Sensory Immersion

Awakening is refocusing attention
away from identification with thoughts,
and toward the sensory world.

Michel Tardieu, a guide at the Liberation Unleashed forum, wrote these exercises to help bring and keep attention, and then awareness of attention, in the sensory world for just a little longer than it might otherwise stay. Long enough to notice.

For smelling, I have written this little practice, to do as often as you can :

As an introduction, I just give you an example of “direct feeling”, as I live it.
Most of the time, when people smell a flower, a Rose, for instance, they do two things.
First, they identify the perfume, (oh,it’s a rose, no doubt about that), and second, they think, or say “It smells good.” and it’s all [over], they go and forget the Rose.

So, they have not really smelled anything, just thought about a smell. But if I want to know what “to smell” is, what is the nature of “to smell”, I will keep my nose close to the flower 15, 20 seconds, or more, and feel deeply what happens; and after 30 seconds of pure “smelling”, without any thought, I can stop…, and do anything else.

No words, no conclusion, only the present and complete life of perfume.It’s a good example, because it’s very difficult to find words to think about this kind of experience; if you look for 30 seconds to a rose, you can speak during 30 seconds about it; but if you smell for 30 seconds the perfume of a rose, try …to speak about it after[wards for]  30 seconds.

Where I live, in spring, I can go from Roses to Lily, then to Lilac and I end by Iris : four very different perfumes, which resolve into one unity of “smelling nature”.

Try to do it, maybe with other kinds of odors: food, alcohol, shit, why not, you will not find any words to think about what you directly live. It’s just a very tiny example of “our true nature”.

Then comes “hearing immersion”…

When I listen music, I close my eyes and let the music flow through my sensations;
the first times I did listen like that, it was after smoking pot; many years later, I did it with a certain effort of concentration, and now, it comes effortlessly.

For that purpose, it’s better to choose a music you like; then, you have to stick to the music, not elude one note, feel each sound, timbre, melody, rhythm as a sensation. [Feel it] as if you were connected by a new sense you never have experienced before, as if you had somewhere a new sweet and delicate organ awakening quietly.

Imagine that missing only one note makes you die…You will discover that the slightest thought disconnects you from the musical flow, and the secret of the show is no thought allowed, please !

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When listening with no thought,there’s no more self to listen.
No experiencer, only listening.

“Visual immersion” is practiced as following :

I choose often to focus on a plant, or a tree. I begin with the whole tree, and the feeling is “I don’t look at the tree, but the tree is looked at”.

Still here, no thought, the tree is all there is.

Then, I focus on one limb,

then on the leaves,

then I look closer at one leaf, observing its form, colors (try to count all different shades of green on only one leaf !),
contour (smooth, lacy, etc…),
I observe the complex network of tiny ducts on all the surface of the leaf.

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And all this observation without thought (I had done this more than thousands of times, and do it every day now) If things turn well, you begin to feel very intimate with the leaf, you feel the leaf with your body, and this feeling can unfold to the whole tree.

At this stage, there’s still no experiencer, only experience.

No thought, no self…!

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I hope all this will be useful.

Namaste,
Michel

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These exercises were written by Michel Tardieu.
Many thanks to him.

Source link for this post here: Chronophonix http://liberationunleashed.com/nation/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=787#p16177

The rose pic comes from : http://www.heirloomroses.com/roses/floribunda-roses/amber-queen.html

The music representation comes from here: http://blogs.thenews.com.pk/blogs/2012/03/28/what-if-music-is-banned/

The leaf comes from here: http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2011/10/green-leaf-veins.jpg

Very Inspiring Blogger Award

Very Inspiring Blogger Award

Ben, author of the blog The Sacred Art of Language, nominated VN for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award. Apparently, Ben saw, felt, found some deep resonance here. A deep bow to him, and to anyone who finds here even a whisper of the truth as it manifests in their life.

Rule #1. Thanks to the nominator.(above)
Rule #2. Divulge 7 things about myself:

1. Myself is an imaginary object, which disappeared last summer and never came back.

2. There are two blogs written from here, Vanishing Narrative and Standing In An Open Field (WordPress). Both exist to help others see that the self is imaginary, if they are so inclined.

