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correct? 3 types of self?
There are 3 types of 'self', :
A physical self
A mind-mind, mental self.
And an emptiness self.
???????
A physical self
A mind-mind, mental self.
And an emptiness self.
???????
0
Comments
As usual, FB, you hit the nail on the head with brevity and clarity!
However, none of these (skandhas, nirvana, etc) are 'self', 'I', 'mine', etc, there is also no transcendental metaphysical essence or some sort of formless Self in Buddhism.
A good article dealing with this topic is No-Self vs. True Self
Another good article explaining Anatta is What Is The "Me"?
Excerpt:
A somber day, isn't it? Dark, cloudy, cool, moist and windy. Amazing, this whole affair of "the weather!" We call it "weather," but what is it really? Wind. Rain. Clouds slowly parting. Not the words spoken about it, but just this darkening, blowing, pounding, wetting, and then lightening up, blue sky appearing amidst darkness, and sunshine sparkling on wet grasses and leaves. In a little while there'll be frost, snow and ice-covers. And then warming again, melting, oozing water everywhere. On an early spring day the dirt road sparkles with streams of wet silver. So — what is "weather" other than this incessant change of earthly conditions and all the human thoughts, feelings, and undertakings influenced by it? Like and dislike. Depression and elation. Creation and destruction. An ongoing, ever changing stream of happenings abiding nowhere. No entity "weather" to be found except in thinking and talking about it.
Now — is there such an entity as "me," "I," "myself?" Or is it just like the "weather" — an ongoing, ever changing stream of ideas, images, memories, projections, likes and dislikes, creations and destructions, which thought keeps calling "I," "me," "Toni," and thereby solidifying what is evanescent? What am I really, truly, and what do I think and believe I am? Are we interested in exploring this amazing affair of "myself" from moment to moment? Is this, maybe, the essence of retreat work? Exploring ourselves minutely beyond the peace and quiet that we are seeking and maybe finding. Coming upon clarity about this deep sense of separation which we call "me," and "other people," without any need to condemn or overcome.
Most human beings take it totally for granted that I am "me," and that "me" is this body, this mind, this knowledge and sense about myself which so obviously feels separate from other people. The language in which we talk to ourselves and to each other inevitably implies separate "me's," and "you's" all the time. All of us talk "I" and "you" talk, we think it, write it, read it, and dream it with rarely any pause. There is incessant reinforcement of the sense of "I," "me," separate from others. Isolated. Insulated. Not understood. How is one to come upon the truth if separation is taken so much for granted, feels so common sense?
If the "me" is merely an ongoing of ideas, images, memories and such, how would you propose our physical self experiences life? Do we still border to work at a job, get married and have children, etc? Or do we sit and just let things and events happen. Sarved to death and evolve again as another changing stream of projections, likes and dislikes, creations and destructions?
Sound to me a not-so-bad idea! Because, if and when do seek and do, we create kamma which again brings us back to square one - the physical self.
Ahhhhh!
The same goes to our physical body and actions. There is no such thing as a 'physical self'. As explained later, there is only physical sensations that are falsely perceived and linked up into a mental image of an entity called 'body'. Also, actions will arise spontaneously to get things done, but there is no actor. It is more like a happening. Everything is just spontaneously happening, so in fact every moment you are 'doing something', except it is more like every moment something is 'happening'. Even if you are sitting, that is what's happening. If you are walking, that's what is happening. In neither case is there a 'sitter' or a 'walker' apart from the act/manifestation.
If starving happens, that is just some physical sensations happening, which are not happening to an entity called 'me' but is simply a happening as a display of pure awareness. Everything experienced is simply awareness, without any separate observer apart from what is observed. In Buddhism everything manifest due to dependent origination. So physical sensations of hunger are the result of not having eaten. Hence actions will arise to get food. At no time is there a 'me' that is the feeler of hunger, the actor of actions, etc. There is just happenings/sensations without an experiencer.
