The Gate

Hello again,

I think it has been seen through

:-)

Would you like to take a bash at the 'six questions'?

These are a good way of getting a rounded sense of where things are at.

It can be quite a big job to tackle them all in detail (though very worthwhile) - there is something to be said for biting off one or two at a time...

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 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.

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?

very best wishes,

Perry

Hi Perry,

Would you like to take a bash at the 'six questions'?

Ok, I'm happy to give them a go.

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

No. There is just experience in the present, which includes memories of the past. There certainly is a sense of self though, but it’s simply an ever arising set of thoughts and feelings, not an underlying agent, or little man in a control box orchestrating things.

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’s a very basic mistake that starts from misunderstanding consciousness in the present to mean there is ‘someone’ who is conscious, an actor behind the scenes. It must fulfil some sort of function at some point or why would we all do it, but it’s not an accurate description of what is really going on. In reality there are just conditions - habits, perpetuating themselves. Consciousness, awareness, a sense of identity even are in the mix, but they don’t exist separately to present experience as an independent ‘I’ behind the scenes guiding, deciding, choosing. So to hark back to my memory of being in the womb. The foetus woke up and was aware.... then woke up again some time later and was aware....and then again and again and again....until at some point he strung the experiences together and developed some sort of self-identification. Realising that he was in some way separate from his environment, his experience started to divide into inner and outer. Maybe that’s where we make the mistake of imagining a self. I really don’t know. This bit is rather speculative! Whatever there really is no ghost in the machine, just parts (to continue the mechanical metaphor) that work together to create thoughts (loads of them bubbling up) and feelings, and to process visual, auditory and tactile sensations. Quite why in the vastness of the universe, space and time, consciousness ends up doing this though, is a mystery.

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.

At times I have felt a sense of huge potential, freedom, and lightness. But more generally in day-to-day life there is just a sense of greater spaciousness to experience. I still react to things but not so vehemently. My consciousness seems maybe a bit smoother and gentler. There is also a different sense of choice. Without that basic belief in an ‘I’ it seems easier just to assess the consequences of any particular course of action. It’s somehow less complicated to see that actions have consequences when there is no belief in a separate self to muddy the waters.

However, I am also perhaps slightly ‘unhinged’ in that my dream life has gone wild as bits of old psyche break off and come up to the surface. For instance on the retreat last week, lying in bed in the early hours I dreamed or remembered an incident from when I was about six. It’s nothing I’d ever forgotten but struck me in an entirely new way. One morning I woke up to be told that a motorcyclist had crashed into a skip outside the neighbour’s house and died. I think he was a teenager. Lying there I felt terror arise, but couldn’t understand why. Then afterwards talking it over with a friend, I remembered that the feeling tone at home that morning was a bit deadened. Something awful had happened but characteristically it was ‘sat upon’. The terror I felt on remembering the event last week was probably closer to the unrepressed feelings of a six-year-old. I imagine that my very deep conditioning not to feel much was loosening in response to seeing through the ‘I’.

Anyhow. That will have to do for now.

Very best wishes,

Trampas

Hi Trampas,

Hey, I am REALLY enjoying this, a wonderful read, looking forward to the next installment

cheers,

Perry

Hi Perry,

I've just finished work for the day! Hopefully I'll find the time to finish the questions tomorrow. :-)

Buonanotte,

Trampas

g'night boss

Hi Perry,

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

I know I saw it to some degree very early on in this process (as it is really not very complicated!) but this stirred up a lot of conflict and turbulence for a couple of weeks, some of which was around the idea of choosing and deciding. When I went on retreat two weeks back I hoped to be able to work on these issues with a clearer mind. Actually I was still in a bit of state but looking at my experience from one moment to the next I could see there are decisions but couldn’t find a decider. Conditions are it. The Buddha didn’t say everything is pratitya samutpada plus a little chap with a clipboard, twiddling knobs in a control box - he said depending arising is it...full stop! I had never realised this before. I had always found a way to import the ‘I’.... albeit in the guise of an every changing self, into the Dharma. Quite what the value of the Dharma teaching I did years ago was, I don't know - It counted for something I’m sure, but not as much as it could have! I am not sure this realisation hit me at any one point, but more that it gradually sunk into my mind. I think I first became aware that I really had seen through when I repeated to myself the line “I don’t exist and never have” and had an image of a dark turbulent dark sea off Brighton beach. I realised the resistance to the “seeing” had eased, I definitely didn’t believe in an ‘I’ behind the scenes and was now faced with all ‘my’ habits as represented by the sea.

