There Is No 'I' - Finding Freedom In The Void

This talk cuts to the heart of the Buddhist claim that there is no self – no ‘I’. It will help you see this truth for yourself via an investigation into the nature of reality. It touches upon the concept of detachment as well as neuroscience of the brain and consciousness. It ends with a 3-minute meditation on emptiness using ‘labelling’ of mental phenomena to reveal the empty nature of reality.

Transcript

So last night I was doing a little bit of mindfulness meditation,

And I was just observing whatever arose,

Whatever came up in consciousness,

Thoughts,

Emotions,

Moods,

Physical sensations.

And I had the realization that there's nothing at the center.

It was just brief,

But I had a real subjective feeling of emptiness,

In the sense that thoughts were arising,

But they weren't arising inside of me.

There was no I.

Feelings were arising,

But they were just there.

And they're not sort of drift out of that.

I'll get lost a little bit in a memory,

For example,

But very quickly I would recognize that,

And then the memory was just there.

It was this little like sort of glimpse or insight into the deeper practice,

You know,

What mindfulness sort of promises.

It promises that the more you practice,

The more you'll see the truth of reality,

That at its center there is no I.

There is no solid sense of self.

It's an objective truth that we can only discover subjectively.

It's very easy to sort of associate with thoughts and emotions and moods and physical sensations,

But there's a little sort of logical thing that I like to do to sort of evoke this experience of selflessness,

Of emptiness.

The next time you have a feeling,

Have a thought,

Let's take anger.

You might think to yourself,

I am angry.

But you could take that a step back and say,

I'm noticing anger.

I'm noticing anger.

And you could take that a step back to say anger is arising,

Or just anger is present,

Because that's sort of what is actually happening.

You might get sort of trapped by anger,

And it's hard to sort of even discuss this without sort of falling into the dualistic approach,

Because our language forces a dualistic nature of discussion.

When you do this,

You will notice that you're feeling angry,

Right?

So even sort of having this discussion is almost like a finger pointing to the moon.

I can only guide you towards it,

But you have to take that last step.

But right now,

Or whenever you formally practice,

Or just throughout the day,

Just take a little mental detachment and just notice what is arising.

And rather than instantly associating to it and going,

Oh,

I am in pain,

Or my foot is sore,

Or I'm angry,

Just take a little tiny detached step back.

Take a breath,

Focus on that breath,

And just notice what is there.

You'll notice the things that are there.

And then it's very easy when you're looking at that to look around and notice that there is no sense of self that those things are happening to.

It's a little bit trippy.

It's like there's pain,

But pain is just present.

It's like whatever I am,

Whatever is this thing,

Is an illusion,

And we just get trapped by it,

Or it gets trapped.

See,

The language fails here,

But there's this subjective experience where you can just step back and recognize that things are just arising.

And then I like to look at this from multiple perspectives.

Let's look at it from an evolutionary perspective.

Consciousness didn't just bang,

Click online,

Right?

Click online,

Right?

Our brains evolved over millennia.

It took years and years and years and years and years,

Right?

We went from that lizard brain to the monkey brain to the human brain,

And each of those things got us doing certain things,

Right?

It's like avoiding pain,

Seeking pleasure in the form of reproduction and food and water and shelter.

It taught us social constructs.

It taught us how to function,

How to live.

And then at some stage,

We became human when we had the ability to sort of recognize that we're thinking.

But the point is,

If you study neuroscience,

I've got a psychology degree,

So I've touched a bit of neuroscience.

I'm no way an expert,

But consciousness isn't located in one specific part of the brain,

Right?

It's scattered throughout,

And different parts of the brain hold different memories and do different functions.

And if you take one part out of the brain,

The person can still function,

Although certain aspects of consciousness might be broken or gone.

The point I'm trying to make is that there's no single part that is responsible for the feeling of I.

One part might have visual memories.

Another part might recognize physical sensations.

Another separate part might give you social cues.

The point I'm making is that your brain sort of holds all this consciousness itself,

But there's no one part of it,

Which sort of lends some truth to this idea that the sense of self is an illusion,

Because you can sort of step back into that and recognize,

Oh,

Pain is arising.

So is that the biology of the brain?

That part of the brain just responding to a signal,

As in like yes,

Pain is there.

And then you might have a memory,

And is that just that memory's part of the brain or wherever that memory is located in the brain just being like,

Oh,

Memory here,

Right?

And then you see something,

And that's just a different part of the brain being like,

Oh,

Vision.

And then somewhere along the line,

All of those things all pop together as one,

And we have this sense of I.

I am having a visual memory of this event that happened.

This event that happened.

Well,

We need to have that connection to survive,

Right?

That's how we just live.

We need to be able to sort of go,

Well,

Okay,

I don't want to get hit by that car.

I need to avoid that snake,

Right?

Because I recognize that that's danger,

And I remember it,

And I've seen it,

And all those good stuff that our brains do to keep us alive evolutionarily.

But I guess what I'm trying to drive at is that when you meditate,

You can see that process occurring.

You can detach and step back and recognize that at its core,

That sense of self,

That sense of me,

That sense of I,

It's an illusion.

And that illusion is freeing.

It's not like a,

It's not a nihilistic approach.

It's not a form of existential dread that it evokes,

Right?

It's just a recognition of just acceptance.

There's pain.

There's memory.

There's thought.

Those things are arising.

Those things are arising.

That's all that's happening.

Okay.

With this in mind,

The audio is going to go silent for three minutes.

I like three-minute sessions because it's short enough that you can just do it,

But it's not so long that it becomes tedious,

Right?

And it sort of just gives you a little glimpse.

So I'm going to pause the audio for three minutes,

And in that time,

I just want you to just observe whatever is arising.

And if you find yourself getting sort of starting to get trapped by it,

Just label it.

Anger is arising.

Physical sensations are arising.

Sleepiness is arising.

Rather than saying to yourself,

I'm angry.

I'm tired.

I'm sleepy.

I'm sore.

Just label it.

Label whatever mental phenomena arises as it's arising.

Thoughts are arising.

Moods are arising.

So take a seat.

Get yourself comfortable.

Take a big slow breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

And settle down into observation.

Our goal is just to observe whatever is arising without attachment.

Let's begin.

Okay,

So how'd you go?

If you ended up associating with thought or emotions or mood or any other mental phenomena or physical,

That's fine.

This is a practice.

But over time,

With practice,

If you keep this idea in mind,

During your formal sessions like this or throughout the day,

You'll start to notice that there is a sense of emptiness and that sense of emptiness is worth observing for yourself.

But once again,

Recognize the limitations of language as we discuss this.

So feel free to at any time just step back and label your thoughts.

Label the thoughts that are arising as that's arising.

Have a great day.

This talk was taken from the book Mindfulness,

A guidebook to the present moment.

Reviews

Hi Zachary, actually, I had some pause practicing meditation and this was my restart. And I noticed that there is quite a lot of resistance to accept that there should be no “I” or no “Me”.
Because, who else would contemplate, would reflect, would think, would notice, would label …
Just my body, without me?
Can’t follow you on that …
Best regards, Joe

Very helpful exercise! Thank you.

As always Zack, truly enlightening.
Namaste 🙏

Thank you 🙏