Self/No-Self

[Risho]

ok, I've been thinking about this a lot since I started my practice, and especially with recent posts of the koan where you are hanging from a tree by your teeth. If you answer it's one thing, if you don't it's another. Or as Jundo said, (and I'm paraphrasing) things are perfect as they are, but some things need to be tended to "no thing and some things to maintain" or "Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form". I think these are pointing to the same thing, and you may be saying "duh, of course" right now. lol

It's like all of my practice so far has come down to this pattern... this duality I'm trying to get out of, but that's the conundrum. My mind thinks dualistically, which is good because that is my interface to reality. Yet if I take this duality to be the sum of what everything really means then that's the point of suffering.

And so I think like Stephanie said in an earlier post this koans are like roadsigns on practice. The more and longer I practice, it's not necessarily the answer but how Iunderstand the question that will help me.

Ok, so this relates to the self because it's that duality again: self or no self. There is no self separate from the universe, but there is a self in the sense that I am not you. We are 2 people, but we are connected in this universe.

When talking or thinking about no-self I get really confused but I think it's somewhere in the middle of no self and a self. Yes you exist, but you are not separate. Is that the right understanding (still right/wrong thinking I guess)?

[Taylor]

Re: Self/No-Self

I often have the same issues regarding this view of the world. Correct me if I miss your point about self and no-self. We're both in the vast newbie boat :P

Right about here was where I was going to go on a long confusing rant about things I really have no idea about. Honestly, I don't know. I am trying to work on the know-it-all factor my girlfriend keeps pointing out (Gassho Zen master). But Uchiyama Roshi put it in a way I sort of related to.

When we are born, we enter the stage, our stage. It's not that we suddenly popped up on some preexisting set and started acting, our stage was created with us. This is because our stage, our world, is created by us and creates us. We support it (because if we're dead, where did our world go?), and it supports us (how could we define ourselves without everything else in the world?). Our view of this stage is certainly different from every other actor's view because no one can stand in the same place with the exact same set of views as anyone else. We can get close, but never the same.

I hope this helps? Or at least didn't hurt :?
Taylor

[Risho]

Re: Self/No-Self

When we are born, we enter the stage, our stage. It's not that we suddenly popped up on some preexisting set and started acting, our stage was created with us. This is because our stage, our world, is created by us and creates us. We support it (because if we're dead, where did our world go?), and it supports us (how could we define ourselves without everything else in the world?). Our view of this stage is certainly different from every other actor's view because no one can stand in the same place with the exact same set of views as anyone else. We can get close, but never the same.

I hope this helps? Or at least didn't hurt :?
Taylor

It hurts.. the confusion hurts. lol

Now that is an entirely different topic which I, too, am vastly confused about. I can understand if by our world being created by us, it means that our view of the world. Because our view of the world is unique to each one of us. But the actual universe was here before I came along and will be here longafter I'm gone I suspect. Perhaps, I misunderstand here too.

[Janne H]

Re: Self/No-Self

Ok, so this relates to the self because it's that duality again: self or no self. There is no self separate from the universe, but there is a self in the sense that I am not you. We are 2 people, but we are connected in this universe.

When talking or thinking about no-self I get really confused but I think it's somewhere in the middle of no self and a self. Yes you exist, but you are not separate. Is that the right understanding (still right/wrong thinking I guess)?

You seem to have your answer right there in your "own" :lol: writing, there is the self and no-self co-existing both at once. So who is imagining (your question in the other thread), you? The universe?

Maybe this will help:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_truths_doctrine

I´m also a newbie so please correct me if I am wrong.

[JohnsonCM]

Re: Self/No-Self

Well, you've actually got a pretty good handle on it. Suzuki Roshi would tell you that both are right. There is no "self" because there is no "thing" that you can point to, no static unchanging representation of you, that you can say, "here is my self". Have you ever tried to find yourself? Where is it? Harder than finding the car keys, I assure you. But at the same time, you are you. This is the concept that we know of as dependent arising. Picture this. It's a sunny day. But then every day is a sunny day. So how do you really know it's a sunny day? What do you compare it to? What is your baseline measurement when there is no separation? But not every day is a sunny day, and we can tell this because there are cloudy days to compare to. However, they are the same thing. We are the ones who discriminate and say, "when the sun is up, it's day" or "when the sun is out, it's sunny." What would happen if you tried to tell the day it was a sunny day, or a cloudy day? Nothing. It would still be what it is, what ever that is. In this way we realize that everything is one, yet we also know that we cannot exist in this life, in this world of samsara, without the understanding that we must make some differentiation between things. It's just not practical. You said that the universe was here way before you. Maybe, maybe not. How do you know you weren't there all along? That you weren't part of it? If you broke down an atom from your body to it's most minuscule part (I think modern science calls it a quark now) and did the same thing with an atom from, say...... a tree, or a chair, or a monkey, would you be able to tell the difference between the "you" quark and the "tree" quark? Probably not, because we are all made from the same stuff. We are all connected, and we all embody the entirety of existence. Like looking at a lake from an airplane. You just see the round blue spot, but remember it contains fish and frogs, logs and weeds, sticks and sand.

