Unraveling

[Bluejay]

Am I correct that we don't need to go looking for what may be lurking below the surface; we only need to face what is in our DE?

My path has been both. Any reaction that comes up during the day is a clue for something deeper. As the knot is unwound, the charge disappears.

In many cases, as you get deeper into inquiry, it can become a way to avoid feeling to say 'This is all there is. It all surfaces naturally.' So it depends on what's going on with you.

How do you see it?

How do you see what? Can you elaborate?

But here is one for you. It now hits me that if thinking is the DE, then this DE is I. Right? What I am not is any story that thought can tell. No separation means there is nothing to separate or be separate. It's all I, with nothing to stand apart. There is no not I. I am thought, and I am the not thought. Whatever is is what I am. Right?

This sounds like a lot of thinking going back and forth. Thought is not direct experience. Thought is a reflection of a sense or another thought.

The question that resonates is "What is always here?"

My worry with this question is that it doesn't hit the mark when it comes to looking for the self that thoughts keep referring to, especially noticing your tendency to go into thinking.

It's all I, with nothing to stand apart. There is no not I. I am thought, and I am the not thought. Whatever is is what I am. Right?

Who is thought? Who is not thought?

What is being referred to?

Look at the last few posts of thinking and the drive to want to have an answer. Who is it that needs an answer?

[davjak]

How do you see what? Can you elaborate?

I was asking about efforts to actively find and uproot what is stored in the body, but this doesn't seem relevant now. It looks like distraction.

Who is thought? Who is not thought?

The who that is thought is imagination only. Who is not thought is what is always present, what is always present is presence. When there is sense experience or thought, it is known. The who that is not thought is only the arising experience.

It's all I, with nothing to stand apart. There is no not I. I am thought, and I am the not thought. Whatever is is what I am. Right?

What is being referred to?

This was an attempt to say that whatever is is I, even if it's illusion that is present. I am behind the illusion.

Look at the last few posts of thinking and the drive to want to have an answer. Who is it that needs an answer?

This morning I was looking again at the sense of a self, the feeling of it being located behind the face, the bodily tension associated with it all, the headache, chest pain, all contained within a pervasive cramp. Then I see the one looking at this to figure it all out and resolve everything, is itself imaginary. Again, this is what was taken as who I am. It's thought based, empty movement. The one looking for the answer is chasing his own imaginary tail. The supposed need for an answer is why an answer is being sought. When the need and the looking are seen through as a movement of imagination seeking an answer drops away. The root of it all was/is the root sense of division, a someone standing apart seeking what sees to be lost.

So, what is not this WWE wrestling match of imagination? The seen, the heard, the felt, the tasted, the smelled and orphaned thoughts passing on their way, knowing and what is known, as a single arising.

[Bluejay]

I was asking about efforts to actively find and uproot what is stored in the body, but this doesn't seem relevant now. It looks like distraction.

Ah, okay. It's good to know, but it seems you have plenty coming up on its own that is being avoided. So in your case, it's simply about feeling any discomfort or feeling, especially if you notice avoidant behaviors, such as food, tv, thinking, and so on.

The who that is thought is imagination only. Who is not thought is what is always present, what is always present is presence. When there is sense experience or thought, it is known. The who that is not thought is only the arising experience.

Yes, understood. I was going to ask what presence is, but you answered it (it is the arising experience).

This was an attempt to say that whatever is is I, even if it's illusion that is present. I am behind the illusion.

What is this I am?

The supposed need for an answer is why an answer is being sought. When the need and the looking are seen through as a movement of imagination seeking an answer drops away. The root of it all was/is the root sense of division, a someone standing apart seeking what sees to be lost.

What gives rise to the need for an answer? It's the avoidance of feeling. There's a sensation in the body that is labeled as unwanted, and the seeking begins.

Your answer here sounds great, almost poetic, but it feels like you're writing what you've learned and not what you see. I could be wrong, of course, but it doesn't feel authentic.

And that's one of the reasons I keep bringing you back to your direct experience, and each time you're giving me what feel like someone else's words.

[davjak]

Your answer here sounds great, almost poetic, but it feels like you're writing what you've learned and not what you see. I could be wrong, of course, but it doesn't feel authentic.

