The Gate

Noticing constriction is worthwhile.

But “letting it go” can quietly become another doer-project.

Thank you for this.

When constriction is noticed, it seems like letting go often follows automatically, but I understand your warning not to turn the letting go into a project for the doer — a project that perhaps has the aim of rewiring (fixing) the brain.

The cleaner attitude:

This contraction is here.
This is it.
Nothing to fix.
Softening may happen, or not.

If softening happens, fine.

If it doesn’t, also fine.

This is great. I feel a bit of relief and relaxation from dropping any temptation to make letting go of contraction into another project. I’m so sick of projects!!! I’m so sick of treating myself like a fixer-upper!

Hmm, but it occurs to me that intentionally "laughing" (smirking and mentally saying, "Ha!") when recognizing thought-entanglement has started feeling like a wearisome project. Do you have any insight there?

But somehow, having a belligerent attitude toward useless thoughts and a determination to attend to reality doesn’t feel like a project. I don't understand why not.

During a sitting period in which the intention

Did the noticing of this get a laugh?

Do you mean, did I find it amusing that I had any intention at all for a sitting period? or that the intention was to mainly to be with the sensations of the present moment? If so, nope. Did I miss the funny part?

Or maybe your question actually went with what you quoted below it?:

Perhaps I’ve consumed too much dystopian science fiction. :-)

Never!

I'm certainly amused by my little story of nefarious transmissions into my brain.

Spouse and I have been watching the TV series “Silo,” based on the series of novels by Hugh Howey starting with Wool. (I recommend the books and show.) This show clearly helped shape that little story of mine.

By the way, I’ve been popping into your thread with ashton, and I found your latest reply there helpful re: suffering, acceptance, and expectations. It seems like a similar theme to what you were addressing with me: If suffering is seen clearly, acceptance might accompany that but might not. If contraction is seen, softening might accompany that but might not. Expectations of acceptance or softening might not be fulfilled. Just inquire, “What’s actually here?”

P.S. Was rereading your last message and wanted to highlight this part for myself, which I hadn’t really made note of before:

Because the deeper seeing is not “constriction must release.”

It is:

Constriction is happening, and no sufferer inside it is found.

No sufferer is found.
I think that’s what I really need to grok.

I’m so sick of treating myself like a fixer-upper!

Yes.

Good.

That sentence is not a problem. It is a flare.

“I’m so sick of projects.”

Feel that.

Not the story about years of practice. Not Buddhism. Not awakening. Not inquiry. Not fixing. Just the body-sense of sick of projects.

Maybe chest. Throat. Face. Shoulders. Gut.

Now don’t make not having projects into the next project.

No project to let go.
No project to stop fixing.
No project to accept everything.
No project to be done with projects.

Just:

Exhaustion is happening.
Revulsion toward fixing is happening.
Relief at dropping the project is happening.
Maybe tears, anger, laughter, or dullness are happening.

And no fixer-upper is found.

The phrase “treating myself like a fixer-upper” is perfect because it exposes the cruelty in the seeker project. It assumes:

There is a defective me.
There is a better me possible.
Practice is the renovation plan.
Awakening is the final inspection.

No.

That whole construction can be seen.

Not fixed.

Seen.

Right now, nothing needs renovation.

This is happening.

That’s all.

No sufferer is found.
I think that’s what I really need to grok.

Yes.

But notice the tiny trap:

“I need to grok that no sufferer is found.”

That sentence quietly creates the sufferer again.

Someone here.
Not yet grokked.
Needs realization.
Hopes suffering will change once realization lands.

So don’t try to grok it.

Look now.

Suffering is happening — or the memory/fear of suffering is happening.

What is here?

Sensations.
Thoughts.
Images.
Resistance.
Wanting relief.
Maybe contraction.
Maybe sadness.
Maybe the sentence “I need to grok this.”

Now find the sufferer.

Not suffering. That may be present.

Not pain. Not contraction. Not tears. Not exhaustion. Not the plea “make it stop.”

The sufferer.

The one to whom it belongs.

Can it be found?

This is the key distinction:

Suffering-patterns can appear without a sufferer.

That’s what needs to be seen, but not as an idea. Seen in the hot moment.

When frustration appears:

Frustration is here.
Demand for relief is here.
Thoughts about Kim are here.
No sufferer is found.

When weariness appears:

Weariness is here.
“I’m sick of projects” is here.
Revulsion toward fixing is here.
No sufferer is found.

When longing appears:

Longing is here.
Future-image is here.
Hope is here.
No sufferer is found.

Don’t use “no sufferer is found” to make suffering go away.

That would be the sufferer trying to use insight as medication.

Use it only as accuracy.

Suffering may continue.

Crying may continue.

Contraction may continue.

But the owner is not found.

That is the whole thing. Not blissful. Not dramatic. Not necessarily soothing.

Just devastatingly simple:

There is suffering, but no sufferer.

Stay there. Feel into it.

