Best Of

Hmm

There was a young (wo)man who said though it seems I know that I know...But what I would like to see is the "I" that knows me when "I" know that "I" know that "I" know
~Alan Watts~

Awareness is fundamentally non-conceptual before thinking splits experience into subject and object...It is empty and so can contain everything, including thought...It is boundless...And amazingly it is intrinsically knowing...

Acceptance of change stills the mind and as the mind settles awareness arises...

Realising ‘I am not the body’

I've found that realisation happens when attachment to words/thinking stops...

@how said:
Today, behind my eyes lies an ever-shifting collective of divergent interests. Finding a consistent "who" there is like looking for some solidity in the rotating reflections of a kaleidoscope. Usually, such searches for that "who" reveal little more than an attempted herding of cats.

Well, if the mind is quiet, you can search for what is. Nisargadatta once said, you are not whatever you can perceive, because it lies outside you. So you are not the world, not the body, not your thoughts… you continue and you are eventually led just to consciousness, which like a mirror just acknowledges what is perceived.

There is a link with knowledge, in that perception adds meaning to the perceived by understanding symbolic values, like in written language or mathematical equations or a uniform or even a number plate or a door handle. Any number of things in the natural or man-made world can acquire meaning based on past experience. An iceberg melts, an oyster opens, a fruit can be eaten.

Today, all I see behind my eyes is an ever-shifting collective of divergent interests.
Finding some consistent "who" behind my eyes is like looking for some solidity in the rotating reflections of a kaleidoscope.
Sometimes, such searches find only an ever-diminishing "who", whose job description as a herder of cats, better describes a dream than an occupation.

Heck, even our mind doesn't obey us in a lot of respects. So much of what we think and feel comes from subconscious processes. I'm of the opinion that the things we regularly do with our body affects the way we see the world. I've heard psychological advice that a way to combat a feeling of helplessness is to regularly do practical things with your body like gardening or building something. That sort of behavior tells our nervous system that we can accomplish things.

The average human has about 3 pounds of bacteria in their body. Some of this is responsible for producing about 95% of the bodies supply of seratonin. There are a number of other processes that these 'aliens' in our body do to make 'us', 'us'.

I think a lot of our confusion about the self revolves around the notion that what appears to our conscious minds is us. I go back to the Two Truths, ultimately there isn't one core homunculus in charge of everything, that doesn't mean pragmatically and conventionally there isn't an us. Conventionally we are the accumulation of all these non self things.