) and felt sure that i had to quit although all the plausible arguments were (obviously) against it.
I had the deep feeling that i had to quit. There was still fear. But that was ok.
Is this how descisions will come?

Anyway. I’ll do your excercise.

Now, spend an hour living life free of any notion of a controller, or having one.

Share what you discover, without a discoverer.

Aah, i wish you had asked me that before i wrote the mouse-story.
Writing was an hour free of any notion of controller :)
Its just writing and playing around and constructing the story and re-reading and correcting, totally forgetting my self, even surroundings.


I picked something to do instead of thinking (writing).
I bought some calendula seeds because they can be still planted in june.

In the morning i lay snuggled on my mat and opened the tent to look at the birchtrees moving in the wind.
There was a layer of thought that implied that there were problems i had to think about to solve or prepare. When this was noticed, focus was turned back on the trees.

When planting the seeds, i poked some holes into the ground with my indexfinger. The measuring of the distance between holes seemed to happen by just looking. In the beginning there were commenting thoughts like “This is good.”
When pouring the seeds into the palm of my hand they looked like short dried worms.
Walking from the table where the seeds were to place where i wanted to start just happened. Bowing down and picking a single seed was happening.
One seed was dropped into a hole, then automatically finger pushed the earth to cover the hole.
Sun on my back was noticed and shadow from moving clouds.
When two seeds were dropped into one hole this was noticed and comment followed: “These were two.”
Moving from row to row was effortless.
I noticed a spot where the mower had missed some plants. In other places some stumps seemed to be left. Thought commented: “Maybe they will grow back.”
The earth from the leveled molehills felt sandy. Different to other spots.
At the end there was thought if i should water the seeds. But the earth was still wet from nights rain. That seemed like the thinking had lead to a descision. Although i know that thought does not controll, it just comments what already happened.
Bc there were seed left, I looked around to check if i wanted to put some seeds in front of blackberry bushes. There was looking and body turning away. I had noticed that the mower had cut everything off up to the bushes. While already turning away, the thought came up with argument.
The planting took maybe 15 minutes.

Later when walking focus had to be repeatedly moved from thought to feet. Feet are moving on their own. Thoughts seemed like they belonged to me and had to be taken care of. This was noticed and focus went back to feet.

The habit of the last days was to focus on thought and feel emotions and thinking they were ‘mine’. This took away focus, and reminders like ‘this is not mine’, ‘i can observe this without being touched’ slipped away from regularly arising.
I even stopped meditating bc it felt better to walk when a lot of thoughts and emotions were there.

So i can not say that i mastered one hour of staying conscious.

I will turn back to meditation and notice feet and body, to make habit of focussing on consciousness stronger.


Big hug
Anne

It is hard, but then this is the challenge of learning to be conscious no matter what the situation

Conscious is: not being touched by thought and emotion. Stories and emotions are not mine. Kind of forgot that.

If you clap hands once loudly in front of you, in that second, you are conscious.
There is no 'Anne' in that second - you are present, wide-awake and aware.

In planting seeds, you are conscious, present and noticing. Noticing two seeds drop into the hole. Noticing thoughts come by comments on this or that.

When not conscious, you fall into the thought as the reality, hooked by it, until you emerge two hours later into the light like a thought mole. :)

So yes, the stories are not mine because there is no mine, no my for mine to make sense.
If you fall back into 'Anne' mode, now 'mine' makes perfect sense through that lens.

Same with human being. Growing and blooming and having fruit (some of them) and loosing hair (some of them), there is active movement and thought and speech and emotion and senses. All with no controller.

Yep.

Only in my thought content there is the idea that control is needed and ‘i’ want control.

The thought content has no power. You have to take it and treat it as true. This is identification. Identification with a thought as true. To see a thought content as just that, content, is to be free of it, in terms of not acting as if it were reality. Thoughts about planting seeds might come and be useful. Thoughts about "What am I doing this for, when I could be writing instead" we are more likely to buy into, and jump on that bus. But both are the same - thought content.

My problem is (i think :)) ) how to be not through thinking but through intuition/knowing. Does this make sense to you?

The more you attend to being conscious of the simple things in life - noticing the feet walking, the hands typing - the less you'll get hooked to identity thoughts, the more space opens up to simply be, and feeling, intuiting your way through life, as life.

You said there is a very silent voice. Maybe i am looking for that (to drop control on it ?!? :)) )

See above.

No, it would be just there like thought and emotion.
Maybe this still means i want to cling to a controller?

Sure, and we notice that, and open the hand.

I had the deep feeling that i had to quit. There was still fear. But that was ok.
Is this how decisions will come?

Yeah, they bubble up, and being conscious, you sit with the bubbling until the decision arrives.
Or the decision is not made.

In the morning i lay snuggled on my mat and opened the tent to look at the birchtrees moving in the wind.
There was a layer of thought that implied that there were problems i had to think about to solve or prepare. When this was noticed, focus was turned back on the trees.

Trees are wonderful teachers.

When planting the seeds, i poked some holes into the ground with my indexfinger. The measuring of the distance between holes seemed to happen by just looking. In the beginning there were commenting thoughts like “This is good.”
When pouring the seeds into the palm of my hand they looked like short dried worms.
Walking from the table where the seeds were to place where i wanted to start just happened. Bowing down and picking a single seed was happening.

Yes, very utterly ordinary.

One seed was dropped into a hole, then automatically finger pushed the earth to cover the hole.

I'm not a fan of 'automatically' :) because of the mechanical connotations. This is one fucking intelligent organic being planting seeds here. :D

Sun on my back was noticed and shadow from moving clouds.

Sun on my back - nice.

When two seeds were dropped into one hole this was noticed and comment followed: “These were two.”
Moving from row to row was effortless.

