Life in B Flat(Science and Spirituality): anatta

Showing posts with label anatta. Show all posts

Saturday, October 31, 2020

No-self is not Nihilistic

Someone in a discussion forum commented that the doctrine of no-self made them depressed. I think they might have been reacting to this article which I posted to the forum before blogging it here.

I replied that "no-self" doesn't give me that feeling at all. I wrote:

Buddha never said there is no self, he just said that none of the things we form attachments to should be considered self because they are impermanent and not completely under our control. And being attached to them inevitably leads to suffering so that we will be happier if we give up those attachments.
It is a recipe for happiness not an argument for nihilism.
To me it means I don't have to suffer from attachments to self - which is the cause of all mental anguish. Imagine that, no more mental anguish. To me that is wonderful. Like on the same level as "Jesus Saves" is to Christians.
(I am a Spiritualist and I believe in an afterlife. Buddha also believed in an afterlife. Where is there room for nihilism in that?)
Here is one way to understand no self:

Close your eyes notice the feeling of your body, your thoughts, your emotions, they create a sense of you being in your body, a sense of you as the entity having a body, having thoughts and having emotions. (When I do this I get a sense that I am observing a person in my body who has a mood (whatever my mood is at the time) and that person is me - someone else might experience it differently.)

Now open your eyes and look around you and notice what you see. Now you are aware of only what you see, you are not thinking of your body, or your thoughts, or your emotions, and those things are not producing a feeling of you being in your body.

Is that so bad? If you have physical discomfort or emotional pain, focusing outside yourself will ease the emotional anguish more or less depending on your level of concentration. That's good isn't it?
Actually this is an interesting way to practice to understand how the mind produces the sense of self, repeatedly alternating between focusing inward and focusing outward, focusing on feeling self, focusing on not feeling self.
Noting (a type of vipassana or insight meditation) has a similar effect. When you are noting, the same phenomena that otherwise contribute to your sense of self: awareness of body, thoughts, emotions etc., are experienced as a series of separate disconnected moments of awareness, so they do not produce the feeling of being a self.
When you suffer, it is because the self-thinking arises, the less you engage in "identity view" the less you suffer. How you use your mind, thinking about the environment outside your body, or observing the phenomenon of consciousness, doesn't change anything about reality. It doesn't prove or disprove anything such as the existence of a soul. It is simply a different way of looking at the same things - one that greatly diminishes suffering.
This kind of "no-self" is not thinking "I don't exist", it is simply thinking about something other than "myself". Maybe there is a self maybe there isn't, but empirically we know that thinking "myself" results in suffering, so why think of it? Some people might choose to, but others who want to reduce suffering might decide they prefer to train themselves to stop thinking of "myself" all the time.
If you think about it as deactivating the default mode network in the brain and activating the experiential network, you are simply using a natural ability you've always had and been using from time to time all your life.
Or think of it this way: instead of seeing everything filtered through your ego, you can remove the ego filter and see things as they really are:

What it is, is the ability to see without any interruption of the ego, without any filtering of the ego. And since we are all walking around seeing things through our ego filter almost all the time, to suddenly be able to see without that filter is a surprise. But it is nothing that we have ever not had.
They say that the mind of a baby is something that we can compare this to. A baby isn’t seeing things from an egoistic place. It is seeing directly and clear. It is the exact same kind of thing when we are seeing without the ego filter.
- Shodo Harada Roshi
"But it is nothing that we have ever not had."

Thursday, October 22, 2020

In an interview, On Enlightenment – An Interview with Shinzen Young, Shinzen Young discusses the difference between an enlightened person and non-enlightened person. He says the difference is that during moments when a person is entirely focused on a sensation, the enlightened person recognizes them as moments when there is no self. Shinzen says that non-enlightened people have these moments hundreds of times a day but don't recognize them for what they are.

If you are interested in understanding what enlightenment is, you may find it very instructive to learn to notice these no-self moments - moments when something you percieve with your senses such as seeing or hearing catches your attention and you are aware of it without thinking about anything else.

