The Gate

Hi T,

Some sensations seem to be ‘self’, others are ignored. Is there any real difference in terms of the sensations themselves? E.g. an intense emotional sensation may seem to be very much ‘me’, while an equally intense sensation from say banging your elbow doesn’t have the same quality of ‘me-ness’ about it. What makes the difference between a self-identified sensation and one that isn’t self-identified?

Pain in my feet that I don't identify with. Heaviness in my chest I identify with more. I become more aware of emotions of grief, guilt, fear, love that seem to be 'centred' in the same area as the tight, asthmatic sensations. As I try to see what makes the difference between these sensations I see that there is more emotion tied up in the sensations I identify more with. As I stay with the more 'me'-like sensations they lighten, become more fluid and more like the feet sensations. Now I have the heart-centre sensations and feet pain doing a dance where they are all more contained within awareness and neither is dominant or more 'sticky'. There is a loveliness about loosening the 'grip' on the heavier emotions and watching them 'float'. There is more love and less tightness or holding on.

Another angle to try: sit quietly (e.g. just sit) for a while, eyes closed. Can you find your personality? Is it there? Is it a discoverable ‘thing’ at all?

So I just sit and look for my personality. I am aware of strands or flavours I recognise as often occurring like irritation, love, patience and humour but there is nothing fixed about any of it. Familiar thought patterns arise. I feel warm encountering these familiar aspects almost like meeting a friend. I don't feel there is a definite 'thing' there to be discovered I could label 'a personality', but there are familiar and habitual aspects.

All the best,

D x

Hi D,

Pain in my feet that I don't identify with. Heaviness in my chest I identify with more. I become more aware of emotions of grief, guilt, fear, love that seem to be 'centred' in the same area as the tight, asthmatic sensations. As I try to see what makes the difference between these sensations I see that there is more emotion tied up in the sensations I identify more with. As I stay with the more 'me'-like sensations they lighten, become more fluid and more like the feet sensations. Now I have the heart-centre sensations and feet pain doing a dance where they are all more contained within awareness and neither is dominant or more 'sticky'. There is a loveliness about loosening the 'grip' on the heavier emotions and watching them 'float'. There is more love and less tightness or holding on.

Great observing there!

Can you now spend some more time looking and seeing directly how only mentating creates the illusion of ‘I’ around pure sensations?

Try this with other kinds of sensations too – i.e. different senses. How does ‘I’ come in, in relation to tasting, smelling, hearing, seeing … ?

Notice how sensations always ‘arrive’ without any conceptual content. Well, do they? Look carefully.

The conceptual content (labelling, etc.) arrives a moment later – can you see this directly? Notice that the mental activity is just another sensation arriving …

And are all sense arisings labelled, or just some? If you swing your gaze from one side to the other quite rapidly, are all the visual arisings that occur labelled?

So I just sit and look for my personality. I am aware of strands or flavours I recognise as often occurring like irritation, love, patience and humour but there is nothing fixed about any of it. Familiar thought patterns arise. I feel warm encountering these familiar aspects almost like meeting a friend. I don't feel there is a definite 'thing' there to be discovered I could label 'a personality', but there are familiar and habitual aspects.

Notice how this familiarity of certain patterns is just sensations arising + mental attribution. There is no ‘self’ in the patterns – it’s only in the attribution.

(This felt like the right word, but I had to look it up to be sure - Wikipedia says ‘attribute’ = ‘an abstraction of a characteristic of an entity or substance’)

T.x

Many thanks for that. There is quite a lot there to be looking at so I might take a bit longer to reply.

D x

Hi T,

Try this with other kinds of sensations too – i.e. different senses. How does ‘I’ come in, in relation to tasting, smelling, hearing, seeing … ?

I does not come into the sensations, or when I notice I attach or latch onto some more than others I can still see that they are not 'self'.

