self

[jajas]

I am wondering how the buddha explains that self wich I am experiencing. I can see that there is no constat and therefore abosulte self, but I see a kind off stream off states off me. like a movie. Many pictures connected together resulting in a moving person. all the pictures different, but strongly depending on the pictuteres before it. the collection off pictures i recognize as being a kind off entity.

in my topic i asked a queston about self but naming the topic not-self.
most off the reply`s were handling not-self.
alltough enlightning it didn`t really answer my question.
The thing i am wondering about is:

if self doesn`t excist, how must i see this body and mind. I have to treat it as an thing. I have to feed it and more. allso i want to let it meditate. does the buddha have any suggestions?

[tiltbillings]

I am wondering how the buddha explains that self wich I am experiencing. I can see that there is no constat and therefore abosulte self, but I see a kind off stream off states off me. like a movie. Many pictures connected together resulting in a moving person. all the pictures different, but strongly depending on the pictuteres before it. the collection off pictures i recognize as being a kind off entity.

in my topic i asked a queston about self but naming the topic not-self.
most off the reply`s were handling not-self.
alltough enlightning it didn`t really answer my question.
The thing i am wondering about is:

if self doesn`t excist, how must i see this body and mind. I have to treat it as an thing. I have to feed it and more. allso i want to let it meditate. does the buddha have any suggestions?

It is not that the self does not exist. It is, rather, the self that we feel we are, around which our experience is organized, is not what it seems to think itself as being. It is a product, a conditioned thing that changes and fears its death. The self does not exist as an absolute unchanging thing.

[Reductor]

if self doesn`t excist, how must i see this body and mind. I have to treat it as an thing. I have to feed it and more. allso i want to let it meditate. does the buddha have any suggestions?

How to see the body and mind. See it like this...

Form* is like a glob of foam;
feeling, a bubble;
perception, a mirage;
fabrications, a banana tree;
consciousness, a magic trick —
this has been taught by the Kinsman of the Sun.

*Form -- this refers to the physical material that a person is made of.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What about feeding it? Feed it, as it does depend on food (nutriment). Think about what you're feeding to it, and why. What are the thoughts and emotions that you experience in connection with feeding it? Here is an interesting sutta on this, although it is also disturbing.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

How to meditate. This is called anapanasati or mindfulness of breathing.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here is a more accessible teaching on anapanasati. Read over both a few times.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/thai ... ml#method2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

These questions you've asked are serious and important. Unfortunately it is difficult to express the course of action for you to take in order to know the truth. Perhaps a teacher would be helpful? Someone to speak to in your native language?

On this page there are links to Dutch translations of suttas. Perhaps this would be helpful?
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/outsources/foreign.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Have a good night.

[jajas]

It is, rather, the self that we feel we are, around which our experience is organized, is not what it seems to think itself as being.

how do you mean?

[tiltbillings]

It is, rather, the self that we feel we are, around which our experience is organized, is not what it seems to think itself as being.

how do you mean?

You are you? You feel like you. Someone pokes you with a pointy stick, you hurt and you do not like it. You like certain things and want more of them. There is all that, and underneath all of that, the self we think we are assumes it is some sort of non-dying thing that goes on forever.

[Virgo]

I am wondering how the buddha explains that self wich I am experiencing. I can see that there is no constat and therefore abosulte self, but I see a kind off stream off states off me. like a movie. Many pictures connected together resulting in a moving person. all the pictures different, but strongly depending on the pictuteres before it. the collection off pictures i recognize as being a kind off entity.

in my topic i asked a queston about self but naming the topic not-self.
most off the reply`s were handling not-self.
alltough enlightning it didn`t really answer my question.
The thing i am wondering about is:

if self doesn`t excist, how must i see this body and mind. I have to treat it as an thing. I have to feed it and more. allso i want to let it meditate. does the buddha have any suggestions?

It is not that the self does not exist. It is, rather, the self that we feel we are, around which our experience is organized, is not what it seems to think itself as being. It is a product, a conditioned thing that changes and fears its death. The self does not exist as an absolute unchanging thing.

Wrong.

All dhammas are not-self. There is not self anywhere to be found, ever.

Kevin

[Reductor]

Wrong.

All dhammas are not-self. There is not self anywhere to be found, ever.

Kevin

Kevin, please don't turn this thread into another drawn out and painful debate of interpretations. Recall to mind that jajas is very new to Buddhist thought and that she/he would certainly not benefit from the ugly F*** fest that some recent threads have experienced.

Thanks.

[Virgo]

Wrong.

All dhammas are not-self. There is not self anywhere to be found, ever.

Kevin

Kevin, please don't turn this thread into another drawn out and painful debate of interpretations. Recall to mind that jajas is very new to Buddhist thought and that she/he would certainly not benefit from the ugly F*** fest that some recent threads have experienced.

Thanks.

Tiltbillings wrote: "It is not that the self does not exist. It is, rather, the self that we feel we are, around which our experience is organized, is not what it seems to think itself as being. It is a product, a conditioned thing that changes and fears its death. The self does not exist as an absolute unchanging thing."
"It" is a product a thing that changes and fears its death?

That is the view of eternalism-- the view that there is a self but that it is not one solid thing, but a thing that is always changing.

The point is that no dhammas are self whatsoever. All dhammas are not self. No dhamma is classified as "self". So there is no eternal self whether changing or unchanging.

I don't want to argue, just point out the facts. What is wrong with that?

Thanks,

Kevin

[Reductor]

I don't want to argue, just point out the facts. What is wrong with that?

Kevin

Nothing, if you just stick to the sutta-s and present your POV clearly, keeping the recent past out of the equation. However, the wording of your post makes me think that the recent past is very much on your mind.

