realizing selflessness

[whoknows]

Give me a critique of Amy's response to the final questions. https://liberationunleashed.com/nation/ ... 15#p425333 Do you think that she has passed through the gateless gate? If so - why? If more investigation indicated (to you) - where?

Me? Really?
I get how this might be a useful exercise for me, but just wanted to make sure you didn't mean to send this to someone else.

[vinceschubert]

Yes please.

[whoknows]

OK.
Responding to your first post first:

After the emotion has been fully felt,(or even just with reference to it) sit somewhere with your eyes open. Don’t leave thought for sensation. Let thoughts, bodily sensations, sounds and the visual scene all be present together.

Was this a response to some particular emotions I was describing, or is this a general tip for dealing with emotion, or maybe strong bursts of emotion?

You said K sometimes seems submerged in thought and can then gain distance from it. Look now:

What exactly is submerged—and what stands back?

Well, I don’t feel submerged in thought at the moment, and if I did, I think trying to examine what exactly was submerged would pull me out.
But when I do feel “submerged in thought,” I suppose what I’m describing is that nothing “stands back,” that attention is totally absorbed in the content of thoughts, that I’m completely identified with the thoughts.
And I suppose only afterward, when I’m no longer submerged, meaning that there are now some thoughts about those thoughts qua thoughts (as opposed to about their content), would I be able to say that I had been submerged in thought.
So “what stands back” is thoughts about having being caught up in thought?
Maybe?

The visual field has a perspective corresponding to these eyes. But does perspective contain an observer?

No.

Can the place from which seeing supposedly happens actually be found?

No.

Are thoughts “inside” and the landscape “outside” in experiencing itself—or does thought add those locations?

Don’t answer from what you already understand. Search for the boundary where the viewer ends and the viewed begins.

A “boundary” between viewer and viewed can’t be found because a viewer can’t be found. Something I’ve done a number of times recently during meditation has been to notice hearing, seeing, etc., and how no hearer, seer, etc., can be found.

And back to the first question:
Thoughts feel like they’re inside the skull or right in front of the face (obscuring vision), or maybe they sometimes feel kind of placeless.
And the landscape ordinarily seems “outside,” though when I’m really attending to what’s actually experienced, the landscape occasionally seems a little more “inside” or “right here”—well, not the landscape exactly, but the seeing.
Obviously, the “locations” of experiencing are added by thought.
(Experiencing is probably best described as either placeless or “here.”)

Without moving away from thought or towards sensation, is there anything standing apart from this entire field that could be identified or disidentified?

The mind immediately offers the answer, “No, of course not,” from understanding.
But trying to actually look . . .

This is a weird little exercise, give that I know I won’t find anything. But going to look some more, especially since you said this:

If vividness, strangeness, softening or excitement appears, Don’t describe it yet. Remain with the looking.

(That feels like a bit of a tease and like I’ll be disappointed if nothing interesting happens.)
Looking . . .

(Noticed tingling in legs.)
I’m “deliberately” (yeah, I know; using the word conventionally) thinking verbal thoughts, like sentences that I’ll write here, and looking for anything that could be identified or disidentified with them . . .

(Noticed high-pitched ringing in ears.)
Noticing how verbal thoughts sometimes seem to originate from the throat/mouth and how they sometimes seem like they’re sensed through the same channels as sound.
And the sense of the “perceiver” persists in being located mainly behind the eyes.
Running across the same puzzle I ran across recently, which is that it seems like it’s “good” (i.e., in touch with the actuality of experience) to be “identified” with sense perceptions—by which I mean not imagining a perceiver separate from the perceiving—but it seems “bad” (i.e., problematic, conducive to suffering) to be “identified” with thoughts, by which I guess I mean not having any thoughts noting that the thoughts are merely thoughts.

OK, back to looking for anything that could be identified or disidentified with thought or sensation . . .

I’m already very familiar with not finding anything that could be identified or disidentified with sensation, so I’m focusing on thought . . .

Closed my eyes to try to reduce the sense of there being a perceiver of thoughts located behind the eyes. Then put a blanket over my head because there was still a lot of light coming in through the eyelids. But, nah, the supposed perceiver is definitely imagined as lodged in the head, behind the eyes.
It sometimes feels a little like there’s a separate perceiver perceiving the thoughts, or an observer observing them—which could be identified or disidentified with the thoughts—but mostly it seems like what I said before, that “disidentification” with thoughts means having additional thoughts of awareness that thoughts are just thoughts.

One last round of looking . . .

Being “disidentified” from thoughts is associated with being aware of the actual sensations in the face and head—that is, where the sense of the “observer” is located.
Maybe having more attention on physical sensations is correlated with a sense of disidentification from thoughts?

