In order for a choice to happen there must be activity arising as the play of mind, as the inner dialogue of words. It can be assumed that one is putting together these words but when looked into more closely it will be seen that the words, which are simply actions arising in consciousness, are appearing and then being noted to be present by the ‘me’ AFTER they have made their appearance. Clearly then ‘me’ is not the producer of these thoughts but is itself another thought that arises after the initial thought and claims that thought to be a product produced by the ‘me’, When seen clearly the ‘me’ thought is seen to be simply another thought.
As all decision making involves thinking and as all thinking is involuntary, in that each thought arises without it being pre-planned by anyone, every choice or decision is being made as an action arising in consciousness of which there is no controller.
Even the thought ” I think” or “I am the thinker, the producer, of these thoughts” is simply arising and is not actually being produced by a something or someone called ‘I’ or ‘me’.
This desire to make the ‘me’ the controller of what is arising as thought comes about when it is imagined that there is a ‘me’ as the thinker of the thoughts but when looked into it will be seen that there is thinking but no thinker. There is doing but no doer. This desire which arises is also simply arising as an action of consciousness, this too is impersonal. There is in fact no personal desire as all desire is impersonally arising, the so-called person being a belief and nothing more than that, which again is simply a thought arising.
When this fact begins to make itself obvious the imagined controller begins to lose sight of itself from time to time as the realisation that there is no personal controller in charge of anything begins to take over and the imagined controller dissolves.
This can be a strange period for it has been seen at this point that there is no producer of what is arising as the experiences of the body/mind and yet this has not yet fully established itself and so from time to time ‘me’, the imagined controller, steps back into play habitually. Eventually the claiming of what is being done simply dissolves into the no-thing-ness from which all thoughts etc have always been arising within.
What remains then is the seeing, by no-one, that all action arising, be it the action of thought or feeling or physical action is happening spontaneously. There is no prior plan, no destiny, no purpose or reason for what is taking place, all is simply happening, to no-one.
What sees what is taking place is no-thing. This no-thing is still and timeless and when an activity takes place within itself it is immediately reflected upon this inactive timelessness as an activity of time and hence recognised to be taking place.
There is no-one, no person, seeing any of the actions arising. They are in truth being witnessed not by a person as imagined but by the same ever-present timeless awareness wherever and whenever they arise.
This is always the case even when it is imagined that there is a something or someone seeing what is taking place. In this way when enlightenment has taken place and the imagined individual has dissolved in the clear seeing all that is actually different is that the ‘me’ is no longer present to what takes place claiming it to be a result of its presence. Things continue to take place as phenomena arising but there is no longer the concept that someone is doing any of it or that it is happening to anyone.
Avasa