The Gate

Dearest vince,
Thank you for the late-night response.
Still wondering, now what?
Love,
K

now what?

Instead of chasing the "what", look at the "now".

v

now what?

Instead of chasing the "what", look at the "now".

Part of my brain says, "Aw, geez, he's going all Zennie on me," but yeah, let's see . . .
Look at the "now."
Right. Of course.
Attend to the thoughts and perceptions of the present moment.
Yeah, OK . . .

Sleep well, dear vince.

It does seem poetic that what might be “in the way” of realizing no-self is fear of going anywhere near the idea of nonexistence. But I dunno.

It’s not like I’ve been doing meditation or self-inquiry and have gotten whiffs of an existential terror that kept me from— Oh. Wait. When I’ve noticed that finding life beautiful is scary because then I won’t be protected from terror of mortality by finding life intolerable—yeah, okay, that seems closely related.

And . . . I’m getting choked up, and tears are threatening.

I suppose it doesn’t much matter here that I understand intellectually that realizing no-self means realizing what has always been the case and so it’s not like anything real is going to vanish. It’s just an illusion that will be seen through.

Has that illusion really been so very comforting somehow? If so, it certainly seems like the trouble it causes long ago surpassed any comfort it might have provided.

Or maybe the “self” idea wasn’t comforting but simply useful for the organism’s navigation of its world and its relationship to other beings and things? But this useful mental structure inevitably got reified and mistaken for reality?

I really need to pause this and get some work done.

But . . . I reviewed what I’ve written so far and thought: Why wouldn’t death be terrifying, not just to six-year-old K but also to sixty-year-old K?

It's not so much desensitisation as it is recognising that the child's view is too limited for the current perspective.

I don’t get it. How does a more expansive adult perspective help with fear of mortality?

The mind offers the idea that this fear, like all emotions, is made of thoughts, which are insubstantial and evanescent, plus bodily sensations that are generally no more than moderately uncomfortable. But somehow, in this case, that approach feels like bypassing or gaslighting.

The mind says: How about this? Maybe fear of death is based on belief in a separate self and that’s exactly the belief that I hope will soon be grokked as illusory.

I don’t know. I need some help here.

And I really do need to get some work done . . .

Now that I'm pasting this on the LU site, I'm reminded that your last suggestion was to look at the "now," and I didn't do that at all. But again, the mind objects that this somehow feels like bypassing or gaslighting. So, yeah, I could use your help here.

With gratitude (and fear),
K

What an amazing thing this mind is when it wakes me at 4am to respond to your post.

The mind offers the idea that this fear, like all emotions, is made of thoughts, which are insubstantial and evanescent, plus bodily sensations that are generally no more than moderately uncomfortable. But somehow, in this case, that approach feels like bypassing or gaslighting.

Yes, if the mind offers a logical solution (that actually works) it is bypassing. ...but if the mind offers a perspective that opens a 'door' to perception that leads to a recognition, then it's a shift.
So, if this ("is made of thoughts, which are insubstantial and evanescent, plus bodily sensations that are generally no more than moderately uncomfortable." is a description of experience, then you can live with it. Especially given that it will only be present when it is triggered. ..and very likely that will happen less and less, given how boring it will become as it hasn't any actual survival advantage. (unless a sabre-tooth tiger appears)
Which brings me to this;

Why wouldn’t death be terrifying, not just to six-year-old K but also to sixty-year-old K?

Because the six y/o really imagined that sabre-tooth tigers were real.
You know nothing of death except that you don't anymore interact with the dead on the physical plane. Your interaction with them isn't much different than your interaction with them when their body was animated. You continue to project your idea of who/what they are. It's just in this case, there isn't much evolution of that.
If your fear is of the unknown then why aren't you afraid all day every day as it's constantly available?

This mind is 'saying' that i can go back to sleep now. Thank you.

❤️

v

Sorry about the 4 a.m. wakeup call.

The mind offers the idea that this fear, like all emotions, is made of thoughts, which are insubstantial and evanescent, plus bodily sensations that are generally no more than moderately uncomfortable. But somehow, in this case, that approach feels like bypassing or gaslighting.

Yes, if the mind offers a logical solution (that actually works) it is bypassing. ...but if the mind offers a perspective that opens a 'door' to perception that leads to a recognition, then it's a shift.

Pondering this . . .
Hmm . . .
New perspective —> new perception —> recognition.
More pondering needed.

So, if this ("is made of thoughts, which are insubstantial and evanescent, plus bodily sensations that are generally no more than moderately uncomfortable." is a description of experience, then you can live with it.

