"We can only be disappointed if we set ourselves apart from what is happening by wanting it to be other than it is."
Untangling self
"Consciousness emerges as a phenomenon - an arising and passing episode of awareness - when a sense organ and a sense object make contact. This moment of contact consists of the cognizing of a sensory object (forms, sounds, smells, tastes or touches) or a mental object (thoughts, memories, plans, etc.) by means of a sensory organ (the eye, ear, nose, tongue or body) or by means of the mental organ (mind). Also coarising with this cognition is a momentary perception that identifies the object in light of past experience and stored recognition patterns, along with a momentary feeling tone that knows the object as pleasant, unpleasant or as carrying a feeling tone that is more neutral. When underlying tendencies of attachment, aversion or confusion are enacted, craving toward (or away from) the object also arises. Craving manifests either as wanting plesant feeling tones to persist (even as they inevitably pass away) or as wanting unpleasant sensations to go away (even as they continue to present as the sense door).
Grasping is an intentional stance taken by the active response mechanisms of the psychophysical organism. It takes the form of either 'attaching to' the object of the moment's experience or of 'resisting' the object of experience. Whether it manifests as holding on or pushing away, the attitude of grasping creates an artificial distancing of 'one's self' from what is happeing in the moment. It is this grasping response that causes the becoming of self, the momentary birth and death of self-identity that inevitably involves suffering.
[...] the liking or not liking of something is itself what creates the self, the person who likes or does not like what is happening this moment.
[...] grasping is not something done by the self; rather, self is something done by grasping.
[...] The self can only exist as a fleeting attitude toward experience, one in which 'the person who likes or does not like what is happening' is invented and defined.
[...] self as an event, self as a response - arises and passes away as relentlessly as everything else. A virtual self is born and dies as fast as our senses are capable of constructing and relinquishing experience. When this happens repetedly, the natural abilities of the mind to synthesize unity out of diversity and continuity out of discrete episodes of cognition conspire to create the ilusion of a stable entity. Just as a series of still photos presented at high speed will be resolved by the mind into a continuous visual narrative, so also a succession of discrete 'selves' will be identified in natural experience as the continuity of a single cohesive self. While each 'moment of selfing' is actually grounded in a unique combination of coarising sense organ, sense object, consciousness, perception, and feeling, and is constructed by a unique intentional response to each moment, the patterns of such response demonstrated by any individual are both regular and idiosyncratic enough to yield the experience of a unique self.
[...] the construction of personality - the fashioning of a self - only occurs when an attitude of possession or appropriation takes place. [...] When its moment passes away it is discarded, and another self is constructed to take temporary ownership of the next thing.
One has only to replace the grasping response, the reflex of holding on or pushing away, with an attitude of 'This is not mine, this is not me; this is not my self'.
[...] overcoming the propensity to create a self who suffers each moment calls for replacing the habitual response of grasping with equanimity."
Grasping is an intentional stance taken by the active response mechanisms of the psychophysical organism. It takes the form of either 'attaching to' the object of the moment's experience or of 'resisting' the object of experience. Whether it manifests as holding on or pushing away, the attitude of grasping creates an artificial distancing of 'one's self' from what is happeing in the moment. It is this grasping response that causes the becoming of self, the momentary birth and death of self-identity that inevitably involves suffering.
[...] the liking or not liking of something is itself what creates the self, the person who likes or does not like what is happening this moment.
[...] grasping is not something done by the self; rather, self is something done by grasping.
[...] The self can only exist as a fleeting attitude toward experience, one in which 'the person who likes or does not like what is happening' is invented and defined.
[...] self as an event, self as a response - arises and passes away as relentlessly as everything else. A virtual self is born and dies as fast as our senses are capable of constructing and relinquishing experience. When this happens repetedly, the natural abilities of the mind to synthesize unity out of diversity and continuity out of discrete episodes of cognition conspire to create the ilusion of a stable entity. Just as a series of still photos presented at high speed will be resolved by the mind into a continuous visual narrative, so also a succession of discrete 'selves' will be identified in natural experience as the continuity of a single cohesive self. While each 'moment of selfing' is actually grounded in a unique combination of coarising sense organ, sense object, consciousness, perception, and feeling, and is constructed by a unique intentional response to each moment, the patterns of such response demonstrated by any individual are both regular and idiosyncratic enough to yield the experience of a unique self.
