The Nature of Self

[Otis]

Hello Otis,

 

I think first we better be damn certain we are awake. Second we need to understand the true nature of the ego, which is simply to help us interact with the physical world. Anything else is simply conditioning that is optional. Now keep in mind that certain conditions may seem optional, language for instance, when in fact they aren't. The trick is really not worrying about social and cultural influences so much as ensuring the the true nature of the child is intact, that we do not destroy it for the sake of industry or an interpretation of paradise.

 

Aaron

Excellent.

[aridus]

Your self is a virtual collection of things which are in motion.

 

Is your self brain cells? I'm not so sure. Which cells are yourself? What happens when you lose some, or they change, are you a different 'self' then?

 

I look at it kind of like this. Think about a song that is recorded on a compact disc. It is etched so that a laser can read it as it spins, and tell the machine what sounds to make - but without the motion, the spinning and the laser, without the machine, there is no song, its just a plastic disc. It hasn't changed at all, there's just no 'song' on the disc in the first place, it is only instructions for a machine to recreate the song in real time as the disc spins.

[Mandrake]

[Mandrake]

 

What I mean to say is that everything we have ever experienced is housed within the cells of the brain.

 

Personally, I don't believe this; you present an assumption.

 

 

When people undergo brain surgery memories are often triggered when the doctor touches a part of the brain. When this occurs the memory is so vivid, it's as if the person is actually there. This is the problem that arises from this notion that self does not exist, it does exist in very real and physical sense. It exists within the cells of the brain. There is more than enough proof to support this that arguing about it seems fruitless.

 

 

Evidence perhaps, of correlation between conscious experience and coarse consciousness; but anything else past that - like "It exists within the cells of the brain" (if the meaning is 'constricted to') - I don't buy, since these are plain assumptions/axioms.

 

 

Mandrake

[Marblehead]

I think you might be misinterpreting this chapter. It's not advocating any specific definition of self, but rather that one should care as much about others as he does himself. This chapter really doesn't touch on the idea of self or ego, but rather the idea of compassion and stewardship to the world.

 

Aaron

 

Hehehe. Ain't that a wonderful thing about how individuals interpret our perceptions? So much variety! So many different understandings.

 

(But I do agree with your POV as well.)

Edited May 1, 2011 by Marblehead

[Marblehead]

Hehehe. And I thought that I was the hard-core materialist here. The more I read of Aaron's words the more I think that he just might have me bested.

 

But that's okay. I'm not competing.

Edited May 1, 2011 by Marblehead

[adept]

Buddhism and Zen in particular, seem to be founded on this inherent idea that we are somehow wrong and only by deconstructing what we are can we make ourselves right. My question is why? Honestly I have yet to hear a valid reason for why.

 

Hi Aaron.

 

Here's my take on it.

It's not just Buddhism that has this view. The Confucian sage Xunzi based his teaching on the inherent 'badness' in an individual.

I tend to agree. Humans are capable of the most awful things. A seemingly 'good' person can change into a monster. It's the human condition, and it is ultimately flawed. Not that we are born 100% evil, but that there is a good possibility to go that way, if we do not cultivate virtue, practice compassion and develop insight into the way things are.

There is goodness in us, but the shadow will always be there also. It's learning how to live with it that's the hard part.

[manitou]

What an interesting discussion.

 

Aaron - you and I have come from a similar perspective. I kind of disagree with whoever above said that enloightenment is removing our character flaws. I think a lot of it is.

 

Personally, after mentally masturbating all this for about 40 years, I've come to the direct knowledge conclusion that We Are God. The 'I' that dwells inside me, way down deep inside (and which I found as a result of working the 12 steps to the best of my ability for 30 years) is the very same 'I' that dwells within you. It's that warm space somewhere down behind the belly button, which just knows it knows the answers; it's up to us to cultivate our insides and get down to it.

