What about the emotional 'I'?

Jeffrey

It's all fine and dandy to know that your cells and mind is changing... To know about quantum theory and compositional (dependent origination) organization of beings; we are meeting and changing factors and not stable.

I think it is another to notice that despite our understanding emotionally we are still upset when our boundaries are defiled. For example one person might see a office co-worker move something and get agitated because they had gotten accustomed to the previous position. Like the book "who moved my cheese".

Progressive Stages of Meditation on Emptiness, by Kenpo Gyamptso Tsultrim Rinpoche

"We all act as if we had lasting, separate, inderpendent selves that it is our constant pre-occupation to protect and foster. It is an unthinking habit that most of us would normally be most unlikely to question or explain. However, all our suffering is associated with this pre-occupation. All loss and gain, pleasure and pain arise because we identify so closely with this vague feeling of selfness that we have. We are so emotionally involved with and attached to this 'self' that we take it for granted. The meditator does not speculate about this 'self'. He does not have theories about whether it does or does not exist. Instead he just trains himself to watch dispassionately how his mind clings to the idea of 'self' and'mine' and how all his sufferings arise from attachment. At the same time he looks carefully for that self. He tries to isolate it from all his other experiences. Since it is the culprit as far as all his suffering is concerned, he wants to find it and identify it. The irony is that however much he tries, he does not find anything that correspond to the self.

Westerners often confuse self in this context with person, ego, or personality. They argue that they do not think of the person, ego or personality as a lasting, single, independent entity. This is to miss the point. The person, personality or ego as such are not a problem. One can analyze them quite rationally into their constituent parts. The western tradition has all sorts of ways of doing this. The Buddhist way is to talk of the five skhandas, the eighteen dhatus or the twelve gates of consciousness. The question is not whether or not the person, personality or ego is a chagning, composite train of events conditioned by many complex factors. Any rational analysis shows that is the case. Teh question is why then do we behave emotionally as i fit were lasting, single and independent. Thus when looking for the self it is very important to remember it is an emotional response that one is examining. When one responds to events as if one had a self, for example when one feels very hurt or offended, one should ask oneself who or what exactly is feeling hurt or offended."
"

@swadydam and me were talking in a thread. @taiyaki @Vajraheart @Sabre @Person might be interested here? Others I am forgetting?

Straight_Man

Buddhism, so far as I understand it now, says that so-called Ego is monkey mind in action. And ego, psychology holds, is what makes us react in the way your examples illustrate, partly indirectly-- per psychology. Per Buddhims, Karma and monkey mind interact to cause this, in ways I do not understand yet, and will for the rest of my physical life only partly understand.

I have a weird mind (psychology sense), it uses the concepts it stored and stores in weirdly connected ways. So excuse the different unique to monkey mind set my Karma gave me, please.

Jeffrey

@Straight_Man, By monkey mind you mean mental processes? Or something more specific?

pegembara

All loss and gain, pleasure and pain arise because we identify so closely with this vague feeling of selfness that we have.

Without feeling of loss and gain, pleasure and pain, how can the feeling of selfness arise and vice versa. They are dependently coarisen ie. contact-feeling-clinging-becoming etc.

Straight_Man

Um, in psych terms, monkey mind would be understood as mere physio-chemical processes, yes.

But, in the Buddhist sense of monkey mind it is more like all of mind except the non-manly mind if any. Buddhsim seems to reject emotion as Voluntary, so does psych to a degree, though manly philosophy would say emotions can be changed by learning.

So, yes, mental processes in processes of subconscious, conscious, and physical linkages working is what I use monkey mind for here. Because, neuro-psychiatry now lends the idea that all three are at root physio-chemical processes. Monkeys and gorillas can learn and remember sign language, and learn from each others' examples, that is proven.

I am not sure quite how to say this in Buddhism-ese yet. My monkey mind is word-concept crippled right now.

misecmisc1

my thinking says: only logically thinking, understanding, philosophizing anatta (non-self or not-mine) does not remove ignorance. only direct experience in meditation may help in this regard.

lobster

I would suggest that the Buddhist concept of 'Mind', encompasses emotions, body and eventually all experience.

