Looking for a guide

[poppyseed]

Hi Lanie

This is the raw edge now. The residue. The collapse is clear. You’re walking on ashes. But one thread is still trying to weave itself back into solidity:

I still identify a little bit with knowing.

Good. That’s where we look.
You said:

I feel an attachment to the information, knowledge, and insight I have…

Realizing the empty nature of ALL concepts frees the mind. Holding on to ideas creates limitation, boundaries, opinions, differences, and even wars.
Ok… let’s take a different approach. Let's look at the difference between thought content (description / understanding / labelling / knowing / insights) and the content of direct experience.
Close your eyes and imagine a glass of cool fresh water in your hands. Feel the weight of the glass, its texture, the temperature. Does the water sparkle? Have a sip. Feel the coolness in the mouth running down to the stomach, the refreshing feeling.
Now open your eyes. Drink the water you just imagined.
What is the difference between thought content and the content of direct experience in the world of the 5 senses and what do they have in common?

So I hope you can see that whatever story you have about DE it will be not it. “Reality” is experienceable, but indescribable – knowing of reality could only be an approximation, a model, an abstraction. Even if it is talking about DE, seeing hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling and thinking and nothing else. Is there any meaning without thought content??? So how is knowing different than thought content?
Let me give you another example…
I recently tried a new fruit for me which the locals call “sour soap”. If I give you a description – the fruit is fragrant, sweet and sour, fleshy, and soft – did you manage to experience and get an idea what the fruit tastes like? How can you know what I am talking about if you haven’t tasted that fruit?
The description of experience is no help when it comes to the sense of experiencing. We can talk about tasting the sour soap, but it’s all conceptual: ideas about ideas and not the experience that is happening right now.
Furthermore, without thought labels, there is nothing that is known (in words), nothing with direction or location, nothing really in time, only this/ whatever is happening. To know something is to cut it out from the whole, inseparable, indescribable, just this. It’s like a torch that is pointed to specific pattern in this. But does this pattern exist on its own to be known? Does the pattern exist without the label? There is knowing of something only when there is something. And there is something only if there is knowing of something. Otherwise, an unknown something is an assumption/thought – it assumed to exist even if it is not known/seen. So is there a pure noticing/knowing inherently existing?

I suppose you can say that knowing is like looking/noticing. But even that is still thinking about reality – on a more subtle level, but still.
We don’t experience even our senses individually. Rather, these are different aspects of experience. Thought tells us that our senses are separate streams of information. We see with our eyes, hear with our ears, feel with our skin, smell with our nose, taste with our tongue. In DE, though, it is seen as one experience. Senses affect each other. Although speech is perceived through the ears, what we see can change what we hear. In this video, a man produces the same syllable over and over again. If you watch his mouth, you’ll hear the syllable “fah,” but if you look away, you’ll hear “bah.” Although your ears hear “bah,” your eyes see “fah”. This phenomenon is known as the McGurk effect. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k8fHR9jKVM )

Another example of sensory interaction is how both taste and smell are vital for savouring food (flavour). If smell is lost or impaired, for instance, the taste of food will also be impaired, even if taste receptors on the tongue are working fine.
Here is a fun video that demonstrates how a relationship between sight and touch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DphlhmtGRqI
Even though it might look as there are clearly defined senses, DE shows a different story.
So even the senses are dependently originated which makes them also empty of inherent existence. They exist only as concepts, not as something independent of any other causes, parts, or mental perceptions. Nothing in reality exists in this way; instead, everything is dependent or inter-dependent on a variety of factors for its existence (causes and effects).

So let’s examine:
What is knowing in direct experience?
Is it a warm glow? A sharpness? A silent click? A sensation?
Is “knowing” ever present without content?
Can it exist without a thought saying “I know this”? Or is that just a story tagging along?
Can a sensation “know” anything? Does sight know sight? Does sound know sound?

When you say “I know” — where is the knower?
Point to it. Describe it. Not metaphorically — precisely.
What you’ll find isn’t knowing. It’s a tightness. A protection. A survival reflex.
It’s not clarity. It’s clinging.
The “mind” says: “I know this, I see this, I’ve understood this…”
That’s not truth. That’s an ownership move. It says: “Maybe I’m not the doer, not the observer, not the controller… but I still know.”
But knowing is just…
Thought, appearing.
No different than the weather.

So now burn the last mask of the self:
Let go of knowing. Let the mind not know what this is. Let there be no one here to interpret it.
No “you” who “has insight.” No “you” who “is aware.”
Just this.
Can you find anything at all — not a thought, not a sensation, not a concept — that is separate from what’s happening?
Is there any edge? Any owner? Any witness?
If not…
Then there is no Lanie.
Never was. Just life. Raw. Wild. Empty. Misterious. And miraculously… needing nothing.

Love
Rali

[LanieRO]

Hi Rali,

Hope your week is going well as spring comes to South Africa (pretty jealous; it's getting cold here). Do you have penguins anywhere near where you live? Have you ever seen a non-zoo penguin? I certainly haven't but that seems like the absolute height of wildlife encounters.

I’ve been struggling with this again - the insight that happened the other day seems to have faded and gone, and I keep finding different things that feel like “me” and when I investigate, they seem to dissipate and then a different aspect manifests a feeling of self. I’m also getting a lot of emotional content and story over how these aspects of self were formed and why they feel so important to protect.

What is the difference between thought content and the content of direct experience in the world of the 5 senses and what do they have in common?

DE is more immediate and clear than thoughts. Thoughts take effort to maintain the fantasy, while DE just is. DE can meet needs and satisfy. Thoughts are often fantasies, diversions, assumptions, or illusions. Thoughts and DE can both have extremely similar sensory characteristics

Is there any meaning without thought content??? So how is knowing different than thought content? Did you manage to experience and get an idea what the fruit tastes like? How can you know what I am talking about if you haven’t tasted that fruit?

Direct experience is really immediate and right here; thoughts are like adding a layer and seeing experience through a window.

Your description of a sour sop sounds nice but is absolutely nothing like the experience of it.

Sometimes knowing can be in language - particularly knowledge or experience - but sometimes it’s just sensing - like noticing that someone is struggling, or that there’s tension between a certain group of people. The knowing that feels like selfing to me is intuitive knowing, often about others or complex group dynamics. I’m generally quite perceptive and feel very defensive if someone pushes back against something I’ve picked up on, and identify closely with things that are perceived to be true. These tend to be more sense based than thought based.

To know something is to cut it out from the whole, inseparable, indescribable, just this. It’s like a torch that is pointed to specific pattern in this. But does this pattern exist on its own to be known? Does the pattern exist without the label?

This makes sense for knowledge based knowing and I agree with what you’re saying when it comes to knowledge.

(I re-read this section like, 12 times and I might have lost the thread somewhere in that time, sorry)

So is there a pure noticing/knowing inherently existing?

Like, does noticing exist to notice? It certainly seems like something notices something. Is noticing different from experiencing or seeing? I think of noticing as adding a label to seeing. I might be getting bogged down in the question here a bit though.

What is knowing in direct experience?
Is it a warm glow? A sharpness? A silent click? A sensation?
Is “knowing” ever present without content?
Can it exist without a thought saying “I know this”? Or is that just a story tagging along?
Can a sensation “know” anything? Does sight know sight? Does sound know sound?

When you say “I know” — where is the knower?

I often get physical expressions of emotions. I was recently talking to my sister in law, and through maybe some really small intonational shifts and pauses and microfacial expressions, I got a feeling of distinct sadness and anger and a sense that things weren’t all right. My husband didn’t notice, but I’m completely sure something is off.

So in direct experience, knowing is a physical sense in the gut that maybe involves mirror neurons or something. It is present without content - I can just feel the sense without thinking about it and the “I know this” is probably just a story tagging along that doesn’t need to be there. The knowing doesn’t need content - I don’t need to label the feeling as sadness or anger, I can just sense it and leave it there. A sensation doesn’t “know” anything - sights don’t know sights, sounds don’t know sounds, and there isn’t a knower.


I’m realizing as I write this that perhaps the issue is the story of the knowing and not the knowing itself. When I tell my husband that something isn’t going well with his sister and he doesn’t believe me, it becomes a story that needs evidence and I become frustrated and dig my heels in and try to explain why I’m right - there’s some ego involvement and some pride in being able to pick up on subtle signals that others miss. I’m feeling more confident that the identification with knowing is more related to ego and defensiveness than with actually holding mental content.

Let go of knowing. Let the mind not know what this is. Let there be no one here to interpret it.

I really like this line and this really resonates. Especially “let the mind not know what it is.” There’s such a grasping right now… if not this, then…. Maybe this! But the freedom to not know, to let go of knowing, to not be sure, to not defend anything sounds remarkable all of a sudden.

Also, you are a very poetic writer.

Can you find anything at all — not a thought, not a sensation, not a concept — that is separate from what’s happening?
Is there any edge? Any owner? Any witness?

I think I’m lost in the negatives here. Can I find a thought that’s separate from what’s happening? Or can I find something that’s not a thought that is separate from what is happening?