 

If one is chronically angry, mean-spirited, jealous, envious - any of those illusions and mindsets that we may fall into as humans - these are things that do need to be gotten under before we find the genuine. If we have a victim mentality, or chronically attract the wrong people to ourselves - these too are things we must get under to get to the genuine. Our conditioning has made us twisted and warped, unless we were raised extremely wisely. I, for one, was not.

 

I'm thinking that the subconscious 80 or 90% of the brain we don't use is the tool that Spirit uses for manifesting our commonly agreed-upon reality. The 10 or 20% we do use is to propagate the illusion that we are separate, so that we can find out that we are not separate at all, but rather are the manifestation of Spirits eyes, ears, touch, taste, smell. It is experiencing itself, and we are the Experiencer.

 

I think we are all one big electrical/thinking creature with the appearance of being separate.

Edited May 1, 2011 by manitou

[doc benway]

What an interesting discussion.

 

Aaron - you and I have come from a similar perspective. I kind of disagree with whoever above said that enloightenment is removing our character flaws. I think a lot of it is.

 

Personally, after mentally masturbating all this for about 40 years, I've come to the direct knowledge conclusion that We Are God. The 'I' that dwells inside me, way down deep inside (and which I found as a result of working the 12 steps to the best of my ability for 30 years) is the very same 'I' that dwells within you. It's that warm space somewhere down behind the belly button, which just knows it knows the answers; it's up to us to cultivate our insides and get down to it.

 

If one is chronically angry, mean-spirited, jealous, envious - any of those illusions and mindsets that we may fall into as humans - these are things that do need to be gotten under before we find the genuine. If we have a victim mentality, or chronically attract the wrong people to ourselves - these too are things we must get under to get to the genuine. Our conditioning has made us twisted and warped, unless we were raised extremely wisely. I, for one, was not.

 

I'm thinking that the subconscious 80 or 90% of the brain we don't use is the tool that Spirit uses for manifesting our commonly agreed-upon reality. The 10 or 20% we do use is to propagate the illusion that we are separate, so that we can find out that we are not separate at all, but rather are the manifestation of Spirits eyes, ears, touch, taste, smell. It is experiencing itself, and we are the Experiencer.

 

I think we are all one big electrical/thinking creature with the appearance of being separate.

Very beautifully put.

This is when true love and compassion become manifest.

When you feel that truth deep in your bones or in "that warm space somewhere down behind the belly button" as you put it (I love that), that we are all just the eyes and ears of the eternal, apertures through which the universe becomes aware of itself. This is the awareness of immortality.

 

Manitou - did this come to you suddenly or gradually? When it happened to me it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was giddy and giggling like a school girl for days. My family thought I was ill. Eventually the old me crept back in but that place will always be there now and it's very reassuring to be able to access it when life gets difficult.

[manitou]

Manitou - did this come to you suddenly or gradually? When it happened to me it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was giddy and giggling like a school girl for days. My family thought I was ill. Eventually the old me crept back in but that place will always be there now and it's very reassuring to be able to access it when life gets difficult.

 

 

The eyes and ears of the eternal. It just doesn't get any better than that, Steve.

No, my awareness was gradual and experiential, as a result of alcoholism recovery. I've come to 'wear' the awareness much of the day now. It's always with me, it seems. Love is the consequence and the treasure.

[Otis]

Evidence perhaps, of correlation between conscious experience and coarse consciousness; but anything else past that - like "It exists within the cells of the brain" (if the meaning is 'constricted to') - I don't buy, since these are plain assumptions/axioms.

 

 

Mandrake

Just speaking from my own background as a psych major, and from my conversations with my dad, who is a professor of the neuroanatomy of consciousness: there is now a huge amount of evidence which ties function to structure in the brain.

 

Of course, that evidence cannot say: that is all we are.

 

But I do think it's worthwhile questioning what the evidence is, which suggests otherwise. Isn't it possible that that's the real fallacy here, that our need to be special makes us want to be more than flesh?

