Forgetting Myself

[Vivien]

Hi Gabe,

I can't; I can't experience it directly with my physical senses.

Can you experience the owner of the head / hands / body INSIDE the head at any way?

Please spend a whole day on this. Do everything you can to experience the me, the owner of the body inside the head.

Let me know what you find.

Vivien

[adrivenleaf]

Can you experience the owner of the head / hands / body INSIDE the head at any way?

Not with my physical senses.

[Vivien]

Hi Gabe,

And are there any other senses than physical senses by with the owner of the body could be experienced?

Are there such thing as non-physical senses to experience with?

Is there any other option than:
- Experience (color, sound, sensation, taste, smell)
and
- Thought (verbal thoughts + mental images)?

Vivien

[adrivenleaf]

Is there any other option than:
- Experience (color, sound, sensation, taste, smell)
and
- Thought (verbal thoughts + mental images)?

I've been mulling this one over, but I keep coming back to @awareness@/@consciousness@ . Non-physical, but I can't really consider it an @experience@ either.

My instinct is that your response will be that awareness is identical to experience, but I'm having a hard time squaring that.

[Vivien]

Hi Gabe,

So are you saying that awareness is the owner of the body?

When you say MY body, MY hands, you mean that the word ‘my’ points to awareness? That I am awareness?

Is this something you experience in your everyday life, or is this just coming from thinking as a logical conclusion?

When you are eating, does it feel like that awareness is eating?
What washing your teeth, is awareness is washing its teeth?
When making dinner, is awareness making dinner?

When you have a thought “she hurt my feeling” does it feel like that awareness is being hurt? Or does it feel like that I am hurt?

Vivien

[adrivenleaf]

Are there such thing as non-physical senses to experience with?

This is what I was responding to. Awareness seems to be neither a physical sensation nor thinking, and it seems to be required for both. And it's real, since it doesn't disappear if I stop thinking about it. I keep coming back to it, so it seemed important to explore.

When you say MY body, MY hands, you mean that the word ‘my’ points to awareness? That I am awareness?

If the self is awareness, or if awareness is what creates the feeling of self, then yes.

Is this something you experience in your everyday life, or is this just coming from thinking as a logical conclusion?

I experience awareness whenever I experience anything at all, so I wouldn't say it's a logical conclusion, but rather a type of experience.

If it's required for experience and is a part of what's creating the illusion of self, then I'd need to be explored along with other experiences, the way I had to do for the content of thought.

If we're moving towards the conclusion that the self is nothing but the content of a thought, which disappears into nothing when it's not being thought about, and therefore there's no "self" but only thinking and physical experience, I need to know what to do with this apparent third type of experience and how it is or isn't "self".

I don't know if I'm explaining myself very well, but it's the best I've been able to come up with!

[Vivien]

Hi Gabe,

Awareness seems to be neither a physical sensation nor thinking, and it seems to be required for both. And it's real, since it doesn't disappear if I stop thinking about it. I keep coming back to it, so it seemed important to explore.

Yes, it’s important to explore, but not yet. First, you have to learn how to look at experience and not just THINK about experience. Without this, it would be very difficult to see awareness for what it is. We will come back to this later.

First, you have to be super clear on the difference between thought (imagination) and reality (experience). Otherwise, you can be easy fooled to believe your thoughts to be experience, while in fact they are just thoughts.

I experience awareness whenever I experience anything at all, so I wouldn't say it's a logical conclusion, but rather a type of experience.

You see, this is what I was talking above. Awareness cannot be experienced, it’s just assumed to be there, but actually it isn’t.

V: When you say MY body, MY hands, you mean that the word ‘my’ points to awareness? That I am awareness?

G: If the self is awareness, or if awareness is what creates the feeling of self, then yes.

You see, you didn’t look. What you wrote above is just an intellectual speculation. Which is a dead-end. That’s why first we have to focus on seeing clearly the difference between thoughts and experience.

If we're moving towards the conclusion that the self is nothing but the content of a thought, which disappears into nothing when it's not being thought about, and therefore there's no "self" but only thinking and physical experience, I need to know what to do with this apparent third type of experience and how it is or isn't "self".