Or is anything separate from what’s happening? No, of course not, and everything that’s happening is connected to everything else that’s happening and the borders between all the things are just labels and not indicative of inherent separateness.

Is there an owner? I don’t feel like I own what is happening. I do still unfortunately feel like a witness.

[poppyseed]

Hi Lanie

Hope your week is going well as spring comes to South Africa (pretty jealous; it's getting cold here). Do you have penguins anywhere near where you live? Have you ever seen a non-zoo penguin? I certainly haven't but that seems like the absolute height of wildlife encounters.

I live in Johannesburg and penguins are close to Cape Town - actually a bit like pests :). I’ve seen many animals in the wild – mostly in Kruger National Park. Cats are my favourite. Life is really in abundance here :)

I’ve been struggling with this again - the insight that happened the other day seems to have faded and gone, and I keep finding different things that feel like “me” and when I investigate, they seem to dissipate and then a different aspect manifests a feeling of self. I’m also getting a lot of emotional content and story over how these aspects of self were formed and why they feel so important to protect.

That’s actually quite normal. Seeing is never 24/7. There's likely to be a "honeymoon period," and then what we call, "got it, lost it," as untrue beliefs come up to be questioned (doubt). This can go on for months and years. This initial shift is irreversible, just as we can never go back to believing in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.
For any "mind answer" that comes, no matter how correct and convincing it seems, don't stop with a mind answer. What is convinced? What is doubting?
Keep looking/inquiring until it's settled beyond any possible doubt.
It may seem like the self keeps reasserting itself, but this is simply out of habit. That's the default. Every time we get triggered, even just the slightest, the sense of self “jumps back" since there is an emotional charge, and that makes it feel real. Seeing that there is no separate self is NOT the end. Actually, it's just the beginning, the first step. Lost of further inquiry and emotional work is needed to fully live it, to untangle sensations from stories. There is a big difference between seeing that there is no self, and the full dissolution of the sense of self. To get there, it can take years, but it's different for everyone.
When anything that feels like a “me” appears, check:
Does the sense of self have a location?
Does the sense of self have a shape or a size?
Does the sense of self say or communicate anything?
If the answer is yes, how does the sense do this exactly?
Does the sense of self have any characteristics or attributes?
What is the sense of self ‘made of’? An image? Sound? Taste? Smell? Sensation? Thought?
What is found?
What discerns the witness/me, distinguishes it, notices, registers, filters it out from "not me", etc.?
If and when that sense of "me" arises, what creates and/or notices it?
When there is a sense of "me", and thus "not me" as well, look for what "in here" looks out at what is "out there" (i.e., "not me")?
And having experienced a "me" your whole life: was it because you identified with an aspect of experience, or identified as an aspect of experience? Is/was there a difference between identifying with and identifying as something?
That is not a sense, just a thought about it. “Self” is a word.

Sometimes knowing can be in language - particularly knowledge or experience - but sometimes it’s just sensing - like noticing that someone is struggling, or that there’s tension between a certain group of people. The knowing that feels like selfing to me is intuitive knowing, often about others or complex group dynamics. I’m generally quite perceptive and feel very defensive if someone pushes back against something I’ve picked up on, and identify closely with things that are perceived to be true. These tend to be more sense based than thought based.

I think you are mistaking subtlety for a self/witness, a refined perception for proof of a perceiver.
Like: “I picked up on micro-expressions, tone shifts. My husband didn’t. I knew something was wrong.”
That’s direct experience. "The nervous system" picked up something. A pattern arose. A conclusion appeared.
But now—
Where’s the knower?
There was no one doing that. There was just the sensation. The energy. The impression/interpretation.
And then… the story:
“I knew it.” “I noticed something subtle.”“I’m the kind of person who sees what others miss.”
“That means I’m… aware. A witness. Someone real.”
And here we go…The witness sneaks in again — wearing the costume of intuition.

Can a gut feeling be aware of itself?
Or it just IS and “awareness of gut feeling” is just another thought?

“Noticing,” “registering,” “perceiving,” “gut feeling,” “intuition” —
All of these are just thoughts. That gut feeling? That intuitive knowing? That sensitivity to what others miss? Those are gifts of the system — not evidence of a self/an observer/a witness.
They arise. They function. They pass.
And if you don’t label them “mine” — they’re just experience.
Just happening. Like everything else.
Like in cup of coffee exercise it all boils down to the DE of the senses:
Noticing my sister’s in law micro expressions, simply = colour + interpretation (thought)
Special intuition, simply = story/thought

How many times your intuition has turned out to be wrong and then it stops being an intuition? So can we maybe define intuition as thoughts that by chance turned out to be right about what pattern will happen next? Like fine tuning of description?
LOOK! They appear after the fact, like captions slapped on a photo.
Is there noticing happening…
…before the thought “this is being noticed” arises?
Can you actually find this “registering” as anything other than: a sensation - a story - and then a claim: “I perceived that.”
Sit and watch thought label experience:
1.Sound.
2.Shift in the body.
3.Tiny flicker of emotion.
4.Then the thought: “That was noticed.”

What exactly is the “noticing” made of in that moment? Is it any different from labelling/describing?
Is it anything more than the thought: “I noticed that”?
Is that thought known before it appears?
Or does it just arrive?
So — if noticing is only ever a thought after-the-fact…
Where’s the noticer?

There’s no witnessing. There’s just a thought called “witnessing.”
There’s no noticing. Just a thought: “I noticed.”
There’s no registering. Just a thought: “That was registered.”
All of it post-hoc narration. All of it ownership language.
Perception ≠ perceiver.
There is no witness behind the witnessing.
There is only:
Perceiving.
Felt.
Labeled.
Claimed.
And it’s that final claiming that creates the sense of self.

You said ypurself:

That gut feeling... the ‘I know this’ is probably just a story tagging along…

Yes — so take it all the way.
The “noticing” isn’t real. It’s not a thing. It’s a mental gesture — a label, nothing more.

Look again.
What you’re calling “noticing” is just what’s happening.
Then a thought comes and says:
“I saw that.”
“I registered that.”
“I picked up on that.”
But what if there’s nothing doing the picking up?
What if the thought of noticing is the noticing?
Then what’s left?
Just this.
Nothing noticed. Nothing registered. Nothing known.
Only the raw, untouched, unlabelled happening.

Now drop the word “noticing.” Don’t even “notice.” Just let it be. And report back:
What’s here now, when even noticing is gone?

The witness isn’t special. It’s just the last character the mind plays before exiting the stage.

Without the thought: “I noticed that” — what’s left?
Was the noticing ever separate from the sound, the face, the shift?
If not…
Then there’s no witness.
Just life, unmapped.

Love
Rali

[LanieRO]

Hi Rali,

Sorry - I meant to respond yesterday but wasn’t finished yet and then today I got less and less eloquent as time went on…

What is convinced? What is doubting?

I like these questions. There might be a sense when “convinced’ that something is no longer a question. It’s not that words, ideas, and concepts have been convincing, it’s more that the question has sort of disappeared in place of clarity.

And doubting is the opposite.

Does the sense of self have a location?
Does the sense of self have a shape or a size?
Does the sense of self say or communicate anything?
If the answer is yes, how does the sense do this exactly?
Does the sense of self have any characteristics or attributes?
What is the sense of self ‘made of’? An image? Sound? Taste? Smell? Sensation? Thought?
What is found?

The sense of self feels located behind my eyes or possibly in them and feels like a small weight or energy located there.

The sense of self does not communicate anything but does have a strong tendency to take credit for the conditioned thoughts that pop up, and says “I thought that.” This has been less and less convincing as of late, and tends to manifest more as beliefs or assumptions that might not be verbalized. It also carries around a lot of stress about what this person “should” do and how this person needs to improve and mistakes that this person has apparently made in both the near and distant past. The stress is actually just a physical sensation of tightness and a conditioned thought pattern that comes up automatically.

Sometimes the sense of self changes and is located in the chest and communicates via emotions and energy patterns. There’s been strong feelings of frustration lately. Whatever topic appears in thought, there’s another thought explaining why that thing/person is frustrating. The label frustration is also just a thought. When the label is removed, the energy is still there and shifts in intensity during the day and night, from irritation to rage, self-loathing, and guilt.

What creates or notices the sense of “me”? Nothing. The sense of me is made of thought and the sense of my awareness is another thought. When I look at them directly, they dissipate, but when I look anywhere else they seem to quietly reform as beliefs and assumptions (made of thought). While some thoughts - like about focusing - have quite completely dissolved and it's clear to me that they were just illusions that don’t really exist, this one hasn’t felt clear yet.

The sense of self has no attributes and isn’t directly made of anything, but identifies itself as the intersection of where many of the things that combine to form this person - my DNA, experiences, relationships, skills etc - none of these are independent and none of these are under direct control of the self. It’s clear that the self is not independent and not a free or independent piece.

What discerns the witness/me, distinguishes it, notices, registers, filters it out from "not me", etc.?
If and when that sense of "me" arises, what creates and/or notices it?
When there is a sense of "me", and thus "not me" as well, look for what "in here" looks out at what is "out there" (i.e., "not me")?
And having experienced a "me" your whole life: was it because you identified with an aspect of experience, or identified as an aspect of experience? Is/was there a difference between identifying with and identifying as something?

