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Are we the body?
ravkes
Veteran
It seems that all of our suffering comes from the identification with our body (or rather belief in the thought that thinks 'I' am the body).. and creates the subsequent struggle to survive.
We need food, water and money to survive. So we spend our whole lives trying to provide these things for ourselves and our offspring. Unfortunately, almost half of the world lives in poverty and due to their identification with the body suffers because they can't even provide these basic needs for themselves.
Is enlightenment merely a shift in perception? A natural shift from identification with body.. (and all the sensations, emotions, thoughts) that come along with it to a simple awareness that views the body as a fun tool to experience itself (life) with.
From this viewpoint, it seems one can objectively observe seemingly 'horrible' events such as starvation, thirst, poverty.
Have we just incorrectly identified ourselves with this skin bag and all that comes with it?
Who are we really?
What is this 'I'?
Thanks for your time.
We need food, water and money to survive. So we spend our whole lives trying to provide these things for ourselves and our offspring. Unfortunately, almost half of the world lives in poverty and due to their identification with the body suffers because they can't even provide these basic needs for themselves.
Is enlightenment merely a shift in perception? A natural shift from identification with body.. (and all the sensations, emotions, thoughts) that come along with it to a simple awareness that views the body as a fun tool to experience itself (life) with.
From this viewpoint, it seems one can objectively observe seemingly 'horrible' events such as starvation, thirst, poverty.
Have we just incorrectly identified ourselves with this skin bag and all that comes with it?
Who are we really?
What is this 'I'?
Thanks for your time.
0
Comments
In fact, I think the desire to provide is actually a good thing. It's what gets many people out of slums and up on their feet. It's what keeps society functioning. I don't mean providing for yourself, but also for your family and for your community or for the less fortunate.
If preventing hunger, thirst and being stabbed was what suffering meant, wouldn't the rich be free of suffering?
1) The suffering of change. Even pleasant sensations will end. And that sucks.
2) The suffering of suffering. Some things, like getting sick and aging and dying, just suck.
3) The suffering of uncontrollable rebirths. This will continue to suck until the roots are removed.
As long as the 5 aggregates are aggregated, there will be #2.
(I mean, just look at the accounts of Gautama's death: he was bleeding from his ass at the time. He maintained composure of course, but he was still bleeding from his ass.)
At death the aggregates will come apart and, unless #3 has been solved, there will be #2 again.
Everything exists not because of its own sake but because the Self dwells in it.
In a conventional sense, nama-rupa... the mind-body complex.
- Form (Body and Sense-Doors)
- Sensation (Sight, Sound, Taste, Touch, Smell)
- Perception
- Mental Formation (Thoughts)
- Consciousness (our awareness)
No one of these could be called the "self" or "I", because they are all dependently originated and interdependent; impermanent. Many believe, or follow teachings that stipulate, that the consciousness through a process of rebirth continues to constitute new life (and is the reason for this life). Though taught/expounded as a means of causality, a continuity of consciousness but not the "same" consciousness, many also take this to be the "I" and attach to this in much the same way one might attach to the idea of a soul.In a more advanced sense, one can not be said to be the mind-body itself at all, for these are only experiences through "mind". Rather, only through the six senses do we experience our world, so only those are what "we" are:
Mind-consciousness, Body/Touch-consciousness, Sight-consciousness, Smell-consciousness, Ear-consciousness and Tongue-consciousness
Even in this view, all compounded phenomena are conditioned, impermanent and not-self. To posit that there is an unchanging or eternal "I" that is the experiencer/observer (or any permanence whatsoever) is called the eternity view. To posit that there is nothing which is reborn, no life after death, is nihilism. Either of these views are astray from the Buddha's teachings and fall under "Wrong View".
The Buddha's doctrine and discipline instead posit a Middle Way between these extremes, by acknowledging the experiences themselves without identifying a separate/independent "self", as follows.
Right View [in regards to the "self"] is that sights are sights, sounds are sounds, tastes are tastes, smells are smells, sensations are sensations, thoughts are thoughts, feelings are feelings, perceptions are perceptions, awareness is awareness (consciousness). There is no "I", no controlling or permanent entity with ownership, of any experience. This is my understanding of the teachings; I hope that it is helpful.
Namaste
In light of this discovery, why still continue to feed the body.
Is it because it turns from a struggle into a mysterious game so no external need is required to live through form?
What is controlling all this?