The conceptual content (labelling, etc.) arrives a moment later – can you see this directly? Notice that the mental activity is just another sensation arriving …

Yes I can see this labelling activity directly. It comes after the perception. I experimented with whether I could still 'turn off' visual labelling entirely, as I had trained myself to do many years ago in art school and it was much harder as I haven't kept up that skill of 'seeing without labelling'. It is interesting to notice the same phenomenon with all the senses. So for example some noises 'register' and are labelled more and some are 'background' despite being the same volume, depending where the mind's interest is going.

And are all sense arisings labelled, or just some? If you swing your gaze from one side to the other quite rapidly, are all the visual arisings that occur labelled?

No. Some are labelled (usually at either end of the swing, as the seeing lasted a fraction longer at either side before swinging in the opposite direction) and some visual stimuli is 'blurred' or remains simply visual perceiving with no labelling.

(re personality examining)

Notice how this familiarity of certain patterns is just sensations arising + mental attribution. There is no ‘self’ in the patterns – it’s only in the attribution.

I didn't mention finding a 'self' in the patterns or the familiarity, so I found your commentary on this confusing. In that post I said:

I am aware of strands or flavours I recognise as often occurring like irritation, love, patience and humour but there is nothing fixed about any of it. Familiar thought patterns arise. I feel warm encountering these familiar aspects almost like meeting a friend. I don't feel there is a definite 'thing' there to be discovered I could label 'a personality', but there are familiar and habitual aspects.

. So I meant 'familiar' in the same way as recognition…and the mind is capable of recognising habitual or frequent sensation. One dictionary definition had it: 'An awareness that something perceived has been perceived before'. Memory happens in the present moment, I know, and is not something to be relied on as true (or even accurate or objective), but I simply experienced recognition, not with any attributing added on. At least I don't think I was describing what you meant by attributing, which you gave a dictionary quote for as

‘an abstraction of a characteristic of an entity or substance’)

.

D x

Hi D,

Thanks for clarifying what you meant – if there is no perception of self in these arisings, that is what we’re after. I get what you mean by ‘recognition’ (it seems to be referring to samjna, in Buddhist terms.)

So how do you stand with this enquiry now? Is there a belief in a separate ‘self’ remaining? Have you seen through that, as an illusion?

T.x

Hi T,

I have seen through it as an illusion. I have not seen any separate self in any of the enquiries and i've really looked. As you remarked a few times, it's very simple! I've encountered doubt all along the way; not about there being no self, but about my ability to really see it or see through illusion. But then I've naturally been able to see it - and delight in it - whenever I've looked directly at experience and this has shifted something. I've seen that that doubt is just a strong habit in 'my' stream of consciousness…something wanting to maintain a status quo or some kind of comfort zone. I don't know whether the strong habits will shift more given that I've disentangled from them, but I hope some of the less helpful ones will :-)

D x

Hi D,

Very good!

But then I've naturally been able to see it - and delight in it - whenever I've looked directly at experience and this has shifted something.

This reflects how it goes for me – it’s ‘there’ (as in not there!) when looked for. There isn’t a continuous awareness of it, but a capacity to see its absence whenever required. It's quite difficult to get the expression of that right, in words.

I've seen that that doubt is just a strong habit in 'my' stream of consciousness…something wanting to maintain a status quo or some kind of comfort zone. I don't know whether the strong habits will shift more given that I've disentangled from them, but I hope some of the less helpful ones will :-)

Yes, great that that’s being noticed. Doubts will still be there, but the fundamental doubt about the existence or otherwise of a substantial ‘me’ should be gone. Things will start shifting – whether big or small, a difference should be clearly evident.

I’d suggest you take a look at the final questions. These should help confirm whether the seeing-knowing is steady, and further questions may (or may not) arise from your responses to these. I’ll post them all here, but you can take them one by one or however you wish:

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

2) Explain in detail from your own experience what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works. Describe it fully as you see it now.

3) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

5) Do you decide, intend, choose, control events in life? Do you make anything happen? Give examples from your experience.

6) Anything to add?

T.x

Hi T and thanks for that,

I started with the first question in meditation today and made notes from that but have now run out of time to write more. Just to let you know I will go through the questions you gave me over the next few days and write in as I go along.

