Thursday, June 08, 2006
anatta
Just who do you think you are?
I have talked about 2 of the 3 universal characteristics of all things: anicca (change or impermanence) and dukkha (unsatisfactoriness). I took a long time with the last of these characteristics because it is hard to explain and harder to accept for me. Usually anatta is translated as “non self” (I can hear the collective “huh?!” from all of you) which does little to clarify anything. I was frustrated with this but then I learned that this goes to show the limits we have so frequently with language. The problem is not the language per se. The limitations of our language is a reflection of how we are so stuck in a certain way of viewing the world. We have not the proper words for reality because we have a habit of forcing reality into categories which do not exist except in our own minds. It is meaningful that it was through poetry where I first had an inkling of anatta, in particular, zen poems which breaks down the ordinary uses of language and words, and so breaks down ordinary thought patterns.
The concept of anatta or non-self is the hardest for me to understand, the most difficult to live with in daily life. We instinctively think, “if there is no me. . . then how?!” We feel we have reached the end of our universe as we know us. . . and beyond the confines of who we normally think we are, we think there is nothing. And boy, do we not want to go there and drop over that abyss! This all goes to show how strongly attached we are to our self-image. It shows how much this self-image tries to protect itself to perpetuate what turns out to be a lie, delusion, mirage.
There is nothing essentially wrong with us. What is wrong is how we perceive the world. What is wrong is the habitual ways with which we view the world - ourselves included. This kind of view is flawed because it creates problems when it clashes head on with reality. We weave a story where we are the hero and everything happens to this hero. If something bad happens to this hero, it’s a tragedy. If something great happens, it’s an epic tale. The slings and arrows of outrages fortune hit us hard and we suffer for it because we think about ourselves in this way – there is someone, a target, to suffer the shots of slings and arrows. We think we are stuck in a fragile “self” that suffers good things and bad. This is an illusion and we suffer greatly for it because we are trying hard all the time to protect this illusion from harm. Yet, this also means: if there is no fragile self to protect and sustain, there can be no suffering.
I went through a dark, dark period trying to figure this out before meeting the right teachers who pointed out to me that there is no figuring out to be done, and asked me to sit in silent meditation. For it is in silence, when habitual methods of thinking ceases that we exist as something that is other than our self-centred self -- and we start to realise that vast spacious joy of existing beyond our narrow-minded, selfish, intellect-created self. We experience that there is only phenonena and the consciousness of phenomena, there is no real observer to mediate that experience, there is no permanent entity that interacts with phenomena and is conscious of it. There is only a constant stream of consciousness about changing phenomena. It is an illusion to identify with some parts of these streams of consciousness as "myself" because there is no permanent distinctive quality in these streams that is stable, that is graspable, that is independent of other causes.
When we finally experience anatta in the phenomena around us, it seems as basic as the air we breathe. I do not think we can remain unchanged once we truly experience this. We become generous, equanimous, larger than we can ever imagined because our former "personal boundaries" are abandoned, boundaries which used to separate "me" from "them", boundaries that used to be the boundaries of our personal protection, boundaries of the limits of our love and concern. All greed dies, all anger evaporates, and we become one with the miracle that is simply being. It is like a BIG BIG sigh of relief, a release of all tension you have felt in living life, guarding your precious little hide. In yoga, we call this. . . well, we call it “yoga” or “union”. It is a union of your small ego self with the larger self called the universe or all there is in existence. We dissolve into the larger self and cannot see ourselves nor our fate as separate from the larger existance any more. We will never feel like we are apart from the world anymore, we no longer feel alone for we are no longer trapped in the confines of our limited self consciousness which defines our separateness.
In a world where we are not the centre, we still exist and we exist fully. There is just no more separation of “me” versus “others”. Then we see how very deluded we were, fighting all the time over “mine” versus “yours”. It is no longer feasible to be angry because there is no other person for you to be angry at. When the mind is lax and starts to follow its habitual self-serving thoughts again, I like to do this exercise to keep me from losing sight of the larger self: When someone does something annoying to my ego-self, I just think, “that’s me over there doing that irritating thing – that’s me here who is still in delusion about who I am”. It is also not possible to be discompassionate nor emotionally callous because “that’s me over there who is suffering – that’s me over here who is still in delusion about who I am”. Try this, find union and wake up to who you really are today.
. . .