The thing is dear Gabe, that you are trying to understand this intellectually. Although, you might not see it. (yet). Awareness is the deepest layer of the self, and before that there are much more obvious appearances of the self. Like the following list.

As you go about your everyday life, isn’t it seems that…

- I am the thinker of thoughts
- I am decider and chooser
- I am moving MY body
- I feel the body
- I feel sensation, I feel emotions
- I have a body
- and I am somewhere inside the body, behind the skin
- and I experience the world which is out there (outside of the body), and I experience it through the body’s senses
- I see with my eyes
- I hear with my ears
- I taste with my tongue
- I smell with my nose
- I touch the table with my hands
- I have a life
- life is happening to me
- when there is happiness, I AM happy; when there is suffering, I AM suffering
- I am the one going to bed in the evening, I am the one dreaming during the night, and I am the one who wakes up in the morning

Please go through these one by one. And see if this is what’s happening in your daily life when you don’t think about this topic.

Which points of the above list FEEL to be true in your everyday life?

Please be very honest with yourself.

Vivien

[Vivien]

Also please check, which ones feels the strongest of the above lists?

And maybe is there anything to add to the list?

[adrivenleaf]

I'm struggling with this exercise a lot.

And see if this is what’s happening in your daily life when you don’t think about this topic.

Which points of the above list FEEL to be true in your everyday life?

If I'm not actively thinking about the topic/questions, I can't assess what feels to be true in the moment. If I'm reflecting on them to respond to you, I'm thinking.

So when I'm thinking about my everyday life, all of those things feel true. When I'm just going about my business, I don't know. I can't explore it without thinking about it.

But, when I imagine me living my life, the strongest feelings of self seem to be when I'm making and following through on decisions. Decisions about how to move my body when I'm not on autopilot, decisions about what to think about. For most of my sense perceptions, they just happen when the conditions arise (e.g. my eyes are open, soundwaves reach my ears).

What am I missing?

--------------------------

Also I'll add my questions about awareness to the ever-growing pile of questions to work out later, but I'm increasingly concerned that I'm wasting your time. If this is futile for me, and I'm not cut out for this, I'd rather spare you the frustration and effort that could be spent elsewhere.

I accept that the content of experience can be used to evaluate the content of thinking. I see that thoughts aren't real because they disappear when I stop imagining them. But I am still troubled that there seems to be no way to evaluate the reality of the content of experience.

Are experiences real when I'm not experiencing them? Are there real things that I cannot experience ? Are there things that I can experience that are not real?

If this exploration will only work if I accept the reality of whatever I find in experience, and reject the reality of whatever I don't find in experience, it seems that--without satisfying answers to these questions--I'll end up in a position of having to accept no-self on faith. And that isn't a truth I will feel totally confident of, if past experience is any indicator.

[Vivien]

Hi Gabe,

Also I'll add my questions about awareness to the ever-growing pile of questions to work out later, but I'm increasingly concerned that I'm wasting your time. If this is futile for me, and I'm not cut out for this, I'd rather spare you the frustration and effort that could be spent elsewhere.

It's your decision to make whether you want to continue with this investigation. It’s up to you.
Also I'll add my questions about awareness to the ever-growing pile of questions to work out later, but I'm increasingly concerned that I'm wasting your time. If this is futile for me, and I'm not cut out for this, I'd rather spare you the frustration and effort that could be spent elsewhere.

I accept that the content of experience can be used to evaluate the content of thinking. I see that thoughts aren't real because they disappear when I stop imagining them. But I am still troubled that there seems to be no way to evaluate the reality of the content of experience.

Are experiences real when I'm not experiencing them? Are there real things that I cannot experience ? Are there things that I can experience that are not real?

If this exploration will only work if I accept the reality of whatever I find in experience, and reject the reality of whatever I don't find in experience, it seems that--without satisfying answers to these questions--I'll end up in a position of having to accept no-self on faith. And that isn't a truth I will feel totally confident of, if past experience is any indicator.