[...] the construction of personality - the fashioning of a self - only occurs when an attitude of possession or appropriation takes place. [...] When its moment passes away it is discarded, and another self is constructed to take temporary ownership of the next thing.
One has only to replace the grasping response, the reflex of holding on or pushing away, with an attitude of 'This is not mine, this is not me; this is not my self'.
[...] overcoming the propensity to create a self who suffers each moment calls for replacing the habitual response of grasping with equanimity."
Untangling self
"Perception involves a sort of interpretative representation or view, while consciousness is direct knowing or immediate awareness of an object.
Conceptualization offers access to a wider world beyond immediate experience, but in its pursuit of commonalities it must abandon the compelling uniqueness of the moment. "
Conceptualization offers access to a wider world beyond immediate experience, but in its pursuit of commonalities it must abandon the compelling uniqueness of the moment. "
Untangling self
"Meditation moves us in the other direction. It is an attempt to remove, piece by piece, layer by layer, all the baroque ornamentation with which we embellish our world of constructed experience. Underneath all the drama, the restlessness, the hopes and fears, behind the narratives we weave about ourselves, and even before we've thought of ourselves as ourselves, lies a simple, unadorned awareness. It's not even a thing - just an event that happens, a little burst of knowing, deep in the center of it all.
Experiencing this awareness has more to do with subtraction than with addition or multiplication. [...] The Buddha got two steps further than Descartes, beyond the 'me' and beyond the thinker: instead of 'I think therefore I am' we need only say 'thinking occurs', or even more simply, 'awareness occurs'. "
Experiencing this awareness has more to do with subtraction than with addition or multiplication. [...] The Buddha got two steps further than Descartes, beyond the 'me' and beyond the thinker: instead of 'I think therefore I am' we need only say 'thinking occurs', or even more simply, 'awareness occurs'. "
Untangling self
"Self, in other words, is a projection of ownership onto all experience (this is my body, these are my feelings, perceptions, formations, and this is my consciousness). The five aggregates really do occur - that is not in question. They just don't belong to anybody. Experience occurs, but the person who owns it is an additional construction.
If the self is so simply created, it is just as simply abandoned. [...] Buddha says that there is a practical way leading to the cessation of the view of self as a really existing entity: regard the aggregates as 'this is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self'. "
If the self is so simply created, it is just as simply abandoned. [...] Buddha says that there is a practical way leading to the cessation of the view of self as a really existing entity: regard the aggregates as 'this is not mine, I am not this, this is not my self'. "
Untangling self
"The midpoint between sense desire and aversion is equanimity, a state of mind that is evenly balanced. It's fully engaged with experience, but it neither favors nor opposes what is happening. We are aware of what is arising and passing away without any inclination to change it into something else. When this equanimity is coupled with a mind that is both tranquil and alert, we have found the still center of the mind. "
Untangling self
"The Buddhist view is a non-view, but not a non-view that is the opposite of a view, a wishy-washy noncommittalism.
Non-view is an attitude, a spirit of openness, kindness, and flexibility with regard to language. Non-view is a way to stand within language, to make use of language, to connect without being caught by— and separated from the world by — language.
What makes us miserable, what causes us to be in conflict with one another, is our insistence on our particular view of things: our view of what we deserve or want, our view of right and wrong, our view of self, our view of other, our view of life, our view of death. But views are just views. They are not ultimate truth."
Beyond language - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review - Summer 2011
"Craving 'to become' is an impulse that makes us lean forward, away from here, into a better moment, a better self. When we do so, we separate that idealized moment from the actuality of what is just here. It’s only when we learn to end the separation of the possible and the actual that we also learn to end this dichotomy between doing and being. Calm abiding is a present-tense phrase, a way of being in the midst of our lives. We learn to calmly abide in the body, in the mind, in the midst of reactivity. Nothing has to go away. It’s the shift from the object orientation to the seeing orientation. All of our likes and all of our dislikes, our wanting and not wanting, are born of object orientation. This object orientation—defining identity by objects (including the contents of our consciousness)—limits us. We’ll always have a sense of unease within it.
