Would like to be guided by s-p-a-c-e

[donjohnsan]

Still on it but too tired now, more tomorrow! :-)

[s-p-a-c-e]

Cool :)

[donjohnsan]

Hmm, reading back on our topic I see a lot of thinking and trying to work it out, and you constantly trying to point me to experience and the un-work-out-ability of it all. Feeling frustrated with 'myself'. Why isn't this clicking?

[donjohnsan]

Seems I keep trying to complicate something really simple.
This is life, just as it's happening, and there's nothing to figure out. It's right here, just this, no intellectual understanding necessary.

[s-p-a-c-e]

Hi Donny,

Frustration is essential - to throw everything at it with thought - only to face a wall - and give up.

Go into the place where everything you think is the case - isn't, zip, zero.

Be in the place where there is no where to go. No thought left to provide a grip.

Here. Bare. Bereft of description. What is not here?

/John

[donjohnsan]

Go into the place where everything you think is the case - isn't, zip, zero.
Be in the place where there is no where to go. No thought left to provide a grip.

Could you say more about this? I'm not sure I understand.
Let's say I walk over to the wall. I can't go through it. How should I consider this in relationship to what you said above?

[donjohnsan]

Maybe I misunderstood your first sentence. I guess you meant to say, go to a place that is absent of models. I interpreted it as, go to a place where everything you think is true, is not true (which seems hard, because that is still a thinking place in my world :-) ).
Anyway, I will try the other interpretation now, assuming that's what you meant.

[s-p-a-c-e]

Donny,

Anything you can think about this, will not help you one inch. :)

So what to do?

/John

[donjohnsan]

Observe, notice, look. :-)

[s-p-a-c-e]

Observe, notice, look. :-)

Put thinking under the microscope - watch a thought show up.
You are still assuming that you, Donny, think!

No?

/john

[donjohnsan]

It's more that I cannot really come to a different conclusion, and that just might be the actual problem. Maybe I'm trying to go from one view to a different view. But I see I cannot confirm anything here. Cannot confirm the existence of self. Cannot confirm the inexistence of self. Both are beliefs. So what's left. Nothing. Can't do anything. Nothing to see, nothing to work out, because it can't be worked out. Not by the mind, but not by anything else either. Where's the liberation in this? I don't know. At best it's in giving up excessive thinking as there's no point to it. Otherwise I have no idea.

[s-p-a-c-e]

It's more that I cannot really come to a different conclusion, and that just might be the actual problem. Maybe I'm trying to go from one view to a different view. But I see I cannot confirm anything here. Cannot confirm the existence of self. Cannot confirm the inexistence of self. Both are beliefs. So what's left. Nothing. Can't do anything. Nothing to see, nothing to work out, because it can't be worked out. Not by the mind, but not by anything else either. Where's the liberation in this? I don't know. At best it's in giving up excessive thinking as there's no point to it. Otherwise I have no idea.

Good. So instead, look afresh.
Place the attention just behind the head for a little while.

Share any discoveries.

/John

[donjohnsan]

Hmm, difficult to place my attention there, without anything to focus on.
Was that the idea? :-)
I can focus on my foot, I can focus on the back of my head, but it's hard to focus on a space behind my head. I can imagine a point there visually, and then focus on that. If I do that, well, nothing much really. It seems a more obvious how stuff happens by itself. I've been trying yesterday and today, but that's all I came up with so far.

[s-p-a-c-e]

Hi Donny,

No worries. Worth a shot.

So, tell me, where are you at right now?

Thank you,
John

[donjohnsan]

I'm not sure John.
I think I finally realize that the mind cannot get me to any sort of real conclusion, only to beliefs. I thought I realized that already, but I didn't, because I see I realize it now :-)
It is however odd and "scary" to trust only on experience. Nice too, but it feels awkward and kind of foreign, like I'm not at home here.
Besides this I think I'm mostly at the same place I was a few days ago. I see no choice no thinker no doer whenever I pay attention to it, when I'm noticing, but it's not a basic deep and ever-present sense I have, like an ever-present knowing. Mostly I "know" that I'm a person, until I don't. Also, but maybe this is just some hype that I'm hoping for, I just don't feel particularly liberated yet, and I feel like something is missing. "Not good enough..."

Does that help?