Cindy:
The non-dual trap is to fall into the mind of “there is nobody”.
Member:
I don’t understand the phrase “to fall into the mind of”
Cindy:
…. to dream you are someone is no different than to dream “there is nobody”.
To dream “there is nobody” is no better. They are both equally dreaming.
(To dream is to fall into the mind, that’s what dreaming is done with.) Both are false.
Member:
Got it! Thanks!
What if the fact that “there is nobody” is seen in direct experience rather than in dream?
Cindy:
Then… who sees it? Who is that? Can’t be “nobody”. If there was “nobody” as in no you, there’d be no direct seeing of this, right?
And so also nothing to report as “nobody,” right? Do you deny your existence?
“There is somebody,” is to imagine separation and “there is nobody,” is to overlook your separate self saying so.
“There is nobody” was merely an attempt to express a non-dual glimpse, the recognition that there are no others, or that what I thought I was does not exist.
But it does not negate the Self, which is what others and I is.
So, there was an insight, but it was incomplete, and worse, turned back into mind, just in an opposite expression.
All mind expressions are limitations upon the unlimited.
Don’t cling to them as real or true, or you destroy the value of the insight.
Better to return to and look upon again the same truth, and never leave it, than to swap it for thought, trying to encapsulate it in, or grasp it with, thought.
(Does this help? I don’t know, maybe this is a conversation best done live for you LOL.)
Member:
Thank you for the detailed explanation. I see what you are getting at.
I was trying to describe “my” insight into the fact that the false self is indeed false, unreal. I did not speak about the True self.
What was directly seen is that there are sensations, perceptions, thoughts, but there is “nobody” to own them. They are just occurring.
Nothing to change because there is neither owner of the mind nor changer of the mind.
Cindy:
So then, who is the knower of mind, who knows this?
Member:
No one knows the mind. There is only knowing
Cindy:
How or who knows there’s knowing? This is the non-dual trap, to fall into the mind of “there is nobody” and miss the one saying so or thinking so.
(It’s so easy to say that, and saying so you feel like you know something; like you’ve figured something out–yet, it’s just a thought, yet one misses the false self saying so.)
Do you not say “I do” –do you not know your own presence, do you not know that you are?
Member:
Can you please explain in more detail what the nondual trap is?
Cindy:
It’s as I said above, to “to fall into the mind of “there is nobody” and miss the one saying so or thinking so”… do you have a question on that?
Member:
When I look for the owner of the body and thoughts, I find no one. There is no one looking for those things as well.
Cindy:
Good work on looking and sharing your experience.
You say, “When I…” look. So this I is already there.
You are the one looking. You already know you then.
So to say there is no you when you know you are the one looking… it doesn’t make any sense, right?
The one saying “I don’t exist” must exist before this thought arises, right?
You might see that it’s nonsensical to say “I don’t exist.”
What you are beginning to see is that the eyes can’t see the eyes. Does that mean they don’t exist?
Another analogy…
The knife can’t cut the knife, and does that mean the knife doesn’t exist?
It’s not wrong to say you can’t find yourself as an object to yourself… but the next thought and conclusion about that experience is incorrect.
Member:
Can it be that there is seeing but there is no seer; there is hearing but there is no hearer; there is saying “I don’t exist” but there is no one saying that?
Cindy:
If there is seeing, hearing, then someone is aware of this and saying so?
Otherwise, all you have is some bizarre abstract idea of (clearly a you) who is aware of seeing and hearing, and saying so, and also saying I don’t exist—without there being a you? Really?
You contradict yourself. How can you live in satisfaction with such a contradiction? Perhaps only by not seeing it, or by ignoring it.
If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, is a sound made?
How can there be sound without someone to hear it?
That’s not the answer to this koan.
You may wonder, if there’s nobody there to hear it, then what tree can be seen falling? What forest can be seen either?
Simply because the seer cannot see itself (as an object to itself), does not mean it doesn’t exist. Any more than eyes don’t exist because they can’t see themselves.
Simply because there is no subject-object relationship (seer and seen), does not mean there is no seer.
Only that the seer and seen are the same. But this must be recognized, not merely mentally acquired from someone second-hand.
(Such as the idea “I do not exist” can be acquired as head knowledge.)
You are the ultimate seer, who sees all but can’t be seen to yourself as an object in your awareness.
