Everything is Grist for the Mill

[DeannaMP]

How does it feel to don't find a controller?
What happens to you when you see that fact?

I know intellectually that neuroscience has shown that parts of the brain fire up a few seconds before we become aware of a decision being made. Seems like we have a system or algorithm operating below awareness. I don’t have access to that system to see it working. Still doesn’t answer any of the above questions because it’s not directly experienced. It might be that every moment from the Big Bang up until the hand flipping led to the hand flipping, totally deterministic (not fate). Or not.

How does it feel to see that?

how does it feel to see that all you have is direct experience?

How does it feel to see that every moment has its roots in the Big Bang?

Tightening and tension in the eyes, throat, upper chest. Label of sadness. I have lots of stories about why there is sadness but I am keeping awareness on the feeling and body sensations.

Honestly, the big questions about free will vs determinism are interesting but because it seems I am unable to access the mental processes underlying everything it remains in the realm of speculation for me and feels like “spinning my wheels”.

But feeling the sadness has me realizing that I am still not accepting my direct experience. I’m still not accepting the resistance to not accepting. And, I’m being hard on myself for not getting it. I’m caught in a non-acceptance/resistance loop! lol, I find that funny because THATS NOT REAL! OMG, there’s no control of the not-real content of thoughts.

Eyes,throat, and chest relaxes and opens

[Windaway]

Hello Deanna,

Please, answer all questions individually and use the quote button. It really helps clarity.
Thanks

Tightening and tension in the eyes, throat, upper chest. Label of sadness. I have lots of stories about why there is sadness but I am keeping awareness on the feeling and body sensations.

Great

Honestly, the big questions about free will vs determinism are interesting but because it seems I am unable to access the mental processes underlying everything it remains in the realm of speculation for me and feels like “spinning my wheels”.

There is no mental process behind everything. All there is is your current direct experience.

The actual thought and sensation perception coming up in the moment.

But feeling the sadness has me realizing that I am still not accepting my direct experience. I’m still not accepting the resistance to not accepting. And, I’m being hard on myself for not getting it. I’m caught in a non-acceptance/resistance loop! lol, I find that funny because THATS NOT REAL! OMG, there’s no control of the not-real content of thoughts.

Acceptance is a story. What is here is inevitable.

There is no need to accept your direct experience. You have to see WHAT IS your direct experience clearly.

Resistance arises in two way:
A sensation of resistance.
A thought about resistance.

A sensation of acceptance.
A thought about acceptance.

But both sensation and thinking arise in your experience. Can you resist a sensation? Can you resist a thought?
Obviously not when you experience them is already to late to do anything about them.

Forget this acceptance fantasy. Focus on what is your direct experience as:
* Seeing
* Hearing
* Smelling
* Tasting
* Sensation
(sensation of inside: proprioception(location), kinesthetic(mouvement), interoception(organes))
(sensation of outside : exteroception(texture,extension, temperature, pressure and pain)what we also call touching object and people)
* Thinking

What IS REAL is the current experience that the words: Sadness, resistance, and acceptance, point to or try to label.
Forget about stories.

Try this:
Direct Experience

Sit quietly and relax, take your time just looking at what is in front of you for awhile.
Observe how the mind is dividing and labelling every thing into objects and is embellishing them with stories about what they are.

Give it some time

Then, stop watching the objects as labelled objects. Just look at the seeing itself. Observe the pure process of seeing. This is direct experience (DE).

[DeannaMP]

But both sensation and thinking arise in your experience. Can you resist a sensation? Can you resist a thought?
Obviously not when you experience them is already too late to do anything about them

.
This makes complete sense to me. What’s to resist or accept? The sensation and thought are gone already. Plus, who is resisting and accepting? There’s nobody.

Direct Experience

Sit quietly and relax, take your time just looking at what is in front of you for awhile.
Observe how the mind is dividing and labelling every thing into objects and is embellishing them with stories about what they are.

