March 31, 2010
- More from Daniel Ingram on the Meaning of Life (my working definition) -
Strangely, the process of creating the illusory sense of a self arises out of compassion, but confused compassion, which is desire. This may sound odd, but it is as if there was an eddy in reality that befuddled empty and compassionate awareness, which is not a thing nor separate from things. Thus, somehow it seems that there is something to defend, some separate self that must be protected. Thus, out of confused compassion, barriers and defense mechanisms continue to be erected to defend this territory, this illusion of a separate self. Spiritual practices are designed to systematically debunk this illusion and penetrate these barriers by providing clarity, whereas all of the traditions can easily become part of these barriers, cultures to defend, knowledge to assume is self or owned by self, and that sort of thing.
I am very interested in the idea of “an eddy in reality”, what that might mean, and what it might be. Intimately tied to this idea is the idea of “crossing to the far shore” common to both Buddhism and the I Ching. This is why the yanas (Hine-, Maha-, and Vajra-) are called yanas.
Also:
Thus, with enough stability and clarity (concentration and wisdom), this natural, compassionate process of manifestation can begin to function more skillfully, as it has better information to go on, and can begin to see that creating the illusion of a separate, permanent self was not at all helpful (though it seemed to be). At this point, “it” will then let go of the illusion it has been perpetuating and return to understanding its natural state, which is freedom and non-duality.
My question here is, what was this natural process of manifestation doing before it got caught in the idea of a separate self. And now that that separate self is seen through, what else can that process accomplish through this “one” who is now aware of it…
Such good stuff:
This is something that absolutely cannot be accomplished by an act of will. It only arises when the level of clarity is high enough and the heart accepting enough of things as they are. One might say that Grace favors the well-trained mind.
Why do you want to annihilate yourself?
Not everyone agrees on this idea of “No-self” The Hindus are divided on it.
It doesn’t really make sense, but that’s the draw, I guess. Its assumed to be true but hard to grasp. I have a bad visceral reaction to this idea and trusting my gut instinct, assume its false.
So the idea here with this school of thought, of the seperate sense of self being a delusion, is to also assume that there are other people who do grasp this. So then the idea is to do as they suggest to get to the stage they are supposedly at.
Seriously, what if they are just bullshitting you? Or what if they are nihilists? Nihilism is a philosophy associated with a lot of bad stuff.
Also what would prevent a person in this supposed state, of “knowing” that all sense of speration and individuality is a delusion….what would prevent that person from violating other peoples boundaries? Wouldn’t they be illusory personal boundaries?
Illusory boundaries that are keeping people from experiencing enlightenment?
How is love for another person even possible in this mindset? Can you really value other people for specific qualities they may have? If you were to affirm a person for who they are as a person, and you believed in “no self” and that all individual characteristics are illusory and based on ignorance, what would you say?
“I like how you are like a featurless void.”
Comment by Ted — March 31, 2010 @ 1:31 pm
I guess the idea is to realize this “no self stuff” and then not get reincarnated again, but instead, just be God, which is not a person but a void. Meanwhile still being stuck here, I guess the idea is to teach others this idea.
Then once everyone has this idea, The Universe will disappear. There is even a book called “The disappearence of the Universe” Based on ACIM.
So any effort toward “making the world a better place” under this idea would be pointless.
I can see the logic of this. It also explains why monks have historically not been social activists, before having contact with westerners.
The goal is not to help these delusions our ignorant brains, register as “other beings” but rather to see them as cold hard chunks in the great melting pot of liberated consciousness.
Comment by Ted — March 31, 2010 @ 1:48 pm
As I understand it (which is poorly!), there is a kind of technical schism here. The ‘take’ I like is that once the False Self has been stripped away there is a True Self within the ‘no self’.
I like the idea of eddies… but I can’t resist this:
Douglas Adams (paraphrased from memory)
Ford: ‘Eddies.’
Arthur: ‘What?’
Ford: ‘Eddies. In the space-time continuum.’
Arthur: ‘And this is his sofa?’
:D
Comment by speedbird — March 31, 2010 @ 2:18 pm
See, I like that take too, but the “no self” doctrine is the idea that the false self is the only self there is and that everyones “true self” is the same conscious void.
So in terms of the false self, its not a mask with a real face behind it, its a mask with a void behind it. The void is God basically but there is no seperate existence of individuality that is not considered delusional.
