Looking for guidance

[Pallavi]

Yes. Where did you find awareness aware of seeing?

It is a thought that you are aware of seeing and it is a thought that awareness is aware of seeing.

When a baby is born, it cannot recognize it's own hand as it's own. It can see, touch, smell, hear and taste.
That's all we can do- the idea of you seeing, awareness seeing, is a bunch of unreal thoughts telling you it's real.

Be a baby. Pretend like you have amnesia. Sink into the amnesia. Let no prior knowledge/no thoughts come in to tell you what is. Just hear. What do you hear?

Are you just hearing or are you trying to hear sounds? Can you hear silence?

[Pallavi]

"The looking is looking at the looking. Awareness focused on awareness. So both these things are the faculty of being aware. I don’t know how to describe it better."

This is reflection and inference, both the faculty of thoughts. You cannot reason out reality. You will go on finding stories to justify your experience if you try doing that. That's all they are- stories.

[King Nothing]

'Awareness aware of seeing' was just an idea, a thought. I didn't really find it because there's nothing to find. :)

I'm not trying to hear sounds, I'm just hearing. I can't hear silence.

[Pallavi]

If you were deaf then would know whether you were hearing sound or silence?

No. if you are hearing sounds that means you want to hear sounds. If you hear without expecting to hear sound/silence whatever else- what do you hear?

[King Nothing]

If you were deaf then would know whether you were hearing sound or silence?

No.

No. if you are hearing sounds that means you want to hear sounds. If you hear without expecting to hear sound/silence whatever else- what do you hear?

Volume and pitch? I'm not sure what else it could be.

[Pallavi]

What is volume

[Pallavi]

"I expect there would be no concept of self, I would know through direct experience that there isn't a self."

Haha, totally forgot to address this.

Concept of no-self? This is not a classroom and I'm not teaching you a concept. There is no formula, no equation which if practiced enough would give you the right answers.

If the self did not exist then where is the concept in this?

I want you to watch your thoughts talk to your thoughts.
One thought saying "but I feel there is a self!"
next, "but I'm not finding a self in my experience"
next, "but there has to be a concept of no self or else how can people get awakened"
next, "damn this guide Pallavi is driving me nuts"

Watch them talk to each other. Find out if ANY of this is real. Look for it. Are any of the thoughts' claims in front of you, directly perceived by your senses in the present moment?

I want you to find the self in everything you do. In your eating, your daily activities. I want you to look and prove to me that there is a self. Also- you're in amnesia (except for when you have to coherently answer my questions haha) and you're a baby, you're perceiving everything for the very first time. There are no concepts, no names.

[Pallavi]

Just relax into it. Too much thinking is too many thoughts and too any thoughts is too much confusion. Just relax- you've forgotten everything :) there's nothing to think about ;)

[King Nothing]

I didn't say concept of no-self! I said no concept of self, and direct experience of there not being a self. :D

What is volume

Well, then, I don't know what I'm hearing.

If someone crashed cymbals behind me, there'd be some sort of experience that a deaf person would lack in the same situation.

[Pallavi]

"If someone crashed cymbals behind me, there'd be some sort of experience that a deaf person would lack in the same situation."
Probably- probably not :) getting startled, is sometimes out of conditioning, sometimes for survival. Maybe you would act exactly as if you were deaf- who knows :) but good...you're getting there

No concept of self- Oops! I'm sorry about that, my bad :/

Yes, you don't know what you're hearing- you're not differentiating between the things you're hearing.

Try this with touch- sink into it. Try to just touch.

Does your body have a boundary?

[Pallavi]

And yes, you're right, there is some perception in the background because you can hear, but whether to recognize and place it again is done by thoughts :)

[King Nothing]

Does your body have a boundary?

I don't directly experience a boundary. Touch ends at my skin (I can't feel the tree outside my window), but to then say that the skin is my body's boundary is only interpretation, an idea, a thought. ;)

And 'body' is just a thought, applied to a bunch of experiences. If I look at my hand, for example, the thought 'this is a hand' is just a thought, and so is 'this is MY hand'. Same with the other senses, and the body as a whole.

[Pallavi]

Are you trying to feel the tree outside your window? This is an attempt to reason again. I can hear sound, I can hear silence, I can't feel the tree, I hear volume.

Just touch. Just feel. No thoughts.

Touch a book with a thought that it's a book. Now touch it without any thought. What difference do you feel?

Now, close your eyes. What do you find when you look for the boundary?

Does touch begin and end somewhere?

You can go on tracing your thoughts- it's good, now you know what thoughts are and what they do. but tracing them will start leading you in circles after a while.

We've not gotten to the other senses yet.

[Pallavi]

I will be asking lots more question on other senses don't worry :)

[King Nothing]

I'm not trying to feel the tree outside my window... But, yes, there was more sneaky reasoning in my previous post...

No difference between feeling 'a book' and just feeling.

If I look for a boundary, there isn't one.

Touch doesn't begin or end somewhere. It just happens.