Postby Jigme » Thu Oct 18, 2012 1:16 am
Hi Nona, well ehre goes,
1) Is there a 'me', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever? how about self, is there anything that is separate from everything else?
Me is just a thought. ME, I , I am , all of that, is just thoughts. So me , I ,I am etc is only ever thought, self thought is only thought within a world of thought. But thoughts are part of life too, human life, human being. Being incorporates thought, even those naughty, (ha ha), me, me, me, I, I, I, thoughts. But those thoughts of me and I are not found to be anywhere, (other than in fleeting me thoughts of the thinking mind), and cannot prove a self or me exists. Me Thoughts want thoughts to prove me exists….as if a movie scene could ever be able to want it to exist as a being….absurd…only ever other ideas and thoughts. No me or I therefore anywhere, never will be , never was. oh such fantasy…ha ha.
Self as above….Being is….Is-ness is, life lives, ideas as energy emerge, self is ideas only, so self idea is within life, not outside life,…. (Inside/ outside life just another absurd idea ) …idea of self is life too, not separate. Idea/statement…of self or even non self is limited in its usage for communication only, and very useless if idea is taken for proof or truth of self.
2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works.
Living/ Being….. notices/engages/respond’s to lifes events. Say a tree is seen….there then is seeing, followed by the thought label tree, and a tree that is over there…thought has responded to what’s immediately sensed/experienced through eyes, ears, taste, touch, smell,.. and then adds me /I am here, tree is there…at this point self-sense has begun, quick as ya like, but it is added to experience. (Important that it is understood to be added) ….it is useful here at that point in the process to distinguish and label, tree, me, here there, etc….but this is all conceptual mind, human conceptual mind, marvellous…. But wham a sense of self is here too, has arrived in the lap of being so to speak, a sense of self-hood thought is added…and even more added thoughts to that,…. Such as , I am important, I am centre of life, I am in control, I should be in control, oh God I don’t feel in control ( even the thought …perhaps God is in control.) etc etc. The misunderstanding by this point is well on its way. The separation illusion is underway.
3) How does it feel to see this? describe in detail.
Relief, relaxing, energy is available which has been caught up elsewhere, i.e in self story. Liberation, free, clichés and more clichés. Funny laugh laugh ha ha at the absurdity of not seeing this.
As if I had no savings except £100 and then lost it and this caused me a frantic eruption of anxiety, and made life painful and disappointing, and all that I could have had and now can’t etc etc. Then a week later I find under the sofa a prize cheque of £10000. All that worry anxiety has gone, so what about the lost money, so what about all those hours of worry and pain and lost hopes….relief, relaxing, some excitement, stopping of all that anxiety and pain, energy available, as tightness falls away, aware of the absurdity of all the previous tension and panic.
Realisation how deeply confused I have been and how the very mechanism of believing I am a self, and this self must be found somewhere, and I should be in control, that I need my life to have meaning, is all so confused and totally wrong, this Seeing through all that is so relieving…However only the false idea of self would be angry, sad, incredulous or even jubilant…being here just now is just content, open, ordinary…yet happy, joyous, amazed comes in little waves too sometimes…..not big deal but the biggest deal ever… a shift in perception, as if my eye glasses were tinted a light red, and now the tint is gone and the world is seen as it is. Fully understood how the confusion can be thought to be real, how thoughts trap mind, and there’s a warmth and comprehension, compassion we might say, but not a high-falooting cosmic compassion, just oh yes that’s how that happens, what a shame that’s happening, no need to for it happen, but if it does no need to worry, it’ll pass, its not real, just see that its all ok really, etc. A compassion of an understanding parent, who hears and sees the tantrum, knows it will pass, takes the child seriously but not the stories it is yelling about, calm and holding but not indulging.
Perhaps it could be seen that the self story is like these child tantrums, uprisings of anger, frustration, fear and anxiety, coming out of the me sense…and carried on into adulthood, but more sophisticated versions…. And now seen from spacious Awareness, comprehended but not believed to mean anything other than a passing tantrum.
