The Gate

thank you for your encouragement in doing this excersice thoroughly
and for pointing the origins out to me annie.
i love it when things make sense :)

good morning annie,

here is a review of my observations since yesterday:

1.) Scent

there has not been a single scent that i noticed triggering any thought since yesterday.

i know when i come upon a very attractive scent, i often halt and
inhale deeply, i might try and trace it, to get more of it, for example
if i know it's coming from a flower or a bush. but i don't care about the name
of it and it probably won't pop into my mind. a scent of good food in
the air whilst outside might trigger a notion of what meal it reminds me of.

if i come across bad smells such as dog poop, same thing in reverse.
i don't think about it and breathe through my mouth, it's known.

however it might trigger judgement such as :"that's nasty, dog owners not picking up after their dogs,
leaving a big turd right on the board walk". that thought/judgement
having been thought many times, being known, would just be subtly touched
upon in a split second and then vanish again.

but that would be a judgement after the scent was identified. the actual identification
is immedeate, when the scent is known.

it seems like only strong good or bad scents would even consciously be noticed. and most of them
are known so no question about identification or check-listing appearing. when this
would happen with a strong good smell, curiosity might kick in:" mmmhh what is that?"
with a strong negative smell their might not be and curiosity and a question might not even arise,
because it would suffice having a sub group for it: something organic, something chemical.
it seems like the body knows which scents are potentially hazardous and which just vile smelling but benign.

2.) Seeing

there have been no thoughts triggered by seeing.

early into the excersize i already wondered how this might occur.
it's been a long time since i saw something which caught my eye and what
i could not immedeately identify. one instant popped into my mind, when i was in the bathtub
with the door open and my partner back then had come home and put something on the table that
i could not identify. i was totally fixated on this thing, mesmerized by the fact that i was seeing
it although from a distance with poor lighting and still could not identify it truely.
at the same time there was an immideate identification, but i just could not believe that it was a little angel.
and because i could not believe what my mind immedeately had served up, and i was still
looking to identify it as what it could be, it remained obscure. this absolutely fascinated me.
as soon as i got out of the sub, i went to look and it was exactly what my mind had instantly served up,
but at the same time i could not believe, or did not dare to believe, so that i would not be too disapointed;
such as: "Oh, he brought me a gift, he brought me an angel, he must love me!" ... excitement, happy feelings...
what if it was something else, or not a gift for me, then a kind of sinking dissapointment probably
might have followed. and because i wanted not to have any hopes or expectations and to be sure and spare me the dissapointment, i could not believe, what i had already seen, and hence could not really see it.

the conclusion for seeing is, that when an unidentified object is seen, out of which the mind
can make no sense, it influences the vision, the appearance of this object to the naked eye.
once the mind made sense of what it is seeing, the vision changes and the object it seen
clearly and differently.

another conclusion to seeing is, that beliefs about what is seen can change the appearance to the
eye of what is seen.

3. Taste.

no thoughts to report and taste seems to behave with thought exactly like scent.

4. Touch

there where two observations with touch on my walk yesterday:

i was walking sunken in thought when of a sudden, just when my foot lifted to take the next step,
it came against something during "take off", i stopped mid air and looked down, saw it was a snail,
my foot automatically lifted over it. i could have easily stepped on it. i did not see it, i was sunken in thought
and it was right on my track, yet the slight touch of my shoe against the snail's shell was enough to
halt the movement without one thought popping into my mind, and saving the snail's life.
this was slightly remarkable, since a few weeks prior, there was a similar situation and i totally stepped on the snail. i just had heard and felt a crushing and when i looked, saw...well it would not survive the crash.
i felt sorry, but it just happend and i could not have helped it. i noticed that it was perhaps this former
incident which made me react so quickly to such a slight touch. this all happened automatically.

