Her comments, no-self, selflessness, suffering and common sense
Somehow, these concepts made me believe that the core of Buddhism is to encourage people/us to become “Selfless”. Of course, being selfless is better than being SELF-FULL – selfish.
This concept is good, but it still depends on how we interpret it, doesn’t it? Should we all become monks and nuns and leave society for the jungle?
Probably not; we still have to live our lives the way we always do among other people who are generally ill-minded, corrupted and selfish in what’s so called society. So, as we’re trying to survive and live peacefully the best we can, what do we fight with? Or what do we fight for?
If you’re to give a radical answer (non-neutral) what exactly does your heart truly believe: NO-SELF or YOURSELF?
There have already been people who believe in “no-self” being, but I don’t know what they do with that belief. I wonder how they see the world, how they live with their spouses, and how they teach their children. No-self is a very simple concept but not so easy to explain -- it’s nothing simple that will make other people easily agree on.
To be honest, to me it sounds like “emptiness”. No pain – it’s plain; no suffering -- It’s NOTHING.
Since I’m one who cherishes all that defines LIFE -- blessed or struggling -- I still consider it a gift (a chance to live), and not a burden.
So what do you think? Is it possible that the concept No-self was to help us ease and numb sufferings and pain?
Response starting point
Great input, right? She is taking no-self to mean something someone would personally apply to their own life and everyday experience, which to me is a great start. If Buddhism is taken just as philosophy, as metaphysics, then the connection may not be necessary. But to me that means Buddhism is only applicable to the general realm of philosophers, to scholars, but as I take it that's not at all the original intention (but of course that's just my take).
Also certain religious interpretations limit the applicability to most people. As she commented "Should we all become monks and nuns and leave society for the jungle?" One interpretation might say that only very few people should do this, and that this teaching really applies mostly to them in a way others couldn't possibly relate to. This relates to levels of spiritual attainment, meditative states and so on. Of course it's also possible to accept that all that is valid but a different application to everyday life is also possible.
At first it seems contrasting no-self and selfishness might make too much of a similar term used in a broad set of ways but there's really something to this; it works. No-self is about not taking the assumptions that relate to a self too seriously, in the end even removing some of them, and selfishness is quite the opposite. One difference is that no-self isn't exactly a way of being as much as a technique. Or rather eventually after a process of understanding a general meaning, then practicing it, the concept could become a way of being, but at first not so much.
So as I'm interpreting here, no-self really needs to mean two separate things; relating to the initial understanding and development process, then the final form of actualization. When she asks "I wonder how they see the world" it's a question about the end point perspective, not about the usefulness for someone starting to make use of the idea. As I've framed this it would help if I were completely enlightened to answer that question. Of course that particular concept already brings in a number of assumptions about the end point of Buddhism. Before I get to those I should move on to how different contexts give different answers.
Buddhism can be taken as an abstract philosophy, not as a guide for living. If it is about everyday life it would probably apply somewhat broadly, even if not to everyone, but as an explanation for how things really are it might possibly be accessible to only a select few, to philosophers. Of course the "average person" with an interest in either Buddhism or philosophy and a fair number of philosophers would take issue with this as a flawed divide, and rightfully so.
But given this as an assumed context, that philosophy and everyday life are separate--which is a common way modern American philosophy is interpreted, just not the only way--Buddhism is a description of how things really are. In reality there is no real self, on this take.
At first it seems contrasting no-self and selfishness might make too much of a similar term used in a broad set of ways but there's really something to this; it works. No-self is about not taking the assumptions that relate to a self too seriously, in the end even removing some of them, and selfishness is quite the opposite. One difference is that no-self isn't exactly a way of being as much as a technique. Or rather eventually after a process of understanding a general meaning, then practicing it, the concept could become a way of being, but at first not so much.
So as I'm interpreting here, no-self really needs to mean two separate things; relating to the initial understanding and development process, then the final form of actualization. When she asks "I wonder how they see the world" it's a question about the end point perspective, not about the usefulness for someone starting to make use of the idea. As I've framed this it would help if I were completely enlightened to answer that question. Of course that particular concept already brings in a number of assumptions about the end point of Buddhism. Before I get to those I should move on to how different contexts give different answers.
Buddhism as philosophy
But given this as an assumed context, that philosophy and everyday life are separate--which is a common way modern American philosophy is interpreted, just not the only way--Buddhism is a description of how things really are. In reality there is no real self, on this take.
But what could be the point of even saying that? One likely meaning is that "self" is being interpreted within the context of common sense as a flawed concept, as a real, abstract entity that doesn't exist. Instead that "self" is really only an experienced history and set of assumptions, something that must seem to go along with the physical body a person possesses, but which refers to nothing.