3. Blogging has become my unpaid second job. It sounds nicer to say that than that it feeds my writing obsession.

4. Am associated with the Liberation Unleashed movement, a group of volunteers who help others cross the Gateless Gate in weeks, days or hours as opposed to the many years it traditionally took. Please see url here: http://liberationunleashed.com/

5. First published work as a contributing editor just came out this year: http://liberationunleashed.com/LU_Books.html

6. The waking up story as seen from here looked like this : http://wp.me/p1O6AP-p
Your results will vary.

7. Am amazed at receiving an award. Many thanks to Ben for this !

Rule #3: Nominate 15 blogs. [ Exemplary caliber, in no particular order, from the Liberation Unleashed Blogroll]

1. Marked, Eternal by Ilona Ciunate : http://markedeternal.blogspot.com

2. Navigating the Void by Bonnie Aungle : http://nemonavigator.blogspot.com/

3. Complete Humanity by Elena Nezhinsky http://completehumanity.blogspot.com/

4. TabulaRasa by Delma Thassa : http://thassa.blogspot.com/2012/04/art-of-deceptive-maintenance.html

5. One Spaciousness by Lisa Kathleen : http://onespaciousness.wordpress.com/

6. Neosimian Sapiens by Timothy Campbell : http://neosimian-sapiens.blogspot.com/

7. Untying Tangled Threads by Damon Kamda : http://untyingtangledthreads.blogspot.com/

8. What Is Looking? by Elizabeth Whatsleft : http://whatislooking.blogspot.com/

9. Atomic Potential by Nick Myers : http://liberatedself.wordpress.com/

10. Burning, True by Stepvhen Stark : http://burningtruedotcom.blogspot.com/2012/05/truth-strike-rose-from-ashes-of.html

11: Truth Can Save You by Mihai Ionescu : http://truthcansaveyou.wordpress.com/>

12. Waking from Delusion by Chandi Riaz: http://wakingfromdelusion.blogspot.com/

13. WisingUp from Vince : http://www.vince-wisingup.blogspot.com/

14. Lightmare by Eloratea : http://eloratea.blogspot.com/

15. The Obvious Elusive by Rikki : http://theobviouselusive.blogspot.com/

These blogs are written by people who have crossed the Gateless Gate.
They all have to do with helping others across.

Much appreciation for the opportunity to list these.

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Many Thanks to Ben, author of The Sacred Art of Language , found here:
http://sacredlanguage.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/this-love/

Two Questions

Two belief-related questions plagued this mind prior to awakening.

“Is awakening real ?” and “Will it ever happen to me?”

The second question provides much feedstock for this blog.

No, it will not ever happen to “me” – no “me” has ever awakened!

Awakening is a “me”-ectomy.

The me gets lost.

Obsessing about the “me” – but this repeats – describes pre-awake life.

The first question gets the spotlight today, “Is awakening real ?”

This one’s journey started through Buddhism. The Buddha lived before writing was commonplace. Long after his death, the account of his experiences was written by people who had never met him.

Whatever it was that happened, by the time the earliest surviving written accounts were produced, disagreement and confusion had started about what got people free, and why wasn’t it happening like it did in the past?

2500 years later, the same questions and more occurred here.

Is awakening even a real phenomena ?

If it is real, there must be some awake people walking around, right ?

Where are the awake people today ?

Fortunately, we live in a time when scientific inquiry has shed light on many areas of life previously limited to anecdotal evidence.

Some of the light of scientific inquiry has begun to fall on the study of the awakened.

This preliminary work establishes the no self phenomena as a measurable, explorable condition of human life, outside the descriptions of philosophy, religion, and most especially, outside previous psychological description.

Welcome to the research of Jeffrey A. Martin PhD and others studying ” self-reported persistent nonsymbolic nonduals “(SRPNs). [ aka "liberated" aka "awake" ] Jeffrey Martin presented his findings at the ” Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference 2012 ” in Tucson AZ on April 11.

Martin was not the only investigator working in the no self area.

Gary Weber, PhD , an SRPN himself,  gave a talk the previous evening (same conference) about research on changes in the brain that might lead to the “loss of self-referential narrative”.

Awakening is real.

Research on awake subjects is happening, papers written and published.

In a way, as subjects of research we are not different than any other.

People with clusters of letters after their names are talking about it, looking at it, describing it.

That’s how academia contributes.

Meanwhile, awakening actually happens somewhere, every day.

And some awake people who are called to do so are helping others across the Gate to freedom.

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Jeffrey Martin’s Interview on Buddhist Geeks: http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2011/07/bg-225-the-end-of-self-referencing/

Jeffrey Martin’s Research Center: http://www.nonsymbolic.org/

Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference 2012 : http://www.consciousness.arizona.edu/

Gary Weber’s talk : Exploring Loss of Self-Referential Narrative and Awakening: A Research Subject’s/ Collaborator’s Journey can be referenced here: https://sbs.arizona.edu/project/consciousness/report_poster_detail.php?abs=1189 and more here: http://happinessbeyondthought.blogspot.com/

For help or to learn more, please visit Liberation Unleashed at http://liberationunleashed.com/

On A Clear Day

[ Guest post from Thassa Amswar, author of the blog TabulaRasa. Enjoy ! ]

Saturday, April 14, 2012
On a Clear Day…

Attempting to find better pointers for a  friend, I reviewed “my” moment of no self realization to look for any clues I could give as to where and how to “look”.  The following is an email which came out of that review.  It’s posted here just in case it’s helpful to a casual reader.

