Non-Self (Talk 5)

What is the nature of the self? What are you? Who are you? Why does this cause your suffering? Non-self as seen in multiple traditions.

Suggested Films: Fight Club; Revolver (2005)

The cost of each talk is one good deed, to be completed within 1 year.* The deed must be sincere to count, such that the doer feels something inside when the deed is complete. Healthcare Workers who served during the pandemic are exempt from the cost of all talks.

Transcript

Non-self.

As I mentioned in the first talk,

Non-self is the third leg of the triad of Buddhism,

The other two being suffering and impermanence.

While it is often thought to then be the most difficult to understand and realize,

In my opinion it is actually probably impermanence that is the one that is most difficult to truly realize and understand.

So what is the nature of self?

We should talk about the nature of self,

Or what we think to be the self,

Before we talk about non-self.

I often divide self and describe it into both observer and identity view.

So you have an observer nature of self and also an identity view or personality view of self.

The observer way of self I would generally call the ego.

In Buddhism it is known as the five aggregates,

And the idea in Buddhism is that these five aggregates constitute your notion of self,

Form,

Feeling,

Perceptions,

Formations,

And consciousness.

The idea that these five different mental activities were independent and they arose and they withdrew and they changed consistently,

And that our grouping them as a whole creates a solid sense of self which does not exist.

Instead these five aggregates are their own separate things and they do not constitute the self.

In Western modern spiritualism and in Hinduism you have this idea which is more akin to the ego,

Our sense of individual self.

The ego has a tendency to seek its own uniqueness,

To seek its own greatness,

And to seek its own specialness.

For mankind it is the source of both our greatest traits,

Our source of greatness,

And also our greatest source of suffering.

It is a source of greatness because it drives people to do things so that their names may be known and last through the ages,

Seeking immortality,

Seeking for everyone to recognize it.

And so we build bigger buildings,

We invent things,

We amass massive amounts of money,

We create giant structures,

And we conquer nations,

And the idea is your ego wants everyone in the world to know how unique and special you are.

There is an interesting line in the film Revolver which stated that all enemies are simply extensions of our ego,

And that is we,

If we do not identify with our ego,

Have no true enemies.

It is only our ego that has enemies.

You can take that and do the same with the friends,

Which is the idea that we have no true friends,

Ourselves.

Our friends are only friends of our ego.

Our true selves just are.

This is sort of akin to the idea of the Hindu greeting of Namaste.

The divine light in me salutes the divine light in you.

The idea is it is not our egos saluting each other,

It is the divine light within us.

And so in Hinduism and modern spiritualism,

There is this idea of the ego being separate from the soul.

The ego one thing,

The soul another.

In terms of the observer idea,

The ego is sort of a filter.

The ego is the filter and the lens through which we see the world.

And so the idea is you see something and then it comes to your mind,

And when you kind of acknowledge it and process it,

Your ego adds commentary to it.

And this changes the way it is seen.

So if you go outside and you experience cold,

Your ego may add this is unpleasant cold to it.

If you come inside and it's warm,

You just feel warmth,

But your ego adds the comment,

It is a pleasant warmth to it.

Someone may be unsightly,

But your ego adds the term that person is repulsive.

You may hear sounds which are pleasant and your ego says,

We want to hear more of this.

This is amazing.

The idea is the ego is the filter through which you see the world.

And because of that,

Your view of the world is skewed and often and sometimes misrepresented.

This is the idea behind the stoic impressions.

As we mentioned in the earlier talks of the three things that truly belong to you,

Your judgments and impressions were one of them.

One of the few things in life you could control.

So whether you saw something as good or bad,

This was within your purview.

This is what ego adds to things.

So traditionally your ego added commentary to things that increased your suffering.

The idea of using controlling your stoic impressions was by altering the way you added commentary to your daily events and thus having much less suffering as a result.

The second aspect of what we consider self,

I kind of term identity or personality view.

And this is probably the more common way of looking at what is self as what you are.

So what are you?

Who are you?

If you had to point to one thing as to what you are,

What would it be?

Would it be your body or your appearance?

Would it be your age?

Would it be your beliefs,

Your ideas,

Your preferences?

Would it be your possessions?

Would it be your titles?

Whether it is boss,

Worker,

Grandmother,

Uncle?

Would it be what other people think of you,

Meaning your reputation?