But, yeah, of course, I can’t find anything that can be identified or disidentified with thoughts and sensations.

What experience would immediately reconstruct the observer?

Hmm. Again, here’s the puzzle about the difference between thoughts and sense perceptions:

In the case of sense perceptions, your question could mean, “What experience would immediately reconstruct a sense of the illusory perceiver of perceptions?”—which seems like bad thing.
And the answer is: The end of the meditation period? That is, I think it generally seems like there’s a separate perceiver of perceptions, and it’s mainly when I’m intentionally doing something “meditative” and directly looking that it’s clear that only perceiving can be found, with no perceiver.

Or in the case of thoughts, your question could mean, “What experience would immediately help you to disidentify from thoughts?”—which seems like a good thing.
And the answer is: Maybe attending to physical sensations? Or just having a thought that they’re mere thoughts.
(But now I’m getting confused by conventional vs. no-self ways of thinking and how a “decision” to attend to physical sensations actually just happens, and how a thought that they’re mere thoughts just appears or doesn’t appear . . . Ugh.)

[whoknows]

You’re keeping me busy today! (Which is fine with me.)

Give me a critique of Amy's response to the final questions. https://liberationunleashed.com/nation/ ... 15#p425333 Do you think that she has passed through the gateless gate? If so - why? If more investigation indicated (to you) - where?

It seems pretty clear to me that she’s passed through the gateless gate.

Some of the many bits I find convincing:
- the way she describes how consciousness can seem to point backward to a self, but when she checks, there’s just consciousness;
- the new sense of flow and energy and fascination with ordinary life;
- having trouble sleeping and eating normally at first;
- being able to simply apologize and move on;
- a sense of loneliness in seeing the world differently from other people, and the pain in witnessing their unnecessary suffering but not knowing how to help;
- new equanimity (and also knowing not to expect it always to feel like that);
- other people feeling safer and more relaxed around her;
- feeling recently like the investigation was running itself;
- the clear (and amusing) description of avocado- vs. broccoli-directed volition and how no “self” is needed there, and also clear descriptions, apparently arising from experience, of how decision, responsibility, etc., don’t need a “self” in charge;

There was maybe a little too much thinking and abstract speculation involved in the explanation of how a self actually couldn’t guide something so complex as human life, but that doesn’t detract from the sense that she’s grokked no-self. She could’ve just edited that bit out as irrelevant.

My brain can’t help wanting to replace things like “There is no separate self” with “No separate self can be found,” since that’s all we can actually know. But I take that to be unnecessary epistemological or linguistic nitpicking.

All in all, the responses are nuanced and detailed and quirky in a way that seems to emerge from experience of no-self, not just from cognition or hearsay (or an AI chatbot).

And I get a sense of ease and gentle wonder and ingenuous confidence about her responses that feels like what I would expect.

If you happen to read this, Amy, congrats! (Which perhaps seems like a weird thing to say — like, congrats on seeing what has always been the case and has always been right here? — but I haven’t grokked it yet, so I’m jealous.)

A note about K:
Reading this bit stoked my rarely-entirely-dormant sense that I could and should be DOing something about awakening:

About 10 months ago I started getting glimpses. A continual moment to moment effort to be diligent in looking picked up steam.

[whoknows]

(Yep, another long one.)

Further observations about the experience of being (dis)identified with thoughts or (un)submerged in thoughts:

I was noticing that attention can be completely caught up in thoughts while the organism is still taking in and usefully processing sense perceptions but with little to no conscious awareness of those sense perceptions. E.g., I can be totally caught up in thoughts and still walk around without tripping or bumping into things and can even safely drive a car (though it would probably be safer if more conscious attention were devoted to driving). Presumably, if something unusual were to happen while walking or driving, conscious attention would shift out of thought and back to sense perceptions.

So, like, just now, while typing the paragraph above, my conscious attention was totally on formulating ideas and sentences and on mental images of walking and driving—i.e., thought—while the typing, including spelling words correctly and using “proper” punctuation and capitalization, was happening with no conscious attention. Oh, okay, so it’s not just the processing of sense perceptions that was happening with little to no conscious awareness but also some forms of thought, e.g., about standard written English. And then, when I got to the end of the paragraph and paused, I “emerged” from thought and once again consciously noticed my fingers on the computer and the room I’m in.

In my earlier post, I offered the idea that “what stands back” from thought is another thought: one that is aware that the thoughts had been thoughts. But I was repeatedly watching how attention “emerges from” or “disidentifies with” thoughts, and, well, I’m not sure there’s anything like a thought, even a vague, inchoate one, to the effect that “Those were thoughts,” but maybe there is, at least when I’m intentionally doing something like meditation. What’s more noticeable, though, is simply that conscious attention is no longer entirely or mainly on thoughts but is once again mainly on sense perceptions.

