8th Fetter
The Conceit Curriculum

“I Am Unique” Conceit vs. Understand

What Am I?

The Eighth Fetter pairs with the First Fetter. In the First Fetter we asked “Who am I?”.

In the Eighth Fetter we ask “Am I?”.

You have probably noticed that the Eighth Fetter is the one we rarely talk about.

The reason is that the Eighth Fetter is such a wonderful place to be. (For as long as it endures…)

You are now in a position where there is no longer an “I” identification.

You know there is the meat-suit appearing, the receptors work, but there is no-one experiencing the information picked up by the sensory system.

There is an aliveness and a presence in the moment that is filled with stillness, simplicity and contentment.

You are free to be who you are, and you are setting others free to be who they are.

There is no more reacting to anything anyone else says or does.

There is a free flow with being, and an open exchange with other people, animals and nature in its abundant presence.

What used to tick you off now seems insignificant, almost laughable.

You have no reactions of either fear, anger, guilt or shame, and when something comes up you immediately know that it is separated into a bodily sensation and a mind thought.

So there is now a very clear distinction between what is happening, and how the feedback loop of sensations, thoughts, and new sensations is taking place.

There is no one experiencing any of it, so there is no longer any opinion about any of it.

You love all.

You appreciate all.

You feel other people, and animals, trees, and sunshine equally, and you are moving through Life as an indelible part of Life, and there is no one to observe what is happening.

It is simply energy moving and interacting with itself.

There is no residual resentment left from your childhood, and you love your parents as human beings, and see clearly that they were just caught in their own wheel of identification.

You are present and aware in every moment.

There is an aliveness in every inhalation and exhalation.

An equal existence on the same plane as sounds, and smells, and sights.

When you close your eyes and allow the body to flow, there is no hindrance or any difference between birds chirping outside, or a soft wind on your skin.

You are in the centre of it all and everything is alive.

You are a part of the movement of energy all around you.

If you close your eyes, you dissolve into and become the energy that everything is. 

Every inhalation is the universe moving in an expansion, and every exhalation is the universe moving in a contraction, as if there is a huge heartbeat that everything is moving with.

It is like a reward for a life well-lived.

There is a deep connection with God or Presence, or Being, or The Universe.

It is what is called the “I AM” sense.

The big “I”.

The big Self.

It is magical, and beautiful, and you know so deeply that it is the truth.

It is God expressing as me, living through me.

It is me being a wave in the ocean, as a part of the big ocean, although seemingly separate.

I am a rain drop sinking into the soil, evaporating and then becoming a cloud.

It is a beautiful movement where nothing is random, everything is beautiful, and moving in unison….

We encourage you to stay here as long as you need to be here. 

There is no need to rush.

It will happen all on its own.

If, however, you do feel it is time to move forward, read on.

In the traditional framing of the 10 Fetters, the Eighth Fetter is called ‘conceit’ because, as you noticed, there is still an “I” experiencing it all. It is also the part that often leads to a subtle spiritual arrogance at one’s attainments.

The Eighth Fetter is a soothing Ego balm where there still is an experiencer, someone who can flow, someone who can breathe with the wind, move with the clouds, be part of something out there.

The Eighth Fetter is paired with First Fetter because the delusion is begging us to go back and start over with all these new insights.

So go back in the Curriculum and watch everything again, but this time be open to bursting the bubble and really discovering how, very subtly, you have placed an “I” in the diver’s seat.

The Ego has tricked you!

It has never left its seat and it still wants to survive. 

So if it does not feel right to move forward, don’t. Wait until it happens on its own. 

As we discovered in the Sixth Fetter, there is no perceiver, and in the Seventh Fetter you discovered that there is nothing that has any inherent existence.

Perceiving and World Creating has to happen in conjunction with time, and as we talked about in the Seventh Fetter, Time is a delusion as well.

Notice how there is a very subtle experiencer of it all, of all the beauty and the Love. And in that, it is very easy to believe that to be The Truth. 

It can’t be.

You don’t know what is actually happening.

It can only ever be what you think is happening.

But as we have talked about, as soon as you put anything into words, there is a limitation of the experience, and you have just made something out of nothing. 

In reality there is not even that (there is no reality either, but we will get to that in a moment).

The language is about to leave us, because if you can talk about the experience, there is an experiencer which is an indication to you that you are in the Eighth Fetter.

The 8th Fetter pairs with the 1st Fetter. In the 1st Fetter we asked “Who am I?”.

In the 8th Fetter we ask “Am I?”.

You have probably noticed that the 8th Fetter is the one we rarely talk about.