Look for a feeling of knowing that these things (suffering etc) happen in response to circumstances/conditions - only some of which are internal.

vince

Hi K, You've been instrumental in me digging deep for more effective ways to commune-icate the triggers that will induce a novel (to you) way of interpreting experience.
Experiencing here is currently an avalanche of thought/feelings about one possibility.
i just saw the beginning of an interview with Lera Borodizzi that took it (the avalanche) in a certain direction.
As i don't seem to be able to attach a PDF to this post, here is the transcript.
After reading it we can discuss...

Lera Borodizzi, welcome to how the Light Gets In. Thank you so much for having me. Lera, your research within cognitive science and linguistic studies has transformed our understanding of thought. How does language affect culture? Well, language can shape thought in lots of ways. In my own work, I focused on how language shapes the fundamentals of thought. So basic things like how we organize space, time, how we process color, how we think about events, and what we find is, even at these very, very basic levels, the building blocks of cognition, language can have a really profound effect on how we put the world together in our minds. So within linguistic relativity has been dismissed before and revived in certain areas. What do you think? Earlier, researchers got wrong in their methods kind of compared to yours now? Yeah. So there was a strong idea coming out of Chomsky and linguistics that languages didn't substantially differ from one another at the core.
[01:04 - 02:20]
Now, no one had discovered what that core is. It was a hypothetical core, but it was just a claim. The claim was languages don't fundamentally differ. And so if your claim is that languages don't fundamentally differ, it doesn't actually even make sense to ask whether speakers of different languages would think differently. But the more linguists went out into the field and studied in detail different languages, the more really striking differences between languages they uncovered. And so then it no longer became the question of do languages differ? It was very clear that they do. And then you could start asking the question of how do those differences reflect in thinking? There is another part of skepticism, which is, is cognition something that's malleable? So it's one thing that languages differ, but if thinking can't be changed, then it doesn't matter if languages differ. Speakers of all languages would think the same. But then decades and decades of research in cognitive psychology showed how malleable cognition is and how flexible it actually is. So once you have those two puzzle pieces, languages really differ, and cognition is really malleable. You put those together, and that creates an environment where you can find these incredibly profound differences between speakers of different languages.
[02:21 - 03:44]
And within your own research and your own experiments, how did you kind of go about designing those experiments? You know, I'm trained as a cognitive psychologist, so I started by designing the most classic kinds of basic experiments that you would do just to study cognition. So test people's memory or test people's ability to make categories, Test how quickly people can solve a problem, really basic designs. And I think that was part of the success of the research program that I pursued, because in the past, a lot of claims had Come either from anthropologists or from linguists. And so they came back with data that looked like field reports. And psychologists, you know, every field has their own standards for what they count as evidence. And psychologists would look at those field reports and say, well, these are just stories. It's like your travel journal. It's not really data. And because I was doing things that seemed so traditional as cognitive psychology, But I wasn't just testing American undergraduates. I was also testing people who lived in all kinds of locations around the world, that became data that people could really believe and take seriously and say, oh, well, the methodology is very familiar. It's very sound. This is a controlled experiment. They've made proper measurements. But now we have to really take it seriously. So that really changed how the field treated the idea.
[03:45 - 05:31]
And within those experiments, you talk about memory and intention and how that differs between languages. Can you kind of walk me through those experiments and your findings in that? Sure. So language can guide our attention to some elements and not others in the world. The world is very complicated, and there's an infinite set of things we could potentially pay attention to, and our ability to process that information is quite limited. And so every language chooses certain things to attend to. So the way we divide up the color spectrum, for example, there's an infinite set of ways to do it. Languages make some choices. Some languages have many words for color. Some have only a few, where languages draw boundaries and the continuous color space differs from language to language. And so we can test if your language makes a distinction between this set of hues and this other set of hues, and another language calls it all by the same word. Does that make a difference for your ability to distinguish those colors? So Russian, for example, makes a distinction between light blues and dark blues. So light blues are goluboy and dark blues are sini. And so you test Russian speakers and English speakers and speakers of other languages, and what you can see is that Russian speakers are faster to make a distinction, visual distinction, between colors that are called by different names compared to English speakers. And in the brain, if you show people a bunch of colors, hues that are changing slowly from light blue to dark blue, in the brains of people who call those colors by categorically different names, there's this surprise marker that goes off as you switch from categorically light blue to categorically dark blue.
[05:31 - 06:45]
Whereas for English speakers, that surprisal marker narrow goes off because they're all just. And so even very early on, the brain treats those colors as being categorically different. It goes, oh, wait, something has importantly shifted, but only if you speak that kind of language that distinguishes those two by different words. So with this idea of intention and memory and the fact that different languages can be swayed almost in different directions, do you think there is a correct way of speaking about things? No, of course not. Every language is just a perspective on the world. And within any language, we also have many options for how to describe any given scenario. I think the best possible case is that you have a lot of flexibility for describing anything, so that you can have more precise vocabulary when precision is required. But you're also allowed to have a more generic or more vague vocabulary where you might not want to commit to a level of specificity that you don't actually know. So the more flexibility a language allows you, the more richness, the kind of more faithful you can be to the thoughts you actually wish to express.
[06:45 - 07:55]