I feel like there was, or should be, an upshot of all this.
Um . . . Let’s see . . .
Two of the boldfaced questions in your message were these:

What exactly is submerged—and what stands back?

Without moving away from thought or towards sensation, is there anything standing apart from this entire field that could be identified or disidentified?

There is, of course, nothing that is submerged in thought and nothing that stands back from thought. (But that still seems like a useful metaphor for talking about being caught up in thoughts and not caught up in thoughts.)
Likewise, there is, of course, nothing that can be identified or disidentified with thoughts. (And that also still seems like a useful way of talking.)

I’m trying to think about how to talk about this without implying the existence of something that can be (un)submerged in thought or (dis)identified with thought . . .
Well, the phrase “thought storm” comes to mind.
Either there’s a thought storm or there’s just clear open spaciousness with perhaps some wispy thoughts blowing through. Does that work?
(The image of the sky and weather is one I encountered almost forty years ago for meditation and have often used in my own practice.)

[vinceschubert]

It seems pretty clear to me that she’s passed through the gateless gate.

i was impressed and pleased that you showed finesse in your evaluation. i find it interesting that you were able to recognize some of the nuance that Amy expressed. It's even more interesting that you could do this without (supposedly) having experienced these subtleties yourself. (???)

Reading this bit stoked my rarely-entirely-dormant sense that I could and should be DOing something about awakening:

You are!
Do you see a process that devolves certain experiences into ordinary?
Experience itself may not become ordinary; the brain may process it as already known.
A possible sequence is:
perception → recognition → label → comparison with memory → “I know what this is” → attention moves elsewhere.

This predictive compression is biologically useful. Instead of receiving every tree, room or face freshly, the brain supplies a familiar image and deals mainly with what has changed. Thought then relates to its summary rather than to the living event.

So “ordinary” may not be a quality found in the colour, sound or sensation. It may be the effect of familiarity announcing:
“Nothing new here. Already seen. Move along.”

When that automatic knowing loosens, the same world can appear startlingly vivid, intimate and almost psychedelic—not because anything new has been added, but because experience is no longer being flattened into what thought says it already knows.

Look at something completely familiar. Before naming it, where is its “ordinariness”? Watch for the instant recognition says, “I know what that is.” Does the experiencing become ordinary—or does attention leave the event and begin relating to a stored image of it?

v

[whoknows]

i find it interesting that you were able to recognize some of the nuance that Amy expressed. It's even more interesting that you could do this without (supposedly) having experienced these subtleties yourself. (???)

Yeah, well, I’ve been into this stuff for a long time—practicing, reading, writing, analyzing, learning, teaching, discussing, pondering—plus I’ve graded hundreds of papers on Zen. So apparently I can recognize it when I see it. But that doesn’t mean I experience much of it or grok it.

After I wrote that post, I wondered, “Is vince going to ask, ‘Is there anything here that doesn’t apply to K?’” And yeah, most of it doesn’t. Admittedly, in many cases it's just a matter of degree. E.g., I’ve become a bit more “fascinated” by a few particular things, but that doesn’t extend broadly to “daily life.” And I’m feeling less tortured by being alive and have stretches of feeling kind of okay, but I certainly don’t have a “strong” sense of “equanimity.” And the general feelings of ease and wonder aren’t here.

Reading this bit stoked my rarely-entirely-dormant sense that I could and should be DOing something about awakening:

You are!
Do you see a process that devolves certain experiences into ordinary?
Experience itself may not become ordinary; the brain may process it as already known.

I found that a little abstract and wondered what you thought my brain was processing as “ordinary.” Given what you were responding to, maybe you meant the things I’m already doing re: awakening that are part of my “ordinary” routine, e.g., engaging with you here, sitting twice a day, going to your meetings . . . (yeah, okay, it’s a pretty long list) . . . talking about this stuff with spouse, watching relevant videos, reading your stories. Is that what you meant?

(I like the new characters, by the way. Naturally, I identify with Ravi. But a lot of my books vanished in some Covid-related job-loss chaos, and I’ve always had a Marie Kondo-esque penchant for getting rid of unneeded stuff, so my books are no longer a threat to the floor joists.)

When I mused about DOing something about awakening, I was wondering whether I should be engaging in some sort of 24/7 inquiry or mindfulness type of practice like Amy’s “continual moment to moment effort to be diligent in looking.” But, yeah, I can probably relax about that. (This is a worthwhile insight, but maybe you had something else in mind here?)