Understand that this is not a prescription. And no moment of realization is ever the same for anyone, so don’t look to “how it happened” as an event to be expected or grasped.  The clues here are in the complete surrender of the intellectual grasping at no self.  It’s that relaxing of what had been an entirely intellectual pursuit which lead me to begin a very clear and direct examination of experience.

But how to get outside the intellect?  How do I “look” if not with the mind?  Where are all of the pointers pointing to?

They are pointing you into looking for cracks in the flow of thought. It’s there.

Email sent 04/14/2012

I know I’ve told you about my final “moment of seeing” (there were several glimpses beforehand).  Well, I’m not sure I told you about the part where something surrenders, and what is surrendered is the notion that the world has to be a certain way or another.  So, let me see whether I can describe what happened again, but include the part about surrender.

I was sitting at my computer after a few weeks of reading just about every thread on Ruthless Truth, and also no-self.com.  But it was RT that explained it most clearly and in the end I found that the best directive which can be given is,

“Just Look”.

You may not see that right now, but looking back, it is obvious now that this is the clearest pointer…
The question comes, “How do I look?”  And just before realization, I just happened to come across a thread which explained it something like this:

All you are doing is checking to see whether the thing exists.

That’s it.

If you were going to check to see whether the thing in front of your face right now was actually there, you’d probably reach out to touch it.

The check is really that simple.

Now, do the same to check for a self.

I initially read that and took it in, but what I didn’t understand was that I wasn’t TAKING IT IN.

I wasn’t believing in the method, or that it was really that simple, or that it could be done that quickly.

So, I went along on my way and read other threads and books thinking that the answer would be buried in a single sentence somewhere.  All this did was lead to frustration because every time I’d go back to RT, there was someone saying, “Just F’ing LOOK!”

I mean, they were SCREAMING it.  The biggest and most important question that came up was, “Why?”  ”Why are they so sure, why are they saying it’s so simple, and why do they keep repeating… ALL OF THEM… they all say the same exact thing?!!!”
And I’d also come across something like this within the threads:

There is no you.
There never has been a You.
There is seeing but no seer.
There is hearing but no hearer.
There are thoughts but no thinker.

I’d stare at that for long stretches, trying to Understand it.

I couldn’t.

But something about it nearly vibrated with a truth I couldn’t pinpoint.

No matter how many times I read it, though, it seemed to touch something “I” couldn’t touch.

Back to Ruthless Truth…  OK, now I was frustrated.

I’d been spending nearly every waking moment in looking.
I looked at everything, I read everything, I listened to podcasts and watched videos and fell asleep each night to podcasts playing in my ears.  Why couldn’t “I” get this?

In complete frustration, I read yet another RT thread and that’s when a thought popped.

What if it was exactly, I mean EXACTLY as plain and simple as they’re saying?

So, I tried it.

I just looked for the self, checked for it as simply as I would check for the monitor in front of me.

That’s when it hit.

Of. Course.

Why do all of the teachings call it simple?  Because it is.

Why do so many say it’s beyond the mind?  Because the mind actually tries to complicate it.

Why did those at Ruthless Truth say it takes all of 3 seconds?
Because that’s how long a check takes.

In front of what I thought were “my eyes” there was a monitor.
There was a keyboard.

I kept checking reality… computer speakers, a mug..  OK… thoughts pop in:  ”Keep it simple. SIMPLE. Just f’ing look.”

Still looking, I saw dust floating in the air, caught in a stream of sunlight.

Right then and there it became obvious.

I could see each speck of dust more easily than I could see a self.

As a matter of fact, there was no trace of a self “in front” of the dust.

There was seeing the dust, but nothing there seeing it, just seeing!

Further, there was no filmy gauze,
no ghostly thing in the shape of “me”,
no color,
no texture,
nothing standing as an intermediary between seer and seen.
Then I listened, and checked.
No intermediary there either.

And if the self wasn’t right there, where in the hell could it be?

*cue choir singing*

I continued and checked memory, checked all of “my” history.
There had never, ever been a shred of evidence of anything filtering hearing, seeing, touching, tasting.

There was nothing controlling or directing any of that.
In order to engage the world through the senses, nothing was needed but the body and brain.

And the body didn’t need a self either.
The heart beat, the breath moved in and out, walking happened, reaching for a beverage… everything.

