How can there be no self? I get that everyone's opinion of themselves wrong at least a little but isn't there undeniably consciousnesses experiencing things in your head? is it just semantics? youre conscious but youre memories probably arent very reliable and all life is interdependent on each other? how would that nullify youre experience of being a "self"? is it just dogma to help people cope with being alive? am i missing the point? when people say things like 'if your look for a self it will vanish' or 'who is doing the thinking' i just think 'me, my brain which is alive and forms memories feel feelings and make judgements'. i get that i'm part of the universe but it seems insane to think the dead deer on the side of the road is somehow part of me or that good and bad don't exist, only opposites. imagine there was some piercing screech everywhere causing constant migraines to all living things, how would this not be terrible? how would judging it be an illusion?
book recs on the topic? or just thoughts on it, id love to be wrong but in order believe something you have to think its true
I would suggest Waking Up by Sam Harris. Also watch his talks on Big Think.
If you really want to experience it, I would suggest you give serious thought to taking a psychedelic like psilocybin. Of course, that's not a decision to take lately and you should absolutely avoid it if there is a history of mental illness in the family, specifically schizoaffective disorder.
Joseph Wilson
Relevant?
>In other words, the earliest definitions describe the key defining feature of meditation as an experience of “mental silence”.
>Many other explicit examples of this definition can be found in Eastern literature from virtually every historical period. Lao Tzu, for example, urged us to “Empty the mind of all thoughts” in the Tao Te Ching.
>Yet Western definitions of meditation have consistently failed to acknowledge its significance. Perhaps this is because of the predominance of the Cartesian dictum “cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am) that has come to characterise not only Western philosophy but the psyche as well.
>This might explain why for most people in the West, including the academics and researchers on whom we rely to generate our scientific knowledge, mental silence represents both an alien concept and an illogical experience.
>>This might explain why for most people in the West, including the academics and researchers on whom we rely to generate our scientific knowledge, mental silence represents both an alien concept and an illogical experience.
This must also be why the west has so many great achievements in science, philosophy and culture while the east, just sitting around thinking they don't exist all day, still poop in buckets and don't know math.
Nathaniel Powell
Because ignorance is the root cause of dukkha...
"From ignorance as a requisite condition come fabrications. From fabrications... comes consciousness. From consciousness... name-&-form. From name-&-form... the six sense media. From the six sense media... contact. From contact... feeling. From feeling...craving. From craving... clinging/sustenance. From clinging/sustenance... becoming. From becoming... birth. From birth as a requisite condition, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair come into play. Such is the origination of this entire mass of stress & suffering. ...when it ceases, so too must dukkha cease
"Now from the remainderless fading & cessation of that very ignorance comes the cessation of fabrications. From the cessation of fabrications comes the cessation of consciousness. From the cessation of consciousness comes the cessation of name-&-form. From the cessation of name-&-form comes the cessation of the six sense media. From the cessation of the six sense media comes the cessation of contact. From the cessation of contact comes the cessation of feeling. From the cessation of feeling comes the cessation of craving. From the cessation of craving comes the cessation of clinging/sustenance. From the cessation of clinging/sustenance comes the cessation of becoming. From the cessation of becoming comes the cessation of birth. From the cessation of birth, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair all cease. Such is the cessation of this entire mass of stress & suffering."
— SN 12.2
Christopher Lopez
I'm a big fan of all those things you mentioned but i still cant really grasp it. psychedelics make everything make sense for a few hours but it seems like delusion when I'm sober. there simply is something it is like to be me. i do think life is interconnected in significant ways but i still feel my suffering and joy is important, i still feel it makes sense to judge things i dont doubt believing this stuff will make me happy but i just dont believe it i hope youre joking. you have an incredibly narrow world view, just because you dont know bout eastern culture doesnt mean it doesnt exist and calling modern society progress is debatable i dont understand but if i do understand if i planted a garden but a hurricane destroys it would you say it never existed? just because ill die and be forgotten doesn't mean my being is illusory. maybe that wasnt what you were getting at, i dont understand your post
Leo Campbell
it's not that there isn't a subject, it's just that it's a secondary effect of linguistic processes
Alexander Carter
nobody can tell you what self is, so nobody can tell you what a non self is.
anyway, in the dhamma, you just see that for a pleb, there is a divide that he calls things personal and impersonal. too bad that both these are impermanent.
Jaxon Ortiz
Not him, but there would have been a time when humans existed (or at least our ancestors) and hadn't yet developed language.
Jackson Lewis
I submit that at they time they didn't have subjectivity as we believe we understand it or experience it today.
