The Gate

So no agent, no doer, no decider. Thought tries to claim—after the fact. But the “doing” is always already happening. Spontaneously. Unknowably.

Here are a couple of interesting videos on the subject:
https://vimeo.com/90101368?fbclid=IwAR3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCtvAvZtJyE
I posted the second link before but I don’t know if you watched it

I saw the vimeo video, so interesting! In direct experience it's so obvious that there's no decider! I used to burn up so much mental energy having doubt about what the right decision was or making sure that I made the right decision. Lmao what a waste of time. I didn't see all of the second youtube video, just skimmed it a little and thought it was pretty cool. From what I heard of the video, she was talking about how we have a lot more agency than we think when it comes to our emotions and I guess how we see the world? Which you would think would contradict what we're talking about bc it sounds like we're saying there's no control, or free will. But I don't think it contradicts at all. It's obvious that any decisions that come up, unfolding of actions, choices, etc. is completely just appearing out of nowhere and is done so spontaneously, and that doesn't negate that we can't choose things or work on things. If there's a problem with how we express our emotions, or that our emotions come from unhealthy behaviors, we can work to control how those emotions come out and affect others in our daily lives, and all that happens spontaneously without any agent or doer. The will and choice to do certain things over others just manifests out of all the causes and conditions appearing in this moment, but no causer or one setting up the conditions to be found anywhere in there. Even just typing all this out, it's so cool just seeing how the hands all of a sudden just start typing, or the words to say about this just appear. Before, I used to have this sort of conscious, not so conscious belief that if I just believed hard enough, or willed hard enough, negative emotions or other painful aspects of life could just go away or work themselves out. It's like I would try to squeeze everything away, just push it away as hard as I could, but that was just sensations that I attributed to being the one who was pushing things away lmao. Kinda hilarious that I ever believed in any of that.

Why does the wind blow? It just blows. Yes we can say it happens as a result of previous events but there’s no entity “wind” that does the blowing. There is no wind that decides to blow. It’s just language.

Yes, exactly. Another way of saying it (I heard it before somewhere) is that there is no wind apart from the blowing. The wind is the blowing and the blowing is the wind. The sensation of the blowing is what our mind calls then "the wind" that is somehow doing the blowing.

What is “moving of the hands” in DE? We’ve seen that it’s just a sensation, labelled “hands moving” + colour/shape labelled “hands moving”. So, what makes the sensations to appear? What makes seeing to appear? LOOK! Is there anything that causes anything to appear? Do cause and effect exist outside of thought content? To have causes and effects, first you need time and second you need inherently existing causes/things/objects/subjects. Do these exist without the labels? Thought comes to describe that things are happening and why they are happening, but in DE all is just happening. Is the description/explanation/label needed for things to happen?

Things appear completely out of nowhere. We could talk about this dependent arising, this interconnectedness that manifests this moment, but in direct experience it's just boom.. this appearance, then the next, then the next. Nothing linking one appearance to another, just unfolds the way it unfolds without any cause or effect. Even thoughts themselves just appear one after the other, there's no like spread in between thoughts. It's not like a venn diagram where there's this in between space that is intertwined, thought is just like one complete circle after another, nothing linking one to the next.

Look even deeper… Do you see a border between sensations and colours, and/or sounds...? Close your eyes, listen to a sound. Now open your eyes. Does the sound appear in a different “place” to colours? Can you find an actual line/wall/boundary that divides the colour and the sound? Or is the line a mental construct?

No border or boundary at all. The sound kind of happens where it happens? It's so weird it's like it's somewhere but not somewhere specific. And it's not like the sound or the sensations or the visual field is "happening in one place", they all just arise together where they do without any border or boundary that can be found between the thoughts or the visual field or the sounds. Very strange and beautiful, how everything is neither locatable nor non-locatable.

Where could a controller be hiding? What could possibly benefit out of this?
Can you find even the slightest gap between what appears… and who it's appearing to?

Can't find a gap, any gap that I saw before was completely made out of thought. I can see very clearly what caused it. the mind somehow can create like a mental box out of certain sensations and make a shape out of them. I would then call that my eyes, and combined with mental images of like a face, of eyes, of a head, tension in the head, etc. it could create the appearance of a self. Not saying that there aren't any mental images or tensions anymore, but they're just that: sensations, thoughts. Empty of a self. No self that was ever in those thoughts or sensations, or seeing them from a distance, etc. So those sensations that I thought were a self are just another part of this whole experiencing.

What's here now?

Just the immediacy of this present experience, like you said. No self in any of the components of it other than thoughts suggesting something, but those thoughts appear spontaneously, without a self or something witnessing them apart from the thought experience itself. All the components of this experience come forth spontaneously, without anything linking the components together. Like there's sights, sounds, sensations, thoughts, etc. but these components all appear out of nowhere, freely, "independently" you could say but there's no boundaries or separation so all these components arise together seamlessly.