It was all automatic, including the uncontrolled thoughts which popped into “my head”.
Decisions had been made,
thinking had happened,
preferences seemed to be there…
but there was no evidence that a self had done any of it.

The complete absence of a self was seen to be true as far back as memory went.  Even when I could come up with times I thought I’d been there directing things… a decision to go to college, or to buy a car, or even a house… the final decision popped into being, and only later did a thought or assumption claiming ownership of it come up.

Worse, the “self” thoughts popped up on their own too.

There was no one controlling THOSE either!

The self was a complete farce.
And it really did take only 3 seconds to see that.

As for surrender, I’m not sure you can tell, but it came in the moment before the “just looking”.

It happened when the frustration level got so high that “I” stopped trying to figure it out,
and abandoned intellect for just one moment,
long enough to follow the simplest directive.

Once that surrender of intellect happened, “I” was free to explore looking clearly.

In that single moment when the thinking mind was suspended,
a crack opened, and the truth was seen.

Of course the sense of self came back.
It continues to.
But it has no hold.
That surrender and check proves the reality every single time.
There is simply nothing there.

In essence, it’s a stepping back. That’s why the question “What or who is seeing?” is often asked. Step back from the assumption that a self is there, and what is the truth of what is plainly missing.

It’s missing from EVERYWHERE and EVERYWHEN “you” look.

It’s missing right now.

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Many thanks to  Thassa Amzwar for this post. URL =

http://thassa.blogspot.com/2012/04/on-clear-day.html

Awakening Exercises

[ Instructions for awakening ? Can it really be this simple ?
Guest post by Adrian De Cleir. ]

These instructions involve 4 different things …the last instruction is … the most important one… I can’t stress that enough.

And they are obviously all to do with seeing that there is no self.

1. Visual Immersion

It’s all about using what you see in front of you.
It’s a purely visual process.
That’s why when some people crack it, they say stuff like
“I literally just looked, there was nothing more to it”.

So here’s what to do:

Try and keep your eyes more open, literally.

Look at any object in front of you and try and see that there is only that object, there is no agreement between a self/you and that object, there is no experiencer of that object, there is ONLY that object. Its just an experience of that object.

It doesn’t mean you have to stare at one thing all day, you could do it anytime of the day, as you walk down the street, as you look at people, as you look at TV, as you look physically at your computer (not the content of the screen).

Literally FOCUS your eyes and SEE there is only an experience of that object, no self.

Get swallowed up in the object.

It may an object you are quickly passing by as you walk down the street.
It may be the table as you are sitting eating your breakfast.

Explanation: The deeper this has gotten for me, the more I’ve realized there truly is no experiencer, no separate self. [Some] people make statements upon experiencing this like “oneness”, “unity”.

IMO this is dangerous here, because you can end up creating an “I am everything” escape route.[for the imaginary self to continue]

2. Action checking

Whether it is scratching your head, saying something to someone, walking down the street, thinking a thought, making a decision, reacting suddenly, laughing out loud, making a slice a toast, ALWAYS try and notice that it happened without a “you” deciding it.

This will be tricky, there is easy stuff like walking, scratching the head, but then there is harder stuff like deciding to go to work that morning.

What you do for the harder stuff is try and go back further and see where the thought of that decision came from. You will always either reach a dead end or a previous thought that triggered that one.

You will never find the self that created that thought.

Do this all the time, as much as you can, for both the easy and hard stuff.

3. Other “selves”

As much as you can, look at other people, try and observe as best you can how their movements are nearly automatic.

You may even feel you are pretending it or imagining it – if that’s how you feel, that’s fine, just keep at it – just constantly notice how other people behave in almost robotic fashion, as if there is no “decider” behind any of their actions.

4. PERSISTENCE

Doing all this once won’t work.
Doing this stuff 20 times may not work.
DO ALL THREE INSTRUCTIONS ALL THE TIME, DO NOT STOP!
Even if you feel you cracked it DO NOT STOP.
Even if you feel the whole thing is a joke DO NOT STOP.
Even if you feel that forgot to do it for the last 2 hours,
GET BACK TO IT.

Actually, you can even use that forgetfulness as further proof there is no self that can force you to do this.
Even if it [seems] completely confusing and paradoxical, i.e. the fact that you are trying to look , yet there can’t be a self to do the looking.

It’s not paradoxical…[the] human is reading these instructions, attempting it, thinking there is a self that is carrying out the instructions, until they finally crack it and realize it was all just a process that happened and was not controlled by anyone.

You have to smash this stuff from all angles as often as you can.

PERSISTENCE IS REALLY THE KEY.

If you start to feel unity, you haven’t cracked it.

