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Losing myself in anatta
nakazcid
Somewhere in Dixie, y'all Veteran
As I study Buddhism more, it's beginning to sink in that enlightenment entails the destruction of the self. So, if the self is gone, what's left? A robot? A lobotomite? An avatar of the Buddha? Does an enlightened being even refer to him/herself as "I"? If it's just a collection of aggregates, what provides volition or will to this selfless being?
When I was a child, I read a science fiction book called Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke. In that book, the minds of the inhabitants of Earth were absorbed into an entity called the Overmind. That book scared the heck out of me, because I feared losing my self. So if I don't have a self any more, what's going to be inhabiting my head?
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Purity.
An unblemished perception of everything as it truly is.
I'd start of by asking myself, What if I never had a self to begin with?
What most people think of as 'self' is simply a process of identification. Seeing through this process doesn't somehow negate your biology. Your relations to the aggregates may change, but the aggregates don't cease to exist simply because you grasp their impermanence and not-selfness (and volition itself is one of the aggregates). If there's something underlying that process (a self or soul as some believe), then you'll find it by peeling back the proverbial curtain. If not, then you won't have lost anything but a view (sakkaya-ditthi). Just one perspective, at any rate.
You are already that. But we construct our view into this bubble of the person. Which doesn't even exist.
The one that is fearful of enlightenment won't be there. So therefore what fear could there be without the person?
Don't let your mind put you off waking up. It's just the ego trying to stay alive.
Do you think enlightened beings go, well that was a big mistake. Man let me go back to poor little me. !
Take the plunge! You are already who you are!
Metta chris
I had the image during meditation once of the "self" being like a guy having to roll a huge Boulder up hill(future self) while simultaneously being chained to a Boulder behind him(past) that he has to drag.
This self is a burden of our own construction. The self is a prison, its a constraint, it limits, but though the practice we break free from those chains ever so gradually and move towards freedom.
I suppose the heart of the problem is that I consider the self to be the source of all volition. If the self is gone, then free will is gone, and all you have left is a vegetable or a robot. Are there any sutras or books that address this, um, misconception?
Here's something that may be helpful, or else just make things more confusing.
Volition will and feeling are not destroyed. Observe and they are there.
Five Buddha energies. (wanting to) know, it all, feel, do, and be. They are always there and are transformed from hindrances to treasures. For example we find a vision that helps our life. So we want to radiate it out to all beings. Isn't that right? Former alcoholics want to save all alcoholics. Christians (Buddhists) want to save all others suffering. That is the principle of radiating outward and trying to 'have it all'.
You will always have feeling etc. The aggregates are confused ways of perceiving 'me'. But that doesn't mean that the truth is just everything extinguished. Something is extinguished and yet there is all the heart qualities left over such as kindness, gentleness, insight, courage, determination and an infinite number of other ungraspable heart qualities!
You are.
Without ponderings, fears of destruction, dreams of enlightened over minds. A sort of junk free you.
Sound good?
My conception of this facet of Right View - Self is a fluid thing, changing from moment to moment. It is not so much that self is a delusion, obviously some sort of "ego" must be present in order for a being to move in the world. However, awareness gives us the ability to be our best self by understanding that, like all else, our self-concept is impermanent. We largely choose who we want to be in life. I am not who I was as a child, 10 years ago, or even 5 minutes ago. I am not who I will be in a moment. Change is the only consistency. This, to me, is what the "empty" self is; a thing that exists only in so far as my perception of it extends, which has no substance beyond that which I create and experience.
Bravo @Amthorn exactly so
Fluid like a melting stream. We try to grab and hold onto our ice. It melts. Evaporates, falls as rain, becomes salty in the see [sic] . . .
One drop becomes an ocean wave . . .
Buddha never said there was NO self he just said that grasping a self is suffering. So don't grasp it and no problems.
@lobster and @Amthorn Perhaps some clarification is in order. When one becomes enlightened is the self just gone, or still present but known to be an illusion?
@Jason I'm still trying to absorb that link. I've been looking at some commentaries on AN 6:38 which seem promising. If I'm reading it correctly, it seems as though the Buddha pronounced that there was something (but not the self) making choices, but you (and Sam Harris) tend to favor determinism. Sam Harris' name caught my eye; it was through his writings that I first became interested in Buddhism. More reading is in order.
