You are always aware of the present moment. The illusion is the belief you are not. You think about the past and future in the present moment. You've never left the present moment.

This is more nuanced. Yes, everything happens in the now, but... the issue is what objects one 's attention is focused on. We can be focused on ruminating thoughts about the past or the future, or on the immediate sensory experience we're having. The first case is commonly called "not being present," while the second case is "being present," also known commonly as mindfulness. 

Yes, I understand what is commonly known as mindfulness. My point was the way it appears is not actually happening. 

The way it is often described is what's not actually happening. But we can and do get distracted from the immediate sensory environment we are in. 

Yes, and the "we" in your second sentence is what we're actually looking for. It's the "thing" that doesn't exist.
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Brian, I like to be as accurate as possible in describing these things. There is a "we" or, better said, a self that we experience. We habitually mistake it for a permanent thing, but it's just another object created by the mind. Like all objects, it's impermanent and a source of suffering. It's a concept, and an illusory one, at that. It's not the controlling, or over-arching entity we habitually think it is. We need to investigate this object to see it for what it really is.

I believe it's important for people who are practicing, especially in the Vipassana-MCTB way, to look for the characteristics of what they perceive as a permanent self, to deconstruct that, and to have the insight about its real nature. So when we say flatly, "There is no self" it's misleading.

I'm pretty sure this post will seem like nit picking, but in my personal experience this is a very important insight to have.

I'm definitely not just saying flatly "there is no self." I am adding a component or aspect to the commonly understood practice of mindfulness. You still need to practice mindfulness as the practice is usually taught.
i got a lot of mileage out of adding this component. To me it's what's referred to in some circles as "staying with the I AM sense." Yes, you need to see the aspects of the mechanism at work, but it is also helpful to do this in the right frame of reference.
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+1 for this point. This summarizes exactly what went on for me last month; both the practice and the result of it.

For me it seemed to be most strongly associated with the gaze and general area around the eyes/forehead. In the day and a half before whatever the insight events occurred, it began to be noticed that these specific things are not always present in the conscious space. In that regard, they shared the same quality as every other thing arising and passing in the conscious space. That sort of was an easy way into starting to see that all things shared a quality of being impersonal even if some of them feel more like a self than others.

Whether by coincidence or a direct result of that, some cessation like events occurred just after direct invesigation of this specific area and qualities of solidity, sense of self, and general stickiness. 

I can kind of grok this. It seems like my brain will need more time (if it is given the opportunity) to feel this deeper. But being lost in thought or not "being mindful" sort of feels now like just different flavours of the same thing. It is one of the things that seems to have made meditation feel very different lately. 

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Can I assume that you were referring to a permanent self in your first comment? If so, that's perfectly fine, but the wording is a bit misleading, IMHO. It prompted me to clarify things as I experience them.
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Your mind will keep reifying around a center because that's what minds do. The more you come into contact with things the mind can't quite understand or solidify around, the easier it is to "see it's characteristics", as Chris says. 

Yes. You and I often seem to say the same things using different words. I'm probably less careful than I should be sometimes. 

Glad you said this  

Ha ha. You have the handicap of administering and curating a forum full of dharma knowledge. Not that I'm intentionally trying to sabotage that, I usually just say the first thing that pops into my head. 

The purpose of this website is to help people,  not mislead them. I would suggest that, instead of just saying whatever comes to mind, you think a bit each time you get that urge and take the time to post a comment with more care. Use those hard-won capabilities you've gained!

Not nitpicky, it's an important distinction to make, especially if trying to offer someone practice advice.

I was told "there is no self" early in my practice, and it led me into a phase of trying to avoid noticing any self-like sensations when meditating, because I thought that realising no self meant not seeing anything that felt self-like. (This was not a very fruitful phase of my development :p )

I then went through various other strange phases, like wondering how it is that all things are empty, but some (like the self) are more empty than others... etc. All because of one blanket statement that had probably pointed to something reasonable for the speaker, but that I had entirely misinterpreted.

Not sure why after reading these posts my mind keeps thinking about shopping for toilet paper!  

​​​​​​​This thought is arising because you're shitting on this thread. 

I see the trap in “nothing to do, nowhere to go. There is no self” too. The thing is, there is the same trap on all sides of every fence, and everywhere you look. The mind will reify a self structure at every level of insight. It will do this in a moment to moment way. Not because it is bad or wrong, but because that’s what a mind does. So every iteration of the self structure is another trap. My original point was not that there was no self, or that the self was an illusion. That’s a given. My point was to bump into someone else’s self structure so they could see it. It’s like when you are watching a show and you don’t realize you have toes, until someone steps on them, going for popcorn. And not anyone specific either. This is what the advaita/non-duality crowd does pretty well. Most of them don’t say “don’t meditate” or “don’t practice” or whatever, they add bumps to the road so that practitioners also notice the road. This is not a personal mission or desire to help others either. That doesn’t even seem possible. This whole thing has an intelligence of its own, and it unfolds as it must.The idea that someone could slow or speed up another’s progress doesn’t make sense to me.If you see a bee in someone’s hair, you flick it off. 

I have two things to say, brian:

1. Who are you replying to? It would be really nice if you would use the specific post "Reply" function (in the three dots menu in the post that you want to respond to) as opposed to the "Reply" button that addresses the root level of the thread (at the bottom of the page), which shows up as addressing everyone in the thread.

2. If you don't think it's possible to help people along in their practice, then why are you trying to help people here?

An example, from your last comment: