Travis

Hahahaha

That was excellent. Thanks so much for sharing, and I'm looking forward to future reports.

Nice and short...about 10 minutes long... I've found this video extremely helpful for me right now. Practice remaining as awareness itself, no matter what the mind throws at you. Like a moth to a flame, we habitually follow painful thoughts and give them our attention. Practice not giving attention to these painful thoughts. Remain as awareness. Do it as often as you can. This isn't a way to deny the mind's "problems" or pretend that distress isn't there. Remaining as awareness actually does what the mind can never do, which is cook the bullshit out of us. It takes some time, but Truth will start gently whispering to you. I hope this helps.

@Ozzy Nice

This really hit home. It's amazing how deep this illusion goes. And then to think about the impossibility of illusion existing. It's paradoxical only because of identification. Find out what that last remnant of identification is and...boom. Welcome to abiding non-dual awareness. Haha alright daydreaming time is over. Thanks for the pointer

@Ethan did you see no self?

First thing I'll say is that @Wormon Blatburm I felt like shitting my pants in fear, and I finally know what you've been talking about this whole time. Haha you saw where I was in this whole process and said "what are you waiting for? Jump in!" Haha you knew what was holding me back...it's obvious...the fear of not existing. You knew I knew that, even if I wasn't willing to acknowledge it. That's the only thing that holds one back from freedom, ultimately. This whole time I thought I had an idea of what it was, this truth of no self, and I was wrong. Haha it's funny thinking of the conversation about you and electro "tricking me into it" hahaha. It's funny now. But there is this weird sense of not having to fear death anymore. I cut it off before I could stare straight into what was going on and allow myself to feel the full emotions. Fear stopped me. I would love to just throw up right now. Everything is turned on it's head with no self. The glimpse that I caught was total and absolute. Every single thing is a lie. I thought I was catching bits and pieces of enlightenment, but nope. Duality can't exist here with this glimpse. Wow. I really don't have much else to say. And yes I would still like to throw up haha. I know exactly what is stopping me from going all the way. Plain and simple...the fear of not existing. That's it. That's what needs to be faced. I know how it needs to be done, and the next thing to do is face the shit out of it and go right through the fear. Jesus Christ that was intense. Merging was utterly wild and it was only for a brief time. The emotions that arose were...intense and scary. Like a special kind of scary. There is a strange sense of peace trying to bubble up, like the kind that you get to keep forever. Onward!!!!! Hahahaha

@Azrael Ahhh that was some medicine. Thanks for sharing.

