The Gate

It's silly, but I really don't understand, why it is, that "nothings happening" or nothing is seen through.
There is a shift, right? Ah, I guess it's futile to think about that.
But there's this worry, that "I have done everything I can do and have no idea what I'm supposed to do".
You've heard this tale now a hundred times from here.

I feel defeated ... :)

Okay. It's so odd that this idea, that I should do something, won't subside and die down. But then again, I can't imagine anything happening without that.

This message is probably 50 layers a misconception atop each other.

Really, I could cry about so many dumb things. And most o catch myself thinking: "wait, I thought that was seen through", which of course implies a past which I thought that was seen through.

But really, I wonder all the time if anything was ever seen through.

This body, this mind is so anxious about everything.
I feel like I spend a lot of time finding fancy words to just tell you over and over again that I'm insecure. Which is SOOOO odd to even write.

And then, on the other hand, so often the thought; "it might happen now, this feels like it"

I'm just so tired of this chatter.

All that is just more story.
I have no idea to what extend or where that is understood and I don't know what to do with it, but as I'm typing it, I often have that feeling. Of not trusting a vague insight in precisely that way.

Guess it's best to trust and just leave it at that :)
It's just a story

Hello dear,

We call what you describe ‘doubt’ and some experience it. In the context of one way of looking at the stages of an awakening process (the fetters in buddhism) this is a stage that can happen after seeing through separate self.

This is a long interview with Todd Lent, who went through the process here at Liberation Unleashed and later became a guide. (Later than that he and Pernille, who conducts this interview, started dating and then married.) It is a long video but I have a feeling it could support with what you are experiencing, as it is the most in-depth discussion of doubt in seeing through self that I have come across.

https://youtu.be/trB0Fi6dpg0?si=SvnyNEoFu6bIThdK

What comes up watching it? What resonated?

And of course… What is here now?

Much love,
Becca

I haven't watched it yet (just read your comment) but I want to share how much my heart melt because your side not about them marrying. I feel so filled up with love about just reading that detail, I'm crying a little

Haha ya. Life is amazing.
❤️

(before watching)

there's avoidant behaviour here, doing little things really to avoid looking at the video. Isn't that super weird? Okay.

Oh, next thing I want to share.
You wrote

stage that can happen after seeing through separate self.

and oooooh, what do I dooooooooo?
I feel scared about the idea that you consider the first fetter to be seen through here. What would that even mean? Why would that be a problem?
I think about "me" and "I" all the time. Look, how that last sentence started (I think), that's not a coincidence. I wouldn't know anything that has changed really.
I think there's an assumption somewhere, that I'm in some deep, problematic, dark pit, that needs to be escaped. And if reality is unchanged, from how I know it, then nothing has been escaped. Just writing here, I don't know, what I'm talking about, but the words feel honest, as they come.
Okay. SO MUCH ME ME ME ME here Becc.
Also..

wait. All is that story.
I feel intensity in the arms, tension in my cheeks. The "I" that feels that...

Sidenote: I'm still afraid, that all of this awakening stuff is an elaborate prank and I'm just gonna be infinitely vulnerable to someone who wants to be mean to me and is more clever than I am even.

About the "I" that is "still" afraid of that...
There's rain-sound, thought, tension sensation, mind asserting relations,
there's story about "I have lost the plot".

There's not really the experience of experiencing "everything at once". No knowing, that there's nothing outside of what "I'm aware of". That seems significant. Maybe just because I'm expecting it? Ah, I'm a yarnball, as mess. Let's get to the video 😄

PS: Had to pee the second the video was open. Not coicidence, that's good old fashioned avoidance.

(Watching the video)

OH, she's playing with her hair so much while he's talking. Knowing they get married OF COURSE I will read into it! 😄 Oh, I enjoy this. People doing people things are so lovable.

Everything he says speaks to me, so so so so much really.
oh man, so much. again and again.

"I went back to double check"
"It would have been easier, if my hair fell out as a sign"
"well, (the guide) is the expert, but I'm not sure I'm there yet"
Oh boy, oh becc.