Of course a self is already embedded in the use of ordinary language. "Person possesses" assumes it; or actually just "person" does. Taken one way--not really the way I would accept in the end--this interpretation of Buddhism and metaphysics and view of self is just a more accurate model of how things are. "Self" is assumed, but there is nothing to assign it to, so it doesn't exist.
To give examples of how this might work, today I work at a job, and like tea more than coffee, and define myself as a parent. All those things will be true tomorrow, but still they sort of hang together as a big set of conditions that don't really need a self as a center. All of those connections could change, and in fact there isn't one central entity.
Taken this way it almost doesn't matter if someone believes if there is a self or not; there really isn't. It's even possible that what is being described is a model that is so abstract that when the Buddhist philosopher goes home they had really best get back to assuming that self, even if not real. It bends the mind a bit, doesn't it? But it works better than at first glance.
Taken this way it almost doesn't matter if someone believes if there is a self or not; there really isn't. It's even possible that what is being described is a model that is so abstract that when the Buddhist philosopher goes home they had really best get back to assuming that self, even if not real. It bends the mind a bit, doesn't it? But it works better than at first glance.
I could get fired and switch to hot chocolate and any number of other seemingly real ties could change. History couldn't, right. In the past whatever happened happened, and we can interpret it or remember it differently quite a bit but not change it. But now we're drifting away from discussion of an objective self, and not really towards rescuing or rejecting it.
This will take some narrowing down to address in anything less than a series of books, just as with philosophy where I've just let common experience drop at the outset.
Zen would be the natural choice for discussing what no-self means, of course. I love Zen, although I've not given it much thought for awhile. I was never a Zen monk, and I'm certainly not going to claim any level of attainment. So given I've just read some books (many) and took a few classes, and of course meditated just a little, I'll not do Zen justice, but still I'll start there.
Zen is all about rejecting self, in a very pragmatic way. It's the opposite of an abstract set of ideas that one leaves behind when the theorizing is done. Zen is really zen precisely to the extent it informs immediate perception, and the ideas that inform the practice of it tend to talk about experience or even intentionally defy logic to point past it. So how do you "do" this, no self? It's such a long story that saying anything would be wrong, but saying a long story would be even more wrong.
The idea is to jump past the concepts and get to the immediate experience of not embracing the ordinary assumptions of a self, to just not do it. Meditation is typically accepted as one practical method, or maybe even the only one, depending on presentation. But then ordinary life and meditation are said to not be differentiated, so it's not an ordinary case of a practice affecting a worldview. Maybe that's a good place to change to a different religion.
It seems clear enough that similar ideas come up in the contemplative aspects of the Thai Buddhist tradition (an example of Theravada Buddhist practice versus that one Japanese branch of Mahayana). For the ordinary person or even the ordinary monk in a sense they don't. Some of the same general context is there but the radical rejection of a self takes a different form. For a lay-person it's about becoming less selfish, either changing habits or spiritual development, if one prefers. For a monk it's about embodying the normal and correct practice and perspective of a monk.
The rules and restrictions (precepts) serve to guide appropriate conduct, which radically removes the types of connections that would normally define a self. Of course how well that works in practice in general or in specific cases is another matter, but that seems to be the general direction.
it sounds like “emptiness”. No pain – it’s plain; no suffering -- It’s NOTHING. Since I’m one who cherishes all that defines LIFE -- blessed or struggling -- I still consider it a gift ... and not a burden.
... Is it possible that the concept No-self was to help us ease and numb sufferings and pain?
So I'm agreeing, but not with no-self as any sort of nihilism, a rejection of life or almost any aspects of it. These concepts resolve in an interesting way. We cause the suffering, by assuming a self, by attaching to certain ideas, not recognizing impermanence for what it is, etc.
I don't mean when it's cold a different perspective will change that we're not at a normal temperature, although I think the way we relate to external factors is much more subjective than it seems. Of course people can train to endure the cold, but that's also something else entirely.
How I'm taking the concept is that the struggle itself is mostly internal, and dropping almost all of it wouldn't entail dropping what we actually do that's effective. The opposite would be true; we could endure more of external factors, and make light of it, taking it only for what it's worth. A lot of ideas add to our burdens that don't need to, at least to the extent they ordinarily do: the past, the future, self-image, desires, public opinion, expectations, etc. If you completely drop all that there isn't much left to work with, so the idea is to selectively adjust perspective, with ample access to memory, planning, goals, consideration of external factors, and all the rest.