the other touch-incident on that walk was when i walked by a fenced-in old garden and halted infront of
a gateless gate, door-high, so that one could walk through and under it, such an arch. i looked at it
and immeadety the thought "gateless gate" popped in. i enjoyed looking at it with this thought.
then i decided to walk through, just for the heck of it. it was not an open gate, it's door had come off, left was only the arch. the ground was just grass. when i stepped through, i subconsciously must have expected to
step on what i saw, which was ground covered in grass. instead it felt totally different and since my mind could not immedeately identify what it was that i was stepping on, but could identify that it clearly was not what was expected, the first split second it was slightly alarmed and a this triggered a weird feeling in my foot, combined with a tad of anxiety and the urge was to get off, which i did. all this happened within a second. the moment i got off, it was clear that i had stepped on the wire of the door, the door being in a woodframe, the wire was stretched taught off the ground and covered by grass so it was totally invisible to the eye. completely harmless and sense making,

however the identification process happened relatively slowly, due to my focus on gateless-gate flights of fancy
in my mind, which then triggered an alarm when the identification did not immedeately happen. when something is not identified and could possibly be harmful to the body (stepping on a trap, on a nail, on an electric wire, on a mine, on glass etc.) the body signals warning to be careful.

important is for me to notice how the body does all this automatically without thought appearing consciously.

Feeling and Intuition:

this morning i noticed a subtle feeling in the emotional realm of anxiety.
i wondered what it was telling me. but i did not know. it was subtle and it passed.
it was not clear to me whether it was an axiety about something positively or
negatively perceived.

with intuition it's that a sensing happens, that is not physical and not emtional,
its even more subtle and the very first thought which identifies this sense
or simply pops in, is what this sense is saying. this is also a guidance system.
often times this very first immedetae thought, which happens simultaneously as
the intuition, is overlayed by the flow of conscious thought or mind-chatter, if it is not
directly caught and noticed.

good night annie
*hands clasped together in front of my heart, bow*

Hi Liv,

Very impressive dedication to your observations!

important is for me to notice how the body does all this automatically without thought appearing consciously.

Yes, exactly.
So seeing, hearing, etc are all happening automatically, just all by themselves, no 'Liv' needed to control them. Yes?
Even the foot walking can pick itself up to avoid the snail!

The mind wants to identify and name what is being seen, heard etc. Then more thoughts follow, maybe judgments, comments, memories, imagination. All that is ever happening is a continual succession of sense perceptions and thoughts and feelings.

The mind wants to give a name to everything. So it says 'I was walking', 'I was wondering', 'I was seeing'. As you said before 'I' is a mental reference. Would it be true to say that 'walking was happening', 'wondering was happening', 'seeing was happening'? You've already said these things happen automatically, so do they need an 'I', except as a label?

As an experiment, as you go through your day, try out commenting on what you are doing, first by saying 'I am walking' (for example), and then 'walking is happening' - and notice which feels more true. Let me know what you notice.

with love and a bow to you,
Annie

good morning annie,

so glad to find your post here!

so seeing, hearing, etc are all happening automatically, just all by themselves, no 'liv' needed to control them. yes?

yes. i cannot undo what has already happened. the instant of perception prerequisits a happening that is percieved. reactions might follow ...

thoughts follow, maybe judgments, comments, memories, imagination

the word 'control' to my mind means a form of resistance, dis-allowing, pushing against what is. this also happens automatically as a reaction.

this, in my perspective, is what creates the sense of negative emotion or contraction in the area (throught, heart, abdomen, gut).

so when i notice that this is happening, i might realize the thoughts which where just now thought, perhaps believed, drop them and focus on the feeling. i will just let that feeling be and perhaps say to myself "it's ok", "it's good, it wants to be felt, it wants to come home", "let it be as it is".

why do i keep coming back to this? because i still have the impression that this is something i do, because in this experience the impression is, that first there is an automatic reaction, emotions and thoughts happening without conscious doing and then the negative emotion often will catch my conscious attention because it is unpleasant and because i want to feel ok again and i know that only conscious allowing of what is felt with a dropping of story or a conscious seeing of what was being thought or believed will relax the contraction and dissolve the unpleasantness of the emotion.

