Thread for Harvey

[bdhtgcr]

Dear Nettie,

When I look at this moment, there is experience which includes any thoughts and feelings. Last night when I read your message, the word immediacy resonated. I know that there is nothing other than this moment and that he past and future are just thoughts. I will continue to work with this today.

Harvey

[Nettie]

Dear Harvey,
Now look:
Is there a separate you who can add anything to this moment?
Can anything be removed?
Is the immediate moment complete?
Is there a you who can push and pull life as it happens?

Look deeply and report,
Nettie

[bdhtgcr]

Before I read your reply, I had just been talking with someone about the moment just having everything that it needed to be what it was - if there was no referencing to good or bad or a this vs. that.

When you ask the question about if there is a separate you that can add anything to the moment or can push and pull life as it happens, I am seeing the trees out my window and know that they effortlessly are what they are in the seasons. Then I notice how thoughts about me pushing and pulling life arise like a belief that wants to take over again. I was wondering if I know this conceptually or at the level of experience. I shall keep questioning that.

Funny how when I hear the birds chirping now and just listen, then there is just birds chirping.

[Nettie]

Dear Harvey,
Good observation.

Lets examine deeply the present moment:

When you stop thinking you can see that there are many sensations, sounds, sights etc. rather like a constant flood. However concentrated attention can only follow one at a time. You can examine this effortless stream of perceptions. Fingers petting cat, sitting, sights out the window, smell of dinner cooking, etc. can you see that the 'I' thought is just another perception, even and equal to all other perceptions?

No need to glom onto that thought and believe it, as thoughts can refer to physical objects, and thought can refer to abstract things like numbers. Do numbers exist? Have you ever found a 'three'?

If 'you' is just another idea, made up of thoughts, is it real?

Check it out and report.

Nettie

[bdhtgcr]

Hi Nettie,

Last night I was talking to a group of students at school and we were discussing the makeup of the universe. During that conversation, there was a realization that there is an inevitability in the way things happen. They can only happen one way - the way they happened. Like everything is systemically interconnected so every happening is what needed / had to be. Even the doing of something was just what was supposed to happen. The thought that there was the doer is also just an unfolding. I could see that the me as a doer was just another thought bubbling up and even that had the inevitability.

When I woke this morning, there is a transparency (not sure of the right word) in the thoughts. It is like seeing them in a different way. It is subtle, but there is something different in that inevitability context. Can't quite describe it. As you referenced in your previous reply to me, even the thoughts me or I are like anything else. There is that transparency in them. I shall keep looking and report back to you. By the way, it is like the questions or suggestions that you provide sort of allow a deconstruction of thoughts. :)

[Nettie]

Dear Harvey,
"When I woke this morning, there is a transparency (not sure of the right word) in the thoughts. It is like seeing them in a different way. It is subtle, but there is something different in that inevitability context. Can't quite describe it. As you referenced in your previous reply to me, even the thoughts me or I are like anything else. There is that transparency in them. I shall keep looking and report back to you."

Yes, we see that thoughts are transparent, equal and even to all other perceptions, including the 'I' thought.

Where do perceptions, including thoughts, go? Is there a separate 'you' who concocts these perceptions or who has to do something to make them go away? How long do perceptions last? Examine.

"Last night I was talking to a group of students at school and we were discussing the makeup of the universe. During that conversation, there was a realization that there is an inevitability in the way things happen. They can only happen one way - the way they happened. Like everything is systemically interconnected so every happening is what needed / had to be. Even the doing of something was just what was supposed to happen. The thought that there was the doer is also just an unfolding. I could see that the me as a doer was just another thought bubbling up and even that had the inevitability. "

Yes, all and everything is as-it-is! Just This! In every part-less moment, Just This! Absolutely everything included!
How does it feel to know this?

Look again, is there a separate 'you'?

Looking forward to your response,
Nettie

[bdhtgcr]

Hi Nettie,
Today (Friday), there continues the subtle shift where thoughts have less significance in that they come and go. Experientially, can't say where they come from or where they go. There are thoughts like time to go to school and planning time periods to grade tests and papers. Thoughts of 'me' or 'I' come and go. The power of them is no less or more than other thoughts going by or the bird chirping outside my window. I say that when awareness is there.

Are there thoughts of a you there. Yes, there is awareness of that but doing nothing more than noticing that they are there. I can't really say that I have any expectation of where this goes, so there is just watching or looking right now. By the way, that sense of things unfolding in the only way they can in this connectedness seems to allow the seeing of the thought of me to be a thought rather than a focal point. I will continue to watch and look.

