Would love a guide!

[SimonStark]

Hello,
Here are my answers to the required questions:

- What brings me to LU? A burning desire to be liberated.

- What is your background in terms of seeking and inquiry? Hardly any. All the things I found were too airy-fairy. This site seems to be straight to the point.

- What do you expect of the conversation on this forum? Guidance until I am liberated.

[Armstrong]

OK. I like that you use the term "too airy-fairy".

I would be willing to be your guide.

So the liberation unleashed process involves you answering in terms of "direct experience". You might want to listen to this http://liberationunleashed.com/LU_Audio ... n%2004.mp3 - and then describe your nose in terms of direct experience.

Eg close your eyes for a bit. breathe in and out and relax. Then open your eyes and describe your nose in terms of direct experience - seeing, hearing, smelling, etc.

Could you please try doing that?

[SimonStark]

Hi, thank you for willing to be my guid!

I've listened to the audio and some things made sense, some not (yet). But it didn't give me any insights, just kind of seeing how it could be true.

But, to go with your exercise:

With my eyes closed, in direct experience, I noticed the air moving through my nostrils. I heard the breathing sound. And I felt my nose in a couple of places, mainly the bridge of my nose. With my eyes open, those things were still there, but less pronounced because the visual stimuli drowned out the other ones a bit. Kind of like how you can hear more clearly with your eyes closed.

The thing added with my eyes open are the parts I can see from the corners of my eyes.

Is this what you meant?

[Armstrong]

Nice. Let's try again - if you look forward at something, a foot or so away, what does your nose look like in your field of view? A square? Two squares? Three? a circle? If you just say in terms of circle/square/rectangle/triangle and 1/2/3/4, what is your experience of your nose like as you go about your business?

[SimonStark]

To avoid confusion, there's something wrong with one of my eyes. I don't see well with it and I also don't have depth perception. So if my answers are a bit different from what you're used to, you know why.

In full view, I either see a dark shape, kind of like a half moon shape, or the tip of my nose (that's my eyes shifting because of the problem with them). My experience of my nose is non-existent as I go about my business unless I focus on it.

[Armstrong]

Nice. Many people report two semi-transparent triangles.

Please try this - stare at something a foot or two away. Bring a finger in view and touch your nose. can you notice at a certain point it looks like two semi-transparent tubes? It may help to move it back and forth, so that it goes from being close to far, two things to one.

Please try that and report on your perceptions.

If this sounds strange, given the purported purpose of the site, please bear with me.

[SimonStark]

Yes, I see that. At one distance there are two semi-transparent tubes.

[Armstrong]

Ok. and do the two tubes touch some semi-transparent triangle-shaped things - your nose? Or is the nose two half-moon shaped things ?

[Armstrong]

Please try to see if you can pay some attention to your nose as you do routine things - walking, sitting down, getting up, etc.

[SimonStark]

Depending on how my eyes are moving, the nose is a semi-triangle thing, a dark shadow in the corner of my eye, or a vague, skin colored shape.

[Armstrong]

Ok. Thanks.

Have you had any insights from this process? Eg, "my nose is always there, but I don't seem to see it. Isn't that odd?" Or "hey, there's my ideas about a nose, and then there's my sensory experience - primarily sight - and it doesn't line up. Anything like that?

So if we were to do this, I'd ask you questions and you'd eventually realize that just as you've got your ideas about your nose experience, and then the experience, right now of your nose, there's a similar thing going on with "Simonstark".

Do you still want to do this? I will be asking you to pay close attention to stuff you've been habitually taking for granted. You might get bored or frustrated.

[SimonStark]

I'm eager to still do this. If boredom or frustration is enough for me to give up, I might as well give up on all my dreams.

I've had both of the insights you mention, except for the "Isn't that odd?" part. I don't find it odd to not always see it since out attention is drawn into all sorts of directions all the time. There are many things as you go through your day that you don't notice.

I do see that my idea about my nose is not the same of the sensory experience of my nose. The idea is a picture of what I think what it looks like. But that is not the nose itself, just my imagination.

[Armstrong]

Ok. Here's a question - where do your conceptions come from? Do you create/author them? Do you choose how you'll see them? Please explain, in terms of your own experience (and not something you heard/read/etc) about a conception of yours about something dear (eg your nose) and show how you could just have easily conceived of it differently.

Consider this a warmup. After you do this, I will give you the conditions and we can start.

[SimonStark]

Well, it just pops into my mind as an image. I couldn't have conceived of it differently easily. I thought about it and made up a picture of the same nose, but it being pink and white. Now when I think about my nose, both pop into my mind just as the original one did at first. I just know the difference between the one being my actual concept of my nose and the other one the one I changed.

[Armstrong]

Are your thoughts the same way? Or do you run your thinking? Are you to blame if you think things you should not think?