this is weeird...
gradually over the last 2 months i've given up on vipassana. i have felt off of that ride for a good few weeks, just cause i stopped pursuing it... though while getting blazed i still did have a tendency to close my eyes and vipassana-out for a bit, just sitting and observing stuff. whenever i did so i clearly would identify 2nd, 3rd, and 4th nyanas, but i'd kind of lose interest/it would peter out/wouldn't make sense after that (like maybe hard samatha jhanas? maybe equanimity? maybe fruitions? shrug).
as that drive i've been talking about was winding down i found i could reason and think about stuff that the drive had been attempting to obscure in the interest of 'moving forward'. one of these was 'i' am 'my' feelings and 'my' feelings are 'me'. i felt like i didn't quite understand that.. so while lying in bed with my eyes closed i got to pondering.
my image of the self was kind of like a big connected blob with tendrils sticking out of it, the tendrils being emotions and such (i guess a perfectly spherical self would be a naive/sincere one?). a tendril would just out into the stomach area, and that would be 'anxiety'. another tendril was like 'the thinker' which could direct 'awareness' toward it in some way. i notice when focusing on troubling spots, the tendency (intuition) was to focus all one's efforts on it. that quickly led nowhere, just really messing with and contorting that other tendril you're trying to look at (like really really nasty head pressure if you focus on that in just the wrong (intuitive) way). i figure thats from a lack of understanding about the self - one tendril ("the thinker") tries attacking and demolishing another tendril ("the emotion"), and it gets all really confusing fast (hey maybe that's why vipassana is so f&*king painful?). its kind of like the understanding of a self is a mathematical plane cutting through the tendrils, pointing away from the center. it seems like they are separate, so it only makes sense for one to attack the other.. but by bringing the plane down, you can see they are all the same, and that understanding would make it vanish ('i' am 'my' feelings and 'my' feelings are 'me').
with this image in mind, i kept trying to ‘connect’ all the little feelings i felt. like i’d feel anxiety, then i’d be like “oh thats ‘me’ right?” and then try to like imagine the whole self as the blob with tendrils, and try to like make myself understand somehow that it's all the same. this didnt seem to work, though. i got the impression of some desperate thing trying to tie together all the aspects of the self in vain. i think this is "the thinker" thinking it is in control.. and this surely doesn't work.
instead i took a different approach. i just realized that the anxiety is me. no need to twist it or try to connect it. its just me, manifesting as what might seem disconnected, but it’s me nonetheless. the same goes for other things. so leave them there, as they are - that's me!
while pondering this, the thinker shut up for a bit, kind of like if you hit 2nd jhana well and extra thoughts just stop. then its like i went into a really slow fruition, almost like a nirodha-cessation but without noticing any jhanas (or if they were they had absolutely no affective qualities to them, just maybe shifting in perspective that i didnt really notice). as i came out i doubted it was nirodha or anything, but then i started slowly feeling more and more bodily sensations coming in, inevitably.. i think those who've hit NS know what i mean? its like 'yep im going down the jhanas now', except i didnt identify it as jhanas, just a re-appearance of coarser&coarser perception (roughly like: the head, then the breath, then upper body, then my body on the bed, then my skin with tingling and such in it).
but then a thought came out. and it was really weird, cause it’s like “i” wasn’t thinking it anymore, it was just the thought.
then i noticed that the “i” seemed to not be there anymore. there seemed to be no more “i” component of anything, like whatever feeling or thought is just there. and the knot in my head, though still there, seems to have lost some importance.. like before it was really really important, but after relaxing it the last few days and going into the cessation, it’s just there. its literally like “the thinker” just disappeared, whereas 'i' had been holding onto 'it'/identifying with 'it' before.
it was weird feeling that anxiety then, since it was like it was just the anxiety but no 'i' there to feel it. it feels like a direct understanding of ‘i’ am ‘my’ feelings and ‘my’ feelings are ‘me’. its just the feeling - and that is what 'i' am, no need to 'relate to it' or anything, im already relating to it by feeling it. without a 'thinker' relating to it.. its just the feeling.
that reasoning is thanks to being exposed and knowledgeable about AF, though. I could really easily see how, in that state, there is a huge temptation to be like "ah my self is gone! i just AM these things im feeling! this is awesome!" and then blow it up from there.. especially if such a transition were to happen from normal to that within the space of a few seconds while waiting for a bus or something, since there is the feeling(intuition/delusion) that there is no “I”.
--
tis only been a few hours of waking time since then, and my daily experience is.. not really soo different. notable changes are:
- i identified a really heavy feeling on the chest area that had been there as 'lack of self-confidence'.. i think it was there before but i didnt see it. it seems to be abating
- it does still feel like there is a 'center', namely that knot in my head, but perhaps it has lost some of its importance(?)
- i still catch myself being 'the thinker' sometimes, just going through thoughts and figuring things out.. but now i kind of snap out of it and realize it isnt 'really' 'me' or something. i feel like its just a habit, now, which will fade gradually (though perhaps quickly). not sure, though
- whats weird is when i like move around, theres less (or almost no) sense of me doing the movement. tis a bit more like the movement just happens.. like i could consciously breathe deeply and be moving around in my bed subconsciously and be thinking a thought without any interruption from the other activities. i still know that i cause the movement in some way. but if i think "ill move my hand" and then i move my hand, its like that thought+movement isn't connected anymore.
- just general sense of it being easier to walk around, of not being afraid of the more painful emotions perhaps..
- definitely still have desire
- tis pretty subtle. doesnt feel super-fundamentally different from yesterday, just the things listed above. and they are subtle differences, not like really obvious ones (more like 'hmm thats weird..' rather than "HOLY SHIT BATMAN")
--
this raises some questions:
- whats doing all the thinking and doing now?
- after catching myself being 'the thinker', i wondered what relationship i should have to my thoughts now.. like if they arent so self-centered any more, its still useful to use them to reason about things.. so maybe its like ill just use them as a separate part, like the intellect, as a useful tool. but then whats the 'i' that is thinking about how to deal with all this?
--
i think mostly ill focus on the 'i' am 'my' feelings and 'my' feelings are 'me' insight and really ponder that and deepen it, as really understanding it seems to make all this a lot easier. and i will focus on that happy&harmless.
--
does anyone have any questions that i can pose to myself that i haven't been that might lead to interesting answers? things to try that might lead to interesting things? =P.