Three Characteristics: Not-Self-1

We have been exploring the three characteristic in a series of talks. This one is the third, and is called in Pali, Anatta, which is usually translated into English as not self. This subject points to this very deep and very important area of human life. Who are you?
Some people will spend a lot of time and find that this is a very important discovery. Many many people base many of their life decisions on who they think they are, who they think they want to be. Who we are is a great quest, right? So this last characteristic is talking about this aspect of self.

Transcript

So we've been exploring what are called the three characteristics,

The three descriptions of how we experience reality.

And this is a fundamental teaching of Buddhism that over time we begin to see for ourselves.

The first one is impermanence and it's the teaching about how things are always moving and changing and arising and passing.

Things are born and they die.

And any moment we find ourself in will never reappear again,

Never be the same again.

Every day we do things for the last time.

And the second characteristic is called dukkha and it's usually translated as suffering or pain.

And more recently it's been translated as unsatisfactory or unreliable.

So unreliable in the sense that none of what we normally experience can provide lasting reliability.

Partly because it's just so fleeting and impermanent.

And impermanence can strike at any time.

We're doing just fine.

Then we're taken by surprise.

That's it.

Sudden change and with it dukkha.

And then the third characteristic,

What we're exploring this week is what's called in the traditional Pali anatta.

Anatta which is usually translated in English as not self.

And this kind of points to a really important area of human life.

Like who are you?

Some people spend a lot of time you know to find out this very important discovery.

And many many people base their life decision on who they think they are and who they want to be.

Who we are is a great quest right?

So this last characteristic is talking about this aspect of self.

And the Buddha he talked a lot about oneself.

The word is atta.

Atta in Pali means self and anatta means not self.

And it's said that both like philosophically and metaphysically these terms mean something like the soul.

So there's a story that comes from the ancient discourses that kind of lays the context or frame for this self identity.

And it will help us as we look at this concept,

This idea of not self.

So the Buddha he had a son.

His son's name was Rahula which means fetters.

So he wasn't,

I don't think he was really excited about having a son.

It was fettering his practice.

But that changed of course as everything does.

But his son was relatively young when he first became ordained as a monk.

And so when Rahula was old enough,

Maybe in his teens,

The Buddha decided that he was old enough to hear the deepest teaching that he had to offer.

And so here's a father and his son and he wants to impart something really significant and profound about life.

And he wants his son to be able to hear it.

So he takes his son deep into the woods of this old growth forest,

Kind of like going on a hike.

And they sat there under these big trees and the Buddha imparts this teaching on the nature of self or understanding about the self.

So what the Buddha says to him,

He actually starts out with asking him some questions,

Kind of like the Socratic method.

And at first he says,

Do we have complete control over what our body does?

And Rahula says,

No,

You can't control your body.

You know,

You can't control old age.

You can't control sickness.

You can't control the things that happen to your body.

And so this is then where it gets a little bit more interesting.

The Buddha says something,

Something which you can't control.

Would it be appropriate to take that as the self?

And Rahula says,

No,

It's not proper to take the body as the soul because it's not enduring.

And then the Buddha asked Rahula,

Is it appropriate to take the body as permanent or impermanent?

And Rahula's like,

Well,

Impermanent.

And then he says,

Is there any lasting or permanent bliss or happiness to be found in the body?

And his response was,

No,

There's no lasting happiness to be found in the body.

And then the Buddha says,

So now something which you have no control over,

Which is impermanent,

Which is not permanently blissful,

Is it proper to take that as being the soul,

The Atta?

And his son says,

No.

Then he did this with the other elements of our psychophysical being.

So in that way of the ancient,

Like in ancient India,

Things are organized,

The self is organized as like,

So the,

Well,

Or the,

The psychophysical is organized as the body,

Feelings,

Perceptions,

Mental formations,

And consciousness.

And so the Buddha went through all five of these and did the same analysis,

Asking the same questions on all of them.

And to all of those questions,

Rahula said,

No,

Because they're not permanent.

There's no ultimate sovereignty over our body,

Our feelings,

Our perceptions,

Our mental formations,

Our consciousness.

There's no permanent bliss there.

And then it said that when they finished this analysis,

Then Rahula started the inner process of becoming free.

Because when he realized that there was nothing in the psychophysical being that could be a place or a thing that you could kind of hang on to as being the soul,

The essential or permanent abiding self,

He started to give up that search.

He stopped holding on.

And what happened for Rahula is he became disenchanted with all the ways that we get attached to the body and to our perceptions and to our feelings,

As this is who I am.

He was no longer under the spell of that.

And he began to let go and to soften and relax his grip,

Seeing that he couldn't point to that thing as me or myself or mine.

So in this teaching of the Buddha,

The idea of self,

Any kind of idea of self,

Is seen as a concept or a perception.

And sometimes that concept and perception is accurate and sometimes it's not.

So for example,

Maybe I'm hiking here on these trails in the Roaring Fork Valley and I see a root poking up from the ground like a stick,

But it's curved like a snake.

And my first seeing of it is,

Oh there's a snake.

My mind now has made a concept of snake.

So this idea,

This conceptualization,

It's a projection.

I projected this idea of snake on a little twig.

And we do this.

We perceive innocently or sometimes not,

Really through this filter of our ideas and these things that we project.

And we project this self onto things.

We project ourselves onto people.

So in this teaching,

The idea of self is considered a perception.

You know,

Many translators talk about this as an idea of the self.

So in these perceptions,

They tend to limit us.

It's kind of a magnet for suffering.

All kinds of stress happens when we're identified.

All kinds of,

When we're identified with our ideas or our association of this is what it means to be a good self and this is what it means to be a bad self and this is how we should be.

There's all kinds of suffering with that.

And this gets more complicated as other selves get formed.

Other projections.

Because we're bumping into each other's projections all the time.

You know,

And we can become a really inadequate self because projections that others lay over us,

You know,

Projections that I'm supposed to have certain attributes.

These projections can be acquired and then internalized from what other people say about us and how they treat us.

It's a lot,

Right?

So let's remember that the spirit of these teachings are not so much to discover who you are,

But sort of what you're doing.

What are the activities of the mind?

What are you projecting?

What is the mind projecting?

And we're getting involved with.

And this is where meditation becomes really important.

Because as we meditate,

We get calmer and we get quieter.

That's the hope.

And as we quiet down,

We start to see the activities of selfing.

More and more we see our thoughts and our ideas and our judgments.

We see how they come up and how we latch on to them.

And maybe we are troubled by them and how we get pushed around by these things.

So as we come to the close of this talk this morning,

I'd like to offer a little guided reflection.

We don't really see this construction of self in our busy lives.

So just let your eyes close perhaps and let your mind quiet down a little bit.

And just come back to your breath and relax.

And drop in the question.

I guess you breathe and you're in your body.

Who am I projecting myself to be?

And maybe you can start to see that the movement of ideas and concepts,

Who we've been professionally,

Who we are socially,

The hats that we wear.

Seeing where did this concept of who I am actually come from?

And is it true?

Who am I projecting myself to be?

And we can maybe see that these projections of self,

Some of them are useful.

Some of them are useful to put on in certain circumstances.

But we can also see them as being provisional.

We can see them as being contextual.

Something we have a choice about.

What we pick up and put down.

That's actually part of the freedom in this Buddhist path.

And also part of the freedom is to put them down completely.

So this is the first part of this reflection on not-self.

I look forward to hearing your questions and thank you for your kind attention this morning.

Reviews

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I look forward to all Lisa's talks, they always explain things I have been studying. Giving me a deeper understanding. Namaste 🙏🏼

Really good

So clear, so rich ... thank you again Lisa!