[Otis]

Is your self brain cells? I'm not so sure. Which cells are yourself? What happens when you lose some, or they change, are you a different 'self' then?

Yes! That does seem to be the case. Stroke victims do sometimes report that their personalities change dramatically, after the stroke.

 

But, yes, I agree with you, there are no specific neurons that we can point at and say: this is me. Rather, we have a beautifully functioning brain, and from that arises (among other things) the sense of "me". It is from the mass of activity of all the different brain parts that consciousness arises. (Not mechanical at all like your CD analogy, because it will never play back the same way twice; even the activity of remembering changes the memory).

 

What I think is intriguing is not just "what parts are me", but rather why is it that I pretend that some parts (usually the parts I don't like, like dark emotions and stray thoughts) are not me. And why do I have a hierarchy of mental functions (the ones I trust vs. the ones I'm afraid of), as if some were more "me" than others?

 

That's the illusion, as I see it: thinking that this "sense of me" actually describes who I am, when "the sense of me" is only a small part of what makes up my brain (and body) functioning.

[Jetsun]

The perspective I am working with with regards to the self is that we each develop a persona or false personality while we grow up which is a very complex structure which includes hundreds of parts such as the critic, the controller, the joker, the victim, the warrior etc. This whole ego structure was developed to protect the vulnerable open original part of you which is called in various traditions as your essence, or essential self.

 

The development of your persona is absolutely necessary for survival but at some point your persona starts to develop at the expense of your essence, so a crucial step in spiritual progress is to find a way to live more through your essence and to make it more active and your persona more passive, as the persona lives through trying to manipulate reality and lying while your essence perceives reality clearly. This is a step missing in many eastern traditions which try to work directly with merging the self with the non-dual, which may be an appropriate approach with more grounded agrarian people who already live largely through their essence, but things are far more complicated now with far more pressures and complications for most modern people.

[Mandrake]

Just speaking from my own background as a psych major, and from my conversations with my dad, who is a professor of the neuroanatomy of consciousness: there is now a huge amount of evidence which ties function to structure in the brain.

 

Of course, that evidence cannot say: that is all we are.

 

But I do think it's worthwhile questioning what the evidence is, which suggests otherwise. Isn't it possible that that's the real fallacy here, that our need to be special makes us want to be more than flesh?

 

Of course, this I know clearly; my initial comment and reservation still holds. When I'm speaking about consciousness, I'm not speaking about functions.

 

 

But I do think it's worthwhile questioning what the evidence is, which suggests otherwise. Isn't it possible that that's the real fallacy here, that our need to be special makes us want to be more than flesh?

 

Perhaps the real fallacy are the underlying assumptions that we filter our studies and interpretations through?

I think there is more and more evidence, but our standard modes of inquiry may be severly limited, and may have to be revised in order to fully comprehend this field.

 

 

Mandrake

[Otis]

Of course, this I know clearly; my initial comment and reservation still holds. When I'm speaking about consciousness, I'm not speaking about functions.

Function (as I mean it here) is just part of consciousness, like a steering wheel is to a car, or like paint is to a painting. Consciousness is just the name we have for what arises from the various functions / structures of the brain.

 

Your post that I was responding to said that it was an "assumption" that consciousness arises from the brain. But all the evidence I know of (and there's lots of it), is in favor of that "assumption". I think the real assumption, is that consciousness is something other than the function of our brain. That's the claim that seems much more open to doubt, since there's no empirical evidence (that I know of) to support it.

Edited May 1, 2011 by Otis

[manitou]

What is the first part of the fetus to develop? Everything would spring from that. Is it the brain? (I really don't know, just thought I'd throw it out there).

 

Somehow, between the lines of what you guys are talking about, is the fact that at the very beginning of our embryonic development, all cells are identical. The only thing that individuates a liver from a spleen, or a bone from an eyeball, is how the cells ALIGN; they have been given a direction to align in a certain way for a certain function. This actually blows me away. This shows that it is nothing more than Intent that is the moving force. Intent of structure for purpose. Wow.

