Grasping at the "self"
Jenabean
New
I apologize in advance if this post is a bit rambley or out of order, my mind races a lot.
My whole life I have been a people pleaser. I break myself down into all these different personalities and personas to suit my current company. I have different voices and faces and mannerisms for everyone! Different tastes in music and food and I've been known (to myself) to suppress some very important opinions of mine to appease others and not create waves..
What I am getting at is.. I never felt like a "me" I always felt like this amorphous blob who just fits everyone's mold and at the end of the day it's very emotionally exhausting. I began studying Buddhism several years ago and the ideas of no self/ not self (sorry I'm still a lingo newbie) and it made sense to me. Unfortunately I became severely depressed and feel off the Buddhist past only to return now yay!
I had been struggling recently with the idea that I don't know who I AM. I don't know what "I" like and I don't know what "I" want or what "I" believe in. I felt really lost because I felt like I had nothing to come home to, no BASE. I felt uprooted.
HOWEVER! I realize now.. in studying Buddhism that being uprooted as I am.. may not be a bad thing. I was formerly stuck in my little dirt pot staring out my window. Now I pick up my gangly little roots one bit at a time and I'm learning to walk again. Without the limits of "me", "I" and "mine" I am free to ebb and flow as I should be. I often complain of feeling like I'm stuck in stasis when that was the exact type of mindset I was trying to cultivate! Ugh!
But I digress... Now it may seem I am the same lost amorphous blob I was as a child, with no solid foundation but that's not true. I am "my" (whatever that means" amorphous blob. I am forever changing and growing and shrinking. I churn and burn and become something new and old and new again. But this time it's for me not to appease others or to keep the peace. It's because I am OKAY with being free and a little shaken. I am okay with the unknown and the unplanned. Go with the flow. The harder I furrow my brow and flex my muscles and strain against the waters the more exhausted I become. If I just relax and let the flow carry me on I will get there. Okay, so sorry for the long post. Now for a question.
What did you guys first feel or discover when you got the concept of self/no self/ not self down or began to understand it?
Comments
I just relaxed and let the flow carry me . . .
@federica oh surely now . . . we haz plan! :clap: .
@Jenabean
This probably doesn't answer your question but when people report some imagery accompanying some spiritual awakening, they are usually fluidic with either water, flames or spaciousness.
Often pleasant, expansive and freeing but never offers to do my laundry for me.
Well, my first encounter with it was a relief, actually. This was several years before I started looking into Buddhism seriously. What happened was that my brain started acting up. I was going through an anxious time in my life (preparing for grad school exams) and had panic attacks, and also began to suffer from obsessive, morbid thoughts, which totally freaked me out.
The therapy I received at the time included breath meditation and a form of mindfulness training. I was taught not to attach to my thoughts or view them as "me". This was transformational, and did a lot to help me recover.
On the other hand, nowadays I often feel a kind of vertigo when I contemplate "not-selffness". It was nice, all those years ago, to realize that my anxious thoughts weren't me, but somewhat stranger to think that nothing is, ultimately. Gives me the shivers sometimes late at night.
Kia Ora @Jenabean ,
What did you guys first feel or discover when you got the concept of self/no self/ not self down or began to understand it?
Nothing !
Metta Shoshin .
..
@Jenabean, Hi!
I tried to find "myself" through logical questioning while in meditation. I couldn't find I. It left me feeling scared but relieved. I still feel the ego but I know it doesn't exist in truth.
As I newbie to I've realised a lot of answers come to me during meditation. I feel I spent/spend too much time reading about non self/not self etc... At the end of the day it's all just words. I like to practice and let the answers come.
Go well!
Concept? Know it. Find it. In other words as people have suggested, experience it. Meditate, look for this self that pleases others.
It is nothing. Just a thought. :wave: .
Thanks guys! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who found it somewhat relieving!
I agree with what a lot of you are saying in that I need to focus more on meditating on it and less on the textbook definition of it. Because honestly as a baby Buddhist A LOT of this is very confusing to me. My meditation practice at this time is pretty lackluster because it's new and I have ADHD yay! But I am working on it and I will let you know if I come across anything
Thanks for sharing!
