#22a Doing the enlightenment thing - getting into the Now
Additional notes 12 May 2012
FIRST DRAFT
Have a look at #22 first -obviously !This carries on from there and is the recent stuff I've found.
As ever I've tried to be careful not to push my beleif system off on you.
Indeed:
Find your own truth !
1. Watch the emotions too
I think this is worth repeating .my emotions can feel very 'close' and hard to separate out sometimes.
It's my experience that we in emotions and not that we have emotions.
Like a fish is in water - the fish isn't the water.
I've not found any emotion in the Real Me.
2. 'Good' thoughts and bad' thoughts, And The 'feeling good' emotions
Watching negative thoughts is not only what we are going for.
From thinking and trying thus to write about it I would say we are watching from a sterile place where no thought occurs -this is my experience of an aspect of the Real Me.
Watching great wonderful thoughts is a great and wonderful thing too!
eg " Look at the world - what a fantastic miracle!"
Watch these types of thought also but without getting involved or drawn in.
They are just thoughts...see 2a.
2a. Watching the 'feeling good' and nicer emotions
Suddenly the day brightens up and you feel good.
Ahaaa !!!
Watch these emotions also.
Feeling good is not the goal here -it's nice but from my experience having no emotion at all and 'residing' in the Real Me is much much more groovy!
I could hypothesise that feeling good can only exist if feeling bad exists and thus to feel good is to create times of feeling bad.
And similarly for judgement on the goodness and badness of thoughts .
Positive needs negative to exist ?
To experience a positive thing is to create a negative thing.(?). Whatever...
My experiment is 'stop thinking and just look - see what happens'.
Thus any one of these hypotheses is 'just another thought' and it's content is to be seen as invalid as thoughts like "I have no self confidence".
3.
Constant vigilance to seductive thoughts and their content is required and I've found some thoughts are begging to be entertained. Don't mess with them!
Seductive thoughts may include:
Thoughts about the Meaning of Life
Thoughts about who I am
Thoughts about whether this meditation business and the whole 'practice' here is valid or working.
And the usual stuff concerning the 'important' aspects of ones life.
And the thoughts that arise after an upset or during times of stress.
4. Looking at the 'me-ness'
A friend showed me this website:-
http://www.riverganga.org/Community/Board/content.php?137-How-to-rid-yourself-once-and-for-all-of-the-fear-of-life-that-spoils-life-and-find-satisfaction-using-a-simple-act-of-inward-looking&s=3fa0bcfa249b6b4b8f539cb3b2be2b3a
..have a look at it -it does do something!
But I see 'the me-ness' as a label, as a thought -but I tried this 'looking at the me-ness thing' and it is kinda groovy :)
5. Considering "I am"
I've seen this in a few places -thinking or considering:
I am
..but for me it's just another thought and goes in the trash !
There isn't the activity of being ,from the verb to be in 'I am' .....there isn't the activity of being in my real me.!
There's no 'I' either
There's no Being (entity) being anything or even 'just being' in my Real Me
But
Some apparently have become enlightened using this in their Practise.
Maybe try it ?
6. Watching a thought or emotion is being in the Now
This is my experience....
Things come and go through ones perception...a book, a car, a person.
Thoughts and emotions arise also
I have found thoughts and emotions are 'things' or objects inasmuch as they are not me.
So watching a thought as an observer without attachment is being in the Now - in my humble opinion.
I would say -don't beat yourself up if you get a lot of thoughts !
My experience is thoughts 'met' and observed go away and the mind settles down , mostly.
I found sometimes I just watched a constant parade of thought.
Again to have a thought about that is a seductive thought ..haha...just press on and observe them all :))
7. The Viewpoint Shift
The viewpoint shift is an old trick for dealing with the unwanted trauma that sits in the mind.
One sees the bigger picture or imagines that one is looking ones life from the viewpoint of a friend..or sees images in black and white or as a comedy show etc etc.
Then the fact that you lost your mobile phone doesn't seem so catastrophic!
It's a mind trick and works to reduce suffering.
When I discovered the Real Me -or at least had a few quicks looks at my awsomeness (lol) I was gobschmacked..amazed.
I had always thought I was an 'infinite spiritual being' and didn't stop to consider what infinite fully meant. It was a bit like thinking I was an infinite small thing!
I had a viewpoint shift.
If you have one stay with it !
Don't imagine you are 'the dirty car trying to clean itself' [improving yourself] stay with the new viewpoint that you are a sparklingly new car [The Real Huge Vast Me] and always will be, and are just messing around here wiping some mud off the bumpers!!!
If you have the viewpoint shift as I did then you are not really the mini-me self that you thought you were anymore!
There is no enlightenment as such -we already are this Huge Vast Nothingness Of Everything!
Remembering this (if you like), has made thought watching and the whole 'Practice' I describe simpler.
8.The groovy stuff that happened to me with this
But:-
Please, pretty please with a cherry on the top - Find your own truth! :)
Copied across from #22 Doing The Enlightenment Thing
[ 22. Spooky spooky spooky -hehe
I have said all the way through that thoughts and things are not me.
However :-
...and this is my truth:-
After thoughts subside and Looking there seems to be no "Me" !
And I am not sure where the me-I-cannot-find is either!
All there is is The Looking, The Perception.
There's no distance between anything.
And no time.
I begin to feel like what I am is the centre of a dream of my own manufacture - but that fails to describe it.
Shapes and colours that need the mind to rationalise it into a Reality -but that's not quite it either!
There is no separation between what is perceived and the ..er...me-that-I-cannot-find !
So suddenly I am everything seen, everything perceived. I am the thoughts also... (damn ...lol).
So I am everything which includes the 'old self' which now seems composed only of thoughts - a summation of thoughts that I had decided was me!
More and more it's just all me - which pops my little mind as you can imagine.
A thousand questions in the mind -all simply observed with -is this a thought?
The more unthinkable it is the better - hehehe. ]
9. Conclusion -what is being done here
Just looking
Looking without labelling
Just looking
When thoughts just arise just observing them
Not considering their content or significance at all .
Just asking -is that a thought?
Occasionally asking
Who am I?
What am I?
.....meanwhile there is much more joy in my world -it's very extremely groovy to do this !
Love
'Still looking'
Paloma Porta
12th May 2012.