Going out for a walk is a good activity to do when trying to notice no-self moments. When you are walking outdoors, you are moving through the environment, things in the environment maybe moving around you, there are various sounds, and maybe smells, and also various weather phenomnea are possible, so there are many opportunities for sensations to catch your attention.

It will also help if your mind is quiet from practicing relaxation exercises and mindfulness. Relaxation exercises activate the parasympathetic nervous system which turns off the body's stress response. Mindfulness will deactivate the default mode network in the brain which will greatly reduce mental chatter and the strength of emotions.

While walking, try to relax and practice mindfulness by noticing the sights, sounds, and sensations that come to your attention and also try to notice what happens when something catches your attention fully so that in that moment you are not thinking about anything else except the sensation. If you plan to try this, please be sure to read this warning about the dangers of meditation first.

https://www.lionsroar.com/on-enlightenment-an-interview-with-shinzen-young/

On Enlightenment – An Interview with Shinzen Young
BY ANDREA MILLER| SEPTEMBER 10, 2009
...
The only difference between an enlightened person and a non-enlightened person is that when the feel-image-talk self doesn’t arise during the day, the enlightened person notices that and knows that to be a clear experience of no-self. The non-enlightened person actually has that experience hundreds of times a day, when they’re briefly pulled to a physical-type touch or an external sight or sound. For just a moment there is just the world of touch-sight-sound. For just a moment there is no self inside that person but they don’t notice it! But just because they don’t notice it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened.
An enlightened person sees everyone as constantly experiencing brief moments of enlightenment during the day. So paradoxically being an enlightened person doesn’t make you that special. Now you can say, “Well, but they don’t realize it,” that’s one way to look at it, but it’s also undeniable that they are. From that perspective it’s very misleading to separate enlightened people from non-enlightened people.

Sunday, September 13, 2020

Self and Not-self. How to Suffer Less

Introduction

Suffering (mental anguish) is to a large extent caused by our attitude toward "self". By changing your attitude, you can gradually reduce the suffering you experience. This gradual change will be in proportion to the effort you put in, but you don't need to wait for "enlightenment" or some type of a "BIG CHANGE" to experience the benefits in your life.

We are intolerant of what is not "me" and "mine".

When someone you dislike does something annoying, it could cause you to feel anger.

But if someone you love does the same thing, it might not bother you at all.

And if you did it yourself, you might not even notice it as a potentially annoying act.

We are tolerant of people we love because we think of them as "ours". Our friend, our child, our parent, our spouse.

We are very tolerant of "me" and "mine": our-self and things that belong to our-self.

We are less tolerant of things that are not "me" or "mine" of things that are not-self.

We worry about "me" and "mine"

If you learned of property damage in some far away country or even if you heard about the death of a person you never met, It might not bother you much.

But if a friend or loved one was harmed, or if your car was damaged, or if you yourself suffered some physical harm, you would probably be upset.

We worry more about "me" and "mine".

How to Reduce Suffering

This is how our ideas about self can cause us suffering: We are tolerant of self ("me" and "mine") and intolerant of not-self. We worry about self and are much less concerned about not-self.

The way to reduce suffering is to reduce your attachment to self, to reduce your attachment to "me" and "mine".

When you become less attached to self, you become less averse to not-self. The distinction between self and not-self is diminished. You become less concerned with personal loss and you become more tolerant of other people. You suffer less.

Some people may have a philosophical aversion to diminishing the attachment to self. That is their right. But others may want to try diminishing their attachment to self because they want to benefit from reduced suffering.

What can you do to change your ideas about self and not-self, what can you do to reduce your attachment to self?

There are several things you can do.