 

It seems that the one thing that all mankind has in common, whether here in the U.S., or in Libya, or in Bali, or in Antarctica - is the need to ask Why? We seem to be the only species that contemplates this question. The snake is in a totally zenlike state; as is the spider. But us? Wow. Our brains (and particularly the TTB brains) are somehow being pushed to understand more, to reach a little further and further; and the outcome? The final outcome of all this? Maybe it's just for It to recognize or recreate Itself. And the funny thing is....we reach outward and outward, when in fact we should be reaching inward and inward.

[Aaron]

What an interesting discussion.

 

Aaron - you and I have come from a similar perspective. I kind of disagree with whoever above said that enloightenment is removing our character flaws. I think a lot of it is.

 

Personally, after mentally masturbating all this for about 40 years, I've come to the direct knowledge conclusion that We Are God. The 'I' that dwells inside me, way down deep inside (and which I found as a result of working the 12 steps to the best of my ability for 30 years) is the very same 'I' that dwells within you. It's that warm space somewhere down behind the belly button, which just knows it knows the answers; it's up to us to cultivate our insides and get down to it.

 

If one is chronically angry, mean-spirited, jealous, envious - any of those illusions and mindsets that we may fall into as humans - these are things that do need to be gotten under before we find the genuine. If we have a victim mentality, or chronically attract the wrong people to ourselves - these too are things we must get under to get to the genuine. Our conditioning has made us twisted and warped, unless we were raised extremely wisely. I, for one, was not.

 

I'm thinking that the subconscious 80 or 90% of the brain we don't use is the tool that Spirit uses for manifesting our commonly agreed-upon reality. The 10 or 20% we do use is to propagate the illusion that we are separate, so that we can find out that we are not separate at all, but rather are the manifestation of Spirits eyes, ears, touch, taste, smell. It is experiencing itself, and we are the Experiencer.

 

I think we are all one big electrical/thinking creature with the appearance of being separate.

 

Hello Manitou,

 

I wanted to respond to your comments. First I hate the term mental masturbation, because it puts a negative connotation on introspection and contemplation, as if thinking somehow is wrong. There is, in my opinion, nothing wrong with contemplation and essentially it is necessary part of reaching enlightenment. It is only by contemplating that one can reach a state where contemplation is no longer necessary.

 

Second, I think the part of the self that you are talking about is the spirit. You might not have read my original post, but I do go into some detail about this concept, that aside from the physical-self and mind-self there is the spirit-self, that part of us that connects us all together. That is what I think you refer to when you talk about the god consciousness. It is the part that is me and you, not a separate part, but instead resides within everything that appears separate.

 

I think from the spirit comes the highest form of virtue and it is by awakening the spirit, becoming aware of it within us, that we can practice high virtue, which is virtue, not for the sake of morality or ideology, but rather because it is meant to be.

 

Anyways, thanks for your input. I enjoyed your take on all this quite a bit.

 

Aaron

 

edit- I posted just after your posted your second response, so I wanted to touch on the idea of, "why?" As I stated in my original post, the question of why, in my opinion is the spirit prodding us. We know the spirit is there on some level, but can't understand it. The spirit is very much the original nature of us all. It is the only part of us that exists before we are born and after we die. I say we, because when we die the spirit goes on, but those parts of us that make us individual ego entities doesn't. Anyways thanks again.

Edited May 1, 2011 by Twinner

[Aaron]

Hi Aaron.

 

Here's my take on it.

It's not just Buddhism that has this view. The Confucian sage Xunzi based his teaching on the inherent 'badness' in an individual.

I tend to agree. Humans are capable of the most awful things. A seemingly 'good' person can change into a monster. It's the human condition, and it is ultimately flawed. Not that we are born 100% evil, but that there is a good possibility to go that way, if we do not cultivate virtue, practice compassion and develop insight into the way things are.

