have you read Standing As Awareness, by Greg Goode?
Just ordered from amazon. Had been seating in my wishlist for many months... I read a few pages online, they were strucking a chord...
This is rudimentary, but lets try it anyway. Can you just let listening happen. Sit where ever you are right now and close your eyes, and hear. Sounds will come and go. Does there need to be an I for hearing to happen? Or does the I barge in after the hearing, with "i heard that."
Yes, hearing happens. It's independent from any belief, thought or concept. It's inevitable, like seeing, smelling, etc. All perceptions happen spontaneously. "I" can't stop them, nor make them happen! The only things that appear to need a center of decision (a self, an entity) are some body-mind actions, like moving or making choices, altought under scrutiny it doesn't hold much water either.
Even "personal" thoughts seems to happen by themselves, body functions and emotions the same. Ideas of volition and will grow thiner if we investigate them. But the deep rooted sense that an "I" is in charge of them remains. There must be some blindspot here...
I've re-read your thread just now, from the start with Eloratea, and it seems you are expecting the felt sense of me/I to dissolve entirely? It's not like that, unless perhaps you are in a bliss state, which is not perpertual and sustainable if you are to function in the world. What it's more like is background vs foreground. Seeing that there is not self is a recgonition that then moves this felt sense of self (an artifact of the five senses) to the background. The foreground is a clarity and ease of "aware-ing" through life.
What's expected here is the certainty of no-self, it's to stop believing in a separate self. In my recognitions the certainty was absolute, and some moments of clarity were quite simple, not ecstatic at all. One of them was just the fall of the "me". Lasted a couple of minutes, at most, but the humbleness of no-person was profound. In that moment, the footseps of a separate self were untraceable, so I'd be inclined to disagree with you when you say that the sense of me remains, but I won't journey into that - I do think I get your point.
I'm not looking for any states or beautiful experiences. But suffering has to stop - it's the ultimate test for truth. And I fail daily. It's subtle, but the mechanism is still functioning. Lately, I've been having clarity moments more often, and the "flavour" of those moments is clearly diferent from the ordinary point of view of the imagined person.
Can you point to what has fallen away as you have had two clear recognitions of true nature as no self? And as you have been re-investigating the truth her at LU? In otherwords, instead of looking for a profound shift of somethingness, can you see what has fallen away?
That's hard to say, without sounding too pessimistic! I would say not much. I'm basically just another person on the block. My beliefs may differ from others, my perspective on life, but at the gut level, when the push comes to shove, I'm just a little "me" striving for happiness. This is wonderfully seen through as a jaw-droping ilusion whenever there is clarity, and from that "point of view" things would be very different (on the inside). But when the hipnosis returns, there isn't much room for clarity, and in the darkness everyone stumbles, regardless of the lights seen before.
Of course, some layers of belief have droped, so its effects are probably not as profond. But on a daily basis, life is still driven by the sense of individuality.
Dunno what else to add. It's the problem of not having questions any more, but not feeling as I'm living the answer...
You didn't seem to reply to my take on the body as being the haven for the sense of separation. Any feedback?
Love to you. Thank you for your patience.