The witness - which is clearly an imaginary concept - feels like awareness, or the thing that is noticing the experiences of existence.

The part that feels like me (today) is the part with beliefs and assumptions, and makes moral judgements and choices. Awareness sees this.

This is a hard question because I can see conceptually that awareness is a concept and also that beliefs and assumptions are not me and all of these are things that can get melted down and tossed out.

I think you are mistaking subtlety for a self/witness, a refined perception for proof of a perceiver.
Like: “I picked up on micro-expressions, tone shifts. My husband didn’t. I knew something was wrong.”
That’s direct experience. "The nervous system" picked up something. A pattern arose. A conclusion appeared.
But now—
Where’s the knower?

I agree - as I was typing this out it became clear that direct experience (feeling the tension from another) and the thought (there’s something she’s upset about that she’s not saying) could be separated.

The knower feels really closely associated with the sense of self, and very much protected. The sense I get is that morality is believed to be here, as well as some knowing about various virtues - like when it’s a good time to be compassionate vs show courage. These types of judgement calls feel very personal and there’s a sense that there has to be a self to make this call.

But again, the question of where is the knower? Who knows what is right or wrong or what those are? These feel really personal but I suppose they are just socially conditioned, like all of the other beliefs that are held.

Can a gut feeling be aware of itself?
Or it just IS and “awareness of gut feeling” is just another thought?

Yes, I think both. I think sensations can be aware of themselves, or we can think about sensations.

How many times your intuition has turned out to be wrong and then it stops being an intuition? So can we maybe define intuition as thoughts that by chance turned out to be right about what pattern will happen next? Like fine tuning of description?

Yes, this makes sense.

LOOK! They appear after the fact, like captions slapped on a photo.
Is there noticing happening…
…before the thought “this is being noticed” arises?

Yeah, I guess noticing does happen after direct experience and is always rooted in thought. Before noticing, it’s just experience experiencing.

What exactly is the “noticing” made of in that moment? Is it any different from labelling/describing?
Is it anything more than the thought: “I noticed that”?
Is that thought known before it appears?
Or does it just arrive?
So — if noticing is only ever a thought after-the-fact…
Where’s the noticer?

Noticing is just announcing “I noticed that” as soon as a thought appears. Noticing is just thoughts stuck on top of other thoughts.

But what if there’s nothing doing the picking up?
What if the thought of noticing is the noticing?
Then what’s left?

There is nothing left. And the noticer is just a thought.

What’s here now, when even noticing is gone?

I guess nothing

what’s left?
Was the noticing ever separate from the sound, the face, the shift?

I guess not. I was making a story there about how I was picking up on these things - but these clues were just left, and they just were, independent of anyone’s ability to interpret.

[poppyseed]

Hi Lanie,
Thank you again for your honesty and depth in your last message — there’s so much richness in what you’re seeing, and your willingness to examine even the subtlest identifications is what allows this unravelling to keep unfolding.
A few key threads stood out that are worth staying close to:

The sense of self feels located behind my eyes or possibly in them and feels like a small weight or energy located there.

Sometimes the sense of self changes and is located in the chest and communicates via emotions and energy patterns. There’s been strong feelings of frustration lately. Whatever topic appears in thought, there’s another thought explaining why that thing/person is frustrating. The label frustration is also just a thought. When the label is removed, the energy is still there and shifts in intensity during the day and night, from irritation to rage, self-loathing, and guilt.

You clearly saw that the sense of self appears behind the eyes, or sometimes in the chest, with weight, emotion, or stress. What’s beautiful is that even these, when looked at directly, don’t hold up — they dissolve into sensation + thought. Still, as you said, they reform quietly as beliefs and assumptions. That’s how the illusion persists: not through strong declarations, but subtle re-identification with something slightly more “refined.”

The sense behind the eyes – simply a belief that 'visual sights' are coming from the eyes, because when it's investigated the attention automatically goes to the sensation 'of the eyes', and at the same time the mental image or idea 'of the eyes' appear with it. That could be quickly checked:
What are the eyes in the actual experience? A sensation + a mental image + thoughts about eyes, right?
Can sight (colour) come from a sensation?
Can sight come from an image (of the eyes)?
Can a 'mental image' come from a sensation?
Does a mental image suggest in any way that it is eyes?
Similarly… what is a head in DE? Is it a head, or is it just a sensation (labelled ‘pressure’) and thoughts ABOUT a head? Without thought, how big is your head?
Without thought, does it have an inside or an outside?
Without thought, does it have a location?

When it comes to emotions check:
Inquire into the sensations and ask if the sensation itself knows anything about ‘frustration’, ‘irritation’ , ‘rage’, ‘self-loathing’, and ‘guilt’?
Can you find anyone/anything IN the sensation itself, or BEHIND the sensation that is all of these? Now look at the thought that comes with it. Can you find anyone/anything in the WORD ‘frustration’ that is frustrated?
Once you are at just raw sensation without the thoughts, allow the sensation all the space it needs without pushing it aside or judging it. Sensations come and then go. But, while "you" are “there” look at what the thought is trying to protect.Is there anything that needs protecting?

The knower feels really closely associated with the sense of self, and very much protected.

Yes. That protection mechanism — especially around morality, insight, or perception — is often the final stand of the self. You noted how deeply tied “knowing” is to your sense of being perceptive, emotionally intuitive, reading the room, seeing what others don’t. The story becomes: “This is ME. This is what I bring.”
But what if — even that — is just happening?
Notice the stories…If there is no me how are there others? What are others in DE? What is there to be known? What happens to the knower if there is nothing to be known?
DE is immediate and doesn’t need interpretation.
Thoughts label DE — turning raw sensation into meaning, a thing, or identity.
Even “noticing” is thought tagging DE retroactively.
DE doesn’t require a knower, a center, or a subject.

You also touched on this beautifully:

These types of judgment calls feel very personal… like there has to be a self to make them.

But what if there doesn’t?
What if all of that — the judgment, the value, the discernment — is just conditioning responding to conditions? Is there anyone choosing which virtue to express? Or is the pattern simply playing out — just like weather?
Even that “moral compass” that feels personal may be another way the self survives. Not because it’s bad — but because it hasn’t been seen through yet.

One thing that is becoming beautifully clear: direct experience just is. You’re seeing how “noticing,” “labelling,” and “awareness of” are all thoughts — not evidence of a self, but add-ons.
You said it best:

Before noticing, it’s just experience experiencing.

Yes. And even that doesn’t need a name.
Keep Looking…
Can a sensation know anything? Are there even separate sensations without labels, or just continuous feeling - pulsating, morphing?
Can a story, even one about perception or intuition, prove a self? How exactly? We saw cause and effect live only in thought
Can anything be owned, known, or controlled by something called “you”?
Focus on the feeling of am-ness/being, aliveness.
Can you tell if there is a being or just being?
Is life happening to a being or as being?
Is that “aliveness” any kind of object or subject? Is it even a human?
Is it what you've taken as "you"?

Keep gently returning here. Let the subtle beliefs dissolve — even the noble ones. Even the helpful ones. Even the ones that feel most like “you.”
Because underneath all of that… there’s just this.
No owner. No label. Just happening.
And it doesn’t need to be explained.
Love
Rali

[LanieRO]

Hi Rali,

Thanks for your encouraging words; that meant a lot! There’s been a lot of frustration - there was real seeing through the illusion last week, and then that seeing just disappeared, which has been disappointing, but I guess part of the process. I can understand the mind would not want to let go of itself easily.

And I liked what you said about the assumptions and beliefs subtly moving around and reappearing - that’s exactly what’s happening. I’ll spend some time looking at something, such as thoughts, and realize it’s an illusion and not an “I”. Then my sense of self reappears saying it’s observing or awareness. With time, I can see that those are illusions. Then the sense of I reappears as some aspect of thought or emotion or “knowing” again, and takes time to dissolve. I feel like I’m just chasing it around, and re-dissolving the same things over and over.

I’m even having dreams about this - I woke up the other night with my mind screaming “there’s no WAY I’m not the one noticing” which felt a tad dramatic and rather out of character for a dream.

The sense behind the eyes – simply a belief that 'visual sights' are coming from the eyes, because when it's investigated the attention automatically goes to the sensation 'of the eyes', and at the same time the mental image or idea 'of the eyes' appear with it. That could be quickly checked:
What are the eyes in the actual experience? A sensation + a mental image + thoughts about eyes, right?
Can sight (colour) come from a sensation?
Can sight come from an image (of the eyes)?
Can a 'mental image' come from a sensation?
Does a mental image suggest in any way that it is eyes?
Similarly… what is a head in DE? Is it a head, or is it just a sensation (labelled ‘pressure’) and thoughts ABOUT a head? Without thought, how big is your head?
Without thought, does it have an inside or an outside?
Without thought, does it have a location?

I’ve been working with this concept a fair bit and have really struggled to see through it. (I usually use my feet because they come less pre-loaded with a sense of self).