There is goodness in us, but the shadow will always be there also. It's learning how to live with it that's the hard part.

 

 

Hello Adept,

 

My opinion is that anything that you might consider the shadow is caused by social indoctrination. It is caused by disturbing the natural course of the mind's evolution in lieu of social constructs. Joseph Campbell goes into this in quite some detail, in particular how our ego develops over time. I also talked about this a bit in the thread on The Nature of Consciousness.

 

Anyways, thanks for your input.

 

Aaron

[Aaron]

Of course, this I know clearly; my initial comment and reservation still holds. When I'm speaking about consciousness, I'm not speaking about functions.

 

 

 

 

Perhaps the real fallacy are the underlying assumptions that we filter our studies and interpretations through?

I think there is more and more evidence, but our standard modes of inquiry may be severly limited, and may have to be revised in order to fully comprehend this field.

 

 

Mandrake

 

 

Hello Mandrake,

 

I think of consciousness, as you describe it, as the spirit. I think the term consciousness gives us a misunderstanding of it's actual nature, since it does not think or contemplate, rather it is the impulse that drives all things to be. When I talk about the mind-self and the physical-self, I talk about those parts that definitely reside within us. The consciousness that exists within all things, the god spark, or Tao, or whatever else you want to call it, is something entirely different, something that can't be quantified by science, so you have your right to have doubts. With that said I think we all feel this consciousness on some level, and as I pointed out to Manitou, it's the reason why we ask the question, "why?"

 

I hope that clears things up.

 

Aaron

Edited May 1, 2011 by Twinner

[Lucky7Strikes]

Much rationality is based on very many false assumptions, like a drawing you draw from arbitrary pictures you draw from terms like "self," "body," "soul," "ego." Find these things in your experience first to see whether they are tangible ideas one can draw ideas from. Because they are mere abstractions of the mind when one investigates them. I don't think you understand why I advocate direct experience. Contemplation is not direct experience, see how you are aware right at this moment without any efforts to analyze, conclude, or make a logical sense of it, and reality can reveal itself to you. You don't figure out reality, it is just revealed to you in all its mystery and uncertainty.

Edited May 1, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[Aaron]

Much rationality is based on very many false assumptions, like a drawing you draw from arbitrary pictures you draw from terms like "self," "body," "soul," "ego." Find these things in your experience first to see whether they are tangible ideas one can draw ideas from. Because they are mere abstractions of the mind when one investigates them. I don't think you understand why I advocate direct experience. Contemplation is not direct experience, see how you are aware right at this moment without any efforts to analyze, conclude, or make a logical sense of it, and reality can reveal itself to you. You don't figure out reality, it is just revealed to you in all its mystery and uncertainty.

 

Hello Lucky,

 

I can't speak for everyone else, but I have directly experienced these things. I have experienced and understood the nature of the mind and body and how they are connected. I have experienced the nature of the body and universe and how it is connected. I have also experienced the nature of the spirit and how it connects me to all things. This is not simply contemplation, but a deep experiential awareness of these things. I think the problem that you are having is that my experience with reality and the nature of reality, differs from what you've been told to expect. Peace be with you.

 

Aaron

Edited May 2, 2011 by Twinner

[Lucky7Strikes]

Hello Lucky,

 

I can't speak for everyone else, but I have directly experienced these things. I have experienced and understood the nature of the mind and body and how they are connected. I have experienced the nature of the body and universe and how it is connected. I have also experienced the nature of the spirit and how it connects me to all things. This is not simply contemplation, but a deep experiential awareness of these things. I think the problem that you are having is that my experience with reality and the nature of reality, differs from what you've been told to expect. Peace be with you.

 

Aaron

Keep meditating and erase more and more of the certainty you have behind these concepts of body, mind, spirit. Your original post shows a lot of mental games. I know that it is discouraging someone telling you that what you have figured out through much contemplation is just not "right" or not "directly experienced," but in my experience the experience of awakening consciousness and the heart has/had nothing to do with the contemplative route you have highlighted. Contemplate so that there would no longer be contemplation. .

