No self?

Chris: I feel like the tone of your post is some kind of disagreement with the question I was asking while the content seems like you are saying, that, yes, you do percieive stuff with your little mind outside of your body because your little mind and the big mind are all connected, because all is MIND.

Well, I think my question sparked you to answer a slightly different question: "why would one be aware of experiences taking place outside their skin?" rather than my question which was: "while practicing, does it ever seem like you are aware of experiences taking place outside of your skin?"

Well, I asked a lot of questions .....

Anyway, man, thanks so much to you for the New Yorker article and to Tomo for the Ted Talk. Both so much fun.

A very useful formulation I think, from the old (1890) Rhys Davids translation of the Milindapanha:

'I am known as Nâgasena, O king, and it is by that name that my brethren in the faith address me. But although parents, O king, give such a name as Nâgasena, or Sûrasena, or Vîrasena, or Sîhasena, yet this, Sire,--Nâgasena and so on--is only a generally understood term, a designation in common use. For there is no permanent individuality (no soul) involved in the matter 2 .'

On the way to wherever it is I am today, there was some of both. Some mind-blowing realization ("OMG! There is NO LISTENER!") and some changes in perception that just took some time to stabilize.

I can say that for me there definitely was a difference between getting it intellectually (I can see if I look for it) and just getting it (it's obviously there when I look). There may be deeper levels of understanding but they've not shown up yet.

As for integration into life... I'm still working on it

I would like to revive this thread and ask a question: to those that have got a firm grasp of annata, was it a mind-blowing realization that shook you to your bones, or was it a subtle "yeah, ok, I get it now" kind of thing?
For myself (with the help of Florian) I am chipping away at it, and I think I am at the point where I fully get and accept it, but it is not accompanied by an overwhelming sense of relief, release, or liberation. It is more like "now how do I integrate this into my daily life, so I won't be such a dick".
Epiphany, or meh?


-tomo

For met the "if I look I clearly can't find it" was a completely different level of understanding than the Realization. I had many months where I would write tearfully in my journal "clearly there is no one doing anything, everything just happens by itself" and so forth. But the day that finally "clicked" (and, of course, not during meditation or any moment of thinking about it, just randomly out of the blue) it felt like everything just collapsed, like a house of cards, and an overwhelming relief and release, an effortlessness and laughter that cannot be mistaken.

I freely admit that many months later there are days when the more intellectual version predominates as I engage in work and life, but that more profound experience can never be unseen, and some days or times dominates my experience more vividly.

"I am chipping away at it, and I think I am at the point where I fully get and accept it, but it is not accompanied by an overwhelming sense of relief, release, or liberation."

Not-self is not something that is understood, or anything like "getting it" (as in, "Oh, my cat is bugging me because she's out of food. I get it!").

Not-self is something apprehended, and it comes through observing phenomenal appearances with a calm and steady awareness, grounded in the movements of the here and now. When it is really apprehended, you'll know. You won't really have to ask.

I think it was Louis Armstrong who was once asked, "What is jazz?" He replied, "If you have to ask, you don't know." Not-self is like that. It comes from a different kind of knowing, a different way of looking.

My realization is definitely gradual. It's just about peeling the layers, for me; eventually you see that there's no heartwood there, but the everyday work is the work of seeing anatta in all the mental phenomena that make up my experience. And that's a reality that's both utterly fundamental, and also very mundane. Just another tool to dissolve unskillful actions of body, speech and mind!

Well, maybe I'm weird this way, but my 'mind-blowing epiphanies' seem to take the form of fits of hilarity. Maybe it was because I was a relatively 'naive subject'; I didn't have much of an idea about anatta, philosophically, and the conditional, unnecessary, trivial, now-you-see-it, now-you-don't nature of my'self' just struck me as extremely funny. I wrote a quick poem that began, "Whatever shall we do with Kate/ when she's beside herself; when she's beside the point..." just goofing on the idea of being totally NOT a big deal.

"Integration" has rolled on, rather more like a sweater continuing to unravel, than like an aspiration I can have, or an activity I can 'do.' It takes the form of noticing myself being knee-jerk ignorant, and 'getting it'. Then having to sit there for the indeterminate period where the ratty old way is clearly visible but unworkable, and the new possibility is not really manifest. This is where some form of equanimity comes in handy-- or patience, gentleness, humor, the habit of sitting still, wise and candid friends...

@zach, i love your attitude. epiphany come getcha one day anyway.

@kate, eye-bleeding, drooling, rolling on the floor hilarity, because (in my case at least) my former blindness to and misunderstanding of what was now so brick-to-the-head clearly evident was the most ridiculous thing ever in the history of the universe. You've worked so hard figuring it all out, practicing and practicing and having all these pithy ideas about what's important and how the world works, and it just feels like a big "oh, duh!"

I like the word "integration," too, and the sweater unraveling analogy.

The challenge for me is that it is a negative proof, an acceptance (or apprehension, if you like) of the non-existence of something. And negative proofs can't really be done, unless you can demonstrate a blatant contradiction arising from assuming the thing does exist. Thus the chipping.
A key point for me was when I was told "you know, staring at something that isn't there doesn't make it vanish".
True dat.


-tomo

Negative proofs? Doesn't that make you suspicious? Ha! Turn the tables, is the only strategy here: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

The extraordinary claim here is the very claim of the existence of a self (special, separate, safe, detached, an observer, a doer, a decider, a knower, ...). Where is the proof for such a thing? Whenever I look, there's nothing there. So the burden of proof is plainly on that which claims such a thing to exist. That subtle implication, stop the handwaving and show me your cards!

Just like dealing with proselytizing theists on the doorstep. Don't let them maneuver you into attempting negative proof. Let them attempt to do the convincing and shoot down their arguments as they are uttered.

It's not a matter of staring hard enough at something that's not there. It's a matter of not being fooled into staring at something that's not there. Who or what wants you to do such a pointless thing anyway? And why?

Cheers,
Florian

Here's a nice text on the subject of not-self from Sister Khema...

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/khema/bl095.html

An excerpt:
"There is no specific entity in anything. That is emptiness. That is the nothingness. That nothingness is also experienced in meditation. It is empty, it is devoid of a specific person, devoid of a specific thing, devoid of anything which makes it permanent, devoid of anything which even makes it important. The whole thing is in flux. So the emptiness is that. And the emptiness is to be seen everywhere; to be seen in oneself. And that is what is called anatta,non-self. Empty of an entity. There is nobody there. It is all imagination. At first that feels very insecure."

I think this notion would have been a lot more shocking to me a few years ago, and I'm sure it would have troubled me as well.



The funny thing about insight (the meditative/contemplative kind) is that one can develop a funny relationship with the process of intention. Choices are made, but they are embedded in a vast context, and are thus conditioned. It's no surprise to me, then, to learn that our choices are made prior to our being aware of them. It's only disturbing if I consider intentionality to be "me".



"The 'I' casts off the illusion of 'I' and yet remains as 'I'. Such is the paradox of Self-realization. The realized do not see any contradiction in it." ~Ramana Maharshi

It's funny that the length of delay should make a difference in how shocking or unacceptable the idea is. I'm trying to imagine it now. If decisions are made a split second before "I" know about them, or ten seconds before...well the former seems like maybe if I just paid more attention I could catch the decisions and feel more involved in them? But if it's ten seconds then for sure there's not hope of trying harder changing anything? Just wondering why it should feel different.