What is "free", what is "painful" in DE?

Just sensations that thoughts then overlay some kind of conceptual box to. Too raw to really describe. I can see the error now that I allowed myself to pay a little too much attention to the boxes the mind would try to give these sensations.

Hi Pablo

I didn't see all of the second youtube video, just skimmed it a little and thought it was pretty cool. From what I heard of the video, she was talking about how we have a lot more agency than we think when it comes to our emotions and I guess how we see the world? Which you would think would contradict what we're talking about bc it sounds like we're saying there's no control, or free will. But I don't think it contradicts at all. It's obvious that any decisions that come up, unfolding of actions, choices, etc. is completely just appearing out of nowhere and is done so spontaneously, and that doesn't negate that we can't choose things or work on things. If there's a problem with how we express our emotions, or that our emotions come from unhealthy behaviors, we can work to control how those emotions come out and affect others in our daily lives, and all that happens spontaneously without any agent or doer...

Well the video was not intended for the purposes of the realisation of no self. What I wanted to point out was about the prediction error that she talks about. You can easily replace “brain” with thoughts/thinking. That “agency” is basically this self-correction that is happening at the moment (in terms of self-organisation, not related to “self”) – the noticing of the prediction error of DE vs story :)

Things appear completely out of nowhere. We could talk about this dependent arising, this interconnectedness that manifests this moment, but in direct experience it's just boom.. this appearance, then the next, then the next. Nothing linking one appearance to another, just unfolds the way it unfolds without any cause or effect.

Yes! But even dependent origination/arising happens in terms of emptiness. Here is a good short video that explains this well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYqaWmc ... &index=41
I like the analogy with the icons on your computer desktop, when talking about things/causes/effects. Icons are used as a visual representation of what is actually a binary code – zeros and ones - so you can make use of them. But is the icon of an email really a box with mail in it? And in our case, is there a user of the system?
So in a way thinking is a meaning giving machine. Thinking doesn’t reveal reality—it weaves stories about it. It doesn’t show what’s here, it tells you what it means. It is self-organised, so there’s no need of a self. Never was. Things don’t need to be made to happen—they just happen.
No “you” to direct thought. No thinker before the thought. No watcher before the seeing.
No knower before the knowing.
Just this flow, appearing for no one.
And you don’t need to stay here.
Because there is no “here” to stay in—and no one to leave.

Self organised implies that what seems to be “Pablo’s world”, the totality of Pablo’s experience of all that is happening, is a creation of language, and words are the building blocks that create the story about it. The world is built of “apples” and “cups of coffee” :). The world is like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, or a shadow, imposed over DE - layers of pre-chewed, second-hand knowledge. This is where the distortion begins - biased and clouded by what you’ve been taught to think (social and cultural conditioning). All this knowledge that claims to “know” what’s happening is just pre-packaged bullshit, your BS packpack. Your senses are pure, but the mind’s interpretation? It’s a recycled narrative.
Language is basically the relationship between concepts – how they are organised. That carries meaning on top of the meaning of the actual concepts. That is why different concepts mean different things to different people and in different situations. One very good example of how words and language are just pointers to but not the actual DE, and how meaning is formed, is AI. GPT (Generative pre-trained transformers) are large language models that are based on the semantic relationships between words in sentences (natural language processing). GPT models are trained on a large amount of text. The training consists in predicting the next token (a token being usually a word, sub-word, or punctuation). Throughout this training, GPT models accumulate knowledge about the world, and can then generate “human-like” text by repeatedly predicting the next token. But does AI have any direct experience of what it’s talking about?
So here's the key:
Can you find a cause right now? Or only the story of one?
Can any experience in this moment be linked to a previous one without thought?
So if what’s showing up now is “the next appearance”… then where is the one to whom it is appearing? How is it known that is “next”?
Where is the “before” or “after” in this raw flow?
Ready to destroy the timeline?
Let’s go further:
There is a general assumption that there is linear time that started (if started at all) somewhere very far in the past and advances to the distant future. The present moment (now) is considered to be a very small fragment of time, or an event that is moving forward on a linear line, coming from the past and advancing to the future.

But is there an experience of the ’now’ moving along the line of time?
Any experience of one ‘moment’ giving way to the next?
Is there any actual or direct experience of one event following another?
How fast is the ‘present moment’ actually moving?
Just look at 'this moment', can you find a point where it began?
How long does the ‘now’ last?
Where does the ‘now’ start, and where does it end?
When does the ‘now’ exactly become the 'past'?
What is the ‘past’ in actual experience?
So is there actual experience of ‘time’ or thoughts about ‘time’?
What are you without that storyline?
Stay in that. Report directly.