It’s just a glimpse, you’re on the right track.

Just don’t do the “I am everything” thing.

There is no you, simple as that.

If you feel ridiculously frustrated, good, you’re on the right track.

If you feel a sinking “worry” feeling in the stomach, good you’re on the right track.

If you know in your heart and soul that you have completely cracked it,
that you truly finally see there is no you whatsoever,
and after 24 hours you still feel that way,
you probably cracked it…

KEEP GOING ! (just in case)

So who’s up for it?

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Many thanks to Adrian De Cleir for the entirety of this post, which may be read in unedited form at this url: http://liberationunleashed.com/nation/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=748

The first pic from is from here: http://www.123rf.com/photo_4933314_person-prepare-strike-the-wall-with-a-sledgehammer.html

The second pic is from here: http://www.123rf.com/photo_4933305_person-strike-brick-wall-by-sledgehammer.html

The I is a Fool

The I is a Fool

Passing out shreds of advice like Halloween candy
Craving approbation, appreciation, approval
Surely now they see my wisdom
Since now I finally see it too !
The I is a fool.

Ordering, arranging
Making tidy, staying busy
Just the right shoes
Not a hair out of place
The I is a fool.

These thoughts when I meditate
If I could just get them to stop
I need to get these thoughts under control
So I can get enlightened.
The I is a fool.

I don’t believe in an old man with a beard in the sky.
I am very spiritual.
I am spiritual but not religious.
I believe in being a good person.
The I is a fool.

I planned the whole thing.
It was my idea.
I made it happen.
I’m all over it.
The I is a fool.

I would never act like that.
I would never do that to you.
I don’t treat people that way.
That’s not who I am.
The I is a liar, and a very big fool.

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Written on April Fool’s Day, 2012.

The jester pic comes from here: http://www.healthstones.com/knights_and_dragons_store/schleich_world_of_knights/schleich_courtiers/schleich_court_jester/schleich_court_jester.html

5 Misconceptions About No-self

[Guest post from Nick Myers, author of ATOMIC POTENTIAL. Enjoy ! ]

Clearing House:

5 misconceptions about no-self

By zenkitties

March 16, 2012 //

6

 

When I had reached that day of self-realization (as in that there is no self there only the idea generated via thought and emotion). I never thought that things would turn out the way they did. Everything changed yet everything stayed the same at the same time. It was more like an oh so that’s what I’ve been looking for in Zen, for so long? Instead of an aha… sure something clicked which is why I call it an awakening of some sort. I think the process is something more though. That which I thought was the end of the journey was only the beginning.

When this realization happened from Ciaran’s Ruthless Truth which then was later taken in a different direction from some of his other members to incorporate compassion into it instead of a completely “ruthless approach”. These individuals are now known as Liberation Unleashed who dedicate their time to helping other people seeing no-self or in Zen is called, “going beyond the Gateless Gate.” They are both equally fine ways to waking up but even such teachers as Adyashanti make note that seeing no self is important but abiding in it is where it is at. Abiding in it helps that you not slip back into the ego’s old ways, and although that sense of self is illusory in nature because it isn’t real but some fantasy made up of conditioned thought, it is still a real illusion that has been running the show for quite some time. So having this die down can be quite a struggle depending how much power was given to it. This is where clearing house comes in, and it isn’t very pretty because it involves incinerating everything that you’ve thought made up the you that is currently thought to be you, to put it under a microscope to see how it’s serving that human that so naturally moved about the world through innocence at an early age and was smothered in dogma.

Misconception 1: It’s all flowers and dandelions on the other side.

This isn’t true once no-self sets in; not for everyone at least. The thought process is different for every human being which is why there are so many unique people in this world. It’s quite beautiful how it works out this way but that which makes it difficult to have any clear cut straight method for the masses. What may work for one person may not work for another, which is why masters say that they can only point to a certain point but there is that parting in the journey where one must tread alone and do their diligence on the path.

For me, it started out warm and fuzzy but what I’ve seen from a lot of people who have experienced the no-self realization is that things begin to bubble up that have to be dealt with. Things that have been repressed in conditioning and forgotten about and have only had time to fester. They are thoughts that have gained power over time and control in some aspect of our human life. They are at the drivers seat while we’ve been taking a nap in the back seat. Waking up is important but it isn’t painless. However, because it isn’t painless it gets us more in touch with reality, and gives us such a good opportunity to take note of inner reactions going on, who’s thought is actually going on (moms, dads, brothers, societies) , and if it can be let go if the thought is no longer serving the purpose of self-honesty.

Misconception 2: The journey is easy.

