Dear Bananafish!
Sorry about the long silence. Been keeping a working document logging responses to the set of 'final' questions.
Trust things are well with you. Just being lived by life. As usual, lots of content, two funerals, way too much work, just doing what I do, nothing sticking, habits playing out. So, I figure it's time to release the responses, but true to form, they are rather lengthy and still smack of the pretentious verbalising habit that is shedding and sharpening... Here goes, sorry for such a tsunami after the long silence!
1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?
There would seem to be a spatially and temporally relatively discreet but interconnected mind-body that was given the name John, etc. Useful to have a name. But even at this level, there is nothing separate. Question is about a ‘self’, ‘me’, ‘I’. Useful but empty labels. Now they are leaving no imprint in this experiencing. No entity behind the label, never was, seems strange looking back in time, but there was never a self, just a fictional side-show/filtering. Experiences, intuitions, evidence and even logic held back by an agreed fiction, until a few days ago... Ah, I must be honest – just noticed (when given an impossible task and too little time, that I blamed others, and got into some self-important whining... boo hoo! Also, yesterday, in shop with Eyvor, noticed a bit of ego stuff when being got at for not realising where the end of a queue was, but went into this, powerful surge - clearing. This morning, noticed fantasy trip, excessive verbalisation, went deeper, noticed a kind of shadow of selfing that this verbiage seemed to be camoflaging, no self of course, but selfing habit patterns still emanating..., but confidence, when noticed, that there is really nothing there - A few weeks later: Who cares? Looking for self for several weeks now, two funerals, work lay-offs, unbelievable over-work for those of us ‘lucky enough’ to have a job. Incredible. But what would have generated feelings of angst now finds nothing to fixate on. But still habits working themselves out. No recrimination, though...
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.
A habitual (which gives it the appearance of being continuous and ‘real’) set of tensions/defences/visceral amouring protecting what was assumed to be self (I say ‘set of’ because when LOOKing, there has sometimes seemed to be multiple self-identities, with shades of child-John, mother, father, other significant personalities in the life, adult John, engineer John, meditator John, musician John). More concretely, there was the unquestioned assumption of a self behind the eyes, a clingier heart-centered selfing, sometimes a nauseous gut level identification... Self has come up to claim experiences, even (or maybe especially) after ‘transcendental non-self’ meditation experiences, self has been assumed even when trying to uproot the self-illusion, a sticking point in insight practice... A few weeks later: there is a utility in having a name, etc... fair enough. Still some tripping up, kind of hollow selfing, nothing sticking though...
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.
It seems ridiculous, but, despite transient self-less states in and out of meditation, there was the hidden assumption of an entity seeking liberation and, although I wouldn’t have admitted it, the assumption that liberation is associated with an exotic meditation-type mind state – floating in a cloud of bliss or something! So, experientially, there was a lot of ‘self’-judgement, flip-flopping between exulted jhana-type states and assumed-ego-jumping-in-to-claim-the-show. There seems to have been a major shift from wanting to profess or manifest a state of clarity that was not there to a kind of reluctance to admit the reality of what has now dawned! A frozen shoulder from computer mouse and maybe clarinet – sometimes pain, but no wailing – meaning no adding to it. Things are smoothing out a bit now, but a couple of weeks ago, around the time of the last post, there were periods of being in a very strange, somewhat disoriented time-space. Almost as if a persona had to be formed to match the situation – e.g., when engaged with responding to your questions, a researcher came in with some questions. This seemed so strange – has to act the relevant role for a few seconds before engaging with the researcher’s questions. I have asked my partner Eyvor to be patient with me over the last couple of weeks, explaining that some deconstruction has gone on, and things are a bit fragile! Actually, there is a bit more efficiency now, (which, for example, meant that answering these questions has not been first priority – and remembering this has not given rise to self-reprobation – just prompted LOOKing). Can only do so much. Been too much of a yes-man. The Finnish economy is in the duldrums despite having been in Merkel’s austerity club when the recession began. Politicians thrash around, but macro-issues limit what they can do. The overwork and stress of the work-place (despite trying to stay at the bottom of the university food-chain) are outside ‘my’ control, so do the best and let what flows, flow. Just a lot less self-judgement, and when that habit arises, nothing for it to stick to. Yes, it’s more a gradual dawning of something quite obvious, for some reason avoided. A few weeks later: not so much of the lack-of-a-persona problem any more. Just fluidly move between the various roles.
4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?
This has been a stage-wise progress, a very significant part of a life-long endeavour. Acquainting myself with LU and especially after you kindly agreed to be my guide, Bananafish, I have engaged in LOOKing, loosened the assumption that there is an entity LOOKing when prompted by such questions as, “Is there an "I" that is still caught up, or is "I'm still caught up" just another thought?”, held no-self as a working hypothesis. In a 10 day retreat couldn’t find the self in the 4th Jhana, for example, let go of the self assumption when walking, the living experience lit up, walked in nature, just walking, noticed that the mind-body checks for danger without self, gradually, logically and empirically the no-self evidence has become overwhelming, but habit patterns are still dissipating... Don’t want to claim anything, nobody to claim anything, but don’t want to indicate that no-self has not been SEEN either.
