Author Topic: Auto-Dissolution  (Read 332 times)

Awareness

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Auto-Dissolution
« on: September 09, 2014, 04:02:58 pm »
Dear Jed,

Thank you for the existence of this forum.

Background: Ever since I started to think I've been burning to understand the purpose of life and the nature of reality, whose sheer existence strikes me as nothing short of miraculous and for which neither science nor religion has so far offered any sort of plausible clarification that goes beyond explaining one trick by invoking another. Having had a scientific upbringing free from any sort of religion, I started reading lots of philosophy in my late teens (Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Peirce, Wittgenstein) but did not find what I was looking for. I read some text about Zen Buddhism that went on and on about how one ought to be free from desire, but since I experienced all sorts of desires that I had no interest in getting rid off, that book ended up in the dustbin. Since then I've studied physics and math, been through a depression, done a moderate amount of meditation (just to improve attention, without any religious system behind it) and have had quite some experience with The Work of Byron Katie and related techniques to get rid of self-sabotaging beliefs. I'm now in my late 20s. Last Saturday I borrowed your first book from a friend and it intrigued me immensely.

Today I experimented a lot with your "To everyone and everything you see (as much as you possibly can) ask yourself, 'How would I know this is not me?'. Just float with any answer.", and questioned my response using The Work, e.g. "How would I know that sofa is not me?" I'd notice myself responding "because I don't experience being the Sofa", then "Can you absolutely know that's true", followed by confusion and "eh.. no, I guess not, I'm not experiencing my liver or my fingernails either, and they're certainly just me", and then wondering what it would be like if the sofa also was me. After doing this for a while I noticed I stopped making distinctions between me and not after which there was simply a perception perceiving itself and the question of whether or not that was me became irrelevant, it's just a label I can paste on it or not. This usually lasts for a bit but then it reverts to me experiencing me and not-me again fairly quickly, upon which I have to repeat the process to get back to it. Should I keep doing this as much as possible until it sticks?

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Jed McKenna

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Re: Auto-Dissolution
« Reply #1 on: September 10, 2014, 02:40:57 am »
I would suggest doing it a much as you possibly can.

Love ya, Jed.