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

If ‘I’ don’t exist how can ‘I’ decide, intend, choose, or control? All sorts of processes play their part in the arising of decisions, intentions and choices. So for instance I can be sitting in meditation and at some point find myself stopping, getting up and leaving the room without really knowing why. A whole set of conditions come into play and the decision to do that arises. No one decides it. It seems that this holds for everything ‘I’ do. Indeed my attempts to appropriate thinking egotistically stymie it. It’s far better just to let the thoughts think themselves....rather like my experience playing football as a kid. Up until I was 10 I did it naturally and unselfconsciously. When I kicked the ball it usually went where I intended without any real effort and when I ran with it my legs would dodge and weave and take me round other players. Then when I became self-conscious at 10, I lost much of that flair - bringing an extra element into the process that would have been best left out.

6) Anything to add?

Although I know I’ve seen something - there has been a change, a shift that is very palpable and obvious in my being - I also have the impression the ‘seeing’ can be deepened further. Its not over, done, finished, done and dusted but work in progress. The old habitual way of seeing my self still reasserts itself and I still have to remind myself it’s not the case.

Very best wishes,

Trampas

Hi Tramas,

Thanks for taking the time to write all that up so thoroughly - I really enjoyed the read

Let's see if any other guides have anything to ask or add....

cheers,

Perry

Hi Perry,

And many thanks for taking the time to read all of this and all your help with this process over the last month and a half! :-)

Best,

Trampas

Hi Trampas,

Some interesting questions and suggestions from other guides.

When you write:

The foetus woke up and was aware.... then woke up again some time later and was aware....and then again and again and again....until at some point he strung the experiences together and developed some sort of self-identification.

The question arises: Who is the "he" stringing these experiences together? Is this "he" an agent that produces self-identification through "his" choices?

Then, when you say:

Its not over, done, finished, done and dusted but work in progress.

the question arises: without self, who is the doer and what there is to do?

And when you write:

Indeed my attempts to appropriate thinking egotistically stymie it. It’s far better just to let the thoughts think themselves....

What is the alternative to letting thoughts think themselves? Could "you" think them instead?

And on a similar theme:

Without that basic belief in an ‘I’ it seems easier just to assess the consequences of any particular course of action.

What is doing the 'assessing'?

There is a bit of a theme above around the areas of agency/decision/choice .... not surprising, as this is usually where "I" belief hangs on the longest. We could usefully spend a bit of time revisiting the whole area, but for now, maybe just see how you get on with the additional questions above.

Best wishes,

Perry

P.S. ... one interesting comment from a guide, which was echoed by others, was that it would be helpful to avoid any Buddhist terminology. I think they are right - in general, we're looking at direct experience, and it is best to stick to describing direct experience in the most immediate way possible, without any 'technical terms'.

Hi Perry,

Thanks to you and the other guides for all that.

The foetus woke up and was aware.... then woke up again some time later and was aware....and then again and again and again....until at some point he strung the experiences together and developed some sort of self-identification.

The question arises: Who is the "he" stringing these experiences together? Is this "he" an agent that produces self-identification through "his" choices?

The experience was more one of this just happening. At the stage when consciousness was just arising there could hardly even have been the illusion of ‘someone’ making something happen. Indeed, that’s not the memory.

Its not over, done, finished, done and dusted but work in progress.

the question arises: without self, who is the doer and what there is to do?

I suppose there can be work to be done even if there isn’t a “worker” to do it. What I meant was that, what people refer to as “selfing” is still going on and at times the habit of identifying as an ‘I’ doing things returns very strongly. I may not believe it, but the thoughts are still there. So I imagined that further reflection, or at least time to allow all this to settle and work itself out, is helpful.