Also, what we call 'body' is again, like the word 'weather', not actually an entity but rather are simply perceptions and sensations that are 'not separated from environment'. In fact perception and sensation is the 'environment'. There is only points of luminous clarity or sensations with no such thing as a fixed entity called 'body', much less is there a 'body' that is actually 'me' or 'mine'.
The sense of there being a body is simply a thought construct trying to link up the sensations and perceptions through memory into a mental image and conceptual entity which we then become strongly attached to. As someone called U.G. Krishnamurti wrote:
Your movement of thought interferes with the process of touch, just as it does with the other senses. Anything you touch is always translated as 'hard', 'soft', 'warm', 'cold', 'wet', 'dry', and so on.
You do not realize it, but it is your thinking that creates your own body. Without this thought process there is no body consciousness -- which is to say there is no body at all. My body exists for other people; it does not exist for me; there are only isolated points of contact, impulses of touch which are not tied together by thought. So the body is not different from the objects around it; it is a set of sensations like any others. Your body does not belong to you.
Perhaps I can give you the 'feel' of this. I sleep four hours at night, no matter what time I go to bed. Then I lie in bed until morning fully awake. I don't know what is lying there in the bed; I don't know whether I'm lying on my left side or my right side -- for hours and hours I lie like this. If there is any noise outside -- a bird or something -- it just echoes in me. I listen to the "flub-dub-flub-dub" of my heart and don't know what it is. There is no body between the two sheets -- the form of the body is not there. If the question is asked, "What is in there?" there is only an awareness of the points of contact, where the body is in contact with the bed and the sheets, and where it is in contact with itself, at the crossing of the legs, for example. There are only the sensations of touch from these points of contact, and the rest of the body is not there. There is some kind of heaviness, probably the gravitational pull, something very vague. There is nothing inside which links up these things. Even if the eyes are open and looking at the whole body, there are still only the points of contact, and they have no connection with what I am looking at. If I want to try to link up these points of contact into the shape of my own body, probably I will succeed, but by the time it is completed the body is back in the same situation of different points of contact. The linkage cannot stay. It is the same sort of thing when I'm sitting or standing. There is no body.
Can you tell me how mango juice tastes? I can't. You also cannot; but you try to relive the memory of mango juice now -- you create for yourself some kind of an experience of how it tastes -- which I cannot do. I must have mango juice on my tongue -- seeing or smelling it is not enough -- in order to be able to bring that past knowledge into operation and to say "Yes, this is what mango juice tastes like." This does not mean that personal preferences and 'tastes' change. In a market my hand automatically reaches out for the same items that I have liked all my life. But because I cannot conjure up a mental experience, there can be no craving for foods which are not there.
Smell plays a greater part in your daily life than does taste. The olfactory organs are constantly open to odors. But if you do not interfere with the sense of smell, what is there is only an irritation in the nose. It makes no difference whether you are smelling cow dung or an expensive French perfume -- you rub the nose and move on.
Also, how did the sock arise?
anything in the world as belonging to them, nor do they take
anything in the world as not belonging to them either.” (sn 858)
Since, Bahiya, there is for you
in the seen, only the seen,
in the heard, only the heard,
in the sensed, only the sensed,
in the cognized, only the cognized,
and you see that there is no thing here,
you will therefore see that
indeed there is no thing there.
As you see that there is no thing there,
you will see that
you are therefore located neither in the world of this
nor in the world of that,
nor in any place
betwixt the two.
This alone is the end of suffering.” (ud. 1.10)
Life is a process. I can no more pin down my "self" than I can step on the same water twice.
Stepping in water makes my socks wet. Wet socks feel funky. I don't like wet socks. I like purple socks. I remove my wet socks and put on purple socks. Now I am happy.
There you have the five sock-wearing skandhas. So where am "I" in all that?
Look in the water.
~ AD
5 fingers, 5 toes, 5 skandhas. Those were my purple socks you got wet, btw.
In the end, you are in the purle sock!