If it is not, then I applogize. I simply ask that you define your positions via the sutta-s so that we can have a productive discussion.

Which brings me to my inquiry: where in the sutta-s is the definition of eternalism that you are positing? I understood eternalism to posit the existence of an immutable self - that is, an unchanging self that last forever without alteration.

[tiltbillings]

Wrong.

All dhammas are not-self. There is not self anywhere to be found, ever.

Kevin[
Tiltbillings wrote: "It is not that the self does not exist. It is, rather, the self that we feel we are, around which our experience is organized, is not what it seems to think itself as being. It is a product, a conditioned thing that changes and fears its death. The self does not exist as an absolute unchanging thing."
"It" is a product a thing that changes and fears its death?

That is the view of eternalism-- the view that there is a self but that it is not one solid thing, but a thing that is always changing.

Monks, whatever contemplatives or priests who assume in various ways when assuming a self, all assume the five clinging-aggregates, or a certain one of them. SN III 46.

The sense of self that we all have, which is what I am talking about, the sense of self that we all have to work with, is a product of the khandhas. While it may imagine itself to be more, it is a conditioned, changing experience that has no absolute existence.

So there is no eternal self whether changing or unchanging.

I did not come anywhere close to saying that there was an eternal self.

I don't want to argue, just point out the facts. What is wrong with that?

It helps for you to have your facts straight. Now, if you want to discuss this further, start a new thread.

[rowyourboat]

if self doesn`t excist, how must i see this body and mind. I have to treat it as an thing. I have to feed it and more. allso i want to let it meditate. does the buddha have any suggestions?

See it just as a body and mind, arisen due to causes, impermanent, unsatisfactory (because you have to look after it, yet it grows old, gets diseased and dies).

Yes, yet we need to body to escape the body. We need it to meditate and put an end to the rounds of rebirth.

I wouldnt worry too much about how you see things right now. Set up a daily practice and start meditating ( I hope you already have)- there are some truths which cannot be communicated using words, but must be experienced through meditation - then everything falls into place. Otherwise it is possible that we may develop bits of world view which are floating around a bit and dont sit quite right with each other. The dhamma is an intellectual inquiry only to a certain degree and there are problems with making it just that.

with metta

RYB

[Reductor]

[Goedert]

Vacchagotta the Wanderer went to visit the Exalted One, and said:

"Now, master Gotama, is there a self?" At these words the Exalted One was silent.

"How, then, master Gotama, is there not a self?" For a second time the Exalted One was silent.

Then Vacchagotta the Wanderer rose from his seat and went away.

Now not long after the departure of the Wanderer, the Venerable Aananda said to the Exalted One:

"How is it, lord, that the Exalted One gave no answer to the question of the Wanderer Vacchagotta?"

"If, Aananda, when asked by the Wanderer: 'Is there a self?,' I had replied to him: 'There is a self,' then, Aananda, that would be siding with the recluses and brahmins who are eternalists.

"But if, Aananda, when asked: 'Is there not a self?' I had replied that it does not exist, that, Aananda, would be siding with those recluses and brahmins who are annihilationists.

"Again, Aananda, when asked by the Wanderer: 'Is there a self?,' had I replied that there is, would my reply be in accordance with the knowledge that all things are impermanent?"

"Surely not, lord."

"Again, Aananda, when asked by Vacchagotta the Wanderer; 'Is there a self?,' had I replied that there were not, it would have been more bewilderment for the already bewildered Vacchagotta.

"He would have said: 'Formerly indeed I had a self, but now I have not one any more.'"

— SN 44.10

[retrofuturist]

[tiltbillings]

With the Vacchagotta dialogues we need to be careful about what is being talked about in terms of self. In Vacchagota case I think what is being pointed to is a more metaphysical understanding, less the sense of self that we must deal with on an everyday basis. Both the everyday sense of self and the metaphysical self, however, greatly overlap, but we need to be very care about running around saying we have no self, which is not quite empirically true.

There is a sense of self that we have which is real: "I feel," "I want," "I am." The problem with this sense of self is that it assumes it is more real than it is, that it does not change, that it is an independent agent, but the insight that arises from the Dhamma practice allows us to see that this "self" is both conditioned and conditioning. It does not exist independently of the rise and fall, the ever-changing flow of conditions of the mind/body process. There is a delusion we suffer from which is the assumption, the radical feeling, that we are in our heart of hearts, in the very core of our being, a singular independent thingie, a real and independent agent.

The radical insight of the Buddha is that we are not that. We are, rather, a dynamic interdependent process were choice, feelings, sensations, and the whole catastrophe can play itself out without a need for a sense of self, no matter how rarified the concept may be. Though we may believe this, the practice of the Buddha's teachings is a matter of cultivating the mindfulness that gives rise to the insight into what it is that the Buddha taught about self.

In the mean time we have to start from where we are; we have to deal with this sense of self that seems so real. We can tell it where to get off, we can pretend it is not real, but being stubborn, recalcitrant, it won't get off; it persists. So we in a real sense, via the teachings of the Buddha, we cultivate it, we train it, we tame it via learning the teachings, via practicing the precepts and meditative practice, and through giving and lovingkindness practice.

All this helps to thin the walls of delusion of permanence with which we surround the our feeling of self, allowing us to see the self's actual interdependent nature, which allows us to let go of that sense of self-ness that we seem to think is so real.

The Buddha's insight into this is radical and uncompromising in that it cuts to the very depths of what we imagine we are and if any sense of independent self as being what we truly are lingers, we are to that extent not awake.

The Buddha taught not-self as a methodology for gaining insight into our nature which has no independent self. Not-self is no more a independent thing than is self. The truth of what we are lies in the very rise and fall of our very experience, but in the mean time we have to start from where we are.