@nakazcid there is quite a broad views of self in Buddhism. For example there is the nirvana sutra from the Vajrayana tradition.
http://www.nirvanasutra.net
My teacher doesn't teach from the nirvana sutra so much in her teachings and favors: the avatamsaka, ratnagotravibbaga, and shrimaladevi. She is a teacher expressing Mahamudra which is the highest tantra along with Dzogchen. In her teaching anger, desire, and ignorance are distorted perceptions obscuring: clarity, sensitivity, and openness.
Ha! Love the simplicity of your statement @Jeffrey. If only it were that simple.
My mother has always suffered a lot from anxiety. I remember her saying to me one new years day about five years ago "My new years resolution is not to worry about anything anymore....."
Oh mum. If only it were that simple.
LMAO, 'lobotomite' LOLOL (sorry that is hilarious)
@Nakazcid, what very little of 'self' I have 'lost' has been the greatest relief of my life. NOT scary at all. A blessing. A grace. An effing RELIEF.
You can look forward to it, I promise.
IMO, this 'loss of self' happens automatically as most people mature. Your kids are grown, you've likely peaked out in your chosen career, there may be grandkids and the 'youngsters' you work with look up to you (but don't want to see you naked). I'm afraid my 'anatta' has been more organic than something I've 'achieved' by being such a good Buddhist he he. At least my practice has enabled me to recognize this natural, organic 'maturation' process and harness it to my practice perhaps?
@nakazcid -- This is a mistaken, if popular, assumption. What Buddhism actually suggests is that there is no ABIDING self.
In one sense, it's a bit silly: How the hell could anyone get rid of or destroy what s/he never had in the first place?
Still, I will grant the underlying fear of losing what is referred to as the "self." How could I be anything if I weren't the "me" I am accustomed to? That's spooky and is enough to slow or sidetrack even the most adamant student.
What clears the matter up and dispels the fear boils down to practice. It's not an intellectual or emotional game. Nothing is forcibly evicted. In Buddhism there is no need to "get rid of" or "destroy" anything. With practice, things happen naturally, sort of like air being let out of a balloon.
So we practice...
And see what happens.
Remember, the word "Buddha" means nothing more than "awake."
Best wishes.
For some reason it often gets implied that we would have to be permanent and independent in order to be real. Then since no thing is permanent or independent, it goes that no thing is real.
If no thing is real that seems to negate the noble truths. How could there be suffering if there is really no one to suffer?
There is no thing you can point to that will be you but you are still right here, right now.
Because we may be gone tomorrow is all the more reason to be here today.
Don't lose yourself in non-self and start thinking you aren't really here... Somebody may be depending on your help.
Is compassion something an illusion has for other illusions to pass the time or is it a logical conclusion?
If there is delusion, there must first be something to suffer delusion. It is nonsensical to imply the non-existent could be tricked into believing anything... Even something as seemingly simple as existing.
Being is not the illusion... Being separate and permanent is.
From the Mahayana tradition the question of self is found in the prajnaparamita sutras such as the heart sutra.
If we cannot find anything graspable in any bit or piece then how can there be permanence/impermanence? There was never anything to be permanent or impermanent. This is what Nagarjuna criticized the self-empty school. He said that for there to be non-self that implies a mentation of something which has no self. That mentation of an confused state itself is a grasping. There isn't any confused state so there cannot be a confused state to negate. As in the heart sutra: no path etc
http://old-shambhala.shambhala.org/teachers/pema/shtk.php
Translations vary such as Thich Nhat Hanh's which IMHO kind of compartmentalizes the the portion I quoted as a pointer to the 12 nidanas (google is your friend!).
http://plumvillage.org/news/thich-nhat-hanh-new-heart-sutra-translation/
So I think that if the OP is interested in the Mahayana perspective they should not overlook the heart sutra!
@Jeffrey How appropriate! We are studying HHDL's Essence of the Heart Sutra in my sangha right now. The Heart Sutra has stumped me for years. Maybe studying it will shed some light on my question. But like @genkaku said, just practicing may be the best way to overcome my fear.
It is a matter of view. In some sense there is no confusion here thus we need not negate it. In zen they call that 'gaining mind' to be striving to bring enlightnment.
In another view when we see confusion it is no longer confusion it is seeing. This is the same as saying that confusion cannot be found. Since it cannot be found the proposition of negating it is like trying to trim the horns on a rabbit.
