We can say that the idea of a personal awareness may come up in the content of thoughts.
Is there a personal awareness you can find?
no. Awareness is not personal - as in belonging to me or created by me or happening *to* me. being aware is a constantly changing process, like seeing and hearing.
Is your understanding this then - Something happens, and then a thought appears afterwards suggesting 'I made that happen'.
So the 'I' is an illusion created by the belief in that thought content being true?
Does that make sense? Is that the level of your current understanding?
Almost. It includes this idea. But it is also a function of believing that the whole of experience has a focal point - the self. This is what is meant by " I am seeing" or "I feel angry" The idea that these things are happening *to* me.
So as to
Could such thought appears also DURING the event?
Are these thoughts appearing to a real self?
Is there a real self believing them?
Yes, I suppose that it could be happening during the event - but if it happens right after the event it may not be something that can be seen or be discerned as different (the way a P and an F may look the same on an eye chart from a distance)
Questions about our these thoughts appearing to a real self, is problematic. By definition, it sets up subject and object. It is this very construction that is at the heart of illusion. The same goes for a real self believing them.
would it be some-sort of illusion coming back if the content of the thoughts said 'I didn't make that happen'? Would that be a reference to an inherent self also (one that ISN'T responsible)?
Yes, it would. It is just as true that there is no "I" that makes things happen or does not make things happen. Again, each construction creates a subject and an object. I think this may be why this is so hard to talk about. All language requires this type of construction and it is difficult to communicate through writing or speaking without it. But language is not itself reality in the same way a map is not the territory it describes. The inherent error in saying "I make this happen" or "I didn't make that happen" Is that it implies a separation which is not real. In the most basics sense, the self arises when there is the idea of something inherently being outside existence. This is why even the idea of "I am existence" is also wrong. Its just another complex formulation of the same mistake. There is a process or something happening. but this body, these thoughts, these feelings, this awareness is not separate from it, this is why there is no self. not because there is not a body or feelings, thoughts or awareness, but because these things share the The idea of stream entry seems to point at this in an elegant way. If i am water in a stream, which part of the river am I? that question makes no sense in the same way that the question about thoughts appearing to a real self does not make sense. Water is real, the river is real. Speaking of them as separate things is the delusion.
Let's say that NO thoughts at all appear after (or during) an event . . . what about intention, free-will, choice and control then?
If no thoughts appear after or during an event then nothing has changed. maybe this is why its described as a gateless gate. Im not sure I understand intention, free will or choice outside of thought. These all have the same quality of separation. Intention is: I will do this. Free will is : I decided this should happen and not that. etc Each is a thought about causation, an interpretation that takes as its premise a duality that cant be seen to be there.
