Could you guide me?

[Jack'n'theBox]

You can't think your way out of this Glenn. Go back to where we started:

Sit with direct experiecne in the body, sensation, breathing – keep on doing the body sensation stage, then move on to the other senses, . . . look at sound, where is that sensation happening, try to stick with the pure sensation and notice how the mind kicks in AFTER the event by producing ‘selfing’ thoughts, e.g. ‘sound of car exhaust in my ear' – all this is imputed in thought and is not there in bare experience. Do it with taste, hearing, sight individually. Then try to keep all the various sensations that the mind says are happening in ‘MY body’ in awareness simultaneously – Keep with the raw experience and notice there is a gap between the experience and the ‘selfing’ 'I thoughts' that impose to claim the experience as ‘mine’. Don’t hold on to the selfing thoughts – just keep coming back to the raw experience – in the felt, just the felt, in the smelled, just the smelled, in the tasted, just the tasted, in the heard, just the heard, in the seen, just the seen.

Then extend the direct experience exercise to include thought. i.e. go through all the stages looking at the senses, then as the final stage include awareness of thought. Don’t try to control or get rid of thought. Just watch thoughts come and go. As you do this notice any "I" thoughts as they arise and try to 'claim' experience. Don't identify with them. Look at them as objects in awareness just like any other object.

As the final phase of this exercise try to hold all the sense sensations and the thoughts in awareness simultaneously – don’t follow the thoughts or get distracted by any one sensation, just try to bring awareness to the totality of experience and rest there for a while.

Where is this "I" that is the self-proclaimed ground, owner and referent for all the diverse processes going on simultaneously in the moment? Is "I" not just a thought? Does it refer to anything other than thought?

[nowitis]

Thanks Mark, I need to do this some more. It's challenging to do without a lot of quiet space. At least, that's my experience. I spent some time with it this morning and once again had the experience of recognizing "it's just thoughts" and then in the rough-and-tumble of life I'm completely identify with the thoughts again.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Thanks Mark, I need to do this some more. It's challenging to do without a lot of quiet space. At least, that's my experience. I spent some time with it this morning and once again had the experience of recognizing "it's just thoughts" and then in the rough-and-tumble of life I'm completely identify with the thoughts again.

Keep on pushing Glenn. You need to believe that you can do this. 10 seconds is all it takes. You just need to look. I said this before, but for some people the 'look' instruction isn't so helpful -- it's hard to see something that isn't there. So another way in is to 'let go' -- do the exercise above and when the totality of what's going on is in awareness, simply 'let go' of identification with the thougth that there is something that does/owns 'all this'. Remember it's just a thought and that thought is part of 'all this' -- it doesn't own it! The 'I thought' is not the boss of you Glenn.

Try this at least for 10 minutes and let me know later if this changes anything?

[nowitis]

Thank you Mark: I anticipate tomorrow morning I'll have space for this and I'll let you know what shows up. I appreciate your encouragement and recognition of what's true.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Hi Glenn there's nothing wrong with enjoying the peace that allows contemplation in your spare time. But remember what we said about not dividing experience into categories -- exprience is empty of self ALL THE TIME. So you can see it ANY TIME. Check in with experience whenever you can even for five minutes -- Just look/feel what is happening in the moment.

* there is seeing, notice that there is seeing, notice that it is just happening
* there is hearing, notice that there is hearing, and that it is effortlessly present
* there are feeling sensations, notice them, notice that they are happening without control
* thoughts arise unbidden and vanish without trace

what else is there? where is "I" in all this?

[nowitis]

Thanks Mark. Spending at least 10 minutes with this I can at least notice just how 'lit up' are I-thoughts, how they have a special brightness all their own, or so it seems.

And I went back and read my own book (unpublished, written and re-written from a deeper place every few years over the last 15 years....), which follows some of these very steps of being immediately in the moment of experience - but which goes only so far as identifying luminous cognizance, a la Douglas Harding (a long time influence for me) as the ultimate ground of being.

