When I explore what I am, or some aspect of it, I often trace it back to what’s unmanufactured.
More precisely, I notice concepts and mental representations of it, and whether I mistake those for what they point to. And then use them as pointers to what they refer to.
For instance, when I woke up this morning, I noticed a contraction in me, and wanted to explore it from stillness and silence.
So I found myself as stillness and silence and noticed that some elements of it felt manufactured. It was the idea of stillness and silence. It was a sensation and some mental images of stillness and silence. And there were some sensations and mental images creating a slight sense of someone doing it, someone looking for and finding stillness and silence.
So I metaphorically took a step back. What’s the actual stillness and silence that allows all of this? That takes the form of all of this? What’s the stillness and silence already here, and that doesn’t need to be manufactured?
I often do the same when I find myself as capacity, or oneness. And when I just explore what I am without these pointers as a guide.
I find myself as capacity for this field of experience. I notice some sensations and mental images that represent – and give a sense of – capacity, and some that give a sense of someone doing the looking or observing. And see if there is a more actual capacity inherent in it all, that doesn’t need to and can’t be manufactured, already allowing it all – including these senses of capacity, doer, observer, and so on, these sensation-mental image combinations.