Hearing other’s reports of how they experience themselves help me see what is going on for me. They reflect what has been for me, what is alive now, or what may be.

For me over the last several months, there has been a phase of a sense of neutrality and space. Mostly, there is just space - within which everything happens. There is little or no boundary between this human self and the rest of what is happening, it is just one field of space and phenomena - none of which appears solidly as I, or Other for that matter.

For this physical body where there are just a few disjointed sensations appearing here and there in space, some emotions now and then, and some thoughts now and then. There is a vague sense of center around the head and upper chest area, but it goes away when I look at it - it is just revealed as phenomena arising in space just like everything else. If I don’t look, there may be an equally vague sense of “I” here at this “center”, and if I look, both vanish - literally - in space.

Whenever I do Breema, either giving or receiving, there is a similar sense of space and a few sensations. The whole from which I can find a body and psyche is very clear, as a whole - as space within which sensations, feelings, emotions and thoughts arise (although it seems that only the sensations seems localized in space, the feelings, emotions and especially thoughts just seem to happen - nowhere in particular in space, not really connected with this human body or not).

The word fragmentation came up in a conversation this morning, and I realize that I cannot find that so easily in my own experience now. There is just space and then everything happening within and as this space. I can see that I can heal, mature, develop and so on as a human being, but it is also beyond fragmentation or no fragmentation.

Over these months and within this space, there has been a sense of dryness and flatness, of neutrality, a sense of fatigue, and punctuated by periods of watching stressful thoughts and images arising, and other periods of seeing some of the old exitement coming up.

It seems that as the deepening into selflessness - both the realization of it (seeing through the belief in the idea of I) and the living of it (reorganization at our human level) - there is a sense of peeling off more layers.

Layers which previously were “innocent” now come to the surface, demanding attention, one after another. And they sometimes have consequences in my daily life, creating apparent blocks where there used to be none or few, inviting awareness into the issue.

Along with this is a continuing normalization of the sense of selflessness, appearing more and more ordinary and unremarkable.

And there is still a sense of “dryness”, of not finding any excitement in it - even the explorations at the edge of selflessness. It all seems neutral, in any sense of the word. All dials are at zero.

There is also a sense of a relatively stable transparency now, a sense of the Ground co-existing with a vague sense of I - transparent to this ground. I assume this is a quite typical phase in the process - where the habitual sense of I is still around to some extent, yet also seen as not real when looked at, and transparent to the Ground.

When I look, I find myself as “capacity for the world” as Douglas Harding puts it. This human self happens, along with the rest of the world of phenomena, within space and awareness. There is no strong sense of identification with any of it. And yet, there is the vague and habitual sense of “self” in some areas, although transparent and not believeable when looked into.

It all seems similar to a purgatory, although that too is just a story. Just another story, aimed at making sense of what is happening and providing some comfort. Another story used to distract from what is.