Thread for Monja Gitana

[Mad biker]

Hola MB, the word 'me' refers to a thought about me. When I'm 'in' the thoughts and they feel so real I forget that they come and go. Not much time can often pass and things have totally changed.I'm not ' in' it anymore, they haven't ' taken me over '. Obvious I know!! MG

OK just settle in now with a few nice breaths:

What is the thing that is 'in it' when 'you' are in it? Just Look now.

Can you point to it? Can you describe its shape and size?

Had it ever in fact 'taken you over'?

Was it not just thoughts, and perhaps sensations too, but mostly thoughts?

Can it be legitimately said to be 'you' if it just comes and goes like that?

Can something so fleeting be called an entity at all?

Is it even experienced as being there at all in Direct Experience?

Reflect on each question and answer each one.

Mn x

[Monja gitana]

Hola, the thing that is in it is thoughts. I locate them in my head. They are opaque and not very big. It has never taken me over. Yeh, it was mainly thoughts but also some strong body sensations at times. No it can't be me because it comes and goes. No it can't be called an entity, a thing. In direct experience there is a flow, nothing is static, everything is changing, thoughts and sensations come and go, nothing can be pinned down. MG

[Mad biker]

the thing that is in it is thoughts. I locate them in my head. They are opaque and not very big. It has never taken me over. Yeh, it was mainly thoughts but also some strong body sensations at times. No it can't be me because it comes and goes. No it can't be called an entity, a thing. In direct experience there is a flow, nothing is static, everything is changing, thoughts and sensations come and go, nothing can be pinned down.

OK, lovely observations there.
I do hope you are not being a bit too brief though?
Words are all we have got here with this medium and I would usually tend get a bit more of them in response to that sort of sequenced enquiry.
Just settle into our screen-time together as a practise.
Take your time, set aside a block of time in your day for this and just let it all out onto the page without stinting yourself.

People are different though so you might not have been cramping yourself at all!
So just get back to me letting me know if you have any more to say in response to those previous questions of mine. OK?
Mb x

[Mad biker]

BTW Gitana, I am off to Spain (of all places!) on the 4th of April.

I reckon we will be through by then, but just to make sure, why don't we just mosey on over to twice per day?

ie I post one to you in the morning then you reply by say 5.30pm GMT?
Then I post another to you early evening and you reply before 10.30pm GMT?
Mb x
We could start this now if you could get back to my above post by early evening?
Mb

[Monja gitana]

Hola MB,
Sorrry had to sort out bank problems all day yesterday. Still not sorted so dealing again with it today. Also lost an important document so need to go to the police today. All very time consuming. Hopefully I'll have a bit of space this afternoon to look over the above again. I'm also going to France on Monday for a week and won't have internet connection there. MG

[Mad biker]

I'm also going to France on Monday for a week and won't have internet connection there.

Mmm. Well that makes things a wee bit tight!

Still there are a lot of hours between now and Monday so why don't we just give it a lash?

This could seem a bit wordy but it really is plain English. It will only take about seven minutes to do this hugely important exercise, so the time is worth setting aside amiga!
What I am asking is quite easy it just takes a bit of explanation:

(If you feel up to it, and generally emotionally positive, you could ‘induce’ some emotional contraction by thinking about an ‘issue’ … not necessarily the big stuff right now, e.g. it could be something that tends to annoy or irritate you.)



Just sit – notice the thoughts / mental activities arising around the ‘issue’, and the ‘unsatisfactory’ emotional sensations – in the body, wherever they are occurring.



Notice that what I’m going to call the ‘emotional complex’ ( by which I simply mean 'thought' plus that feeling of contraction) has two distinguishable factors: thoughts and ‘emotion in the body’.

The thoughts are unsatisfactory or painful because they keep going round and round and won’t go away. The contraction in the body is simply an unpleasant or painful feeling (vedana).



Take this in with a sense that the ‘emotional complex’ is ‘just happening’, just arising in awareness, rather than buying into another thought running alongside it all that insists that ‘I’m doing this’, ‘I’m responsible’ etc.



Notice whether there can be a full experience of what is arising here, now, along with a certain ‘detachment’ insofar as it’s not being identified with. Perhaps rather than ‘detachment’ it would be more accurate to say ‘equanimity’, or ‘non-identification’. At the same time, present experience is fully turned towards as what’s actually happening.



‘Identification’ involves getting caught in a circular, repetitive thought-pattern that continues and deepens the sense of ‘this is me, I’m this, I’m angry, I’m doing this…’ etc. This in turn feeds the emotional contraction.



What happens when there is non-identification with the thinking aspect? What happens to the thinking / mental activity aspect of the emotional complex?



What happens to the body, contraction aspect of the emotional complex?