How to do it--tricky. Really "attachment" seems to be the more active concept here, not the rejection of self, and attachment isn't being used in any conventional way. More on that is best left for another blog entry.
Buddhism as religion
Zen would be the natural choice for discussing what no-self means, of course. I love Zen, although I've not given it much thought for awhile. I was never a Zen monk, and I'm certainly not going to claim any level of attainment. So given I've just read some books (many) and took a few classes, and of course meditated just a little, I'll not do Zen justice, but still I'll start there.
Zen is all about rejecting self, in a very pragmatic way. It's the opposite of an abstract set of ideas that one leaves behind when the theorizing is done. Zen is really zen precisely to the extent it informs immediate perception, and the ideas that inform the practice of it tend to talk about experience or even intentionally defy logic to point past it. So how do you "do" this, no self? It's such a long story that saying anything would be wrong, but saying a long story would be even more wrong.
The idea is to jump past the concepts and get to the immediate experience of not embracing the ordinary assumptions of a self, to just not do it. Meditation is typically accepted as one practical method, or maybe even the only one, depending on presentation. But then ordinary life and meditation are said to not be differentiated, so it's not an ordinary case of a practice affecting a worldview. Maybe that's a good place to change to a different religion.
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| indoctrinated at a young age |
The rules and restrictions (precepts) serve to guide appropriate conduct, which radically removes the types of connections that would normally define a self. Of course how well that works in practice in general or in specific cases is another matter, but that seems to be the general direction.
Buddhism as psychology (self-help, New Age theory beyond yoga, etc.)
Taken as a guide to how to change individual experience, in any number of different forms, Buddhism is a different thing. Of course this could be exactly how Buddhism is taken as philosophy and religion as well, and in many cases it would be, so the separation I've describe is quite artificial, intended to highlight conceptual differences but not necessary divisions. I would like to think the average philosopher refers back to real life, and is influenced by their theories, and that most religious people certainly do the same.
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| meditation face, looking "centered" |
How could it start, though? Self seems so apparent, so necessary in a normal world-view. How could one stop being a self, stop assuming it? Maybe it would depend on people, and maybe bit by bit. Someone inclined to conceptual analysis might try to wrap their mind around the whole set of related ideas and then jump into doing it. Someone else might try to dilute their own experience of self through use of prayer or other ritual.
For me a great starting point is the words of the Buddha, much as we have them available to us now. Or modern interpretations would be an alternate resource, I guess like this blog, but that's not really what I meant. But there's so much nonsense in the world, isn't there? Half of what I've ever ran across labelled as Buddhism seems way out there to me. To look at it more positively, half the rest has seemed to really relate to some parts of it, and a small subset of that has seemed like a great resource. This blog entry; maybe so-so, nowhere near as clear as what the Buddha is taken to have said. So read that.
I had an unusual experience when meditating once (which would make for a separate blog entry) after which I experienced changes in myself. My inner voice went quiet, for weeks. Maybe I never did go back to normal, or given some perspective I remember from my childhood maybe I wasn't starting from normal anyway (which is not going to be a blog entry). I'm not claiming that was the point of Buddhism, or of what no-self means, just citing this as one possible unusual related element. It worked out better than one might think; I was much clearer for dropping the chatter, although other side-effects were a bit odd.
Return to no-self
From the initial set of questions and observations:
... Is it possible that the concept No-self was to help us ease and numb sufferings and pain?
So I'm agreeing, but not with no-self as any sort of nihilism, a rejection of life or almost any aspects of it. These concepts resolve in an interesting way. We cause the suffering, by assuming a self, by attaching to certain ideas, not recognizing impermanence for what it is, etc.
I don't mean when it's cold a different perspective will change that we're not at a normal temperature, although I think the way we relate to external factors is much more subjective than it seems. Of course people can train to endure the cold, but that's also something else entirely.
How I'm taking the concept is that the struggle itself is mostly internal, and dropping almost all of it wouldn't entail dropping what we actually do that's effective. The opposite would be true; we could endure more of external factors, and make light of it, taking it only for what it's worth. A lot of ideas add to our burdens that don't need to, at least to the extent they ordinarily do: the past, the future, self-image, desires, public opinion, expectations, etc. If you completely drop all that there isn't much left to work with, so the idea is to selectively adjust perspective, with ample access to memory, planning, goals, consideration of external factors, and all the rest.
How to do it--tricky. Really "attachment" seems to be the more active concept here, not the rejection of self, and attachment isn't being used in any conventional way. More on that is best left for another blog entry.
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