Calm abiding is something different. It’s a deep knowing of the ways in which events come and go, both unlovely and lovely. It’s knowing that we can’t control or define ourselves by those events. It’s learning to rest in a non-preferential, non-reactive relationship that is sensitive, receptive, and free from the demand that things go one way or another.
Meaningfulness is found not only in the dramatic and the intense but also in the small moments, illuminated by a curious awareness. We discover that meaningfulness is in our being present. We don’t need to seek meaning, but to understand our capacity to be present in this responsive, still way."
Doing, Being, and the Great In-Between - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review - Fall 2016
Calm abiding is something different. It’s a deep knowing of the ways in which events come and go, both unlovely and lovely. It’s knowing that we can’t control or define ourselves by those events. It’s learning to rest in a non-preferential, non-reactive relationship that is sensitive, receptive, and free from the demand that things go one way or another.
Meaningfulness is found not only in the dramatic and the intense but also in the small moments, illuminated by a curious awareness. We discover that meaningfulness is in our being present. We don’t need to seek meaning, but to understand our capacity to be present in this responsive, still way."
Doing, Being, and the Great In-Between - Tricycle: The Buddhist Review - Fall 2016
"Gotama has not eliminated the forces of Mara but became immune to them.
When regarded with mindful awareness, greed and hatred are seen for what they are: impermanent emotions that, when left to their own devices, will fizzle out. Realizing that they are conditioned processes and not essentially 'me' or 'mine' takes away their power.
Nirvanic freedom is the result of understanding how reactivity works.
Mara is whatever imposes constraints and limits upon us."
When regarded with mindful awareness, greed and hatred are seen for what they are: impermanent emotions that, when left to their own devices, will fizzle out. Realizing that they are conditioned processes and not essentially 'me' or 'mine' takes away their power.
Nirvanic freedom is the result of understanding how reactivity works.
Mara is whatever imposes constraints and limits upon us."
After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a secular age
"From the orthodox perspective, the goal of our practice is the attainment of a final, transcendent nirvana. A secular reading, however, treats rebirth as a metaphor for a repetitive existence in which we remain locked into cycles of reactive behavior. In this case, the goal of the practice is to stop thinking, speaking and acting reactively, thereby liberating ourselves to respond to life unconditioned by such impulses. Instead of lying beyond the transient, suffering world, nirvana is revealed to lie in the very heart of our own sentient experience here and now.
Transcendentalists regard the cultivation of the path as a precondition for the attainment of nirvana; secularists regard the experience of nirvana as a precondition for cultivating the path."
Transcendentalists regard the cultivation of the path as a precondition for the attainment of nirvana; secularists regard the experience of nirvana as a precondition for cultivating the path."
After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a secular age
"The body is not self. If it were, it would not get sick. You could tell your body: be like this or don't be like that. But because the body is not self, it does get sick. You can't tell it: be like this or don't be like that. He points out that the same is true for feelings, perceptions, inclinations and consciousness. You cannot determine in advance how you will feel, what you will perceive, how you will be inclined to act, or what you will be conscious of. You do not choose to feel happy rather than sad, to perceive a world that delights rather than disturbs you, to always incline to a calm rather than an agitated response, to be unconscious rather than conscious of something distressing. In others words, you are not in charge of what is going on within your own experience.
The liberating insight he [Buddha] proposes is not the realization that there is no self but the realization that I am not the same as or reducible to any or all of the five bundles (aggregates) that constitute me.
Gotama understood awakening as the result of directly knowing how experience comes about.