Indeed my attempts to appropriate thinking egotistically stymie it. It’s far better just to let the thoughts think themselves....

What is the alternative to letting thoughts think themselves? Could "you" think them instead?

Sorry - I could have been clearer there. I was veering off into reflecting on the fact that when there is too much self-consciousness in activities they don’t go so well. It’s just about self-consciousness and how it can stymie creativity - an experience I know well. It may or may not be relevant to this exploration - it just occurred to me that maybe it is. When we understand there is no ‘I’ and never has been then maybe it’s harder for the “wilful nutter”, or “wilful nutting” if you prefer, to mess things up! :-)

Without that basic belief in an ‘I’ it seems easier just to assess the consequences of any particular course of action.

What is doing the 'assessing’?

There is no ‘I’ behind the phenomena of experience doing the assessing, but there is an experience of “assessing”. The mind (whatever that is!) assesses things. Assessment occurs. The bag of being comes to a fork in the road and thinks, should it go right or left. One way looks dark and potentially dangerous, the other looks clear... so the choice arises to follow the clearer route. This isn’t to say a separate controlling, underlying ‘I’ made the choice - more that in dependence on all the conditions (including remembered experience of such situations) the choice arises to go one way or the other.

There is a bit of a theme above around the areas of agency/decision/choice .... not surprising, as this is usually where "I" belief hangs on the longest. We could usefully spend a bit of time revisiting the whole area, but for now, maybe just see how you get on with the additional questions above.

I am very happy to do further exploration, although I am unsure whether the points here are more to do with language than anything of substance. They may be though. I may have missed something. I may not have “seen”, so there is no harm in going into all this further. :-)

Best,

Trampas

There is no ‘I’ behind the phenomena of experience doing the assessing, but there is an experience of “assessing”. The mind (whatever that is!) assesses things. Assessment occurs. The bag of being comes to a fork in the road and thinks, should it go right or left. One way looks dark and potentially dangerous, the other looks clear... so the choice arises to follow the clearer route. This isn’t to say a separate controlling, underlying ‘I’ made the choice - more that in dependence on all the conditions (including remembered experience of such situations) the choice arises to go one way or the other.

Re-reading the above - just to be clear, I am not positing the existence of a mind underlying experience. It's just a word commonly used for mental processes, which I am in the habit of using. So what happens when we assess something? When there is a choice of whether to turn right or left, our brain springs into action with a whole set of processes that give rise to a decision. It's not that Mr "I" (or Mr "Mind") takes a decision, because as we've seen the only "I" that exists is the thought "I exist" (which is still very much alive and kicking as I sit here!) in the present. Delving into it, that's all it is - a thought wrapped up in a set of feelings.

Hello again,

Thanks for the clarification.

I'm acting as an intermediary here, which can be a little cumbersome, so please bear with me.....

I may not have “seen”

So is there a belief that there is no self or is it seen that there is not self?

(.... more shortly)

best wishes,

Perry

.... back again!

'I suppose there can be work to be done even if there isn’t a “worker” to do it'

So is there any work that still seems to need to be done here?

P

So is there a belief that there is no self or is it seen that there is not self?

I'm off to bed in a few minutes so this will have to be brief.... I think it's more like when I've looked I've not found a self so in the end I realised there really isn't one. As I've said before the nearest thing I have found in my experience is a voice that insists he exists, but looking at it I can see that's all it is - an insistent voice, not an underlying self. I've seen that clearly enough.

That will do for now. Goodnight! :-)

Trampas

'I suppose there can be work to be done even if there isn’t a “worker” to do it'

So is there any work that still seems to need to be done here?

As you wrote again, I thought I would postpone bed! :-)

At this point, I am loathe to say 'no there isn't' work left to be done. How do I know? At times I've thought I've seen clearly that there is no self behind experience. At other times a residual belief in "me" raises its head, although it doesn't take too much to see through it. Have I seen through it to the point where the tap root is cut? Sometimes it's seemed liked it, but maybe I'm deluding myself. I am good at clarifying views, maybe not so good at direct experience. On the other hand though, much of the time since I began this process I've felt remarkably broadened and changed by it, which implies it's been far more than a head trip.