Oh and the way she smiles even more and plays even more with her hair, who wouldn't marry her in an instant 😂 Oh sorry, I'm having way to much fun here, but they just feels so cozy to watch, just being themselves chatting.

Laughter here as well :)

and that was just now super joyfull dancing, that felt amazing :)

"I heard it's like living on an lsd trip all the time"
Honestly, it's really a lot like that occasionally. A fuck, I haven't listened.
I just wanted you to see me as someone who took lsd. that feels important.
storytime + embarrassing, but it was such a core part of my identity ("once") that people knew I took drugs. It was such a weird avenue to get trapped in. oh, sooo pretentious.

oh my god Becc, there should be a video about not noticing when the first fetter drops, so we can give it the title: "Are you sleeping on your awakening?"

will (try) to stop writing. this is getting into SUCH a wall and I'm not even at 30:00 mins

Yeah, that video was a very liberating experience.
I think a lot comes up. It's almost a little bit compressed.
It sounds odd, but I think this will reveal itself, can that be?
The body feels compressed even. Not bad or anything.

I think I can't believe what Ive just heard. I'm in awe

:)

Digest a bit. Rewatch if it feels right.

Sit with the compressed feeling. See what it is made of.

oh becc oh becc oh becc!
Wow, Minutes into the rewatch, and I'm watching a completly different video!

Because Christiane [Michelberger] said... ...and that's just not what has been my experience

I was taking her little book as absolut truth!

Oh fun!

Can we go over some things that come up here? That I've taken as truth?
And maybe talk a little about how experience is experienced, as it, day to day? :)

1.)

Christiane said: "Together with self illusion, two more fetters will be gone"
LU only focuses on the first (right? almost right?)

Believing in both, I completely ignored, that there was a fetter 2 and 3.
Or took (maybe not consciously?) doubt as proof of nothing happening in fetter one.

woah, okay :)
What else?


2.)

"Should there be any doubt, that the self illusion is seen through, continue inquiery"

huh, that is somehow the same thing again, not even a separate point.


2.)
(about a shift happening)
"it is clear, that from this point on life is experienced from a lasting different perspective"

I've been looking for that in some sticky ways.

I think I don't know, where "I'm" even at?
----

here's how it is for me.

Right now I can "decide" to take a look and see, that "me" thoughts arise, interpretation of a sense of consciousness is here, but the interpretation is also seen.
thoughts about a doer and feelings that are interpreted as "doer" are present. But then, when looking, that doesn't has to mean, that a doer is present, just that things feel that way. (I have been looking for this feeling to change for a good while)

also, a fly just came into my room, i asked it to leave, and it just left through the window.
That is disney princess level of connectedness to nature right there.

but seriously, where am I in this process?

Should I mind all the "I"s popping up? Well, obviously not mind.
But there's the assumption, that this means something, is proof of the fetter not having dropped.


I also notice there's fear of talking about the "proofs of it not having happened" being false,
and there's fear of it not having happened, and "me being here, pretending to be enlightened". Sadness comes. Sparkling water sensation in the body (ribs, feet). Tingling, people call that tingling.

Looking for who hears that god forsaken lawnmower of the neighbour, images of a "hearer" pop up and are seen.
looking at weather there's a leg "hidden behind the screen of the laptop I'm typing on", images of a 3d model of body come up, but are seen as well.

I'm not sure if I should take these images popping up as proof. I think maybe not. why would i?
But also, there seems to be great importance in knowing, where on is on the fetter trajectory.

And you sometimes hint, that it might be post the first one for "me". Can that be, or am I reading into something?

Loooooots of love Becc
Thank you so much, you are such grace, such wonder and love. thank you

oh, also Christiane Michelberger suggested taking a year of rest from any spiritual work after the fetters drop.
I found that interesting. I don't know, what that means, but that is a piece of advice that lingers here. I sometimes wonder about it.

at times there is a hint that something really different from what is experienced now is still ought to come. something much, much more unbound.
at times there is easing into this. at times this feels like a rollercoaster going, before it's caught.
That's a story, but atone point I was confident, that that would have ended in a real death of some sorts. Hints of that are occuring.

