Newxomers welcome to begin here!

[nonaparry]

You say thoughts are real, we really have them, we experience them. So I wonder who it is that experiences them. If not self who or what is there to notice thought and to experience feeling?

Great question!!!

Who or what does notice thoughts and experience feeling?

And who notices the one that notices? What is your Experience? If you look behind every experience, do you find an experiencer?
Close your eyes and locate 'self'. When you have located it, point with your finger to it. Open your eyes; you are pointing to 'self'. LOOK at what finger is pointing to. What do you SEE?

I just don't get it until I do.

Fair enough; you can't get it until you do. And there is nothing to 'get' and no one to 'get' it.

I have to disagree with the idea with who feeds the body when it is hungry is the body.

Next time you eat, LOOK at who is feeding the body. What do you SEE?

the mechanism of getting the food is not the body just life ing.

How do you figure that?? What, in your direct experience, is the body doing if not living life?

The body doesn't know to prepare soil and plant seeds to grow carrots.

Are you sure?? This body does know how to prepare soil and plant seeds; it did so all spring. There was no 'self' required. Brain soaked up the information from textbooks and seed packets, and sent impulses to arms and legs which dug garden beds and planted seeds. Who do you think did it? In my direct experience, it seems the seeds inveigled this body into planting them in the soil and watering them.

When spring time comes there is lot of planting that is not automatic hand to mouth activity.

In this experience it is all automatic. There is no Planter who is in charge. No director who signals the feet to stand on the shovel, the hands to dig with the trowel. No one sending the diaphragm to lower and the ribs to expand filing the lungs with air; no one in charge of sending blood cells through the lungs to pick up oxygen and carry it out to the labouring muscles. All of this digging and breathing is going on automatically. All of it.

The body doesn't know how to drive a car.

This body certainly does!! i can't tell you how many times i have arrived at a destination only to realise i had no idea whatsover of how i got there. i was not paying attention. The process of steering, accelerating, braking, all happens without conscious thought. Only when i don't know where i am going do i have the experience of noticing where i am.

[jas]

"Close your eyes and locate 'self'. When you have located it, point with your finger to it. Open your eyes; you are pointing to 'self'. LOOK at what finger is pointing to. What do you SEE?"
When I point to self and open my eyes I can see my finger. However. Just following the directions and not seeing self in front of me doesnt mean to me that there is no self. Just because I cant see something doesnt mean it doesnt exist. I cant see the air yet I believe its there.
When I look deeper and try to locate self behind the obvious beliefs I follow on from "just because I cant see it" into well ... what are those connections I make to think there is self. Behind the mind belief. Are my thoughts of a janet just a story. If its all a story and the simple explanation is that body/brain absorbs information from another source - in your example seeds - then what are the stories for and where did they come from. Where did the impetus to read the book about planting the seed come from. If we are just brain absorbing lessons such as how to drive a car what is making up stories about janet?
"When spring time comes there is lot of planting that is not automatic hand to mouth activity."
In this experience it is all automatic. There is no Planter who is in charge. No director who signals the feet to stand on the shovel, the hands to dig with the trowel. No one sending the diaphragm to lower and the ribs to expand filing the lungs with air; no one in charge of sending blood cells through the lungs to pick up oxygen and carry it out to the labouring muscles. All of this digging and breathing is going on automatically. All of it.
Yes I agree with an automaic nervous system breathing for us. What I meant was its not our unconscious bodily functions that choose to plant carrots instead of chard. Is it just a mechanical mind that thinks about what to plant?

[nonaparry]

"Close your eyes and locate 'self'. When you have located it, point with your finger to it. Open your eyes; you are pointing to 'self'. LOOK at what finger is pointing to. What do you SEE?"

When I point to self and open my eyes I can see my finger. However. Just following the directions and not seeing self in front of me doesnt mean to me that there is no self.

You didn't follow the directions. Not "look at finger", or "think about what you don't see in front of you".
LOOK at what finger is pointing to, and tell me what you SEE.

This is not a question about what you can't see or what meaning thoughts attach to that. It is an exercise in direct experience.
Nor is it some final direction which will suddenly result in seeing there is no self. This process is "stacked"; i check whether you are SEEing before i offer the next step.

what are the stories for and where did they come from.

Story of 'you' comes from your parents and family before you were 3 years old. They told 'you' that there was a 'you' responsible for and in control of some of your experiences. 'You' took that on board, and added to it. Now the story feels so Real you are having trouble seeing it is only a story.

What I meant was its not our unconscious bodily functions that choose to plant carrots instead of chard.

Decisions happen by themselves. Really!! There is a wonderful documentary from the BBC on free will. The subject in the MRI machine is instructed to CHOOSE either the left or right button on a handheld device when signaled by the scientist. The signal is given, the subject 'chooses' and presses a button. Later the scientist shows the brain scans which clearly indicate which decision was "going to be made" up to 6 seconds before the subject was even aware of making a decision.
Decisions make themselves, and mind attaches an "I did it" to it. No decider is necessary. You can notice this if you pay attention during your daily life. You have an experience; mind attaches an "I did it; I decided it" to the experience. It's a story.

All that is happening is happening without your management.
To see this, you may need to be open to the possibility that all you know is wrong. How does this sound to you?

[jas]

sounds good and will start again on the seeing. i appreciate the insight into there being no decision maker. every post you reply to you include so much, thanks!

[nonaparry]

will start again on the seeing

Good!!! Look with the eyes in your head and report what you actually SEE.

i appreciate the insight into there being no decision maker.

i was blown away by that doco!!

You are very welcome.

[jas]

this afternoon i went up to sit quietly in a ring of trees. On the way I stood in front of an acacia tree that is in full bloom. I stood in front of it and closed my eyes. WHen I opened them I realised I didnt see an acacia tree. I saw form, light, color and energy. The acacia tree is a thought.

[nonaparry]

The acacia tree is a thought.

And 'self'??
Is there a 'me', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form?

[jas]

Reading some other posts I am understanding that I have an intellectual understanding of there being no self but no experiencial feeling for it. Can you help me experience it as opposed to the intellectual?

[nonaparry]

Can you help me experience it as opposed to the intellectual?

i have been doing that all along.

Go back to the beginning of this conversation, and answer all the questions from your Direct Experience; no story, no Thinking about them. Just what is experienced directly.

Take the questions one at a time. Notice that i repeated asked for your experience. Now give it!

Eagerly awaiting your response,
nona

[nonaparry]

Hello dear one. How's it going?