Who am I?

[beingbraden]

Thanks for sticking with me Stacy. I keep focusing on DE through different activities and such. I think the constant thing that happens almost all the time now when I try to focus on direct experience is a pressure in my head. It feels like it is at the center of my head.

One of the meditation tapes was about releasing and receiving and I felt like I was able to release and receive for all these different areas in my body, except for my head. Maybe that is the place where the self is most strong.

I am in the process of moving apartments now so I might be offline tomorrow.

[Anastacia42]

self is most strong.

THERE IS NO SELF. to be be sttrong


Anytime you want to use the word "self" I want you to change it to "lie." All of that pressure or contraction or any of it indicates you were lying to yourself.

Loving,

[beingbraden]

Thank you for the reminder!! As soon as I read your message the pressure seemed to dissipate from the center of my head and then slowly reformed at the back of my head where my skull meets my neck. I know this pressure thing is a distraction, just caused by lies but it pops up almost all the time I am intentionally paying attention to direct experience.

Moving to my new apartment has been consuming all my time for the past day and a bit and I have been mostly in my head that entire time planning, logistics, efforting.

I want this so bad. There is a feeling of desperation to all of this. Is it unhelpful for the process? I know the video sent said that desire is very important, but I don't know if its too much.
There are moments where I feel like I am a lost cause. I listened to another one of the tapes "Where am I?". It was a couple nights ago so I can't remember all the details, but from what I remember there was a frantic energy in my system. The direct experience would be a sensing of eyes twitching and straining, and sensing of tightness in my solar plexus. I realized that it was coming to the end of the recording and there was a thought "..I didn't get it". There was so much hope beforehand and I tried to put all my effort into this, and then I come to the end of another hour of sitting without having woken up and I started to cry a bit. Frustration and desperation. Direct experience is sensing eyes watering, sensing tightness and clenching in my face, sensing tightness in my throat, lots of thoughts, sensing heaviness in chest.

[Anastacia42]

There is a feeling of desperation to all of this. Is it unhelpful for the process?

Yes, it is making it impossible.

You must be relaxed.

Remember you're just looking at a fact that is already true. There's nothing you need to do to make it happen. It's already true that there's no separate "self."

All you need to do is stop believing the lie of a "self"and notice there isn't one. RELAX into that.

I suggest doing "Where Is 'I'" some more.

And ButtChair.

But only when you're relaxed!

I'm happy to be helping you.

Loving

[beingbraden]

I've been having dreams lately. I don't know if you would call them dreams per se, but I will do an exercise like seeing everything is God, or just relaxing as much as possible and noticing DE before going to sleep, and then later I will half-wake up in the middle of the night and have this feeling like I am awakened or something and just sit in the feeling but I'm not really fully conscious and then I will go back to bed. Very strange.

I suggest doing "Where Is 'I'" some more.

And ButtChair.

Of course the two exercises that have caused me the most frustration so far haha.

ButtChair
- Sensation of feeling the butt in the chair, but then as I paid closer attention it felt like the line that separated my butt from the chair "blew out" in some weird way. Its like the only thing that was there was the sensation, but there wasn't a concept of my body ending somewhere. Its hard to describe. Even though the sensation of my butt in the chair was still there the entire time, the feeling of where my body ended just kept expanding outwards
- I should probably spend some more time with this one. I want to make sure I am not imagining this. I also feel like this on is good for me because I don't really know what the answer is "supposed" to be so it forces me to really sit with DE
- I've been focusing on relaxing more, but finding that I tend to veer towards sleeping when I relax too much so I am trying to find the sweet spot

"Where is I"
- I came to the end of the recording with the same feeling of intense frustration (sensing pressure building up in my face and chest and contraction through the whole body) I tried to sit with the question "Who is experiencing the frustration?" which initially made me even more mad, but I was able to sit with it for a minute or two until the anger died down
- This one really pisses me off for some reason. I think its probably for a similar reason as the ButtChair practice because it feels like I'm not "getting it" and then I have to listen to all these people on the recording that seem to be having all these amazing insights and doing it better than me
- Really tempting to try and effort more to find the "I" thought, like I want to just muscle my way in
- Its really hard for me to even have a solid idea of "where" past thoughts exist vs future thoughts, etc. So it feels like an extremely hard task for me to then take the abstract idea of "I" and locate that
- I will try this one some more, even though it really frustrates me

[Anastacia42]

Okaaaaay...