When that automatic knowing loosens, the same world can appear startlingly vivid, intimate and almost psychedelic—not because anything new has been added, but because experience is no longer being flattened into what thought says it already knows.

Yes, I get that. And I saved this from “Can Old Be New Now?”:

The word truck had not been wrong.
It had simply left almost everything out.

Nice.

Look at something completely familiar. Before naming it, where is its “ordinariness”? Watch for the instant recognition says, “I know what that is.” Does the experiencing become ordinary—or does attention leave the event and begin relating to a stored image of it?

Ha. Noticed I was treating this exercise as “I know what this is.” Started thinking about how drawing what is seen is a good way to really look at the actual shapes and colors in the visual field. A scene came to mind from the monastery: eating breakfast at the end of a sesshin and being transfixed for a moment by the loveliness of the white yogurt in the shiny black oryoki bowl.

My phone, which I’m looking at for the purposes of this exercise, is not so captivating, but I’m noticing the scratches on the screen, the sunlight reflecting off one corner of the glass, the reflection of the window next to me, the unevenly faded blue of the phone case, the smudges on the screen, the two rows of six tiny holes at the bottom of the case.

OK, I’ve been procrastinating on getting any work done this morning (though I did reply to a student’s email). I’m jealous of this feature of Amy’s awakening:

And the desire to procrastinate, which used to be so strong, is not there – it seems the belief in a self was at the center of that somehow.

I need to respond to students’ discussion-board posts, and I feel very resistant—tears threatening, almost nauseated—and I don’t think it’s one of those situations where these are signals that I need to change something about my job. I don’t know whether this is about anything other than my usual difficulty starting tasks, though the feelings seem rather extreme for that. I’ve wondered if there could be some sort of burnout phenomenon going on, but I haven’t been working very hard recently. And I’ve wondered about all the time, energy, and attention that has been going into that list of awakening-related activities.

I did give myself permission not to remake a lecture video that I was planning to make a better version of. I generally like making my course videos and often find it a flow activity, but lately, I haven’t wanted to do it, which worries me because this sounds like that item on depression inventories: “not enjoying things you used to enjoy.”

Maybe I do need to expect less of myself in doing this part of my job. I don’t really need to write such long, carefully crafted responses as I usually do. And anticipating doing that adds to the “activation energy” required for getting started on this task.

I notice a desire to “practice the feelings away” with some sort of inquiry or something, and it seems to me that this is probably misguided in an important way and also that there’s probably something to it.

My recent lesson was to first feel the feelings, but for heaven’s sake, I don’t really want to go cry in the library’s restroom again, and there’s that extra arrow of “WTF? Why is this so difficult for me?!”

* * * * *

Stopped when I realized it was almost time to head home for lunch. Now it’s early evening, and I’m home, and I have an hour or two ahead of me that I could and should use for those discussion boards, and I still feel resistant. Paused for a bit of a sob.

I’ve found myself hoping that this is the sort of thing that might shift significantly with “awakening” so that I don’t have to keep slogging through dealing with it little by little. And now Amy has fueled that hope for magical relief.

Scrolling back through our recent messages . . . I guess this is another example of demand-resistance. And: I hate that I don’t have the “freedom” to do or not do things without any unpleasant consequences either way? Don't know what to do with that insight.

The “resistance” is thoughts plus bodily sensations. There’s a little tightness in the throat, and that’s about all I can find in terms of sensations. Maybe some constriction of breathing. And thoughts are these insubstantial, evanescent things that it sometimes seems I should be able to simply decide not to take seriously. They’re not very articulate at the moment, mostly just “I don’t want to!!!” OK, you don’t want to. *Sigh.* Focus on bodily sensations? Tightness. Constriction. No big deal. Ugh. Still resistant, maybe slightly less so.

Opened up the discussion board. Compared the first post in each of the two discussion groups and chose to begin with the group with the first post that seemed easier to respond to. Here goes . . .

[vinceschubert]

Why is this so difficult for me?!

Because this isn’t merely an interesting puzzle. Nearly forty years of hope, suffering and promised rescue have been placed upon its answer. Each piece of Inquiry can therefore become an examination that K must finally pass.

And the brain’s K-model has been rehearsed through almost every perception, thought and relationship for nearly sixty years. A correct conclusion doesn’t instantly undo such deeply conditioned biological organisation.

But look more closely at what is supposedly difficult.

You already see that no thinker, chooser, possessor or observer can be found. What hasn’t happened is the unmistakable perceptual shift that would make this feel conclusively different.