this process gives me the experience of going from unconscious to conscious and it seems like it is me who is doing this by volition. it seem like it takes my strong desire to feel good and see what is really happening, my willingness to see what i was thinking or believing, my wanting to focus on feeling and allowing feeling.

ok, i will leave it at that and not try and figure it out further. this is so difficult and gets me only confused. i am very grateful to have you annie to guide me. and i see how important it is to stick to your guidance in order to not get lost in mental processing, which can create more confusion than clarity.

although jeff foster says: "there is as much freedom in confusion as there is in clarity". i get that, but does this not require to see through the illsuion of self? only then can i realize that there is no me to be confused or clear. and in writing this i can tell, that to me this is but a mental excersize and not coming from my experience.

i still suffer from confusion and seek clarity.
all that is ever happening is a continual succession of sense perceptions and thoughts and feelings.

This is not a clear "YES!" because there are still experiences in which I feel that I am doing something by volition, like the example I gave prior.

the mind wants to give a name to everything. so it says 'i was walking', 'i was wondering', 'i was seeing'. as you said before 'i' is a mental reference. would it be true to say that 'walking was happening', 'wondering was happening', 'seeing was happening'? you've already said these things happen automatically, so do they need an 'i', except as a label?

I want to bring in an example from just earlier today to investigate this. I was sitting in my room writing on this post on my lap top, my door closed, when I heard the front door to the house open and my sister walked in with what sounded like my niece. I was engrossed in my thoughts and writing and did not want to interrupt this flow. At the same time there was the notion of wanting to greet my niece as I had not seen her in a while. I simply stopped and felt, watching both movements and being open to see which inclination was stronger. I wanted to continue in my flow and thought came: greeting her at a later time is fine and I need not concern myself with whether this could be interpreted on their end as perhaps "not caring" or "being aloof to her".

So I continued and a little while later, still engrossed in my flow of thinking focussed on my post, of a sudden, I got up out of my chair. I noticed how this had happened automatically, without thought arising: "it's time to say hello, or now I want to go say hello". And I just knew I would now go to say hello.

taking a break now :)

p.s. tanks for assigning me another excersize :)

Hi Liv

Thanks for your lovely post.

Let's look at the point you raised which is confusing for you:

because in this experience the impression is, that first there is an automatic reaction, emotions and thoughts happening without conscious doing and then the negative emotion often will catch my conscious attention because it is unpleasant and because i want to feel ok again and i know that only conscious allowing of what is felt with a dropping of story or a conscious seeing of what was being thought or believed will relax the contraction and dissolve the unpleasantness of the emotion.

I can see your confusion - let's use a physical example to hopefully make this clearer for you. Imagine an insect is biting your leg while you are busy engrossed in typing. The sensation of the bite would be noticed in your brain, then maybe your hand will move and brush the insect away, automatically. Yes? But let's say that the insect is firmly attached and keeps on biting you. And it gets painful. At some point your attention will be drawn to it, your eyes will turn away from your typing and down at the leg, the thought will arise about the insect, and more thoughts will arise, creating the story of Liv being bitten by the insect in the mind. And maybe your hand pulls the insect away, maybe the body gets up and goes to the medicine cabinet. All of this happens automatically, one response leading to the next one in a continuous unbroken process. There is nothing there but sensory perceptions, thoughts and feelings.

And so it is with the negative feelings that draw attention to them, the thought arises 'I want to feel ok', the thought arises 'I know, I must drop the story', and as the thoughts subside, the body relaxes. Can you see that again you are there only as a mental reference, the subject of a thought? It is the mind's job to label everything and comment on it automatically. There's no 'you' doing it.

This will all become clearer the more you observe yourself, like you did with this example:

still engrossed in my flow of thinking focussed on my post, of a sudden, I got up out of my chair. I noticed how this had happened automatically,

Yes, it's all happening automatically, no 'you' doing it. Good observation!

