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Non-Self and Self in layman's terms
Carlita
Bastian please! Save us!United States Veteran
What is self and non self in layman's terms?
Using the Buddha-nature teaching. Is the Non-Self our Buddha-nature and the self, the Me, I, Mine (our dellusions)?
Is there a elementary analogy you can use to express the non-self and (if connected) emptiness (non-self) concept?
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"Self" is a convenient "fiction" to enable us to communicate with "others".
It is as real the USA, London, money, 3 o'clock, democracy etc. They don't inherently exist but are determined into existence by ourselves.
This self although useful in daily life can be a source of mental suffering when wrongly grasped. Why? Because under this delusion one becomes ready to die for one's country, religion, money or freedom. Aging, sickness and death becomes something that happens to one personally.
The Buddha taught to look deeply into the nature of self. To know this is to know the truth of our existence.
Yay my favourite topic! @Carlita.
Non self in laymans terms, the "you", "me" or "person" is a completely fictional character that the brain has created.
We believe we are a person living in an external world but this isn't really the case. The one who thinks thoughts, makes choices and has beliefs... Is simply this, a belief. It is the source of all suffering, because life doesn't go the way this fictional character wants.
Right now there isn't actually a person living their life and making choices, what happens is that life is living itself utterly spontaneously. The person is a conceptual overlay the brain has created.
Choices are made in the brain and then the "person" thinks. "I choose apple juice"
But this is just a thought, nobody thinking this.
It goes against all our rules of language and what we have been taught, it is a felt sensation we exist "in" this body.
But what can happen is that this sensation can expand and include everything, then all imaginary lines drop off and you see there is no separation, life is living itself. Nobody is writing these words, there is no sufferer.
Previously there was, "I am looking at he apple"
Then I, looking and apple merge. All there is, is the vision.
Funny thing is this is already the case. It's already no self. Never was one. Without thought, we simply cease to exist.
I'm glad you mentioned the Buddhanature concept, OP! That's key, IMO. But it usually isn't taught until students have first succeeded in getting their own ego out of the way, i.e. become proficient in practicing "no self". Once one has arrived at a place in one's development that everything isn't always about "me", and compassion for others becomes one's motivating force, then (traditionally) one is ready to receive teachings about Self, or what is sometimes called the True Self, the Buddhanature within.
I think it's important to note, since it's easy to become confused about all this, that there's also a concept of "self" (lower-case "s"), which ideally is the identity we have to adopt in order to function in the world, as the Buddha did. But we don't become attached to it, we don't attribute permanent qualities to it (flattering ourselves with how compassionate we are, or how dedicated we are, or conversely, identifying with negative qualities). We realize we're beings in a constant state of evolution, growth, change and learning, so that we have no permanent qualities.
According to the Buddha's last sutras before his death, the only permanent, abiding quality is Buddhahood, should any of us ever attain that.
Dogen says Impermanence is Buddha Nature
Because all our veils (ignorance, aversion, attachment) are not part of our truest nature, so meditating on impermanence will eventually reveal one's true nature, since all the other stuff is extra and not truly true.
'Selflessness' is a term you can meditate upon with joy, it's true of everything. It's kinda like cells in a body -- even though we can say there are many distinct cells, they only function together. Which one is the main one? There isn't a main one. Every one depends on all the others. This is a way of approaching an intuitive understanding of selflessness.
Reading everyone's posts.... I'm at work.. but what you guys say is brilliant. This is what I found in a quote. Maybe this sums it up too: "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation." ~Oscar Wilde. Once we get rid of being "other people, having our own opinions, our own lives, and our own passions" we are no long attached to self (or Self?) anymore....but are intuned with our Buddhanature.
To be continued....
Thank you guys!
@pegembara
From how you explain it, it seems like those words, the pronouns, are abstract words that we make real in order to communicate who we are. It is like saying "this is a chair". When the chair's "true Self" is wood. It's not a chair/I/you/me. But when put together as a chair, we make it something that it isn't for convience purposes.
If that makes sense?
@Earthninja
I'm a little fuzzy on how you describe this. In analogy (or maybe in reality?) we are fictional characters who is runing around thinking who we are, are the fictional traits we have. I wonder what happens when we find we are not fictional characters.