But it is a matter of view. In some sense there is a path. We also don't try to 'attain' non-path because there is also not any such thing as emptiness or Buddha nature to 'grasp'.
polish a tile to make it into a mirror!
http://dogenandtheshobogenzo.blogspot.com/2011/02/zazen-polishing-tile-to-make-mirror.html
Although it is the ego trying to get rid of the ego.
Every time a negative feeling or thought arises we immediately associate ourselves with that. We suffer. We hold our views, beliefs and opinions so highly. Yet none of these are original to us. All acquired.
The body is in total flux, on a quantum level it's popping into and out of existence. A sea of change. Every 7 or do years every cell has changed. Nothing original to us.
The mind is constantly changing. Thoughts arise, thoughts cease. Nobody can control their thoughts or feelings, or r options. Yet we claim them as "I'm sad" or "I can't concentrate" none of these you have power over.
That damn I that' feels it is sad.. Where is it? Isn't it just the mind that's had a thought, then awareness of it. Then feelings arise. Which one is I?
Then you realise there is no I. Everything is observable manifestation of experience.
Somehow the body and mind have created an entity that says. "I am a person! I am an individual" I suffer" it's all just thoughts. A concept.
Once this is realised, not by the mind that always has an opinion. But internally. You can't find "yourself" then something opens up.
Suddenly you can't find the person anymore. Everything is just happening.
There obviously is a body and a mind. But no I.
You look at your hands and it's not "you" looking at "your" hands. It's just awareness of hands.
Everything around you becomes awareness. You can see thoughts arise but you are not those thoughts. You can see a body walking a dog but you are not that body.
Then a few days later you get stuck in traffic and frustration arises. Something says. "I am annoyed"
Then you realise that damn I is still present.
So you begin looking again for that I that is annoyed, all you find is thoughts and body. No owner of thoughts.
There are thoughts, no thinker. Deeds are done. No doer...
Aaaaand that's where I'm up to at the moment on the path
I'm sorry, I can't answer that question, because I don't think I am enlightened. My supposition is that the enlightened self, motivated by compassion, replaces the unenlightened self. Even this self is fluid, though, so degrees of enlightenment must exist. The whole point of the Bhodisattva is to assist all beings in reaching enlightenment, so there must be some motive force at that level of consciousness. The ultimate paradox, no one being can reach Nirvana until ALL beings do.
This well-known passage from the Bahiya Sutta seems relevant here. I think it points to the experience of non-duality, directly knowing.
"Then, Bāhiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bāhiya, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress."
Pardon if I'm being dense, but are you both saying essentially the same thing here? If so, I think I understand, at least on an intellectual level. I find the sutras hard to penetrate at times.
I may change my name to reflect my natural state . . .
I can speak from experience rather than lobotomies that I have read . . . I am most certainly not gone, away for the fishing, destructed like a missing brain part. No sir.
However I am awake to, attentive with, reside from the Awake Mind. It manifests through the existing body, mind and self.
As this enlightened or awake aspect did not come from anywhere, it does not go anywhere. In essence it has no qualities that we can attribute to. The more you try and retain, hold, define, the more you realise the holding and retention is ego. The Buddha Nature, the Awake Mind is not ego. It is 'not being'. It is nothing that can be defined. Which is why enlightenment is 'experiential' rather than discussable.
The Buddhist tradition based on eastern self effacement is to not reveal insight or awakening. Enlightenment does not make one superior to other people who may have more refined qualities due to their purity, practice and efforts. Being awake does lead to very rapid change that can be overwhelming if one does not have a context or template to draw on.
It is true that the enlightened mind opens like a lotus and 'ahhhh' happens and the petals fall away but the lotus is ever opening and therefore nothing is gained or lost . . .
So it is possible to deepen ones realisation.
Apart from going hiking cross eyed, some useful info here:
http://m.wikihow.com/Become-Enlightened
It's something that can be experienced, sometimes in meditation when the mind is really calm, or sometimes when you are fully in the present.
I tend not to think about this stuff too much these days, it's more about being aware of present experience.
This topic always reminds me of something a wise teacher once said:
To me that means the real essence of anatta does not come from trying to understand it intellectually. Which concurs with the scriptures description of transcendental dependent origination.
So here the cause for the arising of correct understanding of anatta (AKA knowledge and vision of things as they really are) is concentration, or jhana or samadhi. Or whatever word you want to use. There's no mention of intellectual pondering. In fact, in the Kalama sutta, the famous "find out for yourself" scripture, the Buddha recommends against relying on this kind of intellectual pondering.