@Lha Bho hahaha

This is my first post about an ongoing dialogue I've been having with a friend. A lot of posts came before this one, but this is where I'll start: What is it that needs an identity, identifies, and takes it seriously? What is the I that experiences personality? The thoughts and feelings that manifest as "suffering" is what identifies, needs an identity, and takes it seriously. Once "suffering" manifests, it necessarily separates itself from what is (I mean, just creates the illusion of separation). Awareness gets focused onto the suffering and identifies with it as something that is happening to this illusory 'me.' I see through the suffering. I see that the more one suffers, the more conscious awareness is being focused on something, as if it could harm a 'me'. Someone related enlightenment, or the truth of no-self, to experiencing a 180 degree shift in consciousness, and that's exactly what all of the implications suggest. Why is what "is" conscious? And why does it seem that it is love? It didn't have to be anything, but it's this. The only way it can be? Free will doesn't exist, but does the formless have qualities that it "chose" such as love? A whole slew of questions that I would have never thought about before are now realized as the only real questions. And maybe deepening my knowing will answer some of these questions. I won't know until it happens (and if it happens). I've sat with the sutra for a while. It seems to point to the utter impossibility of what "is" being capable of experiencing suffering. Since I am that, everything can be allowed to be a game. "What does the universe want to do today?" for instance. If awareness is allowed to rest in itself, then there can be no entanglement between it and form. If there is no entanglement between itself and form, and it is seen to be this way necessarily, then that is the end of suffering. Detachment means the realization that nothing in the world of form is you, and is infinitely far from you, but is you. Once meaning and value have been taken away from everything, liberation is the only thing left. Freedom is. Like I said in an earlier post, Ilona, I've been on this track for a while, and just didn't know that it would lead me here. I didn't know where truth was to be found. I didn't know that the truth of no self would open everything up. I have suspected for several years now that there was no free will, and there was no 'me', so maybe that is why I didn't have a bliss experience (or maybe deepening my seeing will produce one) like so many people report. I experienced some changes, but nothing ultra dramatic like some people say. I know peak experiences are not the Truth, and obviously are just as far from Truth as anything else that is experienced by the body/mind, but is there some deeper seeing that I've yet to become aware of, do you think? I know this is just mind conjuring up stuff to try to get attention, but I honestly feel that there is nothing else to do. I don't need to read anymore. I don't have this feeling that I need to keep searching. The only thing I've been experiencing lately is this feeling of just not giving a damn about outcomes. I feel that I can just do whatever I want from now on, and that's the end of the story. Game over. If I get up and go walk in the park for a few hours and come home and just sit, and then go to bed, that's just fine. If I want to go play a video game, it's just fine. If I want to challenge myself in a way that I can achieve deeper insight into this life thing, then that's fine too. There is a lot of conditioning that says I should be doing something else now. Since I've seen no-self, I ought to do "something" else now. And I don't think that's the case at all. If I let go completely every day then what happens, happens, and it just is what it is. That's the plan for now...just to live and see what arises Also, I'm starting to taste the beauty of non-attachment. Clinging is suffering. When something amazing is witnessed without clinging, then that is fulfillment. If life is lived without clinging, that is fulfillment. At that point, life is complete.

Sunday, August 28: Bodily sensations and thoughts inform the feeling of separateness. When pain is experienced it feels like it is happening to someone. When anxiety is experienced it feels like someone is experiencing it. I know it is all just experience being witnessed by "what is." Anxiety in social situations creates the strongest sensation of a separate self for me. Feelings and thoughts arise about protecting this body and keeping track of its identity in front of others. There is a feeling of sadness that strengthens the sense of self. Like there is a poor little me here that is concerned about losing an illusory identity. Internal chatter strengthens the sense of a separate self. Language, in general, strengthens the sense of a separate self because everything gets related to a 'me' that is supposedly experiencing all of this. Also, mental pictures of my body mixed with internal chatter about something "other" than "me" strengthens the separate self. When I stop imagining a separate self thoughts arise about what I am being nowhere. Experience is experienced intimately by "what is" and experience is the only thing that exists as far as this human form is concerned. Thoughts arise about being alone in infinity and about what my true nature is. Thoughts arise about being alone in the universe, yet my true nature is nowhere to be found. Only a separate self could feel alone. And in reality, there is no truth to be found in aloneness--only feelings and sensations, that are then given conceptual meaning by the mind in terms of language. This can only mean that the mind is equating a feeling of pity and aloneness as being experienced by a 'me.' Experience is experienced intimately by this no-thingness, whatever it is.

Saturday, August 27: Ilona, Before I start, I just want to thank you for all of the work you are doing with me. This is the most intimate kind of work that exists for us all, and I'm grateful that I have you here to help me through this. Speaking of gratitude, I've been contemplating on gratitude, and I think it holds a key for me. I'm almost certain it does. I have never been much of a grateful person, and I have been thinking of how painful my life has been because of it. The separate self is strengthened immensely in the absence of gratitude. The separate self erodes when gratitude is practiced. That's what I'm 'seeing', at least. It's amazing how thoroughly, and for essentially the duration of my life, gratitude has been left out of my life. When I'm practicing gratitude, strong feelings arise, like the feeling of losing my identity as a separate self, and there is an immense amount of inner resistance to gratitude. It's very interesting for me. I'm going to research, study, and practice gratitude, and make it a habit. I am going to read gratitude mantras throughout the day, and I'm going to practice it whenever I am around others and I'm going to note what arises in the body/mind. I feel strongly that this is the next step for me, especially because there is so much inner resistance to it, and because of how foreign it feels. Again, thank you Ilona for working with me

