Um And yet the problem evaporates and there's something deeply analogous about the structure of that and the the the meditative journey in , in precisely in , again , not talking about all the changes in the possible changes in the contents of consciousness that could be good , which again , they , they come along for the ride anyway , when you , when you do the thing I'm talking about , it's not on this point of looking for the self and not finding it . And there is this sense that OK , the self is here and it's a problem . It is the , the string upon which all of my conscious states , mostly unhappy ones are strung , right ?
The , the search isn't Consummated in the way that is implied by the logic of everyone's use of attention . Um And yet the problem evaporates and there's something deeply analogous about the structure of that and the the the meditative journey in , in precisely in , again , not talking about all the changes in the possible changes in the contents of consciousness that could be good , which again , they , they come along for the ride anyway , when you , when you do the thing I'm talking about , it's not on this point of looking for the self and not finding it . And there is this sense that OK , the self is here and it's a problem .
Right . And , and on some level that our subjectivity is a kind of an , in an , in an attentional fist , you know , it , it is a contraction of energy again , it's , it's so much bound up in thought for , for , uh most of us , most of the time that it , and it get , when , when properly inspected , there's just this , you know , evaporation of the starting point , but there's not this , there's not this fulfillment of I'm gonna get , this fist is gonna just gonna , if I , you know , if life gets good enough , if I get concentrated enough focused enough , you know , if I austere enough , if I renounce enough , if I desire less , if I , you know , you know , enough with enough good in uh intentions , this fist is gonna move into some sort of sublime condition , right ? That's not the logic of the , the process .
This is what the , the confused tourist feels like in her own search party and she's , she's looking , she's looking for the missing person . And so the , the sort of the , the angle of , of , you know , the inclination of all of this is and the logic of it is all wrong , you know , understandably so , uh given how we , we all get into this situation , but , you know , it's useful to continually try to under undercut it and um recognize that , that , that the thing that's being looked for is , is actually right on the surface which is , you know , the , the there is no one looking , there is no place from which you are pay if you're paying attention to the breath or to sounds or noticing the next thought arise . The sense that you are over here doing that thing is actually what it's like to be thinking and not knowing that you're thinking , you're not , there's a , there's a thought , there's an undercurrent of thought that's going uninspected in that moment .
But , but on some level that is true of meditation , it's like you can't get there from here . Like , but the sense of you , the sense of you as subject isn't brought along to this thing you're looking for . Right .