But if I think of my eyes or my feet, I get both a mental image along with any sensations currently there.

Sight/colour just appears and isn’t from direct sensation. Mental images are also not from sensations; they’re conditioned from images I’ve seen.

If mental images came from sensations, mine would be quite different from what they are currently. Like for example, I don’t think my image of my feet would have ten toes - I’m currently feeling, maybe four toes in total. The front part of my foot would be quite large, as there’s a lot of sensation. I’m not sure I have heels at all, or how my foot connects to my legs in current direct experience. (The eyes are similar but more complicated).

Does the mental image suggest that it is eyes? Yes, but overtly, via thought. There’s no direct connection between the mental image of eyes and the experience of eyes.

And what is a head in DE…. a constantly changing experience. It doesn’t have an inside/outside in DE; it’s simply sensations.
I still sense a location here, because there’s thoughts providing a model of my body and pinpointing mentally where there is a sense of pressure, relative to everything else on my body. This is a mental tag that doesn’t seem to want to drop. (I asked).

When it comes to emotions check:
Inquire into the sensations and ask if the sensation itself knows anything about ‘frustration’, ‘irritation’ , ‘rage’, ‘self-loathing’, and ‘guilt’?
Can you find anyone/anything IN the sensation itself, or BEHIND the sensation that is all of these? Now look at the thought that comes with it. Can you find anyone/anything in the WORD ‘frustration’ that is frustrated?
Once you are at just raw sensation without the thoughts, allow the sensation all the space it needs without pushing it aside or judging it. Sensations come and then go. But, while "you" are “there” look at what the thought is trying to protect.Is there anything that needs protecting?

The sensation does not know the label and there’s no me in the sensation. There is a sense of me (not a real me; an ego-me) in the label, however - a sense like I’ve been wronged or inconvenienced or have done something to wrong others.

I don’t know what the label is protecting. The label causes thoughts which churn and cycle and distract from the feeling, but the feeling isn’t really that bad and it’s hard to imagine that anything in me “needs” to distract from this feeling.

That protection mechanism — especially around morality, insight, or perception — is often the final stand of the self. You noted how deeply tied “knowing” is to your sense of being perceptive, emotionally intuitive, reading the room, seeing what others don’t. The story becomes: “This is ME. This is what I bring.”
But what if — even that — is just happening?

Yes, it absolutely is. It’s thought based and a kind of ego-protection-identity thing.

If there is no me how are there others? What are others in DE? What is there to be known? What happens to the knower if there is nothing to be known?

This question feels… charged, or personal, or scary, or invasive in a way that’s hard to articulate. There’s a lot of resistance here.

Others being no-self is a lot scarier than me being no-self, for some reason. My conditioning makes me excellent at reading others - I had accepted that I wasn’t “knowing” and there wasn’t a “knower” - those were thoughts, conclusions drawn from sense perceptions. That feels fine.

The ego, I think, had a goal of realizing no-self as a way of being a better friend, teacher, partner. More able to understand, more giving and loving, and freer of judgement or competition, or the tendency to take things personally or be insecure.

There’s a feeling that working for others' approval might be more important to me than I’d like to admit, and far less meaningful. There’s a feeling of loneliness. The illusion of knowing my husband feels… important and difficult to put down.

I know I’m “supposed to” arrive at a place at feeling the interconnection of all things or something, but this feels like a complete disconnection of all things.

But to your questions - What are others in DE? Shapes and colours, smells and textures, sounds. What is there to be known? Just like me, there is nothing stable. Relationships are an illusion and an extended thought exercise that relies on a lot of other mutually repeated thoughts. Relationships don’t exist independently. What happens to the knower? Ceases to exist.

These types of judgment calls feel very personal… like there has to be a self to make them.
But what if there doesn’t?
What if all of that — the judgment, the value, the discernment — is just conditioning responding to conditions? Is there anyone choosing which virtue to express? Or is the pattern simply playing out — just like weather?

It really is. This is intellectually obvious, in the way that culture and upbringing shapes individual moral choices and sensibilities. It takes a bit of humility to start to see that any moral “goodness” I’ve exercised isn’t something I can really take credit for and can be dropped.

Can a sensation know anything? Are there even separate sensations without labels, or just continuous feeling - pulsating, morphing?
Can a story, even one about perception or intuition, prove a self? How exactly? We saw cause and effect live only in thought
Can anything be owned, known, or controlled by something called “you”?

Sensations don’t know anything and are naturally always in flow. I “know” all the answers here and continue to ask them every day. They’re playing some sort of musical chairs game in my head where the sense of self moves around from day to day and moment to moment.

Can you tell if there is a being or just being?
Is life happening to a being or as being?
Is that “aliveness” any kind of object or subject? Is it even a human?
Is it what you've taken as "you"?

I’m trying to remind myself whenever I can to be in DE - if feels like life is just being in that state. That state is easier to get into all the time.

Life still feels like it’s happening to me. Sometimes I feel like I’m a stage and there’s a play being performed and I identify more as the stage than the characters but it makes me feel a bit removed, like I’m opting out of being part of the flow. It feels like not quite the right direction.

Aliveness seems everywhere. I am part of aliveness. Not sure that I see myself as aliveness, though.

[poppyseed]

Hi Lanie,
Thank you for another beautifully open, detailed reply — there’s so much honesty and subtlety in your looking, and it’s clear you’re not just going through the motions, but deeply watching even when it gets frustrating or murky. That willingness is everything.
You’re noticing something really important: the self doesn't survive as a single, solid thing — it shifts shape. You dissolve it in one place (the thinker, the doer), and then it reappears as “the one who knows,” or “the one who notices,” or “the one who feels.” That’s the illusion — not a fixed center, but a pattern of ownership, flickering from one place to another. The good news is, you’re seeing this. Over and over. And the pattern breaks each time it’s seen.

It sounds like there’s a subtle (and totally understandable!) expectation that everything labelled, everything conceptual, everything conditioned should fall away — that all mental images, all sense of location, even labels like “eyes” or “pressure,” need to vanish for this to really “be it.” And mostly that will happen automatically once the no self is seen through. That is not the case - as you don’t have just one thought but a system of thoughts forming your view/belief system of reality. Just noticing whatever is happening is enough. Deepening happens on its own with looking.
But here’s something that might land gently:
None of it needs to go. There is a difference between an ‘illusion” and a “delusion”. Illusion is when something can be seen as something else, but the truth of what is real is known. Delusion is when the illusion is believed to be true. So the illusion does not have to disappear as it usually is the case. You know it is an illusion, but it can look the same even after truth about it is known. It can still be seen as both the rabbit and the duck:


Mental images? Labels? Sensations? Thoughts?
They’re not the problem. They’re not in the way. They never were.
What drops is the belief that any of this is being done by a self (the first fetter).
What collapses is the idea that there’s an “I” who needs to see through it all, clean it up, or get somewhere more pure (being a better friend, teacher, partner)
That stubborn feeling of “location” you described? Just another thought-loop — not a flaw, just something to keep bringing attention to. “Frustration,” “rage,” “guilt” — all just thoughts applied to sensation. The sensations themselves don’t know what they are. They just are. They come and the go anyway. The story that rides on top — that’s the protective layer (the resistance, the avoidance, the desire it to be different even though it can’t). Asking “What is this story trying to protect?” will reveal interesting stuff – usually more conditioned stories of how you were wronged or threatened at some point of your life. You don't need to change the story - you just need to see it all as empty and conditioned, and just sit with the raw sensation - experience the good, the bad , and the ugly without resitance.
You’re also beginning to see that even that doesn’t need to be resolved — it’s just another happening. Seen clearly, it dissolves on its own, with its own speed.
So even if labels show up, or mental images arise, or there’s a story about “where the pressure is located”… none of it needs to be shut down (the icons on your desktop).
Just ask:
Is this happening to someone?
Or is it just… happening?
Have you seen the illusion of a Kanitza triangle:

What if the link (self) you perceived is just like the above; an optical illusion? If that lands, you might notice something freeing:
Even the expectation for things to “drop away” was just another thought… appearing like all the rest.
There’s no final state to reach. No clean version of experience to attain. No 2-D perspective. Enlightenment, liberation, perfection—these are all unattainable illusions. The act of trying to attain them through thought is futile, because thought itself is the problem. You cannot think your way out of thought. You cannot meditate your way out of the mind’s trap.
There is just this. Already happening. Already whole.
Even with mental tags, images, preferences — even with the illusion blinking back in — it's still this. Always this.
So maybe "let" all of it be here, including the movement of trying to purify it — and gently ask:
Is any of this being done by someone?
Or is this just aliveness… appearing as mental images, sensations, stories, frustration, doubt, and laughter? Can “life” be happening to anything that’s not separate from it? Can a stage exist without the play? Or are they inseparable?
Does a sound need to be heard to just be? Can you find a dividing line between the sound and the hearing of the sound? See if you can find a way to separate the sound from the hearing and the hearing from the hearer. Where does one start and the other end?
Focus on something in the room. If you have to draw a line in your seeing ending in the observed object, where exactly would it start? Observe the mental images and what is actually there. Is there an actual distance (line)?