Saturday, August 27: Travis is no different from Batman. Travis is not in charge of anything. Feelings of anger are arising because my seeing is deepening. All these little bits and pieces that held a charge, the brain used these bits to create this elaborate illusion of a person experiencing things. It is baffling to me how the brain can actually pull this off. How could the brain use feelings, sensations, and thoughts to create this illusion that someone is here experiencing all of this? It's wild. The anger is arising because of how complete this destruction process is, and how it was right in front of me all along and I couldn't see it. I feel pretty lost. Depressive and anxious thoughts are intensifying. I know all of this has to happen.

Friday, August 26: The thoughts and feelings that make up my suffering constitute a huge part of the 'self'. I found out that I enjoy suffering or else I wouldn't engage in it! My identity is tied up in my suffering. Even my fearful, anxious thoughts are tied up in my identity. My existential fear is tied up in my personal identity. Whenever I'm not identifying with thoughts that would make me suffer my sense of self gets a little eroded. Thoughts say "what kind of a person would I be without my suffering?" "It's a mystery what is on the other side of no suffering. Are you sure you want to go there?" Whenever I just let uncomfortable sensations be in the body without trying to get rid of them my identity as a separate self gets a little shaky. As I'm writing this, I don't think my mind has ever been so confused about "who is Travis?" And yes, I have been identifying with the thoughts of not having an identity, and I have been identifying with the fear and anxiety and depression that has been resulting from the inability of the mind to find a "foundation." I identify very strongly with my "negative" thoughts associated with no self and the implications of no self. Like I said, whenever I just allow "negative" thoughts, feelings, and sensations to be, I feel my sense of self taking a strong hit. The thought arises, "If I'm not fighting against something, then who am I?" This has been interesting so far. This seems to be the bottom line for me: face whatever fear, anxiety, and bodily sensations that arise when thoughts of death and no self arise. Allow it all to be just the way it is, and keep letting it all be the way it is until I feel I can live with it forever. Then, I guess, I'd be free at that point. Maybe once I can honestly say that I can live with whatever feeling/thought combination that arises, no matter how terrifying or horrible, then that will be the point where the realization will arise that there was never any suffering to begin with--that it's all an illusion, and then the separate self will truly be seen as not existing once and for all. I'm making progress on being able to allow "negative" thoughts and feelings to just be. I am sitting with all of the thoughts of confusion and groundlessness and I'm slowly being able to accept certain aspects of that experience. And when I do, I feel the sense of a separate self getting weakened. The separate self is still hanging around like a phantom. It wants me identify with suffering. It wants to exist.

@Matthew Lamot Are you enlightened?

@Leo Gura Leo, I'm starting to pierce the veil this is an excerpt from an ongoing dialogue that I've been having with a friend. Your work came right on time I'm not sure if my ontology is mixing in with what I'm about to say, but I see everything as follows: Awareness is the ultimate. It's the end-all be-all. I don't know the nature of this "awareness" other than what it absolutely has to be in my thinking, which is that it allows for everything! It is the most pure, and clear thing that could possibly exist. I don't understand the depths of its perfection, but I can get an experiential hold on the fact that it is perfectly pure. I don't understand this "nothingness" Ilona. And I know, necessarily, that it can't be known, because that would turn it into an object of consciousness, which wouldn't be it because whatever possible way I could conceive of it would arise in consciousness and necessarily not be "it". I see that no separation exists. Whatever this nothingness is, it is without limit. I was thinking today about the thought "why is this nothingness even here?" That was probably the most profound thought that I've ever had in my life. Why does this nothingness exist, that allows for all of these supposed "objects" to exist? What "law" made this nothingness exist in the first place?! Why is it here???? There's nothing left to figure out regarding what all of this is. It is perfect meaninglessness. The most sublime perfect meaninglessness that could only exist because of the games we play as humans. The beauty of this nothingness is manifested in the complete and utter spectrum of all of the possible human experiences. Once again, I haven't digested what all of this means, but that question that I had is still so wonderfully unanswered and lovely: why does the nothingness exist? Did it necessarily have to? What kind of intelligence is behind such a thing? (I don't mean to get lost in words. I'm just having fun trying to express what these implications are Wow. That's all I can say. I would love to hear your thoughts on why this nothingness is here, Ilona.