The sound kind of happens where it happens? It's so weird it's like it's somewhere but not somewhere specific. And it's not like the sound or the sensations or the visual field is "happening in one place", they all just arise together where they do without any border or boundary that can be found between the thoughts or the visual field or the sounds. Very strange and beautiful, how everything is neither locatable nor non-locatable.

So are there separate/discrete sensations, colours, tastes, smells, sounds and thoughts, without the labels (even if they are DE labels)? OR just inseparable, indescribable this? LOOK!
Love
Rali

Hey Rali, just wanted to let you know I'm not ignoring your questions lol but I feel like I need to look into things a little deeper before I respond. I'll get back to your questions within a day.

Hey Pablo
Sure! Thanks for letting me know :)
Love
Rali

Well the video was not intended for the purposes of the realisation of no self. What I wanted to point out was about the prediction error that she talks about. You can easily replace “brain” with thoughts/thinking. That “agency” is basically this self-correction that is happening at the moment (in terms of self-organisation, not related to “self”) – the noticing of the prediction error of DE vs story :)

Ohhh I see!

Yes! But even dependent origination/arising happens in terms of emptiness.

I get what you're saying, but there's definitely a lot more work that needs to be done before I can say I have a real understanding of emptiness, at least seeing clearly the emptiness of the world. The emptiness of the self is definitely very clear now, that this conventional term of self, which is comprised of different sensory experiences, physical formations, mental formations, is completely void of any inherent, existing self that is either apart from or in phenomena. The questions you stated below are making it much more clear. I'd love to get more into dependent origination/emptiness if possible.

But is the icon of an email really a box with mail in it? And in our case, is there a user of the system?

Yeah I like this analogy. If you were to zoom into the picture of the email icon, it would just be a bunch of pixels that has no linkage to the email icon. Only through the mind's ability to "solidify" phenomena into discrete symbolic categories can there be that email icon. And just like the computer doesn't need a user or self in the system to function, neither do we. All these algorithms and pre-programmed processes coming together to form one action, like how clicking a button on the screen opens up the browser. There didn't need to be an opener for the browser to pop up. Don't know if I'm just saying bullshit or it makes sense lol.

Can you find a cause right now? Or only the story of one?
Can any experience in this moment be linked to a previous one without thought?
So if what’s showing up now is “the next appearance”… then where is the one to whom it is appearing? How is it known that is “next”?
Where is the “before” or “after” in this raw flow?

Can only find the story of a cause. When the hand moves to the nose, there could be a thought that says "my hand is moving towards my nose because it's itchy and I want to scratch it", but in direct experience it just moves how it moves and stops moving when it does. Absolutely no way can a moment be linked to a previous one without thought. Like what I was saying before about there is just one appearance after another, only by thought could one appearance or phenomena be linked to another. It's like there would be like a tracer that would try to connect different moments together through thought, like trying to stretch a mental imprint to the next moment so that somehow they could appear connected. Like for example as I type this, there was a mental imprint that appeared of typing everything that I said before this sentence that would then try to tie itself into this moment so that it would appear there's something moving from moment to moment or some kind of continuity but that's clearly not the case. I can't find any before or after in this raw flow at all.

But is there an experience of the ’now’ moving along the line of time?
Any experience of one ‘moment’ giving way to the next?
Is there any actual or direct experience of one event following another?
How fast is the ‘present moment’ actually moving?
Just look at 'this moment', can you find a point where it began?
How long does the ‘now’ last?
Where does the ‘now’ start, and where does it end?
When does the ‘now’ exactly become the 'past'?
What is the ‘past’ in actual experience?
So is there actual experience of ‘time’ or thoughts about ‘time’?
What are you without that storyline?

When I try to look for a point where this moment began or ended, it is absolutely impossible to find one, because there isn't one outside of what thought suggests. The mind tries to take snapshots of experience and then stream them together to suggest a continuity but that is ridiculously impossible. Without thought, there is no way to say this computer is the same or different as the one that thought implies from a split second ago. It was easy to see that the past only "exists" in thought, and same for the future, but when even the present moment does not exist, it feels so disorienting but in the most amazing way. It's very easy to notice how the mind creates these mental imprints to stitch one moment past another once that reference point is lost bc once the reference point is only a thought then it's easy to see how the mind clearly cannot stitch anything together in any real way. Past and future is completely made out of thought, this present moment is completely constructed, so time as anything real or inherently existing collapses. Without that linear storyline structured in time, there's just this raw "flow" of phenomena with no coordinator or continuity. I see now my error when I would say before that experience felt like just a constant appearing and then disappearing over and over again because there would need to be something that could flow from moment to moment to compare this appearing and disappearing. I'm losing the ability to describe lol.