The reason is that the 8th Fetter is such a wonderful place to be. (For as long as it endures…)

You are now in a position where there is no longer an “I” identification.

You know there is the meat-suit appearing, the receptors work, but there is no-one experiencing the information picked up by the sensory system.

There is an aliveness and a presence in the moment that is filled with stillness, simplicity and contentment.

You are free to be who you are, and you are setting others free to be who they are.

There is no more reacting to anything anyone else says or does.

There is a free flow with being, and an open exchange with other people, animals and nature in its abundant presence.

What used to tick you off now seems insignificant, almost laughable.

You have no reactions of either fear, anger, guilt or shame, and when something comes up you immediately know that is time to move forward, read on.

“In the seen, simply the seen.”

So the question is: can you drop even the experience?

The Bahia Sutta says: “In the heard there is simply the heard”, so close your eyes and see if you can drop out of the hearing.

Can you drop out of the breathing?

Can you drop out of the sensory experiences in the body?

Notice how sensations arise, and a thought will be added, but neither is connected to anything. And see now if you can drop out of the noticing of both. 

It is a new level of dissolving.

Remember how in the First Fetter you were afraid of letting go, and who you would become after seeing through the self?

That fear will be coming up again.

It is just the Ego trying to stay put.

It is just a thought with a sensation.

It is just an explanation of what is.

Do you remember the verbal indicators from the Fifth Fetter?

This is where explaining really becomes clear.

In explaining there is an experiencer “here” and a perceived or listener “there”.

But any word that can be said is an indication of delusion.

This is clear.

It is not a koan.

It does not talk in circles or riddles like “being is self-reflection”, instead it is clear.

The “I AM” conceit is very clear. 

It cannot be explained with words.

If you do, you limit yourself into the Eighth Fetter.

In order to move on, it is about doing the inquires in all of the Fetters.

Do the work, in every single moment of your life, and see if you can “drop”.

Let it all fall away, and if there is a hook, acknowledge, accept, understand, and drop.

Enjoy

8th Fetter

Exercise:

Sit.

Close your eyes and notice everything.

The sounds, the smells, the sensations in the body.

And then drop all noticing.

Drop all being.

Drop it all.

Enjoy.

Full playlist for the Conceit Curriculum

Explore the 9th Fetter.

See Through The Self Delusion Course

We are so happy that there is now a full course for you to see through the identification of the self!

This course is like a practical handbook of all of the different angles that you need to be aware of when you are investigating identification in your direct experience. We hope that it will be equally useful to people who are absolute beginners on this awakening path, as it will be to seasoned seekers who believe they have seen through the sense of self and are currently working with the higher fetters. We believe that everyone will find things in the course that will help them to deepen their insights regardless of whichever stage of awakening they feel they are in.

Take your time with this course! It is quite comprehensive. Through it we will be discussing many aspects of awakening, some of which tend to be overlooked by those on the path. We stress the importance of integrating awakening into our daily lives, so we spend a lot of time helping to bridge the gap between the spiritual world and the relative mundane one in which we all live.

In this course we will go into detail about meditation practices, discerning thought from “reality”, how to approach long-held trauma, how to investigate and manage our fear of death, practices to stimulate deep non-dual insights, and how to avoid many different pitfalls and egoic traps that you might encounter on the awakening path.

For those who are familiar with our The Awakening Curriculum and Unfettered Mindfulness YouTube channels, you might have already seen many of these videos. But they have been assembled in a practical sequence that allows progressive insights and practice, and they have been expanded with 50,000 words of written summaries, extrapolations, further inquiry and meditation practices, and more. It’s effectively like having a whole book integrated into the video material. Even if you have already watched the videos, we hope that these written lessons will help to deepen and expand your understanding of the material, and provide you new directions to take your practice.

To get the most out of this course, we recommend watching each video in sequence, and taking lots of time to actively do every inquiry at least once. It can help to do the same inquiry multiple times before moving on. It’s always recommended to rewatch lessons, if not immediately, then come back to them weeks or months later to see if you now hear something that you missed the first time, or that now makes sense to you in a way that you couldn’t access previously.

It should be emphasized, you might accumulate a lot of new concepts from this course, but that will be of comparatively little benefit next to the insights that you glean from putting everything you hear into practice.

You are likely here, doing this course, in order to experience some sort of transformation of experience. But concepts have limited ability to do this. At least not in terms of creating long-term transformation.

For that, you need to have an experiential understanding of what we are pointing to. So relax, settle in, take a deep breath, and allow the experience to unfold all on its own.

No one knows what will happen on the other side of any practice. So remain curious, open, and remember to have fun.

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