Give it some time

Then, stop watching the objects as labelled objects. Just look at the seeing itself. Observe the pure process of seeing. This is direct experience (DE).

I did this a lot throughout the day. I saw how the mind labels and tells stories about what I am sensing. Sometimes, if I looked at something with writing on it for long enough the words would look like meaningless straight lines, angles and shapes for 1 or 2 seconds. Of course words, whether printed or spoken, are meaningless until the mind overlays a meaning.

[Windaway]

Hello,

This makes complete sense to me. What’s to resist or accept? The sensation and thought are gone already. Plus, who is resisting and accepting? There’s nobody.

Ok, how does it feel to see that?

Does your experience shift or changw when you see that clearly?

I did this a lot throughout the day. I saw how the mind labels and tells stories about what I am sensing. Sometimes, if I looked at something with writing on it for long enough the words would look like meaningless straight lines, angles and shapes for 1 or 2 seconds. Of course words, whether printed or spoken, are meaningless until the mind overlays a meaning.

How does this realization change or affecte your experience and life?

Do you see changes in your relationship?


Take care

[DeannaMP]

“This makes complete sense to me. What’s to resist or accept? The sensation and thought are gone already. Plus, who is resisting and accepting? There’s nobody.”

Ok, how does it feel to see that?

Relaxation in the whole body.

Does your experience shift or changw when you see that clearly?

I don’t believe the stories as much. They’re still there but I can see them come and go.

“I did this a lot throughout the day. I saw how the mind labels and tells stories about what I am sensing. Sometimes, if I looked at something with writing on it for long enough the words would look like meaningless straight lines, angles and shapes for 1 or 2 seconds. Of course words, whether printed or spoken, are meaningless until the mind overlays a meaning.”

How does this realization change or affecte your experience and life?

There’s a neutrality about life. My everyday sensory experiences are pretty much the same and emotions still come but pass quickly.

Do you see changes in your relationship?

Much less annoyance, more tolerance of others. Less personal but more intimate. I had a family member call me out on something I did and felt that old shame. I had no defense of my actions, I admitted the wrongdoing, noted the thoughts and stories about how bad I am, felt the body sensations and that was it! The episode moved on quickly.

[Windaway]

Hello Deanna,

That is great, keep trake of those changes.

Try this:

Raising Hand Exercise

1. Place both hands on a table in front of you, palms down.
2. When you have done that, rest for a moment and then raise one hand in the air but not the other.

Don't go to thoughts, examine your direct experience. Do this as many times as you like, and each time inquire:-

What is it exactly that is choosing which hand to raise?
Can you find a separate individual or anything that is doing the choosing?
What is it that is controlling the hand?
Can a ‘controller’ of any description be located?
Can anything be found that makes the hand move?
How is the decision made?

[DeannaMP]

What is it exactly that is choosing which hand to raise?

I laughed a little while doing this exercise because you said to not go into thought so I kept telling my self not to go into thought which is going into thought. It was like you were telling me to not think of a pink elephant so I couldn’t stop thinking of a pink elephant, lol. When I focused on DE while looking at my hands on the table nothing happened. Then the thought, “I have to raise a hand now, which one? The right hand”. Then the right hand lifted. I do not know where that thought came from except to speculate that the suggestion from you “entered the system” as an input and the system mysteriously output the thought which coincided with the hand raising. I can’t find anyone or anything “choosing” to raise the hand and I I can’t see how the thought could have chosen the hand to raise.

Can you find a separate individual or anything that is doing the choosing?

No, there’s just thoughts and body movements.

What is it that is controlling the hand?

It’s not a “me”, I can’t find a “me”. There’s just thoughts and body movements.

Can a ‘controller’ of any description be located?

I can’t find a controller. There is none.

Can anything be found that makes the hand move?

All I can see is that there are thoughts and body movements.

How is the decision made?

I don’t know. Is there actually a decision? Is it just physics?

[Windaway]

Hello Deanna,

How do you feel when you don't find a controller?

