[Another from you arrived as I was just about to post this ... this relates to the previous two]
memory is curious... on one level it is simply ideas presenting themselves in experience... but the quality of pastness suggests they come from somewhere... the idea of a storehouse arises... which is an idea about ideas...
the content of one memory is about a time when i was doing more yoga and memories arose from intense body sensations emerging in meditation and breaking into consciousness as a surprising show of bright lights and visual memories, often very early memories in the story of self...
even if memories are held somehow, somewhere, it is a psycho-mechanism, it is not self-entity
and this is all ideas...
Ok, so you ‘know’ this conceptually, but not directly in experience. Memories are thoughts arising now – they are ‘conditioned’ by past experience and all sorts of other factors. ‘Where’ they come from is not relevant to this line of investigation – that just leads into further conceptualisation.
Best look directly at what arises (conditionally) in this moment and see that no ‘ghost in the machine’ can be found. There is just an arising – however vivid. Can you directly find a doer, an experiencer, a ‘you’ that is anything other than a mental imputation?
You’ll only discover the complete absence of an abiding, solid, substantial ‘entity’ by going deeply into direct experience, not by thinking about it – in that case, you’ll just go round and round in circles.
what can i infer from this...
is there an unconscious...
a storehouse...
a matrix of cause and effect...
that i am not sensitive to and therefore cannot 'see' in direct experience...
and if so... could the self abide there?
Inference has its place, but not in this direct pointing / direct experience approach. Here it seems to me you’re just tying yourself into mental knots. Direct experience is obvious, present and cannot be doubted (as it has no mental component at all, and it’s only in the mind that doubt exists).
i feel like a blind man... angry that everybody's clapping the light show
Direct nonconceptual experience is always present. If you investigate that, really look without buying into any of the conceptualisations that arise, you’ll discover directly that ‘self’ is nothing other than a story / belief / concept.
‘Direct experience’ and ‘not-self’ are two terms pointing at exactly the same understanding … understanding outside of mind, in awareness and the senses, directly. That's the only place to look.
T.