So do you think that in some cases people can be trapped by their language because of these restrictions and limitations on how we express things and then therefore, how we think? I think people believe the structures of their languages way too much. People think that the language they speak reflects reality or is a true window onto reality, when in fact, each language is just a human made artifact that was constructed over thousands of years under circumstances that may no longer apply to our lives anymore. And so once you actually learn a second language or a third language, you start to see how different languages treat the world differently, and you start believing the structures of your language less and questioning things more. And so all of us actually have the capacity to see things in lots of different ways. But if you speak only one language, you're hardly ever invited to consider what the structures of your language are guiding you to think that you could think about differently. So we also have spoken a little bit about kind of this diversity of language.
[07:55 - 09:02]
What do you think would be the impact of a loss of that? Well, we're losing languages at an alarming rate. So There are about 7,000 languages in the world right now. And some estimates are that we're losing about a language a week. And so in 100 years, we may have lost half of the world's languages. I think that might be accelerating at the moment. A loss of a language is a loss of an incredible amount of human intellectual labor. Right. So all of the people that had come before in that culture worked together to construct a representation of reality, to construct a cosmology, to construct all of these ideas. And when the last fluent speakers of the language pass away, all of that intellectual labor is gone. The linguist Ken Hale said, you know, imagine a bomb being dropped on the Louvre and all of that cultural heritage being lost. That's what it's like to lose a language. But I actually think it's a lot worse because with a lot of languages that we're losing, they're not well documented, so we don't have a way to reconstruct that information in any way.
[09:03 - 10:07]
And then the loss that the descendants of those people feel is extremely strong because they lose the connection to their past, to their ancestors, to the ways of life that brought them up. So it's an incredible loss when we lose languages. So obviously there's therefore an incentive to learn lots more languages and kind of keep that culture alive. But do you think there is something that could be said about possibly blurring the lines between languages if you speak different languages, or do you think that you can kind of compartmentalize when you switch over between languages? Well, languages always have always mixed and always borrowed from one another. And also languages always change. So languages are living things. They evolve. We are the ones who create them, and we're the ones who change them to suit our needs. So for me, there's no problem whatsoever in speaking more than one language, in inventing new ways of talking, in blending things between languages. These are things that have naturally happened for as long as there have been languages.
[10:09 - 11:15]
There aren't trade offs between these things. It's just a natural process. Obviously, you have transitioned from very different linguistic worlds where you spoke, your first language was Russian, and then you moved to the U.S. do you think that that personal experience planted the seed for your research, or do you think it was something else? It was definitely informative. So I grew up in the former Soviet Union, where there was a very particular approach to what was true and what was not true. And the information circle was very closed off. And then I moved to the US when I was 12, and suddenly all the things that had been true in the place where I GRE up were the opposite in the new place that I lived. So just seeing how much people's perspectives could be different about the very basics of life, of course, encouraged me to think about it. And then also because I had a different perspective than my other classmates in America, I would end up in a lot of discussions and arguments.
[11:16 - 12:31]
And I noticed that in a lot of arguments about, you know, big ideas like freedom and justice and things like that, the crux of the disagreement was we were using the same words, but we're using them in different ways. So you and I might be talking about freedom, or we think we're talking about the same thing and we're disagreeing, but we're in fact using the word freedom in different ways. So it's not even that we're able to have a reasonable discussion because we've believed that the word freedom refers to one thing, but it actually can refer to lots of different things. And so that really cemented my desire to understand how language and thought relate to one another, because so many of our important discussions in society are done in language, hinge on language, and I think sometimes are confused by language. And what do you want to see next in the sphere of linguistics? I think accepting that linguistic diversity is the normal human condition, the fact that the human mind has created not one way of perceiving reality, but thousands of them, is a real testament to the ingenuity and flexibility of the human mind.
[12:32 - 13:43]
And so if we start from that baseline assumption of diversity as the norm, that gives us a very different lens on what it means to be human and allows us to explore the human mind and all of its richness. So rather than starting with always American undergraduates of the same standard as human and then treating everyone else as some kind of aberration, right, Instead saying, okay, the human mind is much richer. There's so many more ways that humans can use their minds. And that also allows us to go and look for ways to expand our own thinking. So not just looking at other people and saying, oh, look how weird they think, how different they are. Turn the mirror on ourselves, too, and say, why do I think the things that I think? How did I come to believe these things? And that that allows you the expansion to think differently, but it also allows you the expansion to invent new ways of thinking or new ways of talking that suit the world that you actually want to live in, not just the world that you have inherited. Amazing. And finally, if you could speak any language in the world fluently, past or present, which would it be? Oh, my gosh. Well, all of them.
[13:46 - 14:32]
The language that I think would be most meaningful for me to learn, given where I live, is the Kumeyaay language. It is the traditional owners of the land in San Diego where I'm based, and there are still speakers of that language around. And I think it would be meaningful to connect to that land where I've now lived there for a decade, and I haven't learned any Kumeyaay, So I think that would be a very meaningful thing for me to learn. I don't know if that's going to happen. But obviously there are other languages that have a lot of use around the world, but sometimes it's good to do something that's just good for the soul. So I think that would be the one that would be best for the soul. Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

Now don’t make not having projects into the next project.

