FROM BILL: All emotions, including discouragement and fear, are created by YOU, by how you focus your mind (ie, by the internal representations you make). If you are unaware, you will do this focusing unconsciously and automatically. If you are aware, it becomes a choice. The secret to everything, and the solution to all emotional and motivational problems is to become more aware. Use Holosync!

I fight you and I fight you, knowing along the way that you are right…

My deepest insights which were also my most obvious ones, and at the time , one might argue, my most “shallow” ones, are coming home to roost:
For the child knew before it was conditioned by one’s well meaning catholic parents, the truth,

-what chance do you stand against bishops, Benedictine monks et al in your family when you feel, sense and react in a different way to what you are supposed to?…

I count myself lucky to somehow having found my way to your camp via Deepak Chopra, et al, and finally having found Holosync to be a most useful tool et al. (I am now half way through level 4.)

And yet, there is still anger, resentment and, dare I say it, fear, even though I can see that it is all bullshit, it is still there at times, but I am coping with it much better.

Okay, I am not falling in love with the teacher, because I am also able to see way beyond you, for what it is worth in the nicest possible way, – since not only can I see clearly the double bind, but also the fact that ultimately everything comes from within. While, yes we are dealing with a universe, – and a reality,- that has an ever moving horizon; so it is obviously also with the self…
And in a paradox way, maybe the self is indeed the centre of the universe, at least from this present state of dualistic awareness, if this is how I choose to see myself for now, until I get lost in the next expose….
…and here rests my case…

In gratitude, as always, for your great work

Mercedes Oestermann van Essen

FROM BILL: Wow! You really had me, right up until you dashed my hopes by saying you weren’t in love with me.

All kidding aside, the thing is that no matter how much you experience the transcendent, and certainly no matter how much of any other worldly or spiritual achievements, you still can’t get away from the fact that everything is impermanent. Even the greatest Zen masters still had, in the back (and sometimes the front) of their minds the fear, sadness, even terror, that comes from being impermanent. I know all of you are still hoping, but there really is no escape. That doesn’t mean life can’t be wonderful–in fact, when you reall acknowledge NO HOPE (which is NOT hopelessness, but rather seeing the way things really are and ending your relationship with hoping, hoping, hoping), THAT’S when you really begin to live.

FROM BILL: You’re misunderstanding, to some extent. The separate self is you IDEA of yourself. If I asked you to tell me who you are, you’d tell me your name, what you do for a living, where you were born, what you like to do, where you live, and so on and so on–this is a sketch you have of yourself. Notice, though, that it leaves out all the interactions that connect you to everything else. It leave out how you grow your hair or beat your heart. It leaves out your brain chemistry, how you digest your food, how your cells divide, and thousands of other things. Your idea of who you are is nothing more than a scrawny caracature of who your really are (the entire going on of it all).

That idea of who you are, though, can’t do anything, including resist. Like any other idea, it can’t DO anything. Can the border between Texas and Oklahoma DO anything? OF course not. It’s just an idea.

The problem is that we confuse the idea of a thing with the thing itself, and we especially do this with our idea of who we are. When you ask me where the resistance to the change comes from, you’re talking nonsense. No change is necessary. “Change” is another idea, for that matter. There’s no one to change, there’s no one who can change, and no change is needed. My point in this post was to say that we keep thinking we need to change (that is, what we think we are needs to change), and then we’re frustrated that we can’t ever pull it off.

We assume that this is because we’re too screwed up, or that changing is too hard, or we just haven’t found the way to do it yet. But the real reason that we can’t change is that there’s no “me” to change (and, as I added here, no change is necessary). Once you experientially get (not intellectually, but experientially) that you are IT–all of it, the whole going on of it all, that all the interrepationships that make up the entire universe are all one thing, and that there is nothing in existence that is separate, including a separate “you”–at that point you are free. They call it awakening, or enlightenment, or Christ Consciousness, or Buddhahood, or Oneness, or Nirvana, and many other names. So what needs to change? The entire going on of it all is continually changing, but the idea that there is some independent agent that can do anything apart from to flow of the whole thing is nothing more than an idea, and a delusional one at that.

As for doing, and changing, doing happens, but does not require a “doer.” Changing happens, but does not require a separate someone or something that changes. The doing is a doing of the whole, and so is the changing. Nothing exists independently of anything else. This is the Buddhist idea of mutual interdependence–that you can’t describe anything without describing it’s relationships with everything else. You can’t describe something without also describing its environment.

So, the reason you can’t change is that you, as a separate agent, don’t exist. What you think is you is just that scraggly, incomplete caracature. So there’s no need to change. Once you realize that you don’t have to change, and that you’re IT, looking out from a certain organism, you’re FREE.

And I didn’t say that the ego wasn’t real. I said that your ego–your idea of yourself–isn’t the same as the real thing. It isn’t the real you, any more than your idea of a potato is a real potato. Ideas REPRESENT things, but they aren’t the same as what they represent. If that were true you could eat the menu instead of the meal and it would fill you up. Having an idea of who you are is handly, as long as you remember that it’s just an idea, and not the real thing. Almost everyone, though, has fallen for the illusion that their idea of who they are IS who they are.