Observe in your own life how your ideas of self and not-self cause you to suffer. Most people should be able to do this: notice how you are less tolerant of people you don't like, and how you worry more about yourself. When you are conscious of this, you start to recognize how your ideas of self and not-self are making you suffer. When you experience loss or when someone does something annoying, you recognize it is your ideas of self and not-self that are causing you to suffer. If you maintain consciousness of this over time, this understanding, reinforced by repeated observation, will cause you to become disillusioned with your attachment to self because you are constantly reminded of how it causes suffering for you. This disillusionment will tend to encourage you to begin to let go of your attachment to self.
Relaxation - Relaxation exercises (actually a kind of meditation) can help you relax and relieve stress. When you are relaxed, your stress levels go to zero. When you are stressed you are focused on yourself. Stress hormones cause us to be fixated on the source of the stress, we become fixated on "our" problem. When you are relaxed you are much less irritable, less self-centered. You are less attached to self.
Quieting the mind - Meditation quiets the turbulent mind. Thoughts of self and not-self are less frequent and less intense when the mind is tranquil. If we think less about self and not-self, our attachment to self is reduced.
Spiritual feelings. Certain meditation techniques can produce spiritual feelings such as compassion, forgiveness, goodwill, humility, equanimity, serenity, surrender, contentedness, joy, and connectedness. When we have these feelings we are much less attached to self. When you experience these emotions, either from meditation or in the course of ordinary life, you see how true it is that when you love others and aren't focused so much on yourself, you suffer much less. Annoying people don't bother you as much, and feelings of disappointment and loss are diminished. You understand the way to reduce your own suffering is to love others and let go of your own sense of self-importance. It might sound contradictory and impossible, but loving the people you "don't like" and stopping worrying about yourself reduces the suffering you experience. When you see this from your own experience, you will likely want to do it for your own benefit, letting go is a natural reaction. (Sometimes people think this means you should ignore your own needs or ignore that harm others may be doing - that is not what this means).
And these spiritual feelings are pleasant, we like to have them. When we notice what causes these feelings to dissipate (unpleasant emotions caused by attachment to self) we also become disillusioned with our attachment to self and begin to let go of it. In addition to the meditation linked above, samatha meditation and metta meditation can have a similar effect and are somewhat easier for many people to do.
Goodwill. If you can produce feelings of goodwill through relaxation exercises , samatha meditation, or metta meditation (.mp3), and extend feelings of good will to people who are not "yours" and to people doing things you don't like, you bring those people into self, they stop being "other" and become "yours". Extending metta in this way increases your freedom from identity view.
Meditation can also allow you to understanding how the mind creates the separation between self and not-self. This distinction happens when your mind is aware of sensations (sight, sound, smell, etc) and it recognizes the objects they represent. The moment when that recognition occurs is when the mind makes the distinction of self and not-self. This happens so rapidly and so often that, just as the frames of a movie create the illusion of motion. it creates the illusion of a continuous self that becomes ingrained in our world view and is taken for granted. But when you see directly it is an illusion, the attachment to self becomes diminished.

Conclusion

It is rare for anyone to completely eliminate their attachment to self (to "me"and "mine"), but most people if they want to, can reduce the suffering they experience by reducing their attachment to self. This will not automatically make someone a better person or a nicer person if they don't want it to. But if you do want to experience those kinds of changes, reducing your attachment to self can help.

Friday, September 11, 2020

A Practical Exercise for Eroding Identity View

This article describes a practical exercise that will help you put into practice the ideas I discussed in two previous articles: Experiencing Anatta and Varieties of Non-Self and Non-Dual Experiences. The purpose of the exercise is to help you to suffer less from some types of unpleasant emotions. You will get more out of this exercise if you meditate first to quiet your mind which willl make it easier to notice all that is happening within it.