Comment by Ted — March 31, 2010 @ 2:25 pm
Its not a question of self-annihilation, not in the least. And its certainly not nihilistic. Its the end of the false self, and the birth of the actual one. Its a transition between the many false “I”s and the true I AM, as Gurdjieff put it, its Jesus before and after the ressurection. There only seems to be a difference between no self and true self when we look at it in a rationalistic, logical, “makes sense” kind of way.
The descriptions of it comes after the experience, when someone’s who’s had that kind of experience tries to explain it to someone else. But words can’t hold it properly, and if we rely on the words as a means of understanding it, we’ll ultimately fall away from the truth of the actual experience. Its the old finger pointing at the moon thing. It simply can’t make sense through words.
I can’t really explain it better than that, not having experienced it myself (though who knows whether I could do a better job if I HAD experienced it). I can only point you to a section in Daniel’s book that explores this further.
Comment by Ian — March 31, 2010 @ 2:39 pm
Well, I see the conversation developed while I was writing that…
Actually, its more that any attempt to talk about the real face ultimately ends up being just another false face, and so the idea of “no self” is given to point out that though true face exists, any description of it is not actually true.
The tao that can be told
is not the eternal Tao
The name that can be named
is not the eternal Name.
Comment by Ian — March 31, 2010 @ 2:42 pm
Oh, and speedbird:
true self IS no self, they point to the same thing.
And thank you, as always, for the Douglas Adams quotes… :)
Comment by Ian — March 31, 2010 @ 2:49 pm
Ian,
This is really weird debating you about a thging you don’t purport to understand yourself.
Its even weirder to hear you say that I don’t understand it either and that I can’t go by what people that believe they do understand it, say, because its beyond words.
What if I do understand it and its a bunch of bullshit? But you haven’t figured it out yet?
How could we test this hypothesis? Seriously?
Comment by Ted — March 31, 2010 @ 3:08 pm
Ted, I did not say I don’t understand it, only that I cannot describe it better than I already have.
I also didn’t say that you don’t understand it, I was pointing out that I do not see it to be self-annihilation nor nihilistic. This has been repeated by every Buddhist practitioner I’ve ever heard/read, and I believe them because of their long history of engagement with Buddhist practice and study. This is what my “gut” tells me.
You could very well be correct, but the only way to test it is to practice. I approach the teachings with faith, you approach them with doubt. Both are valuable paths, but if we want to know the truth of it, the only way is to engage them fully to find out.
Comment by Ian — March 31, 2010 @ 3:29 pm
These are the choices:
Total materialism: Consciousness is produced by my brain, that’s all it is a function of my brain. The ego is an illusion, but its all we have, once our brain dies its over for what we imagine to be “us.” free will is an illusion also. There is no “ghost in the machine” just a biological machine, that keeps reproducing itself.
Dualism: I am a soul in a body, when my body dies my soul lives on. I may go to heaven or hell or become reincarnated, but I am not simply a biological machine tricking myself into thinking I have a seperate independant existence.
Non-dualism: basically the former but with a positive spin on it to make it sound nicer. This is achieved through semantics basically. You don’t die, because the real you is this intelligent void which is God, but you suffer because you identify with non-permanent things, like your personality, likes dislikes, this illusion that you are a unique seperate entity, your body etc. This intelligent void is eternal. So when you completely identify with the eternal instead of the temporary, you cease to suffer. Part of you dies, but the eternal part lives on, because it was never born and can’t die and never changes. I guess that’s why they call it eternal.
Comment by Ted — March 31, 2010 @ 3:38 pm
It seems like total materialism, would be non-dual, but somehow it seems to me like its missing something. It seems to deny some things, some aspects of reality I have experienced. This can all be explained away supposedly, by the “god spot of the Brain” and so forth, but materialsts still strike me as not seeing the big picture.
The middle option, seems a lot like wishful thinking, now that I write it out like this.
The last option seems to have its merits but….I feel like it makes life pointless. The thing is I feel like I do understand what these people are talking about and it seems kind of blah. It seems to me that when people are talking over my head, I am aware of it and none of these Buddhists etc. seem like they are dfoing that.
It’s like, OK. sit and meditate and still your mind, you access this reality, this experience, that is calming and everything and is prior to language or whatever, it seems like there is something there like a loving intelligent void.
So when you access this it mellows you out relives stress etc. It still seems kind of boring. And it really sounds like these people are saying that thing you experience is all there is and that they come to fully identify with this void and see it as reality and everything else as an illusion based on ignorance.