@Dakini
I understood what you said. Most of my comments are above. Thank you for comparing it to Buddhanature. True Self-Buddhanature and self=words we use that we think define us but they don't.
Preference wise, True Self and Buddhanature makes more sense.
@sova
Hm. I never thought of Buddhanature as impermence. I was thinking more of a Zen concept where Buddhanature are our True Self without the Labels.
Sova, everyone, do you know what sutra mentions Buddhanature? I was told that word was not in the sutras (or suttas)
That's the thing. We don't actually have our own opinion let alone others. The whole shebang is conditioned by our parents, teachers, books, friends, society. There is nothing original. We see an iPhone while someone from the past see just a lump of metal. The iPhone is actually a lump of things but by naming that lump iPhone everyone now thinks they know what an iPhone is. iPhone is now a thing.
When we were given names like Tarzan or Jane, we created a person in our minds. Tarzan (pun intended) is a convenient fiction. Tarzan is becomes a person that was born, grows old and finally dies and is reborn next life or seeks enlightenment.
In Theravada Buddhism, there is no "true" self even. After all if there were a "true" self, who then is the one who recognizes and speaks of this so called "true" self. This "true" self is beyond any description since any label you give is not it.
@Carlita the Lankavatara Sutra speaks of Buddha-Nature although it is called Tathagatha-garba. You can find it by this term.
Ay curumba!
You mean whatever I think is a conditioned thinking construct? Holy Buddha!
I did read in an empty dharma fortune cookie, that nothing can beat Buddha Nature for not-thinking about these things.
Maybe if I sit very quietly, Nothing will come up ... but I have a feeling it is already present ...
Next someone will be asking me to 'not think of a monkey'. Maybe I should wonder what this 'not-monkey' is like? Probably does not exist ...
Is it part of the Pali? I'm hoping it is in the book I have so I don't have to search around.
@Carlita
I know you have opened this thread in 'Buddhism Basics'
) "The Five Aggregates"
However...Remember this (perhaps for future reference
Non Self = Well oiled Aggre gates ie, goes with the flow
Self = Rusty Aggre gates ie, goes against the flow
"Self" is an English translation of the word "atman".
Atman is the idea that we each have an unchanging, eternal, essential nature. It is similar to the Christian idea of a "soul".
Buddha's insight was that all phenomena are changing, temporary, dependent on everything else. This is "no self".
It is does not mean you as a person do not exist. That is nihilism, and is something Buddha warned against. People who think like that are likely to get hit by a bus.
@Daozen
One's environment, experiences, perceptions, etc are all changing is "no self" and that which is eternal, unchanging is "Self" ?
How do these two relate and relate to your last paragraph?
I would suggest non self can refer to a very advanced experiental being.
So let us start with Buddhist 'self'.
My Buddhist self (ignoring all the other selves or hats we wear) revolves around formal practice, mindfulness, immersion in dharma, online companionship, the occasional retreat and visits to Buddhist theme parks temples.
Take that away and I as a self would still exist. Taken even further, removal of all the hats and the self would still be.
What is that self? Again it is a question of 'asking and finding the self'. We do this through the Buddhist self. Interestingly this may lead to an understanding and experience of 'not-self'.
I prefer, for some reason, the term 'NOT-Self, as opposed to 'NON-Self'.
The former gives an opposite view, the other side of the coin, whereas the term 'non' seems to indicate a lack of existence, and absence....
I can't agree with the latter, but can get my head round the former.
Perhaps siding with either view is an extreme the Buddha wanted us to avoid.
Of course it was. Hence his advice to focus.
See?
Well said. Whatever you can think of, experience, perceive or conceive, all that is not self.
So if all is not self .........
Can we just say that one is our true self/buddhanature and the other are labels or fabrications masked as our buddhanature? That sounds less confusing than using non self, not self, and self
No, we can't say that, because that's not what Self/Not-Self is about.
Ther Self/Not-Self lesson is one attempting to highlight the impermanence of anything we view as solid and existent.
All compounded phenomena are impermanent.
That includes a chair, a sequoia a mayfly and us.
But we 'exist'. We function. We are alive, and we progress.
We exist and we do not.
We are today, but we are not as we were yesterday, and neither are we what we shall be tomorrow.