Try this:
Stream Exercise

Imagine for a moment a scene, one of a little mountain stream which is tumbling down a hillside gully, not far from its source. It has been raining and so the level is quite high. Consider in your mind's eye, if you can, how it flows to the right over a little rock (where, had the level been lower, it would probably have gone around the rock), then the flow goes to the left over a tree bow, and then slows a little in a broader place, before splashing over a small cascade into a pool, and so on down the mountain side. Does it choose any of its directions? Is it even really a separate entity different from the water deposited in it, the rocks, the depressions in the ground etc? Is it even the same entity moment by moment, or more the product of weather conditions and water, like an ever-changing pattern?

1. Can you find anywhere where 'insert name' autonomously intervenes into life, choosing something that is not the product of all the elements; that is not a part of the overall flow?

2. Now please consider a regular decision made eg; what to wear in the morning, or what to eat for lunch, and describe to me what happens. There are environmental factors, there are colour preferences (but where did those come from - any autonomous intervention there perhaps?), practical issues (such as what is available), available time for preparation, purpose (eg; need to fill up for the day, or to look hip and cool for that person!) etc. Where in there is an autonomous entity intervening in the flow of life? Can you find someone somewhere?

3. Can anything be found for which 'insert name' is responsible – if so responsible to what and for what?

[DeannaMP]

How do you feel when you don't find a controller?

Freedom! At first I thought, “oh shit, how am I supposed to live my life with this realization?” But I really don’t need to change how I do things and make decisions. What changes is my relationship with what is.

Imagine for a moment a scene, one of a little mountain stream which is tumbling down a hillside gully, not far from its source. It has been raining and so the level is quite high. Consider in your mind's eye, if you can, how it flows to the right over a little rock (where, had the level been lower, it would probably have gone around the rock), then the flow goes to the left over a tree bow, and then slows a little in a broader place, before splashing over a small cascade into a pool, and so on down the mountain side. Does it choose any of its directions? Is it even really a separate entity different from the water deposited in it, the rocks, the depressions in the ground etc? Is it even the same entity moment by moment, or more the product of weather conditions and water, like an ever-changing pattern?

In this case it’s really easy to see that there’s no entity (because I never had a belief that water and other “nature” things were entities with minds that could make decisions). It’s a product of countless conditions.

1. Can you find anywhere where 'insert name' autonomously intervenes into life, choosing something that is not the product of all the elements; that is not a part of the overall flow?

I can’t find anything or anyone that chooses or decides. There is nothing “outside” life to intervene into life.

2. Now please consider a regular decision made eg; what to wear in the morning, or what to eat for lunch, and describe to me what happens. There are environmental factors, there are colour preferences (but where did those come from - any autonomous intervention there perhaps?), practical issues (such as what is available), available time for preparation, purpose (eg; need to fill up for the day, or to look hip and cool for that person!) etc. Where in there is an autonomous entity intervening in the flow of life? Can you find someone somewhere?

This description in combination with the stream description really drove it home for me. I can see how much I believed that I am an entity separate and outside the flow of life. I believed I was not subject to conditions, that I could intervene and take charge and control outcomes. Even with the realization that there is no controller/manager I still held on a little to the belief that “I” was doing something outside the flow. But I can see that any decision and choice made is the only one possible based on countless conditions. I am the same as the stream. The only difference is that the process of evolution has enabled my human brain to sustain the illusion of making decisions and choices in order to survive. Yay me!

3. Can anything be found for which 'insert name' is responsible – if so responsible to what and for what?

I am having difficulty with this question. It depends on what you mean by responsible? There is no one to “blame”. The stream can’t be blamed because it’s not an entity and didn’t choose anything. I can’t be blamed because I’m not an entity that chooses freely. To me, responsibility means to adapt to outcomes. But even adaption is based on countless conditions. There’s no one and nothing to be responsible.

[Windaway]

Hello Deanna,

Freedom!