So are there separate/discrete sensations, colours, tastes, smells, sounds and thoughts, without the labels (even if they are DE labels)? OR just inseparable, indescribable this?

It's interesting, when that storyline of time is not there, it's very clear to see how phenomena really can't be separated. Like let's say I'm looking at this computer and then a car passes by outside my apartment, it would seem like the sound could appear and disappear bc the attention would move to the sound and my mind could somehow chop up the sound from where it started and where it ended, but now without grabbing onto that, I just can't find a beginning or end to the visual phenomena of the computer or the sound phenomena of the car. I already had seen through distance before, so it's not like the car sound or the computer could exist in separate locations, but now that attention can't be chopped into discrete moments of time, the inseparability is a lot more clear on a whole different level. I'm a little worried that I might not be making sense or just saying shit so hopefully all these answers make sense lol.

Hi Pablo

I'm a little worried that I might not be making sense or just saying shit so hopefully all these answers make sense lol.

It absolutely makes sense. This is the very marrow of the seeing.
Let’s stay close and cut even deeper…

I can see clearly the emptiness of self, but I want to understand the emptiness of the world.

Emptiness is already in your experience – you are just trying to understand it (theoretically) not see it.
Look right now… You say:

When the hand moves to the nose, there could be a thought that says “my hand is moving towards my nose because it’s itchy and I want to scratch it”, but in direct experience it just moves how it moves and stops moving when it does.

But is there even a hand in DE or just seeing and feeling (without the story and labels)? Seeing is like a picture that everything is drawn in pencil on paper – the illusion of separation is created by different colours used – otherwise it’s all paper.

Different colours in seeing create the illusion of things but all that is there is seeing. Different levels of sounds create the illusion of a song but all that is there is hearing. Can you see that?
Is there any actual dividing between any of these colours, or is there just seamless colour which thought divides/categorizes into different objects, with different labels and seeming space between them; and then further divides them into different colours?

You say “this world”…Where is it? Where are the “physical formations”?
Is there a “thing” called world… or only seeing, raw, flickering, indescribable?
Does this keyboard have inherent existence—outside the seeing? If you say “yes”, how do you know this? Or you presume? Do you experience seeing AND seen? Or inseparable seeingseen?
Does sound exist anywhere else than as hearing? And LOOK, are there separate senses or Inseparable seeing_hearing_feeling_smellng_tasting_thinking? Just experiencing? Just this?
Can you find anything—anywhere—that stands on its own, apart from the conditions, labels, colour, sensations, and thoughts that give it shape?
Isn’t “car,” “computer,” “room,” just like that email icon—pixels?
Where exactly is the car without the concept “car”? And that is what emptiness is – the icons in the soup of 0’s and 1’s
Try this:
Let go of the labels, even DE labels like “sound,” “colour,” “thought.”
Let them fall away…
Now—what’s left?
Can you describe it without carving it?
This just this—not even “flow” (too conceptual already).
Not a moment passing, not a now stretching. No before, no after.
Just boom… boom… boom.
Not even boom—that too is too late.
You said it perfectly:

Without that linear storyline structured in time, there's just this raw ‘flow’ of phenomena with no coordinator or continuity.

But is it even a flow? Look again.
Where is the motion?
Isn’t it only in comparison (in memories/thoughts)—this to that?
If you don’t measure—can anything be said to move?
Can anything even “appear” or “disappear”?
Where would it go?
So now look freshly:
Without story, without reference point, without time...What exactly is this?
Don’t answer. Stay. Don’t try to describe it. Let it take you.
Let me know what’s left when there’s no you to know it.

One more thing…

The mind tries to take snapshots of experience and then stream them together to suggest a continuity but that is ridiculously impossible.

It seems like there is a subtle belief in the agency of “mind”. Where is this mind that does things – the villain? The one that messes up with “reality”?

Is there really a mind OR is it just a sequencing of thoughts that creates the illusion of a separate I/ego/mind, like the frames of a movie, where rapid series of still images create the illusion of movement/continuation/a story of a person? When frame rate slows down all the illusion of movement is lost.
Love
Rali

Emptiness is already in your experience – you are just trying to understand it (theoretically) not see it.

Guilty! Lol

Different colours in seeing create the illusion of things but all that is there is seeing. Different levels of sounds create the illusion of a song but all that is there is hearing. Can you see that?
Is there any actual dividing between any of these colours, or is there just seamless colour which thought divides/categorizes into different objects, with different labels and seeming space between them; and then further divides them into different colours?