Your fear around “others” is quite normal. You’re not alone in this — many experience that disorientation. The idea of relationship becomes untethered. BUT … Loneliness presupposes a self who is lonely. You can't arrive at interconnectedness, because there is no one to arrive and interconnectedness is just another concept - mental gymnastics. What if what you called “connection” was never between two solid selves to begin with? What if it was always just the movement of life interacting with itself?
Let yourself grieve that, if needed. Let the fear arise, too. But also keep looking:
What is “another” in direct experience?
Are “others” experienced, or imagined? If you touch "another" are there two sensations - one of you and one of another - or one? Play with that and see those invisible borders melt.
What you’re feeling is not disconnection — it’s the dismantling of a framework that was never real. And sometimes that’s scary, because it leaves space — but it also leaves freedom.

No need to get rid of the play. Just notice there are no actors.
The self moves from thinker to doer to knower to noticer to location to morality to body — but each time it’s seen clearly, it evaporates. You’ve caught the game in motion. That’s the shift.
And notice what’s behind it all — what’s untouched, still, wordless.
THIS (what IS) is beyond qualities and flaws to be added or removed, accepted or rejected. Perfection is a flawless state where everything is exactly right the way it is, because it cannot be any other way that it is. Faults and flaws in THIS can be found only in thought which, defines THIS as “positive or negative”, to be desired or avoided. Surrendering is what is left when resistance to what is ends.
You’re not stuck. You’re deepening. And as always: it’s okay when the clarity fades — that’s not failure. It’s just the next layer of the illusion surfacing for seeing. It doesn't prove that there is self left, it just shows where looking is needed.
Stay here. Let the beliefs keep rising and dissolving. Let the “self” keep flickering until even the idea of chasing it disappears.

Love
Rali

[LanieRO]

Hi Rali,

I appreciate your thoughtful comments! Thanks for the greater clarification around illusion/delusion, and not having things shut down or off - they’ll remain, like icons on a desktop. A little less of an expectation to completely irreversibly “drop” these things. :)

So even if labels show up, or mental images arise, or there’s a story about “where the pressure is located”… none of it needs to be shut down (the icons on your desktop).
Just ask:
Is this happening to someone?
Or is it just… happening?

Is this happening to someone, or is this just happening? I asked this earlier today and it felt like the mind just… stopped. Stepped out of story and into emptiness.

So maybe "let" all of it be here, including the movement of trying to purify it — and gently ask:
Is any of this being done by someone?
Or is this just aliveness… appearing as mental images, sensations, stories, frustration, doubt, and laughter? Can “life” be happening to anything that’s not separate from it? Can a stage exist without the play? Or are they inseparable?
Does a sound need to be heard to just be? Can you find a dividing line between the sound and the hearing of the sound? See if you can find a way to separate the sound from the hearing and the hearing from the hearer. Where does one start and the other end?
Focus on something in the room. If you have to draw a line in your seeing ending in the observed object, where exactly would it start? Observe the mental images and what is actually there. Is there an actual distance (line)?

Feelings, energies, sensations, stories are all just happening and are just part of aliveness.

There’s such a piece about control here! Wanting to control moods, relationships, events, thoughts. Working to constantly clear or heal or get to the bottom of what’s “wrong” but this is all ways of attaching. The work to drop attachment with self is also an attempt of controlling these things. But they’re just there.

There’s no division between sound, hearing, and hearer.

And there is a line between me and objects around the room, even though that line is a concept. The concept of 3D space has been with me a long time and is hard to drop, even when not in direct experience or not needed. Maybe this is why we love paintings - the concept of 3D space, or movement, when there is any is hypnotic and tickles part of the brain.

What if what you called “connection” was never between two solid selves to begin with? What if it was always just the movement of life interacting with itself?

That’s quite a beautiful thought. I sat with this for a while last night and did feel a lot of grief, but also something quite freeing. A more conventional relationship relies on so many stories, expectations, memories, promises, intentions, and assumptions. There’s a lot of “stuff” in it. And with a partner, sometimes there’s deep love, sometimes ambivalence, and sometimes worse, and these are all dragged along in the relationship along with history and expectations. Letting go of thought means losing a lot of baggage.

There’s also delusion. There’s a sense of safety and having a “good” relationship, when in fact it has the same changing vitality as everything else.

Life interacting with life is a nice way to look at it.

My husband has a terminal neurological disease and these things have been on my mind a lot. He sometimes behaves in ways that are unfathomably out of character. It’s very painful, but I also sense freedom in letting go of a sense that he is a self, and I can slowly drop the expectation that he should be like he’s always been - he’s not a stable self now, nor has he ever been.

What is “another” in direct experience?
Are “others” experienced, or imagined? If you touch "another" are there two sensations - one of you and one of another - or one?

Others are imagined and assumed. There are different sensations that I have around different people and relationships are formed based on this.

If I touch another person, from my direct experience, it’s one sensation.

[poppyseed]

Hi Lanie

Thank you for your beautiful and moving message. Your clarity continues to deepen — not through grand revelations, but through the quiet dismantling of old assumptions. And that’s exactly where this really happens: not in some dramatic moment, but in the gentle, persistent willingness to look again.

... not having things shut down or off - they’ll remain, like icons on a desktop. A little less of an expectation to completely irreversibly “drop” these things. :)

Yes! Mental images, labels, “pressure in the chest,” or stories about what it means — all just icons. No need to delete them, argue with them, or purify them. Just:
Is this happening to someone?
Or is it just happening?
When this question lands, story drops. And it doesn’t mean thought has to vanish. Just like icons on a desktop, stories and labels can show up without being taken personally. That’s all that was ever being pointed to. Not a shut-down of experience, but a stop to the automatic narration. It’s not about achieving some final quiet. It’s about seeing, again and again, that all of it — story, struggle, laughter, tension, clarity — is just life, doing what it does.

Wanting to control moods, relationships, events, thoughts. Working to constantly clear or heal or get to the bottom of what’s “wrong” but this is all ways of attaching. The work to drop attachment with self is also an attempt of controlling these things. But they’re just there.

The work to drop attachment with self is also an attempt of controlling these things.

Exactly. What you said about trying to control moods, healing — spot on. Even the attempt to “let go” can be another loop of trying to manage experience — trying to get it just right. But when that movement is seen too… it also just happens.
There’s no manager behind it. No self who needs to purify anything. And nothing actually needs to be removed. The entire architecture of control starts to fall apart when we stop treating anything as personal.

Letting go of thought means losing a lot of baggage.

Yes. And also, perhaps, a lot of roles. Stories like “wife,” “husband,” “partner,” “good relationship,” “he shouldn’t act like this,” “I’m losing him” — they’re deeply human stories, but they are still stories. And underneath them?
Just life, expressing itself. Sometimes as warmth. Sometimes as grief. Sometimes as confusion. But always just this, never personal, never separate.
Your insight about your husband is both heartbreaking and freeing:
He was never a stable self. None of us are. There’s a deep mercy in seeing that — even if the mind calls it loss.

If I touch another person, from my direct experience, it’s one sensation.

Yes. No division. The whole illusion of otherness collapses here. There’s no second sensation. The feeling of separateness arises in thought — but not in experience.
Can life be happening to someone — if that “someone” can’t even be found?
“Others” only appear in thought. In experience, there’s just this — undivided.
And re: your husband… your words carry so much depth and honesty. That shift from “he should be who he was” to “he never was a fixed self” is heart-breaking and freeing. The idea of “relationship” can be so heavy with memory, identity, story. But life… is just interacting with itself.
Keep looking. Let it all be here. And notice — none of it is happening to a someone.

And there is a line between me and objects around the room, even though that line is a concept. The concept of 3D space has been with me a long time and is hard to drop, even when not in direct experience or not needed. Maybe this is why we love paintings - the concept of 3D space, or movement, when there is any is hypnotic and tickles part of the brain.

Totally — the concept of 3D space doesn’t need to be rejected or replaced. It’s just about seeing that it’s a mental interpretation, not something that exists prior to experience.
The point isn’t to start seeing the world as flat or 2D — it’s just to notice that the idea of “space between things” or “me and the object” is added after the fact by thought. What is space made of, if not just more colour in seeing? Experience can still look 3D, just like a painting or a VR headset appears 3D, but we don’t need to believe that means there’s a separate self in a real spatial container.
It's not about changing the movie — it’s about no longer mistaking the movie for a map.
It's not just about the line and the space. There is no object as well - just shades of colour. Check:
Does a colour/form have a fixed location? Where is "here?" Where is "there?" Where is the reference point? LOOK at the screen in front of you where you reading this. Where is the seer? Is seeing coming from/behind the eyes? (check carefully and let me know if the illusion is still there so I can point further)
Could show from where you are looking at it, and what is there? Is there a "you" in that direction? What do you see?

There’s a lot of tenderness and honesty in what you’re walking through, and I want to acknowledge how profoundly that serves the process. Keep resting in direct experience, and let the grief, the wonder, the confusion — all of it — move through. No need to claim it. No need to solve it. No need to turn it into insight.
Just let it be as it is.