I might have gone a little overboard here, but the point of this (if I can find it in all this verbal mess I just made ops: ) was that that dualistic thinking is vital. We have to think in many directions, as Jundo said recently, because we know that all things are void, and this void is all things, which gives us the understanding that, fundamentally there is no difference between you and me, me and the zafu, the dog and my car. But we also know, from a practical stand point of a person who must live in THIS world, a chair is separate from my dinner, and a bird is separate from me.

Also, remember not to fall into the trap of thinking that this "void" of the heart suttra is the void created by a lack of things. Think more along the lines of the "void" that exists right before a decision is made, the instant before the lightning flashes. The void of no action, but endless possibility.

[disastermouse]

Re: Self/No-Self

Self/no-self hurts because the mind wants an answer, a solution. How can the answer be yes, no, and neither?

Because none of the constructions are ultimately solid. The best answer to the question may be that which cause the least suffering - but how do you nail that down? You don't, of course.

And yet, in the moment, it's not really a problem.

Which is advice I really need to take to heart myself.

[Jundo]

Re: Self/No-Self

Hi,

Talking about these things can be a bit like talking about the sweetness of vanilla ice cream. No philosophizing, no poem will capture what is best experienced on one's own tongue. So, keep "Just Sitting" and taste the ice cream.

These conversations are also a lot like trying to nail down ice cream to the wall. 8)

... Or as Jundo said, (and I'm paraphrasing) things are perfect as they are, but some things need to be tended to "no thing and some things to maintain"

I would never say "things are perfect as they are" ("perfection vs. imperfection" is a judgment of the self-centered human brain). I would say that "things are wholly, perfectly, completely just what they are ... with not one thing to add or take away to make this life more this life".

This entire life-self-world is just perfectly what it are when we drop our human judgments... yet, from another view, it is filled with many imperfections that we can and best get to work fixing!

LEARN TO SEE STUFF FROM 'SIMULTANEOUSLY TRUE' PERSPECTIVE(S), FOLKS!

... or "Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form". I think these are pointing to the same thing, and you may be saying "duh, of course" right now. lol

It's like all of my practice so far has come down to this pattern... this duality I'm trying to get out of, but that's the conundrum. [

Form is precisely emptiness, emptiness no other than form! (Heart Sutra)

More than ...

We are 2 people, but we are connected in this universe.

... it is more that we are 2 people, AND we are connected in this universe AND ... from even another way of seeing things ... we are so intimately and wholly and unbrokenly one beyond one that words like "2" "people" "connected" and "universe" are not needed. Something like that.

All such perspective are simultaneously true, depending on how things are seen.

Now, we cannot get out of this world of form (this complex world of 'Samsara'), at least, not so long as we are alive in this world. Even the flesh and blood Guatama Buddha lived in a world of growing old, aches and pains, me and you, this and that ... until he kicked the bucket, and it was not a concern any more (sometimes called "entering parinirvana"). Perhaps we can for a time in some extreme states of meditation, where all the world is dropped away ... but that is not a good place to stay and live. Might as well be in a coma.

So, we cannot escape form, samsara.

However, we can fully and completely escape form-samsara ... even as we can never fully and completely escape form-samsara (get used to experiencing life from all sides of the two side, no sided coin, folks!)

In this Zen Practice, we do not get out of form ... even as we fully escape from form. Both at once, not two ... no conflict even amid life's conflicts.

How? Look, my take on this whole "self/not self" is really very simple and naive.

We are born as babies into a state where our brain immediately sets to work dividing "me" from "not me". That "me" is filled with countless likes and dislikes, aversions we run from and attractions we run too, attachments, other judgments, "should be's" and "I wish it would be's" about that "not me" ... about how "me" thinks that "not me should be".