I read that with a wry smile because it reminded me of something I wrote more than twenty years ago, knowing it was correct even while knowing I hadn’t yet grokked it myself:
“We tend to think that our new and improved life is off in the future somewhere and that Zen will help us create that life. But Zen is not another project. It isn’t even a project to get rid of our projects. . . . We can’t change ourselves into buddhas, not even by getting rid of our desire to change ourselves into buddhas.”

*Sigh.*

I was going to say, “Wish I’d known you then,” but you were still trying to grok this twenty years ago too, right? Well, I wish I’d known vince of 2026 back then.

This is helpful:

The phrase “treating myself like a fixer-upper” is perfect because it exposes the cruelty in the seeker project. It assumes:

There is a defective me.
There is a better me possible.
Practice is the renovation plan.
Awakening is the final inspection.

No.

That whole construction can be seen.

Not fixed.

Seen.

This line prompted the full-on crying:

Right now, nothing needs renovation.

I think the tears come from a combination of “This is a beautiful word of grace” and “I’m sick of this frikkin’ koan!”

Now find the sufferer.

I can’t!
But, as you may be getting tired of hearing from me, so what?!
Not being able to find a “self” apparently doesn’t constitute the “realization of no-self” that I’ve been longing for for forty years.

OK, right, so, what is actually here?
Sobbing. Constriction in face, throat, chest. Sentences like, “I’m so sick of this!” and “Make it stop!” Anger. Frustration. Thoughts of woe about how long it’s been. Fear that it will continue indefinitely. Thoughts about the emotional release of crying. Thoughts about needing to pull myself together and get some work done this morning.

And where is the sufferer?
Sentences like, “I can’t find one! So what?!” More sobbing. More anger. More frustration. Continued constriction of chest, throat, face. (Maybe gut too, but the others are more prominent.)

This seems helpful, but I’m not quite sure how:

This is the key distinction:

Suffering-patterns can appear without a sufferer.

And this seems like an apt warning:

Don’t use “no sufferer is found” to make suffering go away.

That would be the sufferer trying to use insight as medication.

Use it only as accuracy.

“Accuracy” is good word. Truth. Makes me think of my little story about the nefarious powers trying to keep me from seeing the truth, from seeing reality as it is. That pisses me off. I want the truth.

There is suffering, but no sufferer.

Stay there. Feel into it.

Aw, geez, more koan practice.

I really want to move on to your next message, of which I have only read your enticing intro, but I really do need to get some work done. And I could probably use a break anyway. More to come, of course. :-)

With love & gratitude,
K

P.S. I realized that when I asked myself, "Where is the sufferer?" I didn't actually look. Is that important, even when I know I won't find one? OK:
Who's looking out through these eyes?
Can't find anyone.
Who is "having" these bodily sensations?
Can't find anyone.
See all of these bodily sensations and thoughts as just a heap of stuff with no K that underlies them all.
Yeah, I guess, but still somehow feels like there's a K separate from everything else.

Pasting this here as a reminder to come back to it:

There is suffering, but no sufferer.

Stay there. Feel into it.

About that interview:

The main thought that arose relevant to awakening was about the use of first-person-singular pronouns — like, might it really be worth trying, at least on the LU site and at least for a while, to avoid I/me/my/mine talk?

Talking about oneself in the third person might help a little, by making it all sound less personal and more like a character in a story. But there’s still a sense of personhood.

To better avoid personhood, there’s using the passive voice or talking a lot about things “happening” and thoughts “arising” (rather than “I did” or “I thought”). Or there’s simply leaving out the subject of sentences, but then the “I” still seems pretty clearly implied.

Would any of that help at all to loosen the grip of the fictional “I”? Maybe? Or maybe it just ends up being a weird, awkward way to talk from the firmly entrenched perspective of “me”?

Interested to hear what you were thinking.

Story: The Shape of Over Here

Daniel had seen it many times.

No separate self could be found.

He had looked.

Not casually.
Not as a belief.
Not as a phrase borrowed from Elias.

He had looked in thought.
He had looked in sensation.
He had looked in memory.
He had looked in decision.
He had looked in the feeling of authorship.
He had looked in the body.

Nothing stood up and said, “Here I am.”

There were thoughts.
There were sensations.
There were images.
There were memories.
There were habits.
There were preferences.
There was the body sitting in the chair.
There was hearing, seeing, breathing, reaching, speaking.

But no separate owner could be located.

And yet.

That was the word that bothered him.

And yet.

There was still a feeling.

Not a clear belief exactly.
Not a conclusion.
Not even a proper thought most of the time.

A felt orientation.