You know yourself by yourself, not by making yourself into an object to be seen. An impossible feat, which you have recognized, but this is only a partial truth.
A partial truth is easily misunderstood. A partial truth is a lie.
Have you ever actually seen your non-existence? That doesn’t even make sense. (But you do have a sense of yourself.)
And seeing the seer and seen are the same (aka the collapse of duality) is possible for all, because all are That.
How do I know? Not second-hand thought knowledge from another, but because I used to see (imagine) my separate self, then not only saw it doesn’t exist, but see what I and all “things” actually are.
So you see, you kind of have it backward… it’s not that there is not you who is aware, but there are no things that you are aware of, because all “things“ are your very Self.
This is not a separate individual self, which you know you can’t find.
Is there seeing before there is hearing the thought “there is no seer”? Yes, right? So YOU are aware of both, and the order in which they come, even.
Does an afterthought you are aware of negate the fact that you already were (and are) aware?
Member:
I’ve read several times what you’ve written. I do not understand everything but it seems I’m starting to see what you’re getting at.
When I say “there is no seer,” I mean the imaginary seer sitting behind the eyes, between the ears. It is it that cannot be found in direct experience.
You are speaking about the True Self, of which I have just second-hand, hearsay knowledge. It is yet to be recognized
Cindy:
Yes but you have first-hand knowledge of yourself saying “there is no seer,” right?
(The one most people imagine as themselves “behind the eyes” is the thinking mind, and not what one is.)
So then, I wonder what you think or feel you are?
Member:
Writing to you at 4am. Something fundamental has been discovered here, which is not “something.”
To see, to hear, to speak to you, to make errors, to be afraid, to suffer and so on, I must exist in the first place.
And the existence is primary to everything. And this existence equals I. I is existence itself.
It can be felt somehow anytime, anywhere.
It has no qualities like dimensions, forms, etc. But it not only exists but also is aware of itself existing.
This seems to be why it is also called awareness.
Cindy:
Boom!
Love love love it, thank you for sharing and expressing your insight. Now finish it off… where does I awareness start and end?
Where is the border between me and not me?
What is the true nature of yourself?
Member:
There are no borders, there are neither beginning nor end, there is no time, there is no space. It is nothing and simultaneously everything.
The mind is afraid of this realization and going crazy thinking about it
Cindy:
Stay out of mind… by recognizing mind and its forms, and by staying with the senses with what’s real.
Don’t let the mind inform you about what reality is, let reality inform the mind.
Be still with this for now (don’t look for boundaries quite yet you’re not ready.)
Remain still in the senses and leave mind alone. There should be stillness and silence, that’s the right “direction.”
Mind is being “rewritten” by reality. Let it happen.
Member:
Thank you, dear Cindy. Ok, let the mind be rewired
Cindy:
Or even destroyed lol, you will not miss the dreaming.
Thank you for persisting with me. After many many such conversations, you are the first to break through and be able to move beyond this half-truth. (And without a real-life conversation!).
Your expression of your insight will benefit many.
Don’t stop, so that the full truth and Reality of yourself dawns.
This community member went on to have heart-cracking, mind-stopping further direct insight.
Cindy
~ ADDENDUM, from further conversation ~
You came to realize most of this, but I have something more to offer…You had once asked…
“What if the fact that “there is nobody” is seen in direct experience rather than in dream?”
“There is nobody” is a thought, not a fact, and there must be somebody to hear this thought, and to agree to it. That was you.
You were present upon the insight of no separate objective self, then that direct recognition, that ungraspable fact (in the mind) got turned into the graspable thought “there is nobody” …
…and you did not see or discern that this was just a thought, and that YOU heard it.
If you look into a mirror, and realize that the image you see has no reality, does that mean you don’t exist?
You, your Self, are aware of thought.
That is, unless you are dreaming yourself as the thoughts which are arising–then you can overlook yourself. And thought.
And that is dreaming.
When we overlook the mind then its content appears to be fact–when in fact, it’s an illusion.
Since you didn’t recognize it as a thought, you took the thought to be a fact. (You gave it your highest power: Authority. Now, to you its not a thought, it’s a fact.)
So the insight was misunderstood. The fact of no separate self does not mean you are not there to know this.
It means you ARE there to know this.
As what? Nothing separate from anything.
So, who and what are you?
—
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