The Inquiry

So, you're looking for what it experientially feels like when you feel identified with some aspect of thoughts, symbols and sensations — when you feel like you. Therefore, the anchor (fetter) right here is identification, but the inquiry will also unearth two other blockades already mentioned on the previous page: doubts, fears & uncertainties and behavioral routines & habits.

All these three lower anchors (fetters) are operating symbiotically as a swirling vortex to create a sense of identity and thus the illusion that there is someone-doing-things-in the-world. It is the reason why when one of these fetters buckles, all three topple down at once. Doubt (uncertainty & fear) is in the center, keeping it all together. When you try to inquire into the self, doubt, uncertainty or fear turns up like a barrister, defending the self and its position.

Just to note: it’s very common for a person to overshoot the looking, thereby missing the mark, which is sometimes like listening intently for a specific faint sound far away while completely missing the feeling of the air on your skin right here in this moment. Hence, people often overshoot the immediate feeling of 'me-ing' or ‘self-ing’ by looking for a bigger concept, perhaps enlightenment, totality, bliss, freedom, emptiness or whatever. I’ve notice people can also claim that they’re in direct expeirence, when they’re actually avaoiding looking for the self.

This appraoch is not about idealising those special states, but directly roots out the fundamental achor itself.

All thought-based content centered around doubts, fears, and uncertainty is kept alive by retrieving information from the past to create a sense of continuity, cause & effect, and identity — it is itself the product of its own identity.

Something in you believes the stories centered around you—the question here is, what is that thing that believes this story?

At the moment, I’m sitting in the kitchen typing this. I’m looking out of the window, and I can see that the challenge in searching for identification can feel like trying to see the glass of the windowpane; instead, one just looks through it at the garden outside. The identification process is often transparent until you specifically try to notice the glass itself.

Take these explorations into your daily life, and see if you can root out the first layer… and if you do, feel free to send me a message.

How to look, and what to look with?

With the first fetter, you only have one tool to look for the self, and that is your attention. You can use this attention to look around the various sense organs (eyes, ears, body) and their sense fields (sights, sounds and sensations)

First, try to become familiar with what the attention is:

Without moving your head, or your eyes, move your attention to the left foot. Notice that your left foot is known by its sensation, by which there’s a non-judgemental or non-descript awareness of your left foot.

You might also notice that there’s a spatial distance where your mind stretches out to settle the attention on the foot in order to make sense of it in the spatial reality. You might even feel a subtle pull in your eyes towards the foot. If you notice that - then good.

It’s really important that you notice this non-judgemental awareness going forward, where the foot is known only by sensations. Next, move your attention to your right hand. Now move your attention to your forehead, and then to the back of your head.

So this is your attention spot, and you’ve managed to move it around the body. You can use this as a way to inquire into the self. Let’s go deeper…

What you can do next is use this attention to traverse the various sense organs. For example, without moving your head or eyes, settle your attention on your left foot again – then move your attention to an object in the room, say a chair or a door.

As a side task, did you notice the very moment the attention traversed from the hearing field to the seeing field, as if it jumped over a barrier, or crossed a sensation layer, or warped from one to the other? Have another look, if you like.

Now you’re familiar with how the attention works, you're going to look for the self. 

Move your attention to the hearing space and spend a few moments noticing sounds. Next move your attention to the seeing space, and spend a few moments noticing what you can see in the room. Next, move your attention to the feeling space (the body) and notice the weight of the body on the chair, and any other sensations.

This is 3 of the sense organs, (hearing, seeing and feeling) and their sense objects (sounds, sights and sensations).

What then is the sense of you?

Have a look around those three sense organs for you.

What makes it certain to you that you’re in the room. Look for it as though it were an actual thing.

What does that feel like? Is it a sense that you’re there, or is there a background image in your mind of you that you carry around?

Perhaps look at what you feel isn’t you, (a chair) and turn the attention back to what feels like you.

Are you as real or tangible as the chair?