I would say for some the journey comes easy because through this awakening, there is a surrendering of some of the filters that have been propped up by the sense of me. Those drop away and the desire for many things drop. However, the sense of self, even being an illusion of something is still very much in power, and will grasp at anything to keep itself in reality as the “dominant”. Many call this the beggar acting as the king or the slave acting as the master.

When no-self awakening happens, conditioning begins to bubble up essentially so the one awakening can address those things. To have a lighter sense of being one must rid itself of the muck that muddies the clear pond. The best way of dealing with this is to be mindful, let the thoughts and other mind junk flow through you, and allow it to move on its own. It becomes difficult for some when we resist to the change as to resist something, it is going to fight back, but to learn to walk around or past it is to flow. I learned this one in my kung fu class while I’m learning to not meet my opponent but to flow through them.

Misconception 3: Losing Everything

In a way this is right, and the illusory self will use this thought method to its advantage. You lose your life to gain your life because the life that “you” has been living isn’t actually yours, because… well there is no actual you to live it. Only the beautiful manifestation of life itself living through the body and through all of its other beautiful manifestations. So you lose the sense of “I’m separate” and see that nothing is separate or outside of itself. There was never separation and there never will be; only the vast manifestations of the same thing. Like that nice little analogy of the wave that is part of the ocean. It does not know it is part of the ocean and it fears it’s demise on the oncoming rock but once it crashes over the rock it becomes the ocean again and re-discovers its true nature.

You are the same way, you want so bad to be this body trying to get by in the world, yet have you ever thought that you are just life renting this body to experience what its like to be a different form… in this case a human being.

Misconception 4: You will face no more obstacles.

From what I can see, there are plenty of obstacles that still arise. Fortunately for no-self awakening, you now have a great tool in which these obstacles can be faced. Knowing that all mind stuff is just well… thoughts and fantasies, they don’t have to be taken as serious events. Its also a great opportunity to see how thoughts cause emotions in the body to happen and how emotions likewise can cause thoughts to happen. It’s a wonderful experience, and this often is more interesting then actually taking part in the facade.

When one takes part in the facade, they are no longer seeing reality clearly, so it is a blessing to be able to not only catch these events but to also watch them going on. This helps the mind re-orchestrate itself to taking responsibility and more likeliness to respond to something rather than to react to something. Would you rather react to your situation unconsciously or or respond to something through clear seeing?

Misconception 5: No-Self is Enlightenment.

I don’t think so, it is in a continuous progression just like our moment is eternal. Just because the moment is eternal doesn’t mean that changing does not still happen, well likewise with awakening to no-self. It is not enlightenment in the sense that you are blissful at every moment but the start of the blooming flower. For some it may be a quick bloom and for others, it may be a longer drawn out bloom. Either way is a perfect way because every way is exactly as natural as it should be.

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Author: Nick Myers
Blog: ATOMIC POTENTIAL

Many thanks for the entirety of this post originating from this url: http://liberatedself.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/clearing-house-5-misconceptions-about-no-self/

(Ed. note: Ciaran Healy’s forum for liberation “Ruthless Truth” referred to above is no longer extant. Ruthless Truth was an early and very successful experiment in conveying the view of no self to seekers in a short, concentrated manner. The forum “Liberation Unleashed” provides the same function to interested seekers today. The url is: http://liberationunleashed.com/

(Ed. note: light editing only, mainly for punctuation)

What to Do ?

But what do I DO !? I don’t know what to DO !

The year prior to the Gate crossing was pretty ordinary in most respects. Good health. Daily meditation. Daily inquiry. Still enjoyed reading lots of spiritual authors, especially J. Krishnamurti, Adyashanti, Nirmala and eventually, Elena Nezhinky.
Installed a new air conditioner right before the heat of summer.
Attended a cousin’s wedding in June.
Pretty ordinary.

Except for one thing.

Month after month, the thing gnawed away in the back of the mind like a dog gnaws her favorite bone.

Sometimes I could put it out of the mind for a while, directing attention elsewhere.

Eventually, attention returned to the gnawing; of a question born from exasperation, met again and again by the stony silence of empty space.

“WHAT…..DO…..I…..DO…!?”

I read all these cool books.
These people are AWAKE, right ?
They KNOW something, right ?
Or at least, they un-Know it, right ?

So, in order to get to where they are, it follows that they had to DO something.

To become like them,  (since I was obviously not like them)  I had to figure out what to DO.

Well, what did THEY do ?

I loved reading J. Krishnamurti, but I didn’t really get what he was talking about.

Reading more didn’t help.
I didn’t know what he did.

I also loved Nirmala. Reading one of his books; Nothing Personal , and contemplating a passage or two actually drifted me right in front of the Gate once, before getting slammed back; nearly paralyzed with terror by a “me” that was fighting for its survival.