Now if you really think about it, the idea that you might become a vegetable or robot, etc. perfectly fits the definition of "logical conjecture". According to the definition of "conjecture" in the dictionary, it means: "an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information."
If you don't have a solid and experienced samadhi practice, then according to transcendental dependent origination, you don't have the complete information. Since it is this samadhi that is the cause for the arising of this information, AKA knowledge and vision of things as they really are.
The Buddha's path is often said to have 3 aspects to it: Sila, Samadhi, and Pranja. Sila, or ethics, lays the foundation for samadhi and samadhi causes the arising of Pranja. Understanding anatta requires pranja, therefore practice sila and samadhi!
Now if you really think about it, the conclusion that one might become a robot, etc. has no actual evidence behind it. It's pure "logical conjecture". If you look at reality, you can see that this conclusion has been proven wrong over and over. For example, The Buddha realized anatta and he did not become a vegetable. He became a wise Buddha! Look at other people. Ajahn Chah didn't become a robot. Thich Nhat Hanh didn't become a robot. None of the Buddha's disciples became robots. They ALL became sages, wise men. I think everyone can agree that being wise is way better than being ignorant!
So the question now is: So how does one become wise? Well, you practice sila and samadhi, not logical conjecture. That's how I think about it anyway.
Only the sense of a self is gone. Nothing else is lost (the self was never there in the first place). The only things destroyed are greed, hatred and delusion.
To the casual observer, nothing appears to have changed. Things still get done. The greatest transformation is internal.
Robots or lobotomized individuals are in fact not awakened, believe it or not
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No, enlightenment does not entail destruction of the self.
As it is explained in the Ananda Sutta (SN 44.10), the Buddha was both against an eternal view of the self (eternalism) and no self (annihilationism):
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn44/sn44.010.than.html
Enlightenment entails a change of perspective: viewing your bundle of skandhas for what they really are.
Ever-changing, ever-impermanent, interrelated, not self-generated.
If anything, it entails the destruction of a wrong, limiting view of the self, the destruction of ignorance.
Matthieu Ricard defines ignorance as "a distorted vision of reality that makes us think that what we see around us is permanent and solid, or that our 'self' is a real, autonomous entity. This leads us to mistake fleeting pleasures or the alleviation of pain for lasting happiness."
You will neither be a robot nor a vegetal.
You will still be your old bundle of skandhas, except that you won't suffer by clinging to a false image of that self.
So we see that the conventional self is illusion, so what, we throw it away?
Once we rid ourselves of the defilements, we are better equipped to explore.
The self is an illusory tool so why not use it?
Just my opinion
It's a tool alright, a tool for suffering.
Enlightened beings still refer to themselves as I. But there is no more sense of I. It's completely gone. It's merely for conversation. If that's what you mean?
I think the fear of losing the person keeps many people trapped. The mind will make any excuse to keep us as a person.
I've experienced nausea and fear when trying to find I. I know it's just the play of the mind.
Metta
Thanks for the feedback everyone. It seems the real answer to this question lays in more practice. The example of a robot or a vegetable was the only thing my mind could come up with if the self were not present; obviously, the Buddha, Thich Nhat Hanh, et. al. were/are not vegetables or robots. Still, as @genkaku pointed out
This is what I need to work on, consider and practice with.
No, that's not quite what I mean. Not exactly anyways. Every one of us has a unique view of the world the rest of us can learn from so why waste it by pretending we aren't here?
That we are temporary is all the more reason to appreciate life.
Billions of years sharing information to just throw it all away just because we wake up to interconnectedness?
If the self is only good for suffering, what's the deal with compassion?
In one sense we are all in this thing together and in another we are all unique individuals. There is no paradox there. We are individual aspects of the very same process.
It is an exploratory tool which enables us to see from many perspectives.
He could have gone in any direction when he woke so why did he go to see Sidharthas family?
@nakazcid
You can't lose what you never had (a permanent self existing from its own side)...
The experience of anatta (in a nutshell) could be seen as an heightened state of awareness of the ever changing sense of self...I guess the more this awareness is in tune with the fluctuating experience of anatta, the easier it is to let go of things such as objects, concepts and the like, which more often than not obstruct the path...
I like this Zen approach to "Awareness"
"Awareness is fundamentally non-conceptual -before thinking splits experience into subject and object. It is 'empty' and so can contain everything, including thought. It is boundless. And amazingly, it is intrinsically 'knowing' !"