Happy looking with the other exercise,
with love
Annie

good morning dearest annie,

thank you so much for your supporting my clarity and grounding my thought process.

the example with the insect is good. i can see how all that is automatic. like when i drive a car, it's automatic.
sometimes i was so enrossed in a story in my mind whilst driving that at some point i came to and was wondering who was driving the last half hour...

this morning my deepest trauma/pain of guilt in the core of my heart arose again. i had thought that it was "healed". i had thought that i had seen my innocense in this happening. But it's still there and I still cannot see it. the guilt over this killed something in me. it was then at 11 years of age that i decided i was not worthy of living and that i did not want to anymore.

this morning it's back with a vengence and i still cannot see how it was not me that did what i did. i am still convinced that i could have saved her. (sobbing again)

i have to tell the story it's so convincing:

i was 11, we lived in the city, my dearest, most beloved being and best friend in the world was my dog, she was 10 and had severe cancer. she was very small and vulnerable. i was too lazy to walk her at night, so i would just let her out the front door of the appartment complex, so she could pee in the bushes next to the house.
we would leave the door open so she could come back in. but sometimes the door would fall closed and she could not come in. it was winter. i had let her out. and went back to my desk to what i was engrossed with. a while later from my engrossment an intuition and thought clearly popped into my mind to go get her ( i had noticed that the door had closed), i hesitated for a second and then almost angry to have been disturbed in my engrossment and with a thought and feeling of "leave me alone, i don't care" i almost forcefully pushed that feeling aside and with a bad feeling in my gut and a bad consience i continued to engross myself again in what i was doing.

this does not make any sense to me that i would jeoperdize the well being of what i loved the most. but then again i also had hit her about three times before in her life, for no reason obviously and i knew i was aweful and i did it anyways, i was like an empty, raging machine. i don't understand how this can happen. a little later i got up like a rocket and went to get her. but she was gone.

we searched for her incessantly for three weeks and eventually a family contacted us who had found her tied up to a fence with barbed wire in the freezing cold.
she was totally traumatized and her cancer had opened. i could see in her eyes, she did not understand and her trust was damaged. she was afraid, where she never had been before. we had to take her to the vet to end her suffering.

i still believe whole heartedly that i could and should have been there for her, and not let her out alone at night. at least i believe i could have and should have reacted immedeately to my intuition when it came. and i don't understand how i could not have.

i did a shamanic healing for a physical ailment over 9 sessions once and during an inner guided shamanic journey i came across a memory clear as day. i was a strong man fighting on a battlefield with sword and as i had just finished off whom i was fighting, i looked over to the left and saw how my best friend was lying on the floor and in that very moment a soldier standing above him was ramming a sword into his heart. the boy was younger than i and not as strong as me. i was his father figure,mentor, protector and best friend. we where everything to eachother. a love that is infinitely deep, eternal and unblemishable. i could not stop sobbing for a while after this memory surfaced and i knew my friend in that life was my dog in this one and she died the same way and her suffering was my fault.

This experience seems to always prove to me: you could have done different. Always this moment of pushing my intuition aside. This moment of almost knowing that I was doing something terrible and yet I did it. I do not understand this. and only when I can see clearly that in truth it could not have happened any other way and that there was no me doing it, will I be delivered. In other words I must be delivered from "me" entirely, by seeing that in truth there is no me, in order to be able to see "my" innocense.

It is the mind's job to label everything and comment on it automatically. There's no 'you' doing it.
This will all become clearer the more you observe yourself, like you did with this example.

i hope that by observing my thoughts and actions this will become obvious to me!

Can you see that again you are there only as a mental reference, the subject of a thought?

what do you mean by "the subject of a thought" ? I am a subject of a thought? what is a subject of a thought?

will continue to observe.

"doing" the excersize since yesterday, narrating: "I am doing x" and then narrating: "x is happening".
so far "x is happening" seemed more true. perhaps this is why this memory surfaced so strong again, to prove me that indeed not all happens automatically but there are moments when I make choices, when i am the doer, when i have a choice and by volition do it one way.

i hope i am not innappropriote by having shared this story with you. for some reason it felt important to write it. i so wish to see truth more than anything. it is all that matters, because as long as i don't i will suffer.

namaste,
liv