Yes, it is definitely becoming clear that in seeing there really is just the seen. Just the whole visual display that requires thoughts in order for it to be differentiated. The simplicity of the experience is kind of astonishing but also very like ordinary or mundane (even though that's definitely not the right word)? It's just so simple that the mind can't do anything with it, which I think is why it was overlooked for so long.

You say “this world”…Where is it? Where are the “physical formations”?
Is there a “thing” called world… or only seeing, raw, flickering, indescribable?
Does this keyboard have inherent existence—outside the seeing? If you say “yes”, how do you know this? Or you presume? Do you experience seeing AND seen? Or inseparable seeingseen?
Does sound exist anywhere else than as hearing? And LOOK, are there separate senses or Inseparable seeing_hearing_feeling_smellng_tasting_thinking? Just experiencing? Just this?
Can you find anything—anywhere—that stands on its own, apart from the conditions, labels, colour, sensations, and thoughts that give it shape?
Isn’t “car,” “computer,” “room,” just like that email icon—pixels?
Where exactly is the car without the concept “car”?

Yes, you're very right. There is no thing called world, just the raw sensory data that cannot be boxed in or have a location or differentiable quality to it without a thought claiming it to be this or that. This is where I could be tripping up, but to say it is non-differentiable also feels like a thought. It's just kind of what it is, although I'm sure there's more developing beyond this. This keyboard absolutely doesn't have a separate existence outside the activity of seeing it, and the activity of seeing it doesn't have an inherent existence outside the keyboard. There is no seeing and seen, I can't even say I'm experiencing seeing, seeing is the seen and the seen is the seeing. And no, there's not a separate hearing ability or like a separate seeing ability, I can't even locate a sensing of different sense gates, there's just the sound appearance or the visual appearance all arising together with no boundaries between the different types of senses. Exactly, to say where a car is, you would have to be able to stand apart and place a nonchanging reference point that could view the car from somewhere, which is not what's happening at all.

Now—what’s left?
Can you describe it without carving it?

Pure raw simplicity is the best way I can explain it. No seeing/hearing/thinking/tasting/sensing, no seen/heard/thought/tasted/sensed, no location, no boundaries, no ability to differentiate this or to unify and say it is all one thing. No time, nothing moving from one point to the next.

But is it even a flow? Look again.
Where is the motion?
Isn’t it only in comparison (in memories/thoughts)—this to that?
If you don’t measure—can anything be said to move?
Can anything even “appear” or “disappear”?
Where would it go?

You're right, for there to be a flow I would have to establish one thing moving to another thing, or establish change. And the change is only established through memories of previous moments, and those memories are only thoughts. For example, when a car moves by and makes a sound, and it sounds like it's getting closer and louder and then it gets quiter and then is completely gone, that whole experience can only be attributed to that one sound by a thought referencing another thought referencing another thought. It's very weird to describe what that sound is when that's all gone. It's like there's nothing that can be said about that entire sound experience that was arising or passing. Nowhere in there could you say there was something there or not there. Don't take my feelings too literally here, but the question "Where would it go?" is almost eerie to dive into bc I'm seeing it already has an issue. Bc I can't even say the sound arrived for it go somewhere else.

What exactly is this?
Don’t answer. Stay. Don’t try to describe it. Let it take you.
Let me know what’s left when there’s no you to know it.

Yes I'll have to sit with this for a while before I can answer it bc right now I truly mean that I have nothing I can say about it.

It seems like there is a subtle belief in the agency of “mind”. Where is this mind that does things – the villain? The one that messes up with “reality”?

Is there really a mind OR is it just a sequencing of thoughts that creates the illusion of a separate I/ego/mind, like the frames of a movie, where rapid series of still images create the illusion of movement/continuation/a story of a person?

Yes, you're right, the mind is really only this thought happening right here right now. No entity to be found that can be called a mind, not even thinking.

Hi Pablo

Pure raw simplicity is the best way I can explain it. No seeing/hearing/thinking/tasting/sensing, no seen/heard/thought/tasted/sensed, no location, no boundaries, no ability to differentiate this or to unify and say it is all one thing. No time, nothing moving from one point to the next.

YES! Whatever you say it’s not going to be "it". The second you try to describe it, it is lost. If you can talk about it, it is not that :)

You’ve touched something that can’t be described—not because it’s vast or mysterious, but because description is too late. It's already pretending. Too slow. Too symbolic. Thought arrives after the firework.
And what’s here needs no description. No observer. No label. No continuity. No story.
You nailed it with:

No time, nothing moving from one point to the next.

And then even that dropped.
And yes—“Where would it go?” hits like a brick to the gut when it lands. Where could anything go when there is nowhere for it to arrive from?
Nothing even "appears" unless a thought says “that just appeared.” No arrival. No departure.
Just this. Not even this. Just...
So now let’s push past the last trick…

The mind is really only this thought happening right here right now.