I think you’re saying that if emotions are indeed made of thoughts plus sensations—and are, thus, in a way, no big deal—then I can live with the emotions that arise in the face of thoughts about mortality and nonexistence.
Yes, I can.

Especially given that it will only be present when it is triggered. ..and very likely that will happen less and less, given how boring it will become as it hasn't any actual survival advantage.

Yes, it’s not like these emotions are going to be present all the time.
And, yes, probably they’ll be present less and less, given that they’ll get boring and they aren’t useful.

* * * * *

I’m thinking it might be best for you to quickly skim the rest of this and then dismiss it.
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s something here worth following up on.

Why wouldn’t death be terrifying, not just to six-year-old K but also to sixty-year-old K?

Because the six y/o really imagined that sabre-tooth tigers were real.

Perhaps I’ve missed your point here, but:
Sixty-year-old K knows saber-tooth tigers don’t exist, so she isn’t scared of them.
But mountain lions do exist, and she’d be scared if she encountered one, because it might injure her or kill her.
Mortality is not a saber-tooth tiger; it’s a mountain lion.
And it’s one that can’t be avoided.
We all will encounter it, and it will kill us.
Why wouldn’t that be terrifying to K at both 6 and 60?

You know nothing of death except that you don't anymore interact with the dead on the physical plane.

If you’re saying that perhaps there is some way in which we continue after death, well, I suppose so, but I find it unlikely, and since we don’t know, this doesn’t offer much comfort (but that might not have been the intent). And any sort of continuation I can imagine seems like yet more samsara, which seems dreadful—unless I finally grok that samsara is nirvana, in which case both the imagined continued life and also this current life would both be seen as nirvana, and, I’m guessing, along with that, my whole issue about mortality and nonexistence somehow would become a nonissue.

Your interaction with them isn't much different than your interaction with them when their body was animated. You continue to project your idea of who/what they are.

That’s about other people dying. I’m mainly freaked out by my own death and by the fact of mortality and the fact that K and everything else might never have existed.

It's just in this case, there isn't much evolution of that.

Not following you here.

If your fear is of the unknown then why aren't you afraid all day every day as it's constantly available?

I don’t think I’m going to be argued out of terrified awe in the face of mortality.
I’m afraid this reminds me of the participant in the Zoom meetings who seems to think logical syllogisms about thoughts will help me wake up. And you know how I feel about that. (Maybe that’s helpful to other people? Maybe that sort of thing helped him?)

Hope the mind allowed you to go back to sleep!

Sorry about the 4 a.m. wakeup call.

Ha, i hope you didn't actually feel sorry. It had nothing to do with you.

Hope the mind allowed you to go back to sleep!

Yes, that happened easily.

I don’t think I’m going to be argued out of terrified awe in the face of mortality.

Good. Let’s stop trying. (it was never an intention)

Your objections are valid. Death isn’t an imaginary sabre-toothed tiger. The body will die, we don’t know whether anything continues, and my comments about interacting with dead people didn’t address your fear of your own nonexistence. Drop all of that.
The pointer isn’t: “Death isn’t frightening.” (although it needn't be)
It is this distinction:
A mountain lion can be present now as an actual sensory event requiring action. Death-as-nonexistence is presently here only as a thought, image or attempted simulation. The bodily response is real; the death it is responding to is not occurring now.
That doesn’t make the fear silly or unreal. It reveals how it is being produced.
There is an even subtler impossibility in the image of “nothing, forever.”
Who is there to experience the forever? (look in the fridge - oh, of course you don't need to as you know what won't be found)
Thought tries to imagine a scene in which K is completely absent while retaining a trace of K at the edge, witnessing the absence and being horrified by it.

You already know conceptually that there would be no witness. That isn’t the point. Look at whether the nervous system can represent K’s nonexistence without silently placing present K before an imagined void.

Does thought create an image of nothing—and then create a K who faces it?

My question about why the unknown isn’t frightening all day wasn’t intended to prove that the unknown is safe. It shows that terror isn’t an inherent property of the unknown. The unknown is always here; terror appears when particular thoughts frame it as “my coming annihilation.”

This is the possible door:
New perspective: The fear is not arriving from death. It is arising with a present representation of “K confronting her own absence.”

New perception: Look while that representation is being assembled.
When settled, let the sentence arise once:
“One day K will no longer exist.”
Don’t argue with it, reassure yourself or dismantle the emotion. Let the sensations be exactly as they are. Then look:
What does “K” refer to at that moment?
Is there an image of this body, the familiar inner voice or a viewpoint behind the eyes?
Is there an imagined K travelling mentally towards a blank future?
Can that K be found outside the thought and bodily response?
Who would experience the state of not existing?
Don’t answer, “No one, obviously.”
Look for the one who presently appears to be facing nonexistence.