It really seems bland to me. Probably when I am close to death it would seem better if I thought it was all there was.
Comment by Ted — March 31, 2010 @ 3:51 pm
You have once again ducked my question of practice. What you present here is theory, not practice. I am not engaged in theory as an absolute, I am engaged in theory as a form of poetics. There are no three choices, all three are completely valid and co-exist at the same time. There is nothing inherent in these three ideas that are mutually exclusive, they are three hypothesis drawn from the same set of incomplete facts.
Comment by Ian — March 31, 2010 @ 3:51 pm
Cross posted again… But seriously, if all three theories don’t fit your experience, then why follow any of them? Why limit yourself to those three choices? What does your experience tell you?
Also, I think you’re right on your critiques of each of these.
Comment by Ian — March 31, 2010 @ 3:55 pm
As for the idea of a “God spot” in the brain, how come no one ever talks about the “carrot spot” in the brain that lights up when you see a carrot? Surely that proves carrots are simply mental processes that don’t have any basis outside the brain? :)
Comment by Ian — March 31, 2010 @ 3:56 pm
I just think there’s more to the non-dual than simply calming yourself and dis-identifying from your experience. I have a daily meditation practice that I do, and I would say, from my own experience, that meditation is anything but blah, and it doesn’t make my life pointless.
I find, when I don’t meditate, that I get really cranky and grumpy and every little thing annoys me. But when I do, I find my mind much clearer and much more able to engage reality. If anything, I find that meditation moves me away from “blah” and towards “yeah”.
Comment by Ian — March 31, 2010 @ 3:59 pm
>> any description of it is not actually true
Ah. Yes. Of course.
Isn’t that what ‘ineffable’ means?
Comment by speedbird — March 31, 2010 @ 3:59 pm
I can meditate as well as anybody. Its not hard for me. This Zen master Dude told me as much. Just before I quit because I got perterbed about his stick weilding and stupid koan.
So what are you trying to say? Come see you when I’ve spent more stime sitting?
That just puts off the question. Here is the thing Ian, I am dissatisfied with things. That is what pushes me on this spiritual quest I am on. I have no good reason to believe that these dudes actually know something I don’t on a fundamental level. There are lots of people that no more than I do about lots of things, like engineers for example, quantum physicists etc.
So its like you are basically asking do I have a better answer and I am saying no, but that dosesn’t inspire me to settle or have faith that other people know better than me.
Maybe this “no self” thimg is correct but I feel like I raised some objections but the pat answer is always that I don’t understand.
Comment by Ted — March 31, 2010 @ 4:05 pm
Well that’s good I am glad you appreciated my critiques. I am just trying to understand. I don’t think meditation is blah, I just think having a body and a subjective experience has a lot with which to lend itself besides being delusiuonal and ignorant.
Comment by Ted — March 31, 2010 @ 4:08 pm
I think the human body and plants and animals and trees and rocks are pretty cool, even thoughthey won’t last forever. I guess I don’t think of life on planet Earth as just a big sufferring causing mechanism from which we are supposed to awaken- that being the ENTIRE POINT of the whole shebang.
That’s my objection to this no self stuff.
Comment by Ted — March 31, 2010 @ 4:18 pm
Having known a few Zen masters, I call bullshit on any Zen master having told you this.
No, I’m only saying that if you want to talk about the Buddhist doctrine of “no-self”, its only proper to engage in the Buddhist path. I have lots of theories on quantum mechanics (as is well documented here) but i don’t claim to know more than a quantum physicist (as you say).
You say you’re dissatisfied with the way things are. You say you don’t trust someone else to know more than you do. This is actually the right way to look at it. You shouldn’t settle, and you shouldn’t take someone else’s opinion. But then, where can you look to resolve your dissatisfaction?
This is a good point. I’m sorry I’m not capable of answering your objections. Actually, I have said that I agree with your objections, that nihilism and a great void is not what they mean by no-self. Its just that I think there’s another way to look at “no-self”, but I don’t know how to explain it any better than I already have.
Comment by Ian — March 31, 2010 @ 4:30 pm
OK, so I have to go, I have been neglecting my work and I’m late for some appointments tonight. However, I’ll try to explain one last time before I go. Please understand that I am not presenting this as an argument against you, I just want to try to explain my personal understanding of no-self, using the objections you raise against it.