What exactly are you?

Are you any of these?

Are you all of these?

Which one of these truly represents you?

The idea of non-self is that we take all of these things to represent ourselves.

And yet none of them are self.

We will go through several of these ideas and sort of help you understand this with many examples.

So the body.

Are you your body?

Many people think,

I am a healthy person or I am a person who is heavy or I am a person who is light.

This is just who I am.

If my weight is 160,

I am someone who is 160.

And if it goes up to 180,

This is not me.

This is someone else.

I'm not sure who this is,

But it shouldn't be me.

If I am a healthy person and I am suddenly not healthy,

Then I say,

It is not me.

I am someone who's supposed to be healthy.

The idea is it is easier to understand non-self if you tie it to the understanding of suffering.

And so the nature of self is that we take a polaroid.

We take a polaroid of some aspect of our self and we record it in our mind and we say,

This is me.

But what it really is,

Is just a moment in time.

A moment in time that exists for a moment and that changes onwards,

But we have not changed as the moment changed.

And so if we take the example of the body,

This is me,

And obviously you will take the best looking possible version of yourself and say,

This is me,

The young,

Handsome version.

And you think,

This is me,

This is what I look like.

This is who I am.

And so if you understand how it relates to suffering,

What happens is one day you look in the mirror and things have changed.

Your hair is gray,

You have wrinkles,

Your eyes are drooping,

Or you have to wear glasses,

Or you have acne,

Or you have all sorts of scarring or any sort of thing.

And you say,

And you suffer.

And why is it that you suffer?

Because the Polaroid that you have in your mind of yourself does not match what you see.

The Polaroid that you have does not match what you see.

So your sense of self and what you are currently experiencing as self,

There is a mismatch.

Again,

As the common topic was,

The common theme is,

Your suffering is not because your sense of self has changed.

You are suffering because you are attached to the Polaroid that is no longer there.

And so the idea of,

We take a static and fixed sense of self,

Or a static and fixed image as self,

When in nature it is not static but moving.

So if we take the example of the body,

You are always moving and you are moving in one direction.

You are moving towards death.

And it does not go any other way.

So even this morning,

I may look different from this evening because I have aged in one single direction.

And so the idea is your sense of self is not so much a Polaroid but a movie.

A movie which keeps playing and does not pause.

And so your body is always continuing to change,

Only in one direction.

We mistake the change as a source of suffering and we think that by undoing the change,

Our suffering will come to an end.

But you cannot stop aging,

No matter how hard you try.

And so the true relief from suffering is not by trying to undo aging,

But by letting go of our attachment to that Polaroid and accepting whatever you see in front of the mirror.

The next example we'll take is our jobs.

We see ourselves in our work.

We think that represents who we are.

We think I am an astronaut or I'm a teacher or I'm a doctor or I'm a lawyer or I'm a cashier or any of these kind of things.

And we say,

This is me.

We attach our sense of self to our titles,

Our work.

And as a result,

We suffer or we suffer what I call egoic pain whenever that work title is insulted.

So,

For example,

If I'm a teacher and I'm walking around and I hear someone having a conversation outside and they voice the opinion that teachers are idiots,

I,

Because of my attachment to this title,

Will be offended.

But if you pass by a person who is just shouting out different things,

Doctors are idiots,

Lawyers are idiots,

Weather people are idiots,

Taxi drivers are idiots,

And you went through all those things and finally he got to teachers are idiots,

You would pass by the first several without any sort of feeling.

But when you came across your title,

You would suddenly feel offense.

And the only reason you feel offense is because you have associated your sense of self with your work.

The cause of your suffering is not the fact that he is insulting you.

The cause of your suffering is that you are attached to your own sense of title of self.

If you were not attached to that sense of self,

You would not feel that suffering,

Meaning you are attached to the idea,

I am a teacher,

I am a good teacher,

And teachers are good people,

And you have stuck yourself with these ideas.

And if any one of these ideas are challenged in any way,

You feel suffering.

And so you don't feel that way when someone says astronauts are idiots or politicians are idiots or any other things.

But whichever label,

Whichever title you have attached to your sense of self,

That sense of self will cause you suffering.

As an extension of that,

We see a sense of self in how much we are paid.

We see a sense of self in how much our monetary worth is,

Thinking that these things represent who we are.

And so if your pay is lowered,

You feel you are not valued.

