The Gate

What brings you to Liberation Unleashed?:
I have just been guided by Ghata to the gateless gate, and I want to deepen my seeing. I am not seeking an initial guide, but hope to continue being mentored by Ghata through what she called Aftercare and beyond.

What are you looking for? What do you expect from this?:
I do not expect anything - I am very open to what comes.

What is your background in terms of seeking and inquiry?:
Nearly 20 years of Buddhist practice, reading, study, partly in Tibetan lineages and for some years with the Amaravati community in the UK.

How ready are you to question your beliefs about who you are and see the truth no matter what? On a scale from one to ten (ten being most ready). : 10

Dear Dhammapala,

how lovely to welcome you on the forum of Liberation Unleashed :-).

Please talk about what you experienced during the email guiding and what happened in the last days.

Write lots.

Much love,
Ghata

Dear Ghata

Thank you.

I haven't looked back at the date we started but I must have been in email contact with you for about 3 months? It felt like a long time, like I wasn't "getting it", and I sometimes felt frustrated by this (unnecessarily!). We did a variety of exercises, all of them very helpful and revealing, especially contacting the body, mind and the heart and letting them speak, and the relentless question os, Is there a Me in all this?

It's hard to say what happened. Perhaps nothing much happened - just a sense that the self, I, Me, is a fiction, something the brain fabricates out of sense impressions and feelings. But there are only sense impressions and feelings, the self is fabricated onto them...

Thank you

Dhammapala

Dear Dhammapala,

thank you for your answer :-).

But there are only sense impressions and feelings, the self is fabricated onto them...

Are you 100% certain that there is no ME to whom experiences happen; no ME who thinks, decides and acts?

Much love,
Ghata

Sometimes, if the wind is blowing in the right direction.

At other times, no - everything feels very personal...

Dh.

Dear Dhammapala,

Sometimes, if the wind is blowing in the right direction. At other times, no - everything feels very personal...

That is normal. After seeing through the illusion of self, the old thinking patterns will be back and there will be times when it feel like before.

To whom does it feel very personal?


Much love,
Ghata
P.S. Would it be alright for you if I post the very end of our email conversation here?

Thanks, yes, please do post.

It feels personal to the "sense of self", to what I call "me". But I then need to consciously make a (small) effort to re-look and see how this "me" is not present in any of the senses. But it's not a natural insight (yet).

Thanks

Dh.

Dear Dhammapala,

yes, it needs to be looked into again and again.

Are there any doubts, anything that is unclear about the illusion of ME?

Much love,
Ghata

Yes, of course I have doubts: have I really seen the illusion of Me? Is it genuine seeing? Is this really the famous "stream entry" that all those buddhists salivate over attaining? If so, why was it so straightforward? Why can't all those monks and nuns do it with all their years of practice? Does that mean I haven't really done it after all? Because it's said to be so rare....so maybe I'm just kidding myself? It doesn't seem like anything much, and it's still happening to THIS person rather than to anyone else....on and on and on....

So no, I'm not 100 % sure.

And then I am sure.

And then I'm not sure.

Thanks

Dhammapala

Dear Dhammapala,


thank you for your honest answer :-).

What is doubting the seeing?

Look again. Can a ME be found anywhere?


Much love,
Ghata

Email-guiding between Ghata and Dhammapala.


Dhammapala:

Are YOU awareness?

No, definitely not...there is awareness, but its name isn't DH., or any other name. It's just knowing...

Choices are made, sure. As you saw very clearly, they are made according to conditions that are out of your control and even before you become aware of them.

Yes - so therefore what I can claim as "mine" is....nothing! EVERYTHING is the result of causes and conditions, even my very body and mind and thoughts and choices .... And it's all just labelled by a mind that thinks it knows everything! Hahahahahaaaaa!

Does the ME exist the same way a computer exists?

No...it's just a thought....how could it be anything other? We're just enmeshed in thoughts...the Me is just another one....


Can it do something the same way the computer can do something? Or will the ME forever be a thought only?

It's a thought - but one that can kill someone else....it may be a delusion, but it's one that can have an effect...


Ghata

Dear Dh.

very nice :-)

It's a thought - but one that can kill someone else....it may be a delusion, but it's one that can have an effect...

Does the thought kill? Can the thought do anything?


Much love,

Ghata



Dhammapala
No, it can't....it can't do anything... And even if it makes the body do something, there's still no me there...


Ghata
big smile here. Who is reading this?


Dhammapala
Nobody - just a collection of conditions that is able to "make sense" of your words.


Ghata
:))). Can you say, with a big fat YES, it's clear that I, ME, a separate entity is an illusion?
If not, what is unclear? What is the doubt?


Dhammapala

Not big or fat, but just a sense that carving out a special place for Me in the flux of conditions is silly. Nothing changes...just that the Me is clearly just a thought... It's valid as a thought - but it is JUST a thought. This mass of experiences I call "myself" is totally dependent on other things. There is nothing within me that isn't...


Ghata
right, nothing changes :-). How does it feel to see this?


Dhammapala
It feels cool...quiet...spacious...silent


Ghata
Sweet...enjoy.