Yes. But pause.
That sentence... did it happen to someone?
Was there an observer of it?
Or was it just this flickering thought—“the mind is just this thought”—and then gone?
And if it was just that flicker… what’s left behind?
Check.
Was there a thinker? Or just a flicker?
Was there awareness? Or just this flash?
Was there ever anything holding this whole show together?
What you’re tasting now isn’t a state. It isn’t clarity. It isn’t “awakening.” It’s what always was. What never changed. What never arrived.

So now: let go of even “this.” Let go of the idea that this is special.
If nothing can be held onto… what’s the problem?
Let me know what falls away when even the falling away is seen to be nothing.

Love
Rali

Where could anything go when there is nowhere for it to arrive from?

No clue at all!!! I did not realize how subtly the small remaining belief in a timeline was kind of holding the entire world together. Without that belief, everything feels almost wispy and “there but not there but not not-there” lol. It’s like I can’t find a beginning or an end to this appearance or the lack of an appearance, very strange. Exactly like you said, even saying the appearance of something feels like I’m putting it in a timeline.

That sentence... did it happen to someone?
Was there an observer of it?
Or was it just this flickering thought—“the mind is just this thought”—and then gone?
And if it was just that flicker… what’s left behind?
Check.
Was there a thinker? Or just a flicker?
Was there awareness? Or just this flash?
Was there ever anything holding this whole show together[/quote

No, no observer of that thought. Just that thought knowing thought. I can’t even talk about a flicker anymore bc that feels like again, going back to what I said before, putting it on a timeline. Like the thought appears, then disappears due to its impermanent nature. But even the impermanence is just another view that is only experienced on a timeline. So, that thought never came, never went. No thinker, no awareness, not even a flicker of that thought. Nothing to hold that show together without time.

What you’re tasting now isn’t a state. It isn’t clarity. It isn’t “awakening.” It’s what always was. What never changed. What never arrived.

So beautiful, I love what you say here. Yeah exactly, this is not a state at all. It always confused me when I heard pointings to look for what’s always here, what’s always the case. It felt like I was trying to find some permanence, but what is always the case is beyond permanence or impermanence, beyond coming or going, arriving or departing. I’m sure there’s still more refinements to come, but the empty nature of things is becoming more clear.

So now: let go of even “this.” Let go of the idea that this is special.
If nothing can be held onto… what’s the problem?
Let me know what falls away when even the falling away is seen to be nothing

.
I’ll have to keep looking into this some more. No, no problems can be found when everything is openly accepted, never held onto.

Hi Pablo
Beautiful!!!
Yes, this.
The whole illusion rides on the belief in sequence. You’ve seen it: the framework of time, continuity, unfolding… gone. Not destroyed. Just never there to begin with.
Even the word “impermanence” is too thick. Too slow. Too much time. There’s no movement. No flicker.
Not because things are frozen… but because the very notion of “frames” is just one more afterthought.

I’ll have to keep looking into this some more. No, no problems can be found when everything is openly accepted, never held onto.

True! There is so much to explore, and life will bring all that wants to be seen into the present moment. So whatever shows up is here to be looked at. Say yes to it all. See everything as an opportunity to deepen. Question everything, and little by little you will notice changes in everyday life: less judgment, more openness; less thinking, more appreciation; less story, more being; less structure, more flow. You will notice that some habitual thoughts no longer arise. The story changes in a way that allows more space for simply being. Seeing probably won't be 24/7. There's likely to be a "honeymoon period," and then what we call, "got it, lost it," as untrue beliefs come up to be questioned. This can go on for months & years. This initial shift is irreversible, just as we can never go back to believing in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.

So what’s left?
Not nothing. Not something. Just not-two. No space. No self. No world. No beyond.
Just this…
Now tell me—how does it feel to see this with no doubt? Be ruthlessly honest. What’s different right now?

So let's review where we are at with the following questions.
How is life these days?
What has changed and what hasn’t in normal everyday living?
What is the biggest difference from before starting this conversation?
Is seeking still going on?
Is there any confusion at all or anything you would like to address?
Can you say with a big fat YES, it is clear what the illusion of a separate self is?

Love
Rali

Hi Rali!

I just want to say thank you so much for all the guidance, all the amazing questions and ruthless probing. The gift you’ve given me is beyond anything I could’ve ever imagined. Even though what I’m talking about is the true nature of experience, so it can’t be gifted, I feel so much gratitude towards you that I can’t even describe. Thank you thank you thank you.

