The Emptiness of the Doer

A student explores the tension between recognizing awareness and still feeling like the one who is doing, and the teacher points toward a deeper, non-intellectual seeing.

Yes. And over time, that sense does disappear more and more, or it becomes less central. But you cannot be a functioning human being without that function. It's just that you are not it.

You don't feel that you are doing it. The appearance of body and mind, while you're alive, will be apparent. But you don't feel that you are it.

I understand.

Seeing the emptiness of the chooser

It just needs more observing and clarifying in a non-intellectual way, just to see how deep the emptiness of that goes. How deep the emptiness of the sense of there being someone there. The sense of there being a central, localized chooser, and that that is what you are.

It's a sense. It's an appearance. It's a constellation of thoughts and sensations. To see through it, to see the emptiness in all of that, will bring those two together.

No real movement toward or away

The sense of movement towards or away from life: there is no such thing. We can talk about it at the level of whether you're staying home a lot and not going out, but at the level we're discussing, there is no such difference.

The perception change comes after the seeing deepens. So be curious and look into what we're talking about. Focus on seeing more and more deeply.

Thank you.