Me here.
World there.

Me behind the eyes.
Life in front.

Me inside.
Everything else outside.

It was subtle some days.
Loud on others.

It appeared when someone looked at him too directly.
It appeared when shame came.
It appeared when there was a decision to be made.
It appeared when he walked into a room full of people.
It appeared when he felt misunderstood.
It appeared when fear rose in the body.

Then the old structure returned.

Not as philosophy.

As posture.

The body became a lookout tower.

Eyes looking out.
Chest slightly guarded.
Belly drawn in.
Face preparing itself.
Thoughts circling like birds above a field.

Daniel told Elias one evening, “I can’t find a self, but it still feels like there’s a me separate from everything else.”

Elias nodded slowly, as if this was not a problem but an opening.

“Good,” he said.

Daniel laughed. “Good?”

“Yes. That’s honest. Don’t rush past that. That feeling of separateness is probably the next portal.”

Daniel let that in.

He had expected Elias to say something like:
Look again.
There is no me.
That feeling is just a thought.
Don’t believe it.

But Elias did not swing the sword.

He leaned closer.

“How does separate feel?”

Daniel blinked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, don’t tell me whether it’s true. Don’t tell me whether there is a self. Don’t tell me what you know. Tell me how separateness feels.”

Daniel closed his eyes.

Immediately the mind began to prepare an answer.

A sense of being located behind the eyes.
A contraction.
A body-boundary.
An orientation toward the world.

“Not the report,” Elias said gently. “Feel it.”

Daniel stopped.

The room became quiet.

There was the chair under the body.
There was warmth in the hands.
There was faint pressure around the eyes.
There was a tightness in the throat.
There was a sense of the face being the front of something.
There was an inward leaning, almost as if experience were being watched from a small room inside the head.

“There,” Daniel said. “It’s like I’m in here.”

“Where is ‘in here’?”

Daniel felt again.

Behind the eyes, maybe.
But when attention went there, there was only pressure, darkness, tiny movements, warmth, flickering light behind closed lids.

“It feels like behind the eyes,” he said.

“Good. So what is actually there?”

“Pressure. Sensation. Some kind of visual darkness. Thought.”

“Is there a person there?”

Daniel waited.

No.

There was no person behind the eyes.

Only the feeling of behind-the-eyes.

That was different.

Something softened in the chest.

But the felt separateness did not disappear.

It simply became less convincing.

Like a cardboard wall revealed under stage lighting.

Still visible.
Still part of the scene.
But no longer made of brick.

Elias said, “The mistake is thinking the feeling of separateness proves a separate one.”

Daniel opened his eyes.

The room came back.

Clara was sitting near the window, listening. Naomi had one hand resting against her chest. Rain was tapping lightly on the glass.

Elias continued, “The felt me is not outside experience looking at experience. The felt me is included in experience.”

Daniel felt the sentence land.

Included.

The pressure behind the eyes was included.
The contraction in the throat was included.
The sense of being here was included.
The thought “I am separate” was included.
The frustration about still feeling separate was included.

Nothing was outside.

Not even the feeling of being outside.

That was maddening.

And beautiful.

Daniel looked at the table.

There was a cup on it.

For a moment, the old structure was obvious:
Daniel here.
Cup there.

Then he looked more closely.

There was seeing.
Colour.
Shape.
Light.
Thought saying cup.
Sensation in the body.
A subtle feeling of looking from here to there.

All of it happening.

Where was the line?

The mind could draw one.

Skin.
Eyes.
Distance.
Object.
Subject.

Useful lines.

Practical lines.

But in the rawness of the moment, the line was not quite findable.

There was not Daniel plus cup.

There was cup-seeing.
Body-sitting.
Thought-naming.
Room-happening.

Then the mind said, “Ah, I’m getting it.”

Elias smiled. “There’s the little claimant.”

They all laughed.

And even the claimant was included.

That was the relief.

Nothing had to be removed.

Not the sense of me.
Not the body-boundary.
Not the thought claiming progress.
Not the frustration.
Not the old lookout tower.
Not the feeling behind the eyes.

The whole thing could be seen as part of the weather of experiencing.

Daniel had been trying to get rid of the felt me so that non-separation could be complete.

But now he saw the trap.

A new me had formed.

The me who must eliminate me.

A very spiritual little security guard.

Standing at the door with a badge that said:

NO SEPARATENESS ALLOWED.

Elias said, “Let separateness be here. But look at what it is made of.”

That was the whole instruction.

Not believe it.
Not deny it.
Not fix it.
Not obey it.

Look.

Daniel sat quietly.

The feeling of “me over here” remained, but now it was closer, simpler, more textural.

Pressure.
Image.
Orientation.
Contraction.
Thought.
Habit.

It was not an enemy.

It was a familiar shape.

A learned posture of the organism.

A way life had organised itself for a long time.

No wonder it still appeared.

The body had spent decades mapping experience this way.

Inside and outside.
Self and world.
Me and other.
Safe and unsafe.
Seen and unseen.
Accepted and rejected.

