Realizing The Truth Of No-self

[Travis]

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.

[Travis]

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.

[Travis]

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.

[Travis]

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

[Travis]

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.