(I gave a very too nutshelly description of the process on today's sit-a-long) ...

http://www.shambhalasun.com/sunspace/?p=17336

In Zazen, the process is reversed to constantly varying degrees. The hard border between "me" and "not me" softens or, once in awhile, fully drops away (although, as mentioned for the latter ... nice place to visit, can't live there). Simultaneously, we start dropping the likes and dislikes, aversions and attractions, attachments, other judgments, "should be's" and "wish it would be's" Divisions fade, and there is seen a state beyond birth vs. death, wars vs. peace ... (and it is somehow very Alive and Peaceful, not barren and gray). What remains is kind of a Wholly Lovely Whole, the friction gone ... the war over. The broken egg is back in its unbroken shell (it was never out!).

Yet, by the way, we still live in a world that quite often sucks eggs ... with a "me" "you" "the other guys" ... cancer, wars and oil leaks.

So, a large part of this practice is harmonizing, and living amid, both of the "simultaneously true" ways of seeing life. "Enlightenment" does not make even a pimple go away, nor does it cure any of the world's problems ... even as, hand in hand, it makes one see that they were (from the other perspective) never quite there. The leaky oil does not get back in the broken oil well and needs to be cleaned up ... even as the egg gets back in the shell, and we see that there was never any place for the oil to leak to, nothing ever "clean vs. dirty".

I can't make it any simpler.

Now, get on your cushions and learn to experience and live this.

Another famous Koan (with apologies to animal rights group PETA members) ...

The Book of Serenity - Case 91: A baby gosling was placed inside one of those big glass bottles with a little opening that you see model ships in, and raised inside, until now it is full grown and can no longer fit through the neck of the bottle. How can you get the goose out of the bottle without breaking the bottle? A court official named Lu Geng asks Nanquan (Nan-ch'uan) how to get the goose out of the bottle. Nan-ch'uan calls "Sir!" and Lu Geng immediately responds, "Yes?" Nan-ch'uan said "It's out."

Gassho, J

[Jundo]

Re: Self/No-Self

When we are born, we enter the stage, our stage. It's not that we suddenly popped up on some preexisting set and started acting, our stage was created with us. This is because our stage, our world, is created by us and creates us. We support it (because if we're dead, where did our world go?), and it supports us (how could we define ourselves without everything else in the world?). Our view of this stage is certainly different from every other actor's view because no one can stand in the same place with the exact same set of views as anyone else. We can get close, but never the same.

I ran with this theater analogy of Uchiyama Roshi one time ... and I think it is a pretty good way to look at some things. I think it a way to describe some pretty orthodox "Zenny" ways at looking at how the universe ticks. See if it helps ...

First, I must "set the stage":

Imagine that being born as a conscious human life in the universe is something like waking up to find yourself, for no known reason, an actor on a stage in a theater reciting lines in a play. (For our purposes, and so there is no confusion on my point, let us imagine that it is some kind of 'off-off-off Broadway', experimental "theatre of the absurd" in which there is only the barest scenery on a stage, and the actors are improvising the story moment to moment.) There may or may not be a playright, but the actors seem to be making the story up as they go along. When you were "born", you found yourself in some kind of role in the play ... with a name, family history, appearance , etc. But you have no way to know if you were given that role purely by chance or were assigned the role by some "playright". Nonetheless, here you are as "Taylor" That play, with its actors (of which you are one) in that theater building represents "the universe".

Okay, have the scene?

Now, one way to look at this is that the play was likely going on before you appeared on the stage and will continue in some form after your character dies (and you leave the play). This is the way we are used to looking at our relationship to the universe.

But here is another way:

Could there be a "play" without its actors? (Especially this type of play which doesn't seem to have a script apart from its actors)? We might say that, in this case, "no" there could not be.

But moreover, we might say that there is really not only 'one play', but a constant series of plays constantly beginning anew and ending. So, the play that began when you stepped on the stage is not the same play that first began when you left the stage (and the play with you in it ended) ... even though there were some shared characters (other human beings on the planet) in the play before your play and the play that followed your play. (In fact, we might say that a new play is constantly starting and ending at each moment within a moment within your life too) The play with you in it is just not the same play without you in it, just like "Gone With The Wind" would have been a completely different movie (universe) if the character of Rhett Butler had never been written into the story, or Macbeth would have been a very different story if Macduff had died in the first act.

And do not confuse the theatre building with the theatre play. You might try to argue that the theatre building goes on with or without a particular play, but without plays it is just a barren, empty building. The true theatre (universe) is not just a building, but the play in the building. So we might say that the character of the whole changes, is born and dies, depending on you.It is just not the same "theatre" as it would be before or after you.

So, it is actually that when you die the whole play ends.(Whether a new play starts at that point ... that is another story [pun intended]). Without you, the show with you cannot go on.