Your fear does not need to disappear. The potential shift is seeing that “K facing death” is being created now as part of the fear-event—not discovering a logical reason why death should be acceptable.

And notice the rescue that appeared here:

unless I finally grok that samsara is nirvana, in which case . . . my whole issue about mortality and nonexistence somehow would become a nonissue.

That places a future awakened K on the other side of a shift, finally protected from mortality. It is another version of the same construction.

What if awakening doesn’t provide an answer about death or make it safe? What if it reveals that the K demanding safety from her own future absence is itself assembled from thoughts, images and sensations whenever the subject arises?

Can terrified awe be fully present while the supposed someone standing apart from existence—and threatened by it—is looked for?

vince

Part 1 of my response to your latest post:
(Posting this now so I'll quite tinkering with it and move on.)

A mountain lion can be present now as an actual sensory event requiring action. Death-as-nonexistence is presently here only as a thought, image or attempted simulation. The bodily response is real; the death it is responding to is not occurring now.
That doesn’t make the fear silly or unreal. It reveals how it is being produced.

OK, that all makes sense. Those distinctions are helpful.

Does thought create an image of nothing—and then create a K who faces it?

I don’t know.
It seems like thought creates an image of nothing, and it’s the actual K who faces that image—
And, OK, in the middle of typing that last sentence, I realized that (in this bizarre little world of understanding I’ve immersed myself in, which is probably a much better representation of reality than the world of understanding familiar to almost everyone) the supposed “actual K” is not what I’ve spent most of my life thinking she is.

So, yeah, thought creates an image of nothing, and—in a way that seems different, probably because thought has been creating this image for nearly sixty years—thought also creates an image of a K who faces that nothing (just as thought has been creating an image of a K who faces everything else that has ever been imagined or perceived).

I’d initially been thinking I was deciding whether I was (a) creating an image of nothing or (b) creating an image of K facing nothing. And option (b) seemed to include a redundant “K.” But then I realized that the salient issue is the supposed “I” who is imagining things.
(Out of curiosity, is that where you expected or hoped I’d go with this?)

To sum up: When “I” imagine nothingness, thought continues in its almost-sixty-year habit of creating an image of this “I” and also creates an image of nothingness.
(And I’m still looking forward to when the constructed nature of the “I” really hits home . . . )

terror isn’t an inherent property of the unknown. The unknown is always here; terror appears when particular thoughts frame it as “my coming annihilation.”

Yep.
Incidentally, I don’t generally think of what happens after death as “unknown”; I think of it as annihilation.
I do also find consciousness so entirely mysterious and inexplicable that I recognize that I could be wrong about death being annihilation. But if, after I die, there’s still some sense of being K, I’ll be really surprised.

Part 2 of my response to your latest post:

This is the possible door:
New perspective: The fear is not arriving from death. It is arising with a present representation of “K confronting her own absence.”

Well, the fear is obviously not arriving from actual death.
My first thought would’ve been that the fear is arriving simply from a present representation of death or of K’s absence.
And again I’m curious whether you were intending for me to revise that from “I am imagining K’s absence” to “I am imagining K confronting K’s absence” (which seemed, when I considered it a bit, like it has an unnecessary extra K in it) or whether you expected or hoped I’d realize that it’s the “I” in “I am imagining K’s death” that is really the issue and is what’s being imagined in addition to K’s absence.

So anyway: The conventional sentence “I am imagining K’s absence” actually means that there’s a representation of K’s absence and also (as when thinking or perceiving anything) a representation of the supposed K who is the supposed doer of this imagining (a representation I hope will soon generally be either absent or clearly grokked as fictional).

a present representation of “K confronting her own absence.”

New perception: Look while that representation is being assembled.
When settled, let the sentence arise once:
“One day K will no longer exist.”

(Instant sobbing.)

Don’t argue with it, reassure yourself or dismantle the emotion. Let the sensations be exactly as they are. Then look:
What does “K” refer to at that moment?
Is there an image of this body, the familiar inner voice or a viewpoint behind the eyes?

There’s an image of the body, but I think that’s mainly an icon representing K. The important part is the thoughts, perceptions, and intentions and the supposed control tower in which all of this seems to converge.

Is there an imagined K travelling mentally towards a blank future?

Hmm . . . Probably?
Well, I mean, yes, in the sense that it seems like “I” am doing this imagining of K’s no longer existing.

Can that K be found outside the thought and bodily response?