For the purpose of an experiment, suppose you are not in control of your thoughts, emotions, impulses etc. Suppose they just arise in your mind from unconscious processes. And suppose sense perceptions: sight, sound, smell, etc. are the like that too, you don't try to hear you just hear when there are sounds. Suppose if you are not in control of your thoughts and impulses then when you go about your daily tasks, say washing the dishes, there is no conscious control over your movements, they just happen because of unconscious processes. And there is no conscious control over your use of reason when you try to solve a problem. Even when you seem to be trying to do something, the sense of intention is just an illusion, it comes from unconscious processes too and just appears in your mind. It might seem like you are an observer but even the idea or feeling of being an observer is just something that comes from the unconscious and anyway it is absurd because if you sense there is an observer then you are observing it so who is observing the observer?

(Be aware that none of the above or any of what follows necessarily has to be logical or true. This is not a mathematical proof. It is an attempt to communicate a feeling using words. Feelings are not logical.)

This is all very interesting as a thought experiment, but to make it real, to use it to erode the fetter of identity view, you have to put it into practice.

To do that, go ahead and make all those suppositions, even supposing there is no observer or that the feeling of being an observer is an illusion. Then do something like washing the dishes and just let one thing happen after the next. Notice how thoughts and emotions arise and pass away. Notice how you see, feel, hear, etc. and those sensation arise and pass away also. Notice how your hands and body move while you wash the dishes, but you don't feel in control. Notice that behind every intention to carry out an action was a decision that was made by unconscious processes. Noticing these things gives you a sense that you are not responsible for anything.

The feeling that you are not in control, that you are not responsible, gives you a feeling of being liberated. You are freed from responsibility. It is like a huge weight being lifted from your shoulders. You become more resistant to emotional pain because you are not in control, you are not responsible. Emotions may come and go but you don't get carried away by them. This freedom does not make you callous or nihilistic or irresponsible. It makes you more compassionate and considerate because you don't need to be as protective of yourself as you were before, you can think of others more than you used to.

After a while practicing this way, noticing what is happening in your mind and body and noticing sense perceptions, you don't have to make any suppositions, you just experience reality that way.

Actually, if you meditate to quiet the mind, to slow it down so that you can see what is doing, and then observe the activity of the mind, you will see that all those suppositions are true. It sounds disconcerting but the actual experience of it is very nice. It's nirvana. (Although perfecting it can take some time.)

Thursday, September 10, 2020

When Seeing Just See, When Hearing Just Hear

If you can observe it, it is not you.

When you look at an object and recognize what it is, in that instant of recognition something of great significance happens.

When the mind understands what an object is, it recognizes it as not-self. (If you can observe it, it is not you.)

And when the mind creates not-self, that by necessity implies self. You can't have not-self without self.

That is how the mind creates the sense of self. Moment after moment, perception after perception, recognizing objects it sees, hears, tastes, smells, touches, etc. which imply a self because of the recognition of objects that are not-self. Like the frames of a movie, each recognition is distinct but because they happen so fast one after another, they blur together to create the illusion of continuity, the illusion of the continuity of self.

Try looking around at objects when your mind is made quiet by meditation and try to experience what consciousness is like without making that recognition. Try to experience what consciousness is like before it makes self and not-self. Just look at things. Let your quiet mind be quiet, not thinking about what it is seeing, but just seeing.

A Zen master called this "The before thinking mind".

It won't necessarily be a huge realization the first time you try it. You might just get an inkling of a feeling of experiencing reality in a different way. But if you can get a glimmer, then with practice you can grow the experience.

First try this with one object at a time. Then try to do it with your whole visual field.

And don't just practice with seeing. Practice with all the senses: hearing, taste, smell, bodily sensations etc.

You can do this while sitting and meditating, or standing in the kitchen washing dishes, and at other times.

The same Zen master said, "When seeing just see. When hearing just hear."

Try doing that.

Friday, August 28, 2020

Natural Awakening Without Intense Meditation - Buddhadasa Bhikkhu

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu has written about how to attain full awakening without a formal meditation practice.

He says cultivating spiritual well-being from generosity, good conduct, or the simple forms of meditation naturally leads to full awakening.

There are several stages in the process: spiritual well-being -> tranquility -> insight into the true nature of things (the 3 characteristics) -> disenchantment -> disentanglement -> emancipation -> purification -> nirvana.