So what’s left?
Not nothing. Not something. Just not-two. No space. No self. No world. No beyond.
Just this…

Yes, exactly. It’s crazy how much time I spent imagining what Anatta meant. What a waste of time lmao! The mind could never be able to grasp what I was searching for, and of course what I was searching for never had to be searched lol. The implications of these realizations are beyond what I could ever have imagined. The “no world” part especially. All I can say is be careful what you wish for lol! I remember seeing a video from Angelo Dilullo a while ago saying how “this cannot be wanted by the mind”. And now I truly understand what he was saying. Even with all that being said, I wouldn’t trade this for anything.

Now tell me—how does it feel to see this with no doubt? Be ruthlessly honest. What’s different right now?

It is equal parts amazing, terrifying, and completely mundane. When I say terrifying, take it loosely. I’m not saying I feel fear 24/7, but when I realized what you were point to in our whole inquiry into time, coming and going, impermanence and so on, it really hit me like a million bricks, but at the same time, it was the most beautiful and freeing thing. It feels like a million pounds of weight came off my shoulders. This initial taste of the empty nature of the world (along with Anatta) felt very disorienting, but in an amazing way if that makes sense lol. At the same time it’s completely mundane. This has always been the case, never was there a self, it was always Anatta. Phenomena has always been empty. The body keeps on doing what it does, life goes on in EXACTLY the same way it has always gone, because this always the case. I can’t stress that point enough. I feel like this is why this was overlooked for so long, bc I was expecting and seeking something other than what it was. Absolutely nothing has changed, but everything has changed I guess.

So let's review where we are at with the following questions.
How is life these days?
What has changed and what hasn’t in normal everyday living?
What is the biggest difference from before starting this conversation?
Is seeking still going on?
Is there any confusion at all or anything you would like to address?
Can you say with a big fat YES, it is clear what the illusion of a separate self is?

Life rolls on the same way it always has, but I do feel a lot more energy now. Not sure if this is a permanent thing associated with the shift, but wow I feel so much more alive and just engaged in the world. As much as we’ve been talking about no-self and so on, I feel more happy and engaged with all my daily activities and myself than ever before lol. Not trying to say that things are just perfect, that there aren’t painful experiences and so on, but yeah things just feel a lot lighter. The biggest difference is that no longer am I chasing beliefs about what I thought all these things would be like. I spent a lot of time bullshitting and imagining things instead of directly investigating them, and that’s all gone. I would say seeking is gone, but there is still a resistance and a restlessness towards certain experiences that needs to be explored. I still have certain negative habits like distracting myself with my phone, and just distracting myself in general. This resistance definitely needs to be investigated. I would love if we could investigate this and if you could point me towards more resources to further clarify this initial taste of emptiness. Yes, I can say with a big fat yes that the self is an illusion, it never was, and it’s clear how the whole illusion could be believed in the first place. Let me know if you’d like me to explain things more or if something was unclear. Thank you so so so much!!

Hi Pablo
I'm really happy to read your reply!

I still have certain negative habits like distracting myself with my phone, and just distracting myself in general. This resistance definitely needs to be investigated. I would love if we could investigate this and if you could point me towards more resources to further clarify this initial taste of emptiness.

Of course, we can continue working together and I will definitely point you to more recourses. It’s an ever ending falling away of beliefs… But resistance is just that - sensation + thought how something should be different. Staying with the raw sensations, accepting them as they are, seeing thorough the story, is all that it takes.
We have some checkpoint questions. Would you like to answer these?
Love
Rali

We have some checkpoint questions. Would you like to answer these?

Sure! I’d love to.

Hi Pablo
Here are the questions. Please answer all questions in full, when you are ready. Please answer what's true for you rather than any sort of 'ideal' answer
1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience. Describe it fully as you see it now.

3) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

5) Describe decision & give examples from experience.

Describe intention & give examples from experience.

Describe free will & give examples from experience.

Describe choice & give examples from experience.

Describe control & give examples from experience.

What makes things happen? How does it work?

What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.

6) Anything to add?

Love
Rali

1) Is there a separate entity 'self', 'me' 'I', at all, anywhere, in any way, shape or form? Was there ever?

No, there's no separate entity anywhere other than it being suggested in thought, which holds no reality in direct experience. It is also very clear there never was, because the only times I would ever "experience" a self was only in thought, and was only ever a thought. It is even more clear how impossible it is because when a thought appears suggesting a self, it is clearly seen that there is no one behind that thought. No thinker, only thought.

2) Explain in detail what the illusion of separate self is, when it starts and how it works from your own experience. Describe it fully as you see it now.

