Shifting the Duality of Me and Other
[disorganized]
Most of us today are exclusively (and mistakenly) identified as an object within the field of what is arising. We see ourselves as exclusively a human self. This of course brings a lot of suffering to our experience.
To awaken more to what is, we need to dislodge this exclusive sense of identity - first by shifting it, then by allowing it to be more fluid and inclusive, and then by allowing any fixed identity to fall away.
As we are already used to function with a dualistic view, it may be helpful to play along and first work with this dualistic view. We can maintain the dualism and just shift the alignment of "I" and "other" in relationship to the field of what arises in the present.
First, "I" am this human self, and the rest of the world is "other". Then, we can discover that "I" am pure awareness, capacity for what arises, space & awareness, etc. and the world of phenomena is "other".
And when we are familiar with this and have brought it more fully into our human lives, we find ourselves ready to drop any beliefs of "I", whether it is as "awareness", or as "not awareness" and "not this human self".
We see that any belief in a thought of "I" creates a separation that is not there in our immediate experience. It is an added layer of abstractions. And this layer of abstractions is of immense practical value when we don't believe in it, and a way to create suffering when we do.
It seems that many forms of inquiry can be very helpful here, such as Ramana Maharshi's Atma Vichara, Douglas Harding's experiments, and maybe in particular Byron Katie's inquiry process.