Mind immediately offers the correct answer: No.
But mind suggests that it might be worth pausing yet again to take a look . . .
Imagining, “One day K will no longer exist” . . .
Who’s the K who’s supposedly imagining this?
The part whose nonexistence feels the most distressing at the moment is the supposed thinking part.
Thinking is maybe especially equated with consciousness or being or personhood. (Yeah, I hear ya, Descartes.)
And, of course, no K can be found apart from thought and perceptions. (Still no watermelon.)

Who would experience the state of not existing?
Don’t answer, “No one, obviously.”
Look for the one who presently appears to be facing nonexistence.

The one who currently seems to be facing nonexistence is mainly a cluster of thoughts, including an image of a body, plus some barely-noticed perceptions.
And, interestingly, at the moment, there’s not a lot of emotion here.
It feels like a bit of that process of wearing it out or getting bored with it or being desensitized to it happened in this little experiment.
(But I imagine that the emotion could be triggered again in full force—or maybe just nearly full force?—later today or certainly tomorrow.)

The mind proposed but then dismissed the thought, “This is fucking magical!”—hearing it in the voice of Roy Kent, the character in the TV series “Ted Lasso” who uses “fuck” in almost every sentence.
Mind’s replacement thought: It’s really weird and cool how deconstructing the sense of “self” gets to the root of things that might not initially seem to be about that.

(After I posted the excerpt of my story of Anne searching for God, I realized it didn’t occur to her to examine whether there really was an Anne who existed in the way she’d always assumed.)

The potential shift is seeing that “K facing death” is being created now as part of the fear-event—not discovering a logical reason why death should be acceptable.

Yes. Good.

And notice the rescue that appeared here:

unless I finally grok that samsara is nirvana, in which case . . . my whole issue about mortality and nonexistence somehow would become a nonissue.

That places a future awakened K on the other side of a shift, finally protected from mortality. It is another version of the same construction.

Hmm . . .
It’s “another version of the same construction” in that . . . a terrified K has been replaced with a non-terrified K, but there’s still a supposed K?
But . . . um . . .
If the idea of K gets aerated, so does the terror, so . . .
There’s less terror on the other side of a shift to a more aerated sense of self, right?

What if awakening doesn’t provide an answer about death or make it safe? What if it reveals that the K demanding safety from her own future absence is itself assembled from thoughts, images and sensations whenever the subject arises?

I definitely don’t expect an “answer” about death.
Making it “safe” sounds appealing, but I don’t expect that either.
And I can already see how the K illusion gets assembled and can be disassembled around issues of mortality and nonexistence.

Can terrified awe be fully present while the supposed someone standing apart from existence—and threatened by it—is looked for?

Theoretically, yes.
In actuality, probably.

Thank you, thank you, vince.
I recognize and deeply appreciate how much time and care you’re putting into this—into “me.”

P.S. I think I'll save the article for when I feel like (?) being triggered again and examining the K who is supposedly triggered.

P.P.S. I was just reading this again and rethinking it:

Can terrified awe be fully present while the supposed someone standing apart from existence—and threatened by it—is looked for?

(I'm assuming you meant "nonexistence.")
It seems like any sort of examination of the supposed self would generally contribute to disidentification with thoughts and, thus, to a reduction in second-arrow suffering.
So the examination of the someone who's feeling terrified awe would probably tone down those feelings, just as my earlier examination of the K who was reacting to "One day K will no longer exist" seemed to tone down the initial emotional reaction.
Or maybe the reaction just burnt itself out quickly and the examination didn't have much to do with it. I don't know.

It seems like thought creates an image of nothing, and it’s the actual K who faces that image—

And, OK, in the middle of typing that last sentence, I realized...

Yes. That interruption is exactly where I hoped this might go.
Not towards a correct philosophical answer, but towards catching the assumption “the actual K” operating unnoticed—and then seeing it become questionable in real time.

There aren’t literally two Ks. There are two roles within the representation:
1. The future K whose absence is imagined.
2. The present K who supposedly stands outside the image, contemplating it.

The second is easily missed because it isn’t necessarily pictured as another body. It is implicit—like the camera that doesn’t appear in its own photograph. It may be suggested by the viewpoint behind the eyes, the inner voice and the feeling that imagining is happening to or by or in someone in the control tower.

So, yes: the salient issue is the apparently real “I” in “I am imagining K’s absence.”

The one who currently seems to be facing nonexistence is mainly a cluster of thoughts, including an image of a body, plus some barely-noticed perceptions.

There it is.

That isn’t merely the correct answer supplied by mind. You looked at the apparent someone and found thoughts, an iconic body-image and perceptions—but no entity to whom they belonged.
No watermelon.

