Hi Gomi, here goes.
Addictive thought patterns lead directly into suffering. Isn't that your experience?
Yes this is totally my experience.
Reality is much kinder and less draining than needing to role play.
At times I can clearly see the role I am playing and how painfully draining it really is.
Try these exercises, check it out. What is real in directly experiencing?
1.Close your eyes and imagine you are holding a watermelon in your hands. Imagine it so vividly that you can feel its weight, the shape and texture of the skin. Hold it there, sensing it, and open your eyes. What happened to a melon? How about the sensation that was so believable? That which is real can be sensed in one or more ways. That which is imagined exists only in the mind.
I was able to imagine the watermelon. I could imagine experiencing its weight, but I was not experiencing its weight. I could imagine experiencing its skin texture on my hands, but I was not experiencing its skin texture on my hands. I couldn’t remember what a watermelon exactly looked like, so the image changed colour and size in my mind a couple of times.
When I opened my eyes, I saw no watermelon and the imagined experiences left. I didn’t believe the imagined sensations, so I knew there was no watermelon there.
2.What is happening in this moment? With your five senses, what do you experience? Sights, sounds, tastes, smells, tactile sensations, even thoughts. Just list up what there is, don’t draw conclusions.
There are experiences of what I perceive to be the outside world, light, colour, movement, sounds, smells, wind upon my skin, and there are thoughts about these experiences, that puts them in place, fits them into the story of my life. There is a felt aliveness in the body. There is awareness of all these things and there is awareness that there is awareness.
3.When smelling an object, what is real about the sense of smell? When does it start, and when does it end? What causes the experience?
When I want to smell a flower, I know that by putting my nose against it and breathing in I will experience its fragrance. The experience stops when I run out of in-breath. The cause of the experience is the deciding to have the experience in that case. The deciding to have the experience is a thought that arises, that logically decides it is the right thing to do in this moment. If a smell comes that I had no choice over, thoughts determine where the smell is coming from, and they are not happy until they assume they know.
What seems to be real is the actually bare felt sensation of the smell, not the thoughts before it or after it.
4. When you observe a flower, is there any separation between you and the flower? How about with smelling experience? Try this with the music. Listen to the music not with your ears but with all your being. You will discover that you can’t truly listen and think at the same time. The slightest thought stops the natural flowing of the music.
Thoughts seem to pounce upon every experience. I can’t truly listen, at least not for very long, without thoughts coming in and destroying the ’receptivity’ of that moment. If I am out in nature and I hear a sound, my mind will instantly leap up and try to figure out what the sound belongs to, in order to feel assured of my surroundings. It might be more accurate to say that the mind assumes it knows what/where the sound is coming from.
Was there any 'me' in control doing the DE exercises or did they just arise? If there is a me controlling it, look closely. Describe it.
Thoughts seem to arise automatically, so if the thought arises to smell a flower, is there a me that chooses the experience, or is it just happening?
It still feels like there is a ‘me’ choosing to smell the flower, but when I look, it appears that I have no control over thoughts, that they just arise and that my awareness gets hypnotically drawn into thoughts, and carried down stream with them.If I choose to think a specific thought, it is another thought that is choosing to think this thought.
When I look at it logically, it appears that everything including thoughts, volitions, actions, sense perceptions and what comes in to my world, is all just happening. There is nothing choosing them to come into existence.
However, it doesn't feel that it is all just happening. It feels like there is a chooser there somewhere, and that the chooser is me. But I cant find the chooser.
I don't know where thoughts and choices come from. In that sense I feel kinda confused about the whole thing.
It feels like thoughts are who I am, but there seems to be no ‘me’ making them arise, they seem to appear out of nowhere. There IS a ‘me’ who can be aware of them arising. How can thoughts be who I am if they are happening automatically? It is hard to be aware of thoughts, most of the time I fall unconsciously into them. Why do I have such an impulse to get lost in thought?
It seems like thoughts are determined to impose a story upon my felt experience of the world. Why can’t I experience an experience without thoughts leaping upon the experience? I can’t take my awareness to my hands without an image springing to mind of my hands, it’s like it has to know they are there. Who makes the decision to try to be aware of thinking? Who makes the decision to cultivate awareness, is it not just another thought? There is no ‘me’ that seems to have a choice about these thoughts.