Saturday, January 26, 2013

Look Ma! No self!




The "subject" is not something given, 
it is something added and invented and projected behind what there is.
~ Nietzsche; 
The Will to Power

I am beginning to think that anatta (no self) is an invention of the narcissistic mind; and that sesshins, retreats, caves and monasteries are all unnecessary prisons in which to figure out, in a breathtaking breakthrough moment (arguably deserving of the title “kensho”, awakening or enlightenment) that it’s not about me.  

The saying goes “great doubt great awakening”.  But maybe that's only if you've got a great ego to begin with.  There is a story about a peasant woman making a long trek to see Huineng (I think) so she can ask him one very simple question.  When he answers her, she is awakened, says thank you, and walks away.  Small ego, small awakening.  Nothing to write home about.  

Those who are the most blown away by what they discover at the heart of themselves (Look Ma!  No self!) are the very ones who covet the mantle of "teacher" and then go on to preach ad nauseum to others about what they have found, paradoxically reinforcing with every word the very “self” they invite others to transcend when it's really a no-brainer.

Take "creo", the Spanish word for “I believe” or "I think".  It illustrates how a verb needs a subject appended to it in order for an experience to be hung somewhere, otherwise it would just sort of hang in the air like the smile of a Cheshire cat and that would be rather odd.   So we create an “I” to hang it on, like a painting, or like the moon in the sky, as a referent for something that is intangible.  Believing springs from nowhere, that same nowhere from which we came and to which we all return.  That is the nature of experience.  Of thinking.  Of being.  Anatta.  It’s really as simple as that.

2 comments:

  1. FWIW -- As I understand it, Buddhism does NOT teach "no self." It does teach "no abiding self." This may sound like Jesuitical hair-splitting, but is probably worth the price of admission.

    Also, what is "as simple as that" is rarely, if ever, as simple as that. There is a difference between tearing down the walls of fabrication and embracing them in such a way that they disappear of their own accord.

    No criticism from here. Just a point of view.

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  2. I am not sure about the distinction you want to make in referring to anatta as "no abiding self", unless it is to point out that it should not be confused with selflessness.

    re: "as simple as that"- I meant that anatta doesn't require complex explanations to dress the "walls of fabrications" with, well, more fabric.







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