Love
Rali

[LanieRO]

Hi Rali,

Thanks again for your thoughtful reply - I always look forward to your messages!

Yes! Mental images, labels, “pressure in the chest,” or stories about what it means — all just icons. No need to delete them, argue with them, or purify them. Just:
Is this happening to someone?
Or is it just happening?

It’s just happening. I feel emotional energies as just something happening and they are easier to separate from a sense of self than thoughts and ideas.

what you said about trying to control moods, healing — spot on. Even the attempt to “let go” can be another loop of trying to manage experience — trying to get it just right. But when that movement is seen too… it also just happens.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with this lately - the idea of a controller is a really sticky one. I often spend time “with” difficult feelings or beliefs, but it seems to actually be crowding the energy and inhibiting its release and reinforcing some kind of identification with it. Under that is a belief that I can control moods and reactivity or “fix” things, even though this is never true. The controller typically only adds frustration or anxiety to a process that is just happening. And there’s a LOT of identification with the idea that I can control myself, despite there being ZERO evidence that this is true.

a lot of roles. Stories like “wife,” “husband,” “partner,” “good relationship,” “he shouldn’t act like this,” “I’m losing him” — they’re deeply human stories, but they are still stories. And underneath them?

Just life and aliveness.

That sense of being seen and understood by someone felt powerfully important to me, but it’s all sensations. These sensations aren’t bound to the health or existence or attention of one specific person. They’re just sensations.

And there are other sensations too - of grief, or fear - and these are part of aliveness too.

There’s also a lot of thought based frustration over this. Why does aliveness contain so much violence and sorrow and loss and cruelty?

I’m being curious over whether sensations associated with love require a self. For receiving love, it seems like a self isn’t necessary - the sensations are experienced. It feels strange to give love to a no-self, but the DE is very similar.

Yes. No division. The whole illusion of otherness collapses here. There’s no second sensation. The feeling of separateness arises in thought — but not in experience.
Can life be happening to someone — if that “someone” can’t even be found?

I feel like this drives me towards some sort of existential crisis where I feel like I’m the only person who exists and everyone else starts to feel like a figment of my imagination that I can’t prove have thoughts or feelings or ambitions or their own existence.

There’s still such a conviction that I exist - I can sense emotional energies, and thoughts and images and colours and sounds flood in through my body, and I can see the ones that are happening specifically to this body while not to others, that the conviction hasn’t broken. If I think about the no self in others, I feel like the only awareness in existence.

just to notice that the idea of “space between things” or “me and the object” is added after the fact by thought. What is space made of, if not just more colour in seeing?

Yes, I absolutely see all of this conceptually and how “over there” is a thought. Space doesn’t exist in DE

Does a colour/form have a fixed location? Where is "here?" Where is "there?" Where is the reference point? LOOK at the screen in front of you where you reading this. Where is the seer? Is seeing coming from/behind the eyes? (check carefully and let me know if the illusion is still there so I can point further)
Could show from where you are looking at it, and what is there? Is there a "you" in that direction? What do you see?

This is still really difficult for me and I “know” the right answers. There’s maybe flickers of DE but it doesn’t feel intuitive or integrated.

Forms and colours don’t have fixed locations or attributes. Things like lighting or positions are always changing and the DE of objects will change too.

I’m not sure, but seeing seems to be just happening and not behind the eyes. I can’t tell for sure though - I might have suggested that to myself so many times I’m imagining it to be the case, but images and visions that I’m looking at are, I think, just kind of appearing somewhere.

There doesn’t need to be a self to see. I can see this is true for the length of time that I was looking and asking if the seeing needed a self it seemed obvious that it wasn’t necessary, but now that I’ve started typing again, the self that sees has returned.

[poppyseed]

Hi Lanie
So much richness in your reflections — thank you for continuing to look so honestly.

I’ve been spending a lot of time with this lately - the idea of a controller is a really sticky one.

Yes, especially the idea that we should “be with” or “work through” things as a kind of subtle strategy to fix or manage experience. But as you’re seeing, even that’s just another appearance… another icon on the desktop. If even the “doing nothing” is being done — that’s still doing. But when even that’s seen, what’s left?

Despite there being ZERO evidence I can control myself.

Exactly. And yet the assumption of control is still deeply conditioned. It’s okay if it keeps blinking back in for a while — just notice that too. Is this belief being held by someone… or is it just appearing?

I’m being curious over whether sensations associated with love require a self. For receiving love, it seems like a self isn’t necessary - the sensations are experienced. It feels strange to give love to a no-self, but the DE is very similar.

Yes! Because in DE, love doesn’t require a giver or a receiver. There’s no position from which it flows — it just arises. Giving love, receiving love — are those two separate sensations? Or just one movement of energy, felt in different ways? Does love originate from someone? Land on someone? Or is that just how thought slices it up?
Love, just like sound or warmth, doesn’t need a self to happen. It’s not yours. It’s not mine. It’s just here — sometimes tender, sometimes fierce, sometimes painful… but never owned.
What’s left if even love is seen as just aliveness/this… appearing?

I feel like this drives me towards some sort of existential crisis where I feel like I’m the only person who exists and everyone else starts to feel like a figment of my imagination that I can’t prove have thoughts or feelings or ambitions or their own existence.

That deep ache for connection is totally human, and also seen for what it is: sensation, not separation. The grief, the joy, the anger, the numbness — none of it needs a self to be felt. Life doesn’t divide itself up.
As for the fear that “I’m the only one who exists” — notice how that’s just another thought claiming to describe reality. That thought arises within what is/just this, like all the others. It doesn’t need to be pushed away or resolved. Just: who is the one who’s afraid of solipsism? What is solipsism if there is no one to experience it? If there’s no center, no separate experiencer, then who could be isolated?
Solipsism requires a self to be trapped inside a dream. But look again:
Can you find the trapped? Can you find the experiencer?
A mind “inside” experience, watching “others” out there?
Or is the whole thing—“me,” “others,” “aliveness,” “reality”, “solipsism”, "existence"—just more thought-content floating within what’s already fully here? What is existence in DE? There is "stuff"/this happening, but where is the existence? And does it prove the existence of I/awareness/aliveness? Is there non-existence? How is it known? Or these are all stories about this? Some concepts come loaded with more stories than others :)
Right now:
What isn’t already happening by itself?

There’s still such a conviction that I exist - I can sense emotional energies, and thoughts and images and colours and sounds flood in through my body, and I can see the ones that are happening specifically to this body while not to others, that the conviction hasn’t broken. If I think about the no self in others, I feel like the only awareness in existence.

Does existence/this need awareness to just be (to just happen)? Here are two sutras for your contemplation:
The Heart Sutra
The Bodhisattva of Compassion,
When he meditated deeply,
Saw the emptiness of all five skandhas
And sundered the bonds that caused him suffering.
Here then,
Form is no other than emptiness,
Emptiness no other than form,
Form is only emptiness,
Emptiness only form.
Feeling, thought, and choice,
Consciousness itself,
Are the same as this.
All things are by nature void,
They are not born or destroyed;
Nor are they stained or pure,
Nor do they wax or wane.
So, in emptiness, no form,
No feeling, thought, or choice,
Nor is there consciousness.
No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind;
No colour, sound, smell, taste, touch,
Or what the mind takes hold of,
Nor even act of sensing.
No ignorance or end of it,
Nor all that comes of ignorance;
No withering, no death,
No end of them.
Nor is there pain, or cause of pain,
Or cease in pain, or noble path
To lead from pain;
Not even wisdom to attain.
Attainment too is emptiness.
So know that the Bodhisattva
Holding to nothing whatever,
But dwelling in Prajna wisdom,
Is freed of delusive hindrance,
Rid of the fear bred by it,
And reaches clearest Nirvana.
All Buddhas of past and present,
Buddhas of future time,
Using this Prajna wisdom,
Come to full and perfect vision.
Hear then the great dharani,
The radiant peerless mantra,
The Prajnaparamita
Whose words allay all pain;
Hear and believe its truth:
gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha

Bahiya Sutta
The "Herein, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: 'In the seen will be merely what is seen; in the heard will be merely what is heard; in the sensed will be merely what is sensed; in the cognized will be merely what is cognized.' In this way you should train yourself, Bahiya.
"When, Bahiya, for you in the seen is merely what is seen... in the cognized is merely what is cognized, then, Bahiya, you will not be 'with that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'with that,' then, Bahiya, you will not be 'in that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'in that,' then, Bahiya, you will be neither here nor beyond nor in between the two. Just this is the end of suffering."

I’m not sure, but seeing seems to be just happening and not behind the eyes. I can’t tell for sure though - I might have suggested that to myself so many times I’m imagining it to be the case, but images and visions that I’m looking at are, I think, just kind of appearing somewhere.
There doesn’t need to be a self to see. I can see this is true for the length of time that I was looking and asking if the seeing needed a self it seemed obvious that it wasn’t necessary, but now that I’ve started typing again, the self that sees has returned.

