Realising ‘I am not the body’

Jeroen

A few notes on how to realise we are not the body

• When we are just a baby, we learn to use the body, hence we were other to begin with
• Following the senses inwards, each sense arrives at awareness
• Even when we sleep, awareness is there — does not a loud noise wake us up?
• The body changes and is impermanent, it grows, becomes mature, and eventually grows old, breaks down and dies
• When we do things, we use skills and responses we have learned — doing things is learned behaviour, conditioned
• Memory colours how we perceive the world, so from learned response, we grow into behaving as we do
• What we originally were, is not the body or the mind

I came across this video by a chap called Sadhguru on the subject…

All in the spirit of Non-seriousness.

Jeroen

The body also doesn’t obey us in a lot of respects. You have no control over your liver, kidneys, bowels and so on. So how can it be ours, let alone define us, be us?

person

Heck, even our mind doesn't obey us in a lot of respects. So much of what we think and feel comes from subconscious processes. I'm of the opinion that the things we regularly do with our body affects the way we see the world. I've heard psychological advice that a way to combat a feeling of helplessness is to regularly do practical things with your body like gardening or building something. That sort of behavior tells our nervous system that we can accomplish things.

The average human has about 3 pounds of bacteria in their body. Some of this is responsible for producing about 95% of the bodies supply of seratonin. There are a number of other processes that these 'aliens' in our body do to make 'us', 'us'.

I think a lot of our confusion about the self revolves around the notion that what appears to our conscious minds is us. I go back to the Two Truths, ultimately there isn't one core homunculus in charge of everything, that doesn't mean pragmatically and conventionally there isn't an us. Conventionally we are the accumulation of all these non self things.

Jeroen

@person said:
The average human has about 3 pounds of bacteria in their body. Some of this is responsible for producing about 95% of the bodies supply of seratonin. There are a number of other processes that these 'aliens' in our body do to make 'us', 'us'.

This did kind of blow my mind. Serotonin is the key ‘happiness’ hormone, and that the gut microbiome produces most of the body’s supply of it is insane. What if you take an antibacterial agent orally? Are you going to be fighting life-long depression unless you have a poop transplant?

Conventionally we are the accumulation of all these non self things.

Perhaps so when looking at the larger human being. Certainly it seems to me that nearly all of our actions are learned behaviours. What makes us take up say a new hobby is a much more complex process but still depends on all of the things we have experienced in this life. You can take a whole-systems view and say, the whole of the mind and the body and the energy field make you who you are.

But when looking at who sits behind the eyes — the watcher and the instinct that directs our attention — there is something that to me is mysterious and as-yet unrealised.

how

Today, all I see behind my eyes is an ever-shifting collective of divergent interests.
Finding some consistent "who" behind my eyes is like looking for some solidity in the rotating reflections of a kaleidoscope.
Sometimes, such searches find only an ever-diminishing "who", whose job description as a herder of cats, better describes a dream than an occupation.

Jeroen

@how said:
Today, behind my eyes lies an ever-shifting collective of divergent interests. Finding a consistent "who" there is like looking for some solidity in the rotating reflections of a kaleidoscope. Usually, such searches for that "who" reveal little more than an attempted herding of cats.

Well, if the mind is quiet, you can search for what is. Nisargadatta once said, you are not whatever you can perceive, because it lies outside you. So you are not the world, not the body, not your thoughts… you continue and you are eventually led just to consciousness, which like a mirror just acknowledges what is perceived.

There is a link with knowledge, in that perception adds meaning to the perceived by understanding symbolic values, like in written language or mathematical equations or a uniform or even a number plate or a door handle. Any number of things in the natural or man-made world can acquire meaning based on past experience. An iceberg melts, an oyster opens, a fruit can be eaten.

Shoshin1

Hmm

There was a young (wo)man who said though it seems I know that I know...But what I would like to see is the "I" that knows me when "I" know that "I" know that "I" know
~Alan Watts~

Awareness is fundamentally non-conceptual before thinking splits experience into subject and object...It is empty and so can contain everything, including thought...It is boundless...And amazingly it is intrinsically knowing...

Acceptance of change stills the mind and as the mind settles awareness arises...

Realising ‘I am not the body’

I've found that realisation happens when attachment to words/thinking stops...

pegembara

Is body in mind or mind in body?
When you sleep at night, where is the body then?
How is the body experienced with eyes closed? As four elements - heat, movements, liquidity, solidity. Does it have age, sex, or ethnicity?
Could the body be just a concept and not ultimate reality?

The deeds don't need a doer, and thoughts don't need a thinker!

Ajahn Chah -

‘About this mind ... in truth there is nothing really wrong with it. It is intrinsically pure. Within itself it’s already peaceful. That the mind is not peaceful these days is because it follows moods. The real mind doesn’t have anything to it, it is simply (an aspect of) Nature. It becomes peaceful or agitated because moods deceive it. The untrained mind is stupid. Sense impressions come and trick it into happiness, suffering, gladness and sorrow, but the mind’s true nature is none of those things. That gladness or sadness is not the mind, but only a mood coming to deceive us. The untrained mind gets lost and follows these things, it forgets itself. Then we think that it is we who are upset or at ease or whatever.