What I'm doing with you is much more crunchy, and much more crucial feeling: as Ilona puts it, 'fuck the observer.' Do these I-thoughts signify anything other than other thoughts, and the lit up sensations, particularly on the left side of the top of my head?

When I write 'top of my head' the question comes up "What makes me believe this is my head?" And I suspect I'm going down a red-herring trail in even mentioning that, although I do find myself wondering sometimes who's making all this effort....to find out there is no who? I imagine you'll tell me to get back to the basic exercise, but just thought I'd mention it.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Hi Glenn you are still overthinking this -- try this Rupert Spira guided meditation http://non-duality.rupertspira.com/list ... f-the-body

focus particularly on his final comments that experience is 'empty' of BOTH observer and object.

[nowitis]

Thank you Mark, I spent a week with Rupert last year, I experience him as one of the clearest teachers.

And, I'm endeavoring to grasp what you are pointing to you by sharing this meditation : I couldn't find the place where he talks about experience being empty of both observer and object, unless you mean the material towards the end of the meditation when he talks about how this sensational experience doesn't appear in the space of awareness but is made out of awareness?

He says "In understanding, the body is understood to be made out of what I am/the light of awareness."

For the longest time I've been sitting with this puzzle; it is inescapably the backdrop to my contacting you. The puzzle is that there's nothing here - at core, at center, attention turned 180° towards 'myself' there is aware spaciousness. No characteristics whatsoever except the utterly singular one of knowing itself by itself in direct experience, a characteristic shared by nothing else in the whole universe.

And clearly, this aware spaciousness is edgeless. So how come things seem so strongly to have edges, particularly in the visual world? Perhaps the purpose of your sharing that meditation with me was to point to the edgeless body - certainly, in the direct experience of body sensation the puzzle is more intimate and mysterious: this edgeless awareness, "here" and inexplicably the subtle direct experience of body, vibrant beyond depiction as Rupert's meditation points to. There couldn't possibly be a gap between these two, but such there seems to be.

Shall I persist in keeping attention here for longer, in this inexplicable vibrancy of directly experienced body? Perhaps that would dissolve this seeming dividedness.

And, I know Rupert is talking about an I that is not really an I when he says (in a written reply on his website):

"You are aware that ‘I am.’ What is it that is aware that I am? It is obviously I, Awareness, that am aware that I am. The ‘I’ that I am is the same ‘I’ that is aware that I am. In other words, in the simple recognition that I am, Awareness is aware of its own being. In other words, the simple knowing of our own being is the experience of Awareness being aware of itself. This is the simple, most obvious, ever-present fact of experience."

Nonetheless, I-separate self and I-awareness are awfully hard to disentangle.

I'm aware as I'm writing this that Rupert's approach is about understanding and yours is about looking, and unfortunately, or otherwise my tendency is towards head stuff.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Hello Glenn, yes the pointer in Rupert’s meditation is about experience being ‘empty and luminous’ (I think those are his words) and it relates to the point about there being no dichotomy between experience-er and the experience – it’s one seamless event (in his words experience isn’t ‘in’ awareness so much as made out of it). In the exercise Rupert is also getting you to LOOK at direct experience. So it’s very similar to what we are doing here.

I suggested the meditation as a way to get you back in direct contact with the immediacy of experience – that’s where the key to the realization of no self is to be found – in that gap between the direct experience and the mind’s appropriation of it in ‘selfing thoughts’ … i.e. ‘my …’ LOOK at that gap, abide there. Don’t follow thoughts. It really isn’t helpful to be reading stuff – you’ve read enough already. The answer isn’t in the books.

So go back to the body/thought awareness exercises. Consider: in Direct Experience, what is the awareness, the knowing, of something. Is it anything other than the simple initial awareness - that “THIS IS”? that is there before any thought, analysis or story of self is added? Is it a conceptual awareness? Does it belong to the mind? Or is it something much bigger? Is it even a personal awareness? Is it “my” awareness? If so where is “me” in the awareness? Does not the notion “me” come after once the mind has appropriated the experience?

