What is this I at the centre of our experience? This internal sense of being something that experiences.
So today driving to work the car makes a funny sound, lights begin to flash on the dashboard. A sense of confusion arises, I pull over. I try to think what it could be, Sounds like it is coming from at the front and the fan sounds like it is working extra hard. I am aware of thoughts arising about what this could be, plus aware of a sense of anxiousness that I still have 30 minutes to get to work. Nothing overwhelming just noticing the hope that it is nothing and the car will start and I can continue my journey to work. I open the bonnet and notice that there is no coolant. So wander over to the petrol station and to buy some, aware of the relieve when it only cost $8 as my awareness of a background tension of having very little money and not wanting something to be wrong with the car. Get back to the car aware of a sense of optimism that this will solve my problem. Pour in the coolant and let it sit for 15 minutes before attempting my journey. Then of I go, I get out onto the road and the temperature dial hits HOT almost immediately. I pull into the next road to find somewhere to park.
Opening* to my thoughts I become aware of my thoughts working out what to do next, mixed in this is some emotion about my money concerns, picking my daughter and her friend up from preschool this afternoon, losing wages by not going to work. I message my wife, then call roadside assist who ask me where I would like to be towed to. Problem number one, not sure where I am. Plus towing is free if you are towed less than ten kilometres and I am 25 km's away from home and my mechanic. So I decide to call back later after I orientate myself on planet earth. So I wonder around the corner to the petrol station where I bought the coolant to find out what suburb I am in. Opening to my thoughts I notice the potential for me to become upset about all this. Gently opening to my situation the perception that "this is the world" arises and this situation happened because it was meant to happen. It is a conditioned process, although I may not be aware of the actual issue with the car, I am aware of the conditions arising in my mind in regards to it and can open to that. Naturally beginning to reflect that cars like everything else are conditioned and deteriorate and they are not aware of their owner's bank balance so this situation is not one of ill will towards me, it is life as it is.
I notice that there is a mechanics workshop next to the petrol station, I call the number on the board to see if their answer machine will tell me when they open, it did not. I walk back to the car and work out how I can get the car to the mechanic. I take the handbrake off and roll, down the hill; brakes don't seem to want to engage? Minor panic turn engine on brakes work yippee turn a corner then another and now I am parked outside the mechanic. Sitting in the car waiting for the mechanic I open to my experience aware of this sense of "I" who the sensory experience is happening to. This sense of "I" is ignorance, consciousness identifying itself with the nervous systems process of ordering the sensory experience. This sense of ordering is fine in itself but when it becomes a self it tends to be controlling. In this case, its desire was to control the situation so that I don't have to feel the unpleasantness of the insecurity that arises with having little money. I sense of concern for my survival, which I noticed is part of my conditioning due to having been brought up by parents who also did not have much money and inheriting this stress pattern. Opening to this I am aware of my self-story and aware of the unpleasant feeling that arises with that.
Opening to this sense of "I", where sensory contact hits and the internalization of experience arises allowing its stories to arise and cease, aware of attachment to the story opening to the attachments. Feeling this internal sense of suffering, a not quite rightness, not comfortable. Opening to that as it rises and drifts away. Aware of how entwined this sense of I has become into the deep primordial nervous system with its fight/ flight mechanisms and the desire to survive. Opening to this, allowing the process which is arising. Opening to any ideas or concepts about this process, opening to the desire to have a concept to explain this experience. Drifting with this. Sometimes it is a case of just opening to what's happening, noticing how any concept about practice can hinder the ability for equanimity to arise or convinces us that we know what is happening. So just opening to the agenda we have with what is arising, the agenda we have with our sense of self and how we think that should be right now. Each process arising we have to start again as if a new. Opening and allowing this awareness which has arisen with these conditions to mature in relation to these conditions, rather than trying to fit what is arising into a particular technique to get the result we think we should be getting. A technique can be useful in mirroring some of the internal processes but it has an effect on the process.
Opening to the sense of "I" can lead to knowing the "I" as part of this human process. Which when misunderstood it becomes an attachment to being a separate person, a person who needs to be protected, fed, loved and respected. If these conditions are not present we suffer. We manipulate our contexts to get these needs met, they are valid needs and should be listened to, yet understood that they are not always going to be to be met. The experience of not-self when it arises shows us that there is freedom from this suffering that arises with selfing our experience. This "I" is not to be destroyed it is a functional part of being human.
*What I mean by opening is like attention is a spring loaded door, when opened it closes again. This closing which happens due to the spring which is our habitual patterns closing in on pleasure and pain. So the process of opening to what arises is the effort to keep the door open so what is arising may pass through without resistance. And if there is resistance we open to that too.
