0:00 There are many ways we use the term self. And not all of these selves are illusory. I can talk about myself in terms of my personal history, or with respect to my location as a body and physical space. I can think of myself in various social roles as a writer, or as a father, or as a customer in a store. And there's nothing wrong with thinking about ourselves in these terms. Most of this is unavoidable. There is, however, one sense of self that is confusing. And that produces a tremendous amount of unnecessary suffering for us. And happily, this sense of self can be dispelled through meditation. It can be discovered to be illusory, through meditation. And this self is the feeling in each moment, that we are subjects internal to our bodies, the feeling of being inside our heads. It's almost as though we feel that we're passengers in our bodies. And it's this feeling that is also referred to as the ego. If you're like most people, what you are calling i is this feeling of being the internal subject of your experience. I does not refer merely to the body. And it certainly doesn't refer to the totality of experience, I appears to be the center of experience. It's that which is appropriated experience. This feeling that we call AI is itself the product of thought. Having an ego is what it feels like to be thinking without knowing that you're thinking. It's the feeling of being identified with thought. Imagine that you run into someone you know, and like a lot. And when they see you rather than smile, as they usually would they look very unhappy. Right? And the first words out of their mouth is I can't believe you would do that. Now assume you have no idea what they're talking about. So your first thought is, What? What did I do? Imagine your friend looks at you with real mistrust. And says, seriously, and all you can think at that moment is what what did I do? What What are you talking about? Now, these are just thoughts. And yet they completely subsume you. They seem to be what you are, in each moment of their horizon. You have no perspective on them. There's no space around them. Your consciousness has been almost entirely reduced to a string of sentences, enter the feeling of urgency that created them, and which they create in turn. But how could you actually be a thought? To How could consciousness be trimmed down to a sentence? Whenever their content, thoughts vanish, almost the instant they appear. They're like sounds or sensations in the body? How could this next thought, however urgent, define consciousness at all? consciousness is the prior condition of its horizon? Is the state of being identified with thought of there being no space? No perspective, where each thought is just you know, one, what did I do? Thoughts are rising in each moment. And you don't even know that you're thinking. It's like dreaming when you're asleep, and you have no idea that you're dreaming. That experience of full capture by the contents of consciousness is the ego. It is the self. That is the target of deconstruction, by the practice of meditation. And this self is a burden. Even when things seem to be going well. Sort of the feeling of pride. Let's say you've just done something great. And you've been praised for it in high places. How good does that feel? You know, the feeling, some part of your mind is just lapping it up with its little cat's tongue. But this is the same part of you that is always poised to be miserable. This is the part of you that's always comparing yourself to other people. This part of you, even when it's riding along at full gallop can be unhorsed with a single sentence, or even a glance, the rewards of the ego are not good enough. And again, we're just talking about patterns of thoughts. One thought following the next. And the selflessness that can be realized through meditation is not a deep feature of consciousness. It's right on the surface. And yet people can meditate for years without recognizing it.
5:00 How can something be right on the surface and yet be difficult to see? well consider the optic blind spot. By analogy, you've probably been shown this in school, where you close one eye and then stare at a fixation point on a piece of paper. And then you're asked to notice that a.in, the periphery of your visual field disappears when you're just the right distance from the paper. If you close one eye, now, there's certainly something in your visual field that falls into your blind spot, and you don't notice it. And surely, most people in human history have been totally unaware that the blind spot even exists. And many of us who know about it go for decades, without thinking about it. Much less notice. The absence of the self is also there to be noticed. As with the blind spot, the evidence for it is not far away, or deep within, it's almost too close to be observed. And for most people experiencing the absence of self requires considerable training. And that's what we're doing here. Okay, it is possible to notice that consciousness that in you, which is aware of your experience, in this moment, does not feel like a self. It does not feel like AI. Rather, whatever feels like AI is itself another appearance and consciousness. Whatever you can feel, is being known by this prior condition, which we're calling consciousness or awareness. How can we know that the conventional sense of self is an illusion? Well, the most compelling way is to get yourself in a position to really look for it, and then find it absent. And that's the point of meditation. When you really look for this thing that feels like AI, it vanishes. And this is compelling in the same way that the disappearance of any illusion is compelling. You thought something was there. But upon closer inspection, you can see that it isn't getting in this case, you can feel and know that it isn't. There's a general intellectual and epistemic principle at work here. Whatever is there, when you're paying the closest attention stands a better chance of being real than what seems to be there, when you're not paying attention. What doesn't survive scrutiny cannot be real. Now, as you get further in the practice of meditation, you will discover that there is no thinker, apart from your thoughts. There's no one producing these thoughts. And there's no one receiving them. There's just consciousness and its contents as a matter of experience. There's no one who's choosing the next thing you do. Thought and intention and choice, just arise and become effective or not, based on prior causes and conditions. The feeling that you are in the driver's seat, able to pick and choose among thoughts, is itself a thought that has gone unrecognized. This feeling of being a self that can pick and choose is what it feels like to be thinking without knowing that you're thinking
0:00 The most common source of frustration I've heard about from users of the app relates to the practice of looking for what's looking, looking for the self, looking for your head, looking for the seat of attention, there are many ways this concept comes up. And some of you find it quite paradoxical. Somehow, it seems impossible. You don't know what to do, when I suggest you do such a thing. And this feeling of uncertainty frustrates you. Over the years, we've heard from many of you, on this point. So I want to say something to address this. First, let me say your frustration is totally understandable. Because in the context of any meditation, where you're following your breath, or listening to sounds, or noticing other sensations in your body, when I give you this instruction, to turn attention upon itself, to see if you can find your mind, I seem to be suggesting that there is more here to discover and experience, then what you already have in hand.