Dhammapala
Just the stopping of clinging to an idea....nothing to replace it....


Ghata
Just the stopping of clinging to an idea....nothing to replace it....
Yesss :-)).


Dhammapala
Thank you.........


Ghata
<3 <3 <3

Dhammapala
Knowing that everything is conditioned, and I cling to it so much...but there is ease and peace

Ghata
Beautiful, Dh :-)


Dhammapala
Is that it? Silly question really.....just rest there....


Ghata
You know :-). Just rest there.


Dhammapala
<3


Ghata
Thoughts will try to make sense of what happened and invent all kind of questions and arguments. Simply stay with what you know to be true.


Dhammapala]/b]
A subtle sweetness in the body....

Dhamma pala

03.30 in the morning...feeling so sad, so angry.

Obviously broke a precept today - and I dont really care. Some stream entry.

So much unhappiness in me caused by the gossip of others about me, making me lose friends. Some stream entry.

Seems like crap to me.

And anyway - because all these things have affected my mood so much and actually strengthened the sense of self, the poor Me to whom all this is happening, how can it be claimed in any way that i've made stream entry?


This is horrible - I feel so lost and wretched. This is not stream entry, it's ordinary misery based on conditions not being how I want them to be. It's just samsara - why are you trying to give it a glamour it doesn't have?


Ghata
Since these statements in your emails you seem to be mistrusting my guiding and that is why you couldn't see that I already handed you the key to get out of that suffering in one of my answers

And I don't blame you. If I would think my guide is judging the situation completely wrongly, I wouldn't go with anything they said and would in fact discontinue.

Now this is in the way. You told me that you had seen through the illusion of self, your last email about it was:

"It" happened on June 21st...midsummer's day, with a full moon... A very rare day! Very auspicious :-)

Thank you again......

I truly hope this isn't The End....how do we go on together??

Going on should bear fruits. If it doesn't because you can't follow my guiding, thinking it is misleading, it won't work.

I don't want you to believe me anything. I want you to look into it and find out yourself.

Please describe your take on the situation so we can clear it up. You may want to look into our email exchange on the day when you sent me the last email that says: "It happened on June 21st..." because these events are hard to recall.

Dhammapala

Dear Ghata

Many thanks - I appreciate you asking me/us to look into this. Yes, let's do it.

For me, I feel the answers are simple - from my side there is no questioning your guidance. Many times I've said how much and how deeply I appreciate the trouble you are taking for me. I only hope that one day I can meet you in person to thank you from my heart.

Nor is there ANY way I am giving up on this process, or choosing another guide. To do so would would be to give up on you and on myself. No thank you.

The only element in all this I question (as I always do) is - myself. That is and always has been my greatest obstacle: lack of self-esteem, lack of confidence, self-doubt, self-hatred. All that is showing up here, and it sometimes results in self-sabotage and anger (not at you).

Let me address each point you make below.

All good wishes

Ghata

Great, Dhammapala :-)

Your perseverance is you most important tool.

So let's start with this one:

03.30 in the morning...feeling so sad, so angry.

Obviously broke a precept today - and I dont really care. Some stream entry. So much unhappiness in me caused by the gossip of others about me, making me lose friends. Some stream entry.

Seems like crap to me.

Please talk about what happened and what seems like crap to you.

Dhammapala:

I think this is when the pain was starting. The friends I mentioned had not contacted me, and I was very down because I assumed they were mocking me behind my back. This gave me a lot of self-doubt. They are using an old piece of gossip about me that arose 20 years ago based on a misunderstanding, and it is STILL being used by unscrupulous people who don't like me.

My wife was/is away too visiting her family and I started to doubt my marriage too. I felt incredibly lonely, and needed her there. Too much time she spends away working - for 2 years now I hardly see her in the evenings, and now she's away with family. I was just wondering what the hell we were married for.

Work pressure also played its part, but this has since eased a bit.

This was then compounded I think the next day when the Brexit result came through. I took this quite badly, and of all the things that hit me last week, this (and the gossip) is still causing the most pain now.

So under the pressure of all this, I was angry - and whatever happened on the 21st June was powerless to see me through. That's why I assumed it was crap.

Ghata:

So under the pressure of all this, I was angry - and whatever happened on the 21st June was powerless to see me through. That's why I assumed it was crap.

Alright, now I get that. You didn't mean, my confirmation was crap but what was seen was crap.

Dhammapala

Yes, that's right. It seemed so useless when I was really under strain - when I really needed it, it was useless.


Ghata
How do you see that now? And what had been your expectation. You said, " relief" , but I think there are many more expectations to streamentry that aren't met. It's the thing, "monks and nuns are sallivating over" . Ha! I love that expression =D

Dhammapala
My expectations are based on endless books and teachings that make it the supreme good of the spiritual life - relief, joy, peace, ease, safety (ie no more lower rebirths), no more doubt (one of the fetters), it becomes impossible to break the precepts, etc etc etc - in other words something obviously happens. But none of this was the case for me. When difficulty arose, I collapsed totally. So if I really did it, what was the use of it?? Can you see my confusion and doubt?