When you meditate and observe the activity of your mind, you see that thoughts, emotions, and impulses arise from the unconscious unasked for, uninvited, they aren't yours. They exist for a time and fade away. They have no substantial existence. They aren't real, they aren't reality. They are illusions.
It can seem like you are just awareness observing.
But you can observe yourself observing.
Then you realize the observer is an illusion too just like any other thought, emotion, or impulse. There is observing but no observer.
When you are trying to solve a problem, figuring something out, it can feel like you are in control of your mind. You are using it intentionally.
But when you observe yourself trying to solve a problem, you see that your intentions are no different from any other thought, emotion, impulse, or "observer". They are not yours, they are illusions too. The feeling of control over your mind is an illusion. There is thinking but no thinker.
The same is true when you are speaking, you feel like you are thinking of what to say, like you are in control of your mind. But when you observe yourself speaking, you see your intentions are illusions too.
The same is true for any intentional activity. There is doing but no doer.
When you are immersed in experience and feeling emotional pain or other discomfort, the unpleasantness seems real. But when you observe yourself having that experience, you see the emotional pain or discomfort and the experiencer are illusions too, just like any thought, emotion, impulse, "observer" or "controlling self" you might observe. There is experiencing but no experiencer.
When you are focused in meditation, you are observing something. When you get distracted and find yourself lost in thought, you are "immersed" in your thoughts. They seem real. The same is true of emotions. You can be immersed in them and they seem real or you can observe them and see they are not yours, not real. The same is true of self. Where ever you find a self, an observer, an entity controlling the mind, a doer, an experiencer, if you observe it, if you understand how all other thoughts emotions and impulses are illusions, you can see that self is an illusion too.
And you can see how the mind creates this illusion, alternating at will between immersion and observation you can create and evaporate the self as you choose.
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