If we get our heads around the fact that for every day we live, we also die a little, then that's a step in the right direction.
Empty essence means very, very open
And very spacious, like a totally open sky.
Space has no center or edge.
Nothing is prevented, it is completely unimpeded.
Empty essence, like space, is not made out of anything whatsoever.
At the same time there is a sense of knowing,
An awake quality, a cognizant nature,
Not separate from the openness of this space.
Like the sun shining in daytime,
The daylight and space are not separate.
It’s all sunlit space.
Nothing is confined, nothing is blocked out.
All the doors and windows are wide open.
Like a total welcome – of all possibilities –
Which doesn’t get caught up in whatever happens.
It is wide open,
The unity of empty essence and cognizant nature.
This is the third quality, that of unconfined capacity.
~ Tsoknyi Rinpoche
There are allegedly advanced mystics and dharma practitioners who enter semi permanent or those who dissapear about their own rainbow, permanent 'not self' states.
Too advanced for my experience, which is more akin to the non-self (not the same as altruism).
The Buddha Nature, unborn, emptiness without form, unconditioned etc is closer to the 'not self' description in my experience. The Buddha Nature has form or refined qualities in and through the self but does not exist as a self with attribution of being. That is still Buddhism with attachments ...
However these are nuances and stages of Being ...
These points become especially important as you reach the subtle levels of fabrication on the more advanced stages of the path. If you're primed to look for innate natures, you'll tend to see innate natures, especially when you reach the luminous, non-dual stages of concentration called themeless, emptiness, and undirected. You'll get stuck on whichever stage matches your assumptions about what your awakened nature is. But if you're primed to look for the process of fabrication, you'll see these stages as forms of fabrication, and this will enable you to deconstruct them, to pacify them, until you encounter the peace that's not fabricated at all.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/freedomfrombuddhanature.html
"Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore."
Bodhi Dorothy
I thought there is no Self because we all change continuously. I’m slightly different than 5 minutes ago, because I’ve read this discussion and I’ll be different again in 5 minutes time when I’ll have (hopefully) written up my understanding –even if the latter is wrong. Therefore, there is no permanent Self in the conventional way of seeing this.
Moreover, we have evolved over millions of years and so has our brain. I understand from neuroscience (please correct me if I’m wrong) that parts of our brain are very primitive, other parts are just primitive or some are even quit modern (= Palaeolithic). As I understand it, all those parts act in parallel, without a leader, and thus we often have reflexes that are more appropriate for ancient times than for today. As our brain is thus a group of modules without a leader, there is no room for a Self.
I got these ideas from a course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/science-of-meditation.
That leaves us with the question: what of us is meditating and what gets enlightened?
Good question.
Perhaps it's "Awareness" itself
If there is a self, we should be able to find it.
Tee hee, well said @sova
Whatever we find is knot self.
Here 'I' am!
There is no thing to call a self because for some reason a self would have to be permanent and the only permanence is the cycle of change.
Perhaps self is not something we are but something we do.
Who has just expressed that opinion?
Don't ask who but with what as condition. Ask the wrong question and you get the wrong answer.
Who has just expressed that opinion?
It's worth noting that anatta is negating soul ( atman ) rather than psychological self.
So when reading the suttas, replacing references to "self" with "soul" would probably give a more accurate sense of what is being conveyed. "Soul" isn't ideal either though because of it's Christian associations.
Buddha Nature doesn't sit comfortably with the anatta doctrine.
Some descriptions of Buddha Nature look spookily similar to atman, a sort of self-less essence lurking beneath individual personality, something to be uncovered. And then you read descriptions of the unconditioned in the suttas.....
I sometimes think that Buddhism is much closer to Hinduism than many would like to admit.
Not exactly. Atman is self-less. Atman is like an aspect of the infinite ( Brahman ).
A better question.
Where did that thought come from?
All things are aspects of the infinite.
Atman is commonly defined as "self" or "soul". It refers to an essential nature. Buddha denied such essence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ātman_(Buddhism)
Anatta/anatman is the opposite (as per the "an" prefix in sanskrit): no self, no soul or no essence.
Some people find this article helpful.