So perhaps seeing no-self isn’t the difficult part. Perhaps the difficult part is that what has been seen still feels too ordinary—and hasn’t yet fulfilled the promise carried by “awakening.”

Now examine the question itself:

“Why is this so difficult for me?”

There may be frustration, contraction, comparison, an image of where K should be, and a thought saying someone is failing to arrive.

Apart from those ingredients, can either “the difficulty” or the K experiencing it be found? Is something genuinely preventing seeing—or are frustration and the thought “I still don’t see” themselves what is presently being seen?

Do you imagine that you will wake up then (maybe) have a significant experience or will the experience happen first? (or something else?)

v

[whoknows]

Whew, just in time! The withdrawal symptoms from my Australian-guidance dependency weren’t too bad yet—just some agitation and tachycardia—and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go skulking around a sketchy neighborhood to find an inferior product.

I appreciate you, vince. And I do seem to have developed an addiction. ;-)

Why is this so difficult for me?!

Because this isn’t merely an interesting puzzle. Nearly forty years of hope, suffering and promised rescue have been placed upon its answer. Each piece of Inquiry can therefore become an examination that K must finally pass.

What I was exclaiming about there was actually my executive functioning challenges, but I do have similar thoughts about awakening, with tiresome regularity. Yesterday’s version of that thought was about whether I’m particularly slow and how I’m used to being at the top of the class. And I found myself hoping Ravi doesn’t take forever to wake up.

But then I remind myself that it has been deeply encouraging to find folks online who think awakening can happen not only in this lifetime but soon. And for goodness’ sake, it’s been just a little over four months that I’ve been working with you. And, yes, things are already changing for me. So, carrying on . . .

Perhaps the difficult part is that what has been seen still feels too ordinary—and hasn’t yet fulfilled the promise carried by “awakening.”

OK, I’m listening . . .

Now examine the question itself:

“Why is this so difficult for me?”

There may be frustration, contraction, comparison, an image of where K should be, and a thought saying someone is failing to arrive.

Yes, all of that. And I do note the supposed “someone” in there.

Apart from those ingredients, can either “the difficulty” or the K experiencing it be found?

So, yeah, “the difficulty” is made up of things like frustration, contraction, comparison with images of where “K” “should” be (and images of where other people are), and thoughts that something desired isn’t here yet.
And . . . what of it?
That conglomeration is unpleasant and troublesome. What difference does it make that there’s no underlying, essential “difficulty” of which those are components or characteristics?
I feel like I should be able to answer that question, but I’m at a loss at the moment.
Maybe I can enlist my sense that it’s weird that so much suffering can arise from thoughts, which are fleeting and insubstantial, plus bodily sensations that are usually no more than moderately uncomfortable.
OK, so, notice the fleeting and insubstantial thoughts of comparison and of the absence of something desired. Trying to remind myself of my image of “me” as a huge, loose cyclone of perceptions and thoughts, in which any given thought is just a small blip.
Can’t find much in the way of associated bodily sensations at the moment, even when I mentally repeat, “Why is this so difficult for me?” Maybe just a bit of the usual tightness in the throat and constriction of breathing.
I’m not sure whether I had much emotion around “Why is this so difficult for me?” today before I started responding to your post, but in any case, I don’t now, so that’s nice.

As for the K who’s experiencing the difficulty, okay, let’s look again for a watermelon in the fridge . . .
Something I’ve been doing occasionally and did last night during my late-night sit is looking for “what’s actually here” where I tend to locate my sense of self.
(I came up with this as a version of the self-inquiry question “Who am I?” which I’ve always taken to be a trick question with the answer, “There is no ‘I,’” but which is intended to get you to look. But “Who am I?” can perhaps lend itself to reifying a sense of “awareness” or “presence” as an “I,” so “What’s actually here [where my sense of self is]?” seems like a good replacement.)
So, can I find the supposed “K” who is, or was, experiencing the supposed “difficulty”?
What’s actually here?
A bit of head congestion. Seeing the rim of my glasses. Feeling breath in my nostrils. Feeling lips touching together and tongue in mouth. Seeing from the perspective of these eyes. Feeling of cheeks and jaw. Hearing from the vantage point of these ears. Feeling of glasses resting on nose. Thoughts arising, imagined vaguely as originating around the back of my throat or maybe a bit further back and up. Seer imagined as behind the eyes.
(While I was doing that inventory, I thought of the still-undone oppressive chore that spouse kindly ordered me not to think about until Saturday, which is today, and I felt tightness instantly arise in the chest.)
No watermelon found.

