The Illusion Of The Self

Enjoy this unique and expansive mindfulness practice with Ryan, designed to explore the illusion that all humans experience: the false impression that you are in control of your brain. Feel a greater sense of acceptance and clarity afterwards.

Transcript

For this mindfulness meditation you can be sitting down or even taking a walk if you want.

You know,

The only thing that really matters in this is that you're always paying attention to your experience.

This is also kind of a thought experiment that maybe could shift your perspective in some way,

So this might be a little bit different than what you're used to.

So first let's get in touch with the present moment,

Okay?

The first thing that we'll do here is we'll take a deep breath in through the nose and then breathe out through the mouth.

Do this a couple times and just pay attention to how it feels.

Feel your belly rising up and down.

Feel the air coming in and out of your nose and just feel the sensation of breathing.

Keep in mind that you're breathing on your own.

You don't need to control it in any way.

Keep in mind that you're not trying to change anything about your experience right now.

You're not trying to improve it or make yourself feel better because if you try to do that what you're actually doing is resisting your experience by wanting it to be something that it isn't.

That desire to change it,

That resistance,

That's something your brain actually does automatically and this is what we call the self or you might call it the ego.

These tools are actually necessary for survival but the self is also the principal cause of day-to-day human suffering.

So instead of resisting and trying to change your experience let's just simply watch each moment and just allow it to be whatever it is.

So let's take a few moments to focus on your emotional state.

What do you feel like right now?

How does it physically feel and where do you feel your emotions in your body right now?

Are you happy?

Are you sad?

Anxious?

Maybe impatient?

Whatever it is just bring that emotional state into your awareness and just let yourself experience it.

Does your emotional state change at all from moment to moment?

After you practice this for a while you'll notice that your thoughts and your emotions they're just temporary events in consciousness.

That's all they are.

They're just passing through like clouds.

It's very easy to get caught up in these events but they don't actually define you in any way.

All right so what I want you to do for a moment even if you don't believe this is true just suspend your disbelief for a moment and pretend that you have no control over your brain right now.

Just imagine how it would feel if your brain was behaving completely on its own and all you can do is watch it like it's not connected to you in any way.

Imagine what that would feel like.

Take the next 20 seconds and just watch your brain do its thing.

So watch your thoughts.

Watch all the thoughts that appear and just offer no resistance to them as they come in and out of consciousness.

Where are all these thoughts coming from?

Did you think about them before they showed up?

And where do they go after you notice them?

What's the next thought that your brain is going to have right now?

Can you actually see it before it appears?

The first sign that you're making progress in meditation is when you notice that you have a voice in your head that just says things.

So if you get a little bit of practice and you build up your concentration skills you begin to notice that your mind constantly wanders from one thing to the next.

Thoughts just happen.

Right now you're watching them appear in consciousness and you're never aware of them until they actually arrive.

How could you be aware of them?

That would mean that you're thinking ahead of time about your own thoughts.

Who is this thinker?

Is he separate from the brain?

Or does the brain just simply do everything on its own without you?

Let's observe the present moment again and just see what your brain does.

Let's go back to the breath but this time don't do anything.

Just let your breath naturally come in and out on its own.

Again feel your belly rising and falling as you inhale and exhale.

Just notice it come and go a few times.

You don't have to control it because your brain is always there.

It powers this breathing process for you whether you're conscious of it or not.

Not only does your brain do this without you,

It does everything without you.

There is no you that is separate from your brain.

There is only a brain and the experience that it produces.

Let's try another brain experiment just to see what happens.

What I want you to do,

You may have heard this before,

It's just a good example to illustrate what we're talking about.

I want you to think of a city.

You can pick any city in the world.

Pick anyone you want.

So just take a couple seconds,

Decide which one you're going to pick.

Maybe you might want to pay attention to that thought process as you make your choice.

Okay so you picked your city now.

The question I'm going to ask is,

You have your city,

You were free to choose anyone you wanted.

Why didn't you pick Shanghai?

You knew Shanghai was a city,

Right?

You were free to choose Shanghai,

Right?

The reason you weren't free to choose Shanghai is simply because your brain didn't present it to you in that moment.

You don't really know why.

The city you picked just popped in your head at that moment.

You could say that it popped in your head because maybe you were just in that city or there's some other story or reason why you think it appeared to you,

But this is actually called,

There's a term for this,

It's called confabulation.

Your brain does something and then you rationalize it after the fact by making it to be something that you chose.

Your experiences,

Your background,

Your external environment,

Your genes,

All of these constraining factors shape your brain throughout your life and subconsciously influence your choices.

Everything you want in life stems from the external world.

So you get the feeling like you're choosing a city,

But it's always a constrained and influenced choice.

It's no different than the preference for your favorite ice cream.

It's 11 o'clock.

Or the type of partner you're physically attracted to.

This is all just a consequence of external stimuli that you accumulate throughout your life.

All you can ever do in your life is what your brain has been influenced to do.

Through genes,

Experience,

Upbringing,

Or any other cause.

Your brain learns on its own and your consciousness actually never plays a part in it.

This is really the great illusion that we all experience.

It's a clever trick that your brain plays on you and it's actually a necessary trick for survival.

We need to feel like we're in charge.

But there is no person in there that exists independently of the brain.

There's no inner self who is conscious.

So as you go throughout the rest of your day,

Let your brain automatically guide you through every experience.

Just as it has since the day you were born.

Every moment of your life,

Your brain automatically guides you.

And just pay attention with the relief that you don't need to change anything.

Your brain will do that for you.

Any intervention that you try to have over your brain,

That is the self.

It's synonymous with resistance and therefore suffering.

True joy and peace comes from non-resistance.

Your enormously complex brain has evolved to perform on its own.

Just like every other organ in your body.

Your genes and your life experience will continue to shape and mold it.

All while creating an illusory but necessary experience that you're in control of this movie that is just playing out before you in consciousness.

Watch what happens when you just let go of the brain.

Instead of resisting,

You simply allow the moment to be as it is.

Reviews

Very interesting. Thank you

thank you so much 🙏🏼🥰 much metta to you and yours 😇💫

Brilliant meditation.

Thank you! I’d say this is more a talk than a meditation, but regardless I enjoyed it and it was interesting and Informative. This was actually right on time for me because I began reading “A Course in Miracles” last week. Listening to made me want to pick up the copy of “The Power of Now” that I still haven’t read. Anyways, your alarm clock went off I guess and your mic picked it up. It was a little distracting because it took me a second to realize it was in the meditation and I started looking around my room confused lol. But that’s just a minor issue. You have a great voice and I loved the content. I’ll be looking forward to more!