I agree, and so does Buddhism. Somewhere, Buddha is quoted as saying that those who meditate “touch enlightenment with the body”. However, is the body and the subjective experience all that there is to experience? What extends beyond the subjective experience, and is that something we can experience?
No, I don’t think so either. But then, where does that dissatisfaction that you mentioned before come from (which I definitely feel too)? What is its source, its root cause? What has to be found out in order to remove that dissatisfaction?
And lastly, what happens when that subjective experience opens up completely to the incoming data from the outside world? Not in an annihilation of that subjective experience, but in a complete acceptance of the information that is moving through it? Without clinging onto any of that moving sense data as something that’s permanent? This includes thoughts, feelings, emotions, and everything.
When all that sense data is seen as something YOU are receiving, what’s left?
Comment by Ian — March 31, 2010 @ 4:43 pm
OK. The Zen master did complement me. I don’t know what to say. We were at a retreat and I did everything I was supposed to. I bowed 100 times, chanted, ate meals in the proscribed way. made very few mistakes and it was my first time going to a retreat. Basically its follow the leader and I was suspicious of the whole thing while being opened to it and had this intensity I brought to it.
Its kind of like when I aced exams because I strongly disagreed with the professor.
I think I figured out what it is. I hate FAITH. I hate taking anyones word for anything. So even though I am annoyed at people espousing Scientism, I respect scientists and the scientific method.
So I have objections to some things related to the doctrine of “no-self” and so I feel like its a cop out to just trust what others have to say on the matter assuming they know better.
My objection is mainly that there could be layers of individuality that are more comprehensive and integrative, than to be called false. I value individuality in my self and others and find that there are good and beautiful aspects to creation.
I feel like what is often passed off as non-duality is actually duality.
Comment by Ted — March 31, 2010 @ 5:44 pm
I guess you could just say that everything temporary is not real so that temporary becomes a synonym for false.
So by analogy like an ice sculpture would be considered unreal. I mean maybe there aren’t gradations, but assuming this real unreal stuff isn’t an either or thing, maybe there are gradations. So then an ice sculpture would be “less real” than a stone or metal sculpture. But obviously people like ice sculptures, so obviously they have value.
So maybe the point is not to get too attached to them because they will melt. I can see that. But then you can still appreciate them, maybe more because of their impermancence.
So if people are like ice sculptures I guess it would be better to be aware of this than not aware and being unaware of this would no doubt cause more suffering.
As far as subjectivity being false, I see that differently. Doesn’t TMBCHR talk about “percieving centers”? I mean that is our experience isn’t it? How is it an illusion or even a delusion? So we construct a self based on our five senses and other things like cultural programing, that’s basically the ego construct. But why is that bad and why does than need to be gotten rid of?
Are we supposed to become OMNI aware once we let go of subjectivity? Or is it moe like being omni aware of nothing? Because the sense reality we have subjective experience of is also itself illusory no matter how you perciever it? Is the world worthy only of being withdrawn from?
Comment by Ted — March 31, 2010 @ 6:05 pm
Well, no worries on the Zen Master thing. I figured you were just trying to make a point.
Well, the way I see it is that if its real, its there, and if its not there, we shouldn’t pretend its there and hold onto it, or even try to push it away, if its not there. Its not that it’s unreal because its temporary, but because its temporary, we should be very careful not to think its real when it isn’t. The basic concept being that when we act as if something’s real when its not, we become dissatisfied/stressed/suffer/angsty/etc.
Exactly, I totaly agree with you. But how to appreciate it without holding on to it when its not there? I think you just have to pay close attention, and to understand that it is possible to think something is there when its actually not. That split second of doubt leading to inquiry can save us a lot of trouble and stress.
I don’t think it is bad, but there’s something within that ego-construct that suffers, right? I mean, you feel it and I feel it. So what is that? Are there temporary parts of the self that we should let go of (things that were true but aren’t anymore) and if so, what remains? What’s left of the self when all the temporary stuff is let go of, not destroyed or annihilated, just simply allowed to go if its gone, and appreciated if its present?
As with TMBCHR’s perceiving centers, you are, by definition, not that which you perceive. That which is being perceived passes into/through that which perceives it. But if all we have to go on are perceptions, how can we come to know that which perceives? Can you feel perception, experience the perceiving center itself, apart from its perceptions (which are not in any way wrong, just temporary).
No, it is worthy to be experienced as it is. And if we can come to do that then the source of a lot of our unhappiness is gone.