Yes, I absolutely see all of this conceptually and how “over there” is a thought. Space doesn’t exist in DE

How do you see something conceptually? What is a conceptual seeing, in direct experience?
Isn’t that just a thought — about something? Can that ever be the same as actual seeing — colour, shape, light, shadow — without the thought “this is over there”?
Let the difference land:
Seeing is just seeing.
Conceptual seeing is thought pretending to see.
So look again: what actually shows up… before the concept?
Yes, the idea of distance remains, even if the DE of separation collapses. That’s okay too. Concepts will still arise. But if you look now — does seeing actually come from behind the eyes? Or is that just a persistent story?
Can you find any origin to seeing? Or just a visual field… appearing?
Close your eyes. With eyes closed, you will now experience 'blackness'. There may be other things you can find going on, sure. If you are looking at a bright light, there may be a red glow. There may be sparkly bits or cloudy flecks appearing and disappearing - It really doesn't matter about the specifics. Just to make things simple, whatever you can see with eyes closed, I'm going to refer to it as 'black' or 'blackness' just for simplicity.
With eyes closed, can you confirm that what is experienced is 'blackness' as I mentioned?
Is there anything else in 'seeing' other than 'blackness'?
Can what is seeing/witnessing the blackness be found?
Can a pair of eyes, an 'I' / 'me'/Lanie, a person be found that is witnessing the blackness? Or is there just 'blackness' to be found?
What do you find?
Can an INHERENT SEE-ER be found?
Would anything that is suggested as the see-er/observer/experiencer, be anything other than a concept/idea/thought?
You’re already seeing: there’s no self required for any of this to happen. And if the “seer” returns, that’s fine. Just notice: it appears as a thought. The seeing never stopped.

And there are other sensations too - of grief, or fear - and these are part of aliveness too.
There’s also a lot of thought based frustration over this. Why does aliveness contain so much violence and sorrow and loss and cruelty?

The difference between good and bad is just in the conditioned description of this (your BS backpack). The real bliss/peace comes from experiencing fully all that comes – the good, the bad, and the ugly - without judgement that it’s wrong or right. The key is to realize shoulds and should nots are the very things that make for a distorted view. The world is built not of things but of concepts and beliefs – your bubble of reality. Seeing this clearly - and not as an understanding, but in DE - gives you the freedom and peace, that the seeker dreamed of.
Keep going — but softly. You're not far, because there's nowhere to get to.
Love
Rali

[LanieRO]

Hi Rali,

Whew, this was a hard one.

Yes, especially the idea that we should “be with” or “work through” things as a kind of subtle strategy to fix or manage experience. But as you’re seeing, even that’s just another appearance… another icon on the desktop. If even the “doing nothing” is being done — that’s still doing. But when even that’s seen, what’s left?

That really resonates. I also can’t believe how reflexive and automatic it is! I caught myself ‘doing meditation’ about a bad mood today (first time I caught this! I usually notice after) and it felt almost funny. Like it was ridiculous to “fix” something that was a thought I’d grabbed onto that didn’t mean anything anyway, and here I was, making a mountain out of a mole hill and imagining myself to be disciplined and diligent by “dealing with it.” Nothing’s left. Moods are just thoughts, feelings are just energies. They don’t have inherent value.

Despite there being ZERO evidence I can control myself.
Exactly. And yet the assumption of control is still deeply conditioned. It’s okay if it keeps blinking back in for a while — just notice that too. Is this belief being held by someone… or is it just appearing?

Just appearing. And today it just dropped, once I noticed it was a sneaky thought that was telling me it wasn’t a thought, it was a PROBLEM that HAD to be SOLVED. (Not true, it turns out).

Giving love, receiving love — are those two separate sensations? Or just one movement of energy, felt in different ways? Does love originate from someone? Land on someone? Or is that just how thought slices it up?

That’s how thought slices it. Receiving love and giving love feel the same. The perception of it originating from someone and landing on someone are thoughts.

Love, just like sound or warmth, doesn’t need a self to happen. It’s not yours. It’s not mine. It’s just here — sometimes tender, sometimes fierce, sometimes painful… but never owned.
What’s left if even love is seen as just aliveness/this… appearing?

I guess nothing.

who is the one who’s afraid of solipsism? What is solipsism if there is no one to experience it? If there’s no center, no separate experiencer, then who could be isolated?

I think you’ve quite perceptively gotten to the point that a fear of becoming solipsistic is really a fear of loneliness and isolation.

Solipsism requires a self to be trapped inside a dream. But look again:
Can you find the trapped? Can you find the experiencer?

Hmm, interesting. While sights/sounds/thoughts/emotions are not so identified with, physical sensations have a much stronger sense of identity. There’s a sense of self in physical sensations of the body. The perceiver or experiencer feels enough like a self that it can be lonely and isolated.

A mind “inside” experience, watching “others” out there?
Or is the whole thing—“me,” “others,” “aliveness,” “reality”, “solipsism”, "existence"—just more thought-content floating within what’s already fully here? What is existence in DE? There is "stuff"/this happening, but where is the existence? And does it prove the existence of I/awareness/aliveness? Is there non-existence? How is it known? Or these are all stories about this? Some concepts come loaded with more stories than others :)
Right now:
What isn’t already happening by itself?

It does feel like there’s my DE trapped in solipsism watching others. There’s a sense that focusing on DE - that only my mind can perceive - is a bit isolating.

I think I’m having some weird feelings about my husband - realizing that a lot of our relationship is assumptions and illusions and stories has been freeing, but now there’s a sense of “what do I know?” and the answer is whatever is in DE and in DE, he could be… anything, a robot even, which is just a thought, but an isolating, lonely one. How do I know that he has his own DE? How do I live in DE and yet not feel like he might not really exist?

Does existence/this need awareness to just be (to just happen)?

I guess not; I suppose things can exist without knowledge that they exist.

How do you see something conceptually? What is a conceptual seeing, in direct experience?
Isn’t that just a thought — about something? Can that ever be the same as actual seeing — colour, shape, light, shadow — without the thought “this is over there”?
Let the difference land:
Seeing is just seeing.
Conceptual seeing is thought pretending to see.
So look again: what actually shows up… before the concept?

By ‘conceptual seeing’, I kinda meant ‘thinking’ but didn’t want to admit it. There’s times where it’s tricky to discern whether I’m seeing through an illusion or simply imagining I’m seeing through an illusion. I “know” space doesn’t exist in DE and can’t really tell if I imagine it ceasing or actually see the illusion of it.

What actually shows up? I see the colour, the shape, the light and dark. And then the concept slides in and the object is identified and the distance approximated and a sense of ‘this is in front of that’ comes in as well.

ut if you look now — does seeing actually come from behind the eyes? Or is that just a persistent story?
Can you find any origin to seeing? Or just a visual field… appearing?

I don’t think it does come from behind the eyes. I think it’s just seen and later attributed to eyes after the fact.,

Not quite sure what an origin to seeing is… it’s not usually planned, with a choice to start seeing; it just happens without intending. Even moving my eyes in certain patterns is completely unplanned and habituated.

Close your eyes. With eyes closed, you will now experience 'blackness'. There may be other things you can find going on, sure. If you are looking at a bright light, there may be a red glow. There may be sparkly bits or cloudy flecks appearing and disappearing - It really doesn't matter about the specifics. Just to make things simple, whatever you can see with eyes closed, I'm going to refer to it as 'black' or 'blackness' just for simplicity.
With eyes closed, can you confirm that what is experienced is 'blackness' as I mentioned?
Is there anything else in 'seeing' other than 'blackness'?
Can what is seeing/witnessing the blackness be found?
Can a pair of eyes, an 'I' / 'me'/Lanie, a person be found that is witnessing the blackness? Or is there just 'blackness' to be found?
What do you find?
Can an INHERENT SEE-ER be found?
Would anything that is suggested as the see-er/observer/experiencer, be anything other than a concept/idea/thought?

Yes, it’s blackness with my eyes closed.

Anything else in seeing? My eyes still move in their conditioned patterns - like up and to the side, if I’m looking for an answer. If I let my mind wander, I can start imagining scenes; not sure if I’d count that in “seeing” as much as in “thinking” though.

A witness to the blackness? Can’t find anyone. (I looked for a long time). No one witnessed; it was just blackness.

This was incredibly stressful.

I kept asking if the seer is just a thought… and it seems that it is (I’m cautious about imagining seeing this). But I think that the seer is a thought. I couldn’t find anything else and the mind had no answer for that question.

[poppyseed]

Hi Lanie,
This is a really honest post — thank you for staying with it even when it’s uncomfortable. What you describe here is exactly the edge most people reach when the sense of “someone behind experience” starts to unravel. It’s okay that it feels intense. Nothing’s wrong.

A witness to the blackness? Can’t find anyone. (I looked for a long time). No one witnessed; it was just blackness.
This was incredibly stressful.

When the mind meets that raw blackness and can’t find a witness, it can feel like freefall. But notice — that stress you mention, that tightening — that too is just happening, part of the same field. A raw sensation that has a story layered on top, like a sticky note – a conditioned story of cause and effect. There isn’t anyone inside the experience feeling it; it’s simply another movement appearing within what’s already here.

