The Gate

Hi Lanie,
Yes. This is very clear.

Months aren’t here. Only here is here. Only now is here.

Exactly.
The story may be useful. The icon may be useful. But it is not this.

The truth or lack of truth isn’t even the point.

Loved that! That’s important. The mind keeps wanting to argue “Is the story true or not?”, but the inquiry is simpler - Is it here?

The two-month sufferer is nowhere to be found.

Yes. That doesn’t erase practical history. It doesn’t deny medicine, conversations, decisions, support, or care. It simply shows that the imagined continuous sufferer is a thought-structure, not an entity.

A TON of suffering is found in time.

Exactly. Psychological time is where the self rebuilds itself. Without it, what remains?
This sensation. This thought. This breath. This sound.
Manageable? Maybe.
Pleasant? Maybe not.
But not a life sentence.
So keep looking very simply… When suffering appears, ask:
Is this suffering happening now?
Or is thought adding before/after, cause/effect, continuity, and ownership?
Without the timeline, what is actually here?
Not to make it disappear. Just to see what is real and what is added. That’s enough.

Would you like to give the checkpoint questions another go?
I really enjoy our conversation and that shouldn’t mean the end of it. We can continue talking about what shows up :)

Love
Rali

Hi Rali,

Sorry for the delay. Been a loooong week. One of my students died, which really sucked, and came hot on the heals of two near-suicides and my nerves are a bit fried and been feeling pretty distracted.

Did you know the architects of Apartheid visited Canada in the 40s to see how we did our Apartheid (called the Indian Act). Canada inspired South Africa and provided a lot of bureaucratic infrastructure to support South Africa in moving forward with racial segregation. And while Canadians will readily condemn South Africa Apartheid, the average person has very little to say on the subject of the Indian Act, which is ongoing. I work on a reserve and the issues caused by ongoing racial subjugation are incredibly significant. Anyways, that was a sidenote.

The mind keeps wanting to argue “Is the story true or not?”, but the inquiry is simpler - Is it here?

Yeah. I can see this clearly.

It’s almost like the mind’s priorities change. From a fixation with “do they think that I think X” to the DE of “flutters in the belly. Anxiety. Fading.”

Psychological time is where the self rebuilds itself. Without it, what remains?

This continues to get clearer and clearer. And nothing remains.

I also love the way you say this. Our psychology so clearly exists in time. Our sense of accomplishment / failure, the things we want and pursue, the things that we regret and feel shame over, thighs that we’re afraid of happening - these are all time based and require a self to exist in order to hold the feelings, or at least to imagine that it holds the feelings.

And there’s that funny feeling that comes online sometimes too - when you’re reminded of something that isn’t psychologically held in the sense of self, and we say something like “I was a different person then.” It’s just the mind rejecting things that don’t fit its own sense of continuity.

Is this suffering happening now?
Or is thought adding before/after, cause/effect, continuity, and ownership?
Without the timeline, what is actually here?

The suffering that is happening in this moment is pretty minor. It’s manageable. Sometimes there is sadness, for my student, for her family, whom I know well. But it is sensations and thoughts. And then sometimes, there are other experiences and the sadness is gone. It’s been clear that the sadness is not continuous; it comes and goes.

Would you like to give the checkpoint questions another go?

Yeah, definitely. I understand it and can clearly see what you’re pointing to.

To be honest, I saw it before too, but was shocked (mad?) that… that’s it. Lol. Had to work through that before I was able to admit that yes, it’s here, it’s seen, it is.

I’m curious what comes next… I’ve heard teachers talk about a constant unwinding, and I can see how that is happening, slowly under the surface.

How long ago did you break the first fetter, and what came next for you? (You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to - I’m just nosy). Did it continue to just unwind or was there deliberate practice?