This experience led to a course of daily inquiry practice that lasted until the Gate,
16 months later.

But I didn’t know how effective inquiry was going to turn out.
I didn’t know that it was “working” at all.

Nirmala went to India.
That’s what he did.

I had heard this one before.
This is not what I needed to do.

Adyashanti meditated for 14 years, sometimes 4 hours or more a day.
But his awakening story, which I listened to again and again, was not a doing.
It was something that happened to him.

This was certainly not something that he did.
I still didn’t know what to do.

Stumbled across the blog COMPLETE HUMANITY.
Became a dedicated reader.

The blog consisted of dialogs of people who would chat back and forth with this woman, Elena. After a while, something happened, they would suddenly both start talking differently and everyone was happy and she would ask them “What does it feel like to be liberated?”

I didn’t get it.

What did they do ?

I heard Elena reference this other blogger, Ciaran Healy, and went reading through his blog archives*. (*no longer existing)

He made a video metaphor; saying how we imagine that we are separate from everything outside of us, as if we were watching a video.

He noted that the things in the video “outside” seem to act upon us “inside”.

He then asked how could this be ?
What could possibly hold back all the space outside from the space inside ?
This is only imagination.
We are not watching the video.
We are the video.
There is no one watching.
It’s all just the video.
With no watcher.
Watching happens.

The watcher here collapsed.

And I hadn’t done a thing.

Awakening happens when seeing beholds the self’s absence.

Can anyone DO anything to make it happen ?

It’s not about doing.

It’s about looking and seeing.

Look in the right way.

The absence is never not there.
Even as you read this, it’s there to be noticed.

It can’t go anywhere.
It can’t be lost.
No one owns it.
No one can make it happen.

Yet it is see-able,  many have seen it, and lots of us live from there.

Is there a doer at all ?

Once seeing beholds the absence, will it matter ?

**********************************************************

Elena Nezhinsky’s blog COMPLETE HUMANITY still exists. The masthead comes from completehumanity.blogspot.com . Currently, people interested in guidance for crossing the Gate are directed to this site : http://liberationunleashed.com/

The symbolic gate in the circle pic comes from the same site.

The map of India came from here: http://www.infoplease.com/atlas/country/india.html

the free-fall

People have been waking up for thousands of years. The Liberation Unleashed forum provides an unprecedented, accelerated opportunity to cross the Gate very quickly.

Sometimes, people wake up spontaneously after long years of practice. And some of them describe the experience quite skillfully . Such is the case for today’s guest blogger, Miriam Louisa.

[ Guest post from Miriam Louisa of the blog ECHOES FROM EMPTINESS. Here follows Miriam Louisa's account of the awakening experience.]

echoes from emptiness

the free-fall

When the Day came -
the Day I had lived and died for -
the Day that is not in any calendar -
clouds heavy with love
showered me with wild abundance.
Inside me, my soul was drenched.
Around me, even the desert grew green.
~ Kabir

The day “the Day came” for she-who-scribbles was a far cry from Kabir’s bliss-drenched day; no soul-drenching, no showers of love or abundance, no sense of glorious renewal for her brain. That would all come later, years later. But the catastrophic Day is etched in her memory. There would be no going back. It marked the end of a way of being in the world. Searching for an analogy … she felt like a penny free-falling through a slot machine.  (Or a quantum particle sucked into a wormhole!)

Although the free-fall happened instantaneously and spontaneously, there had been ‘stages’ where the penny would, seemingly, land on a level and spin or wobble for some time. The initial tumble occurred some time before the fluid free-fall which these notes attempt to express.

First the penny fell hard onto an existential plateau when she failed to find any argument to refute the fact that nothing whatsoever can be proved to have any existence apart from the sensorial technologies in the body/brain of a sentient creature. (This experiential exploration had been fueled by her studies of Wei Wu Wei’s writings, but they in turn had been preceded by years of inquiry with other teachers – predominantly J Krishnamurti.)

It spun around there awhile, then toppled further when she failed to find evidence of anything other than the functions of consciousness, anywhere.

Eventually it fell clear through the works with the logical conclusion that her own seemingly independent existence, and likewise the existence of all ‘others’ – indeed, the entire field of her experience – could, therefore, be nothing but an arising in consciousness.

These three metaphysical notions had been orbiting her brain for many years, and were understood at some intellectual level. She was quite comfortable with them, but the penny had remained safely in the purse.

Without going into details, the Rubicon had been reached via some pretty difficult times, and ripeness must have been ready. A huge ‘letting-go’ of the old ‘me-mine-myself’ story was called for, and it happened. It happened spontaneously and without volition on her part.