The thing is that this is completely intellectual. This is a dead-end. It’s not about understanding, it’s not about accepting, and not about making a conclusion based on what you understand or not.

This is just pure thinking. Analysing, theorizing, trying to grasp intellectually what is ungraspable.
This is a total dead end.
The only way forward in looking at experience directly.
What you haven’t really done so far.

So it’s up to you if you are willing to give up to figure this out, if you are willing to put aside all thinking and understanding, and just look at plain reality as it shows up here now.

But, when I imagine me living my life, the strongest feelings of self seem to be when I'm making and following through on decisions. Decisions about how to move my body when I'm not on autopilot, decisions about what to think about.

This is the way forward.
To search for the one that is thinking and deciding.
To search for it in reality, in experience, here now.
Not in theorizing and philosophising what happens whit things if I don’t look at them.

Are experiences real when I'm not experiencing them? Are there real things that I cannot experience ? Are there things that I can experience that are not real?

There is a belief here that there is a YOU who experiences. But this is just a belief, with ZERO root in reality.

You are philosophising what happens to things when “I am not experiencing them”, but you miss the mark, since you don’t investigate the important part of your assumption, and that is that there is someone experiencing.

You are looking in the wrong way. Like if you want to go to North, but you start walking to South.

My impression is that you are not really letting me to guide you, you are not letting me to point you where North is. You want to go South, and South only. And probably all this happens unconsciously due to the fear we’ve talked about before. You might be afraid (unconsciously) to turn North, since you are afraid that at North you can become insane, deluded, or something similar.

Please consider what is it that you really want. I can only point you the way to North. We can go to North together, but not to South.

Vivien

[adrivenleaf]

I've taken time to consider, and am still willing to go forward.

[Vivien]

Hi Gabe,

All right :)

Can you allow me to guide you?

And can you be open to put aside your desire to understand things, and just investigate your immediate raw experience to actually see and not just understand?

This is what you wrote before:

But, when I imagine me living my life, the strongest feelings of self seem to be when I'm making and following through on decisions. Decisions about how to move my body when I'm not on autopilot, decisions about what to think about.

So let’s look into this.

Sit for a while… thoughts come and go…

What do you exactly in order to think?
What do you in order for a thought to appear?
How do you make (or birth) a thought into existence?
Are you the thinker?

How do you decide what to think next?
As you are trying to decide what to think next, are those thoughts about trying and deciding is your doing?
Do you make them happen, or they just appear on their own?
Do you know what will be your next thought, BEFORE the thought appears?

Please investigates these questions one-by-one, and reply to them separately.

Vivien

[adrivenleaf]

I can do my best.

What do you exactly in order to think?

On examination, nothing. It just happens.

What do you in order for a thought to appear?

Nothing. I can decide what to think about next, but those are thoughts about thoughts. And ultimately, thoughts just happen the same way my blood flows and I digest food.

How do you make (or birth) a thought into existence?

I can't. Ultimately, all thoughts just happen.

Are you the thinker?

No. If anything, I am the space that the thoughts happen to.

How do you decide what to think next?

A thought appears telling me to. And a thought appears that I chose the thought.

As you are trying to decide what to think next, are those thoughts about trying and deciding is your doing?

No, they're not.

Do you make them happen, or they just appear on their own?

They appear on their own.

Do you know what will be your next thought, BEFORE the thought appears?

No.

[Vivien]

Hi Gabe,

Please don’t reply this quickly. The questions are meant to be looked at again and again and again many-many times for a whole day.

This inquiry is all about repetition. You’ve spend your whole life repeatedly thinking and believing the same thoughts and assumptions. A few looking cannot cut through a lifetime of conditioning.

So I would like to ask you to go back to these questions, and stay with them. Look at them again and again, even if the replies seem to be clear. Also, question your own replies too. Whatever your answer is, question HOW you know that.

So please go back to the questions, spend a whole day with them, and reply to them again tomorrow.

Vivien

[adrivenleaf]

I'll keep that in mind going forward.
'
I did, at several points today, sit down with the questions, though I didn't find any new or different answers than I had given originally.

The main realization was that there aren't voluntary and involuntary thoughts at all.