The Self, Does it Exist?

[Jeff]

3 hours ago, Fa Xin said:

You can’t hold a whirlpool, it has no substantial self existence. It is just a manifestation of water. 

 

Talking about a whirlpool does not mean it inherently exists, just the concept that we communicate. 

 

It appears to exist, but it is only water. 

 

Very well said.  

[ilumairen]

Although a whirlpool appears it is empty, although it is empty it appears. 

 

A manifestation of perceived qualities dependent upon a plethora of circumstance.

 

Which earned me "a big no shit" when I shared what I was giggling about before posting it. 

[silent thunder]

patterns recognized in local awareness... my storyteller always has a story ready it seems.

 

thinking in english...  tends to require mind to associate an assumption with reality...

 

that verbs arise from nouns that create them. 

 

the whirlpool swirls.  the girl plays.  a man sings... 

 

which for me, seems like a list of all verbs...

 

verbs verbing verbs

are there any nouns?

nouns are verbs are they not?

 

patterns comprised of patterns within patterns

 

ever shifting, changing, adapting among co-arising conditions

 

is Self shifting? 

 

what abides that never changes?

Edited June 16, 2019 by silent thunder
added patterns bit

[Eduardo]

For some Tibetan Buddhists, what reincarnates is the "flow of consciousness" or Vijñāna along with the aggregates that persist as samskaras, for the same reason there is no permanent self rather it is similar to a conglomerate or flow of consciousness.

[thelerner]

PM warning-

ऋषि Some of your comments to Eduardo can be seen as insults and trolling.  "Go back to school kid" comment in 'The Self' thread and the "..Rusty blade just for Eduardo" In the Haiku chain are problematic.  If they continue you'll face discipline.  Please keep it polite or ignore him.

The Mods.

[old3bob]

wasn't this string originally in the Buddhist forum?  oops never mind

Edited September 8, 2020 by old3bob

[rocala]

5 hours ago, old3bob said:

wasn't this string originally in the Buddhist forum?  oops never mind

That is where I put it.

[Tommy]

So back to the question. The self, Does it exist?

 

I have read the answers and it has brought more questions. As I get older and another day closer to death, it makes me wonder what is the truth. What, if anything goes from one life to the next? I have heard the idealized and romantic stories of what awaits us after life. What is the truth?

[doc benway]

1 hour ago, Tommy said:

So back to the question. The self, Does it exist?

You need to define it first, then we can investigate its existence.

 

1 hour ago, Tommy said:

 

I have read the answers and it has brought more questions. As I get older and another day closer to death, it makes me wonder what is the truth. What, if anything goes from one life to the next? I have heard the idealized and romantic stories of what awaits us after life. What is the truth?

Indeed

[Lairg]

The morning after my mother died in another country, my father rang to tell me.  Immediately my mother was in the room too.  The first thing she said was:  It is just as you said - all about energy.

 

It seems that she was in a group (mainly female) learning to manage the planetary meridians

 

 

[Mark Foote]

1 hour ago, Tommy said:

So back to the question. The self, Does it exist?

 

I have read the answers and it has brought more questions. As I get older and another day closer to death, it makes me wonder what is the truth. What, if anything goes from one life to the next? I have heard the idealized and romantic stories of what awaits us after life. What is the truth?
 

 

 

I can't say, about what happens after death, if anything.

Lately I've been fascinated to discover, that Gautama taught concentrations including one that he claimed was the attainment that set him apart from his teachers, but declared enlightenment to be something apart from any attainment in concentration. A "perfect wisdom", a "profound knowledge"--he first associated these with the fourth initial concentration, then with the final signless concentration, then averred that such "wisdom" or "knowledge" was not automatic even with the final attainment in concentration.

 

But to return to the question of the self.  Right now, I am writing about something from the field of neurobiology:
 

A key aspect of the bodily self is self-location, the experience that the self is localized at a specific position in space within one's bodily borders (embodied self-location). 

(Journal of Neuroscience 26 May 2010, 30 (21) 7202-7214; https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.3403-09.2010)

 

I write about it in this context:

 

A surrender of the exercise of will, of intention and deliberation, is necessary to allow the “base of consciousness” to move away from the head, to allow an experience of “embodied self-location” wherever consciousness takes place.

 

What I'm realizing is that some people are very good at allowing an experience of "embodied self-location" wherever consciousness takes place.  Especially a handy talent to have for an athlete, as the automatic response of the body follows from embodied self-location.
 

I believe that there are enumerable people for whom the sense of self is a strength, because they associate it with "embodied self-location". They have a freedom of consciousness, consciousness can take place anywhere in the body and produce activity in the body and mind in a way that's natural and healthy.

It's only the folks who get lost in their heads and can't "leap out of the diamond cage", as Yuanwu put it, who need to learn to be truly selfless. And for them, all the books are a thicket of thorns that must, as Yuanwu also said, be swallowed with care.

 

 

[forestofclarity]

3 hours ago, Tommy said:

As I get older and another day closer to death, it makes me wonder what is the truth. What, if anything goes from one life to the next? I have heard the idealized and romantic stories of what awaits us after life. What is the truth?

 

Time is short, better find out! 

[Keith108]

3 hours ago, Tommy said:

So back to the question. The self, Does it exist?

 

I have read the answers and it has brought more questions. As I get older and another day closer to death, it makes me wonder what is the truth. What, if anything goes from one life to the next? I have heard the idealized and romantic stories of what awaits us after life. What is the truth?

Practice and find out!