‘But really this mind of ours is already unmoving and peaceful... really peaceful! Just like a leaf which is still as long as no wind blows. If a wind comes up the leaf flutters. The fluttering is due to the wind – the ‘fluttering’ is due to those sense impressions; the mind follows them. If it doesn’t follow them, it doesn’t ‘flutter.’ If we know fully the true nature of sense impressions we will be unmoved.

‘Our practice is simply to see the Original Mind. We must train the mind to know those sense impressions, and not get lost in them; to make it peaceful. Just this is the aim of all this difficult practice we put ourselves through.’
~ Ajahn Chah, Food for the Heart, p 41 §

person

@Jeroen said:

@person said:
The average human has about 3 pounds of bacteria in their body. Some of this is responsible for producing about 95% of the bodies supply of seratonin. There are a number of other processes that these 'aliens' in our body do to make 'us', 'us'.

This did kind of blow my mind. Serotonin is the key ‘happiness’ hormone, and that the gut microbiome produces most of the body’s supply of it is insane. What if you take an antibacterial agent orally? Are you going to be fighting life-long depression unless you have a poop transplant?

The thought has crossed my mind as well. I've never been on antibiotics for more than 10 days but in that small time the impacts begin to be noticed.

Conventionally we are the accumulation of all these non self things.

Perhaps so when looking at the larger human being. Certainly it seems to me that nearly all of our actions are learned behaviours. What makes us take up say a new hobby is a much more complex process but still depends on all of the things we have experienced in this life.

If you mean, that none of our behaviors are truly original, 100% self originated I'd tend to agree. If you mean our conventional nature is 100% nurture in origin I'd disagree, twin and adopted sibling research shows pretty conclusively that much of our behavior and personality is genetic in origin.

You can take a whole-systems view and say, the whole of the mind and the body and the energy field make you who you are.

In terms of conventional and ultimate I think this is the way I understand the conventional self. I was listening to an interview with Buddhist philosopher Jay Garfield yesterday and he was saying something to the effect that the Two Truths really aren't two separate things, its more they are two aspects of the same thing. I don't really grasp it fully, but something like there is no emptiness without something to be empty of and there is no convention without the freedom of emptiness.
https://wisdomexperience.org/wisdom-podcast/jay-garfield-buddhist-philosophy-in-depth-172/

But when looking at who sits behind the eyes — the watcher and the instinct that directs our attention — there is something that to me is mysterious and as-yet unrealised.

This, I think, is the crux of the difference between more Hindu centered views and Buddhist views.

Jeroen

@person said:

But when looking at who sits behind the eyes — the watcher and the instinct that directs our attention — there is something that to me is mysterious and as-yet unrealised.

This, I think, is the crux of the difference between more Hindu centered views and Buddhist views.

In a way, what we understand ourselves to be is quite important, because to a certain extent we shape ourselves to be that. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. So investigating what we are naturally is a good idea.

The thing is, I believe we have to do more than just investigate through thinking and reason. If we just listen to the Buddha’s teaching we have at great distance and through many layers of translation fragments of wisdom which come to our thinking minds. Is that enough, considering how modern man may differ from ancient man?

Certainly what we are has evolved from being born. You start from an egg and a sperm, and eventually you are a hundred-and-sixty pounds of apelike human male with all kinds of cultural, linguistic and physical achievements and accoutrements. That process certainly has an effect on whatever form of being started out that journey.

person

@Jeroen said:

@person said:

But when looking at who sits behind the eyes — the watcher and the instinct that directs our attention — there is something that to me is mysterious and as-yet unrealised.

This, I think, is the crux of the difference between more Hindu centered views and Buddhist views.

In a way, what we understand ourselves to be is quite important, because to a certain extent we shape ourselves to be that. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. So investigating what we are naturally is a good idea.

The thing is, I believe we have to do more than just investigate through thinking and reason. If we just listen to the Buddha’s teaching we have at great distance and through many layers of translation fragments of wisdom which come to our thinking minds. Is that enough, considering how modern man may differ from ancient man?

Agreed, taking the teachings in and letting them impact our way of seeing and feeling the world is ultimately what it is all about. Keeping the teachings on a purely intellectual level doesn't serve much spiritual purpose. Its still better to understand where the finger is pointing to than just winging it, and many great practitioners are also great scholars.

Certainly what we are has evolved from being born. You start from an egg and a sperm, and eventually you are a hundred-and-sixty pounds of apelike human male with all kinds of cultural, linguistic and physical achievements and accoutrements. That process certainly has an effect on whatever form of being started out that journey.

Maybe I'm being pedantic, but I think there are subtle points to be made here about the philosophy of emptiness. You don't start from an egg and sperm and eventually become something else. There isn't anyone outside of those forces who owns them, who started out on a journey and became something else. These things are you, there isn't an existing bit of water that comes to own two hydrogen and one oxygen atom, the water IS those things.