I like the sound of that. ^^

Answer from your current experience.
Try to be concise, It should not take a book to answer these questions!

Is there a separate self called Deanna?

Is there a past or future?

How do you relate to your thoughts?

How do you relate to your emotions?

Has your relationship to other people changed?

what happens when conflict/ problems arise?

what is your relationship to life?

Are there doubts?
if so please describe them.

If you are not the separate self who are you?

Thoughts, concerns, comments?

[DeannaMP]

Is there a separate self called Deanna?

No

Is there a past or future?

No

How do you relate to your thoughts?

Necessary to be a functioning human being but since the content of thought is not real I don’t believe them as much and question them often.

How do you relate to your emotions?

As a pathway to deeper insight and false beliefs.

Has your relationship to other people changed?

Yes! I’m able to let people have their emotions and opinions without interfering. I also catch myself projecting thoughts onto the other person. I can see how I can only “see” them through my own thought overlays.

what happens when conflict/ problems arise?

I’m keeping my mouth shut more and listening more so I can have the space to see DE and the thought overlays. I feel less triggered in general. Sometimes I’ll forget and say something and instantly regret it and I’m using that to look deeper.

what is your relationship to life?

I am life, flowing in it, of it.

Are there doubts?
if so please describe them.

Yes. All through this process I questioned whether I was actually seeing or just trying to convince myself. I’m still inquiring to make sure there’s no doubt, no wishful thinking, no faith. That’s my biggest doubt - what if I’m just pretending to be awake or “faking it till I make it”. But even now, while typing this, feeling into the body, siting, seeing, smelling hearing, the doubt fades.

If you are not the separate self who are you?

The stream.

Thoughts, concerns, comments?

If I have questions or concerns in the future can I contact you on this forum or some other way? I’m a member of The Awakening Curriculum on YouTube but I’m having difficulty being available for their live q & a zoom meetings. I also feel more able to express myself and comprehend better through writing and reading.

[Windaway]

Hello Deanna,

Great thanks for you answers. This is not the end of the guidance.

Yes. All through this process I questioned whether I was actually seeing or just trying to convince myself. I’m still inquiring to make sure there’s no doubt, no wishful thinking, no faith. That’s my biggest doubt - what if I’m just pretending to be awake or “faking it till I make it”. But even now, while typing this, feeling into the body, siting, seeing, smelling hearing, the doubt fades.

There are still some doubts appearing. That's fine.
Going into the sensation is great.

I want to dive a little deeper into sensation. It may help to cut to the roots the doubts.

That's ok for you?


Try this:
Introductory Body Exercise

Sit with eyes closed for about 15 minutes.
Paying attention only to the pure sensations, without relying on thoughts or mental images:

Can it be known how tall the body is?
Does the body have a weight or volume?
In the actual experience does the body have a shape or a form?

Is there a boundary between the body and the clothing?
Is there a boundary between the body and the chair?

Is there an inside or an outside?
If there is an inside - the inside of what exactly?
If there is an outside - the outside of what exactly?

What does the word/label ‘body’ ACTUALLY refer to?
What is the ACTUAL experience of the body?

Look very carefully, especially with the last question. Take your time, don’t rush. You can look several times during the day while doing other things (like washing hands, showering, having a short break from work, walking, etc) before replying.

[DeannaMP]

Can it be known how tall the body is?
Does the body have a weight or volume?
In the actual experience does the body have a shape or a form?

None of that can be known without thought. I noticed that while focusing attention on the body there is a visual model that is overlayed. Then even more thought on top of that. Sometimes the mind quiets enough (especially if I focus intently on a specific area like a hand or foot) that it feels like unbounded, amorphous sensations but that only lasts a couple of seconds. I can only know how tall the body is when the mind interprets the visual sensations, like when I’m in a crowded room and all I can see are chests and elbows. I can only infer weight when the mind interprets the sensation of pressure on the floor and chair. There is only a model (thoughts)of the body form.

Is there a boundary between the body and the clothing?
Is there a boundary between the body and the chair?