If your not prepared to meditate every day buddy, don't bother even trying to grasp this stuff..Meditating using only the senses is "the" greatest thing there is to learn in my opinion, & will lead to a lot of realisation moments..So every night when you go to bed practice being mindful of only your senses, lay there & try to look through your eyelids in a dark room..Then try to feel your body, & feel how relaxed you can feel..Listen intently to the silence or noises, & You have to use a lot of patience because it's very hard at first..So gradually get into it, & don't ever be in a rush..Also learn how to mindfully operate, & do simple things in a mindful state which is no thinking whilst doing..There's nothing more worth learning, & I'm pretty sure that's why we're here. :-)
Centering is also important. You can jump off into 'no ground' but you also have to put your mind in a stable peaceful position to have all of these realizations. When we are totally freaked out it inhibits whatever we do and the same goes for Buddhist practice.
One support is to contemplate that all the practioners through all time had this and they got through it!
That lacklustre will do for me. The fact that you will share, is inspiring.
Walking meditation might be worth checking out.
:wave: .
I still don't get it. I "do" impermanence, which is a bit easier.
I don't understand the concept of self in the first place. Of course I've always been an atheist too, so such ideas as "soul" have never taken root in me to shed. I know there's something dependently arisen that functions as a unit for a time, but I've never taken it as anything special. I've never taken anything that I'd refer to as "me" to be permanent or independent, any more than an ape or a tree.
No amount of reading can teach you to swim, ride a bike, learn the guitar etc, because you have to learn the "knack/skill" using your mind until it's imprinted onto your sub-conscious then you don't need your mind for swimming, riding a bike or playing the guitar....So in my humble honest opinion you will never ever get the concept/knowing/feeling of your self, until you do physical & mental practises & training in order for you to first realise your self..Then imprint it onto your sub-conscious, which is your real self....Remember your mind's only there to learn your sub-conscious self new skills & knacks etc, & your mind mirrors reflects what ever your sub-conscious self has just said or thought....The only way to ever realise that is through the training, that I've been suggesting whilst I've been on here....Now as we're all supposed to take the middle way, i thought someone would be prepared to try it for themselves....Try it Aldris, & you will never look back. :-)
@Daveadams You're missing where I'm coming from but it's okay.
Suffice it to say that I'm not expressing a problem; the idea of an enduring independent essence has never been a part of my worldview (I've never believed it). Seeing what's really there, what's really happening, is what meditation is for... and apparently I've been sitting Zazen for the past ten years (who knew!).
If fewer people taught their children that they have an eternal soul, fewer (future) Buddhists would have trouble with "Not-Self".
@AldrisTorvalds wow that sounds very unique.
Most people "feel" there is an entity controlling the body. Not just a soul, atheists feel this to. I feel it.
If somebody called me a really bad name, or punched me in the face. I experience a certain amount of suffering. It's because I feel I exist.
@AldrisTorvalds an easy test is that if you have ever suffered you feel you have an independent self. How can you suffer if you there is nothing to receive the suffering?
If you have suffered before, ask yourself who is suffering? Or what?
The concept if self is the reason we suffer.
@Earthninja I may be explaining poorly what I mean, but I'm not enlightened so I can't claim that I don't experience suffering. It's not the concept that leads to suffering, it's experiential ignorance (not seeing clearly enough), and that's what we work toward overcoming. Having a concept that you believe in is just an extra veil or barrier.
I meant concept as in an illusion created.
I can see there is no self, but my subconscious reactions say otherwise.
Is this the same as you? Or do you "feel" or experience no self?
I think it just may be the ambiguity of words that's why I'm misunderstanding your post.
The only reason I'm asking is that it sounds similar to Eckhardt Tolles realisation of no ego/self. He doesn't suffer anymore
so he says
^^^ Non self is actively sought and not found here:
http://www.liberationunleashed.com/nation/index.php
Hope that is helpful :wave: .
You understand no-self through developing your skill at mindfulness meditation. Yes, words, whole books, have been devoted to discussing what this is about. But until you experience it for yourself, it makes no sense. It is an experiential understanding, not an academic understanding.
Nothing mystical about it .. it's just someone you see and go "Oh" about.
Understand that self exists and does not exist too. As my teacher said, "If you think you don't exist, try slamming a car door on your hand and then say your hand doesn't exist." It exists ... just not in the way that we conventionally think it exists. It is our attitude about self that is "unreal".
That's why not-self may be a better angle to come at it. We won't find a self residing anywhere because there is no thing we can point to and say that is the mind/ego/self.
It is no wonder people get confused on the subject and have to ask the begged question, "what is it that is deluded if there is no self?"
It is just the non-self-deluded