Guide Please

[vic46]

Hi,
I have been practicing meditation and Buddhism for about 15 years. I very much appreciate this style of insight practice and would like some help to wake up. Any takers?
Thanks,
Vic

[Fabíola]

Hi Vic!

We can look to find what is there to be awaked. If you want I can be your guide.

Kind regards!

[vic46]

Hi, that's great news, thank you!
Where do we start?

[Fabíola]

Great, let's work!

First I must ask you to confirm you have read this material. Please, follow the link bellow, read the disclaimer and watch the little video:
http://www.liberationunleashed.com/

A few guidelines that rule this dialogue. Please, confirm that you have read and agree with them:

1. You agree to post at least once a day.
2. In general, the guide will ask the questions for you to respond to
3. Responses require your utmost honesty
4. Responses are best from direct experience (felt senses and observed thoughts). Longwinded
analytical and philosophical answers are best avoided and may even hinder progress.
5. Put aside all other teachings, philosophies and such for the remainder of this investigation.
Really put all your effort and attention in to seeing this reality, as it is. If you have a daily and
essential meditation practice, it is fine to continue that.
6. Please learn to use the quote function; instructions are located in the link below this line:
http://liberationunleashed.com/nation/v ... ?f=4&t=660

So, let's continue! Here a few questions to check your expectations:

What are your expectations for liberation?
How will this feel?
How will this change you?

Kind regards

[Fabíola]

Note: When answering, before you press the Submit button, you better shall copy your text in order to not loose it if the site log you off, which can happen sometimes.

[vic46]

Hi,
I have read the terms and disclaimer and agree.
The video link points to the home page. Couldn't see a video.
Expectations? I hope to see the nature of my experience as it really is, free from distortion, whatever that might turn out to be.
How will this feel? I would hope for a feeling of release, ease and hopefully a good laugh at my wrong headedness up until this moment.
I hope the experience would allow me to take difficulties less seriously, enjoy more openness and connection with others and be more forgiving of shortcomings in myself and those around me.

Best Wishes,
Vic

[Fabíola]

Is there an 'I' to be released?
Is there yourself and those around you?
What are you?

Kind regards

[vic46]

Is there an 'I' to be released?

My training suggests that there is no I to be released. Intellectually I understand this and during meditation I sometimes get a glimpse of this.
However, my daily experience is overlain with a sense of an “I”. This is experienced as my own set of needs and volitions, resulting in happiness and contentment when met or disappointment.

My I has it’s own ways of doing things, it’s conditioned responses and habits. These are based on previous experiences - my accessable memories and unconscious drives.

There is a sense of an existing I steering this body through the day, making decisions and putting things into action.

There is a sense of a particular and quite individual personality.

Is there yourself and those around you?

Intellectually I can see how I am connected to those around me in many ways. They give me ideas, food, culture and stimulate my responses. When I stop and reflect I can see how our experiences arise mutually, like a dance.

However, my desires and volitions also feel separate to those around me, as if driven by an inner force. These are sometimes in conflict with others and I think they would not accept my contrary volitions as being the same as their own.

Also, my body feels separate to those around me. I can see that we share process like digesting and transforming the produce of this planet and sharing the same oxygen, but my body feels discreet. I can experience the energetic quality of body in meditation and note that it does not correspond with my idea of what my body looks like, the edges can be fuzzy and contact with objects often fails to reveal a felt boundary.

What are you?

I might be a collection of habits and volitions, but I feel more solid than this. I often feel like a particular flavour of consciousness (my personality) manifesting in a discreet physical body.
However, when I look for the part of the body that contains this entity, I cannot tie it down to a particular point or centre.
I sometimes think of myself as awareness itself. This does not seem to have a centre either and the edge of this awareness cannot be found in my meditation practice. However, in meditation I usually experience a sense of a watcher – an entity within the experience.
I could be thoughts and emotions, but there is a sense of a subject experiencing these.

[Fabíola]

Problems with my web connection in my device made it impossible to answer you today. I'm very sorry, I will came back tomorrow.

kind regards

[Fabíola]

This you call 'a sense of a subject experiencing this' is he who you feel having emotions, volitions? Seat quietly and look! Don't try to find an answer by intellect, just look...

[Fabíola]

You, with your manifestations, volitions, ways of doing things, are you separate from others?

[vic46]

When I watch my mind I see thoughts, emotions, volitions arise and pass away. When absorbed in these arisings the sense of a self is very strong.
When resting in the space between these arisings the sense of self is much more subtle. Perhaps it is more of an anticipation of a self about to arise again? There is awareness but it feels less heavy.

[vic46]

Am I separate from others?
My responses, habits, volitions are fairly predicable and not unlike other peoples.
My sense of self and my awareness of others arises in the same mind/awareness, so in a sense they are both passing experiences in the same context.
When I have a strong sense of self I experience a strong sense of others. When I am feeling more open and spacious, things can feel more fluid.

[Fabíola]

When that watching happens, can it be found some separate entity apart from the very watching of thoughts, emotions, and volitions?

[Fabíola]

so in a sense they are both passing experiences

And yes Vic, your 'self' and others are both passing experiences. Is there a self needed for experiences to happen? Or is that only experiencing: thoughts, emotions, volitions... arising and go... Sometimes subtle... sometimes strong... just arising and go?