Tonka

FROM BILL: Who is asking? Find the one who is asking. Responsibility (the ability to respond) happens, but there is no need for a “someone” who does the responding. The responding happens without the need for a responder, just as the flashing happens without the need for a “thing” called lightning that does the flashing. All you need is the doing, you don’t need the doer. The doer is an idea, not a real thing.

Behaviors are generated from your nervous system. That nervous system is a sophisticated response mechanism that learns certain responses in order to survive, stay safe, meet certain needs, and so on. Once learned, those responses happen, when needed, automatically. Some of them were perfect for, say, a traumatic childhood, and allowed you to deal with a difficult situation. If used in other situations they sometimes create outcomes that aren’t so resourceful. If anger, or withdrawal, or being passive, or being in a constant state of hypervigilance served you when you were small, it may not serve you in a different environment.

The reason many people act in irresponsible or dysfunctional ways is that their nervous system–the part of them that generates feelings, behaviors, and so forth–is operating automatically. When you become really aware you see how these responses are generated, and those that don’t serve you fall away. Still, there is no need for a separate self who responds. Responding happens, without the need for a ghost in the system called “the responder.”

Thanks Bill. I’ve been listening to the podcasts again and this one struck a chord. I volunteer at a theatre that puts on “A Christmas Carol” every year and each time I see it makes me ponder on the nature of change. Now I realize the futility of wishing for my own ghosts of Christmas past-present-and-future to scare the living daylights out of me to force me to change.

FROM BILL: Just to be clear, there is a you, but it includes all the interrelationships that connect you to everything. The “me” everyone thinks they are is their IDEA of “me”, which exists, but isn’t who you are, and can’t do anythings (ideas, such as “big” or “the equator” or “happiness” can’t do anything).

FROM BILL: Your idea of yourself can’t do anything, including interact with others. An idea is an idea. Can the idea “small” interact with other things? Can “three” interact with other things? If there is no separate you, who would “change the idea”? Acting happens, but there is no need for a separate doer. And, who is it that doesn’t like the actions? Not liking the actions is a thoughts. You are under the delusion that there is a thinker who thinks these thoughts. Actually, the thinker is just another one of the thoughts. In the same way, the feeler is just another one of the feelings. You don’t need a thinker and thoughts, or a feeler and feelings, or an actor and actions. The thinking and the thinker are the same thing. The feeling and the feeler are one thing. The actor and the action are one thing. This idea that there needs to be a doer and a doing is the same mistake as thinking that there is something called lightning, and then it does something called “flashing.” The flashing IS the lightning. There is no need for a duality here, and the same thing applies to what you think of as “you.” There is no need for and idea of you and a you that has the idea. There is just the idea, but no “other” that has it.

I don’t understand what you’re saying here:

FROM BILL: WHO would actually reincarnate? Is there some separate self who would do that? If you think so, find it. Spiritual practice is a disciplined hunt for the separate self, ending with the realization that there is none. Without this hunt, during which you turn over every rock, looking everywhere, most people would never be truly convinced that there is no separate self.

Genpo Roshi, in one of his Big Mind videos, talks about how several Tibetan masters came back and ’spoke’ to him from the dead.

What do you think he means by that?

Richard

FROM BILL: You’d have to ask him to be sure, but I think these masters are aspects of Genpo Roshi himself–and if pressed I think Roshi would agree. But beyond that, why base what you think about reincarnation on what someone else says (including me). Notice that in what I wrote I said to find the self that reincarnates. If you find it–a separate self or soul–and therefore prove to yourself that it really exists, then maybe there’s some way it could go on after the death of your organism (which is yet another question to investigate experientially, rather than just believing what someone else has said).

If, however, you look for the separate self–if you look everywhere–and you can’t find it (other than in your head, where it exists as an idea), then maybe it doesn’t exist. Zen is actually a discinplined way to look for the separate self. The big ah-ha in Zen comes when you realize that there isn’t any separate self, that “you” is an idea, not a reality. But just telling someone doesn’t create the same shift (or any shift at all, really) as discovering it for yourself, experientially. To do that you usually have to search until you’re really convinced that it cannot be found.

So I’m not asking you to believe anything I say. In fact, please DON’T believe anything I say. I’m just giving hints that might send you out on the search. Instead of trying to convinced you to believe this or that, I’m suggesting that you do your own investigation, your own searching, and find out for yourself what is true, what is real.

If you read my series on human development, you’ll find that at a certain developmental level (”mythic”) a person believes in a certain dogma. Instead of finding out for themselves, they believe “experts”–priests, Zen masters, philosophers, whatever. Someone else has the power to know, and I just believe them. At a higher level, though, a person gives up “believing” (which actually means fervently wishing, from the Old English root “lief”) and decides what is real by direct experience. That’s why I suggested finding the self who reincarnates, rather than just believing someone else’s opinion about reincarnation.

The Zen master often asks the student to show him the self, giving the student the idea that there must be a way to do so. A fervent student can almost go nuts trying to show the teacher the self. He looks and looks and looks, and tries everything, until (if he is lucky), he gets it–what he thought was “me” is just an idea. There is no me. The only doer is the entire going on of it all, the entire universe. So, then, as I said, who is it who reincarnates? Show it to me.