Go

[0kay]

There is no way out within the terms of this drama....
Do I really have a choice to indulge or not (right or left hand)? Can I find somebody who has a choice?

Is there a drama? What is drama in direct experience, what is drama in thoughts when analyzed to the components?
Is there an i or an exit? What is choice when there is direct experience, and what is the label choice reffering to?

[rabbit]

Is there a drama? What is drama in direct experience, what is drama in thoughts when analyzed to the components?
Is there an i or an exit? What is choice when there is direct experience, and what is the label choice reffering to

Drama is the belief in some repetitive cycle of thoughts that feed off each other. This belief requires memories and prediction—time. It is not a direct perception of what is happening now.

I can’t exit the drama—because “I” is made of the same thoughts and memories that make up the drama. See that there is no I—that the thoughts and memories mean nothing.

A belief that choices are being made also require prediction and memory. In direct experience, things just happen, including thoughts about not knowing what to do. Including fears about the results about what I believe I am doing or not doing; and about what I should do. None of those thoughts and fears are chosen.

I can't see any mechanism about how a choice is made, or how it leads to a result. Nobody that controls those thoughts and fears. Not even a separate somebody who is victimized by those thoughts and fears. They are just images and sensations that appear now.

[0kay]

Great looking. As you know we have five questions to answer when the client sees that the searching is done.

Feel free to ask for these questions when you feel ready, answerings could lead to discussion groups on facebook. Otherwise we could look for what is needed here in forum.
What else needs guided looking in direct experience, what is left?

[rabbit]

Reading the 5 questions, they give a sense of having pretty clearly crossed a gate, so to speak. That’s something I don’t quite feel. Things have clearly changed the past couple of weeks—but hard to say exactly what. It still feels unstable, tentative . . . still looking not being. Especially when writing, it starts to become another intellectualized thought. Perhaps I still can’t accept that it can be so simple; thoughts always make something complex out of it.

How about I let this settle for a couple of days before answering the questions (or not). It's a busy day tomorrow anyways.

[0kay]

Yes, lets see what happens.
Write about some days later, what has changed, what is left.

[rabbit]

Hi Okay,
Just been letting things play out for a few days. Only thing that comes to mind now is to try 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?

No, never. Just thoughts.

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

It starts with every thought. Thoughts create concepts and stories, most of which revolve around a nexus of ‘I’. 'I' does this, reacts to that, experiences stuff, frets over decisions, succeeds and fails, judges and compares everything, is imagined to have a history and a future. All of those reactions, judgments, successes, histories, etc. are just thoughts. None are direct experience. But "I" can seem to exist if the thoughts are believed.

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.

The feelings are the same, but perceived differently. The stories that attach to feelings are less compulsive. There are fewer desires to want to escape the feelings, improve them, remedy them, struggle with them or engage in dramas of resisting and encouraging them. When those desires do show up, they are seen as also just thoughts. The more that is seen, the more that feelings appear as just physical sensations without stories. They appear as things that happen rather than as things that happen to 'me' and need to be managed.

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

Okay’s comment about time was important. There are no stories, trends or patterns in this moment. Which helped to see that frustrations and drama only derive from belief in those stories, not from direct perception.

From there, seeing that the feeling of effort (seeking) is also a drama and not something that can be felt in the moment. And if there is no “I”, then all those things that seem to require effort and choice will just happen even without the worry and stress. . . . .

5) Describe decision, intention, free will, choice and control. What makes things happen? How does it work? What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.

I have no idea what makes things happen. Decision, intention, etc. does not cause anything to happen. And there is nobody to make choices, enact free will, etc. Everything just seems to fit together. Even the thoughts of decision, intention, etc. are just some of the things that happen.

Over the past week, the key theme has been to trust what happens, and that it happens even without a sensation of I-effort. It takes some remembering to look and see if "I" am really there each time that little drama of I-effort appears. But there is no way I can cause this remembering to happen. It actually seems to happen much better without that feeling of pushing myself to always remember. And seeing that it happens better that way helps to produce trust.

6) Anything to add?

No.

[0kay]

Thank you, it was pleasure to stay with you here in LU.
Please give me your facebook name via Private Message here in forum (click my picture), then you can continue discussions in LU groups on facebook soon.

Other guide will read the answers now. Maybe there are some additional questions for more insight and relief.

[0kay]

One Guide said:
'Question: how do you know that there is no self? Tks'

[rabbit]

One Guide said:
'Question: how do you know that there is no self? Tks'

1) Look from every angle and there is nothing to be seen.
and
2) (this is kind of hard to wrap words around) it's a not-knowing.
The familiar sense of 'knowing' things is to capture them as concepts and objects in thought. Direct perception doesn't really 'know' anything in this sense. "I" sensations float by like everything else. The perceiver is empty, not present as a concept or object.

[0kay]

One guide said:
'Questions: Can you talk a little more about this empty perceiver?
If the perceiver isn't present, how do you know it exists?
And what is the difference between a perceiver and a self?'

[rabbit]

One guide said:
'Questions: Can you talk a little more about this empty perceiver?
If the perceiver isn't present, how do you know it exists?
And what is the difference between a perceiver and a self?'

Ah-ha! the habits of subject-object grammar still exert influence! I should have said ‘perceiving’ rather than ‘perceiver.’ Awareness or Consciousness or being may also work. It is hard to write subject-object sentences using these words.

But the paragraph as a whole is a bit poorly expressed, so let me try to explain it in the form of an answer to question 4, about the last bit that pushed me over:

I was stuck in the question of “Who is doing the looking?” The looker doesn’t see an I, but how can I check who is looking? Each time I check, the looker just shifts perspective and the original looker becomes a memory, a thought-object. It’s like an eye trying to see itself.

Okay’s comment about time helped things click. At first, focusing only on what is perceived now helped to remember that that the stories and patterns of Adam the Seeker were just thoughts. Direct perception does not get caught in those stories. Thoughts just float by, including thoughts of “I”.

As I kept on looking, it was also reminder that I don’t ‘know’ anything about the perceptions. Knowing (in a conventional sense) is about an object or concept. The perceptions are just there. This ‘knowing’ about them comes later. Not only is the “I” sensation an identification with thoughts, but also the creation of a subject that knows these objects and concepts.

This helps deal with a worry about whether this seeing of no-self was just another thing that “I” knows, another thought-concept. When looking for me ‘out there’ (or ‘in here’ as the case may be) it is still an object to be perceived (or not) by me the looker. But when paying attention to only the perceptions, thoughts just float by, perceptions don’t coalesce into objects, and when they do it is just seen to be a thought. None of those fleeting things are ‘me.’ And the more things that float away, the less is left to be me, until there is nothing there except awareness (without awareness, none of this seeing could happen at all). That’s what I tried to express as not-knowing.

It is still erratic, often requiring what feels like some effort to remember. The largest effect seems to be this frequent feeling of surprise at what appears in perception. Nothing unfamiliar turns up but . . . it just seems unexpected and fresh.

Hope that helps?

[0kay]

There are no more questions from other guide, so welcome on the other side ;)
This was a pleasant journey, see you on facebook.
Best
0kay

[rabbit]

Fantastic!
Thanks so much, Adam