The Gate

LU is focused guiding for seeing there is no real, inherent 'self' - what do you understand by this?
That we label certain sensations self to make us feel safer and more in control , but it’s not a things that’s actually there or has any control

What are you looking for at LU?
Would love guidance to be able to move past the sense that there’s a self controlling things. Would like freedom from the suffering caused by thinking there’s a self that needs things to be a certain way to be happy

What do you expect from a guided conversation?
Pointers from those who know where to look and can see where I might be stuck. Help in seeing where I’m clinging and seeking safety and how to open things up so the body can learn to move towards freedom

What is your experience in terms of spiritual practices, seeking and inquiry?
Learned from lots of videos, podcasts, books, taking the joy of living online course, Buddhist meditation groups and retreats, a few friends along the journey to talk to. About 8 years of meditation background and about a year into really looking for the way “out”

On a scale from 1 to 10, how willing are you to question any currently held beliefs about 'self? 11

Hello Jen,

Thank you for your patience in waiting for a guide.

I’d be happy to be present with you in this process if you are still interested?

-Becca

Hi Becca,

That would be amazing - thank you so much!

Great,

Let’s begin here:

Would love guidance to be able to move past the sense that there’s a self controlling things.

1. Hold a hand in front of you; palm turned down.
2. Now turn the palm up. And down...and up and so on.
Watch like a hawk.

Don't go to thoughts – examine your direct experience. Do this as many times as you like, and each time inquire:

How is the movement controlled?
Does a thought control it?
Can a ‘controller’ of any description be located?
How is the decision made to turn the hand over? Track any decision point when a thought MADE THE DECISION to turn the hand over and the hand turns over immediately.
Who or what chose which hand - the left or right hand for the exercise?
Can you find a separate individual or anything that is choosing when to turn the palm up or down?

Also, here’s a brief tutorial on how to use the quote function on this forum:
https://youtu.be/QCbZYSvnTpc?si=zeybstBMMY97zV6T

Thank you for the exercise! I tried it a few times. If it’s a discrete action, like when I slow it down and do each hand flip almost like a separate action , it feels like something happens before each action, like some kind of wanting or intention thought- is that a thought that happens before “decisions” or is even that not needed and more just incidentally there? When I just start hand flipping , it can go on its own at some pace that probably just came from some preference , like which hand it chose (my dominant hand). There’s nothing that really can be labeled a controller, but my mind wonders whether I’m missing something and also it think it has control over over the intention thought. I definitely can’t find a separate individual choosing when to turn it, just the thing that’s like an intention thought

my mind wonders whether I’m missing something and also it think it has control over over the intention thought

So a thought has control of another thought?

Here is a different exercise. Sit quietly for about 30 minutes and notice the arising thoughts. Just let them appear as they appear. Try your best to COMPLETELY ignore what they are saying and just notice how they appear without you doing anything at all.

Where are they coming from and going to?
Did you do anything to make a particular thought or thoughts appear?
Could you have done anything to make a different thought appear at that exact moment instead?
Can you predict your next thought?
Can you select from a range of thoughts to have only pleasant thoughts?
Can you choose not to have painful, negative or fearful thoughts?
Can you pick and choose any kind of thought?
Is it possible to prevent a thought from appearing?

It seems that thought has some logical ordered appearance, but look carefully and just notice if there is an organized sequence? Or is that just another thought that says ‘these thoughts are in sequence’ or “they take content from previous thought”, or that ‘one thought follows another thought’?


So taking a closer look, is it that these thoughts are controlling behaviors in any way? Try this out.

Get two foods you like, one that is a 'bad' food, like a piece of chocolate and the other a 'good food,' like a piece of apple. Thoughts might come up while looking at them saying stuff about eating one or the other. Eventually one of them will get eaten first.
Look carefully for any evidence in direct experience to see if those thoughts controlled the behavior; rather than just guessing and commentating what might happen.


Now go back. Flip the palm. Watch the flicker of intention. But this time, see if there’s any distance between the intention and the movement.

Then go deeper: Did you create the intention?

Where did it come from?

Or did it just show up?

These are amazing!! I’m going to take a few days to keep going through them and seeing more clearly and then report back!

Super.

Hi Becca,

These exercises were so helpful. I saw more than before but would love feedback on where I’m still missing things and jumping to conclusions.

For the first one, the thoughts seem to come from nothing , go back to nothing. I can’t make them come and go and I can’t choose the content. I think if my head tenses while I’m thinking a thought , it kind of creates the illusion that I chose to have that thought but that goes away if I loosen the tension. Though I still keep getting tricked by that tension in my day to day
The thoughts do appear to come up in response to different things though like a memory or sensory experience, or things that I want cause I believe it’ll make me happy. So they don’t seem completely random and tend to stay on a topic but that seems driven by the ability to hold in mind something I find to be a problem or something I want that my thoughts will stay around, but if I didn’t have memory , I think they would just be random thoughts.