Comment by Ian — April 1, 2010 @ 11:53 am
If I were going to narrow it down I would ask aspects of a human being do you consider unreal?
Comment by Ted — April 1, 2010 @ 3:23 pm
“illusory sense of a self” That doesn’t bug you? That doesn’t imply that your sense of self is simply an illusion? What of self worth, self respect? Are these all “obstacles on the path?”
Is it good to be unkind to people so that they get really low self esteem?
Comment by Ted — April 1, 2010 @ 3:28 pm
Here is a quote from the wikipedia entry on Anatta
“What is the reality of things just as it is? It is the absence of essence. Unskilled persons whose eye of intelligence is obscured by the darkness of delusion conceive of an essence of things and then generate attachment and hostility with regard to them.”
This “essence” is another word for “soul” “spirit” and “Atma”
I don’t see myself ever agreeing with this. I really feel like I get a lot out of reading the Bhagavad Gita. I feel like its very spiritually edifying.
Comment by Ted — April 1, 2010 @ 3:54 pm
Right now, only those that aren’t really there. I don’t actually know what is here and what isn’t here, not 100%, but if I’m feeling that dissatisfaction, chances are I’m missing something (or seeing something that’s not there).
No, but I read it as an illusory sense of self, not an illusory sense of self. I want to know what my self truly is. Supposedly, if I know that, it takes care of the whole dukkha thing. :)
If the sense of self was an illusion, that would definitely bug me. There’s certainly something pretty special going on in the space I occupy. I just don’t can’t say exactly what it is.
I doubt the person who wrote the wikipedia really understands what that means (though maybe they do, who knows?). But the point is that although there is an essence, there can be no specific sensation pinned down as the permanent essence, any sense of an essence is just a sensation, and therefore transitory and impermanent and therefore, should not be held on to. Because although those sensations are suggestive of an essence, they are not the essence itself.
Essence exists, but any definition of it will not do it justice. As speedbird said, it’s ineffable. One way to describe that is anatta. Another way to describe it is atman. Its one of those spiritual paradoxes, where totally opposite ideas can be used to describe the same thing, because that thing is in truth beyond our ability to categorize/label it.
I think one way to say it is, if you intend “self” as a label, there is no “self”. If you intend self as a reality to be explored and understood without any permanent label, then there is a self. This is atman and anatta both. And in a sense, even “atman” and “anatta” are wrong, because they’re just as much labels as anything else. :)
Comment by Ian — April 1, 2010 @ 4:16 pm
No offense, but you seem like you are just being elusive.
My take on “no self” is that it means “no self”
Differentiating between a false self versus a true self seems to be a diffeent thing.
Comment by Ted — April 1, 2010 @ 4:43 pm
ingram clearly seems to be saying that “the sense of having a seperate self” is illusory and not, for instance that a man who identifies heavily with his job and then becomes depressed because he got laid off, had an illusory sense of self.
Am I missing something?
Comment by Ted — April 1, 2010 @ 4:45 pm
Sorry I appear to be elusive. My concept of the self is pretty elusive, and trying to talk about it isn’t easy.
Though I’m not going to have a chance to check back in here tonight, what is your definition of “self”? Defining “self” would be the key to working out “no self”, I think… Or, to be more clear, what do you mean by “true self”?
Also, would you say that a man who identified heavily with his job and then became depressed because he got laid off wouldn’t be better off if he could stop identifying with his job, once that job was no longer a part of his life?
Since he got laid off, the job was obviously an impermanent thing. Thinking of his job as permanent when its not seems to be the cause of his depression and suffering.
Being able to face his future options without spending energy holding onto an impermanent identity would be a good thing for him, I think. What does he gain by holding onto the identity of his job, once it’s no longer his job?
Granted, no one switches on and off like that instantly, but going through a mourning process for that impermanent identity and then moving on seems better than holding on to it. Nothing wrong with taking that time. But the depression arises because he holds as part of his “self” something that is no longer there.
What would make everyone pretty happy is finding a self that can be held onto, in all circumstances, regardless of what changes. But in order to find that, we’d have to find something that never changes. What isn’t impermanent? That’s what we’re all trying to find, I think.