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu says generosity, good conduct, or the lower stages of concentration produces spiritual well-being. This leads to tranquility of mind. This tranquility of mind causes insight into the three characteristics to arise naturally. When one sees all things are inconstant, unsatisfactory, and not-self, disenchantment results and clinging begins to come undone. As clinging loosens, disentanglement occurs which culminates in emancipation from the objects of clinging. This results in final elimination of mental defilements or purity that produces nirvana.

He sums up by saying:

".. we simply encourage [nirvana] to come about of its own accord, naturally, by developing, day and night, the joy that results from mental purity, until the qualities we have described gradually evolve. ... We do it just by making our own way of daily living so pure and honest that there arise in succession spiritual joy, calm, insight into the true nature of things, disenchantment, disentanglement, escape, purification from defilements, and finally peace, nirvana."

https://dhammaratoblog.wordpress.com/insight-by-the-nature-method/

Insight by the Nature Method
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu
In the Tipitaka there are numerous references to people attaining naturally all stages of path and fruit. This generally came about in the presence of the Buddha himself but also happened later with other teachers. These people did not go into the forest and sit, assiduously practising concentration on certain objects in the way described in later manuals. No systematic effort was involved when arahantship was attained by the first five disciples of the Buddha on hearing the Discourse on Non-selfhood, or by the one thousand hermits on hearing the Fire Sermon. In these cases keen, penetrating insight came about quite naturally. These examples clearly show that natural concentration is liable to develop of its own accord while one is attempting to understand clearly some question; and that the resulting insight, as long as it is firmly established, is sure to be quite intense and stable. It happens naturally, automatically, in just the same way that the mind becomes concentrated the moment we set about doing arithmetic. The same happens when firing a gun. When we take aim the mind automatically becomes concentrated and steady.
...
Normally we completely overlook this naturally occurring concentration because it does not appear the least bit magical, miraculous, or awe-inspiring. But through the power of just such concentration, most of us could actually attain liberation. We could attain the path, the fruit, nirvana, and arahantship, just by means of natural concentration.
...
Now we shall see how concentration can come about, naturally
...
Now let us look at the nature of the stages of inner awareness leading to full insight into the world, that is, into the five aggregates (khandhas).
The first stage is joy (piti), mental happiness, or spiritual well-being. Doing good in some way, even giving alms, considered the most basic form of merit-making, can be a source of joy. Higher up, at the level of morality, completely blameless conduct by way of word and deed brings an increase of joy. We also discover that joy of a definite kind is associated with the lower stages of concentration.
...
This joy or rapture has in itself the power to induce tranquillity. Normally the mind is quite unrestrained, continually falling slave to all sort of thoughts and feelings associated with enticing things outside. It is normally restless, not calm. But as spiritual joy becomes established, calm and steadiness are bound to increase in proportion. When steadiness has been perfected, the result is full concentration. The mind becomes tranquil, steady, flexible, manageable, and at ease. It is then ready to be used for any chosen purpose, in particular for the elimination of the defilements.
It is not a case of the mind’s being rendered silent, hard, and rocklike. Nothing like that happens at all. The body feels normal, but the mind is especially calm and suitable for use in reflection and introspection. It is perfectly clear, cool, still, and restrained. This is quite unlike sitting in deep concentration. A deeply concentrated mind is in no position to investigate anything. It cannot practise introspection at all; it is in a state of unawareness and is of no use for insight.
...
The expression “insight into the true nature of things” refers to realizing transience (anicca), unsatisfactoriness or suffering (dukkha), and non-selfhood (anatta). It means seeing that nothing is worth getting, that no object whatsoever should be grasped at and clung to as being a self or as belonging to a self, as being good or bad, attractive or repulsive. Liking or disliking anything, even an idea or a memory, is clinging. To say that nothing is worth getting or being is the same as saying that nothing is worth clinging to. “Getting” refers to setting one’s heart on properly, position, wealth, or any attractive object. “Being” refers to the awareness of one’s status as husband, wife, rich man, poor man, winner, loser, or even the awareness of being oneself. If one can completely give up clinging to the idea of being oneself, then being oneself will no longer be subject to suffering.
...
When we have really come to perceive clearly that nothing is worth getting or being, disenchantment (nibbida) develops in proportion to the intensity of the insight. This is a sign that the clinging has become less firm and is starting to give way. It is a sign that we have been slaves for so long that the idea of trying to escape has at last occurred to us. This is the onset of disenchantment and disillusionment, when one becomes fed up with one’s own stupidity in grasping and clinging to things, believing things to be worth having and being.
...
As soon as disenchantment has set in, there is bound to come about a natural, automatic process of disentanglement (viraga), as if a rope with which one had been tightly bound were being untied, or a rinsing out, as when the dye that had been firmly fixed in a piece of cloth is removed by soaking it in the appropriate substances.
...
This process, whereby clinging gives way to a breaking free or a dissolving out from the world or from the objects of that clinging, was called by the Buddha emancipation (vimutti). This stage is most important. Though not the final stage, it is an essential step toward complete liberation. When one has broken free to this extent, complete liberation from suffering is assured.
...
Once broken free from slavery, one need never again be a slave to the world. One becomes pure and uncontaminated where previously one was defiled in every way. To be enslaved to things is to be defiled in body, speech, and mind. To break free from slavery to the delightful tastes of the world is to achieve a condition of purity and never be defiled again. This purity (visuddhi), once it has been attained, will give rise to a genuine calm and coolness free from all turbulence, strife, and torment. This state of freedom from oppression and turbulence was called by the Buddha simply Peace (santi), that is, stillness, coolness in all situations. It is virtually the same thing as nirvana.
...
... we simply encourage (nirvana) to come about of its own accord, naturally, by developing, day and night, the joy that results from mental purity, until the qualities we have described gradually evolve.
...
We do it just by making our own way of daily living so pure and honest that there arise in succession spiritual joy, calm, insight into the true nature of things, disenchantment, disentanglement, escape, purification from defilements, and finally peace, nirvana.

