Just realized how perfect your faces/vase image is for what we’re doing here. The other image has been right here all along, not hidden in any way. Nothing needs to change except the slightest shift of perception — no, actually, in the interpretation of perception.

I always see the faces and need ...

“Can’t I please have a different attitude?”

Say it slowly.

Where does it land?

Chest? Gut? Throat? Face?

Throat especially: choked up. And face squinching up, ready to cry.

There may be pleading in it. Exhaustion. Irritation. Desperation. A childlike “please, just make this easier.”

Yep ...

Now look in real time today:

“I am typing.”

. . . . .

Where is the typer?
Realized I didn’t actually LOOK when I answered this question before, just answered from knowledge based on past experience — i.e., thought.

Looking now:
Bodily sensations (finger tapping phone screen). Thoughts (“Was ...

The pointer/reminder used again tonight for meditation time was, “This is it. Nothing to do but watch, or not.” And once again, it felt just right. Occasionally thrown in there: an inquiry about whether a meditator could be found. Of course, the answer is no, but the inquiry directs attention to the ...

That “organism connected with the experience” is already an interpretation. Useful, practical, communicative — yes. But in the moment of appreciation, sitting, noticing, attention shifting, was K actually found as the owner? Or was there appreciation, sitting, noticing, attention moving, then ...

P.S. Rereading my previous post, I realized that while I did “notice how the body (the organism) responds” to reading different versions, I lost track of the precise question about which version “feels the most accurate,” meaning “the closest to what is actually experienced.” So, trying this ...

The aim is not to purge pronouns compulsively. It is to make the wording less supportive of a hidden controller.
notice how the body (the organism) responds. Which one feels the most accurate?
(by "accurate" i mean the closest to what is actually experienced)

An extra challenge for me in doing ...

I appreciated your clarification about “watching attention,” and I tried it during my afternoon sitting period (before my previous post), starting with “arriving in raw sensation” and ending with “doing nothing on purpose,” which was my favorite part. I have long been aware that my attention often ...

I wrote a draft of a reply about trying “watching attention” and also some reflections prompted by the “Doing – not doing” section of your “What Is Enlightenment?” manual, but, ugh. Writing about this stuff gives me something to do other than consuming yet more spirituality videos or just sitting ...

Thank you for the pointers for my sitting time.

A great thing about having meditation as simply part of my daily routine is that I don’t have to decide to sit, which means I don’t need a reason to sit, so it’s easier to avoid having it become a "project."

I like the suggestions for starting the ...

P.S. I am continuing to do two meditation periods a day, of 20 to 25 minutes each, and I’m wondering if you have any thoughts about what I should or shouldn’t do with that time.

Just recently, I’ve often been practicing being alert to the next thought that arises and not grabbing onto thoughts ...

OK, you’ve given me a lot to work with (and I'm glad about that) . . .

The self as a “demand-pattern” or “contraction around preference” or “refusal of what is already happening” — interesting. Yes. Rolling those ideas around in my brain.

Say internally:

“This may never become the life I wanted ...

P.S. Perhaps what’s being protected by the thought “This is only a momentary reprieve” is the last remnant of the hope of the “self” for a life where everything goes the way “I” want it to: where there are only pleasant, satisfying, ego-affirming experiences. And perhaps surrender is finally giving ...

But notice this: “I want to produce peace” is still the same movement as seeking. It says, “peace is not here; it must be generated later.”

Yep, I'm all too aware of that.

What is actually here?

Right now (just woke up, sitting in bed; spouse already up and in living room):
- Bit of a ...

P.S. I was just rereading your message and reflecting on this:

More specifically:
the seeker-pattern that keeps trying to reproduce, control, or get back to peace.

It shows up as:
wanting to know how the quiet happened
wanting to be able to do it again at will
turning calm into a result to be ...