If your pay is raised,

You say someone is appreciating me.

If your net worth is high,

You feel great.

If your net worth is low,

You may feel not so great.

Because you see self in these things when in fact no self exists.

And so if you did not care for that,

If you did not have a sense of self in your pay,

Your pay could be reduced and you would not suffer a problem.

You would be given a raise and you would not necessarily suffer elation.

You would just take things as they are.

We see self in our opinions,

Our ideas,

Our preferences.

If you come up with a great idea at work and your boss puts it down,

You say,

No,

Why would you do that?

Because your idea,

Your sense of self is embedded within it.

You see your idea as an extension of yourself.

The same thing with your opinions.

If you hold very strong political opinions and someone says,

No,

That's a bad idea,

Or they say something that goes against it,

You are offended.

You are not offended because that person is saying a different opinion.

You are offended because you are attached to your own opinion.

Understand that attachment to your own opinion is a source of suffering.

In a similar way,

We are not the works that we produce.

So if you make widgets all day,

You are not the widget you have made.

And yet this is a great source of suffering for many people.

If I cook a pie and I give you the pie and you tell me this pie tastes terrible,

There's a good chance I will be offended and say,

How dare you insult my pie?

If I tell you your mother's cooking is terrible,

You will say,

How dare you say such a thing about my mother's cooking?

And that is because you see your mother as an extension of yourself.

You see your mother's cooking as an extension of your mother.

So all these things are connected to self.

And you suffer not because he has said that about your mother's cooking.

You suffer because you are attached to the idea,

My mother is a good person.

My mother is a good cook.

And because of this,

These things cannot otherwise be true.

You are not the opinions of others,

Meaning you are not your reputation.

Similar to the body,

This is also a moment in time.

If you are in great favor and you think,

Oh,

Everyone likes me,

That is a moment in time.

At some point when people don't like you,

You feel a sense of sadness,

Not realizing that this is also just another moment in time.

And that the opinions of others will always change whether you are held in high regard or low regard.

But your sense of attachment to a certain point in time,

When that moment changes and when that opinion changes,

You feel a sense of suffering.

And again,

It is not the change that causes your suffering,

But your attachment to that opinion.

You are not your possessions.

So so often we think of our possessions as extensions of ourself.

If you insulted my possessions,

I would feel insulted.

And so if I say to you,

What a nice pair of jeans you have on,

You think I am paying you a compliment.

If I say,

What a beautiful house you have,

You also take that as a compliment.

If I tell you your car is filthy and it's old and no one wants to drive that,

Why would you have that kind of car?

You will get offended.

If I tell you your lawn is not well cut and it's dirty and it doesn't look good and makes the neighborhood look bad,

You will see that as an insult because you see your possessions as an extension of self.

And so if I say your pair of pants is ugly,

You say,

How dare you comment about my pants that way,

As if you yourself have been insulted.

And the idea is you are not your possessions.

You are different things.

If your pants are destroyed,

You are not destroyed.

But we see these things as an extension of self when in reality they are not.

And everything we see as an extension of self causes us suffering because all these things are subject to impermanence.

And so when our possessions are destroyed,

We suffer not realizing they are not self and not realizing that impermanence is always inevitable.

So what is the nature of self if it is not any of these things?

The best way I've seen it described is in Turning the Mind into an Ally,

Where he talks about the nature of self as being emptiness and at the same time interconnectedness.

The idea is that it is as if there were a blue sky and in front of that blue sky you had all these clouds which were always moving and shifting.

And when you looked at the sky,

Because it was covered by the clouds,

You mistook the nature of the sky to be the clouds.

And all these clouds are the different things we attach ourselves to.

Our body,

Our ideas,

Our possessions,

Our titles,

The opinions of others,

All these external things that we see as self.

These are the clouds that cover the blue sky.

And that underneath those clouds,

If you were able to see past them,

You would see an empty blue sky.

And that is the nature of self.

It is interconnected.

And it is interconnected with all things and that it doesn't exist by itself.

To sort of help illustrate that,

I will use the example of a chair,

Which I forget where it came from.

But the idea is that,

Let's say you are sitting there and you see a wooden chair.

And the idea is you have fixed this idea of this chair is there and it exists as a unique and special kind of a thing.

This is a chair.

And you may even put labels on it.