Comment by Ian — April 1, 2010 @ 8:06 pm
I really feel like I know exactly what Ingram means by “no-self.” Perhaps you don’t. Seriously. He deinies the atman just as had suspected:
http://www.interactivebuddha.com/bullshit.shtml
Comment by Ted — April 1, 2010 @ 9:23 pm
Here he is denying the existence of an “Atman” and using the concept of a true self in a pajorative sense:
” This notion solidifies a True Self teaching almost by definition. From any cursory analysis, what we are from an insight point of view is an extrapolation of continuity from a pattern of utterly fresh, transient, ephemeral, causal sensations. Anything added to this is extraneous from an insight point of view. Try as people might, a True Self in an experiential sense cannot be found. Thus, the notion that people already are something begs the question: What are they? It tends to imply that they are already something such as perfect, enlightened, realized, awakened, or something even worse such as Awareness, Cosmic Consciousness, The Atman, an aspect of The Divine, etc. all of which cannot actually be found. While Buddhism does sometimes go there, such as using terms such as Dharmakaya and Buddha Nature, these are very slippery, high concepts that were added later and require a ton of explanation and practice experience to keep them from becoming the monsters they nearly always become in less experienced hands.”
Comment by Ted — April 1, 2010 @ 9:26 pm
The Bhagavad Gita says that Spiritual paths that seek to connect with the “ineffable” are a lot harder than spiritual paths that worship a personal God.
Maybe I am destined for the spirtual equivalent of the “short bus.” I dunno. It seems to me though, that its not that I don’t get the concepts. I really don’t feel that people like Dan Ingram are talking so far over my head that I cannot grasp what they are saying.
In this article I quoted he equates being an arahat, with being a brain surgeon or a fighter pilot or a concert pianist. I would be arrogant to say that I could be a brain surgeon or a concert pianist without training.
But these folks do really cool shit that’s really obvious to observe.
Ingrams “expertise” amounts to him being really convinced of a philosophical or Theological position, such that he feels he percieves it as reality. And if you did all the really heavy lifting he has done you would see it the exact same way too.
Comment by Ted — April 1, 2010 @ 9:42 pm
Ian, maybe you have a more subtle view of this than Daniel Ingram.
tr
I’ve been thinking about this some more. I had this idea a while ago that Spirit and Soul and Ego are three different things. The Spirit corresponds with the Atman, an eternal “spark of the divine” the ego is a construct, a “false self” if you will, whereas the Soul is kind of intermediate between the two. Its like the law of three. The atman and the ego are at odds but the soul is a third element that arises from the tension between the two and ends up reconciling them.
The soul is more substantial then the ego, but it is not unchanging nor timeless, it develops and grows as we mature spiritually.
The beef I seem to have with Buddhism is that it seems to want to equate the soul and spirit with the ego. It strikes me as wanting to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I feel like you can’t really do damage to the atman, but you could harm your soul, by denying its existence.
Lots of people are Athiests already without doing hours and hours of meditation and insight practice, so I really don’t see Ingrams argument as having merit.
He also downplays the importance of morality, which I think is a bad sign.
I really experience myself as having a soul that needs to be fed by connecting with my spirit. I really don’t see denying that I have a spirit would aid me in growing spiritually. But supposedly according to Ingram If I followed his spiritual practice in a disciplined and rigorous way, I would see that I have no soul nor Spirit and perhaps I too could be an arahat.
Comment by Ted — April 2, 2010 @ 12:03 am
These are some really good points Ted. What I think Daniel’s main point in that essay is that the idea that “we’re all enlightened already and don’t have to do any work to get enlightened” is bullshit and dangerous. I agree with Daniel on this, and so do you, I think, since you say here that such things require work. He’s fighting the idea that no work at all is necessary to have a moment to moment experience of the divine/absolute.
You also say the Soul develops, so I think this means you would agree that its a process, something that grows through the work we do on our selves, not that its something we can immediately grasp, understand, and use, as we can with the ego.
Like you said, Daniel’s coming at it from a certain viewpoint, so he uses terms a certain way. But actually, he kind of admit to the fact that Buddhism does allow for a true self when he says:
Also, he says:
The key points for me here is that 1) he’s speaking from an insight point of view, which means something very specific in Daniel Ingram-ese. 2) True Self cannot be found in an experiential sense. For me, the inclusion of the word experiential means we can’t touch/see/feel true self, as Daniel defines it. This is not to say it doesn’t exist, just that it can’t be experienced.