Edited May 2, 2011 by Lucky7Strikes

[Aaron]

Keep meditating and erase more and more of the certainty you have behind these concepts of body, mind, spirit. Your original post shows a lot of mental games. I know that it is discouraging someone telling you that what you have figured out through much contemplation is just not "right" or not "directly experienced," but in my experience the experience of awakening consciousness and the heart has/had nothing to do with the contemplative route you have highlighted. Contemplate so that there would no longer be contemplation. .

 

Hello Lucky,

 

Thank you for your advice. I'm sure that what you believe to be enlightenment differs from what I believe it to be. If you need to be right, then you're right. There is no right or wrong though, only what is. I am sure you've already been told what that is, so you know what to expect. I was not so easily convinced and had to look for the answers. Good luck on your travels, but I've been down the path you're talking about and found it to be less than satisfactory. You will find that suffering does not pass, the body does not pass, that the shedding away of reality only takes place within your consciousness. When you think you know what reality is, we will still be right here. Peace be with you.

 

I would also recommend that you not blindly hold onto what others have told you. Religions tend to lay out the "truth" and discourage you from believing that anything is different from the truth. I'll give you another little tidbit of insight, there is no right or wrong, so all the right speech (which you need to work on, i.e. sarcasm) and right action that you're doing will amount to very little in the end. At least from my own experience. Accept what you are and then you can begin to learn the nature of reality as it is, not as it is defined and taught to be.

 

Aaron

 

edit- Also, if you believe that you will achieve enlightenment without contemplation and introspection, I'm afraid you're in for a rude awakening.

Edited May 2, 2011 by Twinner

[aridus]

Yes! That does seem to be the case. Stroke victims do sometimes report that their personalities change dramatically, after the stroke.

 

But, yes, I agree with you, there are no specific neurons that we can point at and say: this is me. Rather, we have a beautifully functioning brain, and from that arises (among other things) the sense of "me". It is from the mass of activity of all the different brain parts that consciousness arises. (Not mechanical at all like your CD analogy, because it will never play back the same way twice; even the activity of remembering changes the memory).

 

What I think is intriguing is not just "what parts are me", but rather why is it that I pretend that some parts (usually the parts I don't like, like dark emotions and stray thoughts) are not me. And why do I have a hierarchy of mental functions (the ones I trust vs. the ones I'm afraid of), as if some were more "me" than others?

 

That's the illusion, as I see it: thinking that this "sense of me" actually describes who I am, when "the sense of me" is only a small part of what makes up my brain (and body) functioning.

Yeah totally. I just avoided the self referential nature for simplicity.

 

I used to ask people this: "Can you use a broken tool to repair itself?" and they go "whut?" so I kind of gave up on the self referential bit.

[Mandrake]

Function (as I mean it here) is just part of consciousness, like a steering wheel is to a car, or like paint is to a painting. Consciousness is just the name we have for what arises from the various functions / structures of the brain.

 

Your post that I was responding to said that it was an "assumption" that consciousness arises from the brain. But all the evidence I know of (and there's lots of it), is in favor of that "assumption". I think the real assumption, is that consciousness is something other than the function of our brain. That's the claim that seems much more open to doubt, since there's no empirical evidence (that I know of) to support it.

 

With consciousness I mean the luminous quality that builds up subjective experience, that has direct cognition, and can't be transferred or communicated completely to others; it can't be shown that others than I have it. I can envision a universe without it, yet we/I have it.

 

It is still an "assumption" that consciousness arises from the brain. There's some repetetive evidence I know of , in favor of that "assumption". However, there are some grave problems with this proposition, not the least, showing that a non-physical property can emerge from matter which is a task for physics, not neurology.

I think the real assumption, is that consciousness is only the function of our brain. That's the claim that seems much more open to doubt, since there's so much empirical evidence in support of the contrary.

 

 

Mandrake