That map did not vanish because a teaching was understood.

It softened through seeing.

Later that night, Daniel walked home under streetlights.

At first, there was Daniel walking through the night.

Then, briefly, there was simply walking.

Feet.
Pavement.
Cool air.
Jacket moving against skin.
Streetlight.
Breath.
Sound of tyres on wet road.
A thought about dinner.
A faint ache in one knee.
A sense of someone walking.

All included.

Even the someone.

He did not need to announce anything.

He did not need to say, “There is no separation.”

He did not need to say, “I am one with everything.”

That would have been too much.

Too sticky.

Too soon turned into doctrine.

Instead, the night walked.

The body walked.

The felt me walked too, as a small ripple in the larger movement.

Not a problem.

Not proof.

Just another shape in this.

And for a few steps, that was enough.

Story: The Shape of Over Here

I’m commenting as I read . . .

The body became a lookout tower.

Nice image.

That feeling of separateness is probably the next portal.

Ah. Intriguing. Promising.

“How does separate feel?”

I responded to this before scrolling further down in the story:
- There’s a “me” in here perceiving “the world” out there.
- The thought just appeared, “It’s lonely,” though I’m not sure if I actually feel that.
- Maybe it’s scary? There’s this little “me” that has to be protected from everything else?
- It feels detached? It feels like it takes effort to engage with “the world”?

“The mistake is thinking the feeling of separateness proves a separate one.”

I don’t think that the feeling of separateness proves that there is a separate “self.”
But, now that I think about it, perhaps I do think that the feeling of separateness proves that I’m not yet awake? And I’m already imagining how you might respond to that . . .

“The felt me is not outside experience looking at experience. The felt me is included in experience.”

Hmm . . . Pondering that . . .

The sense of being here was included.
The thought “I am separate” was included.
The frustration about still feeling separate was included.

This is good . . .

A subtle feeling of looking from here to there.

Yep. I have that.

Nothing had to be removed.

Not the sense of me.
Not the body-boundary.
Not the thought claiming progress.
Not the frustration.
Not the old lookout tower.
Not the feeling behind the eyes.

OK. Yes.

Daniel had been trying to get rid of the felt me so that non-separation could be complete.

K has probably been doing that too (as you presumably sensed).

A new me had formed.

The me who must eliminate me.

A very spiritual little security guard.

Standing at the door with a badge that said:

NO SEPARATENESS ALLOWED.

Got a chuckle out of that.

“Let separateness be here. But look at what it is made of.”

That was the whole instruction.

Hmm. OK.

The body walked.

The felt me walked too, as a small ripple in the larger movement.

Not a problem.

Hmm.

Good choice of a story to share with me right now. Thanks, vince.

Late-night sit, shortly after finishing the post about your story:
Mostly playing with "This is it" / "Samsara is nirvana" / "No picking and choosing."
That is, settling into:
This is it — all that is experienced right now, including not only seeing, hearing, feeling, putting my experience into words, composing my next LU post, but also feeling like a self. All of this, everything, is included, is allowed. This is it — this, right now, as it is.

Wondered again, as I wondered aloud to you once before, whether you're sensing that my "stream entry" (a term I learned only recently) might be more along the lines of realizing "This is it" (as yours was?) than realizing no-self.

Mostly playing with "This is it" / "Samsara is nirvana" / "No picking and choosing."
That is, settling into:
This is it — all that is experienced right now, including not only seeing, hearing, feeling, putting my experience into words, composing my next LU post, but also feeling like a self. All of this, everything, is included, is allowed. This is it — this, right now, as it is.

Yes. That’s good.

And include even this:

the feeling that there is a self

Don’t make feeling like a self into the exception.

That’s a common hidden move:

Everything is allowed — except this sense of separateness, because this means I still haven’t seen clearly.

No.

The sense of separateness is also this.

The thought “I’m putting this into words” is this.
The urge to compose the next LU post is this.
The wish to get it right is this.
The self-feeling is this.
The sense that this is or isn’t insight is this.

No picking and choosing does not mean preferences vanish. Choosing tea over coffee may happen. Moving away from pain may happen. Saying no may happen.

It means not turning experience into:

this belongs
this doesn’t belong
this is spiritual
this is an obstacle
this is awakening
this is failure

That sorting is the extra layer.

And watch the word allowed. It’s useful, but it can imply an allower.

More accurate:

This is here.

Even cleaner:

This.

No one needs to allow it.

Seeing, hearing, typing, thinking, selfing, wanting, evaluating, settling, not settling — all happening.

Now the cut:

Is there anything outside this that can stand apart and accept or reject it?

Look.

Not as a doctrine.

Right now, where is the one who could pick and choose reality?

whether you're sensing that my "stream entry" (a term I learned only recently) might be more along the lines of realizing "This is it" (as yours was?) than realizing no-self.

Yes — that may be the more natural gate for you.

Not primarily:

“There is no self.”

But:

“This is it.”

And then no-self is included inside that.

