Nicolas:
stream entry will take that away right?
Thanks again!
Nicolas
From the point of view of classical Stream Entry, no. If you let go of clinging to anything (including anything like thinking or evaluating of meditative progress) over long sits and over days the senses should start fading until you get a cessation event when all experience collapses. The sense of self is always there when there's measurement in experience. In resting in consciousness, like a mirror reflecting reality, that mirror seems unaffected by thinking so the small self is replaced by a Big Self. Then seeing the Big Self as a bunch of vibrations and collapse over and over again you get disenchanted with clinging even to consciousness. As you progress (wean yourself) through the paths the sense of a self should become less and less. You still experience reality and perceptions but you see how built up it is and how it can breakdown because of how impermanent and empty experience is.
There are so many models of these stages that one has to ultimately see for themselves. Having an aversion to a sense of self is just another aversion so I would avoid that subtle trap. Sometimes acting as a self can be used in daily life in skillful ways. Personally I would just look at what you react to and learn to relax the reactivity again and again so your equanimity increases because even if you don't get stream-entry you'll benefit a lot by tolerating more and more. Many meditators take for granted how much they've improved over time and have trouble enjoying their current skills.
By staying mindful of the mental stories and watch them pass away on their own should help you disidentify with the small self and then identify with the "watcher". Noticing how the watcher is dependent on objects over and over again by being mindful of nama-rupa should help to break down the Big Self into it's components:
Nama-rupa: depends on consciousness. Consciousness depends on Nama-rupa.
Nama-rupa: Nama – Perception, vedana, attention, intention, contact. Rupa – ancient 4 elements.
Attention: The mind’s movement of attention to a perception/object/experience feels similar to the push and pull of craving/aversion.
Attention: Consciousness + intention directed at this or that whether we are aware of it or not.
Push and pull depends on object and vice versa.
The sense of an object for consciousness depends on attention. It could be deliberate or not deliberate. Attention needs objects.
Looking at physics should help you understand that everything is broken down into sub-atomic particles (that we know of) and probably can be divided into something smaller, and certainly all of this is smaller than nama-rupa. It's all interdependent. The perception faculties of the brain purposefully simplify experience into cookie-cutter objects that supposedly feel separate and not connected for survival purposes. We go after objects to like or dislike for evolutionary survival purposes. To see through that is to see another perspective that reminds us of impermanence of life and to try and make our purposes with that in mind instead of just producing and consuming experiences. To feel less separate should deal with loneliness better than chasing people or other objects to get temporary satisfaction.
All objects are conditioned on prior causes and when adding more detail to the analysis it should be hard to notice the separation. A tree is distinct on the horizon but it needs sun, CO2, water, fertile soil to exist so it's truely not separate.
Kenneth Folk's stages of enlightenment:
http://jaytek.net/KFD/KFDForum/page/A%2B9%2BStage%2BMap%2Bof%2BDevelopmental%2BEnlightenmenthtml.html
10 fetters
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism)#Sutta_Pitaka.27s_list_of_ten_fetters]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetter_(Buddhism)#Sutta_Pitaka.27s_list_of_ten_fetters
Hurricane Ranch Parts 1-3
http://integrateddaniel.info/podcasts-and-videos/If you want to look at time further:
http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/210/talk/11929/Oh and here's a timely post today reminding of how time appears when we search for it:
http://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/5354465#_19_message_5336055Good luck!