Yes, effortless. The 'effort' kicks in when we hook into some thought about what should be happening, and how it isn't as I thought. Hmmmph. :)

I noticed a spot where the mower had missed some plants. In other places some stumps seemed to be left. Thought commented: “Maybe they will grow back.”
The earth from the leveled molehills felt sandy. Different to other spots.
At the end there was thought if i should water the seeds. But the earth was still wet from nights rain. That seemed like the thinking had lead to a descision. Although i know that thought does not controll, it just comments what already happened.
Bc there were seed left, I looked around to check if i wanted to put some seeds in front of blackberry bushes. There was looking and body turning away. I had noticed that the mower had cut everything off up to the bushes. While already turning away, the thought came up with argument.
The planting took maybe 15 minutes.

Later when walking focus had to be repeatedly moved from thought to feet. Feet are moving on their own. Thoughts seemed like they belonged to me and had to be taken care of. This was noticed and focus went back to feet.

Cool.

I even stopped meditating bc it felt better to walk when a lot of thoughts and emotions were there.

Yeah, much better to be conscious of making the bed, washing up, walking, opening a cupboard, breathing, noticing thoughts about this and that, noticing having identified, coming back to be conscious again, smiling. :) All good.

Much love,
John

Hi John,

reading your comments always opens space for relaxation. :)

If you clap hands once loudly in front of you, in that second, you are conscious.

Clap if you are here :)

Only in my thought content there is the idea that control is needed and ‘i’ want control.

The thought content has no power. You have to take it and treat it as true. This is identification. Identification with a thought as true. To see a thought content as just that, content, is to be free of it, in terms of not acting as if it were reality. Thoughts about planting seeds might come and be useful.

No touching!
If you pick up a hot coal, you get burned.
Just observe and check if useful.

The more you attend to being conscious of the simple things in life - noticing the feet walking, the hands typing - the less you'll get hooked to identity thoughts, the more space opens up to simply be, and feeling, intuiting your way through life, as life.

‘Feeling my way through life.’
That is beautiful.
Like an animal. Smelling and listening and touching.

Yeah, they bubble up, and being conscious, you sit with the bubbling until the decision arrives.
Or the decision is not made.

Waitin’ for the sizzle and tickle.

I'm not a fan of 'automatically' :) because of the mechanical connotations. This is one fucking intelligent organic being planting seeds here. :D

:)
Living free like a cat.
(Without worrying that Gemma has prettier fur.)
But also like a human being, observing the habits and emotions.

Yes, effortless. The 'effort' kicks in when we hook into some thought about what should be happening, and how it isn't as I thought. Hmmmph. :)

Resisting needs effort.
Accepting is effortless.
Weird that we struggle to resist and instead think that accepting is hard.
It’s the fiction of self and control kicking and screaming.
Consciousness is accepting.

Yeah, much better to be conscious of making the bed, washing up, walking, opening a cupboard, breathing, noticing thoughts about this and that, noticing having identified, coming back to be conscious again, smiling. :) All good.

And you got clean dishes :)

Love from Anne

You're on it Anne. :)

Resisting needs effort.
Accepting is effortless.
Weird that we struggle to resist and instead think that accepting is hard.
It’s the fiction of self and control kicking and screaming.
Consciousness is accepting.

Whether we accept it or not, it's all given.
Just look around. All given.
Didn't have to lift a finger.
Relax and receive it - just for moment.

And you got clean dishes :)

Nothing better than consciously cleaned dishes. :D

So, looking back to when you started this inquiry, how would you reflect on what has come about within you since then?

With much love,
John

Hi John,

Whether we accept it or not, it's all given.
Just look around. All given.
Didn't have to lift a finger.
Relax and receive it - just for moment.

Calmness is always there, underneath.

So, looking back to when you started this inquiry, how would you reflect on what has come about within you since then?

Calmness.
But not a calm covered with layers of unwelcome emotions pushed away,
waiting for something (expectation), tension in the body and focus on thought.

Instead
calm being there (given :) ) when nothing else is touched.
You would probably say ‘space’.

Its like impov-theater without a director and played without a script.
Sometimes the script of ‘Anne’ is picked up.
For example yesterday at the checkout with a long line of ppl in front of me. Anger arising bc i would miss the bus. Weird the strong emotion, bc i didn’t have an important appointment :)
The script has not to be dropped. When observing, i notice that it is still on the floor.
Problem with language is that it implies a doer and activity.
‘Observing’ and ‘looking’ implies activity, same as ‘not touching’ implies a doer who does not do.
‘Receiving’ implies that a receiver could decide if to receive or not.
It is given and it is received. Acknowledged with open heart.


It seems to be all backwards, the opposite of what is taught by society.

Actually it’s
Don’t pick the story up
instead of taking responsibility for your self (story).

Taking responsibility for my emotions by focusing on me
instead of judging others and trying to change the world.

Not touching anything
instead of calming down.
Observing
instead of letting go.

Acknowledging
instead of struggling for control.

Finding resistance hard and acceptance easy
instead of the other way round.

Not believing thought
instead of thinking thought could think.

Looking at now
instead of thinking your way out of confusion.

Seeing there is nothing real that could be hurt
instead of improving and protecting your self.

Looking inside
instead of seeking outside.


Love from Anne

Hi Anne,

Really enjoyed walking through the woods with you. :)

Wishing you well on this adventure of discovery called life.

With much love,
John

Dear John,

thanks for whipping me :)

I am very grateful for the detour you took. Actually it helped in seeing.

Every character of the Pooh-story or a mole or … lots of pointers will remind me fondly of you.

Thank you for your patience and persistence and respect and kindness.

Love from Anne

It's a pleasure. :)