4) How would you describe it to somebody who has never heard about this illusion but is curious about it.
In an attempt to illuminate the illusion I would say the following. Imagine that someone has upset you, you’ve heard second hand a rumour that they have said something about you that is not true. You create a story about them, begin to hate them, begin to obsess about them. Then you meet them. Your actions to them are tainted by your knowledge they have done something wrong to you. You suddenly find out from what they say that they have not said what you thought they’d said. Suddenly the whole edifice of the stories fall away and you are left initially relieved and open and all of that…(before any other guilt or shame stories might arise)….imagine…what does this feel like ….when something you have completely 100 per cent believed, and which has created a whole train of further stories and emotional and pain…suffering, is suddenly seen to be built on an entirely false basis. This could describe how we experience the falling away of an illusive story…and also highlights something important about self thoughts, they seem so real, they seem to say they are real, they proliferate, they relate to a me or an I. We tend to ignore that we have been completely taken in by our thoughts and mind and emotions, even when evidence shows us they were wrong/part wrong. If this was another person, we would be distrustful of them in the future, especially if they kept on making up stories that didn’t turn out fully true. Yet with thoughts and stories we rarely do this. Look. At this point we have seen the outcome of the illusion, we need to notice that, see it’s responsible for suffering. (the suffering that’s added to everyday living which will inherently involve suffering). At this point we need to ask ourselves does this thinking mind that thinks a me and a self really exist, and really to be trusted fully? we begin to look and ask and see. This is the illusion seen from just one believed thought story…but in life it is writ large…we live much of our life emphasising/making important this mind and thoughts that can make stories up. why? The thought of the I is so strong, so replayed each moment that we expect that at the centre of all of these stories and dramas about me and I, must indeed be an I or me, or meaning. This is a wrong belief. We need to check this. It is such a strong mis-belief that we will keep hearing the thought that this self must be there even if I can’t see it. The illusion is also found in the mistaken belief that that there is a self that could be hurt, could be upset by another person saying something about a me. The way to see the illusion is to Look, but thoughts cannot look they can think about this but can never See…thoughts are only ever added to experience. There is something that can See can Look, Being has a Knowing available, the mind has capacity to see thoughts outside of thought mind.
In an attempt to encourage the curiosity into a Looking I might say.
Curious good. That’s a great start. Being is curious, not You, not self. Thinking mind…so to speak is not curious. I would say that. ….And attempt to unpack, just a bit.
We place our faith in the ideas we call self and me and I. This is the illusion that is spoken of. Therefore in order to explore the illusion that is being spoken of you should first allow the possibility that this idea of me/ I and self are illusion. Will you allow that, this will be experimental? Curiosity into this is good, rely on it. The illusion is that the thoughts that are only ever in retrospect, are mistakenly believed to be direct experience. Thoughts only ever explain, or attempt to explain direct life…And the further illusion is that these illusive thoughts are believed to be pointing to, and to be proof of a self at the centre of our being. A further trick of thoughts is that a self exists because these very self thoughts arise. Circular. Check this.
But these thoughts are nothing other than thoughts, even the very emotive feeling ones, the memories, the self-sense, the me, the I , the relationship stories. All the stories that attempt to make sense of the events of life are only ever found in thoughts. All, even, especially those you will defend with all your (thought) strength. Check, check and check. Find the real genuine direct experience, and find the thought response to this, notice clearly, over and over. A but but but response is a sure sign that something is being exposed here…good sign, stay with it.
