I. Discovery Phase

1. Start with any hurt (-), with any tickle (+), or with any strong, recurrent desire for something.

• It’s often easiest to start with a hurt.
• In time, it makes a lot of sense to go also with tickles and with strong, especially recurrent desires.

2. Use the dukkha–and dukkha, here, is cast in terms of hurts, tickles, and strong desires–in question in order to go back to the samskara on whose behalf the dukkha has arisen.

3. Only when you hear/feel the “ding” of resonance should the inquiry stop. Not until then. 

• Usually, you’ll find that there is “something” in the neighborhood of samskara X. Like a hen, keep rooting around here, keep pecking around here until you find the samskara in question.
• Again, there should be a “whole body” resonance or a sense of quietness.

4. At this point, you’ve discovered one half of samskara X.

5. Next, begin to probe X until you discover its “antonym.” I describe the latter in Pts. 6 and 7 of the following post.

6. Now you’ve come upon samskara X as well as upon its dyadic other–for the sake of ease (though not of clarity) I’ll label it “not-X.”

II. Seeing As Phase

1. Now it’s time to test samskara X and not-X. You can do so by using the “echoes” of hurts, of tickles, and of especially strong, recurrent desires.

2. Take any, e.g., vivid hurt. Test to see whether this vivid hurt–say, A–can be understood “in the light of” samskara X and not-X. Can it? 

• If YES, then great: keep going through other echoes.
• If NO, then go to the Discovery phase and look for samskara Y and not-Y.

3. Continue seeking to confirm samskara X and not-X through the echoes of more experiences/memories.

4. A hermeneutic circle-like remark: It’s also helpful to use the echoes of experiences of, e.g., hurt to refine samskara X and not-X if it doesn’t quite fit or fully account for hurt A. 

5. The basic thrust of “Seeing As”: You should be able to make sense of various, until now seemingly disparate experiences of hurt, tickles, and desires in virtue of seeing them as manifestations of samskaric energy X, or Y, or Z, etc.

III. Probe Each Samskara

1. Back to samskara X and not-X: Begin to inquire into it. How?

2. Two cases:

• Case 1: In my direct experience of this thought, can I actually find a separate self? (No.)
• Case 2: Can I find a separate self behind this thought? (No, I only find “the space of awareness.”)

3. Therefore, I begin to understand that this samskara is nonexistent or unreal.

IV. Comprehensiveness: Personalities Laid Out–Neti Neti

1. Suppose you’ve found, say, 5 samskaras. What now?

2. Draw a circle, so to speak, around all of these and label them “personalities” or “dramatis personae.”

3. Understand that you are NOT these personalities or dramatis personae.

V. Self-inquiry

1. Since all these personalities are not me, the question naturally arises: “Who am I, then?” Open completely to this question. Live this question.