The Twilight Zone called “Anatta”
Shoshin
No one in particularNowhere Special Veteran
@Toanymemberswhotaketimeouttoreadthispost,
One of the core tenets of the Buddha’s teachings is “Anatta” = no-self no-soul selflessness soullessness,( however one likes to translate it) and for the most part one could say that when practicing the Dharma one is gradually chipping away at the self, bit by bit dissolving it in the clear pool of awareness…
However, it would seem "Atta"=self, sense of self, is a tough cookie, and does not want to go down this path ( to “give up the ghost” so to speak)…Its prepared to fight tooth and nail, kicking and screaming, fighting for its life…It will try all the tricks in the book to keep itself afloat….
Or as @how once put it “From the ego's perspective, the process of letting go is tantamount to suicide!”
In the West more often than not we are fed on a diet of “I me my” , conditioning reinforced by social norms & standards…
So from a Buddhist perspective, how often do thoughts of Anatta crop up in your busy day to day lives ? (Paradoxically… how often do “you” grapple with your “self” ? Or should I say attempt to lose your “self” ? )
As the ol’ saying goes “There’s more to life than what meets the eye “I”
Attempting to spark up an internal conversation with oneself about oneself can leave oneself in a state of confusion.... (which one is left confused ? That I couldn't say...It's too confusing . 
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So.....Welcome to "The Twilight Zone" (The Mind's Eye)
Comments
For about the first two hours of my day I am basically alone. That's probably the time for me that I'm able to let go of the "I" to varying degrees.
After that I'm a work colleague, friend, husband, father etc. Whatever hat is appropriate at the time.
I'm not convinced that we can live and act in the world without a sense of self. Or why we would want to.
I think that understanding or realizing anatta is reflected in in how much we attach to situations, things and people. That's where compassion and generosity come in as skillful means. It takes the focus off me and mine. Helps to loosen up the clinging.
And vice versa. With deeper realization of anatta, selfish clinging to things or concepts or people makes less sense.
That's why wisdom and compassion must go hand in hand.
I think that's how it goes. Could be wrong.
**Emptiness is form and form is emptiness. **
You are very much right.
The conventional self, sense of being, identity, body, continuum from ignorance still exists unless we become a beam of tinkerbell light . . . good luck with any fairy dust, experiences, realisations, wisdom etc etc . . .
So we have a conventional existence in form. However free and however uppermost the unborn, emptiness, anatta awakening is.
Now we move into paradox: The unborn, deathless, empty, anatta does not exist. Therefore one can not attain or realise it, except through being.
**Emptiness is form and form is emptiness. **
We practice increasingly to find the space or emptiness in the I that clings to its form. The form has many facets or delusions, some skilful, some little more than empty posturing, which we might discern as 'full of it' posturing.
The 'I AM' in its most purified ideal state is empty of being 'I AM'. In essence it is anatta.
So we have a duality to move towards and dissolve. We have the sense of being and the potential 'experience' of emptiness.
Every person here has this emptiness, unborn, deathless, non arising. It is always present but in its presence no 'I AM this form or that' exists.
**Emptiness is form and form is emptiness. **
But how much of a sense of self is needed ????
"A student of Zen asked the Master "How much "ego" do you need? The Zen Master replied "Just enough so that you don't step in front of a bus." .
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That's not Ego. That's Self-awareness. That's one Zen Master who either didn't understand the question, or doesn't understand 'ego'. Which is after all, a Greco-western concept and not an Oriental one.
It's a Zen joke @federica... .
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Zen has no jokes. It has wisecracks from Wise Guys.
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What no jokes ??? Well stuff that......I'm cancelling my Zen joker's membership... .
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That's your huffy Ego talkin'...
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No my ego was pushed in front of a bus....
Now THAT'S funny... Show the Zen Master!
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I can't, that's why I'm feeling a bit flat ....its under the bus...
It's not wrong to go about our daily life using a conventional sense of self as frame of reference.
I only choose to disown it when it acts as boundary and gets in the way of finding a connection or empathising with other sentient beings -when I begin to buy into the idea that the whole universe revolves around this woolly stack of ever-changing skandhas.
Never. I just do meditation.
"If you want to understand anatta, you have to meditate. If all you do is think about it your head will explode" ~Ajahn Chah
This is why not-self is much more logical than no-self.
There really doesn't have to be so much confusion.
There is no thing we can point to and say this is me permanently but to say I do not exist will only lead to more delusion.
I wouldn't worry too much about this self business. It's just a phase/fad and it will pass in less than a century most likely.
Yes, when Buddhism fades away, key teachings like anatta will too.
I see your point but I meant that any one of us can only suffer with the affliction of feeling like a self for a hundred years or less.
I get you now. In my case it's more like 20 years give or take a few.
Yes but is the self the skhandas? Is the self the body? Feeling? Perception?
anatta is with you wherever you go! It's how you use the concept of it that matters!
Getting hung up or attached to it or fighting it causes dukkha, and that combined with the realisation of things as impermanent - are the 3 keys to liberation, that anyone can access and use, regardless of whether buddhism, or any other religion accesses the insight they provide.