*Stares at a tree, thinking about enlightenment* *Concludes that squinting really hard at the tree will break the spell of illusion, like I'm Harry Potter or something*

This is the latest post between me and my friend. Please feel free to comment: She posed these questions: What is it that needs an identity, identifies, and takes it seriously? What is the I that experiences personality? The thoughts and feelings that manifest as "suffering" is what identifies, needs an identity, and takes it seriously. Once "suffering" manifests, it necessarily separates itself from what is (I mean, just creates the illusion of separation). Awareness gets focused onto the suffering and identifies with it as something that is happening to this illusory 'me.' I see through the suffering. I see that the more one suffers, the more conscious awareness is being focused on something, as if it could harm a 'me'. Someone related enlightenment, or the truth of no-self, to experiencing a 180 degree shift in consciousness, and that's exactly what all of the implications suggest. Why is what "is" conscious? And why does it seem that it is love? It didn't have to be anything, but it's this. The only way it can be? Free will doesn't exist, but does the formless have qualities that it "chose" such as love? A whole slew of questions that I would have never thought about before are now realized as the only real questions. And maybe deepening my knowing will answer some of these questions. I won't know until it happens (and if it happens). I've sat with the sutra for a while. It seems to point to the utter impossibility of what "is" being capable of experiencing suffering. Since I am that, everything can be allowed to be a game. "What does the universe want to do today?" for instance. If awareness is allowed to rest in itself, then there can be no entanglement between it and form. If there is no entanglement between itself and form, and it is seen to be this way necessarily, then that is the end of suffering. Detachment means the realization that nothing in the world of form is you, and is infinitely far from you, but is you. Once meaning and value have been taken away from everything, liberation is the only thing left. Freedom is. Like I said in an earlier post, Ilona, I've been on this track for a while, and just didn't know that it would lead me here. I didn't know where truth was to be found. I didn't know that the truth of no self would open everything up. I have suspected for several years now that there was no free will, and there was no 'me', so maybe that is why I didn't have a bliss experience (or maybe deepening my seeing will produce one) like so many people report. I experienced some changes, but nothing ultra dramatic like some people say. I know peak experiences are not the Truth, and obviously are just as far from Truth as anything else that is experienced by the body/mind, but is there some deeper seeing that I've yet to become aware of, do you think? I know this is just mind conjuring up stuff to try to get attention, but I honestly feel that there is nothing else to do. I don't need to read anymore. I don't have this feeling that I need to keep searching. The only thing I've been experiencing lately is this feeling of just not giving a damn about outcomes. I feel that I can just do whatever I want from now on, and that's the end of the story. Game over. If I get up and go walk in the park for a few hours and come home and just sit, and then go to bed, that's just fine. If I want to go play a video game, it's just fine. If I want to challenge myself in a way that I can achieve deeper insight into this life thing, then that's fine too. There is a lot of conditioning that says I should be doing something else now. Since I've seen no-self, I ought to do "something" else now. And I don't think that's the case at all. If I let go completely every day then what happens, happens, and it just is what it is. That's the plan for now...just to live and see what arises Also, I'm starting to taste the beauty of non-attachment. Clinging is suffering. When something amazing is witnessed without clinging, then that is fulfillment. If life is lived without clinging, that is fulfillment. At that point, life is complete.