The key to freeing oneself from the repetitive cycles of reactivity and beholding nirvana is attention. When attention becomes embodied through contemplation of the transient, tragic, impersonal and empty nature of the bundles, our relationship to experience begins to shift in disconcerting ways. The practice of embodied attention challenges our habitual perceptions of self and world as permanent, satisfatory and intrinsically ours. By stabilizing attention through mindfulness and concentration, we begin to see for ourselves how pleasurable and painful feelings trigger habitual patterns of reactivity and craving. These two insights not only undermine our inclinations to hold on to what we like and to push away what we fear but open up the possibility of thinking, speaking and acting otherwise.
'Seeing things this way', says Gotama at the conclusion of his discourse on not-self, 'the attentive noble disciple disengages from form, disengages from feelings, disengages from perceptions, disengages from inclinations, disengages from consciousness. By disengaging, reactivity fades; non-reactive, he is freed; the knowledge arises: 'I am freed.'' This is the experience of nirvana as immediate and clearly visible; it is at this crucial point that one sees for oneself how one is free not to react to life but to respond to it from a perspective that is no longer conditioned by such inclinations."
The liberating insight he [Buddha] proposes is not the realization that there is no self but the realization that I am not the same as or reducible to any or all of the five bundles (aggregates) that constitute me.
Gotama understood awakening as the result of directly knowing how experience comes about.
The key to freeing oneself from the repetitive cycles of reactivity and beholding nirvana is attention. When attention becomes embodied through contemplation of the transient, tragic, impersonal and empty nature of the bundles, our relationship to experience begins to shift in disconcerting ways. The practice of embodied attention challenges our habitual perceptions of self and world as permanent, satisfatory and intrinsically ours. By stabilizing attention through mindfulness and concentration, we begin to see for ourselves how pleasurable and painful feelings trigger habitual patterns of reactivity and craving. These two insights not only undermine our inclinations to hold on to what we like and to push away what we fear but open up the possibility of thinking, speaking and acting otherwise.
'Seeing things this way', says Gotama at the conclusion of his discourse on not-self, 'the attentive noble disciple disengages from form, disengages from feelings, disengages from perceptions, disengages from inclinations, disengages from consciousness. By disengaging, reactivity fades; non-reactive, he is freed; the knowledge arises: 'I am freed.'' This is the experience of nirvana as immediate and clearly visible; it is at this crucial point that one sees for oneself how one is free not to react to life but to respond to it from a perspective that is no longer conditioned by such inclinations."
After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a secular age
"Gotama declares: 'I will show you the burden and the carrier of the burden, the burden's addition and the burden's relief.' He explains that the burden is the five bundles (aggregates), the carrier of the burden is the person of such a name and clan. What is added to the burden is reactivity/craving and the burden relief is the fading away and ceasing of that reactivity, that is, nirvana."
After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a secular age
"As soon as I come in touch with a situation in the world, it feels a certain way, makes perceptual sense and inclines me to adopt a stance toward it.
Consciousness emerges out of the entire complex of interactions between an organism and its environment.
Consciousness is a seamless whole that is not equivalent to the sum of its parts.
Consciousness has a total, unified awareness of what is happening that none of its constituents (feeling, perception, inclination, etc.) can achieve on their own.
For Gotama there can be no such thing as "pure" consciousness, an unconditioned or pristine "knowing" that exists independently of the phenomenal world of discrete physical things and mental processes.
Without a condition there is no arising of consciousness.
Consciousness is determined by the particular conditions that give rise to it.
Consciousness is a impermanent, contingent, compounded and varied as anything else in experience."
Consciousness emerges out of the entire complex of interactions between an organism and its environment.
Consciousness is a seamless whole that is not equivalent to the sum of its parts.
Consciousness has a total, unified awareness of what is happening that none of its constituents (feeling, perception, inclination, etc.) can achieve on their own.
For Gotama there can be no such thing as "pure" consciousness, an unconditioned or pristine "knowing" that exists independently of the phenomenal world of discrete physical things and mental processes.
Without a condition there is no arising of consciousness.
Consciousness is determined by the particular conditions that give rise to it.
Consciousness is a impermanent, contingent, compounded and varied as anything else in experience."
After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a secular age
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