So today I'd like to explore with you the notion of no-self as it relates to our Buddhist teaching.
And the American Theravada Buddhist monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu and he's the abbot of the Metta Forest Monastery in San Diego County in California said that there is a common misperception that is attributed to the Buddha that I want to bring up and that is that there is no self.
This is in fact kind of the granddaddy of fake Buddhist quotes and it survived for so long because it resembles the teaching on anatta or not-self or non-self which is one of the Buddha's tools for putting an end to clinging.
So the Buddha he never affirmed nor denied the existence of a self.
He did talk about the process by which the mind creates many senses of self,
What he called the I-making or the my-making.
The focus was on the karma of selfing because clinging like holding on lies at the heart of our suffering and because there's clinging to my views,
My perceptions,
My opinions.
He advised us to use the perception of not-self as a strategy to dismantle the clinging.
The idea is whenever you see yourself identifying with anything that is stressful and inconstant you remind yourself that it's not-self,
That it's not worth clinging to.
It's not worth calling myself,
Yourself.
This helps us let go of it and what will lead us to long-term happiness?
Letting go,
Letting go.
When there's no more clinging then there's no need for the perception of self or not-self.
There's no point in answering the question of whether there is or isn't a self because you found happiness in just letting go.
In early Buddhist teaching the interest is in what we're doing,
Especially what we're doing with our minds.
And quite often what we're doing with our minds is creating this I-making,
This my-making.
The Buddha was really a psychologist in that he was interested in being aware of what the activities of the mind were doing and to begin to shed however minimal,
To start to shed those activities that cause suffering,
Those habit patterns of the mind.
It's not easy.
The practice is to be able to direct the mind in a way where the activities that we're feeding it,
What we're feeding the mind is beneficial and leads to abundance and a sense of freedom and moves away from the activities that drain us and diminish us and leave us with a lot of suffering.
And I'll be the first to admit that that's a tall order when the mind has been habituated in a way to see the world through glasses that are colored with not enough.
So the I-making and the my-making has kind of morphed into a modern English interpretation of what we know as selfing.
It's a word that's been sort of codified by the Buddhist community.
The self is not a noun,
A thing,
But rather it's an activity,
Something that we're doing.
We're selfing.
So someone who is very conceited is selfing.
They're making up a self,
All of their accomplishments,
Their successes in life.
They're actively involved in creating this sort of like,
This is me.
And we all have our forms of selfing.
They may not be conceited.
They may be creating a self that has a lot of aversion.
Who I am is not enough.
Who I've been is worthless.
And then that becomes this negative selfing.
The focus of selfing has a lot to do with the activity of selfishness,
The activity of conceit.
Even if how you're building yourself up may be negative or seen as self-defeating,
Not good enough,
That's still a form of selfing.
The mind is doing something.
It's actively involved.
And when we start to study this,
If we get quiet enough to really see the activity of this selfishness,
This sort of self-preoccupation,
The self-obsession that goes on,
When we begin to discover this for ourselves in meditation,
It can be painful and humbling and a doorway of letting go.
So our practice really is to start noticing the activities of the mind that are constructing this sense of self,
Making yourself and imagining yourself and defending yourself and apologizing for yourself.
The thoughts of self-aggrantizement,
Where we're like sort of the delusions of grandeur.
And then the delusion that we have of miserableness,
Of being bad and awful.
These are all ideas that we glom onto as self and they're so deeply habituated.
These ideas of self are often heavily influenced by pleasure.
Like some people organize their life around having as many pleasurable experiences as possible.
It's almost as if who they are is the recipient of pleasure and how they confirm who they are as a successful human being is to have a lot of pleasure.
The greed for pleasure then strongly influences the way that we navigate life.
It forms and shapes our ideas,
Our views and our understandings and our feelings.
The more pleasure I have,
Then this is who I am.
I'm the one who wins the game of life because I've had a lot of pleasurable experiences.
What early Buddhism says is that the self-idea can arise,
Can actually formulate around the pursuit of pleasure and getting away from that which is discomfort.
Another idea that many of us glom onto is that we have a particular philosophy of living that is right.
Some people have this idea that what they think and believe is the right idea.
Or some people have this idea,
Another way we glom onto the self,
Is that they're inadequate.
Somehow an embarrassment to the human race.
And they don't really want to let people know who they are because they feel so insecure and inadequate.
And that's an idea that the mind facilitates and shapes.
It certainly has helped with conditioning,
If that's the conditioning,
The story that you were told as a child growing up,
That you're inadequate,
Then the mind kind of takes that early conditioning and sort of makes the story into a self.
You know,
What our society and what people around us say to us and how we're treated,
This all is part of the conditioning.
But still,
Here's the rub,
Still it's an idea.
And we've glommed onto these ideas and then we've organized our self around them.
I am this.
Or this is solid,
This is who I am,
This is who I am.
So if the idea is that I'm great,
Then we go around with this high self-esteem.
That is easily threatened and fragile.
Or if we have some delusion of grandeur,
How special we are,
Or I'm a person who's powerful,
Or who I am is power and what I need is power over people to kind of feel good about myself,
That's who I am.
Or who I am is smart,
Or who I am is beautiful,
Or who I am is kind,
Or who I am is mean,
That's who I am.
Or I'm a victim,
On and on and on,
These ideas of who we are.
They have tremendous power and influence in creating,
Eye-making,
Selfing.
And these forces,
They move us and they influence us and they drain us,
They drain us.
And the Buddha says they're not necessary,
They don't need to be there.
So our meditation practice is a way of looking and seeing this construction.
And so,
So important is to look and see the construction with care.
Because we can easily,
Easily go down the road of just disgust and not care.
And we learn through compassionate seeing to let go of these fragile ways that we've built up the self.
Or at least,
The very least,
We can start to see,
Just see,
And then choose a different way.
Choose to understand the self as enough,
As abundant.
Have compassion for the self,
And the construction of the self,
And then ultimately have freedom.
So thank you,
Thank you for your attention and your listening.
I hope this was clarifying and we'll continue on this topic for the week.
So thanks again.
