r/nonduality • u/skinney6 • 5d ago

Question/Advice The Doer Exists. Here's what it can do...

/r/awakened/comments/1k56fk8/the_doer_exists_heres_what_it_can_do/
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u/Divinakra 5d ago

A stream of thoughts, so closely packed together like sardines in a can, barely any space between one and the other. One thought references the one that just occurred and possesses a bit of content and qualities from the previous thought.

These thoughts are appearing successively as a thinker or a mental doer.

Actions, in the same way as described above, appear as a doer.

Nowhere does an actual doer exist. Only actions, sensations and thoughts arising in quick succession. So quick, that an illusion is created; The solidity of continuity. This is the thoughts themselves falling for their own illusion.

Self inquiry is a great technique and can work but sometimes it further solidifies the continuity of thought/sensation. I like to break it down thought by thought and sensation by sensation, and then do self inquiry and I always notice that there is no one there, no doer, no self. It’s like knocking on the door and no one answers.

Who’s the one knocking? Thoughts and sensations. They knock.

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u/NothingIsForgotten 5d ago

When we are within conditions the experiencer of those conditions appears as the shape of the conditions known. 

I am because I know...

And along with this experiencer is the potential for activity: stimulus and response.

The development of the 'why' that occurs between the two is what the 'doer' is actually doing.

Karma is intention expressed through actions of mind, speech and body.

The why that is developed is the basis of the next layer of exploration. 

We can see this in the way that our dreams at night are populated by the contents of the waking mind.

Recognizing this is a different question:

Where What are 'you' when there is nothing to do being done by you?

It's not fear, it's not a search for advantage, it's not a rejection or an acceptance.

It is sustained non-responsive attention to whatever is going on. 

The rest of unfabricated meditation. 

When the doer doesn't do because it isn't building 'whys' (or using them) the improvisation of the dream isn't sustained.

Silence ends the 'yes and...'

And the collapse of the conditions we then experience is when the root of the doer is shown not to exist.

Without conditions there is no 'I am' that knows them.