Boundaries only exist in thought.

Is there an inside or an outside?
If there is an inside - the inside of what exactly?
If there is an outside - the outside of what exactly?

Only in thought. Without thought there are no labels “inside” “outside”. Without thought there is no meaning to the labels.

What does the word/label ‘body’ ACTUALLY refer to?
What is the ACTUAL experience of the body?

The word/label ‘body’ refers to the model the mind makes of all the sensations. The actual experience of the body is the sensation before thought. Like what I briefly experienced with the hand and foot. I clearly saw how thought labeled sensations, how so quickly thought associates with sensation that they feel like the same thing. Sensation plus label equals one thing - the sensation. But I also saw clearly that the label was not the sensation. Everything I ‘know’ about my body is a thought, a model constructed by thought. I’ve noticed that the model can sometimes be conflicting, like the experience of being in a crowded room and seeing only chests and elbows - I am always shocked at how short I am compared to other people because the model I’ve constructed is not that short, lol.

[Windaway]

Hello Deanna,

Sometimes the mind quiets enough (especially if I focus intently on a specific area like a hand or foot) that it feels like unbounded, amorphous sensations but that only lasts a couple of seconds.

Once the illusion of thinking is seen.
You can inquire into the solidity of the body and the world.
That is what you describe here.

This exploration is beyond the curriculum fixed in LU.
But I felt important to remember or show you the next step.

Great.

The word/label ‘body’ refers to the model the mind makes of all the sensations. The actual experience of the body is the sensation before thought. Like what I briefly experienced with the hand and foot. I clearly saw how thought labeled sensations, how so quickly thought associates with sensation that they feel like the same thing.

Beautiful.
As you say there is an inertia of habit to melt both of theme.


Try this:
Find “me” in the body

Find a comfortable place to sit or lie.
Take in a few deep breaths to settle the dust and then relax for a bit.

Spend only 30 to 60 seconds on each component of this exercise.

Bring your awareness to your entire body - sense it fully, head to toe.
Run your hands down over your torso. Feel the solidity of it.
Now bring your awareness to your feet. Again, feel them. Move them a bit.
Then bring your awareness to your hands. Open and close them.
Bring your awareness to your face - all of it. Touch it with your hand.
Now point your index finger to where "insert name" is located.
Touch the exact location of "Deanna".

Answer these questions:

Were you able to find and feel "insert name" in a direct way like the other parts of your body?
Where is it?
What did you find? Something? Anything? Nothing?
What sensations did you feel in your body that identified "Deanna” (If any).

Tell me what you experienced and found, by way of direct experience.

[DeannaMP]

Were you able to find and feel "insert name" in a direct way like the other parts of your body?
Where is it?

At first, I wanted to point to the heart.

What did you find? Something? Anything? Nothing?
What sensations did you feel in your body that identified "Deanna” (If any).

I just felt the heart beating. I imagined cutting open my chest and looking for a Deanna. I would just find meat stuff, bone and blood. How could there be an entity in that? Even looking at and feeling the body as a whole, there’s no Deanna.

Tell me what you experienced and found, by way of direct experience.

Body sensations, pressure, softness, hardness. It reminded me of something weird that happened to me when I was 18 yrs old.

I just had major surgery and was starting to come out of anesthesia.i was having trouble opening my eyes. A nurse was yelling, “Denise, wake up!” I thought, “I wish that Denise would wake up so the nurse would stop yelling!” I found out later the nurse thought my name was Denise. While this was happening I felt my abdomen and legs with my hands and thought that Denise was in bed with me (I was still numb from the waist down). Then I thought that the abdomen and legs were too hard so there must be a mannequin in my bed! I eventually remembered that I was waking up from anesthesia and realized that the body in my bed was mine. I remember thinking, “my body feels just like a bag of meat!”

How can a bag of meat be somebody? Identity is only thought content. No thoughts, no Deanna, not even meat-bag, no labels.