In the end, I think of “no self” more as a skillful teaching. Its so easy to think we’ve found true self when we actually haven’t, and “no self” is a reminder to not take something as that true self that isn’t absolute. I take it as basically a reminder to never stop too soon, to always keep going further. But if it doesn’t speak to you, then there’s no need for you to take it up.
As far as ego, soul, and spirit, as you’ve defined them, my personal take is that the ego is the identity we’re born with, the soul is what we use to grow out of identifying with only the ego, and the spirit is where we eventually want our identity to rest, with our ego supporting and supported by that divine spirit. It’s like we’re little machines that create a sense of self, but we’re useless if that self can’t acknowledge its connection to the divine spirit. The growth of our soul helps us do this.
Comment by Ian — April 2, 2010 @ 11:05 am
The thing about Buddhism, particularly as Daniel describes it, is that it’s describing the spiritual journey from a very subjective viewpoint. Its all about what you can actually see/touch/feel/think/experience, and does little to no theorizing about things beyond the actual moment-to-moment experience. From this point of view, the distinctions between ego, soul, and spirit aren’t skillful, because the experience on moving from one to the next all takes places within the subjective experience. Having different definitions just gets in the way of moving from one to the next. If you stop and think, “wait, am I in the ego, the soul, or the spirit, which one is this?” that pulls us away from the actual experience of growing from the ego through the soul to the spirit. As soon as we pull out of the experience of this, it stops.
At least, if we are going through this experience in the manner that the Buddha prescribed. Which is in no way necessary, I just happen to like it personally.
Comment by Ian — April 2, 2010 @ 11:10 am
Ok, so say I train my mind in such a way that I experience reality so that I experience no self. What then?
I mean, concievably at one time there was nothing, a void. So it was kind of like something this void, even though it was totally empty.
This is the void we connect with when we meditate, it renews us.
So then we have rocks and inorganic elements that give rise somehow to microbes, then plants, animals then us. Maybe you don’t like Ken Wilbers take on this but that scheme makes sense to me.
Apparently we can evolve through training to experience the void again. Isn’t that just a circle?
I dunno, dude.
Seems like all I would have to do is resign myself to accepting this and I would be there. But then again, I feel like an old soul. But to me I resist this stuff, moreso than thinking it would take monumental effort on my part to get there.
Seems depressing to me just to go in a circle and return to nothing, even though this nothing is God.
Comment by Ted — April 3, 2010 @ 4:03 pm
I guess I am stuck in vanity, in the Ecclesiastian sense.
Comment by Ted — April 3, 2010 @ 4:13 pm
Feudalism and the caste system is making a lot of sense now though in relation Buddhsim.
The caste system has an elegance to it. Once you work your way up to the highest caste, having your every material wish satisfied, wealth, power sex, you become dissatisfied with life and devote yourself to enlightenment.
For Peasants, soldiers, merchants, etc. Life is still captivating for them. They aren’t totally satisfied with life but aren’t sure why yet. They haven’t ruled out the possibility that more wealth power and women, would satisfy them.
Egalitarianism, progressivism, democray, materialism threw a whole monkey wrench into this scheme of turning society into an enlightenment creating machine for the upper class.
There seems to be so many futile causes in life.
Comment by Ted — April 3, 2010 @ 5:01 pm
Not really, no. The point is that it’s not a return to God, to that void, because we never left it. We only think we have, and that is what causes the dissatisfaction and suffering. It’s not really a circle, where we return to something we’ve left, its coming to the realization that we never left it to begin with. We’ve just learned to act like we have.
Its not regressive to realize that you’re leaning so far in one direction that you’re about to loose your balance. But by coming to see this before we fall over, we can maintain our balance and continue to grow in a more stable way. If anything, failure to return to the void (ie: stay in balance) is what’s going to cause regression.
There’s nothing lost by realizing this. The void didn’t stop because rocks grew out of it, nor because of bacteria or plants or animals. Its still and always here.
I don’t so how one’s any different than the other, in the end. You’re still dissatisfied either way.
Comment by Ian — April 4, 2010 @ 4:31 pm
Well that makes sense. I don’t want to just return to a boring void.
Comment by Ted — April 5, 2010 @ 1:46 pm
Me either Ted, me either. It’s a problem I’ve always had with the Christian idea of heaven as well. Just seemed kind of dull… Which means it can’t be the correct description. :)
Comment by Ian — April 5, 2010 @ 2:28 pm
Did you see my comment on the nietzshe post?
Comment by Ted — April 5, 2010 @ 3:06 pm