Something I was noticing last night is that my thoughts, the verbal ones, “sound” like they’re in my voice. I wonder if this adds to their sense of “me”-ness. And this just came to mind: A student of mine reported that a meditation instructor at a Zen center said the reason to press your tongue against the roof of your mouth (which I’ve always heard is to inhibit salivation) is because it suppresses subvocalization. I'm not sure I buy it, but I find this idea intriguing.

Is something genuinely preventing seeing—or are frustration and the thought “I still don’t see” themselves what is presently being seen?

This question seems to conflate two different meanings of “seeing.” Certainly, the thought “I still don’t see” and the associated frustration are “seen,” in the ordinary sense that I’m aware of them. But the “seeing” that doesn’t seem to have happened yet is a shift in perception of “self” in relation to the rest of reality. Am I missing something here?

As for whether something is preventing seeing, which I take to mean seeing no-self, well, it beats me. That sort of seeing doesn’t seem to be happening, but I guess that doesn’t necessarily mean that something is “preventing” it exactly. It might just be a matter of some sort of ripening or integration or something—i.e., the passage of time? I don’t know. What do you think? Is something preventing seeing?

Do you imagine that you will wake up then (maybe) have a significant experience or will the experience happen first? (or something else?)

Simultaneous? Or maybe the question doesn’t make sense?
I imagine something along the lines of an “Oh, duh” experiential insight into selflessness and/or THISness, accompanied perhaps by a little psychedelic vividness of ordinary reality, perhaps a sense of nonseparation from what is perceived, a feeling of relief and lightness, maybe some laughter.
I’m not sure what in there is “waking up” and what is “a significant experience.” I’m not sure that distinction is meaningful.


(Brought up the still-undone chore with spouse and told him I wanted to list aloud all the tasks involved so that they’d stop swirling menacingly in my head. After I’d done that, he said, “Okay, that’s enough until next Saturday.” Kind spouse.)

[whoknows]

Post-meeting thoughts:

- I hope “adorable” didn’t sound too condescending or otherwise weird, but I couldn’t think quickly enough to do anything but say what I’d actually been thinking (with a disclaimer about hoping it didn't sound too weird) when you asked why I was smiling. I was glad you seconded me, which might’ve made it seem less weird. I am always struck by his eager, cheerful energy, and I found it particularly charming today.

- At the bottom of the file where I write my LU posts before cutting ’n’ pasting them onto the site, I sometimes save pointers that still feel active. An old one that’s still there: “Set aside the story ‘I am not awake,’ which likes to attach itself to suffering.” That story wanted to attach itself to some suffering tonight. I was feeling fine at the meeting and then when having my nightly phone conversation with my mom and while having dinner, but then when I had to start thinking about some chores, I felt crappy (still wondering why I’m having even more trouble than usual with this kind of thing recently) and saw that story trying to tag along. Simply being aware of it was enough to defuse it a bit.

I now notice that another pointer that’s still sitting there is “When seeking energy arises, note what is actually here — the specific sense experiences and thoughts/feelings.” Noted (again).

- After I was out of the spotlight, I continued to notice tingling in the legs and a vague general sense of energy flowing or something. It was interesting to consider that the sense of awe (in the "mysterium tremendum" sense) at the exitence of anything and specifically of me, which I repressed as a six-year-old and which returned with a vengeance when I was 21 and set me definitively on my spiritual path, might be something worth being in contact with. Any thoughts on that are welcome.

[vinceschubert]

Story: The Control Room

For nearly sixty years, K had assumed there was a control room somewhere behind her eyes.

She had never seen it, but its existence seemed obvious. Seeing arrived from there. Thoughts spoke from there. Decisions were issued from there. When life went badly, someone in there was responsible.

Then one morning K decided to inspect it.

She began with what was actually present: the rim of her glasses, breath in the nostrils, pressure in the face, sounds from the street, a thought sounding like her own voice.

“This is where I am,” said the voice.

K looked for the speaker.

There was only another thought, a faint throat sensation and an image of somewhere behind the eyes.

She noticed that seeing didn’t actually say it came from the eyes. Hearing didn’t say it arrived at the ears. The sensations didn’t say they formed a body containing an occupant. Each simply appeared, and thought drew lines between them.

The lines made a convincing diagram.

At its centre, thought had written: K—CONTROL ROOM.

K waited for the controller to object.

A bird called. Light moved across the wall. Breath happened. A thought asked whether this was awakening. Another thought complained that nothing psychedelic was happening.

Then, for no reason K could identify, the room became extraordinarily vivid.

The blue cup was impossibly blue. Sunlight trembled along its rim. The hum of the refrigerator had depth and texture. The hand resting on the table looked intimate and peculiar, like something nature had grown there.

Nothing had merged. Nothing had vanished. Yet, briefly, the world no longer seemed to be over there, reporting itself to someone in here.