When the penny fell clear through, it took the bottom of her gut with it. She felt like throwing up. She got up from her zafu and said to herself: Well then, old girl, that’s it! No one here. No one to suffer. No one to be depressed. No one to beat up. No one to go anywhere, do anything, be anyone … Haaaaa!

First there was a kind of numbness, shock. A feeling of disorientation. A feeling of falling into an inner vortex. Then, an opening out into unbelievably serene spaciousness. Oceanic.

No sense of a center, and no opacity.

What had happened? It seemed that there had been a brain-leap … yet time and space weren’t involved in any way. It was like an instantaneous interior reorganizing of information. Yet it bears repeating that it had nothing to do with any effort on her part.

The how and the why of it remain a mystery. But many brain files were trashed – she is only aware of this when habit reaches for them and finds them gone; a giddy moment flashes, vanishes.

…

An entity is defined as a thing that has real existence. She thought she was an entity. Doesn’t everyone?

But to be a thing, an object needs a subject to recognize it as a ‘thing’. If one’s an object with real existence, what’s the subject that’s recognizing one?

If one turns around to examine this subject one immediately finds that it has turned into another object being observed, recognized, by the same subject!

If this lunacy stops, what remains?

If one stays still, not moving a millimeter into rationalization or conceptualization, if one tracks that which is believed to be ‘myself’ in its every movement, if one watches that notion of a self with all its ideas, it reveals itself to be – merely another conceptual object.

It is realized that there is only beingness/awareness – unchanging, ubiquitous, knowing no duality, holding no opinions or beliefs, experiencing no emotion – and no independent entity whatsoever to be found.

There’s just sense-ing, observe-ing, perceive-ing,  recognize-ing: just a changeless and ceaseless functioning. That’s all.

The woman’s life has never been the same since that Day. And yet, it is exactly the same. The ups and downs float by, equanimity visits on occasion; it all depends on how Beingness unfolds itself.

Without a past to identify with or a future to attain, the Awareness that lives her body-mind watches the play of existence, as it arises in Itself.

This is a story without beginning or end, belonging to no one, common to all.

***********************************************

(ed. note – this post has not been edited)

Many thanks to Miriam Louisa of the blog ECHOES FROM EMPTINESS. The url is : http://echoesfromemptiness.com/about/the-free-fall/

Radio Station KFKD

Is the mind worth belief ?

Belief in the products of mind – thought – led to much turmoil and confusion in this life.

The descriptions of similar experiences from others accounts – believing what the mind disgorges – constitutes much of fiction, biography, romance and poetry.

Belief in the truth of thought also describes the mind of separation.

Only thought delineates, defines, calls into existence the separate self,
imagined standing apart from everything else.

Recently, picked up a book on creative writing:  Anne Lamott’s BIRD BY BIRD; an excruciatingly funny description of the writing process. The wild rampage of the mind, set loose and intimately observed by the author, is described with clinical hilarity.

Anne Lamott shares this description in the context of the writing process.
Such experiences at one time in this life seemed not to have any limit !

I need to bring up radio station KFKD, or K-Fucked, here….If you are not
careful, station KFKD will play in your head twenty-four hours a day,
nonstop, in stereo.

Out of the right speaker in your inner ear will come the endless stream of
self-aggrandizement, the recitation of one’s specialness, of how much
more open, and gifted and brilliant and knowing and misunderstood and
humble one is.

Out of the left speaker will be the rap songs of self-loathing, the lists
of all the things one doesn’t do well, of all the mistakes one has made
today and over an entire lifetime, the doubt, the assertion that
everything one touches turns to shit, that one doesn’t do relationships
well, that one is in every way a fraud, incapable of selfless love, that
one has no talent or insight, and on and on and on.

BIRD BY BIRD by Anne Lamott, p. 116,  Doubleday , New York, NY 1994

Ann Lamott brilliantly lays out out the mind of separation in all its scintillating pathology.

Does this sound as familiar to you as it does to me ?

To carry the radio metaphor further, crossing the Gateless Gate is like dropping the wattage of KFKD by an order of magnitude and radically revamping the playlist, while allowing for gaps of silence here and there.

Your results may vary.

That’s what the Gateless Gate is about: a radical change in the relationship to and sometimes the quality of thought.

I can barely begin to tell you how much easier it became to live with this crazy transmitter after crossing the Gate.

Especially the silence…

*    *    *    *    *    *     *     *     *     *    *    *    *    *    *    *      *    *    *    *    *

Many thanks to Anne Lamott for this excerpt which has been reproduced unedited and unaltered in any way.

The pic comes from this url; thanks to them for it :

http://greetingsfromtoronto.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/radio-wunderbar-poster-inspiration/