Note and describe any changes, in either aspect of the emotional complex.



In term of Direct Experience – when there is just Direct Experience – is there any ‘secondary’ dukkha present?

Now try it again with some bigger stuff if you want!
Mb x

[Monja gitana]

Banking stuff sorted, didn't take so long.
Yesterday I was stuck in a big emotional complex and would have been good to have applied this yesterday. Just brought the same situation to mind. The thoughts became insignificant when I loosened the identification with them. They receeded in to the backgroundand I couldn't really make them out. Other things were more present in my experience, the light in the room, steam coming off my drink, sounds. My body felt relaxed and not contracted.
There was no secondary dukkha present when I was not identifying with the thoughts but was present to just what was happening.
I need to do this when I'm in an emotional complex like yesterday. I think its a habit that I go round and round in circles with a story and identify strongly with it, like I have a right to. I knew that today I would feel different and of course it has passed.
I have busy few days before going to France on Monday but will set aside time each day till then. Gracias MG

[Mad biker]

There was no secondary dukkha present when I was not identifying with the thoughts but was present to just what was happening.
I need to do this when I'm in an emotional complex like yesterday. I think its a habit that I go round and round in circles with a story and identify strongly with it, like I have a right to.

Great, lovely stuff!

(He guffaws out loud at this point!) THAT is a really entertainin' way to use the term 'emotional complex' lady!
But just to make sure way are both singing from the same jargon book: all I had meant by it was simply the compound of those two things; 'thought' and 'sensations' together! ie both of those can sometimes be really nice!

OK, now I am asking you to do the same exercise again but this time choose a really hot BAD number (like partners not always behaving as we would like them too for example!)

[Monja gitana]

OK, I just thought of a bad number.
When there was was non identification with the thinking aspect the thoughts lost their intensity and like yesterday recedded in to the background. They lost their heat and all consumingness.
My body relaxed in the areas where there was pain, lower back , shoulders
At first when I brought the situation to mind I felt tense and started to cry. The thoughts were booming in my head and I felt angry. I experienced sharp stabbing pains in different parts of my body. When I stopped identifying with the thoughts I relaxed and the intensity was no longer there, they had lost their momentum. I even forgot what I had been focusing on!!! MG

[Mad biker]

At first when I brought the situation to mind I felt tense and started to cry. The thoughts were booming in my head and I felt angry. I experienced sharp stabbing pains in different parts of my body. When I stopped identifying with the thoughts I relaxed and the intensity was no longer there, they had lost their momentum. I even forgot what I had been focusing on!!! MG

OK great this is us really on it now!

Thoughts just arise and depart

Nice ones and unsatisfactory ones just arise and depart

Yet people often think of 'their' thoughts as being their 'self'.

Given their insubstantiality, which you have outlined above, could you REALLY believe that these thoughts which just come and go, are actually your 'self'?
(this Insight is really dead simple remember!)
Mb x

[Monja gitana]

It all points to there being no substantial self, especially when I think of my life and how I've consistently changed. Who was I last March or in 1985? But what about the bleakness that often lurks close by. What's the point of painting this flat, I've lost inspiration etc etc. I fall down that hole so often instead of skirting around it. I guess then I'm identifying strongly with those thoughts and being consumed by them. If I can just step sideways the view changes, but geez its hard!! I think I need to practice the above exercise more and more and also the one where you bring the painful thing in close and say yes to it. MG

[Mad biker]

It all points to there being no substantial self, especially when I think of my life and how I've consistently changed. Who was I last March or in 1985?

Yep!
Well is there, or isn't there a 'self' Gitana?

But what about the bleakness that often lurks close by.

Is that bleakness anything more than simply thought and sensation? (mostly thought when you bear in mind the first verse of the Dhammapada amiga!)

WHERE is it ''lurking close by"? Is it there now at this moment in the room as you sit there?

If not, then where did it 'go' to?

Just settle into a few nice wee breaths, just gently follow three inhalations and exhalations, just ease into this right now as you sit there.

I want to ask you to just go with me here and not to "skirt around it" OK?

"Skirting around it" has not worked very much has it?

Just how often has "skirting around it" ever been good?

What are the consequences of continuing to skirt around it? (hint; just the same old, life of despair and death)

What are the consequences of just turning towards it? (hint; Awakening is the end of Dukkha)

OK now let's just take a look at the Spiral Path, just do this now:
I am asking you to just bring that REALLY BIG BAD item to mind again, just in your ordinary direct experience here. Notice its two strands, thought and emotion.

I am now asking you to just make it as absolutely massive and intolerable as it could possibly be. Make it really, really truly AWFUL, worst case Hollywood (I am being perfectly serious here)

Just BRING IT ON, BIG TIME in direct experience as you sit there, just demand that it shows you what it's effing got, that it shows 'you' what 'it' can do to 'you'.