Right now, most of us have a very strong attachment to the body as a result of eons of habits an re enforcement that occur as a result of our time in Samsara. We are required to care for this body as best we can so that it will sustain us in our efforts to follow the Dharma Teachings. We should also not be in needless pain, our own suffering is important as well. This is realitive Truth.
Of course, I say this after having eaten 5 slices of Pizza for Lunch
As our preceptions change, and we begin to overcome these negitive habits, our attachment to this body will lessen as well move closer to the ultimute truth (nirvania}
In the End , our mindstream will move on after death untill the point when we gain complete Enlightenment.
There is a very good leason about this in the movie "Little Buddha"
One of the monks, holding his cup of tea explains that the body is the cup, the mind the tea. He then slams his cup down on his desk, breaking it and the tea runs all over the floor. The monk remarks that the tea is still tea, even if on the floor or in a rag.
So, in the end, we are not the Body, we just think that we are.
From the Anatta-lakkhana Sutta: The Discourse on the Not-self Characteristic:
"Form, O monks, is not-self; if form were self, then form would not lead to affliction and it should obtain regarding form: 'May my form be thus, may my form not be thus'; and indeed, O monks, since form is not-self, therefore form leads to affliction and it does not obtain regarding form: 'May my form be thus, may my form not be thus".
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn22/sn22.059.mend.html
We live in a relative world, that's why one eats and does not jump in front of trains.
As to your last question, I am not sure what you are asking.
With Metta,
Todd
And the self lives on without the body? No, it dies when the body dies.
Interdependence means we are everything that happens to us, our body and our mind.
If nothing else, we are our torsos and our head and neck
I think the simple truth is that we are what we want to be. Meaning is not inherent, but something we attribute to something. Some people identify themselves with their ego, some with their body, some with their awareness. In the end, it's all about choice. Some choices might bring about more suffering then others, but there is no inherent truth to identity, imo.
If something being impermanent is reason enough not to identify with it, then we can identify with anything because there is nothing impermanent that is not common to all (like time, even though it's also a relative concept). In the end, it's all about choice.
In the beginning, it's all about choice...
Namaste
The bold is incoherent with the rest of what you said before (which I agree with).
I think what is confusing sometimes when people talk about these things, is the idea that there even IS a true self. That behind the "illusion" of consciousness there is something else. There is no true self. But there is a self. It's what you make of it.
I ask you, what is there beyond the "I" then?
Well if there is no duality and no separation, there is also no identity. So there's nothing there. Does a rock have an "I"? It's an assembly of atoms. Just as we are. Does that make us the same? From a certain point of view I guess. But that doesn't really help with anything. Abstract concepts like identity are a tool.
And what exactly can I attribute to this "me"? And is this "me" different from "you"?
There is as you say "no identity", but that doesn't take away anything that's truly there. Identity is wrongly applied to begin with.
Right now you are like an astronaut who can get in a rocket ship and launch in space.
But you are sitting there and trying to understand how the heck can the planet earth be round.
You want to know, you want to understand. Torturing yourself.
But you could just step in the rocket ship and launch into space.
Once there, you will see the round planet earth and you will not have to understand any of the theory at all, you will just know that the planet is spherical.
A guy in a coma is still something. The coma doesn't take away anything that's truly there either. This idea of what is truly there, is sometimes my problem with this. What is truly is there is what we truly perceive to be there.
I don't trust the astronauts who built the ship. I build my own ships.
This is why you shouldn't believe anyone, just go see for yourself.
We're just renting we do not own. Nothing permanent to become attached to.
Our bodies, our senses, provide a connection to life that is happening right now. It works in a most amazing way.
Self cannot be found in the mind either. Stories, thoughts, memories, dreams, ego, yes. But no self. Empty of Self.
To the OP, you're confusing suffering that can be extinguished with suffering that cannot be. Living in extreme poverty, starving and dehydrated cannot be alleviated by practicing the dharma, only the mental anguish associated with such conditions can be.
The Buddha taught a Middle Way, between indulgence and asceticism, living in extreme poverty is like forced asceticism and having to exist in such a state makes practicing the dharma more difficult. We are the body as much as we are the mind, do not feed the body, do not water the body and the mind deteriorates and no amount of dissociating oneself from one's bodily experience will hinder that deterioration.
You're right. But one can possibly be in these types of conditions and not suffer? I suppose this is one of the few hang-ups I have with the dharma, how can those who are stuck in extreme poverty realize nibbana?
I have pasted a copy of the Heart Suttra in that thread