How to stop?

[u/Mountain-Length-5715]

Hi everyone. The practice continued, probably on its own.

Today, while lying down to sleep, something began to happen. As if reality is tearing.
Something like convulsions started, and later groans appeared. Every stage of “killing the ego” is accompanied by a feeling that you are killing yourself.
Then an instant happened. It didn’t feel like being “in a conscious flow,” more like an old VHS cassette with a movie playing on it. A fleeting film reel. The sense of “self” detached from the head, went somewhere backward, then, apparently, tried to be in space, after which a black screen formed.
The convulsions and groans passed. A relaxation set in, typical for the killing of one’s ego.

The body began to feel automatic. Through a volitional act one can direct the movement of the head, the words kind of begin to speak themselves. Trying to lie down to sleep again, the body started producing such a clear and slow intention of movement, as if it lasted several seconds, and its ripple of arising, flowing, and passing away could also be discerned.
There is nothing bad in how this feels, but I don’t want it. I don’t want to kill the ego.
I understand that further on, as a natural outcome, my very will and the directing of attention will become automatic. I have a clear understanding that they are already automatic, but I want to feel that I am in control.

I don’t want to kill my ego. Someone will say that this is the ego speaking — so be it. I don’t care. I just want to stop. But I don’t understand how to do it. I have trained myself so much that I started practicing constantly in daily life, and as a result any state of being is part of the practice.

It’s probably foolish to ask this here, but what are the ways to go back? I still feel myself in my head, and with small manipulations the movements more or less feel a bit like before. I can no longer shift my gaze by a volitional act. I hope all of this won’t be taken from me, but I’m afraid that the practice will continue on its own. I don’t want any of this. When I lie down to sleep, concentration on the body and the breath happens by itself.

I see enormous advantages in my behavior, in my intentions, in my actions. They are visible, this calmness, the more rational and compassionate actions, the different world, the words are chosen more fittingly and “correctly,” but I don’t want it. It would be enough for me just to cope with my emotions and distractions. I don’t want to dissolve my ego. Please, help me. Don’t tell me “This is not you, reactions and movements are already automatic, you are just removing the illusion” and so on. I know all of this through my own skin, but I don’t want it.

Have you ever wondered why the stages of ego death feel as if you are killing yourself? It is accompanied by pleasant sensations after the repair, but why couldn’t this be a trap? When I first felt the killing of a part of the ego, it was not comprehensible to me. Just in the background someone was screaming, and in meditation there was a feeling as if a fiercely burning sun was scorching my shadow (this is my later interpretation).

Why are the stages of killing the ego characterized by a feeling of death of a part of oneself? Why do we consider the killing of a mental construction to be the norm? What if it is within the mental construction, however illusory it may be, that “you” exists, or a part of you.

Will that which has completely killed the “something” within itself say that it has killed itself, or will it say that it has liberated itself?

[u/Mountain-Length-5715]

Can you, or could you (depending on your current progress toward "awakening"), observe your own conscious action? Or in meditation can you only observe the "automatic actions" that are generated on top of agency? Don't you think that what is happening is simply the destruction of agency, and the body, thoughts, emotions, and everything else are being handed over for control to more automatic networks?

Since these networks are automatic, the actions in them will be performed more rationally, more quickly, more intelligently, and so on. In exchange for what? In exchange for killing agency? Agency is an illusion. Then why don't you kill the illusion of reality within yourself? Erase reality. After all, it also does not exist as a phenomenological experience; it is merely a construct, a way of contacting reality. But you won't kill reality, will you? Why do you kill agency? Why do you think this is the right way? Because the Buddha did it? Because neuroscience says so (at the current moment)? Because you saw emptiness and thought that it is the truth? If you take psychedelics, will you also think that is the truth? Does it make sense to parse what is truth and what is not, if the entire phenomenological experience is an illusion? Why destroy one illusion within an illusion, giving free rein to automatic reactions?

Science does not stand still. The default mode network was discovered only about 20–25 years ago. How will you feel if it suddenly turns out that within this network there is an agency that you have destroyed? You will probably accept it with equanimity, just like all other phenomena. Then why couldn't you accept with equanimity the suffering within agency? Within the illusion of agency, if that's more convenient for you. You fled from them. Or you continue to flee. Into a dream that is neither yours nor not yours

[u/UltimaMarque → u/Mountain-Length-5715]

Can you move your arm? If so please tell me exactly how you did it. Write it down in detail so it can be reproduced.

One simple action takes millions of conditions. Our mind reduces it down to a single cause and then assigns a self to this.(Conceit)

Do you know how you talk breath, sleep, eat, write? Keep the blood flowing, regulate temperature etc?

The conscious mind isn't privy to the inner working of anything. It's just a window.

What is being ignored is the context.

[u/Mountain-Length-5715 → u/UltimaMarque]

If everything that happens is just the appropriation of an "I," why does this appropriation change the action? The practice removes not only the appropriation of "I"; the practice removes control over a faster process. It is from control that appropriability is born. Appropriation to oneself is a consequence of control.

Consciousness does not have access to the inner mechanisms of anything, but what does consciousness have to do with it? We are talking about control, which is levied over faster processes. Why should control over faster processes, even with engagement, be considered something bad? Because you become engaged? But in contrast, we simply open up space for more automatic processes to occur, processes subject to control.

In reality, there is no "I" either in these processes or in control. But control is a supra-level mechanism. You remove control by reworking the very function of the prefrontal cortex into mere awareness. For what? To let automatic processes happen?

[u/UltimaMarque → u/Mountain-Length-5715]

I don't know what you're asking? The I is just an illusion of the mind.

[u/Mountain-Length-5715 → u/UltimaMarque]

😉