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you do not exist in and of yourself
I read a book recently "How to see yourself as you really are" by the Dalai Lama. I'm struggling with the concept of "You do not exist in and of yourself". Anyone have any views on this?
here's my "progress" so far ...
When you think of yourself and that image pops in your head? that's an illusion.
we don't exist in isolation
we are made up of impermanent parts
etc.
here's my "progress" so far ...
When you think of yourself and that image pops in your head? that's an illusion.
we don't exist in isolation
we are made up of impermanent parts
etc.
0
Comments
There is no permanent self. Neither as in a soul or as in an unchanging personality. You are you right now, but would you say you are the same as you were ten years ago? Probably not. Will you be the same in ten years? Probably not. You have new opinions, new friends, new taste in clothes, new favorite movies, new favorite food etc.
People can change right down to the core. A belief in a core would be to believe in an unchangeable part of a human - a kind of soul. But Buddha teaches us, that such a thing does not exist. It doesn't mean there is no "you". "You" are just not the same forever. Some people change dramatically, some almost don't change - but they do to some degree. The mind of the 70-year-old isn't the same as the 30-year-old.
But why are we then responsible for our past acts? Because our past self knew, that unskillful deeds would eventually catch up with our present self - like kamma carried on over lifetimes.
too many selfs to reconcile.....better off with no self.
(dushya had a good case for why it should NOT be shot down).
The point Khenpo Rinpoche made is that emptiness is a meditative realization. Through meditation we can form total confidence in the emptiness of self. It is not an intellectual point. My teacher said something that struck me. If we *think* we have realized emptiness but then say "ok got that.. What's next?".. that is just intellectual.
When you move your arm and turn the page of a book who does that? You?
So it can be shot down but the path is to approach the question again and again. The realization is MINDBLOWING and is the end of suffering or at least the start of the Bodhisattva path.
So "so what?" indicates that it is just regurgitation of a text or website.
here's my "progress" so far ...
When you think of yourself and that image pops in your head? that's an illusion.
we don't exist in isolation
we are made up of impermanent parts
etc.
Well, if you single pointedly focus your mind on a cheeseburger
you are a cheeseburger.
If you single pointedly focus on any phenomenon, insubstantiality becomes apparent -- like things are always in flux (so if everything is always changing then where the heck are these "things" we keep talking about?)
I think @Ficus_religiosa gives an excellent point to begin analysis: I am not who I was 10 years ago, or 10 months ago, or even 10 seconds ago. My interests/motivative factors have changed, every molecule in my physical body has moved, shifted, become replaced, yet still there PERSISTS a "me" that I like to put clothes on, that I like to take at face value and assume it will always be there, albeit with slight alterations over time.
But really, you are a completely new [person] every moment. All aspects have changed, except for that which we cling to, and that which we cling to invariably causes us tremendous suffering. (see the Four Noble Truths)
But really, if every part of 'you' is changing every moment, then where is 'you' ?
Well, the logical conclusion is that there is no 'you' or 'me' but there is still grasping to the concept, so familiarization with meditative states of mind is (if you ask me) a fundamental necessity to coming to truly realizing truth that is logically apprehended.
But still, it is easy to cling to the idea of a 'meditator' that is there to experience 'meditation' and won't stop until he/she gets it. Buddha, however, stresses Skillful inquiry. Some ways of looking at the picture are more effective than others, although in theory all lead to the same 'place'
Skillful inquiry is, in my understanding, instead of viewing your experience as a 'me' experiencing a 'this' or a 'that' -- look at the totality of what you can see/feel/sense/taste/smell as the known universe. Don't be a person that has the universe happen to them. BE the universe, for that is really the only rational way of looking at the picture (and naturally, it takes some practice).
Then one can focus their inquiries on the most basic of elements -- not neutrinos or electrons or other conceptualized 'smallest particles' but the perceptions! The very curtains to the windows of the universe.
Consciousness itself 'inhabits' many bodies, the bodies of all sentient beings (and in Buddhism, even beings without bodies in the conventional sense).
The body cannot be without consciousness, but consciousness can be without the body. So, consider that consciousness pervades us all. On the most basic level of struggle we are no different, we all yearn for happiness and avoid what we fear and believe to lead to painful states.
Personally (funny way of wording it, aint it?), I think that selflessness is more easily realized by seeing the equality of self and all-self ... or 'my'self and 'other'self as fundamentally same, perfect, beautiful, equal. Kinda like the many cells of the physical body -- 'we travel better when we work together' they have found out. But, none of them could move, find food, or survive all by its lonesome; every cell needs the other (completeness) of the jigsaw puzzle to complete its desired function.