Monday, August 3, 2020

Experiencing Anatta

Thoughts, emotions, feelings, and impulses arise from the unconscious mind unasked for and uninvited. They are not you or yours.

Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touch, etc, are the same. You don't try to hear, you just hear.

When you try to solve a problem it may seem like you are deliberately using your mind, but where does the impulse to solve the problem come from?

It may seem like you are just awareness observing the activity of the mind and sensations in the body and perceptions of the outside world.

But the sense of being an observer is just like any other thought or feeling. It arises from the unconscious. If you can observe it, it isn't you.

When you look for a self within your mind the thought "self" creates a sense of self. Like telling someone not to think of pink elephants causes them to think of pink elephants.

When you look closely and observe the activity of the mind, sensations: sights, sounds, smells, feelings, etc., and mental activity: thoughts, emotions, impulses, etc., you see that consciousness is a series of discrete moments of awareness like the frames of a movie that are seen so quickly they create the illusion of continuity, they create the illusion of a continuous (permanent) self, when there are really only distinct moments of awareness. When you ponder continuity, also consider your self-concept. Is the angry self the same self as the happy self? Is the self of past years the same as the current self? When you are at work, you might think of yourself as an employee or a boss. When you are with your parents, you might think of yourself as their child. When you are with your child, you might think of yourself as a parent. Whatever you do, wherever you are it can influence who and what you think you are. Which self is real? Are any of them the real self? During daily life, try to notice how your self concept changes throughout the day.

When asked if there is a self, Buddha refused to answer because saying yes or no would not help his students to understand. What Buddha did say is that if you look for a permanent self, you can't find one anywhere. Buddha wanted his students to understand the sense of self as an activity or process.