There was no control room.

There had only ever been windows, sounds, sensations, thoughts—and the story that they converged upon someone.

K laughed.

Not the grand awakening laugh she had imagined.

Just a surprised little laugh when the refrigerator started humming again and no one was doing that either.

Investigation: Where Is the Centre?

This isn’t intended to calm the mind or produce a special experience. Let whatever is happening continue.

Keep the eyes open.
Notice the visual scene.
Now, without referring to knowledge about eyes, brains or perspective, does vision itself say that it is being seen from somewhere?

Notice sound.
Does hearing contain a listening point, or are sounds simply appearing with different apparent locations?

Notice bodily sensations.
Do they form a container with K inside, or are there pressures, warmth, movement and tingling—and then an image or thought arranging them into “my body”?

Allow a verbal thought to arise in K’s familiar voice.
Does the voice establish the existence of a speaker, or is “K’s voice” another recognizable quality appearing within experience?

Now let seeing, hearing, bodily sensation and thought happen together.
They are coordinated around this organism. That is useful and real. But look carefully:

Do they actually meet at a centre—or does thought infer a centre because they are coordinated?
If a seer seems to be behind the eyes, inspect what is actually there.
Pressure? Darkness? Facial sensations? A mental picture? The thought “back here”?

Does any ingredient perceive the others?
Notice any effort to step back, observe the whole field or work out the correct answer. Is that effort being made by something outside experiencing—or is it another sensation-thought movement within the same happening?

Don’t conclude, “There is no K.” That answer is already available.
Instead, remain with the peculiar fact that seeing is happening, hearing is happening and thinking is happening—but the place where they supposedly happen **to someone** cannot be located.

What happens when the perceptual system is given time to digest that?

Song: https://soundcloud.com/vince-schubert-1 ... ll-windows

v

[whoknows]

Wow. Thanks, vince. I’m really touched.

I’m tucked into bed, lights out, reading and listening on my phone, trying not to disturb spouse. Will respond more fully tomorrow.

🩷

[whoknows]

First, a report on last night’s sit:

Had in mind that it’s “stupidly simple.”
Thought of one of my favorite Adyashanti videos, “Do Nothing.”
Used the sitting period to do nothing.
Didn’t try to see what’s actually here where the sense of self tends to be located.
Didn’t try to let the body be soft and give the bouncer the night off to allow all perceptions in.
Didn’t try to experience that there’s simply seeing and no seer, simply hearing and no hearer.
Didn’t try to let the throat be soft to see if verbal thoughts, which sometimes seem to originate from there, might calm down.
Didn’t try to fall into “Ahhh . . . of course, THIS.”
Didn’t do anything about it when I noticed that the mind was starting to compose this post—repeatedly. (K’s mind is kind of adorable.)
It was nice.
What a relief.

*****************************

Your story and song and my description of last night’s sit reminded me of a short story I published in 1999 (27 years ago!). Here’s the end of the story.

* * * * *

Anne had heard that the whole journey is just trying one strategy after another until you finally see that all strategies are useless.

So she decided that maybe, in order to find God, she just needed to quit trying to find God. So she sold her motorcycle. She gave her microscope to the kid next door. She unplugged her phone.

But she knew that there was something fishy about all this. She could see that even trying to quit trying to find God was still a strategy.

So she tried to quit trying to quit. But that was the same thing!

Anne was confused. She didn’t know what to do. It seemed like there was nothing she could do. She just sat there being confused.

And she thought she caught a glimpse of the shadow of God’s big toe.

Anne wished that this were almost the end of her search. She wished that she finally knew, deep down in her bones, that God is always right here. She wanted to live happily ever after.

But instead: She thought that maybe she had hit on something when she just sat there being confused. Maybe that was a way of quitting trying to find God, and now she could finally really find God.

But that was still the same confusion!

She wondered why God wouldn’t just have mercy on her and her crazy predicament and speak out of the clouds to her. She was mad at God for letting her go through all this.

She was sick of it.

Anne could see that it made no sense to look for God in the midst of God. She could see that you couldn’t find a God who had never been lost.

And yet, she still longed to find God more than anything else in the world.

Anne figured, if God is always with her, God would be with her as she kept searching for God.

So Anne pulled on her rollerblades.

* * * * *

Had a sob of sympathy and tenderness for poor dear K. Look how long ago she could clearly express her theoretical understanding that it ALL has to be THIS. But she knew she didn’t grok it, and she was frikkin’ miserable and desperate.

Something interesting I noticed: The thoughts and feelings about the decades of suffering began to give rise to some well-worn thoughts and feelings about not knowing how I would ever be able to forgive the universe for all of that. But like an engine that won’t start on a cold day, it didn’t quite catch.