Looking at thoughts and the foods, it felt like there’s an underlying I want one food more and then thoughts can affect that balance by bringing attention to something else I want (eg., eating healthy will help my body be healthier, live longer etc.). And then i just go with whichever choice feels like more gain and less loss

Then back to the palm flip, the intention feels at the same time as the action , it’s at the initial outset of the movement that gives it that momentum to flip. I can’t find anything that creates the intention as I’m doing it , but it does seem to follow a similar thing as the food where I’ll “decide” based on whichever the body/mind weighs out to give me gains and minimize pain? For example, if I’m just waiting for the palm to flip, there might be a thought of if I flip it I’ll get to watch it and gain some insight , then I flip it

Thanks so much for your help!

Excellent.Thoughts come from nothing and go to nothing. ‘You’ can’t choose them or control them.

I think if my head tenses while I’m thinking a thought , it kind of creates the illusion that I chose to have that thought but that goes away if I loosen the tension.

Yes! That tension + thought = ownership. A “me” is created out of that!

So keep looking right at this. Is there any actual connection between that sensation of tension, and a thought?

if I didn’t have memory , I think they would just be random thoughts

What is the exact difference between a memory thought and any other thought?

And then i just go with whichever choice feels like more gain and less loss

Now we’re deep in the weeds. This is the mind’s master illusion: That weighing options = choosing.

Let’s explore this more in depth. Slow it down and take it one moment at a time.

Here's what’s needed - a chair, a table and two different drinks. Any two drinks you like are okay for this: coffee, tea, milk, water, juices, smoothies, beer, wine, etc.

Place the two drinks side by side on the table in front of you, sit comfortably on the chair and mentally label them as drink A and drink B.

Sit for a few moments, take a few relaxed breaths and let the dust settle. When you feel ready:
1. Look at drink A and at drink B. Think about their respective qualities, the things you like about them, compare and weigh the pros and cons of each. See if a preference is manifesting for one or the other.
2. Count to 5.
3. Choose one of the drinks. Pick it up and take a sip.

Questions:
(Remember that we’re looking for some kind of function, a something, an ‘I’ which is doing the ‘choosing’)

In step 1 when thinking about their respective qualities, did you ‘choose’ the qualities? Or did they kind of appear by themselves? If some preferences manifested, did you ‘choose’ these preferences? Or did they just pop up by themselves?

In step 2 when you counted to 5, if the preferences took the back seat while the numbers took the front seat, did you ‘choose’ this sequence of event? Did you ‘choose’ to shut down the preferences to give way to the counting? Did you directly experience a mental function
or faculty doing the ‘choosing’? Have you seen this function in action?

In step 3 where you made a choice, did you actually witness or directly experience a mental function or faculty doing the ‘choosing’? Did anything arise that announced, ‘I am the chooser’? If so, what does this function look like?

Sometimes we describe this sense of choosing as a ‘feeling’: It feels like ‘I’ did the ‘choosing’. But the question is, can a feeling ‘choose’? Is it in the nature of a feeling to ‘choose’?

I can’t find anything that creates the intention as I’m doing it

Perfect. Don’t stop there. See what that means:
No you.
No decision-maker.
Just the appearance of deciding.

Everything is happening. The whole “chooser” is just a late-coming narrator claiming, “I did that!”

Thank you!! Will play with these too for a few days and report back

great!

Hi Becca!

So keep looking right at this. Is there any actual connection between that sensation of tension, and a thought?

No connection! There seems to be always a sort of reaching (clinging/aversion) and that tension appears part of that clinging in order to get something (eg., to try to get a sense of control to feel safe)

What is the exact difference between a memory thought and any other thought?

Interesting! I looked and the memory thought isn’t really that different! It’s not a hearable/said out loud in head thought but it’s not different from a silent thought that I can somehow pull up. Like i’m distracted and then I’m like what was I doing? And then an image or silent thought tells me what I was doing. I assume it’s from memory bank we have, but i have no evidence except that it seems to match reality like oh right I was typing this reply and the iPad and post is up in front of me when I turn back, so that seems to match

Now we’re deep in the weeds. This is the mind’s master illusion: That weighing options = choosing.