There comes a point where doctrine has to make sense.
Saying I am I simply for the sake of convention doesn't really change anything.
Call it what we want, whatever it is or isn't, the laundry still has to get done.
Call it what we want, whatever it is or isn't, the laundry still has to get done.
But without a doer
There may be no thinker of the thoughts but to be on the safe side, perhaps I'll let my daughter have an education anyhow.
There is no contradiction here. Education is still needed even without a thinker. Human civilization is highly reliant on thought. Without thought, there would be no electricity, computers, TVs, medicine, language etc.
Virtually every aspect of our lives depend on thinking. Learning from the past to prepare for the future. All this in the realm of thought.
Yes, I think it's a case of closely investigating the way we experience things, seeing what it is really like. I view the 3 characteristics as pointers, not as dogma or things to be believed. It's rather like in science, we start with a hypothesis and then see if our observations support it. I've always found it much easier to approach via impermanence actually.
What is it really like to see something? How do we react to the perception, and what do we conceive about it? What assumptions are we making? How do we experience self-view, what is it like, when is it strongest and when is it more tenuous? And so on.
Excellent news. The idea and experience of no-self/emptiness does require study, contemplation and explanation. It is quite an advanced topic for some.
There are many ways to approach this study. Let us know if you come up with any resolution/insights.
Fear of no-self or dissolving of ones fears, hang ups and Internet addiction (still working on that one) is part of clinging to a fantasy construct. You (the real you) the Buddha Selfei will not disappear in a beam of rainbow flare. You will be fine.
You just said the same thing I did except you seem to be saying that thought exists independently.
In the quote you supplied it even says the conventional truth is the foundation without which the ultimate cannot be known.
The opening post is asking if the conventional self should be gotten rid of. If we go that route we are useless. Do you see what I am getting at here?
Favoring one truth over the other only obscures them both.
The middle way exposes the fine line between the two truths and that is the line we walk to neither cling to nor be averse to either truth.
I must admit t I find it kind of odd that everybody insists that there is no thinker of thoughts but nobody can actually say what that really means in plain english.
Not-self, not no-self.
The distinction is huge.
Indeed. Exactly so.
My apologies for using the wrong term.
Don't two negatives together contradict grammatical rules... ?
Sorry, my friend. Even though you posted before me, I didn't mean to single you out or anything. Your knowledge surpasses mine in a few regards I'd wager.
The teaching is often presented as no-self because there is no self to be found so it isn't like the term is wrong so much as misleading.
No self has possible connations of annihilation, lobotomised Buddha zombie and this is nihilism. Not Buddhism. The original poster (OP) was talking in nihilistic or self gone language. Not part of the Buddhas expression. He (for the Buddha was a person) said the self is illusionary, when you look for it, self is always attached to thoughts, memories, senses (dependent origination - an important teaching we have discussed) but the self is not 'hearing' or 'smell' etc, even though we can experience these sensations.
http://www.buddhistdoor.com/OldWeb/bdoor/archive/nutshell/teach9.htm
'Not self' means an awareness that is not attached to sensory and mind arisings. This is why we meditate. Stuff comes up. Not self. Stuff.
Stuff that stuff.
@ourself was pointing this out, quite importantly. Not self DOES NOT mean an empty skull, a void persona, an undead Buddha shell.
No sir. You are safe with the Buddha Dharma. Good stuff.
Yes, or at least no true self. I quite like the 2 truths approach on this, conventional and ultimate truth.
Buddha never taught nihilism. Self as in an Ego sense of self, let go of what you think you are (mind, body, emotions, etc). What's left? Deep meditation will answer that for you.
It's not that you are "pure awareness" that is sometimes oppressed by moments of contracted "selfing"; but rather as pure awareness you are manifesting moments of "selfing" as your current energetic formation.
The ocean doesn't have moments of waves occurring "to" it, instead the ocean is waving. Likewise awareness doesn't have moments of "selfing" occurring to it, but instead awareness is "selfing".
~Jackson Peterson page of Facebook
For me, it was Nagarjuna expounding on the Middle Way between the Two Truths that finally made sense of a seemingly impossible paradox.
It just clicked and made compassion logical with no need for sentimentality.
@Jeffrey;
I like that quote and it kind of reminds me of something Alan Watts said about how the tree is appleing just as the darned Earth has peopled.
Scientists are now starting to figure that life is no mystery and that it is actually inevitable given the conditions so perhaps awareness of being is also.