And that's one of the reasons I keep bringing you back to your direct experience, and each time you're giving me what feel like someone else's words.

Good. Please don't be fooled, and please keep beating every trace of inauthenticity out of me. I don't care what's left after this. I'm just so sick of it; I want it all washed away. It feels like a mask I've worn for so long my face has grown into it. But here I am, speaking in metaphors again. These are cleanly typed words on a white background, but everything here feels in a wretched state now.

What gives rise to the need for an answer? It's the avoidance of feeling. There's a sensation in the body that is labeled as unwanted, and the seeking begins.

The unwanted feeling is feeling unwanted, uniquely 'unwantable', undesirable, misplaced, misfit, wrong in its core, unworkable, defective, deficient. There's a big jigsaw puzzle that is this life, but I'm an odd piece from some other, unknown puzzle that will never fit in here. The feeling is wrongness, alien-ness.

What is this I am?

Over my head right now. I don't want to give more of the same. I will sit with it for now.

[davjak]

Your answer here sounds great, almost poetic, but it feels like you're writing what you've learned and not what you see. I could be wrong, of course, but it doesn't feel authentic.

And that's one of the reasons I keep bringing you back to your direct experience, and each time you're giving me what feel like someone else's words.

Good. Please don't be fooled, and please keep beating every trace of inauthenticity out of me. I don't care what's left after this. I'm just so sick of it; I want it all washed away. It feels like a mask I've worn for so long my face has grown into it. But here I am, speaking in metaphors again. These are cleanly typed words on a white background, but everything here feels in a wretched state now.

What gives rise to the need for an answer? It's the avoidance of feeling. There's a sensation in the body that is labeled as unwanted, and the seeking begins.

The unwanted feeling is feeling unwanted, uniquely 'unwantable', undesirable, misplaced, misfit, wrong in its core, unworkable, defective, deficient. There's a big jigsaw puzzle that is this life, but I'm an odd piece from some other, unknown puzzle that will never fit in here. The feeling is wrongness, alien-ness.

What is this I am?

Over my head right now. I don't want to give more of the same. I will sit with it for now.

[davjak]

Your answer here sounds great, almost poetic, but it feels like you're writing what you've learned and not what you see. I could be wrong, of course, but it doesn't feel authentic.

And that's one of the reasons I keep bringing you back to your direct experience, and each time you're giving me what feel like someone else's words.

Good. Please don't be fooled, and please keep beating every trace of inauthenticity out of me. I don't care what's left after this. I'm just so sick of it; I want it all washed away. It feels like a mask I've worn for so long my face has grown into it. But here I am, speaking in metaphors again. These are cleanly typed words on a white background, but everything here feels in a pretty wretched state right now.

What gives rise to the need for an answer? It's the avoidance of feeling. There's a sensation in the body that is labeled as unwanted, and the seeking begins.

The unwanted feeling is feeling unwanted, uniquely 'unwantable', undesirable, misplaced, misfit, wrong in its core, unworkable, defective, deficient. There's a big jigsaw puzzle that is this life, but I'm an odd piece from some other, unknown puzzle that will never fit in here. The feeling is wrongness, alien-ness, bad, an outcast, a burden.

What is this I am?

Over my head right now. I don't want to give more of the same. I will sit with it for now.

[Bluejay]

The unwanted feeling is feeling unwanted, uniquely 'unwantable', undesirable, misplaced, misfit, wrong in its core, unworkable, defective, deficient. There's a big jigsaw puzzle that is this life, but I'm an odd piece from some other, unknown puzzle that will never fit in here. The feeling is wrongness, alien-ness.

You have the inquiry of separating the senses, or simply using a simple Who.

Then you have the practice of feeling into this unwanted feeling.

At this point it feels like the feeling into what is avoided might be the most potent, but you need to actually go where you least want to go. This is not a comfortable path.

[davjak]

At this point it feels like the feeling into what is avoided might be the most potent, but you need to actually go where you least want to go. This is not a comfortable path.

I agree and will do. So much gratitude. Thank you Henri.