It seems that the seer is a thought. I couldn’t find anything else and the mind had no answer for that question.

Exactly. And notice what happens when there’s no answer — the mind panics a little, trying to re establish footing. It’s fine. Let even that be seen. The reflex to look for ground is just another thought appearing inside the same groundlessness.
You don’t need to push deeper or get rid of the stress. Don’t chase quiet. Don’t try to “see” anything special. The seeing you already described — colour, shape, light, dark, blackness — is it. No one owns it, and it doesn’t depend on a seer to keep happening.

I think you’ve quite perceptively gotten to the point that a fear of becoming solipsistic is really a fear of loneliness and isolation.

It does feel like there’s my DE trapped in solipsism watching others. There’s a sense that focusing on DE - that only my mind can perceive - is a bit isolating.

When the idea of solipsism or loneliness shows up, that’s not a mistake. It’s just another movement of mind trying to make sense of the vastness — trying to find something solid in the openness. It can feel disorienting, even frightening. And that’s okay.
This isn’t about denying what’s showing up — not about pushing away fear, or pretending there’s no pain, or dismissing your need for connection. It’s about letting even those experiences be just as they are, without rushing to make a new meaning or fix them.
There’s no “only one” here, and there’s not even a “one.” There’s just what’s appearing now — thoughts, sounds, sensations, grief, longing, confusion, presence. The thought “I’m alone” is real as a thought — it’s not wrong or bad. It just doesn’t mean what it used to.
If that thought hurts, let the pain be included too. Nothing is outside of this.
If it helps, pause for a breath. Feel what’s here — the warmth of the body, the weight of your seat, the buzz of aliveness behind the ache. All of it, equal. All of it, unclaimed. Just life… appearing as exactly this.
This isn’t a dismissal — it’s an invitation. Nothing is being pushed away. Not even the part that wants something to hold onto.
You're not being asked to “get over” anything — only to see that even this ache is already part of what’s unfolding. Already allowed.
It is almost like the 5 stages of grief - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. In this case it’s the loss of the “I” and "others". The stages are non-linear – these aspects of grief can be experienced at different times and they do not happen in one particular order, or not all of the stages might be experienced. Of course there is no one to mourn the loss of the “I” or "others" but thoughts are self organising and process this differently for everyone. It’s that “sinking-in process”. I will advise you to sit with this fear and allow it to be there. See what it is really protecting and if it is necessary. When the mind sees that there is nothing behind the fear, the protection mechanism stops protecting that nothing. Resistance stops as expectations drop. Surrendering is what is left when resistance to what is ends. When feelings arise, give them space. Feel them, honour them. Ask:
What makes these thoughts more sensitive than others? What identifies with them and “believes” them? Is there a real danger here, is there a need for protection?
You’re not meant to live in isolation from others; you’re seeing that “others” were never separate to begin with, and no one to be separate from. When there’s no boundary, there’s no distance to bridge.

I think I’m having some weird feelings about my husband - realizing that a lot of our relationship is assumptions and illusions and stories has been freeing, but now there’s a sense of “what do I know?” and the answer is whatever is in DE and in DE, he could be… anything, a robot even, which is just a thought, but an isolating, lonely one. How do I know that he has his own DE? How do I live in DE and yet not feel like he might not really exist?

This is a really natural place to land for a bit. When the stories about “self” and “other” begin to fall away, the mind can flip into the opposite story: “Maybe I’m the only one here.” It’s okay — this is just another form of grasping for certainty.
And when it comes to “How do I know that he has his own DE?”…
Notice what’s actually present when that question arises. There’s an image of your husband, maybe some sensations, maybe a thought that says “I can’t know what’s inside him.” All of that — image, thought, feeling — is already appearing in DE. There’s nothing outside it. You don’t need to solve the question of his existence — that’s the mind’s need for narrative. In simple experience, there’s only colour, sound, warmth, texture, movement… all included. You don’t need to declare what any of it “is” for it to be happening.
So rather than trying to believe or disbelieve in “his own DE,” come back to what’s immediate: sound of a voice, sight of movement, feeling of contact, emotional resonance — all of that is real as appearance. Thought builds stories around it, but the directness never leaves. Let the question, “does he exist?” be seen for what it is — a thought appearing inside what’s already whole. No need to chase or deny it.

You’re doing beautifully, truly. Nothing needs to be resolved — just seen.
Love
Rali

[LanieRO]

Hi Rali,

Thanks for your comments; they were quite comforting.

I’ve been feeling a lot of intense emotions lately,because I feel quite destabilized on a very fundamental level and the mind is responding with stress, anxiety, anger, and confusion. These feelings have been directed AT completely random things (e.g. the grapes got squished, my husband paid for something “wrong.”)

I’ve been sitting with things and letting them run their course, and continually find that concepts that are causing stress are hollow and can drop away, leaving a great deal of peace.

When the idea of solipsism or loneliness shows up, that’s not a mistake. It’s just another movement of mind trying to make sense of the vastness — trying to find something solid in the openness. It can feel disorienting, even frightening.

Yeah, that rings true. It feels like a step on the journey.

I will advise you to sit with this fear (of no self, and the no self of others) and allow it to be there. See what it is really protecting and if it is necessary. When the mind sees that there is nothing behind the fear, the protection mechanism stops protecting that nothing. Resistance stops as expectations drop.

Yeah. Some of the reason this is hitting quite hard is on a surface level, these questions were already here - is my husband’s behavior his own, or his disease?

The non-dual aspect is taking it further and showing there might be no real or meaningful difference - in EITHER case, there’s no “self” controlling his actions. The disease piece is just making this feel very direct and immediate and uncomfortable.

What makes these thoughts (mourning the loss of I / others) more sensitive than others? What identifies with them and “believes” them? Is there a real danger here, is there a need for protection?

Losing the self of Craig (husband) results in insecurity - there’s a (not very feminist) part of me that feels really validated to have been “chosen” and it satisfies some insecurity. After sitting with the energy of validation for a while, it turns out that’s just a thought, as is the accompanying insecurity.

So no danger, and no real need for protection. And a lot of peace and calm once that’s seen through.

[poppyseed]

Hi Lanie
Thank you for your openness and honesty — this was deeply felt.

I’ve been feeling a lot of intense emotions lately,because I feel quite destabilized on a very fundamental level and the mind is responding with stress, anxiety, anger, and confusion. These feelings have been directed AT completely random things (e.g. the grapes got squished, my husband paid for something “wrong.”)

Yes, these emotions — anxiety, anger, confusion — may seem random (grapes squished, a receipt paid “wrong”) but they’re not mistakes. The mind is reacting to a deep destabilization, and that’s completely natural. It’s trying to find something solid to hold onto in all this openness. It’s okay. This is just another part of what’s unfolding.
What you’re seeing — that concepts causing stress are hollow and can dissolve when seen clearly — is key. And what’s left is a peace that was always there, just unclaimed.

Losing the self of Craig (husband) results in insecurity - there’s a (not very feminist) part of me that feels really validated to have been “chosen” and it satisfies some insecurity. After sitting with the energy of validation for a while, it turns out that’s just a thought, as is the accompanying insecurity.

I really hear how much is moving right now — especially around Craig, and what it means to see his actions as neither “his” nor “the disease’s.” That’s a powerful insight, but I also want to slow down with you here.
Notice if the idea “he was never there” is showing up as a way to avoid feeling the pain of his changing presence — or of his potential absence. If so, that’s okay too. It’s tender. That’s not failure — it’s just life trying to protect itself.
You don’t need to push the grief aside by replacing it with insight.
Let the grief move. Let the fear speak. Let it say “I don’t want to lose him” and really hear it — not to fix it, not to argue, but to meet it with honesty. There’s immense courage in doing that.
No-self doesn’t mean numbness. It doesn’t mean loss doesn’t hurt. It means the one who clings or resists can't be found — but the feelings are just as real, just as sacred. Let them be part of this, too.

That sense of being “chosen,” of wanting to feel special or secure — beautiful that you traced that all the way back to a thought… and found stillness beneath it.
I want to circle back to what you said about the insecurity — the part of you that felt validated by being chosen by Craig. That’s so honest, and it’s important.
Can you sense that this isn’t really about him — not about his presence or absence, not even about the marriage? That insecurity is older than this relationship. It’s not personal to Craig; it’s the echo of early conditioning… a learned sense of value tied to being seen, chosen, or wanted.
And now, as Craig changes — as the roles shift or dissolve — that old wound gets exposed again. Not because he’s doing anything wrong, and not because you're losing something real… but because something unresolved is being touched.
So maybe the fear isn’t truly about losing him. It’s about losing a story that once covered the wound. And that’s a different kind of loss — deeper, but more freeing, because it leads you back to what was never broken in the first place.
You don’t need to overwrite this with non-dual insight. You can let that young part be met, felt, seen — without needing to defend it or dissolve it.
What would it be like to let the insecurity exist… without rushing to fix it?

Let the mind grieve illusions. That’s also part of the unravelling. And through it, reality doesn’t become colder — it becomes more tender, more vast.
There’s nothing wrong with any of this. Just this. Always just this.
Love
Rali