Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Magical Disappearing Act



If there's a Me/ a Self/ an I, seeing the words in this post, where is that I right now?  Where?  In the eyes?  In the head?  The Body?

If there's a Me/ a Self/ an I, hearing the voice in the head speaking these words, where is that I? In the ears?  In the head? The Body?

What about the Me/ Self/ I that feels the keyboard?  Is it located in the fingers?  The whole hand?  The body?  The mind?

But you still feel a self?  Where?  In the body?  Which part would you remove in order to show me the self?  The heart?  If you need a heart transplant, do you then get a new self?

Is it in the mind then?  Yes?  Where is the mind?

In the brain?

Good.

Then reach into the brain and grab your self.




photo credit:  Your brain is in my hands, by Bianca0323 on DeviantArt

9 comments:

  1. It goes even further than that though doesn't it?
    If there is no me then what of the world? We experience something that we think of as a world no doubt, but the way we think of reality is fundamentally flawed.

    Our views are too static and too dualistic, and the biggest duality is our conception of duality. The notion that opposites are opposed.
    The notion that self and other are 2 different things. The body and world are 2 different things and so at odds.

    The notion that unity means one single thing instead of every single thing.
    The idea that if 2 things are different they cannot be one. It is our misunderstanding of duality itself that has put us in the position we are in.

    We fail to see the greater whole of which opposing forces are simply the parts.
    that for me is the biggest boon of the emptiness teachings. It's not important to me that things have an infinite amount of sub-parts all the way down and break down into smaller fragments the closer you look.

    It's that things are also empty in the other direction.
    Opposing parts are always parts of a greater whole and those greater wholes are part of an even greater unified whole again.

    Just because things can be broken down into smaller fragmented separated parts doesn't do much for anyone.
    Let's say you've got a big worry and you break it down into it's parts, you still got the worry. Now you just see the mechanism by which it works

    What about zooming out and seeing how it fits into a larger whole?
    That's where you gain a greater awareness. That's where you start to understand the worry and see how it came about. You see it's context in a more wholistic way….

    I feel an article coming on.

    Thanks!

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  2. I am everywhere. Everything emerges from me. I am also the emptiness that permeates all phenomena. I am emotions. I am love. And I am the witness of all these things, and as witness, I am unknowable. But as the manifest, it is all me.

    The notion that you can divide up the manifest and not find an I, does not mean I do not exist, for surely I do, but not as an object or isolated point.

    I am sentience, creator and knower of worlds. I am also Shiva into which the worlds subside.

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    Replies
    1. Ed, out of context, that sounds a bit like a god complex.

      I'm not trying to sway you from your experience, but to feed that to someone looking at the reality of self is confusing.

      but, hey... you go be omnipotent wid yo bad self! :D

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    2. Of course, this is an age old debate. "I am" and Emptiness. It's best to not try to correct another's view, no? Because I doubt this will be resolved within the comments on this blog.

      But....what do I know? I'm no one. ;)

      Peace, Ed.

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    3. Yeah, what does "i" know? "I" and "i" are one and the same, no or yes? "Rather than..." why not just take the only freedom of choice the mortal can ever have and ask "Who or what am I?" and see where it points to?

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    4. Yes. See whether it points to anything at all, or whether the "I" is an assumption, a superfluous overlay onto experience. :)

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thanks for the thoughts...