And I also appreciated Lish's teaching on Tuesday as we continue to explore anatta,
Not self.
Lish spoke about this teaching,
Not self,
As a teaching and as an insight.
And the teaching is something we've been exploring all month.
But the insight,
That is something that we can know directly,
Understand directly.
We experience the insight of not self by observing the impermanence and the changing nature of our thoughts,
Of our feelings,
Our body sensations,
They're just arising and passing.
If these thoughts and ideas and these perceptions and feelings,
If these elements of our experience were permanent,
Were a permanent self,
Then they wouldn't be subject to change,
But they do change,
Right?
And consider that just like what we call car,
You know,
A conventional name for a collection of parts,
There's a battery,
There are wheels,
There's an axle,
You know,
Etc.
So the self,
The self is a collection of conditions.
There's a body with feelings and perceptions and mental formations and consciousness.
This is what the Buddha called the five aggregates.
It's not an abstract category,
But a way of understanding how the illusion of I is constructed.
This is the teaching.
The insight into not self is being aware of this phenomena happening in real time.
So we sit and we close our eyes and we bring our attention inward and what we experience to a higher or lesser degree is what Lish pointed to,
The three characteristics of being a human being.
The first thing that we often experience is some form of dukkha.
Dukkha is the Pali word for stress or dissatisfaction.
And it could be really simple.
It could be the room is too cold or my back is hurting or it's too early or the coffee tastes burnt.
We all have dukkha and there's no escaping dissatisfaction in this life.
So that comes up right away in practice and then we see it and we feel it and then we re-enter the body and we connect to the breath and maybe we get lost in wanting and not wanting for a little while,
But then we anchor our attention again and relax and be aware.
So all that complaint,
Where is it now?
It's gone,
Right?
It's impermanent.
This is the second characteristic.
Everything that bubbles up in the mind leaves the mind.
Like,
Wow,
Can you see that?
Changing,
Changing,
Changing.
Anicca is the Pali word and it is the greatest of teachers.
Truly.
And all these things arising in the body,
You know,
As we're sitting here,
The thoughts that arise,
The plans for the day that are being constructed.
Who are they happening to?
What collection of parts is activated?
Like noticing this.
When a strong opinion says,
Oh,
This is just nonsense,
You know,
This is ridiculous.
That's a thought.
That's a thought based on a mental formation,
Not self.
Our opinions don't contain some permanent essence.
Who am I then if I am not my opinion?
Don't know.
Don't know,
Right?
The meditation that I offered this morning is an invitation to look directly into our lived experience,
Moment by moment,
See what's actually happening and how what's happening doesn't contain a permanent self.
What the Buddha was basically saying is,
Look,
Look here and look carefully.
Everything that you take yourself to be is actually a bundle of changing conditions.
So when we drop the phrase not self into our practice or into interaction with another person.
When a sensation arises and we whisper inwardly,
Not self.
We're reminding the heart that the experience that we're having doesn't need an owner.
It doesn't need to become part of a story about who we are.
It can just be known.
And it's not us.
Usually what happens is the mind grabs on to some experience and immediately it becomes about me.
So when pain arises,
It's my pain.
When a thought appears,
It's my thought.
If a feeling of loneliness is happening,
Then there's like,
Oh,
Well,
There's something wrong with me.
A moment of ease and then all of a sudden I'm a successful meditator,
Right?
In this way,
The the eye maker appropriates everything.
You know,
Each moment becomes part of this permanent self.
I am this.
I am becoming that.
So when we whisper not self in practice,
In life,
What we're doing is we're gently interrupting the compulsive reflex to make an identity out of experience.
Not self is kind of a compassionate interruption of a habit pattern.
We're stepping out of the story and into direct experience.
And when we can do that,
The heart relaxes.
The mind becomes less defensive.
For a moment,
We stop fighting with life.
So I invite you to check it out,
See for yourself.
And as always,
I thank you for your attention and your consideration.
And I welcome your thoughts on this topic.
Thank you.