The illusion of the self is a misperception that can only arise through believing in particular thoughts. It is pretty clear to see through the very gross, obvious thoughts that talk about an "I" and see how that's conceptual, but there is a non-conceptual layer of thoughts that was more tricky for me to see through. It came down to a few different things that made it seem like there was a self in experience: There would be a combination of sensations in the face area + mental images that would be resisted, and when they were resisted, it would make that combination of phenomena seem solid and reinforce the idea of a self. If you believe there is an inside, then an outside immediately arises with that. With that belief in an inside, there was kind of like a filter that would be created that could somehow make it seem like there were "me" things (that being like facial sensations, images of a face, etc.) and "not-me" things. The next step is believing that there was some kind of continuity, something moving from experience to experience and collecting experiences. Once all those previous illusions were solidified, there was a referencing of previous thoughts, trying to see if there was a self or no-self. I thought I was investigating this experientially, but I was really referencing other thoughts of previous experiences to confirm this. This would then create the illusion of an experiencer, a knower, or a confirmer that would move through time since there was always this referencing going on. This would create the illusion of a center to experience.

3) How does it feel to see this? What is the difference from before you started this dialogue? Please report from the past few days.

It feels so funny to see this, because it's so clear how obvious and simple the "answer" was, and how much I was deluding myself and complicating my experience with creating a knower, or experiencer. The difference now is that what were once very subtle, non-conceptual thoughts that continued the illusion, they stand out so obviously and are known to not have any reality in experience. It was hard and scary to let go (not that I did the letting go) of that knower and experiencer that could compare things to know if it had arrived, but that was the key. It was seeing that the experiencer was a thought that had no continuity (no thought moving to the next thought and so on). There's a great relaxation when this happens.

4) What was the last bit that pushed you over, made you look?

What definitely started the initial shift was your questions around really looking into the experience of the facial sensations, the belief in a center, etc. Once I saw how that whole experience was being constructed, it definitely cracked things wide open, but what still needed to be investigated was that illusion of continuity, a referencing happening in time. Your questions around impermanence, looking into my statements about how I could see everything arising and falling made me see how there had to be some kind of referencing to able to track that constant change. Once I saw that that referencing could only happen in thought, that pushed me over the edge and completely destroyed any notion of a timeline, a world, any kind of self-essence that could move through time and space.

5) Describe decision & give examples from experience.

Describe intention & give examples from experience.

Describe free will & give examples from experience.

Describe choice & give examples from experience.

Describe control & give examples from experience.

With all these questions on decision, intention, free will etc., in my experience it's not that there's no intention or choices. The choices just simply make themselves and arise from all the other cause and conditions appearing in this moment. No self in any of that. With free will, it's complicated bc I don't know if I can say there's no free will, but it's clear that there's no agent. There's no separate entity free and apart from the stream of conditions. There might be intentions and decisions to move in a certain direction, but these intentions and decisions arise completely spontaneously, with no doer at all. Same with control. For example, there might be a decision to move the body from one place to another, and so there's bodily autonomy, but that completely arises seamlessly and spontaneously with the environment, with no one moving the limbs or doing the walking. When I start walking, in observing the whole movement of walking, there's nothing deciding when to start or stop walking. Only a thought that tries to assert some kind of ownership, but no walker or mover.

What makes things happen? How does it work?

There's no thing causing another thing. Only through thought can there be some kind of connection between one thing and another, or that something in an earlier time gave rise to something else in a previous time, with something connecting these "events". In direct experience, there's no events. No coming or going. Appearing or disappearing. Nothing moving across time, or even there being a possibility of establishing a timeline. Of course, that doesn't negate conventional logic, things, space, time, etc. These are useful, practical things that shouldn't be negated, or you'd be fixating if you did. You can't rest in cause or causelessness.

What are you responsible for? Give examples from experience.

There's not one who holds all these responsibilities, but that doesn't negate responsibility. All the regular aspects of life are not negated at all, they're just not held onto. There's still things that need to be taken care of, you just won't find the one doing all these things. There's still chores, having to plan things, bills to be paid, etc. which are now embraced and can be engaged in on an even higher level than before bc now I'm not creating a separate Pablo that has to figure this all out, decide between this and that, have to be the one that gets it all right, has to be on point always. The freedom that comes when these weights are taken off is indescribable.

6) Anything to add?

I feel like I could go on this forever lol, but I just want to say some of the issues I had: Some of the pitfalls were trying to imagine how things should be other than investigating how they really are. I did have subtle beliefs about how Anatta should be, how my experience should be, etc. that I was just not investigating for a long time. That allowed the illusion of self to stay intact for a long time, even if it was very subtle compared to how it used to be. I believed too much in how other people described the experience, and allowed other people's lived experience become conceptual and create a whole mental framework off of it. Everything has to be investigated, even in the end the belief in an insight being gained, having known or figured something out, must all be let go of.