Anger is the intent to do something contaminated by the illusion that we are presently helpless. The solution is to do something. This proves you're not helpless.

Really tempting to try and effort more to find the "I"

You will never find something that does not exist.

This sense of self is nothing but the lie Sensation plus a label and a story.

Did you ever question that list of expectations?

You're not hopeless. Relax!

Loving,

[beingbraden]

Anger is the intent to do something contaminated by the illusion that we are presently helpless. The solution is to do something. This proves you're not helpless.

Yes, this rings true for me. There was definitely a feeling of helplessness yesterday. It's funny because I think I've probably made a lot of "progress" on this over the past 2 weeks, but there seem to be moments where I plateau or feel like I am not getting it quick enough and I immediately turn to helplessness and wonder if I am ever going to get this.

Did you ever question that list of expectations?

I haven't done this yet. Things have still been really busy today with setting up everything at my place since the move. I will set aside some time tomorrow to use Katie Byron's method with my list of expectations and see how it goes.

Today I had a bit of free time at work to re-read some of our old messages. I was able to get in touch with the same "things are just happening on their own" feeling that I first got when I did the hand-flipping exercise, and I tried to drop expectations as much as possible (even though I haven't formally gone through and examined all of them).
There was a lot of traffic today so while I was driving home I was able to just sit in this feeling of everything happening exactly the way it should and things just happening on their own. Its really subtle, but it was a really pleasant feeling. There was a lot less second-guessing myself and narration in my head, and it felt like I was able to be in my body a lot more. Everything seemed essentially effortless. In that state it feels as if the idea of a self is sort of silly because life is just happening and it's this ongoing chain reaction of everything with no apparent personal control.

[Anastacia42]

Good morning

I will set aside some time tomorrow to use Katie Byron's method with my list of expectations and see how it goes.

Excellent. One of the reasons that I didn't have as much to do after I saw no self was because I had done 10 years of the work of Byron Katie before that.

That was good to let yourself sit and see how everything arises on its own.

Remember your go to exercise is ButtChair.

Don't try to analyze everything just let thoughts go by.

Keep posting Direct Experience.

Loving,

[beingbraden]

I haven't gone through all my expectations yet, but this one stood out:

Seeing through the illusion of self will be obvious and there will be a noticeable shift in how I experience life
Is it true?
Yes

Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
No

How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
- Nauseous feeling in the stomach, sensation
- Tension forming in the face, sensation
- Sinking of the chest, sensation
- Hardening / tension through the whole body, sensation
- Thoughts convincing myself that I haven’t awakened yet, thoughts

Who would you be without that thought?
- Lighter
- More curious
- Accepting
- More relaxed (ha)

I can tell that my expectations are killing a lot of it for me, so I am going to keep noticing what expectations I have and examining them. Thank you

I focused on ButtChair some more and I had a weird experience today. There was this feeling of wanting to stop. Like there was something inside me that didn't want to do ButtChair, as if something bad was going to happen. It was just a feeling that I got, like a lot of resistance and almost a knee-jerk reaction to want to turn away and stop doing it. Like my attention wanted to go anywhere other than my butt /body and the chair. Direct experience was shallow breath (sensation), warmth in chest (sensation), angsty feeling of wanting to move or do something else(?) (sensation). I guess its sort of hard to describe the direct experience of what it was feeling like.
I was able to sit with it though and continue the exercise for the most part, and then my timer went off and I had to stop before I really got anywhere else. Not sure if that happened because of the exercise, or something else, or what to think of it.

[Anastacia42]

Good morning,

angsty feeling of wanting to move or do something else(?) (sensation). I guess its sort of hard to describe the direct experience of what it was feeling like.

Let's start here. "Angst" is a label, not a Sensation. Please find a Sensation word, just for practice.

Hard? The problem is kind of that is too simple. We've learned all kinds of complicated explanations & none of them are true. The truth is much simpler than our learned thinking.

Seeing is very likely to dawn on you when you're relaxed & not looking. Our looking exercises dry up the conditions to recognize it when you see.


"Enlightenment is an accident. Meditation makes us accident prone."

