Blindsided

[Pratityasamutpada]

Hiya peeps. I've just spent two weeks at Ruthless Truth trying to get some delusion spanked out of this mind, but I seem to be stuck circling the drain somehow. I've got all the understanding I need, and I spent two weeks looking while driving, looking while walking in the park, looking in zazen, looking while typing, looking while eating, looking while showering, looking while watching a movie, looking while taking a shit, etc. Now most of the time I'm somehow blindsided, I can see the walking happening on its own but not the thinking, or I can see the thinking happening on its own but not the looking at thinking, for example.

On occasion the picture starts to become crystal clear that this mind and body and awareness of both don't need any "I" to do their thing, it's just holding on to a belief of me and all it needs to do is let go of it. Every time this happens, there's a sort of buzz welling up somewhere in my torso, sometimes faint sometimes intense, and it seems to ball up in my chest and/or throat (or the intense ones even seem to reach out into my limbs and make my head feel roomy somehow), then strong "I" comes back and my belly and neck and sometimes my face tighten up, and the whole thing kinda fizzles away.

To be honest I don't know if that buzz has anything to do with how well the looking is going. But in any case for some reason the looking isn't going as well as it should, because nothing has popped as of yet. Now this guy at Ruthless Truth is telling me I'm stuck because I think seeing no-self is going to happen to a self. Now I don't think that consciously, but it makes sense if this mind thinks that unconsciously, because obviously it hasn't seen no-self yet. But it can't be the case that this mind first needs to see no-self in order to see no-self, eh?

Anyway it looks like they're all out of suggestions, and certainly I'm all out of suggestions. I don't know how to look any more or better or whatever, than I've been doing pretty much all the time for two weeks. So if anyone here has any suggestions... Me is all ears.

Best regards,
Mark

[Garsius Tyla]

You are stuck in a idea, that you can control anything: looking, seeing, enlightenment ... whatever.

Look around, look inside and tell me:

Who make choice for thought to arise?

Who choose to be, or not to be aware of something? To see something?

Show me that entity.

You have a free will, or not? Look how all happens and answer.

[phi]

Hi Mark!

First, don't worry if it's taking some time. Where I come from, anything less than three months is considered very, very fast.

Second, you state you have spent some time looking while driving, looking while sitting, looking while defecating, etc. This is excellent practice. However, there is one more thing, which usually happens last: Look while looking! Look at the looking itself. As I am sure others have suggested, look at how thoughts arise. Also look at how the look at the arising of thoughts happens. Also look at how the looking at the look at the arising of thoughts happens. etc. There is an admittedly highly unrealistic, but symbolically valuable Star Trek episode when Spock orders the computer to calculate the value of pi to the last digit, which causes a total breakdown / reset of the computer. Seeing non-self can happen very similarly to this.

Third, non-self is not some phenomenon that you find by looking for it. It is a realization you come to by looking at what is right in front of you.

[Pratityasamutpada]

Yeah you both talk about choices and how those come about, well they come about as a suggestion from another person (such as you with these posts), or a suggestion from this person that is typing now, or as remembering such suggestion from the past (which is triggered by some association of whatever goes on in the present, possibly another remembering). And this then triggers possibly a thought about the suggestion, possibly a deliberation about the suggestion, and possibly the actual behaviour that is suggested. This is for complex "choices" that are not reflexive. And yeah I know it's not about looking for some "thing" called "no-self", that's just a conventional formulation. It's about looking at reality to establish the truth of the absence of a self. I've been through all this, I've looked at all this (or more accurately, looking has occured as a result of some process, who cares what process if nobody owns it and it's just what occurs regardless, but for all one can tell it occurs out of nothing although there can be a predictable sequence). So now what?

[phi]

You experience frustration and want to do something about it. What is the mechanism by which frustration causes desire for action? How come when someone else experiences frustration, you may have the general attitude of wanting to help that person, but it's not the same type of burning desire you feel when you experience frustration yourself. Intellectually you know frustration is just frustration and there is never anyone to experience it. Yet your frustration feels different and has different direct effects on your decisions compared to somebody else's frustration. How does it do that?

[Pratityasamutpada]

your frustration feels different and has different direct effects on your decisions compared to somebody else's frustration. How does it do that?

Interplay of physical sensations with mental narrative and imagery.

[Pratityasamutpada]

your frustration feels different and has different direct effects on your decisions compared to somebody else's frustration. How does it do that?

Interplay of physical sensations with mental narrative and imagery.

...which are taken to be in reference of a presupposed self.

[phi]

Yes, now just look closely at exactly what the physical and mental events are that you cover under the umbrella term "Interplay of physical sensations with mental narrative and imagery." Look at each one of them. None of us have words for all the details you are going to see, but the important aspect to look for is how those sensations/events that you attribute to "yourself" are different from the other events. What is the fundamental difference between a thought and the awareness of that thought?

[eputkonen]

Mark,

'Look' is an interesting term.

"looking while driving, looking while walking in the park, looking in zazen, looking while typing, looking while eating, looking while showering, looking while watching a movie, looking while taking a shit, etc."

Don't look...fully experinece it...FEEL it. Feel driving and be driving while driving. Feel walking and be walking while walking in the park. ETC.

Looking is a way of separating yourself...and often becomes a mental process or exercise. Which is not going to do anything for you...because it just increases the activity of the mind.

[Pratityasamutpada]

You're both referring to identification, with a thought or any other experience.

[phi]

You're both referring to identification, with a thought or any other experience.

Yes, identification is something that the mind does with certain events, but not others. Now let my ask you this:

With any given event (such as a thought or a sensation or an emotional state), how does the mind decide whether or not this specific event is identified as (belonging to) self? Is there any quality intrinsic to the event that the mind picks up on, in order to make that decision?

[Pratityasamutpada]

Yes, identification is something that the mind does with certain events, but not others. Now let my ask you this:

With any given event (such as a thought or a sensation or an emotional state), how does the mind decide whether or not this specific event is identified as (belonging to) self? Is there any quality intrinsic to the event that the mind picks up on, in order to make that decision?

It appears that the most unconscious ones are the most identified with, but I'm not sure if this says anything about which is cause or effect, or if it's even true for everything.

[phi]

It appears that the most unconscious ones are the most identified with, but I'm not sure if this says anything about which is cause or effect, or if it's even true for everything.

You're doing great! You're exactly on the right track. Keep looking, keep investigating in this direction. Try to become better aware of exactly those "most unconscious" events.

Can you find any specific thing or quality in any of the events that is intrinsically "self" or "belonging to self" or "a basis for identification with self"?

If the answer is no, then the only place an intrinsic quality/sense/property of self could be hiding would be those events that you don't yet see with crystal clarity, those "most unconscious ones." Bring them to the light of consciousness and examine them. Whenever you can catch one, make sure to check it for that elusive intrinsic self-quality we're looking for.

[Pratityasamutpada]

What exactly would you guys say is the difference between Liberation Nation and Ruthless Truth?

[phi]

What exactly would you guys say is the difference between Liberation Nation and Ruthless Truth?

From my limited perspective, the main difference seems to be that on RT words like "meditation" or "spirituality" are frowned upon, whereas over here four letter words are generally avoided. Hand-in-hand with that difference in vocabulary goes a difference in culture.

I'm pretty sure, though, that both websites have the same idea of liberation.