Soon you will notice that there’s Knowing outside of,(lets say) surrounding these thoughts, the trapped, tight thoughts, this Knowing is what Knows life/living, Knowing can be relied on, is never unavailable…is Being. Place confidence in that, keep looking, checking, over and over and over. This is important. Then you can understand thinking is added, self-thinking is added, and is not direct real experience. The illusion is being seen. This is the illusion. That’s it…. that’s the illusion. This has implications for all your life. Here is Choice. Do you want to drop illusion, or do you not want to. Is there fear? Keep checking. When the Awareness and Knowing that Sees thoughts as illusion is experienced/even briefly is there fear, is there uncertainty, or doubt, are there those but but questions? or is there clarity, warmth, openness, knowledge, calm and certainty….Notice. The fear that you feel is not true. There is no need to fear the life you experience will change to something so unfamiliar you will not be you, when the dust of illusion falls away. Mind can seem spacious, objective clear, bright, light, kind, empathetic, and many of those positive qualities we are told Awakened possess. All humans have experienced these qualities, maybe even quite often….we just ignore, devalue, dismiss these and focus on the thoughts….pay attention, reside and notice when unbiased all allowing Awareness is experienced….What we need is a shift in what we value, we must value Aware mind over confused thought filled mind.
5) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look? was there a specific moment when seeing happened or was it gradual? what exactly happened?
A few weeks into the work when Nona introduced the commentary and the commentator discussion, I realized that I had believed that the old habits of what I was calling a flavor of Ian was in some way hinting there was indeed a central self. Once I realized this subtle belief, things began to unravel. This particular set of thinking that had a history was being seen and an unconscious area of mind was opened by the is there a self behind all this? scrutiny.
At this time I was also experiencing these very same thoughts and emotions which was all about how ian was living in life, and how wrong he was for the world, and all the selfing tightening that came with it. What needed exposure was indeed being exposed. I still it seemed believed a commentator must be there, somewhere. During a meditation a spontaneous image of a clay potter’s wheel came up in mind, the hands and the clay were busily building and rebuilding a pot as the wheel spun. I realised the hands and clay were my habits (my skandhas) in the process of being made and falling away and re made. The mind Knew it must Look inside the pot, and low and behold nothing, empty, yet energetic, the whirl of the wheel was pulling in the clay which was being moulded, but really there was no thing in the centre only a centrifugal force. I Knew, really no thing at centre of me, this clay of my stories not evidence for centre …just is- ness, energy. Just so it is for any need for a meaning, a God a reason….it is all just going on …and on. This was Realised, implications unfolded further.
The/a final brick (of this particular knot of illusion) to be pulled seems to have been when it was Realised that a style of self story which caused much pain and tension was seen. It was that of a never ending doubt. By this I mean that even if the evidence time and time again told me that no self could be found, there’d still be a subtle sense that one day a self would be found, or a cause found, or that the self was unseen cos it was hidden. That thoughts were still in some way to be held up as the highest evidence, that even when all evidence showed it as invalid it would hold up. The absurdity of such a belief became clear.
6) When you say "I", what are you referring to?
This I is a Being who is able to be distinguished from other Beings. There is matter here, within a particular life, within a human physical body. A being which experiences emotions, thoughts, sensations, senses, ideas, empathy, warmth, Knowing, Seeing, moves in time and space, etc etc or so it seems. Makes sense of living through the senses of living a human life. All these are inadequate words to highlight this life. A Being through which Awareness seems to be living (at least at times that is what is said of it by a me). This I this me, that Knows that when this I/ Me gets upset, feels tight and wants to hold onto a sense of a me and an I, is only getting temporarily trapped in a story called I. The I that is in the cinema of life watching the drama of the movie of my life and Knows it’s a movie, even when briefly lost in the characters and events.
An I that can be defined, it’s a label, to differentiate only, as with a Tree, what type of tree, where is that tree, what is that tree looking like…will help identification…but its all labels… really a tree cannot fully be described, each description even at atomic level is only ideas and labels. Only ever terms to help define, but with a care to use them in a way they are meant to be used.
7) Is there an experiencer experiencing, or is there only experience?
Only experience. Experience has faculties available to Know and See and Comprehend Experience. Human condition seems to be Six senses and physical manifestation, within Awareness/Being/Is ness, nothing more nothing less, nothing outside nothing inside. Full unlimited un-centred Experience only that.
That's it ...words seem unable to do a clear justice to the loosening i am feeling and experiencing, but thats' the point too
Much love
Ian
x