Would you say it’s okay to think of it as there is a weighing options automatically happening? I don’t necessarily feel like I’m choosing but there feels like there’s rules it follows, basically my assumption is there’s stored associations and it pulls from those and then moves towards the kind of like an amoeba reacts to the environment, except some of our reactions are to things that our mind came up with

Did the drinks experiment: whichever one i saw preferences building for is the one I went for, it’s just the one the body wanted or something. I didn’t choose the preferences, they just came up like other thoughts. The preferences went to the backseat not by choice, I don’t think my mind had the capacity to hold both counting and preferences. I didn’t experience a “choosing” but i did experience an I want this one kind of feeling , and then a thought being “should i divert it to the other drink?” And then a thought being like “nah it’s fine let it happen” , with no control over those thought either but i think with slightly different underlying motivations, I might have thought “yea let’s try how it feels to choose the other one” and chosen the other one. I have not seen a choosing action function independently, just the conditions leading to action. I think I was conflating an action/movement being possible by the body and the choosing of it.

In step 3 where you made a choice, did you actually witness or directly experience a mental function or faculty doing the ‘choosing’? Did anything arise that announced, ‘I am the chooser’? If so, what does this function look like?
Sometimes we describe this sense of choosing as a ‘feeling’: It feels like ‘I’ did the ‘choosing’. But the question is, can a feeling ‘choose’? Is it in the nature of a feeling to ‘choose’?

I didn’t have anything that said it was a chooser come up or a feeling of choosing come up. Felt more like an urge towards having one drink. Curious if there’s something there that should’ve come up that I missed?

Perfect. Don’t stop there. See what that means:
No you.
No decision-maker.
Just the appearance of deciding.

Everything is happening. The whole “chooser” is just a late-coming narrator claiming, “I did that!”

Actually , I notice that outside the experiment! Such a weird thing given i just did the experiment and it wasn’t there. When you say what does the function look like, do you mean what its function is? I think it helps me feel in control and like I’m the author of my life and keep me from feeling out of control and groundless

Very nice investigations.

Interesting! I looked and the memory thought isn’t really that different!

Let’s take it one step further.
When does a memory appear?
How is it known EXACTLY that a ‘memory’ thought refers to something that has happened?

I didn’t choose the preferences, they just came up like other thoughts.

So… are they thoughts then? Is there any you who can be located that maintains control of ‘preferences’?

Felt more like an urge towards having one drink. Curious if there’s something there that should’ve come up that I missed?

Can an ‘urge’ choose? Does the urge have ownership? Can it be located outside of thought?

Actually , I notice that outside the experiment!

Great, keep that up then in the everyday. Here are some practices:

Sit quietly and observe thoughts as they arise. Notice how they appear without any effort or decision on your part.

Engage in simple actions, like walking or typing, and observe how these occur. Is there a distinct moment where a self decides to act, or do actions flow naturally?

When a thought arises claiming ownership (“I decided to do this”), inquire: Who is this “I”? Can it be located outside of thought?

Keep going!
Becca

Hi Becca!

Let’s take it one step further.
When does a memory appear?
How is it known EXACTLY that a ‘memory’ thought refers to something that has happened?

It appears when I have the thought like what was I doing again? And then an image of what I was doing comes up. I don’t see a way to verify the memory other than like a video or something. There’s clues in the current moment of it’s accuracy but it leaves a lot of error and “misremembering”

So… are they thoughts then? Is there any you who can be located that maintains control of ‘preferences’?

No me that can be located! I do assume there’s some associations in the brain that influence it because they tend to be pretty consistent or follow some sort of pattern but nothing I can see or experience.

Can an ‘urge’ choose? Does the urge have ownership? Can it be located outside of thought?

No, i don’t think an urge can choose, and it’s a similar appearance as a thought or feeling, like just a thing that comes up in these chains of things. My aversion to the feeling of an urge staying around leads me to do the action that’ll relieve the urge.

Sit quietly and observe thoughts as they arise. Notice how they appear without any effort or decision on your part.

Engage in simple actions, like walking or typing, and observe how these occur. Is there a distinct moment where a self decides to act, or do actions flow naturally?

they occur naturally and if I’m not aware then there’s a thought that says something like “i did that” , but if i go back and do it again and just watch, it was just a natural flow

When a thought arises claiming ownership (“I decided to do this”), inquire: Who is this “I”? Can it be located outside of thought?

It’s just a thought! It says “I’m doing this” or “I agreed for that to happen” or “I stopped myself from doing that”. I think the conflation came from, there’s thoughts labeling the preferences right before an action, like “I shouldn’t do this because ..” , and so when action follows that preference, it appears as if the thought is being listened to . Like it appears similar to if you tell a dog sit, and it sat. But that doesn’t mean the thought had control. It just can either say what the preference already was or it seems like it can kind of tilt that scale a bit by making an aspect more salient/more in conscious awareness?

Thank you!!