Tina's Practice Notes

I haven't participated in over a year because I dropped internet service to save $$. Now I can afford it again, so here I am.

Formal cushion meditation has been on and off, but paying attention as much as i can during the day, plus using the noting technique when I notice I'm lost in thought and not in touch with what's actually happening in each moment.

A few things have happened:

-It's been noticed that by paying attention, the feeling of self seems to be scattered or distributed among sensations.

-Without mental commentary, sensations are known directly and are more intense, richer, or brighter.

-With full attention on a sensation, it is known as is with no one to know it. Afterwards, the "I" thought habit will occur to claim the experience.

Recently, with moments of complete inner quiet and attention the following has occurred:

-Absorption in a sensation with the feeling that I am the sensation. More accurately, the absorption in the sensation has momentarily displaced the "I", and there was nothing but that.

-When this first happened, I was looking at a plastic water bottle at work. It was seen that there was just seeing, with no seer. At that moment, I burst into a fit of giggling and tried to explain what happened to the person next to me. Of course, it was futile to try to explain this!

After that, I took a bite of my breakfast sandwich and there was just taste, no one doing the tasting. More laughter.

-When there is full attention to sounds, there is no one hearing them. The usual sounds are fascinating and it becomes wonderful just to pay attention to them. The sounds of cars, construction noises, footsteps, etc can be captivating. Once, even the interior of my car became a visual feast and I truly saw it for the first time. It was beautiful, dust and all!

I'm noticing a tendency these days to demonize my thoughts. I'm also aware that the more anger I feel towards this mental noise, the worse it gets. The resistance makes it stronger.

Mental commentary on what is happening is a silly habit. When did my should / shouldn't thoughts ever change anything? What a waste of time and a huge cause of suffering.

And that's a question that I ask myself several times a day: Am I causing suffering in this moment, and can I drop that habit right now?

Resisting what is causes a split in my experience. It fractures, divides, and causes pain. I could say that acceptance of things as they are reduces friction. But, in quiet, open awareness all things are already accepted.

Welcome back, Tina! Your practice sounds great. I especially like this part: "Am I causing suffering in this moment, and can I drop that habit right now?"

Keep doing what you are doing, 'cause it's working. I can already see that from your latest post.

Yours truly,

Kenneth

@Kenneth: Thank you for the encouraging words

Not too long ago, a sentence in MCTB caught my eye: There are absolutely no sensations that can observe other sensations.

I began to pay close attention to this and realized that:

-The eye only sees colors and shapes, what we call form. It doesn't see hardness, softness, texture or temperature. If I see a mound of snow, memory tells me it's cold, but I don't see coldness. The same with the other qualities.

-Touch can't do anything but sense temperature, softness, hardness, etc. Closing my eyes and touching things can't reveal anything but those qualities. A book contains no words, nothing has any color. Even more strange is when I'm driving and I concentrate on my body. The body feels stationary, and the only clue that I'm moving is noticed through vision. Even while walking the legs and arms swing forward and back but the change in location is known through the eyes.

So it's the same with the other senses. Each sense only knows what it knows. But, somehow, this is put together to make a whole picture or experience. When I look at a flower, touch, sight and smell are experienced together as one thing - a flower.

So, my question to anyone reading this is:

If senses/sensations can't observe other sensations, what is it that knows them all?

Nothing knows them all

And it's not so much that the senses are pieces put together to form a whole, as it is a whole already which attention is able to segregate into individual parts (seeing/hearing/tasting/etc.)

"Not too long ago, a sentence in MCTB caught my eye: There are absolutely no sensations that can observe other sensations.
"

This caught my eye as well, and to be honest, I'm still having a problem unpacking this. I suspect that you have a better understanding of this than I do.

The first time I read this, I said to myself, "Well, duh! Sensations can't observe anything at all. They're just sensations."

That left me unsatisfied, though.

I think I'm stuck on the implication in that statement that a sensation can observe itself. I could certainly understand and agree with someone saying that "there are no sensory organs that can observe other sensations " but I don't think that's what Daniel meant, and it seems to me he goes to great lengths to be clear.

Is he stating that the eye, for example, is the same as the sensations of the eye, and is the same as the sensations that the eye receives?

help!

In your own direct experience, there is just what is. An eye, seeing, sensations, etc. are all conclusions you are making based on analysis of an original, undivided experience. Ignorance creates an experience divided into 6 separate consciousnesses.

"In your own direct experience, there is just what is. An eye, seeing, sensations, etc. are all conclusions you are making based on analysis of an original, undivided experience. Ignorance creates an experience divided into 6 separate consciousnesses."

For what it's worth, I found it quite fruitful to investigate why this fact was discomforting to me. I spent a good deal of time disembedding and attempting to find a stable place where my "I" could rest and be left alone and secure. For a while I got stuck thinking that "awareness" could be that place, but it was just another sucker's game since I was caught in my idea of awareness rather than awareness itself. It was the idea that there is a separate core of identity which could be made happy and safe that was the true root of the problem. That identity could not survive in the unknown which was observing my idea of awareness, and that brought up immense fear. Letting go of that fear and allowing myself to die into whatever THIS was enabled me to drop that crappy idea and be free.

Anyway, this sounds like good practice. Keep it up!

@mumuwu: thanks for clearing that up. Some confusion may have been due to the Buddha's references to eye consciouness, ear conciousness, etc. As I mentioned in post #26 I have experienced sensations directly and understood that they just presented themselves directly without a knower. I just have to trust the experience and cut the habit of analysis / trying to figure stuff out.

@andymr: I'm in the same boat! But, I would definitely take to heart any advice of those farther along the path, and there are plenty of them on this site!

@Owen: Thanks for the advice. It's obvious that any ideas or views about this are limitations on the reality that I'm trying to investigate. Honestly, I may have grasped onto the idea that I AM awareness from reading some Advaita books recently....best to leave those aside and investigate more.

"So, my question to anyone reading this is:

If senses/sensations can't observe other sensations, what is it that knows them all?

"

I was just contemplating my practice, and I decided to revisit post # 30. In reviewing the responses to the post, I realized my error. In positing something watching or knowing sensations, I was creating duality where none exists.

Thanks, guys, for pointing me toward this!

Today at work I am making a point of noticing aversion toward a few of my coworkers.

As they came into view, I noticed the thoughts "oh no there's so-and-so", which led to "I don't want to hear their bullsh*t about how they spent the weekend". With that arose feelings of aversion, of wanting to hide and tension throughout the body.

All of this was seen as a clear chain of dependent arising, and how there's a desire to separate or split off the "I" from the rest of experience.