 

[ChiDragon]

On 7/22/2018 at 10:34 AM, rocala said:

Well, is there a self, what is it?

 

The self is known to be one's existence.
 

On 7/22/2018 at 11:58 AM, rocala said:

I would like to add another question to this. Are no-self and non-self the same thing?

The "self" has to be existed, in order, for one considered to be no-self. "No-self" does not mean that one doesn't exist. "Self" is physical and "no-self" is spiritual.

 

Yes, I would say that no-self and non-self are the same thing.

Edited Tuesday at 01:32 AM by ChiDragon

[Lairg]

It rather depends on what "self" is intended to mean.

 

For example there is a coordinating intelligence for every body of the human: physical, emotional, mental, heart/buddhic, atmic ....

 

As the human learns to control any particular body,  most of the operation of that body becomes subconscious e.g. balance while riding a bicycle, or a mother consoling a child while speaking to the father

 

There then are intelligences that coordinate clusters of such plane bodies - e.g. what Christians call the soul, also known as HGA, Guardian Angel, and Neshamah

 

They operate as subsidiary to the human spirit - called in some traditions: the Monad

 

After third stage enlightenment the initiate begins to progress beyond humanness where there are yet more coordinating intelligences.

 

Any of the above intelligences may appear as the Self at a particular stage.

 

Who can test that proposition?

 

http://jewishpath.org/wordpress/soul/5-levels-of-the-soul

[old3bob]

 

the Self sees death die, it is not caught up in the mountains of doubts, speculations or profound sounding mental gymnastics. 

[ChiDragon]

22 hours ago, Lairg said:

1It rather depends on what "self" is intended to mean.

If we follow the principle in Chapter 36 of the TTC,  then we may come to a conclusion that:
To be the spiritual no-self,
There must be a physical humble self.  

Chapter 7
The humble self lives for others instead of one-self.
 

Chapter 36
1.将欲翕之（将要合起），
2.必固张之（必先张開）；
3.将欲弱之（将要削弱），
4.必固强之（必雖强盛）；
5.将欲废之（将要废除），
6.必固兴之（必雖兴盛）；
7.将欲夺之（将要夺取），
8.必固与之（必雖给與）。
9.是谓微明（这是機先的徵兆），
10.柔弱胜刚强（柔弱克服刚强）。
11.鱼不可脱于渊（鱼儿离不开水），
12.国之利器不可以示人（国家的武器不要隨便耀示於人）

Translation in terse English
1. Want to close it
2. It must be opened
3. Want to be weakened it
4. It must be strengthened
5. Want to abolish it
6. It must be prosperous
7. Want to retrieve it
8. It must be given
9. This is experiencing a premonition
10. Softness subdues the hardness
11. Fish cannot apart from the river
12. National armament shall not be displayed at random

 

Chapter 7 - The Unselfishness (Selflessness) 
1. 天長地久。
2. 天地所以能長且久者，
3. 以其不自生，
4. 故能長生。
5. 是以聖人後其身而身先，
6. 外其身而身存。
7. 非以其無私邪?
8. 故能成其私。

Translation in terse English...
1. Heaven and Earth are eternal.
2. The reason they are eternal,
3. Because they do not strive for themselves.
4. Therefore, they are eternal.
5. A gentleman always place himself behind but ended up in front.
6. One keeping oneself in a neutral position will survive.
7. Is it not because of his unselfishness?
8. Thus gained his personal accomplishment. 

 

[Bindi]

16 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

the Self sees death die, it is not caught up in the mountains of doubts, speculations or profound sounding mental gymnastics. 

Perhaps the truest definition might be the Self is what is left when we die? It is very hidden here on earth. Perhaps here we are the Self plus our dual nature. Even if we can establish a higher consciousness (Shiva and Shakti) beyond karma, higher consciousness still remains the cloak that the Self wears and acts through. 
 

Edited yesterday at 02:47 AM by Bindi

[Lairg]

1 hour ago, Bindi said:

Perhaps the truest definition might be the Self is what is left when we die?

 

Just  as the human personality has layers (physical. emotional, mental) the spiritual self also has layers -  to be developed, matured and transcended

 

 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 04:36 AM by Lairg

[Bindi]

9 minutes ago, Lairg said:

 

Just  as the human personality has layers (physical. emotional, mental) the spiritual self also has layers -  to be developed, matured and transcended

 

It depends on your definition of the spiritual self vs my definition of the spiritual self. To me the spiritual self is a spirit body imbued with its own higher consciousness (which I term shiva and Shakti, established respectively in the head and the heart), which can exist and move independently of the material form. Once this spiritual self has been developed there is no transcending it, it is the culmination of the path within the material world. It acts in alignment with ‘the Dao’ but that’s the end point. The Self, as it operates here, is at best clothed in higher consciousness. 

 

 

 

[old3bob]

 

I'd put it like this, "The Self is formless", soul body is body of light/Prana that returns to an ocean of light at some point.... which arises from the formless.

 

"Prana springs from the Self",  as found in the Upanishads (see Chandogya)

[Lairg]

1 hour ago, Bindi said:

I term shiva and Shakti, established respectively in the head and the heart

 

I suspect that in later stages the Shakti anchor moves from the heart to the base of the spine

 

Thus there remains the question of whether the full range of Shakti can be anchored in the human heart.  Perhaps the human spirit has more options/facets than are currently conceived 

 

As a side comment: many humans have conditions of the head or heart that make it difficult for the entry of profound energies.  Consider the rapid increase of autism - up to 13% in some places.  When I was young I never saw a child with any such symptoms

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 06:27 AM by Lairg