A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
-- Albert Enstein
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I have talked about 2 of the 3 universal characteristics of all things: anicca (change or impermanence) and dukkha (unsatisfactoriness). I took a long time with the last of these characteristics because it is hard to explain and harder to accept for me. Usually anatta is translated as “non self” (I can hear the collective “huh?!” from all of you) which does little to clarify anything. I was frustrated with this but then I learned that this goes to show the limits we have so frequently with language. The problem is not the language per se. The limitations of our language is a reflection of how we are so stuck in a certain way of viewing the world. We have not the proper words for reality because we have a habit of forcing reality into categories which do not exist except in our own minds. It is meaningful that it was through poetry where I first had an inkling of anatta, in particular, zen poems which breaks down the ordinary uses of language and words, and so breaks down ordinary thought patterns.
The concept of anatta or non-self is the hardest for me to understand, the most difficult to live with in daily life. We instinctively think, “if there is no me. . . then how?!” We feel we have reached the end of our universe as we know us. . . and beyond the confines of who we normally think we are, we think there is nothing. And boy, do we not want to go there and drop over that abyss! This all goes to show how strongly attached we are to our self-image. It shows how much this self-image tries to protect itself to perpetuate what turns out to be a lie, delusion, mirage.
There is nothing essentially wrong with us. What is wrong is how we perceive the world. What is wrong is the habitual ways with which we view the world - ourselves included. This kind of view is flawed because it creates problems when it clashes head on with reality. We weave a story where we are the hero and everything happens to this hero. If something bad happens to this hero, it’s a tragedy. If something great happens, it’s an epic tale. The slings and arrows of outrages fortune hit us hard and we suffer for it because we think about ourselves in this way – there is someone, a target, to suffer the shots of slings and arrows. We think we are stuck in a fragile “self” that suffers good things and bad. This is an illusion and we suffer greatly for it because we are trying hard all the time to protect this illusion from harm. Yet, this also means: if there is no fragile self to protect and sustain, there can be no suffering.
I went through a dark, dark period trying to figure this out before meeting the right teachers who pointed out to me that there is no figuring out to be done, and asked me to sit in silent meditation. For it is in silence, when habitual methods of thinking ceases that we exist as something that is other than our self-centred self -- and we start to realise that vast spacious joy of existing beyond our narrow-minded, selfish, intellect-created self. We experience that there is only phenonena and the consciousness of phenomena, there is no real observer to mediate that experience, there is no permanent entity that interacts with phenomena and is conscious of it. There is only a constant stream of consciousness about changing phenomena. It is an illusion to identify with some parts of these streams of consciousness as "myself" because there is no permanent distinctive quality in these streams that is stable, that is graspable, that is independent of other causes.
When we finally experience anatta in the phenomena around us, it seems as basic as the air we breathe. I do not think we can remain unchanged once we truly experience this. We become generous, equanimous, larger than we can ever imagined because our former "personal boundaries" are abandoned, boundaries which used to separate "me" from "them", boundaries that used to be the boundaries of our personal protection, boundaries of the limits of our love and concern. All greed dies, all anger evaporates, and we become one with the miracle that is simply being. It is like a BIG BIG sigh of relief, a release of all tension you have felt in living life, guarding your precious little hide. In yoga, we call this. . . well, we call it “yoga” or “union”. It is a union of your small ego self with the larger self called the universe or all there is in existence. We dissolve into the larger self and cannot see ourselves nor our fate as separate from the larger existance any more. We will never feel like we are apart from the world anymore, we no longer feel alone for we are no longer trapped in the confines of our limited self consciousness which defines our separateness.
In a world where we are not the centre, we still exist and we exist fully. There is just no more separation of “me” versus “others”. Then we see how very deluded we were, fighting all the time over “mine” versus “yours”. It is no longer feasible to be angry because there is no other person for you to be angry at. When the mind is lax and starts to follow its habitual self-serving thoughts again, I like to do this exercise to keep me from losing sight of the larger self: When someone does something annoying to my ego-self, I just think, “that’s me over there doing that irritating thing – that’s me here who is still in delusion about who I am”. It is also not possible to be discompassionate nor emotionally callous because “that’s me over there who is suffering – that’s me over here who is still in delusion about who I am”. Try this, find union and wake up to who you really are today.
. . .
A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
-- Albert Enstein