This is my favorite chair or this is my grandfather's chair.

And you put a story behind it.

But the idea is this is a chair.

What is understood about the nature of self once you apply this knowledge is this chair is simply a moment in time.

And so if I come over there and I take an axe and I smash up your chair,

Your chair,

Which was a chair a few moments ago,

Is now piles of wood.

And if I take those piles of wood and I burn them in a fire,

Those piles of wood have now become smoke and heat.

And so what was once a chair is now smoke and heat.

And if I were able to reverse time,

We would go back to a time when your chair was not yet a chair.

It was a tree growing in a forest.

And if we go farther back in time,

It was a seed.

And if we go back farther in time,

It may have been something else.

And the idea is that all of these things were necessary to make a chair a chair.

None of these things existed in isolation,

And just as you did not exist in isolation without any beginning and without any end.

The idea is all things have these things.

So before you were you,

As you have a picture in your mind,

You were a young person,

You were a baby,

And before that you were an egg and a semen,

And before that you were your parents,

And the food that they ate,

And all these other things.

And the idea is you did not come out into existence by yourself just popping out.

You were interconnected with everything else.

So the nature of self relies in both being interconnected as well as being empty.

Hinduism and Hinduism differ slightly in what is the nature of the soul,

But I'm not sure knowing that difference is necessary to help you understand non-self or in any sort of other way.

I like to call the Hinduist and spiritualist view of seeing self as soul as a quick fix.

It is a quick fix because it allows you to understand and grasp oneself very quickly without having to kind of drag through the Buddhist model.

And so in spiritualism and in Hinduism,

The idea is the self is the soul.

Your true self is your soul.

Apart from the soul,

There is the thinking mind,

Sometimes also your ego.

And so in Hinduism,

The great goal was to recognize the soul and separate that from the ego.

In Hinduism,

There were the four paths to doing that.

So there was wisdom,

Meditation,

Karma yoga or good works,

And then devotional.

But all four pathways were meant to help you spiritually develop and recognize purusa or the soul and help separate that from the mind.

And so all four pathways were meant to sort of help you see truly that what was not self and the idea is once you removed all these other things and understood that they weren't self,

You could cease your suffering from them.

The idea is that you have to go through all of these individual things in your life and recognize this is not self,

This is something I am attached to.

And the idea is that as you go further along doing this,

You start to shed your titles,

Start to shed your attachment to your opinions,

Start to shed your attachment to all these different labels and ideas that you hold.

Not that you don't possess them,

But you don't see a sense of self in them.

The idea is to grind your ego down and minimize it as much as you can.

The Stoics also had views on possession.

I did mention that in the other talks where the only things that were truly yours and belonged to you were your desire,

Aversion,

And judgments.

And the idea is that nothing else belonged to you.

Ego is all-in external,

Your possessions,

Your family,

Power,

Fame,

Your work,

Everything.

And the idea is not to see any of those things as yours or belonging to you.

This is a similar idea.

In the Christian path,

I would say that there is a similar role in the idea of achieving humility.

And so pride and ego go together,

And humility helps remove pride.

In that way,

It helps you remove your ego.

So if you have a lot of titles,

If you have a lot of hierarchy within your thinking,

The higher and higher you go,

The more suffering you feel when someone does not acknowledge your ego.

The path of humility helps reduce you to the very bottom.

And so if you are at the very bottom,

You are not insulted by anyone if anyone does not give you your appropriate title or any of these things.

So what is life like without sort of this identity attachment?

How does life get experienced?

And the idea is that you will take offense at far fewer things.

I would say that you are looking at things from a more third person and non-personal view,

And because of that,

You don't suffer that certain sort of situations.

I often say,

I would say that it is sort of like the difference between being a real estate agent and a customer selling your home.

For the customer,

There is great sentimental value in the home,

And there's great sort of sense of self in the home,

Of the history,

And all these kind of things.

As a real estate agent,

You apprise the home for its benefits and all these other things,

And that's all you see it as.

It is a house.

And so you are not suffering when someone says,

It should be worth this much or it should be worth that much.

You just kind of see it as something that is,

That is not related to yourself.

If you don't see a sense of self in your opinions,

You are not going to be upset when someone advises different opinions or if someone says your opinions are wrong.

If you don't see your sense of self in your political affiliation,

You don't get upset when other people have other political affiliations.