1:23 If you can't follow this instruction, you're getting the message that there's something that you're missing. And there might be. And that's why there are two stages. To this practice, there is what I've called dualistic mindfulness, or ordinary mindfulness, the mindfulness everyone has at the beginning, and non dual mindfulness, mindfulness that is synonymous with the recognition that there is no subject behind attention. In the middle of your head, there's no center to consciousness, the place from which your knowing your experience, is not on the edge of experience. Rather, you are identical to experience. And that really is the insight into selflessness, and emptiness, and many other arcane concepts that I've talked about in other contexts. It is the fruition of a certain stage of practice. But it is the basis for a subsequent stage. So in those moments, when I'm asking you to turn attention upon itself, that is an advanced instruction, which comes somewhere around the middle of the introductory course. So again, let me say that your frustration here is totally understandable. But it's not helpful. And it too, can become just another object of mindfulness in the next moment. Right. So if you feel frustrated, that you can do it, or you've seen something, but you're not sure what it was, the resolution of that experience, is not to think more and more about it, and get wrapped around the axle of discursive thought, rather, is to drop back and recognize this new state of mind, frustration, feel it as a pattern of energy, and let it go. And then in a very relaxed way, experiment again, with looking for what's looking, turning attention upon itself, looking for your head, if your eyes are open, and see if in that first moment, you recognize a shift with a feeling of there being a center to consciousness falls away. And if it does, just let that experience persist, for however long it does. And in the beginning, it will just be a moment or two. There is something to glimpse here. But you do need a certain degree of mindfulness and concentration, to follow the instruction. And to have your attention become available to noticing what again may be a very brief break in the clouds. And when you do notice it, then you can become more and more familiar with it. And then can become the basis for your mindfulness of anything that arises. It's also possible to have this glimpse of non duality, and to not see or feel its significance. And this is something I spoke to Richard lying about in our conversation. In his series on the app, this practice is framed In terms of looking for your head, and not finding it, and this is the way his teacher Douglas Harding, always introduced this experience. And as I believe Harding said, somewhere, the voice of the devil says, so what? Right, some people don't see that this is the answer to all or any of their problems. And I'm sure this is one of the reasons why in the Xhosa tradition, they tend not to teach beginners this practice. One, it can be hard to do. And to even those who accomplish it may not get the point, initially. And this is because unless you've spent enough time, practicing meditation, for the purpose of recognizing the illusory ness of the self, unless you've gone down the path of ordinary mindfulness long enough, you might not notice how this brief glimpse of centerless openness, answers, all of the contemplative or spiritual tests you would put to It is almost like you've been given the answer to a riddle that you weren't trying to solve. But if you've been struggling to find a solution for days or weeks, or months, or years, then when you get the answer, it snaps into place. So I just want to encourage you whether you are someone who is struggling to glimpse the non duality of awareness, and getting frustrated, or you're someone who thinks you've glimpsed it, and you're not sure that it's anything more than a cognitive curiosity, will encourage those of you who are in either of those camps, to simply relax and keep practicing. Because there really is an insight to be had here. And it's not far away. And it can seem to be of minor significance in the beginning. But the more you explore it, the more you notice. That it is the way consciousness always already is. the more you'll discover that the difference between being distracted by thought and being undistracted is absolutely profound. This is the stage at which the relief of mindfulness becomes undeniable. In fact, at that point, mindfulness no longer seems like a practice at all. You're simply enjoying the freedom that is intrinsic to the nature of mind.
7:50 The thing you're looking for, is already the case. The thing you're looking for is that which is doing the looking. And at a certain point in the practice, you will fall more naturally into a recognition that ordinary consciousness already enjoys the freedom that you would otherwise seek