This is why sitting is a physical and body calming, reflected in the mind processing we are familiar with.

We are not trying to suppress or control this totality. Rather be familiar and at ease with all its components. In time, inevitably we transform . . . :wave:

Sabre

Good topic. If any insight doesn't change us as a person, if it doesn't change our reactions to things, it is merely an idea and not an insight.

sova

@ everyone : "it is important to meditate on selflessness, the abiding nature of reality" - Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche

http://www.ktgrinpoche.org


@Straight_Man Here is a fundamental question, which arises first, matter or perception of matter? Form (like sights or sounds) or perception of form? Think about it

karma is an understanding of many facets, and intuition with it will grow with time and understanding. put more moments under the lens of relaxed-vigilant-observation and light shines through.

karma is loops one goes through (like auto-pilot / zombie) and also proclivities or tendencies. increase mindfulness by taking an ideological and phenomenological step back to be observing and also build positive loops. many times, deep happiness and satisfaction and right action overlap beautifully. you may experience wonderful-life and simultaneously plant future goodness at the same time. lovely synchronicity is.

the body is a doorway for deep analysis of mental events and, greater still, Mind.

through the body course something like streams and rivulets, currents of "wind" upon which thoughts sail. deep sensitivity to this layer of being can be cultivated through observing and watching/flowing-through of breath and inner wind.

thus, one's thoughts and one's body can find perfect balance and harmony, which is dynamic. for all is in flux.



For people interested in black stone / white stone meditation. It is a wonderfully deft method.

http://www.nyungne.org/documents/Black and White.html

taiyaki

Whats negated in Buddhadharma is the exaggeration of the self, which forms the basis of the afflictions that cause suffering.

That exaggeration is the inherent existence given to "self". One spends a long time recognizing and clarifying what exactly that means.

Because if we negate too much we are Nihilists. If we affirm too much we are Essentialists.

When we affirm dependent origination we are seeing wisdom for the first time.

That does not deny the personality, individual, self, function of self, action, choice, etc.

Nothing is truly denied other than that specific exaggeration that is given to self.

In fact when we really realize anatta we can see directly that self and no self don't really apply as ontological truths. But rather the self (solidity) is built on the basis of concept, condition and causes. Seeing that we learn to unbind and unhinge from the solid self through playing with conditions, causes and ideas.

And then we can laugh.

Jeffrey

@taiyaki

affirming dependent origination is the svatantrika view of emptiness It is madyamaka, but the prasangki practioners say that there is a prapancha about asserting a relative truth or dependent origination as in the two truths. Prasangaki thus carries no assertions. It is also madyamaka based and rangtongpa view. Through the madyamaka analysis things are shown to be non-self, but no other way of being is posited. Someone said "things are not as they seem, but nor are they otherwise."

That said I make of my practice the shravaka view, emptiness of skhandas. Khenpo Gyamtso Tsultrim Rinpoche says this view corresponds to the 1st through 6th bhumis of bodhisattvahood. So that view should be good to work on for me and others.

Jeffrey

@Straight_Man, I think you raise an interesting question. I think monkey mind and psychology have to do with the skhandas or they encompass these skhandas. I am less sure if the true self (bodhicitta) is included in the sub-conscious and psyche etc..

Straight_Man

Um, in a sense maybe not. True self as in Buddhistic self, cannot be merely physically based. That would throw out too much. That is my take on it.

My question then becomes, does true self find itself both in and outside of psyche? Psyche cannot fully include it.

Jeffrey

I am not as familiar with psychology as we could hope. My course in it was 15 years ago!

What do you think of when you hear psyche? My therapist said that the superego was like a woman who is trying to train the ego, a lion, into asserting dominance over the ID, a monster. From that standpoint I think my psychiatrists analysis is to show you that you have different natures and are capable of animal, higher, and I am not sure what the lion/ego is really. I don't think Buddhism uses 'ego' in the same way as psychology. My teacher specifically points out that there isn't a term 'ego' in Buddhism. Sometimes my teacher uses it when talking about duality and sometimes about pride and god realm.