Because “no-self” can still become an object of attainment:

I need to realize no-self.
I haven’t grokked no-self yet.
Others got no-self faster than I did.
When no-self lands, suffering will improve.

That whole structure keeps the seeker alive.

But “This is it” cuts differently.

It says:

This experience, exactly as it is, is not a waiting room for awakening.

Seeing, hearing, thinking, selfing, frustration, work-pressure, the sense of K, the feeling of separation, inquiry, doubt, wanting relief — all included.

Nothing outside this is coming to complete it.

And yes, that is close to the line in my account: “THIS IS IT became a catchphrase”, tied to seeing that happenings are already finished, cannot be changed, and that wishing them to be different only adds distortion.

So I’d say the live direction here is:

Not “I must finally see no-self.”

But:

Even the sense of self is this.
Even the feeling of separation is this.
Even selfing is this.
Even not being sure is this.

Then no-self becomes less like an insight you need to acquire and more like an implication of looking honestly:

Where is the one outside this?

Where is the one who could stand apart from reality and accept or reject it?

Where is the one who could get stream entry?

Not found.

So yes: your opening may be This is it / no picking and choosing / samsara is nirvana more than a clean, dramatic no-self click.

But don’t make that into a new map.

The danger now is:

“Ah, maybe my path is the This-is-it path. Let me track whether that’s stream entry.”

That is more selfing.

Keep it immediate:

This is it.

Not as philosophy. Not as consolation. Not as a spiritual slogan.

As the end of arguing with the fact that this is what’s here.

So "THIS" is analogous to a net that encompasses everything.
That is 'known' & unknown. Recognised or not.
It encompasses what's happening in the farthest galaxy, as well as within this organism.
It acknowledges that what seems to be known is an interpretation & so may or may not be an accurate description.
It includes that what seems to be known includes much that isn't seen.

The "it" in This is it is the same as 'This'.
So "This IS" says it too.

Oh, and when i say/think "This", it conjures up the concept of a big "mystery bag" that i metaphorically carry over my shoulder. Like Santa's sack.
Out of this sack emerges life. It touches me, then returns into the sack.
Whatever i experience emerges from mystery, then returns to it.
i hasten to add that i'm very relaxed & happy with not knowing.

much love

v

This is it — all that is experienced right now, including not only seeing, hearing, feeling, putting my experience into words, composing my next LU post, but also feeling like a self. All of this, everything, is included, is allowed. This is it — this, right now, as it is.

Yes. That’s good.

And include even this:

the feeling that there is a self

Yep, “feeling like a self” was the crucial addition to my “This is it” list.

Because “no-self” can still become an object of attainment:

I need to realize no-self.
I haven’t grokked no-self yet.
Others got no-self faster than I did.
When no-self lands, suffering will improve.

Yeah, I’ve totally been doing that.

This experience, exactly as it is, is not a waiting room for awakening.

This is good.
Of course, I can already feel the urge to throw some selfing at that, adding “I need to grok this. (So put it in purple.)”
And I believe the helpful approach there is, “There she goes again” — subsuming even that into THIS, something like turning a second arrow into a first arrow.

It’s all THIS. Really, all of it. ALL of it.
(That’s a little homily / pep talk to myself.)

Then no-self becomes less like an insight you need to acquire and more like an implication of looking honestly:

Where is the one outside this?

Where is the one who could stand apart from reality and accept or reject it?

Where is the one who could get stream entry?

Not found.

OK. Interesting.

a big "mystery bag"

Yeah, it’s obviously all one enormous mystery.

Thank you again, vince, for all the time and energy you're spending accompanying me through this.

Plan for afternoon sit:

Settling into “This is it” — everything in present experience, ALL of it, just as it is.

That includes seeing, hearing, feeling, putting my experience into words, composing LU posts, reminders of “Don’t grab a thought,” grabbing thoughts, feeling frustrated about grabbing thoughts, having a sense of self, wishing for no sense of self, wishing I were awake, trying to get a sense that awakeness isn’t in the future, failing to get that sense, feeling frustrated about that, having a headache, wondering if it was really a good idea to have some Diet Coke to help counteract the headache, trying to get a sense that it’s all THIS, failing to get that sense, getting confused about what that even means, longing for liberation from suffering, getting bored, hearing the birds outside, feeling the breath, seeing the blur of my nose from two angles — all included.

Really, ALL of it. It’s all THIS — whatever that means.

******************************************

Actuality of afternoon sit:

Pretty much as planned.
Reminders of “This is it.”
Mostly seeing, feeling, hearing, putting experience into words, mainly for this post.
Bias towards returning to and staying with sense experience. But everything else fine too.

Several minutes in, scrolled through phone to find this: “This experience, exactly as it is, is not a waiting room for awakening,” to use as another reminder. Then only thought of it once or twice.
A minute or two later, scrolled through phone to find this: “Where is the one who could stand apart from reality and accept or reject it?” But did nothing with it.