The infection is widespread!
Where is the focus right now?
The self is very much real I'd say. In times of extreme thirst and hunger, we suffer. But what I think is not real, is one who will cause more suffering to themselves and others by perceiving conventional truth as ultimate truth.
I guess the trick could be living conventionally while seeing ultimately.
Or are we just stained?
I'm just guessing, but I think we can use the mind to wash itself.
The self -no capitals- is any of those and the whole bundle, as long as you identify them as "me."
@DhammaDragon, the shravaka view of emptiness is that the skhandas are not the self.
I meant the self, not the Self...
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I'm not sure about that. I would say it is an extra unnecessary step to call them a little self. They are just arisings and they need not be called even a little s self.
Well, without getting too technical here, I'd rather not quite patronise the composite that we call our conventional self.
Whatever it is, I for one would miss any of the composing parts if they did not arise.
I don't understand what you mean by 'stained'? I LOVE your first sentence, though. I sense it is a very useful truth.
Oh sorry... I was alluding to the lotus in the mud, lol.
To be in the world without being stained by the world.
Missing them does not make them a self! I miss my 17 year old body but that does not mean that my body was a self. Am I right?
"big self" = dharmakaya = ultimate bodhicitta = emptiness of self
Without the self, is a body still a body?
Without the body, is the self still a self?
In order to be considered a self would a process have to be permemant? Perhaps unchanging?
a body is just a body. a body is not a self. I didn't make that up. It is merely the Shravaka view of emptiness.
The true self is timeless$, Self, and bliss.
The body is none of those three and thus it is empty of the Self.
$you could say it was permanent as a negation of impermanent.
So then what is a self?
What do we call that which answers to our names?
It isn't nothing so... Self seems as good a term as any unless someone has a better one.
Mountains are once again mountains or we may as well give up on information sharing.
I haven't studied that so much. I think you cannot pin 'self' down. A glimpse is rare I think. And then glimpse after glimpse after glimpse.
The whole Buddhist path is getting glimpses. And then stabilizing that vision.
If I could tell you the answer I would be a Buddha. And if you understood me then you would be a Buddha.
.:om: .. @Jeffrey I've pinned the self down to floating somewhere in between 'mind & matter' "And I don't mind because it doesn't really matter" .
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Can we agree that body and mind is not self?
Body & mind gives a sense of self.....
Ok but what about fried chicken? That'll give everyone reading this some food for thought.
No thanks....I'm vegetarian .
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Yum!
. . . and I don't just mean yab-yum . . .
A monk asked Zhàozhōu, "Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?" Zhaozhou said, "Woo".
("Zhaozhou" is rendered as "Chao-chou" in Wade-Giles, and pronounced "Joshu" in Japanese. "Wu" appears as "mu" in Japanese, meaning "no", "not", "nonbeing", or "without" in English. This is a fragment of Case #1 of the Wúménguān. However, another koan presents a longer version, in which Zhaozhou answered "yes" in response to the same question asked by a different monk: see Case #18 of the Book of Serenity.)
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kōan#Does_a_dog_have_Buddha-nature
:buck: .
Does a chicken have a sense of self? Not when it's fried. I can relate, jk.
Self is not a thing, it's a state of mind.
Mind is not a thing, it's all action.
It cannot be pinned down but without it you are no help at all.
Some interesting links about anatta, self and no self:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/notself2.html
http://secularbuddhism.org/2012/07/14/if-not-self-then-what/
http://www.buddhistgeeks.com/2011/05/psychological-self-vs-no-self/
Thank you to all the non-selfies who have tricked their selves into contributing some insightful comments...From Anatta to Anatta "I" thank you all...
Quote from A Buddhist neuroscientist (I can't remember which one-there seems to be quite a few floating around in Samsara .
.. I posted this elsewhere on the forum so it's a bit of an oldie, but still stands the test of time...It sums the act of self-ing up in a neat tidy package....
"Its not so much that we have a self, it's that we do self-ing...The self has no inherent, unconditional, absolute existence apart from the network of causes it arises from, in, and as !"
I recommend Khenpo Gyamptso Tsultrim Rinpoche's book Progressive Stages of Emptiness IF you are interested in a buddhist perspective on the self. He teaches at a lot of different views such as 'the two truths'. It deals specifically with this topic of 'non-self' or 'self'. A Lam Rim text/studies would be good preparation for the PSoMoE text. For further reading on what the self is in Shentong (emptiness other) Buddhism (after preparing) you could read the Buddha Within by Lama Shenpen Hookham.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Jewel-Ornament-Liberation-Wish-Fulfilling/dp/1559390921
(lam rim text)
http://www.amazon.com/Progressive-Meditation-Emptiness-Tsultrim-Gyamtso/dp/1877294012
(so authentic that the book reads from right to left!!)
http://www.amazon.com/Buddha-Within-Suny-Buddhist-Studies/dp/0791403580/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1414816256&sr=1-2&keywords=buddha+within
(a VERY difficult read; I gave up. A lot of polemics in the shentong rangtong debate)
I like. I think the self-no self aspect can end up distracting students from perhaps more important facets of the Buddhist philosophy.