A few weeks later, going through our dialogue, the following questions/prompts seem the most pertinent:
• Is there an "I" that is still caught up, or is "I'm still caught up" just another thought?
• Is "still not there" a sensation? Is a thought "still not there" attached to that sensation, or is that sensation itself "still not there?"
• SO, what's the problem? Habits are habits. Who told you that you have to eliminate your habits to see it?
• Right, right, hehe. But did you notice that this notion of ego-elimination, or whatever, is just an idea, or thought?
• What makes you swing between seeing and losing it? Who loses it?
• Is "acting on automatic pilot" a problem?
• I'm afraid you are complicating things here. Yes, "Who cares?" Literally, WHO IS IT THAT CARES?
•
Ok. Is that a problem? If so, for whom is it a problem?
It has been partly a matter of just admitting what is, and these questions have cut through layers of prevarication and pretense. Yes, this ‘making a problem of everything’ was one engrained strand of delusion. “For whom is it a problem” nailed this whole self-referencing and projection thing. This idea of self doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
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.
Decision is always after the event. OK, that’s a rote response. LOOKing for an entity that can decide anything is futile, but this is the reality when LOOKing, not the assumed reality when not LOOKing. My beer was sliding of the table in a bar a few months ago, the hand lept out and caught the glass, clearly no time for a decision there. Science indicates that when we feel we make major decisions, there has been some brain activity up to 6 seconds before... A combination of experienced and non-experienced argument about why there isn’t a decision maker... When out of the way, there is fluid response, often experienced. Often experienced also is the assumption of a self jumping in and screwing things up... Intention: this is interesting. It now seems absurd, for example, to aspire to awaken for the sake of all sentient beings.... Who can awaken to what? Even a more refined concept like inclining towards the wholesome seems suspect, but if I had not, would I have been led to this stage of liberation? Free will. Although this has long been seen as rididiculous in an absolute sense, it would seem that it is also unecessary as a working paradigm. Can’t say I’ve let go into this fully, but it seems that at some point that spontaneous unfolding/responding/riding-the-wave-of-consciousness should be possible. Choice and control, such understandable but ridiculous pretention! Kind of reversal of the pretense this being has been involved in... What makes things happen? The price of fish in Calcutta? Ha, ha. This is verging on the metaphysical, and outside this experience. Life would seem to be a complex web of temporal and spatial conditioning, but this too is a rote answer. Life just lives, why? Who knows? Who is there to know? How does it work? How does what work? Life? Living? A mind body, projected separateness, seeks and strives, a mind-body, realised one-ness, still needs food, shelter, gravitates towards sanity, curiosity, resonates with life, sorry, rote answer again... Who knows, presense knows, awareness knows, rote answers again...
Sitting surpervising exam. Responding, student has finished, stand, take paper, smile, check their ID, seems to all be responding, to a sound, a sight, yes, there is a kind of local processing going on, but a ‘self’ no. Not even ‘selfing’ if things are safe... The bit of stress setting up the exam for so many students in a shared hall, straight after lecturing, straight after a project group meeting did give rise to a bit of self-important posturing that rests on the assumption of self, which has been SEEN though clearly, but, like a stuck record... No worries, when SEEing the selfing happening, there is no further imprint, no further self-judging, it’s just playing out, and when it has played out, no more? Oh yeah, about to say time will tell, putting of SEEing, there is no-one to SEE, nothing to accomplish, just a few eddy currents in the river, which is water...
6) Anything to add?
A kind of lackadaisical attitude lately. No entity to respond, sometimes in a kind of stalled presence, gently or not so gently prodded by my beloved Eyvor, asked her to be gentle with this fragile being, this living without a driver. At one level, NO SELF when LOOKing, at another level, selfing evident in recall and mental verbalisation. Work in progress.
– breathes air breathed out from trees, drinks water that has been through countless other living beings, made of star dust like all other physical manifestations
- was a parentally, societally, evolutionary illusion, doesn’t seem to belong anywhere LOOKing back in time, which seems a bit silly.
Seem to have lost the self-reprimanding, but not the habits that gave rise to those reactions. So, will have to further let go, LOOK, abandon old ways. A few weeks later: sometimes feels like falling, but it’s more like no-one to hold on to anything rather than nothing to hold on to...
Thanks for staying with this, Bananafish, and thanks for the prompts to be honest. It feels as if raw life is breaking through a facade of pretense and 'wanting to please and be liked', but at the same time it's all very sobering. I don't think the ramifications of this have fully dawned! No idea where this is going!
Be well, and don't be afraid to pull out the stick!
John