[davjak]

I'm just checking in, without much to report. I see approaching this as a head game has come to an end. Your question yesterday turned me where I needed to look, I felt. Pieces fell into place, but the tendency to be in thought is still strong. I feel much clearer now, though, on how to proceed. Off to the vet now, before work.

[Bluejay]

Thanks for checking in!

[davjak]

The mechanism was pointed out and recognized, and now there's a back and forth between the mechanism and recognizing it. The recognizing stops the retreat into thinking. I can say writing this took more thinking and wordsmithing, and staying entirely true would be to keep silent. Anything else risks continuing to interject an imagined doing and maintaining the chatter. But then the purpose of this dialogue is to have that pointed out if it happens. It looks like we can just continue to use the thorn to remove a thorn, no?

[Bluejay]

Hello!

The dialogue continues, of course.

It's good to distinguish between you doing pointers and inquiry through your thinking and you sharing what you've found with words.

What you seemed to be doing was doing inquiry/pointer with thinking and then sharing thinking/conclusions here.

What would be ideal is that you look in direct experience, and see what is there, and then you report with words.

So how is the Who? + feeling inquiry going?

[davjak]

I felt the impact Sunday as kind of like shell shock, and the then dust has been settling, and I'm still coming back to my senses. I don't know if the volume of thought is any less, but the identification is weakened. I felt a bit numb and disoriented. Later I recall thinking/feeling how I wouldn't have traded the miserable way I've felt lately for anything. I am so grateful to be having these things brought into the open. The most miserable condition is when you know there's infection and disease under the surface, but it's just stable enough to fester and be a chronic condition, maybe lifelong. That seems like the human condition, more or less. We feel subconsciously, the load we're carrying, but we simply adjust and make do as it sickens, contorts and cripples us.

This was like waking up to say, "OK, now I see what I'm carrying, and I know damn well, I don't want to carry it anymore." I feel like a corner has been turned; I see what I've been dragging, and I see how my entire life has been impaired, twisted and shaped by it. All of this has been vaguely known, but this was like now recognizing, oh yeah, this monster, there you are, right where you've always been. Now I see you squarely. Now we will have our reckoning. The monster is now in the open, and I can say it was/is nothing other than the root sense of unworthiness to be, to exist and be present.

Whether my presence was wanted or welcomed by anyone else, a burden to anyone else, whether it was inconvenient and threw their lives into turmoil, whether I was rejected by anyone else and blamed for the course their lives took, I am here. I have been all along. I don't have to make my life an ongoing repayment for an original sin I didn't commit. I'm finished paying for what I never owed to begin with. Done is that effort. That's what got thrown on the fire to burn.

The who and what question and the inquiry are just learning to walk as I rake the ashes a bit and sit with a reverberating, internal "holy shit". My head is still spinning a little, but it will clear soon, I know.

[Bluejay]

The who and what question and the inquiry are just learning to walk as I rake the ashes a bit and sit with a reverberating, internal "holy shit". My head is still spinning a little, but it will clear soon, I know.

Good!

Notice which one you want to avoid the most in the moment (who/what inquiry or feeling), then focus on that for 10-15 minutes or whatever feels correct.

If there is any movement away from right now, there's a feeling that's trying to be avoided.

Let me know how that goes.

[davjak]

Now I see the two main ingredients. It was a sense of being at fault. It was an accident, and it was somehow my fault. I appeared, and I have been apologizing and regretting this fact ever since. This is the original curse, the feeling that my presence was unfortunate and regrettable. I committed this crime, but I never knew what to do about it, how to rectify the situation and make it right for those who were impacted by the fact that I showed up. This is the original sense of sin. I'm here, and I'm sorry; I can't help it.

The other main ingredient was a mother who was a cold, distant, uncommunicative, locked and mysterious box. These and a few others are the makings of a development deficit that I've been recovering from all my life. There were foundational learning and social relating skills that simply didn't develop because of these conditions. And then the coping and seeking to hide these deficiencies just leads to compounding withdraw, and creation of more layers of defensive barriers. No wonder life becomes a miserable dread.

I know this isn't direct experience, but these are missing pieces that are now falling into place. It feels like gaping holes are being filled in.