The Gate

Listened to Ilona's video about asking the question and looking into the gap using the "is there a separate self?" question (I know you pointed me to another one but I saw it and it felt right to watch). Here's the YT link: https://youtu.be/TXNnyVxJ2W8

The gap is completely apparent to me, if only for a few seconds at a time. The silence/spaciousness. No thoughts experienced. I can RELAX and LOOK there quite easily. I had been using the "who am I " and then really saw that over the last several months. The butt-chair exercise is the same feeling for me, like a koan, looking but not finding and the mind goes blank.

She says @ 3:16 "that nothing is the answer. That open space, that blank, that quiet is the answer." I followed along and felt it then, just a few minutes ago. When I did this with Christina on Saturday I could easily see it too and I said something like "is this all we're talking about? I'm here a lot, I use it in my work, etc" and I started crying, I felt disappointed-relieved mix.

Right now when I ask and listen and there's just quiet, it's calm. There's the body sounds and the light and nothing else.

I thought that was just like, "mindfulness done right." But is that all people are talking about with no-self? There's certainly no personality there, there's nothing like manifesting on top of experiencing. It's completely impersonal...I can't "make" it happen.

Is that what this whole awakening thing is point to?

But is that all people are talking about with no-self? There's certainly no personality there, there's nothing like manifesting on top of experiencing. It's completely impersonal...I can't "make" it happen.

Is that what this whole awakening thing is point to?

I'm not in your head, so I can't say for certain, but yes. That sounds right. That sounds like your shift in perception.

We have some traditional checkpoint questions. Sit with this a bit and then would you like to try those?

Loving,

I

We have some traditional checkpoint questions. Sit with this a bit and then would you like to try those?

I answered them above. I guess I just didn't know that spaciousness is what we are talking about, lol. Maybe it hasn't quite sunk in as a shift, perhaps I need to spend more time with it.

I've gotten to this point a bunch of times in the past several months, and had several different teachers all pointing me to "stay there" in the gap, but for some reason the personality "I" still wasn't trusting that that's it. Maybe because day to day "I" is still here. Or maybe because it seems too simple or basic. But it totally matches up with what all the enlightened teachers talk about when I reference that "place" as dhamma/deathless/no-self/pu-ruh/the witness position , it's just duh.

If this is "it" then I "got" it on a retreat in May but only very briefly. I had told my teacher, "now I know the address."

It's also possible it's not totally "clean" like there's some subtle thoughts there still.

I often feel it first thing in the morning, and it feels as though the operating system is on but the programs haven't downloaded yet, like my personality and knowledge haven't come online yet.

Wow I feel really relieved that I at least know what we are talking about. Of course it's only knowing it in thought/memory right now as I'm speaking. But I can point to many memories of it from this vantage point. Not so much the big experiences as brief little ones, some going back years but I really didn't know what it was at that point. I missed it.

Hi.

The answers you gave above are from thinking not knowing. We want to read your cexperience, your lived knowing, not a book about it, please.

Thinking will still be there.

Have you seen these?

Watch this, please:

https://youtu.be/vJQcD588g2w

and

https://youtu.be/PUDzrCLlrj4

Is it like that?

Loving

Yes, I've watched them.

I think it's like I'm 95% there but not quite. Lots and lots of little glimpses of being the peace/spaciousness but not a pervasive underlying knowing.

But now I know what to do, I feel very clear it's just go to that gap/space.

My teacher had suggested there may be some subtle thoughts there still, not the total silence.

Ok.

Butt-chair report: constriction, pressure, pulsing, weight. No discernable boundary.

Excellent. Just like that. This can open you to seeing that there is no self.

Loving ,

Natural meditation this morning: light, sensation, sound, thought. Nothing is there until it is there. No foot until foot moves. No door until sound of door, no thought until thought, etc. Using question "who am I" there's the words, then gap, then thought. Stream of differing sensations. Thoughts interspersed. Relaxed.

Body-bed right now: tingling, pressure, sharp heat, pulsing, holding-releasing, sounds. No discernable boundary.

Good.

We don't use "who am I?" here.

https://liberationunleashed.com/resourc ... implified/

Loving

Thanks for the article, makes sense. I can see how the question automatically applies there is an "I."

Is there an alternative question or approach you recommend here for meditation?

No. Questions invite thinking. I've given you many that all what you SEE or FEEL.

Direct Looking means just LOOK. Ignore thinking.

Loving

Ok, great so just "natural meditation" observing the senses, not getting caught in thought (ignoring thoughts)? I can do that as much as possible. Drop all the other practices.

Yes, exactly.