| | >the line below suggests a subliminal belief that there is some entity interpreting the experience
That's because there is some entity interpreting the experience. Experiences don't interpret themselves, and thoughts don't think themselves (if they could, disembodied spirits would be a far more common event). However, the "entity" doesn't live inside your mind, or even inside your body. It's bigger than both, and like Zen monks say, it has no location and no shape.
>When the sense of self drops, everything is seen as being made of the same substance (suchness), arising and passing away according to cause and conditions (codependent origination).
Alex, can you translate that to plain English? Because it sounds roughly like what happened to me, but with so many peculiar words I'm not sure what you're saying.
Alex's description really resonates with me. Alex already knows that, we've met on another site. For everyone else, and for whatever it's worth, my take on it:
>All theories become more or less pointless, as no system seems adequate to express the nature of reality adequately.
You have a point there. That's the really frustrating bit. You want to explain it to people, and it just doesn't work very well.
>some negative emotions are only experienced as physical sensations
That's the most remarkable part, I think. You suddenly find there is a difference between "pain" and "suffering". Pain is the physical sensation, which is of course unpleasant. But suffering is all that added baggage that you used to put to it, thinking all sorts of horrid things about it. That's optional, and there's no good reason to do it.
>If emotions continue to arise, one become like a small child in the sense that one may get angry or sad, but the emotional state passes very quickly.
My emotions have always been a bit childlike that way, but now it's got silly. I've been in situations where I had to make an effort to stay angry in the middle of an argument, because I knew the other people wouldn't take me seriously otherwise!
>As a result, the existential fear of death and extinction disappears.
That's what really freaked me out at the beginning. I was getting this feeling that death is completely meaningless, and I was thinking: "It's not natural to feel like that! Maybe saints and gurus are supposed to say that, but I never believed they really meant it! And why the hell is it happening to little me?" Of course, eventually I got used to it.
The "no-me" fundamentalists are going to say that if I'm thinking "it's happening to little me", I don't get it. <*Sigh*>. I'd like to point out the following to them: a) I speak plain English because I don't know Buddhist-ese. I've been learning the basics lately, but still know very little. b) This body, this mind, and much more relevantly, this point of view, actually exist. "I" is much more a "around-here-and-now somewhere and sometime" than a "someone" or "something". Yes, in a certain sense, time and space are not so relevant, but let's keep things simple and not muddle them up. c) I didn't really have any other way of thinking about it at the time but as an experience I had. It's only when it refused to go away, that I figured "experience" probably wasn't the right way of putting it.
A couple of small differences:
>In the beginning one feels a bit disoriented, because the sense of self is not anymore localized in the heart or head space as it used us.
I never had that, but then, I don't think I ever "localized" myself.
>One become more quiet and loses interest for philosophical arguments about this stuff.
Don't think this applies to everyone. I gained an interest in philosophical arguments about this stuff, which I never had. It was like suddenly I figured why everyone else had an interest, and that's how I ended up tangled in RT.
I know this question was for Alex, but I'm going to chime in anyway:
>what about the desire to try and change/modify uncomfortable situations that arise, is there any struggle\tension there (after all ultimately , the situation and the desire to change are both just manifestations of reality, right ?)
No struggle. If you want to change something, you go ahead and change it. Just because everything is fine as it is, it doesn't mean it can't improve. Sometimes, it screams to high heaven that it should improve. The Serenity Prayer applies. ("Give me serenity to stand the things that cannot change, courage to change the things that can change, and wisdom to know the difference.")
That famous "perfection" is a dynamic thing, not static. It's perfect in the way it's evolving, and sometimes you may be the agent that pushes it in the direction it wants to go. And if you fail at that, or misunderstand where it's meant to go, no big deal. The situation will find some other way. Or not. In the cosmic view of things, everything resolves itself.
For example: RT surely is going to resolve itself some way or another. The valuable bits will be recycled somewhere else and the rubbish will be recycled, in a different sense. The particular argument I had with Wylo, which could be used as a textbook example for the meaning of "unskillful", will either be mercifully forgotten or some useful nugget will be extracted from it, by someone. In any possible case, it's fine, and it couldn't be anything but fine.
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