With the 'This IS IT !', just SEE that the Real, IS the current experiencing, WHATEVER it is. There is NO possible way of changing it, as it is already past the moment it is thought about. TOTAL acceptance of THIS, is another key to not getting sucked into story that suggests that if could or might have been different.
There is no ‘seeming’ in Direct Experience. IT JUST IS. Look and try to SEE that and report back.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Hi Glenn I just took this off Elena's blog -- it may shed light on your identification issue -- the last line is good "YOU are not but the EXPERIENCE is".

When you were a newborn baby, laying there, one with all...there was no need for identification with either the body (small me) or the Awareness/Presence (big me) - there was just pure raw experience of whatever the organism was undergoing...Now you either identified with small me (most of the humanity) or big me (mostly people in non duality or new age movement)...Identification is identification - focusing more attention then needed in the mind on the "subject" of a body (resulting in more contracting feeling) or on the "subject" of Awareness/Presence (resulting in more expansive feeling). Both of which creates the illusion of separation: one is very obvious, another is more subtle...See that for the baby no identification was necessary...same is now. You are not a body. You are not a mind. You are not an Awareness. You are not Presence. You are not God, Absolute and All it Is. You are not... And yet, the experience is. L~i~f~i~n~g does not need identification to continue to l~i~f~e~~~~♥

[nowitis]

Thanks Mark, I am clear about what you're asking me to do here: completely clear, I feel, as a result of your most recent-but-one posting. And, what I seem to do most of the time is pay attention to the story line, not direct experience. But today, being Monday has been long and intense, with the addition of too little sleep and too much heat (story lines...) I will go to bed now and sit with this some more tomorrow. PS: I do get that in the middle of stress there is a perfectly fine opportunity for direct experience - and, such a situation seems also very provocative of protesting story lines: but, but, but.....

You are not....and yet, the experience is. Very clarifying. Thank you again.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Hi Glenn -- here's the final post from a client who just 'passed through the gate':

To those who read these words, understand that you must do all the work yourself. No teacher, no guide, no book can do that for you. They just gently (or not!) push you back into the ring to wrestle with understanding.

You can't keep this process on the edge of your life (if you want it to work) -- smashing through self view has to be front and center. 10 seconds is all it needs Glenn. 10 seconds of pure, directed attention.

[nowitis]

It's an illusion, isn't it Mark: with really close and fierce attention there's just what's happening, claimed a split- second after by an I-thought. Without that fierce attention it seems like all the time I (the backward-claiming I thought) is doing it all - but it's all just happening. A couple of times this morning, goaded and encouraged by you, sitting with the most intense looking What is really going on here in this welter of experiencing? I saw it, the microscopic gap between happening - and I thought.

[Jack'n'theBox]

Good work Glenn. The mind is in constant catch up with Reality -- trying to grasp onto a moment that has already passed.

How did it feel to see this?

[nowitis]

How did it feel? Words like astonishing and freedom, amazement and marvel come to mind. There are no dimensions to this. And, feeling cautious because I certainly don't feel like I've passed the gate - I must emphasize this was a couple of brief moments (but this is the third time now that I've seen the same thing and it is unmistakable and clearly profoundly liberating). And, these moments came about because I sat down, with some space to be quiet and brought all the determination I could to exploring direct experience over quite a prolonged period of time - and then there were these couple of seconds when direct experience is manifestly subverted by an I-thought claiming it.

And I know it's always like this, but I'm very scientific minded so to speak and I have to sit with this some more with the same determination so I overwhelmingly know there's nothing but this flow of now. And I will do this again tomorrow morning. By the way I used the word goaded earlier today and you've never goaded me, although you have prodded, and I'm grateful. Thank you Mark.