With much gratitude for your help,

:-)

D x

Hi T,

So finally, to answer the questions:

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

I see that the self is not in the present. When I turn to 'was there ever?' I have an experience a bit like when people describe their life flashing in front of their eyes and many images come up of me as a child and as a baby. Strong sensations of heaviness and feelings of grief are there in the heart centre. I focus there. I recognise the feeling strongly and realise that I have always identified that feeling of grief as being 'me' so I examine it more. One image of me in particular comes to the minds eye, a photograph that that was made into a poster when I was about five or six (my son's age now) in which I am sitting next to my sister smiling and looking pretty. It is difficult to stay with the feelings as more grief arises but I guess I have to stay with it to see whether that grief really is/was 'me' as I can see 'I' am wrapped around it: The child who was not allowed her integrity or loved enough. I see that all my adult life I've been trying to deal with 'her' wounds and compensate for that. I see she was beautiful and loveable. I can love 'her', the lovely little girl that I was, the beautiful little girl that I was, and see she is not me either, that she was never a 'self'. Love her and let her go - move on… Tears well up from heavy grief and release it. Heart centre feels lighter.

So in brief, the answer is no, there is not a self to be found in the present or in the past.

2) Explain in detail from your own experience what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works. Describe it fully as you see it now.

I see the illusion of self is a mechanism of identifying with experience and habits as if they defined me or made up a 'me', creating a fictional concoction called self. It works like a perpetuated myth of having or owning a self, which at the moment I see as the least helpful human myth that exists!

3) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.

It feels very freeing to see this. I have experienced feeling freer, lighter and a kind of boundless (…hard to describe it actually) optimism and faith - like anything can be achieved. I realise I have the keys to freedom and I feel really happy about that. It changes how I view everything and everyone. At the same time there seems to have been a backlash of bad habits reasserting themselves over the past few days, with grumpiness, speediness, resentments, fiery temper etc. etc. more to the fore. Even insomnia has come back (an old, old pattern), but it could be connected to freeing up of energy, as I have felt there is more energy available. The difference is that I know these habits are not 'me'…there is no self to own these habits or be owned by them, so they do not seem to ensnare in the same way.
It's as if there is more space around even the stickiest habits or strands that I used to get hooked around.

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

It seemed to be a combination of the work on looking for my personality - not seeing a self there - and projecting my doubt in my own ability to see through this onto you! :-D To explain that a bit better: When I got frustrated that you were thinking I was 'attributing' to memories/recognition I realised that I was disproportionately frustrated and annoyed about it and this somehow gave me the focus and impetus to break through my own persistent doubts, or see them for what they were - simply doubts…trying all sorts of tricks to keep me in 'my' place. I saw that no-one was doing this to me but myself, and there wasn't even a self there doing it! Hey I had no-one to get angry with anymore! This seemed to free up energy to break through something.

5) Do you decide, intend, choose, control events in life? Do you make anything happen? Give examples from your experience.

Decisions, intentions and choices certainly happen all the time, but whenever I have looked or examined this there is no decider, chooser or controller to me found - I quite like that typo so I'll leave it, but I meant 'to be found'. In some respects this was and remains the most surprising and somehow amusing aspect of this process. There really is no-one running the show! :-o. We joked about the 'fat controller' only existing in Thomas the Tank Engine…I didn't really think of it quite that crudely but there was an insidious belief in a someone behind the will…even leftover remnants from pschosynthesis training about a 'Higher Self'. It didn't hold up to examination though…yes there is will but certainly no 'core identity', no self 'willing'.

6) Anything to add?

I would really appreciate your thoughts on how to keep this process of looking alive if it doesn't keep it's own momentum. How do you do it?
Many thanks for guiding me through this process. It has been great to do this!

D x

Hi D,

Great - thanks for those answers! I'll see whether any other guides have any questions or angles I haven't spotted, and get back to you about that last question too.

T.x

Thanks :-) x