Notice the stickiness of the selfing that comes every time there is a goalpost with a number one two or three on it (or all of them on the same goal haha)! Just be here with what is.

Who needs to be measured?

there seems to be great importance in knowing, where on is on the fetter trajectory.

What would it change now? Wouldn’t there just be another one all the way to 10 to focus on?

What is the discomfort in not knowing?
Sit with that.
What exactly feels threatened by uncertainty?


Did you will the fly out of the room or did you and the fly just have a little moment of direct experience and understanding, followed by a request that was immediately possessed by a me?

thoughts about a doer and feelings that are interpreted as "doer" are present. But then, when looking, that doesn't has to mean, that a doer is present, just that things feel that way. (I have been looking for this feeling to change for a good while)

Why should this feeling change?
When you watch a scary movie, and know it is not real, do you experience fear anyway?

So most importantly what is this doer feeling that appears? Pin it down, get cozy with it… what is there?

Becc, you really did a homerun with confronting doubt, thank you!

Notice the stickiness of the selfing that comes every time there is a goalpost with a number one two or three on it (or all of them on the same goal haha)! Just be here with what is.

Oh yeah, that stickiness is everywhere.
-> I don't just want an amazing PRS SE Zach guitar, I want to be someone who plays that.
-> I don't just want an iphone, I want to be someone who uses an iphone (+ future hope of solving all frustration "I have with tech", but really, there's hope of absolution in there as well)

also so much self image of missing something deeply and fundamentally human. has been here since forever.
really, lots of self-worth stuff comes up, wheras sometimes there are glimpses, that self worth isn't even existing, nothing there that could be more or less.

lots coming up.

now, about the fetters and goals:

Who needs to be measured?

yeah, maybe the falling away of doubt is enough. Maybe there doesn't need to be "approval", lack of disapproval is enough.
okay, that wasn't DE.
hui, feels intense in the body. trying to stay with that, as it comes. yeah, there is something. Some stickyness.
sensation passing through body, thoughts coming and going. relaxing.

yeah, who needs to be measured? It's odd, that this should be important.

funniest thought: "this feels too good to concentrate", what a curveball 😂😂😂😂 laziest. excuse. EVER. 😂
hm.
there's something like "I should assume, that there's someone in here". feeling the skin and intensity. a sensation labeled as "too little air". some sort of "missing", there's nothing. prominently nothing. gate?. ah, who cares.

Yeah, there's the pull or unprompted invitation to seek for self. Create Movement and muddy the water instead of seeing what's already here.

Thought: "I want to continue here, but I'm not getting there, I'm not getting deeper. I'm getting distracted"
oh, okay. that's a story.
Thought: "I want to know .... "
Thought: "There's something, but I'm blind to it. I need to open my (internal) eyes".
Maybe "they already are open", what would that mean about the sensation?
What is it, that feels "blind"?
Thought image of structures and forms come up. Sensations come up.
"Blind" seems to be a mismatch between them.

Thought/Feeling: "Oh man, nnoooo. I have completely lost the trail, I was so much onto something, and I'm so lost again now".
Tension in the face, brief sensation of nothingness. feet, toes. lips. fingers.
sadness. feeling it around the eyes. jaw and cheeks. tension in jaw, yeah. opening towards that happening. doubt coming.

Oh, I'm really holding onto that thought to feel the experience of the thought "I should assume, that there's someone in here" coming again. That's a convoluted sentence, but basically, I'm really trying to recreate that experience and expecting it as an success-condition!! It's just a story now!!

yeah. a lot of stories coming.
there's even an assumption about some body sensations "still being thought sensations, and I'm still not "in the body""

That's a lot at the moment.
I'll get back to the rest of your questions, but sending this for now (and grabbing some fooooooooood)