I think of it like this. You have a hampster in a ball. He runs and the ball rolls. The Self is the ball rolling, changing direction and pace. It is also where the hampster was and as the ball moves where he is now. Yet, the self (True Nature), the hampster does not change. He doesnt turn into a balloon or a bird or a pencil. He is always a hampster.
Thats how I see the two words. The problem is we are focusing on where we are when "we roll" and our positions dictate who we are. We associate whats going on around us and even the ball as "us moving". We do move/change but in meditation, we get in touch with our True Self.
The hampster within.
There is nothing that is unchanging. The cells, molecules, atoms, quarks that make up your body are in constant flux.
Look at a childhood photo of yourself, then look in the mirror. Notice anything?
There IS something, and that thing you call "you", but that thing is not permanent. It is merely a temporary pattern that will sustain itself for a period of time (your "life") then dissolve into something else.
How we were as a child, teen, adult, elder changes externally. We are still the same person no matter what clothes we wear.
Mmmm... no, I'm definitely not the same person I was as a child. I'm not the same person I was 2 minutes ago.
If you are not the same person, than Id assume you could be James Brown today, July Roberts tommorrow, and Christian Bale the next day. Who we are doesnt change. If that is so, we can change to different people. Even twins have different fingerprints.
But we change, all the time. Not just externally. And not just internally in the physical sense. Our outlook, values, and understanding are constantly changing.
In one sense, self is your enlightened nature. In another, it refers to what we cling to as 'I' and 'mine.' Not-self refers to the inconstant nature of the things we cling to as 'I' and 'mine.' That clinging gives rise to suffering. So to let go of what isn't really ours, we open ourselves up to liberation of the mind, to peace and lasting happiness not dependent upon impermanent phenomena.
@Walker how is that so? That is like saying you can turn into me.
@Carlita The best way I can explain what I mean is to think of an ocean wave. A wave exists, but it is in constant motion. It is never the same from one moment to the next. And it exists as part of a greater whole. Now, you can look at a wave, and see it distinctly, but it is not really separate from the rest of the ocean. And it's always changing, so it's never the same from one moment to the next.
Its like having on one pair of glasses, but you got the kind that has the diferent colored lens. The Buddha keep saying not to attach to one color over another because they are constantly changing. He also says dont cling to one color as if that is the real view. Instead, when one is enlightened,, thee will be no lens. We will see the world as it is. That vision in and of itself doesnt change. What we see does.
Part of the reason behind meditation is the exploration of the self. There is a huge difference between what I experience and the part or 'I consciousness' that is self aware.
Most people are caught up or attached to the processes eg.
As the mind quietens, the self becomes more experiental based around 'I AM' without the dependent triggers/attachments mentioned.
With this I AM also having more subtle karmic causes, we begin to 'become aware' even this subtle experience is 'not self'. Self at core is non existent.
No, that is not a skilful opinion, @Carlita ... Consider....
So you are a fixed identity, are you?
You still think and behave in the same way you did when you were a teenager? You still hold all precisely the same opinions you held then?
People DO change. In fact, they never stop changing. Experiences see to that.
@federica
Saying we can change is saying you can change to James Bond or Obama.
Its like the glasses. Child/teen/adult/elder are the "colors" They change. We dont put on different glasses. They are the same pair of glasses. You cant replace them for someone else's glasses. They are yours.
I was Carlita when I was a child. I was Carlita when I was a teen. I am Carlita as an adult. I will be Carlita as an elder. The colors (my age, experiences, how I see and interpret the world) changes. I am still Carlita-the hampster going through those changes no matter what they are.
The point is not to cling to those changes as if that is "us". We are not the "change". Thats external (experiences, age, viewpoints, saying mother instead of mommy) and so forth.
Who changes? Who is the person that has these different experiences, ages, etc? It isnt me; I am not you. It isnt Spiny. He isnt you. Its Federica, you.
Even Clark Kent was the same person. He was Clark then superman. Underneath, the True Self, was always that same guy. Even his name can change.
Another way to say it (and I read it in the sutras) is that enlightenment does not change. The Buddha is always enlightened. When we know our True Selves, we are enlightened. We see things change outside of us. They go through rebirth until they know the full nature of life.
But who is going through these changes?
That is the self...the true nature...that does not change.
To think that it does makes me think I can be Michael Jackson when Im 80.