What you are not is everything you think you are. Everything aside from direct experience, is a story.
So what is left? What is underneath or behind the story? What is it that sees, hears, tastes, feels sensation? Without the editing, the back-story, the emotions linked to thoughts, thoughts linked to emotions, sadness about the 'past', anxiety about the 'future'.
There is no one who can be enlightened because the husk is empty. The self is a deeply ensconced work of fiction that has been imposed since birth. All that we hold to be true is story. 'I' is just a thought. Opinions about what is happening arise from the reinforced subjectivity of a false self - like a character in a play whose personality has been invented and whose lines have been written to fit that conceptualised persona.
Description of now 1:
Through the windows I can see muted sunlight and the blandness of a suburban street. I see my fingers tapping on the keyboard and hear a sanitised pop song coming from a radio in another room. Two of the annoying dogs in the house start barking. Their owner is in the bathroom readying herself to go out. A noxious chemical smell wafts through the house. My right knee aches from a past injury and I'm feeling hungry.
Description of now 2:
There is light. There is a smell. There are movements, sensations and sounds.
Which of these descriptions is true?
For those who see, sustaining that seeing is the constant challenge of the ego self. Even 'ego' is a human-invented concept. Everything is. What gets us scurrying back into the illusion of self is when things go 'bad'. When everything is fine in our life, it is easier to sustain the seeing of no-self. Seeing that all there is is direct experience. That all there is is conscious awareness manifesting in bodies. Anything else is subjective posturing - thoughts being attached to a self. Opinions, feelings, fears, anxieties, aversions, desires, preferences: subjective positions that describe circumstances.
Thinking is a function of the organ known as the brain, just as filtering is a function of the kidneys. Thinking is necessary for the survival of the organism. There is no one to own the thoughts. They are just happening. There is no one reading this. Reading is happening. There is no one thinking 'what the heck is she talking about?' Questioning is happening. It is one of the mechanical tools the brain uses to navigate the world. The brain is an engine of survival. We are animals who seek to survive, just like all other animals. But unlike other species, humans complicate things with the idea of self and all the ownership and attendant drama that comes with that.
There's no escaping your subjectivity. All that can be done is that you see it for what it is. You'll still make meaning out of everything and see the world as it relates to you. The only difference is that you see that it is all invented; that who you have previously thought you are, is a construct.
Words are clumsy and inept, and can only be directed towards the intellect. Seeing does not happen with the brain. It is beyond and behind intellectual understanding.
Everyone is walking around in a state of somewhere else - believing the dramas of their life. Thinking about everything but what is happening right now.When the thoughts are seen for what they are; that they are not owned by anyone, what is also seen is what remains: and that is simply awareness. That feeling when you wake in the morning, and for a second you don't know who you are and where you are or any of the circumstances of your life or what you will be doing today. That second of absence, absence of the story - when 'you' comes back, it's quite a hard fall back into 'reality'. So what remains during that second or two of absence? The void, the emptiness of non-existence, death of the 'self' is felt as freedom by the returning 'ego'. It is in fact all we are, covered over as it is; all we are is that. Pure, conscious awareness.
***
-Mountain Daughter
For those who see, sustaining that seeing is the constant challenge of the ego self. Even 'ego' is a human-invented concept. Everything is. What gets us scurrying back into the illusion of self is when things go 'bad'. When everything is fine in our life, it is easier to sustain the seeing of no-self. Seeing that all there is is direct experience. That all there is is conscious awareness manifesting in bodies. Anything else is subjective posturing - thoughts being attached to a self. Opinions, feelings, fears, anxieties, aversions, desires, preferences: subjective positions that describe circumstances.
Thinking is a function of the organ known as the brain, just as filtering is a function of the kidneys. Thinking is necessary for the survival of the organism. There is no one to own the thoughts. They are just happening. There is no one reading this. Reading is happening. There is no one thinking 'what the heck is she talking about?' Questioning is happening. It is one of the mechanical tools the brain uses to navigate the world. The brain is an engine of survival. We are animals who seek to survive, just like all other animals. But unlike other species, humans complicate things with the idea of self and all the ownership and attendant drama that comes with that.
There's no escaping your subjectivity. All that can be done is that you see it for what it is. You'll still make meaning out of everything and see the world as it relates to you. The only difference is that you see that it is all invented; that who you have previously thought you are, is a construct.
Words are clumsy and inept, and can only be directed towards the intellect. Seeing does not happen with the brain. It is beyond and behind intellectual understanding.
Everyone is walking around in a state of somewhere else - believing the dramas of their life. Thinking about everything but what is happening right now.When the thoughts are seen for what they are; that they are not owned by anyone, what is also seen is what remains: and that is simply awareness. That feeling when you wake in the morning, and for a second you don't know who you are and where you are or any of the circumstances of your life or what you will be doing today. That second of absence, absence of the story - when 'you' comes back, it's quite a hard fall back into 'reality'. So what remains during that second or two of absence? The void, the emptiness of non-existence, death of the 'self' is felt as freedom by the returning 'ego'. It is in fact all we are, covered over as it is; all we are is that. Pure, conscious awareness.
***
-Mountain Daughter
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