Burbea: There is ALWAYS a sense of self

thumbnail
Griffin, modified 3 Years ago at 3/9/21 12:11 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 3/9/21 12:03 PM

Burbea: There is ALWAYS a sense of self

Posts: 271 Join Date: 4/7/18 Recent Posts
This is something I wanted to ask y’all for a long time. Late Rob Burbea wrote that “There is always a sense of self, to some degree, whenever there is any experience of any thing. It may be extremely subtle, as we have already pointed out, but the self-sense will always be situated in any moment somewhere along this spectrum.” (StF)

Is this compatible with Daniel’s statements that arahants “no longer experientially make a separate self out of the patterns of sensations that used to produce that sense, even though those same patterns of sensations continue”? (MCTB )

Maybe this is just a terminological difference? Someone may conclude that Burbea was stuck in the third path, but we must note that he explicitly wrote about traps of clinging to the “ground of being” (awareness/space) and how awareness is also empty of inherent existence.

Some additional relevant quotes from Burbea:
…there may be occasions in very deep meditation when there seems to be only a sense of awareness aware of phenomena, and barely even any identification with that awareness. (…) Yet still there is an extremely subtle sense of self alive then as the mere sense of awareness – a very refined subject – knowing phenomena – objects of experience.
In later chapters we will see that only in moments of cessation could it more accurately be said that there is no sense of self fabricated at that time.
That emptiness practices do not seek to destroy the self but rather to understand its empty nature
thumbnail
Oatmilk, modified 3 Years ago at 3/9/21 12:45 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 3/9/21 12:45 PM

RE: Burbea: There is ALWAYS a sense of self

Posts: 141 Join Date: 7/30/20 Recent Posts
If you wouldn't have any sense of self you would be dysfunctional. Self comes and goes, it's the knowing that it's empty, which ends the suffering. 
thumbnail
Griffin, modified 3 Years ago at 3/9/21 1:24 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 3/9/21 1:24 PM

RE: Burbea: There is ALWAYS a sense of self

Posts: 271 Join Date: 4/7/18 Recent Posts
A helpful quote related to this:

"The sensations which make up relation and perspective are still there, but none of it is taken to be actual true objective perceiver."(Daniel at 25:25 https://youtu.be/RZzgUUwirqY)
thumbnail
Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 3/9/21 1:02 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 3/9/21 1:02 PM

RE: Burbea: There is ALWAYS a sense of self

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
My experience lines up with what Rob Burbea said at both surface and deeper levels.
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 3/9/21 1:43 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 3/9/21 1:42 PM

RE: Burbea: There is ALWAYS a sense of self

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
I agree FWIW - where there's an experience (something that can be remembered) - even if it's an experience of "not-self" or nonduality - then there is some element of "selfing" going on, even if it's just the whirring of the memory bank. emoticon
thumbnail
Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 3/9/21 2:43 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 3/9/21 1:48 PM

RE: Burbea: There is ALWAYS a sense of self

Posts: 5117 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
Griffin, think of these processes as the mind's ongoing separation of our experience into subject and object. The self is just the assumed subject and sometimes one of the assumed objects. This is how the human mind works. Can't be avoided, can't be stopped - except when we're totally unconscious.

EDIT: the self is no different than any other object, except that it is the last one to get fully grokked in the transition to 4th path. It's the source of our "specialness" as we navigate the world. So it's hidden behind layer after layer of hidden assumptions about "how things work."
thumbnail
Griffin, modified 3 Years ago at 3/9/21 2:34 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 3/9/21 2:34 PM

RE: Burbea: There is ALWAYS a sense of self

Posts: 271 Join Date: 4/7/18 Recent Posts
Very helpful, thanks!

Breadcrumb