[Nettie]

Dear Harvey,
"Today (Friday), there continues the subtle shift where thoughts have less significance in that they come and go. Experientially, can't say where they come from or where they go. There are thoughts like time to go to school and planning time periods to grade tests and papers. Thoughts of 'me' or 'I' come and go. The power of them is no less or more than other thoughts going by or the bird chirping outside my window. I say that when awareness is there. "

So if you can't say where they come from or where they go, then are you the thinker? Thoughts just happen?
Can you find the beginning or end to any perception (thought, sound, smell, taste, etc.). Is it a seamless flow?
If it is a seamless flow, can you really chop up experience into "things"? Or is experience just perceptions that thought/words "seem" to divide into separate "things", including a separate 'you'?

"Are there thoughts of a you there. Yes, there is awareness of that but doing nothing more than noticing that they are there. I can't really say that I have any expectation of where this goes, so there is just watching or looking right now. By the way, that sense of things unfolding in the only way they can in this connectedness seems to allow the seeing of the thought of me to be a thought rather than a focal point. I will continue to watch and look."

Continue to examine, if thought of "you" arises, what exactly does it point to?
Looking forward to your response,
Nettie

[bdhtgcr]

Still here :). At school today and will put in detailed response this evening.

[bdhtgcr]

I got back very late last night so I am continuing this morning.

With everything that I was doing yesterday, I was going back to the question of the thought of "me" / "you" arising. Outside of a language reference, there is still the thought of a "me" and the thought has a sense of some type of feeling with it. When I watch or look at it, it is like anything else that shows up in my awareness. It really doesn't have any more validity than anything else that is arising. It is like standing back from it and not doing anything with it. It comes and it goes and doesn't have any power in it unless I start believing it. There is still a fragility in this in that the swirling of beliefs can start when I am not standing back from or questioning them and their validity.

I can see how thoughts and perceptions seem to be in categories and how there seems to be different"values" to those chunks in various ways. I am not really analyzing that but there is a noticing of that.

Even this morning as I look or watch, there is this awareness and in it thoughts, feelings and stories come and go or are sloshing around. But not really a me or a you doing it. Stuff is just sloshing around in this noticing.

[Nettie]

Dear Harvey,

"Outside of a language reference, there is still the thought of a "me" and the thought has a sense of some type of feeling with it. When I watch or look at it, it is like anything else that shows up in my awareness"

LOOK Deeply, is there ever awareness existing separate or apart from perception? Is there a 'you' separate or apart from perception? This is crucial!

Nettie

[bdhtgcr]

Hi Nettie,

This I know for sure. The awareness is not separate from perception or anything else. The awareness is fully saturated in everything, as everything, and through everything. There is perception but not a perceiver (except in language). There is an obviousness, subtle but there. The thought of a perceiver can arise but in the looking, the thought is like anything else that is floating by.

In the midst of activities, the questioning and the looking is there and will continue.

[Nettie]

Dear Harvey,
Keep looking till you're certain: is there a separate self seeing hearing tasting choosing or generally
Experiencing life?
Is life simply happening, effortlessly, and no separate 'you'
to push or pull it?
Has there ever been a separate 'you'?
Nettie

[bdhtgcr]

Good Morning Nettie,

Sorry I didn't get on the thread yesterday. School has been so busy and the day slips by.

The looking continues. You said to keep looking until there is certainty. This is a difficult question as I cannot say that there is a knowing of absolute certainty. It's not that there is doubt, but an absolute certainty that there is no separate self is not within.

And when you ask about life simply happening, effortlessly without a separate 'you' to push or pull it, I know to keep going back to looking if there ever been a separate you.

The questions stay with me throughout the day and I keep going back to them. I will continue to report. I appreciate your patience with me :).

[Nettie]

Dear Harvey,
" I appreciate your patience with me"

This is a journey only you can make and I enjoy pointing! It takes however long it takes! No rush, just keep LOOKing!

"The looking continues. You said to keep looking until there is certainty. This is a difficult question as I cannot say that there is a knowing of absolute certainty. It's not that there is doubt, but an absolute certainty that there is no separate self is not within. "

You will know when it's clear, don't worry.
Thought of self will always arise, but you will know them to be without substance, and you will find self conscious behavior like constant self correction and judgement goes away.

Much of this work consists of seeing how we get hooked by “our” thoughts. We examine these sharp, pointy, and sticky places. Just look in your direct experience and thought processes for the answers. Very simply: how do we “own” things? The screen you are reading on, is it a “your” screen or just “a” screen? Which seems more true? And why?

Is there a gap between the perceiver of thoughts thoughts and thinking or is there just one process that we call thinking? Test it with a sound. Stop everything for two minutes and listen intently to all sounds that are present. Is there a hearer of sounds, separate from hearing and the heard? Where does hearing happen? Listen to distant sounds. Where is the hearer then? With closed eyes, check if there is a line between here and there. Can it be defined?

Just examine if it feels like or it seems like there is a separate self, then tell me what that separate self is made of, where it is, what it feels like, etc. be specific.

Looking forward to your response,
Nettie