To experience anatta (not-self), think through what is written above including the linked article. Notice the feeling of just being an observer of moments of awareness. Then consider that there is no observer either. How do you feel? Now, drop all thoughts of self or not-self or observing or awakening or dharma or Buddha or attaining states of consciousness or attaining anything from meditation.

Drop all intentions. Intentions are often intertwined with attachments to the self such as success/failure, winning/losing, and craving/aversion.

Just observe the activity of the mind with a clear mind.

This is not supposed to be a logical argument that is true or false. It is an attempt to communicate a feeling. Feelings are not logical.

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Varieties of Non-Self and Non-Dual experiences.

Someone on a discussion forum asked about scientific studies of no-self experiences. I referred them to an article which discusses a student report on the subject that includes informative references.

I also replied that there are several different types of not-self, non-self, no-self, and nondual experiences and I think each would have a different physiological correlate. It is helpful to recognize this if one is going to research the scientific studies on the subject.

Some people might point out that nonduality is not the same as no-self, since nonduality can recognize unity as a self. Another way of looking at it is that if you experience unity then your ordinary self is not the complete understanding of self, so nonduality can be considered a type of no-self experience. Also, from the experiencer's point of view, there is a blurring of distinction and an overlap of the two types of experiences. And if your interest in non-self is because you are interested in understanding how the ordinary mundane self might not be the only way of experiencing reality, then nonduality may also be of interest. For all these reasons I am combining both types of experiences in this article.

