The Gate

Are you saying...

i will go through and respond to your questions, but before you read them (my responses) go through them yourself and consult your intuition about whether you already know how i will respond.
You don't need to express the response. Just a yes or no or maybe about knowing.

Are you saying that, yes, when I notice seeking, the thing to do is to look at what’s actually here?

Yes

And looking at what’s actually here includes noticing what the stories say but recognising that they don’t necessarily correspond with reality?

Yes

Was that “the next step,”

Yes. Not only that which is noticed but that which is interpreted through the filters of your history and conditioning - and that that is the tip of the iceberg of everything that we call THIS.

Do you mean, like, how all sorts of other basic mental processing is going on, like how the mind labels objects and adds depth perception to visual sensations and an image-map of the body to bodily sensations?

Omit "basic"
Yes, all of that, and much more.
All of the stories that are implied. The stories that give meaning to the stories and the stories about the stories that give meaning to the stories that give meaning. i'm not meaning (ha) to be funny with this. Just wanting you to get a flavour of the depth here.

What is the significance of acknowledging this?

A characteristic of the delusion of those not yet awake is that they think that they know.
It's hugely significant to acknowledge the mystery of all that which is beyond our awareness.

There's still a sense of a “me” as the subject separate from sense experiences as objects

So!
Does this prove anything? (other than you're habituated to this)

I think maybe there can be a sense that THIS just IS

Yes (i removed your question mark)

In my experience so far, I think there’s always at least some of that basic thought-layer of labelling objects and so forth.

Of course. How seriously do you invest in this?

(I don't feel entirely confident about any of what I said in response to that question.)

Good. That acknowledges a not-knowing.

how it would be nice to always just be in clear awareness (which is, I suppose, unrealistic)?

👏
..and see. You didn't have to dig very deep for that one.

vince

i will go through and respond to your questions, but before you read them (my responses) go through them yourself and consult your intuition about whether you already know how i will respond.
You don't need to express the response. Just a yes or no or maybe about knowing.

Your responses that I wasn't at all sure about were the ones about "the next step" and about the significance of acknowledging that THIS is too complex to understand. I'm curious why you wanted me to do this. Frankly, I'd thought you just weren't writing as clearly as usual (like maybe you hadn't finished your morning coffee yet when you wrote that post), so I wanted to clarify what you were saying. But was I being muddle-headed? Or is something else going on here?

All of the stories that are implied. The stories that give meaning to the stories and the stories about the stories that give meaning to the stories that give meaning. i'm not meaning (ha) to be funny with this. Just wanting you to get a flavour of the depth here.

I'm still not entirely sure what you mean here. I get the general idea about the depth and complexity, but I'm not coming up with examples. What kinds of stories are you talking about? (Or maybe the general idea is good enough?)

It's hugely significant to acknowledge the mystery of all that which is beyond our awareness.

Again, I think I get the general Idea, but I'm not sure exactly what sorts of things you're talking about. I think maybe you're mainly talking about all the things our brains do to sense data to turn it into what we experience? But maybe you also mean all the stuff that's beyond our awareness because it's happening on the other side of town or the planet or the galaxy, and/or all the stuff that had to happen in the past (i.e., everything) to lead to precisely what's happening now?

There's still a sense of a “me” as the subject separate from sense experiences as objects

So!
Does this prove anything? (other than you're habituated to this)

I didn't mean to imply a "so" about the existence of a "self" or even about whether I've recognized no-self or not. I was just trying to respond to your question about my relationship to THIS when it's experienced from the quiet space between/underlying thoughts. I experience it (I think? most of the time? all of the time?) with a sense of a "me" — and, as I typed that, I noted that the sense of a "me" is simply another bit of THIS that is being experienced.

In my experience so far, I think there’s always at least some of that basic thought-layer of labelling objects and so forth.

Of course. How seriously do you invest in this?

If we're talking about the layer of thoughts that brains typically add to sense data, well, I imagine there's probably a good bit of it that I don't even think of as thought but just think of as reality. So I suppose I'm fully invested in those thoughts. With the stuff I'm aware of, there's hope of being less invested.

Still wondering, do you think it’s worthwhile for me to hang out in the quiet space between/underneath thoughts? Maybe just during my regular daily sitting periods?

It's 3:30 a.m., and I'm not tired at all. Can insomnia be a side effect of what we're doing, or does this probably have some other inexplicable cause?