Roy Kent’s first response may have been closer than its polite replacement: this is fucking magical—not because the emotion disappeared, but because the hidden subject became visible as a construction while the process was operating.

And I’m still looking forward to when the constructed nature of the “I” really hits home . . .

Now examine that sentence with the same precision.
It creates a present K who understands but hasn’t quite “got it,” and a future K for whom it will finally hit home.

Is that future event required because something remains unseen—or because thought expects seeing to produce a more unmistakable change in perception?

The K-representation may continue. The brain needs a body-map, memories, a name, a viewpoint and practical intentions. The shift needn’t eliminate that modelling. What changes is the assumption that the model refers to an owner standing behind experience.

When you looked for the one facing nonexistence and found only the cluster, what exactly was missing from that seeing that still needs to “hit home”?

Don’t answer quickly. Perhaps something is indeed unfinished—but don’t let thought dismiss actual seeing merely because it arrived without the expected thunderclap.

There’s less terror on the other side of a shift to a more aerated sense of self, right?

Possibly—often, probably. If the imagined owner becomes less convincing, many threats lose some of their personal charge. Your experiment appeared to demonstrate this.

But reduced terror cannot become the test. Otherwise Inquiry turns into a bargain:

“I’ll look for K so that this feeling will go away.”
Then, when terror returns, thought concludes that the looking failed or that K must still be real.
Fear may fade because the construction was seen, because the nervous system exhausted its response, because attention changed—or through conditions we can’t identify. We don’t need to decide which.

The relevant discovery remains the same at any emotional temperature: Does intense fear contain or prove the existence of someone who owns it?

There is also, strictly speaking, nobody who “disidentifies.” Thought is recognised as thought; its claim becomes less convincing; the biological pattern updates. That may reduce second-arrow suffering, but it isn’t an accomplishment performed by a K.

And yes, by “standing apart from existence—and threatened by it,” I meant the apparent someone contemplating existence while being threatened by imagined nonexistence. Your clarification is fair.

No need to trigger yourself deliberately with the article. Naturally occurring fear will provide plenty of material. If curiosity does lead you to read it, there is no prize for producing the strongest possible reaction.

Next time “I’m waiting for this to really hit home” appears, look immediately:

Where is the K who hasn’t arrived yet?
Where is the future K who finally will?
Apart from that present thought, how far away is home?

vince

And I’m still looking forward to when the constructed nature of the “I” really hits home . . .

Now examine that sentence with the same precision.
It creates a present K who understands but hasn’t quite “got it,” and a future K for whom it will finally hit home.

(I figured this would come in for some scrutiny . . . )

* * * * *

The above is as far as I’d gotten with starting a response this morning before I had other things to do and then came to the Zoom meeting.

Having just signed off from the meeting, I feel—uncharacteristically and interestingly—like, “I dunno, more of this?”—not in a discouraged or frustrated way but more like “Been there, done that. Is there really much point in doing this, or DOing anything at this point?”

There might still be some exhaustion mixed in here too, having spent yesterday afternoon and evening collapsed in a lump after many intense hours of responding to your previous post.

And tomorrow, I may well be glad to have some pointers still waiting for me here that I can DO something with, to pacify the goal-oriented mind and/or just to fill some time in a way that feels engaging and halfway worthwhile.

But it seems like the current feeling that there's no reason to do any more of this is perhaps a suitable response to pointers like this one:

When you looked for the one facing nonexistence and found only the cluster, what exactly was missing from that seeing that still needs to “hit home”?

the current feeling that there's no reason to do any more of this

I agree. It could seem as if we're going around in circles, except for the changes that you are noticing.
What if, as an experiment, we do nothing intentionally for a couple of days? (what is your reaction to this?)

Of course things will still continue to change, evolve. And it might become clearer that it is happening (apparently) by itself.
It occurs to me that what I want is for you to know that you know.

much love

vince

What if, as an experiment, we do nothing intentionally for a couple of days? (what is your reaction to this?)

That seems fine and appropriate.
I think the main reason there was just a bit of a negativity in my immediate reaction was that I'll have to figure out some other way to occupy myself during the time I usually spend writing LU posts. This has been by far my most engaging pastime for many months now.

I first read your message just before my late-night sit, so it felt right to "do nothing" during the sit, which highlighted once again how much I'm usually DOing during my meditation time and how tiresome that can be.

what I want is for you to know that you know.

Sounds great to me.
And the thought, "But how do I get there?!" barely even formed before it withered for lack of energy.

I may wake up tomorrow morning and decide to go dig into your last message, but probably not.