If it gets really, really bad, just continue to turn towards THAT, in a spirit of CELT;
Curiosity
Exploration
Learning
Tangibility (keeping it tangible in the sense of noticing 'your' responses to what is arising, and noticing 'your' responses to THOSE responses)
Just jump in there lady, you'll be glad you did!
Mb x

[Monja gitana]

Hola, yeh I can see the bleakness is just thought and sensation, thoughts of what's the point to any of this, lack of energy. Its not in the room with me now. It just moved on, it came and went . Yep, skirting around hasn't worked.

Just brought on the big bad thing again. Immediate headache, lurching stomach, feeling frozen in my body. Angry, hateful thoughts. That was all going on but I was able not to be caught up in it. I just felt the uncomfortable sensations in my body and noticed the thoughts. And they lost their steam and power. So I know I'm bringing this on so to speak and I can think that yeh, but its not really happening I'm making it happen. But I've just realised its exactly the same as when it is happening, if you know what I mean, can't really explain it very clearly. Thoughts and sensations will occur, that's a given, they are always there, but I believe they are real, solid fixed things and they are 'me' when they can't be because they are so fluid. MG

[Mad biker]

So I know I'm bringing this on so to speak and I can think that yeh, but its not really happening I'm making it happen. But I've just realised its exactly the same as when it is happening, if you know what I mean, can't really explain it very clearly. Thoughts and sensations will occur, that's a given, they are always there, but I believe they are real, solid fixed things and they are 'me' when they can't be because they are so fluid.

All of the above is you speaking from thought rather than from Direct Experience. I want to hear from Direct Experience.

However, let's just take a wee look at some thought for a bit, a short holiday into psychology, pandering slightly to it's insistence OK? Maybe it needs listening to? Or maybe it just needs a old Zen slap eh?

I say that because there are perhaps some views there in the background which you think are reasonable and legitimate, but I would like to ask you to be open to the suggestion that they might instead be resorts in which 'the self' might hide because; "...ego always wants things to remain the same..." (Sangharakshita)

You said earlier that it was as though you felt "you had a right" (to maintain the negativity) It sounds to me like you were onto something there Gitana!

'Rights' can be negativity masquerading as innocent sanctity. This does not work. Just notice if that is a possibility here and leave it aside for the rest of our enquiry. You can promise yourself you will go back to it when we complete (Yep, exactly! You will not want to because it does not work!)

So I know I'm bringing this on so to speak and I can think that yeh, but its not really happening I'm making it happen.

I want to ask you to be wary of accidentally misusing developmental models ie allowing what might be a self deluding marquerade of 'openess' in the above, to masque an agenda of 'self blame' because it is somehow cozier and more familiar in a jealously guarded citadel of teenage huff, where even the best Soul Doctors in the world cannot reach me with their cures, not even the bloody Buddhists with their Direct Pointing! (manic chuckle!) Blame of the 'self' can be a way of hiding the less socially acceptable blame of the 'other'.

Thoughts and sensations will occur, that's a given, they are always there, but I believe they are real, solid fixed things and they are 'me' when they can't be because they are so fluid.

The above sounds like it might be a similar thing again, 'you can't get me'! Ringing the wagons around REALLY TIGHTLY so that no Indians get through with their pesky witch doctors to ravish my eternal weeping Gollum-child holding on to its precious hurt! It is all framed as logic but there is not one bit of logic in it, so it your citadel remains unassailable by logic! TA RAH! (brief drumroll and clash of cymbals!)

Good job logic, psychology and intellect don't matter with Direct Pointing eh? All you need to attend to is Direct Experience rather than take seriously the convolutions and speculations of the mind which is what I regularly see you slipping into. That is a habit which you are telling me has just kept stirring the pot and regularly delivered shite results and it is a damn sight more complex than just looking BTW!

The bigger part of you probably just wanted to see that self-defeating rubbish nailed anyway but in a world where people seem reluctant to recognise that it is never too late to have an unhappy childhood (or indeed that the 'Child Within' often just wants to invade Poland) those limiting stones are perhaps too often left unturned.

OK so don't be frightened of challenging any of that 'thought' guff when it raises its head and just going back to your actual Direct Experience (We have all had this stuff, the Buddha had it on his big night before 'calling the Earth Goddess to witness' ie Direct Experience) you won't get this Insight thing using thought or psychology. Instead, you will get it by simply looking at your actual direct experience itself.

You are doing fine and things are shaping up really nicely.
As you said this morning it is just a matter of re-visting this same exercise again. Will you do that once more right now? You are right on top of it I kid you not!

Mb x

[Monja gitana]

Yep gotcha but I'm going out for a vino now and will look again manana. MG