Gassho, Jundo

[pinoybuddhist]

Re: Self/No-Self

Nice analogy there. I'm looking forward to watching the Sit-a-long video. But first: LUNCH! :mrgreen:

[Risho]

Re: Self/No-Self

Thank you Jundo and I'm sorry I keep misquoting you ops:

Gassho

Cyril

[Jundo]

Re: Self/No-Self

In this way we realize that everything is one, yet we also know that we cannot exist in this life, in this world of samsara, without the understanding that we must make some differentiation between things. It's just not practical. You said that the universe was here way before you. Maybe, maybe not. How do you know you weren't there all along? That you weren't part of it? If you broke down an atom from your body to it's most minuscule part (I think modern science calls it a quark now) and did the same thing with an atom from, say...... a tree, or a chair, or a monkey, would you be able to tell the difference between the "you" quark and the "tree" quark? Probably not, because we are all made from the same stuff. We are all connected, and we all embody the entirety of existence. Like looking at a lake from an airplane. You just see the round blue spot, but remember it contains fish and frogs, logs and weeds, sticks and sand.

Thich Nhat Hanh has one of the most lovely images of this perspective on "dependent co-origination" and "no self" ... which he likes to call "interbeing" ... another way of expressing what we are discussing ...

Imagine something as real and tangible as a piece of paper ...

If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, we cannot make paper. The cloud is essential for the paper to exist. If the cloud is not here, the sheet of paper cannot be here either. So we can say that the cloud and the paper inter-are. “Interbeing” is a word that is not in the dictionary yet, but if we combine the prefix “inter-” with the verb “to be,” we ha vea new verb, inter-be. Without a cloud and the sheet of paper inter-are.

If we look into this sheet of paper even more deeply, we can see the sunshine in it. If the sunshine is not there, the forest cannot grow. In fact, nothing can grow. Even we cannot grow without sunshine. And so, we know that the sunshine is also in this sheet of paper. The paper and the sunshine inter-are. And if we continue to look, we can see the logger who cut the tree and brought it to the mill to be transformed into paper. And wesee the wheat. We now the logger cannot exist without his daily bread, and therefore the wheat that became his bread is also in this sheet of paper. And the logger’s father and mother are in it too. When we look in this way, we see that without all of these things, this sheet of paper cannot exist.

Looking even more deeply, we can see we are in it too. This is not difficult to see, because when we look at a sheet of paper, the sheet of paper is part of our perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also. So we can say that everything is in here with this sheet of paper. You cannot point out one thing that is not here-time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the cloud, the river, the heat. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper. That is why I think the word inter-be should be in the dictionary. “To be” is to inter-be. You cannot just be by yourself alone. You have to inter-be with every other thing. This sheet of paper is, because everything else is.

Suppose we try to return one of the elements to its source. Suppose we return the sunshine to the sun. Do you think that this sheet of paper will be possible? No, without sunshine nothing can be. And if we return the logger to his mother, then we have no sheet of paper either. The fact is that this sheet of paper is made up only of “non-paper elements.” And if we return these non-paper elements to their sources, then there can be no paper at all. Without “non-paper elements,” like mind, logger, sunshine and so on, there will be no paper. As thin as this sheet of paper is, it contains everything in the universe in it.

From: The Heart of Understanding: Commentaries on the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra

The only thing I would add to this is that, again, this view of "interbeing" is one "simultaneously true" perspective on self and not-self.

There is also that view where there is no paper, tree, forest, cloud, rain, soil, sun and sunshine, logger ... are not and never were. All just atoms,quarks in atoms, energy ... not even that ...

There is also that view by which paper is fully and completely paper, with not one thing to add or take away to make it more papery ... and the same for trees and sun and loggers and all the rest ...

There is also that view by which loggers are cutting down too many trees in the forest to feed our wasteful use of paper, resulting in the rain washing away the soil and the earth turning to desert.

All true.

[JohnsonCM]

Re: Self/No-Self

Wow. That's really awesome. I'm going to have to start reading Thich Nhat Hanh's works. Gassho, Jundo.

[Risho]

Re: Self/No-Self

This is brilliant! Thank you so much Jundo, and everyone that responded

[CraigfromAz]

Re: Self/No-Self

Keep it up Jundo - I'm starting to get a flickering of understanding when I read your posts. Then it's gone as quick as it came, but maybe you're starting to get through.

Gassho,

Craig

[Rich]

Re: Self/No-Self

I bow to self/No-self.

I use a lot less paper now than 10 years ago
I bow to computers and scanners
/Rich