Sunryu Suzuki

We cannot predict it and we cannot make it happen. We can only practice the conditions in which it is more likely.

This frustrates the mind because it wants everything to be linear and logical and step-by-step, but this is not. It is non linear and unpredictable.

The quicker you drop the expectations, the quicker you create the conditions for seeing no self.

Just LOOK

Much love,

[Anastacia42]

I want to invite you to some of the practice groups. Vince's are my favorite.

Weekly Free Meetup Times (Sydney, Australia time):
Saturday 9 pm,
Monday 6 am (for paid subscribers - recording only available to attendees)
Wednesday 4 pm (recorded and published on YouTube)
Friday 7 am (recording only available to attendees)

📍Check your local time: www.worldtimebuddy.com
⏱ Countdown timer for the next meeting on: www.wakingupwithvince.com (scroll down)

🧭 It’s always the same Zoom link; you can arrive late or leave early.

🔗 CLICK HERE TO JOIN free meetings:
Meeting ID: 869 9148 5768
Passcode: 083035

Write to vinceschubert@gmail.com for the link & schedule.

Click here for the YouTube Channel


Luchana & Lubo run one on Thursdays. Write to Luchana at luchanauzunova@gmail.com


Ilona holds a monthly meeting. Write admin@ilonaciunaite.com for that link & schedule
She may be pausing hers, but you can get on her list.

The meetings have people who have already seen and people who are still seeking.

Loving,

[Anastacia42]

Todd & Pernille have a couple of groups, too.

Write for details:

Todd Lent • unfetteredmindfulness@gmail.com

Loving,

[beingbraden]

Let's start here. "Angst" is a label, not a Sensation. Please find a Sensation word, just for practice.

A sensation word for this angst feeling I was having would be energy shooting up from my belly. Very tied to the tension in my face too. Tightness in the belly and throat.

Our looking exercises dry up the conditions to recognize it when you see.

Can you explain this a bit more? What do you mean by "dry up"?

The quicker you drop the expectations, the quicker you create the conditions for seeing no self.

I came to the realization that I am probably going to have to give up the expectation of seeing no self as well. Like if I head into a sit with the expectation that "This is going to be the one" or "I am about to see it" that probably kills it too. In order to be fully relaxed there can't really be any expectations, even expectations that I am doing things "right" or that I am "getting close". Maybe I'm philosophizing too much here, but thats my intuition on it.

I have been to one of Vince's meetings and one of Ilona's last week. I will put the others on my calendar. My schedule is very busy every other week due to work, so I will have more free time next week.

I keep doing ButtChair. I do it for 1 hr+ in formal sitting, and then while driving to and from work. My mind is telling me that it is boring and that theres nothing more to learn or see from it. Despite those thoughts, during my formal ButtChair sit I experienced moments of:
- Extreme boredom
- Expansiveness throughout my whole body
- Tingling sensations up and down the body
- Strings of random thoughts
- Some more of the feeling where the border of my body starts to fade
- A sinking feeling
- Almost falling asleep

[Anastacia42]

Sorry, I missed a typo. "dry up" should be "set up "


All of the sensations you feel while doing butt chair are perfectly valid, but this one could be leading you to see:

Expansiveness throughout my whole body

That is the truth feeling.

Pay attention to all of the sensations but see if that 1 turns into noticing that there is no self

Loving,

[beingbraden]

Thanks for the pointer. Of course now I am expecting and looking for the expansiveness during ButtChair and I am not feeling it as much haha. Will continue sitting with it.

I have been paying attention to direct experience some more and reading other posts on the blog. Its starting to click what you have been saying the whole time about the sensation of self just being a constriction + a thought. Seems so simple but I don't think I really got in until now. Anywhere I look for a self I notice that its just a sensation. For some reason I just label that sensation as "special" in some way, even though it is like any other sensation in my body. Once its identified as special then it takes the label of "me".

Yeah, just sitting and looking for a self and not really finding one is a fun experience. I'm feeling the same lightness and expansiveness that I felt when I first did the hand flipping exercise. There was a point where I just couldn't stop smiling for a couple minutes with this huge grin, just because it felt nice. Like just being aware and feeling how nice it feels to smile. Trying to relax into it as much as possible