One type of experience can happen when the mind is quiet from meditation and you experience one of the five senses.
Typically if you hear a sound, for example, you are also analyzing and interpreting the sound, trying to understand how that sound relates to you and what it means for you in your environment.
But if the mind is so quiet it doesn't provide any type of judgement or analysis all you do is hear. There is no filter, no mind, between the sound and the hearing making an interpretation or commentary and there is no reaction or attachment or aversion to what you hear.
You don't experience any liking or disliking - you don't reject it, you don't cling to it, you don't get carried away by thoughts and emotions weaving a story in your mind about what it means and how it relates to you.
There is just hearing.
In that situation, it seems like there is no self involved and you notice that as a no-self experience.
You see how the feeling of self is created by mental activity because in the absence of mental activity you notice when the feeling of self is absent.
Because you don't analyze or interpret the meaning of the sound or dislike or reject the sound, you don't distinguish it from yourself, you do not feel separate from the sound, so you don't feel a sense of separateness. It is also a non-dual experience.
Another type of experience is when the distinction between observer and the observed disappears. When this happened to me I lost awareness of body after many hours of meditation and it seemed like all that existed was what I was looking at. Since I existed I must be the thing I was looking at. I think this is what the article I linked to above is about. https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/mystical_experiences#mystical_kensho
Sometimes after a meditation session when the mind is very quiet from meditating, the absence of mental chatter creates a feeling that something is missing, there is a feeling of a kind of emptiness, a hollowness where the "person" is missing. I call it "feeling like a doughnut". One is aware of the body but doesn't feel like there is anyone in there. It doesn't sound logical. I am not trying to be logical - I am trying to describe a feeling. Feelings are not necessarily logical. https://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2019/06/no-one-to-be-offended.html
After a session of deep relaxation, a similar kind of experience happens if you focus on the floating feeling or the feeling of tranquility during meditation or during daily activities. You feel so peaceful that the things that used to annoy you just don't get a rise out of you. That thing that used to get annoyed, that ego, isn't there and you feel like you don't have a self/ego. It's not a big deal. It's peacful and quiet, it's not mystical, it's like getting back to normal when worrying about being annoyed or angry or afraid or wanting something was a disruption of normality.
This idea of self, of a me, is just an idea, and because it's just an idea it isn't real or false. But if you recognize that "me" isn't a real solid thing that exists as matter, that it's just an idea, then there isn't any thing that has to be defended, that can be harmed or insulted, that can win or lose. How can an idea win or lose or feel insulted? When there is no "me" there is no ill will or fear etc.
You can understand this on an intellectual level but until it works its way through your subconscious (the unconscious processes responsible for thoughts, emotions, impulses, sense of self), into your world view, you don't really understand it. You have to experience that quiet peaceful state, to feel like you don't have a self, to get it.
I went for a walk and tried to notice those no-self moments - moments when something you see or hear catches your attention and you are aware of it without thinking about anything else. At first I noticed a few and I wondered what the point was, to extend their duration or to let repeated observations convince me that self was an illusion. I kept walking and noticed more of these moments. I began to get a sense of the quality of them which helped me to notice more and more. As I went along I started to notice them fairly frequently. They came faster and faster until I thought every sensation is a no-self moment. I laughed. I thought it was a good joke. http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2020/10/no-self-moments.html
Another kind of experience is when you observe the activity of the mind and see that thoughts, emotions, and impulses arise from the unconscious unasked for and uninvited. Every time you are trying to keep the mind focused in meditation and you become distracted by an interrupting thought, it is a reminder that you don't control your mind. It may seem like the self is only pure awareness observing thoughts emotions and impulses. But then if you consider that the feeling of being an observer is just like any other thought, emotion, or impulse, you are left with nothing. You can get a feeling of intentionally using your mind when you are trying to solve a problem, but where did the intention to solve the problem, to use your mind, come from? Buddha said consciousness is like a magician's trick. I think this is what he was talking about. http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2019/09/coming-and-going.html
Here are some of other types of experiences:
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/02/joy-during-meditation.html
- [This type of meditation] also creates a kind of synesthesia where everything I see and hear, I also feel in my body as if they are part of me. There is an effect like the brain is a virtual reality machine and what I see is really a movie inside my head projected on the unchanging screen of pure awareness, like my mind contains the whole universe including me walking around inside it. Other times I feel like my self and its boundaries are dissolving and I am expanding to merge into infinite space
- You can learn to be so relaxed that you don't feel defensive. You don't feel the need to defend your boundaries. You feel like an interconnected part of everything and everyone. Like each part, including yourself, is (joint owner of?) the whole. This state is resistant to unpleasant emotions because it affects your feeling of identity. It changes your opinion of what is "me" and "mine". If you are everything, you are not any particular thing. There aren't things outside you that affect you. There just is what is. It feels like unconditional good will and compassion and the absence of self-importance.
Another type of experience may occur if you just sit and notice your perceptions: what you see, hear, and smell around you, what you feel inside your body, the activity of your mind - thoughts, emotions and impulses. Doing this, you might be puzzled about what exactly you should pay attention to. Should you check each type of perception in a specific sequence? Should you just watch your mind and see what happens? If you just watch, who is it that is deciding what you notice? This question is significant because it shows that despite popular belief, there is not an obvious continuous stream of consciousness or a controlling consciousness. You may notice that consciousness is really just a series of distinct moments of awareness. There is nothing that is continuous from perception to perception. There is no continuous self in it. There is awareness of this perception, then that perception, then another perception etc.
This isn't meant to be a logical explanation that might be true or false - it is a description of a feeling that some people have. It is not meant to help you understand or believe something, it is meant to help you feel something or recognize what you might be feeling.
Observing experience in this way can help diminish suffering because if you are experiencing something unpleasant, by spreading your awareness around different external and internal sensations and mental activity you spend only a small fraction of the time aware of the unpleasantness. Additionally, observing unpleasant emotions along with other types of perceptions has a dissociating effect where the experiencer feels more like an observer than the one who is suffering. This eases suffering and is a type of non-self experience similar to one mentioned above.
This next link is also relevant, it describes nondual experiences/beliefs in many different cultures: Christian, Sufi, Native American, Jewish, Spiritualist, an atheist, etc.
http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/03/realizing-ultimate.html]http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/03/realizing-ultimate.html

Life in B Flat
(Science and Spirituality)

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Saturday, October 31, 2020

No-self is not Nihilistic

Thursday, October 22, 2020

No-Self Moments

Sunday, September 13, 2020