Shantideva says that it will be a glorious day when all beings realize that they are the many limbs of the body of life. I have also heard this said as "all beings are petals on the lotus of life"
So again, grinding the axe from 'I don't exist' or 'I exist as a momentary awareness constantly in flux' is efficacious -- and I think that grinding at it from the other end (we inter-exist with all other life) is a supreme contemplation. They say that enlightenment is the union of wisdom (realizing emptiness) and compassion, which I view as the perfection of logic and the perfection of love, as nondivisible unity
Other things that may help in your quest *legend of zelda music plays*
check out "Nonduality"
metta+relaxation
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2012/06/eternalism-nihilism-and-middle-way.html
I agree with whoever said that the importance of understand that is more about realizing how interdependent we are on so many things to stay alive. Maintaining that we have a self is what prevents us from putting ourselves in the shoes of others, of seeing others as equals.
Second paragraph -- exactly!
10 years of practice DOWN THE DRAIN
@taiyaki awesome vid. awesome awesome vid.
You are the stuff of the world bound up as a human body for a time, and then released to become other things. In fact that body is constantly exchanging material... it's always different. You're only ever this "stuff", this emptiness (as Buddhism puts it). It's neither you nor belongs to you, and in fact there's no "you" that exists separately from the world. The functioning (and very existence) of that body is completely interdependent with the world, its mind is one with the world, the idea that it's something of itself is delusion.
Everything is just this flowing interdependent reality. The things and beings and ideas, they're all just appearances that come and go. There's nothing to grasp. Trying to hold on is like clinging to a thought (trying to keep it from going).
The worst disease inflicting mankind is us and "them" or self and "other".
There is no other, there is only us.
I don't think Nihilism is about not-self, but rather the claim/idea that there is a self that's annihilated (either at death or upon enlightenment). The opposite, Eternalism, is that there's a self which continues on. Rebirth is not the continuation of a self, nor is enlightenment the annihilation of a self. Either view posits self, and so avoiding nihilism and eternalism becomes avoiding self-view.
That happens to be a great thing, because enlightenment is concerned with the removal of this same self-view.
...
Which is the real you?
Mara:
By whom was this living being created?
Where is the living being's maker?
Where has the living being originated?
Where does the living being
cease?
Sister Vajira:
What? Do you assume a 'living being,' Mara?
Do you take a position?
This is purely a pile of fabrications.
Here no living being
can be pinned down.
Just as when, with an assemblage of parts,
there's the word,
chariot,
even so when aggregates are present,
there's the convention of
living being.
For only stress is what comes to be;
stress, what remains & falls away.
Nothing but stress comes to be.
Nothing ceases but stress.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn05/sn05.010.than.html
A subject/object could be taken out of its context and would still have some characteristics and be a solid and graspable thing. My raincoat is still a raincoat when it’s sunny and I’m not wearing it.
A process is different. It can only be described in its context and when we try to remove it from there or when we alter the circumstances, it simply disappears. A rainbow – unlike a raincoat – only exists in the right combination of circumstances. It can’t be removed. I can’t hang it on a peg next to my raincoat.
The Buddhist notion (again in my understanding) is that all phenomena are processes and that their appearance as subjects/objects is illusionary. The raincoat is like a rainbow on a different scale. It also disappears after some time. And it can only exist within certain conditions. It will burn under high temperatures and it will be torn under high forces.
Any process is shaped by other processes, not by subjects/objects. So it’s not just the rainbow, but the shower of rain and the sun are processes too. They “do not exist in and of themselves”.
What we think of as “me” is, like everything else, a process based on other processes. The whole thing is without anything which exists “in and of itself”.
Like the Diamond sutra says:
With metta _/|\_
Not-Self is duality.
THAT'S the difference.
I know you may believe there's a difference.
Perhaps you'll take the word of someone more experienced than I.
You said there wasn't a difference. I pointed out there was.
What exactly is your point in continuing this?
I don't think "no self" is nihilism any more than not-self is. Isn't nihilism in Buddhism primarily about the idea that a self is destroyed or annihilated at death (or that there's no life after death)? And eternalism being that there's a self which transmigrates? Both of these are about believing there's a self, and so the Buddha taught us to see all conditioned phenomena without exception as not-self and avoid these views. The result is really to see "no self" in anything. I agree they don't mean exactly the same thing.
http://www.budsas.org/ebud/whatbudbeliev/111.htm
I thought Nihilism was about the fact that nothing exists in and of itself, including the self, not about what happens at death. Nihilism is dependent origination taken to its logical extreme. No?
It's not your NO-SELFS that are awesome, it's your NOT-SELFS.
So what do we do with it? Toss it out? I only just discovered it recently, so I'm really intrigued by it.
I don't mind new teachings from enlightened masters, but I'd like to keep what the Buddha taught separate from what he didn't teach, especially where one contradicts the other.