I observed and reported the feelings that arose when I did the experiment and intentionally avoided judging and analysing them, which was built into the experiment (step 2). I could unravel them away like I often do (neti! neti!), but I didn’t feel it was appropriate for the experiment. If you would do better with a skeptical approach to the experiment, please go for it and share.
What does the experiment demonstrate? What could we say was the prediction and do the observations support that prediction? What are we testing for, as in what are we trying to observe exactly?
I experimented with awareness today, since it was a topic in yesterday’s online meeting.
Result is as follows:
Mind listened to someone saying that awareness is the key.
It can listen to external things and be aware of it. There can be awareness there. Mind silently listening to something external. In the listening thought is not there.
Some propose that there is awareness of thought.
To me it seems thought overpowers awareness as unawareness. When thought reacts it is unaware, it just expresses in division.
This is generally what happens in a discussion.
There is awareness and then reaction of thought as unawareness.
I don’t see how there is possibility of choiceless awareness if thought overpowers awareness.
Then there is unawareness with gaps of awareness depending on whether thought is active or not.
In that case, activity of thought has to cease for there to be choiceless awareness
Adeen, how about you post an experiment around choiceless awareness?
In order to deal with human bias and confusion, setting up experiments is a tricky business (there is methodology or advice available to the public on this)
If we do try to come up with an experiment as Rick asks - it would be nice if we tried to be as honest as possible - for example, if an observation could indicate x, y ,z and a whole load of other possible conclusions, then it would be dishonest to conclude that my opinion that x is correct is in fact correct.
The ‘Feeling your self’ experiment doesn’t demonstrate anything. Predictions don’t come into play. The goal is to observe, not test: What is it like to find and rest in the feeling of ‘me’?
You are thinking of a ‘scientific’ experiment: a way to prove/disprove something. Right? I’m thinking more: Experimenting is a way to shed light on something, observe it from a new/different angle.
I think both types of experimentation are worthwhile, illuminate. I encourage you to post an experiment that meets your expectations of what a good experiment should be.
Firstly instead of “prove/disprove” - can we say : indicate that something might be the case - as in does anything, other than my bias, indicate that x might be so?
What do you mean by shed light (coz thats what I’m into too)? Has it anything to do with “seeing things as they are”, is there any notion of learning that I was mistaken, held a belief for fallacious reasons, moving towards truth (or at least away from delusion) etc … Or is it something else? novel experiences?
Fine with me.
Shedding light means, for me, lots of things potentially, including seeing things as they are, and learning that my assumptions/beliefs/inklings are closer to or farther from the truth. In the ‘Feeling your self’ experiment, the light is shed (for me) in finding the feeling of what it’s like to be me and resting in that feeling. The learning is the experiencing, not the mulling over.
When is one without “the feeling of what it’s like to be you”? The brain is conditioned to feel like what it believes itself to be, and that belief is challenged, debunked, nurtured, and confirmed constantly by actuality.
The life of the conditioned brain is the conflict between who it wants/doesn’t want-to-be and who it actually feels like from moment to moment. Demanding an identity it can live with (if not feel good about), it is trapped in a self-defeating exercise. Any self it chooses to be is in conflict with its opposite, any self it chooses not be.
The feeling varies in intensity, that’s easy enough to observe. Sometimes it seems to disappear, though whether that’s really true is debatable and afaik not measurable, at least not reliably.
You are aware of the habit of coming to conclusions based on experience? and the conditioning of those experiences based on previous conclusions? And the thus difficuty of avoiding a reality based in subjective delusion?
I would be more interested in a collective learning experience. Building an experiment in the confines of my own navel, just seems like a waste of time.
If you and/or others are willing to participate in the creation of an experiment, lets go!
Together, in order to avoid one person’s bias or confusion being the whole of the endeavour.
I think one of the first things is to define what we actually want to experiment with - what the hypothesis (if any) might be, whats the point of the experiment etc.
Does the feeling of what it’s like to be me vary in intensity because I forget about being me at times, or because I’m barely aware of how I feel?
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Ja. But for me that’s a single point of view among many, and I’m interested in the whole lot.
Sure, sounds fun! Take the reins and guide us through it?
(That sounds like a leading question. Is it?)
What do you think?
By grokking this single point of view, we grok all views as and when they arise.
By taking responsibility for the “I”, the whole can finally be met.
Leading or not, it needs to be asked because if you’re concerned about what the confused conflicted brain does and deals with constantly, you would know “what it’s like to be me” is like prison, Hell, or whatever you want to call it, and it’s why we’re here.
Wow, that reads like hard dogma to me! Maybe I’ve misunderstood?
If you mean what I said, yes - I am presenting what I believe to be the hard Dharma as proposed by K.
Dharma that I agree with obviously.
That rather sweeping assertion sounds like a pronouncement of ‘absolute truth’ to me. Help me understand what you mean?
How does I know when I is taking responsibility for the “I”?
If “I” is the problem because it’s demanding identity where there is only confusion and conflict, the responsible thing to do is to stop identifying, stop being an I, and we can’t do that because the brain is so deeply conditioned to persist in the futility. Does that mean the brain is irresponsible?