it is usually just a couple minutes here, a couple moments there, where a thought comes in about looking, and then attention moves towards experience, usually the visual field, with the intention to ‘step back’ perhaps, sorta of become aware of being aware? a curiosity towards being conscious/existing. see, it is an odd thing, because it seems to take effort, and also not at all as it is happening. mostly there is just aversion most of the time/trying to spend time NOT looking, for some reason 😭 almost exactly as the feelings of procrastination really.can well imagine that after years of energetic and apparently frustrating looking the act has acquired an aversive quality 😊
In full detail, what exactly is happening these days that you describe as ‘looking’?
And how much effort is involved?
there is a different taste to experience in the relaxed open/less thought focused moments. most of the time then, I would imagine the thoughts are getting a lot of attention!Interesting. How much attention are all those thoughts getting versus all the other experiences happening?
What I meant was that there is a ‘feeling’ which seems to be imagined, similar to how there is an imagined feeling of separation. it is not actually there, but unless really questioned, seems to be. In a similar vein there seems to be a imagined (thought-based) feeling that follows the thoughts.Not understanding that sentence. Can you rephrase, please?
Yes, completely agree. It is just as before. neurons are firing, but to say that it is a self that is firing those neurons just sounds nonsensical.Nice. There is an experience of the arm moving when it moves, no? Might there not be an experience of the brain searching? If so, does that mean there is a self inside causing the neurons of the brain to do that search? Or that there is something that is experiencing that experience?
thoughts and other experiences are just part of the unified flow of the universe. the experience of being a living organism is the senses. it is just the unified flow happening. if there is no self, then what is left is everything! nothing changes nor is gone if a self that never existed leaves :)Are thoughts and other experiences just part of the natural unified flow of the universe, or is are there a bunch of little selves in charge of what human organisms do? And, if everything in the universe is one unified flow, including living organisms, what is the experience of being a living organism like? If there is no self or selves, what is left?
no it only ever happens, in the same way that the answer to this question, and the typing of the answer are just happening, not being decided by anyone. there are definitely many thoughts that judge and feel bad about not doing it when it is not happening though. but those thoughts/feelings are also just happening, by no one’s will. There is always a wordless knowing, but especially so when the relaxed open is happening.Is there a self inside that decides to do the relaxed open practice, or does it just happen? And when it is happening, is there a wordless knowing that it is happening?
definitely! in fact when the idea of a self firing neurons is removed, this is the only answer. the breain is learning to be live more skillfully.Could the brain be learning that it is more adaptive and skillful to be in the relaxed open practice mode, but all the same just still learning
YES. That is the narrative of thoughts here. that what should happen/what i ought to do is get this done first and foremost because then there is just life flowing. it will only be ok to enjoy things once there’s skillful living/enlightenment here, because otherwise it is not efficient and just aversion from looking. it is fear based, and not a surrender to what is, is what thoughts say.So, does it seem like only after being in some imagined state of awake/liberated/enlightened will it be ok to enjoy other things in life?