The same thing with your titles and your work.

If you don't see a sense of self in your titles,

If someone does not use your proper title,

You do not necessarily get offended.

And if you do not see a sense of self in your body,

When your body changes,

You will experience less suffering.

An example for your titles and things like that in your opinions.

So if someone says your mother's cooking is terrible,

If you were attached to a sense of self or attached to the ideas of your mother's cooking or attached to the idea of your mother,

You would say you become very offended and you might say something quite unpleasant back.

But if you did not have a strong sense of self attached,

You would understand that what was spoken by this other person was an opinion,

An opinion and nothing else.

Your view of it won't be colored by ego,

Meaning you won't say this is an evil opinion or this is a mean opinion or this is a terrible opinion.

Your ego has added that commentary to your reception of that person's idea.

You would see this simply as an opinion.

It is possible that it is a wrong opinion,

Meaning it is inaccurate,

But then you could also say it might be a right opinion.

Maybe this person is a three-star Michelin chef and he tasted your mother's cooking and found it lacking,

And not because he was doing anything malicious,

But because he was brought to a different standard and a different way of thinking.

If you do not see self in the opinions of others,

Much in your life will change.

There are many things we do in life seeking praise or seeking happiness in the opinions of others.

If you come to understand that the opinions of others are not self and are not a source of happiness,

Is there not much you would do differently?

What kind of car you drive?

What kind of work you do?

How much you weigh?

How people look at you?

What kind of titles you possess?

What kind of political ideas?

All these other things we seek sometimes because we seek happiness in opinions of others.

The idea is to look at things as if under a scenario,

What if I lived on an island and there was no one else around me?

And so the idea is,

How much of your life would change?

Would you comb your hair in the morning if no one were there to see it?

Would you put on makeup?

Would you shave your legs?

Would you wear high heels?

Would you tattoo yourself?

What kind of clothes would you wear?

And the idea is you would have a far more practical approach to life and comfort if you did not care for the opinions of others.

This is not to suggest that you go around walking like a homeless person to work and never shave or anything like that,

But understand how much of your sense of self is derived from what other people think and to see whether or not that will actually bring you happiness to try to please other people.

There is certainly utility in following certain conventions so that you do not offend others and that you do not be a misfit in society,

But at the same time,

How much more practical your life will become if you do not see self in the opinions of others.

There is an interesting scenario described in Eckhart Tolle's book,

The Power of Vow,

Where he talked about a scenario where you went shopping and you met the cashier,

And the idea is that he says,

Four different egos are interacting.

You have your natural ego,

Which you kind of go around with saying,

This is me.

The cashier has their natural ego,

Which they normally go around with,

But then your interaction,

There is an additional ego.

You have your customer ego or personality,

And the cashier has their cashier service kind of personality.

And so you run through your role,

Your shopping ego,

And say,

Yes,

You got everything you wanted to buy,

You may complain about this or that.

And the cashier goes through their cashier ego saying,

Did you find all your items today,

Everything to your satisfaction,

And checks you out.

And the idea is that this interaction has four different egos interacting.

And that sometimes what's lost is that you both don't realize you are of the same nature.

And this is what is wonderful about that,

The greeting namaste,

The divine light in me salutes the divine light in you.

So the idea of bypassing your egos.

There are two movies which I recommend,

Both are actually quite violent movies,

Not traditionally spiritual movies,

But I recommend both of these movies to help you understand the nature of self.

One is the film Fight Club.

The second is the movie Revolver,

The 2005 Guy Ritchie movie.

There's a very interesting scenario at the end of Revolver where he says to him,

Use your perceived enemy to destroy your real enemy.

And in the movie,

The character had an enemy,

Which he thought was his enemy,

But the people trying to help him become enlightened were trying to help him understand that his true enemy was his ego,

Not the other person.

And so use your perceived enemy to destroy your true enemy.

And so they make him submit to the person he hates the most.

And in doing so,

He overcomes his ego and kind of walks away at the end of the movie kind of enlightened.

Fight Club and Revolver.

This will conclude my talk.

If you benefited from my talk,

I ask that you complete one good deed in return.

The deed is not bound by size,

Simply by sincerity.

Thank you for listening.

Reviews

This is really helpful in following the Buddha's teaching of non-self and impermanence. The narrative is practical and clear just as I imagine it being spoken for the first time. Namaste.