Adrienne

[Steffi]

Dear Adrienne!
Yes, there is a big difference between the feeling of “I am” and the I or me feeling. The self am feeling can be experienced in meditation. At least that’s what many people report. Whereas in direct experience there is no I or self feeling. Direct experience (hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling, tasting) is free of any illusion. Therefore, you can neither find the self here, nor do you need to look for it there. The self feeling can be experienced and inquired into in everyday life.
It is exciting that you have discovered this. Perhaps we can now start the inquiry into the first fetter. Let’s talk about it later.

🙂 Steffi

[Adrienne]

Hi Steffi

Could you please send me the exercise you mentioned in the meeting? Thanks.

I am following Leona’s advice and hunting down the sense of self. I notice selfing more and more often and question it and really feel into it. It’s making the mind extra quiet.

Adrienne

[Steffi]

Dear Adrienne!

When thoughts are there, stop and look around to see if you can see the thinker. And then see if you can hear it, feel it in your body, smell it, etc.

🙂

[Adrienne]

Thank you. I am doing something similar already. I try to really feel into the self, really wanting to look at it. It is so funny sometimes when I am in the middle of a very dramatic monologue and the question comes in, „Who the hell is talking?“ The sudden change in feeling, body sensation and thoughts is huge and very funny.

[Adrienne]

Hi Steffi

I have just realised how pervasive the sense of self is. Every time when I am not alert the belief in the thinker/doer/experiencer is there. However, alertness comes more and more often, bringing with it a short period of silence.

Adrienne

[Adrienne]

Hi Steffi

„The ME is a conceptual overlay over experiencing.“ This sentence hits home and makes the mind extremely quiet.
Although Christiane seems to think that I should start working on fetters 4 and 5, and I sometimes think so too, there is a feeling that the self-illusion hasn’t completely fallen yet. Something happened and silence keeps growing since then, but selfing is still here before „I“ notice it. What do you think?

Adrienne

[Steffi]

Dear Adrienna!

Why does Christiane think you should start with the next fetter?

Too bad I couldn’t be at the meeting last Monday. Self had the flu and still had quite a cough.

Look at where the sense of self (do this, say this, be this, control this, decide this, etc.) shows up in everyday life.

🙂

[Adrienne]

Hi Steffi,

Christiane thinks I should start fetters 4 and 5 because
– she thinks what I experience is the sense of aliveness and not the self illusion
– she thinks that when I had my shift (when I laughed and laughed) it wasn’t lost afterwards (although it feels to me that it faded or was partly lost).
The clarity of seeing was partly lost, I feel. I don’t know why the selfing continues. Shouldn’t it have stopped? Does it go on after the first 3 fetters are broken? I have noticed that semi-conscious selfing is reducing in frequency and I am more conscious of what’s happening in the mind. Also, there is gradually more and more mindfulness during the day.
I am often asking, Who is doing this? Is there a sense of self?
It is absolutely ridiculous that I could still buy into the self illusion sometimes. How can that happen, I wonder.
Christiane suggested working on my phone addiction with the sentence „I am not feeling calm and peaceful“. I have been doing that and my phone addiction has greatly reduced but I am not sure how this inquiry works.

Adrienne

[Adrienne]

Hi Steffi

Every day there’s more and more mindfulness and less and less selfing. The remaining selfing thoughts are caught immediately. There is more understanding about how the world of thoughts is only fantasy and how reality is only this moment’s experiencing.
Adrienne

[Steffi]

Dear Adrienne!
We’ll investigate the next fetter and as soon as something comes to light from the 1st fetter, you look at that as a priority. Sometimes it’s just an aspect of the self illusion that hasn’t been looked at yet. It will show itself if it is still there.
Has Christiane given you precise instructions on how to work with desire and aversion?
🙂 Steffi

[Adrienne]

Hi Steffi

Seeing happened than a thought said „I’ve had it and I lost it.“ Then habitual thinking patterns covered up the whole thing.
Christiane said I should sit with my phone next to me when I feel the urge to use it and intone „I am not feeling calm and peaceful“. Then look for something that bridges the emotions with the action of reaching out for the phone. What’s happening here is that after saying this sentence the urge to reach out for my phone disappears and I don’t start using it. I might have misunderstood something. Also, it bothers me to use the word „I“ in the sentence, when it is obvious that these unpleasant feelings just appear on their own. When there is full consciousness, these sensations in the body are not intolerable at all. Attention rests on them and they disappear.
Adrienne

[Adrienne]

Hi Steffi

This is the mechanism: a thought appears that says „I want to check this and this on the internet“, then the picture of the hand reaching out for the phone appears, then I feel sensations in the spine and the arm, and a sense that the hand „wants“ to reach out for the phone. I ask: „Where is this urge coming from?“ At this point the urge disappears, only to come back a few minutes later, when the whole thing happens again. And then again and again.
Adrienne

[Adrienne]

I forgot to add that there are times when I don’t notice the mechanism. I wake up only when the hand has already grabbed the phone.

[Adrienne]

Hi Steffi

Beliefs have started to collapse, one by one. About truth, meaning, importance, urgency… It feels like everything is falling away.

Adrienne

[Adrienne]

Feeling very unwell. It’s like the flu.

[Autor]

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