TDW1995

Yet another thing the human mind can't grasp.

Exactly. Every thought or idea typed on this screen was predetermined.

@cetus56 Very well said. Extremely paradoxical what we're after.

I find self-inquiry challenging in that I'm not always certain on what I should put my attention on. Right now, I use this "process of elimination" technique where I eliminate thoughts, sensations, body parts, etc. as possibilities of who I am. However, it feels like I'm questioning the same aspects of who I could be every day I do my sit, thus creating the sense of me getting nowhere in this work. I know that during the "How to do Self-Inquiry" video from December 2018 Leo says to place awareness on awareness, but right now I feel like I'm just scratching the surface of dis-identifying with the body, thoughts, sensations, etc. My main question is the following; Is using this "process of elimination" method a prerequisite to placing awareness on awareness? I want to make sure I'm not taking any shortcuts.

Sits are typically 30 minutes to an hour. I have been trying to push myself for 60 consecutive mintues. I'm just concerned about asking the same questions to dis-identify with the same "things" every day. It makes me hard to believe a breakthrough could happen. Sure don't want to do this process mechanically.

During a one-hour self-inquiry sit about a week ago, I had an interesting insight/realization. For one moment I opened my eyes and lost a sense of distance between objects. My whole visual field of awareness was seen through a completely objective lens, meaning no labels were attached to any objects. I seemed to see reality as only color instead of “chair” or “table” or “floor.” The experience was that it seemed that “I” was just as close to a chair (which was probably 10 feet away from my body if we pulled out a measuring tape) as “I” was to my own legs. This can be analogous to a painting of a landscape. The painting creates an illusion that a tree is off in the distance, but in reality, the “tree” is just a color and is no further off in the distance from any other “object” that was painted. Not completely sure if this was what we’re after with enlightment/consciousness work, but it was quite an interesting experience. It also made me think that maybe labels are what separates us from all of reality. After all, isn’t our visual field just colors? If so, then how do we know that there’s a distance between awareness and reality?