After the five-month summer here, which I hate, fall has finally settled in. Today it’s overcast and raining on and off. If this kind of weather went on too long, I wouldn’t like it either. But right now, it’s a relief and quite welcome. And it’s cozy in the coffee shop. Felt a small wave of affection for the scraggly little dog someone just walked out on a leash.

[whoknows]

Re: “The Control Room”:

I would be amused and, of course, unsurprised if I were to have an experience very much like the one described in this story.

She noticed that seeing didn’t actually say it came from the eyes. Hearing didn’t say it arrived at the ears. The sensations didn’t say they formed a body containing an occupant. Each simply appeared, and thought drew lines between them.

The lines made a convincing diagram.

I regularly get a sense of this, especially regarding bodily sensations. It feels like there are flickers of sensation that the mind maps in various locations, each one lighting up briefly in the dark, and even though only a small fraction of locations within the supposed body light up at all, it’s just enough and the flickers happen in quick enough succession that each leaves an afterimage, and an impression is created of the shape of a whole body.

Another thought complained that nothing psychedelic was happening.

:-)

Notice the visual scene.
Now, without referring to knowledge about eyes, brains or perspective, does vision itself say that it is being seen from somewhere?

Nope.

Notice sound.
Does hearing contain a listening point, or are sounds simply appearing with different apparent locations?

The latter.

Notice bodily sensations.
Do they form a container with K inside, or are there pressures, warmth, movement and tingling—and then an image or thought arranging them into “my body”?

The latter.

Allow a verbal thought to arise in K’s familiar voice.
Does the voice establish the existence of a speaker, or is “K’s voice” another recognizable quality appearing within experience?

The latter.

Now let seeing, hearing, bodily sensation and thought happen together.

I’m not sure I can sense all of them “together,” if that means consciously attending to all of them simultaneously. It might be more like attending to one at a time but flipping among them very quickly? Thought tends to obscure attention to sense perceptions. Maybe I can kind of attend to two types of sense perception at a time but not all three? Or maybe when I try two at a time, I just don’t perceive the flipping back and forth?

They are coordinated around this organism. That is useful and real. But look carefully:

Do they actually meet at a centre—or does thought infer a centre because they are coordinated?

The latter.

Does any ingredient perceive the others?

No.

Notice any effort to step back, observe the whole field or work out the correct answer. Is that effort being made by something outside experiencing—or is it another sensation-thought movement within the same happening?

No such effort arose, I guess because it seems silly to think that one ingredient, even thought, could “perceive” the others.

Don’t conclude, “There is no K.” That answer is already available.
Instead, remain with the peculiar fact that seeing is happening, hearing is happening and thinking is happening—but the place where they supposedly happen **to someone** cannot be located.

It is indeed a peculiar fact.

What happens when the perceptual system is given time to digest that?

I don’t know. I suppose I’ll find out.


Re: “The House Was All Windows”:

Nice phrase: “this wild ordinary world.”

Good reminders: “Let the longing cry. Let the old hope stay. Let the imagined future be another thing appearing today. No need to silence seeking. No seeker to remove. Even the dream of coming home is life already moving.”

[whoknows]

Playing with the “control room” imagery during afternoon sit:
We have been convinced that the control room is like the White House “situation room”—a small, windowless, high-security room where the president can gather with trusted advisors to collect intel and make important decisions.
But it’s actually more like an air-traffic control tower—elevated for a panoramic view, with windows on all sides—but with no one in it, since, due to a funding snafu, construction of the airport was never completed, so the sun shines through and birds fly by with no witnesses, and rabbits and coyotes have taken over the runways.

Was noticing tingling in the legs again during sitting, and can feel it right now. Rupert Spira occasionally mentions the tingling in the soles of the feet, which I’d never noticed until he called it to my attention, but apparently it’s always been there. So now I’m wondering, has the tingling in my legs always been there and I just started to notice it, or is it a new thing?

Also noticing that vision and hearing don’t, at this point, very strongly suggest to me that there’s a staffed control room, but thoughts, perhaps verbal thoughts especially, do still often suggest that they’re being issued from the control room.

Have been playing with letting the throat be soft, imagining that it’s so relaxed that the vocal cords can’t touch and thus can’t produce sound. I’ve been aware for a while that my negative emotions often involve tightness in the throat, and I wondered, though this mostly seems fanciful, whether that could have any connection with my newly discovered sense that some thoughts seems to originate from the throat. I also think of the classic description that working on Mu is like having a red-hot iron ball stuck in the throat that you can’t disgorge.