Anatta and automatic (mental) process

betaboy

Many people have trouble understanding anatta - plus it leads to problems like "if there is no self, who suffers, who is born" etc. etc.

Here is an easy way to understand this. Think of the times you lost control - anger, lust, and so on. Only after the event (after getting angry or after succumbing to temptation etc.), you say, "I was angry, I was lustful." Not during the event. In fact, if there is perfect awareness of anger as it happens, then anger will not happen. Strange but true.

So anger (and pretty much everything that occurs in your head) is not unlike an automatic process, which is why you're wiser AFTER the event, and not during or earlier. It is almost as if you and anger are distinct entities, as if anger has a mind of its own and can do its thing - that's why you realize you're angry after it's already happened. You say hurtful things and then realize, "Gosh, I can't believe I just said that."

From this, it is easy to conclude the following: if all these things that occur in your head go on and on and on without your approval (as if they are entirely separate, distinct entities), then perhaps we're 'creating' the self through identification with these entirely separate, distinct entities (such as "I am angry," "I am sad,"). Without this identification, where is the self?

Ergo, anatta makes perfect sense.

Citta

Not only our largely unconscious mental functioning, but all of our biological functioning from conception to death. None of it is under our control. If breathing were a conscious activity we would die in our sleep. The fact is our image of ourselves as having autonomy and operating from a centralised self is illusory.

DairyLama

betaboy said:

In fact, if there is perfect awareness of anger as it happens, then anger will not happen.

What do you mean by "perfect awareness"?

sova

SpinyNorman said:

betaboy said:

In fact, if there is perfect awareness of anger as it happens, then anger will not happen.

What do you mean by "perfect awareness"?

Mindfulness


e.g. four mindful establishments

betaboy

Thanks for the replies, guys.

We can also look at it this way ... anapanasati, I believe, is awareness of breath. Most people do not know why they do it. Here is why. We observe the breath to realize that breathing is an automatic process that goes on with or without our approval. We are completely helpless in that regard - even when we're asleep it goes on. From the breath, which is gross, we move on to the mind, which is subtle, and realize the same thing: that the mind just goes on with or without our sanction.

Again, the conclusion is inevitable: if everything is a process (and processes are automatic), then nothing we do can bring about enlightenment. It happens when it does. All our practices/methods/precepts are geared toward realizing this truth.

Citta

There are in fact things we can do. But they rely on an ongoing relationship withone or more persons who have seen their own real nature.it is caught not learned.

betaboy

Citta said:

There are in fact things we can do. But they rely on an ongoing relationship withone or more persons who have seen their own real nature.it is caught not learned.

Agreed. One enlightened master (forgot who) said something very similar to this: truth is caught, not taught. He said while being in the presence of enlightened masters, keeping oneself open ...... the magic suddenly happens.

Or something to that effect.

Citta

Kinda then comes the hard hard task of actualising it for oneself which is a lifetimes work. But it is know longer lifting yourself by your own bootstraps and Sangha becomes essential in maintaining the View when mundane reality once more becomes the norm.

Citta

maintaining the View' replaces trying to achieve. It is no less hard work. Neither is it more advanced. The View is not a matter of practice But of actualising what is always the case.