Felt like because everything was allowed, thoughts about self or no-self, frustration about “not being awake” yet, and such things just didn’t bother showing up and causing trouble.

Very slight sense of ease and spaciousness and simplicity.

Actuality of afternoon sit:

Pretty much as planned.
Reminders of ...

Did you recognise that the planning just happened?
Did the reminder just appear?

..or was there credit assigned for the job or the outcome?

Really, ALL of it. It’s all THIS — whatever that means.

Of course it's unfathomable. THIS includes ripples that are not noticed.

Felt like because everything was allowed, thoughts about self or no-self, frustration about “not being awake” yet, and such things just didn’t bother showing up and causing trouble.

Excellent! How is "felt like because everything was allowed" different to everything just IS? Does "allowed" imply control?

vince

Pretty much as planned.
Reminders of ...

Did you recognise that the planning just happened?
Did the reminder just appear?

..or was there credit assigned for the job or the outcome?

Nope, didn't recognize that the planning just happened. But in retrospect, it's clear that the thought that the afternoon sit would focus on "This is it" simply arose (due to various preconditions, some of which can be identified), and then all of the elaboration on what might be included in "This" also just arose.

Likewise, I didn't recognize that the reminders of "This is it" were just happening during the sit. Hmm, yeah, it's easy to see that the "distracting" thoughts that appeared during the sit just happened — that they simply bubbled up out of the brain — and it would've seemed like that even in the moment. But because issuing reminders that "This is it" had been thought of earlier and approved of and, thus, felt "intentional," it's harder to recognize that there's no doer who would get the "credit" for the reminders.

Interesting. That seems like it's probably a general rule: that thoughts and actions that were thought of and approved of earlier seem more intentional and, thus, more like they have a thinker/doer/agent.

Intention = having a thought about doing something and then a thought of approval about that thought. Right? Huh.

(And the thought arises: I think I just passed one of LU's final exam questions. :-) )

It’s all THIS — whatever that means.

Of course it's unfathomable. THIS includes ripples that are not noticed.

Actually, what I meant there, which I didn't make clear at all, is that when a reminder about "This is it" appears (I was about to say, "when I remind myself 'This is it,'" but I decided to be more precise), I frequently notice that I'm not sure what I intend by that pointer or how such a reminder is helpful. And mostly, I try not to worry about that because, oddly, it doesn't seem to matter much for the use or "efficacy" of the pointer.

But, like, sometimes "This is it" means, "Samsara is nirvana." That is, what I've been looking for is and has always been right here and is simply all of THIS: everything in present experience. (OK, that actually makes sense as a pointer.)

But sometimes it's more vague. Sometimes “This is it” gets used mostly as a reminder to attend to the part of THIS that consists of sensory experience. But your pointer/reminder that THIS includes the entirety of present experience, even all the thought-stuff, was very helpful and has expanded my usual immediate understanding of “This is it.”

Occasionally, “This is it” is interpreted more as I think you often (always?) seem to mean it, which is that there is nothing other than present experience. I.e., that’s all we have access to; that’s what our life consists of.

Sometimes, “This is it” functions as an “It’s all okay as is” pointer, which I guess is more or less the same as “Samsara is nirvana.” I think here of the chapter “It’s OK,” from Charlotte Joko Beck’s Everyday Zen, a book that I use in my teaching and which was the subject of a chapter of my dissertation, so I’ve spent quite a lot of time with it. (I long ago digested some pointers from her and a student of hers as “Things are a big mess, but it’s okay anyway,” as one way of talking about the apparently paradoxical nature of human experience. And here I am, still trying to grok “It’s okay.” And, yes, thank you for the pointer/reminder that “still trying to grok ‘It’s okay’” is also included in “It’s okay.”)

Wow, alright, where was I in your message? . . .

Felt like because everything was allowed, thoughts about self or no-self, frustration about “not being awake” yet, and such things just didn’t bother showing up and causing trouble.

Excellent! How is "felt like because everything was allowed" different to everything just IS? Does "allowed" imply control?

I don’t think of the “allowed” there as implying control, but it’s probably worth using different language to reduce any lurking implications of control and a controller. Hmm, I dunno, “everything just IS” doesn’t have quite such a welcoming, spacious, embracing ring as “everything is allowed.” Will ponder further . . . (I.e., inevitably, the brain will produce more thoughts on this subject.)

This seems worth mentioning:
Last night, got less upset than usual about a common type of difficult interaction with spouse. Didn’t notice or “intentionally” engage any specific mechanism that would explain that, but naturally, there’s an inclination to attribute it in a general sort of way to whatever the heck we’re doing at LU and in your Zoom meetings.

(That’s an issue that probably doesn’t need to be explored until after my name turns blue: I don’t understand what we’re doing exactly. This gives rise to frustration that it’s hard to know how to do it “better” or more “efficiently” and also gives rise to the thought that, at least right now, it’s hard to imagine having any interest in guiding other people, since I have no idea how this process works. And you personally seem to have your own intuitive thing going, which is great, but it might not be in any way replicable by anyone else.)