1) Brutal honesty - Be stone-cold like Steve Austin in your contemplations. Whatever thoughts, feelings, emotions arise pour that 55 gallon drum of whoop ass all the fuck over them. 2) Do SDS while listening to Leo's "Guided Meditation - The Next Level of Meditation" and continue your sit for 40 minutes after the audio is finished. Keep it simple. This is all you need. Stone Cold can attest to this being all you need--It's the bottom line because, well, he said so. 3) Practice conscious awareness all day. Watch all the little manipulations that your mind conjures up. Watch your feelings of anxiety. Watch what comes up in awareness when Vince McMahon tries to tell you what to do, and the thought arises (as a replication of the sound of angry, charged English words (or whichever language you feel comfortable experiencing this thought): "Nobody, especially Vince McMahon, tells How to Be Wise what to do, and that's the bottom line!" That will get you where you want to go as quickly as possible. Stone Cold's great and all, but I gotta give this last bit to my man Dwayne Johnson. But I'm gonna change a few of the words. Hope you don't mind, Rock: When the demons come knocking at your door, don't hide in the corner and hope they leave quickly. Tell them to kick that bitch in and introduce themselves

Hahahaha love it

So I started out planning to do a one hour "do-nothing" meditation, and about 15 minutes into it I noticed pain in my feet developing from sitting still. I decided this would be a good time for a supercharged session so I started SDS. I sat with the pain for the rest of the hour and watched the mind do its thing. Then something interesting started happening. I'd notice my resolve weakening; I really wanted to move my feet. I let the feelings pass, and I'd be okay with the pain for about 5 minutes when the next round of feelings and thoughts would arise. "Just stop. You don't have anything to prove. This is uncomfortable. This is really fucking uncomfortable." Then the thoughts and feelings would pass again, and I'd be left with a less stressed mind. I finally realized that what was happening was interesting... I said to myself, "does the pain in my feet actually increase, and that is what causes the thoughts and feelings to arise?" I believed no. That pain is a mental interpretation and sensations are all that are being experienced, but I wanted to see if I could become directly aware of this. So I said, ok, I'm going to focus on the sensations in my feet and I'll wait to see if the sensations become more intense, and thereby causing thoughts and feelings to arise in response to the increased intensity. Well, I didn't notice the sensations becoming more intense, but... I lost awareness of my feet for a moment and the thought train started up and started saying I was in pain and discomfort, and accompanying feelings started to arise. I sat with the feelings and thoughts and this cycle kept being repeated: I'd be accepting of the sensations in my feet (not totally accepting, mind you, but enough so that I could contemplate questions while being in discomfort), and then about 5 minutes later the thoughts and feelings would arise. So, the valuable takeaways I gained from this session (I finally caved in and my digital timer went off literally 2 seconds after I caved! Damn it! haha): 1) I was able to make a clear distinction between how reality actually was (being aware of sensations in my feet) and how the thoughts and feelings interpreted reality to be (I'm in pain; this is really fucking uncomfortable; I need to quit; I NEED to quit; I can't keep going like this; how much longer can I take this? etc.), and going right back into awareness of the sensations after the thoughts and feelings subsided. Did anything change regarding the sensations in my feet? No. So did the mind contribute anything? Anything that I needed to be concerned or fearful of? Nope. The mind was just doing its thing like it always does--reflexively responding to its environment. No need to follow any of it. 2) What I really enjoyed about this particular thoughts/reality distinction was that I put myself in a stressful situation and I could feel the negative emotional cloud above me and the negative thoughts and feelings it would piss on me, and even then the distinction was clear. The mind is on autopilot doing its thing, all day, every day, when we're happy and when we're afraid. To buy into thoughts and feelings is to mistake them for reality--to mistake the map for the territory. We can disengage from thoughts and feelings at any time. Obviously this will take a lot more consciousness work, but I'm glad I was able to become clearer about what was happening in my direct experience!

@How to be wise That's a good idea! Also, at some point I'll probably do a sit while listening to his newest meditation video. And his one about creating an experience of no self.

Yes, and it also seems that this "pure faith" thing is also tied up in this perfect love. The seeming paradox is that these do, in fact, bridge the gap between the two, and hence, contain everything, and this no-thingness has these inherent qualit... yeah, I'm getting lost in mind but there seems to be "something" there to become aware of more deeply. I don't know. haha